Burqalicious

by Becky Wicks

  I let the ocean carry my thoughts away as I watched the surf slap the sides of the boat. As we sailed around the Palm, a man in the know, who sounded like he worked in property development, pointed at one of the branches dotted with beige-coloured villas. He told us that although they’ve been designed for families wanting private beach space for playing and paddling, people have been warned not to swim. I’ve never thought about it before, but apparently there’s no natural gradient from the beach out into the water. This could take a while to develop. A mother and her nervous child can walk a certain distance from the shoreline at a pleasant slope, before dropping off completely into the middle of the sea!

  The muggy afternoon crept into evening. We were all deposited at Barasti on the wrong side of sober and before I knew it, Heidi, The Irishman and I were at the property developer’s house in Barsha, which was buzzing in the midst of a sweaty party. It was so hot and there were so many people crammed into the villa that the air-con had long since given up. People were perspiring so profusely, it looked as though they’d all been swimming in their clothes, and that’s just what happened next. One by one, they all started jumping into the pool, whether they had swimwear on or not, creating a sexy, sweaty soup of sunburnt limbs and Li-Los.

  The Irishman and I watched all this unfold in amusement from our spot on the lawn. We’d been chatting all day and most of the night, and by this point we were pretty hammered and more than halfway through a bottle of vodka. Looking at the girls in the pool, he laughed, flashed his impish grin and told me how fun it is getting naughty in the water. Staring at his profile under the stars, something inside me felt suddenly sick … you know when a giant wave of icky-ness just washes over you and you can’t speak? He implied he’d had a recent experience with a girl … one I didn’t know about, and once the wave had passed and I could breathe, I exploded into tears, right there on the lawn, at someone else’s house.

  Everything came pouring out (apart from sick, thank God), about how M&M was being so controlling, and how I didn’t really know how to stop what I had started … and how The Irishman telling me about this other girl set the Rage inside me, at him, at myself for getting so lost somehow. Looking back, it must have appeared a little bit like one of those scenes from a Californian teen drama — one that has a melancholy tune playing in the background, as the semi-naked partygoers rock out in slow motion, oblivious to the world crashing down around a broken delinquent; a poor little rich kid who’s just lost everything, everyone, and her pride. I expected him to laugh like he usually does when I act like an idiot and slur a drunken rant in his direction. I thought he’d call me an emotional moron and tell me I should just dump M&M, as he has done many times, along with most of my friends. But before I could gather my emotions back together and prepare for his tactless Irish attack, he kissed me, right there on the lawn, at someone else’s house.

  Something started back in Spain, back at that conference, back when we first sat on the grass in the starlight and spilled our souls to each other along with a different bottle of vodka — something that was never finished. I’ve pushed it out of my head. I’ve been telling M&M his suspicions are stupid, just so I can remain the girl he wants me to be. In order to please this powerful, generous man, I’ve been acting the part of the adoring girl who can’t wait to spend forever trying to replace the wife she’s just helped to boot out of the picture. What an idiot! I really don’t know what to do.

  I’ve never been one to ignore destiny when it knocks on the door, even though this time, I probably should, right? The thing is, I really don’t think it’s ever knocked so hard and so persistently as it’s knocking right now.

  20/07

  To be or not to be in a relationship …

  I have an inkling that a suspicious M&M read a few text messages between The Irishman and me the other night, when my back was turned. It was nothing too revealing, thank God. I can’t prove it, of course, but on ‘hearing’ proof from ‘someone he knows’ that we’d been at the same party, he flew into a tearful rage and acted like the world had ended. It scared me, to be honest. I had a feeling he’d react in an extremely emotional way and I really didn’t want to deal with it. His tirade, right there in his Porsche as he screeched to a halt outside my house, was riddled with sentences like ‘I gave up everything for you', which he didn’t, because he was busted, and ‘You’ve broken me this time', which I probably hadn’t, because I’m pretty sure he’d taken it upon himself to invade my privacy when he’d seen my phone lying around on his sofa. So I finished things.

