Chapter 35

Saif Hussein was hurriedly eating a sandwich in his office. It was a miserable day, and he’d promised to make house calls rather than risk his older patients catching pneumonia marching over the ben to his surgery. Nevertheless, he checked his Facebook, as usual. He was not a social media user. He did not post pictures or forward inspirational memes or like other people’s pictures of their dogs. He was simply there in case.

It was ritualistic now, just going through the motions. He had his old Syrian mobile number, still paid up and available, connected to his dusty, ridiculous, old, outdated BlackBerry. It never rang. And he still had his Facebook account, with a picture of him and Amena on their wedding day as his profile pic and nothing else. He had absolutely no idea how to source the information as to how many times his profile had been viewed, which was lucky, as Lorna had clicked on and stared at that photo more times than she would ever have admitted to anyone under torture.

Today, there was something. From someone he did not know. In Arabic. That was nothing particularly unusual.

Of course it could be anything. A scam. Someone trying to rip him off, either personally or automatically: there were people who targeted clearly Arabic names in Western countries, making promises about finding relatives or tracking down bank accounts or moving money or all sorts of nefarious things. It could be any of those.

But there was something about this one, though.

Or it could be something else. The avatar of the sender was the little Saudi Arabian Temsa7LY puppet crocodile. Well, he was quite a famous crocodile. Anyone could have one of those.

But also: the favorite video of the boys when they were little. Their very favorite thing.

With shaking hands, Saif clicked on the message. His heart fell. Yup, just more spam, like it always was. GET BEST PRICE! it said. EVERYTHING HEART DESIRE PAGE! FOR NOTHING! NIZ!!! 43!!!!!

That was all. Saif looked at it. Just flotsam, floating through the internet, looking to snag the unwary—nothing out of order. The same as any other day.

But it felt different. It felt different.

Niz, he thought suddenly, rubbing his beard. That didn’t mean “nothing.” Not in any language. And why would you put “43” next to it?

Something stirred. He remembered the book of Qabbani poetry they had had in their little apartment in Damascus. Of course he did not have it now, but the internet could be a wonderful thing. He downloaded the first edition he could find, stumbled to the page he thought would be nearest to page 43 in the original text.

And, suddenly, there it was. One stanza, all alone:

Because my love for you is higher than words, I have decided to fall silent.

He started. And stared. For a long time.

He wrote a note asking if it was her and sent it.

Nothing.

The next day, he tried something else and sent a poem. Then a code.

Still, he received no reply.

Finally, in absolute desperation, he wrote to her straight out, begging and asking her when she could come and what she would do.

The next time he opened his computer, with trembling fingers, the account had gone, vanished forever, and it didn’t matter how many times he logged on, how long he lay awake torturing himself, wondering if perhaps it had indeed been a mistake—that he had been replying to spam, to some bot; that it was all a coincidence and nothing more.

Chapter 36

The papers were still bad; their social media was still a mess and everyone was looking at them suspiciously. But to the kitchen’s surprise, the following day the storm had broken, and Gaspard turned up in a ridiculously mellow mood that nobody understood in the slightest (although no one was complaining).

It was as if the previous day hadn’t happened. The phone was still off the hook, but the fight had gone out of Gaspard completely, and there was music playing (back to terrible pop rock) once again in the kitchen. The clouds had abated, and the sun peeked through the back windows, as Bjårk happily bounced around the lawn.

Gaspard had decided to line everyone up and teach them how to make poached eggs, due to a surfeit in the coop.

“And queek and smash and in and whoop with the wrist!” Gaspard was hollering.

Isla had absolutely no trouble poaching an egg. Konstantin, on the other hand, was having a terrible time, as his big pan of water bubbled up and over. He hadn’t, as it turned out, ever even cracked an egg in his life, something else—there seemed to be a lot of things—that completely horrified the people around him. Well, in his world he was completely horrified that they’d never attended a state banquet, so there, but it wasn’t the kind of thing he felt like bringing up.

Even as Gaspard called him a left-handed moron who couldn’t kiss a pig, or rolled his eyes again at his ineptitude as he wasted yet another egg, there was a distinct and definite fact: since Konstantin had arrived, he’d actually learned quite a lot. Not just chopping and pot washing, although both of which were new skills. But he’d had to launder his own clothes, keep his room tidy, and look after Bjårk, who normally got taken out by the palace staff once or twice a day so Konstantin didn’t have to do all the more tedious bits of dog ownership like picking up poo. Now everything was on him.

But Konstantin, for all his faults, was merry at heart; it was hard for him to be down for long periods of time without his natural buoyancy reasserting itself. Although the worst realization, which made him slightly coil up in agony, was that all the time he thought he was surrounded by friends and employees who thought he was simply charming, it became increasingly obvious that that, in fact, was not the case at all, and if people weren’t actually being paid by his father, or enjoying the fruits of the family’s largesse, then some people liked him and some, notably Isla, very much didn’t and, what was almost worse, lots of people, the entire population of the island really, were almost entirely indifferent to him. Back home everyone knew who he was. Here everyone knew who everyone else was, but nobody gave two shits. It was something of a head-scratcher.

So. He still had absolutely no intention of letting anyone know his background, even if his first inclination had been to shout and scream about it and make a fuss till everyone let him get out of this hellhole. Now . . . he didn’t mind it so much. And he was quite excited about learning how to poach an egg.

