by Becky Wicks
These depict his country — the birthplace of his incredible brain. It’s as if he wants to teach us, to let us know of all that could be ours, should we proceed in concocting ‘The Master Plan: Bringing the Fleet-horse Home'. It’s as if, through these brilliant works of art, he’s shouting: ‘Iran. A country of dreams! Can you hear it? I can.’
Again, like a silent soldier of the night, he mounted them as soon as we had left the building — one on the wall, just next to the bedroom door, and one on the landing, to admire as we climb the stairs. It appears as though he’s experimented again with different angles because each has a slightly off-centre appeal. And he’s really come into his own with the multicoloured, cloudlike backgrounds. I love how his talents are growing with every piece. It’s a beautiful journey, watching him bloom.
The weird thing is, however, for the past few nights I’ve had really bad dreams. Last night I dreamed that Private Banker was chasing me on a boat with big claws, and an evil little doll was making my bed spin round and round — an impressive feat in light of it appearing to be made of concrete. I’m really hoping the Iranian hasn’t invented a dream-altering chip, which he’s using these beautiful pictures to disguise. I’ve looked for cameras and mind-twisting equipment . wires he might be plugging into us as we sleep … but I can’t see anything out of the ordinary. Except the pictures.
If he adds any more to the gallery, I think I’m going to have to say something. I don’t really think he’d be too happy if we went downstairs and pinned paintings of our own families on his walls. I don’t want to offend him by taking them down; he obviously thinks he’s being a kindly landlord, sharing his many talents with us. I’m actually quite enjoying these surprise new additions and await his next contribution to the art world with bated breath. It’s just that I don’t want to spend the next God-knows-how-long being haunted by the people in the paintings.
I guess the nightmares mean that I’m sleeping relatively OK on the slab now, under my Twister blanket. That’s one good thing at least.
26/08
Playing house …
The Trader was kind enough to let Stacey and me stay at his luxury Marina pad last weekend. He was clearly feeling a little sorry for his tragic friends, having to sleep so uncomfortably in a house full of loons. He’s off on a trip somewhere exotic to surprise his girlfriend, as she’s taking a six-month tour round the world before joining him here in Dubai. When she arrives, of course, she’ll get to live in his gorgeous showroom and have real dinner parties at the table that’s eternally expecting guests. (It’s so unfair!)
Having packed our weekend bags and waved goodbye to the circus, including the Iranian washing the fleet-horse lovingly on the driveway, and the cleaner who’s now managed to shrink a large proportion of our clothes, we rocked up at the apartment and immediately opened a bottle of wine. His display-style lounge and dusty balcony with awesome view never cease to amaze me.
We played house for a while, pretending we lived there, and then M&M came to join us.
The Trader’s had a good few words to say to me about M&M in the past. He doesn’t really know him, but as a friend I think he’s just a bit concerned about me getting hurt. Sneaking around, he says, never does anyone any good, and he’s probably right. He also says we should both be careful. Getting caught in the throes of infidelity could have serious consequences for a Muslim man. But it’s exciting and fun and as I may not have already mentioned, he’s really quite talented in the bedroom — whichever bedroom we happen to be able to get busy in.
I know it was naughty, getting naughty in someone else’s apartment, but it was also quite exciting. Our conversations lately have grown more and more intense, as have our encounters. And this time, quite stupidly, after the deed had been done and I snuggled up, I expected him to stay, which of course he quite clearly couldn’t. Apologetically, M&M stood up and ventured into the bathroom as I sighed and rolled over. It was then that I heard him turn on the shower.
At midnight, on a Friday, he was taking a shower. After being with me. Ugh.
I felt disgusted. Disgusted with myself, and disgusted with him. He was washing off every trace of me and our encounter, preparing himself to sneak back to another woman’s bed. And he didn’t even seem to realise what a horrid thing that was to do. I felt like a cheap, seedy hooker.
