‘We miss you, Mum, a lot.’
‘You will take care? You will stay safe?’ they call anxiously.
‘Of course, I will. Don’t worry about me. What on earth can happen in a five-star hotel? Go … have a lovely evening. You both stay safe …’
‘Say hi to Dad.’
‘I will.’
Love you. Love you too. Love you. Love you too.
And they are gone. The air hums in the silent room. I touch my screen where they had been as if to keep them close.
I hear Mike’s card in the door and he rushes in pulling his tie off.
‘Oh good, you’re ready. Well done. I’m going to jump in the shower. I’ll be ten minutes. Noor is waiting outside …’
‘You just missed the boys. They Skyped me.’
Mike stops. ‘Oh, that’s a pity. Tell me about it in the car …’
Noor seems nervous as he drives us to the residence of the Deputy High Commissioner. It is the first time I have seen him in a driver’s hat with PAA crest.
Mike leans forward. ‘You have got your security pass, Noor?’
‘Yes, boss, I have it safe inside my pocket.’
We turn into a wide tree-lined road of embassies and I understand Noor’s nervousness. There are numerous security checks and he has to keep producing his papers at every one. We drive on within a large guarded compound of beautiful residences with sweeping lawns, immaculately kept. Huge trees cast shade over the grounds and there is a sensation of time standing still.
There is a little deputation waiting at the corner of the next road. A tented arbour has been erected and civil servants with pin boards and lists are ticking off visitors as they get out of their cars and go through the arbour and on through a gate.
Beautifully dressed Pakistanis are flocking from their chauffeured cars. Civil servants, diplomats, men in uniform are all being checked. My handbag is taken and rifled through and then we are walking down a path through some beautiful gardens dripping with purple bougainvillea to a wide front door.
In the hall the British Deputy High Commissioner is standing greeting his guests bedecked in a black flowing shalwar kameez and curled and bejewelled Arab slippers. He has a little jewelled cap on his head just to top things off.
‘Grief,’ Mike mutters. As I stand transfixed, I meet the amused eyes of a large man also gazing with wonder at the small diplomat gone native. Smiling delightedly, this large man takes two glasses of wine from a passing waiter and makes his way towards us.
‘How splendid!’ he whispers. ‘I expect tweed and moustache at British High Commission and I find camp, curly slippers. Hello, I am Sergei Orlov. You must be Gabriella?’
Mike laughs. ‘Good evening, Sergei …’ He turns to me. ‘Sergei is the charismatic but quite mad Russian head of the International Development and Relief Agency. IDARA for short …’
Sergei hands me one of his glasses of wine. ‘One is for you and one is for me. Go away, Michael, I am going to pinch your wife and find a seat to perch on. I cannot do this English small talk thing and balance glass and food at the same time. It is uncivilized. Come, lovely Frenchwoman, follow me …’
Mike grins. ‘Good luck! I’ll be back …’ Then he disappears into a crowd of people.
Sergei Orlov is six foot three, a bear of a man with beautiful dark eyes and a sensuous mouth. He stands out in an eclectic crowd of people on their best behaviour. He is irreverent and funny and he flirts outrageously, with everyone. I catch myself laughing my head off, something I have not done since I arrived in Pakistan.
Sergei is popular; Pakistani ex-diplomats of the old school, with impeccable manners and English accents, wander up to joke with him.
In a lull we start to talk about Sergei’s work and Pakistani politics. When he realizes I am interested, and not merely being polite, he stops being flippant and talks with passion about the welfare of children and what he hopes to achieve during his time in Pakistan. He explains that IDARA and Unicef are both working on a programme with local government agencies to try to help eradicate child labour, especially in the cotton fields, where it has long-term health problems for young children. They are financially encouraging parents to send their children to school so that they can get an education and eventually help support their families.
‘The reality is that parents can earn more money putting their children to work in the cotton fields than accepting a few rupees from the government to send them to school. Teachers who are employed in rural areas know this, they take their pay cheque from the government each month but in reality they often shut up the schools and disappear …’
‘No one checks?’
