‘You’re glad you came?’
‘It’s where I met you.’
He rose. He had to stand for a moment because she continued to sit there, her handbag on the table, her black frilled shawl on top of it. She hadn’t finished her whisky but he expected that she’d lift the glass to her lips and drink what she wanted of it, or just leave it there. She rose and walked with him from the restaurant, taking her glass with her. Her other hand slipped beneath his arm.
‘There’s a discotheque downstairs,’ she said.
‘Oh, I’m afraid that’s not really me.’
‘Nor me, neither. Let’s go back to our bar.’
She handed him her glass, saying she had to pay a visit. She’d love another whisky and soda, she said, even though she hadn’t quite finished the one in her glass. Without ice, she said.
The bar was empty except for a single barman. Normanton ordered more brandy for himself and whisky for Mrs Azann. He much preferred her as Iris Smith, in her tatty pink dress and the dark glasses that hid her eyes: she could have been any little typist except that she’d married Mr Azann and had a story to tell.
‘It’s nice in spite of things,’ she explained as she sat down. ‘It’s nice in spite of him wanting to you-know-what, and the women in the bungalow, and his brother and the business manager. They all disapprove because I’m English, especially his mother and his aunt. He doesn’t disapprove because he’s mad about me. The business manager doesn’t much mind, I suppose. The dogs don’t mind. D’you understand? In spite of everything, it’s nice to have someone mad about you. And the Club, the social life. Even though we’re short of the ready, it’s better than England for a woman. There’s servants, for a start.’
The whisky was affecting the way she put things. An hour ago she wouldn’t have said ‘wanting to you-know- what’ or ‘short of the ready’. It was odd that she had an awareness in this direction and yet could not hear the twang in her voice which instantly gave her away.
‘But you don’t love your husband.’
‘I respect him. It’s only that I hate having to you-know-what with him. I really do hate that. I’ve never actually loved him.’
He regretted saying she didn’t love her husband: the remark had slipped out, and it was regrettable because it involved him in the conversation in a way he didn’t wish to be.
‘Maybe things will work out better when you get back.’
‘I know what I’m going back to.’ She paused, searching for his eyes with hers. ‘I’ll never till I die forget Isfahan.’
‘It’s very beautiful.’
‘I’ll never forget the Chaharbagh Tours, or Hafiz. I’ll never forget that place you brought me to. Or the Shah Abbas Hotel.’
‘I think it’s time I saw you back to your own hotel.’
‘I could sit in this bar for ever.’
‘I’m afraid I’m not at all one for night-life.’
‘I shall visualize you when I’m back in Bombay. I shall think of you in your village, with your wife, happy in England. I shall think of you working at your architectural plans. I shall often wonder about you travelling alone because your wife doesn’t care for it.’
‘I hope it’s better in Bombay. Sometimes things are, when you least expect them to be.’
‘It’s been like a tonic. You’ve made me very happy.’
‘It’s kind of you to say that.’
‘There’s much that’s unsaid between us. Will you remember me?’
‘Oh yes, of course.’
Reluctantly, she drank the dregs of her whisky. She took her medicine from her handbag and poured a little into the glass and drank that, too. It helped the tickle in her throat, she said. She always had a tickle when the wretched cough came.
‘Shall we walk back?’
They left the bar. She clung to him again, walking very slowly between the mosaiced columns. All the way back to the Old Atlantic Hotel she talked about the evening they had spent and how delightful it had been. Not for the world would she have missed Isfahan, she repeated several times.
When they said goodbye she kissed his cheek. Her beautiful eyes swallowed him up, and for a moment he had a feeling that her eyes were the real thing about her, reflecting her as she should be.
He woke at half past two and could not sleep. Dawn was already beginning to break. He lay there, watching the light increase in the gap he’d left between the curtains so that there’d be fresh air in the room. Another day had passed: he went through it piece by piece, from his early-morning walk to the moment when he’d put his green pyjamas on and got into bed. It was a regular night-time exercise with him. He closed his eyes, remembering in detail.
He turned again into the offices of Chaharbagh Tours and was told by Hafiz to go to the upstairs office. He saw her sitting there writing to her mother, and heard her voice asking him if he was going on the tour. He saw again the sunburnt faces of the German couple and the wholesome faces of the American girls, and faces in the French party. He went again on his afternoon walk, and after that there was his bath. She came towards him in the bazaar, with her dark glasses and her small purchases. There was her story as she had told it.
For his part, he had told her nothing. He had agreed with her novelette picture of him, living in a Home Counties village, a well-to-do architect married to a wife who gardened. Architects had become as romantic as doctors, there’d been no reason to disillusion her. She would for ever imagine him travelling to exotic places, on
