The Weeping Desert (13 page)

Running across the lawn was a strange figure, arms waving, shrieking with delight. It was Khadija, her long Arab dress flapping like wet washing, her hair plastered to her head as she lifted her streaming face to the heavy clouds.

John opened his window and called out: “Khadija! Come in. You must be crazy.”

She heard his voice, looked up to the top of the house and waved enthusiastically.

“It’s raining, John! Look at all this beautiful rain!”

“Come on in. You’ll catch cold.”

“It has been raining for hours and hours! It is so lovely!”

She danced on with bare feet in the wet grass, laughing joyously and singing a happy high-pitched Arab chant.

Another window was flung open, and John saw his mother’s blue-netted head peep out cautiously. She did not want to spoil her set.

“Come in at once, Khadija,” John roared. “Come in and get dry. I’ll take you for a walk after breakfast if it’s still raining.”

Khadija stopped running about and, smiling obediently, returned to the house, the hem of her gown straggling wetly on the ground.

It was still raining after breakfast and John found Khadija waiting for him in the hall, wearing her red PVC raincoat and matching sou’wester hat. She had borrowed some white wellington boots from Carol, and was impatient to go.

“It has not rained in my country for two and a half years,” she told John as they walked down the drive. “And then it was for only ten minutes. I am so astonished. It has already been raining here for several hours.” She sighed. “If only I could push these clouds across the sky to Arabia.”

They walked down Market Hill to the sea front. It was deserted now, the rain patting out the marks in the sand. They turned and met a strong wind blowing the rain into their faces. Khadija shivered, tendrils of hair blowing across her forehead.

“Are you cold?”

“I shall be all right,” she replied. “Fortunately I bought many warm and beautiful soft jerseys yesterday. They are a comfort. This England is indeed a cold country. I like the rain very much indeed, but oh, I miss the sun.”

They walked past the end of the sea front and followed the twisting path to the cliff top. John took her arm to help her, for the rain had made the path slippery. They stopped to look at the view. The bay was awash with a grey mist, and the hills were lost in a curtain of rain. Many hundreds of feet below them, a man huddled under an outcrop of rock, his collar turned up, the rain dripping off his arrogant nose. He, too, missed the sun.

“This is the sort of day on which even the most badly made cup of coffee can taste good,” said John, guiding Khadija down the path. “Let’s go and find some. And I’ll buy you a very sweet and fattening cream cake.”

“Good! I will like that.”

The rain had in many ways been a blessing, for Khadija, without thinking, had taken her first walk in public without wearing a mask. There had been few people about, and they had been too busy struggling with umbrellas to notice her. Even the rain itself had provided a protective veil of moisture. But now going into the coffee bar, Khadija pulled down the brim of her hat till she could hardly see where she was going.

He chose a table by the window so that Khadija could still watch the rain. When he returned with two glasses of hot frothy coffee and a cream cake, she was drawing patterns on the steamy glass. She turned to him, her eyes radiant.

“I have enjoyed myself so much this morning,” she said. “I am grateful to you for this wonderful happiness.”

John smiled back but felt ashamed. He stirred his coffee unnecessarily. So much gratitude for so little: a walk in the rain, some conversation and a cream cake. And strangely, he had enjoyed it too. He had forgotten she was a princess. It had been an agreeable tramp with a beautiful girl for company. And she did look very beautiful under the shiny red brim, the droplets running off it like liquid diamonds.

It was noticeable in the house that Khadija had quickly become very attached to Dr. Cameron. She waited on both men, much to John’s embarrassment, but his father seemed to enjoy it. She brought him his slippers and the evening paper, fetched his favourite pipe, and was always ready in the hall with his coat and case when the doctor was called out.

“I’m beginning to like this harem idea,” he chuckled, as Khadija helped him into his overcoat. “Perhaps there is something to it after all.” Then Dr. Cameron caught his wife’s eye and added hastily, “Only joking, m’dear.”

