The Night Ferry (44 page)

Barnaby is on his feet, his jaw flapping in protest. For a moment I think he might be having a heart attack.

“This is preposterous! I wil not have my grandchildren raised by a bloody stranger.” He stabs a finger at me. “You knew about this!”

“No.”

“You knew al along.”

“I didn’t.”

Mr. Grove tries to calm him down. “I can assure you, sir, that everything has been properly signed and witnessed.”

“What sort of idiot do you take me for? This is bul shit! I won’t let anyone take my grandchildren away.”

The outburst has silenced the room. The only sounds are from the air-conditioning and distant water pipes fil ing and disgorging. For a moment I think Barnaby might actual y strike me. Instead he kicks back his chair and storms out, fol owed by Jarrod. People turn to look at me. The back of my neck grows warm.

Mr. Grove has a letter for me. As I take it from him, I have to keep my hand steady. Why would Cate do this? Why choose me? Already the sense of responsibility is pressing against my lungs.

The envelope is creased in my fist as I leave the conference room and cross the lobby, pushing through heavy glass doors. I have no idea where I’m going. Is this it? One poxy letter is supposed to explain things? Wil it make up for eight years of silence?

Another notion suddenly haunts my confusion. Maybe I’m being given a chance to redeem myself. To account for my neglect, my failures, the things left unsaid, al those sins of omission and commission. I am being asked to safeguard Cate’s most precious legacy and to do a better job than I managed with our friendship.

I stop in the doorway of an off-licence and slide my finger beneath the flap of the envelope.

Dear Ali,

It is a weird thing writing a letter that wil only be opened and read upon one’s death. It’s hard to get too sad about it though. And if I am dead, it’s a bit late to fret about spil ing that particular pint of white.

My only real concern is you. You’re my one regret. I have wanted to be friends with you ever since we met at Oaklands and you fought Paul Donavon to defend my honor and lost your front tooth. You were the real thing, Ali, not one of the plastics.

I know you’re sorry about what happened with my father. I know it was more his fault than yours. I forgave you a long time ago. I forgave him because, wel , you know how it is with fathers. You weren’t the first of his infidelities, by the way, but I guess you worked that out.

The reason I could never tel you this is because of a promise I made to my mother. It was the worst sort of promise. She found out about you and my father. He told her because he thought I would tel her.

My mother made me promise never to see you again; never to talk to you; never to invite you to the house; never to mention your name.

I know I should have ignored her. I should have cal ed. Many times I almost did. I got as far as picking up the phone. Sometimes I even dialed your parents’ number but then I wondered what I’d say to you. We had left it too long. How would we ever get around the silence, which was like an elephant sitting in the room?

I have never stopped thinking about you. I fol owed your career as best I could, picking up stories from other people. Poor old Felix has been bored sil y listening to me talk about our exploits and adventures. He’s heard so much about you that he probably feels like he’s been married to both of us.

Six weeks from now, God wil ing, I wil become a mother after six years of trying. If something happens to me and to Felix—if we die in a flaming plane crash or should suicide bombers ever target Tesco at Wil esden Green—we want you to be the guardian of our children.

My mother is going to pass a cow when she learns this but I have kept my promise to her, which didn’t include any clause covering posthumous contact with you.

There are no strings attached. I’m not going to write provisos or instructions. If you want the job it’s yours. I know you’l love my children as much as I do. And I know you’l teach them to look after each other. You’l say the things I would have said to them and tel them about me and about Felix. The good stuff, natural y.

I don’t know what else to tel you. I often think how different my life would have been—how much happier—if you’d been a part of it. One day.

Love, Cate

It is just after five o’clock. The streetlights are smudged with my tears. Faces drift past me. Heads turn away. Nobody asks after a crying woman anymore—not in London. I’m just another of the crazies to be avoided.

On the cab ride to West Acton I catch my reflection in the window. I wil be thirty years old on Thursday—closer to sixty than I am to birth. I stil look young yet exhausted and feverish, like a child who has stayed up too late at an adult party.

There is a FOR SALE sign outside “New Boy” Dave’s flat. He’s serious about this; he’s going to quit the force and start teaching kids how to sail.

I debate whether to go up. I walk to the front door, stare at the bel and walk back to the road. I don’t want to explain things. I just want to open a bottle of wine, order a pizza and curl up on the sofa with his legs beneath mine and his hands rubbing my toes, which are freezing.

I haven’t seen Dave since Amsterdam. He used to phone me every day, sometimes twice. When I cal ed him after the funerals he sounded hesitant, almost nervous.

The elephant in the room. It can’t be talked about. It can’t be ignored. My patched-up pelvis is like that. People suddenly want to give me children. Is that ironic? I’m never sure with irony; the term is so misused.

I go back to the door. It takes a long while for anyone to answer. It’s a woman’s voice on the intercom. Apologetic. She was in the shower.

“Dave’s not here.”

“It’s my fault. I should have phoned.”

“He’s on his way home. Do you want to come in and wait?”

“No, that’s OK.”

Who is she? What’s she doing here?

“I’l tel him you dropped by.”

“OK.”

A pause.

“You need to give me your name.”

“Of course. Sorry. Don’t worry about it. I’l cal him.”

I walk back to the road, tel ing myself I don’t care.

Shit! Shit! Shit!

