Alexandra Singer

by Tea at the Grand Tazi

  Originally from Manchester, Alexandra Singer travelled the world before settling in the UK to study law, working for an international corporate law firm.

  In 2008 aged just twenty-five, Alexandra was diagnosed with a near fatal neurological illness, and spent three months in a coma.

  Remarkably, Alexandra is on the road to recovery and when not writing, teaches languages and literature.

  Tea at the Grand Tazi is Alexandra’s debut novel.

  Visit Alexandra’s website: www.alexandrasinger.co.uk

  Legend Press Ltd, 2 London Wall Buildings,

  London EC2M 5UU

  info@legend-paperbooks.co.uk

  www.legendpress.co.uk

  Contents © Alexandra Singer 2012

  The right of the above author to be indentified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patent Act 1988.

  British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data available.

  ISBN 978-1-9082482-3-7

  eISBN 978-1-9087755-5-9

  All characters, other than those clearly in the public domain, and place names, other than those well-established such as towns and cities, are ficticious and any resemblance is purely coincidental.

  Set in Times

  Printed by CPI Books, United Kingdom

  Cover design by Anna Marrow | www.annamarrow.com

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher. Any person who commits any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.

  For my wonderful family; Theo, Diane, Michaela, Joshua and Poupée, and for all those who have helped me along the way.

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 1

  Following completion of the act of love, many men had disappointed Maia by conducting their own battle in the war against Venus. Rigidly controlling their inner selves, she sensed that these men felt compelled to prove to her that they had stolen from her the very thing she had given so freely. They had taken from her something so precious, and spat it back at her, twisted and used. She resolved to free herself from their chains, from the fixed image they had created of her, and made her arrival in an ancient and eastern city. Here, Maia hoped to find a new light in which she might renew herself, after the desert had bleached her clean.

  The driver was already busy creating his own image of her, locked in his own private battle against femininity. His eyes expertly grazed her body and succeeded in penetrating the long sleeves she wore in an attempt to shield herself from the prying eyes of men. Every so often, the driver managed to adjust the mirror so that he could catch her eye. He watched her and grinned widely, the yellowing teeth hanging askew from the corners of his mouth like the rotten keys of an old piano. Each time he succeeded in meeting her eyes, Maia smiled disdainfully and looked away, while he shifted in his seat and appeared to swell with pride. Maia watched the skin bulging at the back of his neck, and shuddered.

  From the old, partly disused station at the desert’s edge, they passed through long stretches of flat and barren land. This was a city at the crossroads, and that was the desert from which the slave caravans had once emerged. Towards the city walls, unfinished buildings decked in rags might have revealed signs of new development, if Maia had not been certain that such squalor had always existed there. In the early hours of the morning, red mountains rose up behind them.

  “Maktoub, maktoub!” The driver shouted, pointing violently at a minaret hovering in the dawn. The mosque, thought Maia, yet her basic Arabic made her realise that he may not have been referring to the mosque. She nodded her head in agreement at whatever he might be telling her, but he simply laughed, bemused. It was a chuckle that came from deep within his throat, and she knew that he was mocking her. Maktoub... maktoub? She was sure she knew the meaning of the word, but for the moment it eluded her. Perhaps as a tourist he imagined she might be interested in the architecture of the mosque. But that was not her reason for being here. Something sparked in her mind and she grasped the meaning of the words: ‘It is written’. Whatever could he mean? Maia glanced at the driver again only to find that he was still staring at her. She flicked her eyes down and gazed at the city ahead, wondering at the prospects where a thousand new lives might be offered up before her.

  She opened her mouth to the night air and gulped down the taste of lost memory. The heat possessed the dry flavour of the desert and it rose upon her tongue. She savoured the sensation of unfolding into the early morning air; it’s deep, oppressive breath upon her face. The presence of the encroaching city, even the eyes of the driver roaming her body; she felt unshakable.

  “For how long you stay here? You married? You alone?”

  Here it seemed that a woman might have to account for every movement, flirtation, or flicker of the eye. A beautiful face, the shape of a leg; everything about a woman was deemed relevant for judgment. Only art permitted movement. Only in art did Maia feel that the vision of femininity might be subjective.

  As the car approached the walls she saw that they would soon have to stop, and she recalled the Historian’s instructions. “Turn right here, please.”

  The driver ignored her, but stared in the mirror almost as if he was challenging her to disagree.

  “A droit!”

  This time he obliged. The taxi now faced a labyrinth, far too narrow for cars to pass through. With immense relief, Maia felt here was a good place to stop. As she counted out her money he grinned at her, and the man’s unbearable smugness forced Maia to swallow the urge to reach out and smack the teeth out of his grotesquely gaping mouth.

