Brilliant (15 page)

Then the dreams kicked in. Not dreams of that night, but dreams of people wanting to hurt me, coming to get me. I started locking my door at night, which freaked the folks. “What are you hiding in there?” Dad said. “You'd better not be doing drugs.” Dad, God love him, is as stick-up-your-ass as Gordon Brown. Straight as a golf club. No to drugs, sex before marriage, shit marks, disrespect to the elders. Yes to stellar grades, virginity, Oxbridge, suitable marriage, big bucks as doctor/lawyer/prof. He's a traditional Indian man with no fucking clue how to handle an acting-out, messed-up teenage daughter. Mum murmured a lot of stuff about third-culture kids, hormones, history of depression on Dad's side (news to me), a New-Agey mumbo-jumbo of theories that totally let
them
off the hook and had piss-all to do with me.

But it wasn't until I started cutting myself — tiny little scratches with a nail scissors on my upper arms — that they got it. The nicks didn't hurt too much. They even looked sort of cool in the bathroom light, like the lines of an etching. Late at night, the folks asleep at the other end of the flat, I would draw out designs on graph paper from my maths notebook, then copy them onto my arms. I was a skin artist. Sometimes, though, it hurt so much I couldn't sleep after and then I'd be a total wreck at school next day. I was already losing it at school. A couple of teachers took me aside: “Raakhi, is everything okay? You've failed the last two quizzes.”

Who was there to tell that everything was so not okay? Mum? Dad? Becka, who did everything
but
with Rahim? And what would I tell them? I have pictures in my head that won't go away? I am so fucking disappointed in myself? I'm a screwed-up third-culture kid? I already knew what I'd hear from a counsellor type: Everyone makes mistakes, luv. My bet is you'll feel a whole lot better if you tell your parents what's troubling you.

The really crazy thing is that life in Abu trundled on, like nothing had happened. I googled “National Day,” but all I could find were YouTube videos of some big, Emiratis-only celebration at Zayed Stadium. Even the one story that had run in
The National
wasn't posted online any more.

Miles and I weren't even making eye contact by then, but one lunch I went over to his table in the school canteen.

“Yes?” he said, looking up.

“Did you ever read anything about what we saw on the beach that night?”

“What night?”

“National Day, Miles.”

“You mean the partying? Those labourers dancing?”

“The
SUV
that drove through the sand and ran over people.”

Miles looked at me like I was nothing. Not the girl he'd wanted so much, the girl he'd touched as cars squealed down the Corniche, the girl he'd known since Grade 6. “No idea what you're on about.” He picked up his tray and walked off.

That night I went onto our balcony. It's one of the coolest things in our flat, wraps around the kitchen and living room, with a slice of the Corniche showing between buildings. Mum tries to grow things out there each winter, but has basically given up on anything but cacti. Summers it's impossible, of course, even at night. But by then it was mid-January, a bit cool. I don't like heights so I never look down when I'm out there, just concentrate on the Corniche or a book or my iPod. But that night I made myself look down. I stood at the edge of the balcony, leaning on the railing, and looked straight down. It was so far to the street, to the shawarma place where Dad sometimes stopped on his way home from the hospital, the hole-in-the-wall bakery where they bake flatbread in a tandoor, the mobile store where Mum got my first phone. If I leaned a little further out, I could see kids playing cricket in front of the mosque. So. Far. Down. My legs began to shake so I went back inside.

Mum came home looking grim a couple days later. “Show me your arms,” she said. I pulled up my sleeves to the elbows. “Whole arm,” she said. Someone had caught sight of my artwork in
PE
and told the coach. Snowball effect naturally, since I was already on the Watch That Girl list. Mum cried, Dad lectured, I told them everything. What happened on the beach, what happened in my room.

“She's depressed,” said Mum.

“She's lost,” said Dad.

I suppose they were both right, but four months of Paxil and Ambien, hours of yakkety-yak with an Indian child psychologist who threw the word “should” around a lot, plus “more honest dialogue” between me and the rents (shrink's idea) produced one tangible result: Dad left for a job in Delhi. He wouldn't come out and say it was because of me, but he's a very black-and-white, good/bad kind of guy. When you fail, you fail. There's no making up. I had too many “issues.” I was damaged goods. I was a supreme disappointment. Mum and Dad made sounds about the Delhi gig being a “great opportunity,” but come on, I knew.

