by Joan Smith
‘Amanda?’
She blinked and said in a rush: ‘Sorry. I was — I talked to Ingrid last night. She actually works for a Swedish TV company, the paper’s usual Beirut correspondent is in Afghanistan — you know, the Taliban and all that.’ According to Sabri Yusuf, the paper was relying on a stringer because Dermot Crewe was peeved with the editor for repeatedly spiking his copy, but Amanda thought it better not to mention that. ‘He’s treating me like a fucking tea boy, old son,’ Crewe had apparently told Michael Scott-Leakey before heading off to Kabul via Peshawar, against the editor’s wishes, to research a story about links between the INS, the Pakistani intelligence service, and the Taliban’s unprepossessing one-eyed leader, Mullah Omar.
‘Anyway, Ingrid seems to know lots of people —’
‘Get on with it.’ Tim was leaning forward, his hands clenched between his knees. ‘I mean — this isn’t easy.’
‘OK.’ Amanda began an edited account, feeling Tim’s eyes bore into her. He did not speak or move during the grim recitation, even when she reached the end. ‘That’s about it,’ she said after a long moment.
‘Bloody hell. I can’t tell the boys. Christ, is that how they’re supposed to remember their mother? Was she — do you know if she was conscious?’
The lie was out of Amanda’s mouth before she had time to consider: ‘Ingrid thinks not.’
She hurried on: some local men were first on the scene, stopping their car and running towards the site of the explosion but afraid to approach the smouldering wreckage in case they set off another mine. Instead, one of them jumped back in the car and went for help, meeting an army jeep on the road which radioed for reinforcements. Even then, the soldiers had to sweep the area with long poles before they were able to lift Aisha out of the car and there was another delay before the helicopter arrived to take the two surviving victims to Beirut.
Tim’s head was in his hands. He looked up and said, ‘What the hell was she doing down there?’
‘Who?’
‘Aisha. It’s not on the route from Damascus to Beirut, not unless you’re being driven by an idiot. The guy from the Foreign Office, he calls himself a family liaison officer — did you know they had such things? He also seems to be dealing with those British tourists who’ve been kidnapped somewhere or other.’
Amanda nodded, vaguely aware that a honeymoon couple from Doncaster was among a group of tourists who had been seized at gunpoint by Islamic terrorists in the Philippines.
‘It’s been like extracting teeth, when I can get hold of him that is, but he did say it happened near some place called Nabatiyeh. Never heard of it — I had to look on the map. According to her itinerary’ — Tim glanced round, as though expecting it to be at hand, then made a helpless gesture — ‘they shouldn’t have been anywhere near there.’
Amanda consulted her notes. ‘Nabatiyeh, yes, I wrote it down.’
‘After Beirut they were going to some place called Tripoli, which I thought was in Libya but apparently there are two of them. Anyway, the point is, it’s way up north. So what the hell were they doing down there?’
‘I’m sorry, I didn’t ask. I know Ingrid did try to go there but the army turned her back.’
The first time Amanda got through to Ingrid on her mobile, she had been at an army barracks in Sidon, trying to persuade an officer to allow her to continue her journey. In the background Amanda could hear men’s voices speaking in what she assumed was Arabic, and Ingrid, sounding distracted, had promised to call her later. She had eventually done so at around ten, Lebanese time, describing a day of endless frustrations and sounding tired.
Amanda added: ‘Maybe they got lost? I think Ingrid said the driver was Syrian. Is Syrian, I should say. I’ve got his name somewhere.’ She looked at her notebook again. ‘He’s in the hospital where they took Aish — your wife, but no one’s managed to talk to him. No press, I mean.’
She waited a moment, then changed the subject. ‘Look, there’s something else. Fabrizio Terzano’s films, they seem to have survived. He put them in some sort of metal container.’
