The Hidden Oasis (42 page)

Just think of it like climbing,
Freya told herself as Fadawi propped his shotgun beside the door and led her along a corridor.
Executing a particularly difficult move. That’s all this is – just one difficult move. Focus, get on with the job, do what you have to, then get the hell out of here. And if he even thinks of touching you …

At the end of the corridor Fadawi opened a door and ushered her into a large, brightly lit living room-cum-study. Sofas and armchairs sat at one end, a desk and bookcases at the other. There was a portable cassette recorder on the desk. Going over to it, Fadawi pressed the Play button before taking Freya across to the far side of the room. A mellifluous female voice wafted around them, rising and falling, curiously hypnotic.

‘Fairuz,’ the Egyptian explained, adjusting a dimmer switch on the wall to bring the lighting right down. ‘One of the greatest of all Arab singers. Wonderful intonation, don’t you think?’

Freya shrugged, pushing her hands into the pockets of her jeans, shuffling from foot to foot.

‘May I offer you something to drink?’

She declined, then immediately changed her mind and said yes, she would like something. Fadawi opened a drinks cabinet – antique, by the look of it, exquisitely veneered with banded patterns of light and dark wood – and, removing a bottle with a bright green liquid inside, poured two
glasses. ‘Pisang Ambon,’ he said, handing one of the glasses over. ‘Made from the Indonesian green banana. Rather delicious, I think you’ll find, despite the somewhat unflattering name.’

‘You don’t have a beer?’

He shook his head apologetically. Taking the other glass he sat down on one of the sofas, sinking back into the pale pink cushions, his scrawny torso almost exactly the same shade as the material so that it wasn’t immediately obvious where the cushions ended and his skin began.

‘Well, well, this is cosy,’ he said, sipping his drink and leering at her. ‘In your own time.’

Freya sipped her own drink, wincing at the sickly-sweet taste. She suddenly felt very exposed and very self-conscious. And she hadn’t even started stripping yet. Maybe she should have listened to Flin.

‘So how do you want to do this?’ she asked, trying to sound more relaxed than she felt.

Fadawi draped an arm along the back of the sofa.

‘However you want to do it. So long as it all comes off …’

He indicated her clothes.

‘… I’m happy to leave the technical details to you.’

‘I’m not dancing,’ she said.

‘I didn’t imagine for one minute you would.’

‘And I’m not … doing anything else. I strip, and that’s it.’

Fadawi looked offended.

‘My dear lady, I may be a voyeur, but I am not a rapist. I wish to admire your body, not paw at it.’

She nodded and took another sip of the liqueur, disliking the taste but needing something to do, some action to calm herself down.

‘And you’ll tell us what you know about the oasis. After I’ve finished.’

‘I am a man of my word,’ said the Egyptian. ‘Three years in prison has not changed that. You keep your side of the bargain, I will keep mine. You shall know everything. Provided I see everything.’

He smiled and snuggled even further back into the sofa, his eyes never leaving her. Freya looked up at the ceiling, over towards the door, down at the carpet, anywhere but at him, gathering herself, prolonging things. Then, with a shake of the head and a muttered ‘Allez’, she downed the remainder of her drink and placed the glass on a sideboard.

‘OK, let’s get this over with,’ she said.

She started with her plimsolls, unlacing them and slipping them off followed by her socks. She tucked them into the shoes and, rather unnecessarily, arranged the shoes neatly side by side, their tips pointing towards Fadawi. Next came the cardigan, which she folded and laid on top of the plimsolls – all the while studiously avoiding the Egyptian’s gaze, trying to think of anything other than what she was doing – then her jeans, her long, tanned legs emerging one after the other. Despite the awkwardness of the situation her movements were lithe and graceful; the sound of female singing still echoed from the cassette recorder on the desk.

