by Lesley Lokko
‘But why?’ Frances would no sooner have changed her own name than grown a beard.
Annick shrugged. It was hard to explain how thoroughly she wanted to be rid of the past. ‘I like Pasqual better. It’s less of a mouthful.’
‘Only if you’re thick,’ Frances snorted. ‘Betancourt’s got a certain ring to it. It’s classy. Foreign.’
‘Not where I’m from.’
‘Which is?’
‘Doesn’t matter. I’ve changed it.’
Frances narrowed her eyes but said no more. Annick’s name was duly recorded and changed. [email protected]. Easy as that.
Seven weeks to go. She lumbered heavily up the road towards home, the flat she and Yves had just bought opposite Morley College, just south of the river. It wasn’t the sort of neighbourhood either Tash or Rebecca would have chosen, but it was what she and Yves could afford. Yves was absolutely firm on the topic. It was fine for Tash or Rebecca to have lent Annick a helping hand when she needed it, but she was his wife now, and no such hands were needed. He’d finally found a suitable position with a small engineering consultancy with projects in places with unpronounceable names, like Kyrgyzstan and Baluchistan. Places where they spoke money, English and French – in that order. Annick joked with him sometimes that the job was just a front and that he was secretly off to see a mistress or someone else when he said he was going to work. But she saw after a while that there was a sensitivity there that meant he didn’t like it. Perhaps he was embarrassed that she earned more than he did? She stopped. After all, he’d been the one to give up his entire life to be with her.
‘It’s still a period property,’ Annick pointed out when she took Tash to see it.
‘Yeah. Just. Clearly the fag end,’ Tash sniffed. ‘And what the hell’s that next door?’
‘It’s . . . it’s a council estate.’
‘I don’t mean that. I practically grew up on a council estate. No, what’s that yellow stuff on the façade?’
‘I’m not sure,’ Annick confessed, looking dubiously at it. ‘Scaffolding?’
‘Are you absolutely, positively, completely sure you won’t just take a teeny, weeny little loan from me? You could get something . . . well, nice. Something a bit closer.’
‘This is close. To my work, at any rate.’
‘Yes, but you’re south of the river, darling. I wouldn’t mind if you were somewhere like . . . like, well, even Camden, or something—’
Annick burst out laughing. ‘Listen to you! When did you become such a snob?’ She chuckled. ‘No, this is perfect. It’s what we can afford and . . . it’s ours. Mine and Yves’ . . . and the baby’s, of course. Look, we’ll probably move when we have another one. Maybe somewhere with a garden.’
‘Another one? You haven’t even pushed this one out yet,’ Tash said in alarm.
Annick smiled. ‘Don’t worry, I won’t ask you to be godmother twice,’ she said drily.
‘That’s not what I meant,’ Tash said quickly, looking guilty. ‘I just meant . . . oh, never mind. Well, if you’re one hundred per cent sure . . . ?’
‘We are.’
And so they were. The ground floor, one-and-a-half bedroom flat (Yves argued that the tiny box room off the hallway could hardly be considered a bedroom) was perfect for their needs.
She pushed open the front door and dropped her shopping on the floor with relief. The hallway was painted a pretty, dusky-pink colour, a nice contrast to the black-and-white floor tiles. At one end of the corridor, looking out over the garden belonging to the flat below, was the kitchen. On either side were the combined living and dining room and the two bedrooms. The master (and only, Yves reminded her) bedroom also looked out over the garden. She’d recently upholstered the box window so she could sit there with the baby. On a sunny day she could open the sash windows and look out over the garden.
There was a small pile of letters lying on the floor; she bent down, not without difficulty, and retrieved them. She picked up the bag again and took everything down the corridor to the kitchen. Baked beans, cannelloni beans, chickpeas, lentils . . . she put away the tins tidily in the cupboard. Skimmed milk and yogurt in the fridge, fruit in the large wooden bowl on the dining-room table. The baby kicked and turned; she put a hand on her stomach, humming to herself. She boiled the kettle, made herself a cup of tea and took it through to the living room, settling herself on the sofa. She picked up the remote. It was nearly eight. She ought to make herself something to eat – a salad, perhaps, or a piece of grilled fish – but first the news. At the thought of dinner, the baby kicked again. She smiled to herself. Greedy little thing.
