Tangier July 1978
Tangier
‘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.
Onions. 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.’
‘What are you talking about?’
‘The old man who sent me the letters. A. Arthur Langham!’
The woman stopped. Her expression changed, anger and confusion giving way to fear. ‘No,’ she said, shoving him forwards. ‘No, you must go now.’
‘It was you, wasn’t it?’ He was babbling. ‘It was you who I chased earlier, you collected the letters. Why won’t you talk to me?’
‘Please, please, just go, before—’
‘What is going on?’
The young woman froze. Sam felt her fingers tighten on his forearm. Together, they turned.
Someone was standing in the doorway. Through the floating dust, he saw grey streaked hair, a cream linen suit, a cigarette held in one sinewy hand. Deep brown eyes met his.
‘Samuel Hackett.’ A husky voice filled the kitchen. ‘You have your wish. It seems I shall have to introduce myself after all.’