The Gulf Between Us

by Geraldine Bedell

  ‘You know Chris, though: if he thinks something needs saying, he’ll say it,’ Karen answered complacently, ‘specially once he’s got a few drinks inside him.’

  I was wondering whether it was a good idea to point out that this was a completely crap quality when Anwar joined us, saying, ‘How are you lovely ladies?’ – which somehow suggested that he didn’t think we were lovely at all.

  Anwar is our sponsor at the British Primary School, where I am the school secretary. He is the majority owner; it’s a requirement of Hawari law that a Hawari national should own at least 51 per cent of any business. Our head teacher, Sue Forrester, owns the rest. Anwar comes in from time to time and hangs around, but there isn’t much for him to do, certainly not if we can help it. He also has some sort of junior deputy under secretary job at the Ministry of Education, where I suspect they don’t give him many actual tasks either.

  ‘Ah, it is a wonderful thing to have boys!’ he sighed to me now, which is what he always says. I introduced Karen and he asked her if she had boys as well.

  ‘No, just the one girl.’

  ‘Aha! A mistake!’ he cried, which is Anwar’s idea of a joke, although it’s getting harder to tell because lately he’s been saying more and more outrageous things. I don’t know if his intolerance, or enthusiasm for expressing it, is anything to do with the growing influence of Mohammed Alireza, but he’s taken to telling me how disgusting dogs are and also that it says this in the Quran or the hadiths; he doesn’t distinguish. He claims he’s wary of shaking hands with British people for fear they’ve been indulging their sentimentally filthy habit of touching them. More recently, he’s moved on to the role of women, which does not seem to include anything of very high status, and I’ve begun dreading his visits to school in case he says something really appalling and I have to respond rudely.

  ‘Of course,’ Anwar added, ‘if William were a Muslim, he would be able to do this all over again.’

  ‘In our country, England,’ Karen said, possibly thinking he was flirting, ‘men don’t need to marry more than one woman.’

  ‘No, you have the divorce.’

  ‘I was just telling Matthew he can’t come back from his gap year engaged,’ I tried to change the subject, ‘because I can’t possibly do this again for another ten years.’

  Chris swayed up, a bottle of champagne clutched in his fist. Where, how, had he got a whole bottle? It wasn’t a swigging from the bottle event.

  ‘This is Anwar,’ Karen announced, ‘who thinks it’s a good idea to have four wives.’

  ‘What about the nagging, though?’ Chris asked, frowning, and adding irrelevantly, ‘Jihad: that’s a Muslim thing.’

  ‘Jihad,’ Anwar said sententiously, ‘means the struggle against tyranny, or zulm. From the root jhd, meaning strain, struggle, endeavour. The first, greater jihad is the spiritual struggle within yourself, the second, the struggle against oppression.’

  Yousef Al Rayyan joined us in time to hear the end of this. ‘Ijtihad, the tradition of independent reasoning, questioning and debate, comes from the same root,’ he observed. ‘This can be confusing.’

  Karen said: ‘In Christianity, we believe in loving thy neigh‐bour.’

  ‘And so do we,’ agreed Yousef. ‘In the Quran we have the words wa ja’alnaakum shu’uuban wa qabaa’ilan li‐ta’aarifuu – “And I have created people and tribes so that they could get to know each other.”’ No one appeared to have an answer to this, so he went on: ‘It’s funny, until after 9/11 I never thought of myself as a Muslim. I was, of course, but it never seemed that important. It was in the background, a part of my identity but, to be honest, I hardly gave it any thought at all. But since 9/11, I find that a Muslim is what I am.’

  Anwar frowned. There was no way being a Muslim could or should be in the background.

  ‘How d’you mean?’ Karen asked.

  ‘Well, at the most obvious level, I haven’t been to America this year. I used to go every summer; I expected my daughter to study there. But the stories of what happens at immigration are too unpleasant. You also hear about Muslim students being ostracized in the classroom.’

  ‘Is that true, though?’

  ‘I don’t know, Annie. Many people believe these stories. I am not sure, myself, that I do believe them, but I believe enough in the possibility that I don’t want to take the risk.’

  ‘You can’t blame the Yanks,’ Chris said, ‘not after what happened.’