‘So?’ Tim stared at her, not taking in the significance. When Amanda last heard, Mark Petroni had been involved in a frantic negotiation for the rights, bidding against a Sunday broadsheet and a couple of tabloids. Mark had not rated their chances very high until the editor hit upon the idea of offering to donate the fee to Princess Diana’s campaign to ban landmines. The paper’s latest wheeze, when Amanda spoke to the newsdesk the previous evening, had been to put in a call to Kensington Palace and ask whether the Princess would be prepared to write an introduction — or have one ghostwritten for her, to be more accurate — for a special issue of the paper’s Saturday magazine. Everyone seemed to assume that Amanda would write the article but whoever won the bidding war, Aisha’s face would once again be everywhere. Amanda was about to say as much when Tim said abruptly: ‘You know what really gets me?’
‘What?’
‘This is why her mother never wanted her to go there. Fucking Middle East, whole place is a war zone She was widowed, you know — Zulaykha. This is long before she met Bill, Aisha’s father. She was living in Jerusalem, I don’t know what her first husband did but he was killed in a riot or something.’
‘I thought she was Egyptian.’
‘She grew up there, but she must have married a Palestinian — I never knew the whole story. She emigrated to the States after he died, her first husband — I don’t even know his name. That’s when she met Bill, while she was finishing her training. He knew one of Aisha’s uncles.’
‘What kind of training?’
‘Oh, same as Iris.’ He rolled his eyes. ‘Another shrink.’
Aisha’s mother was a psychoanalyst? Amanda did not know why she was surprised. Across the room, Tim’s eyes closed and his head lolled forward. A moment later he jerked upright, his pupils contracting and taking a moment to focus.
‘Did I tell you I’ve had a letter from Princess Di? Signed by her own fair hand. Is that a big enough story for you?’ He glared at Amanda, then started to apologise again. ‘Half the time I don’t know what’s coming out of my mouth. The boys — well, I’m not much use to them at the moment. Not that Ricky — he’s got his own way of dealing with things. It’s amazing, the way everyone rallies round Ricky. Two of his mates turned up today, they’ve taken him off to Exmoor to climb waterfalls or something. Even the vet phoned.’
‘The vet?’ Amanda did not recall seeing any animals at Cranbrook Lawns.
‘Work experience. Ricky’s at veterinary college.’
‘Of course. What about you? Presumably you’ve told your clients...’
Tim snorted. ‘They read the papers like everyone else.’ He squeezed his eyes shut, putting a hand up to cover them in what could have been a gesture of grief or self-pity. Then he opened them and said, ‘What was I saying?’
‘About your sons.’
‘Oh yes. It’s Max I’m worried about. I don’t like saying this about my own son, but he isn’t exactly mature for his age.’ He shook his head regretfully. ‘I’m always saying to Aisha, I can imagine him playing his ghastly CDs upstairs at full volume when he’s twenty-five. Not like when we were kids, we couldn’t wait to leave home. Not that I ever really lived there, my parents packed me off to prep school when I was six. These days, they’d be done for child abuse.’
The door opened quietly. ‘Dad?’
Amanda turned and saw a boy with strangely-coloured hair take two or three steps into the room. He was thickset, unlike either of his parents, and he was wearing a washed-out Kurt Cobain T-shirt.
‘I’m going out.’
‘Hang on, can’t you see I’m talking to someone? Amanda, this is my younger son Max.’ He turned back to the boy. ‘Amanda’s the journalist I told you about. We’re talking about — Mum.’
‘Hi.’ Max turned his face towards her, his eyes lifeless.
Amanda started to get up, thinking he must be jet-lagged as well as shoc
ked. ‘Hello, Max, nice to meet you. I’m sorry about your — your mother. It must be awful for you.’
He said, ‘Yeah.’
Tim said, ‘So where are you off to?’
‘Just out.’
‘Do you want a lift?’
‘Nah.’
‘What time will you be back?’
‘Dunno.’ The boy shrugged and backed out of the room as quietly as he had entered it.
‘Max.’
A shadow passed the windows. Tim turned to Amanda: ‘See what I mean? I expect what he really wanted was his bloody mag.’ He gestured towards the shiny cover, next to Amanda’s shoe.
‘Do you want to go after him?’
