She chortles. One night she told Ian how Proust’s neighbour demanded the picture of her own father to be placed on her mantelpiece to assist her mildly sadistic games with her lady friend. Ian required the same chastisement under a photo of Walter. The transgression brought them renewable pleasures when literature and living fused into one. Nowadays, her night performances are less exquisite. As the years went by, sex began to lose its exhilaration, slowly tarnished with introspection and fears. Is she now romanticising what happened that first time? Over twenty years, memories of sex have piled up in her brain like dead leaves, packing in layer after layer, mostly buried: why dig up her first love?
She pulls a face at the dressing-table mirror. She has little in common with the girl Ian knew, apart from still reading novels, but she is good enough. A grainy skin, mousy blond hair, no wrinkles, approaching forty. She is glad to be back but too drowsy to think of how to help Virginia.
The following morning, Marianne runs down the stairs to catch Virginia, who is about to walk across the yard to the clinic.
‘Tell me, any news?’
‘No! Little Madame is too busy.’
‘Don’t take bad what I say. You’re a loving mum. She needs to spread her… wings… without you.’
‘How do you know?’
‘I can see kids at the school. And my friends talk a lot about their children. They say… to give space is difficult but the right thing.’
‘Heck! Can you hear the rain? Let me find my coat.’
Groping coats, jackets and rain gear, she steps around a majestic Victorian coat-hanger spreading its arms above their heads.
‘That’s mine. Thanks. I understand what you’re saying. But she is so far away, out of touch. Anything can happen.’
‘Why worry about things that have not happened?’
Virginia gives her a hug.
‘You’re so French!’
Both laugh.
‘You are positive with your patients. You know it matters, why not in your own life?’
‘Good point, teacher. What else do you want to tell me before I get drenched?’
‘Zaida comes back with opinions that surprise you. Not the stories of Mum or Dad. That’s good for a teenager.’
‘Spot on. She wanted to see Syria with her own eyes, she kept saying.’
Although she has no fresh news, Virginia steps into the practice feeling light-hearted, reassured by the brief tête-à-tête. She smiles at the irony: the apprehensive mum, drawing comfort from a childless unmarried woman.
She has no worry about the first three patients – routine cases. Unlike the pretty British-Caribbean woman she treats just before lunch. This is the third time she has seen Mary Angel, who owns a successful cosmetic shop for black people in the city centre. Married, no children. Today, she presents the usual story.
‘I feel shit, really. Everything is a struggle, I’m always knackered and I don’t know why. Money isn’t the problem. I bought the shop four years ago and now we’re thinking of franchising it.’
Eight pulses are all over the place and, for such a well-built woman, pretty weak, deep and knotted. While she prepares moxa cones on the tray, she seeks to engage Mary about the shop. Mary remains impassive; she has not come here to chat. Virginia is quiet too, enjoying the moment when, virgin needles at the ready, the room brims with unspoken expectations – the patient’s and hers. She tries to imagine a woman’s life without children around. Such an emotional desert. Whatever, it is safe to treat her on the arms. The room is getting stuffy. Mary sits up, glaring at her.
‘You aren’t getting anywhere, are you?’
Virginia, unnerved, jots down more pulses. Too much yin.
‘Ouch! Go on. Turn me into gruyere.’
Mary has stopped fidgeting. Her pulses are still wiry but steadier.
‘If there’s anything which bothers you, tell me. It’s alright here, quite safe. What are you missing?’
Her face turned away, hidden from Virginia, Mary’s voice croaks, choking with tears and anger.
‘I can’t come. I’ve never enjoyed sex. It hurts. That’s why I don’t have any kids. Can’t be normal!’
She stifles, furious for speaking against her will, arms clasped tight on her chest. Virginia is stunned. The needles have released the energy to the point of brutality.
‘Thank you for telling me. I’ve treated a few patients with that problem, it isn’t uncommon. Do you want us to talk about it?’
Mary swivels her head back, brimming with hostility. Handing her a box of tissues, Virginia represses a feeling of self-congratulation.
