A Lady Cyclist's Guide to Kashgar

by Suzanne Joinson

  ‘What shall we do, then?’ Tayeb said, smiling. ‘It looks like we have one more day together.’

  Frieda moved over to the window and looked out at the seaside street. A sizeable gang of seagulls were clamouring and fighting around the contents of an industrial-sized bin. They were charging each other, wings crooked and beaks orange, racketing and squawking a holy terror of a noise. She folded the letters back into the delicate, thin envelope and replaced them in the index section of the book.

  ‘Let’s go out,’ she said, ‘have a look around.’

  Breathlessness; Limit Mechanical: There is a certain amount you can do, or think you can do; this is one measure of your capacity.

  37. A Lady Cyclist’s Guide to Kashgar – Notes

  January 15th, 1924

  The sweetness of the ferry crossing and the shock of English voices; a Kentish voice shouting, ‘Move along madam, move along.’

  Eyes everywhere peered at my queer outfit. Mr Steyning’s friend, Herr Schomaker, assisted me in buying a European outfit in Berlin but it was German in flavour, a fur scarf and cloche that looked strange in contrast with the dowdy-coloured wrapover coats that I saw on the women on the train from Dover to London.

  At Victoria Station I stepped into the thick tide of London’s workers dancing and fighting around me, making their way to wherever they were going. Overwhelmed, I swayed on my feet, fearing that I might faint. I held Ai-Lien to me like a talisman, though it was I who was her guardian. She was asleep in my arms, her face relaxed and her mouth slightly open.

  I put my feet as flat as possible to steady us against the pushing and the rushes, standing on the concourse built out of the great gains of Empire. Ai-Lien was a dead weight in my arms and my trunks and bags were behind me. The young porter was waiting expectantly. I looked round for the clock, and was surprised at the change in appearance of the station. The Brighton and South Coast side had been connected to the Chatham side. Southern Railway Company appeared to have even removed the screen wall and the platforms had been re-numbered since my last visit. The clock, however, was still mounted high on the wall in its usual place and I gestured to the porter to follow me as I walked towards it.

  There was no one there that I knew, indeed, I thought, well, how could it be that someone were to meet me? Nothing but a pigeon, scuffing on the floor, but I needed a moment to gather myself. My journey was not quite over. There was yet another train to Southsea to be boarded, if I could identify the correct platform and I was not quite ready for that. I paid the porter and watched him scurry into the crowds. I stood, stroking the soft hair on Ai-Lien’s head, thinking of Millicent sitting on the divan and Lizzie clicking her Leica camera, and heard the great ticking clock chime out loud as it struck six o’clock.

  A voice came up behind me, ‘Miss English?’

  I turned round. It was Mr Hatchett.

  ‘Oh,’ I said, before I could stop myself, and then he stood, a little shyly, in front of me, glancing at Ai-Lien with surprise, but saying nothing. I looked down at Ai-Lien.

  ‘This is Irene,’ I said. And then, ‘It is really wonderful to see you, Mr Hatchett.’

  ‘Call me Francis.’

  His face transformed as he smiled, as if cracking a mask, cheerful underneath, and he stood up straight. There it was, that reddish beard that I remembered and eyes alive and friendly.

  ‘Come,’ he said, ‘I’ve got you a room at the Grosvenor, where you can have a hot bath, something to eat.’

  I held out my hand towards him and as he took it my bones sang back their own response.

  ‘I imagine that, more than anything, you would like a cup of tea?’

  I turned to my luggage so that he could not see the expression on my face. Victoria Station’s shuttered roof stretched its cathedral arches above us in great strips and outside I could hear rain drops, clamouring as if wanting to be heard.

  ‘You didn’t bring the desert weather with you, then?’

  ‘No, Mr Hatchett – Francis,’ I said, turning back to face him, ‘I have left the desert weather behind.’

  38. Eastbourne, Present Day

  Henry’s Café, on the promenade

  ‘It won’t survive,’ Tayeb said, stirring his tea.

  They were sitting on white plastic chairs outside Henry’s Café looking out at the sea which was flat and unimpressive. The tide was far out and didn’t seem as if it were in a hurry to come in.

