VI
A Glimmer Passes Through
1. SCOTLAND, DECEMBER 2010
It was a spur-of-the-moment decision, to check out of the hotel, to get in the car and just drive. I had been unable to sleep and couldn’t bear any more the raspy blow of the heating, all the coughs and noises from the other bedrooms. My mind was switched on, uncontrollably scanning the events of the day. In the afternoon, the police had come to the university and checked my desktop; they searched my office and asked me question after question. On the titles of my papers, Royal Support for Jihad and Jihad as Resistance; on my political opinions, on my other nationalities and, of course, on Oz.
They sealed the entrance and though my colleagues were restrained in their curiosity, I shrank. Every step climbed, every achievement, every recognition – all that hard work – had not taken me far enough, not truly redeemed me, not landed me on the safest shore. The skin on my skull tensed so that I could not form a facial expression; even pushing my glasses up my nose felt strange, as if my skin was both numb and ultra-sensitive at the same time. To have your personal files examined, to reveal what is exceedingly intimate – a password and search engine history – felt a hundred times worse than having luggage examined at the airport. Perhaps Oz’s email to me was worth their search. I downloaded the al-Qaeda training manual from the US Justice Department website and I didn’t even have to pay for it! They didn’t say and I didn’t ask. I could not bring myself to speak naturally to them. When they finally left, hours later, the corridors and rooms around me were empty. In the floor below, the sociology department were finishing up their Christmas party. I walked out of the building as if it was the end of just another ordinary week, as if I had not had my dignity shaken and my balance broken.
I drove into Aberdeen a little after 3 a.m. I crossed the dark river, its surface surprisingly still, like a creased sheet of metal. Orange streetlights on the black roads and the hidden white buildings. Despite the ice warning, I had been speeding all the way, enjoying the emptiness of the dual carriageway, overtaking one truck after another; Amy Winehouse on full volume, the heating just right. Now South Anderson Drive swept up ahead of me, the smooth curves of one roundabout after another. I owned the brightly lit road and could drive longer, all the way to Inverness and beyond. I slowed down, reluctant now to reach my destination, still without the pleasant tiredness that preceded sleep. Tony was not expecting me until Saturday afternoon but I had the key to the back door. I had kept it all these years and when I parked across the road I lingered in the car, remembering other homecomings. That early switch from new independence to entering the life Mum and Tony continued without me. The time I had come from the hospital stunned and still bleeding but I never told them why, just stayed in bed for a whole weekend. Fast forward to finding Mum ill and in her dressing gown, the evening I found her wearing a wig. Back to less dramatic times: coming home from a club on the night bus, the weather blustery, and fiddling with the back-door key, knocking my handbag against the wheelie bin. Birthdays that were boring, gaps between moving from one set of digs to the next, storing my things. A whole summer in which I worked in Waterstones and took driving lessons in long sunny evenings.
I let myself in through the back door into the kitchen. It looked messier and barer than in my mother’s time. A sudden pang of hunger made me open the fridge and sit at the table, still in my coat, helping myself to potato salad and cream crackers. My old room, now the guest room, was on the ground floor. I had liked that a lot, being downstairs by myself, away from the two of them, close to the kitchen, close to the road.
I rolled my suitcase into the room and decided to nip into the sitting room to see if Tony had some vodka in the cabinet. Then I heard a noise from upstairs. I was sorry I had woken him. The sound of a door opening, a whisper and I stepped into the hallway, stood at the foot of the stairs. Up on the landing he looked vulnerable, not at all as if he was about to confront an intruder. His longish grey hair was dishevelled, his pyjama trousers sagging. ‘It’s me,’ I called out loudly. ‘I’m sorry I woke you up, it’s just I had the worst night. That hotel …’ I stopped when I saw her behind him. For a minute my blood went cold. But it was not my mother, healthy and young again. Of course. It was the cleaner, Kornelia, in a satin nightdress.
