by Leah McLaren
CHAPTER 24
Slowly, slowly, Nick pedals up the mountain. The earth is red, cracked and burnt clay, the terrain is rough, more of a gesture toward a road more than an actual thoroughfare. The bike is moving so gradually it would almost make more sense to get off and walk. But not quite. (Nick has a speedometer and has done the math.) He works the dented, dirt-caked mountain bike over small boulders and in and out of ruts, its fat tires gripping the path then spinning out as the hill gets steeper. It is noon. High noon. A cowboy time of day. The Tanzanian sun blazes down on his back, soaking his jersey with sweat and dust as if he’s been dipped in hot, gritty tea.
He hears the bus before he sees it. A braying diesel acceleration as the driver rips through gears to get up to speed. He swerves to the side fast and presses himself and the bike up against the rock face, as he’s learned to do to avoid being flicked off the road like a bug. The bus doesn’t slow—they never do—but rattles past at high speed, spewing dust and fumes, an audible trail of Bob Marley blaring from the loudspeaker over the windshield. Like all local buses, it’s crammed to bursting with families, children, baskets of food and caged chickens, steamer trunks strapped precariously to the roof—a careening miracle on mud-crusted tires.
“Mzungu! Mzungu!” the children holler out the window—the Swahili word for “white man.” Nick waves back with a big stupid grin, and the children scream in crazed delight. On the back of the bus is a hand-painted sign for Manchester City Football Club. Nick continues waving until the children’s shrieking faces have flown around the mountain and out of sight. He gets back on the bike.
After six weeks on the road, he is tired. More tired than he’s ever been. And yet there is elation in his exhaustion. He understands why those Buddhist monks walk for days, exhausting themselves in epic pilgrimages to sacred places. He never understood it before, but now he does. His hands are callused from gripping the handlebars. There is numbness in his wrists—nerve damage from white-knuckling it over bumpy roads. His body bears the marks of his journey. He is toasted dark on his neck, arms and calves, and paper white from collar to knees. A farmer’s tan. His whole body hurts in a way that pleases him.
He rides alone all day, and when he reaches camp, he immediately pitches his tent alongside the other riders. He is friendly with a few but as a rule doesn’t talk much. Keeps his story to himself. A big dinner from the canteen truck follows—huge, gluppy pots of pasta or stew sloshed into mess kits, perfect for riders burning hundreds of thousands of calories between them—usually complemented by a warm beer purchased from an enterprising local village kid, then to bed. Nick is sleeping well for the first time in months. Flat-out death sleep, nothing between him and the dirt but a thin, synthetic layer. It is so hot at night he sleeps naked on top of his sleeping bag, sweat vaporizing into the flimsy tent walls. He drinks gallons of water a day. Floods. Sucking up whole freshwater lakes. He dreams of home as he does this. Of the twins and their swimming lessons at the cottage. His mind, for the most part, is clear.
Up the mountain, then down again. He lets the momentum take him, standing high on his pedals to save his ass (also numb) from the impact of the road, breaking only for boulders or ruts in the path. This is Tanzania, a mountainous country of lush green forest, searing hot sun and raggedy kids running barefoot to school, their books strapped together with leather belts like in the olden days. Looking at these grinning children, he thinks of the things he will do with the twins: camping, picking blueberries, teaching them to drive, one at a time.
He hopes they will understand one day why he needed to take these weeks away—why the distance and the selfishness of it is actually his only hope to come back to them in one piece. He sees now, finally, what the problem was: fear. When the twins were born, he glimpsed something that terrified him. A love—there was no better word for it—that made him more vulnerable than he could bear. Maya poured her whole self into this love until she was consumed by it, the waters closing over her head. Nick resisted it until he was exhausted from the effort of refusing to surrender. Her smothering constancy became the counterbalance to his corrosive absence. The more she gave away, the more he withheld, until somehow they were both left with nothing. And everything. And now here he is. Not fixed, he now realizes, but finally coming to understand a fraction of himself. Not the old self or the new self—neither the mask nor the face—but the sliver-thin gap in between. This is the place where Nick has ended up.
