by Liz Fielding
It occurred to her that this would probably shock him. Maybe it had been her intention to shock him, show him just how special Noor had been. If her mother had had an ounce of his wife’s compassion, love…
‘Girls in the west are not protected by their fathers,’ he said, apparently missing the comparison, or perhaps choosing to ignore it. ‘They dress provocatively, go out unaccompanied. It is bound to happen.’
‘Perhaps. Her father, my grandfather, died when she was fourteen. Maybe if he’d lived things would have been different.’ Her grandmother might not have been drawn to such an intense religious experience. Her mother would not have been driven to rebel…
‘He had no brothers?’
‘Brothers?’
‘Here,’ he explained, ‘when a man dies, his brother will take his family into his house. Care for his children. Stand in his place as husband.’
She frowned, turned to look up at him. ‘Do you mean that literally? The husband bit? Even if he already has a wife?’
‘A woman has needs,’ he said. ‘To be held, to have the comfort of the marriage bed if it is her wish. It is his duty.’
‘I’ve never thought of it in quite that way before,’ she admitted.
‘You’re blinkered by your own cultural traditions,’ he said, clearly picking up more than a touch of irony in her response.
He had finished combing her hair and he moved her chair round so that the sun could finish drying it. ‘You believe a man who does this is simply thinking of his own pleasure. That it demeans the woman.’
‘To be wife number two?’ She was absolutely sure it didn’t raise her status, but thought she’d be well advised not to make comments on a subject she knew nothing about.
‘The custom of taking more than one wife began as a way of caring for the widows of those fallen in battle,’ he explained. ‘It is not an easy thing for a man.’
‘No?’
Maybe she didn’t sound convinced.
‘In the west you think of a man being served by two or three women. You find it salacious, titillating. The truth is that his responsibilities are onerous. Each wife has to be treated equally in all things. Give one woman a trinket, a dress, new furniture, and they must all have the same.’
‘A man has to pay for his pleasure.’
‘You are amused?’
‘You expect me to feel sorry for a man who has three wives?’
‘I was not seeking your sympathy, but your understanding of the reality. Have you any idea what would have happened to a woman left to fend for herself? To her children? There was no welfare state to care for them. They would have had to scrape a living any way they could. You need look no further than the evening news bulletin on your television to see the reality.’
‘Oh.’ She swallowed. ‘I see.’
‘It is rare for a man to take more than one wife now,’ he said, as if to reassure her.
‘Yes, well,’ she said, rallying, ‘I can see that in this consumer-led age it would be prohibitively expensive.’
‘And physically exhausting.’ And this time there was just a hint of a smile. ‘Equality, as I said, in all things.’
‘In England,’ she said quickly, to cover her blushes, ‘it has never been legal to have more than one wife at a time. Besides, my grandfather had no brothers. It was just me and my grandmother. And now she’s dead too.’
‘I am sorry to hear that.’ Then, ‘You have not looked for her?’ he asked. ‘Your mother?’
‘Why would I do that?’
He shrugged.
‘If she’d wanted to see me, Hanif, she knew where I was.’ She’d dreamed of that. Of her mother swooping down to carry her off, taking her away to live with her in a warm house, dressing her in pretty clothes, giving her birthday parties at the local burger bar like the other kids. ‘I was exactly where she left me.’
‘Maybe she is too ashamed to come to you.’
‘I don’t believe she ever wasted a single thought on me,’ she said.
He regarded her thoughtfully, but let it be. Her relief was a heartbeat too fast. ‘And your husband?’ he enquired. ‘Does he not think of you? Wonder where you are?’
Even before the words left his mouth, Hanif wished them unsaid. He had offered her refuge without condition. Seeing her struggle to find some answer that would satisfy him only confirmed his opinion that she was in trouble. But while he would do whatever he could to extricate her from any legal problems she had in Ramal Hamran, any difficulty between Lucy Forrester and her new husband was none of his business.
