The Meeting Point

by Lucy Caldwell

  Her elation after the service had been what spurred her on to act. Palm Sunday, she had not realised, was the last Sunday of Lent – Easter was just one week away. Euan and Ruth had only come to Bahrain until Easter; at the start of May they would be returning to Ireland. She checked this with Sampaguita, who knew everything that went on: and yes, Sampaguita confirmed it. Their villa was only rented and their maids only engaged until the end of April. She had not realised she had so little time. The Premium Bonds website said that eight working days were needed for monies to clear if you wished to cash in your bonds. That gave her barely enough days to get hold of the money, buy her flight to Ireland, sort out her things and announce her plan to her parents. As well as convincing Euan and Ruth. Ruth, she was sure, would not need much convincing, but Euan might. She was slightly in awe of Euan. She should ask Ruth first, she decided, on her own, and then together they could tell Euan. She knew he was going away on Monday, to Qatar for several days: Ruth had told her so when she collected Anna on Thursday, because she would need extra help with Anna. So Monday was the time to do it. She hardly slept on Sunday night, and got up on Monday to wait for morning. She saw the car come for Euan, and she saw him leaving. She had planned to wait until after breakfast, but by eight o’clock she could bear it no longer.

  As soon as Ruth answered the door, she knew that she had made a mistake. Ruth’s eyes were screwed up from sleep and her hair was messy; she wore nothing but the T-shirt. She had still been asleep, and Noor had woken her. And even worse, she was glaring at Noor with an expression Noor had never seen before: an expression she had never thought possible on Ruth Armstrong’s face. It was angry, and scathing, even disgusted, all at the same time. Noor panicked. And from then on, everything went from bad to worse.

  *

  Back home, Sampaguita found her crying in a heap on the bathroom floor. The old woman hauled her up – she was surprisingly strong, her bony arms hard and stubborn – and marched her into the kitchen, sat her down at the table and made her drink a milky bowl of coffee drenched with sugar syrup. Sampaguita plucked at Noor’s arms and at her stomach, and Noor almost started laughing to think that Sampaguita thought she was crying about her weight. She was not: she had lost the stone she intended and half a stone more. But when she tried to explain what was wrong she managed only to say Ruth’s name before the tears came again.

  Sampaguita had made it clear she didn’t like having Anna in the house. Whenever she saw the child she would narrow her eyes and click her tongue and mutter in Tagalog. Once, she had gathered up the things of Anna’s that had accumulated in the house – nappies, baby wipes, a few soft toys – and heaped them up on the veranda in the dust. Noor had been furious then, and Sampaguita had called her a fool for looking after the Irishwoman’s baby and thinking the woman liked her. Now, Sampaguita repeated what she had said: the foreigners were bad people, and Noor should stay away from them. And then she said something more. The Irishwoman, she said – she did not call Ruth by her name – the Irishwoman is sleeping with your cousin behind her husband’s back.

  Automatically, Noor protested. Sampaguita had got it wrong, she misunderstood: Farid was helping Ruth learn Arabic, and about the culture of Bahrain. They had been on a few excursions, but it was for Ruth to see the island. Sometimes they took Noor and Anna along with them. And recently, Ruth hadn’t had time to see anyone, she had been so busy with church business.

  The old woman laughed. Liweiwei and Maria had told her everything, she said. About how the Irishwoman had taken away their keys, so they could not come in without her knowing. About the extra towels to wash, and the dirt walked into the kitchen through the back alleyway – what innocuous visitor would frequent the back alleyway? About the bundles of tissues placed directly into the outside bin, the stain on the divan and the underwear in a corner of the room. Small things, meaningless in themselves, but together they told the full story.

  With every excuse Noor made, at every protestation of Ruth Armstrong’s goodness and kindness and innocence – the beliefs were ingrained deeply – Sampaguita cackled harder. Her English, Noor realised, was suddenly fine. And Noor could not keep at bay any longer the knowledge that Sampaguita was right.

