‘Frank.’
He looked down at her. His face was a mess and his hair was streaked with silver but he was still Frank.
‘You know, I didn’t want you to leave. In London,’ she said.
He stiffened a little and lifted his hand from her arm. He stepped back onto the path and started walking again. She hurried to keep up with him.
‘That’s old stuff,’ he said. ‘Let’s not go there.’
The silence built a wall between them. Her stomach knotted. She thought of that bitter argument in Waterloo Station all those years ago. His tight expression. The way his fingers had torn a napkin into fluttering shreds.
‘I just didn’t know what to say,’ she went on. ‘I wanted you to stay, I did. Very much. But I wanted to travel.’ She paused. ‘And OK, maybe I was scared.’
He didn’t answer, just carried on walking. She began to wonder if he’d heard. Then he gave her a sideways glance and she saw a small, tight smile. His eyes met hers just for an instant. ‘Ellie,’ he said, ‘I know.’
They carried on walking. She watched the round brown toes of her boots stepping through the earth and water. They were lightly stained along the sides with dirt and a rainwater tidemark.
‘Is this what you expected?’ she asked.
He gave a short laugh. She wanted to see his face but he was a half-step ahead of her now. ‘Which part?’
‘All of it. Being this age. Like this.’
He hesitated. ‘I’m not sure I expected anything. I mean, I didn’t have a picture.’
Maybe he was right. She hadn’t had a picture either. It was only now, once she’d got here, that she realized she was surprised by the way things turned out. Not disappointed, just surprised.
She said, ‘Sometimes I think: How did I get here? Did I choose this?’
‘Ah.’ He paused and gave her a quick, amused glance over his shoulder. ‘That.’
They emerged from the narrow path between the tents. The ground opened out into a broader path in front of several makeshift compounds, marked off by a fence of tattered plastic sheets.
From there, she could see across to Ibrahim’s compound. His family was gathered there. They were perched along the same piece of wood, set in the mud, where Ibrahim had once sat. She remembered the day she’d seen him there. His long, thin face had been emptied out by grief, by the death of his wife. Layla had been lying, listless, in the plastic shelter behind.
Now, in the fading sunlight, the family was eating, sitting bunched together in front of metal cooking pots. They were working rice into balls with their fingers, their fingertips and mouths stained yellow by daal. An older woman sat apart from the rest of the group on a low, flat stone. Her food lay untouched on her knee as she tried to quieten a little girl, a toddler, who was stamping her feet and crying.
Ellen looked over the group and started. ‘Adnan!’ She lifted her hand and waved.
He looked up, set down his plate and came lolloping towards her, to the other side of the plastic fence. His face was lit by a beaming grin. He waved back, nodding and chattering in Pashto. The side of his face had healed into a thin scab. The bruising had almost gone. The toddler, diverted, ran to the fence after him and seized hold of his leg. He scooped the girl into his thick arms and carried her back.
‘When?’ She turned to Frank. He was smiling, the skin at the sides of his battered eyes creased into lines. ‘Did you know?’
He shrugged, his eyes teasing. ‘I told the police chief he owed me big time. For failing in his duty when we were kidnapped.’
‘You knew.’ She laughed. ‘That’s why you walked me down here.’
He scuffed his feet and looked away. ‘A goodbye present,’ he said.
In the soft, dying light, his skin looked smooth. She saw in his face both the middle-aged man he had become and the twenty-year-old she had once loved. She wondered if he saw the same in her.
They turned to walk slowly back through the camp to the gates. They didn’t speak until they reached them.
‘You got a car coming?’
She nodded.
He made a show of looking at his watch. ‘I should go.’
‘Of course.’
They stood, suddenly awkward, not knowing how to part.
She said, ‘See you in another twenty years then.’
He shook his head and smiled. ‘It won’t be that long, Ellie.’ He reached out to squeeze her hand, then turned and walked quickly away.
The sun was low, throwing long shadows. It would be late by the time she got back to Islamabad. A breeze was picking up and she turned into it, enjoying the feel of the cool air on her face.
In the distance, a car turned off the road and started picking its way along the track towards the camp. A hotel taxi to take her back to The Swan to retrieve her bags and to check out.
She stood inside the main gates. Beyond, on the mudflats, a tired, straggling group was waiting. They were new arrivals, all hoping to be admitted to the camp. She watched a family near the front. A man with a ragged beard was standing quietly, his shoulders drooping. His young wife, barely more than a teenager, held a baby in her arms. Her face was vacant with exhaustion. Beside her, a little girl clutched a handful of her mother’s cotton trousers. She wasn’t fretting, she was simply numb, staring into space with large eyes.
None of them spoke. Their belongings sat in a heap at the man’s feet. Pails and pots and bags tied with string. She wondered how many days they’d walked to get here. If they’d been driven from home by falling mortars or by fear of the Taliban.
The car, approaching now, sounded its horn. At the same time, two men in yellow tabards appeared at the gates with clipboards. They clapped their hands. A shudder ran through the crowd as people heaved themselves to their feet.
The young family picked up their possessions and shuffled forwards. Their eyes were fastened on the two officials. Their faces were blank, without expectation.
The car skidded, spraying water and stones, and drew to a halt in front of her. She climbed into the back. The interior was chill with air conditioning.
She turned to look back through the rear window as the taxi pulled away. The crowd was pressing thickly around the men at the gates, obscuring the young family. She sighed and settled back into the seat. The sun was falling quickly, almost touching the horizon as the wind rose and the day gave way to dusk. Just a little longer to hear their story. That was all she wanted. Just another hour.
About the Author
Jill McGivering has worked in journalism for twenty-five years. She is currently a senior foreign news correspondent with the BBC, having previously held the position of South Asia Correspondent (based in Delhi). Now based in London, she travels extensively for the BBC including assignments to Afghanistan and Pakistan. Her first novel, The Last Kestrel, charted the lives of two women during the Afghan conflict. Far from my Father’s House is her second novel.
Acknowledgements
Thank you to all at HarperCollins, especially to my editors Patrick Janson-Smith, Laura Deacon and Susan Opie. The Blue Door would never have opened for me without my excellent agent, Judith Murdoch. As a foreign correspondent, I’ve reported frequently from Pakistan in recent years, including from relief camps, and thank the BBC for those opportunities. Thank you to my writing group – Gabriela, Hilary, James, Maria, Ros and Seonaid – for encouragement and criticism, to Sajid Iqbal for his thoughts on Pakistani culture and to Lily Raff McCaulou for advice on American dialogue. I wrote an early draft of this novel as a Knight-Wallace Fellow at the University of Michigan and thank all those associated with the Programme. Finally my love and gratitude to my sister Ann for insights on all aspects of the novel, to my husband Nick to whom this book is dedicated and to my mother and late father for being wonderful parents.
Also by Jill McGivering
The Last Kestrel
Copyright
This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in
it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © Jill McGivering 2011
Jill McGivering asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
ISBN: 978-0-00-733819-1
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
EPub Edition © 2011 ISBN: 9780007433605
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