‘You are my last patient this morning. If you don’t want to say any more, that’s fine too.’
What causes sexual blockages in women? Maybe she should use the Eight Principles, and not just the Five Elements. Better not tell Walter. A fuddy-duddy, he doesn’t like mixing the two systems of acupuncture.
‘Where’s the pain exactly? Describe it for me.’
No story of abuse. Normal doctors – would you believe it? – recommend herbal tea! Humbled by the woman’s trust, Virginia books her for another appointment, free this time, later in the week. But will she come back?
Late for lunch served in the Victorian conservatory, Gwen’s pride and joy, Virginia throws herself into a robust rocking chair, wondering how much the fact that she is missing her daughter helped her to uncover Mary’s problem. Sex? Child? The parallel’s absurd! But self-rebuke won’t help either. She rocks the chair roughly, like a swing. Gwen jumps to its rescue.
‘Be careful! Marianne, can you see the carving at the back? Look! A bearded little man sitting in an oak tree. A story-teller. My father. That chair was made for him. Quite phenomenal! Have the soup, dear.’
Virginia wolfs down the gazpacho and fresh granary bread before turning her attention to Marianne.
‘How was your morning?’
Marianne, wearing a loose wrap-over dress Virginia wouldn’t be seen dead in, smiles back.
‘You make me feel bad, you are working hard.’
‘What did you do?’
‘I walk the riverside. I follow two big girls, 15, maybe. Pink sandals, white leggings. Pink tops. Pink hair things. And their mobiles, pink too! Mon dieu!’
She stops talking, realising that Virginia is not interested in her babble.
‘When is Zaida due back?
‘November the 7th.’
‘I’ll miss her. What bad luck!’
‘You would’ve liked our heroine. We’ll send you piccies of the wedding Zaida is attending.’
‘Is she good… travelling?’
‘I told her to hide her passport and return ticket somewhere in her bedroom. Just in case. I briefly explained why. She didn’t bat an eyelid. She said OK, she would, but I’ve no idea what she made of my advice. I’ll show you her bedroom if you want.’
Walter, resting from the chat, pecks at a bowl of nuts and seeds his wife put down beside him. Clean-shaven, vigorous, he does not look like the man who has gone for a half-hour run at 7am and treated five people in the morning. He sits astride the chair, legs apart, exposing the bulge of his genitals to the women, back straight, an adept of pilates and self-discipline, confident of his place in the world.
There are tense lines around Virginia’s mouth and her eyes are clouded, the heavy lids cloaked. Something else must have gone wrong this morning, he thinks, giving her a sharp look.
‘Tough morning, Virginia?’
‘A new patient is niggling me.’
He asks a few questions, keen to eliminate false tracks. Both anorgasmia and infertility can be a long haul.
‘Well done, girl. Keep her trust. If you want, I can help you with your treatment plan.’
She remains in awe of her father’s experience. Forty years! Would he have done better this morning?
Yet why not let her try the Eight Principles approach, and not just the Five Elements that they practise here? Needle points directly linked to dysfunctions? She could follow the new course at the college in Reading, but Walter would see such a move as a betrayal of his life’s work. At times, it isn’t easy to remain a faithful daughter. She stops rocking. Is Zaida having the same thought?
The light lunch over, Gwen snaps as her husband helps himself to another thick slab of Roquefort. ‘Your diet, for heaven’s sake! Did you take your vitamins this morning? And the statin?’
He concentrates on the moist mushroom flavour with the attention of an addict. Gwen backs off, not wanting an argument in front of Marianne. The bloody doctor can’t even look after himself. He won’t take the medicine prescribed by the hospital. High cholesterol is not critical, he says. All he does is talk, talk, talk.
‘Mum, look! Can you hear him?’
Tap. Tap. Tap. In the glare of the sun, a great tit is pecking microscopic insects from the glass panes of the conservatory.
‘I’ll tell Zaida he is back. We need to run. Enjoy your afternoon, Marianne.’
