The Housekeeper

by Suellen Dainty

  “Think what?” asked Christine.

  “That we’re lucky to have each other.”

  “Luck.” She sniffed. “It doesn’t come along like a bus. You have to work at it. And it’s so much to do with socioeconomic factors.” Behind her back, Theo made one of his funny faces. I couldn’t help smiling. From the sitting room came the mournful thump of drums and the high, wavering notes from what sounded like an out-of-tune flute. Rob wandered into the kitchen, greeting Theo in that usual blokey way of his. A slap on the shoulder with one hand, a mock feint with the other.

  In the restaurant, everyone, even the washing up crew, knew which customers were having secret affairs. Despite the pretense of business meetings or magazine interviews, there was an inevitable glance that continued a moment too long, or a subtle mirroring of each other’s movements, like a private dance. We caught it every time. But here in the kitchen, with Emma lighting the candles and Christine holding forth on educational inequality, there was no tiny gesture or look to indicate there was anything other than solid heterosexual friendship between the two men. Candles flickered above their heads, softening the outline of their faces. The memory of Theo and Rob embracing in the bedroom faltered. Did it really happen? Then my brain righted itself.

  “Yet another spectacular meal,” said Theo in the kitchen after dinner. There was that familiar grin. All the times we’d stood right here in this same spot by the counter, all the fuzzy moments I’d seen the two of us as some kind of siblings. All of it disappeared. “Good,” I replied. “Very good.” The pots were already clean, but I kept scrubbing them.

  As a prize to myself for having survived the evening, I decided on a takeaway curry. It was past 9 p.m., but it wouldn’t take long to drive to my favorite Indian place in Southall, where I knew they ground the spices freshly each evening and the kitchen had a proper clay tandoori oven.

  At the restaurant, I picked up my lamb dhansak and saag paneer and headed towards Brentford, already salivating from the smell of ginger and cardamom. As I pulled away from a pedestrian crossing, a scarlet baseball cap caught my eye, and then the back of a figure wearing a T-shirt blotched fluorescent yellow above baggy low-slung jeans. The figure hurried across the road and ran up a flight of steps into a small dilapidated church adorned by a skinny cross and a banner reading FOLLOW THE CHURCH OF ETERNAL TRUTH. SAVE LIFE! I’d driven along this road so many times and never noticed it before.

  The figure looked like Jake. I thought of the pamphlet in his bedroom, even more chaotic than when I first saw it; clothes flung everywhere, everything covered with pieces of torn-up paper, like confetti. The pamphlet was increasingly well thumbed, and the pages were dotted with yellow from the fluorescent marker pen. The most recent underlined page read: The nonbelievers, the liars, the impure and the infant murderers—all of them will be cast into the lake of fire, to the death they deserve.

  The ink had seeped into the margins and onto the next page. “Does Jake’s class study comparative religion?” I’d asked Lily when I left his room.

  She rolled her eyes. “Why would they do something like that?”

  I parked the car and followed the figure up the steps. I’d never liked churches, and this one was no exception, even though it was modest, with a small wooden dais at the front and none of the ostentatious statues of the chapel at school. There was another banner of the cross, this time in purple, and a row of lit candles underneath, their dim gold light just visible against the high wattage overhead. A high, clear tenor filled the room and I looked around for the singer. But there was only a ghetto blaster at the side of the dais.

  The church was hot and crammed full of people squashed into rows of fold-up seats. There were families, with the children’s hair in neat box braids fastened with bright ribbons, next to old men wearing flat caps and women with mauve-tinted hair. I thought I saw Jake’s scarlet baseball cap three rows ahead of me, but after craning my neck in both directions, I realized I was mistaken. The cap was more orange than red, and the back of the neck underneath was dark and covered in angry spots. But there were more baseball caps in the rows nearer the front of the hall. Some of them were red and Jake could have been among them. I peered and turned, but I couldn’t see him anywhere. The woman next to me glared disapproval at my fidgeting. Suddenly I was no longer curious, merely embarrassed by my mistake and my intrusion into a place where I didn’t belong.

