When Ganis requested that I should arrange for the two of us (that’s you, Nat, and me)to leave on our honeymoon in one of my jets from the hotel airfield, saying that would make a perfect ending to a perfect day, I knew that he plotted something. I couldn’t even pretend any longer that he wouldn’t want to expose you to any kind of danger. I decided to give him as much rope as he wanted.
It’s Saturday, 3.46 am now and I’m just back from the hotel airfield. My chief engineer, his assistant and I have spent the last two hours watching three characters break into the jet and move inside it with the help of small torches. From our observation post we could see the lights move about. I’d asked another team, several ex-police officers who are now employed as security by Steen Aviation, to follow them wherever they go for as long as necessary. They’ll know what to do when the time comes.
In the morning, under the guise of routine pre-flight check, the engineers will make the damage report. By the time you read this, the rest will be history. There’s only one thing left for me to do if you two are to have any kind of decent life, be it separately or together. As for me, to misquote the wonderful Old Man River, I’m tired of living but not scared of dying.
All my love
Handwritten signature
Chapter 21
When I was in hospital I was given sleeping pills. In anticipation of times like these, I saved three of them. The dawn was already breaking when I took one and finally floated off to sleep.
Mother was pottering in the garden when I went downstairs at midday. Bakir had handed me a piece of toast and a glass of orange juice in passing, and I stood by the door watching her pull a few weeds out of the herbs boxes.
‘Hugh is working from here today’. She came over, pulled off her gloves and patted the bench dry with a piece of an old cloth. ‘Lunch won’t be long.’
We sat in silence for a few minutes.
‘We’re determined to ignore the elephant, are we?
She smiled at me. ‘Not at all. Whenever you’re ready.’
Truth be told, I wasn’t ready. I didn’t think that I’d ever be ready.
‘Do you know,’ I pointed at Bakir who had predictably followed us to the patio, ‘do you know that he calls himself Bakir Ganis? Thinking of a name change now, Bakir?’
‘My name is Bakir Ganis,’ he said quietly.
‘There’s loyalty for you,’ I laughed, when a thought struck me. ‘You weren’t brothers, were you?’
He moved his great weight from one leg to the other, than back again. ‘My brother’s name was Leon Ganis.’
I stared at Mother. ‘Can you shine any light on this?’
‘Tell her, Bakir.’
‘Tell me what?’
‘Quicker if you tell her. You speak better. Do I call the young man?’ he offered.
‘No, no. I’d rather not. Later, Nat can tell him in her own time.’ She looked as I felt, scared.
Bakir put his hand on her shoulder for a minute and pulled up a chair. ‘Never mind. I do it. I was ten years old or maybe eight, don’t know, when Pashtpan Otarakan comes to monastery and asks to stay and eat and he teaches us English. We, kids, call all monks in school Pashtpan...’
‘Protector,’ Mother explained. ‘Pashtpan Otarakan translates into something like foreign protector.’
‘Yes, protector. Monks gived us food and clothes, and after we could read and write. Pashtpan Otarakan also selled monks’ grain and fruit at market to make money for books and blackboard. I always help him so that I can speak more English. One evening we put down our stall and my brother, my born brother, comes to take our money. Money of the Monastery school. My born brother Leon Ganis is a big man, like me, only not fat like me,’ Bakir laughed at his own joke, ‘he is a very bad man who killed people and robbbed them, he has a lot of money, and he beated me much, but sometimes he bringed me things and nice food. I feared him and I loved him, not only because he sometimes gived me things. And so, when he wanted the market money he pushed me on the ground and turned on the Otarakan, and Otarakan is small, not big like Leon, but he has a big plank in his hands, the leg of the stall, and he hitted Leon on the throat. Leon falled and vomited much, much blood and he died and I cried very much. Otarakan looked into his clothes and finded much money, he taked it and then he wanted me to take him to my house. It’s only a little house. Otarakan looked around, finded more money in my brother’s bed. He also finded many papers in my brother’s bed. He taked it all. Then he drived the cart to the Monastery and gived them a lot of money for things that we selled. And the other lot of money for the horse, enough for three other horse. He lifted me on the behind of saddle and we travelled. When we left the parts where people speak Armenian he said not to call him Otarakan and to say that he is my brother and that his name is Leon Ganis. I laughed at that very much because how can I tell people anything when I do not speak their language?
