She’d thought this flat would make her happy - as she had every time they had moved in the past - and stood looking out of its windows on to Regent’s Park, beneath the neo-classical stone figures and blue mouldings that, reminiscent of the Greeks and Romans, seemed out of keeping with the damp misty air and English buildings. But she came to recognise more with each passing day that the flat was her prison. From it she was able to see the trees in the park and the lovers looking across at the resplendent houses under the majestically sculpted figures, and wishing they were inside them, never imagining that in one of them stood a woman envying them.
As soon as she said the name Eccleston Square to the taxi driver, she felt warmth take over her whole body.
’Your husband should see the bed each time he looks at you,’ her mother had counselled her.
And here she was thinking of Nicholas, and thinking that he was waiting for her in bed.
III
Amira prepared herself in every possible way for taking on the title of Princess, not forgetting any detail that would help her bring the role to life. She asked and enquired, made telephone calls - international and local - and she taped conversations with clients from the Gulf and Saudi Arabia, from embassies and offices. She asked trivial questions in order to hear one word or another, or to note a particular phrasing: ’I don’t want that’, ’Come here’, ’I want to go’, ’Come, take me to’, ’What is this?’, ’For sure.’
She found it difficult. What type of personality should she adopt? Should she be a princess who loves poetry and reads literature, or one who loves films and songs ... should she be involved in charity work and schools, or be a fashionably modern princess who wants to know all the latest restaurants, shops, clubs ... or what about a princess who loves massages, who devotes herself to the art of well-being, to make-up, even plastic surgery?
With Wasim’s help she was engaged as an interpreter to accompany a genuine princess for a few days. The Princess had to go to hospital for a simple operation and Amira acted as go-between for her and the hospital staff. Amira ordered the tea, coffee and food from the restaurant for the Princess’s entourage; she arranged for a bigger television, and films for the video. And she paid close attention to the Princess’s every gesture, big or small, to her demeanour and her manner of speaking. Amira quickly learned when to show affection and when to be aloof; when to use a low- or a high-pitched tone of voice; how to move her hands; when to throw a smile, or to frown, or laugh; when to speak and when to stay silent; and, of course, when to be very generous, generous or less generous; as well as how to relate to another member of the family, a mother, aunt, father, uncle.
And when the time finally arrived, Amira left her building wearing a modest suit - a jacket covering her hips over a long skirt - and her jet-black hair not quite touching the abaya around her shoulders. The only glitter to be seen came from her ring, her wristwatch and the buckle of her Loewe black crocodile-leather handbag. So as to avoid the inquisitive eye of the porter, and any possibile trouble from Samir and his monkey, she did not ask the Rolls-Royce to fetch her from the flat, but from Wasim’s salon. There, she made sure that the three young women accompanying her looked modestly sexy, while at the same time very timid, and that they did not rush to open the car doors or joke with the driver, but waited for him to open the doors for them. Although Amira observed that her non-stop instructions over the preceding few days had been effective, the luxurious car and the awareness that their deceit might be detected made the attendants very nervous, and she put them at ease by making them laugh: ’Don’t let’s be like snakes chewing their own tails ...’
She chose to carry out her first trick at a bank for two reasons. Firstly, it was not possible to con a bank: there were rules governing the exchange of money, cheque books, transfers, etc. And secondly, because there her victim would be so close to his money.
The driver parked the car by the corner of the Arab Bank on Park Lane. Amira handed him a sheet of blue paper that she had bought from an expensive stationery shop, with her name written ’al-Inud, bint ... ibn ... ibn ... (’al-Inud, daughter of... the son of... the son of ...’) exactly the way a prince or a princess would have written it.
’Would you please ask the bank if any transfers in my name have arrived from the Kingdom?’
’But ... do you think they’ll trust me with it, your highness?’
’Just ask them if it’s arrived. I’ll go in for the money myself.’
’Of course.’