A few weeks after our last shrink session, I met him at the door, a big, fake, Dad-pleasing smile on my face. He looked finished. Too many babies being born that day, I guess. But I couldn't wait. This was urgent. Lady Gaga, singer for all time, was playing this year's Formula One. I had to go.

“No,” said Dad.

“The tickets are only 295 dirhams, Dad. It won't break you.”

“No,” said Dad.

“But, Dad, everybody's going. They're going to fucking sell out!”

“This is not an argument you want to pursue, Raakhi.”

But I did. In the spirit of more honesty, I begged, I raged, I called him names. I ran out onto the balcony and threatened to jump.

And as I stood there, leaning hard against the railing, it was like I was seeing my city for the first time, like I was a baby again or a new immigrant. I was like one of those Indian window washers taking it all in from this high point — the water all shimmery under the moon, the green lights from the minaret of the mosque a call away, the cars streaming along the Corniche.

 

And now they were leaving. After years of life abroad, they were packing a few pots and pillows, the decorated chest from Pinky's that had required driving hopelessly through the hinterlands of Sharjah and which had probably — Edwina never really wanted to know — been painted by Indian slum children earning a pound a month. It was back to Liverpool.

The movers drove down from Dubai, three guys from Kerala in a wreck of an open-back truck that said Paradise Movers on the side. They arrived at 9:00 p.m. — “right on time,” sighed Gerald — and packed quietly through the night. When Edwina looked out the front window of the villa the next morning, the men were tying the mess of boxes down with what looked like lengths of yellow plastic.

“Don't look,” said Gerald.

“Wait, did you print out the plane tickets before they packed the computer?” she asked.

He looked at her. “What do
you
think?”

 

She'd been crying for weeks, even through rounds of golf with Georgie and Harriet, part of the original quartet. “But you can't leave us here! We won't let you!” Georgie had been saying since the news of Gerald's situation hit their circle. Harriet couldn't talk about it without her small, blue eyes spilling over. They'd been through so much already — just surviving the back-and-forth of boarding schools with their broods was a forever-bonding experience. But nothing had prepared them for this, not even Kat's departure for Cyprus three years before. Kat still came back a couple of times a year — both sons worked here in Abu Dhabi — but Edwina knew she wouldn't be coming back. How could she? Airfares were up. Gerald didn't have a job as such — he was close to retirement age — and her skills as a school nurse were rusty from years of disuse. She'd be lucky, at her age, to find something part-time in a Heyworth Street shop.

The girls were sad, sorry and besotted with sympathy, but that didn't stop them from talking endlessly about the send-off party.

“Of course we'll have it at The Club,” said Georgie. “Remember how they pulled out the stops for Kat? Fireworks on the beach, dancing till dawn. I had so much sand in my shoes, I couldn't walk.”

“All those good times,” said Harriet, eyes misting on cue.

“All that juicy gossip,” said Edwina, struggling to keep it light.

“Like how Annie March has the gall to wear a bikini, let alone a swimsuit of any cut or style, in public,” said Georgie, looking around, just in case. They weren't at The Club, but their second-favourite cafe, Vivel, downstairs from Harriet's Corniche-view flat. “Whatever happened to the sort that went to the knee?”

“She could always wear an
abaya
,” said Harriet.

“What do you think, Edwina? Shall I speak to the chef at The Club?” said Georgie. “Roast beef? Chicken? Maybe both?”

But then Georgie and Harriet converged again on the guest list — should they invite the Abbotts under the circumstances? — and Edwina didn't have to commit to either. “After all,” said Georgie, pushing down her reading glasses, “Kevin Abbott is the one who wrote Gerald that awful letter.”

“I might give that man the finger,” said Harriet.

“I might bite him in the leg,” said Georgie and the two collapsed on each other's shoulders in giggles.

“We could hire a yacht,” said Edwina.

“We could,” said Georgie slowly, looking at Harriet whose face had fallen. “We'll work it out, darling, no worries,” and she patted Edwina's hand.

 

Gerald had always wanted a yacht. Edwina discovered this on their south-of-France honeymoon, one of those out-of-nowhere facts one discovers after the vows have been exchanged. He hadn't come out and said, “This is what I want, by Jove!” (Gerald didn't speak that way, in any case.) But the way he'd looked at the yachts docked at Sète, dream boats with polished wood prows and bronzed blondes on deck sipping vodka collins in the fading French light, she knew. She'd have liked him to look at her that way (the boats, not the women), as if she was what he'd always imagined for himself. Not that she was complaining. All the parts worked, his and hers, no problems there. And they were setting off on an adventure come honeymoon's end: Muscat, Oman, where Gerald would manage a desalination project.

