The Sand Men (3 page)

‘Next time, we need to make a list,’ she said. She watched Cara reading the back of a can, the way her lank brown hair fell forward over her eyes, shielding the world from her thoughts. She had sprung up in the last year, but still dressed in her dark London uniform of grey hooded Adidas top and jeans. There would have to be some variation in her wardrobe now. The local girls were more traditionally feminine.

Still unsure about the contents of the can, Cara replaced it on the shelf. She never asked for help; the age of independence was upon her. She had left behind very few friends of her own age, and needed a good peer group.

Lea steered the trolley away, feeling a little sad. Nothing made her more aware of the passing time than looking at her child. But here it might be possible to roll time back just a short way, and recapture something lost.

Unable to decide on foodstuffs, they bought too much. They spent ages in the computer store, and finally left the mall two and a half hours later.

‘We won’t do that every day,’ Lea said, searching for the turn-off to Dream Ranches. ‘I wouldn’t get anything else done.’

There was no response. Cara was busy taking the iPad out of its box. She had a flair for technology, and was the house guru for everything electronic.

Their luggage had arrived, along with a welcome letter from the company, details concerning the shipment of their belongings and a great bouquet of lurid flowers. Cara claimed a bedroom and set up her laptop. She located English-language TV channels.

Lea made a salad. She tried leaving the back door open but the alternating blasts of hot and freezing air brought on a headache, so she closed it and sat in the lounge to watch the sun setting behind the silent garden.

The sound of sprinklers starting up in unison made her jump. They sounded like the rain that had pattered onto the leaves of the plane trees as Lea waited on the front doorstep of their Chiswick home, convinced that she was leaving something valuable behind.

Throughout that final morning she had circled the cold empty rooms, trying to pinpoint the nature of the loss. Two Bishops removal vans had splashed into Belmont Terrace and filled up, one with furniture going into storage, the other with the personal belongings they were taking with them.

Cara had questions she couldn’t answer; would the PlayStation work? Would they need to put transformers on all the electrical items? Was there anything she wouldn’t be allowed to take into the country? Was it true the internet was censored? Would she still be able to use Facebook?

‘You’re a big girl now, check it out online,’ she’d said. ‘You’ll have to ask your father about the rest.’

‘Will we have a fast Wi-Fi connection? I don’t know which cables to take.’

‘Take them all, I don’t want to have to buy them again. If they get packed in the wrong van you won’t be able to get your hands on them for two years.’

‘Two years is a long time. We could all be fighting each other for food by then.’

‘Thanks for the cheerful thought.’

‘Not my fault. The world’s running out of water thanks to your generation.’

‘Yep, that’s right, blame it all on us. Why don’t you make a list of all the things we screwed up for you, I’ll try and deal with each item in turn. Meanwhile can you see if I’ve packed my ginger cat mug? And while you’re at it, write on this.’ Lea had picked up a cardboard box and handed her a marker pen. ‘Your old board games. I found them in the attic.’

‘What do you want me to write?’

‘Their destination. England or the Middle East.’

Cara pulled a grossed-out face. ‘I don’t even want them. I’m never going to play Cluedo again.’

‘You may not want them, but I do.’ She pinched Cara’s cheek. ‘Somewhere inside there you’re still my baby. I’m talking my opera CDs, so make sure you’ve got everything.’

‘I keep telling you, you don’t have to take them. I loaded everything onto your phone.’ They moved off the stairs so that the removal men could get past.

‘But what if I have to update the phone or lose it?’ said Lea.

‘I thought we were finally getting away from all that wailing. You’ll be able to play it on a dock.’

‘Nice try but they’re coming with me. Mark the boxes.’ Stripped, the house was depressing. Its bare windows looked onto a corpse-grey London street where drizzle sifted from an tarnished sky. Opposite, a traffic warden slowly and patiently wiped excrement off his shoe.
A fresh start
, she’d thought.
Say goodbye to the dim light, the endless cloudy skies, the tired faces. Cara locked in her room avoiding anything that could embarrass her. This will bring us closer together. The last couple of years haven’t exactly been…

A crash from downstairs had made her start. The removal men had dropped something big. She ran out to the landing and looked down to find Cara standing in a nimbus of shattered glass.