I’ll admit, I cried like a baby when he left. I swore to get out of this mess once and for all. The Trader was right. People are getting hurt. But strangely, as the days have passed, I’ve realised that this ounce of rejection, however unintentional on M&M’s part, has only made me want to be with him more. I want to see him again, so he can make it up to me. Damn my new neediness. Where did that come from?
Playing house is one thing, but playing away from home . well, perhaps it’s just something I’ll have to get used to.
29/08
When bad beer festivals get worse …
It was always going to be a bad idea — erecting a tent outside an Irish pub in a Muslim country and inviting a thousand expats inside to ‘sample till you’re ample’ (interesting rhyming, by the way — ample what?). But seeing as the rest of Dubai was heading down to HopFest, I went along with Heidi and Co. to check it out.
We queued in the blistering heat for about forty-five minutes in the Irish Village, our clothes collecting an unsanitary amount of sweat in the process. I felt my hangover dripping into overdrive and found myself painfully regretting a 6 am finish the night before, after a fashion show and open bar extravaganza in the Hyatt Regency. The invites have suddenly started coming in thick and fast now, by the way, thanks to an insane amount of networking and a couple of new friends with kind hearts and heaps of contacts. It’s great!
It was one of those nights that will go down in history, actually. I did a few things I probably shouldn’t have done, said a few things I probably shouldn’t have said, swam in a few bodies of water I probably shouldn’t have gone swimming in, in my underwear …*
Anyway, just as I was about to pass out on the pavement, we finally made it into the HopFest tent. And I wished I hadn’t really bothered. Maybe I just wasn’t in the mood but I was suddenly reminded a hundred times over why I’ve never been on holiday to Ibiza. Drunken men leered and sneered, jumped on tables and made those annoying ‘peace out’ signs above their heads in appreciation of the live band. Some were even wearing hats. I hate it when people wear hats, don’t you? Well … I mean, normal hats are fine. I’ve got nothing against a pretty sunhat in a field of daisies, or the odd beanie on a ski slope, or even a cowboy hat, if you’re straddling a camel in the desert. But when you’re jumping up and down in the middle of a tent, sloshing beer over everybody, wearing a fire helmet, well, then I have a problem. Especially when you double it with that irritating ‘peace out’ gesture and top it all off with a squeeze of my arse. Yup … you can spot a hat-twat a mile off in the UK, and believe me, it’s no different in Dubai.
[Bit that makes me sound old:] Some of the beers were OK, but at 30 dirhams a pop they weren’t altogether worth it, in my opinion. I settled for two Leffe Blondes because Lucy and I used to drink them in the pub near our flat, and it made me miss her. Although I wouldn’t have wished the experience upon her. As more and more people packed into the tent, cigarettes blazing, it was like fighting for breath at the top of an ashtray. [End of bit that makes me sound old.]
Needless to say, my new friend Ewan and I left after about an hour and a half, escaping to the confines of his apartment nearby to order pizza and scare ourselves, eighties-style, with a dated film about Ouija boards. Ewan is my latest confidant and I love him. He’s gay and he works in the glossy magazine clan in the land upstairs — the one I’m not allowed to be a part of. He works in fashion and I emailed him from my seat in the morgue one day, hoping he’d acknowledge me because he actually used to work with Heidi a long time back. Small world.
Ewan’s a true staple in the gossip mag clan and now that we’re friends I feel a little less isolated, e
ven if I’m not really allowed up to his floor. In fact, Stanley got a little annoyed when he saw Ewan and me chatting at my desk the other day. He actually commented on us being a distraction, standing there giggling in the silence. Perhaps he thought we were commenting on his latest suit jacket, another classic with sleeves so long that his fingers are covered when he stands up. It’s an unfortunate item that makes him look even shorter. We were actually discussing the possibility of a trip to India together, which we’ve discovered is pretty cheap from Dubai.
Back to the movie. I think the mullets on the males in the lead roles were probably more frightening than any paranormal elements woven into the story, but not quite as frightening as HopFest.
