The Weeping Desert (7 page)

“I see. Big business espionage of course,” said John, slamming down the lid of his case. “You’re worried in case I’m selling the location of our new drilling sites to a rival sheikhdom, or stirring up a revenue dispute between Sheikh Abd-ul Hamid and the company, with a ten per cent cut for me?”

“It’s not funny—some people will do anything for money,” said Brett.

“Is-if,” said John angrily. “That damned Is-if!”

“What did you say?”

“Nothing.”

“You sound like a thoroughly rattled man,” said Brett shrewdly. “Well, whether you’re selling out the company or not, we could both do with some coffee. I suppose your houseboy is sleeping off an excess of cokes somewhere, and I’d better make it myself.”

John took a shower and decided on a quick run over his chin with his Japanese battery-driven shaver. He put on a lightweight suit, and it seemed strange to be knotting a tie again after so many months of not wearing one.

He was conscious of a door banging somewhere. He looked at his watch. He’d got twenty-five minutes in which to get to the airport. Brett came in with two mugs of coffee.

“There’s a
shammal
blowing up,” he said.

John went to the window. Dust was blowing in small eddies in the compound, and litter was suddenly lifted into a crazy dance and flung against the wire fencing. Across the desert a haze of sand clouded the horizon.

“That gas flare’s going wild,” said Brett over his shoulder.

“Has it ever been snuffed out in a sandstorm?” John asked.

“There’s always a first time for everything.”

“I hope it’s not going to blow hard. I’ve got to get away,” said John, lugging his cases out onto the verandah. The wind whipped his tie into the air and billowed into his jacket.

“These birds can take off in most things,” said Brett, helping to load the jeep. “What’s all the hurry for, anyway? You could probably get a seat on the mid-week flight.”

“I’ve been counting the hours to this leave and nothing is going to stop me,” said John. “Come on, let’ go, before it gets too thick to drive in.”

The jeep lurched and rattled along the track. They passed John’s houseboy, his head down against the wind, scarf wound round his face. The boy looked up, recognised John, grinned and shouted something, but his words were lost in the howl of the
shammal
.
John smiled and waved back. He’d meant to give the boy something but it was too late now.

“I’ll tip him for you,” said Brett, reading his mind. “You can owe me.”

John opened his wallet. “I’ve only English money.”

“I’ll give him a couple of your natty suits,” Brett grinned, eyeing the cut of John’s trousers.

It was light now,
the sun rising pleasantly in a sky screened by dust and
sand. They kept the windows wound up, but sand blowing fiercely across the road still got into the jeep. A fine film settled everywhere, whitening their eyelashes and brows and sticking to their lips.

“They’ll never take off in this,” said John.

“It’s blowing across, moving inland,” said Brett, peering through the windscreen. “The plane has only got to get above it.”

The jeep swung off the road onto the strip of levelled desert used as the airport car park. The Shuqrat fire engines stood in a row, ready for the take-off, the uniformed fire chief trying to rub the film of dust off some equipment with his sleeve.

The huge silver jet was being loaded with luggage, and small figures were crossing the tarmac in the swirling sand to board her.

“I’ll get your luggage through customs,” said Brett, forging ahead. “You’d better go and present your passport and ticket. They’ll probably act very officiously because you nearly missed the flight.”

The formalities were always a precarious business. The immigration officer scratched his ear, then his right nostril, then the back of his leg, and looked at John several times, comparing the photograph in his passport from all angles, before stamping the page with maddening slowness and handing it back.

John hurried into the departure lounge. The screened-off section, furnished with wooden benches and rickety tables, had cheerful signs in English and Arabic.

“Your luggage is going on. They didn’t find any gold or hashish,” said Brett drily. “Quite disappointed, they were.”

There were people waiting to see John off. It was another of the regular social activities of the community, seeing people off at the airport and meeting them again on their return. John shook hands with his friends and parried comments about his disappearance from the sailing club party the previous night.

“You take care that Lebanese matron up at the hospital doesn’t catch you,” said Don Parker. “She’s got a nose like a bloodhound.”

“You seem determined to ruin Sheila’s reputation,” John reproved him. “That’s unfair to her, however flattering to me.”

“Anyone can see she’s got eyes for no one else.”

“Shsh, here she comes.”

“John! John!” Sheila elbowed her way through the spectators to where John was standing. “I thought I’d missed you. The flight’s late, isn’t it? The
shammal
,
I suppose.”

Sheila looked a little harrassed, despite her cool white buttoned hospital frock and neat starched cap. Her hair was tied back into a loose coil at the nape of her neck, but still little wisps escaped, and she managed to look more like a model dressed as a nurse than a hard-working and dedicated professional.

“Hello,” said John.

“Hello! Is that all you can say?
Hello
—when you disappear for half the night and nobody knows where you are? Whatever happened to you? I was frantic with worry.”

“I don’t understand all this fuss,” said John. “I’m perfectly all right. Look, I’ve got to go now, Sheila. I think that was the last announcement.”

“Nonsense,” said Sheila. “It was just a crackle on the loudspeaker.” She took his arm. “I must talk to you.”

“There’s no time to talk, Sheila. Can’t it wait?”

“No, it can’t. You’re not going off like that, without a word of explanation. Three thousand miles is an awful long way, and I won’t be able to ring you up.”

John felt a surge of annoyance. He did not like the way she sounded as if she were entitled to an explanation. He ignored the dangerous flash in her eyes. Perhaps she had been worried, but that didn’t mean he had to chronicle all his movements for her satisfaction. This was a trait he disliked in women. They always wanted to know everything. Well, Sheila would be a sight more worried if she knew the truth.

“Be seeing you,” he said abruptly, moving towards the exit.

