A Million People, Hadley

by Nick Macfie

“The company will deny the use of glycerine. Without attempting another joke, I must say that after about six cans, your bowels will open as if by detonation. No one will be safe for yards around.”

  “Good grief.”

  “I’ll bring your drinks.”

  My phone went. I could hear the shouting before I had raised it to my ear. I had completely forgotten about Palakorn.

  “You leave me in the fucking middle of nowhere, you don’t call, you fuck off with that fucking woman. What the fuck do you think you are doing?”

  “Palakorn, I am so sorry.”

  “I mean, a bomb goes off. And you fuck off and leave me in the middle of fucking nowhere. How unprofessional is that?”

  “I thought you’d be okay. She wanted to go somewhere.”

  “She wanted to go somewhere? I was in the middle of fucking nowhere!”

  “I was going to circle back.”

  “Circle back? What are you, a boomerang? Some sort of fucking homing pigeon?”

  “Are you all right? Was it a big bomb?”

  “It was nothing.”

  “Where are you?”

  “I’m at the Pearl-Continental.”

  “Well, that’s nice.”

  “Well it is now. No thanks to you. I mean where in the hostile training manual does it say if there’s a bomb, and your colleague has gone to investigate, you should turn the car around and take off at speed, pebbles spitting from under the wheels?”

  “What can I say? You’re so macho. And she turned my head.”

  Palakorn hung up and my phone rang again immediately. Number unknown.

  “Hello?”

  “Hello. Be.”

  “Sorry?”

  “Hello. Be. My.”

  “Who is this?”

  “Hello. Be. My. Servan-ter.”

  “Oh for fuck’s sake.”

  I hung up. This was getting creepy.

  The beer came. I’d had it before many times and the barman didn’t know what he was talking about. I knocked it back in one, banged the glass on the bar top and signalled for another.

  My phone went again. Gary’s number.

  “Hey, man,” I said.

  “Hey, Hadley. Just wanted to say how sorry I am I couldn’t be on your trip to Peshawar. How did things go?”

  “Good,” I said. “They went well. I got to speak to Marina.”

  There was a pause. “You got to speak to Marina?”

  “Yes. Palakorn was there. She picked us up in her car. We should have a great story.”

  Another pause. “I’ve never got to speak to Marina,” he said.

  “Well, it wasn’t difficult. We were in the street…”

  “Hadley?”

  “Yes, Gary?”

  “Shut it.”

  Gary hung up. What the fuck? I didn’t have time to think about it. Marina reappeared. She had changed into a loose, dark green, silk curtain-like affair that billowed at the top and grasped her ankles at the bottom. She had freshened her lipstick. I stood up as she took her seat and took a sip of her gin and tonic. The barman brought my beer.

  “You must be wondering why I have invited you here,” she said.

  “I feel honoured.”

  “Well there’s no need. That is the point. I wanted to see you again as two normal people having refreshment, and this is where it is possible.”

  “Who runs the place? I have been in other bars in Islamabad, but this is the most discreet.”

  “The military runs it, believe it or not. It is not common knowledge. But I feel I already know you well enough to know that you won’t share my little secret.”

  “Of course, I won’t.”

  “And perhaps we could meet here again.”

  “I would like that.”

  “How’s the beer?”

  “It’s cold and delicious. Tell me, Mrs …”

  “Please call me Marina.”

  “Marina. Do other people come here?”

  “Of course.”

  “Other famous politicians?”

  “Yes, one or two. But they are all friends. I hope. Barring all the information I was giving you in the car. Off the record.”

  “Of course. But won’t people mind you telling me about the place?”

  “You will not divulge the information.” She reached into her bag and pulled out a gun.

  “Whoa.”

  “Hadley, it’s okay. Relax. You know what this is?”

  I looked around. “It’s a gun. Why have you pulled out a gun?”

  “Don’t worry. This is a place I can do what I like and get away with it. It’s a silver pistol. It’s for my protection. I also have a knife.”

  She delved into the bag and brought out a knife which she unsheathed in a swift move. “This is a twelve-inch Bowie knife.”