“They're beautiful, aren't they?” she'd murmured, as they walked slowly along the quay. “That one there, look at the name:
The African Queen
. Oh, I loved that movie. Brilliant, wasn't it?” And Gerald had nodded and squeezed her hand, but his eyes, alive with wanting, were on the yachts.

The Oman job lasted four years, long enough for Gerald to make friends in the right places and get invited on a cruise. “Sorry, cherub, no ladies allowed,” he told Edwina. The yacht belonged to the sultan's son, the crown prince, but along the way they would be joined by the crown prince of Kuwait and
his
entourage on
his
yacht, then sail to an island off the coast of Yemen in the Gulf of Aden to a private hunting reserve. Both were super yachts; the sultan's measured seventy-five metres, Gerald said. Edwina had no point of reference for the length of yachts, but it sounded big. Gerald named everyone on the guest list — of the thirty invited, he was one of the few civilians — but it was lost on Edwina, who still got the
al
s and
bin
s mixed up, something Gerald had memorized early on. He'd even picked up a workable Arabic. “Greases the way,” he said. “You should take a class, Edwina. They do offer them to the wives.”

But the parts had worked so well that by the end of the third year they had two babies. And even with help — a Filipina named Nellie for baby Sara and a Sri Lankan who called herself Lu (“real name too hard,” she said) for baby Alec — there wasn't time for anything except lunch with friends and a little shopping at the Mutrah souq. Then, too, friends were forever flying down from the
UK
for a cheap, Arabian getaway. Edwina was always tired, always busy. By the end of the Oman years — another baby on the way — she'd lost track of Gerald somewhat, his wants and needs, his yacht dreams. And then they moved to Abu Dhabi.

 

“We have to settle this,” said Georgie the next time they met. “Are we inviting the Abbotts or not? Totally your call, Edwina.”

Edwina had liked the Abbotts well enough — Merry was a hoot at a party, especially with a few drinks in her, though the rest of the time she could be remote. And Kevin was solid, if colourless. Solid pretty much amounted to a full-out endorsement in this part of the world. She'd met so many flakes, so many stray dogs here, and not the four-legged kind. But Kevin had seriously let them down, had shimmied out of his responsibilities to his longtime, mostly loyal staff, of which Gerald was the most longtime and, to Edwina's mind, most loyal. The year before, Kevin had been under fire from the Emirati
CEO
to tighten the ranks — in other words, lose some — and Gerald had handled it all, down to delivering the news himself, even escorting families to the airport for 2:00 a.m. flights back home. Now the news had been delivered to him. And in a letter; no stalwart Gerald to break the news gently. Cold, so cold.

But the effort to not invite the Abbotts seemed too big to Edwina, sitting between her two closest friends at The One, their third-favourite café in the city. What would she do without
them
? After so many years away, no one else really knew or understood her. They couldn't. Not even the kids, who once had been part of this life. But that was another story for a braver day.

“Oh, just invite the Abbotts,” Edwina said. Her tea was cold. The staff here wasn't as attentive as they were at The Club. “Who needs the bad blood, right?”

“You are so strong,” said Harriet.

 

The first boat Gerald bought didn't qualify as a yacht per se. Technically, it was a cruiser. Still, it did the job, he said. They called her
Mad Summer
. And they did have some mad times on the boat, docking her at Al Bateen marina, where she sat idle only through the very hottest months. The rest of the year they were out on her every Friday and Saturday, often leaving the (now) four kids behind with nannies and maids. Edwina did have twinges as they set out at seven in the morning, knowing she wouldn't see the little darlings until at least eight that night, but Gerald needed his recreation. He was working long days with terrible deadlines, unreasonable bosses and fabulous money. He'd earned it with his now-fluent Arabic — a rarity among expats — and his genius with water conservation projects. Even more winning was his handling of labour matters. Gerald was no soft touch with the unskilled workers and that earned him stars with his Emirati bosses. “Those Indian fellows are lucky to have a job,” he often said. Edwina had also seen how the male halves of some of their friends behaved when left to their solo selves on these sailing jaunts. Gerald was a good-looking man and those blondes and vodka collinses were everywhere, despite this being the
UAE
.