  As I got up to leave, an old man shuffled to a table behind the door, set up with a chrome urn and piles of cups. He was struggling to turn on the faucet of the urn, and I walked over to help him. It was simple enough. Milk and two sugars, biscuit on the side. He smiled through an array of tombstone teeth and grabbed my arm with surprising strength.

  “My dear,” he stuttered after the first few sips and mouthfuls. Biscuit crumbs gathered at the corner of his mouth and his breath smelled of yeast and sweet tea. “You must join us, at least for a little while.” He steered me into a seat and sat beside me, his nails digging into my arm. I thought of my congealing curry. I’d stay for five minutes and then excuse myself. I could reheat my supper.

  A plump woman who looked to be in her midforties hauled herself onto the dais and switched off the ghetto blaster. Her lipstick was too red and her blond hair was set in corrugated waves. But she had authority and everyone fell silent. She shook a cordless microphone from a pocket and started working the room.

  “I’m standing for purity and the way of Him.” She nodded her head. For a moment, I thought a juddering hank of hair would break free from its corrugations, but it fell back into place.

  “I’ve given up my whole life, my entire existence on this earth so that you . . .”—she paused and jabbed a finger at one of the red baseball caps that jumped up as if it had been hit—“. . . so that you, and yes, you . . .”—another jab, another baseball cap jumped—“. . . can know the truth, the whole truth, so that you all . . .”—her arms were windmills; her sweater lifted to reveal a roll of belly flab—“. . . have the opportunity, the God-given opportunity to stop being phonies and hypocrites, bad people outside this Church, swearing, drinking, fornicating.” This last word was drawn out for some time.

  The acrid smell of anxious sweat filled the room. The preacher’s voice rose and fell on the beat of her words, like a giddying seesaw. The older section of the audience nodded approval, but it was clear from the direction of her hands and the sweep of her gaze that they were not the lucrative mother lode. It was the young at the front of the church that she desired.

  The man beside me loosened his grip and began to stroke my hand with calloused palms. I wanted to pull away, leave them to their prayers, but couldn’t seem to manage it. In the front pews, I saw rows of shoulders heaving, quivering as if an electric current had passed through them. One red basketball cap shook more than the rest. The neck underneath it was pale and thin, with wisps of blond hair, just like Jake’s. But I had been mistaken before.

  As I removed my hand and motioned goodbye to the old man, a girl rushed onto the dais. She looked no older than fifteen, dark hair pulled into a vicious ponytail. Her face was wet with tears, with flushed dots high on her cheekbones. She took the microphone. The only word to describe the sound she made was keening. In her high-pitched, strangled song without words, there was such longing and pain. Tears coursed down her face as she halted for breath. The others clapped and murmured as the woman preacher embraced her. The girl’s head fell against her oversized breasts, and the woman stroked her head. The baseball caps nodded in unison.

  I had reached the door when the girl began to speak, low and faltering. “It’s hard to believe in Him, and sometimes I don’t. Sometimes I don’t even believe in His Word and then I feel dirty and guilty.” She leaned back and forth, as if her doubts about Him had removed her ability to stand straight. They leaned towards her, a tight-knit group of maybe ten or twelve. The baseball caps were waving, poppies in the breeze. Their hands stretched out like war-torn orphans waiting for a food drop. Be
hind them, the older members of the congregation nodded and smiled.

  I’m meant to be upstairs, but I’m peeking through the crack in the door, watching them eat dinner. The way they look at him, like he’s the father or a god or both and they’re the children who worship him. They imitate his every movement. He laughs and they laugh. He leans forward and they do as well. The only time they don’t copy him is when he talks. Then they fall silent and nod like those clowns you see at the fairground. Wild shouts, cigarette smoke, buttery spicy smells float towards me, but I’m not allowed in.

  A drumbeat interrupted my reverie and the congregation began to sing, quietly at first. By the time they had reached the end of the first verse, everyone was in full throttle. The preacher stood to one side, nodding in a determined fashion. “Yes,” she seemed to be saying to herself. “Yes, I have washed these children clean and He will enter their hearts.” I shut the door behind me, as quietly as I could.

  It was raining and blowing hard as I went to my car. I was grateful for the sting of it against my face, taking me back to my own meager world. All the way to Brentford, the windscreen wipers thumped to and fro in the same hypnotic rhythm of the woman preacher’s speech. My lamb dhansak no longer made me salivate. There was just the smell of turmeric and garlic. I wasn’t even hungry.