  “As opposed to a twelve-inch Bowie single.” She didn’t appear to hear me.

  “And I save the best for last.” She replaced the weapons and brought what looked like a child’s pencil case, with a zip running along the top. She opened the zip slowly and delicately brought out the largest spliff I had ever seen. It was the shape and size of a pipe bomb.

  “This is how I get off,” she said. “I want to suck on this mother right now. Like sucking an exhaust pipe on an automobile, you know what I mean? My mouth open wide. Stretching my lips. I want to draw on this to the maximum effect, to take it in and hold it there so I cannot speak. Do you ever experience that sensation?”

  Borderline crazy, I reckoned. “Marina, are you sure it’s okay to do this? Here, I mean?”

  To give you an idea how big this joint was, she used half a toilet roll as a roach. There was also a no-smoking zone sign on the wall, which didn’t carry much weight when we were drinking in a no-drinking country.

  “Your chest starts to heave with pleasure,” she said. “And your abdomen. You start to look at things in a different way. You see a dog and the dog looks at you and you think: Can you read my thoughts? Like, are you god?”

  “Big departure from Islam, then.”

  She lit the spliff with a candle on the table, rolling the flame round and around, and took one of those big intakes of breath which make you speak like you’re being strangled underwater.

  “Big time. Departure. Like a gleaming airport departure hall. Jesus.”

  “In another town. Dubai, perhaps. Bangkok.”

  “Fuck me this is good stuff.”

  “And another question: does your husband ever come here?”

  “Husband?”

  “Yes.”

  “You want a hit?”

  “No thanks. I don’t really feel in the mood.”

  “You think I am going to call the police?” She took another hit and spoke to me as if through a voice box being fed too much electricity. “You remember what I was saying about rumours my husband wanted to kill me?”

  “Marina, please, not so loud.”

  She paid no attention. “I actually and specifically told him. I told him that if I found out that he was plotting to kill me, I would plot to kill him first.”

  “It sounds like two senators conspiring in Ancient Rome. Underneath the arches of the Coliseum.”

  “It would be touch and go who would get to whom first.” She inhaled again and this time spoke in a high-pitched, barely audible wheeze: “I told him… during the… conjugal proceedings.”

  “Oh wow.”

  “The look… on his face… was a spectacularly magic moment… for both of us. First class.”

  I had to turn this conversation back to the subject of murder. I didn’t want to hear about any more magic moments.

  “Why would he want to kill you?”

  “He has his political ambitions too. And yet I am the people’s favourite, despite my faith. I will be the next prime minister. What more efficacious than to kill me and win all my supporters by default in sympathy? But of course he would have to make sure that the finger of blame for my killing was directed at his and my opponents. That
would necessarily be the case. The people here are very poorly educated. They would not suspect such a Machiavellian plot. They would support him.”

  “Good grief.”

  “Or he could get jealous. It is no secret that I have had paramours. My husband and I have an understanding.”

  “Ah.” Again I managed not to say “nice one”.

  She took a big hit and addressed me, sounding like Donald Duck locked in an ice-box. “The men could be a bit of a political embarrassment.”

  “I can imagine that.”

  Another fast intake of smoke and then in a soprano gasp: “But that’s where the Christianity helps. As a Muslim woman, I would stand no chance. As a Christian, I have already been written off by a large section of the population as a heretic. In that respect, I have god on my side.”

  “You were talking about your husband.”

  “He does not come here. But he knows I do. He is cognisant of many things. I am sure he knows I am here with you contemporaneously. He will listen to your conversations in all sorts of unexpected places with nefarious designs.” I thought of the pictures of the small man with the big gun and his posse of bodyguards. “He has his own places where he goes, where I don’t go, but where many young and beautiful women go too. Do you understand what I am saying?”

  “I do.”

  “Many of these beautiful young woman are English. Does that surprise you? Don’t get me wrong. I love my husband and he loves me. But we are ambitious people. We are like business partners. He is very powerful. He is a lusty and lascivious man. He needs his releases.”

