The study in Rosemary’s house in Cambridge would serve very well. Over the next months, if she feigned an inordinate interest in her studies, her parents need never know that she was not where they imagined her to be. She found a temp job as a data-entry clerk at a genito-urinary unit at the nearby hospital. She was taken into the manager’s office on arriving for her first day and reminded that the patients’ privacy was paramount: the conditions they might suffer were intimate and not to be disclosed to anyone. If she were to encounter the name of someone she thought she knew, she was beholden to come and inform the manager immediately. The clandestine nature of the post was an extension of what she had become accustomed to, only now the secrecy was sanctioned. She assured the manager that she was capable of great discretion. And over the next weeks she was left alone with her thoughts; the other clerks were not inclined to chat over coffee breaks, most sitting in silence with their phones. She paid a share of the bills, but Rosemary refused any rent, pointing out that Rita was sleeping in a glorified cupboard rather than a room. When the year was drawing to an end, Rita took her friend out to dinner to thank her. What will you do? Rosemary asked. Come clean, she had replied, but even as she said the words, she was not sure that she would.
In late December she took the train into London. Only months earlier, in India, she had travelled back on the train from her mother’s family home, with her wounded mother, her stoic father, wondering when she would see Ben Martin again. This time, no matter how fiercely she longed for it, she knew she would never see him again. As she approached the house, she slowed down. She could hear voices inside: her brother and family had arrived for a pre-Christmas meal. They were all gathered in the living room; five pairs of eyes turned to look at her. Her mother had been talking, holding Mira on her lap. Her brother Joy rose to his feet.
‘Reetie. How are you doing, little sis?’
He stepped across the carpet to give her a firm hug.
‘Chetta . . .’
She turned to her sister-in-law, leaned forward to kiss her cheek.
‘Chechi.’
‘Still too thin,’ Latha’s mouth was turned downwards. Then she prompted Mira: ‘Say hello, mol.’
The little girl unfolded herself from her grandmother’s lap and approached Rita, who knelt down.
‘Hello, Reetieaunty.’
She clasped the tiny body to her. ‘Hello, Squirrel,’ she whispered, ‘I missed you.’
The child giggled.
‘How’s your tail?’
Mira turned around briefly, smiling widely.
‘Ah,’ said Rita. ‘Still nice and bushy I see.’ Then she stood up, the child still in her arms.
‘Shall I take her to the park? Before it gets too dark?’
‘No sit, wait,’ her mother protested. ‘You’ve just got back.’
‘I’m fine,’ she said. She could use the time to compose herself. ‘Would you like to go on the swings?’ she asked her niece.
The child looked tired: sitting on her grandmother’s lap must have made her sleepy, but she nodded obediently. Within a quarter of an hour they were leaving the house, Rita piggybacking her niece to the small playground in the corner of the park at the end of the street. The wind was cold, and Mira’s nose was red. She wanted to go on the see-saw, and Rita helped her onto the seat, then sat on the other end, deliberately suspending her niece far up high, watching her cackle with delighted laughter. It had been months since she had last seen the child, but she had come passively. Would he have felt the same way about her: that she was a docile, malleable accomplice? She looked across the park; his parents’ house was no more than a bus ride away.
‘Reetieaunty.’
A shoe had fallen off, which she picked up and pushed back on the small foot, pressing the Velcro down. It was too raw to be outside, the light was fading anyway, but she was loath to go back to the house.
‘Come on, Squirrel.’
They walked back briskly, hand in hand. Now that the return to the warm house was guaranteed, the child began to chatter. They re-entered. The men remained in the living room, where she deposited her niece; the women had moved to the kitchen. Her mother had prepared a feast. Another meal during which she let the Malayalam flow over her; at least Mira stayed close, on her lap. After Joy and Latha had left, Mira now asleep on her father’s shoulder, she went upstairs into her bedroom. She plugged in her laptop, waited for it to boot up.
There was a knock on the door.
‘Mol?’
Her mother came inside and sat on the bed. ‘Don’t work too hard. You look tired. Ivvide irrike,’ she patted the bed.
It was her mother who looked tired, but she obeyed. Her mother put her arm around her, stroked her hair.
‘Did you eat enough at dinner?’
She nodded.
‘You know Seline has been unwell?’
‘Unwell?’
‘Have you been in touch with her?’
She shook her head, remembered with some guilt how Seline had emailed her some months back, asking after her.
‘Onachen phoned,’ her mother said. ‘She hasn’t been taking interest. Not even in the shop.’
The shop, Seline. They were speaking of a different world, but it was her world. The thought scared her. Impossible to reconcile, impossible to reconcile what she had done with whom she was supposed to be. Now she wanted her mother to leave for fear that she had powers hitherto unknown: that she could see into her daughter’s heart. But her mother, unaware of her disquiet, stayed on as Rita unpacked her suitcase. While she placed her pile of T-shirts in her wardrobe, her mother talked about the arrangements for Christmas. Finally, she discovered a pair of jeans which needed washing, which her mother took away.
