In a Kingdom by the Sea

by Sara MacDonald

  Mike pulls his Samsung suitcase out of the wardrobe. ‘I’ve been thinking. Something traumatic obviously happened between Dominique and your parents, but what if you are right and she is having a nervous breakdown? She could be remembering stuff that never really happened, but she believes it did?’

  I shake my head. ‘No. All the things I sensed were being hidden for a chunk of my childhood were real. Stuff I could never understand, but nagged at me for the rest of my life.’

  ‘Your parents are dead. They can’t defend themselves,’ Mike says.

  I am surprised by my anger. ‘What defence could there possibly be, Mike? My sister was an innocent child. She was banished from her home, from her life, for something she had no power to prevent. It’s as stark as that. She was sent away so that my parents could pretend nothing had happened, so they could continue their respectable little lives in the village …’

  I sit suddenly on the end of the bed, shaking. I don’t have the energy yet for this anger. Mike pauses from picking up shirts and socks and putting them into his case.

  ‘I guess I don’t want to believe it. Tom was more of a father to me than my own ever was. I’ve known your parents since I was seventeen and I have so many happy memories. The summer I was eighteen, do you remember? I helped your father extend the balcony round the side of the house? That was a feat and a half …’

  ‘He used all the wood he had left over from other jobs. It looked awful …’

  Mike smiles. ‘It looked like a bun sticking out of an elephant’s bottom.’

  ‘Maman could not bear it. She made him do it properly the following year …’

  We stare at each other bleakly. ‘All those evenings on that balcony after we had put the boys to bed, watching the sun slide into the sea. God knows how many bottles of wine we must have consumed over the years as I argued with your father over politics and the state of the world …’

  Mike turns a sock inside out and the right way again. His voice is sad. ‘To me, you were the perfect little second family I was allowed to be a part of each summer. Marianne and Tom were so unlike my own parents. Your house seemed always full of light and food and fun …’

  Mike flicks his case shut and looks at me. ‘I remember so clearly when I first saw you, running out of your garden onto the coastal path, a sweet little fourteen year old with wild hair and lots of opinions …’

  I ask, ‘Mike, how did my parents manage to go on living and loving together as if nothing had happened?’

  ‘God knows. We never know what human beings are capable of, do we? That makes me very afraid, Gabby.’

  I stare at him. The irony is lost on him. ‘Me too,’ I tell him. ‘Me too.’

  ‘Let’s go and have breakfast in the garden,’ Mike says. ‘Then I’ll go on to the conference room. It’s just an informal meeting before we fly tonight.’

  As we go down in the lift, Mike watches my reflection in the mirror.

  ‘Gabby, I think that you’re going to need someone other than me to talk to, someone professional to help you deal with this stuff about your father and Dominique …’

  He peters out. The absurdity of this statement in a city where people are randomly kidnapped and killed every day, where poor women have to endure unendurable violence and danger, is obvious. Trauma is a luxury.

  Mike lifts his hands and lets them drop. ‘I’m sorry; I’ve behaved like an absolute shit. I do care about you, Gabby. It seems your parents ruined Dominique’s life, don’t let them ruin yours after all this time. Please, don’t let this change you; don’t lose your trust in people. You’ve always been such a happy, contented person.’

  I smile as the lift doors open and we step out. Mike wants reassurance from me, but for something quite different. His anxiety is not about my parents ruining my happiness, but that he might.

  We stand facing each other, afraid. Words are inadequate to express what we know to be true. I do care about you hangs in the air. It is not the same as I love you.

  Out in the garden there is an uneasy wind catching the flags on the roof, ruffling the palm trees, moving the surface of the aquamarine pool. Small Baseer wobbles down the steps with our heavy breakfast tray. He frowns as yogurts and butter pats blow onto the paving stones as he lays our table.

  The heat presses heavily down on us through cloud. I look up at the unusually troubled sky and catch sight of two uniformed security men with guns on the roof.

  ‘Charlie must be expecting a VIP,’ Mike says, as he takes a mouthful of omelette.