  I couldn’t help feel a little turned on. I don’t know if it was the glycerine-free Sparkhayes, the smoke from the haystack in her mouth, or the open, easy suggestions of decadent deception from one of the most beautiful faces in front of me, candlelight on moist lips.

  “Marina.”

  “What is it?”

  “Do you, by any chance, want to …”

  “Want to what?”

  “Well, go somewhere.”

  “Go somewhere? Why would I want to go somewhere now?”

  Did I really have to spell it out? “Go somewhere else,” I said.

  “Go somewhere else?”

  “Well, yes.”

  “Stop there, Hadley. Hold your horse. I ought to warn you about the kind of company my husband keeps.”

  “You mean… the women?”

  “No, not the women. His security team. Just take my word. Don’t ever give them cause for suspicion.”

  “I see. Thank you.”

  “For a woman, it takes time to feel that way about a man. But that is alongside the point. Watch out for one who wears cotton wool in his ears.”

  “Cotton wool?”

  “He seems very friendly, but he is a mean, mean man. I don’t have to go any further, I hope.”

  “He has an infection?”

  “He has a disease. Any sharp noise puts him to sleep. Instantaneously.”

  “So in case there is any car backfiring…”

  “Or gunshot. Or improvised explosive device. That is the reason.”

  “Wow. I shall forever be looking in men’s ears.”

  “That is not all.”

  “His adenoids?”

  She looked briefly at the ceiling. “This man is violent in the degree of infinity. He has depraved appetites.”

  I downed my beer and the barman was there immediately at my shoulder with another can. What was that look on his face? Defiance? I’d show him.

  Marina’s phone rang. She pushed back her hair and an ear ring shaped like a chandelier. “Tikka,” she said. Then after a long pause: “Tikka… Ah-cha. Ah-cha… Tikka.” She hung up.

  “I am afraid I am going to have to leave now, by myself,” she said. “I have an appointment I cannot ignore. I want you to stay here a while. Is that all right?”

  “Yes. Thank you for having me. I hope everything is okay?”

  “Yes, everything is first class. I had a wonderful time. Next time perhaps we shall dance to Spanish music. The bill is not a matter of your or my concern.”

  “You are most kind.”

  She touched my hand and did that thing with her fingers and was off up the spiral staircase, her bangles clattering gently against the iron banister.

  I HAD HAD NINE BEERS by the time I left, giving Cyrano de Bergerac a knowing smile and pulling myself up the stairs and into the long drive down to the road. Okay, I was a bit tipsy but that was all. Explosions like there was no tomorrow?

  “My arse,” I said.

  The guard let me out through the tall metal gate and my plan had been to walk down to the main road and jump into one of the minuscule gas-fired taxis whose large drivers looked like goats penned into rabbit cages. A man wearing a dark shalwar kameez approached from behind. He had come from a battered old car with three friends all looking out the window at me. The man was about forty-five and wore sparkly ear rings. I like Islamabad and feel safe. But my first thought this time was that if some insurgent group wanted to kidnap me, a Shrubs journalist, what better plan than to send a man wearing diamonds in his ears and a bunch of mates for back-up when I was a bit pissed? Then I remembered. It was the solemn man I had seen in Rick’s Cafe back in Hong Kong.

  “Eh-up,” the man said.

  “I’m sorry?”

  “Is this the guesthouse?”

  “The guesthouse.” Think quickly, Hadley. Just don’t mention the booze. Why the Yorkshire accent?

  “No guesthouse,” I said. “Just a restaurant.”

  “A restaurant, you say.” He was eyeing me up and down. I did not feel relaxed. I was expecting a line like: “Int’ back ‘t’ car. Now. In fact, int’ boot.”

  “Is this the place where they do the massages?” he said.

  “Massages?”

  “Aye, lad. Massages. Me and me mates fancy a roob.”

  He turned briefly to the car to signal his mates.

  “A roob?”

  “Aye. A good roob. My name’s Todd and I fancy a bit of ’ankeh-pankeh.”

  “I think you may have the wrong place.” Trooble down’t massage parlour.

