by Ruth Hartley
Getting out of the jeep was difficult – I was stiff and clumsy from the drive – I took the pistol from inside my shirt and looked around for anything odd. There was no guard I could see. I started to try and unlock the heavy padlock and slide the bolt open – of course it scraped noisily. The next minute there were shouts – I had woken the guard up and he leapt out at me with home-made club in his hand. I screamed back at him and fired the pistol towards the gate. It made a helluva bang and the guard ducked down then ran off somewhere. Next the flat window opened. It was Tim! He said later he recognised my scream though I don’t think he had heard me scream before.”
Lara shook her head in wonderment.
“God! It was good to be inside the apartment. Inonge collapsed immediately and started crying in this terrible way. I had to explain some of what happened and my voice wouldn’t work properly. Tim phoned Junior. Then Tim told us that the coup had failed – the President was back in power but promising elections soon and that things looked as if they were going to work out okay, for the moment at least. Junior organised some policemen and a truck to accompany him and he came to fetch Inonge. Perhaps that was the worst bit of all – telling Junior what had happened to Enoch while Inonge wailed and wailed – she was beside herself – in such an agony of grief. Junior looked at me at first as if I was dirt but Inonge kept holding onto me and saying I had saved her life and brought her back to Chambeshi. Then I think I fell over. Junior took Inonge away. Tim gave me some whisky which made me thirsty – then sugary tea which was disgusting after the whisky – I just asked him to hold me and never let me go and he did.”
Chapter Four
The Legacy
“There are still things that you are avoiding aren’t there, Lara?” Brendan says after the long silence that began Lara’s next session with him. “It’s clear from what you have told me that you are a survivor and a competent person. You can be very proud of yourself and what you have done. What is it that troubles you so much?”
“It’s so complicated.” Lara says. “I have trouble working out what action caused what reaction and where my responsibility lies. Tim and I had a terrible row before he left for Uganda, over the Otto Dix paintings. They arrived in London at Oscar’s bank. A gift to me apparently, with all the correct papers proving their provenance and my ownership. Just the paintings – not even anything illegal hidden in their frames.” Lara’s face wears an ugly bitter expression.
“I wanted to sell them and save the money for Adam’s university education but Tim said that nothing of Oscar’s must ever be used for Adam’s benefit. He alone would provide for his son. I felt so helpless and compromised. At first I left the paintings in the bank vault where the lawyers had put them for safekeeping.”
Brendan tilts his head sideways.
“Reasonable for Tim to feel that way, don’t you think?”
Lara nods hard.
“There was also some money from the sale of Oscar’s ranch house but that was in Chambeshi and devaluing very fast along with all of Chambeshi’s currency. That was easy to get rid of – I signed it over to the educational trust school that Inonge started in Enoch’s name.”
“You’re still in touch with Inonge and Junior and still close friends with them, aren’t you?”
Lara nods again.
“Inonge is a very dear friend to me. She has visited me in London twice and so has Junior, though now we just call him Enoch. Inonge and Junior went back to the Tin Heart Mine and recovered Enoch’s body from where it had been thrown down the mine shaft. Enoch is buried next to his father, Samuel, near the family village. Inonge runs the safari camp as a training centre and school for the local community. It is called the Enoch Njobvu School. Junior visits regularly to give maternal and paediatric clinics. Someday I would like to go back to visit with Adam but again I don’t know how Tim would feel about it.
“I don’t know if Tim is ever coming back to me and Adam again. That’s the trouble. I’m so afraid of losing him!”
“I could have given the paintings to an art museum on loan anonymously but that felt as if I was just putting off the problem. I didn’t want to see them anyway. I decided to start the process of putting them up for auction. I could give the proceeds to the Enoch Njobvu Trust along with the money from the ranch but would I be able to stick to my plan? If I ended up with a lot of money would I be able to let it go? If Tim was going to leave me anyway why shouldn’t I be rich? The thing is I want Tim back with me and Adam. I don’t want the money but if Adam finds out in years to come that he is Oscar’s child – won’t he feel that the money was his anyway? Or – do I never tell him and do the lies just grow and grow?”
Chapter Five
Hostages 1997
Lara’s mobile phone has been switched off throughout her session with Brendan. Outside Brendan’s consulting room she switches it on. It flashes red at her. A voice message from Tim’s editor asks Lara to call back at once. Lara has the sensation of falling fast into the cold wind of a dark mineshaft. Fear clutches at her throat. She can’t stand in the street for this phone call. She might fall over, or cry or scream. She waves at a taxi. She must get home fast. Adam is with Hilda and Lester. For once Lara doesn’t stop to collect him first. Fumbling with keys and locks and phones, she flings herself into the chair at her worktable and calls Tim’s head office.
All the voices who answer her are calm and reasonable and reassuring. They all know who she is and they all expected her to phone. The telephonist puts her straight through to the editor’s office and the editor’s secretary puts her straight through to the editor.
“Is that Lara Weston? May I call you Lara? Are you at home now? Can you come and see us? I am afraid we have bad news but almost no information as yet.”
