The Girl in the Film

by Eagar, Charlotte

  That autumn, 1995, after the Dayton conference, where the peace deal for Bosnia was all stitched up, I left Sarajevo one day. I didn’t know it was my last day, you never do. It was just the end of that trip, but that was the last trip of the war. And I never went back to Sarajevo again.

  Fata is walking down the street in Sarajevo with a monkey. Mujo comes back from the war: “What are you doing with that?”

  Fata: “After UNPROFOR left what could I do?”

  Mujo: “You could have had an abortion.”

  June 2000

  I went to a wedding last weekend. Lizzie, a girl from Oxford; she was supposed to be a good friend but actually I probably hadn’t seen her alone for years. That’s the nice thing I suppose about those Oxford weddings. You all get asked in a group. I didn’t know the guy she was marrying at all but he looked very nice. A bit pink and balding, but, let’s face it, we’re none of us ninteen any more. I hope he’s nice. Lizzie deserves someone nice.

  I bumped into Johnny outside the church. He looked successful and he had a scrawny blonde on his arm.

  “Molly! How are you? I haven’t seen you for ages.”

  “Johnny, hi, I’m fine, how are you?”

  “Fine. Fine.” He did that azure-eyed staring into my soul thing he always did, then he said: “Oh, do you know Natasha?” I said no.

  As he introduced us, he put his arm on her shoulder; she half shrugged it off, half left it there, and smiled at me. Just like I smiled back. She was as tall as Johnny, and very pretty, if slightly haggard, in that thin posh way. She was wearing one of those flowery feathery things in her hair that can look a bit like a TV aerial, and the dress was floaty and bias cut, with little spaghetti straps and a triple row of pearls at her throat, with a glittering lump in the middle above the Goya collar bones, and a pashmina draped over one elbow because it was so hot. But then, so was I. In a blank background way I registered that she had one of those surnames you saw a lot in magazines; in my magazine in fact. But actually, Johnny was becoming the sort of person you saw in magazines; six bankers with Goldman Sachs Appeal – or some kind of crap. If you’re in one of those pieces, as long as you don’t go bankrupt or get sacked, you’ll probably feature in them all because, let’s face it, that’s what newspaper cuttings libraries are about.

  He offered me a lift to the reception – I could see him thinking: look at her, on her own again.

  “If that’s OK, Tash?”

  She said: “Fine,” in a kind of “why are you bothering to ask me anyway” way.

  Johnny’s car – sporty and new – was just the right side of vulgarity. Johnny could never have driven a Porsche as a joke. The atmosphere was slightly sticky, until Johnny said: “Have you been back to Sarajevo at all?”

  He turned to Tash, who was staring out of the window, and said:

  “Molly used to be a war correspondent.”

  I thought about the words: “used to be”; and “war correspondent” which I would never ever have used about myself. I never knew anyone who wasn’t a wanker or a fantasist who used it about themselves. But Tash said: “Really?” in tones of genuine interest.

  I said: “Yes.” Because, I suppose, it was true. “But it was ages ago.

  I don’t do that kind of thing now.”

  “What do you do now?”

  “That’s a pile of crap,” she said, when I told her I was the features editor on my glossy magazine.

  “I know. But at least I get to stay in one place. What about you?”

  There was a silence, before she said: “Not really anything at the moment. I spend most of my time getting divorced…”

  The house was the standard Old Vicarage, surrounded by gravel and lawn: its honey façade wore an air of being surprised, after two centuries of impoverished clergymen, by the money Lizzie’s city-commuting father could afford to spend on gutters and Cole-fax and Fowler pelmets and, today, on tribal rituals. Suddenly I couldn’t think of anything to say; not just to Johnny and Tash, but to anyone, so I wandered out of the back of the house and through the tent, where a man with a tray gave me a glass of champagne. I looked around, at all these people, who were supposed to be my friends. There was a wiggly line building up in one corner of the tent, and behind the backs of hats and the pastel knee-length coats, I could see a black coat, a sweep of cream satin, a spray of flowers, and the occasional flash of jewels in the sun. But I didn’t really feel like doing that queue now.