Amira had rented the Rolls-Royce and its driver for three days from a specialist car-hire, paying on behalf of Princess al-Inud, signing her own name, as ’attendant and interpreter’. They had insisted on the full amount, in advance. These days they did not trust anyone who came in asking to rent a car on behalf of a prince or a princess - unless it was for royalty known to them personally - because he or she might just disappear without paying.
As if she really was waiting for a bank transfer from her uncle, Amira began to tell her worry beads. One of her attendants asked her whether Nahid was unwell.
’Not as far I know Why? Did someone say she was?’
’I must have made a mistake.’
Amira hurriedly dialled the number of Nahid’s mobile phone.
’Nid, Nid, where are you? ... Oh ... You aren’t sick or anything? ... Good ... Yes ... At seven, for sure.’ She switched off her mobile and said to the young women, ’Whenever her sister comes to London, Nahid gets ill.’
The driver came out of the bank and, leaning down to the car window, spoke to the Princess. ’I’m sorry. The transfer hasn’t come through yet. They suggest you try at,’ he read out from a piece of paper in his hand, ’Bank at-Riyadh or the Bank of Kuwait.’
’Let me think about what to do now.’
’Your highness, I don’t think we can park here ... but perhaps I could explain if a traffic warden turns up ...’
They drove around the block a few times; stopped for a few minutes, and then drove on again, following Amira’s instructions, until she saw a man in his sixties who was approaching the bank. Amira asked the driver to stop. She stepped out of the car followed by her attendants, who stopped chewing their gum and competing over who could blow the biggest bubbles. Amira speeded up slightly, so that she and the man arrived on the bank’s doorstep at the same time. When he noticed Amira and her attendants, he stepped back, so that they could enter before him. Amira did not thank him; nor did she deign to look in his direction. As far as the Princess was concerned, this man was of no more interest than a security guard. Once inside she sat down to wait with her attendants and when her turn came, she approached the teller’s window with studied, slow steps. She let one of her attendants ask, in her most modest voice, about the bank transfer. The teller couldn’t quite understand and Amira stepped in, speaking in broken, confused English. The teller asked them to wait, saying that he’d fetch a colleague who spoke Arabic. Speaking in Arabic, Amira then gave the bank clerk the name that was festooned over the wall of the bank. Just as Amira had foreseen, it also rang in the ears of the client. He was standing, watching, eyeing each of her women attendants in turn, while they stood trying to look their best, holding their abayas or leaving them draped over their shoulders.
The Arabic-speaking clerk excused himself for a moment, and checked the computer. Amira then told him the name of her uncle. At this, the bank clerk asked if she would like to wait in the VIP reception. Amira declined, looking at her watch. The teller told her that she’d have to wait for a while. She went back to her seat but when she saw that the client had finished his business at the bank and was preparing to leave, she walked over towards the door with one of her attendants, asking the others to wait, and started to talk on her mobile.
’I don’t know what to do. I really don’t. The cheque hasn’t arrived. I’m outside the bank now and the man with the furnished flat won’t wait. The embassy? I’d rather die. They’ll send messages back home to check, and then the Min
istry will contact my family, then they’ll get back to the embassy, and so on and so on. It’s a mess.’
Naturally the Arab man was listening to her conversation. For his benefit, Amira added, ’I’m by myself outside the bank. I’m fed up, really fed up.’
She switched off her mobile and put her hand to her forehead, murmuring to her attendant, ’My head.’
The attendant supported her, as if the Princess were about to collapse; then Amira met the man’s eyes, regained her composure and said, ’I get so fed up with banks sometimes.’
’I’m sorry. Can I help?’
’No thank you.’
’Excuse me, but please consider me as a bank. When your cheque arrives, you can pay me back.’
’No thank you. May God protect your children and loved ones.’
The deputy manager came over to Amira and introduced himself. He told Amira that the bank was prepared to help her out and give her whatever she needed. She thanked him but refused his offer. He apologised to her before he left. She turned to the other man, and thanked him again.
