CHAPTER
Twenty-five

If we crash, can I eat you?” asked Oliver.

It was Saturday and the Nambulan Airways jet had heaved itself into the air only five and a half hours after the scheduled takeoff time. A range of unnatural engine sounds was making the cabin shudder, and a high tinnitus whine, which the stewardess had announced would cease after takeoff, was surprising no one by failing to cease.

A shot of our plane appeared on the video screens now, only to plunge to the bottom of the screen with the rest of the shot, followed by a flickering white line and a new shot of a glamorous waterskiing man, dark hair blowing back in the wind, taking one hand off the rope to wave and smile at the camera. The shot widened to reveal the water skier skimming past the mudflats of the river in central El Daman. He was balancing on one leg now, with the tiny figures of basking crocodiles just recognizable in the background. For a moment I was mesmerized by this vision of Nambula as a playboy’s hot spot, until the water skier suffered the same fate as the plane, to be replaced by the flickering white line, and, this time, a desert sunset, Arabic music, a nomad silhouetted on a camel, and the mountains of Sidra behind. I felt a great rush of joy at the sight. I glanced across at Kate Fortune, wondering if she was sharing my joy.

Possibly not. Kate was wearing the same pale, shocked expression she had been wearing since she entered the plane to find herself seated beside a wizened man in a very dirty djellaba, who was holding a newspaper parcel full of eggs. She was playing a complicated psychological game with him over the armrest. She took hold of the peach gabardine of her sleeve, moved it away from the once-white cotton of his sleeve, and lifted her eyes to his face, pointedly. The man looked at her, looked down at his sleeve and back at her with puzzlement. Then still looking at her, he reached into the fold of his djellaba, took out a handful of leaves and put them into his mouth.

“Excuse me.”

Julian was sandwiched between two Nambulan women who were even larger than him. They were swathed in the colorful, musk-infused robes of newlyweds.

“Excuse me.” Julian was trying to get the attention of the stewardess, who looked at him with a bored expression and stayed where she was.

The djellabaed old man was reaching into his mouth now, which was stained red, with bits of leaf protruding from his lips. He stuck his thumb and forefinger inside, took out a gobbet of chewed-up leaf, smiled endearingly, and offered the gobbet to Kate. For a moment I saw the Fortune face break into the first natural smile I had ever seen on it.

“Excuse me.”

Julian was attempting to squeeze his enormous body past one of the brides. Through a combination of climbing and squashing he managed to extract himself and made his way up to the stewardess, who, along with everyone else in the cabin, was watching him suspiciously.

“Excuse me? Is it possible to move up to first class now?” said Julian discreetly.

“No first class,” said the stewardess loudly.

“Shhh. Yes, there is, I can see it through the curtain,” said Julian, looking nervously around the cabin.

“No first class.”

“The lady we spoke to at the check-in desk, Mrs. Karar, said we could move up to first class after takeoff,” he said, out of the corner of his mouth.

“You sit down.”

“We’re with the television.” Julian did an incomprehensible mime. “Me very large. First class?”

“Where is your ticket?”

Julian fumbled in his pocket. “Blast.”

A roll of twenty-dollar bills fell onto the floor. A thin man in a brown polyester jacket with a hole in the elbow bent down and gave them back to him.

“Thanks. Blast.”

Eventually he produced the ticket, and handed it to the stewardess.

“Television. We raise money for refugees,” he said, rubbing his stomach hungrily. “First class?”

The stewardess was staring at the ticket.

“Mrs. Karar . . .” Julian began again.

“This free ticket,” said the stewardess.

“Yes. That’s right. You see Nambulan Airways gave me a free ticket because we’re doing a broadcast to help Nambula, which is why Mrs. Karar said I could go into first class,” he said, bright red now.

“You are not having paid for this ticket. You sit down now.”

There was a ripple of laughter from the cabin, as Julian struggled back to his seat, looking mortified.

“Excuse me.”

The stewardess lifted her chin at Oliver.

“Could you bring me a Scotch and soda?”

“No alcohol.”

“I’m sorry?”

“Nambula is Moslem country. Alcohol is not allowed.”

Oliver looked at me with a gleam of pure panic in his eye.

“Have we got any Scotch with us?”

“No.”

“WHAT?”

There was a pause.

“I’ve forgotten my sunglasses,” he said.

“Oh dear,” I replied.

Another pause.

“Damn,” he said.

I sighed. “What is it now?”

“Sunblock. Forgotten it,” said Oliver.

“Just wear a hat.”

