‘Prue? Something happened that day? I wasn’t there, of course, but you were, with Eleanora?’
‘Yes.’ Time slipping under me like a hand. Underneath me, on the sofa, is a fox-fur coat, draped over a cushion. It is one of my favourites, narcissistically I suspect; its colours match those of my own hair, a streaking, blended red-blonde. The light on the fur makes it look as though it is on fire.
Ihsan coughs. From inside his package of brown paper he pulls out a pink envelope and places it on my knee. ‘I don’t want to bring back bad memories, Prue, but you need to hold on to these. He wants these. He said whoever is trying to kill him wants these. I don’t think they should be in Jerusalem.’
‘What is it?’
‘Photographs, by Rasul, printed in Eleanora’s darkroom.’
Something in me wakes up: a click, out of the stupor of memories from too long ago. The sound of a bicycle bell from the street below pierces the room.
‘Eleanora?’ I say. ‘How is she?’
His face comes closer. ‘I did write to you about it, my dear, but she died, in childbirth, two years ago.’
‘I never received that letter.’
‘Oh?’
‘Childbirth?’
‘Yes, a late pregnancy.’
My hand in hers: her turning away from me. It was not her fault. It was because she wasn’t my mother. I took the envelope from him and stroked it.
‘Why are you giving it to me, Ihsan? I am not the terribly best person to give important things to, I feel.’
‘Keep the envelope. It might be important, I don’t know. There is something about that Harrington, he is trouble. I don’t trust him. These photographs . . . well. It is possibly incrimination.’
Gifts, I have come to realise, are curses. When a person hands you a mouse, or puts something in your pocket, or creeps into your room at night to leave something behind, it is not a gift, it’s more often a stain. A blemish, a scar, and a reminder of something you work hard, very hard, at burying underneath other broken elements of daily life.
‘What is it?’ I tap on this envelope of his.
‘Photographs, Prue, and some letters, but don’t worry about them now it is better if you don’t look. Just keep it. One day you might need it.’
He is being cryptic, and he is looking mysterious, and I half-laugh in my head at his ways and the pink envelope which smells of Jerusalem.
‘And a few other papers.’
I am not at all sure. I put the envelope on the low table in front of us. You know, Ihsan, I was poorly for a while, and I saw a doctor. I told him about my dreams of bad weather, the snow falling down and collapsing a roof. The sea coming up and taking houses away. The wind blowing homes to pieces. He said, ‘These fears are not rational,’ and I said, ‘Oh, they are.’ And I thought: what kind of doctor cannot see that feeling terrified of houses blowing away is rational? Thoroughly logical. This is why children rail against adults, because their fears, which are real, are ignored and told to be wrong. Fear one: my mother is not my mother, she is a monster wearing a mask. Fear two: the hat stand is not a hat stand but a person standing in the room. Fear three: the house won’t survive the night.
I don’t want to talk to Ihsan as if we are strangers. I want to talk to him as a person who knows me, but I can see that if I really do talk it will come out too fast, and unhinged, or unmoored, however poetically it can be put. Ihsan is a person cloaked in the worries of a world that hardly exists for me. I am barely aware of it. The talk of bad times in Jerusalem and wars and pilots from the past impacts on me only as much as I worry about getting materials to carve, and whether exhibitions will be available, will still run.
We are awkward saying goodbye, but in the end I kiss his cheek, and he squeezes my hand and regrets that he has not met my son or my husband. He sets off to his business and his long journey back.
As soon as Ihsan is gone, of course, I open the envelope. Inside there are a few photographs of Jerusalem and I am surprised to see several letters or notes, written in my own childish hand. Not recent letters; these are old. I look at the date: 1920. The pages are largely unintelligible. Alien shapes written by me, and swirls and doodles, mixed in with Arabic, Hebrew, French, Turkish, even Russian words. I turn them over. Could I really speak all of these languages? Drawings of birds, a précis in French of a film called The Blue Bird of Happiness. Pages and pages written in code, and I remember it then, the hours spent learning it all and the thrill of being able to give a secret a form and keep it locked in a certain dimension; the exquisite contradiction of letting the innermost thoughts flow out through black ink, whilst trapping them into a private place.
