Burqalicious

by Becky Wicks

  Of course, I protested that I didn’t mean for it to happen, and that it’s not even serious, but she was pretty adamant that my head and my heart are still fighting a battle over three different men. While that’s the case, I shouldn’t be with anyone. Not even Rocko — who aside from the fact that he’ll never sparkle in the sun or fly me through the treetops like Edward Cullen, seems pretty bloody perfect, really.

  I hate it when she’s right.

  09/05

  Another one bites the dust …

  Uh oh. It’s happened again. Another company’s gone bust, another businessman’s dream has turned to ruin — and this time I’m a part of it! The lifestyle and experiences company I’ve been working for on the side, pretty much ever since I got to Dubai, has just gone down the toilet. And they owe me 3,000 dirhams!

  Obviously, the cracks have been showing for a while. Payments have been late, demands have been unreasonable and timelines have been ridiculous for a good few months now. I’ve been working for them harder than ever lately to meet what’s been looking like impossible expectations. But they paid me decent money when they actually got around to writing me the cheques. And besides, I tend to do all my freelance work from my desk in the ad agency during my ‘spare time', so it’s kind of like getting paid twice to be in the same place.

  Unfortunately, though, it’s looking a lot like this business is one of many that have fallen victim to the current economic situation that most definitely has not escaped Dubai, in spite of what the media are choosing to tell us. Dubai’s twisted laws and regulations have now driven the poor MD — a British man, no less — to despair. Plagued by debt he’s packed up his wife and kids and legged it. The MD’s house on the Palm, once full of furniture, is now totally barren — his mate went round to check.

  He’s sent an emotional letter ‘To the people of Dubai’ in an effort to explain these tragic circumstances. It’s just so very sad. He flocked to the UAE in its boom with his family and lived in extravagant luxury. He had the nice car, the big house on the Palm, but pushed himself to the max in order to turn his money-making dreams to reality. He was passionate to the point of fighting for more than he could ever have, on borrowed funds and time.

  His departure is not good news for his full-time employees. Jobs are scarce round here lately and I read in the paper this morning that Dubai police have over 450 people locked away from the public right now because of outstanding debts! You might be lucky enough to land a job elsewhere, with the full intention of paying off your dues in Dubai from afar, but you might not even make it out of the UAE in order to do so.

  As we learned from the people suffering at Ewan’s place, if a company cancels a work visa and informs the bank, the bank can enforce a travel ban until all outstanding payments are made. Under sharia law, the punishment for defaulting on a debt is serious; even bouncing a cheque can land you with a prison sentence. Look at how strict customs were with our Rochelle when she failed, through no fault of her own, to make a car loan repayment.

  Prison is obviously what the MD of the lifestyle and experiences dot com was terrified of. His official letter says:

  I am not running away from debt, I am purely protecting those dearest to me and getting out of a country which, due to the lack of structured bankruptcy laws and a banking system which has zero flexibility on loan repayments, drives people to make horrible decisions.

  As much as I hate to lose the 3,000 dirhams he owes me, I can’t very well say I’ve been that hard done by in this whole situation — not when his wife and children are living in hiding somewhere, probably going through hell, knowing they’ve left innocent, hardworking people in a lot of trouble. Having that on your shoulders would be truly, soul-crushingly awful.

  The MD adds that although a hunt for investors was ultimately unsuccessful, he’s now taking personal responsibility for paying back everything that’s owed to his employees, suppliers, customers who can no longer redeem their gift vouchers, and investors, no matter how long it might take. This is a noble offer indeed. But then, like many others round here who are failing miserably in ambitious endeavours, he always did dream a little too big.

  02/09

  Waving Dubai-bye …

  M&M’s divorce hasn’t really changed anything between us, but the fact that he’s deposited a large sum of money into my bank account to help me pay off my outstanding debts is something that renders me somewhat dumbstruck! He says he’s doing it because he still loves me, and even though I’ve made it very clear that we’re over for good, he doesn’t want me to feel like I’m stuck in a place I just don’t want to be in anymore.