‘We have to steal food and sleep in barns because none of my born brother’s money is Dram...’
‘Armenian currency,’ said Mother.
‘I asked him and he said that my born brother’s money was American dollars and that it’s no good for bread and cheese, but he carried it all the same. After a while we sell the horse to a farmer, and the farmer gived us a big ham and a loaf and a kerchief of cheese. We went a long way on train that night and had plenty to eat. In every new country my new brother Leon finds me somewhere to stay and then he’s away all night and in the morning we have to find a different train very quickly. I tried to call him Brother Leon and he liked it for a while, but then said better just Leon. And that how it was before we came to sea...’
‘I think they got to Turkey,’ said Mother.
‘Leon has a job on ship and we both sleep in baskets...’
‘Hammocks, I think.’
‘Yes, hammocks, thank you Carys,’ he smiled. ‘The ships smell bad and I always had to vomit. Leon’s fingers bleeded all the time. And if they don’t bleed, they burn. Sometimes it was his knees or arms. He was in much pain.’
‘Why?’ So far I’d managed to follow very well, but this exceeded my comprehension. ‘What was his job on the ship?’
Bakir looked at his feet. ‘I was too young then to understand.’
Mother shrugged. ‘He was using the time it took to work off his and Bakir’s passage to the UK to get rid of his fingerprints, moles, tattoos, anything that would identify him to the authorities here.’
‘Because he was British and known to the police?’ I asked sarcastically. No, I wasn’t trying to defend Leon Ganis, my father, any longer. Courtesy of Bakir, the man who had been my father had no name. Courtesy of Mungo, he was utterly unspeakable and very, very dead. Now it was my mother, the woman responsible for bringing him into my life, who was adding oil to the fire. Just how much more was I expected to take?
Mother ignored my flippancy. ‘He was very clever. There was no DNA testing back then, but yes, his fingerprint record would have spoiled his game plan. At the same time, his injuries helped his application for asylum no end. He had proof that he was a victim of torture...’
‘Are you saying that Fath... Leon, whoever, was English?’
Mother nodded. ‘Have you never wondered why he spoke perfect English? Fairly uneducated but like a native all the same.’
This woman, my mother, had no shame. He may have been a monster, but she was married to him for eighteen years but had no good word to say about him. ‘I thought you said that you were very much in love and you had a bun in the oven before marriage.’
Mother just shook her head.
‘It’s now or never,’ Bakir laughed in the silence and spread his palms in some kind of comic resignation. He liked to use ready-made, off the peg phrases. They saved him a great deal effort.
‘Yes, I did say that. I remember.’ She sounded reluctant. ‘What I was trying to say...Look, for the sake of clarity and consistency why don’t we finish the story of Leon Ganis,’ she frowned ‘you don’t mind if I call him
Leon, do you Bakir?’
‘No,’ he said readily enough, but he wasn’t best pleased.
‘I’ll skip over the years immediately after they’d arrived to the UK. Bakir can tell you more if you really want to know, but even he doesn’t know everything. Leon kept his private and public image separate. In public he was always very kind to old ladies and animals. Never mind all that... He, Leon, never took any notice of me as a woman. He was only interested in the business side of beauty contests. But, once I got as far as I could go and Bakir was injured, in deep shock and not responding to any treatments, and with me pregnant, getting married seemed the best solution. For the first two or three years, well, as I say, there was Bakir to worry about, and then later you were born, he never tried anything... Then, one day it all changed...’
‘I tell you, he saw us, or he was told...’
