Refuge

by Andrew Brown

‘I cannot imagine it.’ Richard recognised the ambiguity in his response too late: ‘I mean … to be in her situation. Or yours.’ He let the moment pass before continuing: ‘But you still haven’t told me about her father.’

  ‘I know I haven’t.’ Ifasen looked at him and held eye contact for a moment. There was a long pause before he said: ‘There was no life left for her in Nigeria. We came to this country to try and start again. Abayomi sends half of her earnings back to her aunt.’

  The mention of Abayomi’s earnings made Richard cringe. He imagined his crumpled notes stuffed into an envelope, clandestinely opened far in the north of the continent. For some reason he imagined that the notes would give up the secret of their origin, that they came from him, that they had paid for a fantasy, a lonely pretence of loving.

  ‘Okay,’ Richard said, ‘I understand some money went missing that you needed. You mustn’t worry; Abayomi has found the money she needs.’ Ifasen looked at him curiously, but did not respond. Richard took out a pen and opened his notepad. ‘Right, you’d better tell me exactly what happened. And then we’ll see about getting you bail.’

  Ifasen recounted the events leading up to his arrest. Richard was aghast at the description of the complainant’s behaviour at the traffic lights. He questioned Ifasen about the role of the policemen, trying to understand the basis for the apparent vendetta against him. There was a complicated history, Ifasen explained. Policemen like Jeneker were in the pay of the businessmen who brought refugees into the country. They were used to make sure that they paid their debts. And that they kept their silence.

  ‘We have to renew our refugee status every two years. People have to be paid for this to happen. We can’t afford to pay everyone. The man from Home Affairs wants five thousand, and the man who brought us here also wants to be paid five thousand when we renew. We don’t have this money, although we save what we can. The man from Home Affairs visits us …’

  Ifasen’s voice trailed off and he looked down at the floor. Richard could feel his fists balled tight. He had been so blind: the world he thought he had entered was as fictional as the one he had left. The reality was brutal. He wanted to hit someone, Coetzee, the policeman, the man from Home Affairs, Amanda. His anger at his wife surprised him. Somehow he felt she was responsible, as if she had duped him.

  He finished the consultation in a whirl of confused emotions. He agreed to launch an application for Ifasen’s release on bail at the end of the week. Svritsky’s trial was starting in two days’ time, but he would ask the magistrate to allow him to bring Ifasen’s application in the district court early one morning before proceeding with the Russian’s trial. He still wondered if the State would not concede defeat at the outset, if they did not have their eyewitness.

  He shook Ifasen’s hand and left. The prison corridor felt claustrophobic and he was grateful to step out to an open afternoon sky and warm breeze. The trees looked lush, swaying gently in the southeast wind. He sat in his car in the parking lot, the air conditioner cooling the interior. He felt depleted. Different emotions competed for dominance as he slouched in the bucket seat. He looked down at his trousers and noticed a long, silky dog hair. He brushed it away in irritation. He felt as if he had been spurned by a lover, or had had his infatuated advances rebuffed. He felt all the humiliated rage, the sadness of loss, the embarrassment and the self-loathing. Who had he thought he was? Who had he imagined she was? They had been playing a game together, like truant children. Only, he had confused the game with reality.

  It took a while before he felt calm enough to drive. Even then, on the highway, he slammed his hands against the steering wheel each time a surge of biting anger and misery welled up. He was further enraged by his urge to cry. ‘You bloody fool! You bloody fool!’ His shouted words pounded on his ears as he drove. It was time to end the game. And to take what he wanted from it.

  TWENTY

  RICHARD SAT IN the hotel bar drinking whisky. The impersonal décor depressed him, as did the flitting arrival of guests, excited and gushing, downing their shots and leaving for better places in the falling night. After leaving the prison, he had driven and then walked around the lower end of the city in moody distraction, finally ending up in the hotel bar. The early-evening light held a tense promise of parties, dancing and coupling, but he felt morose. A young woman in a short skirt had entered the bar and sidled up to the counter on her own. He would normally have been intrigued, but in his present mood he simply stared at her before returning to the ice cubes collected at the bottom of his glass.