  Zakawi is unsmiling this morning. ‘Storm from mountains coming; bad things in the air …’ he calls as he passes with a mound of clean towels. I sip the hot strong coffee. Nothing feels solid or real.

  We walk up the steps from the pool and Mike swings the glass doors open onto the cool foyer. Just inside, a figure is patiently waiting, pale hijab framing a flawless face. Her name badge nestles between the folds of a long green dupatta laced with silver threads that catch the light.

  ‘Good morning, Mr Michael. Good morning, Mrs Michael.’

  Her glance does not touch me. ‘All is ready for meeting to begin, sir.’

  Mike says smoothly, ‘Thank you, Zakia. Could you make sure that people take their coffee into the meeting so we start on time? I need to finish before lunch. That gives me time to catch the four p.m. flight to Islamabad …’

  He puts his arm round my shoulder and draws me away.

  ‘Let’s have lunch together. I’ll ring you on your mobile when I’m out of the meeting. Are you going back to the pool? A swim might relax you.’

  Zakia glides away but not before I see a shadow cross her perfect face as Mike places his arm around me.

  ‘I’m not sure. I’ll carry my phone.’

  Mike lifts my fingers to his lips in an odd spontaneous gesture. ‘You look so fragile, Gabby. It makes me sad. Are you sure you should be on your own? Are you sure it’s what you want?’

  ‘I’m sure.’ I smile. ‘Go to your meeting, Mike.’

  ‘I love you,’ Mike says, desperate for it to be true.

  I get in the lift. I get out of the lift. I walk down the silent carpeted corridor to our apartment. The city is encased in a pearly glow that is probably pollution. There is that sudden, panicky wail of sirens reverberating across the city. Police cars and lorries of soldiers hurtle across the junction. Life below me goes on without a pause.

  It must be break time at the school. The children are playing endless games of chase in the heat, all angular limbs and shrieks of laughter. They appear happier in that pitted, neglected playground than the school children I see in London. I wonder if Zakia Rafi is going to Islamabad with Mike and my heart catches painfully as if in arrest.

  I long to be on my own. I yearn for Mike to fly away and leave me in this oasis of a hotel where no one knows me. I want to hibernate, curl up foetal. I want to lick my wounds and become invisible, even to myself.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

  Karachi, 2010

  When the apartment door shuts with a heavy clunk behind Mike and his suitcase, I go to the window. The hotel entrance lies below me. Polished cars of various sizes and colours stand waiting. The doormen rush to and fro in their smart uniforms and curled Arabian slippers, opening and shutting doors on an endless and eclectic array of people arriving and leaving.

  I see Mike come out of the entrance in his khaki suit. He is talking to a tall Pashtun resplendent in a little poodle hat, waistcoat and baggy trousers. They both carry silver briefcases and head for different cars.

  I see Zakia slide out of the entrance towards Mike. He turns, holds his arm out to guide her into the nearside of the car, then goes and gets in the far side.

  The doorman leaps to press the door closed. I watch Zakia bend elegantly, leaving her feet until last. They are encased in tiny jewelled sandals. Her long dupatta floats out and onto the ground. The doorman pauses to let her reel it back inside. It disappears like the sinuous movement of a snake before he firmly s
huts Zakia inside the Mercedes with my husband.

  I stare after the car. It is possible Mike is dropping Zakia off at the office or giving her a lift home on the way to the airport. Then, I think, Marketing Coordinator? Of course Zakia Rafi is going to Islamabad with Mike.

  I stand at the window for a long time watching the vibrant heat of the day colourwash shabby buildings into a warm glow. Garish advertisements on the hoardings flash and spring to life on the rooftops. Day slips effortlessly into evening. Lights spring on. The traffic below increases to a roar.

  My laptop hums in the room behind me. The fridge plops. The air-conditioner fans the still air. Water gurgles in pipes as people shower and prepare for the evening.

