by Alice Jolly
After that he pulls off his shoes and lies down on the bed, and she lies beside him, that smear of her blood, dried dark now, still decorating his lips. He makes her turn over so that her back is against his chest, her damaged arms carefully folded in front of her.
I don’t know your name, she says.
Jay. She repeats the name several times. She feels too drained to think or to talk. The night has that strange stillness which comes with extreme heat. At the window the black of the sky is tinged purple. From somewhere far away the beat of disco music pulses into the night.
Jemmy sleeps and wakes to find that the sun has split open, like the yolk of an egg, turning all the sky yellow. Jay has gone. She gets out of bed, pulls on underwear and a summer dress. Some static fuzz which has always crowded the air has cleared now and she hears clearly. If she listened carefully enough she could hear sap moving up through the trees at the window, sucked up from root to leaf.
She reaches for her cardigan but it’s too hot to wear it. And anyway she can explain the cuts. Walking on the Downs, a barbed-wire fence, sharp stones. She stands at the window, stretches her arms above her head, feeling the dressings on them stretch and sting. For a moment, she thinks of Jay. He’s somewhere in the distance, down on the seafront perhaps, and he catches sight of her, gives her a wave, turns away. He’s released her from prison and so she must leave him behind. He understands that. If they speak, then she might finish up back inside.
Her mobile rings and she looks at the number. It’s Bill, the guy from the night before. Her thumb presses down onto the green phone icon. And so she steps into the future, into sunlight. Mercifully, she cannot see a further darkness waiting.
52
NOW
Lara – Brighton, May 2003
Lara sits at the table in the Roma Street sitting room and emails Greg. Then she checks her watch – it’s ten o’clock in England so it’s midnight in Baghdad. Will anyone have their phone switched on? She tries Patricia, the Spanish journalist, but is redirected to voicemail. She tries some of the other numbers – journalists, protesters, the landline of one of the families he’s visited. No one answers. She leaves a voicemail message at the British Embassy in Iraq although they’ve never returned any of her calls. Then she phones the Stop The War office in London. She wants to phone again and again and again until she gets through to someone but she doesn’t let herself do that. Wait one hour, she tells herself.
She imagines Baghdad, cooler now that it’s night-time, but the air still full of gunshots, people hurrying from one street corner to the next, restless nights spent on mattresses laid out on concrete floors. She doesn’t want those images in her head and so puts on the radio, starts to make herself a coffee. Picks up that book of Jay’s about conscientious objectors in the Second World War. She remembers now that he asked once about his great-grandfather, the one killed somewhere near Dunkirk. She hadn’t been able to tell him anything, of course. And now the book fails to keep her mind steady so she lays it aside.
Oliver? She wonders if he ever went to the hospital. When she went to find him the glass doors of the Community Centre were closed up with a padlock and chains and she’d had to bang on the door for ten minutes to get him to come down. When he did finally come he looked crippled and raw, about half his usual size, and talked about a break-in at the church, something to do with a dog. Mindless vandalism, she’d thought, but hadn’t really listened because she needed to tell him about Jemmy.
And she’d been sure he would help – but she was wrong. He’d insisted that he could do nothing, said again and again that he was not a faith healer, never really had been. You care for this girl, he’d said. You can probably do as much yourself. With this break-in. We’ve got to be careful. There’s been a problem with a stray dog. I don’t want you to be hurt.
Also he couldn’t go in her car. He never went in cars, never. The roads are horribly dangerous. One never knows the dangers. She should be careful when driving. I don’t want you to have an accident in the car. I really don’t want that. The road to London, the M23 is particularly dangerous. So many accidents there. Finally they’d finished up having a row and she’d said unforgivable words.
Look, all this stuff with your wife, I’m really sorry. Awful that she died of this allergy thing but you’re letting that ruin your whole life. Why? Why can’t you just try and help? I’m not saying you’re responsible, of course you’re not responsible.
He was like a deflating balloon, crumpling to nothing.
I couldn’t save her, he said.
Well, so what? Anyway, as far as I can see, you didn’t even like her that much.
