The Place That Didn't Exist

by Mark Watson

  ‘I’m going home myself,’ said Tim, but even saying it reminded him that he had failed to clear the obstacles that prevented this from being a reality. He went into the members’ lounge and immediately wished he had stayed outside. There were more people here, now: it felt like too many. The little gang of expats had swelled into a tribe who occupied four tables and had ordered an extraordinarily large bottle of champagne. Two waiters carried it between them and its arrival provoked a seeming pride around the tables, as if the drinkers were fishermen in the Dubai of old who had reeled in a giant catch. The drinkers had struck up a football song he vaguely recognized from an ad. In the background, as if in mitigation of their rowdiness, a kind of mellow jazz had begun to play; this, too, he thought he’d heard on an ad.

  ‘I didn’t even know they made bottles like that,’ Tim said.

  ‘It’s – they call it a Methuselah,’ said Ruth. ‘You can get one called a Balthazar which is twice the size. And then there’s a bigger one again called – what’s it called?’

  ‘Nebuchadnezzar,’ said the Fixer, whom neither of them had noticed there.

  ‘That’s right,’ said Ruth. ‘I’ve only ever once seen it ordered. Most places, they have it on the menu but it’s a bluff. They want to be seen to have a great menu. The time I saw someone order it, they had a, erm, what do you call it?’

  ‘A . . . credit card?’

  ‘A brass band. A band came out and played and the owner drove across from Abu Dhabi to celebrate with the guy who’d ordered it.’

  ‘Where did they come from?’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘The band,’ said Tim, ‘how did they have a brass band ready? Did they just have them sitting there for years in case someone went for the Nebuchadnezzar?’

  ‘Probably,’ said Ruth. ‘There’s an oil guy who lives in Jumeirah Beach who keeps a lion and a lion-tamer in case he ever wants to impress his mates or whatever. Pays, I think it’s four hundred thousand a year as a retainer. But he’s never used them yet. The lion-tamer just goes out and does other gigs.’

  ‘I could get a brass band within half an hour,’ muttered the Fixer.

  Bradley, baseball cap in hand, had prepared the cameras on the veranda outside, since there was too much noise to shoot here. He was holding a cup of green tea little bigger than a thimble. ‘We’re almost ready for Jason,’ he said. ‘Let’s at least get these web videos done. They can at least use these.’

  ‘I don’t know if this is . . .’ Ruth began. ‘I mean, I don’t know if this whole campaign is ever going to . . .’

  ‘I am not a guy who walks away from something,’ said Bradley. ‘That’s not who I am.’

  Tim went back into the corridor. There was even less point than ever in his being there. He needed to be somewhere else; somewhere that was neither outside, with the cloying heat, nor in here with the disintegrating project and the Friday drinkers, the people for whom all this was somehow normal. He remembered the library hidden behind the storeroom, though with the half-expectation that it would have vanished in the way the computer room had appeared. No: there was the door handle. Tim pushed it carefully and stepped inside, and there, in a dressing-gown, and with a decanter of port in front of him, sat Christian Roper. Tim cried out in surprise. Christian gave him a ghoulish smile. It was clear that he was drunk, and planning on becoming more so. A fuzz of chest-hair peeped through the gown, and his hair was matted with moisture as if he had recently emerged from the shower. Tim thought back to that first-night dinner, only a few days earlier, when Christian had had a sort of impregnability about him.

  ‘Excuse my attire!’ said Christian, his voice thick with drink. ‘I have been in the so-called Relaxation Room. Everyone needs to relax, don’t they? Take a seat, take a seat.’

  Not knowing what to do, Tim accepted the invitation, glancing around the untouched volumes and the arrayed portraits so as not to make eye contact. Christian made a show of offering him a glass of port; Tim was halfway to declining when it was poured out anyway. They sat there, in this film set of a room, like Victorian noblemen about to play a parlour game.

  ‘Is it . . . is the campaign going to be shelved?’ asked Tim.

  Christian studied the table as if the question had not been asked, then answered it just as Tim was trying to frame another.

