When the Siren Calls Read online

  When the Siren Calls

  When the Siren Calls

  Foreword

  Midpoint

  WHEN THE SIREN CALLS

  Smashwords Edition

  Book One of the Siren Calls Trilogy

  Copyright © 2012 Tom Barry

  The moral right of the author has been asserted. This book is a work of fiction and all characters and events are the product of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental. All rights reserved.

  This book is also available in paperback from all good book retailers and direct from the publisher, Troubador Publishing Ltd: ISBN 978 1780883 106.

  Tom Barry’s debut novel is the critically acclaimed When the Siren Calls, Book One of the Siren Calls Trilogy.

  First published as a student, he spent twenty years as a management consultant and now writes full-time. Married with three children, he lives near London and counts Tuscany, the setting for this story, amongst his favourite places.

  Contact him at: www.tombarrywrites.com

  Praise for When The Siren Calls:

  “When The Siren Calls is a sexy, seductive book. There is love, betrayal, infidelity and unexpected twists. There is so much going on, it's like watching a really good movie. It’s brilliant.” - "Books and Reviews“

  "The thinking woman's Fifty Shades" - "Female First."

  "A very well-conceived story with interesting characters and a tantalizing pace. I couldn’t ask for more than that.” – Jennifer Custer, Literary Agent, A.M. Heath

  “ A pacy, racy, romance novel that simultaneously feels like a critique of a particular social scene. The prose is very strong technically, and the characters are comprehensive and believable. Isobel is an effective and sympathetic protagonist, and her story is compelling.” – Tom Fletcher, author, ‘The Leaping’

  ““[The sex scenes in When the Siren Calls] are vital, pacy, and never gross or uncomfortable – as the annual Bad Sex Awards shows, this is rare in fiction. I thoroughly enjoyed the way the strands come together as the novel pushes towards climax." – Matthew Branton, author, ’The Love Parade’.

  “A sexually-unfulfilled wife in a tricky situation and a handsome stranger coming to her rescue. Give me good old escapism any time. -” Alana Woods, author, ‘Imbroglio’.

  “I loved this book! I am recommending it to all my friends who love smart, sensual stories with twists that keep you guessing.” – 'Erin Potter, Shamrock Editing.'

  “This story grabs you by the throat from the start. The opening scene is every woman’s nightmare.” -'Kathleen Patel, Amazon Books.'

  “Wow- Lady Chatterley meets Christian Grey! It’s exciting to find a new writer who tells life like it is, but with a delectable twist of romance, sex and humour.” - Stephanie J Hale, author, ‘Millionaire Women, Millionaire You.’

  “Witty, often deliciously self-conscious and smattered with the best sort of irony, When the Siren Calls is both seductive and funny. If ‘humourotica’ is a genre then Tom Barry is its king; if it does not yet exist then he is its creator.” – 'Book Connoisseur.'

  Praise for Tom Barry

  “If ‘humourotica’ is a genre then Tom Barry is its king; if it does not yet exist then he is its creator.” – Book Connoisseur

  “Tom Barry has a keen eye for detail, a strong sense of irony and a good nose for unearthing what lies beneath the civilised facades we present to the world. It’s exciting to find a new writer who tells life like it is, but with a delectable twist of romance, sex and humour.” – Stephanie J. Hale, The Oxford Literacy Consultancy

  “Tom Barry follows in the footsteps of the great Irish storytellers.” – Ré Ó Laighléis, author, ‘Hooked’

  www.tombarrywrites.com

  Foreword

  What is this Maya we call Love? Why are we compelled to spend lifetimes in desperate pursuit of her, only to be left churning in her wake?

  “Obstinate are the trammels, but my heart aches when I try to break them.

  Freedom is all I want, but to hope for it I feel ashamed.

  I am certain that priceless wealth is in thee, and that thou art my best friend, but I have not the heart to sweep away the tinsel that fills my room.

  The shroud that covers me is a shroud of dust and death; I hate it, yet hug it in love.

  My debts are large, my failures great, my shame secret and heavy; yet when I come to ask for my good, I quake in fear lest my prayer be granted.”

  — Rabindranath Tagore (1861-1941)

  One

  Grasping hands tore at Isobel’s clothing and scraped her skin as she forced her way forward. She swung round to face the seething pack, the speed of her movement causing her handbag — too oversized, too glittering for these dusty lanes — to sweep with her in a defensive arc.

  “Go away, allez, allez!” she shouted, trying to sound authoritative as the street urchins began to melt away.

  Free from the pressing bodies, she wove deeper and deeper into the labyrinth of endless, identical alleyways, slipping between the sacks and the stalls with a serpentine ease that masked her increasing panic. She felt as if every eye were upon her, eyes shrouded by swathes of headgear or set within sun-dried faces, all disapproving, some accusing. Every turn revealed idle and cocky gangs of youths who straddled their cycles, observing her distress with knowing smirks.

  Isobel looked for an opening, any way out that might lead her back to the square and return her to some kind of safety and normality. But every likely exit from this terrible maze was blocked with the knee-high beggars who had followed the scent of her like sharks, ever since she had taken pity on a tiny girl who, with swimming eyes, had pleaded for a dirham. But as they closed in to encircle her, there were no more pleas, only orders.