  ‘I do not blame them. I admire America. My son did his postgraduate study at Stanford. My point is that I feel estranged from the America‐loving part of myself. What has happened has made me something called a Muslim, who is somehow in opposition to America, whether that’s what I want to be or not.’

  Anwar was blinking rapidly, wanting to ask why you wouldn’t want to be a Muslim, but afraid he might get an answer. Even to get this far with his thoughts was making him angry.

  But Chris had lost interest. He leant towards me and said: ‘They think they’re it, don’t they?’

  ‘Sorry?’

  ‘Your kids. Just because they can play tennis and waterski, it’s like they don’t come from Croydon at all.’

  ‘I don’t know what you mean…’ They were born in Hawar. They didn’t come from Croydon. They’d hardly ever been to Croydon.

  ‘Yes you do. Going round the way they do…’

  ‘Chris, I’m not listening to this. I don’t know why you want to ruin it for me, but you won’t.’

  I marched off, blinking away tears that seemed to have been welling up since childhood, wondering why he was always so unpleasant, what I’d done to make him permanently irritable with me? And why, despite the fact that he hardly ever spoke kindly to me, I still felt sorry for him. I headed back to the marquee, my heels digging into the lawn where, all week, the sprinklers had been whirring and spraying, soaking the grass in preparation for our big day.

  The band were on their last set and I was outside the marquee again, talking to Will and Matt, Al Helgesen and our family doctor, Yousef Al Rayyan. It was the first time I’d ever seen Yousef in a thobe; in the surgery he always wears expensive pale grey suits.

  Al was describing life in Dubai. ‘Sometimes you can’t find your way home from the office, because the streets have changed while you’re at work.’

  ‘Is there a master‐plan?’ Will asked, ‘or does Shaikh Mohammed just wake up and decide to have some islands in the shape of a palm tree?’

  ‘They say he fancied a bit more beach.’

  ‘An Arab world capital,’ Yousef twinkled, ‘such presumption.’

  ‘Or a property bubble,’ Al said sourly.

  ‘At least Shaikh Mohammed’s trying to do something,’ Matt observed – which surprised me, because he’s never been very interested in politics.

  ‘We are improving a little, here in Hawar,’ Yousef replied: ‘I have high hopes for the crown prince.’

  Yousef is a member of a liberal group called Al Muntada, which translates as The Forum. They call themselves a think tank, because they’d quite like to be a political party but they aren’t allowed. They’re not allowed to publish anything either, so really they’re more of a talk tank. There are rumours that the emir’s son, Shaikh Rashid bin Hassan Al Majid, who studied politics and international relations at Manchester University, has been to some of their meetings.

  ‘Is it true he’s a bit wild?’ asked Al. ‘The crown prince?’

  ‘Does that mean interested in human rights?’ Yousef asked drily.

  ‘I heard more, you know, parties, drugs.’

  ‘Have you met him?’ Yousef asked Will, ignoring this. Shaikh Rashid would only have been a year or two older than Will.

  ‘No, never. I think Matt might have?’

  ‘Once,’ Matt said vaguely, looking around for Jodie, ‘at Shazia’s stables.’

  A classmate of Matt’s at the International School lived at the emir’s stables out at Jidda. Her mother was French and her father belonge
d to a distant branch of the ruling family, who’d made it a condition of his getting a good job in government that he marry a Hawari cousin who’d been picked out for him years before, no matter that he was already married to Marie‐Therese and had two children. Officially, Shazia’s parents were no longer together, but Marie‐Therese had stayed on in Hawar to run the royal stables and it was rumoured that she and Shaikh Abdullah still spent rather a lot of time together. The family didn’t mix in expatriate circles and probably not much in Hawari ones either, and Shazia was secretive about what went on at home. She rarely invited anyone to her house, but she’d made an exception for Matthew because he was such a good rider.

  Al’s wife Marisa came running across the grass at that moment and threw herself at her husband, clutching wildly at his sleeve, gasping: ‘There’s been a bomb!… In Bali!’ Al made a strangulated, throaty noise, but Marisa went on, the words tumbling out, ‘No, no, it’s OK, Molly’s safe. She just rang. Our daughter’s there,’ she added to the rest of us, looking distractedly around the little group.

