The Driver's Seat by Muriel Spark

they seem to share a single soul or else two well-rehearsed
parts in the chorus of an opera by Verdi. Two men wearing western clothes but
for their red fezes are duly admitted to one of the waiting limousines and, as
Lise gets out of her car to join the watchers, two ramshackle young Arabs with
rumpled grey trousers and whitish shirts end the procession, bearing two large
baskets, each one packed with oranges and a jumbo-sized vacuum-flask which
stands slightly askew among the fruit, like champagne in an ice-bucket.
    A group
of people who are standing near Lise on the driveway, having themselves got out
of their held-up taxis and cars, are discussing the event: ‘He was here on
vacation. I saw it on the television. There’s been a coup in his country and he’s
going back.’ — ‘Why should he go back?’ — ‘No, he won’t go back, believe me.
Never.’ — ‘What country is it? I hope it doesn’t affect us. The last time there
was a coup my shares regressed so I nearly had a breakdown. Even the mutual
funds …’
    The
police have gone back to their cars, and escorted by them the caravan goes its
stately way.
    Lise
jumps back into Carlo’s car and conducts it as quickly as possible to the car
park. She leaves it there, taking the keys. Then she leaps into the hotel, eyed
indignantly by the doorman who presumably resents her haste, her clothes, the
blurred stain on her coat, the rumpled aspect that she has acquired in the
course of the evening and whose built-in computer system rates her low on the spending
scale.
    Lise
makes straight for the ladies’ toilets and while there, besides putting her
appearance to rights as best she can, she takes a comfortable chair in the
soft-lit rest-room and considers, one by one, the contents of her zipper-bag
which she lays on a small table beside her. She feels the outside of the box
containing the food-blender and replaces it in her bag. She also leaves
unopened a soft package containing the neckties, but, having rummaged in her
hand-bag for something which apparently is not there, she brings forth her
lipstick and with it she writes on the outside of the soft package, ‘Papa’.
There is an unsealed paper bag which she peers into; it is the orange scarf.
    She
puts it back into place and takes out another bag containing the black and
white scarf. She folds this back and with her lipstick she traces on the
outside of the bag in large capitals, ‘Olga’. Another package seems to puzzle
her. She feels round it with half-closed eyes for a moment, then opens it up.
It contains the pair of men’s slippers which Mrs Fiedke had mislaid in the shop
having apparently in fact put them in Lise’s bag. Lise wraps them up again and
replaces them. Finally she takes out her paperback book and an oblong package
which she opens. This is a gift-box containing the gilded paper-opener in its
sheath, also Mrs Fiedke’s property.
    Lise
slowly returns the lipstick to her handbag, places the book and the box
containing the paperknife on the table beside her, places the zipper-bag on the
floor, then proceeds to examine the contents of her hand-bag. Money, the
tourist folder with its inset map of the city, the bunch of six keys that she
had brought with her that morning, the keys of Carlo’s car, the lipstick, the
comb, the powder compact, the air ticket. Her lips are parted and she leans
back in a relaxed attitude but that her eyes are too wide open for restfulness.
She looks again at the contents of her hand-bag. A notecase with paper money, a
purse with loose change. She gathers herself together in such an abrupt manner
that the toilet attendant who has been sitting vacantly in a corner by the
wash-basins starts to her feet. Lise packs up her belongings. She puts the
paper-knife box back in the zipper-bag, carefully tucking it down the side, and
zips the bag up. Her hand-bag is also packed tidily again, except for the bunch
of six keys that she had brought on her travels. She holds the book in