Apparently, after we left there were riots. There was blood. There was a three-hour queue to get in and a whole lot of broken tables, thanks to undignified dancers, probably also wearing hats. Had this event been organised in the UK, they’d have checked bags at the entrance, offered some kind of shelter/free water affair for the people in line, and employed St John’s Ambulance to stand outside, crossing their arms and waiting for the clock to strike ‘shitfaced'. Only this isn’t the UK.
The staff at HopFest, apparently, found it perfectly acceptable to stand on the edge of the beer-soaked battlefield, as blood spurted out from the wounded and shards of broken furniture tripped those who were actually still standing onto the sawdust-covered floor, and state that they were terribly sorry for the inconvenience, but they simply weren’t expecting so many visitors.
Bless Dubai and its friendly little beer parties, coupled with an astounding faith in responsible adults exhibiting respectful behaviour. The sad truth of the matter is that had the organisers done their homework — that is, hung out in Germany in October, Clapham Common in June, and Ibiza in July — it might have been a different story.
01/09
Tube strikes in London, you say?
Surely not. That’s never happened before. Reading those words from afar brings a stabbing to my heart: oh, how I miss the Big Smoke dearly. Reading anything from home when I’m sitting in the silence of the morgue has the potential to upset me greatly, especially if I’m in a bad mood. But don’t think we London expats don’t remember one of the main reasons for fleeing the British capital.
I may have said I’ve forgiven the London public transport system since moving to Dubai, but to be quite honest, that was probably in the blistering heat of the moment, when one of my friend’s Porsches was being fixed, or the cab line outside the hotel was five-people-deep, or the air-conditioning wouldn’t turn any higher in the limo.
With all these seemingly constant reports about strikes and various parts of various lines being extended till . well, probably till the end of time, it’s enough to make anyone sizzle in the London drizzle. Everyone should come and see how we travel here. At least when we’re transported around Dubai we are guaranteed:
a) a personal driver
b) air-conditioning
c) a seat
d) a seat that hasn’t been pissed on.
However, I’m not so sure that’s entirely consolatory when weighed against the fact that when we get into a cab, we are more often than not faced with the following:
a) a driver who doesn’t speak English
b) a driver who doesn’t speak at all
c) a driver who can’t drive
d) a driver who’s falling asleep at the wheel after an eighteenhour shift
e) an overwhelming stench of body odour that can’t be eliminated with a swift opening of the window, owing to said air-conditioning struggling to beat 100 per cent humidity.
Seriously though, I was just saying to Heidi over email that although we moan about these things, and local taxi drivers not knowing where anything is, and having to walk underneath a six-lane motorway to get to the bar, and racking up more than our travel cards ever cost us in so-called cheap cab fares . although we moan about all these things, at least we know these cab drivers will never go on strike. And even if they did, well, we’d just hire a personal driver.
I know a guy who pays a little man to take him to work every morning and pick him up every evening for a very reasonable price. He even calls him up at 3 am when he’s shitfaced and gets him to collect him via KFC. Sometimes he shares his KFC. Sometimes, he says, he doesn’t.
It might well seem like snobbery to you, but I think you have to be honest with yourself — if you could get the same service in London, or anywhere for that matter, you would, wouldn’t you? The same way you’d pay a little lady to live in your cupboard and wash all your clothes (Heidi’s actually lives in her garage). The same way you’d shun all public transport altogether in favour of a car you could run for a fiver per tank. Carbon footprints? What are those? They don’t exist in Dubai.
Apparently, ‘the only things that are certain in life are death and taxes'. You might not pay any taxes here, sure, but your chances of getting squished in a fifty-car pile-up are higher here than anywhere else on the planet. It’s a toss-up, deciding what’s best. But thinking about it, I still say be grateful for the tube.
