by Francis King
‘Another scorcher.’ he said.
On the damp sheet, the room illuminated only by the failing evening light slanting through the window, Marilyn and Mehmet lay out on their backs, side by side but separate, gazing at the ceiling. Like two effigies on a medieval tomb, Marilyn thought – except that two effigies on a tomb would not be naked. Sweat trickled down between her breasts and, acrid to the taste, along the line of her cheek to one corner of her mouth. There was a fan but she had forgotten to switch it on, and now she felt too nerveless to get up and do so. Their love-making had been energetic but heartless, in the manner of two actors who, on a matinee at the close of a long run, shamelessly over-act in an attempt to conceal that their familiarity with the scene that they are playing has finally resulted in a total indifference to it.
Marilyn at last put the question that she had been longing to put, ever since her meeting with Meg two days before. ‘Mehmet, why did you never allow me to meet Mrs Towling? She struck me as so sweet.’
He made no reply.
‘Mehmet! Did she tell you you couldn’t have any visitors?’
He shook his head. ‘ I am illegal.’
‘Yes, I know. But what had that to do with it?’
He spoke up to the shadowy ceiling. ‘ It is better if no one knows about illegal. I never tell address. No one knows Mehmet’s address. Only you. But better you not visit address.’
‘Why have you never trusted me?’ It was the question that she had often put to herself, exasperated and hurt by his refusal to reveal anything of importance about himself, however much she questioned him.
‘Illegal trust no one.’
‘But me, me! I’m your lover. Surely you can trust me. It was so humiliating and, yes, cruel when you told me never to telephone you, only to write.’
He said nothing. His face was expressionless. She put out a hand and took his hand in hers. She squeezed, squeezed again.
‘You haven’t even told me who you think reported you.’
He pulled his hand out of her grip. ‘Bad man. Very bad man. He tell bad things about me. Home Office man say to me in police station, we receive information, information you are rent boy.’
‘Rent boy!’ Marilyn felt as if her burning, sweating body had suddenly been plunged into icy water. There was one person who repeatedly used that term when referring to him. But, however strong her hatred of him, surely Audrey would never do anything so vicious as to inform on him? Then a voice within her answered that question: ‘ Why not? Hatred drives people to do things one would never have imagined them to be capable of doing.’
‘I am not rent boy!’ He spat out the words with fury, as though it were she who had made that imputation. ‘Never rent boy! Rent boy prostitute. I no prostitute. I kill that man! I kill him! I promise you! Kill!’
Terror gripped her heart. She believed that, if at that moment Mehmet’s betrayer entered the room, he would be perfectly capable of leaping off the bed and strangling him – or her.
‘No, no, darling! You mustn’t talk like that. Don’t be silly. The police have all sorts of ways of finding things out. That man probably had nothing to do with it.’
He turned to her, propping himself up on an elbow and leaning over her. There was saliva glistening at the corners of his mouth. His eyes seemed to be covered with a gauzy film. ‘No, no. This man talk, I know he talk. I tell you, man from Home Office say, We have received information.’
‘Information! Did he really say that?’ Once again she thought: Could it have been Audrey?
He turned away from her and swung his legs off the bed. Then, naked, he was standing over her. Suddenly, despite the arid sex that they had just had, she wanted to pull him back on top of her. ‘Marilyn – one thing. I must ask you. I tell you before. Please, please get me other lawyer. Good lawyer.’
‘But that man is a good lawyer. He handled your case so well. Yesterday I spoke to him on the phone and he said that we must start to lodge an appeal against your deportation. We only have a few weeks. We must do it at once.’
‘I tell you, Marilyn! Why you no understand? I no want this man. I want other lawyer. Good lawyer. This man friend of the police. I tell you, I see him, hear him.’
‘All right. As you wish. I’ll find someone else. But it’s not necessary, I tell you, it’s not necessary.’
She turned away and buried her face in the pillow.
Then suddenly, miraculously, just as she had wanted, he was on top of her. ‘ Marilyn, Marilyn, do what I want!’ She could feel his lips on her shoulder and then a hand at her breast.
‘Yes, yes, I’ll do what you want.’ She knew that she would always do what he wanted.
