Victoria opens her mouth, scowling, and starts to say something.
‘Don’t worry that you’re giving him too much credit, either,’ Sheila interrupts, hand raised, ‘because what happened with him was just a starting point, nothing more; a seed was planted but it took the soil and the rain and the light and the sun to create a flower. Approached from that angle, with that attitude – you know, benign dispassion; cheerful indifference – all ideas of vengeance, of a long-term vendetta or of petty revenge just seem absolutely irrelevant. They simply don’t figure. They aren’t even on the radar.’
Victoria – lips pressed back together again (with some considerable effort on her part) – ponders what’s been said in a quizzical silence, one brow slightly raised, her skinny index finger drawing a looping hem into the condensation along the top of her glass.
‘How does Marisol feel about the book?’ Sheila wonders, her eyes following Victoria’s finger as it gracefully loops. ‘What’s her advice been?’
Victoria’s finger stops looping, slowly drops, then rests quietly on the table, a thin coating of moisture on the pad briefly conjoining her soft flesh to the lacquered surface.
‘Marisol …’ she starts off, then her voice wavers. She closes her eyes for a moment, draws a deep breath, clears her throat (as if irritated by this unexpected show of vulnerability) and tries once again: ‘Marisol died in 2003, from non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma …’ Her voice sounds clipped this time around, almost dispassionate. ‘It’s a disease often associated with pesticides – kills golf managers and farm workers. She was diagnosed in the July and died five weeks later.’
‘My God, I’m so sorry,’ Sheila interjects, horrified.
Victoria shrugs. ‘I was heavily involved in the anti-globalization protests that year – spent several months working at Vandana Shiva’s Research Foundation for Science, Technology and Natural Resource Policy at the foot of the Himalayas. It was an incredibly productive time for me – an amazing time – an activist’s dream come true …’ She pauses, pressing her lips together again, her nostrils flaring. ‘Of course I knew there were some problems with Marisol’s health …’ she murmurs, her voice softer, now, ‘there’d been a number of scares since the RAMSAR wetlands campaign – all that contact with raw sewage – but I never thought …’
‘Were you still together?’
Victoria shakes her head. ‘We were never a “real” couple, not in any formal sense – we both moved around so much, were so caught up in Deep Green issues, mine chiefly developmental, hers much more marine based – but we were definitely soul mates. Her parents never knew she was bi – still don’t. They’re very traditional people, very respectable. They’d be crushed to find out.’
Sheila ponders this for a while. ‘So in terms of the book …’
‘My boy has no clue who his father is’ – Victoria grimaces – ‘and I have no intention of telling him, either.’
‘You don’t think he has a right to know?’ Sheila’s surprised.
‘He thinks he’s dead.’ Victoria shrugs.
‘You told him that?’ Sheila’s shocked.
‘Yup.’ Victoria nods, unrepentant.
‘And he doesn’t … he doesn’t suspect?’
‘Nope.’
‘How about the father? I mean if he’s still in a relationship with …?’
‘Esther told him I had the abortion. It just seemed easier. We made an uneasy truce: I help keep an eye on her kids back in Jamaica and she keeps her mouth firmly shut.’
‘Esther?’ Sheila echoes, then her cheeks suddenly flush.
‘You got a problem?’ Victoria demands, instantly on guard.
‘No. No. Not at all.’ Sheila breaks eye contact and reaches down for her lone crutch. ‘It’s … uh … it’s just that I hadn’t … I mean I didn’t actually realize …’ She grinds to a slow halt.
‘Realize what?’ Victoria glowers.
‘Uh …’ Sheila releases the crutch, sniffs, lightly touches her nose, and then calmly re-establishes eye contact. ‘I had no idea how much of a drain golf actually is on the world’s ecology,’ she offers, somewhat limply. ‘I mean I’d never really considered …’
‘In the US alone it contributes around 50 billion dollars per annum to the national economy.’ Victoria happily clambers back up on to her soapbox. ‘It’s huge business – represents powerful vested interests. They have around 18,000 courses covering 1.7 million acres, guzzling 4 billion gallons of fresh water, daily. On that basis alone it represents an ecological holocaust. Four billion gallons. That’s equivalent to the entire US population’s residential water use each day. One in eight people on this planet have no access to safe drinking water. The UN estimates that by 2025 over 2.8 billion people will be experiencing severe water scarcity …’
‘Terrible.’ Sheila nods. She glances down at her watch.
