The Darkening Hour

by Penny Hancock

  ‘He’s here,’ I say quietly. ‘Why don’t you talk to him yourself?’

  ‘I’ll pop along and have a chat,’ says Roger, squeezing Claudia’s shoulder. ‘Where d’you say he is?’

  ‘In the drawing room.’

  I’ve walked into another trap. Roger will accuse me of letting Leo dominate the TV.

  ‘Be careful, Roger. He’s volatile. Easily upset.’

  ‘Volatile. Taking advantage, more like. I’ll sort him out.’

  I feel all the old self-doubt creep in as Roger straightens up. I should argue, but I haven’t the strength. And I’m in his debt at the moment, because of Mona.

  ‘Don’t be long, darling,’ Claudia simpers. ‘The table’s booked for eight. It’s sticky getting through London at this time.’

  ‘I’ll only be a minute,’ he says.

  When he’s gone, I’m left in the kitchen with Claudia and Mona. We make an awkward trio. Mona still hasn’t spoken, and Claudia’s refused to sit down, is clicking her kitten heels on my quarry tiles, twirling her glass in her hand. I expect she’s worried about getting Endymion’s hairs on her Aquascutum trench-coat. I wonder why she doesn’t want to talk to Leo. After all, she’s the stepmother; he lived with her for several years before coming back to me.

  ‘Mona, I expect Dora would like to show you your living quarters,’ she says. ‘Wouldn’t you, Dora?’

  Of course, you don’t socialise with staff in Claudia’s world, the world I left behind.

  ‘Living quarters’ is a slight exaggeration. Mona’s to sleep in the room beyond the kitchen that was my study, then Leo’s homework den. Through a chink in the door that has been left ajar I’m aware of the bumpy silhouettes of clothes heaped on the floor, a teetering pile of books and magazines on a table. Since Leo dropped out of sixth form, at the end of last year, the room has mostly been used as a dumping ground. It’s full of his old school files and books, DVDs he no longer watches, clothes he’s outgrown.

  I move towards the door ahead of Mona, shielding it from Claudia’s prying eyes, I don’t want her to spot the mess. I’d meant to tidy it but haven’t had a spare moment, with work, and Daddy. Something Claudia with her many domestic staff would never understand.

  On closer examination Mona is, I guess, a few years older than me. Crooked teeth. Poorly nourished, pale brown skin. A spattering of dark freckles on one cheek.

  A warmth washes over me as I draw the curtains for her, chase Endymion out, smooth the cover on her bed. Everything about her – her cheap clothes, her unmade-up face – is a comfort after Claudia’s hard surface. I’d like to hug her.

  I show her the small washroom and toilet outside the room.

  ‘I’ll let you unpack,’ I say.

  She takes off her coat.

  Now her hood’s down I see her black hair is straight, limp and rather greasy. There’s a tiny pillow of flesh beneath her chin. The body, though it’s well covered in more layers of clothing, is rounded. She wouldn’t have access to a gym, will be ignorant about healthy eating, has probably never had dental care – it’s expensive where she comes from. I’m helping her, I think. I’ll improve her life. A fair exchange – after all, she’s here to improve mine.

  ‘I’ll show you around tomorrow and introduce you to Daddy. You must be tired. Do you want anything to eat? To drink?’

  She stares at me.

  ‘Eat,’ I say loudly, miming. ‘Drink?’

  ‘Ah. No, thank you.’

  She almost bows. I wave a hand in the air, indicating that such subservience isn’t necessary and leave her, shutting the door behind me.

  In the kitchen Roger’s already back from his encounter with Leo.

  ‘I made him switch off the TV. Told him if we were going to talk I wasn’t doing it to a soundtrack.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘He’s picked up some unattractive habits from somewhere. He’s verging on the surly. What’s going on, Dora?’

  ‘It’s like I said. He’s low. The doctor thinks depressed.’

  Claudia looks up at Roger. I wonder whether she’s had Botox. There’s a rigidity in her face, as if it could never give anything away even if she wanted it to.

  ‘Depressed? He’s had every advantage, Dora. I’ve spent more on his education than anything – this house included!’