It has been a good day for the Franklins, happy to chat around the evening meal. Gwen has excelled herself with a fine fish pie, one of Marianne’s favourite English dishes. With the addition of soya milk, the potato mash is light and creamy; the hake, moist. For dessert, there is Marianne’s lemon tart, sharp and sweet, to be topped with low-fat Greek yoghurt. You can hear the family purr.
It would be perfection for everyone, Virginia thinks, were it not for Zaida’s silence ringing in their ears. But it is fine to be lazy after a good day’s work. There is a light knock on her leg: Marianne kicking her under the table with repressed mirth.
‘Look at your father!’
‘Don’t take any notice.’
Chin resting on his chest, Walter nods off. Virginia and Marianne exchange a look of complicity. Women rarely expose their features to other people like that. Only men feel safe enough, or are thick-skinned enough, to do it. He slouches further into the chair, head slumped to one side, mouth dropping open; a faint snoring. Gwen, frazzled, exclaims, ‘Marianne, darling, nudge him!’
Marianne and Virginia quietly dissent. They enjoy the sight of Big Walter at rest, half-consciously expecting the conversation to take a new turn, a feminine agenda this time, until the moment, all too soon, when he reclaims their exchange as his own, setting its pace and topic, leaving the women to chip in with those signs of affection – a smile, words of encouragement: Brilliant! Do go on! – that men so fully deserve.
When they entertain, Gwen likes to watch her husband, a leonine presence. Even now she is surprised at him occupying the opposite side of her table. Marrying him had been her lucky break. Her Baptist mother died young and her father remarried within the year, leaving her angry and hostile to the new wife, a Quaker. She was just 8. Wrapping herself in a coat of self-reliance and detachment, she transformed the unspoken loss into a desire to be moderate in all things for fear of worse to come. At Liverpool University, she smiles to herself, she developed an eccentric interest in collecting. Her room, said Walter, had class with its watercolours and a small bird cage, empty, the door open, propping up books. Her only love understood and never queried her gentle passion. She chuckles to herself. Although a flirt, he would never set out to harm her.
Checking that he is still asleep, she says, ‘It’s refreshing to sit here for a while. Now the practice is so large, we rarely have a break during the week! Not that I’m complaining.’
‘Poor Mum! We depend on you so much! You like it really, don’t you? Maybe not.’
With a pang of envy Marianne watches mother and daughter, Virginia falling into the odd habit of answering her own questions, Gwen patting her arm. Her godmother was not the sort you could get close to, even when she became fatally ill. Intimacy frightened her adoptive mother. Women’s needs were so hushed! Marianne sighs. She never had a flowing, cosy relationship with her or with anyone else. Virginia raises an eyebrow.
‘What’s wrong, pet?’
Marianne cheers up; nobody has ever called her that before.
‘Would you prefer “What’s wrong, duck?” “Chick?” Or “What’s wrong… guy”? It’s trendy. Take your pick, sweetie.’
Such joking mellows the home. Gwen leaves to make more herb tea.
Quietly, respecting Walter’s doze, Marianne attempts to probe her friend’s fears.
‘The Khalid I know years ago never try to hold Zaida against her will.’
‘But he’s not the Khalid you knew. He’s back home. Things are different there. Other pressures, other loyalties. You know, when we were married, his father, Abdul, sometimes came to see us. After the meal he’d get a map of Syria and tell us the Golan Heights was their land. Hammering the table. For Jews, Christians and Muslims, the land is blood. And blood is religion.’
‘But they didn’t say Zaida is a Sunni Muslim?’
‘Never as such. We told them our future kids would be taught no religion – let them decide for themselves when they grow up. Abdul, the hypocrite, interfered later! Although he himself had broken ranks by marrying an Alawite. I tell you the truth, for him, our pact was galling.’
‘Galling?’
‘Exasperating. Annoying. He wanted to name my baby “Seema”. A girl who was raped! How to explain that to her later?’
‘Shush. Don’t wake him up.’
‘Our baby girl, in spite of her fair hair, “looks like her ”. That’s what he said. Spooky.’
‘Spooky? I know… in the books for children in my room.’
