All That Glitters (23 page)

Eleven hours on a bus with Kevin sitting behind you is an infinity.

Before sunrise the next morning, we’re piled in the back of a tiny white van, driven out of the city … and into the Atlas Mountains.

As the sky slowly begins to lighten, we see the outline of dark peaks speckled with snow. Sweeping valleys and gorges are dotted with trees and rivers and here and there small turreted, castle-like
kasbahs
are perched randomly on the hillside.

We drive past goats and sheep, market stalls and little villages, including the incredible Ouarzazate: a red-walled Berber city made of mud, and the setting for
Lawrence of Arabia
and
Gladiator.

And Kevin doesn’t see any of it.

“I just came from
nowhere
,” he says as we all watch a man walking a donkey with a little bell along the road. “BOOM. Nobody knows how I did it.

“I suppose I’ve always been creative,” he ponders as we stop for some traditional Moroccan
tagine
for lunch
:
stewed chicken with vegetables and currants in a clay pot. “Some of us are just born to really
see
the world, you know?

“Oooh!” he says as we pull over to take photos of a pretty village with peach walls and yellow flowers. “Seventeen retweets! Eighteen! Twenty!”

By the time the land starts to get dustier and the mountains flatten into brown plains, scattered with little piles of sand, the only thing stopping everyone on the bus from literally killing Kevin is the knowledge that we must be nearly there now. That, and the fact that Morocco still officially has the death penalty for murder.

Finally we pull into a small, crunchy car park and stop.

Helena and I wobble quickly off the bus into the sweltering heat, then dive into a small cement building so I can get changed again before the sun sets: this time into a long yellow, blue and orange silk dress covered in gold sequins, as dictated by an even more elaborate stick figure.

She covers my face in yet another thick layer of gunk and secures the watch with the same horrified face as yesterday.

Then she leads me to a long line of camels, grunting and chewing with the laconic, disinterested expressions of old men with grudges. Every now and then one opens its mouth and makes a loud, grumbling sound: halfway between an angry dinosaur roar and a really acidic belch.

Annabel is standing cautiously next to them.

“Apparently the Arabic language has 160 words for
camel,
” she says, grimacing slightly. “I can probably think of a couple more. However, if this is what’s next on the list then …”

“Oh, there isn’t a camel for you,” Kevin says brightly, ambling past on an enormous brown one, with a blue scarf tied elaborately round his head. “You weren’t on the crew list, lady. Frankly, you’re lucky there was even room in the bus. I was all for leaving you in Marrakech.”

Annabel’s jaw clenches. “You’re so kind.”

“My charity work is well documented,” he agrees. “Hannah? I’m not paying you to stand and stare gormlessly at the transport. Get on Zahara immediately, please.”

He points at an enormous, white fluffy, curly camel, who turns and gives me a slow, long-lashed blink, like a flirty film star from the 1920s.

Take risks, Harriet.

I clamber nervously on and squeak slightly as Zahara slowly stands up with her back legs first – tipping me terrifyingly forward – then with her front legs, so I’m flung backwards again like a rag doll.

Annabel writes something in the little notepad she’s started carrying around with her. I’m not sure what it is, exactly, but from her expression I’m guessing it’s not a love poem.

“Are you sure you don’t need me, Harriet?” she says, holding a flat hand up and squinting against the sunshine. “Because if you do, I’ll steal one of these furry old man animals. But if you don’t … I suppose I could stay here and make a few phone calls.”

Her fingers twitch unconsciously towards her briefcase.

It’s only
just
occurring to me now that this must be the longest Annabel’s ever been away from Tabitha. Plus she’s just started back at work after maternity leave, and it’s a Friday afternoon: she must have work coming out of her ears. This isn’t a fun sunny holiday for Annabel at all.

The
only
reason she’s here is to look after me.

“I’ll be absolutely fine,” I say as confidently as I can while Zahara experimentally licks my left ankle. “Give Dad and Tabby my love. See you when I get back, OK?”

