by Alice Jolly
Lara – Brighton, February 2003
The builders didn’t turn up on Thursday or Friday last week. No phone call, no apology, nothing. Lara wonders if they’ve been today. As she enters the flat, plaster crunches beneath her feet and a breath of icy air blows into her face. Flicking on the hall light, she sees that the kitchen window is swinging out into the creaking night wind. Rain has blown onto the new work surface and the freshly painted wall above the new cooker. She catches hold of the swinging window, slams it shut. Will the rain have marked her new work surface? Damn the builders. She turns, pushes open the sitting-room door and finds two bags of cement propped against the wall. A map of Europe, which was spread out on her desk, has slipped to the floor.
It’s a week since Jay left but that week has felt like walking through glue. She picks up the map and wonders where he is. The buses split up in Paris, some heading down to Italy and some taking a detour via Amsterdam and Germany. Apparently the German bus stopped off at Dachau, as though the peace protesters, not content with taking on the sorrows of modern Iraq, also felt the need to take on the historic trauma of the Jews. Lara hasn’t even been able to find out which of the buses Jay is on. Her desk is scattered with papers listing telephone numbers – the Iraqi Embassy, the Foreign Office, lawyers, MPs. She pushes them aside now, goes to the kitchen and pours herself a large glass of white wine – what else is there to do?
She’s on a nine o’clock plane to Barcelona tomorrow and she’s hopelessly behind with preparations. Breathe, remember to breathe. She pulls the floor-length white curtains across the bay window, shutting out the swirling trees in the square and the glitter-sprinkle of the town lights. If it was just floor plans that she needed to take to Barcelona then that wouldn’t be a problem but no one who is anyone in the world of interior design uses floor plans now. Instead they use a new computer programme called Room Space which enables the creation of a three-dimensional space, one which can be adjusted endlessly. Lighten the colour of the carpet, substitute curtains for blinds, change the position of the fireplace or the pictures. In the office Kylie, Sarah and Shuna – all in their twenties with flamingo-like legs, ballet pump shoes, thin jewelled belts – can all work the programme with a few flicks of their pale pink nails. Lara, who is so much more senior, pretends she can as well but, despite a three-day training course, she can’t. Surely thirty-eight is too early to become obsolete?
The answer machine blinks green, showing that three messages are waiting. The first is from her friend Annabel. Good news, the disembodied voice shrieks. You know that blue silk dress you liked in Maya-Maya? Well, it’s reduced now by forty per cent. So I thought that we—. Lara wipes the message. The next two messages are from journalists. The press are interested in Jay because he’s the youngest of the peace protesters and because he’s Rufus’s grandson. The journalists’ voices wheedle. Miss Ravello. Miss Ravello. Lara has never liked the name Ravello, never feels that it belongs to her, which is not surprising because it’s the stage name Rufus invented at the beginning of his career. He wanted to be thought Italian. Tricky when you have red hair and are over six foot tall. But then it’s better than Nigel Dalking, which is his real name. Dalking – a town south of London, or an illicit sexual activity?
Laura plugs the computer into the phone line and it burbles and squeaks as it tries to connect. She needs to start on Room Space straight away but she can’t stop herself checking her email first. Various messages have arrived from others who have relatives on those buses. A wife from north London, a sister from Illinois, a friend from Sydney, a family in Ghent worrying about a grandfather who left without his neck brace. Lara reads these messages as they circulate. Clearly these relatives actually receive news, calls, emails. Lara has posted messages asking for news of Jay but no one has heard anything. Something about the chatty, positive tone of the messages leaves her feeling cold. She has no wish to be part of this jolly little group, who, like Mollie, seem to have mistaken this Iraq fiasco for a day trip to the sea.
Also many of these relatives seem to actually support the peace protesters. Lara doesn’t and won’t. She moves the mouse to open the first of the messages. But just as she does so a message arrives from Alan at Truth, Justice, Peace – Human Shields Action to Iraq. Doesn’t that name say it all? Lara takes two large gulps of wine, opens the email.