  Outside in the corridor the room service trolley trundles up and down to the sound of distant voices. Mike’s presence has gone from the room and it seems to me that our once safe life together got into the sleek, black Mercedes and drove away into the teeming traffic of Karachi.

  I lie on the bed and close my eyes. All sounds recede. I take myself back to Cornwall, to my safe place, to that familiar white curve of beach. The tide is sliding in making lace patterns on the sand. It is evening and the breeze has dropped. Fishing boats are heading round the point and out of the harbour into a pinky grey horizon.

  I have sat there a hundred times with my back to Nearly Cave watching the beach slowly empty of tourists. Waiting for friends and neighbours to wander down with picnics, surfboards, dogs and fishing lines. Waiting for Maman. Looking out for Papa.

  The sea was the focus of all our lives, that treacherous, beguiling sea. It cooled and swallowed us with its silky warmth; thrilled us with waves that lifted and threw us to shore, terrified us with its vicious currents and an undertow that could carry us out of our depth like driftwood.

  Friendships were made and broken on that beach. People grew up, fell in love, divorced and fought with each other. Here, in the village, families changed, split, grew into extensions of themselves. Couples re-formed and came gratefully back to the beach once the gossip subsided.

  The older residents moaned, as they always did, when the café opened up above the beach, and when Donald, the farmer, started a campsite behind the trees up on the hill. Maman and Papa had the franchise on the beach café. The campsite filled each year to bursting with British, Dutch and German campers.

  After I left home I felt a surge of joy every time the train slid into Penzance Station and I caught the first glimpse of St Michael’s Mount looming up out of the sea. It never mattered to me if the water was grey and sullen or the castle was shrouded in mist. I was back home and the excitement never diminished.

  Papa would be leaning against his old truck waiting for me. My troubles would slough off like dead skin as we turned down the tiny road that led into the village. Across daffodil fields I could glimpse the rabbit ears of the church, then the vivid flash of the bay. My heart would soar. All is the same, still the same, like a familiar and loved painting …

  Over the air, as the sun sinks over the city, comes the haunting call to prayer. It is a marker to my days. The smell of heat and dust and jasmine filters into the hotel room but if I keep my eyes closed I can hear the evensong of a blackbird as my father drives me down the lane that leads to home.

  He is telling me what he has been doing to the house since I have been away. He has knocked a hole in the back wall, which, according to Maman, has disturbed Loveday’s ghost. Worth it, Papa says. Maman now has a huge picture window in the kitchen so she can look out over the fields.

  As the car stops outside the house, I can smell Maman’s cooking and hear her call out as she hears the car. Out she will run to enfold me to her small, neat body, hugging and hugging me as she thanks her neglected Virgin Mary that I am safe back home from the big bad world.

  These were the parents I loved. That was my home. It is impossible to change them into something else in a few hours. It is impossible.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

  Karachi, 2010

  Mike calls me when he gets to his hotel in Islamabad. He sounds distracted and the background is noisy.

  ‘The next few days are going to be busy, but I’ll ring you whenever I can. Leave messages on my mobile. I’ll get back to you. How are you, Gabby?’

  ‘I’m all right. I’m holed up safe. Just concentrate on your conference, Mike, you’ve been working on it for long enough. I hope it all goes well …’

  ‘Thanks.’ I can hear him clicking away on his computer.

  ‘It will be a miracle if I can get all the delegates in the same room at the same time. A nine a.m. start means all the delegates wander in yawning at nine fifteen. That might be prompt by Pakistani standards, but everyone then has coffee, a fag and a chat, so every bloody conference starts late and overruns. I should be getting used to it but it drives me mad …’

  Mike is, uncharacteristically, talking and talking, telling me things I already know, but whether it is to distract him or me I don’t know.

  ‘Very frustrating,’ I say.

  Mike snorts. ‘It is. Shahid has to play sheepdog and he gets crosser than I do …’

  I can hear voices in the background. ‘I’m sorry, Gabby, I’m going to have to go. Remember, I’m thinking of you. I’ll try to ring you every evening. Keep your mind busy with work. Promise me you will give Birjees a ring, and Massima when she’s back from Lahore?’

