The Place That Didn't Exist

by Mark Watson

  ‘The parents are saying it was foul play, you know. As I suppose you would. Whereas the – the Dubai people . . .’

  The events were entertainment to everyone but those involved; they were no more real than the mocked-up rural murders the Callaghans would sit down to watch that Sunday evening.

  ‘They’re saying that it’s all the fault of the Western world,’ his mother went on. ‘I think it’s a bit of a cheek, personally. I mean, I personally would rather live in a country where a woman can walk down the—’

  ‘I’d better – I’d better get back to work, Mum,’ said Tim.

  ‘Oh. Yes. All right. I’m sure you’re busy.’

  He felt the gut-guilt at her change of tone.

  ‘You’ll be careful out there, won’t you? And will you come and see us as soon as you’re back?’

  ‘Of course I will.’

  Outside the WorldWise sliding doors, Tim hesitated: an argument was in progress. He could hear Jo and Ruth’s raised voices cutting across one another.

  ‘So, right, we have the resources for that, but not for—?’ he heard Ruth say, sarcastically.

  ‘We have to do whatever he says,’ Jo interrupted. ‘And if you don’t like that, Ruth . . .’

  ‘Bit of trouble in paradise!’ said a voice close to Tim, and Tim jumped, feeling he’d been caught snooping – though snooping on something that was, after all, his business. The jaunty platitude made him expect for a moment to see Adam, the reporter. But the man standing there had heavy black-rimmed glasses and a crew cut. He had come from the office opposite WorldWise’s: its opaque doors bore the words ALTERNATIVE ENERGIES. He raised an inquisitive eyebrow.

  ‘You working with that lot?’

  ‘Yes. I mean, just for a few days. Doing an ad to raise money.’

  ‘Fun and games in there, is it, since all that business happened?’

  ‘It’s a bit intense,’ Tim agreed. ‘Makes me wish I was working on solar panels.’

  ‘You what, mate?’

  ‘Oh.’ Tim sighed inwardly at his ongoing struggle with small talk. ‘Just, I assumed you worked for Alternative Energies.’

  ‘Ah.’ The man twinkled amused comprehension. ‘I do, but it’s not an energy company. It’s your nips and your tucks.’

  ‘Plastic surgery?’

  ‘We call it cosmetic surgery more nowadays. What we do: we do bespoke trips. People come over from the UK, they have a holiday, they get implants at the same time. Get the boobs done, or the lipo. And then, a lot of Dubai girls trying to get skin-lightening prescriptions and that. Which, being as it’s a free zone, there are obviously restrictions, but we find ways round.’

  Tim tried to pick what he could from this speech. ‘Why . . . so why are you called Alternative Energies?’

  The surgery salesman spread his arms in cheerful helplessness. ‘Couldn’t tell you, mate. Sounds good, I suppose.’

  After the man had gone, Tim stood gazing out over the city: the knife-topped towers, the bored sun, and the encampments of construction yellow. Along the Sheikh Zayed Road, which he’d been driven along only days before, new people were being ushered in, new people every moment, chasing whatever it was they had heard was here.

  As soon as Tim entered, Christian grabbed his arm like an over-keen holiday rep and steered him to the conference table where the rest of the team were already sitting. ‘Right, that’s everyone! We’re ready to rock and roll!’

  But there was little sense of rock and roll around the table. A humidity of spent words hung in the air. Jo was shaking her head slowly in apparent grievance; Ruth’s mane of hair sloped wearily over her shoulders; Bradley stared down at the table. Miles’s chicken-drumstick arms were folded defensively. Only Christian seemed his usual self. If anything, with his top button undone and his eyes blazing from a face framed with a little more stubble, he was more like himself than ever.

  ‘Things have been tough, obviously,’ said Christian. ‘But I want you to remember what we’re fighting for here. For people’s lives.’ There it was again, Tim thought: the statesmanlike energy, the showy gleam of his phrases. ‘We’re going to get this project back on track today. We’ve got this afternoon and tomorrow at the golf club and then we’ve still got more filming days if we need them. We can do this, guys.’

  On the way down to the cars, Roper put his hand on Tim’s arm again. ‘Can I ask you about something?’

  Tim thought of Jo with an inner lurch of panic. ‘Of course.’

