If Jamie did that, my life has been wasted.
I will not tell my secret to the Henman, who has her son, and complains about him, and wails and moans, and is pleased with nothing.
And so, although my feet are weary, although my legs are like lead this morning, I catch a bus towards Zakira’s flat. Perhaps she will come back with me to the house. I will bring her back with me as evidence that I am a good and helpful person.
Of course I am afraid that the Henman will sack me. But surely, not if I can bring her a grandchild. Although Zakira is frightened to meet her, because she is a Muslim, and Moroccan; but she grew up in England, and has a degree, and will soon be rich, with her MBA. And the child will surely be beautiful, with parents like her and Mr Justin.
The wind is deafening, shouting and battering, howling his name, Jamie, Jamie. I ring the bell as loud as I can. Zakira must let me in out of the cold.
After what seems like days, Zakira comes to the door, and she asks me inside, but she does not smile. “Sorry to keep you waiting, I couldn’t turn the tap off, it’s driving me mad, drip drip dripping.”
When I ask her to come with me, she looks serious. “Look, I’ve thought about it. I was mad, last week. I can’t just butt in there, eight months pregnant. Have you told him about me?”
“You said I must not.”
She has made me some tea, but I still feel empty, and I ask her, has she got bread, or a biscuit, and she gives me some biscuits, and I feel better, and the tap keeps dripping, like a tiny gun.
Then I think, how hard Zakira’s life must be, here all on her own, with the baby coming, and the wind howling around the windows. And then I start to feel more cheerful, or perhaps the biscuits were good for me. I start to forget about my shopping. I start to feel like myself again.
Because Mary Tendo is a happy person. When there is a chance, I am always happy.
Zakira tells me, “It is all hopeless,” and this reminds me of Mr Justin, who said it was hopeless when I told him to ring her.
And yet, I know that nothing is hopeless.
(Except only some things are completely hopeless. Zakira is lucky not to know about them.)
I say to her, “Zakira, nothing is hopeless. I do not know how, but I am going to help you.”
And then she smiles, and says, “Mary, I believe you.” But still she refuses to come with me today. “Besides, the pipe under my sink is leaking. I have to get everything out and clean it. The flat must be right before the baby arrives.”
And then I think about Trevor and Justin. “Zakira, I can find someone to help you, who will mend your tap, and the pipe under your sink.”
“Thanks, but at the moment I can’t afford it. It is a hundred pounds to get a plumber.”
“These men are my friends. They will be your friends too.” I am so excited that I can’t wait to call them, and Trevor’s card is in my handbag.
But Trevor is booked for the next three months. “I’m a popular chap. You wouldn’t believe it. All over London, they’re crying out for me. No one can mend their own things any more.” But when I explain it is a friend of mine and Justin’s, he promises to try and do it sooner.
“And Mr Justin must come as well.”
“Well, maybe. He doesn’t help every day.”
“Because it is his friend, it will be good for him,” I say, as strictly as I can.
“If you say so, Mary. Catch you later.”
As I walk home, the sun comes out. Together, Zakira and I are stronger. Suddenly the bare trees are very pretty, like the fine black lace I saw in the market. We do not make lace in Africa. I don’t feel so cold with the sun shining.
I realise I have forgotten my shopping, but it doesn’t matter, it never matters, I will not think about it, not think. Because I must get on with my life.
And so I must make friends with the Henman. I do not mind if I have to say sorry. Pretend to be humble, as she would wish. The woman is wrong about everything, and yet it is true that smoking is not healthy. Perhaps that is why I am out of breath.
Still, I stop at the Henman’s newsagent—the owner, Dinesh, likes talking to me; he left Uganda when he was twelve, when Idi Amin sent the Asians away, and perhaps he misses Kampala, like me—and buy cigarettes with the Henman’s money.
38
Vanessa Henman
That African sweetness I had almost forgotten. Like the children who ran along the side of the road when we drove in our jeep towards the west of Uganda, yelling, “Good morning, tnuzungul How are you?”, and smiling, though I would never see them again, their voices like bells, and those huge white smiles, even when the driver was grumpy with them, pretending that they were after my money. I know that it was just their innate good nature. You would never see that with English children. Africans smile so much more than we do.
