But he looks suddenly childlike himself, as if someone has just broken his favourite toy. ‘Please don’t say never.’ He tries to put his arm around her, but this is too big for Chala. She pushes him away softly. It’s not fair to let him have any false hopes about this.
‘No, Paul, really – I do mean never. I ju…’ She searches for words that will seem less vehement, but finds none. ‘I just don’t think I am capable of it.’
‘So if you ever got pregnant by mistake you would have an abortion – just like that? How can you know how you would react in that situation?’ Paul’s voice is almost angry and she realises what a very raw place this is, in different ways, for both of them.
‘Do you really want children, Paul? Is it very important to you?’ She says it very softly, wishing there were a way to paint away the knowledge of who she is, a way to be everything she longs to be for Paul.
‘Well, not yet, but one day.’ He looks away and she can tell he is looking into his own childhood. ‘I’d like to be a different kind of parent, to bring up a child with the freedom just to be a child and let them discover what they want to become in their own time.’ Chala understands why Paul and Philip get on so well. ‘I just don’t think anyone can say they would have an abortion with certainty. Things change – why shouldn’t we end up with a family of our own?’
‘Paul,’ she forces herself to speak. ‘I know it must seem extreme and I wish I could hold your hand and say I’m sure it will be OK, but I’m not sure. And I just don’t think it’s fair to let you have any illusions about this. You need to be able to make your choices now, before it’s too late, a…’ She breathes in and wills herself to continue. ‘And if that means you want out of what we have I understand that, but if you want to stay then you also have to know what you’re staying for.’
The look on Paul’s face is immeasurably sad and she feels bad for denting his optimism.
* * *
Her mobile flashed on the bedside table, where her subconscious had abandoned it. Last night she’d realised too late, and too drunk, that she’d forgotten it. Chala knew she should have rung Paul, that he’d probably called her and would be wondering why she hadn’t called back, but she needed to shower before she could bring herself to speak to him. She let the hot water turn her red, wrapped herself in the standard fluffy white dressing gown – if I had a hotel, she thought, they would be all the colours of a rainbow –and picked up the phone with a sigh, a final glimmer of the green goodbye. She flinched, realising there were seven missed calls and three voicemail messages.
Message one: ‘Che, it’s me.’ Paul’s pet name had grown out of a mocking reference to Che Guevara in their first days of getting to know each other. ‘Hope you’re OK. You’re probably out for dinner and can’t hear the phone. Listen, I need to talk to you. Can you ring me as soon as you get this message? It doesn’t matter what time, just call.’ There was something overly solicitous in his tone of voice.
Message two: ‘Chala, where are you? It must be two in the morning there. I need you to call. Ring me please.’ This one sounded angry, but also desperate.
Message three: ‘Chala, I don’t know what the hell is going on or where you are. I didn’t want to have to say this on voicemail, but I don’t know where the fuck you are. Listen, you need to call me. Something really bad has happened. Call me, Che.’
When she got through, the need for explanations had disintegrated.
‘Che, thank God you’re OK. Listen, there’s no easy way to tell you th…’
Please don’t tell me to sit down, thought Chala, from inside a tunnel.
‘Are you sitting down? It’s Philip. There’s been an accident. He’s dead. Che, I’m so sorry, my love. Are you still there? Just talk, say anything. I wish I was there to hold you. Che, speak to …’ Paul was breaking up as he tried to control his sobs. Chala felt as if her spirit was leaving her body and she was taking one last look at herself before drifting off into a white sky.
‘You need to come home, Che,’ he said. ‘We’ll get your ticket changed. Do you want me to come over and get you?’
Chala forced herself to speak. Or at least she tried. What came out was an animal noise, a kind of whimper. She remembered the day that their dog had died. Rusty had made that kind of sound when Philip brought him back from the vet. He just wasn’t strong enough to get over the anaesthetic. Philip had been there to hold her hand.