  By the time I got back, there were no parking spaces anywhere in my street, and I had to drive two blocks to find one. Walking along the main road, I saw the boy again. This time he wasn’t playing hopscotch by himself. He was weaving back and forth on the curb, far too close to the road. He had his feet close together, and he crouched like a surfer on the edge of a wave, moving his arms like wings right next to the cars and buses that whizzed past, steered by drivers with no thoughts for small boys imagining that they were hanging five toes somewhere sparkling and blue in the Pacific Ocean, far away from inner-city grime.

  I dashed over and hauled him back to the safety of the pavement. He was too surprised to struggle. “Sorry to grab you like that.” His huge almond eyes were terrified. “The thing is, you could have been run over. There could have been an accident.”

  We stared at each other, my hand still clutching his sleeve as we breathed in the fume-laden slipstream. “Where’s your dad?”

  The boy inclined his head in the direction of my street.

  “Does he know you’re out here?”

  “He’s on the phone.” His voice was even huskier than before, with a slight lisp. “He’ll be angry.”

  “You can’t blame him,” I said. “It’s dangerous out here on your own.”

  He shrugged.

  “What’s your name?”

  “Faisal.”

  “OK, Faisal, let’s get you home.”

  Faisal’s building fronted onto the main street, a brutish brick block with a side entrance. I passed it every night, but I’d never really noticed it. The front gate hung off its hinges. Weeds sprouted from between paving blocks, and the glass panes of the front door had been smashed and patched with black tape. Less than a hundred meters away stood my building, freshly plastered and painted, glossed green front door, smart brass buzzer plates.

  “We live so close to each other. Maybe you might visit me one day, with your father.” I didn’t mean it. It was just something to say to break the silence. “So, what number are you?”

  He pressed number 3. “It’s broken,” said Faisal. “He can hear the buzzer, but we can’t hear him speak. He’ll come.”

  After some minutes, the hall light switched on. There was a clattering and the sound of locks being turned. The door swung open and tiny shards of glass fell onto the ground. The hall smelled of urine and garbage.

  Faisal’s father looked at his son and then at me. “You were inside,” he said to Faisal. “You were inside watching television, just minutes ago.” He checked his watch, as if to make sure of the time. “I don’t understand how . . .”

  “Well, here he is now,” I said cheerily. “Safe and sound. No harm done.” I let go of Faisal’s arm to shake his father’s hand. “I’m Anne, Anne Morgan. We met before, kind of. I live nearby, just down the street.”

  “I am Imran,” he said. “Come in, come in, off the street, please.” He had an around-the-world-in-a-sentence kind of accent, mainly Middle Eastern, but with English and American overtones. He was taller than I remembered and he wore the same ill-fitting jacket.

  I stepped into the hall. We stood in an uneasy triangle. Imran kept glancing from me to Faisal and back again. “It is hard to keep an eye out for the boy,” he said. “I was on the telephone, to my sister in Lahore. The line kept dropping out.” He smiled, showing square white teeth below shiny gums. “Not your fault, though. Will you?” He pointed to the open door behind him. I saw a sink, a square table with two chairs, and a neatly made bed jammed up against the wall. It was hard to imagine how Faisal had escaped. There must have been another room with a back door somewhere.

  “Thanks,” I said, swinging the bag of cold curry in my hand. “Just for a minute. I should get home. I have a load of things to do.”

  Imran poured me a glass of water and motioned for me to sit down. “It is very kind of you to look after Faisal. Thank you.”

  “No problem,” I said. I drank some water. An awkward silence settled. “Where are you from?”

  “Originally, we are from Afghanistan, my family. My wife and I taught medical students in Kabul. But it became hard to stay after she died. A stray bullet.” He spoke in a matter-of-fact tone, but his fingers curled into a fist. “So we, my sister and Faisal, we went first to Lahore, and then Faisal and I applied to come here. And soon my sister will visit us.”

  “I’m sorry about your wife,” I said. “Maybe when your sister comes, you might like to visit me . . . maybe for dinner.” The words spilled over without me thinking. “Just a thought,” I stumbled on. “To keep in mind.”