And Mary Tendo is pure African. I am ashamed of myself for forgetting, and getting such small things out of proportion.
She came to see me with her head bowed, looking not so very different from the shy young woman who answered my advert in the newsagent, sixteen or seventeen years ago, though this time she didn’t call me Madam! But she said ‘Miss Henman’, and was very polite.
She admitted she was in the wrong. She said she knew smoking was bad for her, and I said, “Of course everyone smokes in Uganda,” and she looked puzzled, but said, “Yes, I am sorry.”
“You see, I do worry about Tigger. He isn’t as young as he was, you know.”
“Yes, he is not as young as before. I am very sorry about Mr Trevor.” Her mouth was twitching, and just for a second I thought she was making fun of me, but then I realised she must be upset.
“Never mind, Mary. It is OK…and Justin is really too young to have started.”
“He is too young, and Mr Trevor too old. Yes, they should not smoke, it is true.”
I felt rather silly, when she put it like that, but Mary was a mother, she understood.
“I’m sure you wouldn’t want Jamil to smoke. Honestly, Mary, it’s very dangerous.”
And then Mary nodded, submissively, and said, with passion, “They must not do it.”
And so I said, “Mary, let’s forget all about it.”
Because that is the only grown-up way, and someone in the house has to be a grown-up.
“Forget all about it, please, Miss Henman. I want us to be like a family.”
“Of course, Mary. We can be like sisters.”
Though obviously I would be the older sister. I felt more touched than I would have expected. I wondered if this was the moment to hug her.
“Vanessa,” she said, with that quick shift of attention that characterised Mary Tendo’s conversation, “what are those papers on the table?”
“Oh, just work from my Life Writing students,” I said. I did not imagine she’d be interested. She waited, and then said, “That is interesting.”
“I like to help our students get published. I am sending these extracts to an agent. Quite a famous one, in fact. One of the best. She will come to visit the class after Christmas.”
(Of course I did not tell her my little secret. I’ve decided to enclose a few pages of my own, from the thing I was writing about leaving my village. With a pseudonym, naturally, Emily Self. I thought the name was rather clever.)
“That is interesting. You are very helpful,” she said. Her eyes were very big and very bright.
“Oh well. I mean, it’s a lottery. I just have to pray that the good ones get noticed.” Emily Self, I thought, for instance.
“Next week let us all go to church together,” she volunteered, with her wonderful smile, her teeth like bright ivory, her gums deep pink. “Then we can pray together about the agent.”
She had said this before, and I’d turned her down, but now seemed exactly the moment for bonding. And, certainly, praying hard about the agent! After all, it was a very sweet offer. Although I am not formally religious, I do have a sense of spiritual beauty. And, though one feels shy of saying s
o, love. Even if one’s behaviour sometimes falls short. “Yes, Mary. Why not. You and I will go together.”
“And Justin as well. And Mr Trevor.”
“Oh well, I don’t know about them, Mary. But thank you very much for asking me.”
I wanted to reciprocate in some way. With her very recent raise, it couldn’t be money. So I found myself saying, “There’s something else. I would like to invite you to come with me to my village. I come from a village, you know, as you do.”
It is one of the things I know about Uganda. I talked to the people at the embassy, and they said, “Remember, when you meet Kampalans, the important thing for all of them is the village. Even though they are city-dwellers, they all belong, at heart, to a village.” I suppose it is where she spends her weekends, but I was too busy to go and see one. Perhaps one day I will go back to Uganda, and Mary will take me to her village.
“Yes, Miss Henman. We shall go to the village.” And that was the moment, and I gave her a hug. She was shy and hung back, quite stiff in my arms, but I hugged her harder to show that I meant it, and somehow we bumped our heads together. “Sorry, Mary.”
“OK, Henman,” I thought I heard, but then she added “Vanessa”. She did seem to smell very faintly of tobacco, but cigarettes cling through several washes.