  ‘Have you had a chance to think about tinkering with the script?’

  ‘Ah.’ Tim exhaled. ‘Yes. I thought, instead of “send money straight to where it makes a difference”, we could just say something like “you can join the fight against poverty”.’

  He’d made it up on the spot, and it sounded laughably vague, but Christian was nodding with satisfaction like a connoisseur rolling a wine around his palate. ‘Join the fight. Join the fight. Yes. That’s great, Tim. Really great.’

  The WorldWise vehicle collected them, as ever, a few paces from the entrance to the Centrepiece, and picked its way horizontally across five lanes of traffic. Hip-hop was playing on the radio; almost every other word was blanked out, so it sounded as if the recording artist had a severe case of hiccups. The driver glided into a new lane under a hailstorm of horns; nobody flinched. Tim looked at the shooting schedule. Everything with the project was still going ahead, as Christian had been so keen to stress.

  At the golf club, security melted away with a couple of words from the Fixer, as usual, and the car slowed through a diagram of paths approaching a colonial-style building, French windows looking out over a veranda. On either side of the car, the greens and fairways spread out like a sea. From above, Tim thought, it would look even more like one: the light/dark variegations, the patches of surprising, inscrutable activity. Tim squinted quizzically at a floodlight pylon towering over a fairway.

  ‘For night golf,’ said the Fixer. ‘It’s too hot to play in the day. In the day, it’s largely a golf club in name only.’

  Sure enough the course was mostly deserted, though they passed a couple of men, one in a white shirt and one in pink, crouched over a golf ball as if examining the egg of a rarely seen species. The car let them out on the drive. A sponsor-funded piece of signage said PLAY THE GAME! Tim thought of the promotional video from the hotel, of the smoothly styled man swishing the ball in hot sun, the way this communicated – to some people – something like happiness.

  Tim surveyed the building’s wood-lined corridors, which revealed various uses beyond golf. There were numerous boardrooms, a ‘relaxation room’ and a games room. Next to the games room was a store cupboard, and as Tim approached, a staff member – with the diminutive stature and shuffling, keen-to-please demeanour he saw everywhere since Ashraf’s departure – emerged from this cupboard, giving Tim a rather flustered smile.

  When the man had gone, Tim glanced over his shoulder and peeked into the cupboard. Shelves heaved with groceries. Partly obscured by a bottle of olive oil was a laminated list headed A GENTLE REMINDER!

  Smile at everyone.

  If cleaning or hoovering, do this unobtrusively.

  If clearing away food, ensure guest has finished with plate and is not offended by sudden withdrawal.

  Do not ask about the winners of golf games, etc. Limit conversation to, e.g. ‘I hope you are enjoying your time with us, sir.’

  Always remember that people are here to relax and enjoy themselves, and you to work.

  Tim was about to close the cupboard again when he caught sight of a door handle. Feeling like an ill-informed version of James Bond, he reached out, turned it, and found himself in what could only be called a hidden room.

  It was a library, decorated like the salon of some English landowner, with shooting sticks and muskets in glass cabinets and portraits of whiskered men on the walls, some of them wielding golf clubs or accompanied by dogs of suitably grandiose bearing. Tim could not tell if any of them depicted a r
eal man or whether they had been made in a generic aristo-portrait style. Sherry and port sat in crystal decanters. The drone of running machines came incongruously through the wall. Tim ran his eyes along the bookshelves, which were coated in literary armour: Dickens, Trollope, Galsworthy. A gaudy paperback by Joanna Trollope had been inserted between the Barchester novels.

  On his way back to the lounge, Tim ran into Jo. It was the first time they had been alone together since that night on the balcony. He offered her a clumsy smile; her dark eyes went calmly over his face.

  ‘Everything ready to go?’ asked Tim as breezily as he could.

  ‘Yes,’ said Jo, ‘it’s going to be good. We’re going to get right back on track.’ It was almost an exact echo of what her husband had said earlier, and Tim had the unpalatable feeling he was being brushed off, managed by automatic replies. He cleared his throat.

  ‘Look, about the other night.’

