‘Lauren Bartlett?’ said Reenie, hesitantly. ‘I’m here to see Lauren Bartlett.’
‘That’s my wife. Could I ask who you are?’
‘My name’s Reenie. I mean Irene. Irene Glickman.’
He took a step back, dazed and blinking as if the morning sun was suddenly blinding, and stuttered half-formed words until calling back into the house: ‘Lauren. Could you come here a moment?’
In the darkened hallway, Reenie saw movement, a silhouette making its way from the back of the house toward them, which in turn became a young woman with long dark hair. There were traces in her looks familiar to Reenie; the wide expressive eyes and strong, high cheekbones of Albert, perhaps even a trace of Reenie at that age. The woman stood beside her husband and looked at Reenie with a cautious half-smile.
‘Hello?’ she said. ‘I’m sorry, do I…’
‘This is Irene Glickman,’ said the young man.
She gasped and covered her mouth with her hand, and her eyes began to glass over with tears.
‘You’re Irene?’ She said, the words catching in her throat.
Reenie nodded.
‘Then you’d better… I mean… come in. Please.’
Their house was beautiful. Fresh flowers in vases, fine rugs on polished floors. In the sitting room, arabesque cushions scattered on plump sofas. A real, working fireplace; empty, but waiting for winter. A mantelpiece crowded with family photographs. A homeliness and cosiness Reenie remembered, but that felt distant and foreign to her now.
With her husband still pondering the trolley parked on the street outside Lauren took Reenie through to the kitchen, which backed onto a small, artfully unkempt terrace. Feeling scruffy, and dirty, and smelly, and about as out-of-place as she’d ever felt, Reenie sat at the large, oak kitchen table, while Lauren went about making tea.
‘We could have come to Cardiff,’ said Lauren, her back to Reenie as the kettle boiled. ‘I said in the letter. It wouldn’t have been a problem.’
‘I wanted to come here,’ said Reenie. ‘I thought it for the best.’
‘Right. And how did you get here? I mean… the trolley. Is it yours?’
‘Yeah. We walked. Well, part of the way.’
‘You walked?’ Lauren turned, frowning and blinking in disbelief.
‘Yeah. Only part of the way. A Frenchman drove us most of the M4.’
‘A French… who’s “we”?’
‘A friend I met when I was walking.’
‘Do you take sugar?’
‘No thanks, love. Just milk.’
‘And this friend…?’
‘He’s been picked up by the police. We camped out on St James’s Park last night and they picked us up this morning.’
‘You camped out on… I’m sorry. Did you say he’s been picked up?’
‘Yes. He’s Pakistani, see? I think they thought he was up to no good. And the thing is, he wasn’t. He’s a good lad. Bit shy, but he’s a good lad. I don’t even know where they took him.’
‘Okay,’ said Lauren. ‘Well, listen. My husband. Paul. He works with the Home Office. Perhaps we could, I mean… he must have contacts. I… I mean, it’s Sunday, so, you know… but still…’
‘Oh, if there’s anything you could do that would be lovely,’ said Reenie. ‘Poor boy wouldn’t say boo to a goose, so he must be worrying himself sick if they’ve got him in the cells.’
Lauren nodded distractedly, holding a cup of tea in both hands. She leaned back against the granite work surface, considering her next words, her mouth opening and closing silently with each abortive attempt.
‘You walked here?’ she said at last, though Reenie was fairly certain she had already answered that question.
‘Yeah, like I said, but we hitchhiked most of it.’
‘Right.’
The door opened slowly with a creak and Lauren’s husband appeared in the doorway.
‘Uh… I’ve chained your trolley to the bollard with one of my bike locks,’ he said. ‘It should be… you know… it should be fine. It’s quite a nice, uh… neighbourhood. Not much… you know…’
‘This is my husband, Paul,’ said Lauren.
With a still-distracted expression, Paul waved at Reenie from the doorway.
‘Listen,’ said Lauren. ‘Paul. Um. Irene has a friend. She was walking with him. Apparently he’s been picked up by the police.’
‘The police? What? Arrested?’
