by Joan Smith
The phone call changed all that. Miss Stefani explained that Aisha had been anxious that the trust’s work should continue in the event of her death; there had been a couple of meetings — three, in fact, according to her notes — and the new will had finally been signed in June. Miss Stefani was reluctant to discuss the provisions over the phone, so Tim had agreed to go up to London to meet her once the funeral was out of the way. A male secretary had shown him into her office, where she sat behind a desk, empty except for a single folder with Aisha’s full name written across the front. She had risen to shake hands with him, cool and composed in white trousers and a sleeveless top, and offered him tea or coffee. Then she explained the terms of the new will, which divided Aisha’s estate — with the exception of her share of the house and a risible amount of cash, which she had left to Tim — between Max, Ricky and the trust. Tim had stared at the solicitor, too stunned to speak, as she mentioned the arrangements for Aisha’s clothes and jewellery, which she had willed to Iris and her younger sister, May, with a couple of bracelets — oh, and a gift of three thousand pounds — going to Becky. Who cared what happened to the bloody jewellery? Over the roaring in his ears, he heard the woman ask if he had any questions. He had dozens, most of them uselessly directed at Aisha, and he heard himself stutter something about the will not being what he had expected. ‘If you wish to challenge it,’ Miss Stefani had begun in the same even tone and Tim interrupted her: ‘Of course I’m going to bloody challenge it!’ He had jumped to his feet and stormed out of the office, furious and aware that he had made a fool of himself. On the train to Taunton, he realised that the very worst of it was having to accept that Aisha had been deadly serious about wanting to end the marriage — that it wasn’t something he would have been able to talk her out of if she had got home safely from that stupid, pointless and ultimately fatal trip.
The next morning, he had made an appointment with a local solicitor, ready to go to the House of Lords to overturn the new will, if necessary. As soon as he put down the phone, the enormity of what he was doing struck him, along with a nightmare vision of the publicity the case would attract. ‘Tragic Aisha’s husband fights sons over will’ was the least he could expect, not to mention heartrending pictures of women and kids in the Third World he would be accused of letting down. Fortunately he had not said anything to the boys and when he made up his mind not to contest the will, shocked though he was by Aisha’s duplicity, there was no need to tell them he had ever contemplated it. What he could do, though, was sell the house — he had developed a complete aversion to it, now that it had been left to him like some kind of consolation prize. He cancelled the appointment with the local solicitor and called three estate agents instead, asking them to value the house so it could go on the market as soon as possible. A new start: that was what he wanted, even if it upset the boys. As it turned out, it wasn’t Max who reacted badly, especially when he realised that he would be able to borrow enough from the bank on the strength of Aisha’s will to pay for himself and Clara to go back to Chile in the autumn. But Ricky seemed to intuit that Tim was getting back at his mother in some way and gave his father a look of withering contempt. It occurred to Tim afterwards that Ricky had barely reacted when he heard about the will, as though it wasn’t news to him — another betrayal, if Tim was right in thinking that Aisha had told him about it before she left for the Middle East.
Now Tim was returning to Miss Stefani’s lair in Lincoln’s Inn Fields to deliver some documents. He could have posted them but after his ignominious retreat from her office, he wanted to demonstrate that he was prepared to respect his late wife’s wishes, however unreasonable they were. He smoothed out the papers on the table in front of him, his jaw clenching as he took out a pen.
‘They only have these milk things?’
The girl with the pierced navel placed a plastic beaker on the table, followed by a couple of containers of UHT milk. ‘You didn’t say if you wanted sugar?’
Tim looked up. ‘No. Thanks,’ he added, not wanting to sound brusque.
‘Here’s your change.’ The girl slid into her seat, removed the lid from her own beaker and dribbled in some milk. She unwrapped a KitKat, peeling back the silver foil. She sighed. ‘I really miss Tim Tarns. Want some?’ She offered it across the table.
Tim shook his head. He read quickly through the papers, went to sign the pages marked with a cross and saw that he needed a witness.
‘Excuse me.’ He pushed them towards her. ‘Could you sign here?’
Her eyebrows drew together. ‘Me? What for?’
‘Just some legal documents. I won’t bore you with what it’s about, but they have to be witnessed.’
She swallowed and screwed the KitKat wrapper into a ball. ‘Well... as long as it won’t cost me anything.’
Tim gave her a reassuring smile. ‘Not a penny. Look, I sign here’ — he wrote his name in full, Timothy Ian Lincoln — ‘and you put your autograph here to say you saw me do it. OK?’
‘OK.’ Still sounding wary, she took the pen and scanned the page. ‘It’s like, what, a will?’
‘To do with a will, yes. These are just the formalities. My wife — she died last month.’
The girl’s mouth turned down. ‘Jeez, that’s awful. Did she have cancer?’
‘No, an accident. Now this one.’ For a moment, they shuffled documents backwards and forwards across the table. Tim collected them together, pausing to read her name. ‘Thank you very much, Lucille Dawn Collins.’
