Page 56 of The Last Postcard

Sam felt as if his skin was fizzing. If something had happened at Dar Portuna back in July 1928, there was every chance it might have made the papers, especially in a town like Tangier.

‘I don’t know. I’ve been writing about the twenties, right? Nineteen twenty-eight. Is there any way I could look through your archives?’

‘They’re off-limits to civilians, staff members only, I’m afraid.’ Norton paused. ‘I mean, I could look for you, if it was for something specific.’

‘You could? Today? That would be—’

Norton cut him off with a snort. ‘Not today. I do actually have to work sometimes. It’d take me an age to trawl through a whole year’s worth of papers.’ Sam’s disappointment must have shown, because Norton sighed. ‘Look, if you could narrow it down to a particular week, it would be easier. And if I knew what to keep an eye out for …’

Sam was barely listening. His mind was flying back to his room at Madame Sarah’s, where he’d left the writing case and the strange, undelivered letter.

I am sorry.

‘What about a date? An exact date?’

Norton raised his eyebrows.

‘28th July 1928,’ Sam said quickly, the date escaping his lips before he could stop it. He felt as if he was spilling a secret, but he wasn’t, was he? He hadn’t really said anything.

‘I’m guessing you want me to look now,’ Norton said, ‘before you see your old man?’

Sam swallowed. ‘If you could. I’m due there at five.’

‘All right, I’ll do my best.’ Norton looked down at the suitcase. ‘Want to leave that here for a few hours, rather than dragging it around? I can ask them to keep it behind reception, if you like. Don’t want it getting nicked.’

Sam followed Norton through the glass doors, his mind jumping, trying to ignore a vague sense of guilt.

28th July. The date at the top of that desperate letter; perhaps the date when everything changed.

One day, I hope you’ll understand.

Corpse Reviver No. 1

Take a pony of Italian vermouth and a pony of Calvados. Add a jigger of Cognac. Shake well with lump ice and strain into a cocktail glass. Drink before eleven a.m. to awake the dead.

Back then, it was impossible to tell what was real. We all of us had our masks, servant and lord, demimonde and diplomat. No matter that some of the masks were made from silk and diamonds, and others from sack and tailor’s chalk. They all worked the same. They all hid as much as they revealed.

The crowd at Dar Portuna was no exception. Lady Bailey’s mask was made from thin clouds of opium smoke, Bouzid’s from calm and stony silence. As for Langham … I couldn’t see his so clearly. After the gift of the book, I thought he might have sought me out for another conference. But one day became two, became three, and I barely saw him.

Often he was gone very early, where I didn’t know. Sometimes, he would appear on the landing upstairs when I could have sworn he was out. At other times, I would hear the gramophone playing in his study and peer through the window to find the room deserted.

There was no one I could question. Apart from Bouzid and me – and the women who came early in the mornings to clean – Langham kept no other staff. It seemed strange: according to The Gentleman’s Guide wealthy men were supposed to employ a household. There were whole chapters on how to get the best out of one’s valet, but Langham didn’t employ one of those either.

At the inn, people gave themselves away by their actions, by their words, by their tongues soaked in sangria. I saw none of that from Langham. And so, although I tried to wait and listen patiently, curiosity soon got the better of me.

It was my fifth day at the house, and I was beginning to find my stride in the kitchen, feel some tiny glimmer of security in my little servant’s bedroom. That morning, Lady Bailey went out on a call and Bouzid left to see to some business in town for an hour. Monsieur Langham, I had been informed, would not be back until evening. Evidently, they had decided I was trustworthy enough to leave alone. For the first time, Dar Portuna was mine, and I intended to take full advantage.

A minute after Bouzid closed the gate, I crept from the kitchen to the bottom of the stairs. My chest felt tighter than ever beneath the bindings, my ears straining for any sound of life. I hesitated, one foot raised. I had no reason to go up there; as at the inn, my room and my work were on the ground floor. Upstairs was a different realm. One that might spell trouble. The step creaked as I set my weight upon it.

‘Hello?’ I called, into the silence. Nothing. I took a breath and walked carefully up the stairs, until I stood, nerves twitching, on the landing. The room to the right was Lady Bailey’s; I could see a chaos of strewn clothes and stockings through the open door. And to the left …

‘Hello?’ I murmured again, though I had no idea what I would say if anyone answered. Silence. Before I could think about it, I walked quickly along the corridor, reached for a handle, and opened the door to what I thought must be Langham’s bedroom.

It was the finest room in the house. Windows opened on two sides, one on to the greenness of the garden, the other on to endless blue: the Mediterranean – my first love – throwing herself into the embrace of the Atlantic. Had I been Langham I would have lain in bed all day and drowned myself in that blue. The thought gave me shivers. His bed stood against one wall, the mosquito net tied back, the cotton sheets pale and smooth. I lowered my palm to the pillow, and was overtaken by an image of my own head resting there.

I snatched my hand away, but it was no use, an aching heat was pulsing through me, spreading through my body. I clenched my fingers, trying to will it away. I’d felt it sometimes at the inn. A few years ago, there had been a young gitano who had kissed me in the darkness of the stable, and put his hand between my legs. But I had shoved him away and run for the kitchen. It was too dangerous for me to feel anything like that, to be a woman who could be had. If I had allowed Morales, or anyone else to think of me as a woman, to remember that I was a virgin in a whorehouse, she might have weighed my value differently, and tried to sell me again, as she had done all those years ago.

But Langham was not like the Señor; he was not like any man I had ever met, not even Ifrahim. I let my hand drop, still staring at the bed, not knowing if it was the room I was aching for, with its quiet luxury, or the man who inhabited it.