Page 92 of The Last Postcard

‘Can my friend wait with me?’ he asked. ‘Then we’ll go.’

‘Yes,’ Madame Sarah said, interrupting her sister’s refusal. She hesitated, before holding something out to him. It was the writing case. ‘This is yours.’

He smiled as he took it, and she gave him a small smile in return. Then she was taking her sister’s arm and steering her towards the stairs, ignoring her furious whispers.

‘I’m sorry about that,’ Sam muttered, once they were gone. ‘Do you mind waiting? I’ll be as quick as I can.’

He began to stride around the room, grabbing odds and ends. A creased paperback, a useless sock, his other shirt, left on the floor. He dragged his duffel bag out and began to shove things in haphazardly.

‘Was that the truth?’ Zahrah asked, watching him. ‘About the money?’

He nodded, face burning to the tips of his ears. ‘I gave everything I had to the police as a bribe. Didn’t work.’

‘Then what are you going to do?’

‘Honestly?’ He stuffed a t-shirt into the bag. ‘I have no idea. My parents said they would pay for a one-way ticket home. I guess it’s time for me to telephone them.’

‘But you said you had no money, so how can you telephone?’

Was that a hint of mockery in her voice? He carried on packing, not looking at her.

‘I’ll ask my friend Abdelhamid,’ he said quickly. ‘I sold him my typewriter. He might be able to get me a phone call. Or maybe I could sell back …’ He stopped, looking down at the writing case. The police must have seized it when Ale was arrested, he realized. They must have filed it away as evidence, left it forgotten on a shelf for thirty years, until the building was emptied, until Mouad bought it and took it back to the shop, where it had sat, waiting for him.

He held it out. ‘You should have this,’ he told Zahrah. ‘It was never really mine.’

She took it, and slowly opened the lid. The smell of the past was released into the room once more, drowning them, taking them back.

She lifted the thick envelope that Alejandro had addressed to her – the one Sam presumed contained the will – and placed it gently inside. He wanted to ask what else Ale had written on all those pages, but they were Zahrah’s after all, and she didn’t seem inclined to tell him. She closed the case with a snap.

‘Come on,’ she said, standing up decisively. ‘Let’s go.’

‘Go where? I told you—’

She cut him off with an impatient noise. ‘Sam Hackett, there is an entire house standing empty, just a few minutes away. You can stay with me.’

‘What about the police?’ The threat had been enough to drive Ale away. ‘What if they come to raid the place?’

Zahrah raised her head. ‘Let them. They won’t find Ale. And since Dar Portuna now belongs to me, they’ll have to leave well enough alone, eventually.’ She raised an eyebrow at him. ‘So are you coming? Or do you want to sleep on the streets? I have to tell you, I don’t think you’d last a minute.’

He didn’t know what to say. Despite his guilt and shame and uncertainty, a kind of thrill rose in his chest at being allowed to stay at Dar Portuna; even if it was for what might be his final few nights in Tangier.

‘Thank you,’ he said, hoping she knew how much he meant it.

She just nodded and stepped towards the door.

‘Wait.’

Hurriedly, he shuffled together the scrappy, mismatched papers on the bedside table.

‘Is that …?’

‘My book. Yeah.’ He shook his head. ‘If I hadn’t been so obsessed with my own damn writing, none of this would have happened.’ His fingers tightened on the old paper, on the new sheets. ‘I should burn these,’ he said. ‘It’s not my story. I’ve already caused enough trouble—’

Zahrah took hold of one side of the manuscript. ‘Don’t you dare. Ale told you this story for a reason. And anyway –’ she gave him a half-smile ‘– I might want to read it.’

With the duffel bag over his shoulder, the manuscript carefully wedged within, he made a penitent farewell to Madame Sarah and received a ferocious, thoroughly undeserved hug about the knees from Aziz. Then, they were out on the street, bustling hot at noon.

They didn’t speak, just walked rapidly uphill, towards Dar Portuna, towards the rest of the story. After checking to see if anyone might be lurking, spying on the place, they brushed the jasmine aside, and slipped in through the old gate. In bright sunlight, the house seemed more unreal than ever, as though at any minute it might flicker and disappear from the surface of the world. They stepped through the front doors, into the faded, echoing hallway.