The Gulf Between Us Page 19

  I was encouraged, too, that he wanted the boys around; that seemed to imply he was after something more than an opportunistic shag for old times’ sake. And they’d love being in London at Christmas and not having to stay with my dad. And we could see Maddi and Will.

  So I promised I’d think about it, and began, cautiously, hesitantly, to think that the secrecy really might be a way of giving the relationship space.

  The following day, a huge bunch of flowers moving under their own steam arrived at school. It was only when they were in my arms that I could see there had been a slender and not very tall Keralite underneath them.

  ‘For Mrs Lester?’ he announced, tipping them towards me: peonies and roses and stephanotis, spiked with greenery. ‘You know her?’

  ‘Yes, that’s me.’

  ‘Madam, someone like you very much,’ he said.

  In my office, I unpinned the card. ‘Sorry about tonight,’ it read, ‘but think about London.’

  ‘Those surely aren’t for you?’ Diane demanded, when she found me five minutes later trying to cram them into the school’s only two vases: ‘it’s my birthday.’

  She spotted the card on my desk and picked it up. ‘What’s London? That you have to think about it?’

  ‘Nothing.’

  ‘No!’ her eyes widened, ‘they’re not?’

  ‘Not what?’

  ‘From him?’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘James Hartley! Are you seeing him? Did you invite him to my party?’

  ‘No. Yes. It’s complicated.’

  ‘Oh, yeah? I saw the way he looked at you on Al‐Hidd… Well, I’m not surprised.’

  Anwar had parked his car across the entrance again and was heading for my office and I was almost glad to see him, because Diane promptly left for her classroom, not wanting to be lectured about Palestine. He looked disapprovingly at the overflowing vases, but presumably couldn’t think of an Islamic reason not to have flowers in your office. If he’d known they were anything to do with the film, it would have been different, because in Anwar’s world Hollywood was fatally polluted by the twin evils of sex and Zionism. (Now Eden was being financed mainly by Arabs, but this didn’t seem to make any difference.)

  ‘America is a country of hypocrites,’ he announced, leaning against the filing cabinet. I didn’t give him an opening: he just starts in like that.

  ‘A whole country of them?’ I don’t know why I bother. Sarcasm is lost on him.

  ‘Americans claim that they are good. And what is this goodness? They can afford stealth bombers, but not drugs for poor people who need them.’

  ‘What, like Africans?’ I asked innocently, because he once expressed amazement when a Nigerian girl won the school maths prize three years running. Then it occurred to me that he might not realize I was being sarcastic; he might think I agreed with him, and this might encourage him to say something vile. ‘You mean anti‐retrovirals?’ I added, since he thought that Aids was a judgement from God against people who had sex, and drugs were too good for them.

  ‘The Americans also do not take the Palestinian question seriously,’ he went on, ignoring me. ‘They think they can march into Iraq, regardless of the fact that they are making things worse in Palestine… And the Al Majid are just as bad: when people here are angry, they say, “Be angry about Palestine! That is a much greater injustice! Nothing will go right in the region until the Palestinian question is solved!”’

  Since Mohammed Alireza started posting his sermons, it had become quite difficult to follow Anwar. The range of things he likes to complain about has got much larger and in his mind they all seem to be related, even if no one else can see how.

  In fact, he was right about the Al Majid, but I couldn’t afford to agree out loud with anything he said, in case he assumed I was on his side about the rest of it. He drifted off eventually, and I finished my work and then went home to get ready for Diane’s party.

  ‘Look, we really don’t have to go,’ I told Maddi, when I collected her from her parents’ house in Al‐Liyah.

  ‘You do, because she’s your friend, and I do because it’ll please my parents.’

  ‘We won’t stay long,’ I promised. ‘Have you spoken to Will today?’

  ‘Briefly. He was on his way into a meeting.’ He always seemed to be on his way into a meeting, or about to make an urgent call, or write something for some senior person who needed it now, this minute, half an hour ago. It was difficult to find a space in his ricocheting schedule, what with all the Saudi deals and the jumping in taxis and talking to lawyers.

  There were a couple of hundred people in the Bonneaus’ not very big flat and I lost Maddi almost immediately. All the conversations seemed to be the same: the bombings and whether there’d be any more; the prime minister and the crown prince and which one of them was running the country; the war in Iraq and whether that would make things even more unstable; Tony Blair and did anyone have the faintest idea what he was doing. It was hard to see how any of it was going to cheer up a depressed person.