That was the easy part. Now she was left with her shirt and her knickers, the final two items, the intimate exposure. She took a deep breath, trying to detach herself even further, take herself out of the room and into some wholly different scenario. For some inexplicable reason the first one that came into her head was the afternoon she and
a group of friends had been body-boarding off Bodega Bay north of San Francisco and a great white shark had come gliding past, its dorsal fin slicing the water like the tip of a knife. She latched onto this random memory, withdrawing into it as she turned away from Fadawi and started to unbutton the shirt, recalling how she and her friends had gathered into a protective group and paddled the hundred metres back to shore, the shark all the while circling menacingly around them. She became quite absorbed in the scene, almost meditatively so. Slipping the shirt off her shoulders to reveal her smooth, toned back she bent forward slightly and hooked her thumbs through the waistband of her white knickers, ready to pull them down. It was only as she started to do so, drawing the material over the firm curve of her buttocks and down onto her thigh tops, still lost within her thoughts, that she became aware of a voice behind her. For a second she was thrown, not knowing whether it was real or in her mind, then the shark memory dissipated and she was back in the room.

‘Enough,’ came the voice. ‘Stop, please stop.’

Pulling the knickers up again and curving an arm across her naked breasts she half turned towards the sofa, looking over her shoulder, uncertain what was wrong, what he wanted of her. Fadawi was hunched forward, one hand held up, palm out towards her, the other pressed against his forehead, shielding his eyes. His smile had disappeared. In its place was a sort of bewildered grimace, as if he had just woken from a bad dream.

‘I don’t know what I was thinking,’ he mumbled, the teasing jollity of a few moments earlier gone from his voice, which was now frail and quavering. ‘Unforgivable of me,
unforgivable. To make you … please, please, put them back on. Cover yourself.’

He came to his feet and, keeping his gaze averted, walked across the room to the desk. Clicking off the cassette recorder, he stood there with his back to her.

‘I just don’t know what I was thinking,’ he kept repeating. ‘Unforgivable of me. Unforgivable.’

Freya hesitated, then started dressing again, quickly, slipping the shirt on, stepping into the jeans. Although relieved that she would not have to expose herself, she also felt curiously deflated, as if a part of her had actually wanted to go ahead with the strip. Concerned as well, for if Fadawi had changed his mind about this, maybe he’d done the same about the oasis.

‘I don’t know what I was thinking,’ was all he seemed able to say. ‘Unforgivable of me. Unforgivable.’

Freya pulled on her socks and shoes and picked up the cardigan. Throwing it over her shoulders, she started to slide a hand into one of the arms only to take the cardigan off again. Going over to Fadawi, she laid it over his shoulders, feeling suddenly sorry for him, despite what had just happened. He murmured a thank-you, reaching up and drawing the garment around him. The two of them stood there in embarrassed silence, Fadawi staring down at the desk, Freya staring at Fadawi.

‘You must care for him very deeply,’ he said eventually. His voice was so quiet as to be barely audible. ‘Flinders. To be prepared to do something like that for him. He must mean a great deal to you.’

‘Like I said outside, this was nothing to do with Flin. It was for my sister. Her I did care for very deeply.’

Fadawi glanced at her – a contrite, shamed look in his eyes – before shuffling round the desk to a bookcase behind it. Running a finger back and forth along one of the shelves, he found the volume he wanted, slipped it out and handed it over to her. Freya recognized the cover instantly: a figure swathed in blue robes walking along a dune top, a vast ruby-red sun seeming to balance directly on its head:
Little Tin Hinan,
her sister’s account of the year she had spent living with the Tuareg Berbers of northern Niger. She turned the book over and gazed at Alex’s picture on the back. She looked so young, so fresh-faced.

‘Flinders introduced us,’ explained Fadawi, sitting down in the chair behind the desk and pulling the cardigan even tighter around himself. ‘Five, six years ago now. We kept in touch. She sent me a copy of her book. Extraordinary woman, extraordinary. I really am so very sorry to hear about her death.’

He looked up, then down again, opening a drawer and rummaging inside it. A pause, then:

‘I’m also sorry about, you know … Unforgivable of me to put you through that. Unforgivable.’

Freya waved a hand, indicating that no harm was done and the apology unnecessary.

‘I knew it would upset Flinders, you see,’ he went on, still rummaging. ‘Provoke him. He’s a gentleman like that. I wanted to … after everything that happened, the trial, prison … get back at him in some way. But to use you …’

He shook his head, bringing up a hand and wiping it across his eyes.