  “Oh, I could have sworn that this were the place, like. So where are you from?”

  “I live in Hong Kong.”

  “You don’t look Chinese.”

  “No, I’m not. I’m from England. But I live in Hong Kong.”

  “You don’t say. I’m from Leeds. I used to sell cars. What do you do?”

  “I’m a journalist.” I shouldn’t have said that, of course. I don’t know why I made such a basic error in what many people still considered a hostile environment. If there was any time to get “int’ boot”, this was it. But it wasn’t. “All I want to write about is tea.”

  “What?”

  “That is my dream. To write about tea.”

  “But we don’t grow tea in Pakistan. Well, we tried once, back in the day, like. But the soil and climatic conditions were not right, you see. I know this for a fact. They weren’t conducive.”

  “What I mean is, I would like to write about that. The possibilities. Of trying to grow tea in Pakistan again.”

  “Oh right. Well it’s been a pleasure to speak to you,” Todd said. “Me and me mates will be off then.”

  “Okay.”

  “If there’s no ’ankeh-pankeh, there’s no ’ankeh-pankeh.”

  “There’s no hanky-panky, as far as I know.”

  “We’ll just have to take your word for it.”

  “Aye.”

  He walked back to the car and turned. “A real nice pleasure talking to you, ’Ad-leh.”

  “You too. Wait. How do you know my name?”

  “I’m Todd, by the way. Yorkshire Todd. We drink lots of tea in Yorkshire. Brick red, it is.”

  He and his mates stared at me as the car took off along the street. Only he was smiling. The others looked ready to kill.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  THE FIRST STOP the next day was the Supre
me Court to hear a blasphemy case against a former military leader and friend of Marina’s dad who was also a closet Christian. No verdict was expected, but I just wanted to see what the place looked and felt like. A bit of what we in the trade call “colour” for the story about the world stacked up against Marina and her political career. I still hadn’t been to the office yet. And I hadn’t managed to reconnect with Gary the bureau chief. His phone was permanently off. What a strange way to run an operation. Blasphemy, as it happens, carries the death penalty in Pakistan. But anyone who says their religious feelings have been injured can bring a case. And it’s tough to get a lawyer to defend you, because he could be accused of blasphemy too, just by being on your side. The lawyers get shot dead in the street outside the courts and the people who do the shooting are hailed, by some, as heroes. There are people banged up in jail across the country on trumped up charges. It is a bizarre and hugely corrupt system.

  I sat in the press box for over an hour and nothing noticeable happened. So much grandeur, so much gravitas, so little progress. All men, of course. I wondered why the lawyer in front of me, in a dark suit turning to green mould, was shaking his leg so violently. It was as annoying as a flickering neon light.

  The Supreme Court is bright, dramatic and splendid from the outside. It’s a dark, dull and poorly maintained maze on the inside. Court One is about a hundred feet tall and bathed in a weird yellow light through triangular windows in the ceiling which gives the cheap, brown veneered woodwork below a psychedelic orange tinge. There is room for up to twenty judges and there’s seating for about two hundred. The walls are covered with portraits of old judges in wigs. There are ancient law books everywhere and I bet no one had looked at one of them in years. The one I could see nearest the press box was “The Journal and Supreme Court: PLD 1” and dated 1964. The title didn’t make sense. Nor, I dared wager, did the contents. Who needs a 1964 law book? No one. It just looked the part, someone thought. Fusty, pompous and useless.

  There were two lines of lawyers wearing the same black suits and cheap leather shoes, all about seventy and all dusty and half dead. In front of them were clerks sifting through pile after pile of papers, folders and files, about two feet tall and tied up with string (the piles, not the clerks). They looked like stacks of newspapers and people kept on bringing in more on their shoulders. One man was holding a pot of glue. Who was going to get around to reading that lot? About the same number who would get around to reading 1964 law books about four inches thick. Was it vital evidence? Why wasn’t it slimmed down and online? Or chucked it into the nearest skip? How many lives were going to be well and truly screwed over just because no one in the room cared?