‘He converted local farmers, encouraged them to sow wheat instead of opium in their fields,’ the priest continued.
‘But surely that is a good thing, Father?’ I said. On our journey here I have already seen what the hated opium pipe could do to men, making them useless, sleepy, unable to work.
‘No. The Christian farmers refuse to pay the opium tax, so the levy was raised for other farmers. The natives resent it.’
He leaned forward and put his pigeon back into its cage.
‘I ask for nothing,’ he said. ‘I make wine for Mass which I undertake to read by myself each day, without fail. But I know things! I travel about the city and I talk and I discover. The General is feared. He beheads people without trial. He isolates people. They disappear. The postal, wireless and telegraph offices are all under the control of his censors. He pretends to tolerate the Islamic religious and cultural identity amongst the Turkic people here, but it is only enough to avoid sparking a revolt. He hates the Universal Mission of Christianity from the West.’
‘That does not sound very optimistic – for us, I mean,’ Lizzie said.
Millicent stood up, ‘He cannot do us harm,’ she said with confidence. ‘It would be too much of a diplomatic scandal. Come, I want to talk alone for a moment.’ She took the priest’s arm and they left us on the terrace and went back inside. Lizzie pointed down to the narrow street below.
‘Look: Mohammed’s man.’ He was waiting for us, skulking near a wall. She whispered to me, nodding towards the priest as he climbed down the steps. ‘Do you think he’s a bit touched?’
‘Perhaps.’
Lizzie looked back at the birds once more before we made our way down the ladder to join Millicent and the priest. Our departure was protracted as our new friend repeatedly congratulated us on our imminent new house and promised to visit.
Back at the inn Mohammed was waiting, severe with the news that our new house is ready (he might as well have said riddance!). Thus, we are to be cast out on to the wrong side of the city walls. Lizzie whispered to me in the kang room that it is official that Millicent is to be charged with murder. The date of the trial is set for a month’s time, but I wonder how it is that she knew that, and I did not.
8. London, Present Day
Google
A search for Irene Guy brought up Guy + Irene Wedding 6 October 2009, Irene Guy Dr GP, consultation in 53 Railway Avenue, 6111 Kelmscott and Irene M. Guy Obituary Cleveland. None of them seemed to apply so Frieda picked up the phone, holding the letter in her hand and called the number. Her palm on the window created a black starfish against the sunlight as a man answered, ‘Hello, Deaths.’
Frieda hesitated for a moment, then, ‘Can I speak to Mr Griffin please?’
‘Speaking.’
‘Hi, yeah, I have received a letter about Irene Guy who is . . . who died recently.’
‘Yes?’
She took her glasses off. She was about to say that there had been a mistake, that she didn’t know who Irene Guy was nor why she was listed as next-of-kin, but she didn’t. Instead she said that she wanted to arrange to visit the flat, to clear it.
‘Can I have the reference number please?’ Frieda read it out to him.
‘Looking you up on the system . . Yes. OK. The address is 12A Chestnut Road SE27. We will be there at 2.30pm today with the key. You have one week to clear your belongings.’
‘Right. Thanks.’
Why on earth had she done that? She pulled at the bad job of her fringe and put her glasses back on because without them she was mole-blind. Once Nathaniel had said, ‘You look stoned when we’re doing it, your eyes all glazed, amazing,’ and she had not wanted to disappoint him by letting him know that astride his torso she simply couldn’t see as far as his face.
She couldn’t quite say why. A chance to look around a stranger’s house appealed. Irene Guy. She was curious. She would call work and tell them that she was jet-lagged and exhausted.
She was aware, for a moment, of the innumerable flight paths above the ceiling of her flat, above the roof of the building, up in the sky. She could hear, now, as she listened, the engines (at least two of them, simultaneously) zinging along invisible paths in the sky. It was the wrong way round, her being on the ground. Usually it was Frieda up there, knees squeezed behind plastic trays, head resting on a grubby window looking down at a view half-obscured by a wing, at the mini-lives being lived in toy houses, wondering how she was meant to be a part of it.