  Obviously, I’m more grateful for this act of generosity than I know how to put into words. In spite of everything we’ve been through, in spite of how I’ve hurt him, he’s chosen to help me out, even though he knows damn well that if he pays off my debts, I’ll leave him behind once and for all. I’m thinking that this might mean M&M’s learned what I wanted him to figure out all along: that if you love someone, clinging to them too tightly, trying to control a future they’re quite happy not to plan, dictating who they can and can’t see isn’t going to make them love you back. The old cliché is totally true. If you love someone, you really do have to let them go.

  I still can’t believe he’s doing it. He knows his money hasn’t necessarily made me happy in the past, but on this occasion, he’s really not trying to buy me or my time, or my heart. He’s paying for my freedom.

  I’ve promised M&M I’ll pay him back some day … God knows how … but he still insists he doesn’t want me to. He says he wants me to go make something more of myself, somewhere else … which is kind of what I’ve been wanting to do, too. If I’m honest with myself, I’ve been enduring Dubai rather than enjoying it for a long time now. I’ve had the experience of a lifetime. I know this; I can really feel it. The things I’ve done in Dubai will stay with me forever, and even though I’ve started to appear ungrateful, a little miserable at the way certain events have unfolded, I’m pretty sure that when I look back on all of this, I’ll never fail to appreciate what this place has done for me.

  Right now, however, the novelty has well and truly worn off. Just as I suspected might happen when the buzz died down, things like having a Yacht Club for a local and a steady job that pays the bills aren’t really making me happy — especially when all my friends are being made redundant, or leaving me to move elsewhere.

  Ewan’s gone. We had a final farewell for him in Harry Ghatto’s, which isn’t at all like it used to be when Stacey and I started going there, back when the staff all knew our names. It’s full of losers in suits now, and the exclusive vibe has been replaced by one of a cheap, booze-soaked pub … not unlike Waxy O’Connors, where Stacey and I had our first filthy brunch with The Trader. Harry’s even has a happy hour now, to encourage more people to squish through its doors. I guess they weren’t making enough money.

  Sash was fired a few days ago. She’s been sitting at her desk, twiddling her thumbs for weeks, hoping for another project to land on her desk, but in the end her company just didn’t have enough work for everyone. She called me up in tears, said she was going to have to do a runner back to Canada with her credit card debts outstanding. Credit card debts, apparently, won’t get you stopped at the airport. It’s the massive personal loans for things like rent, cars and property that are causing people all these problems. A friend of mine said she knows a woman who’s sleeping in her car at the moment. She has nowhere else to go. And apparently, down at JBR, the car park attendants are being paid to wash the dust off all the abandoned sports cars, so the people who still live there won’t realise exactly how many have been left behind.

  The agency laid off a few people the other week, too. Nina was convinced she was going to get the boot, but in the end they fired some Filipino employees and kept the Westerners, which doesn’t really make too much sense. We weren’t supposed to discuss our salaries at the agency, but obviously we all did. Some of the Filipin
os doing exactly the same jobs as Westerners were getting much less money, so technically, they should have kept them on and booted out the more expensive people. I’m sure there’s a lot we weren’t told about the situation, but I’ll never get Arabic logic.

  Telling EGO The Great I was leaving was a bit weird. I just walked into his office, sat down in front of him and told him straight out I’d decided to move on … that my love life was in turmoil, that my friends were all getting fired, that it was just time to do something else — somewhere that wasn’t Dubai. I felt the need to connect with him emotionally for the first time ever, as I knew he’d probably be quite upset that I wasn’t going to be around to help him spell stuff anymore.

  He nodded his head as I spoke and looked at me over the top of his designer glasses. I waited for some sort of sentence expressing his disappointment; I waited for him to tell me I’d be missed. But after a few seconds of silent contemplation he offered the following: ‘Well, to be honest, I always thought you were a better editor than a “creative”. It bothered me for a while, but then I just endured it and let you get on with it.’

