The Sand Men (14 page)

‘Why was Milo retired?’

‘He pissed off the DWG directors once too often. He wasn’t happy when the board changed all the green specs. He felt very strongly about that kind of thing. I mean, so did I when I was a student, but you kind of calm down when you have kids, don’t you?’

‘I went in Milo’s house a couple of days ago,’ said Lea. ‘Did you know he had locks fitted inside his lounge doors?’

‘I never noticed that. Why would he need them in the lounge?’

‘Maybe he thought someone could get past the front door.’

‘I don’t know who else would have had a key,’ said Rachel. ‘He didn’t have a maid.’

‘Any close friends?’

‘Not really. A couple of chain-smoking old codgers who came over to drink his whisky and play poker occasionally. No family to speak of.’

‘Maybe Roy’s right, and he really was going a little crazy.’

‘Why is it that whenever anyone voices an opinion around here they’re automatically labelled crazy?’ said Rachel with sudden vehemence. She looked out in the direction of the resort, where a shimmering heat haze hung over the silver monorail towers. ‘They can control the light, the temperature, the entire environment, but they can’t control people. Look at my family. My son is completely stressed out. Have you seen the awful burn he got on his arm? That’s what happens when you’re not concentrating. My daughter pretends everything’s fine. Nobody says what they mean.’

‘Milo did.’

‘Yeah, he was a terrible influence. One time I was so mad at Colette that I sat in his garden, drank a bottle of Slivovich and threw up in his fishpond. He encouraged me to be disreputable. I liked that about him.’ She studied Lea’s face. ‘You know what’s great? I tell you stuff I never tell anyone else. I really feel like I’ve finally made a pal.’

‘Me too,’ said Lea.

They finished their smoothies and headed back to the atrium, where they stood before a vast black electronic touch-screen tracing a galaxy of retail outlets in spidery red neon, like a video game for which nobody had the rules.

Rachel looked at it and sighed. ‘Maybe we should stick to something we’re supposed to be good at.’ She took Lea’s arm. ‘Come on, let’s make a proper effort to shop this time. Pretend you’re interested in scarves.’

Chapter Seventeen

The Confession

W
HEN
L
EA GOT
home, she emptied the contents of Milo’s binbag onto the table. He seemed to live on packet meals and alcohol. She counted three whisky bottles. Right at the bottom, unfortunately soaked in tea and orange juice, she found some pages torn in quarters. He’d printed out photographs onto ordinary A4 stationary, so the quality was poor.

She tried piecing them together, but the shots were so similar that they were hard to restore or place in any order. They showed a darkened room, large, concrete, without windows. There was some kind of central structure, also concrete and new-looking, with a square panel in its centre. Milo was an architectural engineer, she reminded herself. This was just the sort of thing such men kept. But ten pages of the same room taken from every angle, then printed out and torn up? It was impossible to tell what he might have been thinking. She kept one reassembled page, taped it together and folded it into her desk drawer, then put the rest back in the binbag.

There were some smaller photographs right at the bottom, printed out in the same way, just shots of a bland-looking lounge. The room looked like it belonged in any high-end property agent’s portfolio, an executive suite finished in colours her mother would have lumped together as beige, so generic that its lack of personality almost qualified as an architectural feature.

She also found the email he had shown her. Why had he decided to throw it away? Could it actually be dangerous to own?

No,
she decided,
you’re being stupid. An old man keeps late hours, hits the whisky and throws out some garbage before he goes to bed. A carload of drunks wings him. You’re looking for things that aren’t there.

On Thursday morning, after Roy and Cara had left the house, Lea finished her article and emailed it Andre Pignot at
Gulf Coast
magazine. As if to remind her what people were used to reading, the local paper dropped through the letter box. It was the only one they received in the compound and always featured the same stories. A singer or a minor member of royalty opened a new bank, mall or highway. A Hollywood film star attended a sporting event or a fashion festival. Water shortages in the financial district had been resolved. A new signature restaurant was the hottest place to be seen in town.

The sea droned with speedboats. The coastal highway was peristaltic with luxury saloons. The day drifted.

