Between the Regions of Kindness

by Alice Jolly

  Lara looks around the office and wonders about the people here – what issues are they avoiding? It certainly looks as though they might have difficulty establishing normal social contacts. She’s met these kind of people before. In Lara’s childhood, Mollie was always surrounded by the professionally oppressed. Of course, this threat of war is a gift for them. If it didn’t exist they would need to find something else to get angry about, some other force of oppression to battle against.

  It seems that Wilf has succeeded with the printer. The paper is running through it smoothly now. Spike turns back to Lara, running his hand briefly across his shaved head.

  Sorry, Ms Ravello. Listen, it’s like I said last week. I know Alan has given Jay your message – several times. And I do understand you’re worried but I can’t really do more. You know the people in this office were not even in support of the buses.

  And you don’t know anything about these people coming home?

  Martha has finished her phone call and sidles along beside Spike’s computer with an enthusiastic, spaniel-like smile. She’s a round woman in her fifties who wears tight black leggings and a vast pale pink jumper. Straggly grey plaits hang over her shoulders, tied at the ends with pink flower bobbles. Cup of tea anyone? Spike. No? Wilf? OK. Fine. I can do a coffee instead. She turns to Lara. Ms Ravello. How about you? Stressful for everyone, isn’t it? Let me get you a cup of tea.

  No thank you.

  Oh right. Well, good to see you anyway. And how’s your mum? We haven’t seen her for a day or two. She’s such a fantastic lady, isn’t she? We’re always so grateful for her help.

  Lara can think of nothing to say. She’s spent her whole life being the large and sullen daughter of lovely, sparkling, little Mollie – daffy, dotty, dear little Mollie, out saving the world in four layers of mascara, bright red lipstick and a stringy feather boa – and she grew tired of it long ago. Martha smiles uncertainly and twists her fat hands together. A phone rings and she picks it up, then presses a button on a fax machine. With a groan, and then a high-pitched squeal, a fax begins to emerge. The dog raises its nose, sniffs, shuffles out of its cardboard box and adds its whine to the noise.

  He’s a rescue dog, Martha says. Nerves are bad.

  She bends to stroke the dog but is distracted.

  Oh my God. Look, have you seen this? Martha’s head is bent down sideways to read the fax as it comes in. About the hospital in Baghdad, the lack of drugs. Some journalist took photos.

  Everyone here is very fond of Jay, Martha says.

  People assume that your son knows what he’s doing, Spike says. And OK so Jay is young and he was quite new to all this but that doesn’t mean he doesn’t care. Jay knew a lot and he talked to people, people like Ahmed here.

  Yes, I had assumed that.

  Lara notices that Ahmed’s back has tensed, that his hand has stopped still on the computer mouse. She feels that those neatly cropped hairs just above his collar are bristling. His back sends a message of accusation but he doesn’t turn around. Lara looks again at that blue willow-pattern plate. She wishes that she were a small and good woman, helpless and wide-eyed, a fragile woman who people would want to protect and support. But all her attempts to be that woman have failed. She’s too tall, has too much dry red hair, too many freckles and a chin that suggests opposition. She feels herself to be a giant Alice in Wonderland, crashing around in the world, dangerous and awkward, accidentally breaking things. Now she thinks, as she often does, that since she’s destined to be that awkward woman, then she might as well play the part to the full.

  Listen, excuse me. I know you’re busy. But I just need to be clear. Does anyone here know anything about who is coming home?

  Wilf is reading the fax.

  The bastard. That’s appalling.

  Excuse me.

  What? Wilf turns around, his narrow eyes turn to steel.

  I was just asking.

  Yep, I heard your question, Ms Ravello. I think we all heard your question several times before.

  Hey, come on, Spike says. Peace, Wilf, peace. Be part of the solution.

  OK. OK. But I think what you need to understand is that this isn’t about you or about your son. It’s about what’s happening, about how we’re going to stop this war.

  Ms Ravello, are you sure you won’t have a tea or a coffee? No, right. Sorry. But I was just going to say – I think you were looking for Mr Stanmore, weren’t you? You said last time you came.

