Tangier July 1978 #2
‘He isn’t trying to stiff you,’ Sam said, holding a hand up to the waiter to show that he would explain. ‘It’s just that a coffee is one dirham.’ He pointed to the note. ‘He’s telling you he doesn’t have change for that. Haven’t you got anything smaller?’
The young man flushed, right up to his eyes. ‘Oh.’ He stared at the note in his hand. ‘Well then, why didn’t he say? I know a bit of French. He could have told me. I thought they all spoke it here?’
Sam shrugged. ‘Spanish, more likely. Do you have anything smaller?’
‘What? Oh. No, I don’t. This is it. Just came from the bank, you see.’ He stared down into the wallet, as if it would magically sprout small change. ‘I don’t suppose he’d accept pounds?’
Sam grimaced. He already regretted coming over, but then again, there was that wallet …
‘Here,’ he said, pulling a few santimat from his pocket. ‘Let me.’
‘I couldn’t possibly …’ the young man began to protest, but Sam had already dropped the coins on to the waiter’s tray. The waiter nodded to him before walking off, rolling his eyes and shouting to a co-worker near the kitchens.
‘That was very decent of you,’ the young man said, collecting a leather briefcase. It seemed he wanted to be out of the café as fast as possible. ‘I can pay you back.’
‘It’s only a dirham,’ Sam murmured. Twenty-seven, he thought bleakly.
‘Nonsense. I’ll pay you back right now, if you come with me to my hotel. It’s just down the road. Surely they will have change.’
Stepping out of the café was like diving into a pool of colour and smell and noise.
Sam sometimes felt as if he was swimming, when he walked the streets during the day, coming up for air when he stepped into a café or a bar or up to a rooftop.
It was different at night, of course. But in the day, the city seethed.
He watched the young Englishman sweating in his suit as they walked.
The man’s eyes kept darting everywhere, from the stray cat that washed itself at the edge of the kerb, to the old woman crouched in a doorway, her hands pushed out to them, her face creased by the world.
Did I look like him? Sam wondered. That mix of panic and concentration, all out of rhythm with the street? Probably, he thought. Amazing what a couple of months could do.
‘I’m Ellis, by the way.’ The young man was holding out a hand. ‘Ellis Norton.’
‘Sam Hackett.’ He shook quickly, conscious of the dirt beneath his nails. ‘You’re British?’
‘Yes.’ The man sounded breathless. ‘Arrived from London last night. You’re American?’
‘Got it in one.’
‘You seem to know your way around,’ Norton said, ducking past a group of women laden with shopping. ‘How long have you been in this hellhole?’
‘Here? A few months. Two, nearly three, I guess. I’ve lost track.’
‘I hope I get used to it.’ Norton stopped on the street, where two potted palms flanked a recessed door. ‘Well, this is me. Come in and I’ll get you that change.’ He glanced inside. ‘Actually, there’s a bar here too. Let me buy you something stronger, to say thanks.’
Sam stared at him, then beyond into the dark lobby, where a uniformed bellhop waited. The El Minzah was one of the good hotels. He shifted in the sticky espadrilles.
‘I’m not exactly dressed for it.’
For the first time, Norton seemed to look at him properly, eyes roaming from the tangled hair brushing his shoulders, to his jeans.
‘I’m sure that won’t matter,’ he said uncertainly.
Then his eyes brightened. ‘Here,’ he said, loosening his tie and passing it over.
‘They won’t say a thing if you’re wearing that. ’
Sam dropped the loop of fabric over his head, feeling stupid, knowing that he looked it too. The man must be desperate for company, he thought. About as desperate as I am for a proper drink.
He followed Norton into the lobby, trying not to duck his head.
Inside, it was quiet, marble-cool. A record was playing somewhere, soft jazz.
For a second the lobby and the streets seemed to curdle around him, like milk and orange.
Norton was sighing in what sounded like relief, walking up a short flight of steps, and Sam had to follow.
He’d heard of the bar at the El Minzah, but had never been in.
Too expensive. Not his scene. Ahead, he saw a cavernous space, where red carpets made the air drowsy with dust, barely disturbed by a breeze, despite the open windows.
It was empty, except for a pair of older women who sat stiffly on a sofa, small glasses before them. It wasn’t yet noon.
‘God,’ said Norton, dropping into a chair. ‘What a day.’
Sam followed suit. He had the odd feeling that he had tripped, somewhere on his way up the Avenue Pasteur, and had fallen into a different reality.
It was all too strange; Norton and his fat wallet, the stuffy bar with its promise of booze.
