In a Kingdom by the Sea

by Sara MacDonald

  ‘Did you grow up bilingual, Gabby?’ Shahid asks.

  ‘When I was a child my sister and I always spoke French with my mother and English with my father,’ I tell her. ‘We swapped effortlessly without realizing we were doing it. People would ask us what language we thought in and we never knew …’

  Shahid laughs. ‘We Pakistanis do this too. We swap from Urdu to English without realizing it. Michael is sometimes completely lost in meetings!’

  ‘Very true,’ Mike says.

  Our now-smiling waiter places small, decorated glass mugs of cinnamon beer on the table.

  ‘I should have anticipated some trouble on New Year’s Eve,’ Shahid says. ‘Trouble always comes when the streets are full of people celebrating and enjoying themselves …’

  ‘We have a son and daughter, both at university,’ Birjees says, her face lighting up at the mention of them. ‘Tonight, because of demonstration, Shahid has told them they must stay home. I have prepared food for them, but they are not happy to be seeing this New Year in with us.’

  ‘That is understatement, Birjees,’ Shahid says. ‘Samia and Ahsen should take up career in Bollywood. I am very pleased to be here in this peaceful garden for a little while …’

  Mike laughs. ‘Don’t get Gabby going on New Year’s Eve dramas. We’ve had a few with our sons …’

  When the food comes it is French cooking at its best and delicious. Mike and Shahid pretend not to talk about work. Birjees and I chat about our children and their increasingly electronic lives. Whatever the distance in our lives and our culture, some of our worries appear to be the same. The face of the world has changed forever but the fear of harm coming to our children never changes.

  Birjees leans towards me. ‘It is hard for the young to grow up in Karachi at the moment, Gabriella. Each generation, they become more educated and frustrated with religious fanaticism and politics. They have talent and ambition, but there is much nepotism, threat of violence, demonstrations and random electric cuts that disrupt our lives …’ She turns her glass round and round in her fingers. ‘Shahid and I, we pray for things to get better for our children; that everyone will get jobs on merit and not given to son of corrupt official. I pray each morning when my husband and children leave the house, that violence, it will not erupt, that they will all come safe home to me. Each time they return, I give thanks to Allah …’

  I stare at her, shocked. How terrible to wake each day to the possibility of violence, to the ever-present fear of something happening to the people you love.

  Shahid turns to me. ‘I would like to believe that things will indeed change for my children’s generation, but the truth is, it will take longer. So, Gabriella, I must hope for a safer, less corrupt, less feudal Pakistan for my grandchildren.’

  ‘The world is becoming increasingly violent and corrupt, so it’s impossible not to fear for the young,’ Mike says. ‘We’ve lost faith in the quality of our leaders. Governments no longer appear to have the will or ability to prevent war and atrocities anywhere …’

  ‘Come on,’ I say as the mood takes a dip. ‘We all have the capacity to change things and make a more peaceful world. We have to believe that or we may as well jump in the sea. We might not be here to see that better world but our children will …’

  I lean towards Birjees. ‘I read fantastic books written by the young from all over the world. They are crammed full of hope and depth and imagination. They are passionate and positive where we have been complacent. They won’t make the same mistakes …’

  ‘And the truth,’ Mike says, ‘lies somewhere between Gabby’s jolly optimism and my gloomy pessimism …’

  Shahid smiles at me. ‘If you do not mind, Mike, I think I will go with Gabriella’s jolly optimism …’

  ‘I too choose Gabriella’s words, they are the most comforting,’ Birjees says, smiling at me.

  ‘Can’t think why.’ Mike laughs and raises his glass of cinnamon beer to them.

  As we’ve been talking the restaurant has been slowly filling up. Beautifully dressed women float past greeting each other. Young men follow in a wake of perfume. There is noise and laughter and a sudden buzz of excitement in the small courtyard garden.

  ‘Pakistanis, they love to party,’ Birjees says, taking a keen interest in what everyone is wearing.

  ‘I can see that!’

