In a Kingdom by the Sea

‘I’ve never needed you more than I did the week you were home but you could not have been less interested. That hurt, Mike.’

He grimaces. ‘I had this plan, a desperate need, to take you to a lovely hotel and spend a couple of days walking in the country with you. Karachi can be claustrophobic. I behaved like a disappointed, spoilt brat when I realized it wasn’t going to happen …’

‘Because it’s always about you, Mike. You’re so used to me dropping everything to fit in with you.’

‘It’s true,’ Mike says. ‘I’ve realized that.’

‘Why didn’t you try to explain how you felt instead of getting angry?’

‘I wasn’t in an explaining mood, was I?’

‘No, you weren’t.’

‘I’ve flown a long way to apologize, Gabby.’

‘Yes. That does amaze me. The trouble is you didn’t just hurt me, Mike, you made me see how little importance you put on my life and work. My business is something I’ve built up and treasured while you spent years away. I’ve always thought you were proud of what I did, but last week I realized that it was an illusion. You see my work as a convenient hobby to keep me busy while you’re pursuing your career and something to be dropped when you come home. You were casually dismissing my life’s work by not caring if it failed …’

Mike stares at me. ‘Can you really believe I don’t value your life and all you’ve achieved? How can you think that? Of course I’m proud of you …’ He turns away. ‘Would I fly back to apologize to you if I did not value you? I know I can be difficult and I don’t often say it, but I do love you and the boys …’ He hesitates. ‘Gabby, you said the other week that you didn’t like me very much. That shook me. I don’t like the person I’m in danger of becoming. We need to find a way to spend more time together.’

He smiles at me. ‘I’ve got a little proposition to make … but it’s late and we’re both exhausted. Let’s finish this conversation in the morning.’

‘Well, I’m not going to sleep now, am I?’ I say. But, somehow I do.

In the morning Mike makes coffee and toast and brings it up to bed on the big wooden tray. Unnerved, I sit up against the pillows. ‘Proposition?’

‘I realize the timing is far from brilliant, especially with the problems you’ve been having at work. It might also seem selfish and self-serving, so, all I’m asking is that you think about it when I go back to Karachi tomorrow …’

‘For goodness’ sake, Mike, tell me.’

‘Charlie has offered me a newly renovated apartment in the Shalimar. How about coming out and living with me in Karachi? There’s good Internet access. You could work from an apartment in Pakistan, couldn’t you, like you do from home? There are regular flights between Karachi and London. You could fly home for meetings or to see the boys anytime you wanted. I don’t want to be on my own in Karachi any more, Gabby.’

I stare at him, startled. Mike takes a swig of coffee. His long hands with their scattering of dark hairs move nervously. I have never seen him strung out like this.

‘Is it such a preposterous and unrealistic idea, Gabby? Please say something.’

I am thinking. A deep excitement is stirring inside me, but so is a vague sense of unease. This is so sudden a change. Mike is Mike. Instinct tells me something else might be powering all this emotion.

‘What’s brought all this on, Mike? Why now?’

‘Life,’ he says, meeting my eyes. ‘Middle-age; the sudden consciousness of time passing; a difficult job in a country where I have to watch everything I say …’ He smiles. ‘And I can’t run off my frustrations in a park. I don’t want the sort of rift we had to become a gulf because we’re living apart. I’ve just been offered a lovely apartment and I’d like to share it with you …’

A blackbird is singing out in the garden, a beautiful sound that gives Mike’s honesty a touching resonance. These words will not have come easily and I recognize not just the love behind them, but the vulnerability, in both of us.

Until Mike spoke I had not realized how tired I am of the predictability of the life I have. The thought of going on and on in exactly the same way until I retire makes me limp with ennui. I do not know why this has slyly crept up on me, but it has.

Mike has never been so open with me. He has never asked me to share his life. Never faltered in self-confidence or wearied of living and working on his own.

‘Have you thought this through, Mike? You’ve always preferred not to have me with you when you are working so you can concentrate on the job.’

‘I’m always going to put in the hours, Gabby. I’m always going to get tired and crabby. The point is, you would not be on holiday, you would have your own work, your own routine …’ He smiles. ‘I saw how you were at New Year with Birjees and Shahid. You are eminently capable of making friends and having a little life of your own in Pakistan …’

‘But there’s a huge difference in coming for a short time and living there permanently. I would be entirely dependent on others to go out and explore, Mike. Wouldn’t it be better for me just to come out to Karachi regularly? I can still bring my work.’

‘No,’ he says quickly. ‘It would defeat the object. I want to establish you out there as my wife. You will have access to Noor and security. It means we can take off together at a moment’s notice; explore as much of Pakistan as we can.’ He pauses.

A little path is opening up where I least expected it.

‘I need you with me to keep me sane, Gabby,’ Mike says.

As we hold onto each other I feel my heart soar with the sudden possibilities for a different life. Emily can run the office blindfold. I can translate books anywhere. We have the Internet. Long-distance flights make the world smaller and our lives simpler. I can fly home to be with the boys in a few hours …

Inshallah, you will return, Gabriella.

I laugh. It’s not much of a decision.

PART TWO (#ulink_86b3e4d3-3161-5f00-afbf-ff3e3b1b8ded)

CHAPTER SIXTEEN (#ulink_e580de49-1a08-5c3e-8515-d72b1b9d4ff7)

Flight to Karachi, April 2010

The aircraft cabin is hushed and dark when I wake. I lie listening to the sound of people turning and sleeping, coughing and snuffling. The hushed voices of the crew chatting in Urdu rise and fall in a distant, hypnotic rhythm from beyond the curtain.

It must be near dawn. I lift the window blind. The sun is edging over the horizon and spreading gold light over the stark, brown mountains of Afghanistan. Iridescent colour flickers across the shadows of a vast, empty landscape.

I feel suspended between worlds, hovering over unknown territories. I am looking down on a hostile, unforgiving land of death and apricot orchards. Down there, in the red dust, NATO soldiers are defusing bombs and losing limbs in the fight against the Taliban. I think of all the people living their lives against insuperable odds amongst those sharp mountains and hidden valleys. Thousands and thousands of miles of uninhabited land where there are no trees, where nothing moves.

I think of Emily in my house back in London. Her bright patchwork throw over my bed, her possessions scattered around my home. It all feels unreal. I have a moment of heart-thumping panic. What am I doing? Everything I know is back in the UK: my sons, my friends, my work, my whole life.

The plane turns. The interior lights go on. Blinds are lifted to view the new day coming to life outside. A flight attendant in an unflattering shalwar kameez is handing out landing cards as we fly over an unseen border into Pakistan. I wrap my arms around myself. I have taken a risk. I am making a leap into the unknown, with Mike and with Pakistan.