  The garden was as English as the view from The Park, but I left The Park nearly a year ago now and Irene says I’m really much better. A lawn vanished into rhododendrons, behind them a high wall. Two bridesmaids were pushing a little boy on the swing. I wasn’t sure if I should intervene or not, because he sounded very unhappy. But they weren’t mine, and I’ve noticed with children that if you don’t know them, you can just make it worse. Just as I was about to do something anyway, I heard a voice say: “For Christ’s sake, Chloe, I’ve told you. Leave him ALONE!” A woman with thin calves, a tiny bottom and a large pregnant bump, ran past me on the lawn, a pair of shoes in one hand. I thought, lucky her, I’d love to have a baby. She grabbed the weeping boy: “Come on, Alfie, let’s find mummy.” One of the bridesmaids looked rather shamefaced, but the other giggled. The woman said to her: “Chloe, are you going to behave?” The giggler nodded but stuck out her tongue at the woman’s back. Then she turned thoughtfully on her former ally.

  I laughed and heard someone else laugh behind me. There, staring at the children, was Hal. Definitely Hal. Older, a bit balder, but him.

  “Hal?” He looked blank, and automatically wary.

  “It’s Molly. Molly Taylor. From Sarajevo.”

  “Good God…You look completely different.” Not surprising, considering I was in lipstick and a large hat. He smiled; the eyes were just as blue, but he didn’t seem quite as pleased with himself.

  I said quickly: “So what are you doing now? Or am I not allowed to ask?” He sighed: “Christ, you can ask whatever you like. I’m bored stiff at the moment. I’m at the MOD.” He stared at me. “You’ve got a drink? Let’s go and sit down. There’s a bench over there.”

  We sat down, and neither of us spoke. Then Hal said: “This is a bit different, isn’t it?”

  Suddenly I could smell the wood smoke, the cold earth in the air, the faint, ever-present whiff of pee, see the mountains, looming above the town, the pale spikes of minarets, the blackened mortar scars, hear the machine gun spattering from the Jewish cemetery, the ping of a sniper shooting the fountain outside; the evenings in Jez, eating our 100DM steaks, with Phil and Ed telling tales of wars gone by: Russians in Afghanistan, and Yanks in Vietnam, and Hal and his boss slowly telling stories back, of jungles, and mountains, and dead drug lords.

  “Have you been back there?” he said.

  I swallowed: “No.”

  “Neither have I.”

  I remember him saying, one night in Jez: “This is so weird, we could be in a restaurant in Chelsea, but we’re here.” And I’d made some crack about restaurants in Chelsea being cheaper than this. I remember telling Phil how nice he was, and Phil saying, “As trained killers go.” I’d said, “I’ve got rather used to trained killers out here.”

  I heard him say: “You had a boyfriend in Sarajevo, didn’t you.”

  “Yes,” I said. “But he died.” For a moment, you loomed in, as you often did, but somehow the Englishness of it all sent you away.

  “God, I’m sorry. I heard about that… That was awful…”

  “Yes. But we’d split up by then.”

  I heard him say: “I was in Kosovo for a bit. I thought you’d be there.”

  “Oh! No.” I wrenched myself back. Then I said, “I don’t do that kind of thing anymore.” “What do you do?”

  “It sounds ghastly,” he said, after I’d told him.

  “The awful thing is,” I said, “that I’m beginning to think you’re right.”

  It was after dinner that I next saw Hal. I’d been sat n
ext to an old friend from Oxford, an ex-boyfriend of the bride, who I knew could have married her and hadn’t and seethed with disappointment; he claimed it was because he wasn’t successful enough, but I knew it was because he’d been fucking someone else and then, when she forgave him for that, turned down her proposal. On the other side was some cousin of Lizzie’s who must have been staying in the house, or very near, as he had his three-year-old son on his knee throughout dinner.

  “Sorry,” he said. “Good thing it’s got a pattern,” when his son splattered raspberry coulis on my skirt.

