by William Boyd
He was well in to his rather firm avocado when the eighth guest arrived. If he had been asked to speculate, unseen, on his or her identity, Morgan – knowing his luck – would have laid long odds on the eighth guest being a nun, an overweight salesman or moustachioed spinster. He was surprised then, and almost enchanted when a young woman entered wearing the dark blue skirt and white blouse of BOAC. She was quite pretty too, Morgan assessed, his avocado untended, as he watched her sway through the empty tables to her seat close to the Americans.
For a minute or so Morgan’s heartbeat seemed to echo rather loudly in his chest as, more surreptitiously, he scrutinized the girl. ‘Girl’ was perhaps a little too kind. She looked to be well into her thirties, that short blonde hair certainly dyed, a slightly predatory air about her features due to the rather hooked nose, the liberally applied cosmetics and lines that ran from the corner of her nostrils to the ends of her thin orange lips. She had amazingly long painted nails that matched the colour of her lipstick.
For the first time that day Morgan’s spirits were lifted. Something about her – the dark eye-shadow, her tan against the white cotton of her blouse – reminded him of the brisk sexual allure of the helicopter pilot of the year before. He passed the rest of the meal in a pleasantly absorbing miasma of sexual fantasy.
Fantasy was all he had to content himself with however, as the girl appeared to return to her room directly after dinner. Morgan drank a couple of whiskies in the bar but was driven out by the increasingly clamorous garrulity of the four Lebanese who played bridge with a quite un-English fervour and intensity. The American couple tried to befriend him once again but Morgan repelled their polite ‘Say, do you have any idea where we can change some dollars?’ with a rush of eyebrow-jerking, shouldershrugging pseudo French: ‘Ah desolé, haw . . . euh je vous ne comprendre non? Oui? Disdonc, eur, bof, vous savez haha parler pas Anglais. Mmm?’ They wandered off with an air of baffled resignation.
The next morning Morgan looked out of his fifth-floor window. From this height he commanded a considerable view of the hotel area. He could see Peter pissing into a bush on the edge of the car park. A military jeep was pulled up in front of the central building. Over to his left and partially obscured by a clump of trees he could see the swimming pool: a static blue slab surrounded by grey concrete and ranks of empty lounging chairs. Then as he watched a small figure came into his line of vision. It was the stewardess, wearing what looked like a tiny yellow bikini. She jumped into the pool and swam around. Morgan watched dry-mouthed as she clambered dripping up the steps and fingered free the sodden material of her briefs that had become wedged in the cleft between her buttocks. Morgan turned from the window and rummaged in his suitcase for his swimming trunks.
Morgan was not proud of the state he had allowed his body to get into. Always what his mother had called ‘a big lad’, the beergut he had assiduously developed at university never disappeared and indeed had since expanded like some soft subcutaneous parasite around the sides of his torso, padding his back and swelling his already considerable buttocks and thighs. He could have done something about it once, he supposed, as he stood in front of the full-length bathroom mirror; there was nothing he could do about his balding head, but the recent addition of a thick Zapata moustache had effected some positive transformation of his appearance. A straggling line of pale brown hair ran straight down from his throat, between his worryingly plump breasts to disappear beneath the waist band of his capacious trunks. ‘Not a pretty sight,’ a girlfriend had once remarked on observing him as he stumbled – soap-blind – from the shower, groping for a towel. Well, it was too late now, he concluded, inflating his chest and trying to suck in his stomach. In a suit he fancied he looked merely beefy; but this was another trouble with tropical climes: the terrible exposure that resulted through the regular need to shed as much clothing as possible.
Still, he felt quite good as he strolled down the walkway towards the pool, a carefully slung towel modestly covering his shuddering paps. A few more soldiers lounged by the hotel entrance, and the sun beat down from a perfectly blue sky. The enforced unreal isolation and the unsettling threat of casually sported arms he found strangely invigorating; as if the deserted hotel complex was infused with a lurking wayward sexuality only waiting to be sprung from cover.
Morgan spread his towel a polite few chairs away from the girl. She was lying on her front, bikini top unclipped. He was perturbed to see the Lebanese encamped on the other side of the pool playing bridge. There was a fat one, far fatter than Morgan, in a white shirt and bermuda shorts. The others wore tiny swimming suits like jock straps: two thin weaselly men – one of whom had a face pitted like a peach stone – and the fourth, gratingly handsome in a lounge-lizard kind of way, with a thin moustache and a thick springy rug of hair over a lean and muscly chest. Morgan worried rather about him; he kept looking over at the girl.