Dear Collaborators and Colleagues,
We have received news that both buses arrived at the rendezvous point just south of Rome. However, one of the buses has now broken down. I spoke to Ken by phone and he also adds that one group of peace protesters have decided to go home – however, Ken is glad that they’re going as they aren’t committed to our cause. Attempts are being made to fix the bus, something to do with the starter motor maybe, and it’s hoped that the convoy will move on soon. I will let all you good people and supporters of our movement know as soon as there is more news. Yours in Truth, Justice and Peace – Alan
Maybe Jay is among the people who have decided to come home? Someone must know who those people are. Lara grabs her list of phone numbers and rings the Stop The War office in London. No answer. Then she rings the phone in the peace protest office in the basement of the Community Centre. Engaged. Then she rings Mollie. No answer. Lara reads the email again, goes to the kitchen and pours more wine. She tries to ring Alan but, as always, his phone is engaged.
Alan is supposedly responsible for press and communications in the UK. Lara has called him repeatedly since Jay left but she’s only managed to speak to him three times and he doesn’t respond to her messages. A retired librarian from Southend, Alan is apparently reasonable, considerate, professional – but Lara knows that deep down Alan is a man enjoying his moment in the media spotlight, a man indulging some fantasy of the nerve centre, the clandestine operation, the tiny group of heroic individuals standing against the great tides of history – and she hates him with a passion.
She wanders up and down the hall, into her bedroom and out again, lights a cigarette. It’s not the prospect of war that’s frightening, because everyone knows it won’t come to that, but if those buses do go into Iraq then anything could happen to their passengers. A dull bleep sounds. Lara pushes her hand into the pocket of a duffel coat which hangs on the coat rack. Jay’s mobile phone. Gripping it tightly, she takes a drag on her cigarette. So all those calls she made to him have been going nowhere except to a mobile phone a few feet away across the hall. But there’s more. Her hand goes back into the pocket and pulls out a flattened box, containing cellophane strips of pills. The drugs which the doctor prescribed and which Jay promised he would take regularly.
Lara picks up her coat and bag. The peace protesters in the Community Centre deny any knowledge of Jay’s departure, which of course they would do – but they might have some scrap of information and Lara needs to do something, anything. She can’t possibly sit at a computer trying to work out how to exchange a chandelier for a spotlight in a virtual restaurant in Barcelona. Later she will have do that but she can’t do it now.
The night is alive with a restless energy. Rain comes down in sudden squalls. The branches of the trees in the square shuffle and sway and the lights from cars and houses blur in the rain. Lara stops for a moment under a striped awning outside a newsagents. Lights shine out onto the pavement and two young men stand at the door, drinking beer. Lara’s eyes wander over the newspapers and magazines displayed in the window. Iraq allows full inspection. Truth about life with Michael Jackson. Invasion comes closer. New clue in Thames boy murder. Doubts cast on information dossier. Girl, eight, crushed by tree. She has already read all the newspapers and none of them tell her what she wants to know.
She pulls her coat collar up and heads on, her legs aching and tears gathering briefly. She should have eaten something before she came out. If only everything would stop, just for a day, or even an hour. She worked all weekend trying to catch up because she’d taken Thursday and Friday off last week to go to the Foreign Office, the Iraqi Embassy, the
Stop The War office in London. Every door had been slammed in her face. No, no, she reminds herself. Don’t exaggerate. Not slammed but gently, politely, with bone-china teacups or Styrofoam coffee cups, with forms to fill in and words of reassurance, closed against her, with a sharp and decisive click.
I’m sorry, Miss Ravello, but there’s nothing anyone can do. Jay is an adult.
Well, only twenty.
Yes, Miss Ravello, an adult. So his life is his own.
Perhaps a lawyer?
No, I don’t think there would be any point in talking to a lawyer. No, not unless you get him sectioned and I don’t think there’s really any evidence to suggest that he’s mentally ill, is there? And you really mustn’t worry too much because there won’t be a war. As each door closed – gently – what Lara had seen was blame. As a mother, it seems you’re responsible for everything your son does but if you actually want to take control of him then there’s no way you can do it.
