I stare at my sister, winded with the truth of her words. Sergei is now, irrevocably, linked to my love for Pakistan. If I cannot understand my enduring feeling of loss at no longer being part of a disordered world, how can I explain it to Dominique?
‘I’m not sure I can explain the feeling of instant familiarity with the people and the country. Even though it’s a very different culture and the cruelty and violence can be shocking, Pakistan changed me. Karachi felt like a sort of awakening. I slowly began to see and experience life in a different way. It jerked me out of my compliant life with a longing for more that I never suspected was there … It was an escape and a revelation …’
‘Go on,’ Dominique says. ‘I’m interested.’
‘Everything in Pakistan is heightened by danger. Each moment, event and friendship is precious and never taken for granted. The bonds you make are profound. In spite of all my problems with Mike, I felt immediately accepted and at home there. In Pakistan your friends become your family. I was cared for when Mike stopped caring. Your driver, your colleague, your friends will guard you fiercely … I will never forget how people took risks to keep Mike and me safe. They accepted and made us part of them. It is a warmth that never leaves you …’
Dominique is silent, watching me. Then, she says, ‘Oh darling, you never love by halves. Falling in love with a person or a country means you are temporarily infatuated, blind to all faults. Your new life was snatched from you before you became disillusioned …’ She smiles. ‘But, I am so glad something jerked you out of compliance.’
I turn away to look at the countryside racing by. I am back in that apartment where I watched the sun fall like a flaming stone night after night. Where the kites floated against the sky, huge, like shadowy messengers of doom. In a perverse way, as my marriage crawled slowly to its end, the hermit in me revelled in an exotic prison where I had absolute control of the order of my days. In my small world I had to face myself head on for the first time, and, despite being restricted, my world expanded and was enriched.
‘I am unsure how to reinvent myself,’ I tell Dominique, as the train shoots past green fields and a canal with a long painted barge.
‘You were married a long time. It’s still too soon, but you’ll find a way.’
I lean back and close my eyes as the train snakes towards the coast. ‘Come on, your turn. Tell me about that lovely new baby,’ I say.
‘Later.’ Dominique stands and reaches for my long dupatta from the luggage rack. ‘You’re tired. Curl up and try to sleep. I’ll watch over you.’
I grin. ‘Like Nana; like you used to.’
Dominique grins back. ‘You were a waif-like child. You are waif-like now.’
I lift the armrest and curl up facing the window. ‘Wake me when we run along the coast? I don’t want to miss it.’
I fall into a safe dreamlike doze and when I wake the sea is glittering on my left as the train rumbles along the coast at Teignmouth. I sit up and look out at the moored dinghies rocking gently in sunlight. Joggers flash by on the path as the train snakes along the coast. I have dreamt so long of going home with my sister.
She says, suddenly, ‘I’m so sorry, Gabby. If I could undo sending that letter to you, I would. I went a little insane for a while.’
‘Did something happen, Dom?’
Dominique hesitates. ‘I had a shock. A man came knocking at my door saying he was Aziz.’
‘Who?’
‘Aziz, the Moroccan student I had a baby with all those years ago, Gabby.’
‘Oh my God. How did he find you?’
‘I don’t know how he found me, but he stood on my doorstep with the son I hadn’t seen since he was three months old.’
I stare at her, horrified. ‘They wanted money?’
‘They wanted money. The boy, Hakim, also wanted me to help him obtain a work permit and give him a character reference so he could work in France. When I told him I had absolutely no power or influence to help him he put his foot in the door and began a screaming racist rant about white women …’
The scene is so horrible and vivid I don’t know what to say.
‘Matilde, my neighbour, was home and she called the police. Hakim and Aziz were taken away, Hakim still screaming at me. Aziz seemed scared of his son and I felt a bit sorry for him. The police told me later that Hakim was a violent petty criminal and on an extremist watch list. They were both deported back to Morocco. I guess they were desperate …’
‘Oh, Dom, why on earth didn’t you tell me all this before?’