  I bit my lip and frowned, trying to process his words in a way that made them seem less insulting. I thought perhaps he’d made a mistake, as he so often did in English, but no … no mistake. He’d obviously decided to be an arrogant arsehole to the very end.

  I fought the urge to tell him I’d had trouble ‘enduring’ him too, but decided I didn’t really care enough to bother. Let’s face it, advertising never was and never will be the career for me.

  I’ve decided to sub-let my beautiful studio flat and meet up with Ewan in America, where he’s been ‘travelling’ for the past few weeks. The media company still hasn’t paid him the majority of what they owe him and he’s now threatening legal action … not that it’ll get him anywhere, by the looks of it. Heathcliff is ignoring all of his emails on the topic, while desperately trying to cling to his own job, swanning about the city, sleeping with every girl who hasn’t cottoned on to his antics yet.

  I will miss a lot of things about Dubai — but mostly shallow things, I guess. Like the ability to take a taxi door to door, the convenience of having a maid to tidy up after me, the independence of having my very own studio flat (albeit one I don’t actually own), the financial security of a well-paid job. Even before M&M wiped them out entirely, I only would have had to make repayments for another six months in order to clear the debts that have plagued me since I left university with a degree in drunken shenanigans and way too many clothes. This is something I’m pretty proud of, all things considered.

  In spite of all this, Dubai to me was never a place I saw myself living forever. Let’s face it. It’s not like the rest of the world. I don’t have any emotional attachment to the place itself. There’s nothing real to miss. My heart broke over leaving New York City. I mourned for the place itself, as well as the friends I made. I sat on my bed in London and cried for Manhattan — the streets, the sights, the smells, the energy. But Dubai isn’t finished yet, and to me it has no soul.

  The billboards that used to offer promises of things to come, like large residential development projects and exciting family-based theme parks, now show mostly chicken ads and options for phone contracts. There isn’t as much to brag about these days. The Sheikh still looms above it all, still as ominous and powerful as when Stacey and I discovered him during our sweaty walks home, back when we first arrived. Only, he doesn’t seem as credible anymore. All he stands for has faded in my mind, just as his image on the billboard weakens day by day in the scorching sun.

  The World, The Universe, Fashion Island — a thousand projects that blew my mind, made my head spin, made me feel like I was living in the greatest, most up-and-coming city in the world — where are they now? They’re still just dreams on press releases, timed to impress an awestruck audience, hungry for the next big thing. Ultimately, most of the things I once believed about Dubai have crumbled into dust; they’ve blown away like sand to be reclaimed by the desert. They’re not even building Jurassic Park anymore.

  It makes me wonder, was it all really as great as I once thought it was? Pamela Anderson, Brad Pitt, David Beckham — they were all sold a slice of this dream in the hope that the rest of us would buy into it, but the cynicism’s long since set in. I wonder now, looking at my boxes waiting to be shipped back home to London, were these people ever really as excited about Dubai as we were told? I mean, I’ve been a part of the media, plugging this city for a living. I took the piss … repeated these stories to my friends at home, just to make them laugh … but still, there’s no escaping the fact that in the end, Dubai and its lifestyle have affected me. I believed the hype. I fell for a dream. I craved the money, power and attention, just like everyone else.

  I’ve helped create Dubai’s advertisements. I was actually, up until a few days ago, one of those people hired to make the greatest sales pitch of all: Dubai — a city where anything’s possible!

  So many people have passed in and out of my life since I got here. Some I’ll always keep close, but others, like The Trader and the Private Banker, I haven’t seen in months. Even Heidi doesn’t really call anymore. Somewhere along the line, in the mess of it all, she went from rooting for me and The Irishman, to thinking what an awesome bloke M&M was. They go for dinners now. He’s a good bloke, as a friend. I should have known where to draw the line, all those months ago. I’ve seen a side of him they haven’t seen, I suppose. But then, he’s seen a side of me I’d rather not reveal to anyone ever again.

