Shaikh-Down
Two newcomers arrive: Cass McBride, on the run from a failed marriage. And Eddy Lawrence, come to teach IT to the staff of the National Bank of Belaj. His new boss is married to Belaj Air’s only American stewardess, Sammy-Jo, a platinum blonde with page-3-girl breasts.
Eddy is soon socializing with a motley group of cabin crew and some members of the ‘Brit Club’, quite a few of whom imagine that Britannia still rules the waves. Sammy-Jo parades in a skimpy top at the Police Fort to charm Shaikh Ibrahim, Nayla’s brother, into giving Eddy a driving licence. Nayla, a very merry widow, is the girlfriend of Ahmed Jabri, the bank’s personnel manager and Belaj’s number-one ‘stud’, who talks Eddy into letting him use his spare room to entertain ladies.
Cass is romanced by one of the Brit Club bores, then by a Belaji taxi-driver who turns her into a $500 hooker. Eddy, nursing a heart broken by a girl in London, finds consolation with Rashid, a beguiling pilot with the local air force. Sammy-Jo also takes a lover. In Belaj most of the younger ex-pats (straight and gay) have fallen for the charms of the locals.
In the background looms the Amir – “the absolute (and, he would admit, absolutely feudal) ruler of this tiny emirate perched on the rim of the Gulf’s third largest oil field.” And in Shaikh Khalid’s ruthless shadow stands his favoured nephew Ibrahim who seems to be much more than just the Commandant of Traffic Police.
Ibrahim’s bisexual sister Nayla is the book’s most enigmatic character – a would-be free spirit whose ultra-conservative family will not allow her to make her own choices. Her brother arranges a second marriage, with a mainland Shaikh three times her age. This marriage takes an unexpected turn, and it is a transformed Nayla, widowed again, who returns to Belaj to lead the women of Arabia towards a new destiny.
Rashid too is forced into marriage by his family – to a teenage cousin. Gay liberation has not come to Belaj, but married life won’t turn Rashid into a model citizen. Eddy has not seen the last of his passionate young lover.
An event at the bank alters Eddy’s view of his new island paradise. One of his pupils is taken away by the Security Police – and never seen again. His family and colleagues won’t talk about his disappearance. Ahmed Jabri tells Eddy this kind of thing often happens and nothing can be done about it.
Something can be done about it. The Amir has a secret weakness which can be used against him. Farouk’s assassin returns to the island disguised as a woman. Eddy and Sammy-Jo and their boyfriends are drawn into a plot to bring revolution to Belaj. A startling ‘bedroom coup’ takes place.
After Belaj, the deluge. David Gee offers an apocalyptic vision of the future of the Middle East. All the Arab thrones will tumble like dominoes. Then (fulfilling Biblical prophecy) we shall see Armageddon. A few disfigured nomads will roam the fringes of a vast radioactive desert stretching from Cairo to Damascus and beyond. The Gulf’s skyscrapers and palm-shaped islands will be left to disintegrate.
Could it happen? Will it happen?
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Hit the links, above, to read Extracts from the book and to find out which lady MP inherits the keys to 10 Downing Street in the Brave New Post-Apocalypse World.