  This had a more dramatic effect than he had banked on, or even wished for: Jo’s eyebrows shot up in alarm, and her face lost its colour. It looked pallid now, even by the corridor’s discreet lighting. ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘What happened between us . . .’ Tim shifted weight nervously from one foot to the other. ‘I’m really sorry if—’

  ‘Oh!’ Jo touched him on the arm. Tim felt his skin tingle. ‘I thought . . . never mind.’

  ‘You thought I meant something else?’

  ‘I thought you meant the night Raf died.’

  ‘No. Why? What happened that night?’

  ‘Nothing. Nothing. I got confused.’ Jo’s grip was hard on his wrist now. Tim could feel his restraint and decency gearing up for another battle with desire; and this time from a weakened position, barely recovered from the last onslaught. ‘Look, I’m sorry if I was too pushy,’ Jo said, in a murmur.

  ‘You weren’t. I just lost my nerve.’

  ‘Well, do you have your nerve this time?’ asked Jo. She piloted him through the door marked Relaxation Room. Tim dimly registered a series of futons, separated by silk curtains. He thought she was going to take him to one of them, but they stopped dead in the middle of the room and Jo kissed him. He yielded to her; the kiss was followed by another and another. Tim was dizzy and appalled at himself, and also thrilled. Mostly thrilled, he thought; then, as footsteps sounded alarmingly nearby, mostly appalled.

  ‘I’ll go first,’ said Jo, almost in a whisper, and he heard her greet someone – a staff member, a neutral voice. As he walked back into the lounge, Tim felt his legs might be about to give way. There were a handful of members here now, ageing Westerners with whiskies or pints of Guinness in front of them, English newspapers spread out on the tables; Tim skulked among them until Ruth announced that it was time to get out on the course.

  Sprinklers sent water in shimmering arcs onto the greens. Miles was patrolling a gantry of scaffolding like a mad old king, fixing a camera to a mechanical arm, using a loudhailer to boom instructions to those below. Bradley removed his baseball cap.

  ‘Speed. Camera. And . . . OK, go.’

  ‘What if I told you an unbelievable fact? By 2016, 1 per cent of the world’s population will own more than 99 per cent of its wealth. And that’s while there are people starving. Like I said: unbelievable. But then, sometimes—’

  ‘—And cut.’

  ‘Sorry.’ One of the camera assistants was shaking his head. ‘Something on the lens. Sorry. Five minutes.’

  ‘And parasol for Jason, please,’ called Ruth, swatting hair out of her pink face.

  From the paltry shelter of a clump of thin trees, used by the crew as a holding area for equipment, Tim watched with the continuity lady and the photographer as Jason Streng went about his work. Occasionally a couple of golfers would approach, speculate noisily as to Jason’s identity, and embark on a circuitous conversation to recall where they had seen him before. Twice Tim took on the job of shushing or dismissing these people, but the second time he was too late: their chat caused the shot to be abandoned once more. Streng seemed more amused than impatient. He goofed around, playing shots with an imaginary golf club; he waved away the parasol-proffering youngster. ‘I’m not a china doll, man. I won’t break.’ When Bradley called for him to walk again, he re-enacted exactly the steps he had taken, each flicker of the face, and each word of the spiel until he was cut off again.

  After a couple of hours, they had got the establishing shot they wanted, and Miles was almost ready for the ‘flying’ scene. Still clogged with adrenalin from earlier events, and with a growing sense that the advert was – after all – getting ‘back on track’, Tim felt his spirits lift. The excitement at watching his idea come to life, which had been smothered by everything since he arrived, now began to spark again. It was still a tragedy, what had happened to Raf – of course it was – but work had to go on, life had to go on.

  Elaine, Jason’s agent, was wearing a pair of tan shades that swallowed her eyes entirely, giving her an appearance of alien hybridity. Christian and Jo were standing well apart, their body language suggesting different agendas, different mindsets – or was that just what Tim thought he saw, what he was happy to see? Christian joined Miles on the gantry as the cameraman began to holler through his loudhailer.

  ‘OK. WE WILL BE GOOD TO GO IN FIVE, PLEASE. LISTEN TO BRADLEY AND LET’S GET THIS DONE. LET’S NOT WAVE OUR DICKS ABOUT, PLEASE.’

  ‘Everyone to first positions,’ ordered Bradley. ‘I need – I need one of those things myself, here.’