  Thoughts of Frieda’s work, her flat, her life clustered at the edge of the day but she banished them, as much as she could. It was sunny, but with a coolness in the air. They had walked along the neat, refined seafront promenade towards the undistinguished café at the bottom of white, spiked cliffs. Not talking much, but touching each other, lightly all through the day, hand on an arm, an elbow; a stroke of the hair. His hands were rough, and quite small, and she felt she could cherish them, if she were allowed to. When they did talk it was mostly about the fate of the owl. Frieda didn’t mention the letters.

  ‘But I do wonder if we should let it go?’ It was in Nikolai’s lounge at the moment, with a blanket over it. Nikolai had instructed one of his kitchen staff to feed it something raw.

  ‘I tell you Frieda, it won’t survive.’

  ‘I’m not sure,’ Frieda said. ‘Surely it will make its own way, out there in the world? It must have survival instincts.’

  ‘It would be cruel,’ he said. ‘Freedom would mean it would die.’

  Frieda’s teeth dug grooves into the rim of her polystyrene cup. ‘Is that a euphemism, for you, I mean?’ He smiled.

  ‘Keep it,’ Tayeb said, ‘and if it becomes too much for you take it to a bird sanctuary.’

  ‘You’re right,’ Frieda said and, surprisingly, it was a relief not to feel she had to free it.

  Behind Henry’s Café a chalk path ran up to the top of the beginning of the Downs and they made their way up it, slowly. It was the path that led to Beachy Head. The sky was low as if half-lit, odd, but once up on to the flatlands on the top of the Downs, they could see right out to sea. Frieda walked towards the edge of the cliff, hesitantly. Tayeb followed. Once she was a metre or so from the edge, she turned and called to him.

  ‘Be careful, it sometimes crumbles as far back as this.’

  Frieda sat down on the grass, feeling a slight wetness rise up through the fabric of her jeans. She knelt forward, on hands and knees, and crawled to the edge of the cliff.

  ‘Come on,’ she said.

  Tayeb did the same, on hands and knees, and when they were both at the edge they lay down flat on their stomachs, and allowed their heads with stretched necks to lean out over the end of the grass and chalk. It was an endless distance down to the sea where the waves bashed at chalk rocks. A sensation of vertigo shivered through her, but it wasn’t unpleasant. How small they were, together, and how together they felt, with their necks stretched over the edge of a cliff, looking down at the smashing, clashing sea on the shingle.

  Evening cast a wilderness light over the civilised garden beds along the seafront. Frieda stood next to Tayeb as they watched the sea coming in. The tide had moved up the shore at an incredible rate and with the sound of shingle dragging up, and dragging down, taking away with it all the lies she had been told as a child, the guff about open marriages and love, her mother and her father and the cut tongues. All of it drained away into the gaps around the pebbles and Frieda fancied she could change things. Move, from the city to the sea, perhaps, to another sort of life of less travelling, fewer empty hotel rooms, less continual movement in circles away from herself.

  ‘You could come to Amsterdam, if I make it there?’ Tayeb said half to Frieda, half into the wind.

  ‘Perhaps,’ she said, ‘I could.’

  39. Letters in an envelope, tucked into the index of a book

  January 30th, 1924

  Acacia House,

  17 George Street,

  Hastings

  Dear Francis,

  We are settled in the boar
ding-house, and we are grateful. It is clean, the landlady cooks well. We shall be comfy here and will venture forth into the New Year nicely. The town is windy, bright and has everything that a seaside place should: cliffs, long stretches of beach, the smell of sea-kale and lavender. There is an old fishing quarter – the Old Town – with alleyways and fisherman huts and piles of ropes and tackles. There is a coastguard cottage and Irene and I are grateful. Thank you so much, is what I mean to say. When will you be returning?

  Yours,

  Evangeline.

  Next, one page of a letter:

  you for the books. They will be useful for distraction purposes. I think that Mother has finally conceded that we will not be returning to Southsea, though, she quite rightly points out that there is not much advantage to Hastings over Southsea. I have thought that myself. I am working very hard on the final manuscript; you’ve strengthened me. I am so grateful for your reassurance. The task of pulling together the remains of my thoughts and memories seems somewhat overwhelming on occasions. Today, for instance, I could hardly set one word after another; it was as if each time I attempted a word a desert-ghost would ambush me – I sound ludicrous, I am aware. Heaven knows, I am sure you don’t care a rap about these details, you just want the book finished! How can I ever thank you? Irene gets fatter and happier still.

