Penny Hancock grew up in south-east London and then travelled extensively as a language teacher. She now lives in Cambridge with her husband and three children. Her first novel, Tideline, was published to rave reviews and was a Richard and Judy Book Club pick in Summer 2012.
First published in Great Britain by Simon & Schuster, 2013
A CBS company
Copyright © Penny Hancock, 2013
This book is copyright under the Berne Convention.
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Hardback ISBN: 978-1-47111-124-2
Trade Paperback ISBN: 978-0-85720-624-4
Ebook ISBN: 978-0-85720-626-8
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either a product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual people living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental.
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Printed and bound in Great Britain by CPI Group (UK) Ltd, Croydon, CR0 4YY
For Aunty Dorothy.
‘At every mooring-chain and rope, at every stationary boat or barge that split the current into a broad arrowhead, at the offsets from the piers of Southwark Bridge, at the paddles of the river steamboats as they beat the filthy water, at the floating logs of timber lashed together lying off certain wharves, his shining eyes darted a hungry look. After a darkening hour or so, suddenly the rudder-lines tightened in his hold, and he steered hard towards the Surrey shore’
Our Mutual Friend, Charles Dickens
‘But know this; though you set out on a fool’s errand, among those who love you, you are beloved indeed.’
Antigone, Sophocles
CONTENTS
PROLOGUE
PART ONE
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
CHAPTER NINETEEN
CHAPTER TWENTY
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
PART TWO
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
CHAPTER THIRTY
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
CHAPTER FORTY
CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
CHAPTER FORTY-TWO
CHAPTER FORTY-THREE
CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR
CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE
CHAPTER FORTY-SIX
PART THREE
CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN
CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT
CHAPTER FORTY-NINE
CHAPTER FIFTY
CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE
CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO
CHAPTER FIFTY-THREE
CHAPTER FIFTY-FOUR
CHAPTER FIFTY-FIVE
CHAPTER FIFTY-SIX
CHAPTER FIFTY-SEVEN
CHAPTER FIFTY-EIGHT
CHAPTER FIFTY-NINE
CHAPTER SIXTY
CHAPTER SIXTY-ONE
CHAPTER SIXTY-TWO
CHAPTER SIXTY-THREE
CHAPTER SIXTY-FOUR
CHAPTER SIXTY-FIVE
CHAPTER SIXTY-SIX
PROLOGUE
Deptford, south-east London
No one sees the woman push the man in his wheelchair through the market. Amongst the stallholders, shoppers, crack addicts, shaven-haired women, long-haired men, mums with kids heaped onto the backs of buggies, teenagers plugged into iPods, drunks and dealers, amongst the general sense of busyness, of chatter, buying, selling, going somewhere – belonging, no matter who you are or where you’ve come from – this pair do not fit or feature.
They dissolve into the background along with the Somali guy sweeping the road in his Hi Viz jacket, the thin girl with the old woman’s face selling the Big Issue, the group of Vietnamese huddled around the money-exchange kiosk. They are of even less interest than the young Ukrainians sorting through textiles in the depot under the arches, or the Bengali chef in a doorway left open to ease the heat of a steamy kitchen.
Anyone who did look would notice that the two – the woman and the old man – are not related. The man has pale darting eyes and fragile, crinkled skin, spotted in places with dark patches – the effects of too much sun – while the woman’s brown skin is blotchy from the lack of it. She’s short with soft contours, her sunken eyes dark. There’s another, more striking difference. The man exudes wealth – he’s dressed in good quality trousers, polished leather shoes, a thick wool jacket and a cashmere scarf, while the woman wears tracksuit bottoms and a cheap fleece over a blue overall, and ragged trainers that soak up the puddlewater underfoot. More than this, an onlooker might notice the resigned look in her bruised eyes, the indifference to the colourful shops and stalls and the bright chatter. It’s as if the woman, pushing the man down the street, his bag of fruit clutched on his lap, does not occupy this city at all, as if her mind is in a place so far away and so long ago she isn’t sure it still exists.
But no one is looking, no one is interested. And even the old man in his wheelchair is not sure who it is that propels him along this jostling street at twilight on an early January evening. As long as she gets him home soon, for he can feel hunger rumbling in his belly, and as long as he has his clementines, firm and fresh in his lap, he’s content.
The woman steers the wheelchair through the crowds, towards the broad expanse of sludgy river with its smell of oil and of cargo from other worlds. As they move away from the market, and its sweet aroma of roasting chestnuts, the glow of makeshift bulbs dims behind them, giving the impression they are leaving not just light but warmth as well, though the stallholders’ breath is white in the cold air.