Mother wasn’t listening to Bakir, she was away on a memory train of her own. ‘He decided to claim his conjugal rights after all. I was amazed but I couldn’t refuse. It wasn’t just about me any longer. And I owed him... gratitude. Lay back and think of England. Think of you, think of... Only, it wasn’t that simple. He was very angry, furious, and... impotent.’ Unexpectedly, she giggled. ‘Once when I was very young my parents and I were in London catching a late train home. Just as we were passing by, there was a fight in the middle of the concourse. Two prostitutes were busy beating up the third. The two friends flew off at the sight of police and the third one shouted after them May all your punters be incapable. My parents couldn’t get away quickly enough.’ She rubbed her temples with the tips of her fingers. ‘Take care with curses. You never know who they’ll stick to. I had fifteen years of it.’
I was brimming with questions, but she was off again, deaf and blind to anything else. ‘He used aids, sex aids instead of... Anything that came to hand, but his favourite were champagne bottles. He taught you to open them when you were only three feet high, and later he’d use them on me. He got off on it, on the fact that it was you who got the bottle ready for him. Every time he went too far, I mean worse than usual, he got Dr. Tanner to see to me. Dr. Tanner, of all people. He makes his living on darning hymens before weddings, then blackmailing the bride with the video of the procedure. I lived on painkillers for years. The only time when I was safe was when we went abroad. He didn’t dare do anything there in case I needed medical care and doctors detected my injuries. So, why didn’t I take you and run away, well may you ask. Because he kept my passport in the safe. Here, he had me, both of us, watched all of the time. All the same, once when he was in London I told the minder of the day that I’d pick you up from school, sneaked a couple of bags into the boot and headed off. I had no idea where I was going as long as it was away. Somewhere on M1 you wanted the toilet and something to eat. When we returned to the car all the four tyres were slashed. Two heavies came over and offered help. In seconds we were both bundled into the back of their van and brought back here. He threatened us then in exactly the same words as he threatened us last week. Everything, just as he said, having fun with us both himself first, bringing in hordes of others, the Dirty Brigade, the lot. I believed him.’
Finally, she ran out of breath and buried her face in her hands. Somewhere deep inside me, buried under the sharp-edged rubble that had been thrown all over me for the past few days, I felt sorry for her. I believed every word that she’d said. And therein lay the problem. I had to know.
‘If he, he of no name, was impotent and he’d never touched you until I was two or three years old, would it be logical to assume that he wasn’t my father?’
Neither of them answered. There was certain weight to the silence. I felt thick, inattentive, as you do when teacher asks you to repeat what was just said. With so many words spewed out already, would it have really hurt her so much to say a few more?
‘If someone doesn’t enlighten me very soon I start thinking that...’ At that moment all the lights turned on in my brain. What I’d known to be true for a while now refused to be ignored. I refused to break down then and there. I couldn’t bear to be told anything else. I hated the thought of being loved and worried over. Asked for unconditional acceptance.
‘Just don’t expect me to call you Daddy.’
I ran upstairs and locked the door.
Chapter 22
There were no big revelations left.
What was left was the police. They wanted to know why I’d wanted to marry an HIV positive man who I hardly knew. I shrugged and said that I’d trusted my father’s judgement. Was my father forced to board the plane, they wanted to know. I thought that he was helped up, was my answer. Not forcibly, I added. That was more or less that. They said that they might be back before they left.
Also, the press were still around in great numbers. Their noses were telling them that there was something juicy afoot, but they were getting too little to support even their usual fabrications. Hugh made their life even harder. Ever since he’d decided to stay with us full time, he was taking mother wherever she needed to go in his chopper. Their direct request for a press release was answered only once. Ivan Prentice walked down to the gate and asked them to be patient. Mr. Ganis’ body hadn’t been even released for burial yet. His family needed time and privacy to come to terms with recent events. He was sure that Mrs. and Miss Ganis would be happy to issue another press release after the funeral.
‘Is it true that Steen Enterprises have taken over all Ganis’ business concerns?’ someone asked and Prentice thought it wise to throw them a bone.
