The Lost Girl

by Carol Drinkwater

  A light tapping on the door dragged her from the bed. She grabbed a shirt and wound it round her breasts and midriff. ‘Who is it?’ She spoke softly into the wood, fingers locked round the smooth brass handle.

  ‘Are you working or sleeping?’

  ‘Showering.’

  ‘I’ll see you in the bar in twenty minutes.’

  Kurtiz sighed. Alex had a habit of ordering rather than inviting her. Machismo manners, so outdated. But he was a damn fine filmmaker, and he knew it and used it, and she admired and respected him. And loved him. Maybe.

  This was their fifth professional outing together in eighteen months and the work was proving to be exhilarating, challenging: a breakthrough for Kurtiz. It had lifted her out of the rut of traditional photography – mundane celebrity portraits and interior-design magazine shoots – to the international arena of war and conflict. It had also caused a deepening in the fissure of her sadly crumbling marriage. She sighed.

  Kurtiz had met Alex Peters quite by chance at the Groucho Club in London’s Soho two years earlier. She had been in the lounge waiting for Oliver. As had been his habit for some time, Oliver was running late. She had been perched on a stool, camera bags at her feet, jacket slung carelessly across them, idly checking her phone messages while flipping through the pages of the Guardian and sipping a gin and tonic. A double. It had been a tiring day: a portraiture of an actor, whose new film, a comedy, was due out in a couple of weeks, and his father, a profile-relationship piece for the Sunday Times. The old man had been a gentleman; the actor nervy, awkward, embarrassingly lecherous. She was skilled at handling insecure actors: she was married to one.

  She was exhausted, not from the creative input into her day but by the futility of so many of the commissions her agent assigned her, and she was looking to shift the direction of her career, if she could only track out a new path. Changing directions was never easy and she had been badgering her agent to find her something more challenging.

  She and Oliver had agreed that morning to meet up at the Groucho, then go to see State of Play at the Curzon. She was hoping to persuade him to skip the film and just grab dinner.

  Alex had settled himself on the empty stool alongside her, the one she had mentally allocated to Oliver. There were several others unoccupied further to the corner of the bar, any of which the unknown male might have chosen. She was tapping out a text to her agent – Selection of portraits on way to editor in the morning. We shot some decent stuff – when she glanced up at the stranger and smiled.

  ‘You waiting for someone?’ He was American, African-American, with a wide open face and smooth, clear skin. Dark skin, black hair cropped close to his head, neatly but casually dressed. Mid-forties. Lean, fit, but not muscle-bound.

  ‘My husband,’ she returned, ‘but, please, go ahead. He’s running behind schedule, quote, unquote. Always is.’ She returned her attention to the newsprint. A flick of the eye told her that Oliver was now more than thirty minutes late and she was glad she hadn’t dropped into the cinema to buy the tickets while walking along Shaftesbury Avenue. The programme was due to begin in seven minutes. ‘I seem to spend half my life waiting.’ Was she bemoaning this fact to herself or encouraging conversation?

  ‘It’s the nature of the work. Seen on the screen, film looks like it’s all action. However, you and I know the hours involved, the hanging about, the endeavour, all for that one thrilling shot.’

  A quizzical crease crossed her forehead. She had been talking about her life with Oliver.

  ‘Your camera bags on the floor.’

  ‘Oh, I see.’

  ‘I’m Alex Peters, by the way. May I request of our fine bartender Dominik, here, to refill your glass? Dominik!’

  Kurtiz was about to refuse, then changed her mind. Why not? ‘And, Dominik, when you’ve served the drinks, please can you call through and ask them to hold a table for Mrs Ross.’

  ‘Staying here?’ Alex’s question when the drinks arrived. She shook her head. Alex was, as it happened. ‘Always do, when in London.’ As it also turned out, Oliver didn’t show. Or he was running so late, his text informed her, that Kurtiz typed back a response not to bother. She’d see him later at the house.

  Serendipity?

  She and Alex took the table she’d booked, ordered two more drinks and settled to conversation. He had been born and raised in Boston, a documentary filmmaker who had worked his way through the system from public radio to public-service TV and later had crossed over to films, working for a short while in commercial cinema, which he had not greatly enjoyed. Now he had set up his own company as an independent. ‘So, that’s me, to date.’

