by Ruth Hartley
London has trapped the river but not made it safe she thinks. Does anyone ever have a safe life?
The day is, however, a pleasant success. By the evening Adam and Barry are brothers-in-arms and Adam has been able to vent his feelings and his fears while Barry skilfully steers him away from any false hopes or dreams that a quick rescue can be easily achieved.
The next time Barry visits Lara, she arranges for Adam to spend the weekend with his grandparents as the two of them plan to talk about how the ransom is to be negotiated and paid.
Lara has made a beef stew and Barry has brought around a bottle of wine.
“Not the best Aussie plonk.” he says. “Wine’s bloody expensive here.”
“I don’t have any problem with the morality of paying a ransom in Tim and Rod’s case.” Lara says over their meal, “The Otto Dix paintings have been auctioned. The money is now an accessible liquid asset held by the bank. They will make a big fuss if they suspect money-laundering. They and I need to know that the negotiators’ credentials are pure gold.”
Barry laughs. His eyes have white crinkles at the corners and Lara can see how the sun had darkened the end of his nose and cheekbones.
“Yeah!” he agrees. “You really need to be sure that I don’t sell Rod and Tim down the river and buy myself a desert island somewhere.”
“Here – this is how it’s done and who we will be using. We’ll have to arrange a meeting together with these chaps at their office. There are no guarantees it will work, you know. The kidnappers may manage to take the ransom and still kill Tim and Rod.”
“I know.” Lara is sober in spite of the wine. “What else can we do? It’s probable Tim and Rod may come home badly traumatised. Tim may not want to be with me anyway. I know he’ll always be a good father to Adam but I don’t know about us staying a couple.”
“You want him back with you?” Barry looks straight at Lara.
“Oh yes!” she says. “I love Tim. I love him very much.”
Barry nods then sighs.
“Life’s a bitch!” he says.
Lara and Barry talk the arrangements through until they are both satisfied that they have considered every possibility. Barry says he has chosen to use negotiators recommended by senior army sources in both Britain and America.
“It’s two men with personal experience – I don’t like to ask too much but I reckon they’re ex-Special Services. Could be the one bloke has also done some work as a mercenary in Central Africa. They‘re really savvy about the people on the ground, their lingo, why they do this stuff and kidnap people, and what they want the ransom for. It’s good the kidnappers are in it for money not politics. They’ll cop that a dead hostage means no money. They’re naïve though – it makes them unreliable. These negotiator guys have to use intermediaries. These intermediaries say they’re humanitarian but people have a different idea of morality especially when there’s lots of cash in the game. It’s not just us who has to trust them – it’s the kidnappers too. Anyway we’re paying all these guys – the negotiators – they’re no charity, but they keep accounts – the intermediaries – hopefully there aren’t too many of those but they get greedier every day. There’ll be other opportunistic thieving bastards around. Then there’re the kidnappers – the bad guys.”
“We have to act fast before another bunch of kidnappers arrives, pays the kidnappers enough to hand over the hostages, and then ask us for more cash than we’ve got – that’s why we need the best. These blokes have ace knowledge about the Horn of Africa where Tim and Rod are being held.”
“What’s fast?” Lara asks holding her breath.
“Weeks only, I hope.” Barry replies. “The kidnappers have had Tim and Rod for four months already. It was six weeks before they got in touch, as you well know!”
“Weeks would be good!” Lara doesn’t dare hope. So much may go wrong.
“There are so many dangers to their safety.” Lara feels dismal. “I know that Tim and Rod will have been beaten. I hope they haven’t got malaria or dysentery. They won’t be eating much. At least Tim speaks Swahili and some Somali and he does know the Koran. I kind-of hope that they won’t have been imprisoned in a place without a window – or if they are, I hope they aren’t kept chained.”
Eventually Lara and Barry come to the end of what could be said about the situation and they fall silent.
Abruptly Barry asks about the paintings that Lara had sold.
“So how come you have these assets? You haven’t faked them have you – I am joking – and I rather think you didn’t buy them. You and Tim have art patrons for parents? What is your story, Lara?”
Lara hesitates. She doesn’t want to talk but neither does she want Barry to go. Now that they had agreed to pay the ransom she had nothing to do but wait and Barry’s presence was a comfort.
“It’ll take some explaining and some time.”
“Fire away.” Barry encourages.
Lara gives the shortest account possible of her connection with Oscar and the Tin Heart Gold Mine and explains Tim’s anger over it all. They sit together quietly for a while afterwards.
“Best get on, then.” Barry says. “We’ll head on next week to meet these negotiators and sort out money with the bank. The negotiators will keep us personally informed along the way but in the final stages they’ll bring in the Foreign Office and nearest British High Commission and the last arrangements will be made with them.”
A fortnight goes by. Barry phones Lara and they go out to a pub to talk about how things are progressing. There isn’t much to report and neither of them wants to keep speculating about what may or may not happen. Barry talks about his life in Australia, about his work, about his wife Geena, and how much he misses her. Barry and his wife are both social anthropologists who work with aboriginal people. Geena’s mother was part aboriginal.
