Thirty-five

Two full days had passed since Ghita had left home.

She felt disorientated and unloved, and was filled with loathing and self-pity. It had taken her all afternoon to make enough money for a bowl of soup and a chunk of bread at one of the stalls in the Marché Central. In that time she had been relieved of a small fortune in couture garments by her bargain-hungry clientele.

As she sat there, her belly stinging with hunger for the first time in her life, the stolen iPhone began to buzz. Squinting at the display, she thanked God.

‘My dearest Aicha!’ she exclaimed.

‘We touched down just this moment. Gstaad was sublime. How was your weekend, dearest?’

‘It was abhorrent!’

‘Oh, you poor baby! Where are you?’

‘Staying downtown... in a hotel.’

‘The Hyatt?’

Ghita’s expression glazed over. She bit her upper lip.

‘No, no, in a little boutique place. I don’t have a car. Can you come meet me right away?’

Within the hour a magnolia-coloured Bentley pulled up outside Hotel Marrakech. The chauffeur stepped out and opened the passenger door, kicking away a dead rat with his heel. There was a long pause.

Then, very slowly, an impeccably dressed woman got down.

Her eyes hidden beneath enormous Jackie O sunglasses, she was dressed from head to toe in pink Prada mink. She didn’t walk so much as waft, making her way between a pair of drunks lying outstretched on the pavement, leaving a vapour trail of rare perfume behind her.

Tugging a silk scarf from her Hermès Birkin, like a magician in the middle of a trick, she used it to push open the door.

The lair of hungry cats was awaiting her inside.

In deep hash-induced sleep on the sofa lay the clerk. Like his pets, he was unused to high society. Opening an eye, he struggled drowsily to sit upright, as the scent and silhouette of Ghita’s best friend approached.

Before she knew it, Aicha was standing outside room thirteen. She knocked.

The door opened inwards.

As soon as she saw her friend, Ghita burst into a flood of tears. She was inconsolable.

‘I can never forgive him!’ she sobbed. ‘Baba’s cruelty knows no bounds.’

‘But my dear Ghita, why are you here?’

‘Baba thinks I can’t survive in the real world. He thinks I’m incompetent, that I’m lazy.’

‘My darling, this is not reality. It’s Hell,’ Aicha said, pulling Ghita’s reddened cheek to her mink-covered breast, the tears soaked up by the fur.

‘What horror! What absolute horror! Get your things and come with me at once! The Bentley’s waiting downstairs. Come and stay with me for as long as you wish.’

Collapsing onto the bed, Ghita waved a finger left and right.

‘I’m going to break him,’ she snarled. ‘He’s a beast, but there’s no way I’ll let him win!’

‘But now that you’ve proved him wrong, surely you can go home.’

‘No, I can’t.’

‘Why not?’

Ghita wiped a tear from her chin.

‘I said I would support myself for a month.’

‘A month! That’s ridiculous!’

‘No it’s not. I have to prove to him that I’m as capable as anyone else... and I’m certainly as capable as any of those goons he employs. He regards me as useless as a little toy poodle, but I’m going to show him! Besides, he’s sure to have his spies out checking up on me. You know how he is.’

Aicha reached out, her mink cuff brushing over her friend’s shoulder.

‘There’s danger in this,’ she said. ‘It may be a matter of honour for you, but what if they find out?’

‘They?’

‘Mustapha... our friends... society!’

Ghita swallowed hard, her eyes welling with tears.

‘This is more important to me than anything else,’ she said.

‘More than losing your fiancé? Don’t be so stubborn. Come with me now.’

‘I can’t. I really can’t. I just ask that you give me some time and,’ Ghita swallowed again, ‘and that you lend me some money to buy a proper meal.’

Reaching into her Birkin, Aicha removed a brick of bank notes. It was two inches thick.

‘Here’s some change,’ she said.

Ghita reached out in a hug.

‘Please promise me that you won’t tell Baba that you saw me, or that you lent me this,’ she said. ‘I want him to think I’m suffering. I know that with a little time he’ll come crawling to me on his knees.’