Tangier Twilight

Sometime in the seventies, two young men - a writer and a doctor - spend 'a winter residence at Tangier'. They do indeed 'bring introductions' and are soon 'meeting the English and American colony': an assembly of rampant originals, eccentrics and down-at-heel refugees - from the weather; from a Britain about to exchange the dying threnody of Empire for meretricious Thatcherite Renaissance; from merely the high price of gin. The two are quickly caught up in the hectic expatriate round, as well as the vibrant and contradictory life of Tangier itself, classic crossroads of East and West, where djellaba meets dry Martini and the Christian vices have long since ousted the Muslim virtues. Five years later, they return, to find things changing fast. The brutal modern world has begun to intrude. Romance is yielding to stark reality, dramatic events occur that expose the underlying plight of people who before had seemed serene. Above all, the celebrated Tangier twilight that had so captivated them on their first visit now looks set to give way to the brash new dawn of a far less picturesque era.