‘Enough,’ he said, standing up. ‘The sun is too hot for your fair skin. You need to be inside where it is cool, resting.’
‘I thought it would be hotter,’ she said, gratefully seizing on the change of subject. ‘When I arrived at the airport it seemed worse.’
‘The humidity at the coast can be unpleasant at this time of year. It is higher here and cooler, but you must still take care. The breeze from the mountains deceives. You do not need sunburn to add to your discomfort.’
The balcony was wide and shaded, but even so her skin was flushed with the heat. Or maybe, he thought, it was guilt.
It did not matter.
He handed her the crutches and said, ‘Come, this way.’ And forcing himself to turn away, leave her to it, he walked further along the balcony, opening the French windows into the sitting room.
‘Zahir! I have a job for you.’
‘Excellency?’
‘You were given Lucy Forrester’s belongings? At the hospital?’
‘Yes, Excellency, but they were beyond saving. The nurses cut them off her.’
‘Was there any jewellery?’
‘I have the bag in my office.’
‘This is everything?’ Hanif asked, when the envelope containing only a wrist-watch, no longer working, had been opened.
‘Was there something in particular you were looking for?’
‘I want you to go back to the hospital and make sure nothing was missed. Find the nurse who admitted her if you can and ask if there was a ring.’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘And while you’re in Rumaillah you can buy clothes to replace those she lost in the crash.’
‘Me?’ The word was little more than a squeak.
‘You can take the sizes from these,’ Hanif said, indicating the ruins of the clothes she’d been wearing.
‘You’re asking me to shop for women’s clothes? Women’s underwear?’
‘The duties of an aide are onerous,’ he agreed. Then, taking pity on him, he said, ‘Maybe one of your female relatives would do it for you if you asked politely.’
‘You are joking! Ask my sisters to help me buy underwear for a woman? I’d have my ears boxed.’
‘Then it would appear that you are in for an uncomfortable time, either way.’
‘On the other hand, if I explained it was a commission for you, they would fall over themselves to be helpful. In fact, that would work very well. They can shop while I take a closer look at this tour company. See what kind of an outfit they are.’
‘How will you approach them?’
‘There are sand-surfing trips run every day, with evening banquets in the desert to round things off. I’ve still got the clothes I wore when I was a student in the States so I can pass as a visitor and it will give me a chance to talk to the people who work there.’ Zahir’s eagerness suggested it was the chance to get away, be with young people, rather than the investigation that excited him. ‘I’ll arrange for the results of my sisters’ raid on the mall to be sent back on the helicopter.’
‘You seem to have it all worked out. Very well, Zahir, but be careful what you say and do not mention Lucy Forrester’s name.’
Lucy thought she heard the sound of a helicopter flying low and peered out of the window, hoping to see whether it was leaving or landing.
As she reached for her crutches, determined, despite Han’s order to rest, that she would go outside and take a
closer look, she spotted Ameerah peeping round the door. The child immediately ducked out of sight, but didn’t run, and when Lucy called, ‘Marhaban, Ameerah,’ her response was a giggle.
‘Ismy, Lucy,’ she said. ‘My name is Lucy.’
‘Lucy,’ the child repeated, still not showing herself.
Lucy did not respond and after a moment Ameerah’s face edged around the door. Her eyes were bright with mischief, her hair an untidy tangle of long dark curls with ribbons that had once been tied in bows but were now trailing loose.
When she was sure that Lucy was not going to shout at her or reach for the hand bell to summon her nurse, she eased herself around the door and into the room.
Her feet were bare and muddy, but she was wearing an exquisite cream silk dress, the kind worn by small princesses in story books. Once pin-tucked and perfect, it was now a mess, the hem soaking wet and coated with green algae as if it had been trailed through a pond and sporting the kind of jagged tear that suggested it had got into a fight with the branch of a tree and lost.
She’d obviously given her nurse the slip again. A handful indeed. And, with no one of her own age to play with, probably bored out of her mind.
