Going Ashore Read Online Free Page A

Africa.”
    Obediently, Mrs. Ellenger looked at Africa. She saw hotels, an avenue, a row of stubby palms. As Emma had said, there were taxis, one of which, at their signals, rolled out of a rank and drew up before them. Emma urged her mother into the cab and got in after her.
    “We might run into Eddy,” she said again.
    Mrs. Ellenger saw no reason why, on this particular day, she should be forced to think about Eddy. She started to say so, but Emma was givingthe driver directions, telling him to take them to the center of town. “But what if we
did
see Eddy?” Emma asked.
    “Will you stop that?” Mrs. Ellenger cried. “Will you stop that about Eddy? If we see him, we see him. I guess he’s got the same rights ashore as anyone else!”
    Emma found this concession faintly reassuring. It did not presage an outright refusal to be with Eddy. She searched her mind for some sympathetic reference to him – the fact, for instance, that he had two children named Wilma and George – but, glancing sidelong at her mother, decided to say nothing more. Mrs. Ellenger had admitted Eddy’s rights, a point that could be resurrected later, in case of trouble. They were driving uphill, between houses that looked, Emma thought, neither interesting nor African. It was certainly not the Africa she had imaged the day she invited Eddy – a vista of sand dunes surrounded by jungle, full of camels, lions, trailing vines. It was hard now to remember just why she had asked him, or if, indeed, she really had. It had been morning. The setting was easy to reconstruct. She had been the only person at the bar; she was drinking an elaborate mixture of syrup and fruit concocted by Eddy. Eddy was wiping glasses. He wore a white coat, from the pocket of which emerged the corner of a colored handkerchief. The handkerchief was one of a dozen given him by a kind American lady met on a former cruise; it bore his name, embroidered in a dashing hand. Emma had been sitting, admiring the handkerchief, thinking about the hapless donor (“She found me attractive, et cetera, et cetera,” Eddy had once told her, looking resigned) when suddenly Eddy said something about Tangier, the next port, and Emma had imagined the three of them together – herself, her mother, and Eddy.
    “My mother wants you to go ashore with us in Africa,” she had said, already convinced this was so.
    “What do you mean, ashore?” Eddy said. “Take you around, meet you for lunch?” There was nothing unusual in the invitation, as such; Eddy was a great favorite with many of his clients. “It’s funny she never mentioned it.”
    “She forgot,” Emma said. “We don’t know anyone in Africa, and my mother always likes company.”
    “I know
that,”
Eddy said softly, smiling to himself. With a little shovel, he scooped almonds into glass dishes. “What I mean is your mother actually said” – and here he imitated Mrs. Ellenger, his voice going plaintive and high – “‘I’d just adore having dear Eddy as our guest for lunch.’ She actually said that?”
    “Oh, Eddy!” Emma had to laugh so hard at the very idea that she doubled up over her drink. Eddy could be so witty when he wanted to be, sending clockwork spiders down the bar, serving drinks in trick glasses that unexpectedly dripped on people’s clothes! Sometimes, watching him being funny with favorite customers, she would laugh until her stomach ached.
    “I’ll tell you what,” Eddy said, having weighed the invitation. “I’ll meet you
in
Tangier. I can’t go ashore with you, I mean – not in the same launch; I have to go with the crew. But I’ll meet you there.”
    “Where’ll you meet us?” Emma said. “Should we pick a place?”
    “Oh, I’ll find you,” Eddy said. He set his plates of almonds at spaced intervals along the bar. “Around the center of town. I know where you’ll go.” He smiled again his secret, superior smile.
    They had left it at that. Had Eddy really said the center of town,