I turned and headed towards my room. Tony shouted down after me, ‘You can’t do this! You can’t just barge in here in the middle of the night. Who the hell do you think you are? First thing in the morning you give me this key back, Natasha. Bloody inconsiderate.’
I heard the whisper of Kornelia’s soothing words, her accent. I imagined her holding his arm, pulling him back to bed. It turned my stomach. I stumbled into my room – something was on the floor blocking my way. It was only when I switched on the light that I saw that the room was full of boxes, suitcases and clothes. They covered the whole floor area without even a path to the bed. My mother’s things had been tossed into reusable shopping bags. Her cardigans, her shoes, her toiletries. Long evening dresses lay across the bed. Her fluffy slippers, a belt in leopard print, the belly-dancing outfit (she had taken classes at one time and purchased this on holiday in Istanbul), her curling tongs, hairdryer, fake fur, real silk. Photos of family members in Georgia, photos of me as a baby and at school, my graduation. Things from way back, I Can Make You Thin and things she had used at the very end – the wig, the hot-water bottle and the walking frame. A lifetime of possessions had been dumped here. A testament to a mania triggered by having financial access to shopping centres and channels after a communist upbringing. My poor mother who, as a child protégé in the Russian Olympic team, returned from the games in Rome with a doll, only to have it confiscated at the airport. She never got over the resentment, what she felt as a theft. But it was not dolls that she wanted when she came to Aberdeen, it was all this. What lay now before me, valuable rubbish. Tony could never have risen to this task by himself or even taken the initiative. It was Kornelia who had done it, I was sure, to evict every trace of my mother from the master bedroom.
For the first time since her death, I cried. I cried over the wasted time, conversations in which all I did was mock her accent and taste; time wasted in aching to be white like her and blaming her for the failure as if she were the one barring me from entry into a privileged world, as if she were begrudging me a gift she could give.
It was noon when I woke up, the pale light coming in through the curtains. The house around me was silent. I walked around and there was no sign of either Tony or Kornelia. In the kitchen I made myself breakfast and was annoyed that there was only one bun left in the bread bin. Where did this entitlement come from? It was as if I had regressed to a younger version of myself, lost my bearings, and was coming back expecting to recharge. But so far this was not the homecoming I expected. The things in the room were still there, even more numerous in daylight. The telephone rang and I picked it up. It was Grusha Babiker and I felt a sense of relief, as if she, from her home in Khartoum, was coming to my rescue. We had not spoken since my mother died. Now the words tumbled out of me; I told her about Kornelia, about my mother’s things dumped in my old room.
‘They are yours – you must not let this Kornelia take them. Listen to me, Natasha, you need to go over everything carefully. Take the valuable things and give the rest to charity. Do it now, do it today. You are actually lucky, you arrived just at the right time. That woman must have been plotting to remove them out of the house and taking them downstairs was just the first step.’
I managed to laugh at her paranoia, her willingness to think badly of Kornelia. What did I know about her? She was the only cleaner Mum hadn’t found fault with. We bumped into her once at the Bon Accord Centre, all decked out, almost unrecognisable. Her English kept getting better with time. She had a son in Torry Academy and a husband still in Warsaw. Every Christmas she gave Tony and Mum a box of chocolate liqueurs.
‘Tony is gullible,’ Grusha was now saying. ‘I’ve always said that about him
. A simpleton where women are concerned.’ She knew things about him from way back before he met my mother. I had heard variations of these ‘Tony, the playboy of Khartoum’ stories before. ‘But really, now, he could do better,’ she concluded.
I agreed with her and promised to deal with my mother’s belongings. It was my responsibility after all. I should have done it months ago. But this was not why she was calling. ‘I tried your mobile,’ she said. ‘The number that Tony gave me. But it was off. For days now. So I am really happy to find you at last. Not that I have good news. Your father is not well, Natasha, and he is asking about you. If you can’t come then at least phone him, Skype with him in hospital. It would mean so much for him just to hear your voice, just to know that you are well. He is proud of you.’