‘Yes,’ said Lauren. ‘And, well, I was just wondering if you could maybe, I don’t know, find out where he is, where they’ve taken him. It all sounds like a misunderstanding, isn’t that right?’
Reenie nodded.
‘Right,’ said Paul. ‘And where was this? Where was he arrested?’
‘The Mall,’ said Reenie.
‘Okay,’ said Paul. ‘Well, they’ll probably have taken him to Charing Cross. But, you know, it’s the police. I work for the Home Office…’
‘Paul,’ said Lauren, opening her eyes wide and leaning forward, as if nudging him into action.
‘But… I suppose I could make a few calls…’
‘Thank you,’ said Reenie. ‘That’s very kind of you.’
Nodding, but still dazed, Paul stepped back into the hallway, closing the door behind him.
‘I’m sorry,’ said Lauren. ‘We weren’t… I mean… this is all such a surprise. We didn’t think you’d actually… I don’t know. The children… they’re with Paul’s parents in Ham for the weekend, otherwise they’d be… and… It’s just. It’s a surprise, that’s all.’
‘Did you have plans? ’Cause I can come back later if you’re going out somewhere, or…’
‘No, not at all. No. It’s fine. Really. It’s just a surprise.’
Lauren looked away, having run out of things to say, and Reenie placed down her mug.
‘So,’ she said. ‘How did you find me? You never said. In your letter, I mean.’
‘Well,’ said Lauren, sitting at the far end of the table. ‘It wasn’t easy. Granddad, I mean your dad, Albert… he spent years looking, asking around, but, well… this was a long time ago. I think he thought you’d stayed in London, maybe gone south of the river or something. London’s certainly big enough to just lose someone, I guess.’
Reenie nodded. After leaving Upton Park she’d stayed in London another three years, and hadn’t once seen anyone who knew her from before.
‘And when did my dad pass away?’ she asked.
‘That was in ’82,’ said Lauren. ‘I was only little at the time, so I don’t really remember much about him. My brother remembers him better. He’s three years older than me. Lives in Hong Kong.’
‘And Vera? I mean your Grandma?’
‘Oh, she died last year,’ said Lauren. ‘She was ninety-two. A right old battleaxe.’
‘And your mum?’
‘Mum passed away three years ago. She’d been diagnosed, first diagnosed back when Dominic, my brother, and I were kids. She beat it that time, went into remission, but it came back.’
Reenie looked down. The letter had explained some of it. Lauren’s mother was born Dorothy Lieberman, three years after Reenie ran away. She was the only child of Albert and Vera, and in time married and had two children of her own. Dorothy Lieberman was Reenie’s sister, nineteen years younger than her, and they had never met.
‘After Granddad died, Grandma, I mean Vera, carried on looking for you,’ said Lauren.
‘Really?’
‘Yes. There were things she wanted to give you, things Granddad had kept. I think Grandma blamed herself for, well, for what you did. She even hired a private detective at one point.’
Reenie laughed bitterly.
‘Seriously,’ said Lauren. ‘About twenty years ago. She hired a private detective. Bit of a con, if you ask me. He wasn’t very good. Found nothing. Charged her a lot. Kind of put her off trying another, I think.’
‘Okay,’ said Reenie. ‘So how did you find me?’
Lauren smiled. ‘W
ell, as I said, Paul works with the Home Office.’ She closed her eyes and shook her head bashfully. ‘Obviously, don’t go telling anyone I said that. Paul would get in a lot of trouble. I mean, it’s not like we broke the law, not really. It was just electoral roll information. And one or two other bits and pieces. We found something from the early ’60s saying that an Irene Lieberman had married a Jonathan… that’s his name, right?’
‘It was,’ said Reenie.
‘Oh, I’m sorry.’
‘It’s fine, love.’
‘Well. We found something saying an Irene Lieberman had married a Jonathan Glickman in Cardiff, and then we checked the electoral roll, found Irene Glickman, wrote to you, and now you’re here.’
‘And now I’m here.’
A human silence fell between them; the only sound in the room the faraway drone of a descending aeroplane.
‘You said my dad kept stuff by for me,’ said Reenie.
