Desiring Cairo

by Louisa Young

  ‘Yes you do,’ I said. ‘You didn’t use to, because you couldn’t, because it hurt too much. But you do now, because you are a kind man, and you can afford to. Now is your chance.’

  He raised an eyebrow at me.

  ‘You believe in forgiveness,’ I said. ‘So forgive her.’

  He just looked at me.

  ‘You’ll like it,’ I said.

  And looked.

  I didn’t know for sure that I wasn’t just digging a deeper and deeper hole for myself. But I knew that if I couldn’t say things like that to him then there was no point.

  I wondered whether to tell him too that I minded her pain. Hugely. That she was a mother fearing for her child, and that I knew something about that, and I wouldn’t wish it on my worst enemy. But I left it for now.

  He pulled me back to him and our bodies started in again. I couldn’t tell if this was in agreement, or part of a process of mutual persuasion, or just a retreat to an area where we had no disagreement.

  Later, when he was sleeping, I rang Sarah.

  ‘He’s back in Egypt,’ I said. ‘Sa’id says he’s fine.’

  ‘Egypt,’ she said.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘But … why did he go? I mean … we were just … Oh fucking fuck,’ she said, which surprised me.

  ‘What?’ I said.

  ‘Why didn’t he tell me?’

  ‘Hakim or Sa’id?’ I said.

  ‘Hakim of course. He should have – oh … Oh. I’m so pleased he’s not in trouble. God,’ and she started crying. I made the kind noises.

  ‘But he’s gone back,’ she said.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘But we … I’d better go out there then.’

  That did surprise me.

  ‘Why?’ I asked.

  ‘Because I want him – it’s not over, it’s just starting. We can’t just let it cut off in the middle. Why did he go?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ I said, semi-truthfully.

  ‘And Sa’id,’ she said. It was strange to my ears to hear his name in her voice now. ‘Sa’id. Is he still here?’

  ‘Yes,’ I said.

  There was silence down the line.

  Am I meant to tell her I’m having an affair with her son? I didn’t. I knew I wouldn’t. I hadn’t told anybody. Didn’t want to. It was private. But reality is at the door, three foot high and rising. Tomorrow perhaps I’ll let it in.

  ‘Blast him,’ she said.

  ‘Don’t,’ I said.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Don’t say that. He’s your son.’

  ‘Excuse me,’ she said, about to start in on the ‘it’s none of your business’ line again. Maybe that’s hereditary, too.

  I interrupted her. ‘Sarah,’ I said, ‘look, my sister died, and we had about three tons of unfinished business, and I’m still dragging it around with me. Life’s too short, Sarah, or too long, or something. He’s your boy. Be good to him. That’s all.’

  She started trying to say something, but I wasn’t in the mood to listen. ‘I’m going to bed,’ I said. ‘I’ll talk to you tomorrow.’ And I went back to Sa’id, who was lying splayed like a crucifixion in my bed, and traced the many beauties of his body until he woke enough to fuck me again.

  *

  Later I asked him why, of all the doorsteps of all his acquaintances in all of London, he pitched up on mine.

  ‘For this,’ he said. ‘For you.’ But he didn’t elaborate.

  SEVENTEEN

  I Wish I Was in Egypt

  I told Sa’id about my conversation with Sarah. Mum was picking Lily up from school and taking her back to Enfield. We had till Sunday. I couldn’t not tell him. No clouds over our free time, our dream time. These are our things, take them on. I was not happy at this go-between role between my lover and his mother, but I couldn’t see any way out of it now. So I told him just that I had told her Hakim was safe in Egypt, and that she intended to go there herself.

  We were in the kitchen; he reached out and got my shoulder, and pulled me to him, and rested on me.

  I find it so lovely beginning to come to know somebody. Knowing, for example, that when he feels weak he holds on to me. Knowing that though relaxed, he is always very much in control, and doesn’t much like not being, and that at the same time as he resents me stirring things up, he looks to me for support through them, and holding on to me is his literal support. And that though he would not admit to insecurity in words, his actions are transparent, and he doesn’t mind that.

  ‘Then I must go too,’ he said.

  I almost laughed. Fair enough. Five years off, three days on, I thought. It couldn’t have worked anyway. I didn’t want it to. I just wanted … well, I hadn’t had time to think about what I wanted. I had wanted to kiss him. And I started to get to know him. And I felt for him.