Lara turns into Monmouth Street. Everything is quiet. Up ahead, at the end of the street is the Guest House, a staunch bulwark against gentrification. In Lara’s mind, it squats like a toad, dark and deformed, menacing. The rainbow flag stretched across one of the balconies, the wellington boots filled with dead plants, the plastic windmills and wheel-less bike hanging from the front railings, the rotten window frames and blackened brick – all of it threatens to drag her in like quicksand. For Lara, her own flat – polished oak floors, white curtains, built-in cupboards – is a vital line of defence in her fight against the Guest House and all it contains. Or it was until the builder arrived.
As she comes closer, she sees that the basement kitchen at the Guest House is dark. It seems that Mollie – so assiduous in packing Jay’s hat and sun cream – has now lost interest. She continues to leave messages on Lara’s phone, insisting that nothing will happen, that the buses will never go into Iraq, but she hasn’t done anything to bring Jay back. Initially Lara had agreed with Mollie’s view on the buses. They’ll never go into Iraq. But that was before she went to the Stop The War office in London. There a young American woman with pierced lips, dreadlocks and a startlingly sharp mind had explained to Lara the level of contact that had been established with groups in Iraq. You think Saddam is going to pass up a publicity stunt like this?
The church is next door to the Guest House – a vast and spiky mass of blackness. Outside there are posters – Christ has died, Christ has risen, Christ will come again. Family service, 11.00 a.m. All welcome. Two elderly drunks are sitting on the steps passing a roll-up between them. As a child, Lara used to go to the church with her mother sometimes but she can’t remember the interior – it merges with the interiors of too many other childhood churches. Lights are on in the road which runs along the side of the church, towards the Community Centre car park. Lara turns down this road, heading towards the glass doors of the Centre – a ramshackle jumble of red and black brick buildings tacked onto the back of the church. As she pulls the door open, music thumps from a piano and a smell of trainers and sweat floats towards her. Through a half-glazed door, she sees rows of girls bouncing up and down in leotards. Time, time, time. The moment is coming soon. Time for you, you, you to make your mind – up.
Lara hurries on to the end of the hall and down the stairs to the basement. Lights are shining dully, voices buzz and a dog barks. She knocks on the flimsy, half-open door and steps down into the office, a large room, half underground, with a low polystyrene ceiling, crowded with strip lights and edged by thick pipes. The carpet is grey nylon with brown stains. Through a line of high windows, the street is visible, or at least the lower sections of bicycle tyres, parked against the railings. A lurcher with a red and white spotted scarf tied round its neck is curled up in a cardboard box. The room smells of electric heaters, cold coffee and dog.
Although it’s past nine o’clock, they’re all still here – Wilf, who lives at the Guest House, Spike and Martha, and in the corner, with his back turned, Ahmed, the mysterious Iraqi who never seems to look up, or speak. Lara knows that Ahmed lives at the Guest House but she’s only encountered him once. He had been standing in the kitchen, worried about nineteen pence, which he owed to Mollie for a second-class stamp. He’d explained to Lara that he was worried that Mollie might not find the money on the table so he’d taped the coins to a small piece of card with Sellotape to make sure.
All the low life of Brighton seems to pass through the Guest House at some time, so it can be hard to keep up. She wonders whether, when Jay was round at the Guest House, he spent time talking to Wilf and Ahmed. She would like to accuse them directly but knows she might do better to wait. That tabloid headline – Mum slams irresponsible peaceniks – didn’t help, even though the mum in question wasn’t her but the parent of a 25-year-old woman from North Yorkshire.
Good evening, she says now, trying to sound friendly.
Spike nods briefly, Wilf moves closer to his screen and Martha starts to get up and then reaches out to answer a ringing phone. Lara has come across people like this before, they have a talent for being oppressed. She should have changed her clothes. Her corporate look – wool overcoat, black trouser suit and cashmere scarf – might be understood as provocative.
Spike is the person who Lara has spoken to before. He isn’t friendly or helpful but he can put a sentence together. In his mid-twenties, he’s plump with sandy bristly hair, a crumpled black shirt and baggy trousers. A dragon tattoo spreads up his right forearm and both his earlobes are crowded with studs. On his feet he wears sandals and thick wool socks. Something about the droop of his shoulders, and the length of his arms, makes Lara think of monkeys.
Sorry, I know you’re busy but an email just came through. Did you get it?