‘What’s the point? Anyway, he won’t go far. He can’t drive and there isn’t a bus till Monday.’ He gave a bark of laughter. ‘It’s such a drag, living in the country.’ The vocabulary, Amanda thought, belonged to another era. ‘James asked Max to go with them, he’s Ricky’s best mate, but Max’d rather tidy his room than walk anywhere, and that’s saying something. He’s probably off to the garage to buy fags. He thinks I don’t know he smokes, but I’m not a complete idiot. I’m at my wits’ end with him.’ He paused, then sat up straight. ‘Did you hear that?’
‘Sounds like a car.’
Tim was up and at the window, peering out. ‘Who the hell is that?’
Amanda heard a car door shut, then someone gunned the engine and the car roared off. Tim sighed and fell back into his seat. ‘Aisha would know. She knows all his mates.’
‘Has he got a mobile?’
‘If he’s remembered to take it with him. If he condescends to answer it.’
Amanda said, ‘Is there someone who could talk to him — someone who isn’t family maybe?’
‘Iris has tried. She’s a shrink, like Zulaykha, did I say? Belongs to a different school, I gather. Belonged, I should say. Zulaykha died last year — or was it the one before? Doesn’t matter. Iris says let him be, it’s part of what she calls the grieving process. She has some theory he’s angry with his mother for abandoning him, which is one way of looking at it I suppose, and he’s taking it out on me.’ He gave a bark of laughter. ‘She says we’ll all feel better after the funeral, something about closure. Which is where you came in.’
‘What?’
‘The funeral. Shall we get started? My life with Aisha Lincoln, by her grieving widower. That’s what we agreed. You’ve kept your side, given me all the gory details.’ He pulled a face. ‘Fire away.’
Amanda reached for her tape recorder and turned over the cassette. ‘How did you meet?’
‘At a hop in the students’ union, believe it or not. I went up to Bristol for the weekend, to stay with a chap I was at school with, and there she was. Doing modern languages and just back from a year in France. The most beautiful girl I’d ever seen and I didn’t — to be frank, I didn’t think she’d be interested in me. Alastair fancied her as well, he said let’s go and chat them up; she was with a friend of course. His father’s a viscount — was a viscount, I should say, Alastair’s inherited the title now — and he always did better with girls than me. Except on this occasion, to his amazement. And mine.’ He very nearly laughed, his face transformed. ‘We had a couple of dances and I asked if she minded going outside to talk — I couldn’t stand loud music, even in those days. We sat on the stairs, not the most romantic setting for a first date, and I bored the pants off her, talking about the brilliant career I was going to have. I asked her once why she put up with it, I must have been a pompous little prick, and she said — well, I’m not sure I should tell you what she said. But it went from there really.’
‘When did she start modelling?’
‘She was discovered, isn’t that what they call it? She wasn’t sure what she wanted to do, so she started teaching. You could in those days; none of this bollocks about teaching certificates. A photographer from the local rag came to the school sports day, I think it was, and asked if he could take some pictures of her. Next thing we knew, a model agency was on the phone. Next thing after that, she was in — what’s it called? One of those terribly trendy magazines that’s no longer in print.’
‘So she was an overnight success?’
‘You could say that.’
‘How did you feel?’
Tim scowled. ‘Meaning what exactly?’
‘It must have taken some getting used to. Your wife suddenly becoming incredibly successful.’
‘And I’m not?’
‘I didn’t mean —’
‘Look, I’ve spent twenty years of my life trying to create a vernacular architecture in this country, by which I don’t mean all that pseudo-rustic crap Prince Charles goes in for. As far as the establishment’s concerned — oh, forget it.’ Tim leaned forward. ‘What I do for a living, what Aisha did, modelling and all that, even the saving-the-world stuff, none of it matters. She was just — she is the most important person in my life. Always will be.’ An intensity appeared in his eyes that made Amanda uncomfortable, but she couldn’t look away. ‘Have you read Plato?’
‘Plato? Not recently.’