  After sitting darkly at the bar for some time, flipping his cellphone around in his hand, he had sent Abayomi a message to meet him: ‘I need to discuss Ifasen,’ was all he said before punching in the name of the hotel. He felt no relief at having made the decision to send the message; if anything, the quickness of her response – ‘yes’ – brought with it more questions, more imagined possibilities. Perhaps she sensed that the truth had been disclosed; perhaps she was fraught with worry about her husband and only wanted to hear about his well-being.

  He swirled the melting cubes around, draining the last of the liquid – mostly water – from the glass. The barman raised his eyebrows slightly and Richard nodded. A fresh glass filled with ice and a double tot of whisky was placed on a dry coaster in front of him, the damp remnants of the last drink removed. As if I am enjoying my first drink all over, he thought. Wipe the counter clean and start again. Except that he could feel the alcohol building up in his veins. He longed to be drunk – to be so drunk that nothing at all mattered – and then asleep. To become catatonic for a moment and then to collapse, to fall through space into oblivion. He downed the whisky and felt it burn. His fingers tingled with intoxication. He nodded for another.

  The barman placed a new glass in front of him and looked up guardedly at someone entering the bar. Richard heard her footsteps behind him. Her hand rested on his shoulder.

  ‘Hello, Richard.’ Abayomi looked different to him now. Beautiful in a less glamorous, more real way: not the sultry sphinx, no longer the coquettish flirt – an older, more maternal handsomeness that radiated from her skin. Richard wondered why he had never seen her in this light before. He felt a spurt of regret and then love for her.

  ‘Hello, Abayomi.’ He brought his hand up to his shoulder and placed it over her hand. She walked slowly around him and sat on the stool close to him, her knees pressing against his thigh. ‘What would you like to drink?’ he asked.

  ‘That depends … on what you have to say to me.’

  Richard had been adamant that he would not be fooled by her wily sexuality, but her smile was undeniably sincere and he felt his resolve falter. ‘I think you may want a whisky.’

  ‘Oh dear.’ She gave a wry smile and nodded to the barman. ‘Just a single, thank you,’ she said. There was no make-up on her face, but a residue of glitter sparkled above her eyes as she turned her gaze back to Richard. ‘How did your meeting with Ifasen go?’

  ‘Well enough, I suppose.’ Richard was not ready to disclose what he knew. He wondered if he would tell her at all; he, too, could hold back, store secrets to be used as weapons when needed.

  ‘Do not try games, Richard. You are too good a man to do that.’

  The combination of compliment and taunt threw him off-balance.

  ‘I am Ifasen’s wife,’ she went on. ‘We have a child together. These things you now know. I think you agree that they are not something that I should have told you before now. They have no place in our … relationship. It is not relevant. Do not make it important now. Always remember what I told you about the sun and the stars.’

  Richard nodded. When she spoke, it seemed so clear. Why should it matter? It was, as she said, of no importance. But the moment she was silent, his doubts flooded back. ‘What is our relationship?’ He stammered the question. He felt deeply drunk and the words formed awkwardly on his tongue.

  ‘Why do you need to ask? It is exactly what it is, nothing more and nothing less
. Why do you ask, as if it could be one thing or another thing? You know what it is. You are being foolish to ask.’ Although her tone had not changed, Richard suddenly felt defensive. What was clear to her was not so to him. Her suggestion that he was foolish for not understanding was unfair and he felt his anger rise.

  ‘Foolish? Okay, then answer me this. I have hired a room in this hotel. I want to take you upstairs and make love to you on a big double bed. I want to fuck like lovers, real lovers. Now, what is that relationship?’ His head felt blurry from the alcohol and the undirected anger that seemed to flood his body. He needed to take control and it was only by exerting power over her that he could hope to purge his addiction. ‘What does that mean for you? Is it extra money in your pocket? Is it payback for me helping your husband? Or is it something more? You may be clear, but I am not. Not after meeting your husband and hearing about your child and your brother and your father …’ He regretted the last outburst and bit his lip as he saw her face open and then darken with angry shock.