02/09
The Rage …
It hit me this morning. Well, actually, I could feel it creeping up on me yesterday, but I managed to stifle it with a couple of Coronas and a quiet mime-along to a Filipino lounge singer in a darkened corner of the Mall of the Emirates. Today, however, I can’t ignore it. I felt it as soon as I opened my eyes. Stacey didn’t seem to mind as I swore like the Exorcist at my alarm clock and banged my fists on the bed. She felt it too.
They say that when women live together, they experience their Rage days at the same time. I have to say, it’s true. Yesterday, The Trader and Private Banker informed us that they didn’t need to know of such things, to which Stacey quite rightly pointed out that they did. If a male is to befriend cohabiting females during Rage season, he should be well informed of the dangers.
It was even stronger when I got to work this morning. Not only have HSBC screwed up my salary transfer, thus rendering me at the mercy of my friends and their much-appreciated loans, the little cleaner tried it on again.
Have I mentioned the unisex toilet at my new place of employment? It’s kind of weird at the best of times, especially when I have a heated debate with Stanley about ‘impending business structures and plans for future development', only to bump into him ten minutes later in the bog as I’m buffing up my hair in the mirror and he’s just made all sorts of noises in cubicle number two. Most unsettling.
Anyway, it’s a strange pattern but for the past few weeks, every time I venture to the bathroom, the little cleaning man is in there, scrubbing, wiping, mopping, sprinkling pointless little blue stones into the corners as a visual pleasantry — doing whatever it is that people other than pop stars and supermodels do to pass time in the company of chemicals.
Today, he asked me if I was musical. Not a good move. Any other day, this question wouldn’t have phased me, but today . oooooooh, it made me angry . really angry. The screaming started in my brain: WHAT DO YOU MEAN? WHY ARE YOU BOTHERING ME? WHAT DO YOU CARE? WHY DO YOU NEED TO KNOW. WHY, GOD, WHY?!
He then informed me that he’d heard me singing at my desk, which is probably true. I’ve been known to hum along when listening to my iPod. But the Rage chose that moment to remind me of the fact that he’s taken to cleaning the space around me in the office quite often — perhaps a little too often. I mean, I’m not so much of a filth-wizard that the floor behind me needs scrubbing on the hour, every hour, am I?
From his words I could only manage to decipher his ill and evil intentions. The Rage informed me that under the guise of cleaning he is actually sweeping the stray hairs that fall from my head and moulding them into a voodoo doll. GET AWAY FROM ME, YOU FREAKISH MAN. YOU’RE WEIRD, WEIRD, WEEEEEEEIRD!
As the internal screaming continued, he exclaimed that he wanted to sing to me. Any other day I would have just smiled politely, humoured him momentarily and walked away. Today, however, with
the Rage still running through my veins, I could have lobbed him about the head with the soap dispenser. As I shut the door in his face he was still singing, ‘You are soooooo beautiful, to meeeeeeee'. Quite loudly.
Why? Why must he do this? Why must he sing in the toilet, to me, today? Why must he sing at all? Why?
The Rage simmered as I made a little laughing noise, determined not to hurt his feelings, knowing it was me, and not him, accepting that the forces of evil were at work within me. Fight it, fight it, fight it said the voice in my head, as I struggled to keep my foot from kicking the door.
I’m not sure Dubai is the greatest environment for calming the Rage, sometimes. You may have a vague idea when it’s going to strike, but there’s no way of knowing how long it might last. Fight it, fight it, fight it …
04/09
The road to immediate doom …
I almost died again today. Seriously. I’m getting sick of it now. Every morning I hail a cab to work and sit there with my bag clutched against my chest, and my phone clenched in my fingers, in case I have to dial 999. The other morning, after I dropped Stacey off outside her building, we carried on towards my own office and out of nowhere came a mammoth Land Rover, speeding alongside us in the middle of two lanes. It was almost scraping the side of my cab as it swerved about, apparently not even noticing we were there. I shrieked in alarm. I think the F-word was emitted. I clutched the inside of the door and fought back tears, praying I would get to work alive.