by Sue Margolis
Why had I opened my big fat mouth—even in jest? Having avoided a lecture from Rosie, I was about to get one from my sister.
“But hang on,” she said. “I thought Kenny Platters was gay.”
“I was wrong. The bloke he referred to as his partner turned out to be his business partner. So anyway, re asking him to sleep with me—I was off my head. I didn’t know what I was saying.”
“Yeah, I get that, but suppose he hadn’t got it. If he’d slept with you in the state you were in, it would have been tantamount to rape. How could you have made yourself so vulnerable?”
“Because at that precise moment, I didn’t care if he took advantage. In fact, I wanted him to. You don’t know how I was feeling, so please don’t tell me off. Kenny turned out to be a hero. Nothing bad happened. Now, can we just let it drop?”
“Hey, take it easy. Of course we can let it drop. You frightened me—that’s all.”
“I’m sorry. I promise that the next time I get left at the altar I will not proposition the caterer. How’s that? Are we good now?”
She said that we were. Then she said that Nana and Mum were really worried about me and that I should give them a call. I promised I would.
I wanted to move the conversation away from everything that had happened, so I decided to ask Scarlett if she fancied helping me get my flat ready for the builders. I didn’t really need an extra pair of hands, but by now I was in need of some company. Scarlett said she would come over on Saturday afternoon, but she couldn’t stay long because she and Grace were driving to Yorkshire that evening.
“Don’t you remember me telling you? I’m doing a load of gigs in Manchester, Leeds and Liverpool and Grace landed another commission from the Sunday Times. They want her to do a photo story on northern workingmen’s clubs. We’re renting a house in the Dales. We thought we’d stay on after we’ve finished working and have a bit of a holiday. So we’ll be away a couple of months.”
I remembered now. Scarlett had told me ages ago about her plans, but what with all the wedding preparations, I’d forgotten. I had to admit I felt a bit jealous that Scarlett and Grace were going to spend the next two months in some rural idyll while I moped around Mum’s place.
“Look, I know it’s bad timing after everything that’s happened, but you know that if you need me, I’m always at the end of the phone. And we’d both love you to come and stay. On the other hand, it just occurred to us that maybe you could flat-sit while we’re away. I mean, it won’t be easy living in your place with all the work going on.”
I loved Scarlett’s flat. First, it was in Notting Hill, and there was always a chance of bumping into Stella McCartney or Björk muesli shopping in Planet Organic. Second, it was huge. Well, huger than mine, which didn’t take a lot of doing. Third, it had just been done up and still smelled of fresh paint and new carpet. We agreed that I would move in on Sunday, after the Wizard of Aus had collected all my boxes and I’d seen them safely into the storage place. For the first time in nearly a week, I had a smile on my face.
I decided to send Kenny Platters a bottle of posh Scotch. I went online and ordered a forty-pound bottle of Macallan. I didn’t know his home address so I had it sent to his office with a note saying, Thanks again. Don’t know what I would have done without you. Tally.
That evening, I called Nana and Mum. Nana cried when she heard my voice and said she was still blaming herself and the Nazi money for what happened. I did my best to comfort her and tell her that Josh leaving me was nothing to do with the Third Reich, but I couldn’t shake her. On the upside, she had gotten together with her friends at the day center and drawn up a list of “nice young bachelors” that I might be interested in meeting.
Mum kept asking me if I was eating. She begged me to come and stay with her and really wasn’t happy when I said I was moving into Scarlett’s flat. “But I hate the idea of you being on your own.”
“Why? I’ve lived alone for years.”
“I’m worried.”
“What about?”
“That you might … you know … do something stupid.”
“Mum, you’ve been spending too much time pretending to be a Samaritan. I’m miserable and I’m angry, but I’m not suicidal. Josh hurt me, God knows, but I’m not about to end my life over it.”
“OK. I feel better now. Promise me you’ll pick up the phone if you need to talk.”
I promised.
