by Lesley Lokko
She felt his hand move away from her as if she’d physically pushed him away. He stood up abruptly, withdrawing himself. He looked as if he’d been slapped. His face was suddenly dark. He glanced down at her, as if he was about to say something, and then turned on his heel. ‘Rafe!’ she called out as he strode away from her. ‘Rafe!’ She stared after him. The bushes parted to let him in and just as suddenly as he’d appeared, he was gone. She lay back, stunned. Her right breast had pushed itself clear of her bikini cup and her bottoms were half undone. She struggled upright, hurriedly readjusting strings and straps, covering herself as quickly as she could. She felt naked and horribly alone. She’d done it again, she thought to herself as a tear began to slide its way down her cheek. She’d said something wrong. Made the wrong comment. Spoken out of turn. But how would she ever work out what was the right thing to say and when to say it when she didn’t understand the problem? She’d asked about Josh … what on earth was wrong with that? What the hell had happened in this family to cause everyone such pain?
61
NIELA
London/Paris, August 1997
Niela woke first, dragged out of sleep by the unfamiliar presence of someone else in her bed. In her flat. She turned her head to look at Josh; he slept deeply, as if he might never wake. Her gaze slid past him to the room beyond. Her jeans lay discarded on the floor – a boot here, her sweater there, his shirt crumpled into a ball and flung across the chair. Reminders of the haste with which he’d pulled off her clothing the night before, presenting himself to her with such tremendous need that the tears formed thickly in her throat the minute he touched her. If he noticed, he said nothing. There was tension in him, like oil under the earth, welling constantly. She’d seen the evidence of it – and his temper – more often than she cared to admit. But there was another side to him; a half-buried, half-suppressed spirit of generosity, a lightness and charm that others often sensed and responded to … but as soon as he began to reach out, he withdrew, like a child who has received one too many blows and dare not risk another. She had never met anyone like him. Something had happened to make him turn from what she guessed was his true nature – easy, light, generous – into something else, more guarded, closed down and sealed off. Josh revealed himself agonisingly slowly, layer by layer, incident by incident, fact by isolated fact. It would take her a while to piece it all together, she saw, to fully understand him. Everything about him – the quicksilver moods, the flashes of anger, the sudden laughter, his enormous wit and his withdrawals – these were his weapons that kept the world at bay. She recognised it in him because she knew something of it in herself. He nursed a secret, just as she did, though she had no idea what. As she lay in the growing light beside him, listening to the slow, steady sound of his breathing, feeling the rise and fall of his chest against her arm, it came to her slowly, very slowly, that perhaps healing him might be her own healing as well.
She was making breakfast a couple of hours later, expertly cracking eggs into a bowl and whisking them in preparation for an omelette, when she heard him enter the kitchen and come to stand behind her. He wrapped his arms around her, burying his face in her hair. It was moments like these she would miss, she thought to herself, her throat suddenly aching. He’d been in London all of a fortnight; in a few days’ time, he would leave. His next assignment had come through – Yemen. He would be gone for almost three months. She tried not to think about it or what it would mean. He would be gone – would he come back? They seldom spoke about the future, as if by some private silent admission that it was too precious to risk. His arms tightened about her. She smiled. ‘I’m trying to make breakfast,’ she murmured, pointing with her spoon to the open flame. ‘You said you were hungry.’ She felt his lips move against the curly mass of her hair. He said something indistinct. ‘What?’ she asked, turning down the flame.
‘I said, this works, doesn’t it?’ There was a note of surprise in his voice.
‘What does?’ She switched off the flame and turned in his arms.
‘This. You and me.’ He made a small movement with his head that seemed to encompass not just their own presence in the room but something beyond.
‘I … I suppose so,’ she said hesitantly. Josh’s quicksilver changes in mood were often precipitated by a question that wasn’t really a question at all, more a statement of intent.
‘You don’t sound sure.’ He pulled back from her for a moment. ‘Any regrets?’ He looked down into her eyes. His were dark and unreadable. His tone was light but he was anything but – she knew that about him now.
‘No. No regrets.’