There was a persistent roaring in his head, furious red static grumbled and flushed behind his eyes, slabs of heat burned his thighs and belly. Morgan was sunbathing. It was agony. He sat up, rockets and anti-aircraft shells pulsating and exploding everywhere he looked, and reached behind him for the bottle of beer he’d ordered and kept in the shade beneath a lounger. The bottle was still cool, the green glass slippy with beads of condensation. Morgan took great juddering pulls at it, beer spilling from the upended bottle over his chin, dripping onto his chest. His brain seemed to soar and cartwheel with the alcohol.
He let out a silent satisfying belch and stood up ready to plunge into the pool.
The first thing he noticed was the girl’s striped towel, occupied only by the damp imprint of her body. Then he heard a ripple of laughter from the shallow end of the pool and he saw her chatting to the hairy Lebanese who, as Morgan gazed, stood on his hands and walked around with his brown legs waving comically above the water to the delighted laughter of the girl.
It can only have been this flirtatious display of agility, coupled with the dizzying effects of the cold beer, that drove Morgan to the diving board. As he climbed laboriously to the top he grew increasingly aware of the absurdity of the position he had committed himself to, and of all its hackneyed connotations. He sensed, as he emerged on the highest board, the attention of the others below turn to him. He had only seconds to decide. Beyond the lip of the board he saw the girl looking up at him, and the frank interest of her gaze inspired him and yet was somehow depressing. Depressing to think that he had stooped to these despised macho techniques to gain the girl’s absorption, and inspiring to find that they actually worked. He hitched up the waistband of his trunks. He would compromise: he wouldn’t dive – he wasn’t sure if he could remember how – and he wouldn’t climb back down. No, he would jump. He tried to saunter casually to the edge of the board. The pool slowly revealed itself beneath him. He thought: good God, it seems higher from up here. Bloody high. Shouldn’t there be some kind of legal limit . . . His doubts were cut off in mid-stream as he realized with a gulp of horror that he had missed his step and clownishly fallen forward off the board, not in an elegant vertical jump, but at a gradually diminishing angle of forty-five degrees to the water. And as the glinting shimmering surface rushed up to meet him Morgan spread his arms in a grotesque parody of a swallow-dive and belly flopped full force with a ghastly echoing smack.
Everything was white. White and fizzing as if he was immersed in a glass of Andrew’s Liver Salts. He felt strong arms pulling him to the side. He felt his hands on the tiled edge of the pool. He took great gasping mouthfuls of air. His vision cleared. The hairy Lebanese was by his side, an arm protectively round his shoulders. Morgan shrugged him off and looked up. The stewardess crouched on the pool edge above him, concern filling her eyes.
‘Are you all right?’ she asked. ‘It made an awful sound.’
‘Mmmm. Sure,’ Morgan wheezed. ‘I’m . . . fine.’
He rested in his room all afternoon. The entire front of his body flushed and tingling for at least two hours. T
he girl had gathered up his stuff, draped a towel across his winded shoulders and led him back to his block. He felt as if he had just swum the Channel; his lungs heaved, his body creaked with pain and he could barely gasp replies to the girl’s worried solicitations. And when the pain and the agony subsided it was replaced with an equally cruel shame. Morgan writhed with embarrassment on his bed, cursing his ridiculous pretensions, his preposterous lifeguard conceit and his absurd gigolo rivalry.
He ate his evening meal as soon as the restaurant opened. Only the Americans accompanied him but they maintained a frosty indifference. He inquired at the desk if there had been any word about the coup or news of the airport opening. The reception clerk told him that there was nothing but martial music on the radio but he planned to listen to the BBC World Service news at nine. Perhaps that would give them some reliable information.
Morgan found a dark corner of the bar and flicked through old magazines for a while. No one interrupted him. There was no sign of the stewardess or the Lebanese. He ordered a large whisky. To hell with everyone, he thought.
