The Other Half of Augusta Hope

by Joanna Glen

  ‘There’s Pierre – he’s left Bujumbura for the north. I’ve got a bad feeling about what he’s doing. And then my brother, Claude.’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘He burnt to death. I think I could have stopped it. But I didn’t. I didn’t save any of them. Not one.’

  I got ready.

  My heart was beating.

  ‘My mother and my father were there at the beach, where I drew the X,’ I said. ‘With my sister. It was the tenth of August 2004, like it says on the newspaper page. We were here on holiday. They were having breakfast, and they didn’t help Zion. I am so so sorry, Parfait. Sorry beyond words. That we can’t rewind.’

  Parfait

  ‘I don’t think your family can have been there,’ I said to Augusta. ‘It was very early.’

  ‘They were there,’ she said, and she stared intently at me, and I said nothing. I was trying to take it in.

  ‘I’d understand if you didn’t want to know me any more,’ she said, and she tried to smile at me. ‘But I had to tell you.’

  Didn’t want to know her any more?

  ‘You weren’t there, were you, Augusta?’ I asked.

  ‘I didn’t go with them,’ she said. ‘I stayed behind.’

  We sat, staring at each other.

  ‘How old was he?’ she said.

  ‘Fourteen.’

  ‘Julia was fourteen too,’ she said. ‘And very obedient. My father told her to walk away. He said he didn’t want to get wrapped up in it. He was always saying that. It’s how he was. Afraid, I suppose. Or selfish.’

  What could I say to her?

  What should I think?

  I didn’t blame her, that’s what I thought, it would be ridiculous to blame her for what her family had or hadn’t done. Who knows what Pierre was doing these days? And, whatever it was, I couldn’t be blamed.

  ‘You once told me that some people’s eyes are better than others,’ she said.

  I still said nothing.

  ‘Julia changed from that day onwards. She was never really peaceful again, never truly happy, and when she lost her baby, she thought she was being punished for not saving your brother.’

  That’s when I saw it.

  She’d unwittingly got wrapped up in my story.

  This tragedy wasn’t only mine.

  ‘So she killed herself,’ said Augusta. ‘She was twenty-four.’

  ‘Because of Zion?’ I said. ‘Because of me?’

  ‘No, not because of you,’ she said, and her dark eyes stared at me from underneath her straight fringe.

  ‘Please say something,’ she said.

  But I couldn’t find any right words to say to her.

  So we sat in silence, until Augusta said, ‘I came here to La Higuera with Julia’s husband, with Diego, to try to recover …’

  Augusta

  Parfait said to me, ‘If I’d never come to Spain in the priest’s boat, Julia wouldn’t have died.’

  ‘No,’ I said. ‘No, don’t say that.’

  ‘I can’t bear to think that it was me who killed her,’ he said.

  ‘No, no,’ I said, ‘it wasn’t you. It was my father who killed your brother.’

  ‘Look at us,’ said Parfait, trying to smile, ‘arguing about who killed who.’

  ‘Who are we crying for, do you think?’ I said to him.

  ‘Let’s be crying for each other,’ he said. ‘Because I’m not sure our own tears can heal our own pain.’

  ‘Like, if you tickle yourself, you can’t laugh?’ I said.

  Parfait laughed.

  ‘I suppose that could be a good definition of love,’ I said. ‘Crying for another person – like their pain is yours. Because we do need a new definition. The dictionary one is absolutely pathetic – it says deep affection or fondness – and that’s it. Like the dictionary really doesn’t get it at all.’

  ‘Maybe it’s time to give up on the dictionary?’ said Parfait, smiling at me.

  ‘I’ve been relying on words my whole life,’ I said.

  ‘Perhaps it’s time to rely on something else,’ he said.

  ‘There’s another thing,’ I said, ‘which may be even harder to tell you because I made a bad mistake.’

  ‘What’s that?’ he said.

  ‘My mistake?’ I said.

  ‘No, look, at the road, Augusta. Look at that! It’s so beautiful.’

  ‘I know exactly what that is,’ I said, my cheeks burning with the shock of it.