Perennial ryegrass. Cock’s foot. Couch and sedge. Crossing the cemetery she began to fear that the sound of her wheels on gravel was disrespectful to the great stretch of dead laid out all around her so she pushed the bike on to the grass instead. Up in the highest part of the cemetery, grandfatherly oaks stood nodding like village elders. Reaching the exit, Frieda pulled the letter out of her bag to double-check the address and looked again at her A–Z, squinting at the confusion of red, yellow and blue stains.
Out of the gate. Twenty yards. Immediate right.
It was local authority, a red-brick ground-floor flat. She D-locked her bike to a post and looked up and down the street. There was no sign of an official with a key, just an unwelcoming stairwell leading to a front door. She decided to wait on the street and she pulled out her phone and looked at the time. An elderly man cycled past, wobbling across the road, right into the other lane and then back again, his wheels wheezing with each turn. Her dad answered just as a bin lorry consumed the entire road like a tank, lights flashing, its skip-carrier at the back wide open like a ravenous mouth.
‘What? What?’
‘Dad, it’s me.’ Frieda turned away from the lumbering truck as it pulled off and looked down the street into the sun instead.
‘Oh, you. Listen to this,’ he said. There was a thwacking noise. Thwack thwack thwack.
‘What do you think?’ He sounded nasal, as if his nose was stuffed up. She wished he would blow his nose, clear it, or not sound so . . . congested; she would much rather have an uncongested father.
‘What is it?’ She placed both of her feet so that her heels touched the kerb and her toes met the yellow lines.
Thwack, thwack, thwack.
‘What do you think?’ he repeated, nasally.
‘Well, it’s a little difficult to tell over the phone. What is it supposed to be?’
‘What do you think it is?’
‘No idea.’
‘Delicious isn’t it? Satisfying. Doesn’t it sound brilliant? Best hundred pounds I’ve ever spent.’
‘On what? What is it?’
‘It’s a divining rod, made out of beech. Beautiful, really beautiful.’
‘You paid a hundred pounds for a beech rod?’
He let out a sigh. ‘It doesn’t just divine, it can also be used as a wand, a drawer down of energy, a phallic energy courser.’
‘Right,’ Frieda said, holding back a sigh. ‘Listen, Dad, have you ever heard of someone called Irene Guy?’
‘Don’t think so, why?’
‘Because I am outside her flat now and apparently I am her next-of-kin.’
‘Hold on,’ he said, ‘aren’t you supposed to be in Egypt or Jordan or China or somewhere?’
‘Yeah, I’m back now. I am on some Council list as being connected to her.’
‘You could have told me you were home. It would be nice if you could let me know which country you are in, at the least. And when are you visiting?’ A disingenuous question, she was sure, because he doesn’t actually want her to visit. It would ruin his cosmic alignments, made all the more cosmic and aligned with his new girlfriend Phoebe, an aromatherapist. Or physiotherapist. Or masseuse, or something.
‘Dad! Irene Guy?’
‘OK. I don’t know. Maybe you had a teacher with that name? Or we had a neighbour?’
‘Really, or are you just guessing?’
‘I’m guessing.’
She sighed. The same sigh that dated back to that unhappy day when it occurred to her that everything he believes i
n, she does not.
‘Are you just totally making it up?’ She could hear him whacking with his cane. ‘Do you think it’s a mistake?’
‘I don’t know.’ He sounded weary now. Frieda leaned down and picked up a chipped brick from the edge of the kerb.
‘Do you think it is something to do with Mum? They seem very sure, on their system, I’m down connected to her.’
‘A possibility.’
‘Do you think? Have you any idea where she is?’
‘Last heard of on a commune in deepest Sussex – and I am not even joking.’
‘Come on. It’s a bit surreal.’
‘I’m serious. She sent me a letter asking for money. Communes are expensive, it seems.’
‘Do you know how I can get hold of her?’
A young woman with an overloaded buggy walked towards Frieda. Three children appeared to be stuffed uncomfortably into it and numerous supermarket bags weighted the handles; she scowled as she passed. Frieda tried to smile at the young mother but was demonstrably ignored.
She surprised herself by asking, ‘Have you got the address, Dad?’