  “I’m terribly sorry,” I stood up. “I think I’d better go and rinse it off while it’s still wet.”

  So I locked myself into the scented womb of a bathroom and sat down on the loo and thought, what on earth am I doing here with all these people? Does everyone walk through life feeling as if it is happening to someone else? I feel like I’ve been sent down here in a kind of plastic bubble. I can hear them, I can see them, I can even speak. But I just don’t get it. And then I thought, how am I ever going to find anyone I can have a real conversation with again? How on earth am I ever going to fall in love again? Because I have to; I knew that anyway, long before I found my diaries hidden in that box; long before Irene had to iron out my brain. It’s not that I’m mourning you for ever. I’m not. I just can’t find anyone who makes me feel the same.

  When dinner was over, the man on my right fled gratefully to his wife, and Adrian, the man on my left, didn’t ask me to dance because he was the kind of man who doesn’t like asking women to do anything if he feels they are expecting him to. So we sat there, as the table emptied around us, and the dance floor filled up with couples. I felt a tap on my shoulder and I turned and it was Hal. He looked slightly embarrassed.

  “I don’t suppose you’d like to dance?”

  “Are you deserting me?” said Adrian, in tones of genuine grievance.

  It was strange dancing with someone with whom I had always had such a very different kind of relationship. For the first time in ages with Hal, I felt rather shy. But then of course, I hadn’t seen Hal for ages, but it didn’t feel like that. In Sarajevo, after the beginning, I had never felt shy; after all, then I knew exactly what I wanted from him. Also, he didn’t actually dance very well. After a couple of dances – maybe he was feeling shy too – he shepherded me off the dance floor. Then the bitter man at dinner reappeared and asked me to dance. He may be bitter, but my goodness he can dance. So I left Hal and went off with Adrian. After a couple of dances the music got slow again, so we left, and Hal was suddenly standing next to me again.

  I introduced him to Adrian, who said: “How do you know

  Lizzie?”

  “I was at school with Fred.”

  “Oh,” said Adrian. “How do you two know each other?”

  We looked into each others’ eyes and smiled and at the same time said, “Sarajevo.”

  “Oh.”

  “We haven’t seen each other since,” I said. “It must be six years now.”

  “You look exactly the same,” said Hal.

  “So do you…”

  “What were you doing out there? Are you another hack?” said Adrian, in the slightly superior way that people do sometimes talk to journalists. Adrian, inevitably, worked in the City.

  Hal and I flicked our eyes at each other, and I raised my eyebrows and he grinned and shrugged and I smiled: “Nope. He was in the SAS.”

  Adrian’s eyes widened, before he got control of himself and said with great suspicion: “I thought you weren’t supposed to talk to journalists.”

  “It depends on the journalist,” said Hal. I just smiled.

  “I used to try and get Hal drunk so he would tell me secrets.”

  “And did he?”

  “I never knew any.”

  “You bloody did.”

  Then Hal turned to me and said: “Would you like a drink now?”

  “Yes, thank you.” The next thing I knew I was being shepherded away to the bar.

  “So,” he said, when he’d got a couple of glasses of champagne and we were at the back of the tent: “What’s been happening in your life?”

  “Well, nothing. I’m just living in London like everyone else.”

  “But why? I wouldn’t have thought you’d be that kind of girl.”

  “I don’t know. I think I wanted to be like everybody else.”

  “So, you’re not married?”

  “…No.”

  “Why not?”

  “I don’t know really…” I waited for him to say he was, but he didn’t. “So what was Kosovo like?” I asked, with a wave of wistfulness.

  We were still talking at midnight, when Lizzie and Fred went away. Lizzie had changed into a pistachio green dress and knee-length coat. Fred still looked as if he couldn’t believe his luck. The going away car was a racing green Morgan. I was jumping up and down and waving at Lizzie, but not enough to try and catch her attention as she threw the bouquet, because the last thing in the world I wanted was to catch that. Particularly when you’re thirty-five and still single; with a man who’s single too and who once fancied you.

  “Come on,” said Hal. “Let’s go back and get another drink.”

