Olives

by Alexander McNabb

  Olives

  Alexander McNabb

  Copyright © Alexander McNabb 2011

  The moral right of the author has been asserted.

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of the author, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent publisher.

  All characters in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  Smashwords Edition

  If the Olive Trees knew the hands that planted them, their oil would become tears.

  Mahmoud Darwish

  My father has slipped from us all, his mind increasingly leached away by dementia. My one enormous regret is that, back when he’d have understood what I was on about, I couldn’t have put this book in his hands and said, ‘Hey, Dad, I’ve written a book.’.

  This is for him anyway.

  ONE

  To be honest, this was not one of my finest moments. I waited for something to happen, picking flakes of paint from the wall and cracking them between my fingernails before letting them fall. The only sound in the police cell was the ambient roar of emptiness with the occasional dry snap of paint.

  Anne, my landlady and my lover, had cried seeing me off at Heathrow. It always made her nose go red. She cried the day I came home and told her I was going to move to Jordan for a year. It was our first row in two years together but as we finally went through the act of leaving there was only terrible sadness. I promised to call her every day. As I rounded the corner into the security hall she called my name out. I turned and she mouthed ‘I love you’.

  I blew her a kiss as the shuffling queue took me out of sight.

  The flight was overbooked and they upgraded me to business class. I made liberal use of the free champagne, trying to convince myself of the sense of what I was doing. For the first time I confronted the thought I might lose Anne, twisting it in my mind like a knife as I sipped the cool drink and watched the clouds below.

  My black mood lifted as we bounced through the turbulence above the black desert approach to Queen Alia International Airport, the champagne adding to my feeling of recklessness. I was still light-headed when I met the lugubrious hotel driver, a beaten-down man called Amjad who sported a great soup-strainer moustache as he stood in the arrivals line, listlessly displaying my name on a sheet of paper. We walked out to the car park and settled down for the drive to the Intercontinental Hotel. The Grand Hyatt was out of bounds since my last, first, trip to Jordan. My publisher, Robin, had set fire to my room with a cigar celebrating the Ministry of Natural Resources contract I was now coming to Jordan to fulfil.

  Amjad asked if this was my first time in Jordan, a question I remembered from my last trip, along with the familiar honorific ‘seer’ and the faint reek of cigarette smoke. He was delighted when I replied no, I had been before. The stands of trees flashed past, the brown land dotted with pale stone-clad houses and patches of cultivation. Every few hundred metres, someone at the roadside hawked steaming canisters of coffee or great bunches of radishes, rows of gleaming beef tomatoes and stacks of huge, green and yellow mottled watermelons.

  He offered me a cigarette. I didn’t object when he opened the window and lit up. I was in a happy place thanks to the champagne and giddy newness. For now, my tearful parting from Anne was forgotten.

  About halfway to the city along the King’s Highway, Amjad startled me, wailing and hammering on the wheel. A cop stood in the road ahead, waving us down. We pulled over and a second cop strode up to the car and wrenched the driver’s door open. They forced Amjad out of the car, shouting. I watched him colour and push away the second copper’s hand on his shoulder, getting a mighty shove back that made him lose his footing. I’d normally have stayed out of the way in the car, but their bullying made my blood rise, the champagne lending me the courage to act.

  Now my hope and nervous anticipation about starting a new life overseas was mired in this drab little cell. I shivered and pulled the grubby blanket tight around me against the damp. The sunset glowed balefully through the window high above. My movement brought back the dull headache from the cop’s massive return punch, my cheek still raw from being ground into the gritty tarmac as they pinioned my arms.

  I had never had freedom denied me before. I had never been held against my will. They pushed me into the cell and slammed the door and I railed and pummelled at it, hurling obscenities at the uncaring silence. My hands reddened and bruised, I finally slumped down on the mean little bed and waited for something to happen, playing the scene by the highway over and over in my mind, trying not to think of Anne and what she’d make of my idiocy.

  One thing was certain. I had blown things in a big way.

