‘
The man smiled, bowed again, when she repeated it, savouring the words on her tongue, locking them away in her memory, along with Bab el Sama. He left them to enjoy their breakfast in private.
As she chose a high-backed cane chair and sank into the vivid silk cushions, Kal unwrapped a napkin nestled in a basket to reveal warm pastries.
‘Hungry?’
‘I seem to have done nothing but eat since I left London,’ she said. ‘I’ll have to swim the creek once a day if I’m going to keep indulging myself this way.’
Maybe it was the thought of all that effort, but right now all she wanted to do was close her eyes and go to sleep. Tea would help, she told herself, just about managing to control a yawn.
‘Is that a yes or a no?’ he asked, offering her the basket.
‘Breakfast
‘It’s whatever time you care to make it,’ he assured her as he poured tea into two unbelievably thin china cups. ‘Milk, lemon?’
‘Just a touch of milk,’ she said. Then, ‘Should you be doing this?’ He glanced at her. ‘Waiting on me?’
Kal frowned, unable, for a moment, to imagine what she meant.
‘Won’t it ruin your image?’
‘Image?’
He hadn’t been brought up like his grandfather, his father, to believe he was a prince, above the mundane realities of the world. Nor, despite his Mediterranean childhood, was he one of those men who expected to live at home, waited on by a doting mother until he transferred that honour to a wife. Even if he had been so inclined, his mother had far more interesting things to do.
As had he.
His image was not about macho posturing. He had never needed to work, never would, but once he’d fallen in love with flying he had worked hard. He’d wanted to own aircraft but there was no fun in having them sit on the tarmac. He’d started Kalzak Air Services as a courier service. Now he flew freight worldwide. And he employed men and women-hundreds of them-on their qualifications and personal qualities first, last and everything in between.
‘Hanif nursed his first wife, nursed Lucy, too, when she was injured,’ he said.
‘He did?’
‘Lucy has not told you?’
‘Only that he loved her.’
‘He loved his first wife, too.’ The girl who had been chosen for him. A traditional arranged marriage. ‘He has been twice blessed.’
‘Maybe he is a man who knows how to love,’ she said.
Was that the answer?
It was not a concept he was comfortable with and, remembering what Lucy had said about Rose not being able to lift a finger without someone taking a photograph of her, he carried his own cup towards the edge of the promontory and leaned against the parapet. A man enjoying the view. It was what anyone would do in such a place.
The sun was in the wrong direction to reflect off a lens that would betray a paparazzo lying in wait to snatch a photograph. Not that he imagined they would ever be that careless. The only obvious activity was on the dhows as their crews prepared to head out to sea for a day’s fishing.
As he scanned the wider panorama, the distant shore, he saw only a peaceful, contented community waking to a new day, going about its business. He let the scene sink into his bones the way parched earth sucked up rain.
As a boy, his grandfather would have stood in this same spot, looking at the creek, the town, the desert beyond it, certain in the knowledge that every drop of water, every grain of sand would,
Except that Allah had not willed it. His grandfather had followed his heart instead of his head and, as a result, had been judged unworthy. A lesson he had learned well.
He drained his cup, took one last look, then returned to the summer house.
Sparrows, pecking at a piece of pastry, flew up at his approach and a single look was enough to tell him that Rose had fallen asleep, tea untouched, croissant untasted.
And, now that the sun had risen high enough to banish the shadows from the summer house and illuminate her clear, fair skin, he could see the faint violet smudges beneath her eyes.
Clearly sleep had eluded her aboard the plane and a long day, a long flight, had finally caught up with her. This was no light doze and he did not attempt to wake her, but as he bent and caught her beneath the knees she sighed.
‘Shh,’ he said, easing her arm over his shoulder, around his neck. ‘Hold on.’
On some level of consciousness she must have heard him because, as he lifted her out of the chair, she curled her hand around his neck and tucked her head into the hollow of his shoulder.
She wasn’t anywhere near as light, as ethereal as she looked, he discovered as he carried her along the path to Lucy and Han’s seaside retreat. Not an angel, but a real, solid woman and he was glad that the huge doors stood wide to welcome her.
He walked straight in, picking up a little group of women who, clucking anxiously, rushed ahead to open doors, circled round them tutting with disapproval and finally stood in his way when he reached her bedroom.
‘Move,’ he said, ‘or I’ll drop her.’
They scattered with little squeals of outrage, then, as he laid her on the bed, clicked his fingers for a cover in a manner that would have made his grandfather proud-and he would have protested was utterly alien to him-they rushed to do his bidding.
He removed her shoes but, about to reach for the button at her waist to make her more comfortable, he became aware of a silence, a collectively held breath.
He turned to look at the women clustered behind him, their shocked faces. And, remembering himself, took a step back.
That he could have undressed her in a completely detached manner had the occasion demanded it was not in question. But this was not London, or New York, or Paris. This was a world where a man did not undress a woman unless he was married to her. He should not even be in her room.
‘Make her comfortable,’ he said with a gesture that would have done his grandfather proud. Maybe it was the place calling to his genes, he thought as he closed the door behind him, leaving the women to their task.
Then, to an old woman who’d settled herself, cross-legged, in front of the door like a palace guard, ‘When she wakes she should have a massage.’
‘It will be done, sidi.’
Lord…
‘Don’t call me that,’ he said, straightening, easing his own aching limbs.
‘You don’t want to be given your title, Sheikh?’ she asked, clearly not in the slightest bit in awe of him. ‘Your grandfather wanted to be the Emir.’
About to walk away, he stopped, turned slowly back to face her.
‘You knew him?’
‘When he was a boy. A young man. Before he was foolish.’
She was the first person he’d met in Ramal Hamrah who was prepared to admit that. He sat before her, crossing his legs so that the soles of his feet were tucked out of sight.
‘Here? You knew him here?’
‘Here. In Rumaillah. At Umm al Sama. He was the wild one. Headstrong.’ She shook her head. ‘And he was stubborn, like his father. Once he’d said a thing, that was it.’ She brushed her palms together in a gesture he’d seen many times. It signalled an end to discussion. That the subject was closed. ‘They were two rocks.’ She tilted her head in a birdlike gesture, examining him closely. ‘You look like him,’ she said after a while. ‘Apart from the beard. A
