An Echo of Scandal

by Laura Madeleine

  ‘Señor Langham—’

  Not Langham. A Moroccan man in a pristine brocade robe was staring at me.

  ‘Hello,’ I tried in my best English. ‘I am looking for Señor Langham?’

  ‘Have you an invitation?’ he replied in French.

  ‘I,’ I stuttered. ‘No, but I know him—’

  ‘Yes, and we’ve been before,’ the woman interrupted, leaning on my arm. ‘Miss Dolores Moberly and friends. Your master is sure to remember.’

  The man’s face didn’t change. Beyond him I saw lights twinkling through trees, windows shining. I stepped forwards.

  ‘No admittance without an invitation,’ the man said.

  ‘Wait!’

  The door slammed, a bolt slid, and we were out in the dust of the street once more.

  ‘How rude!’ Dolores slurred. ‘To send a servant to lock us out.’

  ‘You said yourself it was the devil’s work to get in,’ the blond man muttered, lighting a cigarette. ‘Let’s go to The Grand instead.’

  I said nothing. I had to get in. I had to see Langham. If I could talk to him, just for a second … I took a step back.

  ‘Alejandro?’ Dolores asked.

  I ran for the wall, leaping for the wooden trellis that supported the jasmine. Stems broke under my weight, the smell of flowers and crushed greenery swamping me as I hauled myself upwards, shoes scraping at the whitewash. With a burst of effort I managed to sling one arm over the top, then the other, then a leg. I caught a glimpse of Dolores, her mouth hanging open, before the branches sagged under my weight, sending me tumbling ten feet to the ground the other side.

  For a few seconds I lay stunned, lungs flattened by the fall, hat knocked askew. When the air rushed back into my chest, it brought the scent of a garden, ferns and lilies and the sweetness of mint, crushed beneath me. Wincing, I pushed myself to my feet.

  ‘Alejandro?’ I heard Dolores calling beyond the gate. ‘Are you all right?’

  I never answered her.

  The house stood surrounded by its gardens, softly white and draped in shadows. Windows looked down from the highest floors like half-closed eyes, their wooden shutters carved with stars. Below, doors were thrown wide, muslin curtains swept back, lights creeping on tiles until I couldn’t tell what was inside and what was out. From the other side of the house came the sound of the party, piano notes drifting in the lantern-lit trees.

  Brushing off the hat, I moved forwards, the brandy making me bold. At a pair of open doors I paused, peering inside. I saw a lounge, empty of people, flickering with candlelight. The remains of a buffet littered a sideboard and before I knew it I was rushing inside, seizing a bread roll from a basket and cramming it into my mouth, glancing over my shoulder. I couldn’t remember the last time I had eaten properly and on seeing that food, the flash and fire of the brandy disappeared, leaving my belly as empty as a cavern.

  I had no idea what most of it was. Eggs sprinkled with red powder, I stuffed one of those down, and a strange thing in a pastry case that tasted like fish. After the opulence of the house and the gardens, I had expected the food to be the same. It wasn’t. The fish was on the turn, the eggs chalky. I seized a cutlet next, which sat in a pool of congealed cream sauce. It was not much better. I licked my fingers and turned to find the next dish.

  ‘I say.’

  A woman was standing in the door. I froze, hoping the dim light would hide any green stains on my clothes.

  ‘Don’t s’pose you’ve seen Claude?’ she asked.

  She was drunk, I realized, her eyes unfocused. I shook my head and fled through another set of doors on to a veranda. There were more people here, reclining on cushions that had been thrown on the marble tiles with no regard for dust or dirt. The music and noise and conversation was louder than before. On a low table beside me, a drink had been abandoned. I picked it up and took a gulp only to cough and grimace at the sting of raw liquor. I held it to the light. It glowed grenadine-red, but like the food, it didn’t taste right, left a sticky burning in my throat.

  I kept hold of it anyway, trying to look as if I belonged, even though I was sweating, my hands clammy and trembling. Now that I was here, I had no idea how to go about my plan. Find Langham, I told myself, ask to speak to him in private. I swallowed hard. What happened next would depend on his reaction.