At the bottom of the hill the terrain flattens out—a miles-long open stretch with no other riders in sight. He enjoys the flat ride, gearing down and spinning out his legs, letting the wind dry the sweat on his back and push him from behind. He practises going as fast as he can with minimal exertion, in an effort to cool himself down. It almost works. He drinks more water as he rides and, feeling that camp is near, squirts the last of it on his face to rinse away the dust. When he opens his eyes he sees the figure about one hundred feet in front of him. A Maasai warrior in the traditional red cloth robe, stacks of beaded necklaces and bracelets, and a great ivory nose ring, raising his spear by the side of the road. Nick is surprised. Not to see the Maasai—they are common in this part of the country, usually tending their goats—but to be summoned. The Maasai, particularly in rural areas, tend to be proud, composed and not particularly sociable with foreigners. But not this guy.
“Mzungu! Hel—lo!” he shouts at Nick as he pulls up on his bike. The man is dark-skinned with close-cropped hair, shaved almost to the skull. His face is friendly, though he wears no hint of a smile. When Nick dismounts, a staccato stream of English words fall from the man’s lips. “Hello. Celine Dion. Barack Obama. Man City. Coca-Cola!” he says. If he means it as a joke it works. Nick laughs and the Maasai chuckles unsmilingly in shared recognition. It is as if the man has said, “You see? We are living in the same world.” Nick thinks this might be all he wanted to say, but then the Maasai raises his long, elegant arm and holds out an object. It’s a cellphone, a very old Nokia, battered and scratched, about the size of a jumbo Mars bar. Nick can see from the face that it’s getting a signal, which is more than he can say for his state-of-the-art 5G model.
“Very nice,” says Nick. He pulls out his own phone to show the Maasai.
The man nods, unimpressed. There is something else on his mind. He gestures with his head and points his spear into the long grass by the side of the road. Makes the universal sign for “Look over here. I have something to show you.”
Nick looks around. Even though the road is long and flat and open, he doesn’t see another rider on either quavering horizon. The Maasai is already striding barefoot into underbrush and motioning for him to follow. With a sigh, Nick sees he must go. It’s not curiosity that propels him but a sense of fate. He drops his bike by the road and trails the Maasai down a path that looks animal-made. There are no huts or signs of human agriculture or civilization anywhere, and Nick has the strange feeling of being sucked back several millennia in time. He is considering turning back when the Maasai stops. He turns to Nick to make sure he has his full attention, then points with his spear.
Beneath a bush, there is a tail. Then a paw and a haunch. Nick squints, then staggers back in unmistakable recognition: a large male lion, having his mid-afternoon nap.
He scrambles back into the grass, stomach leaping up into his throat, choking him mid-jump. A powerful jolt of pure animal adrenaline shoots through his body like a lightning bolt. He’s about to run when he notices the Maasai shaking his head, a would-you-look-at-the-crazy-foreigner expression on his face. Nick pauses and watches in receding horror as the Maasai pokes the big cat’s ass with his spear. But the lion is still. Dead still. So dead still he is actually dead. Using his hands, the Maasai reaches down and heaves the lion over so Nick can see the football-sized hole in the beast’s side. Maggots swirl over crusted blood. There is the hot, acrid stink of death. It’s then that Nick notices the turkey vultures circling languorously overhead. Why hadn’t he seen them earlier?
/> The Maasai flips the lion right side up again, and then turns to Nick and makes the motion of shooting a rifle at the beast. A poacher, Nick understands. He must have outrun his assassin and come here to die.
But why has the Maasai led him here to see this poor dead creature? Does he want to sell him his carcass as a trophy? Does he need help carrying the beast back to his village for food? Nick is confused, but this is clarified by what the Maasai does next: he takes his battered old cellphone, presses a few buttons and then hands it to Nick with an expectant look. He waves Nick back a few steps, then crouches down beside the dead cat and places his head on top of its mane. For a moment Nick wonders if he’s performing some sort of tribal death ritual. A traditional animal funeral rite. But the warrior gestures toward the phone in Nick’s hands, and it finally dawns on him that the man wants his picture taken. Nick sees it’s been all set up—all he has to do is press the button, and so he does, three or four times, from a couple of different angles, until the Maasai seems happy. Safely snapped, the man stands up, takes back his phone and inspects the images, nodding to himself. Then he ducks his head in a gesture of thanks. And without a goodbye, the tribesman ambles off through the grass, leaving Nick alone with the lion.