The next morning, Marilyn rang Laurence.
There was joy in his voice when he first heard her speak. ‘Marilyn! It’s terrific to hear you. Why do you now never come to see me when Audrey comes? Don’t tell me you’ve been too busy.’
‘Well, yes, I have been – preoccupied. In fact, that’s why I’m calling.’
‘Oh. I was hoping you were calling to ask how I was. I’ve not been at all well. That pain in my neck, it’s become much worse these last few days. I find it hard to sleep. Didn’t Audrey tell you? I sometimes think she takes nothing in. Her Rwandans are one thing but her poor old Dad …’
‘Yes, she did tell me. I meant to telephone. Oh, I’m so sorry. Poor Laurence. Why not try some physiotherapy? I know of a wonderful man. I often send patients to him privately.’ As soon as she had said that, she recollected that she had made that same suggestion at their last meeting and he had then told her that he had already tried physiotherapy and that it had only made things worse.
‘No good. I was in agony after it, sheer agony. So to what precisely do I owe this call?’ All at once the voice had a bitter edge to it.
‘Well, I really need some legal advice – about finding a solicitor. And I remembered that you had a friend at the College – Sir Thomas Something or Other – who used to be the head of some famous firm of solicitors. He was friendly to me when you introduced us and so I thought –’
‘Too late, my dear.’ He said it with satisfaction.
‘Too late?’ She thought at first that he was referring to the fact that she was ringing at almost eleven o’clock in the evening.
‘He’s popped his clogs. Finito. About ten days ago. He was found in that gazebo at the bottom of the garden. Apparently he’d been there for at least twenty-four hours and no one had missed him. Heart attack, instantaneous. He had always been lucky. He was lucky to get that knighthood, he was lucky to die like that.’
‘Oh, I’m sorry’
‘He wasn’t really a friend of mine,’ he said, as though to excuse himself for the heartlessness of his narration. ‘Just another person whose company it was impossible to avoid in this place. Anyway – what was it you wanted his advice about?’
Marilyn was reluctant to tell him, but it was difficult to know how to avoid doing so. ‘I need a solicitor who’s an expert on immigration. For a friend of mine.’
‘A friend of yours? Would I be right in guessing that the friend is your Albanian?’
Marilyn realized that Audrey must have already relayed to him the news of Mehmet’s arrest and of the subsequent threat of deportation. ‘Yes, that’s right. We need some legal advice and I don’t know where to turn.’
‘I wish I could help you. But, sadly – or perhaps happily – I have never been in need of that sort of advice myself. Will you be very offended if an old man, with a lot of experience of the world, himself tries to advise you?’
Marilyn laughed, but it was a laugh without amusement. ‘It was the advice of a lawyer that I wanted.’
‘Well, for that I do not qualify of course. But nonetheless – since I’m so fond of you – and should hate to see you hurt … Well, here goes. Drop it, Marilyn. Or, rather, drop him. I know that, after all that had happened to you, you needed someone of that – that kind. Of course. But from all I’ve heard – you’ve never le
t me meet him – I wonder if someone of that – that kind is precisely what is best for you. I’m sure it would not be hard for someone as attractive and intelligent as yourself to find –’
Marilyn cut in: ‘Thank you, Laurence. But I’m not seeking advice on finding another lover. I’m merely seeking advice on how to find a lawyer. Goodbye, Laurence. Goodbye.’
Her cheeks flaming and her heart beating furiously, she put down the receiver.
The next day, by a fortunate coincidence, a long-time patient of hers, a retired judge, brought in his wife, who was in the first stages of Alzheimer’s, to see her at the surgery. When on his own, he always flirted with Marilyn in a gallantly old-fashioned, harmless way. Yes, he said, he knew of someone, she had been a neighbour of theirs before moving out to Putney, who might be just the person. She specialized in immigration problems, nothing else. Tough, pretty formidable, he went on. Not the sort of person with whom he saw exactly eye to eye on many subjects, and Marilyn might well find the same. But she was certainly a bonny fighter, and if anyone could swing things in the right direction, then she could. She was called Monica Wright. She was a Swede who had first come to England when she had married an Englishman much older than herself. The marriage had soon ended but she had stayed on. He had always wondered if the marriage might not have been one of convenience.