  “You give dirhams!” they called at her, chanting their demand like a mantra.

  “Yes, dirhams!” she cried in a sudden and reckless change of tack. “Dirhams for whoever can show me the way back to the square.”

  She pulled a single note from her purse and waved it before the outstretched hands. But the sight of money only fed the frenzy and the chorus of orphaned voices grew louder and more demanding, as ragged forms crashed against her legs and threatened to topple her with their combined force.

  A barking voice cut through the chaos around her and her pursuers leapt back as if scalded. The sound of a wicker cane smacking against flesh was followed by shrieks of pain and the startled waifs scattered like stray cats. Isobel turned towards her saviour, overwhelmed with gratitude and close to tears. She guessed he was in his mid-forties, unmistakably Arabic, clean-shaven, and smartly dressed in Western clothes, his polo sporting one of the many designer labels that seemed to adorn even the cheapest t-shirts.

  “They mean no harm, the children,” said the man. “Do not think badly of them, perhaps they already saw you were a kind woman? The children, they see it in the face, if you are kind. So you must be very kind to attract so many children.”

  “Thank you,” said Isobel, her racing pulse beginning to slow, “but I think it was the few coins I gave a little girl for sweets that was my mistake.”

  “A mistake perhaps, but also the sign of a good heart, no?”

  Isobel smiled at the compliment.

  “You wish to go to the square I think?” asked the man.

  “Yes, yes, I do. Is it near?”

  “If you know where it is, it is near, if not…” the man shrugged, “if not it can be very, very far. Perhaps you will let me show you the way. No one will bother you if you are not alone.”

  Isobel hesitated. “If you are sure you don’t mind. I said I would meet my husband there.”

  The man motioned toward the space behind the open shutters.


  “Please, wait inside for a few moments. I must get my son for he will mind the store. Please, this way, just a few moments.”

  Isobel idly perused the wares as she waited. Her appetite for shopping, if she ever had one, was exhausted. The glimmering trinkets in her bags were useless trifles, bought to justify her headstrong decision to come to the souk alone, a means to make her point to Peter when she returned. She checked her watch. It was clear that “a few moments” meant something other than what the words implied. Still, this was Marrakech, where life still seemed to follow the movement of the sun rather than the hands of the clock. She brushed her fingers along the reams of intricately adorned fabric with their brilliant shades of orange and blue, savouring the space around her and revelling in the silence broken only by the whining of moths around the turquoise lamp suspended from the ceiling.

  Isobel noticed the lengthening shadows, and looked again at her wrist. There was a limit to how long a good deed could be considered a debt. She put aside the cloth she was admiring; she would just have to make her own way to the square. She was confident that her journey from the square had been upward, so the way back must be downward. As she pulled down her sunglasses like a visor to signal that no eye contact would be entertained, the silence was ruptured by the man’s voice, he had returned — a twenty-year-old version of himself in tow.

  “I am sorry to keep you, kind lady, but my son, he must close his shop, and before he can close it he must put away his fruit. This is my son, Sharif, and I am Ali.”

  Isobel turned to the young man. Putting away his fruit must also have involved boiling the kettle, as he carried a silver tray with a long, curve-spouted silver pot, and three glasses hardly bigger than egg cups.

  “Please let me offer you a refreshment,” said the older man, “it is our tradition and you are an honoured guest.”

  Sharif was dressed similarly to his father, except where the older man’s shirt bore the emblem of a crocodile, his son’s bore that of a prancing horse.

  “You are in Marrakech for holiday?” asked Ali, who was clearly the talker of the two.

  “Just the weekend.”

  “So short, so little time. You must not think that all of Marrakech is like the souk, that everyone is like the hungry children. You must return soon. We have much history, beautiful architecture, white sandy beaches. And you will find the Moroccan people very friendly, very welcoming. It is our tradition. I must give you something, a present, to remind you of Morocco.”

  “Really,” said Isobel, keen to bring matters to a close, “you have been too kind already.”

  “Sharif, a little gift for the lovely lady.”

  Sharif seemed to have anticipated his father’s command. He stepped forward, a ring-sized jewellery box between thumb and forefinger.

  “It is only a trinket, of no real value to some, but precious to others.”

  Sharif opened the box to reveal a blue ceramic pendant on a silver chain. Isobel smiled and began to say thank you but was cut short by arms encircling her neck.

  “Sharif will put it on for you, it is tradition,” proclaimed the older man.

  The young man’s hands travelled swiftly behind Isobel’s neck. For what seemed a long time, he stood in front of her, their bodies less than a foot apart, his forearms brushing her shoulders, as his fingers worked behind her neck to secure the clasp. Isobel felt the cool stone resting in her cleavage, visible at the opened top of her blouse. She fingered the pendant as she tried to ensure it rested on closed linen.