‘They tipped me into a dark place, Gabby. Something inside me broke. All the hurt, all the pretending that nothing had happened. All the happy family stuff down the years disappeared in that moment I was called a white whore by a son I had never known or wanted. He was right to be angry, this bitter man, ashamed to be half white. What had life given him? He repelled me when he was born. He still repelled me. A little rat-faced baby come back to haunt me …’
My sister looks at me, her face bleak. ‘Suddenly, I could not bear it. I wanted you, my children, everyone, to know what it was like to be me; to have what happened buried deep inside me like a wound all my life …’
The train turns inland at the tableau of trees on the hill, a marker of home.
Dominique closes her eyes. ‘But, I will regret hurting you for the rest of my life. My letter must have arrived when you were already struggling with Mike.’
I finger the clinking bangles on her wrist. ‘You had every right to tell me.’
‘I went off to America determined to explain to Aimee and Cecile why I had been a feckless mother, and when I got there, all I could see was their success and the wonderful life they have carved for themselves. Both girls were happy and full of plans, beginning their own families. They have not been held back by me, they do not bear me a grudge, they are fine.’
‘Of course they are fine and they love you to bits.’
She looks out of the window. ‘Look, this is the bit when the train curves past the estuary and the sea pops up on the right and we know we are nearly home …’
She turns back to me. ‘I had such a happy time in New York with Aimee and Cecile. My tiny granddaughter burst into the world early, bringing joy and laughter. She changed everything in a second of a windy smile … it was love at first sight … It was the moment I knew I needed to let it all go for good. Happiness really is a choice, isn’t it?’
We both look out of the window as the estuary glints with afternoon sunlight. The nearly empty train approaches Penzance and we peer out at St Michael’s Mount. Ethereal, it rises out of a sea that glitters like shards of glass, the defining landmark of our childhood. A sharp longing leaps up in me for Papa, leaning against his truck, peering out for me.
Whatever Dominique and I say, whatever we do, wherever we go, as soon as we step off the train our feet will make little shoots that bury themselves into the Cornish earth and root along the surface like ivy. Home is not just a place; it is a memory of love.
CHAPTER SEVENTY
Cornwall, 2010
Our hire car is waiting at the station. I have rented a house in Marazion near the coastal path. We put our bags in the boot and walk into Penzance to pick up some food. In Causeway Head we stand outside the expensive clothes shop Maman loved, but we always thought old-fashioned. It has been modernized and has lovely things in the window.
Curious, we go inside and I flick idly through the rails. I want to buy Dominique something. The simple, silvery grey dress jumps out at me. It does not look much on the hanger but I know how it will look on Dominique with her new slim figure.
Dominique laughs. ‘It won’t fit. Gabby, I’m still too fat to get into a dress that size …’
The shop assistant looks incredulous. ‘The dress will fit you perfectly.’
‘Try it on,’ I say to Dominique. ‘Go on.’
‘Gabby, look at the price … I could make … Okay, okay, I’ll try.’
She goes into th
e tiny changing cubicle. I hear the dress rustle over her head, then there is silence.
‘Dom?’
Dominique opens the curtain and turns to face me. The dress fits every curve of my sister’s body. The shimmery, silver grey shows off the darkness of her skin and hair. I stare at my sister, as amazed by her beauty as I was as a child.
She stands, self-conscious, in a shaft of sunlight from the long window at the top of some stairs. I watch her dawning realization that she is still beautiful.
The shop assistant gazes at her. ‘You look like Angelina Jolie.’
Dominique laughs. ‘It’s the dress. It makes me look like … someone else.’
‘It’s not the dress, Dom. It’s you that makes the dress beautiful.’
Dominique turns back to her reflection in the mirror. ‘It’s very expensive …’ she murmurs.
I move close to her. ‘Dom, I want to buy you this dress to remind you of how far you have come and how much I love you.’