“Oh, no you don’t!” she flared. She dodged neatly round a couple and blocked his way; a slim, defiant figure, glaring up at him.

“Perhaps you think it’s none of my business,” she said. “And perhaps you are right. But you’re my friend, and I don’t like to see a friend making a fool of himself. And if I can stop you, I will!”

A sudden gust of wind blew across the runway and the huge plane seemed to quiver. Litter was hurled against the wire fencing, and clung like survivors to the diamond mesh. Sheila shielded her eyes from the flying sand.

“You sound exactly like a woman,” said John, irritated.

Sheila laughed sarcastically. “Careful now. You nearly paid me a compliment. Any moment now, you’ll overdo it and actually say something nice to me.”

“You seem determined to pick a quarrel,” said John between his teeth. “But I won’t fight you. So don’t try to provoke me. Good-bye, Sheila, I’ll see you when I get back.”

“I don’t really want to quarrel with you,” said Sheila, shaking her head helplessly. “It’s just that anything is better than this awful nothingness. I can’t stand it. You’re so nice and pleasant to me, but the moment there seems to be anything more between us, you retreat faster than a hunted gazelle and throw up a mental barrier that I can’t see through or climb over.”

John shifted his shoulders inside his suit. He was already beginning to feel sticky in the extra clothes, and wished fervently that he were six miles up and out of hearing of Sheila’s tongue.

“I know I don’t mean anything to you,” she went on in a low voice. “But that doesn’t mean that I’m not going to try and stop you. If you’re going native, then I shall do everything in my power to dissuade you.”

“Going native?” John repeated, astonished. “Is that what you think?”

Sheila nodded. “I found Arab robes stuffed in the back of your jeep, the night you were late for your own party. You reeked of scent. I can even smell something now—incense, that’s what it is. Oh John, I know it does happen. There’s that old chap in Oman Said wandering round in an Arab headdress, half mad with the sun, and more Arab than English now.”

John knew the old man: Arnold Fisher, a relic of the old Colonial Service. He’d been out in the Middle East for more than seventeen years, long before oil was found in Shuqrat. He had been a roving British Commissioner, and knew the small sheikhdoms along the desert coast of the Persian Gulf better than any man alive. He had adopted Arab clothes and Arab customs, and even given himself an Arab name. He was a harmless eccentric with a deep love of the Middle East and their people, but the European community seemed to regard him as some sort of defector.

But John could respect the old man’s wish to live out his old age in a high-walled, windowless Arab house which was more home to him than any retirement to Tunbridge Wells. There was even more sense in the loose robe and headscarf in this weather. The sand seeped everywhere. It even got into pockets.

“Is that what you are so worried about?” John asked, more gently. “I don’t quite see myself as Lawrence of Arabia.”

“But the robe?”

“Will it make you feel any better if I tell you it is nothing like that? You’ll have to take my word for it.”

The last call to passengers asking them to embark came over the loudspeaker, first in Arabic and then in English, though it was difficult to distinguish one language from the other. But any announcement at this time could only mean one thing, and the last passengers began to filter through the exit onto the tarmac.

“Will you drive back with Sheila?” he asked Don Parker. “Brett will send a boy to pick up your car when the
shammal’s
over.”

“It’ll be a pleasure, mate,” Don grinned.

John gripped Sheila’s arm briefly. It was an inadequate gesture, he knew, in the circumstances.

He hurried through the exit, anxious to be away to freedom, to England, to an uncomplicated bachelor life. The swirling sand flew up to meet him.

He ran up the steps to board the gleaming aircraft. The hostess stood at the top, holding on to her smart hat with one hand and trying to control her boarding list with the other.

“Mr. Cameron? Mr. John Cameron. You are the last. Welcome aboard.” John followed the hostess into the aircraft, ducking his head as he went through the cabin doorway.

The cabin door clanged shut behind him. They were wasting no more time. The notices NO SMOKING and FASTEN YOUR SAFETY BELTS had already flickered on, green and red.

“Your seat is reserved for you, Mr. Cameron,” the hostess went on, indicating an empty aisle seat. An Arab woman was sitting in the other seat, heavily robed and veiled. A slender hand was timidly holding the window curtain aside. The Arab woman turned, and John found himself looking into the unmistakable dark eyes of Khadija.

Chapter Four

“Khadija!” There was rising anger in his voice. “What are you doing here?”

“I journey to London with you, my husband,” said Khadija, as meek as a mouse.

“Oh, no you don’t,” said John curtly. “I’m not standing for any more of your harem tricks. You’re getting off this plane this instant!”

He lurched up the aisle, aware that the aircraft was moving, slowly taxiing to the head of the runway for take-off. The air hostess was settling herself into a seat at the back, clasping the safety belt round her neat waist.

“Can you stop the plane?” John shouted. “This woman has got to get off.”

The air hostess looked up in alarm. “Please, sir! Will you get back to your seat and fasten your safety belt. We are just about to take off.”

“We can’t take off,” John insisted. “There has been a terrible mistake.”

But the rest of his words were lost in the roar of the powerful engines as they thrust into life. With immense quickness of mind, the air hostess pulled John down into the empty seat beside her and flung the safety belt round his middle, snapping it into place just as the plane began gathering speed.

“Surely you don’t want to start your leave with a dislocated neck,” she said, trying to regain her composure.

“Thanks,” said John, aware that she must have hurt herself straining against her own strapping. “But it is an emergency.”

“Only life or death is an emergency, Mr. Cameron,” she replied. “If there has been a mistake, then the passenger can alight at Kuwait and fly back to Shuqrat.”

The plane soared into the air, climbing fast at a steep angle. John looked over the heads of the passengers. The black robed figure of Khadija looked unnaturally limp and huddled.