‘They’re not new,’ his father said. ‘They’ve been there for ages.’ At first Michael did not believe him, but he could see his father was not joking.
When they talked about the old doctor and what had happened between him and his daughter, Michael could not prevent the dejection from overcoming him. He felt his eyes stinging with the beginnings of tears. His father sat beside him on the stone wall and said nothing. He made no attempt to come nearer or to comfort him, but sat with his eyes lowered. It was not just the fight between the old man and his daughter that made him sad, Michael said as tears ran into his mouth, but the waste and loneliness of the last years he must’ve spent.
‘It’s the weakness,’ he said to his father, excusing his misery. He thought he should wipe away the tears and not look quite so much as if he relished his agony, but a great lethargy had come over him. He felt the wind drying the tears off. ‘They did a good job on us in that camp. Everything seems to depress me these days. Maybe I’m just a little bit disillusioned or something.’
They abandoned them on a gloomy wooded path, raucous and mocking as they landed their parting blows. The trees around them were like sheer cliffsides, and in the far distance he caught glimpses of the star-lit sky. He heard their voices recede into the chilly mountain night, and Michael knew that they were lucky to be alive. He heard Lemuel beside him sighing, pain and desolation mingling in his tormented moans. Sigh followed sigh with desolated regularity. Michael could hear his own groans beside the anguish of his companion, and knew that their cries only deepened the low whisper that rose from the land.
He saw a look in his father’s eyes that reminded him of the sorrow that came over them when they talked about his younger brother. It was a sunny day as they sat there on the hilly mound, but the wind was still brisk, as it always was. Without saying a word at first, his father pointed at a glittering speck in the far distance. Michael nodded to show that he had seen it.
‘The sea,’ his father said, his eyes bright with pleasure. ‘It must be a trick of the light.’
‘A mirage,’ Michael said, smiling.
‘She talked about him often when you weren’t around,’ his father said after a long time. ‘She did not want her children involved in the squabble, she said. So she kept it all away from you. Sometimes she felt bitter about him, but not usually. She felt it deeply. I mean she regretted their separation, and even when she was angry about what had happened she could not talk about it without pain. There was nothing she could do. After what she had said about the new wife, she did not think she would be welcome. We had no idea that she’d died. We had no idea that for all those years while she tortured herself he was living alone. In the year or two before we received the news of his death, she talked of writing to him. Once when we were staying in London we talked for half the evening about going round to Clapham the next day, to call on him and put an end to the acrimony, but when it came to it she said leave it, another time. She could not do it. It would have been better if she had, but it did not work out like that.’
After a moment his father rose and came over to help Michael to his feet.
5
Dottie took Hudson to bed and hurried down, but Michael left while she was away. She thought she heard the front door click when she was upstairs. Perhaps he thought he had been a bore or had shown himself to be weak. Or talking had made him miserable. She was not tempted to run after him or rush round the following day to claw at him with her affection and her demands. The pains he had described filled her own heart with a kind of lassitude. The picture of the assault he had suffered struck her with force, like a moment she had lived through herself. What was the point of struggling and fretting if this was all that awaited them? Had she got it all wrong? Perhaps all their frenzy and intensity was little more than preparation, fattening themselves up for the slaughterers. She would go to him after a day or two and try to tell him of the comfort she found in his company. She would touch his bruised body with her hand and ask to share the pain with him. But now he had to think what he wanted for himself.
The following evening, soon after she came in from work, there was a knock on the door. Dottie had been thinking of him all day, and as the mood of Michael’s dejection lifted from her, so her decision to give him time seemed foolish. Suppose he ran off somewhere again, or took her self-effacement for lack of care? If the fate that awaited them was that confrontation with the killer on the forest path, then it was foolish to delay the brief, genuine pleasures that were possible. In a way that she could not fully explain, she had grasped and understood something of his disillusion, and had felt in it intimations of a kind of despair. As she ran down the stairs to his knock on the door, it was with a determination to resist the temptation, to pull both of them back from the frivolity of their self-dramatisations.
It was not Michael who stood at the door but Patterson, his back hunched up against the winter rain. Dottie felt resolve draining away from her, and would have loved nothing better than to stamp her foot with outraged disappointment. She invited him in with cheerful exclamations even though in her heart she cursed his very existence. He had brought a belated present for Hudson. Dottie thought he looked better than the last time she had seen him, less angry perhaps. He accepted her offer of tea with smiling gratitude and sat in the living room talking to Hudson while she went to make it. She sensed that he was not going to stay for long and that brought her some relief. She could not suppress a small twinge of disappointment that Hudson seemed pleased to see him. She found him on the floor at Patterson’s feet, playing with a lorry.
‘How’ve you been?’ she asked Patterson, after she had chased Hudson away from that abject position beside his feet. He smiled ruefully but not unhappily, and tilted his chin towards Hudson.
‘He looks well,’ he said. ‘And so do you. I hope the news of Sophie is good and that she is recovering.’
His formality and the gift reminded Dottie of the Sunday visits he used to make. She smiled at the memory and Patterson returned her smile with greater tenderness than Dottie had bargained for. ‘This weather’s terrible, isn’t it?’ she said.