  ‘I promise.’

  But I don’t. I am incapable of having a coherent conversation with anyone at the moment. I have been precipitated into the middle of a bad dream and for days after Mike leaves I drift in shock in the shade by the pool or on my bed.

  Sleep evades me. I want my life back, as it always was, when I had happy memories of the parents I loved. When I had a husband I thought I could trust.

  I lie in the dark and my thoughts swoop and circle back through the years as if I should have had some clue, or I missed something. I do not know how to dislodge all the happy memories of my childhood. I am no longer sure who my familiar and beloved parents were. It feels as if my childhood has been annexed and rewritten, or I have abruptly stepped into someone else’s life.

  I never saw Papa senselessly drunk. He liked a drink, he got merry, but he never got drunk. What happened that night I stayed with Morwenna? Was it Maman’s illness? Was he worried about her? Dominique made Papa mad sometimes but he was always so protective of her. He would rein Maman in when he thought she was being harsh.

  I find it impossible to believe Papa could think of Dominique that way or do such a terrible thing. We were both his girls, his beautiful girls. In a second he destroyed everything. He snatched Dominique’s childhood, destroyed her trust and blighted her future. I had not understood that Maman’s anger was in fact a scream of pain. This gentle father of mine obliterated us as a family. I close my eyes against the dizzying light and try to face the starkness of it.

  After Dominique left, Papa was quieter and sadder and changed. I remember that he stopped drinking red wine. I knew he suffered, I felt it, I saw it, but now I wonder how he managed to go on living with himself.

  Dominique was the sacrifice. Maman’s horror was not for her damaged daughter, but for herself and Papa. My sister was underage. Maman turned a shocking truth into a lie. Slid it into something she could live with. Something she could bear. Maman blamed and abandoned my sister in a blink of an eye. She kept the husband and got rid of the child.

  In the empty garden I slip into the pool and let the water cool my hot skin. Up down. Up and down, I swim under the burning sky.

  Maman moved with the speed of light to save their marriage, their reputation, themselves, but my sister has struggled for the rest of her life. She is still struggling, while the three of us went on living and loving at home without her. It’s monstrous. It’s unbearable. All these years and I never suspected the truth.

  No wonder my sister threw herself away on abusive and feckless men. How could she value herself when my parents valued her so little?
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  I can see that it would have been impossible for the three of them to go on living in the same house as if nothing had happened. Maman should have banished Papa, not her fifteen-year-old daughter. But I could not have borne it.

  I could never have made sense of a world without Papa in it.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

  Cornwall, 1971

  I am making a den at the far end of the orchard as far away from the house as possible. I find an old bit of groundsheet in the garage and bits of rope and string. I take Papa’s old penknife from the shelf so I can cut ferns for a roof. I will be hidden by the old trunk of the biggest apple tree right at the end of the garden. It backs onto the fields and coastal path and I will make the entrance facing away from the house.

  I trace the bark with my fingers. It is like the thick skin of a rhinoceros. I can push my fingers into the deep cracks. I guess they are tree wrinkles. Poor tree. It can only make tiny bits of blossom and the apples die on the branches.

  Papa says it has a disease but Dominique and I refused to let him touch this old tree. ‘It would be like killing a friend,’ she told him.

  This is where she used to come to climb high among the branches. This is where I come now she is gone. It has been raining. I look at the cobwebs caught between the branches. A spider is still weaving his home and raindrops hang on his threads like little tears.

  I am so sad without Dominique. I do not know what to do or where to go. Except that I need to be out of the house. It shivers without her. It is empty and silent. It feels a different house and Maman and Papa are different too.

  When I am inside with them something in the air makes my heart beat fast. I cannot breathe. I know why I am sad but I do not know why I am scared.

  It feels so horrible without my sister that I keep thinking that Maman won’t be able to bear it and will go and fetch Dominique home. But she is still angry with Papa as well as Dominique. Is she mad with Papa because he wants her home like me?