  Right down at the end, beyond the coach, there was a car parking, and there was a trailer behind the car, and on the back of the trailer was a gypsy caravan in gleaming red and yellow, with big wooden spoked cream wheels and a tiny chimney pot.

  My heart was beating with the strangeness of.

  Well.

  Everything.

  ‘It’s my parents,’ I said, ‘and my next-door neighbours, Jim and Barbara. Jim always had dreams up his sleeve, from when I was a little girl. You remember I told you about Graham Cook – they’re his parents.’

  My two worlds were coming together – and it felt impossible.

  There was Jim Cook, with his checked shirt open to his smooth balloon-belly, and Barbara Cook, in her wrap-around Indian skirt. My mother got out and unfolded the wheelchair, and they shuffled my father into it.

  ‘You’re here!’ I said. ‘You must have brought this all the way by boat!’

  They all nodded, and my father, in his strange voice, said what I could just about work out was, ‘We came by ferry.’

  ‘Plymouth to Santander,’ said Barbara.

  ‘You came all the way down through Spain?’ I said.

  I knew the courage that my mother and father would have needed to do that.

  ‘We booked up hotels,’ said my mother, licking her finger and stooping to rub a mark from her white sandal. ‘We did it from our laptop. Booking dot com.’

  ‘Online!’ said my father in his strange slow voice. ‘For you.’

  At least I think he said for you.

  And looking back, it could only have been for me that they did it.

  ‘That’s amazing,’ I said. ‘I’m so sorry. I should introduce you. This is my friend, Parfait.’

  I wiped my face with my hand and hoped they couldn’t see we’d both been crying.

  Parfait stepped forward, and his dark hand reached out to shake my father’s small white hand.

  His good hand, as we called it.

  I wondered if it was a good hand.

  The hand that had stacked shirts and folded socks and put them in drawers.

  And slapped Julia in the face.

  And dragged her away from saving Zion.

  And walked her down the aisle with such pain in his eyes, such love.

  My father eyed Parfait’s black hand.

  ‘Is that par-fay?’ said my mother. ‘Like in cooking. The dessert you make with whipped cream and eggs?’

  Parfait smiled.

  I admired him for smiling at my mother and father.

  ‘He’s the pedlar man,’ I said.

  ‘That’s the poem,’ said Jim Cook. ‘That’s where you got the idea for the caravan. And we restored this for you, Augusta – your father and I did the outside. With that old book of yours open. We’ve put it on the bookshelf above the bed for you.’

  ‘Barbara and I did the inside,’ said my mother.

  ‘It’s a gift for you,’ said Barbara Cook. ‘With our love.’

  ‘It’s brought the crescent together,’ said Jim Cook. ‘We’ve all got to know each other, even the Hassans joined in. And we’ve found it …’

  ‘Comforting,’ said Barbara.

  My mother said, ‘His caravan has windows too, And a chimney of tin that the smoke comes through’ – that’s what the poem says. So that’s what Jim told us to follow. We had to have the wood-burner. It made it nice and cosy.’

  She hesitated, and took a breath.

  ‘Julia would have loved it too,’ she said.

  Her name hu
ng on the air.

  I smiled at my mother, and she smiled, and the warm cloak fell on me, it actually fell on me for a second, looking at her, then we felt awkward, looking into each other’s eyes, and we both looked away.

  ‘This poem’s so much nicer than your normal ones,’ said my mother.

  ‘You’re right,’ I said.

  ‘He has a wife with a baby brown, and they go riding from town to town,’ said my mother.

  I blushed because that still sounded racist to me.

  Also, I didn’t want to think about babies.

  I went and sat out at the front of the caravan, and I gestured for Parfait to sit next to me on the painted bench seat, as if we were setting off on a journey.

  I wanted to say something to him but I wasn’t exactly sure how it was going to come out.

  Jim Cook appeared as I started to open my mouth, and Parfait suggested that we wheel the caravan down from its trailer onto the sand, beside his coach.

  I climbed the wooden steps and went inside.

  Parfait followed me.

  ‘Might you be able to forgive my father?’ I said. ‘I’d understand if not.’

  Parfait’s phone rang.

  ‘You’re coming home!’ he said, walking down the steps of the caravan.