  *

  That evening, she was watching as Farid brought Ruth and Anna back to their villa. They exchanged a few words, quickly and furtively – she could not catch what was said – and Farid shrugged and got back into his car. Noor was sure that something was going on. The way Ruth had leaned in to speak to him, the hand on his shoulder. It was obvious – so obvious. How could she not have seen it before? And Farid, of all people – Farid?

  She watched as he turned the car around and left the compound. Ruth had gone inside and closed the door. She ran out of the compound, ignoring the sentry, and watched the direction the car took. It indicated left after only two blocks: the cold-store car park, of course. Noor jogged along the road to the cold store. Sure enough, there was Farid’s Camaro, parked at the far side. She ducked behind a Hummer and watched as he came out of the store, carrying a brown paper bag, and walked straight past his car. He was going, on foot, back to the compound. Noor’s heart was hammering so fast she thought she was going to be sick. She needed cigarettes. She had not smoked a thing in weeks. But now she needed one. She had just enough change for a packet, and a lighter.

  She walked slowly back to the compound, settled down at the side of the empty villa – where she could see both the Armstrongs’ door and the entrance to the back passage – and waited for Farid to come out. She would wait all night, if necessary, she told herself. When she saw, with her own eyes, Farid leaving Ruth’s house, on the night that Euan had gone away, then she would know for sure.

  What she would do with that knowledge, she did not yet know. But at least she would know.

  *

  Now, as she sat on her bed and flipped through the tatters of the diary, she did not know what to do. The diary was page after page of Ruth. Page after page after page. How stupid she had been. How utterly, utterly stupid. Ruth had used her, just like Sampaguita said. To mind the baby while she went gadding about with Farid, having an affair, not caring who they hurt. How they must have laughed at her, stupid, gullible Noor, she could just imagine it. And church, and Christianity, and everything – it was all a sham. She had believed: she had believed in Ruth. But now she knew the truth, and she did not know what to do.

  7

  As the morning wore on, the feeling that she had made the wrong choice only increased. She thought back on the times they’d had, her and Farid, the brief, precious days, everywhere they went and everything they did, how happy they were. She had never known such happiness, such carelessness, such freedom. She thought, again and again, of the life that was in store for her with Euan, and it seemed impossible that she could go back to such a life, knowing now what she had known. It would be a long, grey line of Sunday schools and services, coffee mornings and counselling, endless, inexorable. When she thought of it now it seemed preposterous, impossible: no less so than staying in Bahrain. She thought of being back without Euan – separated from him, perhaps, living with her parents and Anna. She could help out on the farm again, begin to take over. But she knew as soon as she thought it that this would not work, either. The village was too small, the scandal – Reverend Armstrong’s wife leaving him – would be too much, her parents would not be able to hold their heads up in church; she would not be able to hold her head up. No, the best chance was another life – a completely new life, far away, where she could start again. But here, Bahrain, Farid? Her head was going round and round, too fast. What if this was her one chance at life, at happiness? What if it was her one true chance, and she was letting it go, when she should be seizing it? She had done the wrong thing, her heart was telling her. She had made the wrong choice.

  *

  She went to the bathroom and was sick several times. Afterwards, splashing water on her face, she felt clearer-headed. Last night’s discussions had been
frantic, whiskey-fuelled, unbearably sad. They needed to talk it all through again, as calmly as they could, in the light of day. She needed to see if there was a way – however slim – that it could work. Where they would live, what job Farid would get. Whether he did, truly, mean all that he had said.

  *

  She phoned him; he came over straight away. He looked haggard.

  ‘You can’t do this to me,’ he said. ‘You can’t keep doing this to me.’

  ‘Please,’ she said, ‘this is different, Farid. I’ve thought about what you said.’ And she told him that she wanted to talk things through, once more.

  They went into the living room; she put a DVD on for Anna, with the volume low. The maids were both still there, cooking, ironing fresh sheets. She asked them for some coffee. For a moment, she thought they were laughing at her behind their deferential faces. But she shrugged the thought off: what did it matter, what did the maids matter?