Freya wanted to prompt him about the oasis, but he looked so old and helpless, so distraught, it just didn’t seem
appropriate, not for the moment at least. Instead she crossed the room and fetched his glass. Refilling it from the bottle in the cabinet, she brought it over and placed it in front of him. He gave a feeble smile and sipped.

‘You are too kind to me,’ he said. ‘Really, too kind.’

He took another sip. Closing the first drawer he opened the one below, leaning sideways and down so that only the top of his head was visible above the surface of the desk.

‘He was right of course,’ came his voice, accompanied by the sound of rifling papers. ‘Flinders. That it was my fault, I who destroyed my life. I think that’s why I was so angry with him – because it was easier than acknowledging where the blame really lay. So much less painful.’

He sat up, pushing the drawer closed. He was holding a plastic cassette case.

‘I love objects, you see. Always have. To have them around me, to possess them, fragments of the past, tiny windows on a lost world – an addiction, every bit as corrosive as drink or drugs. I just couldn’t help myself. They made me so very happy.’

He sighed – a weary, defeated sound. Opening the case and checking the cassette inside, he leant across and handed it to her.

‘You’ll need to rewind it, but this is what you want. It’s all on there – Abydos, the oasis, what I found. Flinders will understand. You have a tape player in your car?’

‘CD,’ she said.

‘Ah. Then you’d better take this as well.’

He clicked open the portable player on the desk and removed the Fairuz tape, closing it again and pushing it across to her, dismissing her objections.

‘Take it, please. No need to return it. The very least I can do after …’

He lowered his eyes.

‘And your sister’s book, you’re welcome to that too.’

She thanked him, but said she already had several copies of her own. He nodded and, taking the book back, returned it to the shelf.

‘And now I think it’s probably time you were on your way. It’s been rather a draining night and Flinders will be worried, planning a rescue mission. He never could resist a damsel in distress. The quintessential Englishman.’

Making sure she had the player and the cassette, he led her back along the corridor to the front door. He slipped the cardigan off his shoulders and handed it to her.

‘Keep it,’ she said, knowing Molly Kiernan would understand. ‘Give it back when we next meet.’

‘I have a feeling that might not be for a long time, if ever. Better to take it now.’

For a moment they stood there, then, leaning forward, Freya kissed him on the cheek.

‘Thank you,’ she said.

He smiled and patted her arm.

‘On the contrary, thank you. You have made an old jailbird very happy.’

Their eyes met briefly, then he grasped the door handle. Before he could open the door she reached out and took his hand.

‘He thinks the world of you. Flin. Even after everything. He still looks up to you. He’d want you to know that.’

‘Actually it’s I who look up to him,’ said Fadawi. ‘The
greatest archaeologist I ever met. A genius, an absolute genius. Best field man in the business.’

He paused, then added:

‘Look after him. He needs it. And tell him he mustn’t feel bad. The fault is all mine.’

Easing his hand free, he opened the door and steered her through out onto the gravel drive.

‘Thank you,’ she repeated. ‘Thank you so much.’

He smiled again, gave her another pat on the arm and pushed the door closed. Picking up the shotgun he had propped beside it, he curled a finger around the trigger.

‘Now let’s just think how to do this,’ he sighed.

Flin was moving towards Freya the moment she emerged from the house. Breaking into a trot he reached her just as the front door slammed shut.

‘Tell me! What did he do to you, the filthy—’ ‘He didn’t do anything,’ she said, striding towards the car, Flin back-pedalling beside her, jabbing a finger angrily at the door.

‘I’ll kill him! I’ll kill him!’

‘You’ll do no such thing. He was an absolute gentleman.’ ‘Did he make you … ?’

‘No, he did not make me strip. He changed his mind.’ ‘So what have you been doing in there all this time?’ ‘Talking,’ she said, opening the passenger door of the Cherokee and climbing in. ‘You might be interested to hear he thinks you’re the greatest archaeologist he’s ever met. A genius, that’s what he called you. An absolute genius.’

That shut Flin up, his expression morphing from fury to surprise. For a moment he just stood there staring at the
house, apparently contemplating whether to go back and speak to Fadawi himself. Thinking better of it, he opened the driver’s door and climbed in beside Freya.

‘I suppose it’s too much to hope that he told you what he knows?’

She held up the cassette.