She pushes the chair all the way to the alley that lies between a wall and the once-majestic Paynes Wharf, only its façade of six grand arches remaining. At the end of the little alley they arrive at the top of some slimy steps that lead straight down into the murky water of the Thames. A hidden place, not easy to spot in the daytime but utterly concealed by shadows at night. Here, she pauses and stares into the water for quite some time. Ten steps are visible – the tide is low.
After a little while she turns. Moves slowly back away from the river and wheels the old man down a narrow street of Georgian terraced houses. Every doorway is flanked by little angels or figureheads frosting as i
t grows dark. She reaches the house at the end, takes the side entrance to the garden, where she helps him out of his chair, and together they descend the basement steps to the front door of his flat beneath the main house.
Inside, Mona helps Charles into his reclining armchair with its footrest. Charles feels the hand under his elbow but he doesn’t know or care at this moment who it belongs to. In his chair he asks for his dinner. Mona brings it on a tray, spoons it into his mouth, wipes the dribbles with a kitchen towel and offers him sips of water.
And when he’s finished his sausages and mash she peels a clementine for him. The feel of the segments in their loose membranes is similar to his limp penis which she holds while he wees afterwards in the tiny bathroom.
She takes the peel to the kitchen and drops it into the full pedal bin, takes the liner, knots it and puts it ready to take out, replacing it with a new one. She washes his dishes and tidies up. Then it is time to get him into his night things.
Above, in the main house, footsteps pound down the stairs and a door slams. Mona feels the sounds in her skin; it twitches and her ears ring. Her palms sweat. She longs for the day to end. Longs for the moment she can lie down in the corner of her room on the makeshift bed, because she’s weary, and oblivion more than anything is what she craves.
Then it comes. The voice, echoing down the dumbwaiter shaft, floats into the room.
‘MONA!’
‘Yes.’
‘It’s seven o’clock.’
‘He’s going to bed now. Then I’ll come.’
‘You’re late.’
‘I’m coming.’
And the old man is demanding her attention at the same time, ‘You’ve hidden it again! Blast and damn you, woman, you’ve taken my whisky.’
And the shout from upstairs – ‘Now!’ – and the man’s grumbling, and her head beginning to pound.
Early the next morning, when a mist lies over the river and the streetlights continue to glow in their fuzzy orange corona, ripples falter over something larger than the usual rubbish – the plastic bottles and beer cans, the syringes and the burger containers. The water has crept up the stairs in the night, bringing with it a peculiar figure. A torso, arms and legs flailing in the deep, with a head that looks as though it’s been mummified, bandaged as it is in a blue overall that the police later find resembles one worn by domestic staff and carers.
And when the body has been hauled out and put in a bag, when the dead person has been identified and has appeared in the local paper, everyone wants to look, everyone wants to know. But it’s too late.
Mona’s gone.
PART ONE
The Gift
CHAPTER ONE
Three months earlier
The first thing I notice about London is its statues. They people the city, a separate, stone population. Men on horseback, women half-naked, babies with wings, lions and monsters. We’re driving through the streets, Mr and Mrs Roberts in front, me in my place at the back, my head resting on the glass.
Everything’s lit up. Keeping the night at bay. We turn away from palatial streets onto a wide bridge. The river is broad and dark beneath us, lights reflected in it like swords stabbing the black water. My river, the Bouregreg at home in Morocco, is playful, winking bright sparks into the blue air. I want to tell someone that the Thames is darker than I imagined, London bigger than a whole country. But there’s no one to tell. If it wasn’t for Leila and Ummu, I’d turn round, go back, make do, until Ali returned. Even if he is in London, as Yousseff suggested, I’ll never find him in this vast sprawl. The idea was crazy. This city goes on forever.
As the plane took off I saw myself as a kite. My beloved daughter Leila holding the string, letting it unwind as I rose away from her into the sky until somewhere over Spain, she had to let go. Then I felt scared. I was a kite without a string, at the mercy of the winds. The Robertses were huddled behind a thick blue curtain in Business Class. The English couple behind me were busy with their child who’d been running up and down the aisle for the whole flight, unconcerned that his movement might upset the plane. The man in front had his headphones plugged into his ears. Other passengers slept or murmured.
I’d never felt so alone.
Leila wasn’t worried. As far as she was concerned, I was going away for a little while to earn some money so she could go to school like the other kids, have new things.
‘Don’t show her you’re upset,’ Ummu, my mother, warned me. ‘Think of the money. She’s going to be fine.’
And she was. Waving one hand, clutching Ummu’s with the other, she skipped as they turned away to go to the souk. The furthest I’d been from Leila before, to clean up another woman’s mess, was over the Bouregreg.
Ummu was thrilled when I told her I’d got this job.
