Divinity Road

by Martin Pevsner

  The white walls are now decorated with posters – different species of snakes and the Chelsea squad for Abebe, a boy band and a map of Africa for Yanit – and the table has been moved into a corner. The two camp beds now dominate the room.

  Nuala looks around distractedly for the charcoal sketches. She thinks she would have noticed them all those months back when she first went through Greg’s things. She doesn’t recall any such artwork, but is aware that she had been in a terrible state at the time, oblivious to much of what was going on around her. She opens the cupboard and checks under the table.

  She can’t face the loft, but tries the other possible hiding places – her bedroom, the airing cupboard in the bathroom, the bookcase on the landing. Finally, and with a twinge of guilt at the invasion of privacy, she pushes open Semira’s door and enters what was once the spare bedroom.

  She hasn’t been inside this room since Semira moved in. It’s almost unchanged, no photos on display, no pictures or posters to personalise the space. On the desk is a pile of books. There’s an English grammar, a heavy dictionary, a history of Oxford, a text on computers, a prospectus for Oxford Brookes University. Next to these lie a copy of the Qur’an and a notebook. Pens and pencils are stacked inside a coffee cup. There’s an electronic dictionary beside the cup.

  Next to the lamp on the bedside table is a hand mirror and bathbag full of make-up, its zipper open and contents displayed. Nuala recognises the bright scarlet lipstick Semira tends to use most days, the eyeliner and mascara. The bed’s been made, a spare blanket neatly folded on the duvet. The room’s stuffy, the window shut, Semira’s scent – half perfume, half human odour – hanging in the air. Nuala opens the window.

  She’s about to leave when she remembers why she came, pulls open the door of the wardrobe. It’s full of Semira’s clothes, padded jackets and dark baggy skirt suits and colourful dresses, three or four pairs of shoes. Nuala closes the door, then as an afterthought, reaches up on top of the wardrobe and runs her hand along the surface. She’s hoping to feel a pile of loose leaf sheets, or perhaps a large thin sketch book. Instead, her fingers brush against something much more solid. She drags it across to the edge of the surface and pulls it down – a shoebox.

  It feels full but not heavy. Nuala takes off the lid. Inside are a pile of envelopes, each addressed with a single name in English: Kassa. She takes out the first envelope and turns it over in her hand. It’s sealed. She pulls out more, all identical. Carefully she returns the letters to the box, the box to its original location.

  Back in the kitchen, she sees that the cat’s food bowl is empty, the water bowl dry. She tops them both up, hears the metallic click of the catflap and feels the soft sensation of the tabby as she rubs herself against her legs.

  Nuala’s restless. She opens the sliding doors that lead out into the garden and stands on the lawn amongst the bats and balls, the plastic wheelbarrow and overturned see-saw. She hasn’t worked outside for months but even in the Before time, she’d been a reluctant gardener, enthusiastic for only about three days a year, usually in early summer, when she’d bully Greg into mowing the lawn. She’d hack away viciously at any overgrowth in an attempt to get all the pruning over in a single hasty session, then pull up handfuls of weeds that would lie where they were thrown until the following autumn.

  Nuala goes back inside. She contemplates a spot of spring cleaning. Fortunately the floor tiles are a zesty yellow, good for concealing the dirt, but even she can see that they need a scrub. The fridge, too, hasn’t been cleaned for some time, nor has the microwave. The book shelf opposite the table is dusty, a mess of unsheathed CDs and piled cookery books. She sighs, knowing that the chores need doing while yearning for some more meaningful act. She’s about to set to work, rummaging under the sink for cleaning fluid and scouring cloths, when she has a better idea, a moment of inspiration that falls somewhere between raging rebellion and reckless desperation.

  She phones everyone she knows in Oxford, the book group women, the school mums and neighbours, her old friends from yoga, Cassie and Angie and Ingrid and Mary, and tells them of her plan, an impromptu party. They all say yes, they’ll be there, what can they bring? And they don’t tell her, of course, of their own arrangements that they’ll cancel, postpone. Their loyalty and love for Nuala make it an automatic response.

