Sara MacDonald - In a Kingdom by the Sea

The Mount was lit up like fairyland. We could hear music coming from the causeway and the sun was falling into the sea.

There was a German family walking the other way, back to the campsite. They smiled and asked if they could take our photos. I was in jeans but you were in your favourite, faded, once-pink summer dress. The dress everyone smiled at you in; the dress Maman and Papa did not like you to wear. There was trouble later when they picked us up and saw that you were wearing that old dress.

Once, when we were in Penzance, a woman stopped us in the street. She had been staring at you from the other side of the road. She said she was a talent scout for a model agency. She tried to give Maman her card but Maman said she did not want it, that you were only thirteen years old. The woman looked amazed and said, ‘She is incredibly voluptuous for a thirteen year old.’

Neither of us knew what voluptuous meant but it made Maman furious and she was very rude to the woman in fast French and we both got the giggles.

One rainy day you pricked both our thumbs and pressed our blobs of blood together. You wanted us to be real sisters, not half-sisters, but you were always my real sister even before our blood was joined.

Dom, I don’t know what you did for Maman to send you away, but don’t worry. She will come and get you. She doesn’t mean it. She will want you home soon with Papa and me. There have always been four of us. You, me, Maman and Papa …

I wake on my own in the London house sobbing in the hours before dawn. The dream is visceral and still powerfully alive. I thought I had dealt with and buried all this long, long ago.

London, 2009

It is a strange, uneasy summer in London. The war in Afghanistan dominates the news. The sight of huge RAF planes lumbering into Brize Norton carrying coffins and mutilated soldiers casts a pall everywhere.

Publishing is in a difficult place at the moment. Commissions are slow and Emily and I feel anxious. Book translations are harder to obtain and I have not been able to place any new foreign authors for months. It has taken me years to build up a good little bilingual team and I do not want to have to let anyone go.

Then, with serendipitous timing, Isabella Fournier, a bestselling French author I met last year at a Paris book launch, asks if I will take over the translation of her latest book. It is a bit of a coup and it has given us some clout. I relax, feeling sure that the year is going to improve.

For the first couple of months Mike and I manage to Skype each other regularly. He is living in a hotel near Karachi Airport but quite a distance from the city. Mike would never admit it to me but I think his first few weeks in Pakistan are proving daunting.

He cannot leave the hotel without security and for some reason it seems to be taking a long time for a driver to be vetted and a car allocated to him.

‘They were in such a hurry to get me out here, so you’d think they could sort out security before I arrived …’ he tells me irritably. ‘Everyone in the office is bending over backwards to make sure I have everything I need, but at the end of the day they all head home to the city and I am stuck out by the airport in this bloody awful airline hotel full of passing and inebriated cabin crew …’

The hotel is not bloody awful. Mike showed me round it on his iPad, but he obviously feels trapped and bored.

‘Surely there must be secure hotels in the city?’

‘Of course there are. They are just being overcautious with me. I’m the only European employee out here at the moment and it would be embarrassing for them if anything happened to me …’

Mike does not mention meeting up in Dubai as we planned, but by the middle of July he sounds more cheerful.

‘I’ve just been assigned a personal manager. His name’s Shahid Ali and he’s a really nice guy with a great sense of humour. He’s enlightening me on the cultural pitfalls of office politics. What’s more, he’s determined to find me a safe hotel in Karachi. Much more of this hotel room and I will be climbing the curtains …’

‘That’s great, Mike.’

‘The timing’s perfect. I’m experiencing my first taste of antipathy to a gora , a foreigner, running the Karachi office. There was bound to be some resentment and veiled hostility in certain quarters, so it’s good to have someone I can trust at my side …’

‘Are you worried about the hostility?’

‘No, I expected it. I just have to keep my wits about me. Sometimes, it’s all smoke and mirrors. I suspect that I’m only being shown what people want me to see. Pakistan is a very secretive society, so Shahid is an absolute godsend.’

‘I thought you said you weren’t going to be the only European out there?’

‘I was told there was going to be a Canadian director based in Karachi with me. But he’s actually a Pakistani Canadian called Adeeb Syad and he’s a bit of a mystery. He’s hardly ever seen in the Karachi office. People joke that he’s secretly retired without telling anyone. Shahid’s convinced he has been bought off for turning a blind eye somewhere along the line, taking back-handers for keeping out of the way …’

‘That sounds serious. Can you prove it?’

‘Not yet, but I gather he got Shahid transferred to Lahore when he got a bit too close for comfort. Shahid feels as strongly as I do about corruption. There are so many little scams that have been going on for years. People with authority have been steadily bleeding the airline and I’m not going to tolerate it. I’ve made that clear. No one in the office has any illusions about my intentions. I will stamp it out …’

‘Oh dear, Mike, you’re going to make enemies.’

‘It goes with the job, I’m afraid. That’s why I’m paid well and that’s why it’s good to have someone I can trust working with me. It’s going to make a big difference …’

I can hear Mike’s relief.

‘Any regrets? Wish you had taken an easier job?’

‘No. You know me, Gabby, I thrive on a challenge …’

As the summer slides by I idly Google flights to Dubai and run them past Mike, but he cannot commit to any dates so nothing is fixed. Will and Matteo are home for the summer and I work on Isabella Fournier’s book from home so that I can see something of them. They drift in and out of the house then disappear. Will goes off sailing in Scotland. Matt takes off on a cheap package holiday with friends to Spain.

London is humid and claustrophobic. Battling to work through thousands of tourists is no fun. I begin to run out of energy covering for editors off on summer holidays with their families.

I yearn for Cornwall and the beach. I dream of plunging into sharp, foamy surf; of being battered and reinvigorated by waves. I long for a cool wind straight from the sea to sting me alive.

I want to stand by the back door of our house and look up at the night sky clear of pollution and watch a scatter of stars fall. I want to get on the train to Penzance and have Maman and Papa waiting there at the end of the line. As time passes I miss them more and more. Sometimes, I cannot believe they are both gone.

I ring Dominique to ask if she feels like a long weekend in Cornwall. She says she is much too busy with the London wedding dress to take time off. She sounds tired and unaccustomedly distant.

Mike emails to tell me that at last he has been given a car and a Pashtun driver called Noor. I print out the email and read it on the little bench in my sunny garden.

It’s fantastic to be independent at last! Life’s a whole different ball game!

Noor drives me to meet Shahid at the Shalimar Hotel, which is in the middle of Karachi. This is the hotel where we hold a lot of PAA conferences. It is also the hotel that most of the diplomats, journalists and NGOs use for passing through Karachi. It has good service, wonderful food and there is a private swimming pool in a shady garden. The entrance is heavily guarded so it’s considered one of the most safe and secure hotels in Karachi. The manager is a charismatic Malaysian Chinese called Charlie Wang. He has a secret cache of wine in his apartment that he generously likes to share … Hope you are having a great weekend …