“Forgive me,” Gabriella said, as the applause came to an end, “that you were kept for so long a time alone, but you came among us in ways which were not foreseen.” She opened her hands in an extravagant gesture of self-exculpation. “If only you had done as Adam asked, things would have been arranged with more consideration.”
“Where is Adam?” I asked. “He was behind me in the cave, and then he vanished. I don’t know what happened to him.”
Gabriella turned and gestured to Allegra, who took the hands of two cowled figures standing beside her and led them towards me. When they pulled back their hoods, I was looking at Adam and Marina. Neither of them spoke, but Allegra said quietly, “This should have happened a long time ago. I hope you’ll be kind to one another.”
Gabriella opened her hands and said, “So you have your wish to meet with Adam and Marina after all. Now something much more difficult must happen. Come, Lorenzo. Come, Allegra. Let us leave these three to talk together.”
As they walked away towards the arch that led out of the cave, Adam took Marina’s hand and guided her to where, in a ring of flickering candles, a rock formation roughly shaped like a stooping figure seemed to peer down into the pool. Marina sat down on a slab of rock at its base. Still without speaking, Adam sat beside her and gestured for me to join them on a slab a few feet away.
Marina must have heard the sound of my arrival, but she gave no sign of it. I now knew that she would have been unable to meet my gaze even if she wished to do so, but I felt both rebuffed and held at bay by the resolute way she kept her head averted towards the sound of water falling into the pool. Though only a few feet away from me, she felt unreachably distant. When Adam too lowered his head as if in a meditative trance, the three of us sat in uneasy silence for a time with the rough stone figure looming above us.
Eventually Adam drew in his breath and said, “You must know that this is no easier for us than it is for you. But Marina and I feel we can’t go back to see Hal until we have a fuller understanding of everything that happened all those years ago. About what happened between me and him for a start, and the part you played in it. And I know that I have to come to terms with my father just as you have with yours, but this is about more than that.” He looked up at me sharply then. “And it’s not just about the three of us, though God knows we need to look at all that again – at the way you hurt us both as badly as you did. But Marina and I need to talk about our mother too. We need to understand what happened to Grace – why she did what she did, I mean. And we think you know.”
Whether he knew it or not, Adam could not have found a more unnerving way to begin what had to be accomplished between us. I looked across the short distance and the great gap of time and duplicity that divided me from these two people I had loved so much and lost so cruelly. How to cross that gap? Did they know what they were asking? My eyes shifted away, up at the figure that seemed to lean above them in a gesture of protection. But there was no protection here. Nowhere inside this cave could a Faraday Cage be found. And I had no real desire for one. I had emerged from that dark underground passage like a creature breaking a chrysalis. All I wanted now was honest air and light.
“It all goes back such a long way,” I began uncertainly, “probably further than you think. Are you sure it’s what you want? Are you sure you’re ready for this?”
“Why else do you think we brought you here?” Adam answered with a firm voice.
“What about you, Marina?” I asked. “You haven’t said anything yet.”
She lifted her face towards me, grave, uncompromising. “If you’re asking me whether I’m ready,” she said, “I’ve been ready for thirty years.”
And before she could add another word, I had decided that, for me too, after three long decades of self-imposed and self-defeating silence, nothing less than a confession of the truth of what had happened after the start of our trust game back in London all those years ago would do.
21
Loyalties
For several days after the trust game began, I looked for Marina everywhere, but she was nowhere to be found. I carried her absence with me like a constant ache. Three times I went to her flat unannounced. The door was locked, the lights unlit at night. I hung about the Bloomsbury streets hoping to bump into her. I went to the gallery where her work was exhibited and saw no sign of her. Then I rushed home, scanning the crowds, driven by the thought that she had been looking for me in my part of London while I sought her out in hers. Each disappointment intensified the almost pleasurable pain of knowing that my life was incomplete without her.
But events at work were catching up with me, and my mind was made up to break the rules of the game by telephoning her when I came home one evening and found a postcard lying on the doormat. On one side was Van Gogh’s Starry Night, on the other just five words: Are you missing me too?
The telephone gave me only her voice on an answering machine, so I tried coaxing the tape: “I know this is against what we agreed, but yes, I’m missing you like mad and, what’s worse, I have to be away for a few days. Work. Could be a week, though I hope it’ll be less. Then we have to get together. Definite time, definite place. Okay? Let’s do it or – believe me – I’ll go crazy.”
After that I phoned Hal, as arranged, to let him know my place was free for a few nights if he wanted it, and waited in vain for Marina to call me back.
I did get back to London early. Earlier even than I’d hoped. Early enough to hear noises in the spare room of the flat as I opened the door.
“Hi, Hal,” I’m back,” I called, surprised to find him there in the afternoon. I was sorting out some shopping in the kitchen when he came into the hallway, where he stood in bare feet, staring at me with a queasy smile.
“Been sleeping off a hangover?” I said. “I’ve got news that’ll wake you up.”