A docile calm had settled over the cabin, as happens in the mysterious rhythm of airline journeys. Corinna Borghese was sleeping under an eye mask which was smeared with pale-green gel. Vernon was dozing, with a half bottle of whisky openly resting on his paunch. I had seen him paying off the stewardess. Oliver was beside himself with mixed emotions, wanting some of the whisky but not wanting to admit that Vernon had been smarter than him, still going on about his sunglasses.

It was a curious bridge between the two worlds—this apparently modern jet where nothing worked anymore, odors of goat and musk wafting around Marks and Spencer’s business suits, and unfathomable objects wrapped in newspaper and string tumbling from the overhead lockers onto the heads of the passengers below. It was around this point when every item in your bag became precious and irreplaceable; when you remembered that total availability of all things at all times was not a universal state, and started to panic slightly. It was the beginning of the slippery slide away from bursting schedules, clockwatching and rush, as well as order, efficiency and logic.

I settled back, enjoying a hiccup of freedom. No phone call could reach us here. Ten hours in which to rest. The day before had been a bloody nightmare, every minute bursting with too many tasks. At five-thirty, stuck in a traffic jam in a taxi with a list of eighteen things to buy before six, I had torn a hole in my tights with my own hand.

Just as everyone had got off to sleep, the stewardess appeared with an evil-smelling trolley. Oliver lowered his table and drummed his fingers on it expectantly. As the stewardess reached us, she handed me my food and banged Oliver’s down on the table.

“Excuse me,” he said to her retreating back, removing the lid without looking. “Excuse me.”

I saw it happening too late. The table was not level. The tray was just leaving the edge. I made a lunge towards Oliver’s lap and my hand was covered in what I can only describe as loose brown stools.

Our Nambulan fellow travelers were enjoying the entertainment very much. Oliver was standing in the aisle, dabbing angrily at a brown stain which extended from halfway down his crisp white shirt to the crotch of his fine dark navy trousers.

“Where is the senior steward?” he was saying to the stewardess, who was holding out a grubby napkin impassively. “Where is the airline representative? This is completely absurd! I can’t travel like this! I need a change of clothes!”

“First class.” Julian was standing behind him supportively. “You must move him to first class.”

“Come on, get your kegs off, lad, give us all a laugh,” Vernon beamed. “Get one of them Nambulan nighties on.”

At that moment Corinna appeared behind the stewardess looking alarmed.

“The lavatory’s blocked,” she said. “The stench is intolerable.”

“First class?” said Julian, hopefully.

The next morning I awoke in the El Daman Hilton, three weeks to the day since I had left Nambula. It was a Sunday. The broadcast was scheduled for four o’clock the following Wednesday. The performances had all been recorded. And Dinsdale and Barry were going to present the show live from London, with inserts beamed live by satellite from Safila, all being well.

It was a worry. Too much was hanging on it. The refugee column should be arriving any time now and rations would be more or less on naught. With the food we had brought we could save the situation for, maybe, a week. After that everything depended on us—unless the long-promised ship managed to turn up. Circle Line had another plane standing by in London. Food was ready to be loaded. All we needed was enough credit-card donations on Wednesday night and then regular airlifts could run till the danger was over. If the broadcast went smoothly, everything should be fine.

The El Daman Hilton had given us rooms at a discount, which was a treat for me. The foyer was the epicenter of the better-off ex-pat community in El Daman. Airline crews, diplomats, UN and EEC aid officials met in this little haven of the West to play tennis, swim, drink fruit punch and swap gossip. Among the nongovernmental aid workers, spending time at the Hilton was considered a sinful sellout. It was deemed much more appropriate to hang out in the dubious and stenchful restaurant of the Hotel El Souk. But given a respectable excuse, like a foreign journalist to meet, we’d all be straight in the Hilton pool like a shot.

I came down to the foyer at eight o’clock, having made full use of all toiletry items including the bubble bath and shower cap, asked the chambermaid for extras, and secreted them in my bag for the Safila showers. The celebs were asleep in their rooms. I was looking for the camera crew, a cameraman, a soundman and an assistant, and the News photographer. They, together with Edwina Roper, our minder from SUSTAIN, had drawn the short straw and ended up having to travel in the cargo plane. They should have landed yesterday afternoon, but none of them had checked in. I asked for any messages at reception. There were two. The first was from Malcolm.

GREETINGS TO YOU AND THE FLYING CIRCUS. SORRY HAVE HAD TO DEPART, URGENT, PORT NAMBULA. NO TIME TO ARRANGE PERMISSIONS. BEST OF LUCK. MALCOLM.