  She liked this man and was vaguely aware of his award-winning work. He was assured, opinionated even, charming. They talked movies; they talked photography. At his request, she showed him a selection of shots still filed on one of her cameras, the Canon 5D, and confessed that she was looking for different opportunities.

  ‘Impressive.’ He nodded. ‘You been working as a photographer for long?’

  ‘Fifteen years.’

  They moved on to the subject of working in war zones, the risks, and then to the rise of citizen journalism. Alex Peters was erudite, greatly travelled – knew the Middle East like the back of his hand. She admitted she had never visited any of those countries.

  ‘The furthest east I’ve ventured from Europe is Turkey.’ She refrained from adding that it had been a family beach holiday in a packed-with-British-tourists zone with Oliver and Lizzie when their daughter was eight or nine.

  The one subject both she and Alex skirted around was that of families and marriage. She had noted the slender gold band on his wedding finger. Discreet. He mentioned Boston and his life back in the States only in passing; nothing to hint at the domestic situation. They shared a bottle of Saint-Estèphe. He knew his wines too. Talked some more about the film he was in the process of raising funds for and she never noticed the time passing. When she turned her head, the restaurant had emptied. Theirs was the last occupied table. The staff were hovering by the kitchen doors.

  ‘Time to go.’

  ‘Nightcap?’

  ‘No, thanks.’ She shifted her body, making moves to rise from the chair. He invited her to his room. She was surprised, quietly flattered, but shook her head, thanked him for his company and the meal.

  ‘Pity.’ He smiled. He was flying out the next day.

  ‘To?’ She ignored the sink of disappointment in her stomach.

  ‘Paris, Beirut, and from there back to Boston. I’ll catch you next time I’m in town, shall I?’

  She nodded, hauled her camera bags over her shoulder and shook his hand. ‘Thanks for the evening. It was fun.’

  Three days later she received a call from her agent. ‘The name Alex Peters mean anything to you?’ Kurtiz held her breath. ‘He’s looking for a stills photographer for his next feature. It’s shooting in Lebanon. I thanked him, explained it wasn’t your cup of tea, but I have to put all offers to you and he was rather insistent. Now I’ve run it past you, I’ll suggest Jack. It’s right up his street.’

  ‘Sorry, Gina. The job’s mine.’

  ‘It’s not your expertise, Kurtiz, and it’s three weeks away from home. I thought you never did that?’

  Kurtiz hesitated. She didn’t. She and Oliver had made a pact: until Lizzie had turned eighteen Kurtiz would not accept any assignments that meant more than two nights away from their London base. She closed her eyes, held tight to the phone. Oliver hadn’t scored a decent acting job in over a year, nothing more than a cough and a spit and some relatively well-paid voiceovers. She wanted this opportunity. She craved it emotionally, artistically, and it just might be the commission that would shift the direction of her career. And then there was Alex Peters.

  ‘Gina, can you email me through the details of Peters’s offer and I’ll get straight back to you?’

  ‘Will do. And the Mail on Sunday have come through with a three-day shoot on a costume drama, l
ocation Yorkshire. It’s yours if you can get there this coming Thursday. Another last-minute booking, drives me crazy. I accepted it.’

  The next time Kurtiz set eyes on Alex Peters was six weeks later when she stepped off the plane in Beirut and strode through Customs out into the heat where he was leaning against a four-wheel drive, arms crossed, waiting for her.

  ‘We’ll start gently,’ he promised, while steering a path through the fraught city in a fridge of a vehicle blasted with air-conditioning. ‘No danger zones until you know the ropes. First, I want you to meet my crew, Darryl and Tim. Just the three of us. They’re both tough, reliable and experienced in the field, and then there’s me. You’re in safe hands. Welcome aboard.’

  Two years on, Kurtiz headed downstairs. Outside in the East Jerusalem garden bar and restaurant, a stone oven had been lit. Its flames danced and crackled in the hot Middle Eastern darkness. The abiding stink of diesel from the bus station across the street almost overwhelmed the more agreeable aromas of fried chicken and sumac, and the heady smoke from the narghiles, but Kurtiz had grown used to the cocktail and did not dislike it. It conjured up for her a sense of liberation, of independence, of working in the field.