‘So …’ He paused, carefully pushing a strand of curls away from her cheek. ‘How about it?’
‘How about what?’
‘How about we do this properly.’
She looked up at him, the breath catching in her throat. What was he asking her? She studied his lovely profile – the long, straight nose, tapering to two finely etched points above his lips; the sharply bevelled edge of his mouth and the strong jaw line in which the faint tremor of a muscle could always be seen, moving in secret time to some emotion he struggled to keep in check. She was amazed at the speed with which he had become familiar to her – she knew every shadow, every hollow, every surface of his body and face in a way she’d never known anyone before. ‘Do what properly?’ she asked.
‘This. Us. You and me.’
She gave a short, almost embarrassed laugh. ‘What are you talking about, Josh?’ There was a moment’s carefully held silence. ‘You’re not … ? Are … are you asking me to marry you?’ she asked incredulously. She stared into his coal-black eyes, plumbing some unfathomable depth. His expression was neutral, but she could feel the tension in his whole body concentrated in his grip. His lips moved; he gave a wry, sardonic smile that didn’t quite reach his eyes. His hand moved; it plunged into the thick dark tangle of his hair. ‘Christ,’ he murmured, his whole face breaking into a perplexed grin. ‘I suppose I am.’
‘Ma’am, is your seat belt fastened?’ The flight attendant moved smoothly down the aisle, her blonde ponytail bobbing from side to side as she performed the usual last-minute rites before descent. Niela sat next to Josh, conscious of his hand on her thigh, the fingers tightening every once in a while in response to some private thought, his concentration elsewhere, only peripherally on her. She looked out of the convex bulge of the window. Beneath them, spreading in tight, neat circles towards the distant horizon, she could see the city of Paris unfolding, mile after mile, boulevard after boulevard, the occasional flash and patch of green. She felt her stomach lurch and not just in time with the turbulence. Her palms were sweating, despite the cool of the plane’s interior. It had been a week since his proposal, which had seemed to surprise him as much as it had surprised her. In another, he would leave for Yemen. An old friend from university had given them the run of his Paris flat; it was Josh’s idea. ‘Let’s get married in Paris. Let’s not do it here.’ That was the moment in which she ought to have said I can’t. I can’t marry you anywhere, Josh, because I’m already married. She didn’t. She kept silent and the words she’d never uttered to anyone, ever, remained where they were – locked up, hidden from view, even her own. Her silence he took for consent. Before she properly understood what was happening, he’d taken charge.
And now here they were, descending through a grey, windy sky, huge swathes of angry cloud dissipating as they were reached to reveal flashes of summer sun. A series of bumps and shudders, a sideways lurch and then they were upon the ground once more. In a few hours’ time she would be married. Again. She followed him out of the terminal building, her whole body flooded with a mixture of anticipation and dread. The last time she had been in Paris she’d been in flight, on the run from a future she’d done her best to forget. Now she was heading towards something, another kind of future, and one she desperately wanted. But the dread coursing through her veins couldn’t be quite as easily dismissed. She would be found out. There
would be some record, somewhere … someone would know. A letter would be sent; a phone call, an interruption in the happy event. Something official to say that Ms Niela Aden couldn’t possibly become Mrs Josh Keeler because she was Mrs Hamid Osman. Look. Do you see? Here it is. The Heiratsurkunde. Certificate of marriage. Here’s the date, the place, the time. She signed it. See? Her heart flipped back and forth between her mouth and her stomach as she waited beside Josh for their bags. Any moment now she would be found out. Any moment now.