But John did not like Khadija padding round after him, ready to anticipate what he wanted. It got on his nerves. He found himself speaking to her harshly.

“If you want something to do, go and tidy your room,” he said unkindly. “But for goodness sake, leave me alone.”

“If she wants something to do, she can cook your supper,” said Mrs. Cameron waspishly. “I’ve a council meeting tonight, and I shall only leave you something cold.”

Khadija folded her hands demurely. “I shall be pleased to do this,” she murmured.

Mrs. Cameron smiled to herself. She wondered just how much an Arab princess would know about cooking. It would do her husband good to have a taste of burnt hash for a change. It might make him appreciate her own good, nourishing meals.

“I’ll leave it to you then,” said Mrs. Cameron, searching for her notes for the meeting. “Do what you like.”

Khadija slipped out of the house after lunch with a shopping basket and some of John’s money. She had taken to wearing huge saucer-sized tinted sun-glasses whatever the weather. They had become a substitute for the mask. She felt that she could not be seen behind them.

She went round the shops, looking for what she needed. There were some ingredients that she could not find at all, and she startled several shop assistants with her strange requests.

Then she disappeared into Mrs. Cameron’s spotless kitchen and was relieved to find that the cooking was done on twin hot plates of a Rayburn cooker and oven. She would not have known how to work a gas or electric cooker, for despite the millions of pounds worth of gas burning daily in the gas flare, the palace kitchens were equipped as they had been for years, with huge old paraffin stoves and a wood burning oven and spit.

Though Khadija had been surrounded all her life by servants, she was not without some knowledge of cooking. Every Arab girl is taught the rudiments of cooking at an early age in preparation for the day when she shall marry, in case she should not marry well or, as happened to the surplus women, they should not marry at all. Unmarried women were often given the position of running the kitchens if the sheikh’s own mother was dead or too old to take charge.

First Khadija’s mother, and then her sister Hatijeh, had seen to it that she had some knowledge of cooking, but this was the first time she had had to put this knowledge to use.

The pile of washing up grew in the sink, and Mrs. Cameron’s supply of bowls, dishes and saucepans gradually emptied out of the cupboards. The kitchen began to fill with steam, and strange aromas crept out into the hall.

Mrs. Cameron went to have her hair done. John also vanished for the afternoon, hoping Khadija knew how to use a tin opener.

By nine o’clock, the three men were becoming restless and hungry. John went to investigate, but before he could get near the kitchen, Khadija rushed passed him into the dining room, pink-faced and flustered, and he thought it better not to upset her.

At twenty past nine, she appeared and said simply: “Please to come.”

“Well, I hope you’ve made us something nice, young lady,” said Dr. Cameron, following Khadija into the dining room.

The table and chairs had been pushed away against the wall. On the carpet were spread twenty dishes of steaming food, many brimming with succulent sauces, hot-smelling and spicy with aromatic herbs. There were baked meats, curries, scampi in butter, roasted chicken, vegetables in thick tomato sauce, boiled rice, fried rice, saffron-coloured rice and, of course, the inevitable bowls of tinned fruit salad. A feast of bountiful Arab hospitality.

The Cameron menfolk were astounded. John recovered first. “A mutton-grab,” he said. “Well, here’s your chance to eat Arab style. Sit on the floor, Father, and eat with your fingers.”

“Are we expecting company?” asked James, gingerly lowering himself onto the carpet. “We shan’t even make a dent in this lot.”

“Arab style again,” explained John, digging his fingers into a large piece of baked meat. “The sheikhs eat first. Then when they’ve finished, the servants are allowed to polish it off.
If there is still any left, then the poor are invited in, or it’s thrown out to them.”

“I don’t think your mother would approve of left-over rice piled upon her front door step,” said Dr. Cameron, pulling off a leg of chicken.

“Good heavens, what on earth’s this?” James asked, poking at a huge steaming joint, laid out on a bed of rice and vegetables. “Half a sheep?” he joked.

