by Helen Harris
Jeremy frowned. “Please,” he repeated. “Take my advice and stay well out of it. Everything is terribly, terribly delicate at the moment. I’m doing everything I can, believe me. I just need you to steer clear.”
Sylvia bit her tongue. Jeremy was doing his best, was he? Well, that was hardly reassuring. She gave him a hard stare which she hoped made perfectly clear that she had no faith in his best and she went back into the living room and told Anand, maybe slightly too bossily, to tidy his things before he went home.
After Jeremy and Anand had left, she sat down with her new laptop and did some more research. Her computer classes at the library had been a godsend; now she could work on her plan in the comfort of her armchair and in complete secrecy too. She had so much to get ready.
A fortnight later, she saw Anand again. He was full of his new school – Sylvia had bought him his first satchel – and he seemed already to have forgotten all about America. He told Sylvia about his new teacher, Miss Mackerel, and his new friends Baz and Sky (was that possible?) He didn’t seem to have done much reading or writing or sums yet but he had learnt a rousing song about a yellow bird high up in a banana tree which he sang lustily for her from beginning to end.
It was only when Sylvia asked him casually whether there had been any word from his mother’s friends in America that his face fell and he told her sadly that he and his mother were going back to America again for Thanksgiving.
Sylvia blurted out, “When is Thanksgiving?”
Anand didn’t know but he knew it was not long to go. Panic-stricken, Sylvia hurried into the kitchen and looked it up on her calendar; late November. Unsteadily, she came back into the living room and looked at Anand playing on the floor. Thanksgiving was less than two months away. It was a hugely important festival for Americans, she knew that; the sort of occasion on which life-changing decisions might be made public, engagements announced. With mounting horror, Sylvia realised that the crisis was upon her; much sooner than she had anticipated, the moment had arrived when she was going to have to put her highly problematic plan into action. She felt sick. She had imagined comfortably that she had at least until Christmas before she would have to do anything irrevocable. Yet here they were, at the end of September and the moment was now. She felt light-headed and she began to perspire. But she looked fixedly at her grandson and imagined an empty space where he was playing. After that, everything came relatively easily.
Gripping the sides of her armchair with sweating hands, she asked Anand in a bright conversational voice, “Tell me dear, do you have your own passport? Or do you travel on Mummy’s?”
Anand answered proudly, “I got my own new passport for going to Florida. Mummy carries it but I give it to the passport man myself.”
“Lovely,” Sylvia said faintly. “And does it have a nice picture of you inside? Have you got any stamps in it?”
“Yes,” Anand said eagerly, “a big American one shaped like an egg in blue and red ink with writing in the middle.”
“Ooh,” Sylvia said, “I’d love to see your passport.” Now she knew she was blushing. “Do you know where it’s kept? Do you think you might be able to bring it over here one time to show me?”
Anand nodded. A few moments later, he asked, “Have you got one of Grandma’s special surprises for tea today?”
Sylvia said that yes, fortunately she had and, together, they went into the kitchen to get the surprise out. She thought it best not to say anything more about the passport for now. Already, she was consumed with guilt at what she was about to do; beginning with manipulation and deceit, she was going on to lies, outright dishonesty and ultimately cruelty. She reminded herself that it was all for Anand’s good. A strange sepia-tinted image came into her mind of Ruth saying goodbye to her parents on the railway station in Berlin in 1939. Sometimes, for the greater good, something terrible had to happen.
After Anand had gone, Sylvia went into his bedroom and took out her suitcase with the transfers of exotic birds from the storage cupboard. Like a woman waiting to give birth but unsure when her labour will begin, she opened the case and started to pack it thoughtfully with all the things she would need.
Later that night, she sprang awake in panic. She was an idiot; of course Anand would tell Smita about the passport and Smita would see through her ruse straight away. She had wrecked everything, she had fallen at the first hurdle.
After a wretched day, she rang Anand at four o’clock, the time when he came home from school with his nanny. He sounded happy to hear her voice, poor mite, alone with that stony-faced Wanda, after a long day at school.
