Chapter 2

I kept an eye on what was going on in the world, but only now and then. I was interested, but it wasn’t a priority. I felt like I had seen enough of the world for a while.

Then one day I was at the shop, buying a litre of milk, when I saw on the TV a breathless account of violence in Saudi Arabia. That was nothing too shocking, as that sort of thing had been going on for a while, especially since the invasion of Iraq. But this time the reporter was hinting that the number of people involved in the fighting was very much larger than previously and he seemed to think that the Saudi Armed Forces were unable or unwilling to quell it.

It called to mind something I had once read that had suggested that Saudi Arabia would become more and more strategically important to the western world, with a quarter of the world’s reserves of oil and a largely pro-western ruling family.

Over the next few days or so it became apparent that things were only getting worse. It was reported that King Fahd of Saudi Arabia, who had been hospitalised several times since his stroke in 1995, had finally expired, and that this had exposed divisions within the Saud family. This had happened a week or so ago, but this was the first I had heard of it. The succession was complicated by the size of the family and it was reported that the brothers of Crown Prince Abdullah, who had been ruling in his brother Fahd’s stead, had secretly been plotting and organising factions of the religious police and the security forces. On their brother’s death a grab for power had ensued among the elder Sauds, which had brought tribal enmity to the surface. Several bombs were set off in the capital Rhiyadh. The populace was exhorted by extremists to overthrow the corrupt ruling family.

Westerners working in Saudi Arabia all left pretty well instantly. A number were, however, killed by opportunist militants. The shocked commentary on this was painfully memorable. The US was not going to sit idle and watch this happen. The President spoke in moralising tones of the dangers to freedom from terrorists and criminals. It rang incredibly hollow because it was quickly becoming clear that this was not simply the work of a small group of fanatics. Reports talked of tribal battles in towns and deserts, gun battles in the streets and of looting. Whatever had previously held this society together had finally snapped. The news carried reports that US special forces were already in eastern Saudi Arabia.

By the end of that week I was starting to feel nervous. I felt the same way after the September 11^th attacks. It was as if you were seeing history change like the earth does in an earthquake. Years of tension had been released and had irrevocably changed the landscape. It was both terrifying and fascinating. I silently told myself that Saudi Arabia was a long way away and that violence in the Middle East was nothing new. I slept uneasily for several nights.

Then it really got bad. About a week after the crisis had started the evening news showed footage of an enormous column of smoke rising above the desert. Amidst all the confusion, a group (the news speculated that Bin Laden and Al Qaeda were behind it, but there was nothing definite) had launched a strike on the oil production infrastructure. A refinery had been bombed, very successfully by the looks, and pipelines had been blown up in several places. The tankers at the ports in the Persian Gulf and the Red Sea left in a hurry, some half empty, some completely unfilled.

The Prime Minister was on TV pretty soon after this came to light, speaking in a direct manner, barely disguising the fact that there was very little we could do. We would have to wait and see what was going to happen. The populace was urged to begin voluntary petrol conservation measures and assured that the government was formulating contingency plans.

Oil prices, which had already been rising, reached nearly $80 dollars that day. As one business commentator put it, the oil market was responding to scarcity by removing demand through the mechanism of price. He seemed to think this would lead the price to stabilise at some value. This seemed doubtful, as panic had obviously taken hold.

The Castlepoint shop, already the focal point for the tiny community, was suddenly like a town hall. Every evening I saw people in there that I had never even seen before, talking and intently watching the TV. I talked to Susan. She was worried. Some of the big trucking companies had already said that they would have to raise their prices in lockstep with the cost of fuel. This would mean that she had no choice but to charge more. It was bad enough as it was, being a hundred odd kilometres from the nearest town, she said.

That night I went home after talking to Susan and lay in my caravan, unable to sleep. It felt like I could hear the earth humming. My mouth was dry, my head aching. As the first light started to brighten the eastern sky I got up, dressed and walked to the shop. I found Susan having a cigarette at the picnic table outside. She saw me and went to get up.

“That’s cool, I don’t need anything. Just couldn’t sleep.”

She looked at me out of heavy eyes.

“Me either. Geoff - my husband - left early this morning to go and see the Shell rep in Masterton. We hadn’t heard from them about deliveries and we couldn’t get him on the phone.” She gave me a baleful look. “That’s half of our business is the bowsers.” She pointed at the two pumps in front of the shop.

“People will still need petrol, no matter what the price.” I said, thinking how unfortunate it was for everyone that they did need it so badly. Susan seemed to look into my eyes to discern the truth of this statement. She looked away and dragged on her cigarette before stubbing it out in the old forty-gallon drum beside the shop.

“Well I’d better open up. They’ll be along with the papers soon.”

As she started unlocking I wandered across the deserted road and down onto the beach. It was a fine day and the promise of spring hung over the vast ocean. I thought of Susan’s husband in Masterton. I wondered what sort of conversation he was having with the Shell rep. Would he come away reassured? I marvelled for a second just how quickly people’s set idea of the world could be overturned. Most people wouldn’t have given Saudi Arabia, or for that matter oil, much thought until recently.

I had been only a toddler in the seventies, but I could remember people, my grandfather in particular, talking years later about “being held to ransom by those Arabs.” He had converted his car to CNG. But everyone forgets so quickly. Nobody reminisced about car-less days when I was growing up. I’m sure it would seem inconceivable to most of my generation that the government would force us to stop driving our cars. And yet there it was. It had happened before and it looked like it might happen again.

I walked up from the beach. In the door of the shop one of the locals I hadn’t met before was talking to Susan. I heard her say:

“They’re usually here by now. They drop them off at Dave’s first and then…”

I kept walking and went back to my caravan. As I walked up the drive, past Jeanette’s house, I saw her in the garden. She was digging over a bed that had previously been left fallow, covered in dandelions, dock and kikuyu. She had her back to me and didn’t see me until I approached the caravan.

“Planting time, is it?”

“I may as well put some more onions in here. You can never have enough onions.”

She gave me a wan smile. I wondered whether she had heard the latest news. She had a TV but didn’t watch it often. She listened to the radio more often. In any case, she would probably have seen some of the footage when she was in the shop.

I left her to her digging, went in to the house and had a shower. Back in the caravan I dried myself and dressed. I started to wonder what I should do. I felt that there was no pressing problem with being in Castlepoint. I didn’t own a car, so restrictions on driving would not affect me personally, but after my chat with Susan I realised that it may grow more difficult to get hold of the necessaries in such an isolated spot. I had had reasonable success with my rod and reel and I still had my savings. But money wasn’t really a big concern. I had come out here for a rest cure, to get my head straight. There was no need to do anything rash.

I put on my old shoes that I wore fishing, and a hat, and stepped out of the caravan.

“Have you got another spade?”

“In the shed there…but you don’t need to…”

“No, It would be my pleasure. I haven’t worked in the garden for years.”

Jeanette smiled. I retrieved the old wooden handled spade and we both bent to the work, slowly warming up in the fresh morning.