‘Who will keep a check on schools in very remote areas? You know, Gabriella, illiterate parents living in the hills and mountains have no idea how to even register their children. Most consider an education a complete waste of time because there are no jobs to be had in Pakistan anyway.’
‘But, without any education those children will never have a voice.’
‘Exactly!’ Sergei sighs, adeptly sneaking another two glasses of wine from a passing waiter. ‘We have to give them hope for change.’
Mike waves from the other side of the room. Sergei says, suddenly, ‘Gabriella, would you be interested in doing some work for IDARA? My department is short of people with proficient written English to write up case histories. If you had a few hours free, I could do with some help.’
I stare at him. ‘Really? Do you mean it?’
‘I would not ask if I did not mean it. I think Michael said you were a linguist?’
‘I’m a translator, I speak most European languages, but I’ve only just begun to learn Urdu.’
Sergei smiles at me. ‘You would be perfect, Gabriella. My social workers travel long distances and keeping up with the paperwork is a nightmare.’
I can feel excitement barrelling up inside me. ‘I would love to help.’
Sergei takes my hand. ‘Good. I am about to go home on leave but I will be in touch when I return.’ He raises my hand to his lips. ‘Thank you for your company, tonight. I have much enjoyed meeting you.’
‘Thank you.’ I smile. Sergei Orlov has forgotten to let go of my hand. ‘Mike would have probably left me hugging a wall …’
Mike has made it across the crowded room. Sergei smiles back. ‘How foolish of Michael.’
‘I’ll have my wife back now, Sergei,’ Mike says, amiably. ‘I’m ready for home.’
‘Do you deserve her back?’ Sergei says lightly. Does he like Mike, I wonder?
Mike laughs. ‘Possibly not, but I think you’ll find she wants to come.’
I laugh too. ‘I am here, you know!’ And the moment passes.
As we work our way out into the grounds to find Noor and our car, I hug my little secret of doing something useful like a precious gift. Sergei was fun and I learnt a little of the work NGOs do in Pakistan.
‘You’re smiling,’ Mike says.
‘I had a very interesting evening. Did you?’
‘It was okay. Good for a bit of networking. I’m glad you had a nice time with the eccentric Russian.’ Mike gets out his phone and starts scrolling.
I look out of the car window at the beautiful people getting into their limousines. I have enjoyed being out of the hotel, even with a disappearing husband. I’ve laughed and had a good time and a large Russian has put unthought-of possibilities my way.
Mike looks up from his phone and out of the window. I follow his gaze. There are three women about to get into a chauffeur-driven car. They are all lovely but only one is wearing a hijab.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Karachi, 2010
Hi Dom, I hope all is well? You haven’t emailed for a while. I guess you’re busy getting ready for your trip to New York to see the girls. I think of you when I’m sitting by the pool in the walled garden of the hotel. You would love the peace. There is no one but the birds, the chipmunks and greedy crows to disturb me. I miss you. Hope you’re not still cro
ss with me for coming out here … Lots of love, G xxx
I wrap myself in a sarong and lie on the bed in the cool. The air-conditioner hums. I feel hot and claustrophobic. I close my eyes and conjure the sound of the sea. I will take myself back to Cornwall. I will start on the coastal path at the bottom of the road by the café and head left for Porthlea Point. It starts as a wide track past the faded little bungalow, past the big glassy monstrosity built by an incomer who keeps planting trees that will not grow.
The track narrows by a little rocky beach hidden by tamarisk trees. I carry on up through the fields, over stiles and steep granite steps covered in nettles. The hedgerows are smothered in coarse yellow gorse. The hawthorn is bursting out all over, making my eyes sting, but it means spring is here and I do not care.
I count the stiles, the kissing gates, jump the muddy bits by the stream, climb the steep, stony hill path where I always slip and slide. I pause to take a breath and look up at the castle on the hill. Dominique and I used to make up ghost stories about the castle to frighten each other.