“That’s exactly what it is,” said John. “A side of lamb by the look of it, and delicious too.” He caught sight of Khadija, slipping away. “Come back,” he called out. “Sit down and eat with us. You’re not in Shuqrat now.”

Khadija sat gracefully on the floor, legs tucked neatly under her, and dug her slender fingers into the meat. The steam curled out and upwards, joining the other eddies of steam.

Dr. Cameron wiped the perspiration off his forehead and grease off his chin. “Excellent, m’dear,” he said, with his mouth full. “Excellent.”

They were all so busy eating that they did not hear the front door open, nor voices in the hall as Mrs. Cameron and three of her fellow councillors came in. She showed them into the lounge and then went into the kitchen to make some coffee.

They did, however, hear an agonised cry as Mrs. Cameron stumbled out of the chaotic kitchen and burst into the dining room. Her wail rose into a shriek of horror. Her three friends peered anxiously from the doorway.

Mrs. Cameron’s eyes swept over the littered room, the scattering of rice grains, the splashes of sauce, the gnawed bones, and the three men, now heavy with food, sprawled on their sides, still picking off tidbits.

“Savages! Heathens!” she howled, choking with fury. “And my kitchen! The mess—it’s all her fault! She’s a savage!”

“Why not come and join us?” said James amiably to the three eye-popping councillors. “There’s masses of food left.”

Later, when Dr. Cameron had ushered Edith Cameron to bed with a sedative, and the three councillors had gone galloping home to tell their wives, John and his father started on the mammoth task of clearing up the kitchen. Dr. Cameron tied an apron round his waist and started piling the saucepans and bowls into some sort of order, so that he could fill the sink with water.

“I don’t blame the girl,” said Dr. Cameron, still chuckling. “She did the only thing she knew how to do. And you must admit she must have worked extremely hard.”

“Yes, but why make enough for twenty people?” said John grimly. “We shall be eating this stuff for days.” He slammed the refrigerator door shut. Rice was almost coming out of the hinges.

“Did you ever tell her that we don’t give our leftovers to the poor? No. Well, then, how was she to know?”

John thought the washing and drying up would never come to an end. At last it was finished and he hung up his wet tea-towel with the others and stretched wearily. The house was quiet. It was late, and he supposed everyone else had gone to bed. He could see a soft light coming from the lounge. Someone had left a lamp on. He went in to switch it off, but stopped short in the shadow of the doorway.

There were two figures by the window. James had his arms tightly round Khadija.

“Kiss me, you little witch,” he was saying recklessly. “Kiss me.”

Chapter Seven

A dark rage exploded in John at the sight of Khadija and his brother James in each other’s arms. For a moment he was oblivious to all reasonable thought or action.

Somehow he managed to control his violence and channel it into words. “What the hell’s going on?” he thundered.

James released Khadija abruptly, and John heard her gasp. She hung back in the shadows, rubbing her left arm. John snapped on the main light and he caught a glint of tears in her eyes.

“What have you been doing to her?” he demanded.

“Hello, old chap,” said James, recovering fast. “Didn’t expect you to pop in.”

“I can see I was not expected. That stands out a mile. What are you up to?”

“Well, it’s obvious,” said James easily. “She’s out of a harem, isn’t she? She’s used to this sort of thing. We could share her, couldn’t we?”

“You ignorant fool,” said John, advancing. “You don’t know the first thing about the way Arabs look after their women. And sharing them, as you so nastily put it, is not one of their habits.”

James did not like the look of cold fury of John’s face. He had rarely seen his brother so angry. Retreat and caution were indicated. He backed away and dodged behind a heavy sofa. There was a four-inch difference in their heights, and though John was slim, it was all muscle, as taut as whip-cord. Two years of yawning through medical lectures had not exactly toughened James.

Khadija rushed between them and caught at John’s raised fists. Her slim fingers gripped his tightly.