Authors: Roberta Latow
‘Yes. And where will you be having yours?’ He was surprised when she told him.
‘In Cairo.’
There was something surreal about Heathrow on Christmas day: the twinkling lights of Christmas decorations, the huge, beautiful but somehow sad Christmas tree with its plastic decorations and tinsel, its coloured lights and fake decoratively wrapped and ribboned presents piled too high under it, in the near-deserted terminal. Maybe because it was surrounded by black metal bollards with a chain linking them together. Christmas, chained in, protected against people?
Then there was the incredible emptiness, except for the Salvation Army band playing Christmas carols sounding more pathetic than jovial. A cluster of Hare Krishna people, shaking their tambourines and doing their little dance and usually boisterous and enthusiastic chant, lacked lustre. Even the irritating sound, ‘ping, ping, ping’, which rang constantly on every other day and night of the year rang out only occasionally over the tannoy system to bring your attention to the departure board. The ‘click, click, click’ of the small, square, metal rotating letters and numbers to announce flights and departure gates appeared to be working in slow time. The urgency and bustle of mass tourism and travellers in London’s main terminal was gone, because there was only a trickle of people working or travelling on Christmas day. And they appeared to be, without that airport frenzy, disorientated and lost.
Everyone looked as if they were moving in slow motion, as if their energy had been drained from them: attendants at the check-in counters leaning on their elbows, looking into space, dreaming of a Christmas anywhere in the world but where they were; passengers seemingly confused by the lack of queues, the boredom of delayed departures. To hear your own heels clicking on the hard surface of the floors was an eerie sound. Arianne liked it. She felt adrift in an unreal world where most of the people had
already left for another planet. It was weird, a little frightening, and yet wonderful. An experience to savour. Like stepping into a Magritte painting.
The real world reappeared when Arianne was greeted by a clutch of stewards and stewardesses at the entrance to the plane, all smiles, all systems in place. Life was turned on again. She handed in her boarding pass, but that surrealistic excursion through the terminal still lingered. From Chessington Park and its own special kind of world to this surreal one in a single morning? And there was Cairo to come. Quite a Christmas day, she told herself as she smiled back at the steward and followed him to her seat.
The plane was half full and she had her seat next to the window just behind the first class section – exactly where she liked to be on commercial economy flights. She buckled herself in, and was just getting comfortable when a steward appeared and asked, ‘Are you Mrs Honey?’
‘Yes, I am,’ she answered, surprised that he should know her name.
‘We are nearly empty in first class. May we offer you a place there? More comfortable.’ The rather senior steward did not miss her hesitation to take up his offer. He bent forward and removed her travelling bag, a large, soft Louis Vuitton weekend case, the only luggage she was travelling with. ‘You would be doing us a favour. It would spread our work-load.’
Arianne unbuckled the belt and followed him through the curtains to take yet another window seat. ‘Lots of leg-room.’ The steward smiled, removed the arm of the seat next to hers and vanished. Once they were airborne, he returned, attached a table to the wall dividing the first-class passenger area from the pilot and his crew, and placed on it a tray with a glass vase and a red rose in it, and a Kir Royale in a large champagne flute, with a small white card placed underneath it. He vanished once again. Puzzled, Arianne looked around and saw the first-class steward and stewardess watching her. Smiles shone broadly on their faces.
She read the card. How did he do it? He was always taking care of her. First class had obviously been on his instructions, as were the Kir Royales and the pot of caviar that followed. The red rose?
That too, she thought as she removed it from the vase and sniffed its intoxicating scent. She pondered Ahmad and the network of people at his fingertips that kept his life rolling just the way he wanted it. That was one of the things about him that always intrigued her – his ability to live his life to the fullest with no emotional price-tags. It was one of the most attractive things about him. Now, more than ever, that was what she wanted – that living at the top of your life, as she had done when married to Jason, when she shared a bed with her husband and her lover. She sensed a determination in herself that she had never had before, to do just that. She would no longer wait for someone else to take her along on the joy-ride she knew living could be. She felt her heart thumping, the adrenaline to live rushing through her.