Great. The second was from Patterson, the British consul.

YOUR CAMERA CREW AND SENIOR PERSONNEL OFFICER HAVE BEEN DETAINED AT THE AIRPORT. SORRY, UNABLE TO ASSIST TODAY AS MY WIFE IS UNWELL. HAVE ARRANGED FOR YOU TO SEE GENERAL FAROUK, HEAD OF SECURITY AT THE CENTRAL SECURITY OFFICE AT 9:00 A.M.

I looked at my watch. Eight-fifteen. Better move, I thought, but we hadn’t organized any vehicles yet. Just then, André from the UNHCR appeared through the revolving door.

“Hi. How arrrrre you? Good to see you again, OK.”

We kissed each other on both cheeks.

“And how is the Jilted Locust Heroine?”

“Oh dear. So you saw that.”

“Saw it. There was talk of nothing else for a week, OK?”

“Lies, all lies.”

“Don’t knock it. It did a lot of good. It incensed Gunter, for a start.”

“I’ve got a message from Patterson to go and see Farouk.”

“I know. I’ve come to take you, OK? Farouk’s expecting you at eight-thirty.”

“Patterson said nine.”

“Patterson is a total prick.”

“What’s happening in Safila? Has the ship come?”

“OK, fine. The ship is not here. OK? And for reasons I will explain there are unlikely to be further ships for some time. OK, fine. The refugees, as you predicted, are on their way, not just to Safila but to all the camps along the border.”

“So what’s the situation at Safila?”

He said nothing for a moment.

“OK, fine. Put it this way. How many tons are on that Circle Line plane?”

“Forty.”

“Get it unloaded and down there today.”

That bad. I found myself blinking very quickly.

“Morning, sweeetheart.” It was Oliver. “Great night, eh? Call to prayer every half hour. I open the minibar to find it contains apricot nectar only. At four-thirty the reception rings to tell me my plane has not been delayed. Project for today is hunt the Scotch, I feel.”

I stared at Oliver aghast for a split second. I didn’t want him here.

“Oliver, this is André Michel from the UNHCR. André, this is Oliver Marchant who’s . . . who’s . . .”

“The director of the show. Pleased to meet you, André. What’s happening?”

“Don’t you want some breakfast before we start?” I said to Oliver, pointing to the coffee shop.

“Have you found the crew?”

“No. Er. No.”

“Have they checked in?”

“No.”

“What? Where the fuck are they, then?”

“OK. This is another problem,” said André.

“Give it to me straight,” I said nervously.

“Your crew and personnel officer are in the cage at the airport.”

“A cage? Jesus Christ,” said Oliver. “What kind of place is this?”

“It’s not a cage,” I said, trying to calm him. “It’s a cell.”

“A cell? Oh, well, that’s all right, then. As long as it’s only a cell, that’s fine. If my crew are locked in a cell at the airport, that’s perfectly all right. Lovely. A cell, no problem.”

We were driving through El Daman to the Security office, heading along a dust road with crumbling colonial buildings on either side and a mass of tangled wires overhead. Everything was peeling, cracked and covered in dirt. Horns blared, donkey carts and camels dodged the crazed zooms of trucks and taxis.

“OK. At nine o’clock on Saturday night, Patterson calls me,” André was saying. Oliver was sitting in the back, staring out of the window and releasing periodic blasphemous expletives.

“Patterson tells me there are three Charitable Acts representatives and a SUSTAIN official held at the airport,” André continued. “OK, fine.‘Patterson,’ I say,‘why are you calling me? What does this have to do with me?’ It turns out Malcolm is in Port Nambula and Patterson can’t leave the house because his wife is drunk. OK, fine. I go to the airport. I locate your camera crew and Edwina Roper, who are in the cage. By this time it is eleven P.M. I wake up Security. There is no problem with the visas. OK, fine. So why are they in the cage? The government do not want any more non-Moslem aid workers in Nambula, they say.”

At one side of the road a group of children were sitting in a sewer, screaming with laughter as they ducked underwater, splashed and swam.

“Jesus Christ,” said Oliver.

A man was sitting cross-legged beside a pyramid of Benson and Hedges packets. The man’s djellaba was hitched up to air a pair of grotesquely swollen testicles, each one the size of a small football.

“Oh, my God. Jesus, that is disgusting.”

Ahead a new poster showed a grinning President Rashid, Nambula’s military ruler, embracing Saddam Hussein.

“And presumably all this is pissing off the donor governments?” I said, nodding at the poster.