  Lara wonders if she should respond to Wilf but there’s no point. She feels energy draining from her as though someone has pulled the plug out. She knows she should be at home, wrestling with Room Space. For a moment she imagines a miniature image of Jay on the computer. A new programme has been developed which allows you to control your child. Lara can use the programme to create a room for Jay – a very stylish room, grey and black, perhaps – and then she can just put him in it and keep him there. But Jay – even the virtual Jay she imagines – will not yield to her virtual fantasy. Instead he slips away, laughing, and not a mark is left on his stain-resistant surface.

  I could go and see if Mr Stanmore is here, Martha says. He often is when the hall is in use. I could show you where his office is. Well, it’s the vestry really.

  All right. Thank you. Yes.

  Martha rolls towards the door and Lara follows her. She’s defeated and she knows it, hates Jay for putting her in this position. How can she be routed by this bunch of losers? But she has no choice but to follow ghastly, cheery little Martha up the stairs. She knows she won’t find Oliver Stanmore. No one has even been able to tell her exactly what he does – something to do with the church and the keys to the building? Or is he some kind of alternative healer? Mr Stanmore has cured people with terminal cancer. Apparently, he doesn’t have a telephone but Lara is sure that isn’t true. Music vibrates from behind glass doors. Shuffle, shuffle, crash. And soon you will find that there comes a time for making your mind up.

  Martha knocks on the vestry door. No response. She tries the handle but the door is locked. Oh dear. Of course, I suppose he could be upstairs.

  Upstairs?

  Yes, he has a flat up there.

  Through this door?

  I don’t think you’re supposed to.

  Lara pushes open a door in the corner marked Private and finds herself in another, smaller, tiled hallway, a place crowded with mops and buckets. The fact that Oliver Stanmore is hiding from her means he knows something. If he’s some kind of fake healer, then maybe he suggested to Jay that he should stop taking that medication. Lara’s feet move soundlessly up the dusty wooden stairs. At the top a door is open and Lara peers in. The room is narrow with one arched stone window. The paintwork is dirty and a strip of stained beige carpet fails to cover raw boards. A Formica table with metal legs is piled with books and a man’s jacket hangs from the back of a plastic chair. A piece of paper taped to the wall reads – He who saves the life of one man, saves the whole world. Above the desk hangs a large and gruesome crucifix. Blood runs down from the crown of thorns, from Jesus’s furrowed ribs and from his feet. Lara has always hated crucifixes.

  Surely no one actually lives here? It looks more like a storeroom than a flat although through a door by the window she can see a kitchen sink and the edge of an antiquated cooker. Lara steps into the room and immediately her eyes are captured by a line of vases set on a shelf. They’re not large but they dominate the room. The colours vary – indigo, sea green, heather, jade. The shapes are organic. They must be hand-blown glass and Lara knows them to be worth hundreds of pounds. Mentally she begins to design a room around them – placing them close to a window to ensure that light falls on them, and through them, choosing fabrics and paint which will echo those turquoise and sky threads of light. Then her eyes alight on a photograph which is propped on the desk. She knows the image – the thin wrists turned upwards, the bandages and the lint, the stain of blood. One of Jay’s photographs. Lara thinks again of that abandoned packet of pi
lls in Jay’s coat pocket.

  From outside the exhaust of a motorbike backfires and then the engine roars away, the sound splitting the night. Lara pulls her eyes away from the photograph and finds that she’s out of breath. She must go, she must get away from here. The crucifix, the horrid metal-legged table, the man’s jacket. Something about this room offends her – not the brutality of the bare boards, the squalor of the paintwork – something else which she can’t name. As she pulls her coat around her, and heads back down the stairs, she feels sure she’s being followed or watched. Her hands jitter as she turns the doorknob at the bottom of the stairs.

