Thirdly, and with a choking sense of occasion, I had called on Ronnie.
Beginning with the safe stuff, I told her I couldn’t make tennis, and why, but added that Sabine was available.
‘You’ve spoken to her yourself?’
‘I can’t take any credit for that – I bumped into them at a petrol station.’
‘And what – you made it up, right there by the self-service pumps?’
‘By the air and water, actually.’
We were sitting on the windowseat in the conservatory with a glass of wine, and she patted me on the back. ‘ Well done you. It can’t have been easy for either of you.’
There followed a silence – the first uncomfortable silence I’d ever experienced in Ronnie’s company. She didn’t seem to find it so: she was looking extremely pretty, with make-up on and hair newly done, a brilliant green-and-blue silk scarf. But now I saw that under the soft folds of the scarf her neck and shoulders were parlously thin, and that the make-up and hairdo were concealment. The old in-the-pink Ronnie hadn’t cared a fig because she hadn’t needed to.
‘Actually,’ I said, ‘we owed our moment of truth to you.’
‘Me? How for goodness’ sake?’
‘We were saying how sorry we were about you being ill.’
‘Oh …’ She gave an appreciative, self-deprecating laugh. ‘You mean there’s always someone worse off than yourself.’
‘That’s right.’
‘So it’s an ill wind, then – to pile cliché on cliché.’
‘How’s it going?’ I asked.
‘God, Eve, you don’t really want to know—’ She looked me straight in the eye and I could see in her own a shockingly untypical fear. ‘Do you?’
‘I wouldn’t have asked otherwise.’
‘Well, since you ask – it’s the boys. Oh dear … it’s the boys.’ Her mouth contorted, and she covered it with one hand, her brows drawn together.
‘I’m so sorry.’
What could I say? But she got a grip, and went on as though I hadn’t spoken. ‘Dennis too, of course, but somehow one feels – I feel – that he will be all right. He knows the score, he’s coming to terms with it … But they’re so determined that I’m going to get better, and if I don’t then it’s some sort of communal failure. Simon’s angry and rude, and Philip’s in danger of becoming a martyr to helpfulness. They’re embarrassed, really.’ She gave a rueful little laugh. ‘They don’t want or need this obligation to feel unhappy. They want to get on with their lives without feeling guilty about it. Like me, they want this bloody illness to get off their case.’
‘But they love you,’ I said, ‘and you can’t protect them from their sadness.’
‘I know.’ She shook her head. ‘I know that. I just wish it could be a year ago, Eve, when they could be obnoxious and I could tear them off a strip without questions in the House.’
‘But you think Dennis is coping?’
‘More than that.’ Her face softened into what could only described as an expression of pure love. ‘He’s being a complete star. It’s not easy – I’m not easy – and it’s going to get worse, but he never puts a foot wrong. It sounds an awful thing to say, but I never knew he had it in him.’
‘Good for him,’ I said. I remembered the car on the cliff, the music, the look on Dennis’s face … He had it in him all right, it was growing in him just as it was in her. Only his pain wouldn’t end with her death.
‘At the risk of sounding saccharine,’ said Ronnie, ‘ all this has taught me to appreciate what I’ve got.’
‘I’m sure.’
She began to weep. ‘In the unlikely event that they discover a cure in the next six months, I shall never, ever again, take my husband for granted.’
So we had talked, and it had been a relief for both of us. It seemed that a little of the responsibility for courage had been passed to me, and a little of the need for mourning passed to her. Dennis got home just as I was leaving and I’d been able to offer help with lifts to and from the hospital. I couldn’t have said that this particular trouble shared was halved – how could it be? – but at least Ronnie had allowed me to stand alongside her for a moment and stare it squarely in the face, and neither of us had gone to pieces.
There had been one more thing. As I made a final check of the kitchen before leaving I took the A A Milne postcard from the noticeboard and put it in my bag. Somewhere over Austria I took it out, tore it into several pieces and stuffed it deep in the pocket of the seat in front for the cabin staff to deal with.