  “I wish that my gift keeps you safe from the evil eye, and that it brings you back to Marrakech,” said Ali, as Sharif retreated to the doorway. “But you must also choose something from my shop that you wish to have, something to wear perhaps. I have beautiful cotton and silk blouses. Kaftans also. You choose.”

  Isobel wanted to say that the rescue, the tea, the pendant, and the promised escort to the square were more than enough to bring her back to Morocco, but the need to repay a kindness weighed heavier than the need to get away.

  “This way,” said Ali, seizing on her hesitation and taking her arm, “you must see my special cloth, the cloth I must keep out of the sun and the dust.” And with that she was whisked behind a draping curtain and her head then guided down through a low opening more like a metal cat-flap than a door, to emerge into a dimly lit and cluttered stockroom.

  Cloth was no longer the prime commodity. Arranged around the walls and along parallel rows of shelves was a hypermarket-like selection of tourist ware: watches, jewellery, sunglasses, handbags, shoes, clothing, and the household contents of an entire village. All that was obviously missing was a live camel.

  The absence of natural light, the confined space, the silence, and the realisation that she was with two strangers, one ahead, one behind, suddenly pressed in on Isobel. She bit down hard on her lower lip.

  “Please, you pick something, it is for the memory, no?”

  Despite the ambiguity in Ali’s offer, Isobel was now expected to shop; that was clear. The opening she’d come through was closed, and Sharif was standing like a praetorian guard in front of it, his legs apart and arms folded. And for all Ali’s geniality, the atmosphere changed as soon as the door closed behind her. Isobel’s insides fluttered like caged birds. Did they want her money, or did they want more? In the dim light their eyes seemed red and never left her body.

  “Do you have blouses?” she asked, desperate to keep the situation under control.

  “Many, many. What colour you like?”

  “Green. Or, or, maybe blue,” she stammered, thinking about the pendant. Ali handed her a selection of cotton tops, each in a clear plastic wrapper.

  Isobel sought to give her most positive eager shopper look. “Yes, maybe these, but I need to see them in the light.”

  “Here is light,” said Ali, gesturing all around.

  “No, I mean natural light.”

  “Green is green and blue is blue. Always same.”

  “No, I need to see them in natural light.” Isobel held the half dozen blouses, and the question of price had yet to raise its ugly head. Ali looked off-balance.

  “I can’t buy without proper light,” she repeated and with that, still clutching the blouses, she made for the door.

  “Hold these, please.” She thrust the merchandise toward Sharif. It was an order and he took them as Isobel pushed her way past and ducked through the opening.

  She needed to get back into the front of the shop before the two men could recover from the shock of her assertiveness. She looked around but the exit was concealed somewhere behind the realms of hanging drapes. Where was the way out? She thrashed at a few of the curtains that were beginning to envelop her, but was finally through.

  She resisted the urge to rush headlong into the street. She composed herself as the two men reappeared, their nostrils flaring in anger.

  “My husband is waiting for me. I’m sorry, I need to go. I will come back tomorrow.”

  Ali held out his arm, stiff like a barrier. “Do you think you can rest from the heat of the day and drink tea in my shop for free? Can you drink tea in shop in London for free? Why you think you can do it here? You steal my time, you steal money. It is same. You buy now. No tomorrow.”

  It was the younger man that now grabbed her arm in a determined sandpaper grip.

  “I’ll come back tomorrow. Now let go of my arm.”

  “You must pay now.”

  “Let go of my arm, now.”

  The older man stepped in between Isobel and the opening to the street. She jerked her arm free and pushed past him, fear closing around her like the Marrakech night.

  “You steal my time, you are thief!” Ali shouted again, but louder, thrusting the blouses at her. Others were closing in, drawn by the commotion, and once more she found herself hemmed in. Stubbled faces with swarthy complexions were looking at her, joining in the melee. It felt like a hundred eyes were undressing her. She cursed her impetuosity in storming o
ff from Peter, of not changing out of the revealing top and clinging slacks, both now wet from her own perspiration. A hand brushed the inside of her thigh and travelled upwards. She swung around and was met by a shrivelled face and a leering grin, a single black and yellow tooth behind the thin cracked lips. “Don’t you dare touch me!” she shouted. But as she said it she felt more tugging, this time on her bag.

  She clasped the bag to her chest with both arms but in doing so felt her body more exposed, more vulnerable. Her heart pounding, she steeled herself for a fight, but before she could swivel around again, she sensed the threat dissipating. The hand on her buttock was no longer there, bodies were backing off, parting like the Red Sea, and faces were turning away from her. The crowd shrank to the sides of the stalls and was disappearing; someone was pushing through from behind, shouting.

  “Everything ok, darling?”

  “Peter, thank god —”

  But it was not Peter. She turned to see a tall, well-built man forcing his way towards her with the confident assurance of a native. She felt a protective arm around her shoulder, as he pulled her still shaking body close to his, his powerful presence both intimidating and reassuring. Only the storekeeper Ali remained in the confrontation.

  “You pay now,” he repeated, pushing his bundle of blouses forward.

  The man grabbed the top-most garment; he spoke in Arabic to the storekeeper. From Ali’s reaction, Isobel guessed it was something uncompromising.