by M S James
Copyright © 2020 M S James
The moral right of the author has been asserted.
Apart from any fair dealing for the purposes of research or private study, or criticism or review, as permitted under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, this publication may only be reproduced, stored or transmitted, in any form or by any means, with the prior permission in writing of the publishers, or in the case of reprographic reproduction in accordance with the terms of licences issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency. Enquiries concerning reproduction outside those terms should be sent to the publishers.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
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To Mike, Tom and, of course, Anna.
Contents
Getting There
The Riyadh Madrassa
The children
Friends
Entertainment
Festive Greetings
Back to Blighty
Home
Back in the Jug Agane
Gone with the wind
Hitting the buffers
The Majlis
Philip
Then there were two
Limbo
The Foundling
A Grecian interlude
Harsh words
Life goes on
The Foundling
Padua
The Foundling
Once more, once less…
Reunion
Happy ever after?
Epilogue
About the Author
Getting There
The visa office in the basement of the Saudi Embassy in Belgravia was heaving. People of all nationalities, but mainly Arabs, were stuffed into a smallish room, all waving pieces of paper towards the harassed women working behind a grille in the corner. No queue, just a maelstrom of people trying to get to the front. Occasionally someone behind the grille would bark out a name and hand out a passport with a visa stamped inside. Being a smallish woman, I thought my best tactic would be to squirm my way through to the grille. I handed in my completed form and passport and requested that it be posted back. ‘You will do that?’
‘Yes.’
‘You are sure it will be done quickly? I fly to Saudi very soon.’
‘Yes,’ she sighed, ‘no problem.’ I was to learn in the months ahead that ‘No Problem’ was a fobbing-off manoeuvre and a good reason to doubt that what was required would happen. I got my passport and visa back the following week but, because it was written in Arabic, I failed to notice that my two small children had not been included on the visa. Big Problem.
My husband, Philip, was already in Saudi working as an architect to build a massive shopping centre in Riyadh. His company were prepared to provide our airfares but could not get visas for the family. Or at least, they said they couldn’t. I think it was a cunning ploy to cut their costs by providing Philip with accommodation on a ‘bachelor’ rather than on a ‘family’ basis.
However, as luck would have it, I had noticed an advertisement in The Guardian for primary school teachers to teach in Riyadh, working in an Islamic school for expatriates. At that time, all Muslim expats had to send their children to a particular school run by an Egyptian couple and were forbidden from sending them to the highly respected British or American schools. I applied for a job stressing my suitability as an experienced teacher at all levels of primary-aged children and, in the following week, made my first visit to the Saudi Embassy for my interview. It was a mass interview with twenty or so teachers in the same room facing the owners of the Riyadh Madrassa. The interviewers fired off questions to the bemused applicants, none of whom had ever experienced this type of interview before.
‘Kate Thomas?’
‘Yes, that’s me.’ I waved cheerfully at them.
‘You are a primary school teacher? What do you teach?’
‘Well, everything. That’s what you do in British schools.’
‘What age children?’
‘All ages,’ I lied glibly. ‘At the moment I am a supply teacher.’ They looked puzzled.
‘What is that?’ I explained and the woman owner waved her hand dismissively. ‘We don’t use supply teachers.’
‘But I can teach any class all of the time!’ I replied before they had a chance to show me the door. The male owner was looking carefully at my application form.
‘I see your husband is already in Riyadh? His company will provide airfares to and from Saudi for you and will give you accommodation?’
‘Yes, but his company can’t provide visas for myself and our two children.’
Another dismissive hand from the woman. ‘No Problem. We can give you visas.’
‘For all of us? And can the children attend the Madrassa?’
‘No Problem.’ So that was it. They moved on to the other applicants whilst I pondered on my situation. Did I want to work for this outfit? Should I look a gift horse in the mouth? This job seemed to be the only way the whole family was going to be together. And perhaps it would all work out fine.
The following week the job offer arrived. I was to work in the primary sector of the Madrassa, the age of the children to be decided by the headmistress on my arrival, at a salary of 5,500 riyals per month. There would be a two-week break in February at the discretion of the headmistress. A visa application form was included.
So, it was all coming together. Philip told his company the good news that I had managed to get visas and that we would need to move into our own villa in a month’s time. Please could the air tickets be bought and sent to me? They professed themselves to be delighted but Philip was convinced that they now considered him to be a deceptively cunning, manipulative so-and-so.
In mid-September I arrived at the check-in for our Saudia flight, non-stop from London to Riyadh, with seven-year-old Jake and three-year-old Anna. Also with us was my mother who had come to see us off. It was my first ever flight so I was filled with a mixture of excitement and anxiety. The check-in was full of assorted Arabs and the odd expat. There were young men modelling themselves on Prince with fulsome curled hair, dark eyes and slim-fit jackets with sleeves artlessly rolled up to the elbow. They were all happy to congregate together, gleefully exchanging greetings. They ignored the queue, such as it was, and took themselves to the front.