‘Nearly time for your x-ray?’ Victoria hazards a guess.
Sheila weakly smiles in the affirmative.
‘On the positive side,’ Victoria adds, as a cavil, ‘we’re starting to see the bottom fall out of the market in places like Japan and Thailand following the economic downturn in the East. A lot of the smaller companies have gone bust, player numbers have significantly declined, although the Chinese and Indian markets are obviously going to prove –’
‘I just really, really want to say,’ Sheila rudely interrupts her (her brown eyes grave, her voice deeply emphatic), ‘that I think you’ve got a great story to tell – an inspirational story – a story that could entertain, enlighten, educate … I mean it’s … it’s all there! I can just see it in my mind’s eye: a tragedy, a tale of hope in the face of terrible adversity, a love story, a real girl’s adventure; at once beautiful and moving and dangerous and exciting and sad and … and brave. You just really need to tell it as honestly as you can – as straightforwardly as you can – in your own words, in your own way. It truly deserves that. Marisol deserves that – and your son. Just forget about the O’Rourke. Forget about the publishers. Sing your own song and sing it truthfully. It won’t matter what kind of a voice you have, because it’s your song. It’s who you are. And when you sing a song like that there’s simply no room for … for bluff or pretence or fudging or humbuggery, because you’ve done nothing to be ashamed of – nothing. Just speak your truth. Just … I dunno … just open your heart and let the whole, damn thing slip out of you – tumble out of you – gush out of you like a newborn – all dark and quick and hot and bloody …’
Victoria stares at her, astonished.
‘I mean that’s … that’s just …’ Sheila falters, ‘that’s just my humble opinion, obviously.’
She shrugs, self-consciously.
A short silence follows in which Victoria stares down at her flapjack, deep in thought. Sheila takes a small sip of her coffee. She notices that the front of her hand is glowing but can’t quite work out if it’s with perspiration or just steam from the hot liquid in her cup.
‘Okay …’ Victoria finally looks up, carefully adjusts her spectacles (although they haven’t shifted down her nose by so much as a millimetre) and leans over the table towards her, snaking out her lean but surprisingly strong hand and grabbing Sheila’s fingers with it.
‘If you care so much about the damn thing, then do it with me!’ She grins, squeezing Sheila’s fingers until she almost squeals. ‘C’mon! Do it with me! Take a sabbatical. Come to Jamaica. Work with me for six months. I’ll give you free accommodation, basic living expenses and fifteen – no, scratch that – twenty per cent of the 40,000 dollar advance.’
Three seconds pass as Sheila’s eyes shift, anxiously, from Victoria’s emphatic smile to the slightly pinkening tips of her fingers.
‘C’mon, Sister Wendy!’ Victoria squeezes still harder, impatient – almost exasperated. ‘Put your money where your mouth is for once!’
‘Are you crazy?!’ Sheila flutes, trying – and failing – to withdraw her hand, her heart clattering against her ribs like a c
lockwork mouse, her eyes strangely hopeful, almost fearful.
‘You betcha! Crazy as a three-legged cat with a firecracker tied to its tail!’ Victoria affirms, proudly, nostrils flaring, her brown eyes hard and cold as a dead eel’s.
‘But Hamra’s such a heavy kind of name, Aamilah,’ Farhana whines, plaintively, ‘so boring, so harsh.’
‘How d’you mean, “boring”?!’ Aamilah grinds to a sudden halt, outraged by the impudence of this statement (and Valentine – whose hand she’s holding, stops too, as does Nessa, whose hand Valentine holds). ‘Have some imagination! Hamra means “red” so it’s absolutely perfect!’
‘Red?’ Farhana echoes, stopping herself now (she’s pushing Badriya in her pushchair slightly ahead of the other group).
‘Yes!’ Aamilah exclaims, exasperated. ‘Like her hair! Like a heart! Like a Valentine, you idiot!’
‘Oh.’
They all commence walking again.
‘For some, strange reason I had it fixed in my head that Hamra was the name of the wife of Adam,’ Hana calls over her shoulder.
‘The wife of Adam?! No way!’ Aamilah is contemptuous. ‘It definitely means “red”. Adam’s wife had a totally different name. It doesn’t even sound like Hamra.’