  ‘It’s not the money, is it? It’s not the education. He’s been affected by us – it hasn’t been easy for him.’

  That’s when Roger comes at me with the punch he knows will hurt.

  ‘Us? Or you, Dora? You’re the one who puts your work before everything.’

  ‘Look, Roger, I don’t wish to discuss this now. I’m sure Claudia doesn’t want to hear it, do you, Claudia? We can meet another time to talk it through.’

  Roger sighs. ‘I’ll take him out for lunch while we’re here. He needs some ultimatums.’

  ‘So.’ I’ve had enough of this. ‘Thank you for bringing her.’ I nod towards the study. ‘Does she speak much English? She seemed to know a few words.’

  ‘You’ll have to speak slowly. She’s picked up what she knows at Madame Sherif’s house. I believe they were English-speakers.’

  ‘How old is she?’

  ‘No idea. You can check her passport. But as you may remember, they don’t register births the way we do.’

  ‘I don’t suppose it matters,’ I say. ‘As long as she’s healthy. Daddy sometimes needs things shifting. He sometimes needs lifting himself.’

  ‘Oh, she’s very healthy,’ he says.

  ‘Could I use your bathroom, please, Theodora?’ Claudia pipes up then, and, knowing she won’t want to share with Mona, I direct her upstairs.

  When she’s gone, Roger leans over to me, speaking into my ear.

  ‘If she pushes the boundaries, let me know,’ he mutters. ‘You don’t want a repeat of Zidana.’

  ‘God, Roger. Don’t bring that up, it was years ago.’

  ‘I know, and we managed to sweep it under the carpet. But we were lucky. If anyone had found out . . .’

  ‘But they didn’t. And we’ve moved on.’

  ‘Nevertheless. If things get . . . let me know. Better to nip it in the bud.’

  I stare at him. I’d thought the incident with Zidana, a young maid we’d employed in Rabat when Leo was still at school there – had been forgotten. I wish he hadn’t mentioned it.

  Roger changes the subject as Claudia comes back downstairs.

  ‘Look,’ he says, ‘these are Mona’s papers. You know the ropes – her visa states she’s here for domestic purposes only. And she’s yours. In effect, she belongs to you. Can’t switch employer. If it doesn’t work out, it’s straight home with her. She owes for the passport and ticket, so you can knock that off her first wages.’

  ‘Thanks, Roger.’

  ‘As I said, we’ve had her friend Amina for the last year and she’s fabulous.’

  ‘I do appreciate this. What with Daddy living downstairs now, and with work and things, I couldn’t have coped without help.’

  ‘Make sure you keep her in line,’ says Claudia. ‘Don’t take any nonsense. She may be here to look after your father primarily, but she’ll clean, cook, whatever. These girls expect to stay busy.’

  ‘Yes. Thank you, Claudia. I know.’ Has she forgotten I was once married to her husband? That I had staff too?

  ‘Darling!’ Roger calls over my shoulder.

  Claudia drains her gin. ‘Coming.’

  Watching him hold open the door for Claudia, I know for certain that I did Roger the biggest favour by finally getting out of his life. Claudia slots so beautifully into the role of diplomat’s wife, in a way I never could.

  But as their expensive hire car disappears back down my street, sending spray up from the puddles, I feel a momentary regret that the lifestyle they inhabit is mine no longer.

  CHAPTER THREE

  In the dark, I think of Leila.

  It’ll be her bedtime.

  I’d be reading to her from o
ne of the books I bought when I was working at Madame Sherif’s, my chin resting on the top of her warm head, my fingers playing through her silky hair. She’d be staring up at the ceiling, her thumb in her mouth. Or doing that thing where she pulls my fingers as if she were milking a cow. Ummu would be clattering about behind the curtain.

  Ummu’s never learned to read, but she might be telling Leila one of her stories now, the ones she used to tell me, her hands dancing and fluttering, making djinns and princesses.

  I reach for my mobile. It takes me a few seconds to work out what the recorded voice is saying. Then the distance between me and Leila expands.

  You do not have enough credit to make this call.