She’d thought at that moment he might hit her. But then everything changed because it turned out that he knew Jemmy, or half knew her. A young girl, piles of dark hair, a coat with flowers stitched on it? Apparently she went into the church sometimes to light a candle. So he’d said he would go to the hospital, that he’d walk, but Lara still doesn’t know whether he did. When she left he was still talking about the break-in, the dog, how they all needed to be careful.
She is still angry with him, although she realises that she shouldn’t have lost her temper. The worst of it is that she cares for him – deeply. He’s her friend, a proper friend, but still there’s no hope she’ll ever understand him. Why didn’t he want to help? Only twenty minutes have passed but still Lara picks up the piece of paper with Patricia’s number on, reaches for her phone. But before her hand touches it, the phone comes to life. The screen lights, the ringtone rattles through the room. No number shows on the screen. Lara pushes the green phone icon, the line clears its throat and she hears a voice.
Oh thank God. I was looking for your number. But I just don’t know anything more for the moment.
What? Lara says. Patricia, is that you?
The line makes a noise like the jumping of a vinyl record.
Sí, sí.
I was trying to call you.
Yes, yes but my mobile phone was stolen two days ago. That number is no good. So I’m calling you that our friend Hans is heading to the hospital and he’s going to let me know.
What? I don’t understand.
Someone called, Patricia says. I don’t know who it was.
Listen. I’m Jay’s mother. You remember?
Yes, I know. Of course, I know.
What are you saying? Has Jay been injured?
I’m sorry. I thought someone called you. Yes. We think that Jay has been hurt in an explosion but we don’t know. They said a young English man.
Oh my God. I didn’t know.
Lara feels her whole body drop. It’s as though she has fallen but is still standing.
Hans called me and so he’s going to the hospital. I don’t know. I’m going to call as soon as I find out anything. I promise I’ll call straight away. I’m sure he’s all right. There was a big bomb but that was yesterday evening already. Maybe it’s all a mistake.
I’m going to drive to London, Lara says. If he’s injured I need to come.
Wait, wait until we know.
Lara rings off, stands in the middle of the sitting room, feels her blood thump in her head. She hurries to the bedroom, starts to packs a bag, tries to think what she might need. Credit card, passport, hat. In the bathroom, she shifts through the contents of the medicine cabinet, tries to decide what to take, then grabs a plastic bag from the kitchen and tips everything in.
Finally, finally, the months of waiting are finished. She’s going to see Jay soon. If he’s injured, they’ll have to bring him home. An injury? That could mean anything. It could mean he’s lost an arm or a leg, it could be that he’s in a coma. Lara goes through all the options in her head as she pushes bras and knickers into a canvas bag. But at least there’s no more waiting. Something is going to happen now. He’s going to come home. She feels sure that he’ll be all right.
Jeans, T-shirts, the charger for her phone, her passport. Thick socks, a jumper. In Baghdad it can be cold at night. Sh
e grabs her coat, and bag, Mollie’s car keys. Thank God she has the car here already. Outside the night is gleaming, indifferent. She gets into Mollie’s car and checks the petrol gauge. She has easily enough fuel to get her to Heathrow. She feels Jay close to her now. Darling, I’m coming. It won’t be long now. Please wait for me.
The engine roars and the car rabbit hops up the street. But then she calms herself, drives like someone practising for a driving test. Amman, she'll have to fly there, not Baghdad. But there’ll be no flights to Amman now until morning so there’s no rush. Just drive slowly. The night is plum-blue, sprayed with stars, topped by a cardboard-cutout moon. Briefly the car headlights touch on a roadside shrine – a limp football scarf, wilting flowers. Lara imagines the messages tied to those flowers, their felt-tip grief half washed away by seeping rain.
Briefly she thinks of Oliver – the road to London, the M23 is particularly dangerous. So many accidents there. What was he talking about? She pulls out onto the main road and keeps her foot down. Car headlights flash into her face. The car rattles and groans. She opens the window and feels the air on her face. Wait for me, Jay. Wait for me please.