I stand in the middle of the hotel suite, the room too silent now that Ihsan has gone. I should have asked him why he looked so sad, what he was going to do now; he should have stayed, met Piers, met Skip. Or I should have told him I loved him.
A cold feeling comes down on me. I run to the door to call him back in, to talk to him properly, in a less distracted way, to understand what he was telling me, but the long yellow-walled corridor is empty and smells, as usual, of recently boiled or steamed food. There is a hum coming from somewhere. I did not listen to him properly; I did not speak to him truthfully. My ears feel red and hot in contrast with the rest of me, which is cold, and I sit back down on the sofa and wish that Skip were here.
The papers in my hand are singing to me. They are covered in the furious telling of conversations retold to myself, scenes witnessed and spied, noted down for my own use. Each ink stain and smudge on these old pages brings up a feeling of loss, or regret, and finally I push them all back into the envelope and do not want to look at them any more. I will take the lot to the Thames, down on the sloping part of the bank near Battersea Bridge where I can follow the steps to the mud-banks if the tide is low and rip up the pages and give them to the herons to use as stuffing for their nests, or to the fish and eels to nibble.
It is Eleanora in my dream, in my sleep. We are at work together: a large project, the undertaking of the creation of an enormous family album made up of all the photographs that we have taken. It is a joint effort, a team endeavour, and we spend a long time arranging sequences, pairs, matching photographs. But! We can’t agree: there is a problem. We are discussing montage. Selection. Which moment to be chosen and which to be left out. The book hung with photographs. A story for each one of them. But I haven’t started yet. Eleanora is unholdable, drifting away from the scene of productivity, the work table where the photographs are all in the wrong order. The dream not really a dream, because I was awake. Piers creeping in. Opening my door. You awake? I don’t respond. I fake a deep sleeping breath and hear an incomprehensible sound of pre-dawn birdsong outside. You’re too early, I say. You’re too soon.
Shoreham, 1937
There are three men in front of the entrance to the aerodrome and their words travel on the wind. ‘I hate being out of London,’ one of them is saying, ‘in the scrappy parts of England. There is nothing more deplorable than the out-of-date dress shop of the provincial high street.’ Another one says, ‘Next door to it an emporium dedicated to the welfare and dressing of dogs.’ Laughter. Billy coughs and they turn around. It is two policemen but in different uniforms, London issue presumably, and a man in a beige overcoat who immediately steps forward. He takes off his hat and holds out his hand. He shakes Billy’s first, and then mine, introduces himself as Mr Wicklow, of the British Intelligence Service, and then glances down at the envelope in my hand.
‘Is that what he wants?’
‘Yes.’ I hold it tight. ‘Where is my son, have you seen him?’
‘We think he is on the airfield.’
‘Well, can we go then?’ I look behind me; Mrs Deal has not come forward: she is standing next to the police car, looking uncertain. My tongue feels thick, as if fur is growing on it, as if it is swelling.
‘I would be very grateful,’ the man from British Intelligence says, ‘if I could just have a q
uick look at the envelope, to verify.’
‘No, I have to give them to him, to get Skip.’ I stare at him.
‘I need to look first.’ The man, Mr Wicklow, though he is very thin, has a definite way of blocking my movement whilst barely moving himself. It is clear that he means whatever it is that he means. My ears are hot, tongue getting bigger, hands flapping, looking left and right and over towards the airfield for Skip. Billy puts his hand on my shoulder, but I shake him off, although actually I am grateful.
One of the policemen intervenes. ‘It is three. He designated three o’clock, is that correct?’
‘Yes, that’s true.’
‘We should go.’
Billy, I notice, is strangely quiet under this gaunt-looking man’s self-imposed authority. We step together in a small troupe towards the Art Deco doorway with the long angular handles but then Mr Wicklow says, ‘Actually, it might be better to go that way.’ And so we move along the edge of the building towards an industrial gate. I look at all the aircraft dotted around the edges of the field, and as far as the perimeters which are hedged by wind-crippled trees, but I cannot see Skip. It is much windier on this side of the building.
