Soul Sisters

by Lesley Lokko

  There were perhaps a hundred or more photographs of differing sizes and paper thicknesses, from tiny portraits with crinkled edges to more official-looking prints of groups of people: huddled under a tree, inside a mud-walled house, outside a church in what looked like the veritable middle of nowhere. He pulled them out carefully, picking each one up and studying it, trying to fathom the stern faces behind the moustachioed gentlemen in pith helmets and hats who were his father’s colleagues, he supposed. There were no women. There was an old train ticket, yellowed and fading. He picked it out and turned it over. Léopoldville–Brazzaville. He didn’t even know where that was. A dried-out nib of a fountain pen, a button . . . some sort of insignia. There was a letter in there, folded over thrice. He hesitated. He recognized his mother’s looping, fanciful script whilst simultaneously hearing her voice. Eavesdroppers never hear good of themselves. Reading her letters was tantamount to eavesdropping, he knew. He carefully put the letter aside. A single portrait photograph lay underneath; he pulled it out and held it up. It was of a young woman with coal-black skin and shining eyes, who held her hand up to her mouth in a gesture of suppressed laughter. He frowned. There it was again. That whisper of something he’d long ago forgotten or buried, or both. He stared at the photograph. He turned it over. There, in his father’s script, a single word. Nozi.

  Suddenly he heard footsteps coming towards the study door. He hurriedly shoved the photographs back into the box and clumsily put it back in place. He scrambled to his feet and only just managed to slip behind the heavy damask silk curtain behind his father’s desk before the door opened. It was one of the maids. He watched as she quickly scraped the remnants of the previous night’s fire from the grate and restacked the coals, carefully sweeping away the ashes from the hearth before tiptoeing out as quietly as she’d come. There was something foreboding about the study with its endless books and air of dim, deathly calm. He waited until the last of her footsteps died away and then made his own escape.

  3

  Her name was Aneni, which he soon learned meant ‘God is with me’. Mrs Guthrie snorted derisively. ‘God or no, she’ll be known as Annie in this hoos.’ She seemed to have no idea why she’d been brought to Scotland. Her mother had died a long time ago, she told him. She’d learned English back where she’d come from, down there in Africa. She called Father ‘bwana’, which Robert learned meant ‘sir’ or ‘master’. Bwana had insisted she attend school, apparently angering her grandfather, the chief of the village where she’d been born. He could hear traces of his father’s accent in amidst the schoolgirl vocabulary and the words she’d picked up from the other maids, quick as a flash. Was she pretty? He couldn’t really say. Father said she was sixteen, three years older than he was. He noticed the way her breasts moved underneath the pinafore she wore in the same distracted way he noticed all the maids’ – those near enough his own age, that was. She was certainly prettier than Dorcas, the chambermaid, and Lettie, who worked in the kitchen. She had smooth, shiny skin and the big, doe-like eyes were fringed with black lashes; a square, well-turned jaw and full lips that covered pearly-white teeth, the front one sticking out just a fraction so that the lips twitched every once in a while, a reminder of the slight imperfection in an otherwise perfectly pleasing face. He was instinctively attracted to what he didn’t even know was beauty. He found it difficult to meet her eyes. The darkness there disturbed him.

  She slept with the other girls in a room in the attic under Cook’s watchful eye. Although they were wealthy enough to own both a townhouse and a house in the countryside, near Peebles, the family lived mainly in Edinburgh. His mother disliked the cold – and it was always cold in Peebles, even in summer. There were four staff in the New Town home, and perhaps a dozen in the countryside. He was aware, as children often are without being told, that it was his mother’s private income that paid for it all. He found the words puzzling. What was ‘private income’? How did it differ from ‘salary’? And what was wrong with his father that he seemed incapable of generating wealth? It was all very confusing and different from most of his fellow Etonians, whose fathers were either ‘in government’ or ‘the City’. As far as he could work out, Father didn’t really seem to have a job. He’d been a schoolteacher at a mission school, but many of the photographs showed him carrying a saw and a hammer, and the mud-and-brick building didn’t look anything like a school to Robert.