‘No problem. My mates call me Lucy.’
‘Tim Lincoln.’ He bowed his head in a mock salute and slid the papers back into the envelope. ‘Where are you from?’
‘Adelaide.’
‘Ah yes, laid out by Colonel Light.’
She screwed up her face. ‘How do you know about Colonel Light?’
‘I’m an architect.’
‘Wow.’
‘Good beaches? Silly question, the whole of Australia has good beaches.’
She nodded. ‘Yeah. But it’s kind of quiet? If you’re my age, anyway.’
Tim winced. ‘What brings you over here?’
‘I’m travelling before I do my MBA. I love England. I was just staying with my friends who have this cottage and it was really cool.’
A phone rang, and it took Tim a moment to realise it was his. He had finally given in and bought a mobile, but he was not used to the ringtone yet.
‘Excuse me. Hello?’
‘Mr Lincoln?’
‘Yes, speaking.’
‘This is Helen from Mr Sidaravicius’s office. He’s running late and he wondered if you could meet him at a quarter to two instead of one-fifteen?’
‘Yes — fine.’ Tim realised he had almost imitated the Australian girl: no problem.
‘Thanks, I’ll phone the restaurant. It’s The Square — do you have the address?’
‘I do, yes.’
He ended the call and saw that the girl was still watching him.
‘Do you live in London?’
‘No, I’ve come up to see a client. An important client.’
Her eyes widened. ‘Cool,’ she said again.
The older woman in the seat next to Tim snorted. Tim ignored her, sitting back in his seat. ‘On this occasion, you may just be right.’ He glanced sideways as several teenagers pushed past, speaking noisily in French.
Nerijus Sidaravicius, the Lithuanian millionaire who had commissioned him to draw up plans for a house the previous year, had called out of the blue a week ago. He said how sorry he was to hear about the death of ‘your lovely wife’ and invited Tim to lunch in London. He said his ‘little difficulty in Vilnius’, which had forced him to put the house project on hold, was now solved — something to do with a change of ministers in the Lithuanian government. A couple of days later, Tim read a profile of Sidaravicius, hinting that he had made a deal to get round some complicated tax problem. The article was carefully worded, implying more than it actually said, but what di
d Tim care? All rich men were crooks, as far as he was concerned, and the important thing was that the man was back in funds — so much so that he had re-acquired a controlling interest in a Premiership football club he had had to sell the previous autumn. Now he wanted Tim to bring the plans to London, with a computer simulation of the starfish-shaped house he had come up with the year before. If Sidaravicius gave the go-ahead, the revolutionary building would be sited on a prime plot of land in East Sussex, overlooking the sea. It would confound his critics, Tim reflected, and might even win prizes if the bloody architectural establishment didn’t close ranks against him again...
The public address system hummed into life and the guard announced that the train would shortly be arriving at Paddington. Tim realised he had almost an hour to kill before lunch and gazed at Lucy Collins, who had taken out a glossy magazine, through half-closed eyes.
‘I don’t suppose you’re free for a drink? A quick one, I mean.’
She lifted her head. ‘Sure, why not?’
Tim stuffed Miss Stefani’s documents into his briefcase. ‘Good, there’s a hotel next to the station.’ It occurred to him that it was not the most fashionable place to take a girl of her age, but he was not exactly au fait with bars in London. The train came to a halt and they waited a moment for the aisle to clear.
‘Excuse me.’
Tim moved to one side and the elderly woman pushed past. He grinned conspiratorially at Lucy, who pulled a face in return.
‘After you,’ he said, flinging out one arm. She strode down the corridor, the gap between her T-shirt and trousers revealing smooth brown skin. Tim followed, his eyes riveted on the girl’s lower back, his appointment with that ice maiden of a lawyer temporarily forgotten.
Ingrid’s apartment was on the ground floor of a two-storey building set back behind a high wall, approached through a scrubby garden where the soil was too parched for anything but a few leggy geraniums. A thin cat crouched on the path, following with its eyes as Amanda walked slowly ahead of Riad to a side door, trying not to put too much pressure on her twisted ankle. The door was ajar and led into a big rectangular room with whitewashed walls, empty except for a long trestle table and several old desk chairs. Books and papers were stacked at one end of the table, next to a desktop computer and a fax machine. A couple of shelves contained more books in various languages and videotapes, including a row of old art-house movies and some home-made tapes with titles handwritten on the spines in black marker. Next to it was a notice-board with photographs clipped from magazines and a poster advertising a feminist film festival at the American University of Beirut.
‘Amanda?’
Riad was holding a door open for her. She smiled: ‘Sorry, I was just being curious. How long has Ingrid lived here?’
‘Three — maybe four years. We are lucky to have so much space.’
He had picked her up from the hotel in Ingrid’s car, giving her hand a warm shake and introducing himself by his full name, Riad Morra. But he seemed preoccupied during the journey, occasionally breaking the silence to point out a landmark, mostly the same ones Ingrid had indicated on their various journeys across the city. When Amanda asked whether he had been in Beirut during the civil war, he started to say something, but changed his mind: ‘Not all the time.’
