by Roma Tearne
There was no rush, he said. Days and years would follow, so why rush now? Fiercely he filled me, gasping I held him. Something luminous passed between us and there were tears on both our faces, perhaps for different reasons. But I knew he was giving me his heart. Afterwards, he stroked my hair, we got up, dressed in gloom, went downstairs. Like an almost-lost species. What we made together, together we murdered too.
‘Rest is what you need,’ he said to me when he drove me back. ‘Do nothing, think nothing. Rest. I’ll see you tomorrow, after the lawyer. We can walk out in the snow. If you want to see the land clearly, you must walk. No good sitting in a car.’
That was what he said.
13
NINE FORTY. LONDON STANSTED. THERE must be an airport close by. A few passengers prepare to leave. I hear the roar of planes overhead but the cloud is too thick to see them. The Italian woman is asleep. She offered me something to eat but I could not bear the thought of food. At least not this English food, which was what I presume it was. Had it been a bowl of hot rice, that would have been another matter. At the thought of rice and how I used to make it for Ben, I nearly start weeping again. The road we travel on is featureless and I go tirelessly over the events of the last days.
As soon as Eric left me, my secret grew into a monster of depravity. I saw clearly that I was an unnatural mother. It was in this mood that I went with Ria to see the lawyer on Monday morning. Neither of us was in any fit state to deal with him. Ria looked dreadful and I felt utterly crazed, unable to concentrate. My treacherous mind kept oscillating between thoughts of Eric and Ben. My heart was breaking with grief, but then, suddenly, my mind would switch and I would find myself consumed with longing for Eric. So great was it that I was certain I could not go on. I toyed with the idea of getting Ria to take me to a doctor for sleeping pills which I could take in one swift gulp. I could hear trains passing and I thought of sneaking out at night to throw myself on the railway line. I was going mad. There was no peace.
The solicitor wanted to talk about compensation. How much could be procured for the one life I had created. Distraught, I wanted to scream at the man. At least the anger had a decent feel to it, but I hated all of them in that office with their quiet calmness, their lack of confusion. At home when they kill it is with noise and commotion. Here they fill in a form after the deed is done. Murderers, I wanted to scream. You came, you conquered, you destroyed. Bastards, I wanted to cry. But I said not a word, shivering in my chair, obedient as a slave while my dead child, mistaken out of fear and killed in terror, lay on a slab. And all the time, in the back of my head, running in tandem, was my own crime.
Everything was still contained; nothing had broken its banks for the moment. Ria bent towards me, a concerned look on her face.
‘Anula, do you understand? You do agree we should prosecute the police, don’t you?’
I was a huge fish dying in the water. A piece of Ben’s blues began to play endlessly in my head. I tapped my foot in time to it. Ria and the lawyer exchanged glances.
‘Mrs Chinniah,’ the man said heavily, ‘suing the Suffolk Constabulary is not an easy matter.’
I stared at his jowls. I wanted to tear the flesh from his face with my bare hands. Then I wanted to kill myself.
‘They are not going to give in easily, you understand. They will plead not guilty. They will say that they were under impossible stress to protect the British public from threat of terrorism. They will tell the jury that their officers are highly skilled, trained to act only when they are absolutely certain. On the morning of the accident, they will say, they had been following your son for some considerable time because someone—and they will not tell us who—had seen him swimming across the river, day after day, even at night. They had traced the footprints of his trainers and matched them to one of the footprints on the riverbank. Of course, there will be other footprints belonging to the men who were the real terrorists living in the house next door to Eel House, but they will not tell you that. Your son, they will say, bore a close resemblance to the man they were hunting. The man they were after was the ringleader, they will say. Extremely dangerous, probably armed. They will tell you that several people in the area had had their passports stolen and witnesses had described a man very like your son. In short, they will say, it was a very, very, unfortunate incident. Regrettable, deeply upsetting, terrible, but ultimately inevitable, given the circumstance. That is what they will say.’
I burst into tears.