  Having seen us locking lips at the party, Heidi pulled me aside and told me I should end it with M&M and hook up with The Irishman once and for all. She reckons we belong together. But although I felt a flight of long-pent-up butterflies as we shared our drunken kiss, the thought of losing The Irishman as a friend actually worries me.

  In a crisis Skype conversation, Stacey asked whether I feel the need to be with The Irishman because I’m secretly in love with him, or because I feel the overwhelming and childish need to disobey a powerful, married man who keeps telling me not to see him? I’m still not really sure how to answer. I just feel like utter shite.

  Even though things have been rocky since I felt the need to start keeping my friendship with The Irishman a secret, I’m now plagued with this terrible, all-consuming guilt for cheating on the man who first cheated on his wife to be with me … even though I’m not entirely sure I cheated, as I never really know if we’re an item or not. What a mess. How does a mistress begin to cheat on her man anyway, when he’s cheating on someone else to be with her? What strange force comes into play, when the cheater turns into the cheated, and the new cheater doesn’t have the guts to admit it? Christ! Where’s Jerry Springer when you need him?

  I can’t imagine what M&M would do if he found out about my kiss with The Irishman. I finished things with M&M without telling him what had happened, which is something I’m not particularly proud of, but I’d really rather he didn’t know the details. He’d torment himself over it, and me, if he knew.

  I know it’s more difficult for Muslims when it comes to the issue of infidelity. They can’t just take the stage on a daytime TV show and battle it out in front of a live audience. There are rules and obligations to uphold, a different set of laws to abide by, involving all sorts of stuff I’ve personally never really been involved in. M&M’s always kept that side of things to himself, probably so as not to freak me out, and I never did find out what really went on while he was AWOL with his wife. I never asked.

  I’ve booked my place on the Nepal trip — a fact I did admit to M&M. As predicted, he doesn’t like it one little bit that I’ll be heading to a forest with his arch-enemy in just a few months, riding elephants and chasing the tiger trail. But I’m single now, so I suppose it shouldn’t matter, right?

  05/08

  Paving the way to Pammy Land …

  As we know, both Justin Timberlake and Brad Pitt have already announced their architectural plans for improvement on our shores, but no one really anticipated the flock of Hollywood A-listers would ever include a bleach-blonde ex-Baywatch star, who’s previously awarded her major assets only to the likes of quadruple-page spreads in Playboy. The world is most definitely a-changing. News came in via The Irishman today, who really has his finger on the pulse, and later, a forwarded press release, that Pamela Anderson is currently designing an eco-friendly hotel in Abu Dhabi.

  With this in mind, I have to wonder who else will be banging on our doors, begging for a piece of the action. OK, so she’s doing a bit of good with her hotel — it’s set to be built using minimum fossil fuel emissions and will be run (probably not by her at all) in an environmentally friendly way … yada yada yada … but if we’re letting any old American model/actress/author/daughter of a furnace repairman in with a blueprint and bikini, what’s next?

  Who is the UAE catering for now anyway? We’re told it’s tourists, but few people I know can afford the hotel rates, and
the new hotels are being built with millionaire visitors in mind. It’s not as if your average Joe from Scunthorpe is going to ditch the holiday caravan park for a trip with Shaz and the kids to the Playboy Mansion, no matter how ‘green’ it claims to be.

  We’re all wondering exactly what Pam laid on the table for the chance to get involved (oh, stop it), but apparently it was actually Abu Dhabi royalty who asked her to become a hotelier. Obviously, her potential has been recognised from afar.

  She told the press: ‘I’m building a hotel there. It is environmentally friendly. I went there with the Make a Wish Foundation and met some great people. The royal family was really friendly … It’s built with no fossil fuels at all in Abu Dhabi, where they have all that oil,’ she tells us. At least she’s done her research.

