In a Kingdom by the Sea

by Sara MacDonald

  ‘Gabriella, this is my friend, Massima …’

  Massima is tall and elegant and I am surprised to see that her hair is very short. She is wearing tight jeans and a short-sleeved pale shirt, though she does have the ubiquitous dupatta draped across her shoulder.

  Raif shakes my hand warmly, mouths Sorry and quickly joins the men at the next table. Afia waves a waiter over and hands him a carrier bag with wine and tells him to open two bottles and bring six glasses.

  ‘We all need a glass of wine, immediately!’

  Afia’s Mancunian accent sounds so incongruous in this setting that I want to laugh. She is the most confident woman I have yet seen in Karachi. She is powering the room like a small dynamo. The men stop doing business and sit up and take notice of her.

  ‘Gabriella,’ she says, ‘I’ve been wanting to meet you ever since Michael said you were coming to Karachi. I’m so sorry we’re late. I was hoping to chat to you before the meal, but I’m sorry, I am going to have to join the men or I won’t know what is going on for tomorrow’s presentation. Massima is going to keep you company. I asked her especially: I know what these business dinners are like. We’ll catch up later. Yes?’

  Afia turns away, laughing, totally at ease in her beautiful blue-grey shalwar kameez and her long hair caught up in a slide. I watch the men at the next table smile and draw her into their conversation.

  I turn to Massima, who is rummaging in her bag for cigarettes. ‘I’m sorry, Massima, you seem to have got landed with me.’

  Massima gives me a curious, amused smile. ‘No, of course I have not. I am not involved with Afia’s business, I am sometimes her ideas woman and she asked me if I would like to come along and meet you …’ She blows smoke. ‘I wanted to see for myself the woman who would swap London for Pakistan. Afia says you are French? So, how are you finding Karachi?’

  ‘I’m half French. Fascinating.’

  ‘Really?’ She smiles. ‘Why? Most people can’t wait to leave.’

  I consider. ‘I guess it’s the excitement and the curiosity of living in a country and a culture different to my own. It’s all the possibilities that I suddenly have, despite being confined to a hotel. I’m not really sure why I feel this strange affinity with Pakistan, Massima, but I do.’

  Massima is watching me intently with her wide dark eyes.

  ‘I can’t go out to explore Karachi on my own, so in a short time I have become a voyeur. I watch families at the pool and the flow of lives passing through the hotel. I listen to the young waiters at the Shalimar. They tell me their stories and describe with such love and longing the beauty of North Pakistan and the places they were born.

  ‘They tell me about their homes and families in the Swat Valley. Of waterfalls and mountains and air so clean and cool it bites at the skin. I can’t always understand these homesick young men but I can go and look up the remote places of their birth. Places I have never heard of, villages that are not even on a map. I haven’t been able to explore anywhere yet, but I am discovering the beauty of Pakistan by proxy, as well as your wonderful capacity for friendship … so yes, I love being in Karachi.’

  Massima smiles and it changes her whole face. ‘Wow. We are so used to the world seeing us for only bad things, it makes me happy that you choose to be here.’ She pours us both a glass of white wine. ‘But, how can you bear to be so restricted? You can never go anywhere on your own. You can never leave the hotel without security. Afia and I, we were wondering if we would be allowed to take you out into the city with us. I know that we would have to be careful where we went. Things happen without warning here.’

  ‘I do go out of the hotel with friends. Birjees and Shahid Ali. Do you know them?’

  Massima nods. ‘Yes, I have met them but Afia knows them better than I do.’

  ‘I’d like very much to go out with you and Afia, Massima. Things can happen anywhere. Here, London, any city. Mike feels the same. We both want to see as much of Pakistan as we can.’

  ‘Good. That is settled, then. Afia and I will take you out to explore the Karachi that gets hidden under the violence. We will show you the creative, ordinary lives we all lead that don’t make the news …’

  ‘I can’t wait.’ We grin at each other and raise our wine glasses.

  Massima looks at her watch. ‘Let’s eat, Gabriella. It’s getting late. They could be talking for hours. They will organize their food themselves at the other table.’