Tears come to Dominique’s eyes. She turns and hugs me. While her dress is being wrapped in layers of tissue, Dominique insists I buy a dress too. I choose another shade of grey, a dove-blue sleeveless wrap-over dress with a pink tinge that reminds me of the small Karachi pigeons that flew down to drink at the pool. It is plain enough for my wild hair and my increasingly androgynous body. Here we are, two sisters together again, in dresses of grey.
The next day Dominique and I leave the car in the car park under the trees and take the coastal path from Priest’s Cove to walk the two miles into the village. We want to glimpse our house from a distance.
We stop for a moment in the circular cobbled drive of the imposing gatehouse. It is a curved lodge with a beautiful façade and long windows. Ancient, twisted oak trees cast shade across the buildings. This cove has a strangely dark atmosphere despite the backdrop of glittering sea. As children, we were sometimes spooked by the feeling of violence and death that we imagined hung in the air.
Down among the rocks a huge cave burrows inland far beyond the reach of the sea. Smugglers kept their plundered goods dry there until it was safe to carry them up the treacherous cliff to the gatehouse. Local people with carts would wait in the dark ready to gallop away across the track, over the fields and away from the customs men.
‘Papa always had a different smuggling story, didn’t he?’ Dominique says.
‘Especially after a drink,’ I say and we both laugh as we move downwards towards sunlight.
The morning is hot. Even in wet Cornwall the fields lie parched and dry. We bought hats and walking sandals and we are wearing our new grey dresses, because we can. The sea is an aquamarine millpond beneath a cloudless sky, so clear we can see the Lizard in the distance.
Dominique says softly, ‘I had almost forgotten how beautiful this is. I’ve become a townie.’
We walk in single file along the edge of the cliff looking down on the tiny shingle coves where Maman and Papa brought us to picnic when the tourists had gone. We would dive into freezing water and then drape ourselves over the rocks like mermaids. Maman had a black bikini and a long striped towel. Papa would clamber away over to the point with his rods to fish.
Dominique stops and looks down. ‘So much has happened to us and yet it’s a time warp here. Nothing seems to have changed except some new gates and that little campsite up by the car park. It’s comforting but slightly disturbing.’
She is right. The old farm cottages are still exactly as shabby as they always were.
‘As if we might meet our childhood selves coming back the other way?’ I ask.
Dominique smiles. ‘Something like that.’
The coastal path dips steeply. Small stones make the ground slippery and we both concentrate on our feet, puffing slightly. I think of my younger self with a sharp pang. I flew along this path once with the sun on my back, feeling as light as air, only the sound of the waves crashing below me and the joy of my body moving light and fast. After months in a hotel room I am far from fit.
Dominique stops at the top of a sharp incline and catches her breath.
‘Do you remember, our little gang would run from Smugglers Cove without pausing for breath …’ She turns, laughing, flicking her thick grey-flecked hair back from her eyes and I catch a glimpse of the young girl she had once been, irreverent and fun.
We stop as we approach the castle on the hill. Below us lies Forbidden Beach. Dominique starts to search for the hidden tunnel. When we find it, it is dense with brambles and thick sharp sloe thorns and impossible to navigate.
On the other side of the cove the edge of the crumbling cliff has been fenced off and the path moved inland. We bend through the fence onto the grassy bank and clamber a little way down to the rocky outcrop looking down on Forbidden Beach.
This had been Dominique’s place. She came here when she was sad or wanted to be on her own. I always knew where to find her. She sits on her cardigan clasping her knees and looking down into the cove. She is very still and I wonder what she is thinking.
Overhead a buzzard hovers up in the blue, giving its little pi-pi call. Somewhere away in the fields a tractor is turning the earth. Below us the sea slaps in small, rhythmical, hypnotic waves. I am a child again waiting patiently for my sister to be herself again, to be happy and laugh and shrug off the shadows.
Dominique says, ‘Papa always looked out for me when we were children. It was Maman who seemed to have a problem with me as I grew older.’
‘She worried about you. You grew beautiful and a little wild. I know she could be hard on you, but I think it was fear. She did love you, Dom.’