  ‘Are you sure?’ Al said. ‘What about Clare?’

  ‘She’s fine too, but they wanted us to ring Clare’s parents because they couldn’t get through… Sorry,’ she said bleakly to me, ‘I didn’t mean to…’

  I put a hand on her arm. ‘It’s fine. You’re sure she’s OK?’

  ‘Yes, but she was quite close… It was on the beach. She’s travelling with a friend – gap year. And, you know, you worry about them when they’re away, but you don’t think someone’s going to blow them up… It was just young people, having a good time…’

  Al put his arm round her. ‘Come and sit down.’

  ‘Yes, we should call the Reillys…’

  Al started to lead her away. ‘They’re only young,’ she said helplessly. ‘And that’s what they do: drink on the beach in Bali…’

  They were making for the house, Marisa stumbling a little, when Chris almost barged into her. He was still clutching a bottle of champagne by the neck, although not, I fear, the same one.

  He looked back at Marisa indignantly then turned to me: ‘Izzit true? Someone said something about a big bomb.’

  ‘In Bali.’

  ‘Their daughter is there,’ Yousef added, nodding back at the Helgesens. ‘Luckily, she seems to be OK.’

  Chris staggered slightly and half fell into Matt. Recovering himself, he announced, ‘So! Eat, drink and be merry, because tomorrow you may be blown up by an Arab terrorist.’

  ‘I don’t think they’d be Arabs in Bali,’ I said stiffly. Yousef was standing beside me.

  ‘You saying they’re not Muslims, then?’ Chris glared at me, then turned back to Matt. ‘S’true, mate. Should be getting your end away… Lots of pretty girls here… bloody lucky for them I’m not twenty years younger…’

  ‘Right.’

  ‘You young people now, though, you’re all up yourselves…’

  Inside his new suit, Matt tensed.

  ‘We used to think if you couldn’t fuck a girl at a wedding, you couldn’t fuck one anywhere,’ Chris said loudly. ‘Drunk on the romance. And the booze. Thought it was… whasser matter, Matthew? No need to look like that. Not interested?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Why?’ He stumbled again. ‘What are you, queer or something?’

  ‘Actually,’ Matt said, ‘yes.’

  That was the moment that James Hartley chose to arrive. I didn’t notice at first. I was too busy staring stupidly at Matthew, wondering what does he mean, yes? He’s gay? Since when?

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he said to me, ‘perhaps it makes sense of a few things.’

  No. Why would it? It hadn’t occurred to me. Nothing about him had seemed odd, or wrong. How had I missed this? When I was his mother?

  My first cogent thought was he wouldn’t be able to have children, which was stupid because I’d never thought about him having children before. My second was that I was going to lose him to some kind of netherworld of promiscuity and leather and fetish and flouncing.

  The moment was burning itself into me. I thought I’d always remember this instant of landslip, when Matt and I fell and ended up in different places. I stared at him, making sure to imprint his features on my mind before I lost him. He was gay, and the person I’d believed in, even hoped for, was fading. He was not the boy, young man, I’d taken him to be. The buzz of conversation in the late, warm evening, the scent of frangipane mixed with apple tobacco – these would always remind me of the moment I lost Matthew and got a gay person instead.

  For a moment, I didn’t realize that Peter Franklin was gripping my elbow and steering me towards the veranda. ‘We seem to have some late arrivals.’

  I looked around. A change had come over the party, but not for the obvious reason, the reason that a change had come over me – because of what was going on up by the house. Something like an electric charge was running round the garden. Someone had arrived and someone had noticed, and then someone else, and the noticing spread: shoulders had straightened, sightlines had shifted, glances had slid across the lawn; it was as if a little of the intensity of each conversation had leached out and gathered in a force field over James Hartley’s head.

  He was standing on the veranda, by the steps, wearing a pale linen suit and a dark T‐shirt. He seemed to gleam in the darkness, irradiated by celebrity. A dark‐skinned man stood on one side of him and a tall, effortfully thin‐looking woman on the other.

  Peter was pushing me towards them. I looked around distractedly for Matt, ‘I can’t, not now!’

  ‘Annie, we can’t leave them. And no one else can do it.’