More than that: Isla taught him—or at least let him watch—how to make pastry, keeping her hands cool and precise as she baked amazing spiced mince pies, orange cinnamon Christmas buns, and warm gingerbread, and they replicated their menu day after day just to be sure, before sending many of the results down to be sold at the Seaside Kitchen and the rest to the school and the old people’s community center, where they were fallen upon with gusto (and some complaining about modern newfangled ingredients from people who thought putting anything other than salt on porridge was a spoiled affectation).

He learned how to make a proper sauce, watched in awe as Gaspard made liters and liters of stock from bones for the freezer; Isla even let him ice a cake one day, which he made a fantastic hash of. Bjårk was happy getting lengthy walks along the bracing front of the incredibly long beach, which Konstantin had found completely by accident, and it was really hard not to start saying hello to the same people and dogs he saw every day. He could see, somehow, how this place could get under your skin. I mean, it wasn’t Norway, but it was beautiful in its own way.

TO EVERYONE’S SURPRISE, their supposed boss, Fintan, put his head round the kitchen door. Everyone braced themselves, but in fact, he was almost smiling.

“Come, come,” Gaspard was saying.

“What have you done to Colton’s kitchen?” said Fintan in dismay. “It looks like a chicken holocaust.”

“We are making the perfect poached egg,” said Gaspard. “You will practice too! It needs practice! And a wrist! And vinegar! Proper vinegar! Not vinegar of Scotland. Vinegar of Scotland is for removing of the wallpaper! Here!”

He brought out an elegant glass bottle marked VINAIGRE, picked up a fine muslin, and grabbed an egg.

“Okay, begin!” he said.

“What, me?” said Fintan.

“Pourquoi pas? Kerry, make space.”

The woman obediently did so, and Fintan, unsure how to get out of it, washed his hands and stood in line.

“Crack the egg! Now, put it in the muslin cloth!”

Fintan cracked an egg and made a horrid mess of it all over the bowl. Gaspard sighed heavily. Everyone else in the kitchen came over to watch, as the deep pan on the stove bubbled.

“You are almost as bad as Konstantin.”

“Nobody is as bad as Konstantin,” said Konstantin.

Gaspard handed over another egg; Isla retrieved an apron to protect Fintan’s lovely cashmere jumper.

This time he managed to crack the whole thing without getting it full of shell; he then strained it through the muslin and popped it into a ramekin.

“Okay, what now?”

“Stir the pot!” said Gaspard excitedly, handing him the big wooden spoon. Fintan looked suspiciously at everyone watching him, wondering if this was a joke.

“Faster!” said Konstantin, watching him as it went.

“Oh yes, you’re the expert.” Isla laughed and he laughed back.

Fintan stirred.

“Faster! Make a vortex! Make a hole in the water,” said Gaspard, finally, in frustration, grabbing Fintan’s arm and making the water whizz round the deep pan.

Fintan breathed deeply and wondered if anybody noticed. Last night had been so strange, such a shock.

He had expected to be full of guilt at sleeping with another man, full of remorse. But it was the oddest thing. Instead he’d felt better. Just . . . alive. He told Gaspard he hadn’t known he was gay, and Gaspard had snorted and said, “How ees these people make a choice comme ça, huh? I never understand. Boy, girl, pfuh—I like, I like, you see?”

And Fintan did see and tried to say “pfuh” with the same amount of emphasis, which didn’t come out quite right and had started them laughing, and yes, it was quite something to be having sex again.

But it was really something to be laughing again.

BACK IN THE kitchen, the feel of a pair of strong tattooed arms around him was like an electric shock once more, another physical defibrillation to a system that had all but shut down. He froze, deliciously, could barely move his hand at all, even as Gaspard clasped his arm, moved it round and round until there was indeed a hole, or vortex, in the water.

Gaspard appeared happily oblivious to the tumult he was causing in Fintan—or at least cheerfully unconcerned, lifting up one hand to drop a tiny tear of vinegar into the pan and the smallest hint of salt. Then, as Fintan started to stir furiously, he gently plopped the egg in and they all watched, fascinated, as the white knitted itself strongly around the yolk.

“That is not fair,” said Konstantin, whose first six attempts had gone horribly wispy with bits of unpleasantly snotty white albumen everywhere. “Gaspard is helping him too much.”

“Yes, but he’s not professionally working in the kitchen,” pointed out Isla.

“Neither am . . . Oh yeah,” said Konstantin, briefly forgetting himself.

Gaspard made Fintan repeat the process, Isla quick-wittedly stuck in some of the good sourdough bread to toast, and within five minutes, Fintan was sitting, somewhat surprised, in front of a huge plate of poached eggs on sourdough, accompanied by an enormous mug of tea.

It was the best meal he’d had in months. He realized yet again how often he forgot to eat. He was starving, ravenous. Gaspard watched him eat with a look so direct it was astonishing to Fintan that everyone else didn’t catch on instantly.

“I don’t know what I’d do without you,” he said to Gaspard.

“Good,” snapped Gaspard with a smile. “I should like a raise.”

Behind the two of them, Kerry noisily dropped a ton of china into Konstantin’s sink, and the day went on.