Trawling through what she could remember of the language CD, Lucy was unable to come up with anything to fit the occasion. Instead she shifted herself to make more room on the day bed and patted the space beside her.
Ameerah didn’t take up the invitation, but instead pressed herself against the wall and edged herself along it until she reached the safety of an elegant loveseat, upholstered in rose silk. Perching herself on that, feet swinging, she regarded Lucy with an intense, unblinking stare.
Lucy made no effort to coax her nearer, nor did she smile. Her reward for her patience came when Ameerah lifted her skirt and pointed to a colourful bruise on her shin.
‘Ouch!’ Lucy said sympathetically.
Ameerah nodded, then pointed first to her own eye, then at Lucy and said. ‘Ouch!’
Lucy laughed. ‘Nam, Ameerah,’ she said. ‘Yes. A very big ouch.’
Encouraged, Ameerah slid from the seat and came a little closer, her interest apparently snagged by the splint Lucy was wearing. She looked at it, touched it very gently, then held out one of her own slender little arms, pointing at a small scar.
Lucy responded with a sympathetic expression, sucking air through her teeth in an internationally understood message of sympathy before asking, somewhat helplessly, in English, ‘How did you hurt yourself, Ameerah?’
The child responded in a rush of Arabic, speaking so quickly that Lucy couldn’t pick out a single word. When she held up her hands and shook her head, Ameerah responded by miming a break so graphically, with sound effects, that Lucy clapped her hand over her mouth.
Apparently delighted with the effect she’d produced, the child laughed, then, turning as she heard her name being called, dropped to her knees and scuttled beneath the day bed.
CHAPTER FIVE
AMEERAH’S nurse paused in the doorway, looked at Lucy and said, ‘Pardon, assayyidah. I am seeking the child. Ameerah.’
Lucy said, ‘If I see her, assayyidah, I will ring the bell.’ Then, lifting a finger to her lips, she indicated Ameerah’s hiding place and, using the same signs—patting the space beside her—made it clear that she was welcome to stay for a while.
The woman smiled, nodded, indicated that she’d be within call and disappeared, presumably to have a much needed break.
Once she was gone, Lucy leaned down, lifted the drapes that hung to the floor and said, ‘Okay, Ameerah, you can come out now.’
The child’s head appeared; she looked around, up at Lucy, who nodded, then, with a huge smile on her face, she crawled out and bounced up beside her.
‘Lucy,’ she said, touching her hand.
‘Ameerah,’ Lucy replied, gently touching the child’s cheek. And they both smiled.
Then Ameerah pointed to the jug on the table beside her. ‘Mai,’ she said.
For a moment she thought the child was saying ‘my’, then realized she was asking for water. She poured some into the glass. ‘Tafazzal…’ she said, offering it to her. Please have. Ameerah giggled, repeating the word several times before taking the glass. Then, as soon as she’d finished her drink, she wriggled down, put the glass on the table and ran to the door.
‘Oh, I see. Cupboard love, is it?’ Lucy said, laughing.
Ameerah turned and, with a neat curtsey that belied her untidy appearance, said, ‘Shukran, Lucy.’
‘Afwan, Ameerah. Ma’as salamah.’
The child laughed, calling something back to her as she ran off.
Lucy reran the words in her head until she could make sense of the sounds, match them to the CD she’d spent so much time listening to. ‘Oh, right.’ She laughed. ‘See you later.’
She rang the bell and, when the nurse reappeared, indicated the direction her charge had taken.
Han heard Lucy’s bell. The sound surprised him. He had come to the conclusion that she would do anything, even crawl on her hands and knees to the bathroom, rather than ring for help and in another five minutes he would have looked in on her to see if she needed anything.
Maybe, he thought with more than a touch of amusement, beneath that reticent exterior there was an unsuspected ‘princess’ trying to break free.
Or maybe she was in real trouble. He wasted no more time in speculation.
Lucy, however, was sitting quietly, a small wistful smile lifting the corners of her mouth. It disappeared the minute she caught sight of him.
