Desert Fantasies(43)

‘We went to some pains to keep the details of your visit private. Unfortunately it would seem our security measures have been breached and we must make adjustments. Your safety while in Amrah is my responsibility.’

‘We’ll need to run these changes by the London office,’ John said after a cursory glance down at his paper.

‘It has been done. But, of course, you will wish to confirm.’

Polly looked from John to Rashid and back again. There seemed to be more passing between the two men than the words they spoke.

‘“We?” Are you proposing to accompany us, Your Highness?’

‘Certainlyas far asAl-Jalini.’ Hist one was uncompromising. Certainly left no room for debate. ‘By then there will be clearer intelligence as to whether I need to be concerned.’

John nodded. ‘Thank you.’

‘If you have any questions about these amendments, please speak to Karim Al Rahhbi,’ he said, indicating the aide who had passed round the papers.

Polly made a show of looking at the new itinerary, but the point that interested her most was that Rashid had decided to accompany them. There’d never been even the faintest suggestion of that. Slightly scarier was the way her stomach seemed to have leapt into her chest cavity at the thought of time with him, whatever the cause.

It must have been something quite significant that prompted a man like Rashid to alter his own plans. No one had asked about that. She saw the surreptitious glances that passed between the men and judged they already had a pretty good idea what was going on.

Only no one had thought to include her and it was beginning to get a long way up her nose. Even at Shelton she wasn’t considered a bit of fluff. True, she was new to this business, but she had come with a brain and if something was happening that concerned her safety she really wanted to know what it was.

‘I don’t have any questions about the amendments,’ she said, her voice stopping Rashid from leaving, ‘other than I’d like to know why it matters if people know where we are going. Are we in any danger?’

‘No.’ Rashid’s eyes met hers. ‘If you were in any danger I would not allow you to stay.’

They were in a room full of people but he managed to make that sound so unbelievably intimate. He meant ‘you’as in the entire team, but what she heard was ‘you’ as in ‘her’. There was something so primeval in the desire to be nurtured.

She’d not reached the career heights she’d once hoped for herself, but she considered herself a woman of the twenty-first century. Perfectly able to take care of herself. Nevertheless it was intoxicating to feel protected.

‘Then why does it matter if people are aware of our itinerary?’

‘Polly—’

‘It is all right.’ Rashid cut across Baz’s instinctive exclamation.

Polly met his blue eyes once more and waited while Rashid reached his decision. If the men of the team had been told something she hadn’t, she wasn’t going to let him leave without telling her.

‘Come with me.’

She wasn’t in the mood for peremptory instructions but she did want answers. For a start she’d be really interested to know why she was kept separate from the rest of her team. Not that they seemed remotely bothered about it. But was that because she was a woman?

While she was prepared to be adaptable and accepting of a culture different from her own, she was stuffed if she was going to be sidelined by a Western film crew and a man who was half English whether he liked it or not.

Without looking at her so called ‘colleagues’, she stood up and followed him.

‘You are cross,’ he observed as soon as they were out of hearing.

‘Irritated. They might not have expected you to change our itinerary but the whole “your safety is my priority” wasn’t a surprise to them, was it?’

Rashid smiled.

‘So why have I been left out of the loop?’

‘Because you fainted and missed that conversation.’

That hadn’t been the answer she’d expected. She’d been geared up for a fiery discussion on the role of women. Now, with nothing to fight against, she felt deflated.

He held open the door to what turned out to be his office. The only concessions to their being in Amrah were the marble floors and the carved screens folded back from the windows. That aside it was a seriously high-tech room meant for business. And it was enormous. On the far wall was a large plasma-screen television and in front of that a Western-style sofa, upholstered in dark brown leather, with a tub chair either side of that.

Polly watched silently as he walked over to his desk and pulled a remote control from the top drawer.

‘You remember I told you when we spoke in England that yours would be the second documentary made about my country?’

Polly nodded.

He placed a DVD into the machine and stood back. ‘This is it. I would like you to see it before we talk.’

‘Have the boys seen this?’

‘They have.’

She sat on the sofa, her eyes fixed on the plasma screen. Rashid placed the remote control on the edge of his desk and walked round to sit in his chair.

He’d told her the content was offensive, but the initial shots of Amrah were just beautiful. The camera panned across a landscape studded with volcanic remains, then across an endless vista of giant sand dunes. A strange, uncluttered landscape and hauntingly beautiful.

A voice-over quoted Wilfred Thesiger and Polly glanced over at Rashid. There was nothing wrong with any of that. He answered the question in her eyes. ‘Watch on,’ he said.

Polly settled back and by the end of the short programme she understood exactly what Rashid’s objections were. The Amrah they’d presented to the West was one of dogma and extremes. It spoke of a society where women were suppressed and their human rights violated.

It was so unfair. Everything she’d read in preparation for her visit had described a country that was striving to meld all that was wonderful about the East with the best of the West.

She’d admit to being a little confused by some of the customs she’d encountered, the fact that she and Bahiyaa seemed to occupy an entirely different part of the palace from the men was a strange one, but to portray Amrah as they’d done was irresponsible and, as Rashid had said, offensive.

She remained silent as he walked over and removed the DVD from the machine and put it away in its case. He looked across at her. ‘I can’t deny there are factions in our society who are accurately portrayed here. When my great-grandfather first opened Amrah up to the West there was fierce opposition. My grandfather has continued to encourage Western investment and it is well known my father would have carried on in the same vein. There are people who are deeply suspicious of that.’

He switched off the TV.

‘I’m so sorry.’ She was angry for him. For his country. And humiliated by the crassness of hers. No wonder Rashid had been so cautious about allowing a Western film crew into his country. What King Abdul-Aalee had done for Amrah had been amazing and should have been celebrated. ‘I’d never take part in a programme like that.’

Rashid smiled. He moved to the chair that was at right angles to the sofa she was sitting on.

‘I think it’s incredible how much has been done in such a short time. The new schools, hospitals, the emphasis on building a solid infrastructure…’

His smile broadened and Polly felt her insides curl up at the edges. She didn’t want to feel like this. She preferred the anger. Felt safer with that. ‘Minty would never make a programme like that,’ she managed, her voice breathy.

‘I am sure she would not.’ Rashid brought his fingers together and let them rest against his mouth while he watched her.

He’d watched her yesterday, Polly thought, in just the same way. It was as though he was trying to see inside her, trying to understand more than she said with words. Almost as though she were a specimen under a microscope and then, sometimes, the way he looked at her changed. She became a woman and his pupils dilated.

That was when she felt most afraid. She was hopelessly out of her depth with a man like Rashid Al Baha. It felt a lot like she remembered feeling when she’d been swimming in the sea off Cornwall as a child. There were undercurrents she couldn’t see tugging at her, taking her in a direction she knew she shouldn’t be going.

The trouble was she wanted to go there. Rashid was excitement. Danger.

When he spoke his voice was low and controlled. ‘You have come to Amrah at a crossroads for us politically. My father is dying and the country knows it. The only person who is clinging to a belief that he might be spared is my grandfather.’

Polly heard the edge in his voice that told her how much what he was saying mattered to him and irrationally she found it mattered to her. She wished she’d not forced this conversation on him. She ought to have followed the others’ lead, been glad of the opportunity to be here at all.

‘He is steadfastly refusing to name any successor other than my father.’ His mouth twisted. ‘While I admire his love and loyalty, it does mean the country is left uncertain of its future direction.’

Rashid paused.

‘Who will he choose?’ Polly ventured after a moment.

‘If his objective is to see his work continue he’ll choose my elder brother, Hanif. He’s long been considered my father’s heir.’