  The taxi drove away and as the lights retreated, Maia was left standing alone trying to remember the rest of the Historian’s directions. The tall buildings of the alley obstructed nearly every shred of faint light and Maia shuffled along in the gloom. For a moment she wondered which way to turn and realised she stood on the edge of the medina. As she edged along the side of another anonymous building with only dim light to show her the way, Maia saw that the Historian’s house was approached by an alley leading off the main street. As she drew closer Maia was able to see that the house stood at the entrance to a second alleyway, even narrower than the first. Piles of rubbish lined the walls of the house and the foul stench was overpowering. Maia was taken aback; she had heard that the Historian was a particularly fastidious man, more accustomed to luxury than squalor. He was revered for his meticulous research, for which he had achieved numerous accolades, although he rarely bothered to collect them. It was said that a personal appearance or sighting of the Historian was a rare and much revered event in academic circles. Maia wasn’t sure what she had imagined his home to be like; but certainly not this. Then there came the sound of scurrying, something moving away. Turning, Maia saw a woman watching her from the doorway. She had not even heard the door open.

  “How long have you been standing there?” she asked the woman, who was looking at her with a steady gaze from eyes which stared out disconcertingly from a crumpled face.

  “Only long enough to
watch you find your way.”

  “Thank you for helping me.” Maia said. But the woman didn’t seem to pick up on the sarcasm. Or maybe she did, and chose to ignore it.

  “You are welcome.”

  “Then I might ask why you didn’t call out, if you were expecting me?” said Maia, hoping that her words would emit a tone of defiance.

  The woman shrugged. “The Historian has given you his instructions. Who am I to intervene?”

  Maia looked at the woman, wondering at her odd character. Her skin was strangely mottled, with patches of dark, grey skin. The woman saw Maia looking at her and she turned away, her dark hair swaying with the sudden movement.

  “So, you are Maia, the Historian’s new assistant.”

  “Of course.”

  “My name is Ina.” The woman stepped towards Maia. “You will come this way.” Her face was inscrutable, a perfect portrait of blankness, like the buildings surrounding them. As Maia stepped into the house, the door shut heavily behind her.

  If the outside of the house had been all waste and refuse, peeling paint and shuttered buildings, inside the house was very different. Marble lined the interior as Maia was led through the outer hall, trailing her hand along the pleasant coolness of the wall. Ina looked at her silently, with a reproachful glance, and continued to lead Maia through the house into the courtyard. Maia took in the orange tree growing around the courtyard and the shallow pool lying in its centre, open to the sky.

  Ina took her up two flights of stairs, and on touching the walls Maia found that everything was cold. Inside the house the air was fresh and sweet, no longer rotten and heavy from the stench of human waste, but gentle from the sweet smell of oranges. As Ina pushed open the door to Maia’s new room, she smiled for the first time. Noiselessly she handed over the keys and shuffled away into the darkness. Maia turned to thank her, but Ina was already gone. As the door of the room closed behind her, Maia suddenly felt lonely, a sense of panic starting to prick.

  The high ceilings of the room ought to have allowed for spaciousness and air, but it was strangely different from the rest of the house. Instead, the room felt stifling and oppressive, despite the exhausted fan, silently stirring the warm air. The room was filled with dark wood and smelling as though it hadn’t been used for many months. In the corner stood a small kitchen, the dust settling upon every available surface. Maia went to the windows, on which huge iron grills were fastened. She expected to see down into the alley below, but instead the room looked onto the courtyard and the tops of orange trees. It ought to have been pleasant, but the knowledge that she was unable to see outside the house only increased her sense of restlessness. Maia lay down on the bare bed in the centre of the room and slept.

  Only a few hours later the cry from the mosque was sounding out the call to prayer. Already the day had begun. In the light of a new day, Maia now noticed a small spiral staircase in the corner of her room. Pulling herself from the bed, and drawn by curiosity, Maia went up the stairs anticipating only another dark and dusty room. Fumbling with the keys, she eventually found one that fit and the door swung open into the pale light of daybreak. Standing there on the rooftop, Maia watched the last of the night slip away as the sky came alive.

  The thought of George entered Maia’s mind, and she wondered if she had been right to leave him for this.

  She lay back down on the bed, and enclosed within the four dark walls, thought of her time with George. As she drifted in and out of consciousness, Maia recalled being back with him and the abrupt ending of their four years of togetherness, love and hate in one short afternoon.

  ‘This is the best thing we can do,’ he insisted, confusing her further as he pressed her tenderly against his chest. ‘This will all be over, all our arguments and lies.’

  ‘My lies, not yours.’ She looked up at him.

  ‘Let’s not argue again.’

  They were his lies, reflected Maia calmly; the deceptions were only his. At the time, she thought that she was behaving calmly and accepting, watching him walk away. She thought that she could see a limpid truth in his eyes.

  Maia was well aware of the weaknesses of which George was so fond, and she had long ceased to worry about them. They made no impact on her. It was his emotional infidelity which was her greatest concern. Things between them had changed subtly, then slightly more noticeably, until it was finally impossible to ignore the chasm between them. The rumours that surrounded George had suited her image. She preferred they discuss her in hushed and horrified tones than pity her.