‘Mrs Chinniah,’ the lawyer continued, ‘your distress will be as nothing to them. The police, with the backing of the government, the Home Secretary, the Prime Minister, his spin-doctor, every single one of them, will be adamant. The shooting of your son was terribly regrettable but really not anyone’s fault.’
No one spoke as I continued to sob.
‘Mrs Chinniah, you must not expect pity. You must not expect compassion, except in the abstract. Grief means very little in the end. The police will be fighting for their reputation, their image in the public eye. Please understand, the media will be behind them, the government too. You are nobody in this country; your son should not have been here in the first place. The jury will know that he was an illegal immigrant, someone who came here to take the jobs of the British residents. That’s the thought that will be in the back of their mind. No one will say anything. In this country, what is unsaid is the most powerful. Do you understand?’
He stopped. His face looked grey and corpse-like. I could see the sweat seeping out. Flesh, hair, skin, I thought, crying hopelessly.
‘You will be taking on the establishment, Mrs Chinniah,’ the lawyer said, again.
The quality of mercy is not strained, I thought, remembering how I had learnt that speech long ago, in fifth grade. Ria moved restlessly in her chair. I presumed she had been told all this earlier.
‘You must see what your position is, you must be realistic,’ the man continued, his hand moving up and down as if he were pumping water from a well. ‘In the scale of things, your son, your suffering, counts for nothing!’
He sounded less certain, now. Perhaps he, too, was exhausted.
‘My swimmer,’ I said.
‘I beg your pardon?’
I was weeping so much, so pathetically, that I could hardly speak.
‘We used to call him that because he was such a strong swimmer,’ I said at last.
There was a silence.
‘Yes, well,’ the lawyer said. He seemed taken aback.
‘Look, it is my duty as your solicitor to tell you these things,’ he said. His voice had become very slightly softer. ‘It would be unfair to let you assume it will be easy. We know now there were two sets of crimes being committed at the time, but it’s taken this long for that to become clear. There were the people from the Clean-Up Britain Party, trying to implicate the Muslim community in a series of animal killings and burglaries, and then there were the terrorists themselves. It was all so confusing. It still is.’ He paused. ‘The reality is, we have a fight on our hands, and it won’t necessarily be a fair fight.’
‘Ah! The CUB Party,’ Ria said. ‘We’ve always been told they have no political clout!’
She too spoke softly. Her mouth had twisted into a thin, uncompromising line. The lawyer glanced at her. Then he gave a startled laugh, without mirth.
‘Quite,’ he agreed.
There was another silence.
‘They’re everywhere,’ he said flatly, turning to me. ‘You will find them in our border towns, you will find them in our cathedral cities; on our streets, in our schools. You will find them living amongst people who have come from the far-flung corners of our empire.’
Ria was nodding.
I had no idea what they were talking about.
‘He was not an illegal immigrant,’ I said finally. ‘He was waiting to hear if the Home Office would look at his case, wasn’t he? He didn’t want favours. We were told long ago that anyone who was part of the British Empire had a right
to come to this country. We were told England was the Mother Country. Don’t you understand?’
They were watching me with pity in their eyes. The lawyer picked up his pen and drew a line on the white sheet of paper on his pad. Then he drew another and another. From where I sat, the drawing had taken on the shape of a bird. Was it a cormorant? I puzzled dully. We had cormorants on our canals. Without thinking, I leant forward in my chair, but when he saw this he lowered his eyes and threw his pen down. Then he screwed the paper into a ball and tossed it into the waste-paper basket. Ria would not look at me either. Silence grew in the room like fungus. I had stopped crying. Dried tears, like war paint, streaked my face. If I could have ended it there, in that room, I would gladly have done so. The lawyer was looking at me intently now.
‘Look,’ he said. I could see the time had come for him to talk reasonably. ‘Don’t think I’m not on your side.’
Looking at him, I saw beneath the surface how it must be for him. How it was for every living creature. How fear was greater than love. How fear made you do things you could not account for. Why do we pretend it is otherwise?
