thereafter, it ran amok and threatened to destroy everything. And if you’ve ever seen a camel going wild among a lot of tents you’ll know that that means everything, but everything!’
‘We’ve got past the tent stage now, Barclay,’ said someone superciliously.
‘Yes, but we haven’t done away with the Camel of Destruction,’ said Barclay. ‘Oh no, my goodness we haven’t. Just look around you! Beautiful buildings being pulled down, monsters being put up.’
‘I’d assumed that was all your doing, Barclay,’ said the supercilious one. ‘You’re responsible for planning, aren’t you?’
‘I may be responsible,’ said Barclay, ‘but there’s nothing I can do about it.’
‘In Cairo,’ said someone else, ‘money is the only thing that talks.’
‘Well, of course, it’s a complete racket,’ said Barclay.
‘They have to submit plans but then if we turn them down, they can proceed all the same. There’s nothing we can do.’
‘Don’t you have to give planning permission?’
‘No. Take the Hotel Vista, for instance. You’ve seen that big block on the corner of the Sharia El Mustaquat? They sent us the plans. Anyone with half an eye could see they wouldn’t do. The foundations were unstable, the retaining walls – well! We condemned it on grounds of public safety. The next thing we heard, it was going straight ahead.’
There was a general shaking of heads.
‘Mud for mortar. No wonder they come down as fast as they go up!’
‘And there are still plenty going up!’
‘Not as many as there were.’
In the boom of recent years a frenzy of building had overtaken the city. Rows of houses were pulled down; great blocks were run up. And then, when they were only half way up, and neither up nor down, the money had run out. With the general tightening of credit, projects were abandoned all over Cairo, leaving the city looking like one huge derelict building site.
‘There are a few still going ahead,’ said Barclay. ‘One or two of the bigger projects where they’ve borrowed a lot of money and the banks are pressing them and unless they get something back quick they’re sunk.’
‘Anyone buying up land for the next round yet?’ asked Owen. ‘When it all starts up again?’
‘No need to do that,’ said Barclay. ‘There’s land a-plenty. Why do you ask?’
‘Just wondering,’ said Owen.
Later in the evening he found himself standing next to Barclay at the bar.
‘Heard anything about any development in the Derb Aiah area?’ he asked.
‘No,’ said Barclay, ‘and I wouldn’t want to. It’s a nice old part – do you know it? Lots of nice old houses. Rabas, not Mameluke – it’s not rich enough for that. Really old, sixteenth–century, I would say, some of them. Some fine public buildings, too, only they’re very small and tucked away among the houses so it’s easy to miss them. A mediæval hospital, tiny, but, well, I’d say unique. Take you over there, if you like, and show you.’
‘I’d like that,’ said Owen. ‘Next week perhaps?’
‘Friday? Fine! It’d be a pleasure.’
Passing Barclay’s table later in the evening, he caught Barclay looking up at him meditatively.
‘I say, old chap, you’ve got me worried. There isn’t anything going on in the Derb Aiah area, is there? I’d hate that part to be spoiled.’
‘I’m not sure.’
‘The only thing I can think of,’ said Barclay, ‘is that someone might be being very smart and thinking a long way ahead.’
‘What might they be thinking?’
‘They might be thinking about the new road there’s talk of on the east side of the city.’
‘What new road is this?’
‘It’s no more than a gleam in the eye, really. But it’s the Khedive’s eye.’
‘There are lots of gleams in his eye,’ said Owen dismissively.
The Khedive’s ambition to emulate the great predecessors who had done so much to modernize Egypt was well known.
‘But the money always runs out. Yes, I know,’ said Barclay.
‘It’ll never happen,’ said Owen confidently.
‘Perhaps someone thinks that this time it will.’
‘Yes, but even if it does … I mean, that would be over on the east side of the city, or so you said. It wouldn’t affect the Derb Aiah.’
‘It might. That’s why I said it might be someone who was looking ahead. They might be thinking that the next road after that would be one thrown across the north of the city to join the Clot Bey. Right through the Derb Aiah.’
‘But that – that’s so speculative!’
‘That’s how speculators make their money. By speculating.’
‘It’s– It’s–’
‘It’s unlikely. Yes, I know. It’ll probably never happen. But you did ask.’
‘Yes, I did. And thanks for telling me. Though I don’t think, in fact–’
‘I hope I’m wrong. Let’s drink to me being wrong. I wouldn’t want to see the Derb Aiah turned into a building site.’
‘Cheers!’
A thought struck him as he put down his glass.
‘That other road, the one on the east side of the city: what line would it take?’
‘It would drop south from the Bab-el-Futuh and come out in the Rumeleh, roughly at the Bab-el-Azab.’
‘But that would go straight through the Old City!’
‘Yes.’
‘It would cause a riot!’
Barclay looked into his beer.
‘Ah yes, I dare say. But that would be something for you, old boy, wouldn’t it?’
‘It’s all right,’ said Paul soothingly.‘It will never happen. The money won’t be there. It never has been, it never will be, and it certainly isn’t there at the moment. And, talking of money–’ he glanced at his watch– ‘I’ve got to go to another of these blessed meetings. You wouldn’t like to come along, would you?’
‘No,’ said Owen.
‘You could sit at the back. It would be good preparation.’
‘Preparation? What for?’
‘Sitting at the front. That’s the first item on the agenda for today, you see.’
‘The Mamur Zapt? About time too!’ said Abdul Aziz Filmi.
The meeting was being held at the Consulate–General, an indication of its importance, as were the people present. Apart from Abdul Aziz, who was the sole representative of the Opposition, there were half a dozen prominent politicians. Owen realized later that they were the senior mentors of the Assembly’s Finance Committee.
There was the Minister there, his Adviser, British, so it must be important, the Governor of the Bank of Egypt, British, one or two foreign bankers and Paul, representing the Consul-General.
‘I don’t agree with you,’ said the Minister sharply. ‘And isn’t it anticipating the agenda? I thought we were going to discuss this.’
‘Captain