“Oops—Tally, hang on; the other line’s going.” I heard her pick up. “Hello … yes … how can I help you? … You feel suicidal? OK, why do you think that is? … Because you’re not satisfied with your psychotherapy … You used to be the Jesus and now you’re just plain Paddy Murphy again. Well, I’m hearing that you didn’t get the personal validation that you needed and that it has left you craving empowerment … Listen, Mr. Murphy, could you hold the line a moment?”
Mum came back to the phone. “I gotta go, hon. I’ve got one who wants to hang himself with his rosary beads. I’ll phone you tomorrow.”
No sooner had I gotten off the phone than a text dinged its arrival. It was from Josh. My thumb hovered over the READ button. Until now I had kept alive a faint, vain hope that Josh would realize that he had made a mistake and that he would phone or text to say he was on his way home to beg my forgiveness and mend our relationship. The moment I hit READ, that hope would vanish. I hit it anyway.
Tally—Sorry for the pain I’ve caused you. But you are a strong person and I know you’ll get through this. I don’t expect you to forgive me, but FYI, I’ve already had two sessions with a shrink up here and am starting to forgive myself. It’s been such a short time, but I appear to be making progress towards conquering demons. Hope you can be happy for me.
It wasn’t his total, utter and complete self-involvement that felled me. It wasn’t even his pathetic excuse for an apology or his disregard for my feelings. It was the realization that I had never truly known this man. The Josh I knew could never have written something like this. Every instinct told me to ignore the message. How could I even dignify it with a reply? But my fingers were already busy.
Go to hell, I wrote. Then I pressed SEND.
Chapter 8
Scarlett’s take on Josh’s text was that he’d “gone weird.” “He’s clearly on some adrenaline-fueled high, but if you ask me, he’s going to come down with an almighty crash. I think he could be heading for some kind of serious emotional meltdown.” I said I didn’t really care. She said she took the point.
When I read the text to Rosie, she launched into a wonderfully supportive tirade about how all men were unfeeling, self-serving, egocentric bastards and that Josh deserved to have a red-hot poker shoved up his backside, which she would be happy to insert on my behalf.
“What can I say?” I cooed. “That is such a sweet gesture.”
As the days went by, I thought I might feel stronger, but I didn’t. I still felt abandoned and lost. I also felt frightened. I couldn’t see a future for myself beyond work. Each night I would come back to Scarlett’s flat with its trendy gray carpets and white walls covered in abstract paintings that she and Grace had picked up at the Affordable Art Fair, sit on their distressed-look leather sofa with the curved, thirties style arms and get lost in my melancholic fantasy about lonely spinsterhood. It didn’t help that there was a copy of Great Expectations on the bookcase, which I found myself flicking through a few times. I could so identify with Miss Havisham—particularly with half a bottle of Merlot inside me. One night, I found myself searching for the famous miserablist quote I half remembered from when I’d studied the book at school. Eventually I found it: “Love,” Miss H says to Pip … “is giving up your whole heart and soul to the smiter—as I did.” I allowed myself to wallow in the smiter for a bit. Then, realizing that I wasn’t quite ready to exile myself—to exist in dark seclusion for the next thirty years with only a cobwebby old wedding cake for company—I switched on Murder, She Wrote and stuck a Marks and Spencer lasagna in the oven.
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Rosie kept calling to see how I was doing—as did Mum and Scarlett and Grace. Grace said I only had to say the word and she would fix me up with Montel, her six-foot-four Rasta cousin. Mum said she’d been reading up on grief. “They say it’s a process everybody goes through. First comes denial. Then acceptance. Then anger. Or is it the other way round? I can’t remember now. But be prepared to get very angry.”
I said I’d pretty much done anger. “After Josh sent me that text, it was as much as I could do to stop myself from throwing my BlackBerry at the wall.”