‘Your Aunt Jen’s water pitcher. That was a wedding gift.’

‘I was just trying to help.’ Cara in defensive mode. ‘It slipped out of my hands.’

‘Leave it to the professionals, Cara. Just concentrate on your own things.’

‘I’m not a child. It was disgusting anyway.’ Cara had stormed off beyond her line of sight, furious at being admonished in front of the removal men.

Now they were in a land where rainfall would become a distant memory. She wondered if her daughter had any inkling of how much she was loved. With each passing day she saw less of herself in Cara, and longed for a way to reconnect. The thought stayed with her as the sun sank below the treeline and the golden garden fell into shadow.

Chapter Three

The International Dream

R
OY DIDN’T GET
home until 9:45pm. ‘Wait until you see the resort,’ he said excitedly, pulling off his jacket and kissing her. ‘It’s incredible. The stats are surreal. I mean, I knew the architects were going for something really futuristic but this is—you need a hand with that?’

‘It’s salmon salad, I can manage,’ said Lea. ‘Hang your jacket up.’

He aimed himself at the refrigerator and found a beer. ‘I’m sorry Tahir took me off like that. I wasn’t expecting it.’

‘What was so urgent?’

‘A workman had an accident.’

‘Was it serious?’

‘The guy died. There was nothing to be done.’

‘What happened?’

‘They’re installing pressurised refrigeration pipes under the sand to cool the beach down for tourists, and he was sent to repair one of them, but it exploded. Talk about bad luck.’

‘That’s awful,’ said Lea.

‘The company will take care of all the bills and pay his family compensation.’

‘That’s not the point.’

‘It’s a massive project, Lea, a lot of people involved, accidents happen. It’s the biggest train set I’ll ever get to play with. I never had an opportunity like this before.’

She rested a hand on her hip, leading him to look at the rearranged lounge. ‘Do you want to check out the house first and tell me you approve?’

‘I already saw it last time I came out.’

‘You didn’t tell me.’

‘Sorry, I figured I could leave it to you. I’m just jazzed. The resort already generates more power than the entire country used in the seventies. The Persiana’s main atrium is so big that they’re having to install a computerised airjet program to stop it from creating its own internal weather system.’

‘Its own weather system? How does that work?’ She dipped slices of courgette into lemon juice.

‘The hot air separates out, then cools and condensation builds up. They’re constructing glass-walled executive suites with bathrooms that are below the water line so you can watch the fish while you’re taking a shower, but the glass gets heated from the freshwater side and they’re having problems with the rubber seals.’

Whenever Roy described technical problems, he had the enthusiasm of a child. He been brought in to find solutions to architectural faults in the main hotel of Dream World, the multi-billion dirham resort nearing completion on the country’s reclaimed coastline. Experts from around the globe had been hired at great expense. There was never a question of not taking the job. By the time the offer of employment came through, Roy had been out of work for over eight months.

‘You think there are going to be enough rich people to fill the place?’ Lea asked.

‘You’re kidding, right? The board of directors don’t have much taste but they know the market.’

‘Aren’t they the ones you were supposed to meet at the Mandarin Oriental? The ones coming over from Guangzhou? I thought they didn’t show.’

‘Well, they didn’t. I met their people. All they’re concerned about is getting the place back on schedule for its revised opening date on September 9th. Where are we eating?’

‘The table’s laid outside. I’m not sure if there are mosquitos so I bought some citronella candles anyway.’ She shook her head. ‘Maybe you can get in with the board and persuade them to make you a director.’

Roy followed her about, as excited as a dog. ‘Apparently they’re famous for rewarding hard workers. I’ve got to sign a shedload of non-disclosure forms. And there’s a limit on who we can discuss the project with. We’re not allowed to bring in freelance consultants whenever there’s a problem. There are a couple of guys at NASA who know about heat-resistant materials, but we can’t access the specialist advice we need because of the conflict with their own confidentiality agreements. I’ll have to work with as many lawyers as engineers, but you know I can do that.’

‘Tell me more over dinner,’ said Lea, taking a salad bowl to the patio. ‘Cara, come and eat.’

‘Is it salad?’ Cara called.