  So she gathers her purse and shopping bags, spends an hour at the supermarket filling her trolley with cheeses and snacks, baguette and olives, the ingredients for a great pot of chilli con carne, a green salad, bottles of wine, cartons of juice and fizzy drinks. And back home, she sets to work so that by the time the children return with Semira, the chilli is simmering on the hob, the snacks laid out in the lounge.

  It’s early evening when the van rolls up outside the house and Semira and the four children bustle into the hall, kicking off muddy shoes and throwing their jackets in the general direction of the coat stand. Semira heads for the toilet while the children invade the recently peaceful kitchen.

  What’s going on? asks Beth when she sees the festive preparations. Are we having a party?

  Nuala explains that it’s a Thank You party, that there’s no time to lose, that it’s all hands on deck. The children are swept along in the excitement, put to work blowing up balloons and organising party games. Nuala won’t let herself stop and consider her actions, fears that she’ll abandon the project if left to her own thoughts. Semira, sensing the significance of the event, takes her place in the kitchen and begins preparing a batch of falafel.

  And the party’s some way towards a success. It’s too chaotic for pussy-footing, for inhibitions and stilted self-consciousness. The guests arrive in threes and fours, adults and children. There’s music – Beatles and Beach Boys and The Pogues, the children’s latest pop chart favourites, then later Tom Waits and Ry Cooder, the Jungle Book soundtrack and Billie Holiday, Greg’s music as much as Nuala’s, but tonight it’s OK, the pain is tolerable.

  The adults mingle and drink and dance. The children shriek and scream in an atmosphere of hilarity, of abandonment. For Nuala, there’s still no letting go. She’s disappointed to admit that it is an evening to endure as much as enjoy. But many hours later, when the kids have been put to bed and Nuala clears up with Mary and Semira, she feels a sense of relief, an important rite of passage successfully navigated.

  ***

  It’s six months since Semira first moved in. The two women have grown closer. Semira is no longer irritated by Nuala’s gentle inquisitiveness, Nuala willing to let Semira’s past remain a mystery. Acceptance, thinks Nuala. Another essential component of friendship.

  Although she no longer expects revelations from Semira, Nuala nevertheless still dwells on why she felt such a need for this intimacy and tries to analyse her own impulses. As you make someone’s acquaintance, she reflects, you learn details of their past, and these help explain their personality, become like the pegs on which you hang their present characteristics. Deprived of this background, she feels cheated, somehow vulnerable. But perhaps what her relationship with Semira is teaching her, she wonders, is that history counts for nothing. It’s a luxury and when all the frills are torn away, the present is the only thing that counts.

  Nuala no longer thinks about Semira’s departure. There’s a silent agreement that her residence has acquired a greater permanency. The routine of their lives is soothing.

  Time is marked only by occasional celebrations – Easter, the children’s birthday parties, the school holidays.

  One evening, Nuala, Beth and Yanit are in the lounge, spread out on the sofa and beanbags, watching a tepid romcom on DVD. Beth asks Nuala whether Yanit can move into her bedroom.

  Is that what you want, Yanit? Nuala asks. She nods eagerly. On a number of occasions, there have been ‘sleepovers’ involving the girls sharing Beth’s bed. Nuala considers the request. Both of her children have spacious bedrooms, plenty of room for second sing
le beds.

  Well, it’s OK by me, but we’ll have to check with Semira, make sure she’s happy with Abebe being left on his own.

  That problem is solved as soon as Sammy hears about Beth’s scheme. Not to be outdone, he demands that Abebe moves in with him. Abebe has slept top-to-toe with Sammy several times in the past, too tired to make his way downstairs after mammoth Lego-building sessions.

  When the request is put to Semira, she feels a little awkward, an irrational fear that her family are playing cuckoo in Nuala’s nest. Still, when she tries to raise this unease with Nuala, she is told that she’s being silly.

  So the camp beds in the basement are folded away.

  One of Nuala’s colleagues offers her an unwanted single bed,

  Kenyan Tom comes up with a second, and within the week, the change has been made. The basement is now free.

  And, most unexpectedly, this begins a new chapter in Nuala’s life. It starts one Tuesday during the October half term. Semira’s taken the children ice skating and Nuala finds herself wandering down to the basement. She stands at the doorway and casts her eyes around the room.