  Ahead, a string of electric bulbs illuminated a path to a raised terrace, where the party was in full swing. Around a small swimming pool, people sat drinking, talking, their shoes flung off, their teeth and eyes catching the light. There was a splash: a woman in a silver dress had leapt fully clothed into the pool. She emerged to applause, the jewels around her neck sparkling with water.

  Beneath an arbour, a gramophone was warbling out a record, and there beside it stood Langham, just as I remembered him, with his saint’s face and his hair slicked bright. He looked so easy there, so in control, I felt my conviction sputter and die. I’d been thinking about him as if he was one of the gentlemen at the inn; rich, indolent, predictable. But as soon as I saw him, I knew I was wrong. He might have been rich, but he was as sharp as glass.

  I took a step back, turned rapidly, only to come face to face with the man from the front gate.

  ‘You.’ His mouth was tight with anger. ‘How did you get in?’

  He seized hold of my arm. I jerked away, the glass flying from my grip, shattering on the tiles.

  There was a lull in talk and laughter as people turned to look. Beneath their flat, intoxicated gazes I felt as if every ugly thing I had ever been or done was laid bare. Vomit and burning Turkish Delight, the Señor’s blood and the hot breath of the man I’d robbed in La Atunara, Bautista’s sneer, the goat-eyed man’s hostile stare. Worst of all, I felt Alejandro del Potro begin to fade. I clung on to him as I looked up, into Langham’s eyes.

  ‘What’s going on?’ he called. ‘Bouzid?’

  ‘Rien, monsieur.’ The man increased his grip on my arm. ‘An intruder. I will remove him.’

  Langham was coming forwards, frowning. ‘I know you,’ he said slowly. ‘You’re that boy, from Gibraltar. Del Potro, isn’t it?’

  Behind him, I saw a figure stand. It was the woman, Lady Bailey. She looked incredulous, her mouth open.

  ‘Sí, señor,’ I said, my face on fire.

  ‘What the devil are you doing here?’ He didn’t sound angry, but when I looked into his face I thought I saw the ghost of something else. Suspicion, perhaps even fear. ‘How did you find out where I live?’

  ‘Some people I met in the Café Central told me.’ I answered in Spanish, as if that would protect me from his glittering, scornful guests. ‘Some Americans. I am, señor, I am here …’ Beneath Langham’s gaze, all of my careful, calculated words seemed ridiculous. He would see straight through them. And that only left the truth. ‘I am here to see you.’

  ‘Who is this boy, Arthur?’ I heard someone call. ‘What does he want?’

  ‘He’s the lad I knocked down in Gibraltar,’ Langham called back, his eyes fixed on mine. ‘He says he has come all this way to see me. Isn’t that extraordinary?’

  He was mocking me. An easy thing to do, to make his guests laugh. I felt anger flicker in my chest, but kept my gaze steady.

  ‘What do you want?’ Langham asked. He raised his eyebrows at the hat on my head. ‘I thought we parted on good terms.’

  I knotted my guts. Bribery wouldn’t work now, I knew. Nor would pleading or begging. He’d sneer and throw me out for that. I needed to do something else, something surprising, that he wasn’t expecting. Rich people were always bored. I took a breath.

  ‘We did, señor. You were kind to me, and I have not forgotten it. So, being alone in the world, I have come to ask if you might consider allowing me to work for you, in exchange for room and board.’

  There was a pause. ‘Work for me?’ Langham said. ‘Doing what exactly?’

  He laughed, but his voice was careful. Looking into his eyes I felt it again, the jostling of unsaid words
between us. I raised my voice.

  ‘I will be your private chef, señor, I will work in your kitchen and serve you and your guests. I will make anything you want. I am a good cook. You will not be disappointed.’

  I couldn’t look at the party guests, though I heard exclamations from the ones who spoke Spanish, their mirth at my expense.

  ‘I hire in a chef when I need one, del Potro.’ Langham’s lip twitched. ‘Why should I employ you?’

  ‘Because your chef is bad. And a crook too, I’ll wager.’

  That made his eyes narrow, his lips pinch a fraction.

  ‘What makes you say that?’