What if the man was a fake and wanted something from him?
He watched as Norton craned around to summon a waiter, and decided that he didn’t have the energy to care, not for an hour.
Perhaps in that time, he’d work up the courage to ask about borrowing a few dirhams.
‘What’ll you have?’ Norton said, shucking off his jacket.
‘I don’t know.’ Sam’s head felt light from the coffee and the sugar and the lack of nicotine. ‘Are the beers cold here?’
‘No idea, but I’m having a whisky soda. Want one of those?’
Sam nodded. He’d never have ordered one himself.
‘Two whisky sodas,’ Norton told the waiter.
The waiter nodded blandly, and went away. Sam was just beginning to feel uncomfortable when Norton took out a packet of cigarettes. He accepted one eagerly.
‘So,’ Norton asked, settling back in his chair. ‘What brings you to Tangiers?’
His manner had changed entirely. Gone was the flustered youth, the anxiety.
Here, he was at home. Old money, Sam thought.
You could hear it in the way he said Tangiers the old-fashioned way, with an s, as if the city was more than itself, as if it was somehow plural.
He took a drag on the cigarette, wondering how to answer Norton’s question.
To someone else he might have said: ‘Just to be’, or ‘Just the road’, but those kinds of answers would sound ridiculous, here.
‘I’m a writer,’ he said cautiously.
The man’s eyes widened. ‘No, really? But so am I.’ He reached for his jacket, and pulled out a card.
ELLIS NORTON
JUNIOR FOREIGN CORRESPONDENT
INTERPRESS
‘This is my first job out,’ he said, watching with obvious pride as Sam read the card. ‘I wanted one of the bureaux in Paris or Rome, but then everybody does. A year in the trenches, they said, and I can move on to somewhere more civilized.’
Sam made a vague noise and offered the card back.
‘Keep it –’ Norton waved ‘– in case you want to get in touch.’
Sam pocketed it. He couldn’t imagine a world where he and Norton were regular drinking buddies, but then, being an ex-pat did strange things to people.
The whiskies and sodas arrived. Norton took a sip of his, then downed it, almost before the waiter had finished laying a napkin before Sam. ‘Bring another couple, would you?’ he said.
Unperturbed, the waiter nodded. He was obviously used to such behaviour.
Sam took a sip of the drink. The whisky was strong, almost shocking, softened by the mineral dash of soda.
There was something illicit about it, drunk on an empty stomach.
A shiver ran down the back of his neck. It felt wonderful.
‘What do you write then?’ Norton was asking. ‘Don’t say you’re a journo too.’
‘No, I was never quick enough for that.’ He spun the ashtray a few times. ‘I’m writing a novel,’ he admitted.
‘A novel! A Great American one?’
Sam laughed. ‘I doubt it.’
‘Are you published?’
‘A few short stories.’ He concentrated on his cigarette. He wasn’t about to confess that the last time he’d sold anything was more than a year ago, and for a pittance. ‘I’ve been travelling, mostly. France, Spain, England. As research.’
That got Norton talking about his travels in Italy and Switzerland, the summer he’d spent in the south of France. Sam nodded along, finishing the first drink and starting work on the second, which disappeared far too quickly. He was starting to feel quite drunk.
‘One more?’ Norton asked, checking his watch. ‘I’ve got to find my way to the damn office, but that can wait until this afternoon. I’m told everyone lunches like the French, here.’
‘All right,’ Sam said, accepting another cigarette. He was beginning to like Norton more. It was easy to let the chatter wash over him.
‘Must say, I’m glad I bumped into you,’ Norton said, when the third glasses were empty. ‘This has done me the world of good. I was feeling wretched in that café. But you can give me the lay of the land here, can’t you? Be my Dante through the inferno?’
‘Sure,’ Sam said, feeling a warm glow of booze and superiority. ‘There’s a little bar where ex-pats meet, I can take you there.’
‘You’re a pal.’ Norton pushed back his chair and fished the wallet from his jacket. ‘Must use the gents. Here, pay the waiter if he comes by.’ He handed over the fifty dirhams. ‘Shouldn’t be a problem this time, eh?’
Sam held the note in front of him as Norton hurried off towards the lavatories.
The man was crazy, he had to be. There was nothing to stop Sam from pocketing the money and walking nonchalantly out of the door, never to be seen again.
That much money would buy him another two weeks.
His hand twitched towards his shirt pocket. If he was careful …
His hand fell back to the table. Norton might be an idiot, but he was a generous idiot. And Tangier was a small place. He sighed, and called the waiter over.