by Nick Louth
After the exchange of traditional and formal Arab greetings, and the offering and acceptance of mint tea, the BBC pair were offered the comfort of a small square carpet, reserved for visitors.
‘Abu Saleem, we’re here to offer our deepest condolences,’ Wyrecliffe began, turning to the interpreter, who duly started to speak.
Abu Saleem, his keffayah headdress and djelabah proudly starched and cleaned for the occasion, motioned for them to sit first. Wyrecliffe, eased himself gingerly to the ground while his younger colleagues crouched. Mrs Adwan then brought in slices of fresh ripe mango. In Ain such luxuries were hard to come by. Baxter, reluctant to help himself, took his cue from Wyrecliffe who took a small slice.
‘So, please tell me who kill my son.’ Abu Saleem’s rheumy eyes fixed Wyrecliffe.
‘There’s a short answer, but I feel I owe you a long one, because it best conveys the courage and bravery of your son, and the dedication he brought to his job,’ Wyrecliffe responded. This was a speech that he had rehearsed, and rewritten many times, more times than any news story.
Abu Saleem nodded, as the journalist recounted everything that had happened. A small shy boy of about ten with big brown eyes watched from the doorway. From a string around his waist dangled a toy gun: small, plastic and heavily loved. When Wyrecliffe smiled directly at him, the child dropped his gaze and shied away round the door, kicking at the concrete with his plastic sandals.
‘That is Hakim, Fouad’s son, and my grandson.’ Abu Saleem’s face lit up as he looked at the boy, and pulled him close. ‘You are a fine young man, aren’t you Hakim? Abu Saleem’s pride in the boy, extended to his reading (very good), his English (coming along well) and his history. Bashir translated this, and details of the child’s schooling. ‘My daughter Fatima married a fine man, Walid,’ Abu Saleem said. ‘He was born here, but now he runs a pharmacy in Kuwait City, and sends us money to educate Hakim. God-willing, he will go to university.’
Wyrecliffe rummaged in his bag and pulled out an ageing Polaroid camera.
‘Let’s have a photograph together. Rick, would you do the honours?’
Wyrecliffe clasped Abu Saleem to one side and Hakim to the other as they posed for the picture against a nearby pockmarked cement wall. Baxter handed Wyrecliffe the damp print after it was ejected by the camera.
‘Now watch this, Hakim,’ Wyrecliffe said handing the print to the boy. Hakim gasped in amazement as the print gradually acquired colours and shape.
With utmost gravity he looked at the BBC man and asked in deliberate English: ‘May I keep it, please.’
‘Of course. It is for you and your grandfather.’
A thin girl, maybe three years old in a grubby pale green dress and tiny brass earrings was sitting on the floor, watching from behind a wooden stool. Wyrecliffe couldn’t help noticing she had a deformed foot, the toes curled under and inwards which caused her to limp when she tried to walk.
Abu Saleem, noticing his gaze said dismissively: ‘Fouad’s daughter. This girl I think will never marry, unfortunately.’
‘What’s your name, pretty one?’ Wyrecliffe said.
The girl hid her face shyly behind her hands, looking at him between her fingers.
‘Her name is Cantara,’ Abu Saleem said.
‘What is wrong with her foot?’ Wyrecliffe asked.
Abu Saleem gave a dismissive wave of the hand. ‘It was this way from birth. She will learn to sew, and to help her mother. It is God’s will.’
‘Have you taken her to a doctor? They can do a lot now,’ Baxter asked.
‘Doctors cost money and this, I think, they cannot fix,’ said Abu Saleem flatly.
Wyrecliffe called the girl over, and asked whether it was she who had drawn a picture of her father inside a TV. She nodded shyly. ‘Do you have any more drawings to show me?’ he asked. She nodded, and with great solemnity brought out a large envelope, in which were some scraps of paper with pictures of the family and her house, drawn as a red box with green windows and a door, and three figures peering out. There was something depicted in the yard. ‘What is this?’ he asked.