  ‘I think it is fair to say,’ said Christian with a reprise of the ghastly smile, ‘that things are going to be somewhat stalled, yes. What with the camera falling. The death of the producer. The, everything falling completely into . . .’ He seemed to search for a phrase that would fit this construction, then abandon the effort. Tim, now used to dealing with Ruth, had to restrain himself from suggesting one. Instead, with a gathering of courage, he asked: ‘I don’t suppose you could help me to – to rearrange my flights?’

  Christian laughed bitterly. ‘I don’t suppose you could get me out of here?’

  It was hard to know what to say to that. Tim sensed that, in fact, no response was required: Christian, to judge from the series of breaths he took and the clearing of his throat, was preparing one of his speeches. Tim glanced over his shoulder. He wished somebody else would come in.

  ‘You know, we set up in Dubai because I thought we could make most money that way. Not for ourselves. For the cause. For the people who need it. For the deficit of hundreds of millions of pounds that separates the poor from the rich. And you know? We did make money. We did pass on profits. I mean, we changed lives.’

  ‘That’s great,’ said Tim, but Christian seemed not to hear.

  ‘We bought a lot of property here,’ Christian went on. ‘It was guaranteed profit. You didn’t need money; you bought with any kind of mortgage you could get, and sold it straight on. We . . . I mean, it was all about doing good. There’s so much inequality. There’s people dying one a second.’ He gestured at his port glass as if somehow it exemplified the problem. ‘You can never win,’ he added. ‘No matter what you do, there’s more to do. There’s always more to do. Always more.’

  ‘But at least this ad,’ Tim began. ‘I mean, at least you’re raising awareness . . .’ he tailed off, sounding disappointing even to his own ears.

  ‘Awareness,’ Christian repeated, with an ironic nod. After another unpleasant pause, he went on. ‘The money’s just gone,’ said Christian. ‘It . . . it was never really there. And now the bluff’s been called. Did you fuck my wife, by the way?’

  Tim felt as if his intestines were being squeezed by a huge fist, one that had reached right into him. ‘No,’ he managed to say.

  ‘Anything happen at all?’

  ‘Nothing,’ said Tim, hesitating just long enough to look guilty. ‘Well, I mean . . .’

  ‘I know she does this stuff,’ said Christian, pitching, it seemed, to an invisible audience against the back wall. ‘I know it’s happened. I mean, I don’t blame her. It happened with Raf. She gets bored. I’m all about . . . about the cause. To the exclusion of everything else. I wanted things to be all right, for everyone. I actually thought I could make things all right for everyone. Don’t ever try and do that.’

  Tim tried and failed to think of a response.

  ‘I don’t blame her,’ Christian repeated.

  He lowered his head. Tim looked at the fuzz of black hair on Christian’s chest, some of it greying.

  ‘I think I should go and . . . go and let them know where you are,’ said Tim, rising from his seat. Christian nodded wryly and raised a hand. His eyes continued darting around the room, as if searching for some safe space to focus on, a place that did not exist.

  Tim’s phone was pressed against his ear. He was walking up and down a footpath which snaked alongside a hilly section of the course. A bark of laughter came through the still air: a golfer’s quip, a conversation lighter and happier than his internal one.

  It has not been possible to connect your call, said a voice in a computer-made fusion of real accents. Please try again later.

  Why has it not been possible? thoug
ht Tim. How hard can it be for me to call my bank? The grievance felt like a feeble one, because of course, he had only the flimsiest idea how telephones worked; how computers, the internet, all the things he depended on actually functioned. The sun cut through his shirt with so little effort that he could almost picture it shredded, flapping uselessly like a tarpaulin. A single cloud shuffled rather pathetically towards the sun, like a lone soldier dispatched to stop a tank. Tim tried the number again; once more, the non-person commiserated with him and suggested he try his luck some other time.

  It might be pointless to ask why there was a connection problem, but every other question led to a different question, which led in turn to a blank space. Who had pushed that camera off the gantry, if anyone had? Who were the people kissing outside Raf’s chalet? Was the leaking of that information the real reason that Ashraf was fired? Was there any way that Tim himself could have done something in his sleep, with terrible consequences? At the fourth attempt he got through to his bank and was asked for an eleven-digit code, which, he was fairly sure, he’d never known.