Sylvia listened to his detailed account of his day, the highlight of which seemed to have been sausages and mash for lunch. Then, she hoped casually, she said, “By the way dear, don’t tell Mummy anything about showing me your passport, will you? Nor Daddy either. Promise me? It’ll just be our little secret, alright?”
Abruptly, Anand said, “Bye” and hung up.
Sylvia was left wondering helplessly whether he would follow her instructions. She doubted it; he was barely five, and yet recently, since the divorce, he had shown a disturbing readiness to compartmentalise.
October was a rotten month; firstly Anand fell ill with chickenpox and Sylvia couldn’t see him for a fortnight. Jeremy reported that Smita was complaining that since Anand started school, it had been a non-stop succession of bugs. Sylvia worried all day, every day that Anand wouldn’t keep the secret, that he would innocently mention her sudden interest in his passport to Smita and Smita would instantly see through it. Sylvia would be branded a danger. Maybe she wouldn’t be allowed to see Anand anymore. She worried herself sick. Most unusually, she even stopped eating.
To distract herself and to try and make up for the wrong she was about to do, she telephoned Cynthia. Cynthia had still not forgiven her for the terrible article which had appeared in Art Review soon after Sylvia had blabbered to the young woman at the gallery. But when Cynthia heard her voice, she put the phone down. She went to visit Ruth, a sad duty nowadays since Ruth’s speech was so severely affected by her stroke. Sylvia tried to entertain her with stories of this and that but, without mentioning the only important topic in her life, she did not have anything of much interest to say. As the weather grew cooler, she prepared her hot weather clothes.
At the beginning of the October half term, she got to spend a whole day with Anand, the first time she had seen him for a month. It had been supposed to be Jeremy’s day with him but Jeremy had unexpected work commitments. He brought Anand over to Sylvia unusually early, for breakfast and left in a great hurry, warning her that he would not be back until late. Sylvia could not have been happier. She made Anand a splendid breakfast with bacon and eggs and milk in his hippo mug. She decided not to say anything at all about the passport until it was time for Anand to go home. Then she would remind him, firmly.
It was really too cold to play out in the gardens and Anand wasn’t in the mood for the zoo or the aquarium so they decided to spend the morning quietly at home and go to a film in the afternoon.
It was only towards lunchtime when they were finishing a rather bothersome jigsaw puzzle that Anand fished in his little rucksack and said, “Oh, I forgot. Look, I brought you my passport to show you.”
“Oh glory,” said Sylvia. She stood stock still and gaped at the passport.
“Don’t you want to see it?” Anand asked, thrusting it at her.
“Oh,” Sylvia said. “Yes. Of course I do.”
She took the passport in suddenly shaking hands and leafed through it, pretending to be absorbed in its pages.
Anand came and stood next to her. “Look, that’s the American stamp and that’s my photo. And here, in the back, these are the names of the two important people to telephone in an em-er-gency: Mummy and Daddy.”
He looked up at her. “Why are you shivering?”
Sylvia put her arm around him. “Because I’m cold. Warm me up.”
Anand snuggled obligingly again
st her. Holding him close and doing her best to subdue her trembling, Sylvia said, “You know, I’ve had a wonderful idea where we can go this afternoon. Much more fun than the cinema.”
Anand had not taken much persuading. Of course, a taxi, an airport, a plane; what self-respecting little boy would pass up on all that in favour of a cartoon? He seemed less enthusiastic about their destination so Sylvia played that down. She concentrated on the attractions of the airport and the ride out to it. She had to make a number of urgent phone calls of course – to the airline, to the minicab company – so, even though she disapproved of too much television, she sat Anand down in front of it while she rushed around, her teeth chattering, her heart hammering alarmingly, trying to remember everything she was meant to do.