  I let Massima order for me and tempting little dishes appear as we sit talking. I ask her about her life.

  ‘I run a gallery and small café in Clifton, near the Mohatta Palace. I exhibit paintings and textiles from all over Pakistan. I am happy, but I am a disappointment to my mother. I am unmarried and I wear western clothes. I try to make up for this by wearing a dupatta around my head as I leave the house, but … you know, she worries that I make myself vulnerable …’

  ‘Do you?’ I ask.

  ‘I am careful where I wear western clothes. I can wear them in the gallery, though I often wear a shalwar kameez to show off my textiles. I wear western clothes for business travel but then I must remember to cover my head before I arrive at many destinations. Lahore is not as relaxed as Karachi or Islamabad … I would never go to rural areas in western clothes or get out of my car uncovered if there was an accident, but you know, a large dupatta, it is indispensable …’

  ‘And beautiful.’

  Massima looks at me quizzically. ‘What age did you get married, Gabriella?’

  ‘I was twenty-two.’

  ‘I am already thirty-three. So you see why my mother is worried.’

  ‘Do you want to be married?’

  Massima lights up another cigarette and sighs. ‘I do not want to stop working. I have got a degree in fine arts and I have just finished a PhD in textiles. I love running my own business; I love exhibiting new talent. If I were married I would have to defer to my husband. He would decide whether he would allow me to work. Men of my class do not like their women to work. They want to be greeted at the door as they come home by a woman in a beautiful shalwar kameez, who has done nothing all day but prepare herself for them …’

  I laugh, horrified, not quite believing this. Then I remember what Birjees had said about all the young men manning the clothes shops.

  ‘But your parents haven’t made you marry someone of their choice?’

  ‘No. They are proud of what I have achieved. They know I need to use my brain or I would go mad. They would not force me to marry someone I was not happy with …’

  ‘If you fell in love with someone, would they accept your choice?’

  A look of such desolation crosses Massima’s face I wish I had not asked.

  After a moment, she says, ‘I was once in love with someone I worked with, not of my parents’ choosing, but they liked him.’ She looks down at her hands. ‘When he asked to marry me, my family, they were happy to accept him. Then, he took me to meet his family. It was a shock when I realized he had not told them anything about me. They would not hear of our marriage. I was working with Afia in advertising at the time and they told me I was not in a respectable profession … I worked too closely with men. I had access to the media … They refused to accept me. I was too western.’

  She pauses and takes a deep breath. ‘This man I loved and thought I knew, he blindly accepted his parents’ wishes. He drove me home that evening without speaking one word to me. He did not make the smallest fight for me. We had worked together and been close for three years and I never saw or heard from him again. Four months later he married a newly qualified doctor. She never practised her profession. She was the perfect stay-at-home wife.’

  I shiver in the air-conditioning. ‘Oh … Massima, I am so sorry.’

  She stares at me bleakly. ‘I had a breakdown. I could not work. I ended up in hospital. My parents were so good, so kind. They wept. They swore that whatever I wanted in my life they would support me. They still do. Now, I have to make sure I never hurt th
em with the choices I make.’ She gives a small shrug. ‘My story happens over and over again to many women. It is not unusual, Gabriella.’

  Few happy endings. I reach for her hand and she holds onto it.

  ‘My friends call me Gabby,’ I tell her.

  ‘Gabby,’ she says softly and smiles. We sit holding hands, knowing, in the way one instinctively does, that this is a friendship that transcends an age gap or borders, a friendship that is going to last.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  Karachi, 2010

  One afternoon I fall asleep on my bed and I have such a vivid dream of crabbing with my father that when I wake I can smell his tobacco. I can feel the rough wood of his blue-painted boat under my fingers. I can feel the roll of the sea under us and the salt wind on my face …

  Papa kept his crab pots off Porthlea Point. If the weather forecast was good he would sometimes take me out in the boat to check them with him. The currents around the point were notoriously unpredictable. Sudden vicious onshore winds could blow boats straight onto the rocks. Dominique and I used to watch small yachts and kayakers get into trouble there, lulled into a false sense of security on a balmy, aquamarine day.

