Back in 2007, living together out of wedlock had not yet been decriminalized, but if you didn’t get caught having sex in public or fell pregnant without a marriage certificate, the authorities usually turned a blind eye. Unless something went terribly, badly, horribly wrong.
Stuart and I had been together for a few happy months — including celebrating his 38th birthday together — when a group of 10 of us went on a weekend away to the emirate of Fujairah, a couple of hours’ drive from Dubai. We all hit the road at the end of the working week, driving through rugged mountains to Fujairah’s beautiful beaches. Stuart’s ridiculously unreliable Range Rover had broken down again, so we took my big, dumb SUV. Soon, everyone had gathered at our Fujairah hotel’s beach bar for plenty of beer and laughs.
The next day, we gathered to watch bloodless bullfighting, a Fujairah tradition where local men bring prize bulls to literally lock horns and try to push each other out of a roped-off ring. Much like the UAE’s alcohol and sex laws, I’m pretty sure the Fujairah authorities turned a blind eye to illegal gambling at the bullfight. The vibe was relaxed, and this carried on through the weekend as we all swam, ate, drank, and enjoyed the hot August sun cooled by the Indian Ocean.
On our last day, everyone was happily hungover on the beach, sipping soft drinks and delaying driving back to Dubai. But Stuart was determined to go for a swim. The day before, he swam 300 feet from the beach to Snoopy Island, a big, rocky lump that looked like the cartoon dog lying on his back.
“I really enjoyed that swim,” he told me, saying he wanted to get fitter, quit smoking, and exercise more. His pale English skin was pink from sunburn, so I plastered him with sunscreen before he set off for Snoopy Island.
“Don’t you get sunburnt!” I called out to him as he started swimming, but sunburn was the least of his worries.
As we lolled about on our towels, an ambulance parked on the beach, and lifeguards started swimming furiously to Snoopy Island. I alerted my friend Gary, and he said, “Whatever has happened out there, I bet Stuart’s helping out.”
And he would have pitched in if he wasn’t the emergency. Someone yelled, “They’re bringing the dead body back in!” Like a ghoul, I jumped up to take a look. The lifeguards were bringing someone back to shore. As soon as I saw the size 12 feet, I knew it was Stuart. I felt like my eyes were being pulled along the length of his body as I recognized his shorts, his sunburnt torso, and his face. He looked like he was sleeping, except for a big, bloodied gash on the back of his head.
“Oh my God! That’s my boyfriend!” I screamed, collapsing on the sand in tears. The remaining nine of us ended up in the police station, along with the hotel manager, who said I was sharing a room with Lara, one of my female friends. He’d given me and Stuart the key to our room, but he didn’t want to get into trouble for enabling sinful expats to sleep together.
We were all asked to show our passports. A police officer checked them and handed everyone’s passport back, apart from mine. I started shouting that it was the property of the Australian government. Then I was given a document in Arabic to sign. If I had more presence of mind, I would have insisted on a translation, but I just wanted to get out of there.
“Now, can I get my passport back?” I asked as I signed the document. The police officer laughed and refused. I became hysterical, but Lara put an arm around me and said we’d deal with it in the morning.
The passport was not returned the next day, and Lara drove me back to Dubai. Stuart’s best friend John found a company to take care of the administration to get his body home to the UK for the funeral. We met a calm man called Vivian, who patiently explained that I’d have to go back to Fujairah for my passport.
John, Vivian, and I spent a day in Fujairah being sent between the hospital, the police station, and the courthouse, but still, nobody handed my passport back to me. Then, I was summoned to the courthouse at 9 a.m. the next day. John, Vivian, and I got there on time, but we were told the judge hadn’t arrived yet. Vivian left his phone number, and we went to a nearby hotel for a coffee. After many more coffees, the phone rang at midday. The judge had finally come to work.
Vivian and I were ushered past small prison cells with forlorn-looking men inside and met the judge’s secretary. There was a table laden with coffee and dates, but we weren’t offered any. The secretary refused to shake my hand, even though we were both women, so it would not have been inappropriate. She pointed to a door and said, “In there, please.”
I sat on a plastic folding chair in the middle of the room in front of the judge, an enormous man. There were autopsy diagrams and photos of Stuart’s dead body all over his desk. On one side of the desk sat a man taking notes, while on the other side sat the interpreter, a young man with a perma-grin and braces on his teeth. The judge didn’t speak English, so I conversed via the interpreter for two distressing hours.
“Did you see him die?” was the very first question, followed by “How do you think he died?” and “Do you think there is any other way he could have died?”
A man who witnessed the accident told me that Stuart had fainted on Snoopy Island. When he got his son to raise the alarm, a big wave rolled in, knocking a delirious Stuart off the rock. He fell about five feet, landing headfirst on more rocks, killing him instantly. I repeated this to the judge, adding that I didn’t think his death was a murder or a suicide. After half an hour, we all agreed it was a tragic accident.
Then, the questions came in thick and fast about my sex life, my religious beliefs, and my alcohol consumption. Given that I didn’t see any computers in the courthouse, I figured they wouldn’t have the forensic technology to check DNA on the hotel bed sheets, so I lied. If they thought I’d had sex out of wedlock, I could potentially go to prison for six years.
After two hours, I’d convinced the judge I was a 31-year-old virgin teetotaller, a devout Christian rather than a lapsed Episcopalian. At one point, I even invented our engagement when asked if Stuart and I planned to get married. Finally, the judge agreed that I was free to go. I had just perjured my way through an adultery trial. Under Fujairah’s interpretation of Sharia law, any sex that happens outside marriage is considered adulterous.
When I asked the grinning interpreter for my passport, he said, “Do you really need it?” I informed him I had a flight to the UK booked for the following week for Stuart’s funeral, and he begrudgingly handed it back to me. I still hate handing my passport over.
The whole experience still seems surreal, even after all this time. And it’s distressing that I don’t have any good photos of us together. There were a few lurking in the depths of Facebook from his 38th birthday celebrations, but they were on the page of a friend who has since left the platform. And Stuart himself was a militant Facebook refusenik.
Of course, there was a period of paralyzing grief, of crying in the shower every morning and using red wine and black humor as coping mechanisms. But not long after Stuart died, I left Dubai and moved an hour up the road to Abu Dhabi, the UAE capital. Here, I met my British husband at the newspaper office where we worked. I even told him this whole saga on our first date. The fact that he didn’t run a mile was a good sign that he was a keeper.
