Forgotten Girl

by Naomi Jacobs

  And it was while I sat looking out at the sea that I thought how sad it was that Adult Naomi had only ever felt safe with men who reminded her of my dad. Life wasn’t supposed to be like that. You were supposed to feel safe around any man, all different types of men, and not feel threatened, not feel like at any moment your trust would be abused. I needed to believe different. I wanted to experience different. The world, my world, couldn’t be this damaged.

  So I took a deep breath, went back into the room and told Ahmed to pick me up when he had finished his shift.

  Ahmed came at nine o’clock. I opened the door to find him smiling shyly and holding a bunch of flowers. Out of his uniform, he looked even more majorly fit. He was wearing black jeans, white trainers, and a bright white T-shirt, which made his caramel skin look even more delicious and his dark eyes sparkle. I took the flowers and my face went all spazoidy red hot. To this, he gave a nervous laugh and I could have sworn his teeth were whiter than his T-shirt.

  I closed my door and he held on to my hand and led me down the stairs and across the hotel complex. I prayed my hands wouldn’t go all sweaty as I tried to walk in step with him. He walked confidently, like he was proud to be by my side. I wore a cerise-pink cotton dress with thin straps and a pair of gold sandals and carried a small white cardigan over my arm. I had bought the dress before the holiday, reckoning Adult Naomi needed not to be afraid of wearing the colour pink anymore.

  ‘I am happy you are here with me,’ he proclaimed, and stared at me intensely.

  ‘Me too.’ My stomach gave a nervous tickle and I hung my head down in slight embarrassment, thinking, Oh my God, what is going on? Get it together, Nay.

  We walked together for what seemed like ages, through the hotel and past the shops. I started to get more anxious and asked where exactly he was taking me.

  ‘Oh, this is where we stay, the staff from the hotel. We have our own place.’ He pointed to a large white apartment building situated outside of the gates away from the hotel. It had a couple of smaller buildings next to it and was surrounded by desert.

  Oh no, oh no! I thought. Quick, run, get out of here. He’s a serial killer. He’s going to kidnap you and kill you or sell you to the highest bidder.

  I called on Serket instead of giving in to my paranoid thoughts.

  Ahmed stopped and held my gaze. It was so freaking me out; I wanted to look away, but I was spellbound by his gorgeousness.

  ‘Naomi, you are safe with me; I will not let you come to any harm.’ He frowned. ‘I want to take you for food, look,’ he said, pointing at the smaller buildings. ‘There is a restaurant for us, we eat, we drink, we have a good time. But I can take you back to the hotel if you are not comfortable with me.’

  The question stopped the serial killer thoughts in their tracks. I didn’t wanna leave him.

  ‘No.’ I looked down at his hand, holding firmly on to mine. I didn’t know why, but I felt okay. ‘I want to go with you, Ahmed.’

  His face lit up and he led me to a small, softly lit cafe-type restaurant, picking a table in a quiet corner. Apart from one waiter, who I think was the cook and the owner, the place was empty. Our table was the only one covered with a white tablecloth; it had a small glass jar with a single pink flower on it. Ahmed pulled my chair out for me. I sat down and he sat opposite, smiling. The waiter came over with a large green jar, lit the candle inside of it, and placed it on the table. He looked at Ahmed, eyebrows raised, and nodded his head in approval. Ahmed smiled shyly. This made me relax and the waiter handed us some menus.

  ‘We have good food here, not the hotel food. This is real Egyptian food,’ he said, with pride.

  I looked down at the menu. It was in Arabic. We both burst out laughing.

  ‘I will order for you, if you please.’

  ‘Yes, I please.’ I grinned moronically.

  ‘You are very beautiful, Naomi,’ he said softly. His face grew serious and I grew sloppy, my stomach flipping upside down.

  ‘Very beautiful,’ he echoed to himself.

  Whoa! My first proper date!

  Ahmed ordered us a dish he called torly which had lamb and vegetables in it, and was eaten with bread and rice. It was bloody hard to look kriss while eating the food with my hands. The waiter gave us knives and forks, but it felt right to eat this way, so I copied Ahmed, trying my best not to get sauce around my mouth or molokhia leaves in my teeth.