  We hadn’t even mentioned the future. Or our practical difficulties. Our different nationalities and religions and cultures. Let alone where we live, and our responsibilities, and our families and work. Now it will never have a chance, because the romance is over. This is the flood. Reality washing everything away.

  I was very sorry. Not surprised. Goodbye.

  ‘Will you come?’ he said.

  Ha ha ha ha ha.

  I actually sat down on the kitchen floor and laughed. Laughed and laughed. Of course he didn’t think I was mocking him. Of course he understood that I was not laughing because it was an absurd idea. It wasn’t an absurd idea at all. All he’d said was would I come.

  I went and sat across his lap and wrapped my legs around his waist and laid my head on his chest. I could go and get Eddie’s money. I could have a holiday. We could make love twenty-four hours a day. I could try perhaps to help with their el Araby soap opera. I could visit Abu Sa’id. And Orlando. I could lie on the roof of Ibn Tulun and watch the doves glint in the sunshine; I could go to the clubs and let the beat of the tabla rock my blood. Then I could come home, either broken-hearted, or having seen the light, or bringing him with me, or whatever. Who knows. Che sarà sarà. The future’s not ours to see, we’re going to Wemberley.

  And if I was away maybe Chrissie would lose interest … no, nobody ever notices if you go away.

  Well, I was going. It felt like an old part of myself waking up. The part that does things, whether or not they’re wise. The dancing girl, the biker, the poet and the fool. Protected by God – well, I always had been. There had been so much protection for Lily. It wasn’t that we hadn’t needed it. We had. But perhaps we didn’t any more. You need some security if you’re going to take risks. It seems that I felt I had it. I felt young. I felt safe. Safe enough to be dangerous. Even when a bunch of lilies arrived, smelling to high heaven, with a card saying ‘I always get what I want’ in florist handwriting. I just laughed at it. Rang Fergus, got Chrissie’s home number, left her a message saying, ‘Fuck off. You can have your money. But fuck off.’ Then I dropped the flowers off the balcony and didn’t even watch as they spun slowly like helicopters and landed splat on the road.

  Sa’id didn’t see them. I didn’t want to lie to him. I really didn’t.

  *

  We spent the weekend in bed. He cooked for me, I danced for him – I did, I danced! He kissed my feet, and learned the difference between my good leg and my not so good one. By Saturday we were black and blue. I love my child but I loved her absence.

  *

  I was to meet Mum and Lily in St James’s Park on Sunday afternoon for the handover. Was Sa’id going to come? I didn’t want to introduce him to my mother. Nothing public. But I didn’t want him to be away from me. Six days now he had been by my side. My hands moved of their own accord to hold on to him.

  ‘La’ah, habibti,’ he said. ‘I’m going to walk. Is there water I can walk by?’ I directed him to Hammersmith, to the tow-paths and the muddy Thames, so like and so unlike the Nile. Planes for palms, pigeons for egrets, mud for obsidian. I didn’t want to let him go. I was so happy that I didn’t want to let him go, that I let
him go easily.

  *

  I found Lily and Mum by the pond, admiring flamingoes. How full I felt to walk from one love to another. (I’m not saying I loved him. But I was in love. At least, there was love there, and I was in the middle of it.)

  It was a very London day. October. When the days are starting to be shorter and you feel good for claiming the daylight when you can. When light is golden yet chill and gleams on pavements like slate; and sadness lurks behind bus-stops. I’ve lived in this town all my life. They say you’re never more than twenty yards from a rat in London; I’m never more than quarter of a mile from a personal landmark. St James’s Park? It’s where I used to come to meet David Barowski when I was seventeen, and he was at school round the corner, and we’d hide in the undergrowth and smoke joints and snog, then go to Gino’s Italian Café and Restaurant and giggle over sandwiches. And up there is the Ritz, where I once got into an embarrassing situation in a suite, after a Saudi wedding I had danced at. (I’d never seen inside the Ritz. Of course I wanted to go.) And now there’s New Scotland Yard, down the road there, where Harry sits, detecting. And the café where he told me Eddie was dead.

  And there’s my mother and my child. Well, my heart was full.

  Lily had a sticking plaster inside her elbow. She showed it to me, proud. ‘I’m plastered!’ she yelled, which made me laugh.

  ‘What is it?’ I asked.

  ‘It’s the blood test,’ said Mum.

  For a moment I couldn’t think what she was talking about. Then I remembered.

