At eleven forty-five, party hats and streamers were distributed. There was a resurgence of merriment; everyone met up in the garden, breaking out of their huddles and cliques for a final assault on the festive spirit. They put on their hats, unfurled their streamers; a loose circle formed, and several people said that they could never remember the words of “Auld Lang Syne.” People asked what the time was; the minutes seemed to prolong themselves. Watches were consulted; women hauled at their husbands’ shirtsleeves, and peered at the dials by the light of the colored bulbs their host had strung on an outside wall. Conversation faltered and died, and the guests shifted from foot to foot, weariness crossing their faces; they did not seem to be waiting for midnight, but for a bus that was never going to come. Finally, at eleven fifty-seven, the New Year was declared, to trills of forced laughter, and the thin notes of penny whistles. They kissed each other, and stomped to and fro, singing raggedly. Clawing up the streamers from the ground, carrying dutifully into the kitchen plates of half-eaten food, they trooped inside, to dance to the Beach Boys and early Rolling Stones. By one o’clock the party was breaking up.
The Shores were among the first to leave. They drove home in a tired, companionable silence; as soon as they stepped out of their car, the traces of the holiday were wiped from their life; Frances scrubbed off her makeup. She went into the kitchen, and took out some damp towels from the washing machine.
“I hope you haven’t made any New Year’s resolutions,” Andrew said, standing in the doorway.
“Why? Don’t you want anything to change?”
“I want to keep us on an even keel.”
“Why pick on me?” she asked, shaking the towels out. “What about your own resolutions?”
“With most people it wouldn’t matter. They can make them in safety because they know they won’t be kept. You can count on their futility.” He paused. “But you’re not like that.”
“What will happen to us next year?”
“I want to see the building through. You know that.”
“Nothing gives,” she said. She threw the towels onto a chair. A flood of words poured from her. “There’s no life in the land, it’s just people, highways, endless straight roads and rubbish and dust, there’s nothing to release you, there’s nothing to set you free inside. You feel as if you’re starving. No wonder they have such a bloody awful religion. No wonder that when they got rich and went to Europe all they could think of to do was to drink and take drugs and gamble, how would they know how to live their lives? They bought up beautiful houses and gutted them and filled them with nightclubs and Louis Farouk, they tore up gardens and made swimming pools, all they want is white-skinned prostitutes and cocaine.”
“Oh, come on,” Andrew said. “That’s not entirely true.”
“It is entirely true,” she said, more quietly. “But not the entire truth.”
“You say Jeff’s a racist, but you’re really just as bad.”
“I’m not a racist, Andrew, I’m a xenophobe. See—I’ve been going through the dictionary to find out what’s wrong with me. There’s England and France, and after that it’s madness.”
He said, “Do you want to go home?”
“No,” she said. “It’s too late for that.”
Andrew made love to her that night. As he entered her she felt as if she had plunged, suddenly and without hope, into a long dark tunnel; as if inch by inch, her body rigid, she fought toward her climax, while the walls of the tunnel fell in softly behind her, leaving her just one direction but no glimmer of an end. She felt herself sinking out of sight, her whole spirit toiling underground, darkness enfolding darkness; she was wiped out, she had forgotten her name. Andrew grunted, and lay on top of her with his whole weight. Suddenly she became conscious of the smell of soap on his skin, of a prickle of cramp in her legs; of the rattle and hum of the air-conditioner. She was back inside her own body. No subterranean toil for Andrew; it was as easy as crossing the road. Or, since this was Jeddah, easier.
When he released her she turned her face at once into the pillow. She would sleep. She would sleep soon. She would sleep in the next second. The rifleman, lurking on the sidewalk, was the last thing on her mind.
Part 2
Anyone for Jeddah gin?
Take four large potatoes, four oranges, four lemons, four grapefruit. Cut them up into small pieces. Put the pieces in a plastic jerrican. Add five kilos of sugar. Top up with water. Dissolve a tablespoonful of yeast; tip it in. Forget it for two weeks.
Then pour the stuff out of the jerrican into saucepans. Leave it till the sediment settles: two days. Pour it into bottles—use a tea strainer, because there will still be large bits of brownish fruit bobbing on the surface.
Tonic? Ice and lemon?
