Olives Read online

  We kissed.

  We walked on, giggling and clutching each other but the house was ten minutes away and the falling rain strengthened. It was too far back to the bar and get a cab, too far to get home dry. The rain battered down and we split up to run. Aisha clattered to an unsteady halt, tottering in her heels. The water rushed down the street.

  ‘Come on, we’re going to get soaked,’ I shouted at her.

  ‘We are already soaked. How can you get wetter than this?’ she retorted, pirouetting in the rain and laughing, her face held up to the sky so the droplets glistened on her cheeks in the streetlight. She span, dancing to her own rhythm, laughing and beckoning to me. I grabbed her hand and tried to pull her towards the house. She held back, her face radiant with laughter. I felt her in my arms and the rain didn’t matter anymore as I bent to her warm lips and pressed them against mine, feeling her yield and open to me.

  The water swept down the street in waves, the drumming of the rain was all around us, pattering on the leaves, hissing on the tarmac, the street lighting hazy in the downpour. We stood, our eyes locked, Aisha’s flickering as she tried to read my expression.

  Aisha murmured to me, ‘Come on, ya Brit. I’m getting wet. And I don’t mean in a good way. Take me home.’

  She flicked her hair back over her head. Her mascara was running and blackened her hands as she brushed the rain from her face. She glared at them and wiped them on her hips, leaving two black smudges on the denim. She growled in irritation. ‘Ah, shit.’ She punched my arm. ‘It’s not funny, you English bastard.’

  We reached home and wrenched our shoes and jackets off. I fetched a towel. Aisha pulled a mirror out of her bag and gazed at herself in mock horror. ‘Look at me. I’m like a clown.’

  She grabbed her long hair in a bunch and pulled her hand down it, letting a little shower of droplets spatter on the kitchen floor. Her clothes stuck to her, steaming in the heat from the secret Jordanian space project stove.

  ‘Here,’ I said. ‘Take a shower and throw your clothes out, I’ll dry them against the stove.’

  She laughed and wagged a finger at me. ‘Me Arab girl, ya Brit. Is not zis easy.’

  She put her hand on my cheek, moved towards me and we were kissing again, long, sweet warm kisses filling me with a wonderment reflected in Aisha’s face as my hands slipped into her jacket and the rising beat of our intimacy become deeper and more exciting, my hands on her hips, moving up her sides and hers in my hair, drawing me to her as our tongues danced together.

  Aisha broke away, her finger on my lips. ‘I meant it, Paul. I have to go. Thank you, a million thank yous for tonight, but I have to go home now.’

  My frustration must have been smeared across my face because she put her hand on my cheek and reached up to kiss me again. ‘There’s all the time in the world, Paul. But not tonight.’

  Long after she had left, her perfume lingering, I stood in the kitchen reliving the feel of Aisha’s nipple, hard under my sweeping thumb.

  THIRTEEN

  Abdullah Zahlan had arranged my meeting with the Minister the next day, so I found myself sitting on the leather sofa outside Harb Al Hashemi’s office, drinking a little gold-rimmed glass of thyme zaatar tea as I waited for the big panelled doors to open. When they did, a little grey-haired man in a blue-grey suit shot out, a pile of papers clutched in his arm as he paddled a fussy wave of effusive thanks and effendi’s to Al Hashemi’s crisp, efficient secretary, who ignored him.

  ‘You can go in, now, MrStokes.’

  I peered through the half-open door and saw Harb Al Hashemi sat at his desk. He looked up and beckoned me.

  ‘Good morning, Minister.’

  ‘Paul. Good to see you again. How’s the magazine going?’

  We shook hands and he gestured to me to sit. He was wearing a sharp grey suit with a pale silk tie, his cufflinks expensive and his hands manicured. He was precise in his movements, a man in control who could afford to be friendly and informal.

  We settled into platitudes for a while before I started recording, taking the opportunity to confirm everything Zahlan had told me about the water privatisation by asking oblique questions, which Al Hashemi answered in his usual frank and forthright manner. He confided in me more than I had any right to expect, a privilege accorded to a foreigner removed from the political battles he was fighting against the reactionary forces resisting the push to modernise.

