I’m sitting in a lush Moroccan garden in the leafy ambassadorial suburbs of Rabat, cascades of frangipani falling over the razor wire at the top of the fence, behind electric doors and bullet proof shutters, and a hibiscus hedge that drips opulent blooms into the pool that trembles in the heat. Apart from a fountain whispering in the courtyard, nothing disturbs the silence but the kiss of my bare feet on the chilly marble tiles that stretch throughout the house like an ice field.
The maid is in the kitchen, hanging out the clothes in the walled women's quarters, the gardener is in some distant corner of the grounds with a hosepipe and three words of English, the guard who changes three times a day is in his sentry box at the front of the house, and the Ambassador is off, waving the flag on the front of his chauffeur driven BMW, doing something worthy, in a suitably stately fashion.
For the rest of the day, from breakfast until late afternoon when my friend the Ambassador returns and takes me out, I'm here alone with only the Booker short list for company, swinging indolently in a hammock, sipping lemonade.
It's like being in a fairly liberal harem, or rather it would be, had it not been for the eunuch, the other guest at the residence, who refuses to leave me alone.
Every time I turn he's behind me, watching me intently. If I move, he's there, his eyes staring at me like prey. If I go to my room, he needs no excuse to walk in univited, and when my friend comes home at 4pm and calls my name around the echoing marble halls, he comes too, as insistently present as a chaperone.
It's like being stalked.
'I'm sorry, but there's a catch,' my host had said as he drove me back from the airport.'I should have told you before but I didn't want to put you off.'
'What is it?' I asked, fearing his mother who is formidable and not my number one fan. Or then again, it could be his wife. As above, possibly, but since I haven't seen her in twenty years I can't be sure though it's a safe bet she's wondering why I couldn't have gone somewhere else to soothe my battered heart. I didn't even want to broach the anxiety that it might be his children whom I have never met, and who I'm sure are charming and delightful but hadn't been factored in to my plans to escape my own charming and delightful offspring.
'No, no, goodness, my children can't stand it here, and my wife's just gone back. She sends her regards by the way. `And mother's in Paris. She warned me to be careful when I told her you were coming,' he added darkly.
As I said, not my number one fan.
'So, what's the catch?'
'We have a dog at home. It's my daughter's actually, not mine. Definitely not mine, but I seem to be lumbered with it. Do you hate dogs?'
'Noooooo, I don't hate them,' I said, crossing my fingers. 'Is it a great big slobbering thing that's going to jump at me and bark?'
'No, not at all. It only barks a little, and it doesn't really jump. Much.'
'Well as long as it doesn't hump my leg.'
'Of course not,' he said, sounding shocked at the idea, in his aristocratic rich, round, Kenko coffee voice - all dark brown polished mahogany, and reassuring.
'Good, it'll be fine.' I replied, smiling benignly into the Casablanca suburbs...
And then a hundred kilometers down the highway, the armoured gates swung open and the car rolled down the drive, and there waiting for us like a rat on springs was Kiki - the Chihuahua from hell.
Two Malteser eyes on stalks gleamed as he leapt out of the shrubbery like a crazed coke fiend, jumping up and down as though on elastic, his little rodent paws scratching in the air as he yipped and yapped, and jumped and jumped, darting back and forth before unceremoniously scrabbling up the front of my skirt.
'He likes you,' said the Ambassador.
'Perhaps a bit too much,' I suggested as I backed down the path while the animal proceeded to lick my knees, my thighs and my calves, all under cover of my clothing.
'He'll settle down in a minute, Kiki, Kiki, behave yourself,' he said sternly, as the dog, large tufted ears pointed like old fashioned television antenna tuned to a distant channel, continued to lick, yip, pant, lick, bark, jump, lick, yip, pant, and I attempted to hold down enough clothing to maintain the minimum standards of decency in front of the chauffeur, trying to seat myself on a garden chair on the terrace, at which point the dog leapt on to my knee and transferred its attentions to my face with a serious case of dog breath.
'He doesn't take to everyone like this,' the Ambassador assured me.