39
Vanessa is putting things in her diary. It is covered all over with birds’ feet of writing, scratchy and criss-crossed, a busy woman’s diary. In fact, there is hardly any white space. The only blank page is in ‘Reading Week’, when the students at her college have a mid-term break to try and read around their subjects. Into that week she might fit some writing, but she quickly inks something over it. It coincides with the party in the village, when she wants to go and stay with her cousin: perfect. Her pen pecks hard at the empty space. If she goes for three days, there will be four days left. She rings up Fifi and agrees to go to Paris, and then she scratches over the last bit of whiteness, cross-hatching it with Eurostar times and places, and then she thinks briefly about her writing, and the pleasure in her busy-ness is tinged with guilt. Perhaps she will take her laptop to France.
The maddening Arab is ringing again, the one who thinks she is Japanese. “There is nobody here called Mistendo,” she snaps, and puts the phone down, as she has before, but this time, because she said the name out loud, it suddenly clicks: of course, he wants Mary. Vanessa never thinks about her surname. Mary has always been simply, well, Mary. How can Vanessa have been so stupid? But she is too busy to call him back. Next time he calls, she will put him through. She returns to her in-tray, and forgets all about it.
Vanessa’s especially busy because she is going to church at eleven, with Mary. In theory she’s looking forward to it, but in practice she fears she is going to cry. Memories of her mother’s funeral, when the village turned out in sympathy, and suddenly she felt part of a multitude, when all her adult life she has been alone, just she and her son against the world.
Yet that is the ideal state for a writer, as she recently told her new intake of students. “Most modern writers are exiles,” she said. “You see exile can be a very personal thing, to do with a kind of willed isolation. I speak from my own experience.” (She was quoting, in fact, from a book she had read.) “How many successful women writers are married? Almost none, I think you’ll find.”
Beardy seemed to bridle when she said that. He stayed behind at the end of the class, pretending to pack up his papers. Once they were alone, he’d taken her on. “Do you think you should be warning these young ladies against marriage?” he asked her, with his old·fashioned, playful twinkle. “I mean, I myself have been through a divorce, but I try not to put my daughters off it. I miss being married. I don’t write any better.”
“I think your writing is improving somewhat,” Vanessa had said, repressively. (She’s never quite told him how good he is, because she finds him a little threatening. His comments in the seminars are too sharp; he is starting to gather a coterie. Older students can be controlling.)
“You’re single, are you?” he smiled at her, but his tone was coarse, bubbling with laughter. “You’ve mentioned a son. But of course you are. Has it helped you write your Pilates books?”
Vanessa’s mouth had gone tight and thin. “I have also written two highly praised novels,” she said. “Exactly what point are you trying to make?”
“I think I’ve made it,” he said, with a laugh, and bowed ironically, and left the room, but at the last moment, he turned back, and said, no longer laughing, apologetic: “In fact, I have read both your novels. I think you’re really talented. But when are you going to write another? Does being single really help us to write?”
And then he was gone, leaving her winded.
And yet, Vanessa knows she’s right. This morning, she needs to be alone, herself, in charge of her desk, in charge of her life, before she can submerge herself in Mary’s.
She wishes she had not agreed to church.
She is changing her clothes—because what do you wear? A skirt, surely, but not a hat, and too much jewellery would look vulgar, but none at all might look a bit bare, so she finds her pearls, and the pink wool suit she wears to chair departmental meetings, and a matching pinky-pearl ring and bracelet—when Mary knocks on the bedroom door. Vanessa’s white silk vest is half over her head. She stares at Mary through the neck-hole.
“You look stunning, Mary. Is that tribal dress? I mean…is it…indigenous?” She is not sure they still talk about tribes. Her voice is muffled by the vest.
“Of course it is not dangerous. It is a gomesi, Miss Vanessa.” It has a wide sash and peaked, puffed sleeves, which stick up from her shoulders like butterfly wings. It is golden bronze. Mary’s skin glows against it.
Vanessa decides not to explain. She slips on her jacket and her pearls. “It’s very nice. You look, well, delightful.”