Too many Kir Royales did not mix well with the excitement of her living at the top of a life created by her alone. It sent her into a deep sleep. She came out of it reluctantly and only by the steward’s gentle hand on her shoulder. ‘Time to fasten your seat belt for landing,’ he told her with a smile.
Still in a half sleep, her first thoughts were of Ben and how amusing he had been when, after the pub lunch, he took her back to Chessington House. He had insisted he return her through the kitchen window. ‘This is madness,’ she had told him while he had struggled to raise the window.
‘You think so? Maybe you’re right,’ he had said as he turned from the now-open window to face her, scoop her off her feet and into his arms and hoist her to the window-ledge where she sat, legs dangling. She was looking at a man much amused by their situation. ‘I choose to think of it as romantic. Certainly more fun than confronting raised eyebrows and maybe a directive of some sort. Or a barrage of questions about where my uncle is from one of the residents patrolling the courtyard or manning the front entrance. Will you concede romantic?’
‘Churlish of me not to.’
‘Good. Then may I call you in London, take you out for something grander than a cottage pie?’
He had memorised her telephone number and kissed her hand before she had swung around to stand up in the kitchen. A final wave and he had gone, before the window had even been closed.
She felt the wheels touch down on the runway with a decided
thump. The force of the brakes cutting speed made the plane shimmy and rattle. She felt herself being pulled forward against the belt holding her tight to her seat. She braced herself with her hands and closed her eyes. She wondered if Ben would remember her telephone number. Would he call her?
At last there was a slow taxi to the terminal and the crackling of the intercom announcing it was safe to release seat belts and passengers were to remain seated until further notice. Not for her it seemed. The steward was there again with her jacket over his arm. He picked up her case and suggested, ‘Follow me, Mrs Honey.’
She did, to the first-class exit where the two stewardesses were already assembled. Arianne slipped into the fine-wool, navy-blue, fingertip-length jacket, one of Ralph Lauren’s works of art. It looked like a naval attache’s jacket of a period from the past made for the now chic and stylish woman of the nineties, with its handsome gold needlework around the stiff collar and bands of the same gold-work on the cuffs. She was wearing it over wide, white flannel trousers and a white silk-knit pullover with a crew neck trimmed in navy blue grosgrain ribbon. While doing up the gold buttons she was thinking, In a few minutes this door will open and I will be back in my beloved Egypt, and with Ahmad. All else – her yearning for independence and the will to leap into life alone, even Ben – seemed suddenly pallid beside Egypt and Ahmad and a boat race on the Nile.
Locks were released, a wheel on the door spun round and the door was manhandled open. Warm air rushed in. Arianne sighed. She felt terribly happy. It was involuntary, the smile that came to her lips and brought a twinkle of delight to her eyes. The gangway of stairs was advancing towards the door. The crew were chatting, and then suddenly stopped as a black Rolls-Royce advanced slowly towards the aircraft.
‘I hope you had a good flight?’ asked the steward.
‘Yes, very. I think a special thank you might be in order,’ she answered.
The steward beamed. She had taken notice of the efforts he had made on her behalf. Knowing smiles appeared on the stewardesses’s faces as well. She cynically wondered how often the steward was retained by Ahmad on passion missions. One of
the things that had always kept her and her two lovers together was that none of them ever deluded themselves about each other.
The stairway was bumped and locked into place against the plane and a ground-crewman ran up the stairs to check them out and deliver a message. ‘Mrs Honey?’
‘Yes, I am Mrs Honey.’
The man waved to someone on the ground and the chauffeur alighted immediately from the car and opened the rear door. Then Arianne caught sight of one of Ahmad’s personal assistants, Abdol. She knew him well. From the front passenger seat she saw the huge bulk of Muhammad unfold and walk towards the gangway. He was Ahmad’s bodyguard-cum-valet and had been with Ahmad for more than twenty years – devoted to Ahmad, all secrets were safe with him. Arianne was happy to see him. He had cared for them all, and only he knew how intimate their lives had been with each other. For one moment Arianne half expected to turn around and find Jason standing behind her.
Déjà vu
. She shrugged off the strange sensation of having lived this moment once before. She told herself: No more of that nonsense. Jason is gone, and you know it. Nothing to be gained by living for a ghost. You’re over that. There’s no relapse here, only the appearance of Muhammad. A reminder of other times.