Now she passed into a second room, the same shape as the first. Here too the walls were whitewashed, suggesting it might once have been used as a workshop. A three-piece suite upholstered in dark red took up most of the space immediately beyond the door and at the other end was a kitchen, where Ingrid was talking to a man who had his back to Amanda. She was about to call out when Ingrid spotted her, wiped her hands on a tea towel and came forward, her face slightly flushed.
‘Amanda!’ She sounded genuinely pleased to see her, and kissed her on both cheeks. Tonight she was wearing a narrow skirt with a wide-necked T-shirt and little gold earrings.
‘Is that your cat?’ Amanda gestured towards the garden.
‘No, but she has adopted us, hasn’t she, habibi?’ She gave Riad an affectionate glance. ‘I felt sorry for her and put some food out; now she is coming nearer and nearer to the house. Soon, I think, she will come in.’
Amanda raised her eyebrows. ‘I thought ginger cats were always male?’
‘So we will have to think of a different name for her — him.’ Ingrid laughed and put her hand on the stranger’s arm. ‘This is Samih Al-Neimi, a very old friend of ours. He is a writer, like you.’
Samih shook Amanda’s hand with old-fashioned courtesy. ‘Oh, only occasional articles... I am not a journalist.’ He was perhaps ten years older than Riad, with thick grey hair and a square, lined face. The two men resembled each other, and Amanda wondered whether they were related in some way, but she saw at once that his eyes were softer. ‘This is your first time in Beirut?’
‘My first time in Lebanon — in the Middle East, actually.’ Amanda had been asked the question so many times by now that she realised European visitors were still a rarity.
‘I would like to hear your impressions,’ Samih was saying. ‘For us, the city is changing very fast. All this construction — it is necessary, of course, but Beirut is not what it used to be.’
‘I wish I’d seen it before the war. It’s eerie, the way everything’s so new.’
‘Concrete, that is the business to be in, if you wish to make money,’ Riad said dourly.
‘How can you say that, habibi, when it is so good for you?’ Ingrid said teasingly, putting an arm round his waist.
‘If there was more restoration, less of this new building —’
Ingrid shook her head, as though it was an old argument. ‘Amanda, will you drink red or white wine?’
‘Red, please.’
As Ingrid handed a glass to Amanda, Riad looked at his watch and said something in Arabic. ‘Excuse me,’ he added in English in Amanda’s direction, and went to a spiral staircase that led to the upper floor.
‘Riad has to make a phone call,’ Ingrid explained. ‘Let’s sit down.’ Amanda and Samih sat at opposite ends of the big sofa, with Ingrid in one of the chairs. ‘What did you do today?’ she asked.
‘Salma rang this morning. She’s talked to someone at the hospital, a porter I think she said, and he remembers hearing a woman speaking English on a mobile phone outside the operating theatre — from the British embassy, he thought. So I called what’s-his-name, the guy I saw yesterday morning, and asked if I could speak to her. First he asked what woman, so I described her — brown hair, about thirty, wearing a blouse and skirt — and then he claimed it was routine, that they always send someone if a British subject is seriously injured. I was perfectly polite, I said I didn’t need to use her name in the piece, I’d just like to talk to her and get a sense of, you know, what was going on. So then he said I couldn’t speak to her because she was having some duvet time. Can you believe these people?’
Ingrid looked puzzled. ‘Duvet?’
Amanda made a smoothing notion with her hand. ‘Like you put on a bed.’
‘Yes, I know what a duvet is. But what does it mean?’
‘Holiday, apparently. On leave. Anyway, she isn’t in Beirut, or so he says. I asked when she would be back and he claimed not to know. Too grand to keep track of the staff, that was the implication.’ She rolled her eyes.
‘Is it important?’
‘Probably not. I don’t know why they’re being so uncooperative, that’s all. I mean, what’s the big mystery?’
Samih said, ‘Maybe you should ask your Prime Minister for help. I have read that he will make everything new and modern. No more of this’ — he made a dismissive gesture with his hand — ‘this protocol that the British love. Oh yes, even here we have heard all about him and his clever wife. So young, they say — so dynamic.’
‘Well, he’s young for a Prime Minister, I suppose.’
‘Do you know him?’
‘Me? Good God, no. I met him during the election — I mean, I asked him a
question, but he barely noticed my existence. It was all about getting his message across to women — he spent half an hour with us and then he was off.’
‘You do not like him?’
‘I suppose I’m not all that political.’
Samih gave a shout of laughter. ‘That is something you will not hear in this part of the world. We have too much politics, of the wrong sort. In Lebanon, everyone has their tribe: Shia, Sunni, Druze, Jews, Maronite, Orthodox. Until we break down this pernicious mentality, encouraged by religion, we will never sort out our problems.’