Anger made my neck stiff, my voice impatient to end the conversation. I decided to change the subject. ‘How is Yasha?’
She seemed taken aback, her voice distant as if she was thinking of something else. ‘He’s busy, you know. More and more, he is involved in human rights abuses and with these recent upheavals there’s been more for him to do and more cases to defend. I will tell him you asked after him.’
Galvanised by this conversation, I rolled up my sleeves and started to work. Immediately I found what I badly needed, a laptop and a mobile phone. I could get myself a temporary pay-as-you-go SIM card, I could download my work from a USB onto this laptop. An hour later Tony found me cross-legged on the floor, still sifting through things, but I had already filled three black bin liners ready to give away.
He stood at the door of the room. It seemed he was alone, but I was not going to ask him about Kornelia. ‘If we pack my car and yours,’ I said, ‘we could take the bags to a charity shop.’
‘Sure.’ He looked surprised but also relieved that I was doing all this.
‘Unless you have something else in mind?’ I folded a purple dress. I folded a pair of leggings.
‘No. It’s got to be done.’ His shoulders were slumped but he looked better because he had gone for a haircut.
‘Remember,’ I picked up a deep red velvet dress. ‘She wore this not last Christmas but the year before.’
He shook his head and stepped into the room, sat on the bed. ‘Keep it. Don’t give it away.’
At least he had stopped saying, ‘I’m gutted.’ I must have heard him say it a hundred times. On and on like a mantra. ‘I’m gutted, Natasha.’
I stood up to try on a black jumper. It looked baggy enough to fit me. Just about. A large A5 envelope caught Tony’s attention. He extracted it from the box it had been thrown into, pushed down by a travel pillow.
‘X-rays,’ he said. ‘That time she twisted her ankle in Prague. We had it X-rayed. Do you have a bag for rubbish?’
I pointed to the one nearest the window. He dropped the envelope into it and turned back to pick up the travel pillow. ‘I suppose I could use this, no?’
‘Of course,’ I said. ‘The more you keep the better. I just thought you had gone through all this stuff?’
‘No,’ he said, rummaging inside a shoulder bag. ‘Kornelia did it all.’
Now that her name was mentioned there was an opportunity for him to expound. But I sensed a weariness in him and I accepted it. He did not owe me an apology or an explanation.
‘Would Naomi like these?’ I pointed to a pile of fitness-related things – a Slendertone Abs Belt, a power ball, pieces from a dumbbell set.
‘Yes, I think she would. She said she might drop by tomorrow on her way into town for more shopping.’ He was beginning to systematically look through the box nearest to him.
Naomi was a good ten years older than me. I had always looked up to her and she was generous, giving me time and encouraging my studies. Often I did things to impress her, feeling that she knew more than me, that she had an edge and access to privileges that were beyond my reach. If she was not who she was, down-to-earth, accessible, without malice, I would have envied the uncomplicated way she got on with her life, the sense of rootedness and belonging that was out of my grasp. I would even have envied her closeness to Tony. ‘Will the boys come with her?’ I asked him now.
‘Not this time.’ Tony adored his grandchildren. I had never seen him happier than when he was playing football with them in the back garden or taking them out for the day.
‘Look,’ he said, holding out a large baby doll dressed in a white christening dress. I had never seen it before. ‘I bought it for her on eBay,’ he said and smiled. ‘Vintage 1960s. To substitute the one that got confiscated at the airport.’
‘You knew that story too?’
‘Yes, she told me she never got over it. It still made her angry. She had felt chuffed with herself, participating in the Olympic Games in Rome, coming home to a special welcome; instead they confiscate her new doll at the airport. So I got her to describe the doll and we went online together so that she could show me what it looked like. She didn’t imagine I would actually buy one for her until it came in the post.’ He tilted the doll and the eyelids with their thick lashes closed over the blue eyes. The hair was also plastic, shaped as if it were combed back. ‘Do you want it, Natasha? She would have liked you to have it.’