The child replied with one word tays, a goat. Wyrecliffe, smiled and made a mental note to send the girl some proper paper and coloured crayons. He got out his Polaroid again, and Baxter did a full family picture, with Noura, Hakim and Wyrecliffe, crouching, holding the little girl steady by his side. When the picture emerged, he gave it to her and said: ‘This is for you, Cantara, from me. It is in memory of your father.’
He shifted his backside on the carpet, trying to find a position that didn’t give him backache or cramp his lower legs. He watched the little girl, who navigated the room by lurching from stool to wall to table, and the thought occurred to him that something really should be done to help her. After fifteen more minutes, he asked Abu Saleem if they could takes some pictures, and perhaps recreate on film some of the moments of their visit.
‘Yes of course.’ Abu Saleem barked at Noura to come and sweep the room, even though it was already spotless. ‘For news programme?’
Wyrecliffe, feeling distinctly uncomfortable, told him that it would be, perhaps as a part of a package about life in the camps, or perhaps as a special on ‘the real cost of news.’ He didn’t use the terms ‘human interest’ or ‘soft feature’ but that is what in journalistic terms the death of Fouad Adwan now was. The thousands of deaths in the Middle East, the slaughter in refugee camps like Sabra and Shatila, the bombs, the bullets and the unfathomable factional strife, were numbing to viewers. In the end it was the close-up of a family tragedy that elicited most empathy. The bewildered faces of bereaved children, the tears of widows and the homes where a son or daughter, mother or father would never return, these were the stories that really made sense of the horror of war. Though the BBC wasn’t, like some US networks, too flinty-hearted to let a journalist spend time and money on what was effectively a compassionate errand, it would be considered a lost opportunity if something journalistically didn’t emerge from it. It was the run up to Christmas, as one seasoned London-based producer had reminded Wyrecliffe, and the subject was a seasonal natural for TV or radio. ‘Let’s just have five minutes of pictures, a couple of minutes of natural sound – children playing, the clink of cups, you know the sort of thing – and some thoughtful voiceover with your lovely rich Yorkshire tones,’ she had said. ‘And some silences and hesitation to underscore your personal involvement in the story.’
It wasn’t difficult. Abu Saleem was happy enough to recreate on camera his delight at the moment of the BBC’s arrival, to have some more tea and to show them again around the modest home that he had created. Close-ups of the children, the girl’s twisted foot in particular and the boy playing with a plastic gun, were all grist to the mill.
On the way home, Wyrecliffe felt an overwhelming sense of guilt. This had been intended as a mission of kindness, but it felt somehow tainted. Of course, he had come to the camp partly to assuage his own guilt at taking Abu Saleem’s only son, Noura’s beloved husband and the father of two delightful children on what turned out to be a deadly mission. He had offered condolences, explanation and perhaps closure to a grieving family. But he had taken something too, by intruding on private grief for footage to be seen by millions. As one journalist had told him many years ago: in news, nothing, absolutely nothing, is sacred.
* * *
St. Bride’s Church, Fleet Street, London
April 2009
Lady Leonora Simons stood at the lectern at the great Wren church, now dedicated to journalists, and looked out with satisfaction. Before her was a congregation of the great and the good: powerful, well-placed people who had turned out on a vilely wet evening to support a charitable cause of which she was the chief trustee. Prime Minister Gordon Brown, much to her regret, had cancelled at two hours’ notice, but the government was instead represented by Douglas Alexander, the International Development Secretary, and Baroness Royall, Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, and leader of the Hou
se of Lords. She could see Rupert Murdoch and his son Lachlan, plus the editors of the Guardian, Daily Telegraph, Financial Times, and News of the World. Also present were three members of the BBC’s oversight board, the BBC Trust, including Richard Byre, a former chief of BBC News who had known Wyrecliffe for years.
‘Thank you very much ladies and gentleman for being here today. As you know, the Fouad Adwan Foundation has now reached a milestone. As of yesterday I can announce we have raised £2 million to offer international scholarships for the education of promising students from the refugee camps of Lebanon.’