When her mother had gone, she reached into the zipped compartment of the suitcase and pulled out the book, stared at the cover. He had held it on one side and she on the other. And looking down at the novel as she had done that afternoon, she saw beyond it to the floor below: to her feet in the lace-ups she had been wearing, and beneath her feet the rough coir rug that covered that part of the room. Not the soft, fluffy wool rug he had laid her down on, so that as she had felt his weight on top of her, she had also felt as if she had a long-haired warm animal against her back. The sensuality of the memory made her catch her breath, and she let the book slip out of her hands onto the bed. She undressed, her heart beating, and crept to the bathroom. The hot water gushed against her body as she stood under the shower, her palms over her face, trying to still the images which spooled out in front of her like a collage from a film. She turned off the water and tiptoed back to her bedroom. There was no noise from her parents’ room.
She had spent many nights thinking of his wife, punishing herself by remembering the woman who had been his chosen companion. We’ve known each other a long time. But all these weeks, months, it had never occurred to her to look beyond. Perhaps it was an unconscious fear of uncovering a network, a web of people who knew him better, who had more claim to his loss than she. She reached under the bed and pulled out a shoebox covered with a colourful fabric: a memory store. Into it had gone her favourite notes from friends, some photos, programmes from her dance performances. Would this be where she kept this book? To join her other innocent, childish keepsakes? But she turned away, opened her laptop and typed his father’s name.
A short biography revealed that he was born in the Cape area of South Africa in 1945 to English parents but moved to Rhodesia aged ten. He grew up on a farm in Inyanga, and studied later at the University of Cape Town. He married an Englishwoman, Louise, whose grandfather had served with the Secretary of State for British India. The couple settled in Salisbury, later renamed Harare, where he taught at the university and wrote five of his eight novels. The entry finished: In 1998, John Martin moved to London, where he now lives. She skimmed through the list of search results, mostly reviews of his books, mentions of his name related to talks he delivered. And then, published in a newspaper supplement, an
essay written, the introduction read, after the death of his son, Ben, in a car accident.
The darkness outside her window – she had not drawn the curtains – was that navy blue of winter nights. She saw her reflection in the window, the pool of light cast by her desk lamp, her eyes staring back as if a stranger’s. Minutes passed as she kept her head turned away from the screen, and then, as if in slow motion, she turned back and read.
I arrived on this island twelve years ago. A few weeks earlier, if asked, I would have said that I have never felt at home. My eyes crave the austere beauty of plains covered in a brown, dry grass, the silhouettes of trees against open land. My ears long for the sound of people speaking across the street to each other in a language I never learned but which I can recognise in a second from a babble of a hundred. My bones miss the heat of a long, silent afternoon. In Africa, if I looked up I saw the sky was blue and everlasting. I exchanged that sky for London’s, and a few weeks ago I realised what I have never allowed myself to think. I am, in effect, an émigré. I have left my home and it is unlikely I will return. It is possible my home will now welcome me back only as do the new owners of the house you sold, who rarely want you to revisit. But burying a son in the soil; well, that makes a place a home.
This island now holds the remains of my younger son and his wife. If I do not mention her again, it is not because I do not grieve her loss to this world. Only that the vacuum she has left belongs to her parents. I do not intrude on their sorrow, just as they do not intrude on mine. Rather, ours. For my son has left his mother bereft. Because we were foolish, I spent ten years away from my wife. My wife clung to her youngest, Ben; his brother, Francois, remained closer to me. When I finally arrived on this island, I was determined to re-acquaint myself with my younger son. But he was grown, a man. He had achieved, excelled. Slowly we began to find each other again, like an old jigsaw that you find tucked away in a cupboard. Once you start it you remember how often you used to make it, how the pieces have their familiar nicks and scrapes, telltale signs of where they should fit. My son and I renewed our friendship.
My last conversation with him: he was editing a collection of essays and his wife was in good health all things considered. He wondered if his mother and I might be free to visit in a fortnight, as he had bought tickets for a concert. If I had known that was to be our last conversation, I would have interrupted him and said, My boy, do you remember the afternoon in the Bvumba, we were camping, and only you and I, your mother and your brother arguing over the tent, saw the gazelle, come to inspect us and then leave, as if revealing herself only for our delectation?
Now my wife moves next door in her room. I hear the sounds of drawers being opened and closed, chairs creaking. I can imagine her movements. We have decided to return to the old days, when from across the length of the great continent, over a sea, we would imagine each other’s daily lives. By re-enacting the decisions we made when our son was alive we have solace. When we decide to speak, I will tell her: my heart is broken.
The tears had arrived on seeing his name, in print, embedded in the sentences; she did not continue reading. In those few lines she felt she had learned more about Ben than she had ever known. She did not recognise the writer from his novel: grief had made his words cleaner. She returned to the blurb at the beginning: One of Africa’s most celebrated writers, John Martin, writes on the death of his son. She stayed for some moments reading and re-reading that sentence, trying to breathe regularly, then she typed his brother’s name in the browser. The first return detailed a forthcoming exhibition: Hearts of Darkness. Contributors include Francois Martin, who is based in Lisbon. Lower down there was a Q and A interview in a magazine. The photo showed a full head of dark hair, a strong resemblance to Ben. What’s in a name? Francois Martin explains how his parents’ whim has caused a lifetime of explanations. Her eyes dropped further down and she read on:
My parents are ardent Truffaut fans. The story is that my father invited my mother to watch Jules et Jim, which was showing in the only cinema in Salisbury, and their love blossomed. So, when I was born, they named me after the director. But ‘Francois’, spelt without the cedilla, is a fairly common name among Afrikaners of Huguenot descent. People have made all sorts of assumptions about me, especially when I lived in Cape Town. It means that I’ve spent my life talking about my parents and their love of Truffaut’s work. Which, on reflection, might not be such a bad thing.
