Chapter Twenty

The Wives

 

 

THE FOLLOWING DAY, she began to make notes for a new article.

Identifying her theme—the problems of moving to the Middle East, seen from the perspective of western women—she drew up a fresh interview-list of the neighbourhood’s wives. Some topics would have to be avoided. She could not afford to embarrass Roy and the other husbands, or damage their relationship with DWG.

By now all her neighbours would have heard about the bomb on the compound, and about Milo’s lonely death, but she had no real idea what they thought of such things. Did they know about the girls who went missing? If they did, did they care?

Tucking her laptop under her arm, she went to call on Mrs Busabi.

‘I hadn’t been expecting callers,’ her neighbour warned, leading Lea into the cool recesses of the villa. ‘It’s the maid’s morning off.’

Even so, there was an overpowering scent of polish in the still air. With a sinking heart, Lea realised that interviewing her neighbours would require the heroic consumption of pastry. ‘When we were in Delhi we had so many staff,’ said Mrs Busabi. ‘I miss India terribly. But we had to leave when Harji’s work took him to England.’ Tea was already laid out. ‘I always take a little something mid-afternoon, when I get back from the school. We haven’t many little ones there at the moment. It’s too hot for them now. I simply won’t permit you to leave until you’ve tried some of my famous seed cake.’

Lea was handed a slice and asked questions between dry mouthfuls. Mrs Busabi leaned forward, listening intently. Every now and then a look of puzzlement crossed her face and she found it difficult to form a response, as if she couldn’t imagine why anyone would want to try and write in the first place. Lea noticed that there were no bookcases anywhere on the ground floor, just an old copy of Hello! on the kitchen table.

‘I thought it would make an interesting subject,’ she said, although she was already beginning to wonder if she would be wasting her time.

‘I suppose there’s no harm in it,’ Mrs Busabi finally decided. For a moment, Lea thought she was going to call her husband to check. ‘After India it’s all so private here. Delhi could be very frustrating, especially when three men would turn up to lift a flowerpot or change a plug, but people worked out their problems together. Here you just get smiles and silence. It does make me wonder how people let off steam. When Indian families have a row, everyone in the street gets to hear about it. You never know what goes on behind all these closed doors.’

Lea hoped her subject might feel more comfortable after a few minutes, but Mrs Busabi continued to sit with her knees pressed together and her hands knotted in her lap, as if attending an interview for a position that was far beyond her capabilities. Her replies were impersonal and imprecise. No, she had not found the move difficult, she had lived in hot climates before. Making friends was never hard because women loved to talked about children, and she was a nurturer. There was never much friction with her husband, because when you’d been married for a long time there was nothing left to argue about.

‘What about neighbours? How did you get on with Milo, for example?’

‘I thought he lacked social grace,’ Mrs Busabi sniffed. ‘He’d say the most dreadful things after a few drinks. He was openly rude about DWG, and they were paying his bills! And this interference with the migrant workers, well, it was just asking for trouble.’

‘You think they deliberately ran him over?’

‘Don’t you think it’s likely that he made enemies? Maybe they just wanted to scare him and it went too far.’

Lea closed the lid of her laptop. ‘One other thing,’ she said. ‘When I first met you, you said you were good friends with Mrs Chalmers for a time. What did you mean?’

‘Did I say that?’ asked Mrs Busabi. ‘I really don’t remember. I certainly didn’t mean to imply anything bad—’

‘No, of course not. This isn’t for the article. It’s just that we’re living in Tom Chalmers’ house and I was interested.’

‘I wouldn’t say we had a falling out, exactly. I don’t think Tom was ever happy about being posted here. He didn’t enjoy working for the Chinese.’ She mouthed the last word as if they were listening. ‘They’re very driven. He found the job terribly stressful. And then that awful thing with little Joia, their daughter. She was twelve, I think, or nearly thirteen. They had her very late.’

‘Milo started to tell me about her. What happened?’

‘My dear, she vanished. She set off for the beach one morning and never turned up there. It was as if she’d been lifted off the face of the earth.’

‘I didn’t hear about this,’ Lea said, surprised.

‘Well, there’s nothing much to say. The police looked, but decided she’d run away. I ask you, a girl of that age! Of course, I know things like that happen all the time in London, but here—well, it’s usually so safe.’