‘You want to contact her?’
‘Maybe.’
She waited for him to find the address, listening to the sound of him rustling about, her toes resting on the kerb. She remembered an instance when, as a child, she had trapped a caterpillar under a glass, one of those black and orange hairy ones, and watched it concertina back and forth. She recalled that behind her the caravans had been full of divine brothers and sisters, there for satsang. Satsang was a meeting but what it really meant was don’t make a noise Frie’, we’re meditating. A divine brother had come up to her in the garden.
‘Hey, Frie’, what you doing?’
‘Nothing.’
He had an enormous beard, enormous forehead and enormous glasses. He looked like God, according to the Seven Days of Creation illustration.
‘Nice caterpillar,’ he’d said.
‘Thanks.’
‘So, tell me . . .’
‘Yeah?’
‘What kind of boy do you think you’ll marry, hey?’ Frieda had stared at the caterpillar and not answered.
‘Maybe you’re ideologically opposed?’ He was laughing at her. He lit up a rolled cigarette. If he was God, would he smoke? It seemed unlikely. She had looked up at him, his head was gigantic against the sharp blueness of the sky.
‘With those pretty little dark eyes you will have the pick of the world, sweets.’ To make him go away Frieda had started to hum, then sing: Put your hand in the hand of the man who stilled the water. Put your hand in the hand of the man who calmed the sea. Take a look at yourself and you can look at others differently. By putting your hand in the hand of the man from Galilee. She had heard her dad say that the brothers were allergic to Christianity. It had worked. He’d gone away, laughing to himself, smoking.
Thwack thwack thwack.
‘I can’t find it, Frie’. I’ll have to keep looking and call you back.’
‘Oh, OK,’ Frieda said into the phone.
‘I’m holding it now’, he said, ‘over the kitchen floor and it is – literally – dragging me to the left, towards the sink. It knows the water is there.’
Frieda listened as her father hit the floor with the stick and she tried to ignore a gawky man who was standing near her, despite the fact that the entire pavement was empty. Frieda realised that he was saying something to her, waving his hand at her, flapping it near her face as if to scare off flies.
‘I’m going to have to go.’ She hung up.
‘Here for the 12A flat?’ The man said, squeaky, petulant. His jacket was much too big, he seemed incongruously young. Frieda had an urge to pat his head.
‘Yes. I am, yes.’
He nodded, held out keys and a brown envelope. Without a smile. Without asking her for ID, for anything.
‘We need the keys back and the flat empty by the twenty-first,’ he mouse-squeaked. ‘You can post them into the safe box at the town hall, or you can bring them into the office. If you haven’t cleared by then the salvagers will be in.’
‘OK.’
He pulled himself up, as if to leave, and Frieda asked, ‘Can I just check, am I down on the system as Irene Guy’s only next-of-kin? Is there anyone else? Does it say who I am exactly, in relation to her?’
‘Don’t you know?’ He looked at her, frowning. There was a pause, long enough for a car to drive past, a Jack Russell’s snout poking out of the passenger’s window. It yap-yapped as the car passed. A cloud moved, exposing the sun.
‘Of course,’ Frieda faked a laugh. ‘I was just curious to know what is on your system. It is always interesting to know . . . what information is held.’
His fingers stroked the keys on his mobile phone. He looked to Frieda as though he only ever ate homemade sandwiches, and perhaps occasionally soup. ‘I don’t know,’ he said, squinting at her, ‘your name just comes up as the main contact.’
‘Right,’ she said, ‘cheerio then.’ Frieda watched him walk away from her in the direction of the cemetery. The young mother with the buggy was just up ahead, and looked back once more at Frieda and at the young man in his misshapen jacket, shaking her head, as if disgusted with all these strangers on her patch. Written across the envelope in red biro it said GUY. DEATHS. REF 1268493.
Possibilities: Instead of a few squares, you know several towns; instead of an acquaintance with the country for a few miles about, you can claim familiarity with two or three counties; an all-day expedition is reduced to a matter of a couple of hours; and unless a break-down occurs you are at all times independent.