The house is strangely quiet. The TV in the front room is turned down and lights are on upstairs. I slip along the side path and through the back door. Hari is in the kitchen.

“You have to stop her.”

“Who?”

“Samira. She’s leaving. She’s upstairs packing.”

“Why? What did you do to her?”

“Nothing.”

“Did you leave
her
alone?”

“For twenty minutes, I swear. That’s al . I had to drop off a mate’s car.”

Samira is in my bedroom. Her clothes are folded on the bed—a few simple skirts, blouses, a frayed jumper…Hassan’s biscuit tin sits on top of the pile.

“Where are you going?”

She seems to hold her breath. “I am leaving. You do not want me here.”

“What makes you say that? Did Hari do something? Did he say something he shouldn’t have said?”

She won’t look at me, but I see the bruise forming on her cheek, a rough circle beneath her right eye.

“Who did this?”

She whispers, “A man came.”

“What man?”

“The man who talked to you at the church.”

“Donavon?”

“No, the other man.”

She means Barnaby. He came here, spoiling for a fight.

“He was hitting the door—making so much noise. He said you lied to me and you lied to him.”

“I have never lied to you.”

“He said you wanted the babies for yourself and he would fight you and he would fight me.”

“Don’t listen to him.”

“He said I wasn’t welcome in this country. I should go back where I came from—among the terrorists.”

“No.”

I reach toward her. She pul s away.

“Did he hit you?”

“I tried to shut the door. He pushed it.” She touches her cheek.

“He had no right to say those things.”

“Is it true? Do
you
want the babies?”

“Cate wrote a wil —a legal document. She nominated me as the guardian if she had children.”

“What does guardian mean? Do the twins belong to you now?”

“No. You gave birth to them. They might have Cate’s eyes and Felix’s nose, but they grew inside your body. And no matter what anyone says they belong to you.”

“What if I don’t want them?”

My mouth opens but I don’t answer. Something has lodged in my throat, a choking lump of desire and doubt. No matter what Cate wanted, they’re not my babies. My motives are pure.

I put my arm around Samira’s shoulders and pul her close to me. Her breath is warm against my neck and her first sob thuds like a spade hitting wet dirt. Something breaks inside her. She has found her tears.

9

The digital numbers of my alarm clock glow in the darkness. It has just gone four. I won’t sleep again. Samira is curled up next to me, breathing softly.

I am a col ector of elephants. Some are soft toys; others are figurines made from cut glass, porcelain, jade or crystal. My favorite is six inches high and made from heavy glass, inlaid with mirrors. Normal y it sits beneath my reading light, throwing colored stars on the wal s. It’s not there now. I wonder what could have happened to it.

Slipping out of bed quietly, I dress in my running gear and step outside into the darkness of Hanbury Street. There is an edge to the breeze. Seasons changing.

Cate used to help me train after school. She rode her bicycle alongside me, speeding up before we reached the hil s because she knew I could outrun her on the climbs. When I ran at the national age championships in Cardiff she begged her parents to let her come. She was the only student from Oaklands to see me win. I ran like the wind that day. Fast enough to blur at the edges.

I couldn’t see Cate in the stands but I could pick out my mother who wore a bright crimson sari like a splash of paint against the blue seats and gray spectators.

My father never saw me compete. He didn’t approve.

“Running is not ladylike. It makes a woman sweat,” he told me.

“Mama sweats al the time in the kitchen.”

“It is a different sort of sweat.”

“I didn’t know there were different kinds of sweat.”

“Yes, it is a wel -known scientific fact. The sweat of hard work and of food preparation is sweeter than the sweat of vigorous exercise.” I didn’t laugh. A good daughter respects her father.

Later I heard my parents arguing.

“How is a boy supposed to catch her if she runs so fast?”

“I don’t want boys catching her.”

“Have you seen her room? She has weights. My daughter is lifting barbel s.”

“She’s in training.”

“Weights are not feminine. And do you see what she wears? Those brief shorts are like underwear. She’s running in her underwear.” In darkness I run two circuits of Victoria Park, sticking to the tarmac paths, using the streetlights to navigate.

My mother used to tel me a folktale about a vil age donkey that was always mocked for being stupid and ugly. One day a guru took pity on the animal. “If you had the roar of a tiger they would not laugh,” he thought. So he took a tiger skin and laid it across the donkey’s back. The donkey returned to the vil age and suddenly everything changed. Women and children ran screaming. Men cowered in corners. Soon the donkey was alone in the market and feasted on the lovely apples and carrots.

The vil agers were terrified and had to be rid of the dangerous “tiger.” A meeting was cal ed and they decided to drive the tiger back to the forest. Drumbeats echoed through the market and the poor bewildered donkey turned this way and that. He ran into the forest but the hunters tracked him down.

“That’s no tiger,” one of them shouted. “Surely it’s only the donkey from the market.”

The guru appeared and calmly lifted the tiger skin from the terrified beast. “Remember this animal,” he said to the people. “He has the skin of a tiger but the soul of a donkey.” I feel like that now—a donkey not a tiger.

I am just passing Smithfield Market when a realization washes over me. At first it is no more than an inkling. I wonder what prompts such a reaction. Maybe it’s a pattern of footsteps or a sound that is out of place or a movement that triggers a thought. It comes to me now. I know how to find the twins!