“Actually, Martin,” he forestalled me, “I… I wasn’t expecting you back quite yet. This is…” As I had often seen him do under question, he stretched his arms above his head, clasped his fingers there and brought them slowly down to where his hair floated in silver-grey fly-away wisps. “Well, it’s a bit embarrassing, you see.” Biting his lip, he tilted his head towards the door he’d closed behind him.
“Ah! You’ve got a… a friend in there?”
I took in his nod and the downward flicker of his eyes before their vigilant blue stare glanced up again, warding me away. I dipped my own eyes away from that gaze. and saw the pale bones of his ankles and the yellowish hammertoe on his left foot.
“Right. I see. Okay.” Crouching down to the fridge, I put away the beers I’d bought, and heard him clear his throat. I frowned up at where he stood across from me, a big man blocking the narrow hall. “Well, I guess I’d better go out again so you can… sort yourselves out. Will half an hour be long enough?
“If you really wouldn’t mind.”
“No, of course not. Best thing.”
“Yes,” he agreed. “Best thing.”
As the front door closed behind me, fury swept over me. How had I got myself into the ludicrous situation of being turned out of my own flat for someone else’s convenience? It might have been less infuriating if he’d lightened the moment with a joke of some sort. That would have been more Hal’s way – a cavalier, unembarrassed pleasure in his own foibles. But those clipped sentences, the stubborn intensity of his gaze… he’d wanted me out of there. He’d been silently willing me to leave.
It wasn’t just curiosity, therefore: more an uneasy suspicion that made me duck into the coffee bar down the other side of the street, from where I could keep watch on my front door through the window.
I didn’t have long to wait. The door opened. A woman came out and turned back round on the threshold before I could make out her features through the condensation. She hugged Hal’s half-hidden figure at the door, not simply in affectionate farewell, but kissing him urgently, with passion, several times, before hurrying down the street in the opposite direction t
o the one I’d taken. By then I’d taken in the fact that she was black, which would have caused me no concern if I had not immediately recognized the cherry-red beret she wore.
I sat down at the counter hearing the blood in my ears.
When I got back to the flat, Hal was still there, waiting to apologize. With his bag already packed, he’d recovered his composure and was ready to strike the lighter note he’d failed to achieve earlier. He was surprised, therefore, by my baleful mood.
“So,” he said, “what’s your news then?”
“I’ve been given a new assignment,” I answered without warmth. “Chief Africa correspondent.”
“But that’s marvellous,” he exclaimed. “Congratulations. We must celebrate. Let me take you out to dinner.”
“I don’t think so.”
“Look,” he offered with a rueful smile, “about what just happened… I’m really sorry. We’ll make sure it doesn’t happen again, okay?”
I heard my voice demanding, “What the hell are you doing, Hal?”
Taken aback by my tone, he blinked. “But… I thought we had an arrangement.” He looked away from my stare, then slowly back again. “Of course, if you’re not happy with it… I won’t do this again. Perhaps that would be best.”
The way out was open. I merely had to step through.
“Yes,” I said, “I think that would be best.”
“Right, well… yes, I understand. Of course.” He leant down to pick up his bag. “I’ll be on my way then. Mustn’t crowd you out of your own place.”
At the door he stopped, put on his jaunty felt hat and turned, smiling at me – a wan, suddenly much graver smile. “I really am sorry about this afternoon, Martin. Wouldn’t have had it happen for worlds. Are you quite sure I can’t take you out – to make amends? We could talk about the new job.”
“I’m tired, Hal,” I said. “I’d rather not. It can wait.”
“Well if you’re sure…”
“Yes, I’m sure.”
Still he hesitated. “We are still friends, aren’t we? Wouldn’t like my little weaknesses to have come between us…”
I nodded, and glanced away.
“That’s a relief! Good man! Had me worried for a minute. Till next time, then.”
He turned to the door, and was about to open it when the words burst out of me. “I know who it was. I know who you were with.”
Slowly he turned back to face me. “Ah,” he said, though it was little more than a sigh, barely a suppressed gasp.
To fill the intolerable silence I said, “I saw her leave.”
“I see.” He stood there, gripping his bag in one hand while he swept the other across his mouth and cheek. “Do you… do you want to talk about it?”
“Don’t you think we should?”
Vaguely he nodded his head. “Do you think I might sit down?”
Leaving his bag in the hall, he followed me through into the sitting room. I asked if he wanted a drink, poured him the stiff whiskey he asked for, and then another for myself. He sat with his elbows on his knees and his hands supporting his head, staring at the rug on the floor.
“God knows what you must think of me,” he said. “I can’t expect you to understand.”
“It was a hell of a shock, Hal.”
“And you must be feeling ill-used.” He nodded as if to confirm the thought. “But you see, the thing is… we had nowhere else to go.”
He glanced up at me out of desolate space, still wearing his jaunty hat. I was thinking that London was full of hotels, that there had been no necessity to implicate me in this disastrous intrigue, and I was on the point of saying so when, to my amazement, I saw tears begin to slip in silence down his face.
I sat down across from him as he dragged a handkerchief from his trouser pocket and pressed it to his face. Then he took off his hat and ran his fingers through his dishevelled hair. “I’m sorry,” he whispered. “I’m so sorry.”