‘You’re not in your country, yet!’ my mother told them. ‘We queue in England!’ They glanced at each other, smirked, but nevertheless sauntered back down the queue. It was a good job that she wasn’t coming with us. I’m not sure that she would have fitted in with Saudi sensibilities.
The plane taxied off to the doleful sounds of an Imam praying, I presume, that we would get to our destination, Allah willing. The flight was endless and very smoky. In the early ’80s plane passengers cheerfully puffed away with no regard for others. Anna took herself off to explore the plane. I didn’t worry since she
couldn’t wander far, although a steward did eventually ask me if she was mine and if I could stop her bothering the other passengers. The announcement, seven hours later, that we were about to descend into Riyadh brought about a huge flurry of black garments. My neighbours, a very pleasant Palestinian brother and sister, explained that the women had to cover themselves – heads, faces and bodies – before disembarking. The sister said she would only be putting on a headscarf but I would be OK since I was a Westerner. Well, that was a relief. After seven hours of trepidation, I didn’t feel up to coping with any trouble from the authorities. They said they would stay with me until I had found my husband in arrivals. Which was just as well.
After the baggage reclaim, all bags and suitcases had to be opened for inspection. Staff in long white thobes and red-and-white headdresses went through everything looking for anything suspicious. Quantities of alcohol were removed from hopelessly optimistic expats along with all their videos. My videos were taken too, to be examined, although I was told that I could collect them the following week if Bagpuss and Trumpton had been passed as non-seditious and without erotic content. I suppose some expats tried to smuggle in porn movies masquerading as natural history films.
The final hurdle was to get through security. My new friends asked if I was OK and assured me that it wouldn’t be long before I’d be with Philip. The security officer behind the desk looked at my passport, at my visa, at me, at the children and then announced that I would not be admitted into Saudi Arabia!
‘What are you talking about? Why ever not?’ I demanded.
He barked, ‘You have no visas for your children. You cannot come in.’ My Palestinian friends started to expostulate in Arabic with the security officer. After several minutes of shouting and arm waving he turned to me and said, ‘You should not come without the correct visas.’
‘If they are in Arabic, how am I supposed to check them?’ I replied. He shrugged, as if to say, ‘That’s your problem.’ The red mist descended and I said, ‘Right, if that’s your attitude, YOU keep them. I have a visa and I am going through to speak to my husband.’ I stomped off leaving my poor children in the care of one very irate security officer. Too exhausted by the whole farrago to think straight I entered Saudi in a blind rage. In the distance I could hear the security officer bellowing, ‘Madam, come back! Madam, madam! Come back!’
One of my new friends came over and said, ‘He says you can take them.’ With as much grace as I could muster I took the children and said, ‘Thank you. Shukran.’ He muttered something in Arabic, probably, ‘Wait ’til you try to take them out again…’ I had no idea that I had been unbelievably lucky to get away with it.
Living in Saudi proved to involve a steep learning curve. The heat! Although it was mid-September it was still hotter than anything I had ever experienced before. The dryness caused your nostrils to shrivel inside as you stepped out of the plane and I quickly learned to take a bottle of water everywhere. Our house was very pleasant but had no garden. On our street, in fact on most Riyadh streets, properties were bounded by high stuccoed walls with metal gates which clanged as people passed through. When the bell rang, we had no idea who was visiting. Between the villa and the high walls was a narrow dusty yard where a few oleanders and a bougainvillea struggled to survive. We were very fortunate that the ‘bachelor’ villa was next door to ours and had a small swimming pool which proved a godsend for the children. Immediately behind our house was a mosque from where the muezzin called the faithful to prayer five times a day. Very loudly. I am not sure if there was a real muezzin calling or whether it was a recording. The call to prayer was certainly broadcast through a loudspeaker, so loudly that you had to suspend conversation until it had finished. The Friday morning sermons were the worst. The Saudi week ran from Saturday to Friday, Friday being the Sabbath, the seventh day of the week (Sabah in Arabic) and the most important for religious worship.
On Friday, this being a day of rest for all expats, we gathered around the pool next door, plopping in occasionally and eating a communal brunch. Brunch was a new concept for me which combined breakfast with lunch and often afternoon tea as well. The children adored this easy access to a pool and soon became confident swimmers. However, we had to endure the Friday prayers sermon, a high-decibel eardrum-busting rant from the Imam over the wall. We had no idea what he was so angry about or who was the object of his tongue-lashing. If he had been able to see the totally immoral scenes of debauchery by our pool he would have gone into an apoplectic rage. Men and women, nearly naked! In mixed company! Our only saving grace was the lack of alcohol, which was difficult to obtain until we learned how to make it ourselves. Funnily enough, Philip and I hardly ever drank in England but being forbidden to do so brought out a hitherto undeveloped rebellious streak.