  She laughs. ‘Oh, Gabriella, I hope you will come back to Karachi. Shahid and I would love to show you many beautiful places in our city …’

  She leans forward with sudden intensity. ‘Then you can explain to people in England that in Pakistan it is not all violent extremists but happy, family people who shop and party and create music and art and beauty, just like everyone else …’

  How must it feel to live in a country that is so often depicted negatively? How must it feel to long for your country to be defined by the warmth of its people and the beauty of its landscape, not by violence?

  I look out at the courtyard blazing with lights and flowers. The air echoes with the rise and fall of excited voices. The evening is pervaded by the simple delight of people happy to be together despite the unrest in their city. Simple joys are so easy to underestimate.

  ‘Inshallah,’ Birjees says softly, ‘you will come back to Karachi, Gabriella.’

  ‘Inshallah,’ I reply. ‘I hope so.’

  At midnight Mike and I toast the New Year in with a last half glass of wine back at the Shalimar.

  ‘I think this is one of the nicest New Year’s Eve we’ve had for a long time,’ I tell him.

  ‘It’s certainly the most abstemious New Year we’ve had for a long time,’ Mike replies as both our phones bleep with Happy New Year texts from our sons.

  ‘That’s probably ten quid each,’ Mike grumbles.

  ‘I suppose it’s just as well there isn’t another bottle of wine,’ I say, wistfully. ‘Or I’d be flying home tomorrow with a hangover.’

  ‘It’s been fun, hasn’t it?’

  ‘It has. I love Birjees and Shahid. I’m so glad you have them as friends.’

  ‘They loved you, Gabby. I think they’re already planning your next visit …’ He smiles. ‘We’ll have to juggle round our various work commitments to try to make it happen, won’t we?’

  He picks the wine glasses up to take them to the kitchen.

  ‘Actually, I’m back in London sometime in February for a meeting at Canada House. I’m planning to take a week’s leave. Let’s go somewhere. I’ll send you the dates. Hopefully you can take a few days off. After that, I’ve no idea when I’ll get a break. I’ve got endless conferences in the UAE …’

  I smile to myself. It amuses me; Mike’s assumption that his business commitments are sacrosanct while mine can be dropped whenever he gets home. It is partly my fault because I nearly always accommodated him.

  In the night I hear Mike’s phone bleep. Then bleep again. After a minute he gets out of bed and pads across to his desk to look at it. When he does not come back to bed I push myself up on my elbow to see where he is.

  He is standing very still by the window looking down on the city. I can’t make out his expression but I notice the stress in his shoulders. He looks so alone. I would like to go and place my arms around his waist, lean my head on his back. But I don’t. Mike can be emotionally unpredictable. One minute you think you are close to him, the next he will gently shut a door in your face. I learnt early in my marriage not to be hurt. In a way I understood. I shy away from too much emotion. I never wanted the sort of exhausting marriage my parents had. I used to wonder if my father felt suffocated by Maman’s love and that was why he sloped off to the pub so much.

  Mike turns from the window to his desk, picks his phone up and begins to text. After a second he makes an angry noise in the back of his throat and throws the phone down and comes back to bed.

  He sees that I am awake. ‘Sorry, did my phone wake you? I should have turned the bloody thing off.’

  I smile. ‘You know you never can.’r />
  ‘Come here. I’m going to miss you.’

  As we lie in the dark, Mike says, ‘It’s silly, but now you’ve been here, in this apartment, in my bed, in Karachi, you’ll feel much nearer to me when you’ve gone …’

  I wonder, for a second, if he is trying to convince himself. Then, I think about him standing alone in the window of a foreign city. Something he has done most of his life. I roll towards him. ‘I always miss you,’ I say.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  London, March 2010

  I’ve started running again. Running makes me feel more in control. It is a cold dark morning but the leaves will soon unfurl and the world will turn slowly green. I take the path round the lake and my spirit starts to lift. I find my stride and relax into a rhythm. The leaden sky begins to lighten and I think about the day ahead.

  January and February have been grim. This is the first time in my working life that a myriad of things have gone wrong at the same time, threatening my reputation. The fact that I had no control over any of them has been unnerving.