Shortly after nine Morgan went out to look for the receptionist but the desk was empty. He waited for a few minutes and then decided to turn in early. He was walking down the passageway that led out to his block when he heard noises coming from behind a door marked ‘Games Room’. He stopped. He could hear a man’s voice; an indistinct seductive bass. He then heard some feminine giggles. He was about to walk on when he heard the girl say ‘No. Stop it. Come on now.’ He listened again. She grew more insistent. ‘Look. Stop it. Really. Come on, it’s your serve.’ She was still giggling but it seemed to Morgan that a worried tone had entered her voice. Then:’ Ow!– Honestly, cut it out! No. Stop it, please.’
Morgan pushed open the door. The girl stood there in the hairy Lebanese’s arms. He seemed to be biting her shoulder. As Morgan entered they broke apart and the girl, blushing, quickly readjusted the strap of her cream dress that had slipped down her arm. Morgan felt supremely foolish for the second time that day. He wasn’t at all clear about what one was meant to say in situations like this. The girl smiled, he felt slightly reassured. She seemed pleased to see him and backed away from the Lebanese. He smiled too, white and gold teeth beneath his moustache.
‘How you feel?’ he asked Morgan confidently, tapping his stomach. ‘The belly. Is good?’
They were standing in front of a ping-pong table. Morgan walked over to it and picked up a bat. He swished it menacingly about.
‘My turn to serve, I think,’ he said pointedly, in as clipped and cool a tone as he could summon. ‘Why don’t you push off, Abdul? Eh?’
The Lebanese looked at the girl, who earnestly studied her fingernails. He gave a snort of laughter and pushed past Morgan out of the room, saying something harsh and guttural in Arabic, as if he had a forest of fish bones stuck in his throat. An expressive language, Morgan admitted to himself, hugely relieved.
Morgan and the stewardess went to the bar and had a quiet mature laugh about it all. There had been no real problem the girl insisted, he was just getting a little fresh. Still, she was glad Morgan had walked in. They had a few drinks. The stewardess said her name was Jayne Darnley. She’d come down with a touch of upset tummy and had to be left behind when the last plane took off. Morgan bought some more drinks. She was wearing a loose satin dress and Morgan admired the roll of her heavy breasts beneath the bodice as she reached down into her bag for a menthol cigarette. They got on famously; Morgan even laughed about his ill-fated dive. ‘It was terribly brave of you,’ stated Jayne. She came, it transpired, from Tottenham and had worked on ‘promotions’ before becoming a stewardess. The whisky made Morgan feel virile and capable; he could smell the pungent scent she used and the click of the sentry’s boots in the foyer lent a frisson of exotic danger to the atmosphere. He started to lie grandly. Yes, he admitted, he was leaving this country for a new posting: Paris. He was going to be Defence Attaché at the Paris embassy. ‘Ooh Paree,’ enthused Jayne. ‘I love Paris.’ And from there, Morgan confided, a spot of work at the UN perhaps. After that, who knows? Although his first loyalty had always been to the Service he’d always had a secret yearning for the cut and thrust of political life, and, with his experience, maybe . . . Morgan went on to conjure up a large, interesting and cultured family, a trendy public school, a starred first. He created a modest private income, a chic pied-à-terre in Chelsea; he fabricated costly hobbies and recondite enthusiasms, and spoke knowingly of halffamous intellectuals, minor royalty, television show compères. As the whisky and his rising sexual excitement fuelled his imagination so Jayne grew more entranced, edging forward on her chair, lips set apart in a ready smile of anticipation. Her eyes gleamed; what a good time she was having. Morgan concurred, and called for another Pernod and blackcurrant.
At midnight, both a little unsteady on their feet, they walked arm in arm up the pathway towards the residential blocks. Crickets telephoned endlessly all around. The path bifurcated. ‘Well,’ Jayne sighed, raising her face to his. ‘I go this way.’
Morgan was quite satisfied with their lovemaking. It hadn’t exactly made the earth move for him but Jayne had produced a flattering tocsin of appreciative yips and mews as he had humped away in the dark heat of the room. He lay back now, his chest and belly heaving and thought how perhaps events had not turned out so badly.
Jayne smoked a cigarette and whispered compliments to him. Then she propped herself on one elbow and gazed down at his face tracing its contours with a sharp red fingernail.