‘Oh… Han.’
‘You seem surprised to see me, Lucy. You did ring?’
‘Yes, but—’
‘But?’
But she hadn’t rung for him, that much was clear. He could almost see the cogs whirring around in her head as she struggled for some explanation.
‘—but I didn’t expect you to be so quick. You said someone would come and find you. I thought it would take longer.’
‘This is not a palace, Lucy. It is, as I told you, nothing more than a small pavilion. A place to spend the hot summer months. What you would call a holiday cottage.’
‘Only in the way that Balmoral or Camp David is a holiday cottage,’ she replied. Then, apparently unsure whether he’d ever heard of either of them, she explained, ‘Balmoral is Queen Elizabeth’s Scottish home. Our royal family spend their holidays there.’
He didn’t tell her that he’d not only heard of it, but had been a guest there on more than one occasion. Instead he said, ‘You mock me, Lucy. Rawdah al-’Arusah has no more than twelve rooms.’
‘Twelve. Is that all?’
Sarcasm, too. Lucy Forrester was recovering fast. ‘Fifteen, at the most,’ he assured her. He discounted all but the major rooms.
‘It seems very grand to me.’ She gestured around at the exquisite hand-painted tiles, the rugs, the furniture upholstered in rich silk. ‘It is certainly beautiful.’
‘It was built as a setting for a princess. The only man allowed within its walls would have been her husband.’
She blushed. ‘Excuse me? Are you telling me that this was a harem?’
‘I suspect what you mean by that word and the reality are so far apart as to render it meaningless. This was a citadel. A place apart where no one could come unless she permitted it.’
‘Not even her husband?’
‘Not even her husband.’
‘Really?’ Her surprise amused him. ‘So where did he stay?’
‘There is a lodge, out of sight of the pavilion, where he stayed with his men, as I did myself until Noor became ill and I took a suite of rooms for myself to be near her.’
Something knotted in Lucy’s stomach, a feeling she could not describe. But in her head she saw the beautiful Noor summoning her husband to her. Dressed in silk, her hair polished and glowing, she would have prepared everything to please him. She would have offered him food, made him laugh, made him wait as she drove him wild with desir
e…
‘Lucy? Are you all right?’
She came to with a start, swallowed. ‘Yes. Fine. Really.’ Then, ‘You stayed here. Afterwards.’
‘It is peaceful. I do not disturb my family.’
They worried about him, she thought. He stayed here so that they shouldn’t see him grieve…
‘What do you find to do all day?’
‘I take my hawks into the desert to exercise them. Visit with local tribes to ensure they have everything they need. And the garden had been neglected for a long time. It needs care.’
‘You’re restoring it?’
‘Returning it to what it was? It can never be that, but some of the irrigation systems are showing the signs of age; if they are left to crumble the garden will eventually die. And my library is here, so you see I have more than enough to keep me occupied.’
‘Even without having the additional worry of stupid women doing their best to kill themselves on your doorstep.’
‘The life of one woman is more important than a hundred gardens, a lifetime of study.’
‘Study?’ In a moment she was all remorse. ‘You were working? Just now? I’m so sorry to have disturbed you—’
‘I am translating the work of one of our poets into French and English. Scarcely a matter of urgency,’ he said, dismissing what would be a life’s work with a gesture.
‘Then you too must be a poet.’ Before he could deny it, she said, ‘It is not just a matter of translating the words, but the meaning, the voice, the rhythm.’
‘You speak as someone who knows the problems.’
‘I was hoping to study French literature at university.’
‘This did not happen?’
‘My grandmother thought university was a haven of sin. That I would be corrupted by it. When I refused to obey her and stay at home she became so angry that she had a heart attack and then a stroke. There was no one but me to nurse her.’
‘She paid a high price for getting her own way.’
‘We both did.’
‘Is there anything to prevent you from resuming your studies now?’
‘I thought of it, but then Steve Mason turned up on my doorstep, so once again university has become the impossible dream it always was.’