  I would sit in the back of the boat out of the way of the pots and fishing gear as we chugged out of calm water heading for the rippling navy blue of the headland. I would feel a mixture of awe and trepidation as the boat bucked and slapped and splattered me with seawater as we neared the point. Waves crashed and thundered over the rocks in a great spume of frothy spray. Below the cliff in the lee of the land, cormorants held out their black angel wings to dry like frozen sentinels.

  I would grip the side of the boat as it hit rough water. Papa would smile and sing something jaunty as we headed straight for the first crab pot tied to the white buoy nearest to the rocks. We’ll do the trickiest pot first, my bird … Take the tiller, hold the boat steady for me, that’s perfect …

  This was the scary bit. Papa leaning out to grab the crab pot and haul it slowly aboard the boat as the sea rolled cold and fast and relentless underneath us. I would concentrate all my weight on keeping the tiller straight, wondering how he managed without me.

  If there were crabs in the pot Papa would exclaim with pleasure. If there were not he would grunt and lower the crab pot back into the sea. He would tip the crabs into a big plastic fishing box; sometimes they tried to crawl out and I would feel sorry for them.

  When we had methodically checked all the crab pots we would head into Priest’s Cove and have our breakfast. Papa would boil the kettle for tea and sometimes he would smoke. Don’t tell Maman … he would say, making a face at me. I would grin and eat my egg sandwiches and drink my orange juice, glad I had come, even though I had to get up in the dark.

  I would look up at the cliffs and see early walkers looking down and taking photos of us as they moved in a steady rhythm along the coastal path behind the ferns and brambles.

  In Priest’s Cove the sea rolled gently past the boat, sometimes the darkest green, sometimes as blue as the Aegean. Occasionally, I would jump off the boat into the water and Papa would have to haul me back up.

  He always kept an eye on the weather and one day he called out suddenly for me to put the picnic away and do up my life jacket. I caught his sense of urgency and looked up and saw the huge, angry bruise of a cloud collecting and gathering in the distance over the headland.

  Papa started up the motor and turned swiftly and headed out of the cove, keeping well away from the black teeth of the rocks. The sun had vanished and there was just this ominous cumulus blotting out the land and turning the world black.

  Papa sat beside me holding the tiller, his bulk comforting. It’s going to get a bit bouncy, he said, as he clipped me to him. He had never done that before and I felt a ripple of fear.

  I wish Dom were here, I whispered. My sister was not afraid of the sea, or if she was she never showed it. If the weather got rough she always kept her arm tightly around me.

  So do I, sweetie. The wind snatched Papa’s words away. Don’t be scared. This boat is as safe as a house. It can navigate deep waters and seas much rougher than this. Look, she’s steady as a rock …

  Out of the corner of my eye I saw a gigantic wave heaving up and rolling in at speed towards us. Papa turned into it so it didn’t catch us broadside and I screamed as it crashed over us. Papa had pulled me between him and the tiller and he kept talking, talking, talking to me as we plunged down into a trough and were thrown up again high on the edge of a wave as if we were flying.

  He made it into a game. Hold tight, Gabby … We’re nearly clear of the point now … Look, look, calm water, ahead.

  Suddenly we were out of the vicious cross-current and into the lee of the land and the waves eased as if by magic. The squall had passed us. I turned and looked behind us and saw huge waves behind us barrelling straight into the cove where we had been. I looked at Papa.

  That’s why we had to get out of the cove so fast?

  That’s why.

  How did you know, Papa?

  I saw weather coming in. The wind suddenly swung round against the tide and that makes the currents even more treacherous and causes those waves.

  We sat in the silence of calm water and the sun came out and lit up the inside of the waves as if they were lit by night-lights. I wondered how the sea could be so terrifying and beautiful all at once.

  Papa said, as if he knew what I was thinking, Nature’s unpredictable. Freak weather happens. Respect the sea and listen to its moods and never underestimate it.

  I think you should have been a fisherman, you love the sea so much.