‘Che, my lovely Che, I’m so sorry. Speak to me.’ Paul’s voice reminded her that he was there for her now, but his voice sounded so very far away. As Chala watched herself from above, she had the sense of her body shrinking and collapsing inwards; as if the energy that kept her alive had left her body and there was now too much space inside her skin. In this slow-motion moment, Paul became a stranger to her. Maybe if he had been there it would have been different; she could have cried in his arms and he could have helped her through the awful journey that lay ahead. But his physical distance suddenly felt more than physical and the cavern that was opening up inside her had nothing in …
As Paul tried to coax sound from the other end of the telephone line, Chala carried on watching herself. The Chala that was still holding the phone did nothing, said nothing. The Chala that was watching was obscurely aware of a growing sense of distance. The Chala on the phone had also become a stranger.
The stranger spoke – in slow, monotone words that felt like nothing more than a bodily function. Her blood continued to circulate, her nails continued to grow, her eyes continued to blink and she continued to speak. ‘I’m OK, Paul. Thank you. It must be awful having to do this on the phone. I’m just a b… shocked.’ The word sounded so utterly inadequate and unrelated to her. ‘I think I just need to lie down for a bit and then I’ll ring you back.’
‘Do you want to know what happened?’
‘Not now. I’ll ring you back in a few minutes.’
‘OK, but don’t leave the hotel without ringing me back.’
Oh yes, of course, she was in a hotel on the other side of the world.
Poor Paul, poor Chala, thought the Chala that was watching. Horrible Chala, thought another part of the Chala that was watching. Philip, Philip, Philip, thought the Chala that lay back on the bed and stared through the ceiling into a place that didn’t exist.
CHAPTER 7
The volcanic lake below them is a deep ominous green, as if it’s populated by shadowy, seaweedy creatures who twist and turn just beneath the smooth surface, waiting for unsuspecting little boys and girls to play too close to the edge.
Chala shudders involuntarily at the knowledge that she has just been in that water. There is something oily about it, and its cloying touch against her skin had been at once sensual and disconcerting. She has no idea how deep it is. It’s fine to swim in, they had told her at the lodge at the top of the crater rim, the minerals are good for you, but she had been the only one in the water. A confident swimmer, she had set off towards the centre of the lake, with Philip looking on over his beer from the top of the rim, but as she had forged a passage through the thick, still water, her mind had plunged away from the sunlight above into the unseen depths beneath her and she had felt a surge of irrational fear. She was alone, utterly alone. Philip was watching, but what could he do if she needed him now? It had taken her ten minutes to scramble down the hillside to the water’s edge. What if there was an unexpected current that pulled her down into its depths – or crocodiles? She willed calm into her movements and fixed her eyes on Philip’s small figure above. If she panicked, he would panic. She looked at him and drew strength. She forced herself to breathe deeply and counted her strokes back to him.
By the time she reaches him at his table on the edge of the veranda overlooking the lake she is flushed red from the effort of the climb and the relief.
‘That didn’t last long. How was it?’ Philip teases her. She had been adamant about swimming in it.
‘Well, at least I did it! I wonder if your sister went in when they were
here.’
‘Oh, I’m sure she did. I’m sure that’s where you get it from!’
‘Get what from?’
‘Your stubbornness.’
‘I am not stubborn.’
‘Could you put a little more emphasis on the not?’
Philip is happy. The lines on his face are comfortable, his eyes are alive. Chala relaxes into the warmth of their conversation and lets a cold beer wash away the memory of the lake on her skin.
The thatched wooden lodge sits almost dangerously close to the crater rim and swathes of bougainvillea flow over the edge. Beyond the water looms the rocky presence of Mount Mawenzi, sister peak of Africa’s most famous mountain. Kibo, the highest of Kilimanjaro’s two peaks, sits discreetly, snow-capped and quiet, in the background. The border of two countries – Kenya and Tanzania – runs, invisible, through the middle of Lake Chala.
