A Diamond in the Desert: Behind the Scenes in Abu Dhabi, the World's Richest City by Tatchell Jo

Author:Tatchell, Jo [Tatchell, Jo]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
Publisher: Perseus Books Group
Published: 2010-10-04T16:00:00+00:00

I began adulthood with Elizabeth. I had left university and, in my first job, was on the lookout for friends. We were new together, steering each other through the haut monde of a wealthy élite who subsidised the rest of us. Theirs was a strange nocturnal life. Elizabeth, I discovered early on, had her ear close to the ground: in just a few weeks she had manoeuvred herself to the centre of a royal scene, taking me with her.

My days were spent working in the Marina Club, poring over membership lists, trying to convince extended family members to join when a cousin or an uncle had been accepted. The Marina was a kind of Cheers for its members; not quite trendy or ostentatious enough for the young crowd, it was held in real affection by regulars, one of whom, Rashid, would totter up the marble corridor to the bar with his precious falcon on his arm. The Swedish fitness instructor, Marita, would often be called to hold the bird while he played pool. Once he brought with him a tiny gazelle. Marita had told him it couldn’t stay, but he seemed so anguished at leaving it outside that she relented. The next day he had invited her to a barbecue: ‘You must come. We’re roasting the gazelle. He will be delicious.’

By night I glimpsed a world of people who lived without restrictions. The local teen-élite had been born beyond police or state control, immunity ensured by their extreme wealth, and answering to no one. It was a struggle to understand them: their sense of time and of what life meant were utterly distorted. There was no work ethic or driving ambition. Neither was God in the frame. I couldn’t keep up, but for a while Elizabeth and I were in the midst of it, as free as the company we kept allowed us to be.

I wonder if she ever thinks about that party, one of the first nights we ever went out together, or of the morning afterwards when she reeled out of the car, so troubled by the film we had seen that she vomited on the sand.

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