The white onion-shaped domes of Sacré-Coeur dominated the landscape from every angle. Niela, Josh, Antonio and his girlfriend, Jeanne, who were their witnesses, walked into the city hall in the 18th Arrondissement. The three of them were laughing; Niela was not. Every second seemed an eternity – every fibre of her being attuned to the moment when someone would cough, interrupt the proceedings, cast a quick, puzzled look at her and then the whole thing would grind to a halt. But the moment had not yet come. The list of formalities was endless – justificatifes de domicile, l’attestation d’hébergement sur l’honneur, l’extrait d’acte de naissance. Niela looked on in bewilderment as Josh produced the necessary documents. Where had he found the time? His hand on her arm was a quiet, steady reassurance. They passed through one office after another; papers were produced, stamped, signed … no one even glanced at her. At last they were presented before the mayor, a tall, elegant woman who performed the simple ceremony in minutes. No one questioned her. The ceremony that had taken place earlier in Vienna was forgotten, buried under stacks of paperwork and computer files that no one would ever find or see. For the second time in her life, she held out her hand. Josh hadn’t even had time to find an engagement ring. The simple silver band was all. It was done. They were married.
Jeanne knew of a restaurant a few blocks away. They hurried down the street. A summer storm was threatening. Niela was sweating, but with relief. It was humid; the close, thick air hung over the city, waiting to be cleared. The four of them entered the cool air of the restaurant, Antonio shouting for champagne as they walked in. The owner, a short, balding Algerian, was delighted. ‘Un mariage? Très bon!’ Champagne was brought to the table in four delicate flutes. They drank just as the first drops of rain began to fall, fat and steady against the ground. The tension that had been building up in Niela for over a week had peaked; now it began to fall. Under the sweet intoxication of champagne, she found herself beginning to unwind. It helped that the two ceremonies were so dissimilar as to be two completely separate things. She had almost no recollection of the marriage that had taken place in Meidling. She remembered it in snatches – the sea of faces, the nikkah, the scratchy, starchy feel of the fabric of her pale lilac dirac, one of three, she remembered. She looked down at the pale blue linen shift Anna had helped her choose in Top Shop the previous Saturday. It was very simple – a pretty piece of white lace embroidery at the neck and on the single front pocket, ‘Very Sharon Stone,’ Anna had murmured, holding it against her. ‘In Casino,’ she added helpfully. Unfortunately Niela didn’t know either. ‘Yes, it’s a little bit fifties,’ Anna said. ‘But that’s a good thing.’ It was hard to tell who was more surprised about the wedding, Anna or Niela herself. Anna had met Josh once, though she’d been the shoulder on whom Niela leaned after her return from Djibouti. She was darkly suspicious. ‘I can see why you like him,’ she said on the telephone the following morning. ‘He’s gorgeous. He reminds me a little of my brother, you know. But … be careful, Niela. Please be careful. A man like that … he doesn’t need anyone, least of all you.’ But Anna was wrong. She didn’t know Josh the way Niela did. Few people, she was beginning to understand, did. She looked at Josh; now, in Antonio’s presence, he was animated and expansive. They were arguing fiercely, but there was laughter too. Antonio was the first person she’d met from the unknown depths of his past. They’d studied architecture together; somehow they’d bucked the trend and wound up doing almost the same thing – building camps rather than luxury homes, travelling to places most people would rather not see, living a life far removed from the sorts of comforts their family backgrounds could so easily have provided. It was funny, she thought to herself with a slight, wry smile – Anna often said she was an enigma no one could ever hope to solve; it occurred to her now that she had married someone whose depths were perhaps even more hidden than her own.
PART SIX
62
JULIA
Hayden Hall, November, 1997
The air in the little chapel at Hayden Hall was thick with the scent of lilies. The florists were putting the finishing touches to the displays. Lady Barrington-Browne walked around with the two assistants, making sure that everything was perfect, just so. Across the courtyard, in the bedroom where she’d stayed the previous night, Julia pulled back the curtains and looked out of the window. The morning mist had lifted and the red and gold oak trees that lined the view all the way to the horizon were slowly emerging into view. Through the patchy, misty sky, she could see flashes of blue. Somewhere in the distance, a border of clouds was hovering, massing thickly. Lady Barrington-Browne, who never left anything to chance, had been listening to the weather forecast all week. A thirty per cent possibility of rain, she’d announced cheerfully the evening before. As a result, there were enough umbrellas on hand in the hallway of the house to shelter every single guest. Quite how or where one got a hundred and fifty umbrellas from was anybody’s guess, but that was just the way things were done at Hayden.