‘In the light of the impending marriage, a merger was in process. Mr. Ganis was looking forward to unload many of his responsibilities to his future son-in-law. As you’ll appreciate, all the activities have been suspended for the time being. Thank you, ladies and gentleman.’ And with that, he turned back to continue working on the financial and legal mess with my mother. I was still under age so all that was required of me was to sign a power of attorney, authorising my mother to act on my behalf.
That left only Hugh.
He was staying here, flying to and from his offices every day, sometimes working in what was laughingly called The Library until early hours. It wasn’t that there were no books in the library. They were bought with the house. I had a look through them once. Seventy nine volumes of Rev. Joshua Percival’s Sermons put me off for life. Mother discovered several old housekeeping and cook books that, according to her, were very interesting, and, again according to her, some of them were first editions, well worth professional evaluation, but the interest stopped there.
Most days Hugh and I exchanged a kiss, and he kept his arm around my shoulders when we walked around the garden, but we slept in separate rooms and neither of us made even the slightest attempt to change that arrangement. I wasn’t even asking myself whether he still loved me. Who on earth could love anyone covered in filth and shame as much as I was? I should have found his continued presence at the house reassuring. In his wisdom Mungo Steen made his legacy independent from each other, therefore it wasn’t the money that kept him close, but I wasn’t even thinking that far. I never asked myself if I still loved him. Before all this happened, I had been fully immersed in love in all its forms. Now, I wasn’t sure what love was. I neither loved nor liked anyone, least of all myself. I don’t think that anyone with no liking for oneself can love anyone else. Of course, the best test of my feelings for him would be if he left. I could have been taking his constancy for granted. Once he wasn’t there, I’d know for sure. I’d be either upset or relieved.
The trouble was that I would have probably been utterly indifferent. Indifference is a form of self-defence and I was holding on to mine for dear life.
When I entered the library Hugh was on the phone. He looked up and smiled at me, ‘That’s fine, Peter. We’ll talk more about it tomorrow. I’ll be in bright and early.’
I wished I’d had an excuse for coming in, a good solid reason, like the dinner is served, or I could use some help with moving
my desk around, anything, but I hadn’t so I just stood by the window looking at the roses, the raindrops on the petals glimmering in the sudden burst of sunshine.
‘Do you mind very much?’ he asked behind my back.
‘Do I mind being a Miss Ganis, after all that?’
He burst out laughing. ‘A very good way of putting it.’
‘Of course I mind.’ I turned away from the window and bowed theatrically, ‘Please meet my father, the eunuch.’ Straightening up again, I grinned at him. ‘A bit of an acquired taste, don’t you think?’
‘Don’t be such a brat, Nat.’
‘I can’t believe that my mother is still into him after what’s he’s turned into.’
‘As I’ve said, stop being so childishly judgmental. Love doesn’t alter when alternation finds, or whatever it was that the Bard said on the subject.’
Was that Hugh’s way of telling me that his feelings for me didn’t change now that turned out to be a child of the gutter?
‘Besides,’ Hugh continued calmly, ‘what was he turned into? A loving, deeply concerned father, as far as I can see. He tells me that he’d been searching for his attackers for years. He wasn’t getting very far before he made the link between the attack and Dr. Tanner’s clinic. Even then he wasn’t quite sure before Xango, Mungo I mean, practically lured him into one of his Chess Clubs and the two of them had a long talk. Mungo took Bakir to a decent clinic, the one that specialised in hormones. Apparently, Tanner had been pumping him full of estrogens, slowed down his thyroid gland... Actually, I’d better not try to sound scientific. I don’t think that even Bakir knows what’s been done to him. But, details were not of that much interest to Bakir at the time. What worried him was that Ganis... sorry, I mean...’
‘Go on,’ I said.
‘Ganis was a part-owner of Tanner’s clinic. A sleeping partner. Bakir only came to in his clinic. He had no recollection of any immigrant family. They may not have even existed. He may have been taken straight to Tanner’s.’
The Eunuch's Ward (The String Quartet) Page 19