  One of the maids brought coffee on a tray; tiny cups, the coffee treacle-thick and sweet. Ruth sipped hers; Farid knocked his back in one. The maid came back in with glasses of water, biscuits on a plate. The DVD jammed and Anna cried. It was impossible to talk. It was such a delicate, such an important conversation, she had not wanted to have it at Adhari, or in a hookah café, or even in the Persian restaurant. But it was clear they could not have it here.

  ‘Let’s drive somewhere,’ Farid said, but she recognised the mood Anna was in – needy, whiny – and she knew how Anna would wriggle in the car and scream; it would not be possible to talk with Anna there.

  ‘What about Noor?’ Farid said.

  ‘I can’t leave her with Noor,’ Ruth said, helplessly. ‘I told you about yesterday, how odd she was.’

  ‘She is a teenager,’ Farid said. ‘She behaves oddly one day, so what?, teenagers do. Listen, Ruth’ – he held up a palm to silence her objections – ‘I will ask her myself. She is my cousin, she will do it as a favour to me.’

  ‘All right,’ Ruth said, reluctant. ‘But we’d better go together. I want to make sure she’s really OK with it.’

  When Noor opened the door, she took a step back and blinked, pushing her glasses up her nose as if she could not believe what she was seeing.

  ‘Noor,’ Farid said, ‘bent I’am. Will you mind Ruth’s daughter, for one hour?’

  Noor just stared.

  ‘Noor,’ Ruth said hurriedly, ‘it would be such a favour to me. You’ve been so good with her, and I know I’ve asked an awful lot of you, too much, probably – but this would be the last time, I promise. And I’ll pay you,’ she added, ‘I should have been paying you all along for your time, I realise that, now, I’ll make it all up to you.’

  ‘You want me to come over and look after Anna?’ Noor said, her clipped tones lengthening in disbelief, drawing out the vowels of Anna’s name.

  ‘Or I could bring her here. Just for an hour. Please, Noor.’

  Farid added something in Arabic. Noor looked from Ruth to Farid, and back again, and Ruth suddenly thought: does she know?

  They gazed at each other for a moment. Noor’s eyes were red-rimmed and her face was drawn.

  It was wrong they had asked her. Desperation had driven her to agree, but it was wrong.

  ‘Look, it’s all right. I can see you’re in the middle of something,’ Ruth started to say. But Noor cut across her.

  ‘No,’ Noor said, suddenly. ‘No, I’ll look after Anna. All right. OK.’

  *

  Farid drove a short way along the coastal highway, and they pulled in on some wasteland on the outskirts of Manama. Once again, they went through everything. And he did seem to have the answers. They could not be openly together, he said, not at first, not until Ruth was officially separated, at least, and had started divorce proceedings. But until then Ruth could stay with Maryam, in her spare room. Maryam was like a sister to him, a best friend: she would be glad to help him. His family were moving to a new compound in a few weeks’ time, where there would be lots of room, enough room for the three of them. As soon as the divorce came through, she could move there – and in time, they could get their own apartment. His father would employ him: he had been trying to convince Farid to take a job for months in one of his various business ventures. It would be amply paid. His father could employ Ruth, too, nominally, or act as her sponsor, to assist with her visa application. His family would rally around, he knew they would. They would take Ruth in, treat her as one of them. Alternatively, he said, he had another plan. Ruth could go back to Ireland and sort things through, then come out to Bahrain in the summer, properly.

  ‘No,’ she said, ‘not that. If I stay here, I stay, at least for the first while, anyhow, at least until things have blown over.’ If she went back, she knew, the filaments that held them, the threads, were so fragile they would snap. If she left, she would never come back – never be able to come back.

  ‘You really are sure, aren’t you?’ she said. And despite everything – the emotion, the exhaustion, the upheaval – something inside her flickered with excitement. ‘You really think we could do this?’