And Mary smiles back at her appreciatively. “And you, Vanessa, look like a Jamaican—” Vanessa does not know quite how to take this, but Mary continues, “—because, I have noticed, the English do not like to look smart in church. It is not the fashion, for white Christians. Best of all, they like jeans and sandals. They think it makes them look more humble. But Jamaicans and Africans look very smart. We do not like this scruffiness. We do not believe the white Christians are humble. They sit at the front, in the very best seats. Thank you for looking smart, Vanessa.”
Sometimes Mary sounds surprisingly sharp. Vanessa is glad she has cut the mustard.
“Now we must find some food to take,” Mary says, briskly, and sets off towards the kitchen.
“Oh no, Mary, really, we don’t do that,” says Vanessa, laughing once more at Mary’s innocence.
“Because, Vanessa, it is Harvest Festival. The Reverend Andy asked everyone to bring some.”
“Oh, Harvest Festival, wonderful.” Vanessa brightens considerably, remembering long-lost feasts of colour, being sent to school with marrows and apples. And thanks to Mary’s new regime in the kitchen, they soon assemble an impressive display: black and orange plantains, a Savoy cabbage so yellowy green it is almost golden, frilled and tightly-layered like the bodice of a dress, three baking potatoes as big as Easter eggs; a feathery-topped, fluted column of celery.
They pause in the hall, just before they go out, and see themselves framed in the circular mirror. It is a picture of harmony: silver-blonde Vanessa in her pink and pearl, smiling broadly with her new shiny teeth, her white hands clutching the speckled plantains, the pale rod of celery under her armpit, and next to her, the intense dark figure of Mary, dressed in the golden bronze butterfly dress, her hair caught up in a swathe of gold fabric, taller than Vanessa, even in her pink heels, broader than her, but with her arm around her, and it sits on Vanessa’s pink woollen shoulder, surprising her with its heft and weight, and Mary’s other arm holds the green and yellow basket she brought from Uganda as a present for Vanessa, with the cabbage and potatoes brightly peeping out.
“
We’re fertility goddesses,” Vanessa says, very taken with this image of the two of them, but Mary looks stern, it is the wrong kind of godliness, so ‘Sisters’, Vanessa tries again, and smiles at the glass, and Mary laughs to herself, and repeats it, so softly that Vanessa hardly hears it.
Sometimes, she thinks, Mary is almost timid.
A moment later, Mary shouts, “Justin!” at a volume that does not seem credible. Vanessa looks at her amazed, but in seconds there appears at the top of the stairs a combed and tidied, pink-faced, Justin, wearing a white shirt and linen blazer his mother hasn’t seen him in since the breakdown.
“Present and correct,” he smiles at Mary.
Mary hands her loaded basket to Justin, and Vanessa stops herself from protesting, for after all, he must be stronger now. The three of them head towards the door. “Mary, we’re going to need umbrellas,” says Vanessa, as the hissing sound of rain comes closer. She looks out of the window: deep metallic-grey, with weeping fringes of navy blue cloud. The wind is rattling the rose against the glass. She opens the door to get a closer look, but as soon as she does she sees Tigger is waiting at the end of the path with his big white van.
He comes down to meet them with a golf umbrella. “Minicab, Madam,” he says to Mary, and the two of them laugh in such an intimate way that Vanessa has to tell herself not to be jealous.
So now we are all here, even the men, Vanessa thinks, bringing up the rear. Justin seems cheerful, though he squints at the rain. She hates the idea of going in the van, but she does not want to make a fuss. She hopes it is not covered in paint and brick dust. Knowing Tigger, it probably is. Though even Tigger looks smart for him, in a sports jacket over a black polo-neck jumper, with Mary Tendo smiling and clutching his arm.
But how does Mary manage it? Vanessa asks herself, puzzled. Do we actually all do whatever she wants?
And they follow her meekly into the church and down into a pew at the back, where everyone but them is black. Indeed this whole segment of the church is black. Vanessa wonders if she will be unwelcome, but a glance at Mary’s face shows she isn’t bothered.
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