  It was rare that Maia felt threatened. So secure she had been in her own image, with her dark hair and pale skin. At an exhibition by a Milanese artist, an effusive gallery owner had informed her; ‘You look like a fragile Russian doll.’

  ‘Why? Do you suppose that you may unwrap me, only to continue to find smaller and smaller versions of me?’

  ‘That would be delightful!’ he said loudly, and then in lowered tones, ‘I would certainly like to unwrap you.’ As he leaned towards her, Maia smelt his stinking breath.

  A quick exit left Maia ensconced inside a cubicle, finally able to enjoy a break from the incessant socialising which now consumed most of her evenings. She was, however, unfortunate to hear herself being discussed by Claudia, an acquaintance of George.

  ‘She thinks she’s an artist,’ Claudia said, and the other girl, who earlier had been questioning Maia all about her own work, acquiesced all too easily. Claudia’s face was a perfect heart shape, with delicate features, lips that flushed naturally and dark rimmed eyes. Her long, ruffled straw-like hair was expensively coloured. When Maia had first encountered George and Claudia together, she had been amused by the way in which they maintained a strange distance for the rest of the evening. Yet on shaking one another’s perfectly manicured hands, and looking into one another’s kohl swept eyes, Maia scrutinised the revelations of their body language. At first, Maia had tried hard to look past the initially beautiful face. The inane giggle which emitted from Claudia and her habit of subtly demeaning Maia’s work irritated her. Outside the cubicle the conversation before the mirrors continued:

  ‘I saw an article on her in the paper yesterday; it said her work was ghastly. Obsessed with colour, to detract from her inability with technique, confusing, utterly self-obsessed.’

  There came a hushed, mutual snigger, perhaps with hands draped elegantly over painted mouths as the heavy door shut quietly.

  When Maia slipped out of the cubicle, and returned to the table, she began to look upon Claudia with a considerably less benevolent gaze. Later that night, as she examined herself in the mirror, Maia wondered if men really did see her as fragile. It was not how she viewed herself. With her child-like size and coquettish airs she was able to observe the gigantic egos with unhindered ease. The things she saw! These people held a great fascination for Maia, with their houses, their money and their marvellous, marvellous complexes. Life no longer held any aspirations for them. So tired they were, so jaded, that they searched in vain for new sensations with which to amuse themselves, in the interminable periods between this holiday and the next. They had everything and they had nothing.

  On a separate occasion, Claudia had once explained to Maia her own private philosophy of the milieu of people in which she found herself.

  ‘Being rich is wonderful, because it gives you the freedom to go anywhere and do anything.’ Only in theory, thought Maia, was this true. In practice, once you leave the protective bubble, and enter the real world, you find it simply to be an expansion of the same familiar world, with the same familiar people as before. But Claudia would simply have laughed at this. She never had any trouble.

  It was George who introduced Maia to this world, but by observing the people and their values, she became tainted by them. The eroding of her former self happened slowly and unconsciously.

  Maia knew she had adopted the prejudices of George and her new circle. Maia’s old friends now no longer recognised her. Sometimes, she foun
d herself no longer acknowledging them.

  Maia discovered that in her time with George, her life had become a comical miniaturisation. Her work had become as mediocre as her environment, and people began rejecting her paintings, when at one point they had been so in demand. Her preferred art school told her that they were short of places; the financial backing she had been promised by acquaintances dwindled, and then disappeared. Tarred with the brush of even temporary failure, her social circle diminished. This too was the time that while George was holding her close he was searching wildly for an escape route. Maia watched his boredom and she knew. For a while, the situation was indefinable, but then there came the sneers, which were as difficult to catch as butterflies, but there just the same. She began to suffer the sinking feeling of a woman who knows her time is up, and towards their parting, his deceit emitted a scent so pungent it lingered about him.

  Maia no longer felt the excitement that she had experienced when she had first come to London. The city’s allure quickly palled until it held no interest for her, and without interest, London was pointless. All she could see were the bundled up people, trailing onto the buses, going home alone to their bedsits and shared flats, eking out an empty existence only to meet the extortionate rates that the city demanded of its inhabitants merely for the privilege of living in the capital. In the mornings she watched how the people shoved themselves out of bed onto the underground trains, day after day, for the sheer pleasure of the body odour emitted by their fellow passengers and the newspapers so rudely flicked in their faces.

  When she received the Historian’s unexpected offer, she accepted immediately.

  But she was not due to arrive before the summer, and in the meantime she found that she was unable to relinquish George completely. Occasionally she encountered him at some place they had once frequented together, but he was elusive and refused to be engaged in conversation. Maia fled to Paris, where several weeks later George decided to follow her. She let him into her tiny apartment and he stayed for a week.