She had not imagined their departure like this. Over the slow hot weeks of the summer, when she had hatched her plan, she had imagined a long buildup, careful preparations, not this bolt from the blue followed by a helter-skelter rush. But Sylvia was old enough to know that in life everything happens willy-nilly, regardless of the best laid plans and all you could do was simply blunder along and make the best of unpredictable circumstances. Sylvia blundered; she blundered into Anand’s bedroom and lugged out the heavy suitcase, she blundered into her own bedroom and got herself ready. There was no time to tidy the flat or prepare it for a long period of absence; too bad.
Just when the minicab was due to arrive, Anand announced that he wanted lunch.
“No time,” Sylvia snapped. But Anand scowled and whimpered and complained that he was hungry so Sylvia marched him into the kitchen and gave him a zoo biscuit and a glass of milk.
Anand scowled even more and said, “That’s not lunch.”
Sylvia spoke to him, she feared, rather haughtily. “You can’t always manage a proper lunch Anand,” she declared, “when you’re having an adventure.”
The minicab driver rang the bell just then which distracted Anand. He raced ahead of Sylvia down the stairs, his small rucksack bouncing on his back. Sylvia followed laboriously with both their coats, her handbag and the heavy case.
The driver, a jovial middle-aged Indian, loaded everything into the boot and when he heard they were going to Heathrow, asked officiously, “Do you have your passports?”
Anand answered proudly, “Yes” but Sylvia, on checking, realised in dismay that she had forgotten hers upstairs. How could she have? Hastily, she left Anand in the back of the taxi and rushed up to her flat to retrieve it. Only on the way back down did it occur to her that the minicab driver might have driven away with Anand, one abduction within another. But the cab was still waiting, with the meter running and Anand and the driver were ignoring each other. The driver had switched on a loud Indian music station and Anand was staring rather disapprovingly out of the window.
Sylvia flopped into her seat beside him and squeezed his hand. “Alright dear?” Anand nodded seriously, without smiling.
The whole way out to the airport, they barely spoke. Sylvia was beside herself; she simply could not believe the speed with which this was happening. One moment, it seemed, she had been struggling to sort out the pieces of a tedious farmyard scene, the next she was hurtling towards an improbable destination. She was terrified too; what would Smita do when she found out what Sylvia had done? Jeremy would – ultimately – forgive her; of that she was certain. He would get very angry, he would go extremely red in the face, she would no doubt have to listen to a whole long lecture but he would understand her motives and he would forgive her. Of course what Sylvia was doing was in Jeremy’s best interests too. But Smita’s revenge would be terrible. Well, Sylvia thought, well – and she sat up straighter – let Smita reflect on why her child had been taken away from her. Despite the rising tide of guilt which threatened to overwhelm her, Sylvia reminded herself that what she was doing was for the best.
Anand looked solemnly out of the window. Sylvia wasn’t sure if he was just watching the other cars or if he was feeling scared. She remembered suddenly how frightfully irritating Jeremy had always been as a child on car journeys, forever being sick. Anand didn’t get car sick, thank goodness. Sylvia looked down at him fondly and mouthed, “Everything ok?” Anand nodded again, tautly, without a word.
Sylvia worried he was getting cold feet. She would reassure him at the airport; she would buy him a decent lunch and get some more books and games for the long flight. Even if they had both been in the mood for talking, the jolly raucous music blaring from the driver’s radio would have made it impossible anyway.
They had told her over the phone that there were still four seats left on the six o’clock flight to Delhi, seats they held back specially in case of family emergencies such as hers. As soon as they had got their things out of the taxi, Sylvia headed briskly for the check-in desks. Anand cheered up considerably at being allowed to steer the trolley. There was virtually no queue so far ahead of the check-in time. In fact the girl at the counter told Sylvia rather bossily that it was still too early to check in for the Delhi flight and she only agreed to let Sylvia and Anand do so on account of their respective ages. She expressed surprise and slight disapproval that they had only decided to make such a major journey that very morning and Sylvia had to repeat the story she had told the airline staff over the phone; that they were flying out in a hurry because of a family emergency. Fortunately, Anand was absorbed in the workings of the scale which weighed the suitcases and didn’t contradict her. Finally, after endless checking and eyebrow raising, the girl handed Sylvia their tickets and passports. Slightly superciliously, she wished them a pleasant flight.