Lea knew Mrs Busabi was right. She had seen BBC news items about two missing children just this week.

‘Tom never accepted that she’d run away. The police found a single shoe at the resort, but Tom and his wife couldn’t decide whether it belonged to their daughter. Then he had that ridiculous accident. I mean, what did he think he was doing outside after dark trying to cut out plant roots? We got together a petition.’

‘I don’t understand.’

‘There had been reports of someone hanging around the houses. It didn’t seem right to have the migrant workers living so close to the compound.’

‘You think they might have had something to do with Tom’s death?’

‘I suppose we thought that at the very least they might have seen something. We tried to get the underpass sealed off, but the construction people won’t block it up until the resort is finished, because they’ll lose their slip road. It’s a short cut to the far side of the Persiana, you see. They can make their round-trips more easily. But what’s the point of having guards and ID cards and security checks if these people can come and go as they please?’

‘Are you sure they’re the only people who hang around the compound?’

Mrs Busabi grew defensive. ‘Didn’t you tell the police you saw them planting a bomb?’

‘No, I said I saw two people by the bin, that’s all. It was dark.’

‘But they were foreigners.’

‘I only saw them for a second. I can’t be a hundred per cent sure.’

Mrs Busabi’s sensitivity made her uncomfortable. How did she know what Lea had told the police? ‘I think I have all the answers I need for the moment,’ she said diplomatically, rising to leave. ‘By the way, the Larvins said you have some wonderful recipes. You must let me have them some time.’

‘I’ll put some in your postbox,’ said Mrs Busabi, happy to be back on solid ground. ‘Perhaps you’d like to come to our cooking circle one afternoon. We’re icing party sponges at the moment.’

‘Yes, I’d like that,’ Lea lied, standing. ‘It was so kind of you to spare me some time.’

Afterwards she was ashamed of her cowardly retreat. Perhaps it was better to let the Mrs Busabis of the world enjoy the comfortable lives they had created.

 

 

HER OTHER SOCIAL call of the afternoon was to the Larvins. Only Rachel was home. She was wearing an orange tie-dyed sarong and looked more hippyish than ever. ‘Hey, I was beginning to think you weren’t talking to me,’ she said, throwing open the door. ‘I keep sneaking out back for a cigarette and never manage to catch you. I feel like a spy trying to find my contact. Come in. Don’t worry—I’m not going to force any sugar on you.’

‘Thanks,’ said Lea, genuinely grateful. ‘Mrs Busabi just made me eat some of her “famous seed cake”.’

Rachel laughed. ‘Did you ever eat anything that tasted more like chewing a sandbag? I’m making my famous vodka stingers and you’re having one. What’s up?’

‘Oh, I’m starting to think this is a stupid idea.’

‘Let me be the judge of that. According to Colette, criticism is my greatest skill. She’s pissed at me again because I had an argument with Norah. That girl can do no wrong in her eyes. So, shoot.’

‘It’s just that, well, I’m not getting anywhere with the journalism, so I thought I could make notes for a more serious piece. Or several pieces. Maybe I could turn them into a book.’

‘The psychopathology of the resort widow,’ said Rachel, ‘it should be a best seller. But not at Dream Ranches, home of the unexamined life. You should get enough material here to last you a lifetime.’

‘It’s weird. You say that, but outwardly there’s really not much to complain about. Everyone seems pretty happy. I feel like I’m the interloper.’

‘That depends.’ Rachel shot her a knowing look. ‘I always think you see what you’re searching for. You could paint an attractive portrait of the middle classes in retreat, or lift up a paving slab and study the dark things crawling around underneath.’

‘Are there a lot of worms?’

‘Are you kidding? Where do you want me to start? Look, this is a formerly Islamic city built on Muhammad’s land. The muezzin call is heard five times a day drawing believers to prayer, but you have to listen pretty goddamn hard to hear it out here.’

‘I’ve noticed you can only hear the mosque speakers when the wind is right,’ Lea said.

‘Most people just have it on their phones,’ said Rachel. ‘It’s not about being mindful of Western sensibilities. They chose to build the resort out here because it keeps the infidels away from the mosques, not the other way around.’

‘Come on, Rachel, this place is being sold on its cosmopolitanism.’