“Too right. This is a love affair, OK? This is the real thing. Saddam and Rashid are expected to marry and have each other’s children any moment. Rashid’s latest obsession is that there are too many whites in Nambula. He wants the aid and the money, but not them.”

“So the donors are saying no deal?”

“You’ve got it. Particularly the Americans. They haven’t officially frozen all further shipments. But they ain’t leaving the States.”

“I see.”

“Rashid’s anti the Western press now, he doesn’t want the media here. Which is why your lot are still at the airport.”

“Oh, my God. What is that child eating?” said Oliver.

“So how come the rest of us were allowed in?” I said.

“Good question. OK, it could be because they think you’re fund-raising rather than press, or maybe it’s because your camera crew said the wrong thing. But, whatever, it’s all pretty dodgy. I’d watch out for Gunter too. He doesn’t want you lot here either. Not until he’s got his ship in. You’ve got a satellite dish waiting for you, did you know that?”

“Oh, shit. I’d forgotten that. When did it arrive?”

“This morning. It’s in the SUSTAIN compound. I think the boys are having breakfast there, then heading for the Hilton. I’d keep an eye on it if I were you, OK? Rashid would just love to have a satellite dish, to force everyone to watch his dreary military parades.”

We were turning into the road which ringed the souk. The earth sank down into a pit in the center of the square, crammed with rows of wooden stalls with filthy awnings. Flies buzzed round the pieces of dark meat suspended from the counters. As we passed, an ax banged down and severed the head of a live chicken.

“Oh, no. Oh, please,” said Oliver.

A dirty hand took hold of the neck, blood spurting between the fingers, while the body twitched and the claws scampered angrily.

“Oh, sweet Jesus.”

“Have they started unloading the plane?” I said.

“They hadn’t at seven-thirty this morning,” said André.

“But Malcolm got the trucks there as we arranged?”

“The trucks are there. I don’t know how much Malcolm had to do with it.”

“But the crew are still in the cage?”

“They are still in the cage.”

“Just pull up for a sec, will you? I just want to grab a pair of sunglasses.”

Oliver had spotted a stand selling mirrored Michael Jackson–style models. André pulled up sharply by the edge of the square.

“Oliver, we haven’t got time—”

“Shan’t be a sec.” He was already halfway out of the door.

“We are in a real hurry—”

“Look, I just need a pair of sunglasses, OK?” The thunder look had survived the journey. I watched, anxious, as Oliver set out through the blinding heat towards the throng. He was dressed in a Panama hat, a pair of cream linen trousers and a pale green silk shirt. For some reason best known to himself, he had a gentleman’s clutch bag tucked under his arm.

“I’d better go after him.”

“Leave him, he’ll be fine,” said André, adding, with a sly look, “He’s the director.”

Every child within a two-hundred-yard radius was now running towards Oliver shouting, “Hawadga!” He was staring down, horrified, at a beggar with no legs who was propelling himself forward on vast muscular arms. People were closing in aggressively from all directions, holding out snakeskins, creosote, sheep’s bladders.

“Oliver, watch the ba—” I started to yell out of the window, just as a tiny boy whipped it from under his arm and ran. I saw Oliver turning to us, looking as if he’d just been asked to decapitate a chicken, as the crowd surrounded him.

“Come on, André, don’t muck about.”

“OK,” he said sulkily, and started up the engine, driving slowly through the crowd, honking the horn. They parted to let us through, but Oliver had completely disappeared.

“Stop the car,” I said, and jumped out.

There was a hard knot of people at the center of the throng. Where was he? A Nambulan boy grabbed my arm, and pointed at the ground. A brown Gucci loafer was visible through the djellabas.

“Get out of the way!” I yelled.

He was lying in a pile of rubbish. The people were pressing forward leaning over him, concerned. I bent down. His eyelids flickered.

“What happened?” I whispered. “Are you all right? Are you hurt?”

He opened his eyes.

“I think I, er, fainted,” he said foolishly. Then a look of horror passed over his face. “Oh, Christ!” he said, looking down, appalled, at the cream linen trousers. “Is there a loo around here?”

We dispatched Oliver to the Hilton in a taxi, but by the time we reached the Security office at nine-thirty we had missed General Farouk. He had gone to the airport to receive an important state visitor. After two hours of shuttling to and fro between five different ministries, we emerged, sweating, with a bumper haul of rubber-stamped papers. We had permission to start unloading the plane, permission to release the crew from the cage, permission to travel, permission to take photographs, permission to change money, and a rather uncertainly worded permission for all members of the group to emit satellite waves.