‘That’s right. Just a few bits and pieces. They weren’t particularly wealthy, Albert and Vera. It’s just a box full of things. There was no inheritance or anything like that…’
‘I never thought there would be.’
‘I’ll just go and get it for you,’ said Lauren, rising from the table and leaving Reenie alone in the kitchen. She heard Lauren climb the stairs, and the sound of her footsteps on the landing, then murmured words between Lauren and her husband, a cupboard door opening and closing, more footsteps on the stairs, and Lauren came back carrying a small, crumpled shoebox, placing it down on the table.
‘That’s it,’ she said. ‘That’s everything, I’m afraid. Like I said, we could have brought it to you, or posted it…’
‘No,’ said Reenie. ‘That’s fine. I’m glad I came here.’
She lifted the lid off the box, releasing at once the dry, smoky scent of old paper and dust. Inside were trinkets, nothing of any worth. A pin cushion with rusting pins still embedded between its embroidered flowers. A small, yellowing copy of the Lambs’ Tales From Shakespeare. A handkerchief monogrammed with Reenie’s childhood initials; IL. A black and white photograph of Reenie and her father, taken on a sunny afternoon in Margate. Few of the objects held any significance for her. Some stirred vague memories, none of them momentous, but finally she came to the picture frame, face down, at the bottom of the box. She knew it immediately, without having to turn it over, recognising the marbled pattern of its backing, and its creased support made of thick card. She knew, almost by touch alone, the single brass tack holding that support in place, and recognised the chip in the frame’s corner where, as a child, she’d once knocked it down from the mantelpiece during a game, sending her father into a rage that terrified her. Fortunately the glass hadn’t broken, and the frame – and its picture – was placed back on the mantelpiece, where it stayed until the day her father remarried.
Reenie lifted the frame from the box, turned it over, and looked down at a face she hadn’t seen in sixty years. As a child the picture hadn’t looked to her like an antique. All photographs were black and white or sepia then, and there was nothing, in the subject’s clothes or the way her hair was styled or in the little make-up that she wore, that made it feel like a relic. It had been easy enough for Reenie to imagine this woman laughing, or smiling, or greeting her when she came home from school. In the years that had since passed, Reenie had forgotten almost everything about the portrait, to the point where she could no longer quite picture her mother’s face. It was sepia; that was all she knew. And now the photograph looked old, so old, and the woman in it was a fraction of Reenie’s age, little more than a girl.
‘He kept this,’ said Reenie, her voice breaking until the last word was barely a whisper.
‘Yes,’ said Lauren. ‘He kept all these things. For his sake, as much as anything, I think.’ Lauren reached across the table and closed her hand around Reenie’s. ‘He missed you so much.’
Reenie nodded without looking up at her. She couldn’t take her eyes off the photograph, but neither could she forgive herself for the years she had lost and the family she would never know. Many years ago she had resigned herself to the idea that fate would have its way; that in leaving her family she had, in turn, met Jonathan, and that this was her happy ending, that it was meant to be, but there had always been regret. Of course she hadn’t expected her father to be alive, still, or for even Vera to have lasted as long as she had, but without knowing for certain, neither were they dead. Rather, they were preserved, never ageing or changing with time. Now that the photograph of her mother looked like an antique, and this young woman was without grandparents or a mother, the past was definite, the outlines of that vague but constant sense of grief Reenie had felt brought into a clearer definition.
‘And where is he now?’ she asked, wiping tears from her eyes with the back of her hand. ‘My dad, I mean. Where did they bury him? Was he buried?’
Lauren nodded. ‘East London,’ she said. ‘Near where they lived. He chose the cemetery. I think later on in life he regretted some of the choices he’d made, and… well… he wanted to be buried there. We can take you there. I mean, if you’d like, we could…’
‘No, thanks,’ said Reenie, standing and placing the framed photograph back in the box. ‘It’s fine. Thanks, anyway. I’ve made it this far. Another couple of miles on the Tube won’t make any difference.’
‘Fair enough,’ said Lauren. ‘But before you go to his grave, there’s something you should know.’