  We talked for almost an hour. About the distribution crisis, the fact that only the area of Amman I lived in actually had piped water, much of the city fed by a constant stream of little bowsers driving in from distribution points. We talked about the farms in the countryside dying because of a lack of water fit for irrigation. About the Israelis and the water assurances in the peace treaty the Jordanians believed their neighbours had abrogated. Al Hashemi was passionate as he described the crisis of rapidly depleting resources, Jordan’s desperation for a solution and how the privatisation was intended to revitalise the whole network.

  The interview concluded, I switched off my recorder. He removed his steel-rimmed glasses with a sigh and rubbed his eyes.

  ‘Thank you, Minister. I’ve talked to Clive Saunders at Anglo-Jordanian, so we’ll write it up into a bigger piece looking at the whole water issue and the solutions being proposed.’

  Al Hashemi sat back at his big, oak desk. ‘The privatisation has taken years to get this far, Paul. I’ll be glad to have the whole award settled at the Dead Sea conference. We can get on to other items on the agenda then. And there are plenty of them.’

  ‘Abdullah Zahlan seemed to think it’s pretty much a done deal anyway.’

  Al Hashemi’s face darkened, his eyebrows furrowed. He brought his hands together. ‘That is not the case, Paul. This is an open, transparent and fair process.’

  I dropped my eyes. I thought I’d gone too far. I looked up to apologise, but Al Hashemi stared out of the window.

  ‘Paul, we’re going to be fair to the bidders, but the Jerusalem Consortium has some big innovations to bring to the table, including ways of recovering water that will benefit both Jordan and our friends in the West Bank. It’s hard to compare the two bids as apples to apples. One is visionary and brilliant and one is professional but doesn’t address our longer term needs.’ He tapped the desk for emphasis. ‘But these bids will be treated fairly and openly and honestly by a committee tasked with evaluating them.’

  He stood and so did I, smiling.

  ‘Yes, Minister.’

  I met Lynch the next day. I had gone home after my meeting with the Minister and written everything down while it was still fresh in my mind. I recalled Lynch telling me to report verbally, but there was so much information I felt it best to document all thirty shillings worth: the confirmation of Al Hashemi’s post and therefore the privatisation, details of the water bids from Zahlan, the strong feeling in the Ministry that the Jordanian consortium was technically so far ahead of the Brits and the fact whatever they were proposing was about extracting additional water resources and would not go down well with the Israelis. I had also added Zahlan’s comment about getting the water back.

  If I thought Lynch would be delighted. I couldn’t have been more wrong. We sat in his car together, his hand on the manila envelope I had handed to him.

  ‘What’s this?’

  ‘I wrote it all down.’

  He held the stapled sheaf of paper, his knuckles white. I could see the edges of the paper trembling. ‘Where is this document held?’

  I could hear the sulkiness in my voice. I couldn’t believe the Irish bastard’s ingratitude. ‘On my laptop.’

  ‘Where is that?’

  ‘At home.’

  ‘Did you email this anywhere?’

  ‘No. It’s just on my hard disk.’

  ‘Did you back it up?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Did you connect to the Ministry network with this document on your hard disk?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Go ba
ck home now and erase it. Empty the recycle bin. Write files over it. Defragment the hard disk. This document never existed. You understand me? You report verbally, you commit nothing in writing.’ He was red-faced. ‘I fucking told you that.’

  He turned to me, holding the wheel to support himself as he did, his bloodshot eyes unwavering. ‘Do you understand me, Paul? If you get caught you’re looking at life in an Arab jail and we won’t lift a finger to help you. We’ll drop you faster than a lead fucking Zeppelin.’

  I was caught in his glare, dropping my own eyes under the onslaught. ‘Yes, I understand you.’

  He waited until I looked up, holding my eyes for a long time, his face impassive, before giving a tight smile. ‘Okay, okay. I’ll read this and call you if I’ve got any questions.’

  Lynch dropped my report into its envelope and slid it into the door pocket. He put the car into drive and pulled out of the car park outside the Abdoun Mall, the place he had chosen for our meeting.