Clearing my throat, I said, “You know this can’t go on, Hal.”
“No, of course not,” he said. “I can see that it puts you in an impossible position. I wouldn’t dream of bringing her here again.”
“It’s not just here,” I said. “You can’t go on seeing her, Hal. Not like this. Not here, not anywhere.”
I saw from the immediate weary dismay on his face that he must have tried to tell himself the same thing many times, but it took the uncompromising certainty of my voice to confirm the truth of it.
“Yes,” he mumbled, “I suppose you’re right.” He picked up his hat by the brim and turned it between his hands. Then he looked up at me, his haggard eyes ardent with appeal. “I wonder if I can make you see?” he pleaded. “I know what you must be thinking, but this isn’t the squalid thing it must appear, you know. We do love one another, Efwa and I. And we need one another too. We’re both exiles, you see… Both exiled from warmth and understanding. You have no idea how hard it’s been. I tried to make it work with Grace after I got back from Equatoria, but… well, the thing’s just dead between us. It’s been dead for years. My fault, I’m sure. I know it is. Don’t get me wrong. I’m not blaming her. But I can’t lie in a cold bed, under judgement, Martin. And I’ve been so damn lonely and demoralized since everything went wrong out there in Africa.”
For a moment I thought he was about to break down completely. I saw the breath shuddering through him. But he put his knuckles to his teeth, biting back the distress, and managed to regain control. He unclasped his fist, wiped his mouth and began to speak again.
“I’ve done my best to keep up a front, but…. Well, the truth is I was just about at the end of my tether when Efwa came to talk to me at an exiles’ meeting and…” He faltered there and glanced across at me in appeal. “You have to understand, neither of us was looking for anything more than a bit of care and concern… not at first…” Hal closed his eyes and raised his hand to fend off a response. “And of course, I feel rotten with guilt about Adam. Sometimes I wake up sweating in the middle of the night. And then I can’t sleep…. But what can you do when lightning strikes? And the thing is, he’s no good for Efwa. He thinks he loves her, but he just doesn’t understand her needs. He doesn’t know how to hold her and keep her. She’s only his dream of Africa, whereas for me she is Africa, heart and soul… in her hopes and her fears, in her little weaknesses as well as in her strength. And the great thing is that she gives me hope. Hope that my life can still be worth something. She makes me feel alive again – though goodness only knows what she can see in a daft old fool like me! But I know I matter to her, Martin. I matter to her very much. We’ve become each other’s life, you see. We’re only any good when we’re together. Yet there’s nowhere for us simply to be…”
Again he turned those blue beseeching eyes my way. But asking for what? Understanding? A degree of sympathy? Consolation even? Or was he hoping that, out of love or loyalty, I might relent and assure him it was fine to carry on using my flat to make love to a woman who was his daughter-in-law and the wife of my best friend?
“But it’s impossible, Hal,” I protested. “Surely you must see that? Imagine what would happen if Adam found out. It doesn’t bear thinking about.”
“No, he mustn’t,” Hal said. “Of course he mustn’t.”
“Then how can there be any future in it? You know better than I do how unstable Adam can be. I’m not sure he could survive finding out about this.” Watching him wince against the pain of that thought, I said, “I have to think about my loyalty to him too.”
“Of course you do,” he answered. “I know I’ve no right…” – he gave me a beggar’s sidelong glance – “but this is between you and me, isn’t it? You wouldn’t ever tell him?”
“What did I just say? Never in a million years. But you’ve got to get your head straight. You should never have let this happen in the first place, and now it has to stop. You’ve got to end it, Hal. Right away, however painful that might be. There’s no other way out.”
Hi
s voice was little more than a whispered croak as he said, “But what about Efwa?”
“What about Adam? What about Grace?”
He sat there on the couch, staring at his knees, nodding his head.
“You don’t even have to think about it, Hal. You know I’m right.”
Loudly he drew in his breath and sat for a time with his eyes closed. “Do you think I might have another drink?” he said eventually, and glanced at his watch. “Then I’d better make for my train, otherwise I won’t get back tonight.”
Watching as I poured another whiskey into his glass, he said, “I imagine you must despise me now.”
“Never,” I declared. “I think you’ve been a damned fool, but which of us hasn’t been – especially where women are concerned?”
He nodded, looking suddenly much older in the bleak light from the window, then turned to me again. “I think I’m going to need some support to get through this.”
“I know.”
He seemed to draw some comfort from the response. Two swift swigs at the whiskey began to restore his dignity. But I just wanted him out of the place now, and it came as a relief to hear him say, “I’d better be on my way.” He put his hat back on and looked down where I sat frowning in my chair. “I know how hard this must be on you. But you have no idea how much your kindness and your confidence mean to me.” Then he stretched out his arms towards me. “Would you give me a hug?”
Such a thing had never happened between us before. In the tough northern culture from which Hal and I came, men did not hug each other. But I got to my feet. He advanced towards me, gripped my shoulders in his big embrace and whispered fiercely, “You’re a true son to me.” His grip tightened for a moment, and the act felt like a dubbing – an honour unexpectedly conferred.
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