I whispered to Justin, “We shall say nothing.” But instead, he called up, “It’s all right, Mums. I couldn’t sleep, so I came in the garden.” And after a bit, she was quiet again.
And I told Justin I was proud of him. Because it is good that he worked for his father. And quite soon Justin stopped shaking and sniffing.
“I just don’t know what to do about her,” he said to me later, as we slept together.
But I said to him, “Justin, I want to help you, but I cannot make your mother too angry, or else I think she will send me away. Perhaps she will send me away tomorrow.”
“She won’t. She can’t. I won’t let you go.”
“Do not forget that your mother loves you.”
But I have an idea, which I am sure will help her. Next time the Henman loses her temper, I shall take all her African masks off the wall, and also all the little dark figures. Some of them are victims of sorcerers who stand there miserably holding their stomachs. But the Henman just thinks they are ‘sweet’ and ‘artistic’.
One day the Henman will lose her demons.
36
Vanessa Henman
She will have to go. It is insupportable. My house, my son are no longer my own. Even my ex-husband is behaving strangely. And now she has started this weird juju. I almost feel afraid of her, although that, of course, is ridiculous. She is just a simple African woman.
But sometimes she does not seem so simple.
Item one: the blue nightdress in Justin’s bedroom. Anya left a pile of his things on the landing. Why was Mary’s hideous nightdress among them? I asked her about it, but she only smiled, and said, ‘Vanessa, it is an error’, which could have meant anything, and told me nothing. But I thought of the noises in the middle of the night, and the strange thumping I hear in her bedroom.
I must not think like this. It is disgusting. Perhaps it is me who has the problem. I am open-minded, I try to be fair. I know about Oedipus, and Jocasta.
All the same, the thought makes me want to slap her.
Item two: she makes Justin set his sights low. This wretched idea of him helping his father. Of course it will do for a week or two, as a way of getting him back to normal, but in the long run, it is just a nightmare, the thought of my brilliant, gifted son, dragging around as an odd-job man. (Though Trevor got terribly cross with me and forbade me to say any more to Justin. “Leave well alone, I’m telling you, Ness, or I won’t be responsible. He’s very fragile, still, our son. Don’t you dare make him think you despise him. You might hide your feelings about me, as well. Or you can start cleaning out your own gutters.” Those eyes of his were simply flashing fire! For a moment he looked almost handsome.)
So I have decided to say nothing for a bit. But I’m biding my time. And I do blame Mary.
Item three: the African herbs in the kitchen. The food was one thing, but now she is bringing in strange little packets of dried root and powder, glass vials of seed-heads like shrunken pupils, wizened black plant-stuff from another world. I asked her, quite nicely, “Are these herbs for cooking?” But she said, “No, it is medicine for Justin. I have told him to stop taking his Prozac,” and I said, “But Mary, that could be dangerous!” And she said, “Vanessa, Prozac is dangerous. Especially now Justin is working with Trevor. What if he is painting up a ladder? I am sure that Prozac will make him sleepy.”
I really couldn’t argue with that. I have always thought that drugs were dangerous. But obviously I have forbidden her to give him any of her coal-black rubbish. The Health Food shop is one thing: we all use that, herbs and homeopathy in proper labelled bottles. I am open-minded on alternative health. But African witch-doctors are something else.
I wonder if Mary will take any notice. It seems to me she does whatever she wants to.
Item four: she encourages Tigger to smoke. It isn’t good for him. He has a weak chest. He looks terribly robust, but he does get the sniffles, and of course he often works in the open air. No one can say I don’t care about him. He’s the kind of man who needs the odd reminder. I mean, he hardly ever used to change his socks. But Mary has always been soft on men. Why else does Omar have custody of their son? And Mary has always admired Tigger. Now she is around, he is much more—uppity. It isn’t a change that I enjoy.
