The Alexandria Quartet: Justine, Balthazar, Mountolive, Clea

completely forget who the original saint was; sometimes a sand-dune buries the shrine. But they also spring alive again. Suddenly one day an epileptic is cured there, or a prophecy is given by the shrine to some mad woman — and presto! the saint wakes up, revives. Well, all the time our old pirate was living in this house El Yacoub was there, at the end of the garden, though nobody knew it. He had been bricked in, surrounded by haphazard walls — you know how crazily they build here. He was utterly forgotten. Meanwhile Scobie, after his death, had become a figure of affectionate memory in the neighbourhood. Tales began to circulate about his great gifts. He was clever at magic potions (like Mock Whisky?). A cult began to blossom around him. They said he was a necromancer. Gamblers swore by his name. “El Scob spit on this card” became quite a proverb in the quarter. They also said that he had been able to change himself into a woman at will (!) and by sleeping with impotent men regenerate their forces. He could also make the barren conceive. Some women even called their children after him. Well, in a little while he had already joined the legendary of Alexandrian saints, but of course he had no actual shrine — because everyone knew with one half of his mind that Father Paul had stolen his body, wrapped it in a flag, and buried it in the Catholic cemetery. They knew because many of them had been there for the service and much enjoyed the dreadful music of the police band of which I believe Scobie had once been a member. I often wonder whether he played any instrument and if so what. A slide trombone? Anyway, it was during this time, while his sainthood was only, so to speak, awaiting a Sign, a Portent, a Confirmation, that that wall obligingly fell down and revealed the (perhaps indignant?) Yacoub. Yes, but there was no tomb in the shrine. Even the Coptic Church which has at last reluctantly taken Yacoub on their books knows nothing of him except that he came from Syria. They are not even sure whether he was a Moslem or not! He sounds distinctly Jewish to me. However they diligently questioned the oldest inhabitants of the quarter and at least established his name. But nothing more. And so one fine day the neighbourhood found that it had an empty shrine free for Scobie. He must have a local habitation to match the power of his name. A spontaneous festival broke out at which his bath-tub which had been responsible for so many deaths (great is Allah!) was solemnly enshrined and consecrated after being carefully filled with holy sand from the Jordan. Officially the Copts could not concede Scob and insisted on sticking to Yacoub for official purposes; but Scob he remained to the faithful. It might have been something of a dilemma, but being magnificent diplomatists, the clergy turned a blind eye to El Scob’s reincarnation; they behave as if they thought it was really El Yacoub in a local pronunciation. So everyone’s face is saved. They have, in fact, even — and here is that marvellous tolerance which exists nowhere else on earth — formally registered Scobie’s birthday, I suppose because they do not know Yacoub’s. Do you know that he is even to have a yearly mulid in his honour on St George’s Day? Abdul must have remembered his birthday because Scobie always hung up from each corner of his bed a string of coloured flags-of-all-nations which he borrowed from the newsagent. And he used to get rather drunk, you told me once, and sing sea-chanties and recite “The Old Red Duster” until the tears flowed! What a marvellous immortality to enjoy.’

‘How happy the old pirate must be.’

‘How happy! To be the patron saint of his own quartier! Oh, Darley, I knew you’d enjoy it. I often come here at this time in the dusk and sit on a stone and laugh inwardly, rejoicing for the old man.’

So we sat together for a long time as the shadows grew up around the shrine, quietly laughing and talking as people should at the shrine of a saint! Reviving the memory of the old pirate with the glass eye whose shade still walked about those mouldering rooms on the second floor. Vaguely glimmered the lights of Tatwig Street. They shone, not with their old accustomed brilliance, but darkly — for the whole harbour quarter had been placed under blackout and one sector of it included the famous street. My thoughts were wandering.

‘And Abdul’ I said suddenly. ‘What of him?’

‘Yes, I promised to tell you; Scobie set him up in a barber’s shop, you remember. Well, he was warned for not keeping his razors clean, and for spreading syphilis. He didn’t heed the warnings perhaps because he believed that Scobie would never report him officially. But the old man did, with terrible results. Abdul was nearly beaten to death by the police, lost an eye. Amaril spent nearly a year trying to tidy him up. Then he got some wasting disease on top of it and had to abandon his shop. Poor man. But I’m not sure that he isn’t the appropriate guardian for the shrine of his master.’

‘El Scob! Poor Abdul!’

