“I didn’t think that happened. Not here.”
“The place nearly fell apart in seventy-nine,” Parsons said. “You must remember when those madmen took over the Grand Mosque in Mecca. God knows how many were killed. It was a full-scale military operation, winkling them out. They didn’t want football, they said. They didn’t want video games. They didn’t want working women.”
“They didn’t want the House of Saud,” Rickie said.
“That was it, really. They wanted to overthrow the royal family. The same week, the Shia were rioting in the Eastern Province. Looting, burning buses. Funny thing was, at the time none of us knew what was going on. Total news blackout. But they were pretty close to the edge, if you ask me.”
“There are,” Rickie said, “two distinct military bodies, the army and the National Guard. So if one decides to do its own thing, maybe the King can rely on the other. They’re under the command of two different princes, of course.”
“The King doesn’t trust his relatives?”
“Recent history,” Carla said, “gives him no reason to.”
“I don’t think I really knew this.”
“Nobody knows till they come here,” Daphne said.
Carla looked up. “I should suppose the State Department knows. And the British Foreign Office. It’s not that these things are secret. It’s that we don’t talk about them.”
“Why don’t we?” Frances said. “You mean really, it’s not stable here, it’s not safe? There are far worse things happening than people being raped in the souk?”
There was a silence. The guests looked down at their plates, as if slightly ashamed of themselves; as if they had egged someone on to tell a piece of scandal, and knew they had gone too far.
“Well, we know it won’t last forever, don’t we?” Eric Parsons said at last; in his sane, reasonable, soothing tone, which Andrew had already learned to distrust. “We’re just here to do our jobs, make our pile, and get out. All we hope is that it will last our time.”
“I’ll get some more coffee.” As she passed her husband, Frances rested her hand for a moment on his shoulder. She felt slightly queasy. As she left the room Jeff’s voice floated after her.
“Of course, you know what the Al Saud do with their dissidents, don’t you? Take them up in planes over the Empty Quarter, handcuff them, and drop them out without a parachute.”
“Yes, I heard that,” Carla was saying. “But the handcuffs seem superfluous.”
This time it was Marion who followed her. She was clearly bored with the politics; she looked sleepy, and fractious, as if she were one of her own children. “Lovely dinner, Fran,” she said. She stood by the sink, cooling her bare feet on the lino tiles, and picking at the strawberry tart, of which more than half remained.
“Here.” Frances cut her a slice. “Eat it while he’s not looking.”
“He does go on,” Marion said. “About my weight. Have you got any cream left?” She licked her fingers. “By the way, I meant to ask you, what are we going to do about Christmas?”
“Oh, not Christmas,” Frances groaned. “What happens at Christmas? Are we allowed to have it?”
“The men get a day off. Unofficial, of course. We could get together at our compound and have Christmas dinner. You can come in the morning and help me cook. Carla and Rickie might like to come. It’s always so sad at Christmas, when people haven’t got children.”
“I’m sure we’ll feel better for sharing yours.”
“Oh, I didn’t mean you, Fran.” Marion’s mouth was full of strawberries. “I expect you’ll have some, won’t you? When you get round to it. Only Carla, she’s so libby, know what I mean? It’s probably cos she’s not very attractive.”
“You ought to put something on those bites,” Frances said.
“Oh, do they show?” Marion sucked her spoon. She wasn’t going to bother; she felt glamorous, anyway, and that was half the battle.
“So is it all right then? Will you come?”
“Will Jeff be there?”
“Oh, I always have Jeff, at Christmas.”
“Well, just promise me, will you, that if he starts talking about dirty Ay-rabs, and Pakis, and all that, you’ll get up with me and walk out. Because I can’t stand it.”
“He is a bit of a racialist,” Marion said fondly.
“Promise?”
“Okay,” Marion said vaguely. “I’ll take that coffee through, shall I?”
Andrew had managed to move them all from the table to the armchairs, which Frances had arranged earlier into a rough circle. The candles had burned out. Jeff obtained from Andrew a private bottle of red wine, which he put on the floor by his chair. “Not bad stuff this,” he said. “You’ve got the knack.” Rickie Zussman occupied the end of a sofa, his face abstracted and his eyes on the far wall; his wife’s hand rested loosely in his own. Neither of the Americans took further part in the conversation, but Eric and Jeff bored on for a while, about immigrants in the UK. “Let’s face it,” Jeff said. “They’ve got different customs. They’ve got different values. They’ve got a different way of life.”
“Incidentally,” Russel said, “do you ever catch a glimpse of the people in the empty flat?”
“The dark lady,” Daphne said.