Below the castle lies Forbidden Beach. The entrance is through a long hawthorn tunnel full of brambles and nettles. It is hidden, only locals know how to reach it. The tunnel twists and bends and ends up down on the rocks. Then, it is just a short clamber down steep, slate rocks to the little sheltered shingle beach.
Dominique and I were forbidden to go there on our own. We liked to swim in the warm pools made between the rocks, but unless it was flat calm the waves were deceptive and could sweep in with swift deadliness over the rocks, sweeping all away.
The hawthorn tunnel was the only way down to the beach. Once the tide was in and the rocks submerged you were trapped between the sea and the cliffs. I never went down on my own but if Dominique and I were together she could never resist that beach.
I bend into the tunnel trying not to get scratched and stung. I can smell the animal smell of wet earth, of fox, of pungent undergrowth and the tang of seweragy seaweed. I emerge triumphant into sunlight that dazzles and sparks the sea as if a thousand silver fish were jumping. I take off my sandals and feel the sensuous heat of warm slate under my bare feet.
I clamber down to the beach and sit on the coarse sand of seashells. The shadows of clouds pass across the surface of the sea like mood swings; aquamarine, navy, green and grey.
In the heavy silence of an empty room in Karachi I breathe in and out, in and out. Does hope always override common sense? Mike appears consumed by work and the need to succeed at all costs. He seems constantly exhausted and tense and I am trying to be silently supportive as he is clearly under stress. He is not moody or unpleasant; he is merely detached and distant. He’s not the mercurial Mike I know. I could handle that.
He is as unreachable as if he has hidden himself behind a wall of glass. He is solicitous for my welfare, but he has placed me carefully on the other side of that wall where the sound of me is muted. Here I am, like some symbol or emblem of normality, but muffled, so that I do not impinge on his working life. Being isolated in a Karachi hotel does not make me feel lonely. Mike does.
I believed he meant it when he said he needed me out here; that he disliked what working in Pakistan was doing to him. His neglect feels a small betrayal. He has not kept to his words of love and a wish to be closer. But I only have myself to blame; I was restless in London, unsettled, unmoored. In a small act of sabotage I was only too ready to change my life for his. In my heart I knew I was taking a gamble. If my adventure is lonelier than I envisaged, it is still an adventure I want to have.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Karachi, June 2010
The weeks pass. My days in Karachi are slipping into a routine. Time here drifts in the heat like a dream. Not quite real. The days have a gentle synchronicity. Each morning I will emerge from the lift and my shalwar kameez of the day will be scrutinized and admired by Rana or the waiters.
‘Oh, Mrs Michael, the blue it is your colour,’ Rana says today as she accompanies me across the foyer.
‘Very nice shalwar kameez, mem,’ Naseem murmurs shyly as I choose my breakfast.
‘Bad men blow up clinic, downtown,’ Zakawi tells me, gloomily, shaking his head as he lays out my towels on the lounger.
After breakfast, I will translate ten pages of Isabella’s book and then I will reward myself with a swim. There is a business conference in the hotel today and men in waistcoats and baggy trousers come out to smoke, but mostly they stay in the cool air-conditioning and hardly notice a western woman tucked into the shade of trees.
When the garden is empty I lower myself into the cool water under the gaze of a little pink pigeon. I float on my back and squint through dark glasses at a kite directly above me, huge wings stretched like a dark shadow across the sky as he floats on a thermal of air. It is very hot today; I need to go inside before the fierce heat of midday. Yet the feeling of water is so freeing that I stay submerged.
The gardener with his orange hair and beard has departed before the heat sizzles the grass. Where shall I go today? Shall I go to the Cinnamon Lounge or the roof café or ask Naseem to bring me soup or a sandwich to my room?
I turn in a circle and look around the empty garden, as a bird scuttles with a cry into the ivy on the wall. All is still and strange and beautiful. A haunting line of a poem snatches at me … echoes … a rose garden at dusk …
Burnt Norton. I am a child, back near the camellia tree, reading T.S. Eliot out loud in the garden at home; drawn to the melancholy music of the words long before they had meaning for me.