  Telling Rocko I was leaving was kind of hard. He drove from Abu Dhabi once again and we went for a drink. He hugged me goodbye, sighed, and told me, ‘Someday, you’ll see how awesome I am.’ The night after I let my voicemail pick up his call, I rang him back and explained I wasn’t really ready for wherever it was we were going. At times I think I am, but when I told him later that getting out of Dubai was the healthiest option for me to explore, he took it so well. His own company isn’t looking very stable at the moment anyway, and he may have plans afoot to move himself, at some point in the near future.

  So what’s next after travelling with Ewan? I’ve decided to head back to London, see the family, spend some time with Lucy and my other friends, eat chips and curry sauce and revel in the luxuries of non-censored trash mags and daytime TV. And then, I don’t really know, if I’m honest! I didn’t really know what Dubai would have in store for me when I packed my bags in my little east London flat two years ago, and I’m equally unsure about what’s next, once I leave here. Ewan wants to go to Sydney, and so does Stacey, who’s getting pretty fed up with the cold and the misery in London. Apparently, we can still have a house with a swimming pool over there. We can still spend weekends on the beach and walk about in flip-flops. It does sound appealing … and Rocko’s got family in Sydney. Not that I can entertain that thought right now.

  Whatever’s next, I’m waving Dubai bye. It’s over and out. It’s time for a new beginning, away from dusty buildings, hollow dreams and shallow people. I’m happy. Of course, I’m not looking forward to unpacking my boxes at the other end, or getting the tube from Heathrow to my brother’s house, or cooking my own dinner, or cleaning my room, or … dammit!

  You can take the girl out of Dubai, I guess. But I reckon it’s probably going to take an entire lifetime to get Dubai out of me.

  * Looking back, this was my very first encounter with M&M, whom you’ll definitely hear more about later. I changed his name. You’ll know why soon enough (sigh).

  * Now that I’m out of the country, I can reveal I actually took a dip in Dubai Creek that night with my awesome and totally fun new gay friend, and then we sat in the prayer room drinking whisky. We carefully avoided the security guard’s flashlight the whole time and I’ve still got no idea how he didn’t see us splashing around the boats. I should have been deported and I’ll admit, I am actually more disgusted with my behaviour now than I was with my reeking, crap-scented clothes after our swim in
the sewage-ridden waterway. But nobody saw me do it. You can’t prove anything.

  Acknowledgements

  Wow. A book. It’s a book full of words I wrote, how bizarre! There are so many people to thank … not least my lovely agent, the wonderful Margaret Gee, who called me half an hour after skim-reading my manuscript and promptly set about fighting for my words to reach the right pair of hands. Those hands were of course, the equally fabulous Jeanne Ryckmans of HarperCollins, who also believed in my story from the start and helped it reach the public eye.

  Then of course there’s my editor, Jennifer Blau, and my incredible friends and family, who’ve supported my writing since I first starting penning shitty Christmas poems about angels for the local paper. In particular I should acknowledge Mum, Dad, Simon and Mrs Christine Fynn, my English teacher at the Gleed School for Girls in Spalding. She always gave me A grades and let me hide in her cupboard when my Math’s teacher kicked me out for being thick.

  I don’t have any pets to thank because somehow I manage to kill them all (sorry for letting you freeze in your rabbit hutch, Fiver), but I should extend HUGE thanks to the team at lastminute. com in London — the best job I ever had — who first got me hooked on blogging big time. Without your encouragement I wouldn’t have had the confidence to leave my comfy life of blag and head to Dubai for an adventure. Or maybe you just wanted to get rid of me, hmmm?

  I can’t forget to thank Dubai of course, for all it taught me during my time there. I learned from the best about fierce ambition, chasing dreams and knowing when to fess up that sometimes, you bugger things up royally without meaning to. To the people I met there, who crop up in my story, you know who you are and I thank you. Some of you I’m still in touch with, some I’m not, but I’ll always remember our time together and be grateful to have shared your company.