by Cathy Glass
The monk’s eyes immediately dulled with sadness and she felt guilty for putting it there. He paused, and then asked gently, ‘Your husband is responsible for all your pain?’
She nodded. ‘I have tried, believe me. I have tried for so long, but nothing I do makes any difference. I still try. But he hates me more and more. I am now so unhappy and consumed by bitterness, I think things too dreadful to speak of.’ She stopped. How could she expect him to understand? This holy man who lived segregated from the outside world. What would he know of marriage, her self-loathing and desperation? Did she even have the right to talk of such things in his presence?
He was still looking at her, compassion and concern on his face. ‘The bruises on your face and neck, my child. Did your husband do this to you?’
Aisha pulled her coat closer around her neck and nodded. ‘But it was my fault. Somehow I provoke him, though I don’t know how. I try not to, God help me, I try. He says I have made him what he is. I must be evil, but I don’t mean to be.’
The monk’s eyes stayed with her, deep and unblinking, as though he was able to look into her very soul and see the pain within. ‘You are too harsh on yourself. No single person can take all the blame. Not when two live as one.’
Aisha said nothing – her experience had told her otherwise.
‘And you are alone in this?’ he asked after a moment.
‘Alone? I have two children.’
‘But you yearn for no other man? I ask because of the Western acceptance of infidelity when all love has gone.’
Aisha looked at him and could have laughed at the ludicrous notion that she could in any way be attractive to another man. ‘I am alone,’ she said. ‘I have never looked at anyone else. Never.’
‘Then if you have tried to bring happiness to your union and failed, you must ask yourself if your suffering is great enough to leave. If you have looked within your heart and seen the truth, you have a duty to act, both for your own sake and that of your children.’
Aisha held his gaze, confused by his insight and candour. ‘You speak as if you know of such matters?’
He gave a slow nod. ‘We are not completely cut off from the outside world. We know what goes on. We simply choose to live away from it.’
She was silent for some time and the monk watched her serenely, waiting for her response.
‘I can’t leave,’ she said at last. ‘I am a prisoner. As surely as if I was locked in a cell with iron bars, I am a prisoner. I am nothing. I don’t make decisions, I barely exist. The only way I can leave is to kill myself … and, believe me, I have considered it.’
He was silent for some time, his head slightly bowed, and perfectly still. ‘You made the decision to come here,’ he said at last, looking up. ‘That took a lot of courage.’
Aisha continued to look at him, this monk who with so few words seemed to see and know so much. ‘Yes, but I will be going back.’
‘You spoke of your father. Would he not offer you shelter in your time of crisis?’
She shook her head and tugged anxiously at her coat. ‘My parents don’t know, and I wouldn’t ask. I couldn’t harm them more than I have already. The shame it would bring on them would be untold. No woman has ever left her husband in my family. My parents wouldn’t cope.’
‘I understand,’ he said nodding slowly, then his eyes flickered to the altar and back again as though drawing silent guidance and direction. ‘What you need more than anything is time and peace to heal. You need respite from your daily cares to allow you the time to come to a decision. Without that, you will never be able to see anything, not with all your suffering.’
‘I know, but how? How? Tell me. What can I do?’ Her voice choked and she swallowed back the tears.
The monk paused before he spoke and when he did it was with the same calm reassurance and acceptance. ‘Part of our house is a retreat, it is open to anyone who needs it. You can come here if you wish, with your children. You will have the peace and time you need. Your pain will not last forever, although it may seem so now.’
She stared at him sharply. ‘But you don’t understand. I can’t. Mark would never allow it, never let me go. He would hunt me down and find me. He would stop at nothing to keep what he sees as his, what he says he has a right to. I would be placing you all in danger, not just me.’
The monk’s eyes widened. ‘What is this man? A giant? We have thirty brothers here. You will be safe. He is not Goliath.’
She lowered her gaze. ‘He is to me,’ she said quietly.
Yet sitting here enveloped in the monk’s unassuming confidence and quiet inner strength, she could almost feel she could – she could collect Sarah and James from school, go home, quickly pack a bag and leave. Was it possible? Could she find the courage? Was there enough left in her? There would be time before Mark came home from work, if she was quick.
She wrung her hands in her lap and felt them cold and clammy. ‘But even if I could come and stay here,’ she said. ‘I have no money. How would I pay for our keep?’
The monk smiled kindly. ‘We do not ask for money. Only that you contribute in some small way to the community. Every skill is appreciated. Cooking, cleaning, or working on the farm. But only when you feel strong enough. Your immediate need is for rest and tranquillity.’
He waited again, exuding a peace and calm that seemed to empower the very air Aisha breathed. Could she? Was there still a small spark within her that could allow her to do this and see it through? An ember of self-preservation that hadn’t been completely snuffed out in the last seven years, and with the monk’s strength could be rekindled before it was too late?
‘If I came,’ she said suddenly, looking up, ‘it would have to be tonight. If I made the decision to come it would have to be now.’
He nodded again, his calm and dispassionate features acknowledging this as he doubtless acknowledged all things. ‘We can have a room ready. If that is your decision.’