  They’d taken my watch, so I lost track of time. It seemed like hours before I found the little crack in the paint and started to break off tiny chunks and snap them. I’d cleared the paint flakes off a couple of square feet of wall by the time they came for me. It was dark outside.

  I tensed at the sound of heavy footsteps echoing down the corridor, the clatter of keys on steel. The door was opening to my shame. I felt sick. A surly policeman stood aside for a silver-haired man in a brown suit and heavy beige overcoat. He cast an incurious eye around the cell, brushing at his moustache with his fingers and wrinkling his nose.

  ‘Paul Stokes?’

  A smoker’s rumble. I nodded.

  ‘I am Ibrahim Dajani. You must come with me now.’

  I stood, steadying myself against the wall. ‘What’s happening?’

  He smiled. ‘You are being released. Come.’

  I followed him, the slam of the door and chink of keys echoing with our footsteps along the corridor. We burst into the bright neon light of the reception area and a woman in her late twenties rose to her feet, her kohl-accented eyes flickering uncertainly.

  ‘Hello, Paul. Are you okay?’

  I’d met Aisha Dajani when we had signed the magazine deal. She and I had talked on the phone since, finalising my secondment to the Ministry.

  ‘Yes, I think so.’ I shivered violently. ‘I think I’ve been stupid.’

  I felt Ibrahim’s hand on my shoulder, caught a hit of sandalwood from his cologne. ‘You will be okay, Paul. You are lucky. The driver reported back to the Intercon and they rang Aisha.’

  ‘My luggage?’ The question seemed daft even as I asked it, the threat of tears pricking my eyes.

  ‘The hotel has it safely,’ Ibrahim said. ‘Come. There is some paperwork which we cannot avoid but I think you can put this behind you. We have some influence.’

  He led me into an office where a stout man in a braid-laced uniform slumped behind a tatty desk. We sat on chairs set sideways against it and separated by a coffee table as Ibrahim chattered to the man in Arabic. I recognised the word Amjad the hotel driver had used for journalist, ‘sahafi’ being used several times. Ibrahim lit a cigarette and offered one to the policeman, who took it and lit up from Ibrahim’s lighter. They seemed to be negotiating something. The officer fell silent, pulling a pad from a drawer and painstakingly inserting carbon paper into the multipart form before filling it out, his lips pursed in deliberate concentration. He passed the form across to me, tapping it with his pen for me to sign.

  ‘What’s this?’

  Ibrahim lowered his voice confidentially. ‘It is the charge sheet, Paul. It is formality, but they want you to sign before they will release you. We have agreed they will not press charges but they say you were drunk and abusive, that you tried to assault a poli
ce officer. This is serious offence.’

  ‘What about my passport? They took my passport.’

  ‘We will get it back. For now, you should sign this form.’

  ‘It’s in Arabic.’

  He smiled, his brown eyes on me. ‘You are in an Arab country, Paul. I think you should sign it and we can follow this up with our good friend Captain Mohammed later on.’

  I signed.

  The policeman took the form back and placed it in a file. He stood, his hand on the file, and shook hands with Ibrahim, who said something to him in Arabic. They both laughed before Ibrahim led me out of the office. Aisha joined us as we went outside to Ibrahim’s car, the street lights glittering on the Mercedes’ paintwork.

  The stony ground crunched as we pulled away from the police station. We turned out onto the main road and Ibrahim glanced at me. ‘The hotel driver said to thank you for trying to help him, Paul. Bass you have landed yourself in a lot of khara… Aisha?’

  ‘Hot water?’ I could hear the amusement in Aisha’s rich voice behind me.

  Ibrahim frowned. ‘Yes, this is polite. Hot water. If the Ministry found out about this problem they would be forced to take the action, perhaps to cancel the contract with your company. They would at least, I think, ask for your replacement.’

  ‘I didn’t mean to actually punch him. I just reacted because he was bullying the driver. I don’t like bullies. Anyway, I missed. I never even connected.’ I hated the querulous tone in my voice.