  There was also quite a lot of teasing about my flowers, which in Diane’s retelling had become an entire garden centre delivered to me at school from James Hartley. The incident, I thought, was typical of the gulf between his world and mine: he swore me to secrecy then sent an enormous and show‐offy floral tribute, not realizing that in Hawar, flowers have to be flown in from Europe and cost a fortune and a bunch large enough to camouflage an entire person was bound to be a topic of conversation at parties for weeks.

  I bumped into Dr Al Rayyan in the kitchen, looking suave in one of his immaculate grey suits, which I could never see without a pang of guilt because Sam once cut his face, close to his temple, on our back step when he was three years old and, when I rushed him round to the surgery, he’d bled profusely and I’d watched as several thousand pounds’ worth of material had been stained by my son’s excitably leaking vein. Yousef said now that he’d been talking to Maddi, and she seemed depressed. This worried me, because presumably he’s trained to recognize depression. When he said it, it didn’t sound metaphorical any more. It sounded serious, clinical. ‘It’s a bad business,’ he frowned, then said: ‘How’s Matt?’ He had of course witnessed the coming out.

  ‘OK,’ I answered cautiously, adding that on the whole, I’d been pleasantly surprised by people’s reactions. ‘A few have said clumsy things, but usually they’ve been inept rather than actively hostile. Funnily enough, the worst reaction I’ve had is from someone who lives in America.’

  ‘Not your friend James Hartley, I hope?’ Yousef said quizzically.

  ‘No.’ I looked at him sideways. ‘His producer, Nezar Al Majid. That’s quite weird, isn’t it? I mean, they must have loads of gays in the movie industry.’

  ‘Ah, Nezar,’ Yousef seemed surprised. ‘I know him a little.’

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘He helps with the Shaikha Maryam Centre.’

  When I first arrived in Hawar, local people had what can only be described as a horrific attitude to the disabled. You quite often saw physically and mentally handicapped children tethered like goats to posts on waste ground in the dusty villages. But now we had the very beautiful Shaikha Maryam day centre, opened by Princess Diana. I knew that Yousef gave his time there for free.

  ‘I wouldn’t have had him down as being anti‐gay,’ Yousef said, frowning.

  ‘No, well… I suppose disability’s a different thing. And of course it’s easy enough to give money.’

  Yousef looked at me oddly, but he didn’t have a chance to say anything, because Maddi joined us then and asked if I could possibly take her home.

  Now that James was back from Oman, he and I were seeing each other every night. Sometimes I arrived at the Al A’ali House in time to watch the end of his tennis game with the professional from the Sheraton; sometimes he was already with his personal trainer, Frank, who’d had one of the bedrooms fitted out with machines that looked like medieval instruments of torture, except in
nice blond wood. James would be hanging upside down on a sort of stepladder, or lying down with his legs in stirrups on a kind of rack. Eventually, his muscles stretched and twanged, he’d be allowed out to join me in the pool.

  Frank would then head back to the hotel and Sandeep would serve dinner, and James and I would lie around watching movies or just go to bed.

  I felt I was floating along in a haze of sexed‐up domesticity, lazy and precious. On Sunday morning I was in this blissed‐out state, writing a letter about the year three trip to the emir’s collection of historic Qurans when Will called from London.

  ‘Have you seen the Sunday Times?’

  ‘No.’ The British papers arrived a day late. He knew that.

  ‘There’s a photograph. On page 17…’

  ‘Uh‐huh?’ I was still concentrating on my letter.

  ‘Of Matt. Coming out of a gay club.’

  That couldn’t be right: there weren’t any gay clubs in Hawar.

  ‘The club’s in London,’ Will said testily.

  ‘But Matt’s here.’

  ‘It’s an old photograph. From the summer.’

  ‘And it’s in the paper?’

  Even I, who found Matt hugely interesting, didn’t think the fact he’d been to a gay club last summer was newsworthy.

  ‘Yes, and he’s arm‐in‐arm with Shaikh Rashid.’

  ‘Shaikh Rashid the crown prince?’

  ‘Yes, what other one is there? Under the word “GAY” in pink neon lights.’