For many years it has been a private dream of Philip’s to make this journey with Chala to her namesake lake in Africa, and her recent graduation has provided the perfect occasion. They drove for hours through harsh, dry land to get here, penetrating the deepest and most unvisited corner of Tsavo National Park, chancing upon lion prints in the dirt road and a small herd of elephants spouting red water over each other in a shallow mud pool that would turn into a river when the rains came. Exhausted and thirsty, they had finally found the lodge and been amazed by this jewel of a lake hiding in a remote crater in the centre of East Africa.
‘So, come on, spill the beans. Why was I named after a lake?’
‘All I know is what I told you. Your mother came here with Robert shortly after they met and they loved the place. Sarah fell in love with the name Chala and decided if she ever had a daughter that’s what she would call her.’
‘And then I came along before they got married. Maybe I was conceived here!’
‘I’ve never really thought about that. I suppose you might have been! The timing would be about right.’ His enthusiasm is infectious and Chala looks away in her mind from the feeling she got in the water.
‘But they didn’t come back here on honeymoon?’
‘No, Sarah had a thing about going back to certain places. If there was something very special about a place or a time in her life, she always wanted to leave it intact. She never wanted to repeat the same thing again. She was never very good at reunions and that sort of thing.’
‘She sounds a real romantic. What a nightmare for Robert!’
‘You’re more like her than you know. You remind me of her a lot sometimes.’
‘So they decided to climb Mount Kenya. That’s a pretty bizarre honeymoon choice.’ Chala shies away from comparisons and back to the story. ‘Was it Sarah’s idea or Robert’s?’
‘I think it was Sarah’s. She was pretty headstrong, but Robert wanted to do it too.’
As Philip talks, Chala drifts. She tries to imagine Sarah and Robert here. They step out of the photos she has got to know, wearing the same clothes and made of paper. For all Philip’s reminiscences, there is nothing to draw on, nothing to make them real. She looks at this man of flesh and blood in front of her and she cannot imagine that any daughter’s love for her father can be more real than what she feels for this man who has been with her all her life.
And now he is gone.
* * *
The effort of thinking was therapeutic and gave Chala a sense that there was still energy inside her, but the collision with the present emptied her instantly and she snapped into a sitting position on her hotel bed.
She had done all the practical things there were to do, watching herself all the while with a kind of morbid fascination. She had rung Paul back and asked him in a matter-of-fact voice to speak to her boss in the UK. The Sydney staff had been fantastic and even sorted out her ticket. They had offered to keep her company, but she had lied about having a close friend in Sydney. The earliest she could travel was the following night. That left her with twenty-three hours to kill. Her boss in the UK had phoned her after Paul’s call and told her she shouldn’t even think of contacting work for the next couple of weeks.
She had taken her last Valium and lain down on the bed, willing it to kick in quickly. Memories came flooding into her body: tiny flashes like torn photos; vague half-memories like plots reconstructed from a forgotten novel; and full-bodied recollections with the vivid sharpness of the present. They crowded her consciousness, these memories, battling for attention, battling to keep her away from the slow journey that would turn Philip into a ghost, pleading for reassurance that these things were not gone for ever.
Paul phoned again and she sank into a deeper part of herself. ‘Don’t you want to know what happened?’ His question sounded odd, like someone asking if you want to know the end of a film before you’ve had a chance to see it. She said nothing. ‘It was an accident, it—’
‘…’ She felt suddenly sick again. ‘I don’t think I c…’
‘OK. It’s OK. It can wait. Just try and get some sleep. Have you got any pills to help you sleep? Listen, Che, try and sleep, OK? But phone me whenever you want to.’ Paul’s voice was shaky, trying to be strong.
Time seemed to move backwards and forwards and stay still with an abrupt, irregular motion that added to her sense of dislocation. She was surprised to discover it was two in the morning and that meant only seventeen hours to go before her taxi, already booked, for the airport. And then the next hour seemed to leak like a broken tap. She fell asleep eventually, dreamt about stabbing a fox and woke up shivering at eight in the morning. Only eleven hours to go, but to what? To a 24-hour journey that would take her backwards to relive the whole of the previous day. Yet her blood kept flowing, her nails kept growing, time kept passing.