  One of my authors had a meltdown and wanted to withdraw her book just before publication. One of my translators, in the middle of a messy divorce, got so behind with an important Icelandic thriller he was working on that he missed a vital deadline with devastating consequences. To make matters worse, Emily’s mother died suddenly so she has been away for weeks.

  Up to now, I have had a dependable little team and I feel shockingly let down. For an experienced translator not to admit, until the last minute, that he is way behind schedule is totally unprofessional. We all rely on each other. Life happens. If anyone is struggling to cope we can give practical support. Authors and publishers depend on us. We cannot afford stubborn pride. Publication dates are sacrosanct.

  Thank goodness that Emily is back; her anger is at least distracting her from the grief of her mother’s death. Managing the office is her domain. I work upstairs and she is so efficient I rarely interfere.

  After calling a meeting and stressing the importance of admitting any personal difficulties that might impact on deadlines, Emily and I decided to sack our charming but lazy intern. Having begged us for a job, he has proved averse to mundane tasks. We have caught him on his smartphone during working hours too many times.

  As I run round the lake, I wonder if I have become less observant about the people who work with me. Was it male pride or depression that stopped Ayer, my translator, approaching me in time? Have I left too much to Emily? She is extremely competent but not always entirely empathetic to people’s domestic problems.

  I had been looking forward to talking to Mike about everything when he came home in February. I thought he would sympathize and offer good advice. He is good at damage limitation, at narrowing down a problem and making it seem smaller. It is what he does for a living. Not this time. He arrived from Karachi irritable, dismissive and bored by my saga.

  Despite being aware that I was in the middle of a crisis, he had gone ahead and made plans to go walking in the Malverns without consulting me. I had to tell him going anywhere was out of the question; I had apologetic meetings with publishers and alternative deadlines to set up.

  Mike went off in a huff, sailing in Lymington with Jacob for two days, and came back monosyllabic and sullen.

  ‘I hoped you might have cheered him up a bit,’ I said when Jacob dropped him back home. Mike had gone upstairs to change out of wet trousers. ‘I don’t think I’ve ever seen him so bad-tempered.’

  Jacob snorted. ‘Come on, Gabby, you’ve been married to him long enough. Mike can be impossible if things don’t go his way. In Dubai, we all used to keep out of his way when he was thwarted at work … He really can be a moody bastard sometimes.’

  ‘That’s why we let him work a long way from home,’ I joke, startled by Jacob’s honesty. ‘Has he told you his problem?’

  ‘Nope. Just cast a shadow over my sailing trip.’

  ‘I’m sorry, Jacob.’

  Jacob drained his glass. ‘You’ve got nothing to be sorry about …’

  He came over and pecked my cheek. ‘I’m off. Don’t take Mike’s behaviour with such good grace, Gabby. He’s bloody lucky to have you. Flora wouldn’t put up with it, or with me working away from home most of the time. Mike can’t expect your world to stop dead when he decides to take leave … I’ll call goodbye to him on my way out …’

  He turned at the door. ‘If it’s any comfort, Mike has pissed me off this time too.’

  I could hear Mike on his mobile phone, walking up and down on the landing. I wondered who he was talking to, because he was being very charming to whoever it was.

  I poured myself a glass of wine and went and looked out of the French windows into the garden. I had been restless ever since returning from Pakistan. I looked at the tiny wild cyclamen under the magnolia tree and realized that I could not wait for Mike to go back to Karachi.

  ‘You do realize that this has been a total waste of my leave,’ Mike said, coming down the stairs, leaving his charm on the landing.

  I did not answer. I try to avoid rows. It achieves nothing; it just brings out the worst. I had watched Maman, a master class in wasted emotion.

  Mike got a beer out of the fridge. ‘Do you really think your little empire would have toppled if you had spent a couple of days away with me? I don’t ask much of you.’