‘Well I do think it was Hamra, actually,’ Farhana persists.
‘It wasn’t Hamra, Farhana!’ Aamilah’s enraged. ‘I’m completely positive that it wasn’t, okay?’
‘But I’m sure I remember –’
‘Hawwa!’ Aamilah interrupts, exuberant. ‘It was Hawwa! Adam’s wife! Hawwa!’
Silence.
‘Well Hawwa sounds extremely similar to Hamra. They both start with an H and end with an A and both have two syllables.’
‘And?!’
‘You said they sounded totally different!’
‘Ha!’
This time Farhana stops in her tracks, startled by her sister’s unladylike expostulation (and the rest of the group almost pile straight into her). ‘Ha? Ha what?!’ she demands.
‘Ha!’ Aamilah repeats, jinking past and marching ahead, smugly.
‘You are so childish sometimes!’ Farhana calls after her. ‘And remember: “He who has no manners has no knowledge”!’
‘Admit that you were wrong, Hana!’ Milah trills.
‘Fine! Fine!’ Hana grumbles, walking on again. ‘And now the endless gloating, I suppose!’
‘Go on! Admit it!’ Milah’s free hand jousts the air, victoriously. ‘Admit that you were wrong, Hana! Say it!’
‘I’m happy to admit it!’ Hana insists. ‘It doesn’t bother me one bit! But it still doesn’t change the fact that Hamra is an ugly, heavy kind of name …’
As the three women make their stately (if voluble) progress down the road together, Valentine (the putative subject of the two sisters’ intense discussion) has only half an ear on their conversation (which, through the close fabric of her slightly musty, undersized hijab, feels like it’s taking place in another room). The other half of her consciousness focuses on the beat of her own heart, which echoes in her head – resounding, fuzzily, between her ears – like a tiny but strenuous game of tennis being played by two wasps using gongs for rackets.
She feels hot and disorientated. The robe is over-long and keeps catching underfoot. In her mind she is struggling to visualize Gene’s face – his strong hands tucked beneath her knees, the slim bones of his hips, the scent of his hair, his ear against her cheek – trying to recreate the effortless confidence and ease she felt the previous night, but every time she visualizes these things with anything amounting to success (and a brief feeling of mildly distracted euphoria descends) another image promptly pops into her head – of Sheila (Sheila twirling in front of the mirror – Sheila’s face wreathed in delighted smiles – Sheila remarking, jauntily, on the kitchen curtains) and her throat contracts and her heart duly plummets. I deserve this! she thinks. Every second of this torture! The world closing in! The sky up so high! God! Throat so tight! Heartbeat-heartbeat-heartbeat-heartbeat …
Her vision begins to blur and her head starts to spin.
‘I knew a Hamra at school’ – Farhana is still considering the various ramifications of Valentine’s new name – ‘and she laughed like a pig. She wore braces. Her ears stuck out like jug handles.’
‘At school?’ Milah scowls. ‘Are you sure? I definitely don’t remember a Hamra at school.’
‘It’s a miracle you remember anything about school!’ Hana snorts.
‘How d’you mean?’ Milah demands.
‘Because you were always off playing hooky!’ Hana kindly elucidates.
‘Playing hooky?!’ Milah repeats, sarcastic.
‘Yes! Playing hooky!’ Hana’s eyes widen, indignantly. ‘What’s wrong with that?!’
‘I was “bunking off”, Hana.’ She briefly raises her eyes, heavenward. ‘Astaghfirulla! May Allah forgive me! I wasn’t “playing hooky”! I mean, seriously?!’
‘Yes, “seriously”!’ Hana grumbles. ‘Who elected you head of the Word Police, Milah?’
She turns to Valentine. ‘Playing hooky, Valentine. What do you think?’ she demands.
‘Hamra,’ Milah interjects, punctiliously.
‘Sorry?’ Valentine glances over her shoulder, her heart pounding and pounding. The little wasps with their gongs playing faster and still faster.
‘“Playing hooky”. Are you familiar with that saying at all?’
‘Uh …’
‘It sounds American,’ Milah interjects, contemptuously.