  ‘You’re joking…’

  ‘No, mum, I’m not… Why didn’t he tell us? Didn’t he think?’

  ‘Perhaps it doesn’t mean anything,’ I hazarded, although I didn’t really believe that.

  ‘They’re together, holding hands, practically. They’ve been to a gay club. I work for an Arab bank! Why doesn’t he ever think about anyone else?’

  ‘Hang on, Will…’

  ‘Everyone will know. I have to work in Saudi Arabia…’

  Will was so pompous sometimes. He’d never even been to Saudi Arabia.

  ‘And you’ll probably have to leave Hawar…’

  ‘I don’t see why.’

  ‘Then you’re stupid.’

  ‘Will… !’

  ‘Did you know Shaikh Rashid was gay? Of course not. No one did. It’s practically treason.’

  It was impossible to get him to calm down. He rang off, saying he was going to call Maddi and grumbling that I was a fool if I thought they’d let me stay here, knowing my son had been fucking the crown prince in a country where you couldn’t even utter the word ‘gay’. Will never normally uttered the word ‘fuck’, at least to me.

  I stared at the Quran letter for a few minutes, trying to get the sentences to stop swimming, then pushed away the keyboard, got up and went into Sue’s office.

  ‘Something’s happened, I’m afraid. I need to go out.’

  She looked up. ‘Anything I can do?’

  ‘No… thanks.’

  She said to take as long as I liked. I went out to the car, then drove across Qalhat in the clogged mid‐morning traffic. I had to queue to get into the car park outside the Hyatt, then I walked, sometimes breaking into a run, through the gate to the souk and up the crowded narrow streets. I tried not to push into people, but they all seemed to be dawdling, women in abayas drifting in front of me in annoying groups. I passed dusty shops bursting with white goods and electronics, merchandise spilling out of the doors. I cut down an alley riotous with cheap clothes into the gold souk where necklaces drizzled down the windows, gaudy and fake‐looking. I caught sight of Salman in Soft Hands tailors, and passed Sweety Sweets, which Matt used to say when he was small was the best possible name for a shop ever. Finally, out of breath and sweaty, I arrived at the offices of Palm Publishing at the northern end of the souk.

  I pushed through the door into the scruffy 1970s building and asked the Keralite on the desk to ring up to Matt’s extension.

  He wasn’t answering his phone.

  ‘Could you try someone else?… Doug Reed?’

  Doug was the only other person I knew at Palm Publishing. He’d been in Hawar almost as long as I had, although I didn’t know him well. The last time I’d had any real dealings with him, he’d been the chief reporter on the Hawar Daily News, trying to write a story about Dave’s accident. I probably hadn’t been very helpful and it hadn’t got anywhere. But he’d hired Matt. He might know where he was.

  ‘The general manager?’ asked the Keralite disapprovingly. ‘What is your good name?’

  He tried the number.

  A few minutes later, the lift pinged and Doug came out, a bulky Englishman of the overfed, oversunned and overboozed type. He indicated that we should move over to the waiting area. It was hardly more private, just a couple of easy chairs arranged on either side of a coffee table displaying Palm Publishing’s latest magazines, but it was at least out of earshot of reception.

  ‘Is Matthew OK?’ he asked in a low voice.

  ‘Oh… He hasn’t come in?’

  ‘No, not this morning… We saw the piece. On the internet. Someone alerted me first thing.’ He patted my shoulder awkwardly. ‘Probably keeping his head down.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Scoop right under our noses!’ he added, trying to make light of it. ‘Knew he was gay of course, but well… not about this.’

  ‘No, I don’t think anyone did.’ I bit my lip. ‘It might not be what it looks like, of course…’

  ‘Hmmn.’

  ‘Yes, well, anyway, sorry.’ I picked up my bag. ‘Umm, I’ll tell him… thanks for your time. I’ll tell him to come back.’

  ‘I’m sure he’s OK,’ he said in way that was meant to be reassuring, except that he was too rumpled and askew and juicy, somehow, to inspire confidence. ‘You tell him not to worry. Get back when he can. He’s a good lad.’

  I rang home but only got the answering machine. I tried his mobile for the umpteenth time, then stood in the shade of an overhanging balcony in the souk, beside bales of shiny material, and called Jodie.