  Voices still rise up from the basement office but thankfully Martha has gone so Lara turns and heads for the door of the Community Centre. She would like to slam it behind her but it’s on a spring and refuses to respond to her violent tug. The rain is coming down harder, blown sideways by gusts of wind, and the night is icy but she’s glad to be outside again and gulps down the wet air. For a moment she looks up but the stars and moon are lost behind cloud. She’s sure now that Oliver Stanmore knows something. Those pills. He is responsible. And she will come back and find him – no matter how hard he tries to avoid her. As she passes the Guest House the lights are on but she crosses the road and walks on.

  7

  NOW

  Jemmy – Brighton, February 2003

  Nearly time for lunch – another morning gone. Jemmy drinks coffee from a brown plastic cup and stares out through the dappled grime on the office windows. She mustn’t stand by the window long otherwise Mrs Jarvis will see her. The offices of Swift Life Investments, Insurance and Pensions are six storeys up and look down onto a roundabout, bus stops, the entrance to a multistorey car park. Today sleet slops down from a dishwater sky and the traffic looping around the roundabout below merges together into an endless ribbon of beige. The phone rings and Jemmy heads back to her desk.

  Hello, Jemmy speaking, how may I help you?

  I bet you like it up the bum.

  Jemmy swallows and her fingers tighten around the plastic of the phone. I’m afraid I can’t continue with this call. She tries to say this firmly but her voice comes out sounding tight and prim. She presses the red button to cut the caller off. Bloody creeps. That’s the third she’s had today.

  It’ll happen any day now, Tiffany says, leafing through the Daily Mail.

  You reckon so?

  Yeah, sure to.

  What, you got cramps?

  Nah – the war. Dunno why they didn’t get on with it sooner.

  The phones have gone quiet again. The office smells of clandestine cigarettes, burnt dust and nylon carpet. To Jemmy, it seems that each of these smells is separate and specific. She can almost see them moving through the office, like threads of smoke, curling around the computers, the coat stands, the potted palms and filing cabinets. Each smell makes her stomach lurch. A taste like the sole of an old shoe lingers in her mouth and her lips are dry. Am I hungry or I do I feel sick? Jemmy doesn’t know the answer to that question.

  Finally, lunchtime at last. She pulls sandwiches wrapped in tinfoil from her bag and turns her mobile on. Bill has left three messages. He calls up all the time to talk about nothing – whether she wants him to buy ginger tea or cinnamon, whether the rain which has been forecast for the weekend could delay the trip they might make to Eastbourne. The evening before they’d had a row – another row – except that they never actually do have a row, just vicious little skirmishes conducted in cold, short sentences. Eventually she hadn’t been able to stand it any longer and so she’d gone out and walked down to the seafront, walked there for a long time, she didn’t know how long. It helped to hear the sound of the sea, to see the distant lights of ships, blinking in the blackness. Often she says to herself, I can’t do this any more, I can’t do it for a moment longer. But she knows that these words are pointless because there is no other option. Lie down and die – that’s the expression. But you can lie down for a long time and you won’t die.

  Now Jemmy calls Bill back and he answers. They have the same conversation they always have. How are you? Fine, fine. Well, actually, miserable, desperate. What do you expect? And how is work? Fine, fine. Work? This bloody awful job. I’d have given it up by now if it wasn’t for Laurie’s death. I thought that when you get back we might pop out somewhere? Oh yes. Well. We could do. If that’s what you want to do. Yes, I suppose so. Why not? Go here. Go there. What does it really matter? Laurie will still be dead.

  At the Support Group they tell her that men and women grieve differently. Just because a man plays loud music, drinks too much, stays at work late, goes out all the time, then you can’t say he doesn’t care. That’s his way of grieving and you’ve got to respect it. Could endless discussion about domestic trivia be grief as well? Jemmy isn’t sure. She agrees with Bill that they need a supermarket shop. He volunteers to go if she writes the list. After that she says goodbye – then finds that she misses his voice at the end of the phone.

  It’s so hard to understand why Bill won’t talk about Laurie, why he won’t even say his name. Because he’s the one who is interested in gravestones, church registers, family trees. He has books about genealogy and he’s a member of a local history society which helps people to trace their ancestors. But now it seems that he isn’t interested in the branches that wither. Would Laurie even make it onto a family tree? Probably not. He didn’t have a birth certificate because he was too premature.

