Secret Skin (3 page)

He turned to find out who and shouted, ‘Oi, oi!’ at nobody in particular.

‘Hey’, said Verity, while his back was turned, ‘Are you David Bryson?’

‘Yeah. Why? What’s the old fart been saying?’

‘Oh nothing, ignore Martin, he’s just pissed.’

‘No kidding,’ I said inspecting the back of Martin’s head as he boomed at random strangers and laughed to himself about old times.

‘No, Carl was talking about you today. He described you as “a safe pair of hands.”’

‘Wow,’ I said, genuinely surprised. ‘You mean I actually have a reputation?’

‘He wishes he could offer you more work, but he says they don’t really have the budget for freelancers.’

‘Yeah, I know that story. They do have a budget but it’s not anything you could make a living from. It’s always a scrabble for the pennies in this game.’

‘Oh Christ, I know what you mean,’ she said with an appealing Aussie lilt. ‘I was freelancing back in Sydney until I took this gig.’

‘How long have you been here?’

‘Just over three weeks.’

‘So how do you like Dubai, the shopping mall state?

‘Well, it’s trying to be Miami without the vice…but it’s more like a Disneyland for adults.’

‘Welcome to the Arabian Dream,’ I said. She considered this for a moment, raised an eyebrow, and then lowered her voice as if conspiring against the fashionistas around us.

‘You know, in my interview, the CEO asked me what I’d do if a local slapped me in the face during a meeting.’

‘You’re shitting me?’ I said. She shook her head. ‘What did you say?’

‘I said I’d slap the bastard right back. The CEO wasn’t too impressed. Carl loved it though.’

‘I bet he did.’

‘He hired me on the spot.’

‘Good on him, and good for you.’ I said raising my glass to a mutual clink.

‘How about you?’ she asked.

‘Two summers, one winter…no slaps yet. Christ that first summer was hot though.’

‘Presumably you have a card?’ she said, offering me her own.

‘Sure.’ Everyone from cleaners to imams had a business card in Dubai. With such a transient population it was the only way to remember who was who. We swapped cards in a brief but playful tug-of-war.

‘Oh ho, what’s this, chatting you up is he?’ said Martin. ‘Well keep your mitts off him Verity, he’s got a job to do with a bunch of ho’s for me,’ and like a pair of embarrassed teenagers I stumbled over Verity’s protesting words and she stumbled over mine.

***

A few drinks later Verity was being schmoozed by someone far more attractive, sober and wealthy than either Martin or me.

‘Ah women,’ Martin said. ‘I love them, but they just don’t love me. Boo hoo fucking hoo.’

‘Don’t worry old son, I hear there’s a secret underground club in the desert where affections can be negotiated at very reasonable prices.’

‘That’ll be next to the secret burial ground for illegal abortions then?’

‘Yeah, I heard that one; supposedly contractors are getting twitchy about what they might dig up the further into the desert they go.’

‘The rumor mill never stops turning here does it?’

‘Five star Arabian gossip beats sweat shop Chinese whispers any day.’

‘Hah! So, hookers,’ he said, ‘tell me.’

‘I’ve got someone lined up already,’ I said, ‘You’re still covering my expenses right?’

‘Sure, but you’ll need your wits about you for that, my boy, don’t go sticking your dick in any of them.’

‘Martin for somebody who publishes one of the most well respected, right-on magazines in the Middle East and Europe, you’re a bit of a social bulldozer.’

‘Yeah, well, it’s just a product Bryson. Don’t take it so fucking seriously. It sells well, that’s the main point. We give people what they think they want, something that seems new and different and authoritative. Then, by being popular, we receive fat gobs of revenue for all the advertising we sell. And I get a new car.’

‘What do you drive again?’ I said.

‘A second hand piece of shit. Hey fuck all that. Guess who’s back in town?’

‘I give up.’

‘Vladimir Orsa. Apparently he’s in Dubai, doing a little business.’

‘He’s the one that wants to be Nicholas Cage in Lord of War right? Back door arms dealer.’

‘Yeah.’

‘So are you going to do an exposé on him?’

‘Bugger that. I want to do some business with him.’

‘You’re a wonderful man Martin. I’m inspired.’