Considering how poorly I’d been sleeping lately the last thing I expected was to drop off in the cramped conditions of an international flight. But when the supper trays had been removed and we were droning miles up over southern Europe I did sleep, deep and sound, like a child.
At Bahrein, only an hour from our destination, we refuelled, and we were allowed to stretch our legs in the transit lounge. In the minute chink of air between the aircraft and the terminal’s air conditioning I felt the thumping body blow of desert heat for which nothing – even past experience – could quite prepare you. I went to the cloakroom to wash and smarten myself up. I wanted to greet Mel firing on all cylinders, a woman who’d made her own decision for her own reasons.
On the last leg of the flight the man sitting next to me, who had been mercifully quiet so far, asked me politely about my journey. I told him I was going to visit my daughter.
‘Is she with one of the oil companies?’
‘Ankatex.’
‘Ankatex, really? They’ve been having a somewhat torrid time recently,’ he remarked. ‘ But I gather they’re back from the brink.’
As I watched the first thin strands of man-made light threading the interminable darkness below I thought: and the brink is where I’m heading.
Mel was in pole position at the barrier, the first person I saw as I came through. She looked trim and cool in a white sleeveless shirt, khaki shorts and spotless white deck shoes. I noticed she’d grown her hair and was wearing it in a French plait.
As expected she never mentioned our fight on the phone.
‘Hi,’ she said, ‘good old Lufthansa, bang on time.’
We exchanged our usual collected kiss, and she took charge of my trolley. As we went out into the carpark I instinctively fanned my face with my hand and she gave me a mischievous look.
‘Better than last time, surely?’
‘You forget. It’s autumn back home.’
She had the use of one of the Ankatex cars, a white Japanese jeep which she drove with go-to-hell competence. As we roared down the tree-lined fast lane into the city, men with gold jewellery in gas-gobbling Cadillacs and black-swathed ladies at the wheels of BMW convertibles moved aside for her, and I didn’t blame them. Only occasionally did she lift a single arrogant finger in acknowledgement.
When the city limits had reduced our speed a little I asked:
‘What time does Charles arrive?’
‘Tomorrow, early morning. I’ve arranged for you to meet him.’
‘You’ve arranged …?’ My stomach turned over. ‘Is that such a good idea?’
‘I think it’s inspired, but then I would wouldn’t I.’
‘How early?’
‘Mm – seven a. m.’
I’d somehow imagined it would be the evening, a chance to get my head together, to look my best, to prepare. ‘So what time do we need to leave?’
‘You’ll need to be on the road by six-fifteen.’ I realised I’d made an idiotic assumption. ‘Where will you be?’
‘In bed I hope. We’re going wadi-bashing later on. Tomorrow’s my only day off.’
My head was spinning, but I did my best to carry on regardless. ‘So I should order a cab – or something – tonight?’
Her eyes on the road, she laid a cool hand on my forearm. ‘ Panic not. It’s all taken care of. You can go in with Charles’s driver.’
‘Marian?’
‘Who’s she?’
‘Nothing.’
‘His name’s Yussif. He’s like Omar Sharif on speed and without the funny teeth.’ She slid me a wicked look. ‘Who knows? You may forget all about Charles McNally and never be seen again.’
The cool, marbled hall of the Miramar, with its palms, mirrors and splashy fountain was as I remembered. The girls on the reception desk greeted me like the second coming, but Mel was brisk.
‘No playtime for my mother tonight,’ she told them, heading for the lift. ‘She’s got an early start.’
‘You’re in with me this time,’ she told me on the way up. She had moved to a higher floor since I was there last, but the room was identical. It was immaculately tidy, except for Mel’s work clothes sprawled on one of the twin beds.
‘Carry on and use the bathroom,’ she said. ‘ I’m just going to have a last one with the others in the American Bar. Don’t forget to book a wake-up call – Yussif’ll be at the front door from six.’