Kenny texted to say thanks for the Scotch and that Macallan was his favorite. Josh’s mum called and we had an awkward exchange in which she told me that Josh was taking a sabbatical from work and staying in Edinburgh for the time being, although he was still considering a move to the US. For some reason she assumed that I would be interested—which I guess I was, in some weird, masochistic way. My curiosity couldn’t stop me from asking her if Josh had explained to her why he did what he did. “No, he hasn’t,” she said. “To be quite honest, I don’t think he can even explain it to himself.” Then she said how sorry she was that things had turned out the way they had. As the conversation was winding down, I found myself praying that she wouldn’t say anything about the two of us staying in touch. She didn’t.
People at work—especially Jill—kept inviting me to family lunches and barbecues. I didn’t have the heart to refuse such well-meaning invitations. What was more, it made me feel almost normal listening to people discussing property prices and exchanging nightmare tales about their builders and decorators.
Mum kept popping round with blueberries (for my immune system) and liver (for the iron) and telling me I needed to get out of myself. To wit, she dragged me along to Saturday matinees of Sister Act (with Whoopi) and Mamma Mia! She got frontrow tickets for Mamma Mia! Behind us were coach parties of loud, up-for-a-laugh middle-aged women swapping Junior Mints and Cadbury’s Milk Tray. From the moment the band struck up, they and Mum were on their feet, clapping and boogying. “Come on, get up and have a bit of a bop,” Mum said during “Money, Money, Money.” “It’ll do you good.” I grumbled, but I duly bopped. It wasn’t long before I realized I was actually enjoying myself. I didn’t sit down again until the interval, by which time I was laughing and breathless … and … out of myself.
My first week back at work coincided with George Dacre’s being on holiday. A day or so after his return, he put his head around my door.
“So, lass,” he said, sitting himself down on the other side of my desk. “This is a rotten old business with you and Josh, and no mistake. How are you bearing up?”
“Oh, you know … getting there.”
“Take a bit of advice from an old man … The feelings ease with time. What I realized after my wife died was that you don’t so much get over it as learn to live alongside it.” He paused. “So what’s your caseload looking like at the minute?”
“Pretty heavy, but I’m managing.”
“Good girl. After Marion died I found the best thing was to keep busy. Now then, I’ve got a case just come in that I’m handing over to you. I know it’s more work, but I thought it might provide you with a bit of light relief.”
“Really?” The law wasn’t big on light relief, and I’d yet to come across a human rights case that had me splitting my sides.
“This newsreader chap at Central London Radio just e-mailed me to say the station has suspended him and he’s pretty miffed.”
“I’m guessing they had their reasons.”
“They did. Bloke’s got Tourette’s.”
“What? They hired a newsreader with Tourette’s syndrome? That can’t be true. Everybody would have heard him. It would be a national joke by now.”
“Oh, it’s true, all right, but the situation isn’t that simple. He’s been with the station for twenty-five years. They always knew he had Tourette’s, but until now it was just the odd twitch, which didn’t interfere with him reading the news.”
“And now it does.”
“It would seem that we’re looking at full-blown obscenities every other word.”
I couldn’t stop myself laughing. “I can see how that might be a tad awkward.”
“He’s been suspended on full pay, but he wants his job back.”
“Some hopes.”
“Then we have to hammer out some sort of settlement. Talk to him. Hear what he has to say. Then have a word with the other side’s lawyers. See what you can do.”
“OK, I’ll have a go.”
“Good lass.”
On the Friday of that week, I went to see Nasreen Karimi at the detention center where she’d been held since entering the country five months ago. The good news was that she had been granted a judicial review of her case. The bad news was that I hadn’t been able to get her released from detention.
I tried to visit once a week. It wasn’t necessary to see Nasreen in person. I could have phoned or left messages to let her know how her appeal was coming on, but apart from a few supporters and her Iranian boyfriend, who was over here working for Citibank—the company was sponsoring his application for citizenship—she didn’t get many visitors. I also worried about how little she was eating. I took fruit and high-cal treats that I thought might tempt her: potato chips, cakes, Devon toffees.