I tried to look pleased.
He asked me if I had a headache.
Obviously pain and pleasure are close cousins.
I took a tumbler with a centimeter of brandy in it as my friend joined me with his own drink. Immediately the dog was between us, licking us in turn until it was placed on the ground where it proceeded to lick every one of my toes, individually. I tried to kick him away. Casually - as though I had a twitch on my foot but he was stuck to me like leg wax. His tongue was fly paper.
'Can I get you something to eat?' my friend said, rising and going inside to see what he could offer me since the maid had left for the day. 'Come into the kitchen and see what you would like.'
I rose to follow him and then stopped, unable to drag myself away.
'What's the matter, is everything all right?' he asked, coming back to help me.
But I still couldn't move.
The bloody dog was humping my leg.
Since then, I've managed to keep him at a safe distance but only if I make sure my feet are above the ground as much as possible. Hiding in the jaw of the hammock he can't reach me but whimpers underneath instead. At night he scratches at my bedroom door and cries to be let in, then has to be forceably dragged away or bribed with dog biscuits and locked in the Ambassador's bedroom. It's quite a sight to see a very senior diplomat (who was once the nerdy student who set fire to my kitchen making cheese fondue) in a monogrammed dressing gown dancing down a marble hallway slapping his thigh and snapping his fingers calling 'Kiki, Kiki' in a falsetto sing-song voice, trying to coax, usually in vain, a small manic chihuahau hanging by his bared teeth from my door handle.
I mean, it's not that it hasn't been on my list of things to do before I die to have a male beg to be let into my bedroom, but I didn't anticipate it having triangular ears and a tail.
And all this is played out to the background of the Ambassador, as a respectable married man being absolutely appalled that the maid, the gardener or the guard might think that there was anything going on between he and I since, rabid rat-faced dog and three staff apart, we are alone in the house. So an exclusion zone of at least three feet is maintained at all times, even in the pool, with much loud soliliquising in French and Arabic being made to seemingly empty rooms every time we inadvertently touch whilst, say - for instance - passing a tea cup, or watching television together - most of which, thanks to aforementioned rabid rat-face dog, are unnecessary since it is usually boinging up and down, panting, in the middle of us.
Until one night there was a thunderstorm and the lights went out and rabid rat face became hysterical walking on back legs, somersaulting, yipping, yapping, shivering, quaking rat face in my bed, into which it slipped while I was brushing my teeth, refusing to come out and leaping all over me like a freaked out mini gazelle.
It was like something out of the Hammer House of Dog Horror.
'Monsieur Ambassador, will please come and get your *ing stupid *ing dog,' I yelled down the thundercracking, lightening lit hall.
'It's not my dog, I keep telling you,' came his distant voice as, CRACK, flash, CRACK, yip, bark, whine, he eventually roused himself from his own dog-free quarters, and padded towards me from the other end of the house in, I noticed, matching monogrammed slippers (who, for *s sake stops to put slippers and a dressing gown when a woman calls out your name in the middle of a thunderstorm? This is how innocent victims in ripper films get their throats cut).
'Shh,' he hissed, 'you'll wake the servants,' and walked into my room to try and lift the offending, offensive animal that was, by now, making retching sounds of fear and welded to my arm (the legs were under the covers).
Then the downstairs door clicked.
The animal went silent for a second and began to howl in earnest.
My friend walked out on to the landing outside my bedroom and peered through the gloom into the hall down the curl of the staircase, just as the light snapped on and there stood the gardener.
There followed a long exchange in Fran-abic during which he attempted to explain that the dog was upset by the storm, while the animal fell suddenly and dutifully quiet, and tapped his little claws daintily, skipping out to stick his snout through the banister, wagging his tail as though he hadn't a care in the world.
'Well, that was embarrassing,' he said, returning with a face as red as his robe as Kiki skipped back to my bed and after a few circuits of the pillow, curled up peacefully beside me. and attempted to lick my face.
Yep, irresistible to dogs. That’s me.
Or at least sex-crazed Chihuahuas.