  Through the open door, I heard him say, ‘Are you bringing Wilfred?’

  Then I heard him say, ‘I can’t stand the thought of him being there all alone.’

  There was a wooden bed and slatted cupboards, and tin pans hanging from hooks, and there was a tiny wooden cuckoo clock, ticking loudly, with the little bird inside a carved arch, waiting to mark the hour, waiting to leap.

  I sat on the bed, and I thought how perfect everything could be.

  If only.

  I felt a terrible wave of guilt.

  No, I said aloud.

  I didn’t want to transmit a single negative thought from my brain down through the umbilical cord.

  Because it wasn’t fair.

  On.

  The.

  I didn’t yet dare think the word baby – I wasn’t ready.

  ‘Will you live in this caravan now?’ said Parfait, coming back inside. ‘It suits you.’

  And what I wanted to say was, ‘Will you live here too? And can we go travelling from town to town?’

  I moved my things out of Parfait’s coach into the caravan. I lay on my bed, staring at the mollycroft ceiling, not sleeping, rehearsing ways to tell Parfait without saying pregnant or baby or Diego – which was problematic.

  I got out of bed and went down the steps, wondering if perhaps he was outside.

  He wasn’t.

  I shone the light of my phone into the windows of his coach, accidentally on purpose (as Julia and I used to say). Maybe he’d come out when he saw the light.

  As I moved my phone around, the light caught the side of the gypsy caravan, and I saw that my father had painted the exact markings of the tiny butterflies’ wings.

  And a tear rolled down my cheek because my father loved me enough to paint the Adonis Blue, the ragged orange-black Comma, the luminous Green Hairstreak and the purple-eyed Peacock. He’d got them just right.

  I’d been wrong to think that beautiful things couldn’t come out of Willow Crescent.

  Do you hear me, Julia?

  And do you forgive me my judgement?

  I went back inside and lay on the bed.

  I felt the awful awe-ful awesome curve of my stomach.

  I was terrified about Parfait’s reaction.

  Especially now.

  He said that my father didn’t know what he was doing.

  But did I know what I was doing?

  When Diego and I lay down on the Moroccan bed?

  Parfait let himself out of his coach at around three in the morning, and we sat in the dark between the coach and the gypsy caravan.

  It wouldn’t be long until sunrise, and it was cold. I wanted him to come closer. But he didn’t.

  ‘Why wouldn’t you wear the orange dress last night, Augusta?’ he said.

  ‘There’s no easy way of saying this,’ I said. ‘I’ve been practising – and whichever words I use, it doesn’t sound any better.’

  He nodded.

  ‘It’s because I’m pregnant, Parfait. And I can’t do up the zip.’

  He took my hand.

  ‘I hope I’m crying for you,’ I said. ‘Because I should be. Like we said. But I don’t think I am.’

  ‘Who do you think you’re crying for?’ said Parfait.

  ‘Myself,’ I said. ‘In case you can’t forgive me.’

  ‘Say something,’ I said.

  ‘Say anything,’ I said.

  ‘What do you feel about it all now, Augusta?’ he said, very quietly.

  ‘I don’t know,’ I said.

  Parfait closed his eyes.

  ‘Say something,’ I said again.

  ‘Can you give me a bit of time?’ he said.

  ‘Time to do what?’

  ‘To think,’ he said. ‘To take it all in.’

  ‘Please tell me what you’re feeling,’ I said.

  ‘I’m not quite sure,’ said Parfait. ‘But are you OK, Augusta?’

  I nodded.

  ‘At least your parents are here,’ he said.

  ‘I won’t tell them,’ I said. ‘It’s strange but they don’t comfort me. They never have.’

  ‘Perhaps you could put the caravan in Raúl’s field,’ he said. ‘To be close to Raúl and Teo.’

  I nodded.

  ‘What can I do for you?’ he said.

  ‘I don’t know,’ I said. ‘What can I do for you?’

  ‘I’ll be fine,’ he said.

  ‘So will I,’ I said. ‘I don’t need looking after.’

  Our hands fell apart.

  I wished we hadn’t let our hands fall apart.

  He nodded towards my stomach.