‘Where are they?’
‘There, look.’ It is Billy who sees them in the furthermost aircraft. ‘In the Blackburn.’
We walk towards the aeroplane and I can make out a person in the cockpit and another behind him, much smaller, barely peeping over the top of the window ledge.
‘Billy,’ I say, ‘you have to stay here and not come. I don’t want Skip to see you.’
He looks surprised. ‘Why?’
‘In case, some of this, he has gone with him because of . . . I don’t know. You. Walter.’
‘Me? Walter?’
I have the envelope and am about to run but Mr Wicklow stops me, pulls my arm and is surprisingly strong. He swivels me around so that I am facing him and this is when I realise that I know him.
‘Oh,’ I say, ‘I remember you.’ A lot older and thinner and greyer and looking as if he had hollowed out some bright shiny part of himself a long time ago. ‘We’ve met before?’
He nods. ‘We have.’ He squints into the sky, and up at Lancing College on the rim of the curve of the downs, the spires of its chapel pointing into the cloud. Then he turns and looks out at the sea.
‘My old school,’ he says.
One of the policemen pipes up: ‘The message that came through very clearly said, PRUDENCE MILLER ALONE BRING WHAT HAS BEEN PREVIOUSLY REQUESTED.’
Mr Wicklow stands still. He appears to be undecided for a moment and scuffs his brogues on the tarmac. I just want to get to Skip.
I look over at the aircraft, at the dot of black that is my son. Before the summer finished I tried to teach him to swim. I thought, if we are going to live by the sea, he needs to learn even though he had never seen the sea before. All the other children of Shoreham flippered like minnows and eels in both river and sea but Skip was afraid of the water. He stood at the edge of the Adur when it was high tide and shivered. He put his feet tentatively into the sea when the tide was far out but refused to go any further, until one hot September day I siren-called him in. I waded in first, held my arms out. Called him. He came. I told him to lean back, on my shoulder, and let me support him. His little body was tense; he resisted floating and thrashed his legs about uselessly. The sea water was cold in most places and then odd sections would be warmed by the sun. I found a balmy spot, and we bobbed. See, relax, the water wants to hold you. Seaweed, like a lick, around my leg and I let go of him, for one moment. He panicked, screamed and went under once, twice, his eyes stinging with the sea-salt. I hauled him back to the beach and he sat with his back to me. He wouldn’t look at me and I knew from his shoulders and the tension in his arms that he was crying, in the dignified, private way of boys dealing with their own weakness. Afterwards, he said to me, ‘You let me go.’
I ignore the men around me and run towards the aircraft which looks like an insane bird dreamt up by a child. I can hear somebody behind me, I assume it is Mr Wicklow, and I picture him clearly now, at the dinner table in the Hotel Fast, glancing around the room, knowing who everyone is. I am ten yards away from the aeroplane and I can see them: Harrington in the cockpit and Skip behind, both looking at me.
Skip is a happy little passenger. He does not look in distress, he is even smiling. He does not quite wave, but one hand raises and something in me falters because it is possible that he doesn’t want to be with me, in this scrappy life that I have been trying to make for us on the beach. It is possible that Harrington has told him they will fly and find Piers. Or go on a fun ride, a trip to somewhere close, to Fairlight in Hastings. Or further, perhaps he has given him money or lots of chocolate or told him he is about to be whisked off to Mexico or China or a place where he doesn’t have to be disappointed by me. It is possible that the hesitant hand in the air is a goodbye. I slow down and stand still. Then I hold up the envelope. Wave it.
‘I have it,’ I call. The wind blows my hair, makes my eyes water. ‘This is it.’ I shout out to Skip, I wave, and beckon, but Skip looks away, responding, I guess, to something that Harrington is saying to him. When he turns and looks at me again, this time he is not smiling.
The plane shudders into life; the noise of the engine is a vicious rattling that takes away all the air around us and slowly the propeller, which seems like two oars tied together on the nose of the plane, begins to rotate.
‘I have it!’ I am like an old woman who has picked up a fallen scarf. I have it, I have it. Mr Wicklow is behind me, his collar concealing half of his face, not running quite but walking very fast, and I am close enough to see Skip looking at me with wide eyes.