Casting about for something to do that Lastri had not already taken care of, she decided to properly introduce herself to Betty Graham, the Englishwoman Rachel had pointed out at the Larvins’ party.

When she called, the whine of a vacuum cleaner drowned out the doorbell, so she went around to the back of the house and knocked on the glass. Betty saw her and gave a small scream. She opened the window and patted her chest. ‘God, you gave me a fright! Sorry, I was in my own little world. Come in.’ She was actually wearing a frilled apron, a sixties’ sitcom housewife made real.

‘I just wanted to say hi,’ said Lea. ‘I’m sorry, we didn’t really get to talk at the party.’

‘Please don’t be, it was my fault, I was too busy keeping an eye on my son. I caught Dean tipping rum into his punch glass. I must look a fright. I don’t usually do my own vacuuming. I missed the bin and accidentally emptied the Hoover bag all over the kitchen floor, but I have to do this myself because the maid we have at the moment is hopeless. Let me get you something.’

‘No, it’s all right, really,’ Lea protested.

‘No, no, I insist.’ She raced to the kitchen and spoke with the maid. Lea guessed she was about to get the coffee-and-frosted-cupcake treatment. Betty returned with her apron and Alice-band removed and her auburn hair loosened to a pageboy fringe, but it looked crooked. Everything about her was slightly off-balance. ‘I never expect to see anyone so I don’t put makeup on. I don’t know what you must think of me. I mean, a lot of people came around after Harry left us to make sure that we were okay. Everyone was so nice that it all became a bit wearing, to tell the truth.’

Lea assumed Harry was the husband. There was something reassuringly scatty about Betty, the way she took a run at her sentences, hurdling them without thinking or taking a breath, and the way she looked about herself in puzzlement, as if always having to remember where she was. ‘Tell me about yourself, though. You settled in okay?’

‘I suppose so. I don’t see much of my husband, and my daughter hangs out with her new friends, but I guess that’s understandable.’

‘Oh, the three musketeers,’ said Betty. ‘They go everywhere together.’

‘Sorry, who?’

‘My son Dean, your Cara and Colette’s daughter, Norah. They’re all working on the same computer thing, something to do with bubbles? Dean tried to explain it to me but it went over my head. He wants to go into IT when he graduates—if he graduates.’

‘Cara hasn’t the faintest idea what she wants to do. Maybe she’ll be able to concentrate on choosing a career while she’s out here.’

‘I know what you mean,’ said Betty. ‘Dean’s driving me crazy. I caught him cutting school a few weeks ago. He’s been hanging out with a group of workers from the barracks, and I can’t help thinking they’re a bad influence. Since he found out that Harry was moving to three-month shifts he’s become much harder to handle. They weren’t especially close, but at least Harry kept him in check. He doesn’t listen to a word I say. It’s like I’ve become a faint annoyance in the background of his life, like a mosquito. I’m sure if he could find a way to blame me for what happened, he would.’

Lea felt as if she had walked into a movie and missed the first twenty minutes. ‘What do you mean?’

‘Harry and I weren’t getting on—we always seemed to be arguing—so he decided to take an engineering post in Abu Dhabi. Call me a cynic but when men say they need space, I think they’re talking about other women. We had problems in England, and when he came out here I hardly saw him for two years.’

‘That must have been difficult for you’

Betty looked suddenly shamefaced. ‘Well, it’s common knowledge on the compound, so I might as well tell you. I just don’t want you to think badly of me.’ She pressed the heel of her palm to her forehead, as if checking herself again. ‘I met someone else, someone younger who paid me a bit of attention. It was all so stupid, really. There was nothing to it. Dean heard something from a friend at school—hopelessly blown out of proportion, of course—and he threatened to call the police. Affairs are a punishable offence. I could have been deported.’

‘He called the
cops
on you?’

‘He was very upset. Oh, I don’t think he would have gone through with it. It was just a bit of grandstanding.’

‘So what happened?’

‘Harry took the transfer to Abu Dhabi, and Dean made me promise not to see this man again.’

‘Your own son blackmailed you?’

‘You know how boys are at that age. But I stopped seeing Ramiro out of respect to Dean.’

‘Wait, Ramiro, our tennis coach?’ Lea couldn’t imagine the tanned athlete with the woman on the sofa, sitting there like a partially unravelled ball of string.

