Shop....keeper and shadow creeper

It looks like this colourful shop might soon be engulfed in shadow......

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Shady courtyard

It's essential to have somewhere to escape the heat.

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Essaouira

It always appears there are far more gulls flying round a Moroccan harbour town than in England.


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We all need to find an Oasis

This picture shows the oasis not far from Taroudannt, Morocco. Water is a rare and precious resource in a country of little rain, which makes such a location all the more miraculous.


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Dog with henna eyebrows

This is a friendly little dog roaming the castle ramparts of Essaouira, Morocco, with some make-up applied by the animal's owner !

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Number 2

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Essaouira

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Thirty-first

Omar arrived unexpectedly after breakfast the following morning, and I wondered if he’d come to ask for a bigger tip, though he didn’t seem the type.

‘They have found the policeman’ he said, without messing about.

‘I’m sorry ?’

‘In Taroudannt.’

I felt an overwhelming sense of panic, and was glad Jess was back in our room.

‘He killed my eldest son. I can help you.’

‘It wasn’t deliberate when I hit him, he was attacking....’

‘I know, that man was not good.’

‘We need to get back to England.’

‘I have a brother near Tangier, a fisherman, he can help.’

‘But isn’t it nearly four-hundred miles, how will we get there ?’

‘We will go in the car, I will come for you tonight.’

‘Can he really take us to Spain ?’

‘I will come at eight, be ready.’

Omar sounded completely at ease about the whole enterprise, but it seemed highly likely we would be stopped on the road north, trying to leave Morocco, or by a patrol boat in the Strait of Gibraltar.

Jess was surprisingly upbeat when I told her, as if this plan to hoodwink the authorities and escape the country was some kind of elaborate party game. She was also reassured in a strange way by hearing of the death of Omar’s son, which proved that this policeman deserved to meet a violent end himself.

‘He’s coming at eight, that means we have some more time to explore.’

‘We need to keep a low profile.’

‘Did Omar say if the police had linked his death to us ?’

‘Not yet, but they’re bound to consider all the people who stayed at our hotel in Taroudannt.’

‘I’ve always wanted to visit the Jardin Majorelle’ Jess said with enthusiasm.

‘I suppose that is out of the way, if we’re careful.’

‘Can we go in a calēche ? I prefer horses to cars.’

It was good to see some brightness back in her eyes; Omar had at least given us some hope, despite the serious challenges ahead.

Twenty-third

While Jess performed her daily duty as a wage slave, I continued my almost daily explorations of the small city of my birth. The spring in particular was a lovely time, if you could utilise the brief window in time before tourists overwhelm our narrow streets and snickleways, with names like Whip-Ma-Whop-Ma-Gate, The Shambles and Mad Alice Lane.

I always seemed to end-up in the compact and delightful garden of the Treasurer’s House, which was free to go into, unlike the house itself, unless going to the cafe in the haunted basement. There are few better places outdoors to munch on a large pasty or substantial baguette filled with real Yorkshire ham.

I like to watch other visitors, so long as they don’t come to close, because some are lovely young women, or so they seem on the surface. Just because you’re in a genuine love relationship doesn’t mean you can ignore female beauty, it would be an uncomfortable denial of the reproductive impulses we all share.

Yet it’s also good to have a non-human experience of pure solitude, when you’re the only soul amidst all the plants and crumbling stonework. The massive east end of the Minster looms so very close, and often concealed behind scaffolding and plastic covers.

Sometimes the fountain is working, and the sound of water gently falling into the pool of colourful fish can allow you to imagine it’s a Japanese Zen garden, where it’s possible to exist in an exalted state removed from shadows of the past or worries about the future.

‘Are you a local ?’ an American woman asked.

‘No, but it’s a lovely place’ I replied.

‘You sound like you might be from here.’

‘I’ve always had the unconscious ability to adopt the accent of any place I visit, unless it’s abroad.’

‘How fascinating.’

‘Not really, it only brings confusion in my conversations with others.’

‘I suppose it would.’

‘Where are you from ?’

‘Los Angeles.’

