Free Alexandra Singer by Tea at the Grand Tazi

this specimen you have brought us now, Mahmoud?” said the bored looking tanned man Maia noticed earlier.
    “Maia is working for Mihai Farcu. She is an artist, and his new assistant, isn’t it.”
    “Isn’t she ,” said the arrogant young man. “Isn’t she. That is what you say. In fact, it isn’t appropriate to say that anyway.” With that comment,
he rolled his eyes to the emerging stars. Maia watched Mahmoud’s face, but even at this disdain for him, nothing flickered, and his grin remained fixed and frozen upon his face.
    “I see, the Historian’s new assistant,” said the effeminate man, and a short silence ensued. It was finally broken by the large woman. She looked as if she was the sort of
person who could not bear to remain silent for long, and Maia was grateful for this.
    “Have a little drink with us,” said the woman. “It’s so pleasant here. A little run down, but rather charming all the same.”
    “If you insist.”
    “I do insist! Lucy Bambage. Hello! So you are an artist? Have I seen your work?” She was a very jolly sort, and, assumed Maia, well intentioned, if slightly overbearing.
    “I cannot tell you, Mrs. Bambage, perhaps you have.” Maia examined her more closely; she was a dough faced woman, immediately identifiable as one desperate for affection but
determined to hide it. The heavy makeup made her pathetic even in the fading light. Maia was able to see the grease, sad and ridiculous on her face, the gaping crimson mouth, an open gash grinning
madly, like the Joker on a pack of old and used cards.
    “Well, where would it be shown then?”
    “London. The odd gallery.”
    “Stop it, Lucy. You’ll scare the poor child,” said a large man coming from the bar who appraised her with goggling eyes. He possessed the manner of someone who was subjected to
excessive nagging.
    “Well, you are lucky enough to look like one!” she said, and grabbed Maia away from Mahmoud, who seemed happy enough to relinquish her. With an unfortunate lantern jaw and such a
large body, Maia looked upon her with a mixture of trepidation and pity. Lucy seemed like a name fit only for a young girl, but this woman was in her sixth decade at least, and she had not aged
well. She possessed that florid, floral look so beloved of middle class English women who have spent too long under a foreign sun. Maia gathered that Martin Bambage was some sort of salesmen who
had made enough money to pass his time taking his portly wife on as many holidays as possible. The couple talked about themselves so much, or rather, Lucy Bambage talked for them, they had barely
any time to listen to Maia.
    The tanned man’s face was symmetrically handsome, but his beauty was marred by a constant smirk of disgust, which made him irksome to his companions. Maia had entered in the midst of a
conversation about food.
    “My dislike of Moroccan food,” Lucy Bambage was saying, “derives from two of my major food hates. There are not many foods that I dislike but two of them are deeply linked with
the food of Morocco. Horror number one is the combination of fruit and meat. And the second is mint. Time for a gin and tonic,” Lucy Bambage barked promptly, to nobody in particular.
    “You are quite simply unadventurous, Lucy,” said the young man, lying back languidly. “Why not admit it?”
    “That is how I feel about it, Rupert. I would never expect you, of all people, to agree with me. You only care about the waiters!”
    “There is no need to be so very crude, my darling,” said the young man who Maia now knew as Rupert.
    “Have you been to Tangier, Maia? How did you find it? We came from there... ”
    Maia recalled her own time in Tangier, a city where the heat seemed to have allowed her to relinquish all responsibility. When she had looked around, it was full of awful little hills that
channelled the energy of the town down to the waterfront where the developing world was still slavering to get out. Visiting the