A decision? Could she make one? After all these years could she make a decision to save herself and the children? Yes, she must. For the sake of Sarah and James, she had to, before it was too late. There wouldn’t be another chance. ‘I must,’ she said. ‘I must do it now. I’ll come tonight. I have to go and collect my children from school, then I’ll pack a bag and come. I will, I promise, but I need to go now.’
She stood. The monk nodded and then, raising himself effortlessly from the floor, went over to a small bureau behind the door. Sliding open the single drawer he took out a five-pound note and held it out to her. ‘This is for your bus fare. I think it will be enough.’
She took the note and could have wept at his insight and generosity. ‘Thank you so much. I only had enough to make this journey. I’ll repay you as soon as I can.’ She clasped his outstretched hand and pressed it to her lips. ‘Thank you,’ she said again. ‘I must go now, I must go before I lose my courage. Pray for me, please. Maybe there is a way, there has to be.’
The monk slowly released her hand, then, bowing silently to the altar, backed towards the door. She followed him out, out of the room and down the quiet and empty hall, her heart racing, her thoughts soaring in a direction where they had never been before. She waited as the monk unbolted the front door and her eyes fell to a scroll hanging on the wall opposite. It was a quote from the Buddhist teachings. She hadn’t seen it on the way in, but now the black lettering seemed to fly out at her.
‘They do not dwell in remorse over the past,
nor do they brood over the future;
they abide in the present:
therefore they are radiant.’
‘A favourite of mine,’ the monk said, following her gaze. ‘Samyutta Nikaya, 1,10. Carry it in your heart, child. We shall be waiting for you.’
Chapter Eighteen
Radiant. The word echoed in her mind as she ran down the path and to the bus stop. ‘You look radiant tonight,’ she thought Mark used to say in the early days when he’d told her how beautiful she was and t
hat he’d love her forever. Radiant. It was a term she thought he’d used, but now she struggled to remember.
The bus came exactly on time and, handing over the last of her change, she took a window seat. She looked out of the window as her fingers curled around the five-pound note in her pocket and tried to steady her breathing. Her heart pounded and she felt hot and cold at once; she tried not to think about what she was doing but to concentrate on the journey and getting to the school.
An hour later she counted down the stops; the bus slowed and she stood. Making her way to the exit she waited on the platform until the doors swished open. She stepped off and began, head down, towards the school. It was drizzling now, the light but saturating rain of late November. She didn’t have an umbrella, it had broken long ago and she’d never had the money to replace it. The wet quickly seeped through her headscarf, making her shiver with cold. She’d had nothing to eat all day and now wished she’d accepted the monk’s offer of a hot drink. It would have helped a little.
She checked her watch again. It was nearly five to three, she was early because the bus had arrived on time. Her calculations had allowed for it being late – she knew how erratic the services could be. Turning the corner to the school she looked anxiously in all directions, half-expecting to see Mark, which was ridiculous because he never left work early, even on a Friday, and never collected the children from school. She was safe at least until six. There would be plenty of time.
There was only one mother already waiting on the pavement outside the school gates, but Aisha took up her usual place, well away from where the other mothers would eventually congregate. With her hands in her pockets, eyes lowered, she prayed the classes would come out on time at three fifteen. Sometimes they were five, even ten minutes late, if they had been noisy, or the classroom had to be cleaned up after art class.
It would have made sense to have gone in and asked if she could take Sarah and James early, on the pretence of a dental appointment or similar. But she’d never been into the school, not even for parents’ evening; Mark had always insisted he went alone. Now if she went in on some pretext, they might suspect something, see her guilt and know, and she couldn’t risk it, not with so much at stake. For guilt was what she felt, and was doubtless written all over her face – she was snatching the children while Mark was at work. It might even be illegal, she thought, though this was the least of her worries.
By three ten the entrance was a throng of chattering mothers, clustered under shared umbrellas, trying to keep bored toddlers in strollers under plastic rain covers. Aisha concentrated on the paving stone beneath her feet which was as familiar as her worn-out shoes. The stone glistened a deep grey from the rain, and she knew every inch of it, from the chipped corner on the left to the crack on the right, which sprouted a dandelion in summer. She shifted her feet and stared down at the concrete slab possibly for the last time. Where the children would go to school she’d no idea but she’d worry about that another day, for now she just needed to concentrate on getting away. At exactly three fifteen the bell rang from inside the school and her heart raced; the security gates buzzed and then opened automatically.
Aisha went into the playground, but instead of standing in her usual place, behind the other mothers and up against the railings, she walked further forwards, to the right, where she would be able to see the children as soon as they came out. She pulled her headscarf closer to her cheeks and watched as the main doors opened and the children began to pour out. A member of staff – she didn’t know her name – stood on the steps, doing up coats and generally keeping an eye on the children as they left. Sarah and James were never in the first wave of loud, excited children, scrabbling to be out of school and home. They came more slowly, towards the end. Always together, and with Sarah’s arm protectively around the shoulders of her younger brother. Aisha thought now, as she had before, that if anything positive had come out of the years of abuse and misery, it was the bond that had formed between brother and sister. She doubted it could be stronger, nor that it would ever change.