She turned from the window and looked down at her dress. Her fingers trailed over the delicate roses at the waistband. It still felt like a dream and not just because she’d never expected to get married in a place like Hayden Hall. She’d never really expected to get married at all – and certainly not to Aaron. She thought back to the conversation she’d had with Lady Barrington-Browne, almost a year ago. Love, hate … practically the same thing if you ask me. I’m always mixing them up. Was it true? She tried to remember what she’d seen in him the night he’d come round to her office and that fragile line between love and hate had slowly and subtly been crossed. Most women looked at Aaron and saw only the exterior – six feet two of rugged, blond good looks. Julia saw that too, was deeply attracted to it, but it was the other, hidden stuff that was the real pull. For all his confidence and self-assured exuberance, there was a quieter, more troubled Aaron lurking within – that was what she loved. She sometimes wondered what he saw in her. He admired her – he’d said so often enough. When good food and wine had loosened his tongue, he’d let slip the fact that he thought her much cleverer than him. That she’d go further than he ever would; that she was the brilliant one, not him. Listening to him, despite the embarrassment she felt whenever someone praised her too loudly or too long, she’d experienced a deep thrill of pride. There was no one else to share her achievements with, no matter how small. Aaron was all she had. There was a sudden lump in her throat, and for a moment the room lurched in tears. Harvey would give her away. And you, Dad, she whispered to herself. And Mum. She had to steady herself; it was her wedding day, she kept reminding herself sternly. Not a good time to cry.
‘Julia?’ Diana’s voice interrupted her. She rapped on the door and walked in without waiting for an answer. ‘Ah, there you are. Harvey was wondering where you’d got to. Did you have something to eat?’
Julia shook her head. ‘I’m fine. Just not … not very hungry.’
‘Whatever’s the matter?’ Diana regarded her in alarm.
Julia shook her head clumsily. Her throat was thick with emotion. ‘N … nothing,’ she said, tilting her head backwards so that the tears wouldn’t spill. Diana’s hairdresser had spent an hour doing her make-up that morning. The last thing she wanted was to walk into the chapel on Harvey’s arm looking like a raccoon.
‘You’ll be fine,’ Diana said briskly. There was a moment’s awkwardness. ‘I’ll leave you alone for a few minutes, shall I?’ she said, turning to go. ‘I’ll send someone up to get you. Everyone’s b
eginning to make their way across.’ She hesitated for a second. ‘You look lovely, Julia,’ she said, her voice suddenly gentle. She was gone before Julia could blink.
It was cool inside the chapel. As they walked slowly up the aisle, Julia was only dimly conscious of the muted sounds of conversation and people getting to their feet. Harvey’s arm was a solid, reassuring presence. Ahead of her, turning nervously every few seconds to check on their progress, was Aaron. She saw Dom turn and smile at her. There was a swell of music and the sound of chatter falling away. She felt herself being passed from Harvey to Aaron as they reached the altar. The priest’s voice broke the silence; the smooth, mellifluous baritone held everyone’s attention as the service began. Julia heard very little. ‘You may kiss the bride,’ she heard the priest say, smiling at them both indulgently. There was the brief pressure of Aaron’s lips and then a loud burst of applause as they both turned. Through a blurry double veil of tears and lace, she could see a few of her old school friends dabbing their eyes. In the front row, Dom’s grin threatened to split his face. To his left sat his mother, resplendent in a glorious hat that obscured everyone on either side. She felt Aaron nudge her towards his parents. There was a kiss on either cheek from Diana, a hug from Harvey … and then everyone came forward, crowding round. There were a dozen people from work, various aunts and uncles and one or two others whose names she would not remember. One of the bridesmaids tripped over her train – she was led, howling, from the chapel. The other three kept running up to touch her dress or hide shyly behind their mothers. The photographer, a young woman with a thick wad of gum wedged somewhere at the back of her mouth, came and went, snapping away. Julia kept catching sight of Aaron’s head as he too was passed from one set of congratulations to another. Rafe and Maddy were there, Rafe’s blond head towering over most of the other guests. It all unfolded dreamily in front of her; as though it were happening to someone else.