Pure Juliet (35 page)

‘We of the University of Qu'aid welcome the newest giver of knowledge to mankind, and her friends. Miss Juliet Slater was born of parents who had no veneration for learning.' (Five hundred faces were turned towards the box, as if hoping to detect these unworthy progenitors.) ‘The friends accompanying her, and to some extent sharing her honour, adopted her as their own child, fostered her learning, gave her quiet places in
which to study and to meditate. Under the hand of Allah the All-Merciful, the knowledge He had planted within her – er – within her . . .' (‘Didn't want to say “brain”,' whispered Edith fiercely.) ‘It grew, as the watered seed grows in the rich earth. Let us praise these friends and thank them for their share in giving under Allah this new Law to mankind.' He raised one hand. ‘These are the words of your Emir,' he called. Then he let it fall, and sat down.

The familiar soft clapping began, a sound in a dream, suggesting gaiety and joy; all the five hundred dark faces turning towards the gallery were alight and smiling. Juliet, who was sitting forward in her chair, looked bewildered and pale.

Frank, too, was leaning forward. He took in every detail of the astonishing scene. His mind's eye saw St Alberics high street on a spring morning twenty years ago, and a pale, sullen young face surrounded by beautiful hair lifting in the wind.

It had come true: his ludicrous dream, persisted in, followed steadily in spite of incomprehension and suspicion and disbelief on his own part, as well as that of others. Surely the Law itself had played its part in bringing itself to birth on the planet! Every incident had been drawn to work towards the one end.

Someone was speaking again. A thin, faint, shaking voice was wavering across the soft dimness of the air. The voice sounded very, very old indeed, and rather cross.

‘Who's that?'

‘Goodness knows. Do be quiet.'

The speech did not last long. Mr Audley was studying the toes of his sandals, with bent head. The cooing of doves could be heard beyond the windows.

The ancient voice ceased on a solemn, querulous note, and the doctor shakily reseated himself.

Mr Audley had taken a white object from his pocket and was studying it as if to convince himself that it was safely there.

‘That's the cheque . . . gosh!' whispered Hugh.

‘
Will you shut up
.'

Mr Audley had risen again, and was speaking in Arabic. When he ceased, there was an immense rustle through the audience, suggesting a sigh. The Emir was looking fiercer than usual, and Hugh observed gleefully that ‘something was up'.

Mr Audley had begun again in English.

‘The most learned Doctor Khalid Lebardi feels it his solemn duty, as Head, under Allah the All-Wise, of the university, to remind His Highness the Emir and the privileged students of the University of Qu'aid that this is the first time, in the thousand years of its history, that the Avicenna Award has been . . . bestowed upon a woman.'

He paused, moving his lips uncertainly and looked, as if for help, at Juliet, who was staring out unseeingly across the audience.

‘The most learned doctor, as you have just heard, does not dispute the award, but he resents the fact that he, in his most honourable position as principal, is required to bestow this tremendous honour upon . . . upon an inferior – in short, upon a woman.' He paused, and the silence hung and quivered.

‘Shame!'

Edith's cry rang like that of some young, furious wild bird, and every face in the vast hall swung round to stare upwards.

If I could die or vanish
, thought her mother.

Mr Audley, having given Edith the satisfaction of seeing him give a noticeable start, addressed the audience again, briefly and in Arabic, then turned to Juliet and spoke to her in English.

‘Will Miss Slater be so gracious as to express to the doctors of the University of Qu'aid her gratitude on receiving this great honour?'

Juliet stood up.

All the doctors instantly looked down at the floor, removing the glare of icy, incredulous amazement they had been directing upon the unrepentant Edith, who had folded her arms and was glaring back.

Piers and Alice were repressing giggles; Emma looked pale and awed, and Hugh disgusted, while their father was blessing the Emir's prohibition of the media being present.