‘Alhamdulillah! Praise be to Allah!’ she cried, throwing her soapy hands in the air. She’d been scrubbing sheets in the sink, her arms deep in cold water. Now she stood up and clutched my hand in her wet ones. Looked at me through dancing eyes. I could hear the tiny pop of soap bubbles on her arms.
‘I can hardly believe it! London!’ she shouted. She always speaks too loud; it’s something even her friends complain about.
‘So we’re going to be OK,’ I said. ‘The bottom wage over there is more than we could dream of here.’ I was trying to sound cheerful, though I was filled with trepidation. Working in other women’s houses was not my chosen profession for a lot of reasons.
‘It’s a blessing, Mona, now I’m too blind to work and you’ve lost your job at Madame’s.’
Blind is an exaggeration. My mother’s eyesight is poor – the result of too many years weaving carpets in bad light – but she’s not blind. She sees what she wants to see.
However, we have no choice if we want to make ends meet. And I have another incentive, one that overrides any reservations I have about leaving Leila. If Ali is in Britain, as I now believe, I can help him if he’s got into trouble. We’ll be together again, me and Ali and Leila – a family, as we were meant to be.
‘I’ve been thinking. After five years in Britain you get citizenship,’ Ummu went on, ‘like Rachida. Five years, Mona. By then you’ll be reading and writing in English with an excellent job in some top office somewhere. You won’t have to clean for other women any more.’
‘Ummu, it’s not going to be five years,’ I said.
But now I’m here, moving through the endless city, more streets, more flats, more traffic lights, more shops, but less grand now and darker and more hostile – I wonder, will I ever see Ummu or Leila again?
The car has turned up a quiet street, we’re pulling up outside a house. Even this has statues on the doorframe, two small, naked babies with wings.
‘Your new home,’ Mrs Roberts says, turning around and smiling at me.
CHAPTER TWO
Mona arrives with the first autumn rains, golden leaves blowing about her feet.
Exactly a year since Mummy died.
‘My gift from the south,’ Roger jests, brushing his polished shoes on my doormat.
She’s not as I pictured her. The word ‘widow’ had conjured someone elderly, dressed in black. Fierce, but reliable. Instead the woman on the steps is my age. Short, huddled into a cheap blue anorak, strands of dark hair poking from her headscarf. Enormous, earnest brown eyes. I think of those statues of the Madonna in the quaint religious shops up on Deptford High Street, their beatific faces, the epitome of humility.
A little tableau presents itself: this woman, with the putti that flank my doorway fluttering above her, the church spire over the road piercing the orange glow of the London sky. My first reaction is relief.
Claudia is getting out of the car behind them. She tiptoes over the cobbles as if there might be some malodorous remnant of Victorian London still lingering in the gutter. This is Deptford in the twenty-first century and not the rough end, but she makes blatant her prejudice.
‘Come in,’ I say, and they sidle past Mona.
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Any regret that remained over our separation is dispelled for me as Roger wipes his shoes on the doormat and walks down my hallway, shoulders clenched, afraid of the walls brushing against him and leaving a mark.
He’s dressed in a cream suit and tie, as if he’d stepped out of another century. If it wasn’t for the fact that Claudia had something to do with this, his sartorial innocence might have tugged at my heartstrings; Roger has always been out of step with the times, and once, I must have found this endearing.
Mona perches on the edge of a kitchen chair. I pour the others gin and tonic, and she stares ahead, with a blank expression, as Roger and I talk. In spite of the circumstances of our separation, we’ve managed to stay on speaking terms. Thanks to Leo, our son, I think. Which is odd, given what a worry he is on a daily level.
‘So, here she is, Dora. All set and ready to work. I’ve told her about your father, and she’s quite prepared.’
‘Thank you, Roger.’
‘How’s Leo?’
‘He’s . . . better. Better than he was, anyway.’
‘Got himself a job, I take it?’
‘He’s been trying. There isn’t much out there. And he’s not in a great position.’
‘If he hadn’t flunked his exams . . .’
‘I know.’
‘An internship – that’s the way these days. You must be able to find him something, surely, Theodora, with your media connections.’
If Claudia wasn’t witnessing our exchange I’d have objected to this. Roger’s sentence is loaded with unspoken resentment. I control myself, however.
‘Internships are as hard to get as jobs, Roger. And you’re missing the point, that his self-esteem’s taken a battering . . .’
‘All the more reason for him to get out there. He needs a rocket up his arse, that boy.’
I laugh. ‘You can try the stick approach if you like. It won’t work. You’ve no idea.’
I kick myself as I hear my voice crack. I don’t want to get upset in front of everyone, but I can’t bear to hear Leo misunderstood. Any more than I can bear to witness my son, my beautiful boy, so changed. I swallow. Nor do I want to be judged for what’s happened to him since he moved in with me.
The Darkening Hour Page 1
