The Sheltering Sky - Bowles, Paul [105]
Tunner wanted to know why.
“The only rooms free now are the two on each side of you. An English lady has arrived with her son, and she wants him in the room next to her. She’s afraid to be alone.”
This picture of Mrs. Lyle, drawn by Abdelkader, did not coincide with his own conception of her. “All right,” he grumbled. “One room’s like another. Send the boys up to move me.” Abdelkader patted him on the shoulder with an affectionate gesture. The boys arrived, opened the door between his room and the next, and began to effect the change. In the middle of the moving Eric stepped into the room that was being vacated. He stopped short on catching sight of Tunner.
“Aha!” he exclaimed. “Fancy bumping into you, old man! I expected you’d be down in Timbuctoo by now.”
Tunner said: “Hello, Lyle.” Now that he was face to face with Eric, he could hardly bring himself to look at him or touch his hand. He had not realized the boy disgusted him so deeply.
“Do forgive this silly whim of Mother’s. She’s just exhausted from the trip. It’s a ghastly lap from Messad here, and she’s in a fearful state of nerves.”
“That’s too bad.”
“You understand our putting you out.”
“Yes, yes,” said Tunner, angry to hear it phrased this way. “When you leave I’ll move back in.”
“Oh, quite. Have you heard from the Moresbys recently? “
Eric, when he looked at all into the face of the person with whom he was speaking, had a habit of peering closely, as if he placed very little importance on the words that were said, and was trying instead to read between the lines of the conversation, to discover what the other really meant. It seemed to Tunner now that he was observing him with more than a usual degree of attention.
“Yes,” said Tunner forcefully. “They’re fine. Excuse me. I think I’ll go and finish the nap I was taking.” Stepping through the connecting door he went into the next room. When the boys had carried everything in there he locked the door and lay on the bed, but he could not sleep.
“God, what a slob!” he said aloud, and then, feeling angry with himself for having capitulated: “Who the hell do they think they are?” He hoped the Lyles would not press him for news of Kit and Port; he would be forced to tell them, and he did not want to, As far as they were concerned, he hoped to keep the tragedy private; their kind of commiseration would be unbearable.
Later in the afternoon he passed by the salon. The Lyles sat in the dim subterranean light clinking their teacups. Mrs. Lyle had spread out some of her old photographs, which were propped against the stiff leather cushions along the back of the divan; she was offering one to Abdelkader to hang beside the ancient gun that adorned the wall. She caught sight of Tunner poised hesitantly in the doorway, and rose in the gloom to greet him.
“Mr. Tunner! How delightfull And what a surprise to see you! How fortunate you were, to leave Messad when you did. Or wise-I don’t know which. When we got back from all our touring about, the climate there was positively beastly! Oh, horrible! And of course I got my malaria and had to take to bed. I thought we should never get away. And Eric of course made things more difficult with his silly behavior.”
“It’s nice to see you again,” said Tunner. He thought he had made his final adieux back in Messad, and now discovered he had very little civility left to draw upon.
“We’re motoring out to some very old Garamantic ruins tomorrow. You must come along. It’ll be quite thrilling.”
“That’s very kind of you, Mrs. Lyle—”
“Come and have tea!” she cried, seizing his sleeve.
But he begged off, and went out to the palmeraie and walked for miles between the walls under the trees, feeling that he never would get out of Bou Noura. For no reason, the likelihood of Kit’s turning up seemed further removed than ever, now that the Lyles were around. He started back at sunset, and it was dark by the time he arrived at the pension. Under his door a telegram had been pushed; the message was written in lavender ink in an almost illegible hand. It was