  ‘Is this the one thing you would undo?’ he said. ‘If you could.’

  I shook my head.

  ‘Not this, it couldn’t possibly be this. That wouldn’t be …’

  ‘It isn’t?’ he said. ‘Oh, I’d thought that perhaps …’

  ‘I’d never undo …’

  ‘Don’t worry,’ he said. ‘You don’t have to explain. I mean, it’s nothing to do with me.’

  Nothing to do with you? Is that true?

  ‘I’ll see you in a little bit then, Augusta,’ he said. ‘I need to get my thoughts straight. I’m sure you do too. If that’s OK. If there’s nothing else I can do. Also, Víctor’s coming back to Spain. And that means Wilfred will be totally alone. And everything feels …’

  He stopped.

  He couldn’t find a word for what everything felt.

  And who could blame him?

  He took my hand, and I think he was about to let it go, but he changed his mind and he kissed the back of it, and he looked inside my eyes, and his eyes weren’t sparkling, like they always were – they were full of pain.

  ‘I think you’ve put on a bit of weight,’ my mother said, standing back and looking me up and down, when she arrived after breakfast.

  ‘It must be all the paella!’ I laughed, pulling my scarf over me.

  ‘And where’s your friend, Parfait?’

  ‘Oh, he’s like the pedlar man. He’s always on the move,’ I said in the most cheerful voice I could manage. ‘Thank you so much, all of you. I’m not sure I thanked you enough yesterday. The caravan is beautiful – and I’m so touched.’

  ‘Our pleasure,’ said Barbara Cook. ‘I’ll never forget how kind you were to Graham.’

  ‘Me neither,’ said Jim Cook.

  ‘I loved Graham,’ I said.

  Then we all stared at each other, and nobody spoke.

  ‘I really did,’ I said. ‘He was the purest person I’ve ever met because he couldn’t make himself lovable to make us love him.’

  Nobody spoke.

  ‘The beds were rather hard,’ said my mother. ‘At the hotel.’r />
  ‘But the view was lovely,’ said Barbara.

  ‘I told Barbara he wasn’t your boyfriend. I said you’d never have a coloured boyfriend.’

  ‘Black, Mum. We say black.’

  ‘I thought that was rude.’

  ‘No, it’s factual.’

  ‘Well, not really black, he’s more brown, to be honest.’

  ‘Yes, and you’re more pink, Mum, but we call you white.’

  ‘Anyway, I’m pleased he’s not your boyfriend,’ said my mother. ‘Though he did seem very nice.’

  ‘He’s from Burundi,’ I said.

  ‘Oh, that’s that country you were always going on about.’

  Jim and Barbara took me out to lunch with my parents at Restaurante Raúl.

  My father sat in his wheelchair at the head of the table.

  Jim sat the other end.

  There were four chairs left.

  Barbara, my mother and I sat down, leaving one empty.

  Raúl came and took the chair away.

  We all pretended not to notice.

  ‘Why don’t you try the chanquete fish?’ I said to my father.

  And he popped one in his mouth, tail and eyes, the whole thing.

  He winked at me.

  ‘Baby squid?’ I said.

  ‘Oh go on!’ he said.

  And down it went, tentacles and all.

  My eyes filled with tears, but I don’t think they showed.

  Raúl wouldn’t let them pay.

  It was time for my parents and the Cooks to start the long drive back to Santander.

  My mother rushed forward and kissed my cheek.

  My father held out his good hand and I squeezed it.

  Jim and Barbara hugged me.

  And their car with the empty trailer turned up towards the main road.

  Raúl and Teo’s donkey pulled my caravan to the back of their field, needing quite a lot of encouragement.

  When I went for a walk, I could see Parfait’s coach, still parked behind the dunes, but I didn’t feel I should call by.

  He’d said he wanted to think.

  So I should let him think.

  How long would this type of thinking need, I wondered.

  I found it quite unbearable being without him.

  And that made me feel weak.

  And feeling weak made me feel furious.

  I kept walking down the beach road, hoping to bump into him, staring up at the coach, longing for him to come and find me. I sat at the edge of the sea, hurling pebbles at the rocks, and when I walked back, his coach was gone.