  4

  The house was in a flurry of excitement. All day long the smells of Christmas wafted up the stairs. Cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves . . . scents that had been forgotten in the war years had suddenly reasserted their presence, despite rationing. Cook’s voice could be heard shouting orders to everyone, including Mrs Guthrie, which made the servant girls smile and forced his mother upstairs with a migraine. There was to be a dinner that evening for several of their neighbours, including someone from Africa with whom his father had once worked, a man named Mr Bellingham. Robert eagerly anticipated the visit. Aside from Annie, he’d never met anyone from his father’s past. He was due to arrive in the early afternoon, on the train from London. Angus, the footman, was dispatched in a taxi to pick him up from the station. Although Robert longed for one, his mother was adamant that they had no use for a car. ‘A waste of money,’ she declared firmly. ‘Where would we go?’

  A tap at the door interrupted his thoughts. It opened a crack. It was Annie. She wasn’t allowed upstairs and certainly not to his room, but over the past few days the household rules had been relaxed on account of Christmas. ‘Cook says you’re to come downstairs,’ she said timidly, hovering in the doorway.

  ‘What for?’

  ‘She wants you to taste something.’

  ‘Can’t you do it?’

  She shook her head. ‘I don’t know what it’s supposed to taste like.’

  ‘Oh, very well. I’ll be down in a minute.’ He picked up his comic book again. Billy Bunter was in the midst of a dramatic rescue operation and he desperately wanted to find out what would happen. But Annie was still hovering at the door.

  ‘She says you must come now. She’s afraid it’s going to burn.’

  ‘Oh, bother! All right, all right . . . I’m coming.’ Billy Bunter would have to wait.

  By the time he got to the door, Annie had disappeared down the stairs, her tread as light and soundless as a feather.

  Dinner that evening was a great success, bolstered enormously by the presence of Mr Bellingham, Father’s friend. He was everything Father was not. Handsome, fair-haired and broad-shouldered with an easy smile and a deep, rumbling laugh. He’d even managed to make Mother laugh out loud. For once Robert was allowed into the dining room with the adults, although he was seated at the far end of the long table covered in white damask that was so bright his eyes hurt. It had been years since the house had seen such a gathering. Their neighbours were all there . . . it was glorious. The dining room had never looked so rich and warm. The curtains were drawn, and the glasses and silverware gleamed in the soft light. It was hard to believe it was only four years since the war had ended. The gamekeeper at their Peebles home had sent up two pheasants . . . it had been years since they’d had game on the table. There was wine and port for the gentlemen, sherry for the ladies. Afterwards, the maids came in to clear away the plates. The men were standing, waiting for the ladies to rise. The door was open, and in the hallway, hidden from the guests, was Annie, waiting to help Cook and the two footmen carry dishes to the scullery. She’d obviously been given instructions to stay out of sight. Unlike the two other maids, who were in uniform, their hair pinned tidily under their caps, Annie was in her habitual brown pinafore minus a cap. Whoever had told her to wait had forgotten about the large mirror just inside the dining room. From where he was standing, Robert could not only see Annie, he could see Mr Bellingham as well. Mr Bellingham caught sight of Annie as he turned to help Mrs Macpherson rise a little unsteadily from her seat, and in that moment, his eyes swivelled round to meet Father’s. A look passed between
the two men that Robert couldn’t fathom . . . surprise? Anger? Shame? He couldn’t tell. The moment passed as swiftly as it had come. When he turned back to the mirror, Annie was gone.

  He wasn’t sure what had woken him, the bark of a dog outside somewhere, the creak of a stair . . . whatever it was, Robert came through the layers of sleep to lie in bed, his heart thudding. The house was quiet and although he was warm enough under his eiderdown, the room was cold enough to force a reluctance to get out of bed. There it was again. A sudden noise. Somewhere between a muffled shout and a scream, cut off abruptly. He lay there for a second more, his heart beating faster now. He’d recognized his mother’s voice. He slid out of bed, wincing as his bare feet touched the cold wooden floor. He bent down in the dark, fumbling for his thick woollen dressing gown and slippers. He padded carefully to the door and opened it, listening intently. On the floor below, a heated argument was going on, but not between his parents, he realized as he crept towards the source, but between his mother and Mr Bellingham! He stood in shock outside his mother’s bedroom door. Downstairs in the hallway, the grandfather clock chimed twice. It was two o’clock in the morning! What was Mr Bellingham doing in his mother’s bedroom? And where was Father?