Then yesterday I smelled smoke in the kitchen, as clear as day, by the door to the garden, when Tigger had popped in after a day with Justin. They were all round the table, talking very loudly. I was in my study, as usual, working, and when I came through, the room went quiet, and I could smell cigarettes quite strongly. “Who’s been smoking?” I demanded, of course. All of them know there is to be no smoking. And then, to my surprise, Justin started laughing, and then they were all giggling like children, and Tigger said, “I’d better own up, it’s me,” and then they all laughed even harder. And I said to Mary, “It is bad for Tigger,” and she said, “Miss Henman, he is not a baby.”
And then perhaps I raised my voice a little, and said to her, “Don’t tell me about my husband!” Which is embarrassing, in retrospect.
Because Trevor turned on me. Men do. They feel no loyalty to women. He said, in that quiet voice he uses when he’s cross, “I have not been your husband for twenty years. And Mary has a point, actually.”
So then I felt entirely alone. It was weak of me, but I wanted to cry, because they had all behaved so badly, but instead I closed the kitchen door rather firmly and went into my study to work.
I sat for two hours, staring at my laptop. This is my house, but I felt like a prisoner, afraid to set foot outside this room in case they were lurking there, smoking and laughing.
It is Mary’s fault. She has been here too long. And I am paying her a fortune. I have been too soft, she is taking advantage.
At first I went back to my novel again. It seemed so feeble, untrue and unhelpful. I did not feel it was connected to me.
Then something odd happened, one of those weird glitches the brain comes up with when one’s over-stressed.
My novel had a heroine called Emily who was leaving home to go to university. Somehow I slipped into the first person, and I found I was writing about the village. The things I was writing were all about me. The fear and the excitement, the loneliness of leaving (I suppose all these quarrels must have left me feeling lonely).
And so I slipped back, for a moment, into childhood. The sounds I remember from the village. The wind in the cornfields. The tractor straining. The ominous bees by the buddleia. The chickens’ fretful squawks from the hen-house. My mother’s sheets snapping on the line, when she wasn’t ill, when I was little. My mother calling me in from the garden. And I forgot about Emily; and for a moment, I was perfectly happy, even though, when I had finished, my mind circled back to Mary.
37
Mary Tendo
£1,270. I am ahead of schedule, because of my new wages, which I negotiated, like a lawyer (and to be fair, Miss Henman tried to be generous). There are still many weeks left before Christmas, so I could go back with three thousand pounds! Which is nine million Ugandan shillings.
And yet, this morning, I just feel afraid. I have not seen Miss Henman since she was so angry. I think she is jealous that Justin likes me. She shouted from the window as if she was drunk.
I find myself thinking, buy presents for Jamil. And I tell myself, do not do this again, but I find I am going out of the house, with all my clothes on, and my thin orange coat, and seventy pounds tucked in my purse, and I try to stop myself, but I cannot. It always happens when I am not happy. I must not let myself be unhappy. Compared to the great unhappiness, nothing matters, everything is light. Yet the small unhappinesses scratch at my soul.
I do not like these arguments. In Kampala, I never argue, or only with my friend the accountant, and then we kiss and make up straight away. And twice with Omar, on the phone. For Omar does not like to phone me, and phoning from Libya is sometimes hard. It was nearly two weeks before he phoned to tell me the bad news about Jamie. Why didn’t
Omar ring when Jamie first ran away? I cursed my husband, and then I was sorry. And yet I still blame him. I cannot help it. My son has become a stone in my heart.
Every day of my life, I think about Jamie.
Kampala is a place of many rumours. Perhaps the pain is too great, and you speak. A small whisper, a hiss of hurt. A week later, the rumour returns, like a wreath of snakes around your shoulders.
I know Miss Henman will send me away. Last night when we were smoking she was very angry, and I was afraid she would dock my money. But this only makes me more eager to spend it. Jamie, Jamie, something for Jamie.
Because I am afraid of ending up with nothing. And the British will keep all the things that they have, their houses, their gardens, their lawns and roses, their cupboards full of fine shirts and blouses, the ruby-red walls of wine in the beer shops, their pictures, their books, their colleges, the way they speak English as if they are princes, as if it is the only way to speak English, and the bus conductors do not understand me, but say ‘What?’ or ‘Sorry?’ as if I am a fool—which makes me afraid my language is nothing, although Ugandans speak excellent English, and write it too, like Moses Isegawa, our novelist who writes beautiful books, but here I have met no one who has heard of him.