  The old table’s still there, pushed up against the wall, its paint-stained surface concealed beneath a floral cloth. There’s a chair, there, too, tucked beneath the table, a solid piece of pine also smeared with dried oil paint. Nuala remembers it as Greg’s thinking chair, the throne from which he’d contemplate his latest creation or plan out a future project. She stares at the chair and, despite herself, conjures up his presence.

  There he is, leaning back, one leg crossed over the other, a hand resting on his ankle, the other cradling his head, locked in fierce concentration. She remembers what he used to say – that he did ninety-nine per cent of his painting in his head, the initial inspiration of a vision perceived, then the process of mapping out in his mind the dimensions, the perspective, the lighting and colours. Only then, sometimes days after, would he prepare the canvas and pick up his brushes and oils.

  There he is, dressed in his scruffy jeans, the grubby tee-shirt beneath the baggy long-sleeve shirt, collar frayed, cuffs rolled-up. He’s so wrapped up in his thoughts he hasn’t seen Nuala. She coughs and he looks up and his face breaks into a smile and Nuala steps forward. And then – poof! – he’s gone and the room’s as stripped and empty as it was when she first walked in.

  Nuala rubs her eyes. She’s been doing this conjuring trick ever since the crash, hating herself for it, the ritual of masochistic scab-picking. It’s like plunging her leg into a scalding bath, the first time excruciating, each time thereafter less painful as her tolerance grows. And today, for the first time, it’s actually almost pain-free, almost soothing. Even the moment when he disappears and she realises she’s on her own again, that she’s lost him forever.

  She pulls out the table, removes the tablecloth and runs her hands over the rough surface. She can pick out the acrid tang of oils and with it all the memories and associations. Without thinking, she heads for the cupboard and begins to unpack the equipment so carefully stored away. Before she knows it, she’s set up an easel and propped a blank canvas on its lip. She pulls out the toolbox that Greg had used to store his oils and brushes, grabs a bottle of turps and a handful of rags.

  Nuala selects a half-used tube of oil, a scarlet, and unscrews the cap. She lifts the paint to her nose and breaths in deeply. She’s set out a palette and she begins squeezing out her colours.

  First she covers most of the canvas in a grey hue leaving the left hand edge untouched. Then she uses vivid reds and yellows and oranges dabbed onto this edge in an arc. She paints in thick blobs, merges the different shades with her brush, then uses a palette knife to scratch lines through the colours so that they shoot out like fierce hot sparks. The effect is like the rim of a sun or fiery star.

  Nuala is utterly absorbed. With the background and sun completed, she starts on the central detail. She begins to sketch out a large black figure, a sort of naked silhouette kneeling in supplication, its arms held out towards the sun’s burning heat, an image of worshipful surrender. She works away in silence, oblivious to the smears of paint she has inadvertently transferred to her jersey, the black trousers she is wearing, even her left cheek.

  When she finishes, she steps back and surveys the product. She feels breathless, shaking with excitement. Her watch tells her she’s been working for almost two hours, and for that period she’s been entirely lost in herself, a giddy exhilarating escape. And yet, at the same time, since the crash she’s never felt closer to Greg, never felt more aware of his absence.

  She leaves the painting to dry on the easel, puts away the oils and cleans the brushes. When she leaves the basement, twenty minutes later, she’s still on a high.

  ***

  Nuala remembers the moment of revelation with that strange mixture of alien dislocation and absolute clarity that is the hallmark of life-turning shocks.

  It’s late afternoon. Mary has called in to collect Joe, who has come back to play with Sammy after school. Nuala comes into the kitchen together with Mary and the boys. She’s making small talk but is focused on her next chore, to get a chicken stew on the go. Semira’s sitting at the table filling in a form. Nuala remembers Semira’s comment earlier in the week that her permanent resident application had arrived from the

  Home Office. As she passes the kitchen table, she glances down at the form just as Semira has finished filling in a section.

  Oh, look, she says brightly. You’ve filled that bit in wrong. You’ve put that you’ve got four kids. She points at the appropriate box. Look, you’ve put four, not two.

  She looks up into Semira’s face. As she does so, her mind searches for a joke, a witty comment, perhaps something about doubling your troubles, two being enough for anyone, or wishful thinking.