  As soon as he had said this, the Fixer appeared on the gantry steps. He swung nimbly down and handed a loudhailer to the director. There was a horrible screech of feed-back as Bradley pressed the wrong button. For ten seconds there was a collective daze, as if gas had been sprayed into the air.

  The hum of a golf buggy came from behind them. Elaine, the agent, was waving the script at Bradley: ‘I’ve just got a couple of things I need to query.’ The thrum of the engine became louder; a buggy, driven by a man in a dishdash and keffiyeh, pulled up and out hopped Adam. There came a threatening cry from Christian Roper, up on the gantry. He seized the loudhailer from Miles.

  ‘WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU DOING HERE?’

  Tim looked at Adam, his sleeves rolled up in that old-school hack way, his features in a whimsical smile, like someone confident of making a good impression at a party.

  ‘DO YOU WANT TO COME UP HERE AND EXPLAIN WHY I SHOULDN’T HAVE YOU THROWN OFF THE PREMISES?’ yelled Christian Roper, his voice robbed of its normal authority by the loudhailer, which gave him the appearance of an out-of-control traffic cop or a street evangelist.

  ‘I’d be happy to,’ said Adam, with a thumbs-up, and Tim watched as he approached the gantry at the same time as Elaine.

  ‘WE HAVE A SCRIPT QUERY HERE,’ Bradley shouted into his own loudhailer, ‘SO I’M SENDING THE TALENT’S AGENT UP TO CHECK IN WITH YOU ABOUT IT.’

  ‘WE DON’T HAVE ALL THE TIME IN THE WORLD,’ Miles yelled back, the two of them bellowing as if one was on Earth and the other on the Moon. Elaine shook off her shoes and got onto the first step; Adam, carrying some sort of recording device, was close behind. Christian Roper was still shouting and gesturing, his words disappearing into the sky. Jo had moved towards the gantry now and obstructed Adam’s path.

  ‘Leave it,’ said Jo. ‘I would not go up there.’

  ‘Your husband,’ said Adam, with calm mockery, ‘specifically invited me up there.’

  ‘Leave it.’ Jo’s arm was on his shoulder.

  ‘I NEED THIS AREA CLEAR!’ appealed Miles.

  They all looked up, but by the time they had registered the struggle on the gantry there was something else, something terrible. A cry split the air, coming from several people at once. Miles’s voice was loudest in the mix. Someone – no, something – was falling towards them. ‘Look out!’ a voice shouted, and they scattered, but it had already landed. A camera lay mangled, glass fragments glimmering, the metal frame like a mass of dislocated bones.

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nbsp; ‘Jesus Christ,’ said Ruth faintly, getting down onto her haunches as if to inspect the damage; but she stayed where she was, her head on her knees. Jo Roper lowered herself to the ground and put a hand on Ruth’s shoulder. Tim joined them, as much as anything because he felt as if he might faint. He reached out for Ruth’s other shoulder, feeling the tautness of her breaths as she tried to stop herself from shaking. Adam swallowed and licked his lips and then, recovering himself, rapidly took three photographs.

  They stayed there, the three of them, any one of whom would surely have been killed if the fallen camera had hit them. Tim could feel Ruth’s shoulders rising and falling. Above them, from the gantry, no sound came at all. Tim could hear a trickling noise which in the moment he almost took for the sound of someone bleeding, but it was just a sprinkler, somewhere out across the fairway, continuing its endless maintenance of the lawn.

  Even the Fixer seemed somehow defeated by this latest setback: instead of the two cars he had ordered, a solitary one turned up, and it was obviously too small to take them all back. Miles, who had changed T-shirts and was carrying the discarded one like a dishcloth, loaded the remaining equipment into the boot.

  ‘I’ve been working with these cameras for twenty-five years,’ he said, to himself or to the group, it was not quite clear. ‘I could set up one of these in my sleep. And I tell you what, that camera did not just fall. Someone pushed it. That camera,’ he repeated, ‘did not just fall.’

  The members of the group avoided eye contact. Tim tried to remember exactly what had happened, to visualize the seconds leading up to it, to recall who had been where. Perhaps there was someone a few feet away from him who knew what had happened; who knew what had happened to Raf, too, for that matter. He had the sensation of a mesh moving closer to all of them, ready to contract around him.