’We’re both strangers here, far from our homes and families.’
’No thank you, I couldn’t.’
The attendant chimed in with, ’But, madam ...’, as if she were trying to persuade her otherwise.
Amira went silent, looking at the ground bashfully, like a child who has just wet herself in public, and her silence was her consent.
’Is ten thousand enough?’
’I’ll give you my watch then.’
’There’s no need.’
’Thank you.’
’Will you wait? I’ll just be a few minutes.’
Amira walked over to the car, her footsteps weighed down by tiredness and by disappointment with the bank and its associates. The attendant brought out the others, who waited beside her.
Amira sat in the car, took out her prayer beads and began passing them through her fingers while the English driver stood to one side of the Rolls and the attendant said under her breath, ’God, please ... please, God.’ The man came hurrying over. Amira lowered the window and held out her hand, saying, ’Give me your name and address.’
’It’s not important,’ he said. When she insisted, he said politely, ’My name’s Haris, and I’m staying at the Dorchester.’
’Write it down, dear,’ she said to her attendant. ’The Dorchester, Mr Haris.’
’God willing, tomorrow we’ll be in touch with you and return your kindness.’
He handed her ten envelopes and, quite unperturbed, she took them, smiled at him, and said goodbye.
Amira asked the driver to take them to a Lebanese restaurant in Shepherd’s Bush. Although no one in the restaurant uttered a word, it was known immediately that a princess had just walked in with her entourage. Without having to ask for what they wanted, they were brought more than twenty plates in quick succession, and four waiters hovered, and the way that Amira and her companions ate showed how nervous they had been at the bank. The young women asked for toothpicks, which Amira forbade them to use. All of a sudden they remembered the driver. A waiter asked one of the companions whether he should take the plates of untouched food out to him. ’No,’ she answered, ’the Princess wouldn’t like that. Give him a menu and let him choose.’
Amira knew that the young women were impatient to have their money the minute the meal was over. Where could they go? She was afraid to let the porter of her building know what she was up to. They could go to Nahid’s - but no one answered Nahid’s phone. She found herself digging into the envelopes in her handbag, counting out five hundred pounds for each of the women. Two accepted happily. The third was not satisfied. ’But Amira, you have ten thousand pounds.’
’I’m the Princess,’ Amira snapped, ’but here, each of you take one hundred pounds extra, and now pay the bill, and the waiters.’ She handed over two hundred pounds, which the attendant divided between the waiters who were standing around drooling like dogs.
Amira stood up, knowing that everyone’s eyes were on her table, including those of a client who thought he’d seen her before but couldn’t tell for sure - Amira appeared a changed woman. It was not the shorter black hair, nor the face devoid of make-up, or the tailored, unrevealing jacket. It was the eyes that looked different: their hungry, scheming expression, as if a fox stalked inside each of them, had been replaced by a look of contentment, almost of lethargy.
As the car drove towards Bond Street, Amira made her three companions swear again on the Qur’an that they would never utter a word to anyone. She promised that she would increase their share next time. ’Anyway,’ she added, ’now I’m going to buy each of you a small gift from Cartier.’ Inside the jewellery shop, the manager went without question to fetch rare pieces from the vault, and Amira believed that she was a princess, a determined princess who knew what she didn’t like. Afterwards, Amira the Princess scolded her attendants for not having chosen anything. ’But everything we saw cost much less than our large budget,’ they retorted sarcastically.
’Well, I promise you that all of us will have something from Cartier in a few weeks’ time.’
Amira dropped the three women at Wasim’s salon and directed the driver to take her to Nahid’s. On the way she fantasised about declaiming to her brothers, both of whom had stopped talking to her when they heard what she was really doing in London, ’I told you I’d be very rich. Look what I have in my purse. The water seller’s daughter is now a princess with a British passport.’
She and her entourage were working at full stretch; Amira the organiser, the brain behind everything, tailoring her schemes to suit the encounter. She always varied her reasons for needing money, adapting her story to fit different faces and personalities. She never gave the same rationale twice, and discovered through experience that the simple explanations worked the best.