The tall, hugely muscular Egyptian had the face of a simple, kindly soul. Most men retreated from him in any confrontation because of the enormous strength and power of his physique. He had been devoted to her husband – maybe not so much as to Ahmad, but there did seem to have been a close bond of loyalty to Jason.
Arianne felt really happy to see him again. She waved to the two men, but not before, almost without realising it, she had turned around to look over her shoulder.
Abdol raced up the gangway, a broad smile on his face. He took her hand in his and kissed it. ‘How very nice to see you in Egypt again.’
‘It’s been a long time, Abdol. I’m really pleased to be back. The race – am I in time for it?’
‘In time to catch up with it,’ he told her as they walked together down the steps to Muhammad waiting on the tarmac to greet her.
‘Oh, damn. But nothing ever happens on time in Egypt. I banked on that.’
‘Egypt is changing.’
‘Surely not that much?’
‘Well, if truth be told, not that much. Ahmad put the starting time forward by three hours, so they actually did leave at the old starting time. Well, two hours after that.’
They both began to laugh at Ahmad’s wiliness and the impossibility of anything happening on time in Egypt. ‘Never mind,’ and a shrug of the shoulders. ‘
Malaish
,’ he repeated in Arabic. That was always the password in Egypt when things went wrong:
malaish
, the perfect antidote to frustration.
Arianne stepped on to the tarmac and shook hands with Muhammad. His usually impassive face changed almost imperceptibly – Muhammad’s version of a smile. They walked to the Rolls and there another old acquaintance, the chauffeur, removed his hat in greeting. During her many visits to the country these three men had always been in charge of Arianne when Jason and Ahmad were off doing something that did not include her – family retainers, ever kind and helpful for anything she wanted. Ahmad knew how to make a woman feel safe, cared for, even when he wasn’t there.
She got into the back seat with Abdol, who asked for her passport. He handed it over to Muhammad, who was sitting in the front, and the car sped across the tarmac to agate. Muhammad alighted from the car to stand next to a man in a small shed. They exchanged a few words. Arianne heard the sound of the stamp as it hit the passport. The entire operation took less than a minute. Once through the now-open gate, they sped recklessly through the traffic around the airport towards Cairo.
The windows were rolled down to admit the scent of Egypt, the unseasonable heat from a waning sun, the crazy horn-blowing traffic, the tinkling sound of harness bells, and the rhythmic clip-clop of hooves on tarmac of the occasional donkey and overloaded flat-cart, driven by the
galabiyah
’d and turbaned men. They drove past a group of women draped from head to toe in black cotton, not a hair showing from under tightly wrapped headscarves, with bangles on their wrists, and kohl accentuating their dark eyes, hands on ample hips, their sensuous bottoms
wobbling fleshily as they took long strides, while balancing bundles on their heads. Those women and the children trailing behind, walking towards the metropolis, served as reminder to Arianne of how far removed she had been from life, and Egypt and Ahmad, for too long.
She made polite conversation with Abdol, but failed to ask him any of the things she really wanted to know. She was preoccupied with thoughts about the race and Ahmad, too excited to ask even about them, anxious only to get there and join it.
Several miles from the airport the car swerved off the main road to a secondary road that seemed to be cutting across country. Almost instantly everything appeared to be more rural. Strange, because she knew that this was still the outskirts of Cairo. But Cairo was like that: partly a metropolis, partly the largest, most over-populated village one could imagine; concrete and the Nile and its verdant banks; its smart and not-so-smart endless suburbs; and then the desert. Glorious Cairo. With the Cairenes the sweetest and least complex people of all the Arab world.
And now the Rolls took a sharp turn on to a dirt track. It slowed down: the motor purred. So soft was the ride over the bumpy road that it seemed there was a cushion of foam between the tyres and the dirt track. They passed through a poor village that appeared to be deserted. Arianne found that strange. It was difficult to find an empty village in Egypt – they seemed always to be filled with old men, women swathed in black cotton and happy, smiling children at play. They passed planted fields, bright green with a crop. She sensed they were near the river, in that strip of fertile soil between the Nile and the desert that produces four crops a year.