‘And you buy that? I’m going to smoke in the house, don’t faint. I expect you to join me.’ Rachel lit up a Virginia Slim and offered the packet. ‘Don’t worry, I keep air freshener in my room. I’ll douse the place and then open all the windows before the kids get back.’ She sprayed smoke in the air. ‘God, that feels good. Listen, there’s not a faith in the world that doesn’t operate on a double standard. If you believe in something, you have to find a way around the parts that make your life hard. Did you know all UAE nationals are entitled to a number of residence visas? They use them to hire imported servants, gardeners and drivers. But they often have permits left over, so they sell the remainder to brokers, because they can’t be seen to be selling their own permits. And who do the middlemen sell them to? Take a guess.’

‘I don’t know, but I have a feeling I’m not going to like this.’

‘They sell them to single young women who want to come and find full-time employment in the city. There are something like a quarter of a million imported hookers living along this coast in the summer months.’

‘Come on, Rachel, where are you getting this from?’

‘Dear old Milo knew all about it, because a friend of his had to process the permits. And right now is the busiest time.’

‘Why?’

‘Because it’s July. We’re hitting the upper forties. Haven’t you noticed how empty the cafés have gotten? That’s because if you’re a wealthy businessman, you send your wife and family away to escape the heat.’

‘Where do they go?’

‘To the Riviera, the Amalfi coast, the Greek islands, America. As soon as the coast is clear the men go absolutely apeshit. Middle-aged guys turn into hormonal teenagers. They head for the bars on the King’s Highway on the other side of the airport, and hire Nepalese and Chinese whores by the dozen. There are certain hotels that arrange orgies, or they’ll deliver women to your room.’

‘I’m not sure this is the kind of thing I’m intending to write about,’ said Lea uncertainly.

‘Think of it as background material.’ She slammed the fridge door and sluiced fresh vodka over ice. ‘You need white crème de menthe for this. I’d be making them at 10:00am if I didn’t watch myself.’

‘Don’t the police do anything about it?’

‘No, because they all get a cut. Theoretically paid sex is illegal, but the cops only clamp down when somebody goes too far. Once in a while a bar or a hotel will overstep the mark. There was a famous whorehouse at the edge of the desert that got shut down because it offered a shopping list of services: oral, anal, threesomes and so on in different rooms. The cops made a big show of closing it, but they let the owners off with a warning.’

‘What happened to the girls who worked there?’

‘I guess they moved somewhere else. Isn’t that what usually happens?’

‘You’re talking about human trafficking.’

‘Oh, don’t look so shocked. Where do you think your fancy London hotels get their staff from? But you’re lucky in England. Your corruption scandals are kind of pathetic. A member of Parliament charges the building of a duck-house to his expenses? Hell, Toronto had a crack-smoking mayor. Isn’t it funny how the most God-fearing people always have the most corrupt government officials?’

Lea could see the embers of old fires burning in Rachel. ‘What did you do back in Ohio?’ she asked.

‘When I was much younger and more idealistic I was a state attorney, but then our department got caught up in a scandal,’ she explained. ‘You see these things happening, but it doesn’t mean you can do anything about them. It’s like you.’

‘What do you mean, like me?’

‘Oh, come on Lea, you’re not fooling me. You don’t want to write about how housewives pass the time while their men are at work, you want to get your hands dirty. You’re doing it without even realising. Don’t tell me you haven’t wondered why nobody’s been caught for driving over poor Milo?’

‘I assume the investigation is still ongoing.’

‘Do you think they even bothered looking for the car that hit him?’

‘Why wouldn’t they?’

‘Because if they did, they’d get reporters following up the incident. Have you seen anything in the news about your bomb or the sabotaged sewage pipe?’

‘No.’ Rachel was right. There had been nothing in the papers at all.

‘Of course not. Once the press senses blood they start hanging around and going through your trash until they find something, and right now that’s the one thing Dream World can’t afford to have. Their safety record is in the toilet, their labourers have a collective bug up their ass and their budgets are being stretched to snapping point. If this place underperforms, imagine what it will do to Sino-Arabic relations.’ Rachel raised her glass.