  I thought of Matt’s smile, playful and lurking, as if he knew some secret joke he was considering sharing with you. He’d smiled like that even when he was a toddler, as though he was always spotting things that were irresistibly funny and had to struggle not to laugh.

  It turned out he wasn’t with Jodie. And she hadn’t heard about the photograph, so I had to explain about that as I pushed my way back down through the souk towards the car.

  ‘Oh God!’ she gasped, ‘I knew he was seeing someone, though he wouldn’t talk about it. I assumed he must’ve been married… Oh, poor Matt!’

  She didn’t have any idea where he could be. I made her promise to make him get in touch if he called her, then got back in the car and headed towards the Jidda Road, telling myself that sooner or later he’d have to come home. I shouldn’t panic. The fact he hadn’t turned up for work didn’t mean he was dead in an irrigation ditch following some hit‐and‐run accident on a back road, or that he’d been the victim of a fatal mugging in this country where no one was ever mugged. He hadn’t been murdered in what police would later discover was an expat feud over drugs and gambling. These were shameful prejudices, routes of thought and feeling I didn’t want to share.

  I was almost home when the phone rang. I snatched it up from the seat beside me, but it was a number I didn’t recognize.

  ‘Annie? It is Adel Al Buraidi. We met at the Horwoods’?’

  I’d sat next to him at dinner several weeks earlier. He was the latest in a long line of men to whom Antonia had introduced me, and one of the least suitable. He spoke English with a thick‐tongued Gulf accent and worked as an investment manager for the Al Majid. I don’t know what Antonia imagined we’d have in common. He told me he loved London, then went on to compare the relative merits of Claridges and the Savoy. I had never visited either, so after that we ran out of things to say.

  ‘I am calling to offer help.’

&nbs
p; Was this what happened? You got a phone call from someone you once sat next to at dinner, telling you to leave? And that was that? Twenty‐five years of your life, over in a phone call from someone who liked Claridges?

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘I am sorry about this business with your son.’

  Had they got Matthew already? What had they done with him? I had to stop panicking: I wasn’t even listening properly. In a minute he’d say something important and I’d miss it.

  ‘You may remember, I work for the Al Majid?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I have tried to explain that you are a good family.’

  I said nothing.

  ‘I’ve assured them this can still be managed.’

  ‘What does that mean? Where’s Matt?’

  ‘You don’t know?’

  ‘No! Do you?’

  ‘No,’ he admitted reluctantly.

  ‘What about Shaikh Rashid?’

  ‘I very much doubt he knows where your son is,’ he said, as if the matter were way beneath the notice of a crown prince, adding, ‘he has been in meetings all morning.’

  I thought, I bet he has.

  ‘I assume that when your son turns up, he will be thinking about leaving Hawar?’

  ‘You’d have to ask him that,’ I replied coldly, although I was encouraged that Al Buraidi thought Matt was alive. ‘Is that supposed to be a threat?’

  ‘In the eyes of many,’ Al Buraidi went on blandly, ‘the existence of that photograph already makes Shaikh Rashid unfit to rule. It is important he doesn’t have anything more to do with Matthew. If Matthew understands that – which I’m sure he does – he can stay a little while. Long enough to sort himself out. Say, to the end of January?’

  It was a threat. ‘And is that what Shaikh Rashid wants?’

  ‘You think I would be having this conversation with you if not?’ He laughed, although there was nothing funny. ‘The crown prince isn’t actually gay. No one wants this to end unpleasantly.’

  ‘I’ll have to find him first,’ I said shakily, and rang off before I started crying.

  We were all in service, I thought bitterly, as I waited at home all afternoon – me as much as the house maids and labourers in the corrugated sheds in the shanty towns on the edge of Qalhat. This was a feudal society. We all had our sponsors, and our sponsorship could be withdrawn. My life was comfortable, so I couldn’t always see it, but I was here to serve someone’s purposes and as soon as I stopped being useful, I could be got rid of. The locals made a big thing about it being part of their culture to look after old soldiers and retired retainers, to make sure people who had been faithful to them saw out their lives in comfort, and I’m sure as long as those people stayed loyal they did look after them with meticulous care. But if you were faithless, if you ceased to play by the family’s rules, then their obligations ceased. You could be cast out. And not to be part of a family was the worst thing that could possibly befall you.