She closed her laptop. It was as if she were intruding on this family. He had compared them: it makes us different people, that dislocation, he had said. And yet, her own family’s journey, her parents’ journey from Kerala to South London, and frequent visits back and forth, seemed one-dimensional, neat and delineated, compared to his family’s diffuse, sprawling connections over three continents, over an empire. She had only thought of him as himself, but she realised that he was composed of those around him. Perhaps there lay the reason for his interest in her, all those questions he had asked. He was searching for her story, knowing before she knew herself that she had one to tell.
She rode the bus in reverse, her fingers on her lips just as before. These lips, his lips. Seline had replied that morning: I am fine, do not worry about me. She sounded stilted, writing in English for Rita’s benefit. I am taking supplements for more energy. This year it was so hot, even after the rains. I got a stomach infection. Please write and tell me about your friends and studies. As she read her cousin’s words, she thought: she does not know me. I deceive everyone near me. It was three days to Christmas, four until she told her parents. She saw the bus was nearing a junction: this was her stop. There was a bustle, the shops were decorated gaily, excited children scampered, the restaurants were full. There seemed to be an excess of consumption, taunting her over the emptiness inside her. She was glad when she turned off the high street and into the quieter residential roads. She had worried that she would not recognise the house, but it stood at the end, its walls painted an elegant cream.
She expected the house to look smaller, but it was as she remembered. Not even a year had passed. The door was closed. She had no idea if anyone was inside, if they still lived there. She stared at the door and immediately could see herself inside, her lace-ups on the black and white tiles. She had followed him into the kitchen, watched as he rifled familiarly through cupboards. Had she known then what would happen? No. What had happened had taken them both by surprise. An alchemy, a natural event, like a rainstorm which arrives without warning.
She crossed the road and came to a halt near the path leading to the door. The front porch was clean, with lavender bushes and pots. So, one continued to tend the garden even after one’s son has died. She found her feet starting to move, heard her boots crunching on the gravel – watch the step – and then she was standing right in front of the door. The knocker was heavy and brass; she had not used it before. After a minute, she heard footsteps in the hall. The door swung open.
‘Mrs Martin?’
‘Yes?’
Her soft silver hair was cut into a fringe, then fell long to between her shoulder blades. She was dressed in a long-sleeved blue dress, beaded necklaces at her throat, beads dangling from her ears. Her right hand was bandaged and was hindering her efforts to place the spectacles, hanging around her neck, onto her nose.
‘Yes?’ she repeated, when the glasses were in place.
‘Mrs Martin,’ she began again, ‘I was a student . . .’ She stopped.
His mother was silent, her hand still on the doorknob.
‘I just wanted to say I was sorry to hear about . . .’ she pulled out the book from her bag, ‘about Dr Martin. And to give you this.’
His mother made no move to take it, but stared down at the book.
Then, ‘Please come in.’ She stepped back, held the door open, the dizzying pattern of black and white tiles now revealed.
‘I don’t want to bother—’
‘Come in, please. Out of the cold.’
She stepp
ed in, and his mother closed the door.
‘I didn’t catch your name?’
‘Rita.’
‘Rita,’ his mother repeated. ‘That’s a pretty name. Not one you hear very often.’ She smiled as she looked at her. ‘I’m Louise,’ then briskly, ‘I was just going to take some tea out to my husband. Will you join us? I’m sure he’d like to meet you.’
‘I really didn’t mean to—’
‘You can help me carry the tray.’ She motioned to her bandage. ‘My hand, you see. It’s terribly painful. I’m so cross with myself. I should have worn gardening gloves, but I find them so unbearably awkward to take off.’
Unbeerably awkward to take orf. His mother’s accent was a surprise, the unexpected vowels, the denser tone. She was already moving down the hallway, expecting to be followed. Down the stairs into the kitchen. The room had the same four walls, but the surfaces were in more disarray. His mother was placing cups on a tray, filling a teapot, finding a sugar bowl, teaspoons, placing biscuits on a plate.
‘Will you manage this? If it’s not too heavy?’
And then she was following his mother to the glass door at the side, leaving the house as she had never done before, stepping onto a small patio and down the path leading to, she could see now and couldn’t remember if she ever noticed it before, a summer house made of wood. His mother rapped on the window, ‘John, we have a visitor.’ It was dim inside, but his father was rising to his feet and turning around at the same time. Tall, kind eyes, with a head of brushed-back hair, he squinted at Rita. She deposited the tray on the table in the centre of the small space and straightened up. There was a silence as she stood between these two old people, but not that old, neither much older than her own parents.
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