  ‘I’ll drop you at the Intercon, you can get a cab from there.’

  Whether that was field craft or convenience was something I never knew with Lynch. ‘Fine.’

  ‘Your case comes up for trial this week, doesn’t it?’

  I hated Lynch’s habit of asking questions when he knew the answers. ‘Yes, you know it does. Tuesday.’

  He drove in silence for a while, stopping at a traffic light and looking out at the oncoming cars. ‘You and the Dajani girl are an item.’

  For a second my mind went into freefall as I wondered how the hell he’d known. Aisha and I had been careful not to let our closeness show in public – she was worried about Daoud’s possible reaction, a worry I shared.

  I kept my voice light. ‘No, not really. We just get along.’

  ‘Funny, you should be. She’s a peach.’

  ‘I told you, I’ve got a girlfriend already.’

  ‘She left you.’

  I struggled to conceal my irritation at his casual invasion. ‘Is that commercial information too?’

  He chuckled. ‘Sure, it is. You seen anything of Daoud Dajani?’

  ‘No, not much.’

  We’d reached the Intercontinental Hotel. Lynch stopped the car and looked across at me, his expression earnest and intense.

  ‘I want you to get me a copy of the Jerusalem Consortium bid for the privatisation, Paul. Dajani’s bid.’

  I froze, searching Lynch’s face for clues he was joking. He looked straight back at me.

  ‘I thought you didn’t want James Bond stuff.’

  ‘You’ve done well. You obviously have a talent for this.’

  ‘You just spent twenty minutes slagging me off for it.’

  ‘Paper thinking is a liability in the information age, Paul. You don’t store sensitive information on unprotected computers. Just remember that.’

  ‘Stealing bid documents is a really big ask.’

  ‘Have a try. It’s valuable information. There’s a lot riding on it in the long term.’

  ‘Valuable? You’re bribing me to do it? Is that it, Gerald? Stokes will steal for money?’

  ‘It’s on the table anyway, Paul. So I’d take it if I were you.’

  ‘No. No, I don’t think so. I don’t mind giving you chickenfeed, but I’m not going to start stealing documents for you. I’m in enough trouble already. Thanks all the same.’

  I got out of the car. Lynch called across the roof at me and I turned. His face was screwed up in fury as he stabbed his finger at me.

  ‘You are being fucking stupid, Paul. You have no choices anymore. Do you understand me?’ He emphasised his words with stabs. ‘You have no choices.’

  Monday. Another day at work, another long and pointless phone call with Robin, who considered email Satan’s spawn and preferred to lock me up in pointless team building-style pep talks before dumping me with some new mad scheme his ad sales team had dreamed up. It was like red sky at morning, a call from Robin. He was being particularly solicitous so I wasn’t surprised when he told me he had some nice extra work for me to do. The British Business Group had contacted TMG and asked about producing a yearbook for British companies in the Middle East, apparently. A three-year contract. Robin was, of course, delighted. They had asked specifically that I edit it and TMG had agreed. Of course, as Robin was so fast to assure me, because I was their very bestest, cleverest boy.

  I wondered what would happen when my refusal to get what Lynch wanted filtered through to his contacts in the British Business Group. A Carpe Diem moment led me to ask Robin for a raise and, to my absolute consternation, he agreed instantly.

  Aisha dropped by at my desk for a chat, a smile breaking out on her lovely face as she looked down at me, holding a file pressed up against her left breast.

  ‘What are you grinning about, ya Brit? You’re supposed to be in court tomorrow. Shouldn’t you be biting your nails or something?’

  ‘I just got a raise.’

  ‘Clever boy! Listen, I have to get on. Do you fancy coming over to our house for dinner?’

  I grinned all the more widely. Stokes the Cheshire Cat.

  ‘That’d be great.’

  ‘Nothing fancy, just family, but I thought it would take your mind off tomorrow.’

  I laughed. ‘I’m done worrying, Aish. It is the will of Allah now.’