  But as soon as her eyes meet Semira’s, these witticisms seem pathetic, are banished from her mind. Semira’s glance is only momentary, a fleeting instant of contact, but a split second afterwards Nuala feels as if she’s been slapped in the face, so potent a cocktail of emotions does it stir. Nuala experiences within it a tremendous maelstrom, a confusion of raging pain and tender longing. And then, a moment later, it’s gone, Semira’s face is a blank.

  She gets to her feet, form in hand, and leaves the room in silence. Mary, who has witnessed the exchange but not the full force of Semira’s gaze, is sidetracked by a squawking Joe and is soon engrossed in locating his schoolbag, his shoes, supervising his preparations to leave.

  As soon as Mary’s gone, Nuala heads for Semira’s room, the chicken stew entirely forgotten. She knocks at the door, waits, knocks again, then pushes the door open tentatively.

  Semira’s standing at the window, her back to Nuala and the door.

  Look, I’m sorry, love. Really, I didn’t mean anything, I shouldn’t have been so nosy. It’s nothing to do with me.

  There’s a long pause. Nuala waits for a response, considers saying something else, then shrugs. She’s about to turn around and leave when Semira speaks. She remains facing away from Nuala. Her voice is low, almost inaudible, as if she’s really talking to herself, to someone inside her head, someone absent.

  We were in Turkey when it happened. I remember it like it was yesterday. I play it over and over in my mind until it feels as if my brain is rubbed so raw it bleeds. I don’t even know which town it was, somewhere on the south coast I’m sure, because it was close to where we’d docked after the crossing from Alexandria. Talking to the Turks was difficult. We spoke a broken English together, but one of the men said we were near Antalya. I don’t know for sure. I’d paid the traffickers in dollars, I’d been waiting for weeks in the cramped room, trying to keep my spirits up, the spirits of the children.

  She breaks off. Nuala can still only see the back of her head, peers at it for clues.

  It happened early one morning. We’d been woken at dawn, they told us to
get dressed and gather our things together. Today was the day. We were taken to the meeting spot in the back of a pickup. We pulled up in a dusty car park in an industrial zone of the town, deserted, just our pickup and a lorry waiting. It’s back doors were open, its engine was running. I remember the stinky smell of the exhaust fumes.

  Another pause. Nuala has the impression that Semira is gathering her strength.

  We got out of the pickup. They ushered us over to the lorry. Two traffickers had brought us over, the driver and our Egyptian contact, the only Arabic-speaker. There were another three waiting, five in total. They were all different, different clothes, features, hair, but the one who brought us over to the lorry was a bear of a man, barrel-chested, black leather jacket, thick moustache, stubble, greasy black hair. It’s his face that’s etched in my mind. When it all runs through my head, they somehow all look like him, they’re all identical.

  Nuala waits. It feels like she hasn’t drawn breath since Semira began speaking.

  They took us over to the lorry. I asked the Egyptian if we were going straight away and he said yes, that we should fetch our baggage from the pickup. There were two bags so I sent back the older children and made sure the younger ones were close by. I was frightened, you know that feeling when things are out of your control.

  Seconds pass. When Semira resumes, her tone is flat, distanced, almost dreamy.

  So I am standing by the back flaps of the lorry. I’ve got one hand on Yanit’s shoulders, another placed on Abebe’s head, as if to touch them is to protect them. The Bear is behind me, the Egyptian to my right. Some thirty metres away, next to the pick-up are the older children. They are bent over the back of the vehicle, hauling down the baggage. Close to them are two of the other men, the fifth one up in the cab of the truck. I am feeling anxious. I want to get safely hidden away in the lorry with the children. These thoughts are interrupted when I feel something hard pressed into my back. I turn and find the Bear pointing a gun at my chest. ‘Gold,’ he says, and points the barrel at my necklace, my earrings. When I sold up my life in Addis, I converted everything into US dollars as well as one or two small pieces of gold jewellery. I sewed the dollars into Yanit’s jacket and wore the gold about my person as discreetly as I could. Now I am about to lose it. I start to argue, plead, but the Bear doesn’t hesitate. With the gun levelled at me in his right hand, he pulls back his left and slaps me hard across the face. It’s a backhanded cuff that catches me completely by surprise. His knuckles split my lip and I’m already stripping off the jewellery before the first splash of my blood has hit the ground.