“Two journalists have been taken hostage – one of them is your husband, Tim Weston – we have witness accounts of the kidnapping so there is no doubt about it. The other hostage is an Australian cameraman, Rod Gardner. We don’t know where they have been taken and we have not heard from the hostage-takers yet. Apparently Tim and Rod were away on an unexpected assignment on the Kenyan/Somali border investigating a piracy story. The Foreign Office is informed and so are all the relevant embassies and High Commissions. We suggest you get directly in touch with them yourself as well. We have already done so. We are here to help with any contacts you need and will do anything that we can to help. Call us any time. We can arrange a meeting tonight if you want.”
The phone call leaves Lara as empty as a squeezed tube of paint. She is in an airless void. Nothing around her has any meaning or significance except that she thinks she can hear the sound of Adam’s voice and laughter, as if there are no rooms or walls between where she sits and the flat down the corridor where he plays with his friend Lester. She doesn’t want to bring him into her world of fear and shock, as she must soon. It can’t be kept from him for long. It will be on the TV and radio news this evening if it isn’t already. She sits very still hardly breathing. There is little to be done but wait and wait. She knows how these things go on and on. She knows how they are most likely to end. There is time ahead of her that will need to be filled somehow. There’s Adam to protect.
What of Tim? Where is he? Is he even alive? Please God let Tim have hope and time and life. Tim doesn’t believe in God and she doesn’t think that she does either but she will still pray. Let Tim endure. Let Tim come home.
Lara phones Hilda rather than walk the few metres to her flat. She knows her appearance at Hilda’s door in a state of shock will upset Adam. She needs to be calm or at least a little calmer before she tells Adam about Tim.
“Can you keep Adam from hearing the news till I can speak to him myself please? I’ll be so grateful, Hilda! I am going to meet the editor and someone from the Foreign Office now. Then I’ll probably go and see Tim’s parents. I need a bit of time to get myself sorted out and calm again, then I’
ll be around to collect Adam and tell him what’s happened. I’ll try and come tonight but it may be first thing tomorrow. At any rate it’ll be before he gets to school and hears about it from someone else.”
“You know me.” Hilda answers. “I don’t watch the news on telly. I’ve got a video for the kids and I’ll feed Adam and put him to bed. Come when you’re good and ready Lara. It’s all the same to me – you poor dear!”
“These black bastards!” she adds.
Lara blinks. What has she just heard? She hopes Lester is not within earshot of his Nan.
Chapter Six
Adam and Lara
Lara receives a message from Brendan a day later offering to arrange another appointment or cancel her next one as she wishes.
“Your circumstances are exceptional.” Brendan says. “I can be available whenever you need or not at all as you wish.”
Lara thanks him but she wants to keep her regular appointment. She collects Adam from Hilda’s early the day after the phone call from Tim’s editor and tells him as simply as possible what has happened to Tim. Few facts are known anyway. Adam pretends at first to be grown up about it. He puts his arms around Lara and says he’ll look after her until Tim is freed. Then he bursts into tears and the two of them sit on the studio settee and cry and talk their way through a whole box of tissues together.
“We’ll have to make plans.” Lara says to Adam a little later. “We’ll have to keep writing to Tim and also keep a diary for him and -”
She can’t think of anything sensible to do. She knows that Adam won’t be fobbed off indefinitely with vague hopes and promises that might never be met. They might both need professional help from Brendan. Their daily life will have to continue in as normal and ordinary a way as possible for as long as needed. That might be years and years but that is not today. School is out of the question that day and for several more days. Lara takes Adam off to meet Tim’s editor. They are both photographed for the paper and filmed for television while making pleas to the kidnappers or hostage-takers even though no one had yet admitted to the act. It would have been a greater mystery if there had not been witnesses who had seen Tim and Rod stopped at gunpoint by tall thin men in head-scarves who bundled them into a four-wheel drive vehicle and drove off firing automatic weapons. The day is exhausting but necessary. Tim’s parents also appear for the press conference. Afterwards they offer to help by seeing more of Adam at weekends.
“Only if you promise never to be negative or downhearted about Tim in Adam’s company,” Lara says, feeling brutal and ashamed of it.
“What about you then?” Tim’s mother, Gwen, asks defensively. “How will you avoid that?”
“I probably won’t always but I will try.” Lara answers. “That’s why you mustn’t be. Adam has to have all the breaks he can get. Forgive me – I know it’s terrible for you both – the only useful thing we can do for Tim is not to let our worries weigh too much on Adam. I don’t want the school to single him out for special treatment, either – there have to be places where he can just be a small boy and lead as normal a life as possible.”
“Fair enough.” Tim’s father agrees. “We’ll do our best around Adam.”
“Thanks.” says Lara. “Sorry. We can be miserable together when Adam is not around. We will be, I am sure.”
“There doesn’t seem to be anything to do but wait.” Tim’s mother says tearfully. “Can we trust the newspaper and the Foreign Office to do everything they should do?”
Lara shakes her head. “I don’t know.”
“I expect we will have to keep at them all the time, don’t you?” Tim’s dad suggests.