  My heart was thumping beneath the bindings. ‘Because the fish I tasted tonight is half rotten,’ I said, with as much authority as I could. ‘Whoever cooked it has tried to hide the taste with too much dill. The cutlets were not much better. The butter used to make the sauce was rancid, the wine cheap. The grenadine in your drinks –’ I nodded towards a glass ‘– is fake. It’s just sugar and cochineal. I’ll bet whoever cooks for you takes your money, buys the cheapest he can get, and pockets the difference. Probably thinks you’ll all be too drunk to notice –’ I swallowed ‘– señor.’

  The guests around the pool had fallen silent. I could feel the man who held my arm staring at me hard. I hadn’t meant to speak so freely, had lapsed into my old inn talk without even realizing. If I’d gone too far … Langham’s face revealed nothing. Slowly, he half turned his head to address the people behind him.

  ‘The lad claims the food I’ve served tonight is rotten,’ he called. ‘Is that true? Or is he having me on?’

  There were coughs and mumbles as people took hasty sips of their drinks. Come on, you bastards, I told them silently, one of you must have noticed.

  ‘Well, I didn’t like to say,’ came a voice, crisp and clear in the night, ‘but that fish was rather ghastly.’

  It was the woman in the pool, who stood peering up at us, her chin on her hands, hair dripping. She caught my gaze and her dark-stained lips curved into a smile.

  ‘Thank you, Lillian,’ said Langham. ‘Bouzid, what do you have to say about all this?’

  The man who held my arm shrugged a little. ‘I do not know, monsieur.’ He hesitated. ‘It is true Monsieur Hubert arranged his own food delivery.’

  ‘Well,’ Langham said to his guests. ‘I’d be a poor host if I let you all go hungry. Shall it be trial by fire? Shall we give the boy a chance? Shall he cook us a midnight feast?’

  Glasses were raised, people cheering in agreement. At the edge of the crowd I saw Lady Bailey, frowning at us. When I looked back, it was straight into Langham’s eyes as he smiled.

  Tangier

  July 1978

  ‘Hello?’

  Sam stopped, one hand resting on a peeling wooden gate. It was open, which he hadn’t expected. Derelict buildings were usually boarded up. Unless it wasn’t derelict … But there were no signs of life, and the entrance had been overgrown. Still, he hesitated, staring at the curling iron name. Dar Portuna.

  Once he stepped through the gate, he would be walking into reality, rather than the world of his imagination. Isn’t this what you wanted, he asked himself, looking down at the cracked stone threshold, where A might once have stood. The true story?

  He snatched up the writing case from the dust, and stepped inside.

  Green filled his eyes, a wilderness of green. He took a step forwards and smelled mint, crushed beneath his shoe. Weeds swarmed over a once-white path. Sun-baked grass hissed around old lavender plants. He pushed through them, past a fountain that stood, dry and silent.

  He stopped to listen to the brief, questioning notes of birdsong, the drone of insects. It felt a thousand miles from the hot, dust-clogged streets of Tangier, and yet the casbah was just beyond the wall; if he listened carefully, he could hear the faint buzz of a moped, the blast of a ship’s horn, down in the harbour.

  Pushing beneath the branch of an old, drooping lemon tree, he came face to face with the house.

  It stood amongst the wilderness, surrounded and protected by it. Vines draped the doorframes, a rose bush had exploded from its bed to reach the windows. On one side, trees grew higher than the roof, shielding the house from any who might look over the walls. It must have been beautiful once, and to Sam, it still was, the perfection of the past in every line.

  He walked on to a stone veranda. French doors stood closed, their glass miraculously unbroken, paint peeling from the lead frames. He couldn’t see inside; the early evening sun was painting every surface with light. Idly, he tried the handle, only for it to move. He snatched his hand back. It couldn’t be open. No one would leave a house like this open, for anybody to walk into. Carefully, he pressed the handle again. It grated, stiff in its casing, until finally the latch released and the door drifted towards him.

  His intended call of Hello? died as the scent of the house billowed out, filling his mouth with must and old perfume and sweet, decaying leather.

  He was looking into a lounge. A huge Moroccan rug stretched across the floor, its ornate patterns faded by the sun. Sofas stood around an empty fireplace, their satin cushions dulled by time, the lining sagging. In a corner stood a grand piano, furred with dust. Mesmerized, he stepped through the door. The rug absorbed his slow footsteps as he crossed the room, so that he might have been a ghost, drifting through the past.