  I’m alone, in a strange dark country, with not a dirham to my name, and I can’t even contact my daughter. Now the worries move in. How long before I can send money home? School commences next summer. Will I have earned enough for Leila’s books by then? To pay for Ummu’s cataracts? Will I even earn enough to buy the food they need, to pay for the gas supply, the electricity?

  I remember Ummu’s words, when things had become tough; I’d lost my job at Madame Sherif’s and we hadn’t heard from Ali.

  ‘It isn’t this that hurts.’ She swept her fingers down over her eyes. ‘Or this.’ Her hand moved in an arc, indicating the one room we had turned into two by means of a curtain. It was noisy and we were surrounded by people whom Ummu considered beneath us.

  ‘It’s none of this. It’s the way people look at us since Ali left,’ she said. ‘As if we’ve somehow brought it upon ourselves. They see that we live all together here –’ once more, she splayed her fingers to indicate our rooms, the thin walls separating us from Hait’s place next door, the washing strung out in spare gaps between buildings, the children playing out on the alleys, the piles of rubbish that the council refused to collect ‘– and they don’t see the jobs we once had, or the men who’ve died. The men who’ve left.’

  She was in her stride now. She lowered her voice. ‘They see deviance,’ she hissed. ‘They think we’re inferior. They see people with no morality.’

  ‘Who’s “they”, Umma? Who are these people you’re talking about?’

  ‘The people who look at us with contempt,’ she said. ‘The wealthy.’

  I didn’t point out that this was how she looked at our neighbours, that she was as guilty as the rest of them.

  When Ali had been gone six weeks I went to talk to Yousseff, his oldest friend, up at the Café des Jeunes where he waited on its clientèle of old men.

  ‘Look,’ he said, ‘my hunch is Ali’s gone to Britain. It was what he always wanted – to get there, finish studying.’

  ‘How could he? He doesn’t have a passport. He told me he was going off to help his Berber brothers in some territory dispute.’

  ‘Maybe. But I bet that’s where he was heading. No doubt, once he’s settled, once he can, he’ll call you. Ah, salaam alaikum!’ He turned to a regular customer and I knew I was dismissed.

  And now I’m here. My spirits are unpredictable, rising and falling as the floor seems to, after my first ever journey in a plane.

  I recall the flight, the distance the plane has carried me, crossing from the warmth of the south to this raw cold of the north, and I realise nothing will ever feel the same again now I have flown. The world is not, after all, as I thought. The air is not empty space; it can hold up even the vast bulk of iron and steel that is an aeroplane full of people. At the same time, I have learned neither is the ground solid; people can disappear into it the way Ali has done. And now I have the most terrifying feeling that, although I’m back on the ground, I, too, could vanish without trace.

  I reach out a hand and rest it on the cool of the wall, so that I feel rooted again. And I think about where I am.

  This house couldn’t be more different from Monsieur and Madame’s house in Rabat, with their automated sliding gates, their gardens and hallways the width of streets and sitting rooms as wide as a mosque. This is a tall house squashed up against others, like a poor woman on a crowded bus.

  When I arrived, Theodora opened the door herself. She’s a few years older than I am. Tall with amber-coloured hair. She smiled, though I know from experience that looks can lie. I think of Madame. How sweet she seemed until I was forced to leave.

  Beyond the door, a narrow passage. Paintings on walls, cobwebs on ceilings, bare wood floor, steep stairs rising up to hidden rooms. I could see straight away that ‘Dora’, as they call her, hadn’t looked after her house. It was clear she needed me. This is good. Need creates opportunity. It gives me power.

  But the house, though grand, isn’t comfortable. It’s cold in this room, with a damp that doesn’t go, however far I wriggle down under the covers. I’ve put on a fleece over my T-shirt and tracksuit trousers to keep warm, but still my fingers are numb. There’s a lamp by my bed, a vase of old roses, gone brown. The room smells of cat.

  The bed sinks beneath me. Fatigue pricks at my eyelids. I tug the quilt tighter around me, shut my eyes to the damp, to the cold, to the strange sounds of the night. To whatever lies ahead of me beyond that door.

  I yearn for Leila’s warm body, to pull it up against me. The way she slots into the curves in my body the way tiles tessellate on the walls of the mosques at home.

