The Alexandria Quartet - Lawrence Durrell [462]
At last they were on us. One heard quite distinctly the sound of their breathing, and our own contribution, the snap of stretcher-thongs, the tinkle of polished steel, the small snap of heels studded with hobnails. It all mixed into a confusion of activity, the lowering and lifting, the grunts as dark hands found purchase on a rope to hold the dinghy steady, the sharp serrated edges of conflicting voices giving orders. ‘Stand by’ and ‘Gently now’ all mixed with a distant foxtrot on a ship’s radio. A stretcher swinging like a cradle, like a basket of fruit upon the dark shoulders of an Arab. And steel doors opening on a white throat.
Pombal wore an air of studied vagueness, his features all dis-persed and quite livid in colour. He flopped on to the quay as if he had been dropped from a cloud, falling to his knees and recovering. He wandered vaguely after Balthazar and the stretcher-bearers bleating like a lost sheep. I suppose it must have been her blood splashed upon the expensive white espadrilles which he had bought a week before at Ghoshen’s Emporium. At such moments it is the small details which strike one like blows. He made a vague attempt to clamber into the white throat but was rudely ejected. The doors clanged in his face. Fosca belonged now to science and not to him. He waited with humbly bent head, like a man in church, until they should open once more and admit
him. He seemed hardly to be breathing. I felt an involuntary desire to go to his side but Clea’s arm restrained me. We all waited in great patience and submissiveness like children, listening to the vague movements within the ambulance, the noise of boots. Then at long last the doors opened and the weary Balthazar climbed down and said: ‘Get in and come with us.’ Pombal gave one wild glance about him and turning his pain-racked counte-nance suddenly upon Clea and myself, delivered himself of a single gesture — spreading his arms in uncomprehending hope-lessness before clapping a fat hand over each ear, as if to avoid hearing something. Balthazar’s voice suddenly cracked like parch-ment. ‘Get in’ he said roughly, angrily, as if he were speaking to a criminal; and as they climbed into the white interior I heard him add in a lower voice, ‘She is dying.’ A clang of iron doors closing, and I felt Clea’s hand turn icy in my own.
So we sat, side by side and speechless on that magnificent spring afternoon which was already deepening into dusk. At last I lit a cigarette and walked a few yards along the quay among the chaffering Arabs who described the accident to each other in yelping tones. Ali was about to take the dinghy back to its moorings at the Yacht Club; all he needed was a light for his cigarette. He came politely towards me and asked if he might light up from me. As he puffed I noticed that the flies had already found the little patch of blood on the dinghy’s floorboards. ‘I’ll clean it up’
said Ali, noticing the direction of my glance; with a lithe cat-like leap he jumped aboard and unloosed the sail. He turned to smile and wave. He wanted to say ‘A bad business’ but his English was inadequate. He shouted ‘Bad poison, sir.’ I nodded.
Clea was still sitting in the gharry looking at her own hands. It was as if this sudden incident had somehow insulated us from one another.
‘Let’s go back’ I said at last, and directed the driver to turn back into the town we had so recently quitted.
‘Pray to goodness she will be all right’ said Clea at last. ‘It is too cruel.’
‘Balthazar said she was dying. I heard him.’
‘He may be wrong.’
But he was not wrong, for both Fosca and the child were dead, though we did not get the news until later in the evening. We
wandered listlessly about Clea’s rooms, unable to concentrate on anything. Finally she said: ‘You had better go back and spend the evening with him, don’t you think.’ I was uncertain. ‘He would