Beyond the huge plate glass windows a complex three-dimensional spider web of lights fanned out, and I recognised the constellations of tankers out beyond the breakwater. Here, too, I overlooked the sea, but it was a very different element from the fretful waves of Sussex. This sea was hot, motionless, thickly saline, glistening like a pool of oil in the moonlight.
I unpacked, had a bath and put out my clothes for the morning. Then I got into bed, leaving Mel’s bedside lamp on so she’d be able to see to get undressed. I wished now that I hadn’t slept for so long on the plane. My watch, adjusted to local time, told me that I had not much more than five hours before I had to get up again, but my body, still marching to a different drum, couldn’t relax.
I was still awake when Mel got back. I listened to her cleaning her teeth, having a pee, removing her make-up. Then she turned off the bathroom light, undressed and slipped into the other bed. She must have been reading, for the lamp remained on, and suddenly she asked:
‘Are you awake?’
‘I’m afraid so.’ I turned over. ‘I’m still in a different zone.’
‘And nervous?’
‘Terrified.’ At this time in the morning, with both of us in our shiny, bare-eyed night-time faces, there seemed no point in maintaining my bold front. She’d undone the French plait and her hair was pulled back in a scrunchy. She looked exactly as she had at twelve years old. Without make-up the old looked older but the young, unfairly, younger.
She put her book on the bedside table and lay down on her side, facing me. There was an intimacy in her attitude, a willingness to share confidences, like two schoolgirls on a sleep-over.
‘I’m proud of you,’ she said.
‘I hope it’s going to be all right.’
‘It will be.’
‘He’s not going to think it’s the most diabolical liberty – turning up in his car?’
She shook with laughter. ‘It’s a diabolical liberty turning up at all. That’s the whole point. You might as well be hung for a sheep.’
‘I suppose so.’
We stared at each other in silence, then she said: ‘You’re mad about him aren’t you?’
‘I’m certainly mad … And he’s at least partly responsible.’
‘You have good taste, Mother. He’s the business.’
‘Is he? It’s not just me?’
‘Oh no …’ She reached behind her to switch off the light. ‘Don’t worry. It’s not just you.’
As I lay in the dark, listening to my dear daughter go to sleep I tried unsuccessfully to banish from my mind what I’d seen in her face, just before the light went out.
You could protect your children, it seemed, from everything but yourself.
I was awake before the alarm call came through, and mindful of Mel’s lie-in stifled it on the first ring. She lay flat on her back with her arms above her head. I remembered the position from childhood – she was surely the only person who could fall asleep like that without her mouth dropping open.
She didn’t stir as I washed, dressed and put my make-up on. But as I opened the door to leave, she murmured: ‘Good luck.’
Yussif was waiting for me in the foyer. He wore an elegant pearl-grey suit, soft black shoes, a shirt so white it was almost blue, and a burgundy silk tie. He was leaning on the reception desk talking to the girls but the moment I stepped out of the lift he straightened up and fixed me with a hooded gaze which managed to be both respectful and haughty.
‘Mrs Piercy?’
‘Yes.’
‘Please come this way.’
I followed as he stalked to the door and held it open for me. He wasn’t much taller than me, but his bearing and his hawkish features made him seem immense. I was glad I was wearing my long blue dress, and that I’d wrapped my silk throw round my shoulders against the cool of early morning: it made me feel more dignified, a little less foolishly western.
A white Rolls-Royce waited outside. As I got into the back seat, I wondered what on earth Yussif made of the unorthodox arrangement which had been foisted on him by my daughter.
We glided down the ramp from the hotel entrance and out on to the highway. There was a stream of traffic coming the other way, but heading out of town we were able to pick up speed. I thought we might perhaps have been doing seventy, but when I leaned forward for a glimpse of the speedometer we were brushing a hundred: a parallel universe.
As we began to leave the city behind, Yussif said: ‘Mrs Piercy, is the temperature comfortable for you?’