“I don’t know.” repeats Lara. “I am sure we will drive them mad and go mad ourselves but we will have to just keep on reminding everybody that we want to be kept informed and to have results.”
Lara’s parents offer to fly to London. They offer to pay for Lara and Adam to fly to Cyprus. Lara agrees to every suggestion but asked them to wait for news before buying any tickets
“We have to carry on as if nothing has happened. There is nothing to do yet.” She says.
“We will pray for Tim.” says her father. Lara had never considered that her father might believe in God. She doesn’t think it will help much but has a few seconds comfort from the idea.
Chapter Seven
The Empty Room
Lara recalls the drive that she and Inonge had made from the Tin Heart Mine to Chambeshi City ten years before. She had had to keep her mind focussed on the journey and not the wished-for end. In fact she had had to give up any hope that the journey would end. She acknowledges with a minimal mental shrug and smile that it was perhaps a little like being in labour. When she was giving birth to Adam every contraction had demanded her total concentration. Only in the last stages had she begun to believe that she was actually producing a child. Well, there was no predictable end to the wait that lay ahead for Adam and herself. Tim might already be dead. He might be killed at any moment. He could be held a prisoner for months or years. It might be so long that if he ever did come back all three of them would have changed beyond recognition. They would be different people. Adam certainly would have changed physically. Without Tim’s presence, how would they remember him? Perhaps it would be better to let Adam gradually forget Tim. To let the pain of Tim’s loss slowly dissipate and disappear. Was that likely or possible? Or best? It was possible to consider all these awful possibilities without getting too upset if she did not think of Tim’s face, his smile, or the way he liked his coffee in the mug Adam had given him.
Lara thinks how lovely it would be to give up remembering Tim, just to shrug and turn away and get on with a new life and maybe even a new partner. All those women – it was most often women – who kept alive the vigils for the disappeared, for the prisoners, for the missing lovers, husbands, fathers and sons – how did they do it? How it must distort them and embitter them. Did they ever smile again or have pleasure in life? How long could their hopes survive – a whole incredible lifetime.
I’m not capable of this! Lara tells herself. She feels iron bands of sorrow tighten around her chest and her temple. She wants to scream out.
Let me go! Let me be free! I don’t want this!
She doesn’t want to care about the fear Tim must be enduring, or his suffering or any horrible death that waits for him. She wants to take Adam away to a new place and feed him a narcotic that would make him forget Tim.
Couldn’t she just find a replacement for Tim who would make Adam happy? Someone so like Tim that he wouldn’t notice that Tim had vanished. Like a kick in her belly, the memory of Oscar thuds into her flesh. He has no part in her life any more or in Adam’s life either. She wrenches the image of him out of her thoughts in order to discard it but then she remembers her own imprisonment. What had helped her to survive? Somewhere inside herself had been the knowledge that Tim cared about her. The certainty – or had it been the desire – that her trust in Tim was justified. Her knowledge – or was it just a hope – that Tim would look for her – was looking out for her.
Lara stands up and walks across her dark sitting room to the window above the bright shiny street with all its rushing traffic and scurrying people. She knows in her heart that she had to be the candle that does not burn out. She has to keep trust and hope alive in her heart for Tim. She must conserve all her energy and direct it towards him always so that he knows he is loved. The phone won’t ring any time soon with good news, but she must not give up. She must keep going and she must do the same for Adam. He is sleeping now in the bed that was hers and Tim’s. It gives him some comfort to be there. It gives Lara comfort too. She will snuggle up to him soon and listen to his breathing even if she can’t sleep herself.
Strange, she thinks. I’m not in the grip of the same black depression that I was in last week. Is it because life is so much worse that I can�
�t afford to be indulgent and preoccupied with myself? Thank God for Brendan. Someone to talk to and confess my faithlessness and doubt. This journey is not going to have an end that I can see – but I must keep going on and on.
Chapter Eight
Gillian
Once again Lara takes Adam with her to see her new studio in the old warehouses near Victoria Park now renamed “The Art Factory”. Adam has already met Gillian and is fascinated by her nose and eyebrow studs.
“Why do you have them? Don’t they hurt? Don’t they hurt you when you’re kissing?” Adam asks.
Gillian laughs. She likes Adam and very little embarrasses her.
“I am weird aren’t I? I like the feeling they give me when I do kiss – and they are like a decoration don’t you think? Your Mum has pierced ears – it feels about the same to have these put in. Are you going to come and share Lara’s studio? Perhaps you would also like to make art?”
Adam shakes his head in doubt but Gillian takes him on a tour of the other artists’ studios and he meets two sculptors and three printmakers and Elaine, a woman who makes art from fabric scraps that she collects from fashion and clothing factories.
“I get them from the schmutter trade,” she says to Adam.
“That is a mysterious word,” Adam says, pleased by the sound of it.
The strange chaotic nature of the studios and the weird names for objects fascinate Adam and make him curious. He says that maybe he will come back one day and try out some of the techniques for himself.
“You can try them all out during our Open Studios week.” Gillian tells him.
Lara already has been invited to take part in the Open week and exhibition for all the Art Factory inhabitants that is to take place at the month’s end.