They will send me away, and keep it all. Their squares of white buildings as big as a whole village, where water bursts up and wastes in the sun, their tame stone lions, so proud and calm, whereas ours eat goats, and fishermen, their supermarket palaces, heavy with food, twenty sorts of coffee, thirty sorts of bread, long fridges like fishing boats groaning with fish, thousands of fat-cheeked, featherless, chickens as bald and blank as bazungu faces, apples from Cape Town, beans from Kenya, all the best food in Africa—
They will keep the fruit, and give me a stone. And I will have crossed the world for nothing.
Because when we were in the garden last night, and the Henman was so angry, and shouted from the window, I saw that Justin was sorry for her. I saw that if there were a really bad argument, he would forget me, and side with her. Because in his heart, of course, he loves her. It is always the same with a son and his mother.
Jamie, Jamil. He loved his mother. He liked to press his cheek against mine, even later, when he developed stubble, when he was living with his father. Even when his father had the new wife, even when Omar cooled to me. And this is the thing that makes me wince and frown as I press into the chill of the UK winter. Did Omar grow cold towards our son, as well? He became too ready to think badly of him, too ready to think he was corrupted by others. Was it because the new wife had a new baby? Did Jamie leave because he didn’t feel wanted? Did he know how much his mother loved him?
And yet in the end I could not protect him. Love’s not enough. It is strong—so strong. My heart could tear its way out of my chest. It could beat so hard that my life would end. It is strong, and yet it has no power. It cannot bring him back to me.
I last saw Jamie two years ago. His father gave him money for the flights to Entebbe. I was there to meet him, with Charles, and the car. When I saw Jamie coming I ran to hug him. He was still narrow-bodied, as sixteen-year-olds are, and he walked out alone, with his untidy baggage, and I felt there was only me, in all the world, to help him, and I hugged him so hard my arms became numb. We were talking so fast that Jamie didn’t hear when I introduced him to my friend the accountant, who sat in the car, waiting for us, but I didn’t realise till we got to my flat and he said, “Mummy, you must pay the driver.” He thought that Charles was a taxi driver! And when he understood, he looked upset, and afterwards Charles said he thought he was sulky. But I said, “Charles, you must understand. Young men feel shy when their mothers have boyfriends.” And we were careful, but not careful enough, because Jamie knew that Charles was my kabito when he caught us kissing in the kitchen. Perhaps he told Omar I was a whore. I do not think so. Jamie was kind (I could not stop him giving money to the beggars). And yet his parents stopped loving each other. He knew that both of us loved other people. Did Jamie think that we loved him less? Did I make him unhappy, in Kampala?
The wind in October is horribly cold. It is thin and sharp and it makes me lonely. It screams and howls as the Henman does. I do not want to hear what it says. I miss the friends that I have at home. Even if they gossip, at least they know me. I miss the strong chai that we drink together, Beverley from the flat above and Ruth next door with her new small dreads like stubby, soft little heads of puppies. I miss the faces I saw every day, old Mr Lugira with the weighing machine his son brought back from America, standing smiling by the side of the road, and often he would weigh me for free. And Karim Hussein, my friend at the bank, who always treats me like a lady. And my other friends in the street where I live, and even the maids at the Nile Imperial, who are nice to me, for whatever reason. The youngest, Benedicta, was like a daughter. I miss my home. I miss Kampala.
And the trees have begun to look lonely now. It is strange, and sad, to see them naked. I had forgotten how the trees become naked. In Uganda, the trees keep their leaves. I do not want to see everything naked. And last night in the garden, Justin took off his clothes, and I was no longer sure he had got better. He shook and trembled like a tree in the wind. They are not so strong as they like to think, these tall young men, these fine young men. Do they realise this, the young western women, when they laugh at the boys and make them feel small? When I last saw Jamie, he was not full grown. They are easy to hurt. Maybe easy to kill.