It was only as she was tidying away the last of the dishes an hour later that she remembered the letters. She’d stuck them next to the toaster. Yves hadn’t yet rung; he was in New York and they were at least six or seven hours behind. She made a mental note not to switch her phone onto silent as she usually did before bed, and picked up the letters on her way out. She flicked through them idly: two bills, a neighbourhood flyer, a wrongly addressed envelope and one addressed to a M. Yves Guillaume Ameyaw. She looked at it and frowned. She turned it over. A plain white window envelope, computer-generated typeface, no indication as to whom it was from. She stared at it. Yves’ middle name was indeed Guillaume so it was unlikely it was wrongly addressed, but where had she heard the name ‘Ameyaw’ before? It was a Togolese name. She looked down at the envelope again. It was clearly an official letter of some sort. The postmark was Parisian. She hesitated, and then slid her fingernail underneath the flap. It opened up easily. She scanned it quickly, her heart suddenly accelerating. It was from the Maître des Requêtes at the Conseil d’État. It referred to a request made in July 2010 to formally register a change of name from Yves Guillaume Kofi Ameyaw to Yves Guillaume Pasqual on grounds of national security. Nous avons le regret de vous infomer que malgré notre attention sincère aux récents événements survenus dans votre pays, la République du Togo, nous ne pouvons porter assistance à un citoyen français qui aurait renouncéa sa nationalitiéanté – rieurement. ‘The minister regretted to inform M. Yves Ameyaw that, whilst he was sympathetic to recent events in the Republic of Togo, no credible case could be made in the case of a French citizen who had voluntarily renounced his former citizenship.’ She put it down carefully. It took her a few minutes to compose herself. Swallowing hard, she left the other letters on the sideboard and carried it through to the bedroom.
She sat down heavily, her breath coming in short spurts. Yves Ameyaw. She’d heard the name ‘Ameyaw’ before, she was sure of it. She stared at it for a few seconds and then the penny dropped. Not Kofi Ameyaw, Kweku Ameyaw. The journalist. She dimly remembered hearing something about a journalist being brutally murdered in Lomé, years back. Kweku Ameyaw. Her head began to swim. She put her hands on her shaking thighs. It took her a second to realise that the wetness slowly spreading itself around her was coming from her. She looked down and the fear turned to horror. Her trousers were wet. She was bleeding. She flung out a hand, searching frantically for the phone. Suddenly there was a wrenching upheaval inside her as the baby convulsed and turned. She grabbed at the phone, her hands flailing wildly. She punched in Tash’s number but her fingers were shaking so much she couldn’t hit the buttons properly. She tried again and again, fear rising in her throat like vomit. When, after what seemed like hours, she finally heard Tash’s voice, she tried to speak but the terror in her had blocked her throat. The floor at her feet was slick with blood. She looked down at it and the sound that came out of her mouth seemed to come from someone else. Blood. It was her last conscious thought.
96
TASH
She ran out of the house, screaming into her mobile, and almost straight into the path of an oncoming taxi. His light was on and she wrenched open the door before he’d come to a complete stop.
‘Woa . . . steady on there, miss!’ he turned to roar at her.
‘Drive! St Thomas’s! Accident and emergency
. . . DRIVE!’ She held the phone aside for a split second as she flung the words at him. She slammed the door behind her and spoke into the mouthpiece again. ‘Is she there yet? Who’s got her? Is she . . . is she breathing? Just make sure . . . who’s the doctor? Where is he?’
Another call was coming in. Yves Pasqual. She cut the nurse off. ‘Yves? Yves? Where are you? You got my message? No, she’s still in the ambulance; they’re nearly there . . . I don’t know, Yves, I don’t know. No, of course I will. I’ll be there in ten minutes. DRIVE!’ She screamed at the cabbie. ‘Ten minutes, Yves, I promise. I’ll phone you as soon as I see her.’ She switched back to the A & E. ‘Hello? Are you still there? Are you still there? What’s your name? Mary? Mary, please, please just make sure the doctors are on hand as soon as she comes in, make sure they’re waiting. I’ll be there in five minutes . . . yes, I’m her sister. Please, Mary . . . please.’