“I guess we have done a lot of questioning of ourselves and our roles with regard to our work.” Barry says. “God – I miss Geena.”
Lara and Barry meet again a week later but both find it a strain meeting in a café or a pub without privacy.
“Come and have supper next week.” Lara says and Barry does. Once again Lara cooks and Barry brings some wine. Adam is with his grandparents. They talk till it is almost midnight. Barry stands up to leave and then sits down again on the edge of his chair.
“I shouldn’t say this Lara – guess I’ve had a drop too much. You’re a really attractive woman, Lara. Hope you don’t mind me saying this – if it wasn’t for these circumstances I would really like to have asked to go to bed with you and make love to you.”
Lara laughs. A delightful, lightening bubble of mirth floats up inside her.
“Barry, I think I would have loved that too. It would have been fun – and good for us too. Now I guess we have other things to focus on.”
“Yeah!” Barry stands up, comes over to Lara. First they hug each other, then they kiss each other’s cheeks. They think that they are taking enough care for their lips not to brush against each other by accident but it is the hug that undoes Lara. Her body has been rigid and tense with worry for so long that the warm firm pressure of Barry’s hand on her back makes her shrug her shoulders with relief.
“Oh that feels so good – I am so knotted – are you the same?”
Barry holds Lara away from him keeping his light grip on her shoulders. He looks into her eyes.
“Yes, Lara – we are both the same – both stretched to the end of endurance.”
Lara blushes. She has forgotten what it is like for her cheeks to warm and colour and for her to feel shy. She recognises her pleasure in Barry’s reassuring touch, her need to be held physically, but she draws a deep breath and looks away from Barry’s quizzical gaze.
“Shall we comfort each other – would it seem so wicked to you?” Barry asks with sur
prising gentleness, relaxing his hands.
“I wouldn’t for worlds want to hurt your wife!” Lara answers. “I don’t want to hurt Tim, either. I don’t know what will happen between Tim and me but I’m afraid, Barry.”
Barry turns Lara’s face upwards so she can see his expression. He smiles at Lara.
“Humans are sexual creatures, Lara. We are made to give each other physical pleasure and comfort. It has never been only about marriage and children or jealousy and morality. All the same there is no pressure on you – I am not even sure that I am up to performing well sexually at the moment – worry gets me like that – but I should really like to cuddle you and have you do the same to me.”
Lara frowns.
“Oh God – If I let go for a moment and stop being faithful something will go wrong for Tim.”
Barry laughs but he looks tired and sad too. “Oh yeah! Does God work like that? I don’t think so – but we fear it. It’s important not to suffer guilt though – that is damaging.”
Lara thinks for a moment then she leans up and kisses Barry gently on his cheek.
“Barry.” she says. “I want you to hold me – I want not to think – I want to be oblivious for a night – I tell myself that this would be a kindness to each other and only one night and would be our secret – but I can’t do it. I can only think of Tim.”
Barry slowly let go of Lara and she feels that her unsupported bones will soften and she’ll fall over. She tries to ease the moment for them.
“I am tempted, Barry – you have so cheered me these last few weeks and I’m so grateful to you but – I can’t.”
“Damn.” Barry says with a self-deprecating grin. “You don’t mind that I tried – do you? It’s a long way back to the hotel and it’s so comforting to sleep with a woman. But you’re right – it’s not what we are here for is it?”
“Oh, Barry – I am flattered – and sorry – but please – it’s time to go.”
Lara shuts the door gently behind Barry as he disappears into the night. She still feels his lips against her cheek. She is so tired and so hopeless. Wouldn’t it have been kinder to sleep with Barry? Does her refusal really help Tim or anyone else? What if Tim is never released? What if Tim arrives back and cannot forgive her? At least he would be alive, but what would her life really be like without him? How can she be sure of anything?
Chapter Six
Making Art Again
Adam is back at school. It is over three weeks since Barry had taken Lara to make the necessary arrangements with the banks and the negotiators. Lara is working at the Victoria Park Studios. It’s one of her non-teaching days when she is free to paint.
She sits on her work table swinging her legs and contemplating her latest canvas. Sometimes she narrows her eyes, sometimes turns her head sideways as she studies her preliminary brush strokes. She is experimenting with a series of new paintings.
I’m going to take a huge risk.
I am going to make autobiographical paintings and drawings. I am going to mix up large paintings of emotional landscapes in wildly intense and saturated colours together with black and white charcoal drawings of mythical monsters and heroes. They’ll be creatures of my own invention even if I draw on all kinds of stories and legends.
I’ll start with the ugliness of the Tin Heart Gold Mine and the beauty of the wilderness and its animals. I’ll paint Oscar and Enoch and myself and Inonge and Tim and Liseli – I’ll paint riots and wars and crashing planes but I’ll re-invent them. They’ll be giant mechanical birds not the fish eagles and osprey which exist in our wonderful and beautiful world.