I rarely hurry, but my feet go faster, because I must keep ahead of the voices, whispering things I do not want to hear, whispering things that someone has told them. My friend the accountant, he knows also. But it was not him who told the maids. I have shown them the photos of Jamil in my purse. We all show photos of our children. I make myself hurry, not to think about it, to keep the cruel voices out of my head, that say all day long, at the back of my mind, her son is lost, her son is —no, I must run away, I will keep ahead—
But when I try to hurry, I become breathless, and my heart beats too fast, and I have to slow down. It seems that England is making me ill. Why should my flow be like pink water? I suppose the sickness comes from my heart, because recently I am too sad to go dancing, and even in church I am sometimes lonely, unless I go east, to Waterloo, but the buses are slow, and the underground eats money, so usually I go to the local church and sit with the other black people, Nigerians, Somalis, Ethiopians, Jamaicans, and they only say ‘Hallo’ and ‘It’s cold’ and ‘How are you?’, because they do not really know me, and last week I stayed to have coffee with the vicar, Mr Andy, who asked all newcomers to stay, but he was too busy to talk to me, so I had a stale biscuit and went away. (But still next week I will go back again, because it is Harvest Festival.) If I am still here. If I am well.
Perhaps this city is poisoning me.
Perhaps Miss Henman is poisoning me.
I miss my son. I miss my son.
Now I go to the market and start to buy shirts. Pale blues and greens for a gold-skinned boy. The jeans are long-legged and lean-waisted. I do not really know how tall he is, I do not really know how slim he is—I do not know the face of my own son, but I smile at the stallholder and manage to stop crying. I imagine Jamie wearing them: the girls would love him. He will still have brown eyes that glow like amber, and run as swiftly as the wind. He used to race against his dog, Liquorice, but soon he grew too tall, and too fast. Surely all the girls want to marry him. And I will have gold-skinned grandchildren. But the wind shakes the stalls and the clothes fly like kites, flicking out like whips, loud and spiteful, and there are white jackets and white trousers, kicking—
I hurry on to spend more money, although everything here is very expensive, ten times as expensive as in Kampala. Still, Jamie must know that his mother loves him, that only the best would be good enough, that I shall never stop loving him. Shall never, ever stop loving him.
The seventy pounds disappears very quickly, and afterwards, my purse is empty, and I feel emp
ty, and my hands are shaking.
I do not want to go back again to the house where the Henman and Justin are waiting together, where she is waiting for me with her son, and she has everything, and I have nothing. Perhaps she will be nosy, and look at my presents, and perhaps she will be angry, and send me away.
And if she is nosy, what will I tell her? How could I bear to share my sadness? She would peck at it. She would dirty it. And then I would not even have that. She would wave her busy little hands at me, and say we must search, and telephone people. But nothing would happen. He is in God’s hands. In the hands of the God of glory.
I will not tell her about my trouble. How Omar phoned, and his voice had grown old. He told me that our son had gone missing. And this was at the time when the city of Tripoli was boiling with anger against America, because of the war against Iraq. There had been big marches. The young men were in a passion. Jamie went to all the demonstrations. There were arguments at home, more arguments. Omar insisted he did not lose his temper. Then one morning, Jamil was not there. And Omar had heard that a few of the young men, those rich young men with their empty lives, had set off for Iraq to volunteer, travelling through Syria, by bus, overland, burning to fight in their own jihad. I did curse Omar, which was unfair. He swore he had tried to restrain our son, but sometimes restraining him made him more angry. In any case, nothing at all was certain. No one could confirm where Jamie had gone. Omar has heard nothing since Jamie left, or if he has, he has not told me. I long for his call. I dread his call.
Besides, there are other possibilities. That Jamie was trying to find me in Uganda. But he had no money to fly to Entebbe. Better if my son has gone to Iraq. Because no one can cross, by land, into Uganda, not from the north, where the boy would be. Only Kony’s devil army and the children they capture.
If Jamie did that, he is no longer alive.
2005 - My Cleaner Page 16