Marilyn and Mehmet had to wait more than two weeks for an appointment with this woman. Mehmet repeatedly showed his exasperation at the delay – ‘ Why you get lawyer like this?’ ‘Why we wait?’, ‘Why no find other lawyer?’ – until Marilyn lost her – temper and told him ‘Oh, shut up! Shut up! This is one of the best lawyers there is. You didn’t like that old man, so that’s why we’ve got her.’ ‘Why you angry?’ he then asked in an aggrieved voice.
The office on the top two floors of a dilapidated Georgian house in Bloomsbury was totally unexpected. When she had spoken to Mrs Wright, Marilyn had imagined her sitting behind a vast, modem desk, a computer and two or three telephones before her and a wall-to-ceiling plateglass window behind. There would be a lift and a waiting-room with copies of Country Life, The Burlington and Vogue on a low, highly polished table. The reality was totally different. Having climbed up a narrow, uncarpeted, creaking staircase in semi-darkness, they reached a room marked ‘Reception’, in which a bosomy girl, her hair dyed a lurid orange and a diamond stud glittering in a nostril, looked up from writing in a large ledger to ask abruptly: ‘Yes?’ Behind her, an older woman in trousers and a man’s shirt, the sleeves rolled up above the elbows, was perched, her back to them, on a stepladder, reaching for some files. A cloth donkey with only one eye sat on a beautiful period chimney piece beside postcard views and a large notice that read
THE LAW
so is the
IS AN ASS AND
home office.
The girl was clearly in a hurry. Monica was not yet back from court, she told them. Would they mind waiting a little? She pointed to the landing, where there were three chairs and a square table with a pile of out-of-date newspapers on it.
‘Why we wait?’ Mehmet asked, as he seated himself.
‘Because she’s not here.’
‘Why no here?’
‘Because she’s been held up in court.’
It was like talking to a child, she thought. But one had to make allowances. He had been in a state of nerves all day, barely eating anything and smoking cigarette after cigarette. He took out yet another cigarette now. She touched his arm and pointed to the NO SMOKING sign above him. He pulled an exasperated face, made as if to push the cigarette back into its packet and then jumped to his feet. ‘I go to street. Call me if she come.’
‘Oh, Mehmet, do wait,’ she shouted after him. But it was useless.
A young man, smelling strongly of garlic, eventually sat down beside her. He leaned forward in his chair, hands clasped, with a tense, moody expression on his face. Then he pulled some amber worry beads out of a pocket and began to play with them. Marilyn guessed him to be Turkish. From time to time he whistled tonelessly or, ceasing to click the beads, bit savagely at a thumbnail.
Mehmet eventually returned. He and the man stared at each other but said nothing. Mehmet tapped his foot rhythmically against one leg of the table. The sound maddened Marilyn and with difficulty she restrained herself from telling him to stop. He picked up a copy of the Guardian, days old, glanced at it, and then threw it down in disgust. The man reached for it, glanced at it, and then also threw it down. ‘Where this person?’ Mehmet asked. Marilyn made no answer.
Finally there was the sound of someone running up the stairs, and a plain, middle-aged woman in large glasses, a briefcase in her hand, appeared, breathless, on the landing. Paying no attention to the three people sitting there, she continued her rapid ascent, feet clattering in their low-heeled brogues, to the floor above.
At long last, Marilyn and Mehmet were seated opposite to her. The window, with its view over chimney-tops, was unaccountably shut, and so, despite the playing of a fan, its whirr from time to time interrupted by a grinding noise, the attic room was uncomfortably stuffy.
‘Now let’s see.’ Mrs Wright’s accent gave no indication of her Scandinavian origins. She pulled a notepad towards her. ‘Do call me Monica by the way.’ That was something that Marilyn was never able to bring herself to do. ‘Now you’re’ – she pulled a large, red appointments book towards her – ‘ Mr – Mr Mehmet Ahmeti, aren’t you?’ She looked up at him and he nodded. ‘And you’re Dr Carter.’ She smiled at them both for the first time, but the smile was businesslike, lacking in any warmth. ‘I have the copy of your original interrogation at the police station from Mr Hargreaves. I looked at it hurriedly while on my way to the court. If I may ask – why did you decide not to continue with him?’