‘I was not competition.’
It was not what I meant, but relevant. Dominique sighs. ‘I goaded her. I didn’t make it easy. I never quite knew what she wanted of me, Gabby.’
We are silent. Then, I ask, ‘When you came back to Cornwall with your babies you were never quite the same, but things seemed pretty normal between you and Maman and Papa. I would never have guessed the truth. How did you manage it? Did you pretend nothing had happened?’
Dominique takes a while to answer. ‘Yes. I had to pretend it never happened. When Yusuf left me with no money after I had had Cecile, Maman came to France. She scooped my babies up, she made order, she cooked; she made me rest. Aunt Laura tried her best, but she couldn’t cope with children …’
She stares down at the sea foaming over the rocks. ‘I was pathetically grateful, Gabby. I had two babies under two and I was exhausted. Maman couldn’t do enough for me. You know, she could never apologize for anything, but I think, looking after me was the nearest she could get to letting me know she was sorry …
‘Do you remember, I had terrible post-natal depression. Maman suggested I come back to Cornwall with her for a few weeks until I felt stronger. She said Papa would come and fetch us if I thought it was a good idea. She told me that they both wanted to support me and to be loving grandparents. She asked me if I thought it was possible to put the past behind us and never speak of it …’
Dominique searches my face anxiously. ‘Maman wanted to wipe away the truth and that is what I did, Gabby. I had never felt so close to her or needed her more than I did after Cecile’s birth.’
‘But … what about when you saw Papa again?’
‘Gabby, in those first few weeks I was hardly functioning. I was just a blur of depression and sleeplessness. A shutter came down, as if it had just been a bad dream and now I was home again. When I got better, emerged from the fug, Papa was there in the background, kind and gentle, just as he had always been, only a little broken, less sure. Of course there were awkward moments, but we all managed a lot of superficial chatter round the babies and after that first time I always stayed on the caravan site, so we were never on top of each other …’
My sister looks at me. ‘Gabby, I needed my parents, the girls needed grandparents.’
‘Dom,’ I tell her, fiercely. ‘You don’t need to explain or defend anything, it is because of you that I kept
the parents I loved.’
Dominique jumps up and smiles at me. ‘Come on, let’s go and look at the old house and kill ghosts.’
She holds out her hand and we clamber up the rocks back to the path.
I feel as if we are in disguise in our thin grey dresses, shadowing the children we were from a distance, as if we might trick ourselves into peace, or some sort of resolution.
CHAPTER SEVENTY-ONE
Cornwall, 2010
The church bell is chiming the hour as we leave the coastal path, duck under the tamarisk trees and come out on the track that leads into the village. It is such a familiar sound that I feel Dominique shiver.
The café looks nothing like it did in Maman’s day. It was not much more than a posh beach shack, popular for Maman’s cooking. Now, it has a proper little garden and kiosk that sells drinks and ice cream. Maman stopped running it years before she died and the café no longer holds memories of her.
We walk past the church and through the village, climb the hill and for one more moment, before we turn the corner past the old oak, the house is still ours, just as it was, just as it is in our heads, just as we left it.
Then Dominique and I are staring in wonder at the beautifully renovated cream-painted house. In the four years since Papa’s funeral, our old, peeling front door has been replaced by an expensive light grey door, with a brass knocker of a seahorse. There is a new window with coloured glass over the top. It must throw light into the hall that was always dark.
The kitchen had small windows facing the road, now it has a huge and beautiful picture window in seasoned wood. We move closer to look inside. Trees and fields are reflected back at us from another window on the garden side.
‘It is as if they have brought the orchard and fields inside the house,’ Dominique whispers as we stand peering straight into the house like two intruders.
We stand so long with our noses almost pressed to the glass that a tall, smiling man opens the front door and comes out. He looks amused. ‘Can I help you? Are you lost in admiration of my new windows or are you, perhaps, from the council to check that I have not broken any building regulations?’
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