9. A Lady Cyclist’s Guide to Kashgar – Notes
June 7th
I must attempt to get this down – our new home: Pavilion House, which is in fact two houses, separated by a track. The Eastern side is where we sleep, all four of us in a single room, with a kang built into each recess. As glass is rare and expensive here the windows are covered with paper. The Western part is what Millicent calls ‘the business side’ and consists of a large, attractive courtyard with two rooms leading off it, and a third leading off one of those. The courtyard has that mysterious element, as if the walls are turned inward and are intent on protecting inhabitants from the desert outside. There is a simple fountain in the centre, not as striking as Mohammed’s, but pleasing none the less, as the sound of water is welcome in this land of dust. Pots of fig trees have been tended by a previous owner, as has jasmine growing finely along the walls. Two Chinese guards are on permanent station at the house gates to ‘protect’ us. Behind the house is a large garden that leads to an enclosed, unkempt orchard.
Lizzie and I traipsed like children behind Millicent, whose movements are always impatient, as she instructed us: the large divan room is for entertaining guests; the second room is for scripture study and the housing of our books and materials; and the final much smaller room is the kitchen. Millicent met the landlord alone. Lizzie and I were disappointed – we were keen to see the crooked face. He lives in Hami and so leaves a representative in the city for our liaisons. Millicent, whether through canny and mischievous insight or coincidence, I don’t know, has assigned me a most challenging of tasks: I am to be in sole charge of the kitchen, if kitchen is what one can call the cramped corner with a hodgepodge stove made from some old paraffin tins and no windows to speak of. The rules of the house are thus: Lizzie, garden; Millicent, all things cerebral, spiritual and conversational; and me, kitchen and baby, and the momentous task of procuring meals, three times a day. But – with the kitchen comes a cook.
The cook’s name is Lolo and he is a Tibetan. He is supremely exotic looking with long, white eyebrows hanging in drapes and a matching white beard and numerous liver-spots on his face and hands. His skin is a leather. He smiles at Ai-Lien whenever he sees her, and he didn’t whatsoever mind posing for Lizzie to take photographs of him.
Our Home. I repeat it in my mind. Two men stayed into the night last night,
Mr Mah, the merchant whose eyes have the look of a person who has relinquished something precious a long time ago, and the priest who brought us a welcome gift, a mimeograph machine from Eastern China. It comes in a hinged wooden box, complete with printing frame and screen, inking plate, roller and a tube of waxed paper. Together, they and Millicent spent the night in the divan room, the three of them, drinking wine and smoking. Lolo made tea in a metal samovar and dough strips which he prepared, sieving the flour, turning out the butter, measuring the salt, and Lizzie and I served them the tea, which they drank between wine courses, but we were not invited to join them.
Mr Mah seems to have taken it upon himself to be the prominent person for our arrangements. He is a mysterious person, neither Moslem, Tundra, Chinese, Russian nor Tibetan, but some form of hybrid. Unlike most native merchants, it appears that he is unconcerned with the scandal of dealing with us twei-tsu, foreign devils. He watched as Millicent and the priest searched the Bible for appropriate sections to translate into Perso-Turkic.
I continued to supply them with drinks and on my last visit to the room noticed that the priest had laid out his calligraphy sticks in a row next to him, and I saw on some paper examples of his beautiful Arabic script.
‘Eva,’ Millicent said, as I moved to leave, ‘we’ve decided on a section to translate.’
Mr Mah was smoking a long-handled black pipe, he did not look up at me, but puffed and stared into the distance as Millicent handed me a piece of paper. In her crabbish writing she had transcribed Ezekiel 37:
The hand of the LORD was upon me, and carried me out in the spirit of the LORD, and set me down in the midst of the valley which was full of bones, And caused me to pass by them round about: and, behold, there were very many in the open valley; and, lo, they were very dry. And he said unto me, Son of man, can these bones live? And I answered, O Lord GOD, thou knowest . . . So I prophesied as I was commanded: and as I prophesied, there was a noise, and behold a shaking, and the bones came together, bone to his bone.
‘What do you think?’ Millicent said, letting the smoke out of her mouth.
A Lady Cyclist's Guide to Kashgar Page 6