It was only when she was on the plane and out of contact that the full impact of her ignorance dawned on her: she knew nothing about how Philip had actually died. An accident, Paul had said, but she hadn’t trusted herself to deal with the detail yet. Somehow it seemed irrelevant. The isolated fact of his simply no longer being there was enough. She couldn’t face the knowledge that would make this any more real.
She had grown up with blurred edges around the detail of that other ‘accident’ at the core of her existence, learnt to live with the void, and now her life had turned a corner and here was a new one. What do you mean, I can’t come and play chess with you anymore? What do you mean we can’t go walking and talking on the moors? What do you mean, never again? She dug deeper and deeper inside herself and all she could find was a rock face.
CHAPTER 8
They are sitting on the beach in spring, surrounded by sausage rolls, lemonade and fresh Devon cider. Just Philip, Amanda and Chala – oh, and Rusty, of course. Amanda and Chala are gearing up for their exams, and one of the books they have to read is Camus’ L’Étranger.
‘Do you think suicide is wrong, Philip?’ Amanda waits in vain for a judgement from Philip to make her own. He bats the question back.
‘What do you mean by wrong, Amanda? Wrong by whose standards?’
‘Well, most religions condemn it, don’t they? But is it necessarily wrong?’
Chala lies back on her beach mat, content to listen to the discussion without needing to partake. She loves the fact that Amanda thinks her uncle is so cool. Amanda’s own mother, Julie, would be horrified at this kind of conversation. The sun laps at the bare patches of skin around Chala’s ankles and arms, and she feels a warm glow of anticipation at the long summer that will follow their exams. Philip’s voice drifts over her.
‘Just suppose that someone you loved had a terrible accident and became paralysed. They have all their mental faculties about them, but they cannot bear the crushing disability that life has dealt them. Would you hold it against them if they wanted to die?’
Amanda takes up the thread. ‘Or someone in a concentration camp who thinks they will never escape. Or someone who murders their lover under the influence of drugs and cannot bear to live with what they’ve done. Or—’
‘Well, I think you’ve answered your own question, Amanda,’ says Philip with a smile.
‘But,’ Amanda is on a roll now, ‘the truth is that lots of suicide attempts are just that: attempts. You wonder if someone who slashes their wrists or takes a load of aspirin really, really wants to die or if it’s just a desperate cry for attention or help. I mean, if I was going to commit suicide I would make sure that it couldn’t fail. I mean, don’t you think it says a lot about you, the way you choose to kill yourself? Can you imagine jumping off a building?’
‘I don’t know,’ Chala sits up, unable to stay out of the conversation any longer. ‘I think jumping off a building is quite romantic. At least it’s dramatic and quick and the outcome is pretty certain.’
‘But what if you happen to land on top of someone and kill them too?’ Amanda and Chala are both giggling now. ‘What about you, Philip? How would you do it?’
Philip looks suddenly serious. ‘I don’t think I’ve got it in me to do it.’
‘Oh come on, that’s another question entirely.’ Touché, Amanda! Philip would approve of her reasoning. ‘But just suppose you did, how would you do it?’
He looks out at the waves washing the sand.
‘I know, I know.’ Chala cuts in. ‘You’d just walk out to sea, wouldn’t you? No fuss, no drama. Wouldn’t you?’ she coaxes, pleased with herself, proud of her uncle.
‘Yes, I think you’re right. That would be a good way to do it.’ Philip, too, is laughing now. ‘Come on, that’s enough existentialism for one afternoon. Let’s go and find Rusty.’
* * *
‘Oh, my G… Paul!’ The memory had flooded her half-sleep with sudden and absolute clarity and she came to, screaming for Paul. Searching, and finding only empty space in the bed beside her, she remembered it was still afternoon. She’d been back about thirty hours and slept dismally the first night. Paul had treated her carefully, as if she were made of eggshell. It almost made her want to laugh. If only she were that easy to break. If only her body would stop working. He had refused to speak to her about what had happened until they were home and she had stepped in and out of the hot bath he ran for her and she had made a token gesture of nibbling at a croissant with thick, hot, strong coffee. Finally, she had snapped.
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