‘It isn’t that simple,’ he sighed. ‘You must see that the kind of Britain you had believed in is somewhere in the past. A Victorian idyll, a place that no longer exists.’
He looked out of his depth. Did he have a wife? I wondered. Did he make love to her as…No, I thought, shaking my head, don’t go there. They were looking at me, warily.
‘This is a country that had a kind of peace for sixty years. The people here are complacent. Even the severity of this endless recession hasn’t dented that. We are an insular nation, fearful of what foreigners might do to us. Shadow-boxing as we go, waiting for a real kind of patriotism.’
I stared at him. He sounded earnest, but was he really laughing at me?
‘Your son strayed into this world; I’m afraid it was to his cost. What happened, happens every day. People are being shot all the time; mistaken identity is part of life,’ he added, glancing at Ria.
She was sitting with her eyes closed. Who knows what she was thinking, the cold fish, I thought, fury erupting again. I couldn’t think of anything to say, either. There was a faint stain on the lawyer’s shirt. He must have spilt tea and then tried to wipe it off. I stared steadily at the spot.
‘I’ll put everything in writing,’ he said. ‘I needed to tell you how bad it could get, that it wouldn’t be a quick process, that it won’t be pain-free. Now you know—’ he stood up and held out his hand to me—‘the rest will be easy.’
He shook my hand, and I gazed at his lips. As a child, I used to draw. My father would encourage me by saying it was a good thing to have the observational skills that came from drawing. There were pencil drawings of my family all over the house. My father used to show them proudly to our visitors.
‘Look,’ he would say, ‘see what a talented daughter I have. She will go far!’
I had not drawn any faces for years. Suddenly, looking at this man’s colourless skin, his bloodless lips, his cold blue eyes, I knew exactly what I needed to do.
‘Ria,’ I said urgently, so loudly that she turned, startled, ‘I want to see Ben one last time. I have to draw his face.’
My voice was completely calm, determined. They were both looking at me, aghast.
‘Mrs Chinniah…’ the lawyer said gently, ‘I don’t think that will…’
But he got no further, for it was Ria, pale, tearless Ria, who interrupted him.
‘She must!’ she said. ‘You used to draw, didn’t you?’ she asked, turning to me. ‘I know. He told me you did.’
Now we were looking at each other properly instead of avoiding each other’s eyes. Everything was naked. A ledge appeared on which we stood together. And for an instant an incomprehensible feeling rose between us and hovered uncertainly. The ledge we moved on swayed slightly. I knew then, if I could not draw my son I would simply die.
Ria was talking with some urgency in her voice. I was too exhausted to follow the argument. My whole body yearned to sit beside Ben and draw him. All I needed was twenty minutes.
‘It might not be possible,’ the lawyer said.
He sounded flustered.
‘Look, I’ll do what I can, but…’
He was frowning.
‘I suppose it might have some publicity value,’ he added.
He glanced doubtfully at me. I felt a thread of warmth—approval was too strong a word—break free and extend itself towards me. Underneath the coldness, I felt there might be some kind of heart beating within this man. It was Ria’s turn to be stubborn.
‘She has to do this.’
The man was already talking on the telephone, his tea-stained shirt turned away from view.
‘Sit down a minute, Anula,’ Ria said.
I heard contradictions in her voice. I dared not ask her what Ben had said. I needed to keep a clear head for the job in front of me.
In the end it was easier than any of us expected. The details remain hazy. All I knew was that I would be able to draw Ben.
‘Tomorrow morning,’ the lawyer said, showing us out. He looked relieved.
Outside on the pavement there was a small group of reporters.
‘Can you tell us how you are feeling, Mrs Chinniah?’
‘Have you only just arrived in Britain?’
‘Is this your first visit to this country?’
‘What is your opinion of Britain’s immigration policy?’
The lawyer pushed them away grimly.
‘No comment,’ he said.
‘Were you Ben’s girlfriend?’ a woman asked Ria.
