Beer in the Snooker Club (Serpent's Tail Classics) by Ghali Waguih

Author:Ghali, Waguih [Ghali, Waguih]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
Publisher: Serpent's Tail
Published: 2010-12-02T05:00:00+00:00

‘Are you coloured?’ she asked. I looked at my hands to see whether I was coloured. Although I had read so much about this in Egypt, I had never encountered it in actual life. I had never wondered whether I was coloured or not (later I went to a library and learnt that I was white).

‘I don’t know,’ I said.

She was a fat woman with a mop in her hand.

‘It’s nothing to do with me, dear. They’ve told me if you were coloured I was to say the room was already let. You look white enough to me, but you never know.’

‘I am Egyptian,’ I said.

She told me to wait for a moment and closed the door.

‘Egyptian, ma’am, is that all right?’ I heard her shout.

She opened the door a moment later and told me to come in. This was in South Kensington. I had obtained the address from a notice board outside the Underground station.

A thin-lipped, long-nosed woman said ‘how-d’you-do’ through her nose and asked me to sit down.

‘You are a student, I suppose,’ she said. ‘My husband, Captain Treford, and I were in Egypt, you know. We met a surprising number of very intelligent Egyptians there at the Gezira Sporting Club.’

I was well-dressed, with a snow-white handkerchief sticking out of my breast pocket, and a pair of light brown leather gloves in my hand.

‘I wonder if you know the Kamals,’ she said, ‘Mrs Kamal – Sophie – was a very dear friend of mine.’

‘I know her,’ I said. ‘She’s my cousin.’

‘How lovely!’ Captain Treford’s wife clapped her hands. ‘Sophie is such a wonderful person.’

‘She’s a pig,’ I said.

‘I beg your pardon?’

‘I said my cousin Sophie is nothing but a pig.’

‘Really?’ she drawled. ‘Perhaps we are not talking of the same person.’

‘Do you know Dr Khairy and his wife?’ I asked.

‘Why yes, we often played bridge with them and went to their charming villa in …’

‘Well, they’re also pigs,’ I said.

‘You must understand, Mr … Mr …’

‘Font,’ I said.

‘You must understand, Mr Font, that the Captain and myself have decided to let the room purely out of a sense of social duty …’

‘Excellent,’ I interrupted in a rich and easy manner, ‘you should give it free of rent.’

‘Ooha ooha ooha,’ she laughed through her nostrils; ‘we can hardly do that … ooha ooha. And so, Mr Flint,’ she continued from where I had interrupted, ‘you will have to keep your little jokes to yourself.’

‘Yes indeed, Mrs Trickleford,’ I said, and uttered three oohas. ‘Do you think ten guineas … a week of course … would be suitable?’

She jumped up and said certainly, certainly, and anyhow it wasn’t a matter of money at all. In fact she was very pleased to do Sophie a good turn, even though, between her and me, Sophie could be a bit of a … of a …

‘Pig,’ I said. ‘I won’t bother to see the room now, but I shall send my chauffeur over with my bags. You don’t happen to have a garage? … It’s a Bentley,’ I added.

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