Sometimes she had to come up with inventive excuses for not paying back the men who’d given her money. The money order had been lost, and the bank was looking into it. She took pleasure in accusing a bank - it had taken her money and ploughed it into its profits - and telling amusing stories about how her mother sent back her allowance from Saudi Arabia when she saw the travellers’ cheques instead of English pounds, insisting that they were just pieces of paper. ’Where’s the Queen’s head? I don’t want paper, I want real money.’
Sometimes Amira would claim to be afraid of annoying her ’uncle’, or her ’brother’. ’He’s always busy,’ she would say, ’if I bother them I’m afraid they’ll say come back home. Or they’ll never allow the women in our family to go abroad again.’
She would add that it was hard for her because she was a princess, and people were looking at her one hundred per cent of the time.
However, there came a day when Amira found herself paying off her debt in another way, and one that suited her best, leaving her with a clear conscience. She was at Claridge’s for afternoon tea. It was full of American and English women, the latter wearing hats like tea cosies.
Amira’s three attendants, having helped her out of her jacket, poured and distributed the tea, whispering to one another, covering their mouths in embarrassment, and sinking their teeth into their palms when they laughed. Amira sat calmly maintaining her poise despite her growing fears that there was no one to con at the hotel that afternoon. But she was a princess, wasn’t she? Real princesses didn’t suffer anxiety or nervousness, for everything was within their reach - people and their immaterial souls, as well as all the material goods they wanted. Among themselves Amira and her companions began to debate whether or not they should gather up their courage and try the Dorchester, taking a risk on whether the real Princess was there, when a visiting Arab, whom Nahid had recently mentioned to Amira, arrived in the company of three Iranian men. The men looked around and chose a nearby table - Tits-like-Pamela Anderson’s abaya had slipped off her shoulders by then.
Amira took out her mobile phone and tried to use it. She indicated to an attendant that
it wasn’t working. Whereupon her attendant managed to manoeuvre the loan of a mobile from the Arab sitting at the nearby table, explaining to him that the battery on the Princess’s phone had run down, and assuring him that they were calling London, not Saudi Arabia.
’What are the children having for tea?’ Amira asked down the borrowed phone. ’Good. I’m really grateful to uncle for sending that sack of flour in the private plane. Can you call my aunt in the Kingdom and tell her there isn’t a size 44? But I do feel embarrassed: it was my mother who told the girls to ask him to send the flour - the stuff here makes the dough stick to the pan. I’m waiting in the hotel. I’ve sent a driver and a car. Don’t be too long.’
Amira handed the phone to Tits-like-Pamela Anderson to return to its owner, thanking him with a nod of her head. But the Arab stood and fetched it himself, then went back to his table. Amira cleared her throat and went off with an attendant to the bathroom, walking like a princess, her back a slab of marble, her steps slow and measured. When she re-entered the room, she saw from a distance that the two other attendants were talking to the man, assuring him that they’d be there the next day as the Princess loved Claridge’s, and had actually been born in one of its suites.
The following day the Princess reappeared, wearing additional jewellery. Amira took off her jacket to reveal a red blouse straining over her prominent breasts. The visiting Arab changed his mind and decided that the Princess was younger and prettier than he’d thought. The Princess did not look at him, although one of her attendants surreptitiously indicated to her that he was there. She ate a quarter of a slice of gateau with great care and concentration and sipped her tea calmly, then asked the waiter to bring more sandwiches and cake for the girls. The Princess’s mobile was working again and when it rang she shrieked down it, ’God forbid! Where? A hospital in London? Oh God! It doesn’t matter about the driver. I’ll take a taxi. No, really. It’s strange. I don’t know. Did you tell them she’s related to the Princess, daughter of... Did you tell them who my uncle is? It’s strange they’re insisting on being paid in advance. Let me do what I can.’
Only in London Page 15