  ‘You don’t understand, something’s happened…’

  ‘He’s only here because of you.’

  Now, that was silly. That was almost as absurd as Matthew being gay. He was James Hartley, paid millions of dollars a film, interviewed by hyperventilating journalists, cosseted by people whose entire jobs were about supplying his needs… I stumbled up the steps.

  ‘Annie!’ He threw his arms around me. His body was older, stronger, but something about him, perhaps a smell or something even less tangible, felt familiar. He hugged me, and went on hugging me. ‘Hey!’ he said delightedly, ‘you haven’t changed at all!’

  He released me eventually and held me away from him. ‘You look amazing!’ he said delightedly. ‘Look, I’m sorry, we only just got in and we’re not even properly dressed, when you’re so lovely…’

  ‘No, it’s fine. It’s nice to see you.’

  ‘Oh no! I changed the flight. I was hoping to get here a bit earlier, but Nezar… Let me introduce you: this is Nezar Al Maraj – who’s Hawari – and Fiona Eckhart, my assistant.’

  Fiona smiled thinly. I shook her hand and said something polite about being pleased she could join us. The Hawari didn’t seem to have shaved. I assumed he must be some kind of fixer.

  ‘Salaam aleikum,’ I smiled politely.

  ‘Waleikum as salaam wa rahmatullah wa barakatu.’ This was an unnecessarily florid reply – And unto you be peace and the grace and mercy of God be upon you – which made me feel I should say something further, so I added: ‘Ahlan wa salan.’ Be welcome.

  I really shouldn’t have abandoned Matthew.

  He, however, seemed to want to go on. ‘Ahlan wa sahlan biki. Shlonik?’ How is the respected one?

  ‘Al hamdulillah,’ I answered dismissively: God be praised. I was trying to work out how to get away from James without seeming so rude that I blew all chances of a further meeting.

  ‘Shlon sahatik?’ he persisted. How is your health?

  It was at this point that I became fully aware that in circumstances that were by any measure cataclysmic I was exchanging formal greetings in Arabic – a language in which I can say no more than five simple things – with a fixer who hadn’t even been invited to the wedding. ‘Al hamdulillah,’ I repeated, with as much finality as possible.

  ‘Shlon al‐umuur?’

  He was asking now ho
w was my life? Oh, well, if we were going to get started on that, I thought bitterly, my life was terrible. One of my children was gay and I hadn’t noticed. James had turned up and I was ignoring him. Everyone at the wedding was staring at me and probably wondering why I was being so rude, and I was being publicly humiliated, laughed at, by a fixer who wanted to see how long I could keep this up.

  I didn’t say any of this. ‘Al hamdulillah,’ I lied. How dare he be amused by my efforts to include him? Perhaps my accent was even more appalling than I knew, or I’d missed out some crucial reference to the all‐mercifulness of God. That was Arabic for you: frankly, it was a wonder Arabs ever got anything done with all the courtesy they had to get through every time they met someone.

  ‘Very impressive,’ murmured Fiona, ‘but I think, Nezar, darling, you’ve had your fun now.’

  ‘Oh, I was rather enjoying it,’ James said cheerfully. I coloured: shit, had they all been laughing at me? ‘Nezar’s our producer – did he just tell you that?’

  ‘No,’ I said stiffly. ‘We didn’t get past whether we were happy with our lives.’

  ‘Best to get the ontology over with first,’ he said.

  I could have hit him. He’d guessed I thought he was some kind of gofer/odd job person. He knew I’d been patronizing him: that was why he’d been teasing me. And now he was using words I didn’t even properly know the meaning of. I smiled at him distantly, acknowledging that he’d had his little joke.

  ‘Nezar mostly lives in New York,’ James added. ‘And is this your husband?’ He indicated Peter, who was hovering behind me, so then I had to explain who he was, and also that Dave was dead, that he’d been killed in a car crash on the Arad Road, and that I had two other children… I was gabbling, because I was wondering again where Matt was and if he was OK.

  How was all this happening at once? I was talking to a film star and my son was gay. There were no events of note for years, and then everything happened at once.

  James was frowning. ‘Annie, is everything OK?’

  ‘Yes. No. Not really. That is… I’m fine. I just had some news…’