‘Mrs Chinniah,’ asked another, mispronouncing my name, ‘can you tell us something about Sri Lanka? What do you think of your country’s suicide bombers?’
I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. Ria bundled us both swiftly into her car. She was crying quietly and without fuss. Tears did not distort her face. I was calm. We drove off, leaving the reporters behind. There was a police car escorting us, so that, apart from a few flashbulbs going off, we were left to drive away unhindered.
‘This is unbelievable,’ Ria muttered, and then she headed towards the beach. Snow fell indifferently. The sea was a grey, foaming mass edged with white. Seagulls breasted the waves, losing themselves in camouflage.
‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘I’m ashamed and sorry, but at least you’re going to be able to draw him.’
And now she cried for the end of everything. I touched her arm timidly. What was lost, I wanted to say, was innocence. At that moment I wanted nothing more than to tell her everything. Who knows, I might have done so had she responded in some way, but she did not seem to feel my touch. And a second later, the moment had passed.
We parked the car halfway along the sea front. It was the North Sea I was facing, grey and very rough and unforgiving.
‘He never saw the sea in winter,’ Ria said.
The wind whipped her words away. Bitterness gilded her words. Three people were walking on the beach, huddled together, all dressed in black; dark, like the weather. Ahead of us was a deserted Martello tower. Seagulls screamed and the sea heaved. I wanted Eric.
‘Will we see Eric, tonight?’ I asked, unable to stop myself.
Luckily she did not hear. She had turned away and was facing into the wind and the sleet, her coat tightly wrapped around her body as she walked away from me. Her head was bent. I followed, my orange sari a kite flapping behind. The cold was so bitter I could not stand it for more than a few minutes. She had walked very fast and had become a mark moving away from me across the shingles. Because she was so tall, her height made all her movements seem effortless and fast. Like a piece of machinery, I thought. In spite of this cold I felt a powerful sense of Ben’s presence and an idea began forming in my mind. I wanted to scatter his ashes near water. He had been born within sight of water; now let him rest beside it.
Ahead of me, Ria had stopped and now stood waiting. The snow was coming down har
der as I hurried towards her. Suddenly, with my decision made, the world began to shrink. Ben had been here, walking on this patch of earth. I would be forever connected with it because of this. Just as Eric had said.
He was waiting at Eel House as we drove up.
‘Oh, Eric,’ Ria murmured.
I felt a harsh thrill pass over me. I wanted to tell him about my decision to draw Ben, but Eric appeared distracted. He had found an elderly woman waiting to speak to us. She was a journalist, sympathetic, very different from the others, he felt. She had left her card with him in the hope that Ria would contact her.
‘I’ll do it now,’ Ria said. ‘You coming in?’
He shook his head. I sensed he was upset but I couldn’t think of any way I might talk to him alone.
‘Come in for a minute,’ Ria said. ‘I’ll just make this phone call.’
In the kitchen he stood looking at me helplessly.
‘I have to see you,’ he said. ‘I have to talk. Will you come over to the farm? I know this is a nightmare for you…’
We could hear Ria on the phone. It was midday.
‘When?’ I asked.
‘I’ll come back later—about three?’
I nodded.
‘I feel very bad about all this. I must talk to you.’
‘She’ll be here at six,’ Ria said, coming in. ‘I’ll do the talking, if you like.’
‘It won’t be necessary,’ I said. ‘I can talk for myself.’
I could sense rather than see Eric looking at me.
‘I would like to draw the fields from the window of Eric’s kitchen,’ I said. ‘Would it be possible to do that?’
I was looking at Eric, but it was Ria I was talking to. Never in my whole life had I been so devious. All sense of right and wrong seemed to have left me. Anything was possible. I am a hard woman, I thought. Death has made a monster of me. Tomorrow I would draw my dead son and today I was capable of such cool brazenness. It was shocking. The images of all those who had loved me rose before me. Percy, my father…Ben, of course. But it was Eric I wanted. Death had made me lose all sense of decency, I thought.