‘Perfect, thank you.’
‘Please let me know if you wish any adjustments.’
‘I will – thank you.’
He glanced at me in the driving mirror. ‘Would you care for some music?’
I remembered the dire janglings and moanings of what Mel and her friends referred to as wadi-pop. But any assertiveness wilted before Yussif’s magnificent dignity.
‘I don’t mind.’
He pressed a button, raised a long, brown finger to his lips. ‘I play soft.’
The car filled with Mozart.
It may have been the wonderful car, the music, Yussif himself, or my own light-headed sense of adventure, but it was another fifteen minutes before I realised we were heading not back along the coast road to the airport, but into the desert. The road surface had deteriorated and even the Rolls bounced a little through the sandy potholes. A dense red sun with edges sharp as a coin was crawling up the sky and on either side stretched a sea of crested and rippled dunes, pale gold shot with pink and interleaved with dense black shadows.
I leaned forward, and at once the music was turned down.
‘No, I like it – I just wondered, we’re not going to the airport?’
He shook his head. ‘Ankatex airstrip. Not far now.’
‘Oh.’ I sat back. After a moment’s silence in deference to anything I might want to add, Mozart returned.
A few minutes later we turned off the bumpy road on to an even worse one. The outlook on my side was now marred by a cluster of ugly low-rise buildings, but from the other window the view, lit by the rising sun, was breathtaking. The far off towers of the city shimmered on the horizon like the rigging of a ghostly armada on this rolling desert sea.
The Rolls purred to a halt. We’d circumnavigated the ugly buildings so that they were now behind and to the left of us. In front, a landing strip cut straight as an arrow into the dunes to the east. Already the air above the ground was beginning to tremble in the heat. Tendrils of fine sand curled and pirouetted across the tarmac.
In the far north west a plume of dark cloud stained the early morning sky. Now that we had stopped I could see a sprinkling of minute carbonised particles, like black snow, on the windscreen of the car.
I laid my hand on the door, but Yussif turned, raising an admonitory finger.
‘Mrs Piercy – too hot. Please wait in the car.’
He must have noticed my disappointment, for his expression softened slightly, and he ducked his head forward, pointing upward. ‘Look, you can see.
’
I leaned between the two seats. A small plane with the red and blue Ankatex logo was making its descent from due north, its wings rocking slightly on the thermals as it came down. As we watched the undercarriage came down like the legs of a stooping hawk. The sky was so bright that my eyes watered. Yussif turned off the music and now I could hear, through the car’s air conditioning, the sharp drone of the aircraft engine, and see the sand swirl as it came into land.
‘Now, Mrs Piercy – get out if you would like.’
I wasn’t the only person there, but I might as well have been. I know there was a man in overalls running to the cockpit of the plane, and two more at the entrance to the building. There was the pilot. There was Yussif, waiting by the car.
But I was alone. And when he came down the small flight of steps, so was he. He didn’t look as I’d naively expected – blackened, stooped, battle-weary – but cool and urbane in a short-sleeved shirt and tie. I remembered his remark about it taking spirit to look good … He carried, of all things, a briefcase in one hand, his flight bag and jacket slung over his shoulder.
He saw me, and recognised me, at once. I knew it just from the angle of his head as he paused at the foot of the steps. The heat, growing more intense by the moment, seemed to hold and protect us in its fierce grasp. The distance between us made light of the differences of my imagination. The miles of desert gave us privacy.
Slowly, he put down his bags, and dropped his jacket on top of them. It slid to the ground but he didn’t notice. As he began to walk towards me he stretched out his hand, palm uppermost.
I took a step, and reached the brink—
Another, and I took the plunge—
Ah—!
Copyright
First published in 1998 by Hodder and Stoughton
This edition published 2014 by Bello
an imprint of Pan Macmillan, a division of Macmillan Publishers Limited
Pan Macmillan, 20 New Wharf Road, London N1 9RR
Basingstoke and Oxford
That Was Then Page 33