Page 9 of Desert Barbarian

was so deft! He made the bricks out of damp mud, patted, then cut the mud into bricks with the aid of a special little piece of apparatus made out of wood and string. It was so quick and simple. They leave them to dry in the sun which bakes them as hard as iron—a cheap method of building houses.'

'Would you want to live in one, though?' he teased her.

She laughed, recognising the justice of his irony. 'No, I suppose not.'

'I don't suppose you ever even went into one!' he said with amusement.

Marie thought of the little house behind the bazaar, remembering the yellow candlelight which had illum­ined it for her, and a slight shiver ran down her spine. She did not reply. Her dreams had been haunted since that night. A dark face, eyes that mocked, hands that were hard and yet unbelievably gentle… his image remorselessly filled her mind whenever she let the bar­riers down. She might have said to her father, 'I did meet an Arab. An Arab called Khalid…' and the words would be threadbare, unable to convey a hundredth of the truth.

She looked around the muted luxury of the sitting-room, with its pale blue carpet, white walls, modern paintings, and deep, comfortable brocade-covered chairs. It was all a thousand miles away from the palm-fringed oasis and the firelight beside which she had experienced the most traumatic moment of her life. The two worlds could never meet. In a strange way, this world was the more unreal of the two.

She was still conscious of a feeling of being isolated, cut off from her old life, as though she had been away for many years instead of a mere fortnight. Everything looked strange.

'Mrs Abbot will look after you,' her father said ab­stractedly, glancing at his watch. 'I have an urgent meet­ing at three o'clock, so I must rush. I ordered lunch for you. You didn't eat on the plane, did you?'

'No,' she said. 'It was the usual salad and plastic ham. I suppose you haven't got time to have lunch with me?'

'Sorry. I'm lunching in the board room with MacIntyre and Hamley. We're in the middle of trouble.'

'Oh?' Marie glanced at him in concern. So his grey look and furrowed brow had not merely been the result of seeing her mother again? 'Is it serious?'

He gazed at her in silence for a moment, then shrug­ged. 'At this stage I can't say.'

'What's wrong? Not another strike?' A strike had crippled one of their electronics factories last year for six weeks, losing them millions of pounds in overseas orders.

He shook his head. 'No. A take-over bid.'

She was immediately intent, knowing how such a bid would worry and disturb him. Although he had origin­ally owned most of the shares in Brintons the rapid development of the past ten years had been fuelled by the sale of shares, and control of the firm had passed out of his hands financially, although he was still managing director and a major shareholder. 'Who's making the bid?'

'The Unex Group,' he told her.

She frowned. 'What do they do? I've only heard the name, I know nothing about them.'

He glanced at his watch again, hesitated, then said, 'They're a multi-national company, partly owned by Arabs.'

She started, staring at him. 'Arabs?' He nodded, not apparently noticing her expression. 'They have a finger in dozens of pies… electronics, food, oil, manufacturing… they actually own a number of English companies. They swallow firms whole, strip­ping the assets and trimming them down as they go. They're offering my shareholders a price which I doubt if I can match. That's why I must see Hamley for lunch today. I have to ask if the bank can back me if I try to fight this take-over.'

'Surely they will?' Marie was aghast at the idea of her father losing the company he had spent his life building up.

He shrugged, his eyes expressionless. 'We'll have to wait and see.'

'You don't sound very optimistic,' she said anxiously.

'I'm not,' he said, moving to the door. 'Don't worry, Marie. My personal fortune is not involved in this and I won't let you suffer.'

'Dad!' She was blazingly angry at that. 'I'm not my mother, remember! What do I care about the money? By all means use it if it will help you. I can always get a job if things go wrong.'

He smiled then, his face lightening. 'My dear girl, what do you think you could do?'

'I'll think of something,' she said lightly. 'I'm not altogether helpless, you know. I've had a good education and I'm not stupid. You never know, I might even get married one day!'

He laughed. 'I certainly hope so. I want to be a grand­father, you know. Look, I must rush, I dare not be late for that lunch appointment. I'll see you later tonight. Don't forget—your mother expects you at her hotel for dinner at seven thirty.'

'I'll be there,' Marie promised. 'And I'll be sympath­etic, I promise.'

He blew her a kiss and left, slamming the front door behind him in a way which was not at all like him. He usually closed doors gently with care. She sensed that under his quiet exterior her father was seriously dis­turbed.

She ate her lunch without noticing much of what she ate, and her father's housekeeper, Mrs Abbot, clucked disapprovingly over her half-eaten meal.

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