Mad Summer
took them through four breezy, glorious seasons. And then Gerald met
Blind Date
. She was the real thing: a yacht, admittedly a small yacht compared with the ones Gerald was sometimes invited on. But the kids — now old enough to come along — adored her. The two boys were even learning to skipper. Edwina enjoyed her too, though her attachment paled next to Gerald's. “I don't think I've ever loved anything so much,” he admitted one night as they sat on the deck working their way through a bottle of merlot Gerald now ordered by the case from African & Eastern. Work was still mad — deadlines changing weekly, bosses monthly, hours expanding, plans made and shredded. But the money. They'd never had so much money. Like many of their friends, they bought a villa in the south of Spain, vacationed in Cape Town, Hong Kong, Paris, Sydney, New York, sent the children to boarding schools in Switzerland and the
UK
.
Blind Date
was part of that life, the stage for gatherings where everything just flowed and flowed. They earned a reputation for throwing the best parties in town. “World's our oyster,” Gerald said after one where a few royals had made an appearance. And then he pulled down the bottoms of Edwina's silk pajamas. “Come here, my pearl.”

The boats had to keep pace.
Blind Date
(fifteen metres) became
The Wave
— at thirty-two metres moving them officially into the league of mega-yachts — became
Soulmate
. For the first time, Edwina understood Gerald's consuming passion. She also understood for the first time why boats were referred to as “she.”
Soulmate
was a beauty from bow to stern: forty-seven metres of luxury and grace, a lady. Edwina loved nothing more than to sit on her deck at dusk, the lights of the city spread across the water. Sometimes Georgie, Harriet and Kat would join her. Sometimes she had a whole gang over for afternoon tea, the tea turning to cocktails as the sun went down. It was all worth it then. The years away from home, the children scattered, a husband married to his mobile.

But Gerald never seemed to fully appreciate
Soulmate
. His jubilation at her purchase lasted mere months. He wasn't entirely happy with the way she steered, he tried to explain. And the panelling needed replacing. And…he had a whole list of improvements that would need to be made before she was truly seaworthy. “She's perfectly seaworthy,” Edwina told Georgie and Harriet. “I have no idea what he's on about.”

But she'd begun to dislike the expression he wore when they took
Soulmate
out. As if it was a trial. Sailing a lovely big boat wasn't supposed to be a trial. It was supposed to be a lark. Whatever was the matter with him? Yes, things at work were strained and insane. What else was new?

The fall of 2008 brought something new. “Downturn, crisis, crunch, whatever you call it, it's not touching us here, is it?” And Kevin Abbott had chuckled into his rum and Coke. They'd been standing by the pool at their new villa in Marina Village. It had taken Gerald a year of string-pulling to get them in. Everyone wanted one of these places. Beyond the tile-lined pool, the dark waters of the Gulf stretched to the Arabian wedding cake of the Emirates Palace Hotel. “Lucky to be alive, aren't we?” Kevin said and clinked her glass.

 

Edwina had seen Judith before, her pinched little face sometimes appearing in the mirror as Edwina lifted herself in a neck-killing cobra. (Yoga was one Club activity she would not miss.) She'd never thought about Judith, really. Lacklustre, if she'd had to put a word to the woman. And here she was sitting between Georgie and Harriet at their usual table at The Club.

“Of course, you know Judith,” said Georgie.

“Of course,” said Edwina, sliding onto the end of the banquette. She was used to sitting in the middle. She felt like she might slip off. “How are you, Judith?”

“Smashing,” said Judith. “Absolutely smashing.”

“Judith's just come back from a month in, where was it exactly, Judith?” said Harriet.

“South of France. A little port town called Sète. Brilliant. Neville loves it.”

“Sète,” said Edwina, and found she couldn't say anything else.

“You know it? You've been?” asked Judith, smiling, which made her look not exactly pretty, but pert. She was, up close, obviously younger than they were. Late forties perhaps.

“Yes,” said Edwina. “A long time ago.”

“It's changed a lot,” said Judith, unfolding her napkin.

“Judith has offered to help us with the party,” said Harriet, blue eyes anxious. “Georgie and I realized we were a bit out of our depth. Jude's a pro.”

“Wedding planner back in the
UK
,” said Judith. “Pity you're leaving. Your friends,” and she looked from Georgie to Harriet, “are going to miss you.”