  ‘You have no place saying these things to me,’ she said. ‘And you have no place hiring rooms and thinking that I will follow you wherever you want.’ She stood up, tall and distant from him. ‘Do not assume to know me, Richard. Thank you for your help, but goodbye.’

  As she turned to leave, Richard caught her by the wrist, holding her firmly but being careful not to twist her skin. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘No, please, just sit down and talk to me. That was wrong of me and I’m sorry. Just … just sit with me for a while. Your family history has nothing to do with me. It was wrong of me to mention it.’

  Richard released her wrist and Abayomi sat down again, seeming tired. ‘I was wrong to ask you to help Ifasen,’ she said. ‘I should’ve realised that it would be a problem.’ She sighed, letting her anger dissipate. ‘Do you know what it is to be desperate, Richard? Not just disappointed, not just unfulfilled. But really, deeply desperate? I don’t think that you do. There is nothing that is impossible to do when you are desperate.’

  He waited for her to continue, but she reached for her glass and took a long sip. When she put it down again she looked at him for some time without speaking. She looked drained.

  ‘I will help you with Ifasen,’ Richard said. ‘I will get him released, I promise. And then I’ll leave you and you’ll never see me again. You’ll go back to your life. And I to mine.’ She watched him sadly as he spoke. ‘I have never met anyone like you. You have changed things in me. Things that lurked deep down. You have brought them to the surface and now I must struggle with them on my own.’

  ‘I meant you no harm, Richard. You know that.’

  ‘Yes, I know that. But I have become … infatuated with you. Will you do me this favour? Will you come upstairs with me? One last time?’ Even as he spoke the words, he felt a dull fury well up inside of him. His eyelids felt wet with tears.

  She looked at him with neither pity nor anger, and he wished that he could read her or that he could stir something other than her blank expression. ‘One last time, Richard,’ she said, her face drawn. He felt a shudder trace across his shoulder blades. She confused him so completely that again he felt he was at her mercy. He had expected to feel relieved, but instead he wanted to say no, to strike through the masks and delve inside her, to come face to face with her self. Yet he loved her slender fingers on his nape as she rose, the deliberate brush of her breast against his cheek as she walked past. He drained his whisky and stood up, a prisoner of his own plan, unable to resist the inevitable playing out.

  At reception he avoided the look from the man who handed him his key, a flat card with the room number printed in bold. Abayomi seemed impervious and smiled politely at the receptionist. ‘Have a good day, Mr Calloway,’ the man said brightly. Richard mumbled something and turned quickly towards the lifts. He felt unsteady on his feet as they waited for the lift to arrive.

  Once in the safety of the room, his disquiet did not ease. The space was as sterile and impersonal as any hotel room. The cleaning staff had left the television on low and a tennis match was in progress, two slinky Russian players smacking the ball across the distance of a blue-green court. With the sound off, it was a caricature – short-skirted cartoon characters bouncing and darting about. The carpet smelt of fresh cleaning foam, and the residue of pine-scented detergent lingered in the room. Richard caught sight of himself in the full-length mirror: a fatigued-looking man in his middle age, his stomach drooping slightly, his cheeks hollowed by stress. He pushed his hair back and stood upright. In the reflection he saw her hands moving to caress his neck even before he felt the soft motion on his skin. This time, the darkness of her skin on his pale flesh disturbed him. A charity advertisement in reverse, he thought unkindly.

  He put his hand into his top pocket and pulled out a neatly folded wad of notes. It would be the test, he had decided in the bar before she had arrived. Whether this time, their last time, she accepted payment or not. Whether she was upset by the offer or embarrassed or just routinely took it from him. He turned around, her hands still on his neck. He watched her look down and glance at the money in his hands.

  She did not lose her composure; instead she leant forward and kissed him lightly. Her tongue brushed like a moth on his top lip as she pulled away. Was it a promise, he wondered, a bond of intimacy? He resisted the urge to plunge his tongue into her mouth, rather closing his eyes to savour the moment.

  ‘Keep your money, Richard.’

  She pulled away from him slightly and left him standing, holding the money tightly in his hand. Once again, he was dismayed by the ambiguity in her answer. Why did she put it that way? Why did she have to refuse payment and still make him feel dirty for offering it? Why did she show him no gratitude? Her duplicity was enraging. It spun around him, sapping his resolve and tying his arms to his sides. She reeled him in and let him out, just as he had been taught to do when fishing.