‘I can’t believe my luck,’ she confided softly. ‘To . . . well, to meet you like this.’ Her thin lips pecked at his face like a dabbing fish. ‘I’d just never have thought it possible. Someone like you. You know?’
Morgan wasn’t sure that he did, and for the first time he found the ambiguity somewhat unsettling.
Jayne still maintained the same vein of ingenuous lyricism in the morning before she returned to her own room. Strangely, and against his better judgement, she elicited similar vague responses from Morgan. He was half asleep and unused to finding a warm naked woman in his bed on waking up. The associated sensations of comfort and cosy eroticism were agreeably complementary.
They admitted that, yes, they both really liked each other; and it was funny how people like them – from such different backgrounds – got along so tremendously easily. It was almost, almost like fate really, wasn’t it? What with her illness, his puncture and of course the coup. Didn’t he think so? Jayne prompted, searching beneath the sheet. A squirming Morgan felt bound to agree, suggesting, almost before he realized what he was saying, that once this thing was over they really ought to see some more of each other. Miraculously, it seemed, Jayne had two weeks of leave coming up and nothing in particular planned for them. If Morgan had some time to spare before his Paris posting came through it would be fun to see each other in London. Of course, Morgan whispered, nuzzling her neck, of course.
But then Jayne was out of bed and swiftly into her cream dress, patting her face with powder and applying fresh lipstick. She kissed him on the cheek.
‘See you downstairs,’ she said. ‘Let’s go to the pool again.’
Alone, Morgan dressed slowly. Post-coital tristesse, not an ailment he was usually afflicted with, weighed heavy on him today. He moved like a man deep in thought, like a hasty investor who’s just had the dubious ramifications of his latest deal explained. His early swaggering confidence, his locker-room bravado, his smug self-congratulations had mysteriously dissipated, leaving a querulous nagging tone of rebuke and stale second thoughts.
He walked distractedly into the hotel lobby, his mind preoccupied, and was surprised to find it full of the guests, their luggage and the same flustered BOAC official who had met him at the airport gates two days previously.
‘Ah, Mr Leafy,’ he said to Morgan. ‘Here at last. You’ll be glad to know that the airport has reopened, diplomatic relations have been established, and you’re flying out on,’ he c
onsulted his clipboard, ‘the third plane. 11.45 this morning. We’re getting you all along to the airport as quickly as possible as things are a bit chaotic, to put it mildly. If you could report back to me here in fifteen minutes?’ He turned to answer a phone ringing on the reception desk.
Jayne came up to Morgan. She was wearing a lurid print dress and large round sunglasses.
‘We’re on the same plane,’ she said. ‘Isn’t that a stroke of luck? Don’t worry, I’ll see we get seats beside each other. I’ve a friend at the airport.’
Morgan smiled wanly, muttered something about having to pack, and returned to his room.
As he laid his clothes in his suitcase he felt unfamiliar symptoms of panic sweep over him as if he was some inefficient refugee too late to flee the advance of an invading army. He felt like a crapulous sailor who’s overstayed his shore leave, watching his ship steam out of harbour. Things were moving far too quickly he realized; he no longer felt in control. Suddenly they were leaving for home and he found himself teamed up with this Jayne, thinking of themselves as a couple, without really understanding how it had all come about. He felt mystified, bemused. Who was this woman? Why was she making assumptions about him, organizing his life?
The mini-bus that was to take them to the airport contained only two of the Lebanese and Jayne, who had kept Morgan a seat. As he settled in beside her, studiously avoiding the hostile looks of the others, she squeezed his hand and smiled at him. Morgan felt sick, queasy; like a man on a tossing ship who realizes he should have refused those second helpings. God, he hadn’t envisaged anything like this at all, he reflected, as Jayne explained about her friend at the airport. No, by Christ, it was getting terribly out of hand. Why had he lied so convincingly; as if he was short-listed for Foreign Secretary? Why hadn’t he been callous and knowing, taken his pleasure like the chance acquaintances they were? Then he felt foolish and sad as he reasoned that it had only been the lies and false grandeur that had attracted the woman to him at all; and that without the fake glitter and borrowed glory, Morgan Leafy was of little consequence as a person, a minor district official leaving for a boring desk job in central London; and that without the stories and the make-believe he could have stared and lusted at the side of the pool or fantasized in the bar for days, and she would probably never have noticed he was there.