‘Playing hooky?’ Valentine echoes, distractedly, trying not to get the fabric of the hijab caught in her mouth while simultaneously shifting herself and Nessa to one side as a woman tries to walk past them along the pavement in the opposite direction. She fails to negotiate this transition rapidly enough, though (Aamilah doesn’t bother giving way at all) and the woman – who has just turned a corner – ends up being crushed into a hedge as they sail past, en masse.
Valentine mutters an apology – gagged by the hijab – and the woman shoots their group a lethal look. They turn right and head out on to a busier road.
‘Well how about “Jehaan”?’
Valentine has been focusing on the cracks in the pavement. Her face is drenched in sweat. She has no idea how much time has passed since she first started focusing on the cracks. It could be seconds, it could be minutes. Time has condensed and then expanded inside a screaming wave of panic. Or was that blaring commotion just a bus roaring past? Was the sensation outside or within? She suddenly can’t tell. She becomes confused about which response is real and which is simulated, then – in a brief moment of existential crisis – wonders how her feelings can be simulated. Aren’t feelings always true?
Nessa’s hand in my hand, she thinks, Nessa’s hand in my hand.
She glances up – mouth dry, can’t swallow – just in time to see a man in the passenger seat of a slow-moving silver car grinning at her while calmly and deliberately showing her the finger. Her eyes widen. She is jolted. She holds tighter on to Nessa’s hand and turns to look at Milah who chunters on, apparently oblivious.
‘Jehaan?’ she’s saying. ‘Why Jehaan?’
‘Because it means …’
‘I know perfectly well what it means thank you very much! It means “intelligent one” if I’m not mistaken.’
‘You are mistaken, Milah!’ Hana chuckles, delighted.
‘Pardon?’
‘It doesn’t mean intelligent one! You’re wrong!’
‘Yes it does!’
‘No, it doesn’t. It means …’
‘Yes it does, Hana! The Prophet – peace be upon him – had a niece called by that name.’
‘I don’t think the Prophet – peace be upon him – did, Milah.’
‘He did. You know that I have a photographic memory for such details …’
‘Pardon me?! I don’t know anything of the kind!’
Their conversation is briefly interrupted by a phone ringing.
The ringtone (which causes the over-stimulated Valentine to start and almost trip) features a haunting, echoey male vocal singing Ya Allah Ho Ya Alah! Ya Allah Ho Ya Alah! Ya Allah Ho Ya …
Milah stops, reaches inside a pocket in her abaya, pulls out the phone and places it to the spot on her hijab where her ear should be.
‘Hello?’ she barks, releasing Valentine’s hand and turning, ‘What …? What?’
The silver car, meanwhile, is slowly reversing back up the road again. The man in the passenger seat is simulating the act of masturbation through his window while pulling a series of obscene faces, spurred on, it would seem, by the driver (the harsh echoes of his laughter are audible through the glass).
Valentine grabs Nessa’s shoulder and turns her face into her skirts, her cheeks reddening under the hijab. She glances over towards Farhana who is casually leaning into the pram to adjust the angle of Badriya’s sun-hat, and then to Aamilah who’s still struggling – apparently oblivious to the dumb-show – with the conversation on her phone.
Her breath comes in gasps. She suddenly realizes that the robe deprives her of most – possibly even all – of her traditional modes of social response: to gesture back, to shout something, to swear. Not only do these stifling acres of heavy black fabric render her blankly inarticulate, but – somewhat paradoxically – easier to objectify and more vulnerable to attack. She turns towards Farhana again, her eyes pleading for guidance. Farhana – ignoring the macabre pantomime playing out beside her – merely smiles and murmurs, ‘Rahimullah! May Allah have mercy on him!’ before adding, ‘Do you like spicy food, Hamra?’
Hamra? Valentine blinks. She struggles to focus. ‘Do I like spicy food? Uh …’
Does Hamra like spicy food she wonders. Does Hamra …?
Valentine nods. ‘Yes. Yes. Yes she does …’ she stutters, ‘Although she’s not –’
‘And little Nessa?’ Farhana interrupts. ‘Does Nessa like it, too?’
Valentine frowns. ‘Nessa?’ She glances down. ‘I’m not sure.’ She shrugs. ‘I mean she’s quite an adventurous eater at home – loves all kinds of fruit and vegetables. Even olives. They give them tacos at daycare, sometimes. She enjoys those …’
The Yips Page 41