She was doing her hair as she spoke and in the glass she saw Char’s face move convulsively.
“You’re getting off?” Char stammered.
“I may be, I don’t know yet.”
“But you can’t do that, you can’t go,” Char said frantically.
“I tell you I’m not certain. I’m expecting a letter waiting for me at the Winter Palace Hotel.”
Char swallowed quickly.
“Don’t you understand? You’re lucky to me. If you go now, I’ll never get my money back, never!”
“Oh yes you will,” Mona said soothingly. “It’s nothing to do with me, you know. You’ve just got this fancy into your head, Char. One person isn’t luckier than another.”
“You’re wrong,” Char said, and there was a note of hysteria in her voice. “Ever since I first saw you at the races my luck changed. I’ve got to hang on to you, Mona, otherwise I’m lost.”
“Nonsense!” Mona said impatiently. “You mustn’t let yourself think like that. The heat’s getting you down. Have a drink.”
She pressed the bell as she spoke and Char sat there on her bed saying nothing until the waiter came and the order was given.
‘She looks like a sick monkey,’ Mona thought. ‘How idiotic women are! even the ones who seem most self-possessed and likely to be able to look after themselves.’
To cheer Char up she lied.
“I think there’s every possibility of my staying, so don’t look so depressed.”
Char brightened.
“You really think so?”
“Yes, I do.”
“You don’t understand what it means to me. One day I will tell you about bad luck – my bad luck – and it will open your eyes. I don’t suppose you’ve even dreamt of such things.”
“I’d like to hear about it one day,” Mona said, warding off the confession, “but at the moment I shouldn’t upset yourself.”
She noticed that Char’s fingers, as she lit a cigarette, were trembling.
‘Perhaps she’s ill,’ she thought, unsympathetically hoping it was true.
She had a feeling she was being held by the inescapable tentacles of an octopus. Char twined herself round people – one couldn’t get away from her.
‘Funny,’ Mona thought, ‘You’d never think she was the ivy type. She looks so independent, so completely self-sufficient, but she’s a leech and she’s trying to batten herself on me.’
She finished dressing and went ashore.
*
“Miss Vale?” the clerk at the Winter Palace Hotel said. “Oh, yes we have a letter for you.”
He handed it to her and she saw Lionel’s writing. She went into the garden fragrant with flowers where soft-eyed deer and other small animals were caged for the amusement of the hotel guests. Under a great shady tree were long mattress-covered chairs. Mona sat down in one.
She opened Lionel’s letter, of which, as usual, the first words brought a throb to her heart and a flush to her face. Lionel was always original in his choice of endearments. Then she read on.
‘A most wonderful thing has happened, my darling. It will be possible for us to have a week together alone in Alexandria. The reasons why make too long a story to tell you now, sufficient to say that I shall be there the day after you get this letter. You will have to fly back of course. Catch this morning’s plane and remember as you come that I shall be waiting impatiently for you at the other end. Oh, Mona…’
There was a lot more, then a postscript.
‘Be careful no one guesses about us or where you are going.’
Had he been clairvoyant, Mona wondered, when he wrote that? Did he sense there was someone like Char haunting her like a shadow? She bought her air ticket and went back to the boat. It was nearly dinner-time and she was planning how she could pack and get away without Char knowing. She walked down below to go to her cabin. As she passed the door of Sadie’s, it was half open.
Hardly realising she did so, Mona glanced inside. Sadie was sprawled on the floor drunk. But Char was with her. Mona was just going to slip by, hoping she had not been seen, when something happened.
Sadie’s bag was lying on the floor. It was open as if it had fallen from her arm when she collapsed. The lipstick and vanity case had spilled on the floor, but a great wad of notes was still caught in the bag. As Mona watched, a hand, Char’s, had come out and taken the notes!
It was all over in a flash. Then Mona had run into her cabin, shut the door and locked it. She sat down at the dressing table feeling physically sick. She didn’t know why the sight of Char stealing from the drunken Sadie upset her so much, she only knew that she personally felt humiliated and degraded beyond words. This is what she had sunk to, these were the depths to which her life of sin had brought her.
She thought of her mother, of her home, and knew she could bear no more. This was evil, filthy, unclean. She felt as if she was sinking into a pit of stinky mud from which she could not escape and would finally be submerged. She could hear Nanny all down the ages warning her,
“You can’t touch pitch and not be defiled.”
“Birds of a feather flock together.”
“Like goes to like!”
She wasn’t like those women, yet could she become like them? For in the years ahead what other companionship would she be offered, what alternative was there to Char and her associates? There was a knock on the door.