  ‘It’s lucky you didn’t,’ Aisha said. ‘But you’ve still caused a lot of trouble for yourself.’

  ‘I know, I know. Thank you for helping me.’

  Aisha sat back. ‘What else could we do? I’m responsible for you and I’m supposed to be helping you with the magazine. I’ve got to try and make sure you don’t screw up.’ She waited a few seconds before delivering the shot. ‘It looks like it’s going to be a big job.’

  I refused to snap back at her. ‘I didn’t mean to cause all this. I just didn’t think—’

  ‘Khalas. It is over now,’ Ibrahim said. His eyes were on the dark road ahead, the lights picking out the central reservation and concrete margin. ‘Try to remember you are in a foreign country, Paul. Things are not always simple as they might seem. Stop worrying. We will get you to your hotel and settled. You cannot tell anyone about this, not your office in London and surely not anyone in the Ministry. We will, Insh’Allah, let the charges to be dropped in time. As far as the world can see, this did not happen. You understand me?’

  He glared across at me and for a second the gloves were truly off. I nodded back at him. ‘I understand. Thank you both.’

  Aisha sighed theatrically. ‘Don’t worry about it, Paul. I guess it’s all in a day’s work.’

  It was past eleven by the time I got to my hotel room. I slung my bags onto the bed and headed straight for the shower, where I scoured myself. The damp stink of the cell clung to me, a dirt inside me as well as on my skin and in my hair. Eventually I ran out of little bottles of shampoo and gel and just stood under the hot stream of water, letting the blessed torrent run over me as plastic bottles rolled around my feet.

  I forced myself to make two phone calls, lying to both Anne and my mother so they wouldn’t worry about me. I put my mobile on to charge then sat on the bed in my hotel dressing gown. Eyes closed, I rocked back and forth, reprising the day and my own stupidity, grateful beyond words for my freedom.

  I was about to discover freedom is relative.

  TWO

  I woke, disoriented, to the insistent chirruping of the bedside phone – Aisha was waiting down in the hotel’s reception. I told her I’d be ten minutes, splashed water over myself and shaved, a puffy-eyed thirty-something gawping back at me in the mirror. The misty apparition nicked me in his haste. By the time I was done, three or four dots of toilet paper decorated my face.

  I tore my clothes out of my bag, catching my foot in my jeans and hopping around like an idiot. I crossed the room and snatched open the curtains. The sight of the city spread out in front stilled me for a moment, the ragged ribbon of cars glittered in the early morning sunlight, snaking between the stone buildings stacked on the hillsides. A wave of vertigo forced me back. The realisation this was my new home made my stomach churn.

  Aisha sat on the round velvet sofa in reception. I was hot from rushing around and my laptop bag dragged my open-necked shirt halfway across my shoulder. I let it drop, feeling awkward and silly.

  ‘Look, I am really sorry about yesterday, Aisha. I know I’ve caused you a huge amount of trouble. I honestly don’t know what to say.’

  ‘Just drop it, okay, Paul? Just don’t mention it to anyone. Ibrahim will take care of it. He has influence. We say wasta. Okay?’

  I’d come across the word before. Wasta is a powerful thing: it says more about you than American Express ever can, a full-on ‘not what you know but who you know’ deal.

  I nodded. ‘Sure, okay.’

  She gazed up at me neutrally, a pause to let her point sink in before she stood and slid her handbag onto her shoulder. ‘Come on then. Let’s get you to the Ministry.’

  We walked into warm sunshine. Aisha’s high heels clicked on the flagstones. I took in the crisp air, a welcome change from England’s damp autumn.

  Aisha delved in her jeans for coins to tip the valet. She turned to me, shading her eyes against the sunlight. ‘Settling you in has been a problem. We’ve been looking for flats over the past couple of weeks but it’s been hard to find something for the budget your company specified. I think I’ve found somewhere, though. Do you feel up to looking at it later on?’