  Ahmed still somehow managed to look beautiful while eating his and telling me about his life. He was the eldest of nine children, he said proudly, showing me a picture on his phone of his mother, who didn’t look old enough to be his mum, let alone have nine children. He then showed me a picture of his youngest brother who was, like, two years of age. It made me think of JJ and I wondered what he was like when he was two. I wished I could remember, but some memories were still missing. Nonetheless, I told Ahmed about him and about Leo and Simone and Art. He asked about my mum, but I just shrugged my shoulders and said she lived in London. He looked a little embarrassed, but changed the subject, telling me he studied engineering in Cairo, but worked in Marsa during the summer break. He asked me about my time in Egypt and what I did for a living.

  Crap, I thought. I am sooooo unemployed.

  ‘I, erm . . . I am t . . . t . . . taking some time out to f . . . f . . . finish my psychology degree,’ I stuttered.

  ‘Aaah, the mysteries of the mind?’ He laughed, his eyes twinkling. ‘This I am very interested in. I have a friend who is studying the same at university. What have you learned about the human mind? My friend, he talks a lot about it; I am interested to know your opinion.’ He clasped his hands together and leaned forward.

  Beads of sweat started to trickle down the sides of my face and my heart started to beat fast. One, because he was asking me an intellectual boffin-type question and two, because his total hotness was too close to me.

  I avoided his gaze and looked up at the wall at all of the pictures of the pyramids, the citadel and the gold Arabic writing. I thought of waking up in the future and reading Adult Naomi’s writings in her diaries. Then I thought of me carrying on her future and writing it to her. It suddenly popped into my head and I got it. I turned to Ahmed and stared into his coffee-brown eyes.

  ‘You have to get it out.’ I looked back up at the gold Arabic writing. ‘No matter how hard it is, no matter what it is, you have to get it out. You can’t keep everything locked up inside of your head. Do you know what I mean?’ Was I making sense?

  He nodded, intrigued, and leaned forward a little more, making me feel faint.

  I continued. ‘Erm, I mean, the mind, it’s precious . . . like, it’s a part of you, you need it. It needs you and you must take care of it like you would, say, your heart? You know?’

  He nodded again; a smile curled at the corner of his mouth. I wanted to drop out of my chair right there and then. ‘Erm, and yeah.’ I composed myself. ‘So, I think, you need to get it all out, because if you don’t, it breaks.’

  ‘The mind?’ He looked concerned.

  ‘Yeah, and, well, the only way to fix it is if you get out what broke it in the first place.’

  He leaned back and gave me a relaxed smile, his eyes full of admiration. I smiled back and gave myself a mental fist pump. I made sense; it made sense.

  ‘You are a very smart woman, Naomi. A very beautiful, special, and smart woman,’ he said intensely, as if all of a sudden I needed to know what he was thinking seriously and quite urgently.

  I grabbed hold of the side of my chair, the feeling in my legs gone completely. My face flushed red and I felt hot; my mouth went dry and my palms began to sweat. I was a total wreck. I was sooooo not acting like a thirty-two-year-old.

  I gave a small nervous and giggly smile. He laughed and turned to the waiter to order some sweets. I took a sip of my water, trying to figure out what had just happened to me, and realized I hadn’t noticed that the restaurant had slowly filled with staff from the hotel, who were sitting at the tables,
sharing food. I felt shy and a little awkward, so I put on my cardigan.

  Ahmed noticed and put his hand on mine. ‘You are okay here,’ he reassured me.

  And then the door burst open and the United Colours of Bebotton spilled in. They spoke loudly, shouting and laughing to the owner. Bebo started singing as he pulled tables together for him and his gang.

  ‘Hey, my sister!’ he shouted over. ‘Wassssupppp?’

  I laughed and instantly relaxed. He gave a knowing nod to Ahmed, then went back to his loud argument with his boys. Even though he spoke Egyptian Arabic, I could make out the words ‘Slim’ and ‘Shady’ and ‘white rappers’. I had no clue who he was talking about, but was sure it wasn’t Vanilla Ice.

  It got really loud and busy in the restaurant so we got up to leave. Ahmed paid the bill. We said our goodbyes and thanked the owner and I followed Ahmed into the warm desert air. He took a hold of my hand and we walked slowly back to the hotel.