  You know there’s some local boy gone, don’t you? Monica says. It was in the Argus. Didn’t you see? You know that dirty, old guest house on Monmouth Street.

  Yeah, but what’s the point? Tiffany says. I mean, how stupid can you get? Why would it help for some load of wasters to go there in a bus? You know, one of the people is off Big Brother.

  Jemmy remembers when she found out that Jay had gone to Iraq. It wasn’t as much of a surprise as it should have been. Jay in moon landing. Jay walks to North Pole. Jay wrestles with crocodile. Any of it could be possible. And he’s right about the war, of course. Absolutely right. Jemmy doesn’t know anyone who supports the war.

  Shouldn’t be allowed, Monica says.

  Jemmy checks the anger rising in her throat. (Don’t you listen to them, Jay. You do exactly what you want.) She remembers that intense stare and those hands – small and white but firm, decisive. Turning her palm upwards, she traces with her fingernail the line of a white scar which runs across her forearm, as thin and straight as the string of a guitar. Probably Jay will take photographs and write things. He’ll see through all the media lies and try to show things as they really are.

  Just attention-seeking. That’s all it is.

  Jemmy takes a deep breath, pulls a packet of coloured pens and her sketchbook out of her bag. She’s written Laurie’s name in curly writing across a whole page of the sketchbook and now she starts to decorate it, outlining each letter in a different colour, sketching in a ring of stars to surround his name. Once she’s done that, she tears the page out and starts to cut around the edges of the stars.

  Then she pins Laurie’s name up on the board above her desk. With the flowers and stars, it looks like an advert for a circus. She opens her bag and takes out her photographs. These are not the original photographs, only copies. After she got back from the hospital, she’d had five copies made and hidden them in different places and she’d got Bill to get a safe box at the bank and put one set of copies in there. (That’s all I’ve got, Jay. A packet of photographs. You think you’re going to come home from the hospital with a baby and instead they give you photos, blurred photos and nearly all the same – Laurie wrapped up in the hospital cot, the sheet with the tiny blue cars on pulled up to his chin. Just like all the other baby photos except a flower lies in the cot, near to Laurie’s head.)

  Jemmy holds the photographs up, considering how to arrange them. Finding scissors in her drawer, she begins to cut at the photographs, making them into different shapes, arranging them on the desk so that
they fit together like crazy paving. Once she has a design she likes, she pins each individual photograph to the board, overlapping the edges. She stands back and admires the effect. In Ship Street there’s a shop which can put a photograph on a T-shirt, a mug, or even a canvas bag. Jemmy begins to consider the possibilities, envisages Laurie’s photographs on one hundred household items, the name Laurie stretched across her desk in neon lights.

  Other people are coming back from lunch now but no one says anything – have they not noticed or are they embarrassed? Even if no one will say Laurie’s name he definitely exists. He must do, because his photograph is there in front of her and his name. Laurence James Aldridge – 3rd of November 2002. She knows that Tiffany and Monica are watching but she doesn’t care. She might even get told to take the photographs down. But Laurie is her son and she wants his photograph on her board. (I won’t ever forget, Jay. I won’t forget what you did for me. You made it all possible. No more black cardigans and fingerless gloves. Look after yourself now, won’t you? And when you come back I’ll show you the photographs of Laurie, my beloved boy.)

  8

  NOW

  Lara – Brighton, February 2003

  The church is open this evening. Christ has died, Christ has risen, Christ will come again. Family service, 11.00 a.m. All welcome. It’s more than twenty years since Lara has been inside this church. Now it all returns to her – the plain, square interior, the brown ceiling. The shadowed spaces are cavernous, echoing. A drunk is propped, sleeping, in one of the pews. Rain beats against the high windows and someone is playing the organ – a few breathy, mournful notes. In the distance, candles flicker on the altar and low lights glow above the choir stalls.