‘Fuck off!’ he said laughing, gesturing to an already overwhelmed waiter for yet another round.

The following morning my penance was a headache, nausea and dehydration. As atonement I poured an unforgiving amount of coffee into a mug and nursed it to the beating heart of my business empire, the spare room.

The half hour of clarity caffeine gave would help me deal with any lingering jobs and the energy to respond to emails that might be waiting from other time zones or early rising clients. Then I could go back to bed.

By the time the computer’s operating system got going so had I. Virus software automatically scanned and sorted the emails that trickled into my inbox. The pleadings of penis extenders, Nigerian bank scammers and promoters of naughty nubile nuns went directly to the recycle bin along with all the old friends urging me to sign up to Facebook.

Bandwidth hogging PR emails of political handshakes, celebs and business men – all tomorrow’s news – took a detour to the PR folder and were ignored.

A reply to a feature pitch on Dubai’s property standards from a British broadsheet demanded my attention. ‘Too populist,’ they said, ‘try the tabloids.’ Inevitably if I sent it to the tabloids the response would be, ‘Too high brow, send it to the broadsheets.’

I’d been pitching these worthy story ideas for a fortnight and so far failed to entice any editors to open their check books.

I’d work on it though, make it right.

Then two late payment excuses arrived from household name publications I irregularly wrote for and fouled my lazy morning after mood even further. Never again I swore to myself and fired off revised invoices with added late payment charges.

Only one other email landed in my inbox but the forwarded subject line read like a warning. As it was from an existing editorial client I had to open it, the next job could come from anywhere.

From: Joe Thompson (Editor)

To: David Bryson

Subject: FW: Where are you?

Bryson,

Sunday’s article was well received but I’m not your social worker. If you’re having problems with your family please deal with them direct. Keep the ideas coming though.

JT

-----Original Message-----

From: The Brysons

To: Mr. J. Thompson

Subject: Where are you?

Dear David,

We saw your byline under an article on Middle East tourism at the weekend. Is that where you are now? I had a hell of a time persuading the paper to give me your contact details, of course they refused, data protection act or some such nonsense. I won’t go into things too much here son, not on an open line, just to say this:

You didn’t have to leave.

We miss you.

We’re here if you need us.

That’s it. Your editor said he would forward this email.

We’d like to hear from you just to know that you are safe. Please respond.

Love Dad (and Mum).

How simple, how effective. My editor would only see a sweet loveable father and a concerned but not overly pushy mother.

Whereas I knew instantly, even cut off by more than three thousand miles, that my manipulative bastard of a father and the kinky peroxide bint he’d dumped my real mother for were after something. As usual.

I would never let them back in. They always seemed so polite, so mild mannered, so caring. But they hid behind a façade of respectability. They shared little apart from blind ambition, spite and the hoarding of status symbols, at any cost, even the children, their only collateral with any redeemable value.

From: David Bryson

To: Joe Thompson (Editor)

Subject: Nuisance emails

JT,

Your first instincts were right, they are not who they say they are, add them to your spam lists and tell reception to deflect their calls. How do I know this? I spoke to my folks yesterday. I don’t know who these freaks are.

I’ll have some more ideas for you in the next few days.

Best for now,

DB

I stared blankly at the screen as the email left my desk and maneuvered its way through cyberspace.

Contact from my father, I didn’t need it or want it. I knew at some point I’d have to deal with him again, a composed couple of hours in the far future perhaps, when I could talk to him without wanting to hurt him.

Maybe one day, but not today.

I closed my eyes, stilled my thoughts and focused on controlling my erratic breathing instead. My diaphragm rose and fell in jerks and then began to move more easily with each mindful breath.

Even the simplest meditation works wonders for worry, but then I always neglected to do the things that were good for me. After much gentle persuasion my inner moppet finally let go. I savored the early morning warmth on my skin and the delicious yearning for sleep that hid beneath the tension.

Then a shrill vibrating twitter disturbed the tranquility. My mobile phone mangling the film score to Friday the 13th. Some baby faced souse had obviously tampered with its ring tones during last night’s session.

I looked at the screen. It said: Holy Joe. Answer?

Irish but not catholic, unmarried but not gay, if Holy Joe hadn’t become a charitable missionary he would have made a good debt collector. Probably the reason why the Christian schism he worked for had sent him to Dubai, their spiritual bailiff.