  I was just thinking I’d had such a good night and that I didn’t want to leave him, when he said, ‘I had a really good night. I do not want to leave you,’ and squeezed my hand gently. ‘The beach is quiet. We could sit down there?’ He looked at me hopefully. I nodded, wigged out at his mind-reading skills.

  There was a circular wooden drinks bar in the middle of the beach. Ahmed jumped over the counter and grabbed some hotel towels from underneath the bar. He laid them down on the sand near a large tree trunk and beckoned for me to sit, so I took off my sandals and cardigan and sat down. He sat and leaned up against the trunk. Wanting to feel his arms around me, I shuffled up towards him. He did the mind-reading thing again, wrapping his arms around me and pulling me closer, where I rested my head on his chest, feeling really chilled. We both watched the dark water lap against the beach.

  ‘Thank you, Ahmed. I have had a lovely night.’

  ‘You are welcome, Naomi. I am happy you are here with me,’ he whispered.

  ‘Me too.’ I nestled further into his arms and closed my eyes. I listened to the gentle rushing sound of the waves; it sounded like music. Like a lullaby. So much so that I felt calm, relaxed, and sleepy. I gave a small smile when I realized for the first time in a long time I felt safe.

  My holiday was almost over but not before I got to take a trip to the Great Pyramids of Giza. On the plane, I sat next to two sisters who were staying at the same hotel. Toni was the elder. At nineteen, she was slim and freckled with short blonde hair, reserved and nowhere near as open as her younger sister. Ashley was seventeen, and reminded me of a human version of an Ice Cream Doll, with long blonde hair, a button nose and freckled cheeks. She had a curious expression and bright blue eyes. We chatted for a while and then settled back for the short flight to Cairo.

  I thought about my first ever real date the night before. Ahmed had been a total gentleman. We’d sat on the beach, talking until the sun came up, and then he had walked me back to my room. I’d got all tongue-tied when he told me over and over how beautiful I was and how much he had enjoyed my company, and when he kissed me softly on the lips, I almost dropped on the bedrock floor there and then.

  All the attention I had received over the time I had been in Egypt made me feel well righteous and sooooo kriss. I felt, like, this pride in myself I had never felt before, a bonfire of my own vanity (Mrs Doughtily had made us read Tom Wolfe for English lit.). I couldn’t help but marvel at the way the heat of my new-found sexiness had elicited so much attention from all of these gorgeous men.

  It was short-lived. Any fake confidence I had amassed during my flirtatious stay at Marsa Alam soon came to an abrupt end.

  In Cairo, a driver met us at the airport and led us to our spacious air-conditioned coach. When we were seated, a short young man hopped up the steps enthusiastically and greeted us with a big smile, a whoop, and a loud ‘good morning’. He wore a checked shirt, faded jeans and silver-rimmed glasses with thick lenses that sat on his broad nose and moved up and down every time he spoke. He informed us that he was a student at the University of Cairo, a proud Muslim man who was honoured to be our guide through the city this very day, and that his name was ‘Smile’. I gave a squeal of delight at his name and his infectious jovialness and waited for him to squeal back. He didn’t. Instead he squinted at me through his glasses, frowned, and carried on with his ‘welcome to Cairo’ speech. I thought maybe he had been mistaken and didn’t mean to look at me that way.

  For some reason, from that moment on, Smile did everything in his power to make sure I knew he didn’t particularly care for me by giving me so many dirty looks I was surprised someone didn’t offer me a bar of soap. By the time we were sitting in the Citadel Mosque, I made sure I sat as far away as possible from him. I eventually wandered from the crowd to avoid his disapproving stares.

  I had also somehow got on the wrong side of the women standing at the entrance to the mosque, who gave me the filthiest looks and practically threw a large green covering over me to hide my bare arms and legs.

  I was beginning to guess that maybe covering my head in a white wrap to match my sleeveless low-cut dress had not been such a good idea. There was a method to my offensive madness. I had always adored the sun, but ever since I was a child, I found if I spent too long under its rays I would end up with terrible headaches. It became wise for me to stay in the shade as much as possible or, even better, cover my head. Unfortunately, this meant that I grew sensitive to the UV rays and burned easily, the top of my head included. When I’d been trying to jog my memory, I had looked at many photographs. Judging by the ones of Adult Naomi wearing wide-brimmed hats and carrying parasols, I had reached the conclusion that this problem had got worse, not better. I was adamant that my day spent in Cairo under the hot Egyptian sun was not going to end with a burnt scalp, shoulders and nose, so I had packed plenty of sunscreen, wrapped my hair in a beautiful white cotton cloth, and was carrying my pink parasol.