27
Aisha was waiting for him in the police station’s reception, her handbag in her lap, knees close together, distracted and impatient. On seeing him, she stood and he paused, trying to take in – to accept – the sight of her as a woman. When he last saw her she was still a teenager, still girlish, but now her posture, the way she looked at him, everything about her was grown up.
DCI Garfield offered a mealy-mouthed apology for the inconvenience, qualifying it with several ‘Of-Course-You-Understands’, and of course, he understood. He understood perfectly how the details tied in with their chosen narrative; the young man with his maps, found sleeping between the palace and parliament. He almost felt sorry for them, as the different pieces of the puzzle fell away, as the elements of his – Ibrahim’s – version of events came together and made sense. They called his sister, checked with the hospital. They did not make any connection to arrests now seven years old or to the damage done at a cemetery out east, and why should they?
When he was out from behind the wall of glass separating the waiting area and the duty officer’s small office, Aisha ran to him and hugged him, standing up on tiptoes to get her arms around his shoulders and his neck.
‘What were you thinking?’ she said. ‘Camping? Near the Mall? Are you mental?’
‘I got here, sis,’ he said. ‘Alright? I got here.’
Aisha’s car – she passed her test two years ago; Ibrahim had forgotten to send a card – was parked several streets from the station, in Covent Garden, and for a moment Ibrahim stood on the kerb, looking down at the car with apprehension. He would happily have walked to Newham, sure that he could navigate his way there through a kind of blind instinct, but he knew this would be the final straw, and would piss her off more than anything he’d done this last nine days, and so he climbed into the front passenger seat, and they drove out of Covent Garden and headed east.
‘So… you okay?’ said Aisha.
‘Yeah. I’m okay.’
‘What happened to your face?’
‘My what?’ He flapped down the sun visor and saw his reflection in its small mirror. ‘Right. Yeah. My face. I had a bit of trouble. In Gloucester.’
‘Right. And that’s where you were two days ago, yeah?’
‘Yeah.’
A minute or so of silence passed between them. He looked out through the windows, waiting for a familiar street, a landmark, something he might remember, something to reassure him that he could have found his own way to Newham, if he’d wanted to. Eventually, whe
n that silence became uncomfortable, he asked, ‘How’s Dad?’
He was ashamed he hadn’t asked earlier, but had known what her response would be.
‘How do you fucking think? He’s had a stroke. He can’t speak properly. He can’t walk. Oh, he’s dandy, Ib. Fine and fucking dandy.’
‘Aish, please, don’t swear.’
She looked at him across the car, appalled, and let out a short, desperate laugh.
‘Don’t swear? Don’t swear? You’ve got a fucking nerve.’
‘I didn’t mean it like… I just mean it sounds wrong. You swearing.’
‘Right. Because I’m your little sister, yeah?’
‘Yes.’
‘Well, I know you have trouble thinking about anyone outside your little world, Ib, but I’m actually twenty-one now, so I’ll say what the fuck I like, thankyouverymuch.’
‘Aish…’
‘Ib, don’t. Alright? Just don’t. I’m not… I’m not mad at you. I’m just having a bit of a hard time of it right now, okay? I’ve been the one staying at the hospital. I’ve been the one phoning everyone, giving them updates, and a fat lot of good they’ve been. The family, I mean. Oh, don’t get me wrong, they’ve got a billion remedies for every illness under the sun. Except a stroke. If he’d had a heart attack they’d say’ – she adopted a strong, sing-song Punjabi accent – ‘he was eating too many sweets, or that he shouldn’t fry everything, or that he should cut down on ghee, or that we should call a hakeem…’ She let out a short, ironic laugh; almost a gasp. ‘But a stroke? They just don’t know. None of us do. I look at him, and he looks so small, Ib. It’s like he’s shrunk, or something. And it’s like half the life has been sucked out of him, like he’s lost the will to live. I can’t…’ she paused as they neared a junction, the only sound in the car the rhythmic tapping of the indicator. ‘Sometimes I can’t even look at him. It’s just too much. And I really could have done with you being around this week.’
Ibrahim & Reenie Page 24