The House in Fez Read online

  In the simmering heat of a Moroccan summer, an already fractured family is forced to re-examine its loyalties.

  Sisters Juliet and Portia haven’t seen each other in years. When they’re invited by their estranged mother, Miranda, to visit Fez, they’re shocked on arrival to discover she has married Samir, a man half her age. What’s more, he’s already married to Zina.

  Pressure builds in the simmering heat. While growing closer themselves, Juliet and Portia are dismayed that Miranda is only loyal to Samir, even while he employs children in sweatshops. Portia defies him daily to help the children, but when Zina plunges from a balcony, it’s Portia who’s blamed.

  Juliet and Portia are forced to re-examine their loyalties.

  THE HOUSE IN FEZ

  Dianne Noble

  Published by Tirgearr Publishing

  Author Copyright 2018 Dianne Noble

  Cover Art: Cora Graphics (www.coragrpahics.it)

  Editor: Lucy Felthouse

  Proofreader: Barbara Whary

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  This story is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places, incidents are products of the author's imagination. Any resemblance to actual events, locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

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  DEDICATION

  For my dear friend Roz Bailey who eases my path through the horrors of technology.

  THE HOUSE IN FEZ

  Dianne Noble

  CHAPTER ONE

  MAY 21st

  Juliet

  The foreign stamp puzzled her, but then she recognised the writing and backed away, left the letter lying in a sea of manila envelopes on the doormat. Darren scooped them up, his jaw tightening as he riffled through the final demands. Then his expression lightened.

  ‘One for you, love. From…’ he squinted, held the letter at a distance, ‘…Morocco, of all places.’

  Juliet looked up at him. At forty-two he shouldn’t be so grey, have so many worry lines. ‘It’s from my mother,’ she said dismissively.

  ‘Aren’t you going to open it?’

  ‘No, it won’t be good news. Lord, the breakfast’s burning…’ She dashed into the kitchen and snatched the pan of bacon off the heat, her eyes smarting in the haze of blue smoke. At least it masked the smell of unreliable plumbing. After taking slices of bread from the open packet she forked the charred rashers on to them, then poured two mugs of tea.

  He sat at the table in his boxers and vest, tattoos descending like sleeves from his shoulders. Upending the HP bottle over the sandwich he thumped the bottom. ‘Come on, love, see what she has to say.’

  She sank into the chair opposite. The damp patch on the wall behind him had grown since yesterday. It looked like a map of Africa. She licked dry lips. ‘I don’t want to.’

  The kitchen clock ticked loudly, announcing the arrival of each new minute. Darren put down the sandwich, took her hand, stroked her fingers.

  She straightened her shoulders. ‘You do it.’

  He ripped the letter open, and with a low whistle pulled out a cheque. ‘Now that makes a pleasant change.’ He passed it to her and she stared at it blankly.

  ‘Three hundred pounds. Whatever for?’

  He fumbled in the envelope and retrieved a sheet of paper. ‘Here. Can’t read it without my glasses.’ He picked up his sandwich.

  Her mother’s scrawl, as ever, resembled a lie detector printout. She frowned as she tried to decipher it. ‘She wants me to visit her in Morocco… the money’s for the fare… she’s sent a cheque to Portia as well…’

  ‘I thought she was teaching in Turkey?’

  ‘So did I.’ She smoothed the paper. ‘Says she has a surprise for us.’

  He stopped chewing and raised an eyebrow. ‘Wonder what sort of surprise?’

  ‘God knows.’ She chewed a nail. ‘I don’t know—could we both go do you think?’

  ‘I can’t, love.’ He glanced up at the clock, bolted the last of his breakfast, then pushed back his chair with a clatter. ‘Need to work all the hours I can get.’

  She nodded, looking around the kitchen at the lino worn to a dark smudge near the sink, at the sheets of the Leicester Mercury taped over a broken window pane. ‘I wish I could help you more, find another job.’

  ‘Not yet. Maybe when you’re a bit better.’

  She stood up. ‘I’ll tell her we can’t go.’

  ‘No.’ He put his hands on her shoulders, turned her to face him. ‘You go, have a bit of a break. This last couple of years have been shite.’

  ‘I don’t want—’

  ‘Yes. You wouldn’t be on your own if Portia goes too.’

  ‘Portia? I’ve not seen her for years. We’ve nothing in common.’

  He rubbed his chin. ‘You’d think you’d be closer, being twins…I want you to go, love. Please.’

  She knew she would agree. She was like a piece of jigsaw, always ready to fit her life in, with, and around others.

  ‘All right then,’ she said reluctantly, ‘but I’ll get the cheapest flight—what’s left of the money can pay a bit more off the gas bill.’

  ‘Good girl.’ He dropped a kiss on her forehead, then ran upstairs, whistling, to get into his work clothes.

  Her throat ached with unshed tears as he watched him. Such a good man, always putting her first. Why then, didn’t she love him anymore?