‘Yes, with cold salmon. The green stuff won’t kill you, it’s not kryptonite.’ In London, Cara mostly lived on tomato soup, cheese and toast.

‘I’ll have it later,’ she yelled. ‘I’m trying to get the Wi-Fi set up.’

‘It’ll take you ten minutes to eat, honey. The internet will probably still be there when you finish. It’s our first dinner.’

‘Let me do this and I’ll set you up with a dock so that you can play your wailing opera women.’

‘Always with the bargains. Okay, just this once.’

‘So—the central tower of the Persiana is over 430 metres,’ Roy continued, seating himself and grabbing a fork, ‘which means it’ll be the tallest hotel on earth. There are three hotels, the Persiana, the Atlantica and the Arabiana. Dream World sticks way out into the sea and weighs over a million tons, plus it has to withstand everything from earthquakes and gulf storms to tidal waves, so they’ve got to get it right. Everything has to be ready in three months. Fifty years ago this place was a backwater used by pearl divers, camel traders and Bedouin. Everything changed when they struck oil, of course, but that’ll all be used up in a couple of years, so they’re future-proofing the country.’

‘By building resorts no-one else will be able to afford to visit?’

‘Come on, show some enthusiasm. The Russians and Chinese own the franchise but guess who gets most of the money? Two thirds of the investment returns to the UAE. This is the flagship resort that’ll prove the model can work. Then they can build others all around the world.’

She pushed a bowl of rice at him. ‘I know it’s a really exciting opportunity for you, but don’t you think it’s kind of grotesque? I mean, all you need is another credit crunch and it’ll become the world’s most expensive slum.’

‘Darling, if we took that attitude, nothing would ever get built. I’m still a New Yorker at heart, I can still walk down 34th Street and marvel at the buildings. Manhattan took the lead a century ago. Okay, its skyscrapers aren’t as big as those in the East but they have more cohesion, more character.’

‘They also serve a practical purpose.’

‘So will Dream World. We’re all working harder and playing harder, Lea. And this is going be the best playground on the planet.’

Lea had always loved her husband’s optimism. It seemed to be a quality bred into New Yorkers from birth. He’d just started working downtown in an architectural practice soon after the Twin Towers collapsed and, typically, had seen the 9/11 tragedy as a structural engineering problem. After that, the failure of his own company and the killing damp of London winters had encouraged him to seek opportunities overseas. Arab, American, Muslim, Christian, Hindu, what did such differences really matter? Everyone needed to construct; it was an instinct as natural as building families and friendships.

‘What?’ said Roy, not chewing. ‘You’re looking at me funny.’

‘I can look at my husband,’ she said. ‘You make me remember why I married you. Like a big kid with those eyes. Finish what you were saying.’

He pushed his blond fringe back from his forehead. It was just starting to grey at the sides. ‘You know I appreciate your support, Lea. This is my only chance to get into the big time. I had to come here, the shit we went through.’

‘Shh, Cara might hear you.’

Roy clapped his hands, dismissing the subject. ‘Anyway, it’s our life for the next two years, but the good news is that you won’t have to do any food preparation from tomorrow.’ Roy waved a fork across the meal. ‘They’re sending over an Indonesian maid. She won’t live in, she’ll just come and help you out during the day. You can become a lady of leisure.’

‘I’m not sure I want to do that, Roy.’ Lea laid down her cutlery. ‘There’s not going to be much work. Do we really have to have her?’

‘She’s part of the package. All the senior executives have them. She’s fully paid for, so we might as well use her. Besides, I thought you wanted to concentrate on your magazine writing.’

‘I’ll have to find some freelance contacts first. The house is hardly going to be any trouble to look after. I was used to fixing broken pipes and clearing mud out of the hallway in Belmont Terrace every time it rained. I think I can manage a place like this and hold down a job at the same time.’

‘All I’m saying is that you won’t have to work if you don’t want to. Didn’t you do enough of that in London?’

‘But I want to work, Roy. I don’t think it’s going to be enough just being a housewife.’

‘That’s what I mean. You’ll have someone to do the boring chores. Anyway, I already agreed to take her on.’ Roy shrugged. ‘But if she doesn’t work out we’ll let her go, okay?’