‘Remember that bit in the Symposium. Someone, I think it’s Aristophanes, says we all start out as a single entity but the gods cut us in half. To punish us, though I don’t necessarily go along with that bit. Anyway, the idea is we spend the rest of our lives looking for our other half, to regain a state of — of completeness. Shrinks would have another word for it, no doubt, but that’s how I feel without Aisha.’ There was a pause and he added, emphasising each word: ‘Cut — in — half.’
Amanda moved in her seat, leaning into the arm of the sofa. ‘That must be... hard to live with.’
‘Ask me in a year’s time and I’ll tell you.’
Her glance slid towards her watch. Plato? She could just imagine the editor’s expression if there was much of that in the interview. She said, ‘Let’s go back a bit. This was when? Can we do a chronology, starting with when you met?’
An hour later, her notebook full of dates and — she hoped — half a dozen usable quotes, Amanda was rescued by the arrival of the photographer. She introduced Emma to Tim, who seemed surprised when the photographer accepted his offer of coffee but left them alone while Emma set up her equipment. As soon as he was out of the room, Amanda gave her a look which Emma had no difficulty interpreting.
She pushed back her long blonde hair. ‘Hard going?’
‘You bet.’
‘Hmm.’ The photographer’s eyes narrowed. ‘This is my day off, I’m only doing it as a favour for Mark. I need to be out of here by five.’
‘Got everything you need?’ Tim came back into the room carrying an earthenware mug. He had changed his shirt and his hair looked as though it had been plastered down with water.
‘Me?’ Amanda asked, not sure which of them he was addressing. ‘Yes thanks.’ She held out her hand. ‘You’ve been incredibly patient.’
Tim shook it, exchanged a word with Emma and followed Amanda into the hall. She opened the front door and a shaft of late afternoon sun fell on his face. In spite of the warm golden light, his features were once again as inert as a statue.
Amanda said, ‘I’ll let you know when it’s going to appear.’
He lifted a hand in mock salute. ‘Drive safely.’
She walked quickly to her car. Sliding into the driver’s seat, she switched on her mobile, checked for messages and found one from Sabri, asking if she was free for lunch the next day, Sunday She immediately returned the call but his phone was turned off.
‘Sabri, it’s Amanda. Lunch would be great. I’m just leaving Tim Lincoln’s house. God, what a day. Let’s speak in the morning.’
She had been listening to opera on the final leg of the journey to Somerset, what Patrick had once referred to dismissively as Verdi’s greatest hits. She ejected the tape, replaced it with something else — mindless pop, to shake off the bleak atmosphere of Tim Lincoln’s house — and reversed so she was facing the gate. Half
a dozen cellophane-wrapped bouquets were propped on the grass bank beyond the garden wall, already beginning to liquefy after two or three days in the hot sun. Barely glancing at them, Amanda waited for a gap in the traffic and turned left on to the main road.
Transcript of live interview, World At One, BBC Radio 4, Monday, 21 July 1997
PRESENTER: With me in the studio is the Opposition spokesman on Foreign Affairs. Thanks for coming in. I’d like to start by asking you whether this latest crisis in the Party —
SPOKESMAN: Look, I know you media people get in a feeding frenzy about so-called splits and things, it’s your job. But I talked to the Leader of the Opposition this morning and I have to say he’s totally relaxed, I mean totally —
PRESENTER: With respect, you may not want to admit it’s a crisis, but let me read out the headline in yesterday’s Observer — ‘Opposition on edge of nervous breakdown, admits senior backbencher.’ That’s pretty uncategorical, isn’t it? Or this morning’s Daily Telegraph, which is usually regarded as being in your camp: ‘Party in wilderness for decade, MP tells sixth-formers’.
SPOKESMAN: It’s not for me to comment on headlines —
PRESENTER: The fact remains that Stephen Massinger, one of your party’s most senior backbenchers, openly admitted last week that you haven’t got a hope in hell of forming a government for the next decade.
SPOKESMAN: Since I haven’t had a chance to speak to Stephen myself, I can’t tell you whether he’s been reported accurately or not. What I can tell you is that we’re united behind a new leader and look forward to giving the Prime Minister the close scrutiny he most certainly deserves.