a recording spluttered into life and the soulful notes of the call to prayer drifted across the fields. It seemed to carry the melancholy of the dying day. He too seemed pensive, listening to the gentle sweetness of the young man’s voice.
When it ended, she tried again. ‘You were in Africa, weren’t you? I saw you interviewed. South Africa?’
He nodded, stared into his drink. ‘Jo’burg for a while. Then Nairobi.’
‘All with the UN?’
‘Yep. Eighteen years.’
She thought of FOOD 4 ALL’s cramped offices. It was clearly a small agency. Nothing like the UN. ‘What made you leave?’
He replied as if he hadn’t heard the question. ‘I’ve read your reports, you know, in NewsWorld. Over the years.’
‘Really?’
‘Course.’ He grinned. ‘Afghanistan. Iraq. Beirut. You sure pick ’em.’
The screen door downstairs opened and slapped shut. The garden boy appeared. He connected the hose and started to water the flowerbeds, aiming the flow with languid movements. The soil blackened as the water pooled, bubbled and sank.
Frank lifted his glass and drank down his gin and tonic. No wedding ring. Still, that didn’t mean anything. Not all married men wore them. He probably had a wife back in the US. And a bunch of all-American kids. She thought of the ring she was wearing, her mother’s wedding ring, and wondered if he’d noticed.
He said, ‘How long’re you out here?’
‘Another few days maybe.’ She shrugged. ‘I’ve been covering the protests. But they get repetitive. I need something new.’
‘Like what?’ His teeth gleamed in a half-smile in the dusk as if he knew full well.
‘Like this government offensive everyone’s talking about. Against the Taliban.’
‘Ah.’ He sounded pleased.
She could sense that he knew something and was quietly enjoying the advantage it gave him. She pushed a little further. ‘They keep saying it’s imminent. But they’re taking their time.’
She cupped her drink, listened to the creak of ice in her glass. He seemed to be thinking. Down below, the boy was moving steadily across the garden, trailing a dripping hose. A bird, compact and brown, darted past him and perched on the gate. It cocked its head, watching the boy, then took off again, skimming low across the darkening lawn.
‘I think there’s a nest.’ She pointed to a puff of bush hanging down from the wall. ‘I hear chirping. In the morning.’
He shifted on his chair, restless. ‘Off the record?’
‘Of course.’
‘The offensive’s started. They’re trying to keep it quiet.’
She turned her head a fraction to look at him, keen with interest.
‘People are streaming down from the mountains in their thousands,’ he said. ‘Tens of thousands.’
‘Are the troops in yet?’
‘Just heading in. You heard there were air strikes? Now they need boots on the ground.’
She nodded. It made sense. ‘They took their time.’
He grimaced. ‘Fighting your own people? Never an easy call.’
Tinny music sounded, distant at first, then closer. An ice-cream hawker, blasting a mechanical tune. The garden boy paused, lifted his head. Water splashed from the end of the hose onto the grass at his feet.
Finally the ice-cream hawker pedalled into view on his bicycle, a large plastic box fixed to the front of his bike. His sweat painted a black circle on his shirt where it stuck to his back. He turned down the lane opposite and the spell broke. The garden boy shifted, tugged at the hose and moved on to the last flowerbed.
‘Have you set up relief camps?’
‘Just one so far. Near Peshawar.’ He rattled the final shards of ice in his glass and tipped back his head to drink. His throat made a long, white stretch. ‘We’re trucking in relief as fast as we can but the lines keep growing.’
He turned and looked her full in the face. His expression was serious. She couldn’t tell if he were thinking about the refugees or about her, about the past. It was all such a long time ago. Somewhere below, the cook was banging pots and pans and calling to the boy. The smell of frying onions and garlic rose from the kitchen.
Frank looked at his watch and shook himself back into motion. He lifted his feet off the rail, downed the last of his drink and pushed his feet into his sandals. When he spoke again his tone was business-like.
‘I’m heading down there tomorrow. Come if you want.’ He nodded at her swollen face. ‘If you feel up to it.’
She didn’t hesitate. ‘I will. Thanks.’
He left abruptly. She watched from the terrace as he crossed to his car. The guard ran out to open the gates. Frank raised a hand to her through the car window, then backed and disappeared in a fading echo of engine.
She felt suddenly drained. Her head ached. The sun had almost set, casting a red mantle over the jagged line of the mountains. Male shouts swam through the darkness from a nearby patch of waste ground. Young men were struggling to play cricket in the gloom, their shirts barely visible.
She should go inside and file a piece to London on the protest, the violence. Her limbs were leaden. She should call Phil, her editor, and tell him about the trip to the camp. She should pack, ready to leave.
In a moment.
The ice in her drink slowly melted. She’d always thought of Frank as a young man, the way he used to be. Passionate and funny and slightly wild. This middle-aged creature, this raised ghost, was a shock. She was pleased, of course. But it was also unsettling, a reminder of the past and the path she might have taken.
The small boy who tended the neighbour’s goats was trailing back through the scrub, slapping at the goats’ hindquarters with a switch as they shoved and clambered and jostled in a tinkle of bells.
Across the path, an elderly man came shuffling out of his house and onto the veranda. He was dressed in white cotton, his feet bare. He settled himself heavily into a chair.
In the garden, insects were gathering in black clouds. Somewhere out in the wildness, beyond the guesthouse walls, cicadas tuned up and began to sing.
Chapter 3
After I saw the three strangers near the mosque and tore down their notice to keep for myself, everything went quiet. No one spoke of these strange new rules. Most of the men had beards anyway, even my Saeed who is only sixteen but already a man and adores me besides. Apart from fetching water and working in the fields and buying provisions and going to school, women and girls like me don’t have many places to go, even without it being forbidden. I kept the paper secretly under my mattress and only looked at it when I was alone. I knew the