She heard him chuckle in agreement. ‘This England! I have my family here now, and in their first days they thought they would freeze to death. My wife had cramps in her legs and then woke up sweating in the middle of the night.’
‘Your family’s here!’ she exclaimed, feeling sudden relief and undisguised pleasure.
‘It has become very hard now back at home. Food is scarce and very expensive, and the children’s schooling is impossible. These politicians and the soldier boys between them have done this. Ten years ago our country was rich and now the people can’t eat. We won’t let them forget this. They tell us to tighten our belts and make sacrifices for the future. For themselves they build mansions with tennis courts and swimming pools, and send their children to private schools overseas. All over Africa they’ve done this, and before they’ve finished they will make all of us into paupers and beggars.’ His face was set with anger as he said this, but after a moment he smiled. ‘They’re very glad to be here. The children want to watch TV all the time, and my wife tries to buy everything from the supermarket. I tell her there are no shortages here but she can’t get used to it. If I give her fifty pounds for the whole week she goes to the shops and spends all of it. Sacks of rice and sugar, gallon tins of oil, boxes of canned tomatoes . . . two days ago she came home with a crate of orange juice cartons,’ Patterson said, laughing softly.
‘You must be glad to see them, though,’ Dottie said. ‘I didn’t know . . .’
‘What is a man without his family?’ Patterson interrupted gently. ‘What news is there of Sophie? I hope she will soon be able to come home.’
He listened carefully while Dottie explained about the self-catering room in a hostel. She was aware of his scepticism even though he said nothing at first. ‘It was what she wanted,’ Dottie said.
‘Those places are sometimes very bad,’ he
said in the end.
‘What do you mean bad?’ she asked. ‘This is a new scheme, to release the patients slowly so they get used to things again. The doctor himself told me. Sophie said she wanted to go there until she was completely better.’ Despite her protests Dottie felt pangs of guilt about Sophie, had felt them as soon as she realised the relief she felt that Sophie would not be coming back to the house for a while. Especially with that strange-looking orderly in tow. His name, she had discovered, was Vernon Quixall, which seemed adequately bizarre. What choice had Dottie had? Sophie blamed her for all the ills that had befallen her, and accused her of being envious. She did not intend to discuss all that with Patterson, though, so he would just have to carry on and disapprove.
‘Perhaps she’ll be back home soon, anyway,’ he said. ‘Perhaps next time I call I will find her home.’
When he was ready to leave, he called Hudson to him and gave him a five-pound note. He waved away Dottie’s protests and closed Hudson’s palm over the money. He shook hands with her at the front door. ‘It was very nice to see you again, Sis,’ he said softly, hesitating briefly before saying the final word.
Michael did not call her at work the next day, but she was convinced he would come to the house in the evening. It was a bright, sunny day, so that despite the cold wind and the skeletal trees there was something of spring in the air. She walked along the Embankment at lunch-time, watching the shimmering light on the river. The weather had turned dirty by late afternoon, and as she took the bus home her conviction that he would come had changed to hope. How she wished she had a telephone at home! She would not blame him if he decided to stay in and toast his toes in front of the fire on such a night. If she did not have to stay in for Hudson . . . She thought of trying Laura, but the nearer she got to Brixton the more uncertain she became. He would think her ridiculous if she turned up at his doorstep on such a filthy night. After such slavishness, he would know full well how to make use of her. Anyway, he was probably not interested in her that much.
By the time she had given Hudson something to eat, and had toyed with some food herself, she was sure he would not come. When his knock came on the door, she rose from the kitchen table with an incredulous grin. She gave Hudson the thumbs-up and tried not to run. To her amazement and profound disappointment, instead of Michael she found Patterson again standing on her doorstep. She saw behind him that the rain had turned to sleet and that the pavement was covered with slushy snow. He hesitated for a moment and then made to step forward. She had no choice but to let him in. He sat with them in the kitchen while they finished eating and then joined Dottie in a cup of tea.
‘I was near by, and I thought I’d call,’ he said, coming to stand nearer to her now they were on their own. Dottie was filled with alarm. They had met on this path before. It was at this place that he had tried to force her. ‘There was something I forgot to say yesterday. If there is anything you need, or if I can be of help in any way . . .’
Dottie turned away towards the sink and felt him instantly on her, brushing himself lightly against her. He moved away at once, but he was smiling, certain that he had made his meaning clear to her. She stared at him in disbelief, unable to credit what had happened. ‘How can you do such a disgusting thing!’ she said, her voice shaking with anger and shock. That it should be him standing in front of her instead of Michael! ‘After everything that has happened, and your family . . .’
Patterson smiled contemptuously and put his card on the kitchen table. ‘In case you need to get in touch,’ he said and left.
6
‘You look a little like her, I think,’ Michael said.
He had rung her at work earlier in the day and asked if he could call in the evening. He would bring records and some wonderful pastries he could get on the way, from a Lebanese patisserie in Brixton Road. There was only one condition he wanted to make, that she did not allow him to talk about himself.