  ‘I don’t care what you say!’ It was his mother’s voice, a low, hissing sound. The hackles on his neck rose. ‘You’re lying to me. You’re both lying!’

  ‘Mrs McFadden, please . . . please listen to me. It was not his fault!’

  ‘Don’t talk to me about “fault”,’ his mother sobbed. ‘Don’t you dare! How could he? And to think . . . she’s here, in this house, under my roof!’

  ‘Don’t blame the girl,’ Mr Bellingham urged, his own voice low and fast. ‘She’s only an innocent victim in all of this.’

  ‘Victim? You call her a victim?’

  ‘Mrs McFadden—’

  ‘I want her gone, d’you hear me? I want you both gone!’

  ‘Mrs McFadden, please! I beg you.’ Mr Bellingham was pleading. ‘Don’t punish her. Blame me, if you have to blame anyone. I saw what was happening and I made no move to stop it. He couldn’t help himself . . . you don’t know what these native women are like.’

  ‘You . . . you knew! All along, you knew!’

  Robert’s heart was thudding fit to burst. He brought his hands up to his ears in an unconscious gesture of protection. He knew what he was about to hear. Somehow, deep down, he’d known it from the moment he’d seen her. Aneni wasn’t some ‘puir wee lass’ his father had rescued from obscurity. No, that wasn’t it at all. She was blood. She was his father’s child. Aneni was his half-sister.

  PART TWO

  1978

  Twenty-nine years later

  • • •

  Be slow to fall into friendship, but when thou art in, continue firm and constant.

  SOCRATES

  5

  ‘Sit up straight, Catriona. No one likes to see a slouching child, least of all me.’ Her grandmother broke off her conversation to peer at her down the length of the mahogany dining table. The table’s surface was like glass, light bouncing off in every direction. Jen McFadden sighed inwardly but did as she was told. Her given name was Catriona Jennifer McFadden. No one in the entire world called her Catriona, other than her grandmother and occasionally Mrs Logan, the cook, when she wished to tell her off. No one called her Jennifer, either. For as long as she could remember, she’d been called Jen. ‘And hold your knife and fork properly. Most unbecoming.’

  Jen adjusted her grip, but the reason she was grasping her cutlery tightly in the first place was on account of the conversation taking place at the far end between her mother and grandmother, a conversation she wasn’t officially party to, of course, but which she could hear nonetheless. She waited with bated breath for her grandmother to answer her mother’s question.

  ‘So, when are they arriving?’ her mother asked again. Patiently, as ever. No use hurrying Margaret McFadden.

  Her grandmother took her time. ‘Thursday,’ she said, finally. ‘They’re bringing them directly here. They’ll stay until Sunday and then they’ll leave the child here.’

  Jen’s heart sank. So, it was true after all. Mrs Logan was right. There was someone coming to live with them. Someone she’d never met, didn’t know, didn’t want. She felt tears welling up in her throat and eyes. She looked down at her plate. She could feel her nose reddening and her cheeks growing warm. It was only a matter of seconds before her grandmother’s eagle eyes would spot her distress. Children who slouched, chewed with an open mouth, failed to hold their cutlery properly or – worse – sobbed at table, were not to be tolerated. She tried to concentrate on her food. Scrambled eggs, two round slices of black pudding, a single piece of toast and a grilled tomato . . . she struggled to breathe. It was hopeless. Everything on her plate swam before her eyes; colours, textures, taste merging as a tear began to trickle down her face.

  ‘What on earth is the matter with the child?’ her grandmother asked sharply.

  ‘Jen,’ her mother said quietly. ‘You can leave the table. You’re excused.’

  ‘She is not!’ Her grandmother’s voice rose indignantly. ‘I haven’t given Catriona permission to leave.’

  ‘Jen, leave the table.’ Her mother was unusually insistent.