  ‘If you don’t know the code,’ said the cheery Scottish man on the other end of the line, ‘perhaps you could give me details of any recent transactions?’

  Tim struggled to recall anything he’d actually spent money on; minibar items, food, even the taxi ride had been billed to his room, and so were theoretical expenses at this stage. ‘It’s a bit odd, because I’m in Dubai,’ he said, ‘but I really need access to my card, because—’

  ‘Dubai!’ said the Scot. ‘I’ve not been there. Very clean, I hear.’

  ‘It is,’ Tim agreed. He managed to summon the memory of the last things he’d bought with the card – all at Heathrow, before the flight – and the warm-voiced operative told him that they would look into things and hoped to be able to call him back within the same business day.

  Tim stood in the heat. Jason was out on the veranda, methodically reciting lines for the website; Tim could just hear Bradley calling ‘action!’ and ‘cut!’ as he had done on the first day. Perhaps, as Bradley had said, they’d still be able to use these bits and pieces, even if the TV campaign never aired. That was something, he supposed. But the project didn’t feel like it had anything to do with Tim any more, if it ever had.

  Tim walked around to the front of the building, where he had been invited into Streng’s car the day before. He had made a note of Rod’s new number on his phone. What was there to lose? Tim dialled the number and, although it seemed as improbable as it had the first time, his brother answered almost immediately.

  ‘What’s up?’

  ‘Were you asleep?’

  ‘No,’ said Rod, ‘I’ve been having difficulty sleeping.’

  ‘Maybe you should try staying awake during the day and sleeping at night?’

  ‘Maybe,’ Rod conceded, ‘I’ve heard people do that. Are you all right out there?’

  ‘Not really. No.’

  Tim began to describe the difficulty of booking a flight home, the frozen debit card, the way nobody was able to help. Rod, thousands of miles away, chewed this over.

  ‘Just show up at the airport, mate. They’ll have unblocked your card by the time the plane actually goes, surely.’

  ‘But I won’t have booked a flight.’

  ‘It doesn’t matter. Go to the airport. You can always get on a flight if you have money. Go to the desk and just pay for it there and then.’

  It occurred to Tim he had been so thrown by the card problem, and by his various struggles with the internet, that he’d forgotten it was possible to buy things in the way people used to: by going to the relevant place and asking for it. ‘But what if the card still doesn’t work?’

  ‘Then you call me and I’ll do it on my card over the phone.’

  ‘Have you got the money?’

  ‘I’ve got plenty of money, mate. It might not be worth much in a couple of weeks’ time, but we can get you out of Dubai. Just don’t go there again.’

  ‘I won’t.’ Tim had to swallow to ward off a wave of sentiment which rose in his throat and threatened to shake his voice. ‘Thanks.’

  He went back to the lounge. Even before he was through the door, it was obvious that something was happening: it was a tension in the air, a quiet alarm disturbing the composed faces of the waiting staff. Jazz was still playing over the speakers, but the ambient noise felt as if it had been sucked in, forced back inside the people making it; what was left was a sort of troubled hum. As Tim found a space near the doors, Miles gave him a warning wink and a thumbs-down. Two men were standing in mutual hostility, arms folded, and everyone else – he realized – had become an audience.

  ‘I don’t know what you want,’ Christian Roper said, thrusting a finger towards Adam, ‘but it seems like you won’t be happy till you’ve run us into the ground.’

  ‘You’ve run yourself into the ground,’ said Adam. ‘You can threaten me as much as you like.’

  ‘I didn’t chuck that fucking camera at you,’ said Christian, ‘but I wish I had.’ Jo was on her feet now, coming to Christian’s side, trying to pull him away. She said something to him in an urgent whisper. Adam was holding a recording device out in front of him.

  ‘Will you admit,’ asked Adam, ‘that none of the money you make from this ad – from public donations – will go anywhere near the developing world, because you need it to bail yourselves out?’

  It felt as if everyone in the room was waiting for Christian to refute this, but nobody really appeared to expect it. A look passed between the Ropers like collaborators running out of time. Christian spread his arms in what was probably meant to look like defiance.

