In a Kingdom by the Sea. Sara MacDonald
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hotel is having a facelift so half the floors have been modernized but Mike’s apartment is in the old wing at the top of the building.
As we come out of the lift and walk across the reception area for breakfast Rana calls out, ‘Assalam-o-alaikum, Mr and Mrs Michael! Good morning! Good morning!’
Two breakfast waiters are standing by the door of the restaurant like sentinels. They rush over to Mike and usher him to a table by the window.
‘Good morning, Naseem. Good morning, Baseer,’ Mike says.
‘Good morning, sir. Good morning, mem.’
I can see this is a morning ritual. Mike grins as both Naseem and Baseer shadow me around the abundant islands of food laid out on crisp tablecloths. Fruit cascades among glittering ice. Bread and croissants nestle in baskets. On a separate island there are heated containers.
‘This, halwa puri cholay, mem,’ Naseem tells me. ‘It is Pakistani breakfast. Sweet halwa, spicy chickpeas, hot crunchy puris …’
I smile at him. ‘I don’t think I’m quite ready for a Pakistani breakfast yet, Naseem.’
Naseem smiles back. Like Noor, he has the startling green eyes of a Pashtun. I choose fruit, fresh yogurt and order a delicious coriander omelette.
I seem to be the only woman in the restaurant this morning. I am conscious of curious eyes of both waiters and businessmen following me around. It makes me self-conscious. Mike glances at me.
‘Anyone new and foreign is interesting for the staff here. You’ll get used to it …’
The restaurant looks down on the garden where an empty swimming pool glitters invitingly. Small tables are dotted about under the trees in the shade.
I watch a pool boy below us fishing leaves out of the pool with a long net. The garden is empty and the scene as peaceful as a painting.
When we go down the steps into the garden the pool boy rushes over with towels to place on our loungers.
‘This is Zakawi,’ Mike says.
Zakawi beams at me. ‘Mem, you like shade?’
‘Please.’ I smile as he fusses with the towels and the angle of the lounger.
‘Let’s swim while it’s early and the pool’s empty. The garden will fill up later and I know you have reservations about baring your limbs.’
I walk across the grass to the changing room. I do have reservations. Mike has told me that although diplomats and embassy staff come to swim, Muslim women stay covered and out of the water. I bought a very conservative black swimsuit, not unlike the one I wore at school. I cover up again in my linen trousers and top to walk back across the grass. By the time I reach Mike I am so hot nothing would have stopped me jumping into the water.
‘Wrap yourself in your towel and leave it on the edge of the pool,’ Mike says, encouragingly.
I move as fast as I can into the water and sigh as it envelops me.
‘Bliss. Oh bliss.’
Mike swims away from me and turns on his back and looks at his watch.
‘It’s only nine fifteen and humid already. It’s going to be baking. You will have to be careful, Gabby.’
We swim contentedly up and down the small pool stopping to chat every now and then. All feels so well with my world. I close my eyes against the blue, blue cloudless sky and smile. I so nearly did not come.
Mike climbs out and stands on the steps of the pool and wraps my towel around me. Why couldn’t he have shown me these small acts of affection in front of Will and Matteo? It would have reassured them.
Mike says, ‘Dry off and then we should go inside. You need to get used to the heat slowly. We’ll come back down after four when the temperature has dropped.’
I last another half an hour and then we make a dash for the air-conditioning. Mike has a meeting with two of his colleagues in the coffee lounge and I answer work emails and Skype Will and Matteo.
It is New Year’s Eve and I see they have a houseful already. I check Emily is staying over, as we arranged. The boys do not resent this as they consider Emily cool.
‘What do you think of Karachi then, Mum?’ Matt asks.
‘The drive to the hotel was terrifying and fascinating at the same time, but I haven’t been out of the hotel yet.’
‘Are you partying tonight?’
‘We’re going into Karachi for an early meal with some friends of your dad’s. There will be no drinking, though.’
Will grins. ‘No danger of not drinking here. Stay safe, Mum. Say hi to Dad.’
I make my usual speech about the dangers of going out drinking in London on New Year’s Eve and send love to Emily and her new boyfriend who are in the early phase of mutual infatuation and are happy to stay in, house-sitting.
It is late afternoon and the garden is now almost deserted. Mike is on a lounger beside me reading a book. There is the rustle of a breeze against some palm trees and the sound of running water from a small fountain in the courtyard by the steps.
Beyond the wall the distant traffic growls, but the garden is a small place of calm. I close my book; a huge sun is dropping theatrically from a sky turning dusky pink. Kites wheel and hover overhead, dark shadows circling and swooping in an elegant dance of dusk.
I have sudden, dislocating déjà vu, as if I am watching a film reel of myself. I struggle to hold onto a scent, a sound, a thread of a memory. For a fleeting second I feel a sense of a place lost, a homecoming: a sensory moment before dark when the world falls still.
When birds call out and fly low into the tamarisk trees on the edge of the coastal path. When the sun sinks behind streaks of clouds, making a golden path from sea to land. Where, just for an instant, primitive shadows rise from the earth and hover between light and dark and the sliver of lives long gone slip away on the air and evaporate.
In this warm, tropical garden, as a bird calls out a shrill warning and flies into the ivy on the wall, I am standing, a child in the dark by the scarlet camellia tree that sheds its blooms on the lawn like a ruby carpet. I am on the outside looking up at lighted windows where the shadows of people I love move about inside.
I shiver. Mike looks up from his book. ‘Did someone walk over your grave?’ he asks, swinging his legs to the side of the chair.
‘Something like that.’ I turn to him. ‘I had this disturbing feeling I’ve been here before. A flashback, a lost memory that came from nowhere.’
‘Déjà vu.’ Mike smiles. ‘With me, it’s sometimes a place or a building that seems familiar in a country I’ve never been to before. I expect the heat triggered some familiar smell or sense. Do you want another swim before we go up?’
I shake my head. The sun has gone and the poolside is filling up with businessmen staying in the hotel and young Pakistani men showing off to each other.
The lift from the garden basement takes us straight up to our floor, avoiding the foyer. I look at myself in the large lift mirror as the lift takes us up. I look flushed and hot and relaxed. Mike grins at me over my shoulder and pats my wild hair down.
‘You look sexy and happy, Mrs.’
I laugh. Inside the apartment we find a bottle of white wine sitting on the table in a cooler. There is a note from Charlie Wang wishing us a Happy New Year.
‘Charlie must have sent one of the waiters up with a bottle. He’s in Kuala Lumpur with his family for Christmas.’
‘How sweet of him.’
‘Let’s have a quick shower and start our New Year now.’ Mike grabs two glasses. ‘We won’t be able to drink with Shahid and Birjees.’
We