I pull open one of the bags and show her a pair of diving fins.
‘You wanted the sea. I’m taking you to the sea.’
She shakes her head very slowly, but she can’t conceal the faintest of smiles.
‘You’re crazy,’ she says.
I press a hundred-dollar bill into the hand of the official, who mimics a machine gun as he warns me thoughtfully not to stray into Eritrean airspace. After a few minutes of pre-flight checks we’re airborne, heading north-east from the city and watching the Nile snake away under our port wing.
Jameela’s head is pressed against the passenger window in silent fascination. Over the intercom I hear her voice from time to time, pointing out the features of the landscape beneath us. Later I hear a strange sad music in my headset and realise she’s singing to herself.
Two thirds of the way, a range of black and waterless mountains looms out of the wilderness below. Beyond, we can make out a thin blue band on the horizon which I point out to Jameela, who bites her lip in anticipation. I make the aircraft swing from side to side in celebration and Jameela’s face bursts into a dazzling smile of delight. Then, just shy of three hours’ flight time, I talk to air traffic control at Port Sudan and begin our descent.
Above the coast I turn south and the lonely Red Sea port of Suakin passes under us. It’s an ancient place, abandoned by the Ottomans in the 1920s, now inhabited by a dwindling local population and crumbling steadily into the sea. A few minutes later I spot the airstrip and make a single low pass. There’s a solitary white jeep parked by a tin shed at the end of the runway, and beside it stands the driver, waving his arms slowly above his head. I think almost warmly of Halliday, who hasn’t had long to make the arrangements I’ve requested.
It’s a dusty landing. I taxi down to the shed, turn and cut the engine. There’s a blissful silence. The driver runs forward to help us with our bags, and we bundle into the jeep and head for Suakin. At the ramshackle port we transfer to the boat he’s found for us. It’s an ageing Zodiac with powerful twin outboards, and I don’t ask where it comes from. Nor does our driver ask where we’re going. Some black identification numbers on the prow suggest a military provenance, so perhaps he’s got a cousin in the army. He runs over the controls with me and points out the several large jerrycans of water aboard, as well as a box of fruit which he indicates was his personal idea. I reward him appropriately and arrange when we’ll meet. In the meantime he’ll return to the aircraft and guard it in our absence.
Not far away we see several fishermen selling fresh catches from their boats. One of them is hacking steaks off what looks like a small version of a tuna fish. He cuts two wedges of the dark flesh for us using a blackened machete, which he has to knock through the fish with a mallet. We stow it in the Zodiac with our things, I set the GPS to start acquiring, and the engines splutter into life.
We motor out of the channel and into the open sea, bouncing across the water under the sun. It’s burningly hot, and I’m grateful when Jameela, who’s been eyeing me throughout all this with a mixture of suspicion and admiration, takes off her scarf and ties it over my head. It’s the first time I’ve seen her without it. She runs her fingers through her long dark hair as if a portion of her spirit has been released with it, leaning into the wind like a dog from the window of a car, and she’s loving it as I hoped she would.
Fifteen minutes later the coastline behind us is a thin black line. But ahead, just where the GPS predicts, a dozen deserted islands have sprung out of the sea. Some are tiny and barren, others larger with thick bands of vegetation stretching along the bleach-white sand of their coastlines.
‘Choose your island,’ I say.
She points her slender arm to a small sandy cove a few hundred yards distant, flanked by rocky entrance spurs, between which stretches a dark green canopy of trees. We haul the Zodiac onto the beach and take the extra water and bags to the treeline, where I fuss over an improvised camp. There’s no sound but the ticking of the cooling engines. I look up to see Jameela running to the water and plunging in, fully clothed.
Then she races back to me and flings her arms around me.
‘Thank you,’ she says, ‘thank you.’ I hold her wet body against mine, savouring the scent of her skin for a few moments until she releases herself and rummages in her things to find her swimsuit.
She changes under a towel and I struggle not to show any reaction as she throws it aside. She wears a cream two-piece swimsuit which I’m guessing she bought in Paris and which makes her skin seem all the darker. I keep forgetting she grew up in Paris. The headscarf she wears in the city sends out a protective signal that cools the physicality of encounters between the sexes. Out here she’s not wearing it and the signal has evaporated, and the shock of closeness makes me faintly nervous. I see her body silhouetted as she turns towards the water and adjusts the strap of her top. Her legs are long and graceful and my eye rests guiltily on the flare of her hips beneath her slender waist, and I am filled with longing.
We walk to the beach with the fins and snorkels. For the next couple of hours, hardly aware of the time that is passing, we float on the water’s surface, gazing into the silent world in front of our masks. The water is spectacularly clear, and every fish we see is a strange and unexpected shape, and each one seems as bright and delicately coloured as a living rainbow. Then we walk along the sand together, picking at shells until she notices the redness of my shoulders and suggests we return to the shade above the shoreline.
I collect some wood from under the canopy of trees, and when I’m out of sight of Jameela take the satphone from its waterproof case and send our exact location to Seethrough via the GPS function on the keypad. He’ll relay it to the buffoonish Halliday at the embassy in Khartoum so at least he’ll know where to find us if, as I fantasise, I get stuck on the island with Jameela. Then I make a small fire, wait for it to burn down, wrap the fish we’ve bought in thick green leaves and put it into the embers. The white wine I’ve procured from the regional security officer who doubles as barman at the Pickwick Club is slightly warm but hits the spot, and in the heat it makes us pleasantly drunk. It’s the first time I’ve seen Jameela drink wine. She allows me to feed her slices of mango, and we let our faces get very messy.
She sees me look at my watch and asks when we have to leave. We need to fly before dark, I tell her. I can fly at night but I’d rather not.
She looks pensive. ‘Let’s stay,’ she says. ‘Here on the beach. Under the stars.’
I have, as it happens, considered this possibility, and brought two nylon hammocks with us for the purpose. She’s impressed, as I hoped she would be.
I tie them between the trees, side by side a few yards apart.
‘Separate beds. I must be old-fashioned,’ I say.
There’s a force of attraction between us that’s no longer a secret. It’s invaded my body and thoughts. I wonder how long we can preserve its innocence, which is a fragile thing that won’t survive if we both cross the line that we’re now drawing towards and from which it will be impossible to turn back. But we both know what intimacy is and the pain that comes with its dissolution, and perhaps it’s this that gives us the strength to approach the line more cautiously.
‘Thank you,’ she says, but then she doesn’t make things easier by drawing her body against mine and resting her head on my shoulder, so that I can look down the muscles of her long back towards the swell of her hips.
I build up the fire and we sit by it as the sun falls into the sea and the world turns to shadows. Jameela’s face gleams in the light of the flames and seems more beautiful to me than ever. When I add wood to the fire a shower of sparks rises and imprints itself among the stars overhead. They’re so bright, and there are so many more stars than are visible in England I can’t even make out the constellations I can see at home.