Frances crossed the room, and picked up the telephone receiver. She didn’t dial; listened to the crackles and blips on the line. She handed him the receiver. “Listen to that.”
He listened.
“When I rang Carla I got that. I rang Turadup—”
“What for?”
“What for doesn’t matter. I’m explaining to you, it buzzes, it clicks—what do you think?”
“I think,” Andrew said, “that what you have there is a typical Third World telephone.”
“It wasn’t always like that. It’s just started happening.”
“Oh, Frances.” He looked at her in disappointment. “You’re not going to be one of those people who believes that the phones are tapped?”
“Maybe they are.”
“Yes, maybe they are, there’s a respectable body of opinion that says so. But the people who are always going on about it are the sort who—”
“Yes, I know. They’re in Phase Three. They’ve cracked up. They have blue-tinted windscreens in their cars.”
“Even if they are tapped, what have we got to hide? We don’t exchange brewing hints on the telephone.”
“That’s not the point, is it?”
“To me, the point is that there are things that might be true … but you can’t afford to believe them.” He struggled to explain it; as if she needed it explained. “Because if you believe them you’re really screwed up, you can’t function. I have to function. I mean, I only want another year, but I have to stay here at any price.” “What do you mean, at any price?”
But Andrew was thinking about the flat he was going to buy. A price, to him, was paid in money. To conversations like these, there are no sensible conclusions.
Earlier, she had talked to Eric Parsons. He had been jocular when he answered the phone to her, thinking it was social chitchat. Daphne was out and about so much that her friends often left their messages with him. This was why Frances said, “Eric, please don’t talk to me as if I had asked to borrow the Magimix.”
“What is it then, my dear?”
Soon Eric was stupefied; hearing what he did not want to hear. And how can she put it delicately—I think that maybe upstairs there is an arms cache, a hideout, a torture chamber, a mortuary? That I have exhausted my imagination on what there may
“But of course there is.” Eric cut in on her. He sounded angry. “We shouldn’t be talking about this over the phone. You know, you were told, about the empty flat. And you were told to be careful.”
“It isn’t at all what you have been led to believe. Can I correct what I said? I don’t think there is a conspiracy. I know.”
“Let me stop you there, Frances.” She heard heavy, exasperated breathing. “Does Andrew know that you’re speaking to me?”
“No.”
“No. I thought not. Do bear in mind, my love, that for anything you do in this place, your husband is responsible. I can understand it, of course—all you women together in the flats, you’ve got to know each other, that’s nice, and you’re sure to talk amongst yourselves. What do they say, women are the same the whole world over? But you see if you involve yourself—if you are thought, Frances, to be making a nuisance of yourself, to have come into possession of any information that you shouldn’t have—then it will be Andrew who bears the brunt of any indiscretion.”
“But I think a crime has been committed.”
“Then do remember that the Saudi way with the witness of a crime is to hold the witness in jail.” Eric’s voice took on an official tone, a sort of stony rectitude. “And if you persist in interfering, against all advice, then you have to take the consequences. The Embassy and the Foreign Office can do nothing for you. They will do nothing for you. There are trading agreements at stake, there are diplomatic agreements, and those agreements are far more important than you.”
There was a pause. She said, “Won’t you even listen to me?”
“No,” Eric said; pleasantly enough, courteously enough. “I am first in the firing line, my dear, and there are some things I cannot afford to know. Once past a certain point, you see, you become an undesirable person, and then who knows what happens? Because there comes a certain point where they don’t want you here, and if you see what I mean, they don’t want you to leave either.”
“And have you ever known anyone who reached that point?”
“Oh no,” Eric said. “I wouldn’t know a person like that.”
Some days passed. She did not speak to Andrew, except about the trivial. She felt under threat; why should the threat extend to him? She said to herself, I will be careful from now on, and perhaps this will go no further. She did not believe this; either that she would be careful, or that there would be no repercussions. She had stepped into a parallel world whose existence she had suspected for so long, and she could not say, now, I lost my map, I did not mean to trespass, I will never do it again. Or, she could say it; it need not have any practical effect.
They were driving home; it was dark. Frances said, “There it is.” It was the gates she recognized; and they were open. The garden had gone. In its place was a white, foursquare, five-story office block, with three steps up to a large front door; a door of wroughtiron curlicues, and chrome-tinted toughened glass. There was a plaque on the gate: BOHKARI ESTABLISHMENT FOR TRADE AND COMMERCE.
Andrew slowed the car. He sounded puzzled. “That building’s always been there, Fran.”
“Nothing’s always been there. Don’t be silly.”