Spike is trying to wrestle crumpled paper out of a printer. He looks up at Lara, his pale blue eyes blank and weary. About the buses? Yeah, we got it.
Oh good. Right. So have you spoken to Alan?
Not today – no.
No. I realise not today – but you did speak to him last week? As we agreed.
Yeah, I did. And I gave him your message for Jay – and he said he’d speak to Jay and phone back.
Oh – right. But he didn’t phone back?
No.
And you didn’t phone again?
Spike presses buttons on the computer, the printer whirrs and the paper starts to move. But then a sound of crackling emerges as the paper crumples and the printer jams again. Listen, I’m going to have to copy this to another computer because this printer keeps on blocking.
No. No. You can’t do that, Wilf says. If you put the Compaq on it’ll blow all the fuses. We tried it twice this morning and it blew both times.
Yeah, then what can I do?
Let me have a go.
Wilf is in his forties and is all bone and tanned leathery skin. He wears a tight denim jacket, jeans, a large silver crucifix on a shoelace around his neck. An indication of religious belief or a piece of gothic jewellery? His head is shaved and his face is narrow and sharp. He looks to Lara like the kind of man who might carry a knife or swing a bicycle chain. Gothic jewellery – surely? Now he bends down and pulls paper from the recalcitrant printer. A plate lies on the table with crumpled tinfoil and the remains of a cake. Lara knows the blue willow pattern on the plate. Mollie is forever cooking cakes. One would suppose that if you baked enough cakes then eventually your fruit loaves and vanilla cupcakes would improve but it seems that’s not the case. And anyway how can Mollie be making cakes for these people when they were responsible for encouraging her grandson to go to Iraq?
Excuse me. I know you’re busy but I just want to check – you didn’t ring Alan back again after you gave him my message?
Listen, Ms Ravello, Spike says.
Lara. You can call me Lara.
OK. Could you give me a minute? Do sit down – if you can find anywhere to sit.
The only available chair is close to Ahmed. Lara moves towards it reluctantly. Something about Ahmed’s ba
ck unnerves her – maybe it’s the fact that his shirt collar is still crisp and white, his navy blazer uncreased, despite the fact that Mollie has said that he often works for eight or ten hours without stopping. Or perhaps it’s the way that his black hair is cut in such a very neat line across the back of his neck, leaving the skin too exposed beneath it. Lara’s eyes run over a press release on the desk beside her.
All of this is pointless. Why ever did she come here? She should just go to Italy and fetch Jay back. But what if he refuses to come? For a moment, she remembers trying to push Jay – three years old and stiff as a plank – down into a pushchair. And she remembers battling to get him out of the car. It was like dealing with an octopus, as soon as she managed to unclasp one tentacle another stuck fast to the door. But those kind of battles had been rare and she had always won them, eventually. Jay wasn’t a fighter at heart, or not in that way. Instead, as he grew older, he became slippery and shiny. Things bounced off him, or skirted around him. Or he slipped away, put up the shutters inside his eyes, refused to see her, or to talk to her. He had done that more and more as the years went on – probably it was to do with his condition.
For a moment, Lara imagines standing beside a double-decker bus at a service station in the Rome heat. Watched by a bus full of grubby peace protesters, she tries to get Jay to come home. She’s wearing the clothes she wears now – the black tailored trouser suit – and she’s hated for it. She issues orders but they’re ignored. So then she wheedles and pleads, tries to reason. The day is coming to the boil, the tarmac melting. The place smells of tyres and engine oil. And all the time she’s watched by a sneering group who sit around on the verges or loll against the bus, many of them babbling in languages she can’t understand. The image is so humiliating that she moves her mind away from it.
At the weekend she’d called a shrink in London – a man she used to go and see herself on a regular basis and who she has consulted before about Jay. At least he had understood the seriousness of the situation. Why is he doing this? Lara had said. I don’t understand why he is doing this to me? Dr Charmain had been clear about that. Jay doesn’t have proper boundaries, he said. He doesn’t have a clear idea of what he is responsible for and what he isn’t. He’s taking on an international problem which has nothing to do with him in order to avoid addressing the real issues in his life – such as why he has dropped out of university and why he finds it difficult to establish normal social contacts.