  ‘Yes, yes I would. That’s great. Thanks.’

  I’d assumed from her husky voice she was, in common with Ibrahim and the rest of Jordan, a smoker. But if so, she didn’t do it in her Lexus, which smelled faintly of leather and her rich, musky perfume.

  After a twenty minute drive through Amman’s jostling rush hour traffic, we arrived at the shabby-looking building housing the Ministry of Natural Resources. Aisha took me to the third floor and showed me to my desk in the surprisingly modern open plan interior. The window looked out over the city.

  ‘The Minister’s travelling right now, but I thought you’d probably want to settle in quickly. Abdullah Zahlan has just taken over as communications director and he wanted to meet with you when you’re ready. Can I tell him twelve?’

  This was news to me. ‘New director? What happened to Shukri?’

  ‘He moved on. Part of the reform program. So, twelve?’

  ‘Sure. No problem.’

  She paused. ‘But not a word about yesterday to anyone. Okay?’

  ‘Yes, okay.’

  My gratitude was starting to give way to a sense of mild unease at the constant reminders of my indebtedness. I decided to focus on work. Thanks to the sales skills of my boss – publisher and wanker extraordinaire Robin Goodyear – the Ministry had contracted The Media Group to produce a monthly magazine and that was precisely what I was going to get on with doing. I started working on the editorial outlines for issue one which needed approval by the Ministry before we could get the project off the ground. I immersed myself in my magazine, thoughts of police cells and assault charges banished for the moment.

  I couldn’t shake the feeling it wasn’t over yet. The police had kept my passport and I hadn’t had the heart to ask Aisha about it that morning. I resolved to bring it up next time I met her.

  Robin called after two, just as the Ministry people were knocking off for the day. As usual, his faux-posh voice was disgustingly cheerful as he brayed at me.

  ‘Stokesy. Hi. It’s me. You have a nice weekend? All settled?’

  The bastard had booked me on a Saturday flight so I wouldn’t miss Sunday, a working day in Jordan. When our call was over he’d be off down to the pub then back home to Sunday roast and a pissy, red wine-fuelled row with his poor wife, Claire. The thought of Sunday pubs brought a wave of homesickness and the str
ong temptation to whinge to him about just how badly yesterday had gone. Ibrahim and Aisha’s exhortations to silence won the day. Just.

  ‘Fine. No problems.’

  ‘You meet with the Minister yet?’ Robin asked.

  ‘No, he’s travelling until tomorrow. I met with Abdullah Zahlan earlier, he’s the new communications director, he’s taken over from Shukri. He’s feeling out of the loop and causing trouble. I’ve got a lot of changes to the planning and he’s complaining about the lack of a Web element to the project.’

  ‘He’ll be okay. Shame about Shukri. Top bloke. Just give the new guy some love, Paul. Hurry up and finalise that outline, there’s a good boy. We’ve got a mag to get out by the fifth.’

  How did Robin always manage to jangle my nerve endings? I smiled so he’d hear my happiness on the phone. ‘I just need to get email up and running and make these changes and it’ll be with you. Give me until tomorrow morning your time, yeah?’

  ‘Time waits for no man, young Paul. Hup hup.’

  ‘Just cut me a little slack would you, Robin? I need to get settled. I’m supposed to be looking at a place to live this afternoon with Aisha.’

  ‘Aisha? Oh, yes? The Dajani bint, ya? The one with the big tits? You got in there quick, didn’t you laddie?’

  I held my breath and concentrated on keeping my voice steady. Robin’s casual, drawling sexism was infuriating.

  ‘She’s been assigned to get me settled in and to help us with the magazine, Robin. You know that.’

  His tone slid to treacly and cajoling. ‘Whatever, Paul. Look, I’m right behind you. I understand you’re feeling a little at sea right now, but we’ve got to get moving on the project fast. We need the client committed, you hear me? We need to pull together on this one. It might be the last real magazine you ever work on, you know?’