  With this influx of celebrity investors, it looks as though the UAE is well on the way to becoming the glamorous destination it wants the world to perceive it as. The thing is, celebrities have invested in a lot of other places over the years, and it hasn’t changed the fortune of any one city yet. Mind you … stick up a building in the shape of Pamela herself and I’m sure the punters would be flocking.

  10/08

  The Lebanese mafia …

  Now that I’m at the agency, I feel I need to devote some space to the people who form the basis of my working week. And as I may have mentioned, the ad industry in Dubai is powered by the Lebanese — a group of people I had absolutely nothing to do with before stumbling into this position.

  They pretty much rule the roost these days, thanks to the civil war forcing them all to flee to new territory. As much as 70 per cent of Dubai’s management in top advertising and media companies hails from Lebanon and (don’t tell them) some people refer to this takeover as the city being hit by the ‘Lebanese mafia'.

  Beirut’s loss was Dubai’s gain. They’re an interesting breed and I’d be lying if I said they haven’t taught me a lot. I observe them in action with the same sense of awe as I would a group of preening monkeys in a zoo.

  The Lebanese are all very beautiful. This goes for men and women alike. The men are mostly tall, well groomed and shiny of shoe. Out of the office they’re big fans of shirts — designer ones mostly. They also like blazers a lot. Looking at them out on the scene, they group together like herds of schoolboys, visible in darkened corners only by the shimmer of their hair gel. They usually order liquor by the bottle and being a friendly bunch, will happily offer anyone a glass, providing they’re female.

  The women have long and unimaginably thick hair. It’s their pride and joy. When walking anywhere, they swish and swirl their locks about like models in a permanent shampoo commercial. Even when nobody else is around, they will twirl and flick like mermaids flirting with an invisible sailor. They also wear make-up all the time, to the point where you can just imagine them setting a 3 am alarm for a re-touch, just so they wake up fresh. They’re glossy, tanned and pearly of tooth. I’m not making any accusations here, but allegedly you can get a no-questions-asked plastic-surgery loan in Lebanon.

  There’s a campaign I’d love to work on. ‘Lips, tits and she-dicks from $19.99 a month’ is way more catchy than ‘Get the car you’ve been wanting with no interest rate', but sadly, as yet I’ve not had the chance to show how I can help with such things.

  The Lebanese are very proud people. My colleagues send emails constantly with stories from their country and not a day goes by when someone isn’t jetting off ‘back to Beirut to see the family'. Consequently, I don’t think I’ve ever met anyone who isn’t from Beirut, so either Beirut is a city designated especially to my colleagues and their families, or this is a huge, all encompassing statement meaning: ‘I’m from somewhere in Lebanon you won’t have heard of, and I can’t be arsed to explain.’

  I don’t blame them, if this is the case. Mentioning I grew up in a humble hamlet called Pode Hole surrounded by combine harvesters isn’t half as exciting as claiming England’s capital as my birthplace. London is close enough and I don’t have to explain about inbreeds, marshland or the real meaning of the word dyke (which is actually a river or stream, contrary to popular belief). To the Lebanese, the words ‘I have family in Beirut’ encourage gasps from people like me and let’s face it, everyone loves a bit of drama.

  Sometimes I think the Lebanese almost bask in the absolute torture they have each ‘personally endured', which is why it’s a little confusing how most Lebanese patriotism swings from support of Lebanon to France, where they all seem to wish they were from.

  At lunchtime, our work canteen is stocked with Lebanese food, which is pretty much the same every day and costs 25 dirhams a plate (about four quid). There’s usually a green salad, a plate of hummus, dry bread and a few hot trays containing chicken or lamb with rice and copious amounts of garlic and lemon juice.

  A Lebanese foodie fave of mine is cheese manakich. I usually like to eat this in the early hours, fresh from the bakery on the way home from a night spent boozing. It’s the equivalent of stopping for a kebab. You still wake up swimming in oil with bits of indistinguishable meat (which could also be floor sweepings) on your T-shirt, but unlike a kebab, you would also order it in the middle of the day, perhaps as an accompaniment to some healthy grilled fish or chicken. Never one to turn down a free meal, I now take it for breakfast and eat it in its cold, sodden format every Thursday, when it’s cycled in free for employees.