  ‘I love you,’ he said simply. ‘It will be hard – it will be very hard. I am not blind to that. But I love you, Ruth. I love you.’

  ‘I love you too,’ she said. And it was true. Fleetingly, then, she thought of her namesake. Where you go I will go, where you stay I will stay. Your people will be my people, that Ruth had said, and your God my God.

  ‘What are you thinking?’ Farid said.

  She started to explain. But then she thought of Boaz, later on – she knew the picture from Anna’s illustrated Bible, the grey-bearded man sitting, while the slim young woman knelt at his feet, half-hidden in Naomi’s borrowed shawl. You have not run after the younger men, whether rich or poor.

  ‘It doesn’t matter,’ she said. And this, too, was true: the freedom of it not mattering, of deciding that it did not matter. Then she said, again: ‘I love you.’

  *

  When the hour was over, he took her back to the compound. Inside, the villa was strangely still. The maids had gone, and they could not hear Noor, or Anna. Noor must have taken Anna back to hers, she thought. But something was not right. She could feel it. She turned and walked back out through the hallway, retracing her steps in.

  On the table by the door, propped up against the phone, was a ragged-edged piece of paper, folded in half, RUTH written in spiky capitals. She must have seen it when she came in, without really registering it. She picked it up, unfolded it. Farid was behind her. What is it, he was asking, what is it, Ruth?

  His voice seemed to be coming from very far away. She did not answer him.

  For a moment, her eyes could not seem to focus. And then her vision snapped back and she started to read.

  Dear Ruth,

  No. Dear is wrong because you’re not dear, not dear at all. You, of all people, are just the same as anyone else. When I first met you I thought you were different. I thought you were special. The first time I ever saw you is seared into my brain. You and Euan were walking down the compound towards the empty swimming pool & tennis court and you were each holding one of Anna’s hands and playing one-two-three-jump! with her and it was the most perfect thing I’d ever, ever seen. The two of you, and little Anna the cutest baby ever. You were perfect. And I thought you were so kind to me – I thought you liked me, too. But you didn’t. You were just using me – means to an end – means to Farid.

  And I mean: Farid?? How could you throw away everything – everything you’ve got – for a fling with him?

  You obviously don’t know your Bible as well as you pretend to because in Matthew it says that it is better to cut off a part of your body than commit adultery and go to hell. And what about the other part, the part that says, There is nothing concealed that will not be disclosed or hidden that will not be made known? And I am quoting exactly, Ruth! How could you? What were you doing?

  You’re not fit to be a mother to poor little Anna you know. You
’re just as bad as my mother, worse, even, because on the outside you pretend to be so religious and good. She had an affair, that was why she and Baba got divorced and I got packed off to boarding school while she moved into a little flat with her ‘lover’ who was also married at the time. But I was twelve at the time and little Anna isn’t even two! How can you do that to her – just dump her with me all day while you run around having sex with Farid. And even today?!! I was so, so shocked to see the two of you there – so brazen, together. Brazen – that’s the word for you, Ruth Armstrong.

  Poor, poor little Anna is all I can say, having a mother like you. She doesn’t deserve it. She deserves far, far better. And your behaviour today just proves it.

  Ruth read the letter, shaking. Much of it was incoherent: the writing was so messy that she could hardly make out individual letters, let alone the words. And the last few lines were indecipherable. But she understood as much as she needed to.

  ‘Anna!’ she yelled. ‘Anna!’ and she pushed past Farid, who was still trying to finish the letter.

  In Anna’s boxroom, the cot was made neatly, as the maids had left it. But Anna’s toys were gone, and her blanky and – by now Ruth was in the kitchen – her beaker. And – running into the bedroom – Noor had gone through their wardrobe, too, and taken Anna’s clothes. Handfuls seemed to have been snatched from the shelves at random; several little T-shirts and dresses lay on the floor where they had been dropped, and empty hangers littered the wardrobe floor.