At twelve o’clock, with all this accomplished, we roared up to the airport and hurried to the Security office, only to discover that Edwina Roper had already been sent back to London and our permission to release the crew was invalid because it had not been signed by General Farouk. It took several hours to sort that one out, and by the time the disgruntled crew had departed for the Hilton, muttering about overtime payments, the heat had gone out of the day, the drivers for the trucks had disappeared and there was no one around to open up the plane.

It was 10:00 P.M. when André dropped me back at the hotel. As I turned to wave him off a convoy of white government limousines was sweeping into the driveway, little flags fluttering on the hoods. Before the cars had stopped moving, the doors opened and two soldiers jumped from each one, jogging in formation to form a guard of honor outside the revolving door, rifles cocked. Next, the tall, uniformed figure of General Farouk emerged from the second car. He turned graciously and handed out a tall, slender woman in brightly colored Kenyan robes, with an enormous headdress. A small fat man scrambled after them, clad in a tight, rumpled white suit. He looked like Mike de Sykes. He looked back for a moment and I caught a glimpse of his face. It was Mike de Sykes. Mike de Sykes and Nadia Simpson. So these were the honored guests of the state whom General Farouk was meeting at the airport.

The concierge looked at me oddly as I entered the lobby.

“Can I help you?” he said with some alarm.

I realized I must look a bit of a mess. I cleaned myself up briefly in the ladies’, then headed for the bar where Vernon, Corinna and Julian were sitting around looking bored. Four giant golden balls were suspended above the bar area where huddles of neatly dressed aid officials talked in hushed, urgent tones, and the light-aircraft pilots and engineers, recognizable by their burnt faces and dry blond mustaches, looked around, bored. Dotted between them, sipping at tall fruit punches, were men with guns in dark-green uniforms.

I glanced at Vernon and choked on my mouthful. There was a half bottle of Scotch between his leg and the chair.

“Ahm, Vernon. You do know all these men in uniform are the Security forces?” My voice came out unexpectedly high.

“Don’t you worry, my darling. I’ve got plenty of dollars in my back pocket.”

“Please, Vernon, hide the Scotch?” Please, please, don’t let’s get done for alcohol, I was praying. Please let’s not have any more Security dramas.

“Naah.” Vernon was reaching for the bottle, unscrewing the top.

“Vernon, get rid of the Scotch.”

He looked up sharply at my tone. “You’ll get a slap in a minute, my girl.”

“Oh, puh-lease,” snapped Corinna.

“Where have you been, anyway?” said Julian plaintively. “Oliver’s in bed with his stomach. And Kate is very upset about what they’ve done to her hair. I told her it looked fine but . . .”

I explained.

“You’d better get your act together, my girl,” said Vernon. “Any more messing about like this and we won’t get this show on the road.”

“The trucks will be loaded in an hour,” I said. “They’re going to stop by here, to confirm it’s all gone OK, then head off down to Safila. They should be there by dawn.”

“Yer what?” said Vernon.

I repeated the sentence.

“Listen, luvvie. Those trucks are going nowhere tonight.”

“What do you mean?”

“Call me old-fashioned. But I thought we were here to make a television program about a famine. Now when those trucks set off to that camp, we are going to film them setting off to that camp. And when that food arrives at that camp, we are going to film it arriving at that camp. Comprende? This is what we in television mean by making a television program.”

“Oh, puh-lease,” said Corinna.

I took more deep breaths. Then went over the situation again.

“The trucks must leave tonight.”

“No, no. The longer we leave it the better. Can you see those pictures when we roar into that camp, six bloody lorries in a convoy, CDT breaks through with the food to end the famine?”

He was just drunk. He wasn’t thinking straight.

“The lorries are going tonight,” I said, dangerously.

“The lorries, my love, are going nowhere without us.”

“Then we’d better all start packing. We leave in an hour.”

“Blast. Right,” said Julian. “Right. Absolutely right.”

“Sit down, lad,” said Vernon. “We can’t film nothing in the dark.”

We were getting nowhere. He wouldn’t budge. It was Corinna who saved the day.

“Vernon,” she said, leaning towards him. “Have you thought about the children?” She put her hand on his knee. “The kiddies? Little kiddies, hungry and dying because you’re drunk?”

Five minutes later Vernon was still wiping tears from his eyes and we had a deal. There were six lorries. Three would leave tonight, loaded. The other three would leave at 7:00 A.M. tomorrow with the rest of us.