After lunch in my room I lie in the cool of my bedroom and listen to The Archers online. It feels incongruous, deliciously bizarre and as comforting as toast.
I am checking work emails before going back down to the garden when Birjees rings.
‘How are you, Gabriella? Are you staying well? I worry about you in that hotel on your own …’
I laugh. ‘Dear Birjees, how can I be alone in a hotel? Please don’t worry about me, I’m fine.’
Birjees laughs. ‘Oh, you British, you will always say you are fine, even if you are not fine. How are Shahid and I to know? He asks Michael how you are and Michael says, “Fine, Shahid. She is fine …” Shahid, he tells me, “Gabriella, she is fine. Everything is fine, Birjees.” Why are you laughing, Gabriella?’
‘It’s so lovely to hear you,’ I say. ‘How are the uncles?’
Birjees snorts. ‘They eat a great deal. I am always cooking and my house is very full of people … but you know, all is …’
‘Fine?’
She laughs. ‘It is. I am very lucky to have family and a full house. I feel better now I have heard your voice, Gabriella. Shahid and Michael, they are working long hours so I worry about your loneliness. It is not the same as being alone.’
‘I know. I promise you I’m not lonely, Birjees,’ I lie. ‘I work in the mornings and in the afternoons I read wonderful books and eat cakes in the Cinnamon Lounge. I am becoming spoilt and indulged, not to say, fat …’
‘Not you, Gabriella,’ she says. ‘I miss seeing you. Inshallah, soon we can spend time together again …’
When the heat has gone I go back down to the pool. In the basement corridor Hashim’s bookshop is closed. Shadows are crossing the garden, the glare has gone, the colours are softer; the atmosphere in the late afternoons is different. Families with small children arrive, spreading themselves by the shallow pool steps, filling the loungers; keeping Zakawi busy.
I sit in the shade of the trees by the wall and watch the young mothers. Pakistani women do not show any flesh. Pakistani women do not swim. In the late afternoon teenage girls occasionally get into the pool in a kind of wetsuit, but wives and young mothers do not. In the early evenings when the day has cooled they sit passively in the shade watching their children and husbands enjoying themselves in the water. Ayahs, wrapped and veiled against the sun, watch over small children, crouching on their haunches on the steps of the pool as the hems of their shalwar kameez or s
aris trail in the water.
These bored mothers talk endlessly into their mobile phones, neither reading nor much interested in family fun that excludes them. I wonder how they can bear not to jump in the water to play with their children.
Until I came to Pakistan I never thought of swimming as a privilege. Now I do. Each time I enter the pool there is a joy in knowing how precious this simple act of immersion is. Water soothes and cradles me and I revel in the suspended feeling of my body. I find it almost unbearable that healthy young women are not allowed to stretch their limbs, to experience the innocent pleasure of water holding them light and free.
I sit in the beauty and tranquillity of the fading day and read my stories of Pakistani life, of the fictional lives and fate of women both wealthy and poor. A huge red sun begins to fill the sky and I know there will be few happy endings in these tales, only an inevitability I am beginning to recognize; a pattern of living I am slowly learning the shape of.
As the sky catches fire and orange flames bleed across the sky, as herbs and the scent of jasmine fill the air, I watch the women who cannot swim and I treasure these moments on the edge of another world by a swimming pool in Karachi.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
Karachi, 2010
One afternoon, when the heat has driven me inside, I am ruffling through my little jewellery box and I find Dominique’s tarnished silver bracelet, the one she left behind for me when Maman sent her away. It nestles in the bottom of the box amongst single earrings. The sight of it still makes my heart contract with loss. I lift it out, faded and childish and precious, and slide it on my wrist
A memory of that day shivers inside me like a note of a song, an endless threnody for a lost sister, a sorrow that recedes but never fades.
The bracelet was a present to Dominique from Maman and Papa on her fourteenth birthday. It was the same day she was crowned May Queen in St Ives.
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