  And the next:

  March 30th, 1925

  Black Rock House,

  Stanley Road,

  Hastings

  Dearest,

  So glorious it looks: real, full of pages, actually here. I am moved – really, you can’t imagine how much – to look at it. Its existence is down to you. You perhaps will never quite understand how much I thought of you when in Turkestan; how much your commission meant to me. The fact is, now, you are also my dearest friend. You say that Emily finally understands, that you ‘sponsor’ Irene? I do hope so, darling. Tell me if there is more I can do? There is a small problem with the nurse, we can discuss when you come.

  A peculiar thing: I found Millicent’s bible this morning, in my drawer. I hadn’t put it there, I am not quite sure how it got there but seeing it stirred up all sorts of impressions of her and it is a curious fact that I think of her more than I do my sister. I can’t quite say why that is. She has left a mood, almost a scent on my life.

  Yours,

  Evangeline.

  Frieda flicked through the series of telegrams held together with a clip:

  IRENE ILL. DOCTOR HERE. COME.

  THURS AT 11 IS BEST. BRING THE PACKAGE.

  I WANT TO SEE YOU. E. IRENE KISSES THE PICTURE AT NIGHT.

  October 7th, 1926

  Black Rock House,

  Stanley Road,

  Hastings

  Beloved Francis,

  Mrs Reckham told Martha that it was ‘common knowledge’ all about the town. I admit, at moments like these, I find our arrangement a little difficult. It is not – my love – that I resent the making of this ‘second home’ as you call it. I want to make the place for you, indeed, I find joy in creating this still place, away from all the wants of your wife and children and the flibbertigibbet of London – I think often of what you said about the pavements coming up, the heads talking all at once as if full of demons and the air smelling of cider gone bad – I speak as if I know London life, when, how could I? Kept as I am, here, with Irene, at the sea.

  I am sorry. I should be happier. Irene is round and happy and loves Martha as far as I can tell. I mustn’t send this letter to you, Darling. All the worries you have. The work to keep the house a home and furniture and the fire, the kitchen supplied, all calm for your visits, in the end, in the night . . . This is just a passing mood. Forgive me.

  Bless you and keep you,

  Yours,

  Eva

  June 21st, 1945

  Black Rock House,

  Stanley Road,

  Hastings

  Beloved Francis,

  Your lovely long letter came and I felt calmed and happy. I’m glad that you have been resting and that Emily, too, is better. Early mornings are best for work; work without looking up until one and then after lunch, relax. It is a much better system than your previous way. Did you get my cable? Irene is due back any day now. She was cross with me for not rallying after VE day and I tried to explain that I felt it inside, a liberation of sorts – or, a dignified sense of weary victory, if one can put it that way – but if I am honest, I merely felt as though I were looking out of my window at a broken piece of glass. I took a walk along the promenade which is covered in barbed wire and hooks, with sandbags propping up the edges, it was dreary; quite empty.

  I could not shake an image of Irene in the flat on Regents Park, with her candlesticks in the fireplace as if it were perfectly normal that the windows were knocked out; those dreadful friends: no electric light, no water for her bath. Those things she said to me, ‘Eva, I can never reach the places you have been to. How am I supposed to?’ She said she found me ‘suffocating’. I believe there is a special gentleman somewhere, but she tells me nothing.

  She will be coming back to live with me here in Hastings now the war is over. I fear that it might be difficult for us to accommodate each other again after this time apart. I am nervous, darling, but I suppose we shall get along. Perhaps she will not stay for long? I am sure she will travel, go to the places she talks of. One can only hope that the world will open up again now for the young.

  This uncanny, brilliant sunshine gets wearing, and I miss you. Ought you not come and meet up with me next month?

  Meanwhile, all love,

  Yours,

  Evangeline.

