SILK WICKEDNESS 10

‘OK, OK, don’t blow a gasket. If you pop in in the next day or two. I’ll dig out my chequebook.'

‘Pop m? Ryan, there’s this thing called the Post Office. You stick things in envelopes and put them in letterboxes. They’re the big red things in the street, with large openings about the size of your mouth.*

It was dark when they landed at Seeb International Airport, but even so the heat felt like a warm blanket.

Instantly Claudia felt that tingle that comes from first setting foot in the unknown. Everything not only looked different, it smelt and sounded different. The signs were in Arabic and English. Arabic was being spoken all around her. It felt odd to hear a language of which she understood absolutely nothing. Even in Greece she understood bits and pieces.

The policewomen in the airport wore ankle-length skirts; the policemen wore guns.

If they weren’t in uniform, the other local men wore long white robes with little caps on their heads, or turban- style head-dresses.

The airport wa