‘Skip, darling?’ I shout but I slow down again because I can’t quite understand the expression; what is it: blame? I turn, hiss towards Mr Wicklow, ‘What are you doing? Go away.’
But Wicklow advances quickly towards the plane and shouts, ‘Harrington. Turn off the engine and release the boy.’ It is almost impossible to hear him over the sound of the propeller. I am full of fury; this man from the Ministry of Knowing Everything, who is escalating this rather than letting me simply hand over the documents that I don’t even care about.
Harrington looks down at Wicklow and I can see him shaking his head.
‘Skip.’
I pull on Wicklow’s coat sleeve. ‘Are these papers more important to you than my child’s life?’ I shout through my hair which is being blown into my nose and my mouth, but the engine eats my words and sea mist has stealthily been creeping across the airfield and now hangs like a drape in the air. I tug again at Wicklow and he is surprised at this; I don’t think people, perhaps women, touch him very frequently. The aircraft rolls forward and I run towards it, as close as I can.
Skip is not wearing goggles or even a hat.
Skip, darling. He is looking at me, his bright blue eyes, and I can see he is speaking to Harrington. Emphatic. The engine spluttering, the propeller spinning; something is happening inside that little space. The door is opening. It is Harrington, climbing down, in his dark coat, pulling his goggles off his face. At least now he is out of the craft he won’t fly away with Skip and I know that my son is made of glass and so precious and I have smashed him, dropped him, left him, over and over again to work on carving stone, and my hands and my skin reach out to him. Harrington walks around the tail of the aircraft, slowly, seemingly in no rush. I don’t like Skip being in there, with the rumbling, the spluttering. I look back; Mrs Deal and Billy and the two policemen are watching. Harrington then takes a step towards me and Wicklow.
‘Do you have the papers I asked for?’ he shouts.
‘Yes, I have them,’ and I wave the envelope, but Wicklow is next to me.
‘It doesn’t reveal anything we don’t know, Willie,’ he shouts, ‘even if you do get them and destroy them. We’ve been watching you for years. We know you went over the line in Salonika and stayed with the Germans, exch
anging information.’
Harrington lets out a bitter laugh. ‘That is how you intend to paint it, is it?’
The engine and the propeller and the wind are like external manifestations of a migraine that simply won’t go, and he looks at me.
‘I didn’t take him,’ he shouts. ‘He asked to come.’
‘Yes. I can see that’s true.’
Harrington gestures to me: come? The sea fret is in my eyes, in my mouth, and Wicklow has hold of my elbow; his fingers pushing into it, tight and crushing. I shake him off; agitation ripples through my whole body and I step towards Harrington. Skip is at the window, his nose flat on the glass, and he is waving at me, beckoning me. The entire fuselage of the craft is shaking. I feel as though I am caught in a drifted net, but I move towards Skip. Harrington takes my arm and pulls me, around the tail of the Blackburn, and I am pushed up, into the mouth of the aeroplane. I throw the envelope on to the floor. There is only one passenger seat; I wriggle under Skip, pull him back down on to me, on to my knee. The slam of the door.
‘Oh Mummy,’ Skip shouts, worried, excited. I squeeze him. I would rather die in the sky with you than leave you alone ever again, I want to say, but don’t. Outside, Billy is standing next to Wicklow; they are shouting, waving arms. Harrington does not say anything to me; he is staring dead ahead, his goggles on, and the Blackburn is moving.
‘Look,’ Skip says. Billy and Wicklow are now in front of the aircraft, trying to block it.
‘Where are we going?’ I ask Skip.
‘The Isle of Wight, I think.’
And the men must have jumped out of the way, because we are rolling fast along the airstrip now and when we leave the ground Skip says, not at all afraid, ‘See, Mummy, we are up up up.’
With the sensation of moving upwards, I remember all the times when younger, in Jerusalem – and London too – of wanting to fly. Images of birds drawn in my books, feathers collected, all the dreams of falling. I take Skip’s hand and we no longer look down but instead gaze out at the white, bright space around us.
The Photographer's Wife Page 25