  Portia

  Sun streamed through the tall windows on to the granite worktop. A coffee maker sat exactly in the middle, hissing and spitting as Portia watched the minute hand of the wall clock shiver then bump forward to 7.30. Punctual as ever, Gavin burst through the door, dressed for the City in his suit trousers and confidently striped shirt.

  ‘Morning.’ He didn’t look at her as he tossed a letter on to the table. ‘One for you. Breakfast ready?’

  Her heels clicked on the marble floor as she crossed to the range. She fished his boiled eggs out of the pan and filled the toast rack with slices of artisan bread. ‘Are you home for dinner tonight?’

  ‘What?’ He tore his gaze away from the Financial Times.

  She swallowed her irritation. ‘Dinner. Are you home?’

  He pressed a thumb and forefinger against his temples as though he was trying to hold his thoughts together. ‘I told you. I have a meeting with the chairman.’ He spoke with the weary air of a man who’d grown accustomed to being pestered by fools.

  Portia compressed her lips so no unfortunate words could escape. She knew for a fact the chairman had taken his family to Italy. However, she also knew that once a conversation about her husband’s after-work activities had been started she would have to follow it through, and she hadn’t the strength. Not yet. She reached across him for the letter, then slit it open with the paper knife. Her forehead furrowed as she read it. She put it back on the table, her Indian glass bracelets clinking as they dropped to her wrist. ‘Fancy coming to Morocco with me?’

  ‘What?’ He dragged his gaze away from the newspaper again and picked up the letter. After a quick glance,
he shook his head. ‘No can do. You’ll have to go on your own.’

  ‘I don’t want to go on my own. I go everywhere on my own.’

  ‘Go with Juliet.’

  ‘Juliet? Whatever would we find to talk about?’

  ‘How should I know? Girl talk? She is your sister.’ He scraped butter on his toast with a rasping sound. ‘I didn’t know Miranda was in Morocco.’

  ‘Neither did I.’

  ‘I do hope she has no plans to squat here again.’

  ‘She doesn’t squat. She pays her way and—’

  ‘Why can’t she live in her own house?’

  ‘Because she’s let it out and—’

  ‘Why can’t she stay with Juliet?’

  ‘They have no room and no money since—’

  ‘I’m not really interested, Portia.’ The chair squealed across the floor as he leapt to his feet.

  She clenched her toes tightly inside her shoes. Gavin carried wrath around with him like a packed lunch, ready to be unwrapped at any time. She couldn’t face one of his explosions at this time in the morning.

  ‘I can’t go anyway,’ he added. ‘The girls are due home from uni.’ His voice changed, softened when he spoke about his daughters.

  That decides it then. I’m going. She didn’t enjoy being a stepmother any more. It had been different at first. Abi and Melissa were still heartbroken about their mother’s death, even thirteen months later when she first met Gavin. She had sat up with them night after sleepless night, and then, as they began to accept they’d never see her again, she taught them to cook, took them shopping, introduced them to the joys of horse riding. She cared for them, worried about them, loved them. But now, they were indifferent to her.

  Maybe she shouldn’t have married a man whose wife had died, thereby attaining sainthood. Maybe if she’d been able to get pregnant herself they could have become a proper family and bonded, but after years of allowing the gynaecologist to navigate his way round her reproductive system like a plumber, she’d had her fill of being inspected and injected. And anyway, that was only one of the ways she disappointed Gavin.

  When the crash of the front door told her he’d left for the station, she kicked off her shoes, reached into the cupboard for a mug, and made what Gavin called “council house tea” by pouring boiling water straight on to the teabag. She opened a new packet of chocolate biscuits, islands of sweetness in a world grown sour. She shouldn’t. The button on her waistband wouldn’t fasten and Gavin had made another of his snide remarks only yesterday. He used to like her resemblance to Nigella Lawson. But that had been seven long years ago, when he was still besotted with her. Had it been love or just a pressing need for a mother for his girls? As she dunked her digestive, she picked the letter up again.

  Please, please come to see me in Morocco. I’m in Fez and you can stay as long as you like, but you must be here for May 26th. Love, Miranda.

  That would be her mother’s sixtieth birthday. Portia stared through the window at the distant Chilterns, licking stray crumbs from her lips. Why now? They hadn’t shared her fiftieth, hadn’t even known where she was. And why couldn’t she be like other mothers? Friends at school had thought it so cool she called her mum by her first name, but she’d hated it. She hadn’t wanted to be different from the other girls.

  The tea looked disgusting now. Crumbs floated on the surface amid a greasy slick of melted chocolate, and the teabag bobbed around like a dead mouse. She pushed it away with a sigh. What should she do today? Shopping? No. Go to the gym? God no, she’d too many spare tyres now to bare all in public. When had her life become so tedious? When had she begun struggling to navigate from one lonely hour to another, like a frog jumping on lily pads?

  Enough. She would phone her sister.

  The number rang so many times she almost gave up. Then, ‘Juliet? That you? Did you get a letter from our dear mother?’

  ‘Oh… hi Portia. Yes. Are you going?’

  ‘Might as well. You?’