  He put his arm round my shoulder and shepherded me in but the party was over; the waiters were clearing our glasses as we got to our table.

  The disappointment came out in my: “Oh!”

  “How are you getting back?”

  “Oh I don’t know. I came by train. I just assumed I’d get a lift back to London. I mean, half the people here…” I looked round but the tent was emptying.

  There was a pause, as Hal looked into my eyes, then he took my arm and said: “You could always come back with me. I’m in a pub in the village.”

  “What!” Because I just wasn’t expecting it. I mean, in Sarajevo I was on my guard. But here, I wasn’t. Suddenly I was terrified, really terrified, terrified like when you’re scared of being shot because somebody’s shooting at you, rather than just being in the general vicinity of any area the Foreign Office has advised British nationals to leave. Because I would have loved to have gone to bed with Hal, I think. But the old Sarajevo – NO – reaction stepped in. But I thought, with my rational mind, that doesn’t matter anymore. You are dead. You have been dead for years. I’m not working like this anymore. But it was all just too soon, too scary, and far too fast for me. Although I had technically known Hal for years, I hadn’t seen him for the vast majority of that time.

  So I laughed, and said: “No.”

  He took my hand: “Why not? It would be fun.”

  “Absolutely not.” I felt more confident now; he’s a nice single man and he’s based in London. He can bloody well take me out to dinner a few times. That’s what happens to everyone else. Then he kissed me. I kissed him back. Then I broke away, giddy with the fear of it; of this monumental abyss that I stood on the edge of; giddy with the thought that suddenly this might be the first time since you died.

  There was a tap on my arm: “Molly!” I turned round. It was Adrian.

  “Do you want a lift back to London?” He looked at Hal, who had one arm on my shoulder, and then he said to me: “Or are you otherwise engaged?” I said nothing.

  Adrian said: “I thought you two hadn’t seen each other for years?”

  I could feel myself slipping away. I knew I wasn’t brave enough to make that decision in front of an audience. It was hard enough trying to make it on my own.

  I turned to Hal: “I think I’d better go.”

  “If you’re sure?” He stared into my eyes. Part of me felt like saying – of course I’m not sure. Stop me. Stop me making this ridiculous choice. But I didn’t. I just said: “Yuh.”

  I felt this huge wave of sadness, at the same time as relief; at least the decision was made, and any decision is better than no decision at all. And, with hindsight, perhaps he was relieved too.

  “What’s your number?” said Hal. I gave him my mobile. “I
’ll give you a ring.”

  “That would be lovely. What’s yours?”

  “What’s your email? I’ll email it to you.”

  Adrian just stood there, like a chaperone, as Hal wrote it down. then said: “Are you sure you wouldn’t like me to leave you here?” in a rather unpleasant voice.

  I could feel myself blushing, but I said: “I’d better go.”

  Part Two

  The war is over and Mujo goes to a fortune teller. “For the first thirty years,” she says, “you will be very poor and your life will be hard.”

  “What happens after that?” he asks.

  “You will get used to it.”

  Sarajevo 2000

  My mobile phone works. I am sitting in a café in Bascarsija, in Sarajevo’s old town, looking up at the hills. I nearly jumped out of my skin when it rang. It was my friend Lucy, ringing from London, to see if I was “all right”.

  I said I was fine, and when she said, was I sure? I sounded strange, I said: “It’s because my mobile works.”

  “Yeah, they work nearly everywhere now. Mine worked in Fort William last week!”

  Fuck Fort William. In Fort William every house has a phone. I used to hitch-hike across frontlines to get to a phone. There was no point in me being here if I couldn’t get to a phone to file once a week. Nothing would have made that girl in the ECMM’s office in Zenica let me use the phone the day of the market massacre. The time at the BBC; it was winter, about the end of ’93, because Valida still wasn’t yet really my friend. I’d run in to file, with my nightie flapping out of the top of my jeans. Valida sat, like Ava Gardner, reading by the window. “I’m sorry, you cannot use the phone,” she said. “The Herald have not paid.”