  “Thank you,” said Imran. He looked surprised and pleased. I immediately regretted my invitation. It was the sort of thing that Rob and Emma did all the time. They finished one conversation by saying they’d like to have another. When they wanted someone to leave, they mentioned something about getting together very soon. It meant nothing. It had taken me months to work it out, so I couldn’t expect Imran to understand. “That is kind,” he said.

  “Come by anytime,” I continued. “I live in the white building down the street. Number twelve. My name is on the buzzer.” I shook Imran’s hand again, and he walked me through the hall, our shoes crunching on the broken glass.

  At home, no longer hungry, I put the cold curry in the refrigerator. Maybe Imran would forget about my casual invitation. I hoped so. I turned on the television. Rob’s program, this week about a disgraced politician, had almost finished. When I first started at Wycombe Lodge, I watched it most weeks. But with the image of him and Theo never fully extinguished, the sight of that earnest look on his face and the sound of his carefully phrased questions angered and saddened me in equal measures. I hadn’t watched it since the party. Instead, I’d become addicted to crime TV and all its cheesy mysteries. I liked to think I was making up for decades of lost viewing hours while I was working in restaurant kitchens. But the truth was that I liked its constancy. On some station or other, at any time of the night, you could always find the same cast of men and women in New York or Los Angeles or Miami fighting for justice without ever once asking for overtime or needing to brush their hair.

  And if I tired of them, I could turn to one of those obsessive Scandinavian detectives with complicated relationships and alcoholic pasts, skidding around in their Volvos in the snow and the dark, everything always solved in each program and series by the time the final credits rolled. Later, another mystery solved, I picked up the file I’d taken from Rob’s recycling bag last week. I reached for the third poem at the bottom of the pile.

  Whatever you say

  Whatever you do

  Wherever you lay

  I am you

  The page fell
on the floor and I picked it up. It was like all the others, a copy of the typed verse, still showing the original smudges and creases. Maybe it was the angle of the light, but it looked different. In one corner, there was what looked like rubbed out writing. I peered closer and turned the page around, examined it from another position. I picked up the lamp and shone it on the page like a torch. Yes, there it was. I was sure of it. Handwritten letters, almost but not quite erased. The fat, looped curves of the letter M. Underneath it, to one side, was the triangle of the letter A. The beginning of my mother’s name. I moved the page closer, then farther away to sharpen focus. I did it again and again, until I was dizzy. I went into the kitchen and turned the kettle on, then listened to its panicky bubbling, watching the steam float against the windows until the sight of the streetlights and building opposite dimmed into misted shadows.

  Back on the sofa with my mug of tea, I picked up the page again. I moved the lamp closer, making circles around the page until I could smell the paper beginning to scorch. I hadn’t been mistaken. I could see the first two letters of my mother’s name, written in pencil. The lines were blurred, but I hadn’t made a mistake.

  The other poems were in my bedroom. I got up and grabbed them. I held each one under the same close light. There was nothing on the first two pages, but on the third, the same two blurred letters appeared again. There were more faint lines and etchings. I looked closer and turned the page around. I couldn’t be sure, but when I turned the page upside down, one series of lines looked like a stick man, the kind of thing a child would draw.

  An image came to me, fully formed for the first time. I reached for my notebook.

  Warm sun everywhere. We’re in the room with swirly walls, yellow and blue, all the way to the ceiling. She puts her arms around me, she’s helping me to draw something on the floor. There’s a piece of green chalk in my hand, all powdery and dry. Her hand guides mine. Up we go with the curve, then down with the straight line. I lean against her, burrow into the softness of her stomach. I hear her laugh, magical, musical. We keep making patterns along the floor. More curves and straight lines until she puts her hand over mine and together we draw one last swirl. “Look, darling girl, look. This is your name, this is who you are. Annastasia Swan. I’ve given you a name all your own. A swan is a beautiful bird that is loyal and loving and true to its mate forever. And Annastasia means Resurrection.” I don’t understand what that means, but it feels so lovely and it looks so pretty that we smile and keep looking at the marks on the floor, how the sun dances off my name that belongs to me and no one else in the world.