‘But he has taken consolation in religion and does some mild preaching and reciting of the Suras as well as this job. Do you know I believe that he has forgotten the real Scobie. I asked him one evening if he remembered the old gentleman on the upper floor and he looked at me vaguely and muttered something; as if he were reaching far back in his memory for something too remote to grasp. The real Scobie had disappeared just like Yacoub, and El Scob had taken his place.’

‘I feel rather as one of the apostles must have — I mean to be in on the birth of a saint, a legend; think, we actually knew the real El Scob! We heard his voice…..’

To my delight Clea now began to mimic the old man quite admirably, copying the desultory scattered manner of his conversation to the life; perhaps she was only repeating the words from memory?

‘Yes, mind you, on St George’s Day I always get a bit carried away for England’s sake as well as my own. Always have a sip or two of the blushful, as Toby would say, even bubbly if it comes my way. But, bless you, I’m no horse-drawn conveyance — always stay on my two pins. It’s the cup that cheers and not in … in … inebriates for me. Another of Toby’s expressions. He was full of literary illustrations. As well he might be — for why? Bercorse he was never without a book under his arm. In the Navy he was considered quite queer, and several times had rows. “What yer got there?” they used to shout, and Toby who could be pert at times used to huff up and answer quite spontaneous. “What d’yer think, Puffy? Why me marriages lines of course.” But it was always some heavy book which made my head swim though I love reading. One year it was Stringbag’s Plays, a Swedish author as I understand it. Another year it was Goitre’s “Frowst”. Toby said it was a liberal education. My education just wasn’t up to his. The school of life, as you might say. But then my mum and dad were killed off early on and we were left, three perishing little orphans. They had destined us for high things, my father had; one for the church, one for the army, one for the navy. Quite shortly after this my two brothers were run over by the Prince Regent’s private train near Sidcup. That was the end of them. But it was all in the papers and the Prince sent a wreath. But there I was left quite alone. I had to make my own way without influence — otherwise I should have been an Admiral I expect by now….’

The fidelity of her rendering was absolutely impeccable. The little old man stepped straight out of his tomb and began to stalk about in front of us with his lopsided walk, now toying with his telescope on the cake-stand, now opening and shutting his battered Bible, or getting down on one creaking knee to blow up his fire with the tiny pair of bellows. His birthday! I recalled finding him one birthday evening rather the worse for brandy, but dancing around completely naked to music of his own manufacture on a comb and paper.

Recalling this celebration of his Name Day I began, as it were, to mimic him back to Clea, in order to hear once more this thrilling new laugh she had acquired. ‘Oh! it’s you, Darley! You gave me quite a turn with your knock. Come in, I’m just having a bit of a dance in my tou tou to recall old times. It’s my birthday, yes. I always dwell a bit on the past. In my youth I was a proper spark, I don’t mind admitting. I was a real dab at the Velouta. Want to watch me? Don’t laugh, just bercorse I’m in puris. Sit on the chair over there and watch. Now, advance, take your partners, shimmy, bow, reverse! It looks easy but it isn’t. The smoothness is deceptive. I could do them all once, my boy. Lancers, Caledonians, Circassian Circle. Never seen a demi-chaine Anglais, I suppose? Before your time I think. Mind you, I loved dancing and for years I kept up to date. I got as far as the Hootchi-Kootchi — have you ever seen that? Yes, the haitch is haspirated as in ’otel. It’s some fetching little movements they call oriental allurements. Undulations, like. You take off one veil after another until all is revealed. The suspense is terrific, but you have to waggle as you glide, see?’ Here he took up a posture of quite preposterous oriental allurement and began to revolve slowly, wagging his behind and humming a suitable air which quite faithfully copied the lag and fall of Arab quartertones. Round and round the room he went until he began to feel dizzy and flopped back triumphantly on his bed, chuckling and nodding with self-approval and self-congratulation, and reaching out for a swig of arak‚ the manufacture of which was also among his secrets. He must have found the recipe in the pages of Postlethwaite’s Vade Mecum For Travellers in Foreign Lands, a book which he kept under lock and key in his trunk and by which he absolutely swore. It contained, he said, everything that a man in Robinson Crusoe’s position ought to know — even how to make fire by rubbing sticks together; it was a mine of marvellous information. (‘To achieve Bombay arrack dissolve two scruples of flowers of benjamin in a quart of good rum and it