  Papa shakes his head. No, my bird. I am in awe of the sea. I watched my grandfather and my father battle to make a living from it. It’s in my blood, but I didn’t want to live that life. It’s hard and cruel and relentless …

  He paused. The sea took my dad and my grandfather. My poor mother lost both husband and father. The sea takes away as much as it gives.

  Nana died when I was only two. I don’t remember her at all. Dominique and I never had grandparents. We thought it was tragic.

  How utterly tragic, I said.

  For some reason Papa found this funny. He threw back his head and laughed.

  What would I do without you? he said.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  Karachi, 2010

  Shahid rings, sounding happy. ‘My uncles, they have taken off for Lahore for a few days so we are able to have a little celebration with our friends before Mike and I leave for Islamabad. Are you free to come out to a new, highly recommended restaurant tonight, Gabriella?’

  ‘Hang on, Shahid, I will just check my diary …’

  He laughs. ‘We will meet as usual in the Cinnamon Lounge at eight o’clock.’

  When the lift doors open that evening I am amused to see Birjees and Shahid standing beaming like Cheshire cats. ‘You look like two children let out of school,’ I joke.

  ‘This reprieve makes us very childlike with happiness,’ Shahid says.

  I am wearing the beautiful blue shalwar kameez Birjees gave me when I arrived. She holds me away and looks delighted.

  ‘It fits perfectly. How pretty you look, Gabby.’

  ‘It’s my favourite colour. I love it, Birjees.’

  I admire her shalwar kameez. Soft blue swirls that are almost silver. It looks delicious against her long dark hair.

  ‘Beautiful,’ I say.

  ‘New,’ she says proudly.

  ‘I will bring the car round,’ Shahid tells Mike, who is looking restless.

  We join the teeming traffic into the city. The driving seems manic tonight, but it might be because I have not been out of the hotel for a while. Shahid is a cautious driver, especially at night, and he grumbles softly into his moustache as lorries and motorcycles seem intent on barging us into oncoming traffic. Birjees, sitting in the back next to me, cannot help issuing the occasional sharp instruction to bear left or right, which irritates the usually plac
id Shahid.

  ‘Do you drive, Birjees?’ he mutters into the driving mirror and I see Mike grin.

  It is with relief we reach our destination. I can feel my spirits rising. It is a joy to be out of the hotel and in the middle of a city intent on enjoying itself. As if she has caught my sudden lightness of mood, Birjees takes my arm. ‘This is nice,’ she says. We both laugh, happy to be together as we turn down another little side street. This end of the street is dark but ahead are doorways with twinkling lights and I can see the illuminated sign for the Chinese restaurant we are heading for. We pass a small piece of wasteland where cars are parked and I catch a movement to my right against a wall. It is a small beggar boy on crutches lingering on his own in the dark. For a second his eyes meet mine and the appeal in them is searing.

  Shahid’s phone rings and he calls out to Birjees that it is their son and she hurries to catch him up. Michael is ahead, striding to the restaurant. I know that gangs send out child beggars, I know this, but I cannot tear my eyes away from this pleading child. Without taking my eyes from him I feel down into my bag and pull a rupee note free.

  In a tiny, imperceptible movement, as I pass him, I let my fingers drop by his hand. In a flash the note is plucked from me. In a second, child beggars swoop down on me from the darkness. They leap out of the shadows, from behind the wall and doorways. They are everywhere and I am surrounded and pushed back into the wasteland. I am terrified.

  I hear Shahid and Mike yelling and pushing their way towards me. It lasts moments, the children vanish as fast as they came, but I am shaken. Mike hangs onto me, visibly shocked. ‘Gabby, are you okay?’ I nod.

  Birjees and Shahid hurry me up the stairs of the Chinese restaurant and I collapse gratefully at our table.

  ‘Sorry,’ I say, shakily. ‘That was stupid.’

  ‘I shouldn’t have walked ahead,’ Mike says.

  ‘We should not have been distracted by our son who has to phone his mother to know how to heat a curry …’ Shahid says crossly. ‘You must harden your heart, Gabby,’ he says more gently to me. ‘There are other ways of helping these children …’ He smiles. ‘It is probably one of those times when you could do with an alcoholic drink?’