‘I know, what can I tell you, a total mismatch, right? But it was a lifeline for my self-esteem.’

‘Did you—?’

‘God, no. It was just a ridiculous flirtation. I probably imagined half of it. And Dean was right. I was the one who behaved inappropriately. They say the biggest problems here are alcoholism, adultery and over-medication. We don’t even notice how bored we are. Does that sound spoiled? I mean, Harry and I are still married. He’s working so hard. He supports us. It’s just that we’re not really together.’ She wiped watery blue eyes and blew her nose. ‘I’m sorry. You probably think it’s weird talking to a virtual stranger about things like this, but there aren’t many people you can have a conversation with around here, not honestly.’

‘That’s okay,’ said Lea. All her life, people had confided in her. She had what her mother had once described as a
listening face.

‘I can’t leave until Harry finishes his tour of duty and our apartment in London becomes available next year. It’s all very civilised and respectful between us but I just don’t think I love him anymore. He always chooses his work over me. I’m the mother of his child, but I’m entirely replaceable, like one of his building beams that’s developed a fault.’ She reached out and clutched Lea’s hand. ‘I’m always the villain, and Harry’s always the hero, even when he’s not there for us. Dean will never forgive me. He can barely even bring himself to talk to me. It’s all such a terrible mess.’

‘I’m so sorry, Betty. If there’s anything—’

‘I should never have told you all this, I’m sure you have your own problems. Most of the women here do, they just sweep them under the carpet.’

‘But not the men.’

‘They work together, they see more of each other than we see of them. God, I get so lonely sometimes. I go to the golf club and order a shrimp salad for one and I just know the others are looking at me, thinking I can’t cope.’

‘Then we should form our own club,’ said Lea, trying to comfort her. ‘The kids hang out at the beach, so we could take trips.’

‘We’d have to be careful where we go,’ said Betty, brightening a little. ‘Tahir Mansour doesn’t approve of western women going out by themselves.’

‘Too bad. If he wants Dream World to be a blueprint of future resorts, he has to accept a certain amount of European behaviour. He can’t have it both ways.’

‘The law will support him.’

‘I’m not suggesting we break the law, just that we stand up for ourselves a little.’

‘You really think it would help?’

‘Yes, I do.’

As Lea left the house and stepped back into the withering heat, she felt less certain. How could the city be expected to abandon the articles of faith that had remained in place for thousands of years? The families here were passing through, and nothing they said or felt could be expected to make the slightest difference. The wives of Dream Ranches had to learn to live with themselves.

Chapter Eighteen

The Empire Of Light

T
HE HOTELS WERE
almost finished. The hoardings came down around the Helios Wing, the Persiana’s annexe of spectacular beach-level suites, to reveal a ziggurat of black glass that followed the tideline, halting sea zephyrs and repelling the sun’s force in calculated defiance of nature.

Inside, an immense cascade of blue water arced around the great atrium, falling silently over a series of articulated walkways. The troublesome marble had been replaced, but every day brought new problems.

Roy stood on the white concrete platform of the monorail station that curved down to the hotel foyer. Since the cutbacks, three of the original planned stations had been discontinued. He tried to see where Harji Busabi was pointing.

‘It’s over there,’ Harji insisted. ‘The wrong colour.’

Roy raised his shades and squinted into the blazing sun. It reflected from every surface, deliberately mocking his hangover. ‘The light’s on the sea,’ he said. ‘I can’t see a thing. We need to get up higher.’

They took the express elevator to the top of the Persiana, where the penthouse suites had their own helipad and even gravity felt man-made. The cooling system in the glass external lift was not functioning, and Roy felt the refracted sauna-heat breaking sweat patterns on his shoulders. They emerged into the iced air of the circular floor and went to the window.

‘I noticed it when I was checking the pressure in the Atlantica pools,’ said Harij. As water projects manager, he was responsible for the regulation of flow in the swimming pools surrounding the Atlantica hotel. ‘The gauges were way up into their red zones. I thought at first it was a software malfunction, which would be okay because we’re adding patches all the time, but we ran diagnostics and came up with nothing.’