Mrs Waterson had made an inquiring face. She had seen the long looks and heard the drawn-out sighs, and was too worldly not to understand Dottie’s unhappiness. Is it him? When Dottie nodded, Mrs Waterson smiled and discreetly withdrew out of earshot. She glared around the typing pool, in case anyone should misconstrue her politeness for something softer or kinder.
Dottie told Michael that his condition appeared harsh to her, even absurd. Also she did not have anything on which to play his records, but if he would bring the pastries then they could discuss the options available to them. If the worst came to the worst perhaps they could talk about religion or agronomy.
‘I look like who?’ Dottie asked.
‘I didn’t want to tell you,’ he said. ‘In case you thought there was something odd . . .’
‘Like who?’ she asked, exasperated with him.
‘Like the old doctor’s daughter . . . as she used to be,’ Michael said, smiling broadly but none the less feeling apprehensive. ‘It’s the way you carry yourself, and she used to be slim, just like you. I’ve seen pictures of her when she was younger. He used to call her a nomad, because she was like the Berber or Fulani women he had seen in his travels. He came from Martinique, and so did my grandmother. You remember that headline he pointed to in the library, about the French losing control in Algeria? He had worked there, and in the French Sudan as they used to call it. But he could not abide being part of the civilising mission, so he came to England where he was only a foreigner. When people asked him where he came from, he said he didn’t know. Slavery had deprived him of his home, he said. My mother’s got all his papers now. I’ll get some old photos and show you. It’s only occasionally, from certain angles, that you look like her but it must have been strange for him nevertheless.’
‘Why should I think there was anything odd in any of that?’ Dottie asked. She had suspected something like that, or sometimes wondered if it was the young wife she had reminded the doctor of. She had not dared ask Michael in case her question sounded presumptuous.
Michael shrugged. ‘It doesn’t matter. At first I thought you might be related to him.’
‘I have my own grandfather, thank you,’ Dottie said. ‘And my own name. Have I told you my full name? Dottie Badoura Fatma Balfour,’ she said, with the exaggerated flourish she had taken to putting on her names, as if they were grand jokes.
‘Badoura,’ Michael said, frowning a little. ‘Where does that come from? It sounds familiar,’
‘I don’t know,’ Dottie said, and told the story of the man who had given her those names for her christening in the Church of Our Lady of Miracles in Leeds. ‘Or sometimes I think it was Our Lady of Sorrows.’
‘We could easily check,’ he said.
‘There’s no need,’ she said, shaking her head. ‘I see him sometimes, but only vaguely, like a figure in a dream.’
‘Was he your father?’ Michael asked.
‘No, I had no father. He would have stayed with Sharon, my mother . . . he wanted to live with her. His name was Jamil, which means beautiful. His people chased her away. They made her leave Leeds and we went to live in Carlisle.’
Michael made as if to speak then held his peace. Dottie smiled at him, laughing at him a little. ‘I don’t think she’d have met your people. Sharon did not frequent banks or music classes. She made her living from the American soldiers quartered there.’
‘That was late in the war. My parents left Carlisle in ’forty-one,’ he said.
She nodded. ‘Well, they certainly wouldn’t have run into each other then. Her name was not Sharon, actually, it was Bilkisu. And Balfour was not really our name. She took that name when she ran away from home, from Cardiff, before I was born.’
‘Bilkisu,’ he said, trying the name. ‘What was her other name? Your real name.’
‘I don’t know,’ Dottie said, glaring fiercely at him.
‘Do you know why she changed it? To Balfour?’ he asked.
She shrugged, then shook her head. ‘To cut herself off, I suppose,’ she said, frowning angrily.
Dottie thought for a few moments before she spoke. ‘She told me all these things when she was dying. She used to drink a lot, and sometimes it was difficult to know what to believe. She was very ill and in a great deal of pain. I didn’t really want to hear the things she wanted to tell me.’
‘Don’t you want to tell me?’ Michael asked.
‘I’m ashamed,’ Dottie said.
‘It’s not your shame.’
‘Sharon told me so I would know. I think she told me so I should send word to him . . . her father in Cardiff. She told me his name but I didn’t listen because life was complicated enough as it was and I did not want any more . . . When she was younger Sharon used to tell us not to listen to old people. They were tyrants, she used to say, who wanted to suck the blood of their children so they could go on living. Then when she herself was dying, she could not go on saying that. She had lost her name, she said. She had dishonoured herself so completely that she was afraid to return even in death. My shame is that I did not listen or pretend to give her comfort. And when she said the names and the places so I would remember them, I deliberately wiped them out. The only thing of hers that I have, survived by chance . . . an old photograph. That’s all the papers she left.’
That weekend they went to visit Sophie in her self-catering hostel. She was sitting in her room, lonely and tearful. Michael and Hudson went out for a walk, and Dottie persuaded Sophie to sob out her story. Her orderly friend from the ward no longer came to see her. The warden was very rude to her. He came into the room and threatened her. He locked the door and told her that if she did not do what he said, he would put some powder in her water. What powder? Dottie asked, but Sophie only shrugged. Her room was never cleaned and some of the other patients made her do jobs in their rooms. They warned her that if she told the doctor then she would never be allowed to leave. So please, please, Sis. Don’t make any fuss!
Dottie Page 35