Into the stillness came, thin and almost expressionless, Juliet's voice: ‘Doctor Khalid Lebardi may feel a bit less upset about me having the doctorate if he remembers that it isn't me what – who – is having it. It's the
Law
that's having it. It's called Slater's Law because I discovered it. But it has . . . it's . . . the Law has its own honour. I shall use the title “Dr Slater” because I'm very, very pleased at having discovered the Law. I only wish my mum – mother – was here to see it. She wouldn't half – she would have been so proud of me. But not my father. He would agree with Doctor Khalid
Lebardi, not believing in women having minds, he didn't. So – thank you, Emir, and the university – but thank you especially Dr Lebardi. It's
here.
The Law is here for ever. When I'm dead, and all the people I know are dead, the Law will still be here in Qu'aid. For ever.'

She stopped, looking helplessly around as if the effort of expressing so much had taken away her normal senses. Frank thought that she was going to faint. The old doctor in the seat nearest to her rose, tottered towards her, indicated with an outstretched claw the place where she was to sit; then, as she did not seem to understand but stood staring dazedly, he gingerly extended the claw, snatched at her hand, and guided her into the empty chair.

At the end of Mark Audley's translation of her speech the dream-clapping broke out again. This was the sound that, for the rest of their lives, would mean to the family from the West: Qu'aid.

To the dismay of the Pennecuicks, they were informed, after a peaceful family lunch in the privacy of their rooms, that the Emir and the doctors would have the honour of attending them at the Great Gate when they set out for El Oued at five that evening. Edith became slightly hysterical. ‘I did think we'd seen the last of those old bores. I can't
stand
it. Can't I go and sit in the Rolls while they're rabbiting away?'

‘And can I?'

‘No, Piers, you can't – neither of you can. It would be dreadfully rude. You'll just have to stick it out.'

‘It will be a very short ceremony,' soothed Mark Audley, who had come to break the news. ‘Er – it's my fault, I'm afraid. After Miss Edith's interjection, I left a bit out of His Highness's speech this morning. I've got to put it in this evening.'

‘Oh do tell us! Was it something rude?'

‘(Alice, be quiet.) Oh, in that case, Mr Audley . . .'

‘I say, I do wish you'd all call me Mark.'

‘All right, Mark. Will the speech be long?'

Mr Audley laughed and ruffled Piers' hair. ‘No – quite short – I promise you.'

The packing was done, the sun was beginning, under the mercy of Allah, perceptibly to decline.

They sat in the shadowy room, where red-gold light struck through the windows, in silence; very tired; half unwilling to
leave this place that was a fairy tale, half longing to feel about them again the dear familiarities of home.

Half-past four. Here was Mark, accompanied by three servants, who took up the luggage and bore it away, silently as ghosts, along the long, sun-pierced corridor, down the winding staircase, out into the great market square where the booths glowed, and as they followed once again there broke out soft clapping.

The Great Gate stood wide, and beyond it the desert stared past Qu'aid in endless pale waves, and beside the gate were the twelve doctors, sheltered from the declining sun by a billowing purple canopy held aloft by six servants, and beside them – Piers gasped with delight – the Emir mounted on his white camel.

‘Gosh! I believe he's going to ride with us. Oh, hurrah!'

‘
Piers
.'

Mark had come to the side of the great kneeling beast, and was consulting a sheet of paper. A small crowd had collected and was watching every movement of the visitors.

‘This concerns the people of Qu'aid,' Mr Audley said, after some sentences in Arabic which produced a ripple of laughter and nodding heads. ‘Your Emir desires me to say to you what I – er – omitted to say this morning: it is this. Slater's Law' – here he turned and bowed to Juliet, standing beside him – ‘is a law which injures no one. Marie Curie, daughter of Poland, to whom the world owes, with her husband, the discovery of radium, did not receive the honour that the University of Qu'aid has bestowed upon Miss Slater and radium has not been entirely beneficial to Man. But about Slater's Law there is an aura both of pure knowledge and innocent magic belonging
to an earlier world. Slater's Law does not kill. All that can be said about its destructive powers' – and here he looked towards the Westerners and slyly smiled – ‘is that it has destroyed, once and for ever, one of your sayings. Never again will any inhabitant of this most unhappy planet be able to say with enjoyable astonishment, “What a coincidence!”'

The faint clapping began again. Clemence noticed, with mixed feeling, that one of the servants was assisting Piers to mount the Emir's camel. The little boy settled himself, his face suggesting in glory the setting sun, in front of the rider, whose fierce features were smiling.