A regular around the building sites and docks he always stuck up for the little man: he’d pull truncheons out of policemen’s hands or put his face in front of them when the worker–management synergy broke down. Out of hours he sipped OJs and hustled pool in the old school expat bars where the engineers and roughnecks hung out. Over time soft spoken Joseph Hayes became Big Joe, then Holy Joe once they found out what he did for a living.

Liberal Dubai allowed non-Muslim, non-Jewish, churches their own little ghetto on the edge of the desert. But if they tried to convert anyone they faced jail or deportation. It made sense, the administration needed the foreigners to do the work but they didn’t want their beliefs to infect the citizens and give them the idea there were alternatives out there.

His call meant only one thing, a story. The hangover would have to wait.

‘Hey you hairy god-botherer,’ I said into the mouthpiece, ‘What’s up?’

***

I showered, shaved and threw a camera and recorder into a bag then rushed across town in light early morning traffic. I parked the car in a dusty lot and trudged over to Joe’s pick up point a half kilometer away from the docks at the sea-facing end of Dubai Creek.

While I waited a text message came through from an unknown sender.

I’m sorry, I can’t do it.

Yasmin.

‘Oh that’s just bloody fantastic,’ I said out loud. My story killed before it even had a chance to live and no time to find another source. Red faced and bilious, Martin would react as only a belligerent expat editor could. Empty pages never went down well; it made the adverts far too obvious On the side of the road next to the dock workers housing block a ten minute wait seemed like forever as Yasmin’s text and the morning’s scalding heat took turns to work me over.

Somehow the Indian dock laborers cycling to their jobs in bright blue long-sleeved uniforms appeared calm, cool and unaffected by the rising temperatures. Whereas my head felt like the last tea bag in a builder’s yard, strained to the point of uselessness. And those pesky little black floaters kept gathering on the edge of sight ready to migrate into view.

‘You look like hell,’ Joe said when he finally pulled up in a military green 4x4, a hand me down vehicle without air conditioning.

‘Thanks,’ I said, slamming the door, ‘and you look the image of Christian piety, but surely we’re in the wrong country for that?’

‘Oh sarcasm. Been drinking again haven’t you?’

‘Yup.’

‘Sinner,’ he said, pulling off.

‘It’s the pressures of a high flying career in journalism,’ I said, rubbing my temples. ‘Got any water?’

‘Don’t tell me you forgot to bring any?’

‘Uh, yeah.’

‘Idiot,’ he said shaking his head. He handed me a bottle from the side pocket of his door.

‘So what’s going on?’ I said.

‘You remember that ship I told you about, the one stranded offshore for the last 18 months?

‘Which one? There’s so many.’

‘The Peri, the fallen angel.’

‘I think so, the one with the three crewmen on board?’

‘That’s it.’

‘What about it?’

‘Well, the local owners are still refusing to take any responsibility for it or the crew. They say the boat was decommissioned, sold on for scrap, and the crew given the funds to repatriate themselves months ago.’

‘Any proof of this? A receipt perhaps?’

‘What do you think?’

‘Wait, don’t tell me, I’m having one of my psychic flashes. They say they can’t find the records, that it’s not their problem there’s no proof of sale and that the three starving men on board aren’t their responsibility, and if they could help, they would, but oh dear, it’s lunch time already, they couldn’t possibly.’

Joe laughed, ‘Just about spot on,’ he said. ‘We’re taking them to court next week with local backing, and things should get sorted after that but right now I have a bit of a crisis.’

‘Ahuh, what sort of crisis?’

‘Well,’ he said, ‘you know how I said I’d try and get you on board one of these “ghost ships” as you keep calling them?’

‘Yeah, of course, that’s why I’m here.’

‘Well, they weren’t having it upstairs.’

‘What? You mean him? God?’ He raised an eyebrow at me, ‘Oh please,’ I said with mock horror, ‘not those blooming angels again? It’s that Gabriel isn’t it? He’s always had it in for me.’

He laughed for my sake. ‘Don’t test my faith David,’ he said and gripped the wheel tighter than he needed to. The muscles on his forearms and shoulders stood out against his thin white shirt like the knuckles beneath the skin on his hands.