‘We wish best lawyer,’ Mehmet said.
‘Well, that’s certainly flattering to me,’ she responded dryly. ‘But Mr Hargreaves is a first-class lawyer. He knows all the tricks in the business. I learned a lot of them from him. Anyway …’ She opened an envelope, took out several sheets of paper stapled to each other, and began to turn them over.
‘You are Albanian?’
‘That’s right. My family live in Kosovo.’
‘But you entered this country on a false passport.’ Mehmet said nothing, merely staring at her. ‘Yes?’
When Mehmet was still silent, Marilyn said: ‘He bought a passport off a Moroccan in Paris. A French passport. The Moroccan had French nationality.’
‘I think it might be better if you allowed my client to answer the questions for himself.’
‘Sorry.’
The questioning continued, with Marilyn taking no part and Mehmet answering more and more sulkily.
Then Mrs Wright said: ‘Right! I seem to have most of the background details now. The next thing is to see what grounds we have for asking for residence and work permits. You’re not married of course?’
‘No. We’re not married.’ Forgetting the earlier reproof, it was Marilyn who answered.
‘But you’re partners?’
‘We are lovers. We’ve been lovers for, oh, five, six months.’
‘Living together?’
‘He stays with me over the weekends. Saturday and often Sunday night. Sometimes during the week he also stays overnight.’
‘So it’s not really a full-time living together?’ Neither of them answered. ‘Am I right?’
Marilyn felt that she had to excuse herself, not merely to the lawyer but yet again to Mehmet. ‘My work keeps me so busy. I felt that I – didn’t have time to see him through the week. Too distracting. And I share the house, it’s only half mine. With my sister-in-law.’
‘Well, I’m afraid … in that case … I don’t really think there’s any point in going up that avenue.’ She turned to Mehmet. ‘I presume that you left Kosovo in the first place because of the political situation?’
He considered for a moment, then nodded vigorously. ‘ Yes, yes! Political situation v
ery bad. Serbs, Albanians, Muslim fundamentalists. All make trouble, big trouble.’
‘Were you ever threatened with violence?’
Again he considered for a moment. ‘Many time. Many, many time. Family also threatened.’
At the end, Mrs Wright had already begun to tidy up the papers before her as, without looking up, she told them: ‘Well, I’m not entirely hopeful. I’m sorry. We must see. The problem is that Kosovo is no longer considered all that unsafe, not now … If you were married – or even if the pair of you had been merely cohabiting … But’ – she shrugged – ‘there it is. We must do the best we can with the tools available to us. Our best course is to ask for political asylum, though as I say, with the change in the situation in Kosovo …’
Out in the street, Mehmet at once turned on Marilyn. ‘If you marry me – no problem!’
Once again she felt guilt raking savagely through her. Taking his arm, she said: ‘Yes, I know. I’m sorry. I can’t tell you how sorry I am. But there it is. It’s too late now. You heard her say that. If I were to marry you now, it would make no difference. They would see it as a marriage of convenience.’
‘I ask you, ask you many time. You say, you love me, always say, love me, love me. But you no wish marry me.’
‘Oh, please, Mehmet! Don’t go on about it. Let’s forget it!’
‘How I forget such a thing!’
As they waited, month after month, for the decision from the Home Office Marilyn would often think to herself, in a paraphrase of Dickens, a favourite of hers, It’s the worst of times, it’s the best of times.
The worst of the worst of times were those occasions when, often without any prior warning, his anxiety and frustration ignited to produce an electrical storm, which then indiscriminately devastated everything around them, herself at the centre. Typical was the incident when they were waiting for a bus after the Royal Tournament. She had not enjoyed the performance; but, because he so clearly had done so, leaning forward in his seat, an expression of eager attention and sometimes even wonder on his face, she had felt not in the least restless or bored, as she would have done with anyone else. Trailing slowly out of the exhibition centre, the crowds thick around them, she had linked her arm in his. ‘ That was lovely,’ she had said. What had been lovely had been to watch his pleasure.