‘His Highness begs that you will allow your son to ride with him,' Mr Audley said hastily. ‘It is a great treat always for his own sons.'

‘Of course – how very kind. Please thank His Highness.'

And now – oh dear – the old doctors had somehow got hold of Juliet and were talking to her.
If ever I get out of this place, I'll never stir from Wanby again
, Clemence promised herself.

But they were moving at last. The doctors were making stiff ceremonial bows, the camel had jerked itself to its feet in three awkwardly graceful movements, the Rolls was bumping towards them. Somehow they were all safely inside, and Mark had climbed in with them, and the luggage was being stowed in the boot, and the Great Gate of Qu'aid was slowly shutting away the grey-rose and green-shaded booths and its smiling citizens.

Edith's sharp voice began: ‘Mr Audley – Mark – it was funny. Some of the servants didn't behave like servants at all. Their manners were bad.'

(
And so are yours, my daughter. Must be taken in hand, and soon
. )

‘Not really funny, Miss Edith. Some of those “servants” were the Emir's relations – cousins or nephews.'

‘Oh, ravvy,' from Alice.

‘There has been intense curiosity in Miss Slater and indeed in all your family,' Mark Audley said to Frank. ‘But of course, to show it, especially towards the ladies of the party, would have been gravely discourteous. Barbaric. Unheard of. Western,' he ended smoothly. ‘So, some of the younger ones, wild young men used to having their own way, had themselves dressed as servants, and waited on you.'

He shrugged. The car here ran into a stifling, stinging, miniature sandstorm, tinged scarlet by the falling sun, and the women wrapped their heads in scarves. The camel with its burden loped easily alongside, white and wraith-like in the haze. Piers was invisible, having huddled into the breast of the Emir's voluminous robes.

‘How do wild young men let off steam, then?' Hugh demanded, as they emerged from the pallid cloud. ‘It's a marvellously beautiful place, of course, but pretty boring, I imagine, stuck here year in and year out.'

‘Camel-racing, gambling, hunting, mild drugs.' (A nudge from Hugh.) ‘And of course they are always free at any time to leave Qu'aid.'

‘Well, why don't they? I would,' said Edith.

‘Because it would be for ever,' Mark Audley answered, after a pause. ‘The law is: if you leave (unless of course you are a student) you may never return.'

The camel reluctantly ceased its long, swift pacing, rearing its sneering head back on the long, scarlet leather rein. Then it began, at a word from the Emir, slowly to kneel.

The Rolls slid to a stop on the road covered with sand from the recent storm, and Emma noticed how their shadows ran grotesquely away from them, dark on the pallor. Glancing behind her, she saw, against the setting sun, at a distance of perhaps half a mile, a number of soldiers mounted on white camels.

The Emir said, in English, lifting his right hand: ‘Goodbye. May delights and good fortune go with you.'

Piers, disentangling himself from the protective draperies, paused to bestow a jerky bow, then raced towards the car and climbed in next to the driver. The Emir spoke in Arabic to Mark Audley, who replied. The camel rose; the hawkish face smiled above them for a moment. Then the great beast raced off into the red light, past the escort, and the Emir and his bodyguards vanished behind the dunes.

‘Oh, are you coming on, Mark? Goody.'

This, of course, came from Alice.

‘At His Highness's express wish, and at my request.'

‘As far as that ghastly El Oued?'

‘Yes. I shall see you safe aboard the Oil Plane.'

This was a very smart machine, nicknamed thus by the men of business who flew into El Oued.

Suddenly it was night, with soft eerie shadows in a cool wind. Edith let down the windows.

Juliet was seated beside Frank, her head turned to watch the soft pallor and the shapelessness going by; sometimes a gap between dunes revealed the Great Place itself, the endlessness, looking in at this moving dot, under a rising moon that had deepened in colour from water silver to a glowing gold.

Juliet's expression, Frank thought, was more serene than he had ever seen it, yet her face also looked noticeably older. He wondered what she felt about it all – the immense honour, the strangeness and the beauty.

Probably he would never know.