  I turned to look at him. ‘You ask quite a lot, actually. You just don’t recognize it. For the first time in my life, Mike, I don’t like you very much. In fact, I can’t wait for you to get on a plane back to Pakistan …’

  Mike looked shocked as I turned and walked out of the room. I had never challenged him on his moods before, but I had had enough. It was the only time, apart from when my parents died, that I had ever needed his support.

  Mike slept in the spare room and when I woke he had already left to catch his flight. I had a sick hole in my stomach that he had left on a bad note, that we had not even said goodbye. But I was relieved he had gone.

  I stop now by the green oak to stretch my legs. We have not spoken since he got back to Karachi. He sent me a short message to tell me that he was off to Abu Dhabi for an exhibition for airline software and I politely acknowledged his email.

  Luckily, I am so busy that I don’t have much time to think about Mike. Work life is improving. I have persuaded my panicky French author that her book is wonderful and a joy to translate. Kate and Hugh have convinced me that I have an excellent record and one hiccup isn’t going to send the whole publishing world scurrying for translators elsewhere. Best of all, Dominique is in London delivering her wedding dress, and she is going to spend the night with me. We will have the house all to ourselves. It does not often happen and I can’t wait.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  London, 2010

  I stare down at a photo of Dominique’s completed wedding dress. It is stunning. Simple. No froth or flounce. Just a plain cream dress with petal-shaped sleeves and side panels containing hundreds of tiny shells sewn into the material.

  ‘I can’t quite believe I have done the final fitting and delivered it,’ Dominique says. ‘It’s been such a mammoth task.’

  ‘It must have been,’ I say, feeling emotional at my sister’s talent. ‘It’s breathtaking.’ I look down at the pretty smiling girl wearing Dominique’s creation. ‘She looks sublime in it. She must have been thrilled to bits.’

  Dominique smiles. ‘Ellie was speechless. Her mother, Theresa, was not. She wanted her daughter floating down the aisle in yards of froth and tulle à la Princess Di. Then, one day, when I was doing a fitting, the poor girl burst into tears and told me all she wanted was a small wedding, in a simple dress, with close friends.

  ‘I promised her I’d make her a dress she loved, but one that was exotic enough to please her mother. It was all clandestine. Ellie came to Paris for secret fittings. I needed to cut the dress precisely so that it hung and moved with her. The panel of shells was a sudden inspiration …’

&nbs
p; ‘They must have taken weeks.’

  ‘They were a nightmare. There were six of us doing shifts in the end, wearing special white gloves and losing the will to live.’

  ‘What if the mother had ranted and raved and refused to pay for a dress she didn’t ask for?’

  Dominique laughs. ‘I had Plan B, a frothy, emergency creation that I knew I could sell elsewhere, but when Ellie put the dress on Theresa just melted …’

  I hug my sister. ‘I am so proud of you, Dom. You should be a wealthy woman with your talent.’

  ‘I do okay, Gabby. Compared to how life used to be I feel wealthy. I’m content as I am. I have loyal women working for me, I don’t want to expand and Theresa was so delighted she gave me a generous bonus on top of my fee in the end.’

  ‘Fantastic! So she should …! I’ve got a bottle of champagne somewhere …’

  Dominique smiles at me, her old lovely smile. ‘No need to go overboard, darling.’

  ‘This is a celebration. How often do I get to see my sister like this? You hardly ever stay with me and it’s wonderful …’

  Dominique stretches and sighs. ‘It’s perfect, darling, just what I need. Now, come on, your news. You said you had an awful February?’

  I give her the story of author meltdown, Icelandic divorce and Emily’s bereavement.

  ‘Oh dear!’ she says. ‘Did you say Mike was back in February too?’

  ‘Yes, but it was impossible to take any time off. I had no Emily and I was bang in the middle of damage limitation. I’ve never had to let any publisher or agent down before and it’s especially mortifying when some of them are your friends …’

  ‘Poor you.’ Then she adds carefully, ‘Did Mike understand?’

  ‘No,’ I say before I can stop myself. I am still raw but I rein myself in. I can’t give Dominique an opening; it would make me feel guilty and disloyal. I pop the cork and fill our glasses. ‘To you, Dom!’