‘You always seem to see the bigger picture. How come—’

‘—I didn’t continue my career?’ Rachel passed over one of the cocktails. ‘Because I’m the grandmother. I was broke, honey. I got myself in debt. So that was the deal. Colette invited me here to look after the kids. Abbi’s easy. She’s the girliest little girl you could ever meet. Norah’s difficult. I don’t think she agrees with anything I stand for, but then I felt exactly the same when I was her age.’ She took a long drag at her Virginia Slim and jetted smoke over the kitchen table. ‘I should have been born a boy,’ she decided. ‘I’d have got a better deal.’

‘You don’t really think that?’

‘Hey, my son has been a great source of comfort to me. I couldn’t have gotten work here anyway. It’s a young town. Besides, I’d never be accepted as a Mowatina, a local. I don’t believe that Allah’s going to bail me out every time I screw up. It was Milo who fed my cynicism, of course. He had this wild theory about the older gods, a religion that’s even more ancient, one born in the rocks and underground rivers. You have to appease the land or lose everything, and everyone who comes here has to do it or fail. He gave me a book on the subject—if I can find it under all my shit I’ll lend it to you.’

‘Thanks,’ said Lea, ‘I like history books.’

‘No no, not history.’ Rachel wagged a finger at her. ‘A living, practical mythology. He became an Olympic-sized bore about it when he was drunk.’ She squinted out at the light. ‘I think the sun accentuates the weirdness in all of us.’

 

 

LEA MADE ONE more stop at the end of the afternoon, to Betty Graham’s villa. She rang the doorbell and stepped back into the silvery late heat, listening to two voices having an argument. Eventually Betty opened the door.

‘I’m sorry,’ she began, ‘I’m having one of my weekly fights with Dean. It’s best to leave him be when he’s like this. Can I come over to you for a moment?’

Before Lea could reply, Betty stepped outside and closed the door. ‘He’s slamming around in there, and when he gets like that there’s nothing I can say or do. He’s impossible. His grades are slipping. He won’t do his homework. He’s cut school twice this month to go to the mall. His father was able to control him, I just don’t have the same talent. Do you have trouble with Cara? No, of course you don’t, her father is there for her.’

They sat in Lea’s walled garden as the sun faded below the hedges surrounding the swimming pool. A smell of grass cuttings hung in the air. ‘Dean’s a good boy at heart,’ said Betty, sinking back in her chair. ‘I really don’t know what to do. He’s his father’s son. They were inseparable. I thought being here would be good for him, but now I’m not so sure. There’s so much temptation.’

‘There is?’ Lea must have sounded unduly surprised, because Betty gave her a strange look. ‘The girls,’ she explained. ‘They stir the boys up, and they know exactly what they’re doing. They mature at an earlier age, you see.’

‘Which girls?’

‘The service.’ She dropped her voice, as if someone might overhear, but the only sound in the garden was the hiss of the watering system coming on. ‘I had to fire the maid just after Christmas because—well, you know. I caught them together. Fooling around.’

‘You mean, actually—?’

‘Well, no, but flirting certainly. Eye contact, brushing against each other.’

Lea caught herself stifling a laugh. Was that all? Youthful high spirits? Here in a hot country where Dean was constantly surrounded by pretty girls at the beach, it was hardly surprising that he was showing an interest in sex. ‘It doesn’t sound like anything to worry about,’ she said.

‘But there’s an unwholesomeness here,’ Betty persisted. ‘Girls go missing.’

‘What do you mean?’

She looked shamefaced, as if the subject itself was taboo. ‘There have been—I don’t know, indecencies, things covered up. The girls get pregnant. Or they report trouble with men. Then suddenly they change their minds. They stop talking, they move away—and sometimes they disappear. Everyone has an opinion about them but nobody has the facts. They come here and simply disappear.’

Lea returned home to start supper, failing to realise that she had taken hardly any notes.

Later she lay on the garden sofa with a book about the Middle Eastern landscape and its customs.

A unifying religion born in the rocks and underground rivers…

In all of the latitudes at the middle of the world, people supposed that light and darkness were poles attracting powerful magic. The sultans had once believed that the shadows in their courtyards harboured deathlike wraiths that waited to claim their souls. And there were dark corners here.

Something she could sense but not properly define was shifting within those slivers of blackness. It was chill and poisonous, and was rising out of the shadows toward the light.