She spotted Sarah and James immediately, and stepping forwards, gave a little wave. A flicker of surprise crossed their faces when they saw she wasn’t in her usual place. She watched them carefully as though seeing them for the first time as they picked their way around the other children. Sarah, with her jet-black hair and dark eyes, was still the image of her, while James had inherited some of his father’s features; his hair and skin tone were lighter than Sarah’s and he had hazel eyes. The two of them always appeared deep in thought and were far more self-composed than their more impulsive peers. A very sensible child, the teacher had written on one of Sarah’s reports, Sarah shows a maturity well beyond her years. It had made Aisha cry when she’d read the report, for Sarah’s maturity was at the expense of her childhood, which had been lost in the daily grind of surviving and having to support her mother.
Aisha bent to kiss her children as they came up to her, but instead of asking as she usually did, ‘Have you had a good day?’ and, ‘Did you eat your lunch?’ she said almost sternly, ‘Put up your hoods. It’s raining. Come on. Be quick.’ Then, taking a hand in each of hers, she set off, faster than usual, towards the school gates. Only once they were outside the school grounds did she speak again, keeping up the pace and talking as she went. ‘Now listen, both of you. I have something to tell you and it’s very important. You are big children now and I need you to listen carefully. A lot depends on it.’
They looked up at her intrigued. There was an edge to their mother’s voice which they hadn’t heard before and which was both exciting and a little frightening.
‘I haven’t been home today,’ she continued. ‘After I left you this morning, I went on the bus, an hour away. I have been talking to a very kind man called a monk. Do you know what a monk is?’
They both nodded. She doubted James understood, he was too young, but she hadn’t time to explain it all now.
‘He is very kind,’ she stressed. ‘And he lives in a big house in the country with other monks, it’s called a retreat. I went there because I have been so unhappy, we all have, and I needed to talk to someone and ask his advice. I have been telling him how things are at home and he wants to help us. He says we can go and stay there until I can think what to do for the best. I said we would.’
She paused and looked at them, trying to gauge their reaction, fearful they might object. It was, after all, their home and father she was leaving, and if they refused to go did she have the right to force them?
‘Without Daddy?’ James asked.
‘Yes. It would just be the three of us.’ She looked at his rain-spotted face, just visible under his hood and waited for his response, but none came. He just looked thoughtful.
‘When?’ Sarah asked.
‘As soon as I’ve put a few things in a case. If we’re going we must do it now. Otherwise …’ She stopped. ‘I wouldn’t be doing this if I didn’t think it was right. You know how unhappy we are. I really can’t take any more.’ Her voice broke.
Sarah squeezed her hand reassuringly. ‘I’ll help you pack,’ she said quietly.
‘Thank you, darling.’ She looked again at James. ‘And what about you, James? What do you think?’
‘Can I take my teddy?’
‘Yes. You find it as soon as we get in.’
‘Dad’s going to be so angry when he finds out,’ James added. ‘He’ll hurt you again.’ Aisha’s heart screamed, not for the first time, at what James had witnessed, and the gaping chasm in the relationship between father and son, and what should have been.
‘No, darling, he won’t,’ she said. ‘Once we’re at the monks’ house we’ll be safe. They will look after us. And perhaps, in time, Daddy and I will be able to …’ but she let the sentence go unfinished. She knew to acknowledge any possibility of a reconciliation would undermine her present strength and resolve, and she needed it all, every bit, if she was going to see this through.
Aisha co
ntinued in silence, maintaining the pace with the children nearly running to keep up. Her feet squelched in her leaking shoes as they moved quickly across the sodden pavements. She had to keep reining in her thoughts to the present and immediate, and banish all thoughts of the future. The five-pound note was safely at the bottom of her pocket, her suitcase was on top of the wardrobe, the 103 bus which they would have to catch in the High Street ran every seventeen minutes. It would have helped to have had time to plan their escape, to have made a list of essential items, and pack. But then again, it was the very lack of premeditation that was allowing her to do it at all. Too much time and she would have lost her nerve, with no possibility of retrieving it or a second chance. ‘You could never survive in the outside world,’ she heard Mark say. ‘You’re useless without me.’
The rain was harder now, bouncing off the pavements and rushing along the gutters and down the drains. They were already soaked. The children would have to change when they got home if they weren’t to catch cold – there would be enough time. She had a full hour to pack the basics, change, get on the bus and away from the area before Mark even left work. The next bit would be the worst – going into the house for the last time and taking what they needed. She would feel like a thief, taking things when Mark wasn’t there, but they had to have the essentials, the rest didn’t matter. She wondered if she should leave a note but the very thought of it, of writing Dear Mark … made her falter. No, she would write to him later, she told herself, she could think about a letter when they were safe, and when she knew what to say.
She felt Sarah and James’s hands in hers and gave them a reassuring squeeze. ‘Nearly there,’ she said. ‘When we get in I want you to change out of your wet things while I pack. Put on your weekend clothes and leave your uniforms in the airing cupboard.