Whatever happens now – or happens tomorrow – whatever the outcome of the ransom payment – good or bad or tragic – I will paint it. I shan’t care that it won’t be for sale. I want to tell the story this way – my way. The monsters and the heroes will come from Manga, from Marvel comics and Greek and Inca myths. I’ll use every idea I can borrow and steal and invent and create to tell all the stories I know of love and of war – of terrible things and – of cruel and kind people – of people who only want to live and not to kill. I’ll tell the stories of people who want to live for freedom and beauty and die to tell the truth. I’ll paint these stories for myself, for my past lovers, for my friends, for Tim – and most of all – for my son Adam.
Lara jumps down from her seat, stretches and yawns. So much concentration, so many ideas whizzing around in her head. She needs to make a pot of black coffee and to give her energy level another jolt upwards.
In the end this is all I have and all I can be – the Lara who works to make art.
It’s never easy – it’s not meant to be easy – it is just how it is.
As Lara moves over to the kettle by the sink, she feels the phone in her boiler-suit pocket vibrate against her thigh. The screen comes up with Barry’s name.
“Hey, Lara.” Barry says when she answers. “It’s on, I think – there’s still no guarantees as to the outcome. Don’t hurry Adam off to school tomorrow – maybe keep him home. You won’t get news from me first. Whatever happens, the British High Commission in Kenya will call you. Stay cool girl! It won’t be easy but try and get some sleep tonight. Keep on hoping.”
“Thanks Barry.” she answers. “Will I see you? Are you also in London?”
“Yes. Maybe – probably – I think so!”
Barry doesn’t sound as much in control as usual.
I’ll finish here first. Lara tells herself but she can’t focus on her painting any more. She starts sorting out her paints and cleaning brushes instead.
Mindless work is good.
It doesn’t last long enough, however. She walks slowly home stopping to stare in shop windows but without being fully aware of what she is seeing. She realises that she is staring into a café when an annoyed man taps on the glass and with a rude jerky gesture suggests that she should shove off. Lara is humiliated and furious both herself and with him. Her rage is out of proportion to the incident. She must collect Adam. Lara tries to concentrate. She grits her teeth while raising her eyebrows into her hairline and makes some school kids approaching her giggle and duck as they pass her. Her mind and her body have separated at some point in the day and she is detached from them both. It was probably just as well because she isn’t able to feel or think and if she could feel or think what might happen to her?
C’mon Lara! Make a plan. A beefburger restaurant and a Disney film tonight? Adam will think something is up if I suggest that midweek. Shall I just go home and try and switch off in front of the telly? I must phone Gwen and Sydney and warn them – but if they don’t know why should I make them worry?
In the end it’s easier to sink into a zombie-like state and put on a DVD for Adam. Adam is tired enough not to notice that Lara is distracted. When he finally goes to bed, Lara finds herself alert and agitated. She fails to become involved in a novel, opens a bottle of wine and drinks most of it while watching a repeat of an American movie in which all the cars spin out of control, every villain dies in mid-air flight from an explosion and the hero spends the last two minutes of the film hanging from a high building by his fingertips. Lara takes a sleeping pill too late and ends up checking the time on her alarm clock every 10 minutes.
I should be preparing myself to cope with the worst possible news and deal with Adam’s grief tomorrow. God knows I have played through these scenarios often enough in my head. What if -?
But Lara can’t permit herself to think these thoughts and her mind slides off in another direction and circles round and around.
At 2 o’clock in the morning the telephone rings. It’s the man from the Foreign Office.
“Your husband has been released. He is safe and well at the High Commission in Nairobi. We’ll send a car for you at 9 o’clock this morning to take you and Adam to RAF Brize Norton in Oxfordshire. Will you both be ready? Ye
s – similar arrangements have been made for Tim’s parents. They will be there too. So will Rod’s brother.”
Lara climbs back into her bed and hides under her bed covers. She tries to scream or cry or feel anything but numb and exhausted. Adam is still asleep. After a time she finds that her face is wet with tears and she can feel that she has arms and legs again and a body.
Tim is alive. Tim is safe.
Lara repeats that again and again. It sounds even now like a prayer.
She goes into Adam’s room and lies down next to him.
He breathes, he lives, he sleeps, he smells of boy, of child, of warm bed sheets, of life. He is Tim’s son. Soon he will wake and yawn and complain sleepily that he doesn’t want to get up.
Lara will tell Adam that Tim is coming home and Adam will smile and give her a hug as if she had managed to make it happen by magic.
Lara will find his clothes. They will have breakfast – perhaps. The chauffeured car will arrive and take them to Brize Norton where they will wait for Tim to step down off the plane and come and greet them.
Lara and Adam will hug Tim and tell him how much they love him.
After that, who knows what might happen?
Epilogue
Oscar 1945
The old man woke them early.
He whispered that there another group of refugees had arrived in the night. They had taken shelter in the empty cowshed and were sleeping on the small amount of flattened and mouldy hay that was left there.
“Don’t go outside,” he said, “Better no one sees you. They are afraid out there and hungry.”