  Before he could say anything, she took the money from him and pushed it back into his top pocket, hiding it from sight. She started to unbutton his shirt and rubbed her cheek against his. He could smell her earthy scent, like sandalwood and wet bark. His shirt fell softly to the carpeted floor and her fingers started working his belt. Soon he was standing naked, his erection pressing up against the denim fabric of her jeans. He was gratified at least to see how the swollen head pushed against her. Her fingers caressed the sides of the shaft and tickled under his testicles, making him stand astride to allow her hand to move between his thighs. He was careful not to let his eyes wander to the mirror, where his reflection waited, cruel and mocking. She unbuttoned her own blouse, her breasts half-cupped in a white bra that made her skin appear an even richer shade of brown. She bent her arms behind her and the bra fell away like crumpled paper. She wiggled her hips as her tight jeans slipped off. Her G-string panties pulled in a narrow triangle between her legs, a thin string for a waistband.

  ‘We don’t have oil for a massage,’ she said, smiling. ‘I have a small tube in my handbag, but it won’t go very far.’

  ‘No massage today.’ The gruffness in his voice surprised him and her smile tightened slightly. The alcohol rushed through his blood. He felt reckless and violent. ‘Today I just want you. All of you.’

  His tone was almost menacing and she stepped back from him, although her fingers still teased along his stomach. He hooked his fingers into the string of her panties and pulled them down, crouching until his face was level with her cropped pubic hair. He leant forward and buried a long kiss on the mound. Her hands held his head and hair, but he could feel that while she was pushing his face harder into her body, she was also discouraging him from moving any lower. He relented, but felt a coldness come over him, a calm determination that pushed away his doubt. Either they were lovers, or she was a whore. Either way, he would finally take what he was owed. This was the new test. This was the only game worth playing now.

  He worked his way up her midriff with his tongue, tasting the powdery residue in her b
elly button, slowly rising to below her breasts. He circled her breast in a slow figure of eight before enveloping her hardening nipple in his mouth, sucking and gently biting her. She moaned loudly and pulled his head towards her, forcing his face into her chest. Was this also a pretence, he mused. The sham would end here. He pulled away, feeling strong and clear. He did not look at her face, but let his eyes wander across the sweep of her shoulders, the firmness of her breasts and their tight nipples, her flat stomach and rounded hips. He saw a body, a female form that waited for him, that was his to take. He would take control of this figure; he would make it his own; he would own it with his strength and power. He would enter this body and fill it with his own, and he would possess it for ever. The word ‘fuck’ was on his tongue, not an easily dropped expletive, but a vicious, spat-out capturing of feeling. It felt so strong that he wondered if he had spoken it. But she said nothing, watching him.

  Richard brought his hands up to her breast and pushed her slowly but firmly towards the bed until the backs of her knees hit the edge and she flopped backwards. His knees divided hers and he pushed them apart, opening her legs and displaying her sex. She was looking at him, puzzled and no longer smiling. He brought his weight onto the bed, his arms on either side of her and he slowly advanced in measured movements. He felt her thighs press against his hips.

  ‘Richard.’ She frowned at him, her trust wavering. ‘What do you want here?’

  ‘You know what I want. You know what I have wanted since the beginning. The one thing that you have held back from me. I want you. All of you.’

  She looked away, then said without hesitance, ‘No. You know that cannot happen. Please, you know the rules … our rules.’ He watched her mouth rather than her eyes, the way her lips moved, parting and closing, the wetness of her teeth and tongue.

  ‘No more games. One first and last time. For real.’ He let his weight push down in unspoken support of his demand. Her lips quivered but remained closed. She closed her eyes and Richard felt a momentary flush of triumph. An animalistic compulsion overtook him, invigorating him. Confident and aggressive, he hovered over her, edging forward until he could feel the prickle of her short hair on the tip of his erection. Then he eased downwards, releasing his weight from his arms. He arched his back, pushing the length of his penis against her slick body, probing the feathery warmth of her sex.