She knows that the American or British military can airlift people out of Iraq. She’s sure they’ll do that for Jay. He knows a lot of people, the journalists will find a way of helping him. It may be only a bad cut or a broken arm but still it’ll be reason enough for him to come home. She knows that he’ll come now. He needs to get out of there. And they need time to talk, mother and son. To talk properly, in the way that they’ve never done before. Things will be quite different when she gets him home. She wishes she’d taken a little more time to prepare that bedroom but she’ll ring Mollie and ask her to do it.
The drive is long, the road dips and turns. The car chugs in the slow lane. Headlights blind Lara and she concentrates on breathing deeply. Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death. She tries Jemmy’s trick. Start at four hundred and count backwards. Junctions pass, she stares at signs, Haywards Heath, M23, Crawley, Dorking. At least the M25 will be clear at this time of night. 379. 378. Breathe deeply. 375. Should she head straight on to Heathrow or stop for a break somewhere while she waits for dawn?
In her mind, Lara tells the story to Jay as she’ll tell it to him when he’s home, when he’s safe, when they sit together in front of the fake gas fire in the Roma Street flat. As she’ll tell it to him sometime in the far distant future, when he’s married and has children himself. A well-worn story, a part of their family history. A story to be told in the way that a mother sometimes tells her child the story of his birth. Fondly, full of wonder, gasping at the strangeness of things. And then I came to find you, got in the car and drove all through the night, took a plane from Heathrow, drove through the desert. Coming to find you, at last.
53
NOW
Mollie – Brighton, May 2003
La-la-la-la. Mollie tips her head back to look at the stars. As they left Eastbourne, Rufus had folded back the roof of the Daimler. But then a sudden shower of rain had come and he hadn’t stopped to put the roof back up and so now they’re soaked – and laughing. The rain’s stopped again now but the air is cold. Mollie loves the rush of it, loves to see the stars above tip and wobble overhead. The vast steering wheel twists in Rufus’s hand as the car roars on. She sits on a cushion which covers the handbrake and Rufus’s arm is around her, pressing too hard against the cast on her wrist.
They danced all evening amidst the high white columns and giant potted palms at the Grand. It’s the only place left which still has a proper band on a Saturday night. They used to go often, with their professional dancing shoes, and sometimes they were the only couple dancing, and often people came to watch them, and clapped as they finished, or came to congratulate them afterwards. Rufus knows the barman, as he was one of the stage managers at the Devonshire Park, many years ago, and so there are always memories and jokes to be shared, and plenty of drinks on the house.
The road is almost deserted and stretches out ahead of them, silver fading into black. Seaford, Newhaven. A distant flicker of white cliff. The ancient engine stutters and roars as Rufus changes gear. Hey-ho, the wind and the rain. Mollie feels that she has once again taken possession of the landscape of her own flesh. She notices the scar left by a burn on the back of Rufus’s hand, made by a hot iron, which she had accidentally dropped on him soon after Lara was born. And the cufflinks he’s wearing – ones with blue stones in them. A fiftieth birthday present. She found them in some antique shop – Sheffield or Leeds? And the familiar pattern of the wrinkles around his eyes, one eyebrow permanently slightly higher than the other. Together they start to sing – Paradise here, paradise close, just around this corner. She’s cold, even wrapped up inside her old fur coat, but she feels Rufus’s arm steady around her. Don’t let the police catch us, she thinks, because Rufus is way over the limit and already has nine points on his licence. Above her the stars turn as the road curves.
Rufus brakes and the car slows as he pulls his arm out from behind Mollie’s back, and steers the car down a lane which runs between tall hedges. The sky narrows overhead and the air is darker. The engine of the car stutters and throbs. Ahead of them, flickering in the car headlights, a fork appears in the road. Rufus takes the right-hand fork and the car bumps along a farm track. The landscape opens out again and below them they see the lights of the road, the distant shapes of the villages out towards the coast. Peacehaven, Rottingdean. Cliffs moonlit and solitary, an endless blackness where the sea must be.