“Now,” Sylvia said to Anand. “Our adventure begins.”
They got through passport control without any problem, Anand proudly handing his passport to the official himself. Sylvia took him straight to the nearest restaurant to have lunch. She could barely manage a mouthful herself but never let it be said that she didn’t feed her grandchild properly. Anand cheered up visibly as he ate: battered pieces of chicken in the shape of aeroplanes, a pile of chips and lurid peas. He ate it all with great relish and chose an ice cream sundae for dessert. When it came, he was too full to eat it. Normally, Sylvia would have told him off for that sort of wastefulness but today she decided to make allowances. She scooped up a little of the bright pink ice cream herself.
After lunch, they moved to an out of the way corner of the departure lounge and settled down to wait. Their flight was not due to be called for another three hours and Sylvia worried that Anand would get bored and restless. It was a long time since she had travelled together with a small child. But at first he seemed quite content to sit and let his lunch go down and play with some frightful electronic game he always had in his rucksack. Sylvia decided to keep her store of new books and pastimes up her sleeve. It was only in mid-afternoon that Anand stopped twiddling the knobs on his little console and looked up and asked her, “Do Mummy and Daddy know what we’re doing?”
“What do you mean dear?” Sylvia asked carefully.
“This,” Anand said indignantly. “This trip. Do they know where we’re going?”
“No,” Sylvia said reluctantly. “No they don’t. It’ll be a surprise for them.”
She could lie to everyone else, she discovered; she could not lie to Anand. She had been planning to say, “Oh yes of course they do, dear” but the words stuck in her throat.
Anand looked terribly worried. “Will I be home in time for bed?”
Sylvia exclaimed, “Anand! How could you possibly be? Think of your holiday in America; how could you fly all the way to Florida and be home in time for bed? India’s even further.”
Anand threatened to start crying. “I don’t want to go such a long way away Grandma. When will we come home?”
Sylvia said soothingly, “It’ll be a little half term holiday dear. Like when you went skiing.” She told herself this wasn’t a lie; she was creeping up on the truth one step at a time, like Grandmother’s Footsteps.
Anand still frowned.
“When will we tell them? They’ll think we’ve got lost.”
Sylvia reassured him. “I’ve left a message. Don’t worry darling.” The message was in an envelope on her kitchen table; Jeremy would only find it when he arrived to collect Anand some time after eight. By which time of course she and Anand would be somewhere over the Eastern Mediterranean, enjoying an airline meal with all the little compartments and heading East. She did feel distinctly uncomfortable when she imagined Jeremy ringing the bell and getting no answer. At first, he would be angry; he had had a long day and the least his mother could have done was to be at home and ready when he arrived to fetch Anand. He would let himself in crossly with his key and then he would find her note. Or maybe he would telephone her first on his way to her flat. He often did that; an impatient reminder that he was on his way, that he expected Anand to be dressed and ready, he had to be returned to his mother by such and such a time. ‘Well,’ Sylvia thought triumphantly, ‘not tonight.’
She imagined Jeremy trying first her home phone and then her mobile and when neither answered, beginning to worry. She consoled herself; his worry would be short-lived. He would let himself in and call out, “Mum? Mum?” in case they were there but for some reason not answering the phone. Even in these undeniably dubious circumstances, Sylvia felt great pleasure as she imagined Jeremy calling out “Mum.” He had gone so many years without ever calling her that. Jeremy would find the note and his worry would give way to something worse. He would tear it open and read her heartfelt handwritten five page letter and he would swear abominably. With his heart in his boots, he would have to telephone Smita.
To assuage her guilt, Sylvia put her arm around Anand and gave him a consoling smile. “Really, everything will be fine.”
Anand still looked worried.
The long afternoon wore on. They made three trips to the toilets and one to a coffee shop. Sylvia read Anand two story books and unwrapped the first of the new games.