I blow her an affectionate kiss.

Then I ride off alone into the orange sands.

should probably have said:
if
I get back.

Camels aren’t known as ‘ships of the desert’ for nothing, and it turns out I’m not a very good sailor. As we start walking across little heaps of sand towards the dunes, Zahara begins to sway dramatically from side to side, up and down, round and round: staggering, belching, shuffling, clambering up the first of the dunes, twitching her tail and sliding back down again.

Which is a bit of a problem.

The film crew has been set up fifteen metres away so they can film me, wobbling precariously past with my head jiggling loosely like one of those little plastic dogs that go on the dashboard of a car.

I lurch one way, then the other.

I swerve and dip and squeak, and at one point slip so violently I’m hanging off the side of the camel and one of the Moroccan camel-men has to grab me as I close my eyes and hang on to the poor animal’s neck for dear life.

“
Stop. Strangling. The. Camel
,” Kevin hisses from his position to my right. “You are so
not
good with animals.”

Finally, I find a kind of awkward rhythm.

Together, Zahara and I climb slowly up a particularly enormous and powdery dune to the very top. At which point every bit of remaining breath leaves my body in one big
whoosh.

Annabel has disappeared. The bus has disappeared. The gravel car park has disappeared.

All that’s left is sand.

Approximately eight octillion grains of sand, to be precise: spread across three and a half million square miles in tiny, sea-like ripples and enormous soft, cascading mountains, all in golds and oranges.

To my left, the shadows of the camels are stretched to the horizon, perfectly outlined in black with long, thin legs like the elephants in the famous Dali painting.

The sky is bright pink, and little yellow and tangerine clouds are scattered above us; below us the ground keeps shifting like magic from rust to orange to crimson. Little stars are beginning to pop out and the air is utterly silent. Not a bird, not a plane.

Just perfect stillness.

Modelling has opened the world up for me.

I’ve seen the bright lights of New York and the candy-like turrets of Moscow in the snow. I’ve watched Mount Fuji as the sun goes down, and the neon colours of Tokyo as it comes back up again. I’ve walked the streets of Marrakech and navigated empty warehouses in London.

But of all the places I’ve ever been, this is by far my favourite.

It’s just a shame I have to share it with Kevin.

“
Remember
,” he yells from several metres away, cupping his hands round his mouth. “You are
a queen
! You are
an empress
! You are the monarch of everything you survey! Now
look at the flaming watch
!”

But as we pause on top of the dune and the crew films me for a few minutes, staring at the horizon with my dress floating in the wind, I suddenly feel every single muscle in my body start to relax. Kevin can shout at me as much as he likes: I am the luckiest girl in the entire world.

And for a brief fragment of time, I don’t need to act.

As I sit on the camel and stare at the calm, empty, limitless sands spreading millions of miles around me, that’s exactly how I feel: like a queen.

Brave, confident and capable of anything.

Because after a childhood of dreaming and imagining, I am finally here.

I am in the Sahara desert.

hings that live in the Sahara desert include:

Kevin appears to think he’s the only one.

“Does anybody have reception?” he yells as we roll carefully back down the dune again and are brought to a juddering halt. “I need to upload this selfie, and I’ve got
jack.
”

Carefully, I’m helped off the camel.

I give Zahara a little pat and a thank-you.

Then I’m led to a flat piece of sand between two dunes while the crew starts setting up lights in a semicircle. I glance around expectantly: so far I’ve been buddied up with a camel, a monkey and four snakes.

My next task will no doubt involve subduing a fire-breathing dragon with my bare hands while simultaneously attempting some kind of whimsical recorder playing.

“Right,” Kevin says, leaning nonchalantly against his camel. “This is my final shot, Hannah, and will be my
Pièce de Résistance
. Do you know what that means?”

I nod in relief: finally, something I can answer properly. “Yes. It’s French for
piece of resistance
, and it traditionally refers to the most substantial dish in a meal.”