  ‘You need to be on your mettle. No mistakes. These are high-risk territories, war zones.’ Alex had warned her.

  The challenge she had hoped for.

  Each table was hooped with a circular glow from a lit candle. The place was filling up, as it did every evening. The vibe was exuberant, spirited. This was one of the most popular hangouts in the eastern section of the city. Old Palestine. Arabs, Jews, Westerners congregated here without animosity. Intellectuals talked cinema, journalism, and mostly kept clear of the war. One of the waiters, Mustafa, waved to Kurtiz. His other arm was held aloft, bearing a circular beaten-copper platter stacked with gaudily coloured mocktails for the Muslims, doubles on the rocks for the Israelis and foreigners, and shots of thick sweet coffee in polychromatic glasses for all.

  ‘Masaa el kheer, Miss Kurtiz.’

  ‘And good evening to you, Mustafa.’

  She spotted Alex alone at a far table alongside the breakfast room, scribbling in one of the notebooks he always carried with him, and wove her way through furniture, guests and water-pipes to reach him.

  ‘I don’t know why you don’t join us at the American Colony. It’s quieter. We can talk more agreeably.’

  During their first outing together in Lebanon, Alex had booked her into the hotel where he’d been staying and, not unexpectedly, had made a pass at her, which Kurtiz had sidestepped and he had accepted with grace. From that moment, they had steered a professional relationship, but the attraction had endured.

  ‘The room rate is three times higher than I’m paying here. Besides, I like this place. It’s friendly and vibrant, Alex. I get more for my per diems and it keeps you at arm’s length.’

  He raised a brow, but his eyes were smiling, taking in the woman standing across the table from him.

  She pulled out the chair opposite and sat down, placing her camera bag between them. Alex glanced at it and picked up his drink. He admired the fact that she never let those damn cameras out of her sight. The flame from the candle between them danced an elongated shadow across his face and lit her complexion to amber. ‘Whisky. You want one?’

  She nodded. ‘I have work to do, so just the one.’

  ‘You’re too diligent.’ His sarcasm was one of his least attractive qualities. If she didn’t deliver he would send her home, whatever his personal sentiments towards her. He had made that clear many months and several locations back.

  The music had stopped. There was a polite trickle of clapping, like wind scudding along paving stones. The musicians sat cradling instruments, sipping fizzy drinks, smoking, holding their cigarettes between thumb and index finger, observing the comings and goings of the clientele.

  Alex had lifted his hand to attract the waiter’s attention. When he had it, he raised two fingers to suggest two drinks, both whiskies, doubles, the digits nimbly enacting the order.

  He turned his attention to Kurtiz, her long sandy hair drawn up untidily with a couple of tortoiseshell clips. ‘It suits you.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Your hair up like that, off your face, emphasizes your bone structure, your skin tones.’

  Kurtiz made no response. She had been deliberating about whether to snip it all off, change style, colour, a new Kurtiz, a new start.

  ‘How are the images?’

  ‘I have some good stuff from this morning,’ she said, glancing behind her to where the musicians were strumming chords, progressing towards another melody, running hands over strings and drums.

  ‘The unending struggle for Jerusalem. Abbas is preparing a formal request for full UN membership. It will cause stress and anger here. There will be waves of reprisals all across the West Bank. Once this episode is in the can I want us to go to Tripoli. Libya’s fomenting. Will you come?’

  ‘Lizzie breaks up from school this week, and I have a flight out on Saturday. Alex, we discussed this.’

  ‘Take three days, four if you need to, mollify your family, then meet me in Libya next Thursday. We can get your visa organized while you’re in London.’

  ‘Don’t you ever go home, Alex? I promised Lizzie some quality time, a family holiday before she begins the big haul to A levels.’

  ‘With that drunken husband of yours?’

  ‘That’s out of order and I resent such a remark.’

  He lifted a hand, offering up the soft pink palm towards her, placatory, conciliatory. ‘Stay on with us. Take your holiday after Libya. Come with us, Kurtiz. I need you. The New York Times are interested in a spread for the weekend magazine. I sent through some stills and they’re excited by your work.’