  Jen looked nervously from one to the other. She slipped from her chair and quickly left the room. As she closed the door behind her, she heard her grandmother say, ‘You’d do well to remember you married into the McFaddens, Alice Heatherwick, not the other way around.’

  Jen hurried off. She had no desire to hear her mother’s response. Her grandmother was a bitch. That was what Mrs Logan had said the other morning to Mrs McClenaghan, the housekeeper, when she thought Jen wasn’t around. ‘Tha’ woman,’ she’d said, drawing herself up to her full height of four feet, her large overripe bosom quivering, ‘is a bitch. I dinnae mind saying it. I dinnae ken how Mrs A puts up wi’ it.’

  ‘Mrs A’ was Jen’s mother, Alice Heatherwick, the young Highlands girl who’d married Robert McFadden, sole heir to Mrs McFadden’s fortune. ‘Mrs M’ was Margaret, Jen’s grandmother. The wealth had come from her father, not her husband George McFadden, who’d died years earlier and for whom she seemed to have nothing but contempt. It was a miracle she even kept the man’s name.

  ‘Wheesht!’ Mrs McClenaghan said sharply. ‘She pays your wages, does she not?’

  ‘Aye. But she’s still a bitch.’

  Jen was hiding in the pantry, crouched down with one hand stuck inside the glass jar of oatmeal biscuits. She stuffed a biscuit in her mouth to stop herself laughing out loud in glee. Bitch. Bitch. Bitch. She repeated the word softly to herself until she heard the two women move from the kitchen to the conservatory where they always had their elevenses. She’d slipped from the pantry with two biscuits in her pinafore pocket and a heart made lighter by their talk.

  She ran upstairs to her bedroom on the third floor and closed the door behind her. She flung herself on the bed and rolled onto her front, pressing her face into her pillow, her hands balled into fists by her sides. She let out a muffled scream, beating her fists against the counterpane and kicking her heels, the way she’d done as a very young child in the days before Margaret McFadden had moved from her home in Peebles to live with them in Edinburgh. The family home was too large for her, she declared imperiously. ‘Rattling around in there like the Snawdoun Herald.’ Jen had wanted to know what the Snawdoun Herald was, but her mother was too distraught at the prospect of her mother-in-law coming to live with them to answer. Margaret was now seventy-six and in rude health. It was entirely possible she’d be with them for decades yet. Jen screamed into her pillow again. Her grandmother had been with them for four long years, a time without end. Jen, who had once been an only child and the darling of all the servants, had been peremptorily relegated to the sidelines, bound by a code of childhood conduct that seemed to belong to a different century. Seen and not heard. Spare the rod. And her favourite: Protect yo
urself from other people’s bad manners by a conspicuous display of your own good ones. Nowadays Jen rarely saw her father and when she did see her mother, Margaret’s shadow was somehow always hanging over them.

  And now someone else was coming to join them and usurp her, sending her even further down the queue. Life couldn’t possibly get any worse.

  6

  All day long, adults came and went, the murmur of their conversations punctuated by the sharp bang of the screen door as it swung to and fro. Some brought things – useless things, like goats (in one case) and a pile of traditional Ndebele blankets (in another). All were coming to say goodbye. Kemi sat with her grandmother on a low stool, sucking a boiled sweet that one of the aunties had given her, listening with half an ear to the adults talking. Most of her attention was elsewhere, taken up with the excitement of being the star attraction, rare in that household of real, and much more important, stars. She was leaving Rhodesia. The following night, she would board an airplane bound for London in the company of an international aunt. She would have preferred to go with one of her real aunts – Auntie Violet, for example, her mother’s younger sister – but the terms of her mother’s recent house arrest seemed to encompass all adult members of her family, even the ones Kemi didn’t know. She’d memorized the three-letter codes of all the airports on the journey to London – from Salisbury (SAY) to Rome (FCO), and from Rome to London (LHR). The last part of the journey to Edinburgh would be made by train. Her Uncle Robert would meet her at Heathrow (LHR) and chaperone her to London’s King’s Cross where they would catch a sleeper train to Edinburgh’s Waverley Station. The journey would take almost two whole days.