  There’s always a way, I remind myself, to get what you need if you put your mind to it. Focus. That’s what you must do. ‘When money is short,’ Ali used to say, ‘we use our ingenuity.’

  I will get Leila into school. I will find Ali. And then, inshallah, we will go home together and I’ll never have to clean up another woman’s mess again.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  I was the only one of my siblings prepared to bring Daddy to live with them.

  Their true natures emerged as we lowered Mummy’s coffin into the ground. As if a watchful deity had taken its eye off them. They were like children who believe that as long as they are not caught, they can be as mean and feckless as they want.

  The final tossing in of a solitary dahlia – Mummy’s favourite flower – the scrunch of earth falling on the oak coffin, all seem now the first steps of a moral descent that the other three were embarking upon as soon as they turned their backs on the blackened graves.

  It was the end of October, one year ago.

  We hadn’t realised that by the time we lowered her into the ground it would be dark. We hadn’t predicted either, after the Indian summer, that it would be raining. We stood, a forlorn group, caged beneath the branches of plane trees in the churchyard. The first yellow leaves of autumn span down and stamped themselves on the surface of her coffin like parking tickets.

  Simon and Anita assailed me as I leaned on the river wall. I was gazing across the dark water thinking about my name.

  Theodora.

  Daddy chose it, so I had been told, when I was born. God’s Gift. He’d given me a gold chain with the name on it, that I wore always, the metal warm against my throat. I was Daddy’s Gift from God. Siblings are always assigned labels in families, roles that define them. I was the the Selfless One. And so it fell naturally upon me to take responsibility when our mother fell ill, to organise her funeral, and to take care of Daddy.

  I stared over the river wall, letting my tears fall into the murky depths. It felt like an affront that the world could carry on as normal when we had just buried our mother. Pleasure cruisers ploughed upstream, music blaring, sending waves slapping against the pilings. There was a narrow stairway on the opposite bank. I thought how one could walk down those stairs straight into the shift and swell of the Thames, and how this would be a relief in some ways. A reprieve from the dull ache of grief which was made all the more weighty by the mantle of provider I wore.

  Simon’s arm was around his latest fling. Simon was the Fun One. The Footloose and Fancy-free One. He taught English to foreign students. I suspected he only did it in order to pick up women. He enjoyed his single life far too much to get attached to them. I wondered whether t
his one liked my little brother or if she was hoping he would be her ticket to British citizenship. What on earth was she doing at our mother’s funeral?

  ‘So,’ Anita began, ‘Terence has taken Daddy over to the pub. We need to decide where he can stay until we sort something out.’

  ‘He’s staying with me, of course. I’m hardly going to evict him the night of Mummy’s funeral.’

  ‘I’m not suggesting you would,’ said Anita. ‘But is he OK in the flat? Can he look after himself?’

  ‘I don’t just leave him there. I do keep an eye on him.’ Anita’s failure to understand just how much I’d been doing for Daddy astounded me.

  ‘Yes,’ she said, ‘but you were going to let Leo move into the flat, I thought, and—’

  ‘To be honest I wouldn’t trust Leo to live on his own, the way he is at the moment,’ I said, immediately regretting it.

  She raised her eyebrows, exchanged a glance with Simon. Anita was the Pretty One. She skated over life, unaffected by the obstacles and demands that the rest of us had to deal with.

  ‘Look,’ she said now, ‘all I’m saying is, we’re aware you’re working, and you’ve got Leo to worry about, so if needs be Richard and I could have Daddy – well, not for too long, just until we sort something out. But he could stay . . .’ she shrugged ‘. . . a few nights.’

  ‘And you know I’d have him if I had my own place,’ said Simon.

  ‘It’s fine,’ I said. And it was. One of us could and should take Daddy. It was a duty. A privilege, even. Not a sacrifice. If they couldn’t see this, it was their loss.

  ‘Good,’ said Simon. ‘That’s great, Dora. He’s best off with you.’

  ‘And as long as you make sure he gets out and about,’ Anita added. ‘He mustn’t be allowed to languish now Mummy’s gone.’

  ‘What are you saying?’

  ‘Just that he can’t sit all day in the flat doing nothing – he needs stimulation.’