  I mostly take my food and dine al desko. I never eat in the work canteen, in the same way as I never really socialise with my Lebanese co-workers outside of the building. It’s not that we don’t get along, or that they’re not lovely people, which they are, it’s just that the Lebanese in Dubai speak their own special language, comprising Arabic, English and French. At liberty they switch between the three mid-sentence, leaving you wondering whether you’ve misheard the start of a conversation, or whether something went wrong in your eardrum.

  Sitting round a dining table, trying to engage in lunchtime conversation can be a bit like listening to Shakespeare for the first time — you know it makes sense, but you just don’t understand it. You think about it for a bit, translate it, process the meaning, only to discover the next part is even more confusing than the last. And to top it all off, the man you’re listening to is only talking about the possibility of singing a ditty later, or in the case of the Lebanese, flying home to nurse his mother after her boob job.

  Pour a few drinks into the mix and the situation is heightened. In an effort to make sense in your company, the Lebanese slur between languages as you stare at them blankly, wondering when it’s appropriate to go home and watch people you understand on BBC Lifestyle. Not to be rude, but it can get tiring after a very short amount of time. It makes you miss the good old days, when you could cartwheel round the conference room, so confident were you in a place where everybody knew you. (Fact: I have cartwheeled around a conference room.)

  So far, thanks to this new cultural integration, I’ve managed to pick up the fabulous word khallas! The first syllable is pronounced a little like a phlegmy cough. This word is fired around every room in the agency like a BB gun, loaded with passion. It means ‘I’ve finished', ‘I’m done', ‘that’s that', or words to that effect.

  As you can probably imagine, I use this one a lot in Dubai.

  17/08

  One man and his empire …

  The Irishman has moved to a villa on the Palm. You should see it. It’s bloody awesome. It’s the kind of place you might visit in your dreams occasionally, but as with the luck of dreams, you’d probably wake up as soon as you dipped your big toe into the infinity pool.

  The Irishman is actually living in the maid’s room, which is small but still a decent size for one man. He might sleep with the washing machine outside his door but at least he gets an en-suite bathroom. And when he wakes up in the morning, he can see the sea. The ocean view was the main pull for moving out of the amazing villa compound in Satwa. His reasoning was, ‘If oi’m only garna live in Dubai
once, oi may as well live somewhere amazing, to be sure.’

  I’m so jealous. He’s like a modern-day Gilligan. He says he’s taken to jogging along his ‘private beach’ in the mornings and his flatmate has a kayak, which he sometimes uses as a fishing boat. He’s got one of the fish he caught in the freezer, which he’s saving for a barbecue. He’s really proud of it. I’m not even sure what kind of fish it is, but it’s huge and nothing like the little ones that have been washing up on the beaches lately. I guess there is still some life out there, somewhere. When he took me out in the kayak, a man with a megaphone told us off. They’re dredging up land for The World and The Universe and Fashion Island, and whatever else they’re constructing from nothingness in the vicinity and the security guards don’t want anyone to die — this would look bad for Dubai. When you ignore the fact that you’re paddling round a manmade island in the middle of the Gulf, in the middle of some of the planet’s most ridiculously ambitious construction projects, it’s really quite cool.

  Since our kiss, things haven’t exactly been weird between The Irishman and me, but I think we’re both aware that a line’s been crossed. Like I said, I really don’t want to lose him as a friend, so I’ve been making a conscious effort to remain just that … a friend. To be honest, I think we’ve both brushed it under the carpet. I reckon The Irishman views my association with M&M as a bit of a mess, and something he can’t be arsed to get involved with at all. He probably doesn’t want to get beaten up by a jealous Arab for a start, but when I think about it, the fact that he’s had to listen to me talk about things going absolutely tits-up with a married man ever since he got here, has probably killed any romantic thoughts he ever had for me while sober. No one likes a home-wrecking whinger, after all.