  Maybe it was the parasol that irked Smile, or the wrapped hair and my audacity at showing my legs and arms that pissed the women off. Whatever it was, I realized by the time we left the mosque that I wasn’t going to find Cairo as friendly as Marsa Alam. In fact, I was met with downright hostility and Smile seemed to revel in it. When we reached the famous Egyptian Museum, I quickly got myself lost and made sure I stayed far away from him. This further infuriated him; as far as he was concerned, I should have followed his tour of the museum, and listened intently like the rest of the group to what he had to say.

  I gave him my best I-am-fifteen-and-you-can’t-tell-me-what-to-do look and walked away from him. I was hot, bothered, thirsty, and frankly pissed off with the amount of dirty looks I was getting from the people of Cairo! I refused to take my wrap off and instead went straight to the exhibitions I wanted to see. When I had finished, I bought a can of Pepsi and sat outside the museum with an obese family from Doncaster who said the word ‘fuck’ at the beginning, in the middle and at the end of every sentence. They reminded me of Manchester and, for a small moment, I had a longing to be back under the grey skies of home, learning how to speak without pronouncing my Ts.

  As I was thinking that maybe Manchester was starting to feel like home, it suddenly hit me why Naomi had brought a child into this world: she needed family. She needed to belong and know unconditional love when everything around her seemed so conditional. She needed a home and that home was where her heart was. Leo and Simone were her home. And it didn’t matter whether that was in a big house with a pool and cars or a small house with a broken gate and a strange cat. As long as there was love there, as long as she belonged and felt safe there, that was all that mattered.

  As Smile came out of the museum, it was clear he had had enough of my solo rebellion. He was obviously angry that I had left the group and told me in no uncertain terms that it was in my best interest to stick with him. ‘Cairo is a dangerous place and bad things will happen to you.’

  I laughed, flipped my parasol up, and walked away from him. He followed.

  ‘Yo
u are very rude,’ he called after me.

  ‘No, YOU are very rude.’ I raised my voice, and people stopped and stared.

  ‘But you have not followed the group, you do not listen, you have no respect.’

  ‘I don’t have to follow the group. Why should I have to listen to you? And respect is earned.’ As hard as I felt, I wanted to burst into tears and I very much wanted this man to leave me alone.

  The group were trickling out of the museum and coming over to us. The pink parasol wasn’t providing me with enough shade so I moved from him and sat on a wall under the cooler shade of a large tree.

  ‘Listen to me, I will get into trouble if I lose you.’

  ‘I am a fifteen . . . no, thirty-two-year-old woman.’ I stood up and he took a step back in surprise. ‘I can take care of myself and you will not lose me. I am not a child.’ Tears were welling up in my eyes. What was this man’s problem with me?

  Ashley came and stood next to me. ‘Are you okay?’ she asked.

  ‘No, I’m not,’ I replied. Turning back to Smile, I said, ‘I don’t understand what it is I have done to you exactly, but I would prefer it if you just left me alone and didn’t speak to me for the rest of the day and I won’t speak to you.’ By this point, Smile had begun to look embarrassed and slightly sorry.

  ‘Come on.’ Ashley took me by the arm and led me to the gated exit. Toni followed.

  We walked back to the coach where Toni asked the driver if he could switch the air conditioning on. The cool air helped me swallow back my hot tears. I was furious. Who the hell did this man think he was? I asked the girls.

  ‘He’s acting like my dad.’ I turned to Ashley. ‘I mean, what the smeg?’

  ‘What does smeg mean?’ she asked in wide-eyed innocence.

  It was at that moment that I felt truly alone. As great as my holiday had been so far, I couldn’t escape the fact that I was still fifteen and still in the future, where Red Dwarf was a ‘classic’ and I was stuck in a place where antiquated ideas about women still existed. It was the complete opposite to the future world I had woken up into and the way the men at the hotel treated me. In my confusion, I burst into tears. Ashley put her arm around me and cursed Smile with as many cockney expletives as she could come up with; half of them I didn’t understand but they made me laugh and I felt better for it because she was on my side.