The Broad Marsh Detention Center was in Bedfordshire, twenty miles north of London. It stood on a patch of flat, open land, surrounded by a tall perimeter fence, nattily topped with several inches of razor wire. It looked like modern army barracks but without the flags, insignia and well-tended gardens common to military establishments. I pulled up at the electronic barrier, wound down my window and showed my ID to the security guard. He nodded me through. After I’d parked, I headed to the main entrance. Another guard asked to see my pass.
Inside, a woman officer gave me the once-over with her latex gloves. I went over to reception and stated my business.
A male officer—rolled shirtsleeves, walkie-talkie at his hip—led me down a long, windowless corridor. The walls were painted a shade of pale green. An optimist might have called it sage. He unlocked one set of doors. Then another. We were in the center’s family section. There were windows here and the walls had started to cheer up. They were covered in children’s drawings, paintings and collages. Mobiles hung from the ceiling. I had been told that, as usual, Nasreen was in the nursery. She had a teaching qualification and had just been given permission to help out with the preschool kids. The guard held the door open for me, nodded and took his leave.
Inside, a dozen or so under-fives—no two seemed to belong to the same nationality—were sitting in a circle singing “Bananas in Pajamas.” I was amazed at how quickly these foreign children had learned to speak English. Every child had a plate of fruit, which was good to see. I had to admit that the nursery at least was bright and welcoming. There were beanbags in the book corner, a dressing-up box, a Wendy house, a sandbox, easels for painting, tables covered with chunks of Play-Doh.
Nasreen spotted me. She lifted a little boy off her lap and handed him to one of the assistants.
“Hi, Tally,” she said, her tiny frame coming towards me. She seemed to have lost more weight every time I saw her. Her jeans were hanging off her. “No news, I assume.”
I shook my head. “You have an excellent case, Nasreen. The newspapers are all over it. And you’ve been granted a judicial review, which is a good sign.”
“I know, but it could take weeks—months even—before we get a decision.”
Her voice was so quiet these days. The fire inside her had all but gone out.
“You have to hang on. We will do everything we can to get you out of here. I promise. There is so much support for you.”
We headed for what passed as a coffee area: a few tatty armchairs and a drinks machine.
I got two cups of weak coffee from the machine and we sat down. I handed her a couple of paperbacks—legal thrillers—I thought she might like. “Jus
t to prove,” I said, “that the good lawyer always wins out in the end.” Then I gave her the bag of cherries and a Victoria sponge cake that I’d picked up at Marks and Spencer. She thanked me and said she would share the food with the children.
“I guess it’s good news about the demonstration,” she said.
“What demonstration? I haven’t heard anything. Are you sure?”
She said that Farid, her boyfriend, had received a call from somebody at Amnesty. They were organizing a Free Nasreen Karimi demonstration outside the Home Office.
“When?”
“Soon. They’ll let us know.” She paused. “So you’ll be there?”
“How can you even ask?” I said, laughing. “Of course I’ll be there. I’ll be the one shouting loudest.”
She was smiling. “You and Farid … I can’t go back, Tally. I just can’t. You have no idea what they will do to me.”
“It won’t happen. Not on my watch.”
As I took her hand in both of mine, I found myself offering up a silent prayer. The irony wasn’t lost on me. Here I was, a Jew, invoking the name of Christ on behalf of a Muslim, as I begged the God I didn’t believe in not to even think of letting me down.
“So how are you?” Nasreen said. “You seemed so forlorn last week. I wasn’t expecting to see you for a while.”
“Let’s not talk about me,” I said. “You have enough of your own troubles.”
“But it will take my mind off my troubles. I’ve been thinking about you and what happened with your fiancé. I want to know how things are going.”
I told her about Josh’s text and how angry I was.
“You have every right to be, but don’t let it consume you. It’s so destructive.
“You know, there is an Islamic saying: ‘The best memory is that which forgets injuries. Write kindness in marble and write injuries in the dust.’”
On the drive home, Nasreen’s words echoed in my mind. I could also hear George Dacre telling me that I wasn’t going to get over what happened to me anytime soon. Meanwhile, I needed to learn to live alongside it. It wasn’t going to be easy and I wasn’t sure I was up to it, but I needed to start moving forward.