  40. London, Present Day

  Victoria Station

  Victoria Station was a rush of commuters beating each other to the prime seats. The air was hot, frenetic and Frieda stood, conspicuous with a large birdcage in her hand, waiting on the concourse to take a train to the sea. Her flat was sub-let, her report submitted. She had asked for, and was granted, a sabbatical; a window, a pause, to live by the sea.

  ‘But what are you going to do?’ colleagues asked her, after they had together spent two hours in a strategy meeting that resulted in a list of action points that did not resemble or refer to any actual action, or point. She made noises about research and hinted at personal projects but said no more.

  ‘The youth of the Islamic world will simply have to struggle on without you,’ they said.

  She was rather an expert now at feeding frozen mice to the owl, which, as the print-out warned would happen, had ‘attached’ itself to her and had taken to hooting through the night, thinking, sadly, of Frieda as its mate. To be friendly, to be a sport, Frieda hoots back. She has left a husband to his discontented wife and their three boys.

  She paused for a moment in front of the departure board. The platform numbers flipped and her train came up: platform 19. She made her way on to the train and found an empty seat near the window. She put the cage, covered in a small blanket, on the seat next to her. The moment of disorientation, when it is impossible to tell whether it is the platform moving or the train, when it could just as well be the platform dragging backwards to the past, or the train rushing forward to the future, seemed to last an extended time. She was suspended; but then the sun came through the window, warming Frieda like an old friend. Battersea Power Station sang a goodbye. The tide in the Thames was low, and like her, wending to the sea. There was a card in Frieda’s pocket: on the front a picture of a woman in a grey dress leaning out of a window, looking out. On the back, written in beautiful, calligraphic handwriting, I took the Leica. Come and find me and I shall give it back insh’ Allah and below it, a drawing of a curious-looking bird, with a small beak and long spindly legs. The owl made a rustling movement. Frieda touched the cage, ‘We’re here,’ she said, ‘and soon, not long now, we’ll be there.’

  Acknowledgements

  Many, many thanks to friends, colleagues and family who have supported and helped me along the way: Ali Smit
h, for giving me courage a long time ago; early Goldsmiths readers Tamera Howard, Louise McElvogue, Blake Morrison, Maura Dooley and Stephen Knight; Chris Gribble and Becky Swift (the New Writing Ventures prize and The Literary Consultancy reading gave me the best possible start); Sara Maitland – and Zoe – for timely wit and wisdom; Arts Council England for a research and travel grant which enabled me to visit Kashgar; Gemma Seltzer and Kate Griffin (and thank you Kate for the help with the Serebriakova painting); Tamara Sharp and Beijing-based journalist Paul Mooney for advice on Kashgar, and the anonymous Chinese girl who helped me to leave Xinjiang Province when riots flared up in Urumqi and Kashgar; British Council friends all over the world, in particular Jonathan Barker (a very big thank you), Hannah Henderson, Sinead Russell, Susie Nicklin, Kate Joyce and Vibeke Burke; Elizabeth White for letting me stay in the most beautiful library in Yemen; Cathy Costain for looking after me in Cairo; Tony Calderbank for expert advice on Arabic calligraphy; Laila Hourani for a wonderful friendship (I hope that one day soon you will be able to return to your beautiful Damascus); Emma House for being the best travel companion; Nasser Jarrous for gracious hospitality in Lebanon; Salah Saleh, Amer Rifat and Hussein Mazeh for kindness in Sana’a; and Peter Clark for a wonderful trip around the Gulf in the footsteps of Ibn Battuta.

  Much of my research into Missionary travel writing, diaries and journals was conducted at the China Inland Mission missionary archive at the School of Oriental and African Studies in London. Thank you to the diligent archive staff and likewise staff at the British Library. Thank you to my agent, Rachel Calder, for immense support – both editorially and in life! – and my talented editor Helen Garnons-Williams for enthusiasm and a sharp eye. Erica Jarnes, Alexandra Pringle, Amanda Shipp, Katie Bond and Nigel Newton have all made me feel very welcome at Bloomsbury. Thank you too Bloomsbury USA, in particular my very lovely US editor, Nancy Miller and Michelle Blankenship, George Gibson and Peter Miller for such a warm response to my book; Sarah Greeno for the beautiful cover; and cartographer John Gilkes for Evangeline’s map.