After some applause she went on: ‘Before I hand over to Chris Wyrecliffe, I would like to extend my great thanks to him on behalf of the whole committee. Not only did he set up the foundation, but he has used every opportunity and all of his extensive contacts to raise money. None of this would be possible without him, but to be honest I don’t know how he does it.’ Chuckles rippled through the audience.
‘Chris has to get up at 3am every morning to present, along with John Humphrys, Sarah Montague, and Jim Naughtie, the most demanding radio news programme in the country. Yet even at 10pm I can get a call from Chris, about developments in this or that camp in Gaza or Lebanon.’
‘So without more ado, I’ll ask him to share that oh-so-familiar voice with us once again.’
Wyrecliffe kissed Lady Simons on the cheek as she left the lectern. It was with some relief that he was able to get on with the real business of the evening, which was to launch a medical aid project for the camps to go side-by-side with the educational one.
Two hours later he was standing outside in the drizzle of Fleet Street, celebrating a successful evening. He hailed a cab and set off back home to Dulwich. For the next half an hour as the cab wound over Blackfriars Bridge, through the Elephant and Castle, Walworth and into Camberwell, Wyrecliffe phoned and texted various friends to let them know how the evening went. It was only when he was within a mile from home that the cabbie, a taciturn fellow who hadn’t spoken for the entire trip, asked: ‘Friend a’yours is it, be’ind us?’
Wyrecliffe turned to look at another black cab waiting behind them at traffic lights. ‘Why do you ask?’
‘Followed us the ‘ole way, ain’t he. Right from the church.’
Wyrecliffe looked again. He could see the driver well enough, a middle-aged man in a flat cap and car coat but could see nothing of the passenger.
‘Coincidence, I expect.’
‘Nah, dittn’t like anyone getting between us,’ the cabbie persisted. ‘Only noticed when he overtaked a van in Camberwell. Bit dangerous like.’
‘If you think so. Let’s take the next left.’ Wyrecliffe indicated a small side which he knew contained little more than lock-up garages and a dry cleaners. ‘That would be a coincidence if he was to follow us down there.’ The cabbie obliged, turning sharply without indicating. The other cab continued on the main road.
‘False alarm then?’ Wyrecliffe said, then started to indicate the way towards his home through the maze of one-way streets.
‘It’s alright mate. I did me knowledge. I know how to get you home.’
Chapter Six
Beirut
December 1989
The delicious memory of Taseena’s slick and soapy hands unsticking the bloody shirt from his torso stayed and indeed grew with Wyrecliffe in the following weeks. For a woman of Saudi origin, albeit educated in the West, this was an astonishingly forward act. Speculation on her motivation excited him more than he dared admit. After all, traditional Saudi rules do not allow a woman to even show her face in the presence of any male over puberty who isn’t part of the family. But touching a man’s bare chest and back, not actually a stranger, but worse than that a senior colleague, was an act of enormous personal self-confidence. Indeed, Wyrecliffe thought, it would have been considered very forward even for liberated Western women. He savoured again the memory of her face, those bewitching kohl-rimmed eyes and full lips set in concentration as she delicately applied antiseptic to his ear.
Though Taseena had been to lunch a couple of times with him and bureau chief Jim Moore since being recruited as a stringer, she had been shy of discussing her background. All he knew was that her father was a member of an obscure branch of the Saudi Royal family, but an unusually enlightened one, having been educated in Europe and the US. Still, he wasn’t so liberal as to give up all the trappings of Saudi privilege. So as well as Taseena having three brothers, she had dozens of half siblings, through her father’s three other wives. Wyrecliffe wanted to know much more.
It wasn’t easy to do so. Taseena didn’t spend much time in the bureau, freelancers rarely did. There wasn’t much space, and they were expected to provide their own resources. There were only two desks in the basement, only one reliably working IBM computer, two intermittent phone lines, one of which was hogged by a hated French-made telex machine, which jammed on almost every urgent message. It was only the access upstairs to the Associated Press coffee machine, meeting room and bathroom which made life bearable. Of course, when Taseena went up for coffee, all work in AP stopped for an ogling break. Wyrecliffe had fielded many enquiries about the social availability of ‘the honey with money’ as she was known to the AP’s largely American staff, to which he could do nothing but shrug.