‘Clever you! Abdul called the baby “Seema” a few times – not on purpose, of course. We had to laugh about it. When Zaida was about 6, he sang her bits of the Koran. We let him. She’s pretty modest. She never dresses in see-through tops, belly buttons, you know how they do it now.’
‘Sensible like her mum?’
‘I’ll show you the family tree she’s made. Decorated with arabesques, Syrian stars, very glitzy. And she’s got a nose for bargains just like Abdul. But have no fear – she’s an English teenager through and through! Worries about her thighs, her little boobs. Hates salad and beetroot, that sort of thing. Not that interested in Twitter. Prefers to play on WOW. You see, she’s a pretty normal kid.’
Gwen bustling around brings Walter back to them, stirring, shaking his head like a seal coming out of the sea. The women, protective of him, are grateful for his clowning.‘I’ve things to do!’ He leaves the room, followed by Virginia. Five minutes later she bursts back in.
‘Listen! I’ve just received a long email. I’ll read it out to you.’ Her face lights up as her voice gathers strength.
I met the new bride. You couldn’t see her face because she had loads of make-up. And she is old, cousin Ali told me. He dances like a ceb. People want to take my picture when Dad tells them I am visiting. There was a man who wanted me to marry his son. Dad got cross. I am enjoying myself, Mummy. Don’t worry. They bought me new dresses. Pretty scarves. Gym shoes. Nice bracelets.
Marianne interrupts theatrically, applauding until Gwen hushes her. ‘Do go on, dear!’
Did Dad tell you we were going to this huge fair on top of a hill? He said it would be a break from Damascus. I could not ring you. There were loads of monkeys in a cage and men racing on white horses. We visited a huge citadel with big towers inside. We did not see any prisoners. Am so tired I can’t write any more. They are calling me. I love you so much Mummy. And Grandpa and Granny. Your loving daughter. Ta ta.
‘Let’s call your father and drink to that!’
Virginia kisses Marianne on the cheek, whispering, ‘Zaida is doing well on her own. You were right, you know.’
Marianne is doing her utmost not to look triumphant as the family celebrate Zaida’s feisty spirit. Eventually, Gwen retires to bed, soon followed by an exhilara
ted Virginia.
‘Stay, Marianne. We’ll watch the 10 o’clock news together. It’s on in five minutes.’ She strikes Walter as a woman of a fierce independence – quite startling, given her conservative upbringing by a Languedoc family. How do they take to her being unmarried, with a teaching job and a crumbling estate to run? He has never poked his nose into the Hernandez business although the two families have met over many summers. With her electrifying energy, Marianne has always been good for Virginia, especially now. She worries too much. He can’t share her distrust of the Al-Sayeds. He always had a soft spot for the man – dignified, warm, ebullient, sympathetic. And such a devoted dad. It can’t be easy keeping contact with your child on Skype. They mustn’t forget that. And remember what people said of Abdul. Such a good GP.
How can these decent people harm Zaida? Their older girl was raped years ago in a Beirut camp. The four children were hunted down by a gang of Maronite Phalangists out to kill Sunnis. When Abdul told him what had happened to Seema, he felt honoured to be his confidant. He and Abdul were close to tears. The families are bonded, divorce or not. So when Khalid asked for a loan to support the expansion of the Al-Sayeds’ business, he didn’t refuse, although he was never quite sure what the new project was – transporting Iraqi oil to Syrian Mediterranean ports? Restoring pipelines for the government? Anyway, a little money goes a long way over there. Khalid paid the loan off with interest when the clinic needed to expand. A sensible affair on both sides and a nice little secret.
Walter works himself into a surge of self-satisfaction. The Al-Sayeds are resilient people, tested to the edge of sanity by vicious conflicts. It is preposterous to believe Khalid and his father, who, he suspects, are still grappling with memories of persecution and imprisonment, would keep Zaida against her will – a child, so full of beans and funny ideas, well able to speak up for herself. You can see it in her email. His mind at rest, he wanders across the room to shut the curtains. The little monkey is enjoying herself at her dad’s, but come the 7th, she’ll be on the plane.
Homecomings Page 4