  ‘Yes. No. I don’t know…’

  ‘God knows what it’s all about. We could travel together.’ A silence. ‘Are you still there?’

  ‘Yes, I am, but… I’ll be looking for the cheapest flight and—’

  ‘I understand that.’

  ‘So maybe it’s best if I meet you there.’

  ‘No. Leave it to me, I’ll sort the flights. I’ll get open returns so if it’s too dreadful we can come back the next day.’

  ‘Lord, you don’t think—’

  ‘Joking, Juliet. Lighten up.’

  ‘Oh, sorry. Make sure the price—’

  ‘Stop worrying.’

  Portia hung up and turned on her laptop. No way in the world did she intend travelling at ungodly hours or touching down in three different countries on her way to Morocco. She’d book convenient, comfortable flights, and lie about the price. For the first time in many days a smile lit up her face.

  CHAPTER TWO

  MAY 26th

  Juliet

  Casting one last look around the kitchen, Juliet wrung out the dish cloth and draped it over the taps to dry.

  ‘You ready?’ Darren called. ‘You’ve not left me much time to get you to Leicester…’

  ‘Coming.’ She picked up her shoulder bag, then looked in the hall mirror as she passed it and winced. Portia had been blessed with long and lustrous locks, whereas she had a mass of brown frizzy hair, which made her outline look vague, unfinished. Perhaps the visit to Hair by Denise had been ill-advised. With all the curl chopped out she looked like a bloody collaborator.

  ‘Come on, Juliet.’

  ‘I’m here… God, it’s so hot.’ She fanned her face with her bus ticket.

  Darren grinned at her. ‘Sight hotter where you’re going.’ He picked up her case. ‘What have you got in here?’

  She’d packed for every eventuality, including famine, sunstroke, and a plague of insects. Her spirits rose a little as he pretended to stagger under the weight. Maybe he was right and a change of scenery would get her back on her feet.

  Outside, a plane had drawn a chalky white line across the blue sky. She watched it for a moment and felt a frisson of excitement. What would it be like to be sitting inside, looking down at the fields and rivers below? How had she reached forty plus without ever having travelled farther than Ireland?

  Every window in their narrow street yawned wide in the tired, stewed heat, as though the houses themselves gasped for air. The sun beat down, melting the road surface. It felt soft and uncertain beneath her feet as she struggled to open the van door.

  ‘Thump it, love.’

  She did, and it released a blast of scorching air.

  Darren put the luggage in the back, then climbed in beside her. ‘Excited?’

  ‘I am a bit. Yes.’ She smiled at him and he leaned across and kissed her.

  The van wouldn’t start. The engine turned over and over, but refused to fire. Darren jumped out again, then lifted the bonnet while she checked her watch. If they didn’t get to St. Margaret’s coach station by 9.50 at the latest, she’d miss the Heathrow bus.

  The minutes passed, and still he tinkered with the engine. She tightened her grip on her shoulder bag. Maybe it was a sign. Maybe she’d never been meant to go somewhere so foreign when the only time she’d ever left England before had been for a weekend in Dublin. What a daft idea, anyway; to spend time with a mother and sister to whom she’d never been close. Whatever would they talk about when… the engine roared into life.

  Darren let the bonnet drop with a crash and leapt into the driver’s seat, wiping oil from his hands with an old tea towel. ‘Soon as there’s a bit more brass we’ll need to get this heap looked at, starter motor’s knackered.’ He pulled away and put his foot down, but the lights at the end of the road were against them and he stopped and drummed his fingers on the steering wheel. ‘Come on, come on.’

  Juliet gazed out of her window at a young man slumped against the brickwork between the Polish supermark
et and the bookies. A foil container that had maybe once held a pie now contained a few coins, and propped beside him a piece of cardboard told the world he was homeless. The letters had started too large and the last ones had been squeezed together to make them fit. The familiar ache filled her chest. Please God, take care of Jacob, wherever he is.

  ‘You all right?’ His hand covered hers. She smelt the oil on his fingers.

  ‘I’m fine, love.’ She managed a small smile. Why don’t fathers worry like mothers do? Or do they? Is he putting on a brave face for me? It had been so long—two years, two months and fifteen days and the only link between her and her vanished child was a card every Mother’s Day and birthday.

  They got there with minutes to spare. Darren unloaded her case, then enfolded her in his arms. ‘Stay safe, Juliet. And have a rest, okay?’ He stood back, holding her at arm’s length, examining her face.

  He doesn’t want me to go. She looked up into his eyes. ‘I could stay. I don’t have to—’

  ‘You get yourself off. I can get the extra hours in and you—you will take care, won’t you?’

  She nodded.

  ‘And you’ve got enough money? I can give you…’ He struggled to get the wallet out of his back pocket.

  ‘No, no, I’ve got enough. Really.’

  He held on to her hand, held on to the tips of her fingers until she had to pull free, then run for the coach. She turned to wave as the driver threw her case in the hold, muttering. Darren waved back at her, blew a kiss, his face etched with sadness.