So it was another three weeks before Wyrecliffe and Taseena found themselves in the office together. She had at Moore’s request visited some of the northern camps, beyond Tripoli and close to the Syrian border to cover the factional killings that had taken place there. It wasn’t the easiest assignment but she did it without complaint, assisted by a driver/fixer she knew and trusted. Now, having recorded only her third-ever radio piece, this for the BBC’s From Our Own Correspondent, she needed some help on editing the tape. She watched intently as Wyrecliffe showed how to make edits, and dub her voice report from one tape onto the excellent recording she had made of sniper fire during the night.
‘This is really impressive material, Taseena,’ he said. ‘Some really moving accounts, and written with a light touch.’
‘Thank you.’ She smiled, and almost imperceptibly arched one dark and carefully trimmed eyebrow, as if to say: of course it’s good, what did you expect? Her almond-shaped eyes had the whitest whites he had ever seen. At first he’d thought her irises were the colour of chocolate, but in this light, and so close he could almost taste her, he saw they were threaded with filaments of ochre, hazel and tangerine.
After they were finished he checked how much cash he had, jotted down the expenses he was also due to receive soon, and then with as much casualness as he could muster offered to take her to lunch at Place Quattorze. This was one of the tiniest, most intimate and expensive restaurants in Rue Monnot, where it was impossible to book a table during the evening, but easier and slightly less expensive at lunch. She jolted him by politely but immediately declining. She had a piece to do for a Qatari banking magazine. The phrase she neglected to mention, that he’d hoped to hear was: ‘Thank you for the offer, let’s do it another time.’ Refusal just made him more determined. As she walked out, he knew then how much he wanted her. He had to get close to her, but how? Finally, he decided on a plan. He would create an assignment that they could do together.
Chapter Seven
London
May 2009
Conway Hall, Red Lion Square, wasn’t going to be the most comfortable place that Chris Wyrecliffe had ever been. He’d agreed in January to moderate the annual May Day debate. It was usually something controversial, but this was going to be incendiary. The provisional title for tonight’s debate, set many weeks ago, had been ‘Can the war in Afghanistan be won?’ for which the obvious retort was: yes, but by whom? Inevitably, matters had got overtaken by events. Following a particularly bloody incident two weeks ago in which an American airstrike in Herat, targeted at a Taliban commander, had killed ninety civilians, the title was now ‘Is America assaulting Islam?’ In the ‘yes’ camp was the historian, feminist
and Oxford don Dr Helen Steele, opposing her the military historian and Atlanticist professor Robert Cummings. Wyrecliffe’s reputation for avuncular firmness and his undeniably booming voice made him the ideal candidate for referee. With free entry and the usual minimal level of stewarding the meeting was bound to be rowdy, if not downright riotous.
Wyrecliffe wasn’t disappointed. Dr Steele’s initial affirmation of the contention drew on the history of US military intervention, the hypocrisy of stated aim and actual intention, and the dangerous conflation of the Taliban which ran Afghanistan with Al Qaeda which merely based itself there. Professor Cummings, having chipped in with some early caveats during Dr Steele’s speech, soon found himself being booed from the floor, and addressed the floor directly.
‘I’m sorry, but the US is actually doing the world a favour by tackling one of the most anti-democratic, authoritarian and extremist ideologies. You couldn’t even fly a kite under Taliban rule in Afghanistan, or listen to music or educate your daughters.’
Someone at the back bellowed something. Wyrecliffe urged the audience to let the professor finish his point. ‘We’ve got more than half an hour reserved for questions later, so please let him finish’.
A tall Middle Eastern-looking youth walked calmly towards the stage. ‘As always, the Americans are attacking Islam,’ he said. He was dressed in a dark business suit and leather gloves, but gestured angrily towards the panellists. ‘America wants to crush the Muslim world! This is a new crusade!’
‘We’ll be able to hear the evidence for that, for and against, if you would just take your seats,’ boomed Wyrecliffe.