He stares at the beast, breathing in the sweet, terrible smell of him. It’s really not so bad, considering the oven-like heat; the rot must not yet have begun in earnest. Nick stares at the arch of his rib cage, his powerful haunches, and his heavy padded paws, each one the circumference of a baby’s head, soft black pads like leather cushions. He has an urge to stroke the lion’s nose, which is dry and grey and cracked like a drought-stricken mud plain. His lip is curled up at the side, revealing a long yellow fang, pointed and chipped at the end. Looking at the tooth, Nick decides that the lion was at the end of his prime, that he must have had a large pride and a distinguished life. It must have pained him yet also seemed somehow inevitable—his time had come. And instead of giving himself over to the poacher, he used his last dregs of energy to come here. To die a peaceful old man’s death under a bush.
Nick crouches down and puts a hand on the lion’s velvet flank. It’s hot from the sun, but it’s not a warmth that could be confused with mammalian blood rhythm. Instead of this, he feels the stillness. The absence of life. He crouches like that until his legs cramp. Then he gets back on his bike and carries on down the road.
CHAPTER 25
It is 7:00 a.m. and Maya is still curled beneath the duvet in Gray’s spare room. When the twins creep in, as they do every morning, Maya pretends to be asleep. The creak of barnboard is followed by the soft thwack of bare feet, and for a moment she can hear them speak as if they are alone. It’s a little glimpse into their private toddler twin-world.
“She’s still asleep.”
Foster, incredulously: “Still?”
Isla: “Yes. I think so. I’m waking her up.”
Foster: “But what if she’s grumpy?”
Isla: “Don’t be a silly billy. She’s only grumpy if we wake her up when it’s dark. It’s morningtime. Yesterday she was nice.”
Foster: “Not as nice as Daddy.”
Isla: “Of course she’s just as nice. You just like Daddy better because he wrestles you. Mommies don’t wrestle so much.”
Foster (a tremble in his throat): “I do not like Daddy better. I just said he’s nicer when we wake him up.”
Isla: “But that’s the same thing, dum-dum.”
Foster: “Is not.”
Maya screws her eyes shut and hopes the eel working its way down her throat will slither away before their bickering works itself up into a full-blown squabble and she has to intervene. She feels a poke on her hip through the cover.
“If we don’t wake her up,” Isla says, “she might sleep forever.”
“Yes,” says Foster, “but then we won’t have to go to school.”
Maya is puzzled by this newfound resentment of “school.” Increasingly the twins want to be at home, where they can be alone together, whispering secrets in their private twinspeak. Since the split with Nick, she’s noticed a change in their bond. While they still bicker like an old married couple, there is a new anxiety underneath it, an unwillingness to be parted even to go to the bathroom or have a separate play date. It is as if they think that by binding together, they can fill in the empty space left by the split.
“Stop poking her!” Foster’s voice.
“I wasn’t. I was just checking to see if she’s awake.”
“If she was awake, she’d have woken up by now.”
Maya opens one eye theatrically, then growls deeply, like a mama bear stirring from her midwinter slumber. The children shriek with delight and jump back. Like sunglasses on a baby, it’s a joke that never gets old. They pounce on her in turn, wriggling like puppies, begging for tickles and then screaming for mercy when they come. Once this ball of giggling, flailing hysteria has worn itself out, all three of them sprawl back on the pillows, panting for breath and sighing with the half-awake delirium that comes from early morning exertion.
“Mommy,” Isla says as Maya listens to her daughter’s heartbeat return to normal.
“Yes, sweetheart?”
“Can I ask you something?”
“Of course.”
Isla composes herself. Raising her tiny, quivering chin, she pulls her pale curls out from under the collar of her nightgown. An oddly grown-up gesture that makes Maya’s heart clench tight like a fist.
“When are we going to see Daddy again?”