‘I’m sorry to hear that.’

‘Why ?’

‘I’ve been told it has no centre, no heart.’

‘That’s not entirely true.’

‘Don’t be offended. Anyway how are you enjoying old York ?’

‘It’s wonderful ! And the weather is great.’

‘Just like L.A. then, but with an ancient heart.’

Eleventh

I had plenty of time to re-acquaint myself with the delights of historic York, while poor Jess had to make the short journey up to the University on a daily basis to earn her crust. My personality is not really suited to full-time labour, or any work come to that – I just like to wander the streets and reflect on things, like a vagrant of the mind.

Thanks to the small inheritance left by my dad I’d escaped one of York’s major employers, the City Council, and what I considered to be the nonsense of targets and worksheets. If I had any kind of definite role it was now that of the traditional ‘housewife’, with the vague expectation that I would conjure from a few fresh and not so fresh ingredients, an evening meal for my beloved.

It’s impossible to live in a place like York and not be aware of all those that have inhabited the city before – to some these are literally ghosts marching as Roman soldiers in the basement of the Treasurer’s House, but mostly the awareness comes from the surviving architectural history, or the rubbish excavated from places like the famous Viking dig.

‘And what did you do today dear ?’

‘I like to forget about my job when I get home’ said Jess wearily.

‘Does any real work go on at that campus ? Apart from folk like the cleaners and cooks.’

‘I guess it’s not heavy engineering or traditional manufacturing; the cutting edge of science and thought perhaps.’

‘I thought it was all students getting pissed and jumping in the lake.’

‘I can’t deny that’s part of it. What have you been up to anyway ?’

‘I strolled across Ouse Bridge, explored the streets off Micklegate.’

‘Sounds exciting.’

‘Not many shopping opportunities where I went; wouldn’t be any good for you.’

‘I once went in the Cock and Bottle over there, it’s supposed to be haunted.’

‘So they say.’

‘Don’t you believe in all that ?’

‘I think most apparitions come from the person’s imagination.’

‘Maybe.....I’m not so sure.’

Even though we had somehow got onto the subject of haunting, Jess seemed a little more cheerful, though always reluctant to talk about her work, as if she was employed at a top-secret military research establishment.

‘This concoction is interesting. Is it yesterday’s lamb ?’

‘Sprinkled with some of those spices we got mail order.’

‘Yes, I can definitely taste something exotic.’

‘That might be the Marmite.’

Seventh

I only have to sniff the jar of tagine mix spices in the kitchen at home to be instantly transported back to the dark, covered market in Taroudannt, where we were taken by an apparently helpful young man, who only guided us to his father’s stall to extract large amounts of money in exchange for a few stale spices and a small block of sandalwood.

That was a few days after we left Essaouira, and it should have perhaps served as a mild warning of how things can unexpectedly go awry in somewhere like Morocco. Inevitably, they will try to get the better of you in the bartering process, and almost always succeed, but to be guided through the alleys of a town for the sole purpose of fraud is another matter.

There was still plenty of time before that upsetting episode to savour the refreshing atmosphere of Essaouira, though it did really stink in the area of the harbour, which was possibly also an outlet for any effluent emerging from all the chaotic human and animal activity behind the city walls.

Of course we had a map of the fairly small town, but it was just so completely different from the neat street patterns of England, or even America, where a simple grid arrangement is used.

‘I’m not going out after dark’ Jess said at first.

‘But we have to go outside to get an evening meal.’

‘Not if we buy chocolate in the day time.’

‘Now you’re just being ridiculous.’

‘That’s easy for you to say, you’re not an attractive, pale-skinned English woman !’

‘I can’t deny you’re attractive.’

I remember pulling her close, and trying to offer some reassurance.

‘It’s probably much safer than Leeds or Manchester out there.’

‘We’re bound to get lost.’

‘True, but when that happens we’ll just head in the direction of the smelly harbour with all those noisy gulls.’

For some reason this dubious logic seemed to improve her mood, though the truth was that without some kind of satellite navigation device we’d possibly have to doss down in a filthy alley overnight.