  She dropped her gaze. He was persuasive, commanding. It was all too easy at this distance to say yes to him, to keep travelling, to stay away from home, from the recriminations and all that had gone wrong between her and Oliver. At this distance, here had become the reality, not London. Nothing but the work, the film and Alex. But she would tell him later when they had reached Hebron. ‘No, Alex, sorry. I’m going home. Lizzie comes first.’

  One of the duo of oud players, a striking Palestinian with a hooked nose and black agate eyes, was now embarking on a complex solo. He caught her interest, bowed his head and smiled. A wide open smile with startlingly uneven, tobacco-stained teeth. Kurtiz grinned and, after a second’s hesitation, returned her attention to Alex, her colleague in the field. Her employer, mentor and the man she was wrestling with herself not to fall into bed with, not to fall in love with.

  Why are you resisting? How can it hurt Oliver, Kurtiz? You are far from home and your marriage is over. It riled her when Alex spoke the truth to her so frankly and without emotion, assessing her predicament with more clarity than she did.

  Their drinks arrived. Mustafa, one of a gaggle of sons and cousins of the proprietor of this down-at-heel yet enchanting hotel, with its pretensions to ‘boutique’ status, beamed at her as he placed the glasses before them. A mischievous and delightfully childlike expression. A generously heaped bowl of shelled pistachios and an oval plate of sliced crudités – cucumber, carrots, celery interspersed with black olives from Nablus – were set before them. Alex dug into the bowl of nuts. From the palm of his curled hand, with his fingertips he popped them one after another without pause into his mouth.

  ‘Early breakfast again, Miss Kurtiz?’

  ‘Too early for you, Mustafa, don’t worry. We’ll grab something on the road. Shukran.’

  ‘Where you filming tomorrow?’

  ‘North West Bank. Beyond Nablus towards Jenin.’

  The waiter bowed and reversed backwards with his unloaded tray.

  ‘You shouldn’t answer every damn question.’

  ‘We’re hardly the Secret Service, Alex. Or the CIA in your case.’

  ‘I suggest we set off around four. The American Colony will give us coffee and crois
sants at any hour if you want to come by there first …’ Alex’s remark hung in the air. The unspoken or stay over there with me tonight needed no words.

  She ignored it. She always did, even if it stung her to do so. ‘You can pick me up here when you’re ready. Send me a text five minutes beforehand. I’ll be on the steps outside Reception, waiting.’ She lifted her glass and slugged the whisky back in one. It swam and burned beyond her tongue as it coursed down her oesophagus. ‘Thanks for the nightcap.’

  ‘Kurtiz?’

  She paused. Their eyes met. He screwed his mouth tight, scanning her face, searching for the breach he had as yet failed to penetrate. ‘If you need anything, you know where I am.’

  ‘Night, Alex.’

  As Kurtiz proceeded alongside the band, the black-eyed performer watched her. His concentration, his inner self, was with his strings, his nimble dark fingers, but his eyes admired her loose-limbed northern European beauty.

  Back in her room, she threw herself and the camera bag onto the bed. Its springs creaked as she landed, and she inched her laptop off the side table where it had been charging. There was a mail from Oliver – What time does your flight arrive on Saturday? Curt. And there was nada from Lizzie. Not a word. Sixteen years old, disgruntled and ‘deeply pissed off’ with Mum. With Mum and Dad and their incessant inability to see eye to eye. Fair enough, sweet Lizzie. Kurtiz felt that all too familiar stab of parental guilt. I should be there at home with you, supporting you through to your A levels, chivvying and bear-hugging you through your teenage crises, an ear to the confusions and angsts, a shoulder to cry on when the first heartbreak occurs. Are you even seeing anyone? Yes, I should be home.

  That was certainly Oliver’s opinion. But back when Lizzie had been a bawling child, it had been she who had remained at home, renouncing her studies – oh, she was too tired to ride that ferris wheel in her head again. She had a life, a burgeoning career now, and she was the only one of the pair bringing home a regular salary.

  To Oliver she typed: One of those hellish flights that takes off before midnight and gets me in about three or four in the morning. The dawn patrol. I should be home before breakfast on Sunday. Hope all well? KZ