There was a persistent roaring in his head; furious red static grumbled and flushed behind his eyes; slabs of heat burned his thighs and belly. Morgan was sunbathing. It was agony. He sat up, rockets and anti-aircraft shells pulsating and exploding everywhere he looked, and reached behind him for the bottle of beer he’d ordered and kept in the shade beneath a lounger. The bottle was still cool, the green glass slippy with beads of condensation. Morgan took great juddering pulls at it, beer spilling from the upended bottle over his chin, dripping onto his chest. His brain seemed to soar and cartwheel with the alcohol. He let out a silent, satisfying belch and stood up ready to plunge into the pool.
The first thing he noticed was the girl’s striped towel, occupied only by the damp imprint of her body. Then he heard a ripple of laughter from the shallow end of the pool and he saw her chatting to the hairy Lebanese, who, as Morgan gazed, stood on his hands and walked round with his brown legs waving comically above the water, to the delighted laughter of the girl.
It can only have been this flirtatious display of agility, coupled with the dizzying effects of the cold beer, that drove Morgan to the diving board. As he climbed laboriously to the top he grew increasingly aware of the absurdity of the position he had committed himself to, and of all its hackneyed connotations. He sensed, as he emerged on the highest board, the attention of the others below turn to him. He had only seconds to decide. Beyond the lip of the board he saw the girl looking up at him, and the frank interest of her gaze inspired him and yet was somehow depressing. Depressing to think that he had stooped to these despised macho techniques to gain the girl’s absorption, and inspiring to find that they actually worked. He hitched up the waistband of his trunks. He would compromise: he wouldn’t dive — he wasn’t sure if he could remember how — and he wouldn’t climb back down. No, he would jump. He tried to saunter casually to the edge of the board. The pool slowly revealed itself beneath him. He thought: good God, it seems higher from up here. Bloody high. Shouldn’t there be some kind of legal limit …? His doubts were cut off in midstream as he realised with a gulp of horror that he had missed his step and clownishly fallen forward off the board, not an elegant vertical jump, but at a gradually diminishing angle of forty-five degrees to the water. And as the glinting, shimmering surface rushed up to meet him, Morgan spread his arms in a grotesque parody of a swallow-dive and belly-flopped full force with a ghastly echoing smack.
Everything was white. White and fizzing as if he were immersed in a glass of Andrews Liver Salts. He felt strong arms pulling him to the side. He felt his hands on the tiled edge of the pool. He took great gasping mouthfuls of air. His vision cleared. The hairy Lebanese was by his side, an arm protectively round his shoulders. Morgan shrugged him off and looked up. The stewardess crouched on the pool edge above him, concern filling her eyes.
“Are you all right?” she asked. “It made an awful sound.”
“Mmmm. Sure,” Morgan wheezed. “I’m … fine.”
He rested in his room all afternoon. The entire front of his body was flushed and tingling for at least two hours. The girl had gathered up his stuff, draped a towel across his winded shoulders and led him back to his block. He felt as if he had just swum the Channel; his lungs heaved, his body creaked with pain and he could barely gasp replies to the girl’s worried solicitations. And when the pain and the agony subsided it was replaced with an equally cruel shame. Morgan writhed with embarrassment on his bed, cursing his ridiculous pretensions, his preposterous life-guard conceit and his absurd gigolo rivalry.
He ate his evening meal as soon as the restaurant opened. Only the Americans accompanied him but they maintained a frosty indifference. He inquired at the desk if there had been any word about the coup or news of the airport opening. The reception clerk told him that there was nothing but martial music on the radio but he planned to listen to the BBC world service news at nine. Perhaps that would give them some reliable information.
Morgan found a dark corner of the bar and flicked through old magazines for a while. No one interrupted him. There was no sign of the stewardess or the Lebanese. He ordered a large whisky. To hell with everyone, he thought.
Shortly after nine Morgan went out to look for the receptionist but the desk was empty. He waited for a few minutes and then decided to turn in early. He was walking down the passageway that led out to his block when he heard noises coming from behind a door marked GAMES ROOM. He stopped. He could hear a man’s voice, an indistinct seductive bass. He then heard some feminine giggles. He was about to walk on when he heard the girl say, “No. Stop it. Come on now.” He listened again. She grew more insistent. “Look. Stop it. Really. Come on, it’s your serve.” She was still giggling but it seemed to Morgan that a worried tone had entered her voice. Then: “Ow! — Honestly, cut it out! No. Stop it, please.”
Morgan pushed open the door. The girl stood there in the hairy Lebanese’s arms. He seemed to be biting her shoulder. As Morgan entered they broke apart, and the girl, blushing, quickly readjusted the strap of her cream dress which had slipped down her arm. Morgan felt supremely foolish for the second time that day. He wasn’t at all clear about what one was meant to say in situations like this. The girl smiled; he felt slightly reassured. She seemed pleased to see him and backed away from the Lebanese. He smiled, too, white and gold teeth beneath his moustache.
“How you feel?” he asked Morgan confidently, tapping his stomach. “The belly. Is good?”
They were standing in front of a Ping-Pong table. Morgan walked over to it and picked up a bat. He swished it menacingly about.
“My turn to serve, I think,” he said pointedly, in as clipped and cool a tone as he could summon. “Why don’t you push off, Abdul? Eh?”
The Lebanese looked at the girl, who earnestly studied her fingernails. He gave a snort of laughter and pushed past Morgan out of the room, saying something harsh and guttural in Arabic, as if he had a forest of fish bones stuck in his throat. An expressive language, Morgan admitted to himself, hugely relieved.
Morgan and the stewardess went to the bar and had a quiet, mature laugh about it all. There had been no real problem, the girl insisted. He was just getting a little fresh. Still, she was glad Morgan had walked in. They had a few drinks. The stewardess said her name was Jayne Darnley. She’d come down with a touch of upset tummy and had to be left behind when the last plane took off. Morgan bought some more drinks. She was wearing a loose satin dress and Morgan admired the roll of her heavy breasts beneath the bodice as she reached down into her bag for a menthol cigarette. They got on famously; Morgan even laughed about his ill-fated dive. “It was terribly brave of you,” stated Jayne. She came, it transpired, from Tottenham and had worked on “promotions” before becoming a stewardess. The whisky made Morgan feel virile and capable; he could smell the pungent scent she used, and the click of the sentry’s boots in the foyer lent a frisson of exotic danger to the atmosphere. He started to lie grandly. Yes, he admitted, he was leaving this country for a new posting: Paris. He was going to be defence attaché at the Paris embassy. “Ooh, Paree,” enthused Jayne. “I love Paris.” And from there, Morgan confided, a spot of work at the UN perhaps. After that, who knows? Although his first loyalty had always been to the service, he’d always had a secret yearning for the cut and thrust of political life, and with his experience, maybe.… Morgan went on to conjure up a large, interesting and cultured family, a trendy public school, a starred first. He created a modest private income, a chic pied-à-terre in Chelsea; he fabricated costly hobbies and recondite enthusiasms, and spoke knowingly of half-famous intellectuals, minor royalty, television-show compères. As the whisky and his rising sexual excitement fuelled his imagination, so Jayne grew more entranced, edging forward on her chair, lips set apart in a ready smile of anticipation. Her eyes gleamed; what a good time she was having. Morgan concurred, and called for another Pernod and blackcurrant.