Without A Song

Chapter TwentyFour: Last orders

Jeddah airport, as Casey had predicted, was a very uncomfortable place to wait for my connecting flight to Akhbar. The morning air was fresh and freezing, the lack of air-conditioning accentuating the stale body odour from a thousand international air travellers. Travel through any Arabian international airport and you will encounter the heavy musk perfumes worn by almost every man, woman and child to mask their own body scent. For those of us who deodorise regularly this is one aspect of personal hygiene I wish everyone here would take up. Sickly musk perfumes made the problem worse so I retreated to a corner close to the windows seeking solace from the world of white unhurried vehicles and flashing beacons. One hour before Fajr, the dawn prayer, the perceptible roar of a thousand and one airconditioning units growled into life waking many, including myself, from temporary slumber. I'd survived in the most part by placing my backpack on the cill of the floor to ceiling Normanic windows before sitting down on the floor and propping my back against it. Other travellers tried sleeping in the rows of polished chrome and black plastic chairs that lined the vast terminal like so many army regiments waiting for action. My backpack had done little to improve things but

I favoured I'd fared better than those in the seats. At least I could stretch my legs and be safe. Do the same in those chairs and you'd be on the shiny marble floors and on your backside in ten seconds flat.

Outside the terminals the lowland temperatures would soon begin their rise from five to almost fifty degrees centigrade. It's rumoured amongst the expatriate community that if the outside temperatures were ever to rise higher than fifty degrees centigrade, then King Fahd of Saudi Arabia would give the whole country the day off. Experienced expatriates, who were much wiser than I in the ways of the desert, would assure you that the day would never come. Obviously, the royal thermometers were the best in the world and a lowly expat from the western world would always suffer the problems to be associated with non-Arabian models.

The duty admin officer from FlightPath, William Chaste, was waiting in the arrivals hall at Akhbar to meet my flight. I was the only FlightPath employee returning to Akhbar City that day and I had the whole vehicle to myself. Even so, I sat next to the driver. Will (never Bill) and I knew each other socially. Sometimes he came hashing but his sport was BMX cycling and in this mountainous wilderness he was in his element. He knew a bit about my problems at home and we exchanged social chit-chat as he drove us back up the hill where he dropped me outside my apartment block. I left a message at the service desk for my room boy Mohammed, to make sure I was not disturbed until midday, then I went to bed. I could have called the Dawlishes back in Suffolk to tell them I was safely in Kingdom but it was too early for them, they'd still be asleep. With that thought in mind I quickly slipped between the bed sheets and fell into the Land of Nod. Before I knew it there was a knock on the door and Mohammed showed a beaming white smile upon his ebony face.

"Excuse me Mr. Stephen. You said to wake you at midday? I called you earlier but you didn't answer. I have left you sleeping another thirty minutes. You have to go somewhere today?"

Wrestling sleep from my tired head, body and legs was not easy.

"Yes Mohammed, today I've to tell Mr. Mark and Mr. Ben what

I did in England."

I found it easier to talk the Mohammed and the other Indian members of staff in this sing-song patois, speaking the same way as they did to me. I'd once asked Mohammed if this was disrespectful. All he said was to 'no problemo,' laughed and left. We were fine and I found him trustworthy and likeable.

"OK Mr. Stephen. You at work tomorrow?"

"No Mohammed, I start work Monday. Do you know if I've had any messages?"