  ‘You think it’s easy doing this? You think you could just rock up and wave a wand and poverty would disappear?’

  ‘It’s not about whether I can do it,’ said Adam. ‘It’s about whether you can. I’m suggesting you can’t. That you can’t do what you’re claiming to do.’

  Jo’s eyes appealed to the Fixer for help. The Fixer, without drawing attention to himself, began moving stealthily towards his employer. Christian gave a mirthless laugh like the ones he’d produced in the Relaxation Room.

  ‘You don’t do anything at all. You’re a journalist. You just sit and fucking write. You don’t make a contribution to the world. You just sneer at people who do.’

  ‘Your contribution—’ Adam began.

  ‘I’ve made – do you know how much money I’ve made for charity?’ Christian glanced around the room, at his helpless audience, and then struck himself with fake merriment on the chest. ‘I don’t even know. I don’t even know myself! It’s off the scale!’

  ‘Christian,’ said Adam, ‘I’m not—’

  ‘Don’t use my fucking name,’ snarled Christian, and Tim wondered what alternative to someone’s name there was, and had another memory of Roper as he’d been when this began: sitting clean-shaven in his kitchen, surrounded by well-arranged kitchenware, the letters MBE almost visible in a halo above his head.

  ‘Mr Roper,’ said Adam with cheerful irony, ‘I’m not disputing that you have done amazing things. I’m saying that you have lost a lot of cash here, on things like Pearl that aren’t going to be finished in a hundred years, and that this ad campaign is about trying to recoup—’

  ‘I’m going to give you ten seconds to shut the fuck up,’ said Christian.

  ‘Christian . . .’ appealed Jo. The Fixer was at Christian’s shoulder like a political aide about to steer him away. Adam stood his ground; in fact, Tim thought, it was as if he was expanding, swelling up with his sheer sense of rightness.

  ‘Or what?’ asked Adam, with a theatrical spread of his arms. ‘Or what happened to Raf will happen to me?’

  Christian took a step towards the journalist. The Fixer put his hand on his collar. ‘Get off me,’ Christian said.

  ‘We need to go,’ said the Fixer.

  ‘Saved by the bidoon!’ crowed Adam.

  The Fixer punched Adam hard in the face. Ad
am staggered back against the bar with both hands over his mouth, and a trickle of red came between his bunched fingers. A waiter, with a silver cloche on a tray bound for the expats, stood and gaped. A strange noise rose from the drinkers, a cry that began as glee and faded away. The moment had felt oddly banal, compared with the movie violence that was Tim’s only reference point; there was none of the vicarious excitement or exoticism. Adam was asking at the bar for napkins. Christian stood absolutely still. The Fixer, seizing Christian by the arm, walked rapidly towards Tim and Ruth.

  ‘It’s time to leave,’ said the Fixer.

  ‘We don’t have the cars booked.’

  ‘I will have a car here in three minutes.’

  ‘Take us with you,’ said Ruth.

  Tim tried to arrange his face as if he was indifferent to this prospect.

  The Fixer shrugged and continued on his way, Christian hanging from his arm in defeat. Ruth looked at Tim and turned to go after them. Tim followed the ragged party out into the car park. He glanced back to see if Jo was coming after her husband, but she did not emerge.

  An SUV, with shaded windows, was waiting for them. The driver was the same one who’d collected them from the airport. He put the radio on; the song was ‘Killer Queen’. Nobody spoke. They drove in the dark.

  The car dropped Tim and Ruth at the front of the Centrepiece. Christian was smiling in a detached way, like a candidate convincingly beaten in an election, as if to say that things were beyond his control now.

  ‘Shall we go down to the beach?’ said Ruth.

  The sky was transitioning from light blue to a deeper one, and the nightspots were coming to life; a waiter ushered a couple to an early-dinner table. It was like any other night. On the private beach, the sun-loungers were mostly retired for the day, though on one a woman in a peach-coloured swimsuit still slept, a John Grisham paperback resting on her belly. A man in a green T-shirt was smoothing down the sand with a rake. A preview version of the moon was on show in the corner of the sky, and a few tentative stars.