The eel slithers back up into her throat, but she keeps a close-lipped smile plastered to her face.
“I told you, sweetie—Daddy’s just gone on a little trip. He’ll come back soon and you can have a nice long visit then.”
Isla looks at Foster, then back at Maya. “But will we go and live at the old house once Daddy’s back again?”
“Maybe,” says Maya. “We’re just trying to decide who’s going to live where.”
“When will it be decided?” Foster says this with his arms crossed officiously across his chest. Unlike Isla, who is inclined to probe the dark corners of things, Foster wants to determine where he stands and move on. Maya reaches over and musses his curls.
“Today. We’ll decide everything today,” she says. “Now, who wants pancakes?”
It’s unsettling for Maya to be in the family courthouse as a client—a civilian in this soulless processing plant of human misery. The interior, she has often thought, resembles a discount airline lounge without the brightly dressed tourists, airplane noise or anticipation of sun. The people here are an invariably desperate-looking bunch. Everybody’s life is hanging in the balance; everyone has the same lean, hunted look. These are people fighting over the two things humans are most willing to kill and die for: money and children.
Maya arrives half an hour early, as is her custom. She secures a private waiting room and makes sure to use the public washroom before the other side shows up—insurance against awkward pre-hearing run-ins. Only once she is secure in her territory, having removed her spring coat, reapplied her lipstick, smoothed her new dress and procured a weak coffee from the vending machine, can she truly begin to gird herself for the battle ahead.
She is asking for half of all the family assets. She will not accept anything less, and she will not be tricked by creative accounting or offshore shenanigans. Given Nick’s track record, she and Allison are alerting the judge to the possibility of both. She could have frozen his assets until the deal was done, but something made her stop just short of this. Maybe the new face Nick showed her was just a little bit real? The thought nags at her like a faint but persistent pain. Certainly his buggering off to Africa to find himself—a move she sees as an extended version of his selfish Saturday morning bike rides—is not a great sign. But she pushes the uncertainty from her mind and reads over the twenty-six-page statement of claim. Her proposal is that she keep the house, which is paid off, and Nick take everything else—a clean division of asset
s that will leave them both well taken care of. She also wants full custody of the twins, which means increased child support. She knows Nick will disagree. He always was all about the money, she reminds herself. Girding.
Ahead of Maya in the court registration line is a young mother in a hooded sweatshirt who is hand-feeding Cheezies to a small boy in a stroller. He is a tall toddler—too big for a pushchair, really, and balking at the confinement. His mother tries desperately to calm him, but the approaching tantrum is inevitable, like storm clouds rolling over the hills. The boy, whose sweaty-looking ski jacket is covered in sticky doughnut crumbs and sprinkles, arches his back into the stroller, then pitches himself forward until the whole apparatus shakes and threatens to tip. “Stay still!” says his mother, smacking the stroller handle with frustration. She touches her hair, which has been pulled into a tight but slightly crooked French braid, and looks around the room, possibly for her lawyer. Maya can see she is suddenly self-conscious—perhaps she feels guilty for shouting at the child she is fighting for.
Maya has a stack of work files to go through but finds she can’t open them. Instead she stares around the place as if she hasn’t been here a hundred times before. The blue vinyl bench seating, the worn industrial carpet, the windowless walls covered in corkboard stabbed with stern or threatening notices. “ARE YOU ENTITLED TO A MEDIATOR? FIND OUT NOW! PLEASE BE ADVISED WE HAVE A ZERO-TOLERANCE POLICY ON STAFF ABUSE. MAXIMUM FINE: $2,500.”
Maya reaches the front of the line and gives the clerk her name.
“Wakefield vs. Wakefield,” the clerk says.
Maya nods, trying to effect a professional air, as though she’s the lawyer on the case rather than the client.
The clerk shuffles her papers, a gnarled ballpoint pen clamped in her jaw. “Courtroom 24. 11:30.”
She hands over a slip of paper that Maya doesn’t bother to look at. Instead, she goes straight back to her private waiting room and is relieved to find Allison there, sitting primly with a large accordion file on her lap, scrolling through her email.