The villa was pleasantly furnished and bearably cool when the air conditioners were running. These were large metal boxes crudely inserted into the walls of each room with wiring best not examined too closely. They roared into life every fifteen minutes and chugged away until something switched them off. Then you had silence for about five minutes before they roared off again. This was fine during the day but at night, just as you were about to fall asleep, the bedroom conditioner stopped and woke you up and then, as you were dropping off again, would roar back into life. It was like sleeping with a tractor in the room. If you switched the machine off, the heat was suffocating. By September the house had been subjected to four months of fifty degrees’ ambient temperature every day. The walls were hot and radiated steadily day and night. We had a basic water heating system which comprised a ‘cold’ tank on the flat roof of the house and a water heater in the bathroom. The sun heated the cold tank on the roof until the water was too hot to touch. So we switched off the bathroom heater, using it as a supply of coldish, lukewarm water whilst hot water ran from the cold taps. This was fine until you flushed the loo; sitting on a toilet with scalding hot water beneath you was an unnerving sensation.
The street outside had little to commend it. Facing our villa was wasteground which was extensive enough to accommodate three or four more villas. But in every direction were high walls with the ubiquitous metal gates, giving no indication of what sort of houses were behind them. All house roofs, always flat, were decorated with water tanks and television aerials. I worked out a route to get to the supermarket on Airport Street, which was a twenty-minute walk away, but it was so hot that we were exhausted by the time we got there. If you waited until the sun went down it was suddenly dark. Twilight, it would seem, was a European phenomenon. One minute there was a massive glowing orb low down in the sky (which you could actually look at as there was so much dust in the air) and a minute later it was dark! So, entertaining the children was not easy. Philip worked all morning and was supposed to have an afternoon siesta before going back for another stint in the evening. As the shops had an afternoon break as well, he couldn’t help much with transport.
However, my most pressing problem was to find the Riyadh Madrassa and get a driver to take me there. Women were not allowed to drive cars and the bus service only covered the main routes. No one knew where the school was or had even heard of it. There was no address, since there were very few street names other than the main thoroughfare through central Riyadh, Airport Street, leading to the airport, and one or two other named streets. People found their way around the city by drawing maps. Every company or household had a post office box at the General Post Office where letters were deposited and collected on a daily basis. I had a PO box number for the school but that gave no indication of where the school was located. Eventually, someone in the office hazarded a guess that it was down towards the old part of Riyadh near the Mismak Fortress.
I then requested the use of a company driver. The Arabian Architectural Company (AAC) employed a number of drivers, either Eritrean or Filipino, who were, by and large, reluctant to ferry me and the children around town. I was to discover that getting a driver t
o actually turn up as arranged was a major triumph. The Arab and Eritrean drivers were the most intractable. They wouldn’t do you any favours unless you had the power to fire them (or at least, unless your husband had). They would casually agree to take you shopping or to school or down to the souk but not materialise when required. ‘Hammid [who was AAC No 1 driver, allegedly], please will you take me shopping after prayer time?’ ‘Insha’allah (If Allah wills it),’ he would reply. ‘Is that a yes or a no, Hammid?’
‘Insha’allah.’ Eventually I would try to pin him down. ‘Let’s assume, Hammid, that Allah is happy for you to drive me. Are you going to come to my house after prayer time?’ He would gaze heavenwards casting around for inspiration. He would smile, shake his head and involuntarily whisper, ‘Insha’allah.’
The Filipino drivers, or Fillies as they were commonly known, were much put-upon by nearly everybody. Filipinos worked in Saudi as accountants, technical support, cleaners and, mostly, as drivers. Some lived in squalid conditions and worked all hours that God sent. AAC housing for their Filipino staff was quite reasonable and located on the other side of the wasteground in front of our villa. The AAC drivers were Angelo and Efren who were more obliging than the others and didn’t need Allah to will their participation in the expedition. Efren was a tall, laconic chap who loped about using as little movement as possible. He smiled lazily if you talked to him but said little in response. However, I avoided asking for him since he thought nothing of hawking from the back of his throat and aiming a giant gob of phlegm through the open car window. Sometimes he scored a direct hit on a passing car. I was so annoyed by this activity (though it was much admired by Jake) that I asked Philip to ask him to stop. But it made no difference; he was probably amused by what he regarded as overrefined sensibilities.