Rufus staggers out of the car and pulls Mollie with him. Her bones are stiff from the dancing, and the cold, and her head spins so that she can hardly stand. Rufus pins her against the side of the car, and slides her onto the bonnet. His huge, cold hands fumble under her dress. His fingers digging between her legs and she leans forward to kiss him. He struggles with his belt and gets his trousers halfway down. Then he pulls her legs apart and presses himself against her but cannot enter her. Instead his hand fumbles and he kisses her hungrily, his other hand gripping the back of her head. Suddenly he begins to cry – a raucous, bubbling sob – and Mollie pulls her arms tight around him, remembering all the nights of their marriage when she lay in bed, longing for him to get back from the theatre, every nerve alive.
Really, we are a pair of disgusting old people, she thinks. But still she’s awash with wonder as she holds him there, and stares out over his shoulder at the purple sky and lights draped like necklaces over the land. He pulls her off the car bonnet and they dance, slowly, on the verge of the farm track, beside a field of new corn. They stumble on rough earth, and brambles rip at Mollie’s ankles but he keeps tight hold of her. They sing ‘The White Cliffs of Dover’ and ‘Down by the Salley Gardens’ and ‘My Love is Like a Red, Red Rose’ as they sway over the rutted earth. Then they sit on a bank, and smoke a cigarette, and faraway the hem of the sky is pink from the lights on the coast. The night smells of dew and cut hay and petrol from the car. Then Rufus says – Isn’t it time to be getting back? Is there any bacon and egg in the fridge? I’m absolutely starving.
The car rolls back along the main road and into the outskirts of Brighton, through Kemp Town, across the back of the town, and towards Union Street. Mollie longs for bed now – bacon and egg and a cup of tea and then shut the bedroom door and don’t let anyone disturb you until at least halfway through the afternoon. Then perhaps a walk down the pier and a bit of supper out somewhere.
Rufus says, Once we hear, I’m quite happy to drive up to London to meet the flight. Typical Rufus, offering too little assistance with too greater show of magnanimity, and at a time long after help was actually needed. Mollie doesn’t fool herself that anything will change now that he’s home. Early in the evening, he’d talked long and loud about giving her some help with DIY and maintenance. He may even have meant it but it’ll never happen. Mollie thinks briefly of Lara, sees an image of the family as a dance – people taking different partners as
the music twists and turns. Brief, unlikely alliances before a more familiar pattern returns. Or perhaps a game of musical chairs. Who will be left standing when the music stops?
Rufus parks the car in front of a neighbour’s garage, which will cause a row later, but to hell with it. He helps her out of the car and she staggers up the front steps, enjoying the sharpness of the dawn air, the silence of the sleeping houses around her. Pray God Mr Lambert isn’t home. Even at three o’clock in the morning, he’s quite capable of trailing down the stairs and starting on about his piles.
Silence. Peace. Not a sound from anywhere. What bliss. Rufus says that he’s damned if he’s sitting in that musty old kitchen downstairs. Why not sit in the sitting room for once? Get the fire going? Have breakfast at the table in the bay window up there – why ever not? Mollie agrees that they should do that. After all she can tidy up the room again later. Why do they always keep it for the guests when they never go in there anyway? The fire is already laid and while Rufus kneels to light it, she lies down on the sofa. Her head is heavy and she wonders if she’ll manage to cook the bacon and egg before she goes to sleep. Better perhaps to have a little rest first. Rufus swears as he burns his finger on a match. The fire smokes, crackles, catches.
A while later Mollie opens her eyes and sees Rufus spread out in front of the fire, dozing, his head on a sofa cushion. Behind him the embers glow. At the window the darkness still presses in. Mollie realises that she must have slept but has no idea what time it is. She wonders vaguely about Jemmy lying asleep upstairs in bed. That girl needs to get out more, be more positive. You can only do so much for people. Mollie knows that, because she’s had an experience similar to Jemmy’s, this makes her less patient than she might otherwise be. Understanding should lead to kindness but sometimes it merely causes one to feel frustrated. Ah well, hopefully Mollie will be pushing that baby out in a pram some afternoon soon.