  Was there anyone here? He stopped, listening carefully, but heard nothing. Heavy velvet curtains, blooming with mould, were drawn over the opposite windows. Carefully, Sam drew them back, the brass rings sliding like bangles on a wrist. Light flooded the room, orange-pink with evening. Beyond was another garden, he could see tangles of roses, blood-red and flesh-pink, dripping colour, stone benches, fountains, and a path, leading into a wilderness …

  Dar Portuna. Was this where A lived fifty years ago, where someone else must have lived, until recently? Ears straining for any sound, he crept over to the bookcase, looking for clues as to whether the house was inhabited. The books he found were disappointingly dull; volumes on fishing and a leather-bound encyclopaedia set, the red spines faded to pink. At one end of the shelf sat a small silver cup, tarnished and rimed with dust. Gingerly, he picked it up and wiped his thumb across the engraved letters.

  TANGIERS BLUE BLAZER ANNUAL SAILING RACE

  1927 WINNER

  ARTHUR LANGHAM

  Arthur, poor man, Lillian had said. A. L. Arthur Langham.

  So this was his house, Sam thought, staring at the trophy. Or – his neck prickled – it still is …

  A noise made him leap, the trophy clattering back on to the shelf. He listened, eyes wide, to a faint repetitive thudding that echoed through the house, to a squeal and clank that sounded like antique plumbing. His eyes began to sting with panic. There was someone here.

  Carefully, he turned around, as if any movement might give him away. The sounds were coming from the other side of a thick, wooden door. What if someone discovered him, and called the police? The argument that he was only there to write a book probably wouldn’t cut it. I should get out, he thought feverishly, I should go back to the front gate and ring the bell, I could send a letter instead, like a normal person.

  But none of that would work. There was no bell on the gate, and no postman in Tangier, no matter how experienced, would be able to find this place. He stopped, one foot out of the glass door, even as every sensible thought yelled for him to hurry.

  But who was in the house? A man with dark glasses and an old-fashioned hat? A man who signed his name only A, but was truly Arthur Langham, the owner of a lost writing case, a forgotten suitcase? And if so, who on earth was del Potro? Before he lost courage, Sam crossed the room and opened the door.

  Beyond was a long hallway, cool and dim and tiled. Sounds were coming from the other end: the rattle and clank of metal, the splutter of water, a scraping noise. As he stood there with every nerve bristling, a scent drifted to him, sharp above the must.

  On
ions. Someone was frying onions. The smell reached for his belly and dragged him forward, one step at a time. He passed a half-open door and glimpsed a book-lined room, but he didn’t stop, he kept walking towards the sound, towards the smell, towards whoever was there, cooking and clanging and whistling a tune from another era.

  Noiselessly, he pushed open a door.

  It was a kitchen. Although faded like the rest of the house, it seemed lived-in, welcoming. Copper pans glowed against the peeling walls, bunches of herbs stood in jam jars on the windowsill. In the centre of the room, an enormous wooden table was littered with baskets, plates and open books, and amongst it all a chopping board, where something oozed red.

  He took a step further and a figure before the stove came into view; a tall, slim figure with messily cropped black hair, and cool olive skin, who tapped the pan with a wooden spoon and began to call out in Spanish—

  ‘I,’ he blurted, stepping forwards, ‘I’m sorry …’

  The pan of onions clattered to the floor.

  A young woman was staring at him, her eyes huge. A second later he held up his hands, because she had snatched a meat cleaver from the table.

  ‘Sorry,’ he stuttered again, ‘I didn’t mean – I didn’t know there was anyone here.’

  ‘What are you doing?’

  She asked it in English, her voice rough with shock. She wore a stained apron, jeans, bare feet. She looked furious.

  I heard about this place in a letter. I wanted to return the writing case to Mr Langham. I have his things. I have to meet him. I’m writing a book.

  ‘I … I found the gate. It was open.’

  ‘No.’ She was shaking her head, coming towards him with the cleaver. ‘No, there is nothing for you here. You have to leave.’

  She knows who I am, Sam realized. The next second she had grabbed him by the wrist and was dragging him towards a back door that gave on to the gardens.

  ‘You don’t understand,’ he said, trying to free his arm. She had a strong grip, her fingers bloodied from meat, sticky from the onions. ‘I’ve got to see him, please.’