  Well, I know why I was so upset. I felt left out.

  ‘Oh,’ I said.

  ‘Grandma’s got one too!’ cried Lily, pulling up my mum’s sleeve, or trying to, from two foot shorter. Jumping about, anyway. ‘And grandpa! We all went together and the doctor took all our bloods and put it in bottles like when you go to blood donors but not so much! I didn’t cry! I got a sticker, look!’ She did. A teddy bear with ‘I was good at the doctor’s today’. ‘Really it was yesterday but Grandma said I could still wear it so it’s OK isn’t it Mummy?’

  And Harry will have had his and they’re doing it. They’re doing it. Without me.

  I know it was childish but I minded. I really minded. I wasn’t there when she was conceived and now I’m not to be here when she is … identified. Patronised. Fathered.

  Surely they needed my permission to take her blood? Though actually no, because my parents have parental responsibility for her too, so they could give permission.

  So I felt otiose.

  ‘Why didn’t you tell me, Mum?’ I said. I wanted it not to sound cold, but it did.

  ‘I did tell you,’ she said.

  ‘No you didn’t,’ I cried.

  ‘Yes I did. Last week. When we were arranging the weekend. I said “And I’ll take her to the doctors and have them take the blood.”’

  ‘I have no memory of you saying that,’ I said. I felt as if I were picking a fight. I didn’t want a fight.

  ‘Well I did,’ she said. Firm but gentle. Fair but tough.

  And no doubt she did. Last week, after all, I hadn’t exactly been concentrating. At least on anything much beyond Sa’id’s earlobes.

  ‘I’d have wanted to come,’ I said. ‘It is quite a big thing.’

  ‘I was surprised when you didn’t suggest it,’ said Mum, but she was smiling.

  ‘What?’ I said crossly.

  ‘Who is he then? Sa’id?’

  Lily grinned at me.

  ‘He’s not my daddy, is he? You said he wasn’t. But if he’s your boyfriend does he have to be my daddy? I was just wondering because I don’t know if there’s room for a boyfriend and a daddy. I don’t know where they would all go. Grandma said he must be your boyfriend but I wasn’t sure, I said I’d ask you. Is he? Sa’id I mean? Because if he is and the daddy wants to be your boyfriend what do we do then?’

  Mum was, as near as a respectable woman can, pissing herself. I was dumbstruck by the realisation of how different my life is now to my previous experience of romancing. My mum and my daughter have been gossiping about me. My five-year-old is taking a responsible attitude where I am hiding my head under the duvet. And she doesn’t seem worried. Not hurt. Not insecure. Not damaged. Just interested, and responsible.

  ‘Yes, he’s my boyfriend,’ I said. Addressing Lily. I squawked silently within at the admission. Boyfriend. I haven’t had one for years. (Part of me thinks Harry is my boyfriend still.) I tried the words on. Oh dear. ‘He is. And no, boyfriend and a daddy aren’t always the same thing. Some boyfriends are daddies and some daddies are boyfriends. Some are husbands.’

  ‘What kind is my daddy?’ she asked.

  ‘Don’t know yet, love. Probably the not boyfriend, not husband type.’

  ‘My blood will help tell. I’m helping to find him. My blood will help us to recognise him when we meet him,’ she said.

  Well, at least that’s pretty much how I would have explained it to her myself. Had I been given the opportunity. Or had I not been too taken up with my louche pleasures to take up the opportunity.

  My mother had an expression on her face like a great benevolent sad rock. I knelt to give Lily a hug but she ran away. She’d seen a squirrel.

  My mum never interferes. Other people moan about their mothers getting involved, but mine never does. Sometimes I wish she would. Sometimes I think she doesn’t care.

  ‘Harry said …’ she said, but I cut in.

  ‘Have you been talking to him?’ I asked shortly.

  ‘Of course,’ she said. ‘Organising all this.’

  God, I was pissed off.

  ‘Great,’ I said. I had been about to ask her if she and Dad could take Lily for half term, while I went to Egypt. Now I felt disinclined. They’d do everything without me and I wouldn’t be needed ever again. Them and Harry. Bloody Harry.

  But I wanted to go. God how I wanted to go. Sun. Sa’id. Holiday. Sleep. Omali. A quiet shisha on a tiled floor in the shade. A drowsy felucca. The Sufi dancers at al-Ghouri, whose movements echo the patterns of the hangings on the walls – if you laid the cloths on the floor I swear their feet would follow every blue and white arabesque and swirl. The movement of light. The Nile. Skeins of desirable things that awaited me in Cairo strung across my eyes and heart. I wanted to go. South.