  ‘And maybe you could ask Daoud if he would allow you to take me over to see Mariam at the farm at the weekend?’

  A momentary wave of concern hit me, an alarmed thought about how safe I would be, but it had been quiet since the Jericho bomb and the inevitable reprisals, a gunship attack on a car in the ruined, dusty streets of Gaza that killed four people. That had all been two weeks ago, just as Anne had left for home without a word. Two weeks. It seemed like a lifetime ago. One of my childhood games cut in: if you get off at the trial, you’ll be safe at the farm.

  ‘That’d be great. But what if tomorrow goes badly?’

  She frowned. ‘It won’t, Paul. Ibrahim’s on top of it. He says it’ll be over and done with quickly. You still have your passport and you’re free to travel. Don’t worry. Seriously. How about eight o’clock?’

  ‘Eight,’ I confirmed, taking her hand and squeezing it. I wanted to scoop her up in my arms, but we had agreed on our ‘Ministry Rules.’

  ‘Thanks, Aish.’

  She exaggerated the swing of her hips as she left me, turning and flashing me a glance that made me shiver.

  I went back to brooding about my day in court. I hadn’t been strictly truthful with Aisha about my feelings on that one. Robin’s agreement to pay me almost eight grand more had brought the first smile to my face that day, but I had been up most of the previous night staring into the darkness and playing out likely scenarios as I tried to sleep. I was worried sick about returning to a stinking jail cell.

  Nour smiled knowingly as I helped her to take back the dishes to the kitchen after the meal. ‘Aisha’s very happy these days, Paul,’ she said, her eyes on mine as she put the pile of plates onto the drainer. ‘Things must be good at work.’

  ‘The magazine’s going really well, yes. Aisha’s been a fantastic help. I couldn’t have got the project together without her. Honestly.’

  ‘That’s good. It’s given her something to get… involved in.’ She smiled. ‘And you mustn’t worry about Daoud.’ She put her hand on my forearm. ‘He’s a good man.’

  Well, there at least we disagreed. Daoud still worried me, his intensity and seriousness always had me on edge. The fact he had almost been genial throughout the evening was even more worrying. Daoud left the table and came over to me as I walked back into the dining room. I noticed Aisha and Mariam had left the room.

  ‘Let’s get a comfortable seat,’ he said. He smiled, a new sight to me. Nour brought coffee in gold-decorated porcelain cups arranged on an ornate tray.

  Daoud sat back and lit a cigarette, offering me one. I took it. Damn the Jordanians and their smoking.

  ‘Harb thinks a lot of you. He w
as singing your praises the other day, wondering whether I’d met you yet.’

  Harb. First names for the Minister, a member of the Cabinet, a Minister of State and a moment of sheer disassociation for Paul Stokes. I imagined myself sitting back with a fag, puffing out blue smoke saying to someone in the UK: ‘The PM noticed you in the Commons today. He really loves your nails, Marjorie.’

  I smiled at him. ‘I like him too. He’s very frank.’

  ‘Maybe too frank sometimes. It’s lonely being a reformer, even though there are more of them these days. This government’s still very conservative.’

  ‘So he said. But they seem to have committed to the whole idea of liberalisation.’

  I really did have to be careful about my big and expanding head. It’s a long way from being Robin Goodyear’s bitch to chatting about government policy over coffee with Arab millionaires.

  Daoud smiled. ‘Yes, they are. We’ve got quite a lot riding on that right now, there are some big contracts being talked about. We’re well positioned to win them. We’re investing a lot. It’ll be good for Jordan.’

  I wondered how many salary raises this conversation would be worth and hated myself just a little bit more. I sat and talked with Daoud about the water contracts and about the interviews I’d done with the various players, the ministry people and the consultants who were working on the privatisation project.

  I found myself relaxing and chatting freely, whether a result of the whisky, Daoud’s own relaxation or the comfortable warmth of the room I wasn’t sure. My outsider’s view of people he had known all his life obviously tickled Daoud and he laughed out loud when I told him about the disastrous interview I’d had with the Minister of Planning that morning.

  ‘So you thought he was haughty? That’s a good word, haughty.’