He held it out for me and even as I took hold of one hard, chubby arm, I felt a stab of irrational dislike. A familiar envy. Yes, this was the baby my mother would rather have had, creamy pink with blue eyes, a child with blonde hair that she could comb straight and pat down, not me.
We worked together, Tony and I, until it became dark outside. We packed the two cars and headed into town, braving the Christmas rush. We made it in time to the charity shop before it closed. Buoyed by a sense of achievement we decided to go for a drink and a bite to eat. It was not easy to find two parking spots but we managed in the end. The road in front of the vodka bar was thronged with a farmers’ market. Various stalls sold cheeses, organic vegetables and fish. It seemed like a long time before we were seated with a menu in our hands.
Near the end of the meal Tony said, ‘Yesterday I went to my solicitor and changed my will. I had to because of how everything is different now. I’ve left the house to the two lads with Naomi as their executor in case they are not yet of age before my time comes. If I don’t overstay my welcome and spend left, right and centre, there will be a bit of cash left over for you.’
The house had been in his name, never my mother’s. I swallowed, thinking that the former playboy of Khartoum would indeed find himself spending left, right and centre, especially if Kornelia started to make demands.
‘Thank you, Tony, for all you have done for me,’ I said flatly, wishing that he would not want to be thanked. But he did. I saw it in the way he put down his knife and fork and sat back. I managed a few more sentences, a more genuine show of gratitude. Something was slipping away from me, an opportunity I had never acknowledged as such.
The next morning Tony went swimming at his gym and I read the Sunday papers. It was there, why shouldn’t it be, pared down, words standing up thin on the page like spikes. A twenty-one-year-old man is being held at a high-security area of Glasgow’s Govan police station after officers raided a property near Brechin on Thursday. His arrest is understood to be related to downloading radical Islamist material.
He should not have been downloading material. He was looking into weapons used for jihad. That’s what he told me.
After lunch, Tony suggested we visit the Garden of Remembrance in Hazelhead. We walked around but the atmosphere was heavy, toxic. We did not stay long. ‘I don’t think I will come again,’ he said when we got back into the car. And I felt the same way. He dropped me back at the house and stayed away most of the afternoon. It felt strange without my mother, as if the house was full of her and drained of her at the same time. It struck me for the first time as strange that we always went to Naomi’s for Christmas dinner. Why didn’t they come to us? It must have been a throwback to Tony’s time in Khartoum. He would come for a short holiday and spend it at Naomi’s house in
Fraserburgh. Even after he married Mum and after they moved to Aberdeen, he kept the same habit. Perhaps Mum wasn’t confident of pulling off a British Christmas dinner. Perhaps she didn’t mind falling into his regular routine.
Naomi didn’t drop by as promised and I was disappointed. I had always liked her because she was not presumptuous. She had a talent for accepting others as they were, on their own terms. Tony must have been like that in Khartoum – no wonder he was popular. When I went into the kitchen to make dinner, I overheard him talking to Naomi on the phone. I burnt the onions hearing him mention in the same breath Kornelia and Christmas in Fraserburgh.
‘I don’t want her to be there,’ I said when he put the phone down. ‘This is the first Christmas without Mum. It’s not right.’
I had misjudged. His anger was swift, as if it had been building up all weekend. His voice rose sharp as a slap and everything he said was the truth, no exaggerations, no lies. ‘Listen, you can’t suddenly turn up and tell me what to do. I call you and you don’t pick up, you don’t get back to me. Where were you when your mother was in hospital, when she needed you, when I needed you? She was dying, for God’s sake, and you just went on with your selfish life. I had to practically beg you to come up for the funeral. So now back off and let me do what I like.’
The Kindness of Enemies Page 17