  I ran after Lily, and caught her. ‘Would you like to spend a week with Grandma and Grandpa? Shall we ask them? For half term, you know, when you don’t have to go to school?’ Now I couldn’t remember if I’d ever explained to her about holidays. They didn’t really have them at nursery. Did she know she would get these great gaps, when she didn’t go to school? Did she know there was one coming up?

  ‘YEAH!’ she shrieked, and raced to Mum, and asked her. It’s great how they do your dirty work for you.

  Mum was looking up questioningly at me across the stretch of grass. I nodded. She bent back to Lily and they were agreeing. So that was sorted.

  I am not the only person in the world, I told myself. I am not the only person in her life. If she is to have a father, I am going to have to make room. So start moving over now, and stop being such a childish controlling paranoid.

  And that way you can go to Cairo.

  ‘There’s one other thing,’ said Mum.

  Lily was after the squirrel again. I looked up.

  ‘About Janie.’

  I’d sort of forgotten. In that superficial way you can when you’re doing something else. Sort of. Mum looked as if she recognised that, and was slightly sorry for bringing it up. As if she thought I might bite. I wasn’t going to. As Harry wouldn’t say, it’s good to talk.

  ‘Mmm?’ I said.

  ‘When you were teenagers, she was jealous of you.’

  I tried to think why, what of. My mind clouded – I couldn’t make sense of it.

  ‘I think, looking back, it was the dancing. All the attention you must have had. I don’t know.’

  Of course she didn’t know. For years I had kept th
e dancing from my parents. Fear of disapproval and prohibition at first, then habit and reluctance to admit the deception. So Mum was on guessing ground. Surmising.

  Was Janie jealous of me? Of that? Of the sequins and the leering, of the money and the fun, of my having something that was mine?

  I made a soft, understanding little snort, but I didn’t understand.

  *

  That night Harry rang. I was reading with Lily, and Sa’id answered. We both knew that the days of leaving the machine to bulge were over. We were into a new stage. We were going to have to learn to operate vertical as well as horizontal. It was happy families time. Sort of. We knew too that this stage wasn’t going to last. Do you think I would have let him answer my phone if we hadn’t been going to be leaving the country almost immediately? I think not.

  He didn’t bat an eyelid at Harry. Didn’t ask who it was, just called me and passed it over. I had had a lurking fear that he might be a jealous man, possessive as Europeans always expect Arabs to be, but he wasn’t. Not a jot.

  Harry, on the other hand, said: ‘Was that him?’

  ‘Yeah,’ I said.

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘Well,’ I said.

  ‘Yeah.’

  So you see we were doing well.

  ‘Anyway,’ he said, pulling himself together. ‘Just wanted to tell you about the blood tests and stuff, keep you posted, you know …’

  ‘Yes I do know,’ I said. ‘Mum told me. And listen …’ I didn’t want it to sound cross. But I had to say it. ‘Please – um – when you’re doing things, like that, I mean – could you let me know?’

  ‘I am letting you know,’ he said.

  ‘Before?’ I said. ‘I felt quite odd, to think that it had happened and I hadn’t been there, and I didn’t know. I need to be included, that’s all.’

  ‘Then you should listen to your messages, and ring people back,’ said Harry. ‘Get out of bed and pay some bloody attention.’

  Get out of bed?

  Oh. Yes. My mind flew back twelve years. My first week with Harry. In that absurd squat in Clerkenwell where the sun shone in all day, and we tracked its movements across the bedroom ceiling and the walls, and when the square of butter-yellow light was over the electricity point we’d get up and go to the pub for an hour or so before going back. To bed. ‘Sun’s over the powerpoint,’ he’d say in a comical naval buffer voice. ‘Time for a chota peg.’ Leathers and boots all over the blue-painted floorboards; crash helmets procreating in the corner, dancing costumes hung up behind a cloth. His Ducati and my Harley parked outside, worth twice as much as anything within. I could hear his bike thundering up five minutes before he arrived, the unmistakable crack and judder of a big Italian V-twin. I could hear it from Holborn. He and some mates were running a despatch company down there: the Holborn Globetrotters. Harry and me, when we were young.