The driver made it in just less than eight minutes. Tash flung a handful of notes at him and jumped out. She almost broke her ankle but she could have cared less. Her heart was in her mouth as she ran down the short slope towards the A & E doors. She burst through, startling the people sitting in the waiting area, and ran straight to the admissions desk. ‘Annick Betancourt?’ she almost screamed. ‘No, Annick Pasqual. Pregnant woman, came in by ambulance a few minutes ago. Does anyone know where she is? Where the fuck is she?’
‘Miss, calm down, please! Calm down!’ The duty nurse jumped to her feet. ‘Please!’
‘Are you Mary?’
‘No, that’s Mary over there. No, miss, you’re not allowed—’
Tash didn’t hear her. She couldn’t hear a thing. The blood was thundering in her ears as she ran over to where a nurse stood, talking to a young man whose arm was in a sling. ‘Mary?’
The woman turned round. ‘Yes, I’m Mary.’
Tash’s hand went out before she could stop herself. She grabbed Mary by the forearm. ‘I’m Tash, Annick Pasqual’s sister. We spoke on the phone a few minutes ago.’
‘Oh, yes. She’s in theatre . . . they took her in straight away. Just a minute, sir,’ she said to the patient standing goggle-eyed beside her. She took Tash aside. ‘She lost a lot of blood but the surgeons are doing everything they can,’ she murmured, her voice low.
‘Surgeons?’ For a second, Tash thought she might actually be sick. Her phone had started ringing again.
‘Yes . . . because of the baby. Please don’t get yourself all worked up. We won’t know anything until she goes into Recovery.’
‘Is . . . is she going to be . . . all right?’ Tash could hardly get the words out.
The nurse looked at her out of the depths of experience. ‘We won’t know for a while yet,’ she said gently. ‘They’re doing all they can. Is there someone with you?’
Tash shook her head numbly. Inside her handbag, her phone was vibrating dully. ‘Her husband’s in . . . in the States. That’s probably him.’ She pointed to her bag.
‘Get yourself a cup of tea,’ Mary said firmly. ‘Lots of sugar. There’s a canteen in the basement. And then call him. I’ll come and find you as soon as she’s out of theatre.’
Tash couldn’t speak. She watched Mary turn back to her patient. As kind as she was, Annick was simply another casualty in a night filled with them. She needed something far stronger than tea. She looked around for the toilets. Luckily there was something in her handbag. Her phone vibrated again and again. She hurried to the ladies’, locked herself in the stall and unscrewed the cap. She downed the contents of the hip flask in a single gulp. The whisky burned all the way down; she belched softly and put up a hand to wipe her lips. She drew in two or three deep breaths and then fished out her mobile. First things first.
97
ANNICK
Tubes connected her arm to various machines thrumming with life. A series of differently pitched beeps marked out the different rhythms of her body. Heart, lungs, pulse, temperature. She tried to twist her neck to see properly, but couldn’t. Another, faster heartbeat, a greenish light pulsating on and off, on and off. Shadows tiptoed around her. Someone took her hand. A flashlight showed itself through half-closed lids.
‘Is she asleep?’ A voice broke through the curtain of silence.
‘No, it’s the fever. She’s got a high fever. We’re trying to bring it down. Speak to her . . . sometimes it helps.’
‘Annie? It’s me, darling, it’s Tash. Can you hear me?’ A pause. Then Tash’s panicked voice. ‘Why can’t she hear me?’
‘She can. Go on, talk to her. She’s been drifting in and out all morning.’
Morning? Annick struggled to make sense of what was being said. She opened her eyelids, squinting in pain as light flooded in.
‘Her eyes . . . they opened! Just now!’
‘I told you. Don’t mind me, I’m just preparing her medication.’
‘Annie?’
‘Ba-bab-baby?’ Annick struggled to get the word out. ‘Ba-baby?’
‘Shh, darling . . . it’s fine. The baby’s fine . . . he’s in intensive care, seven weeks early . . . oh, Annie.’ Tash was crying. ‘You’re going to be fine, I promise. Isn’t she?’ she beseeched the nurse who was busy preparing an injection.
‘Let’s hope so,’ the nurse was cheerful. ‘Here we go, Annick,’ she said, lifting Annick’s arm. She felt the soft pinprick of a needle sliding in. Through her half-closed eyelids she could see Tash burying her face in her hands. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d seen Tash cry. It hurt. Everything hurt.
‘Where . . . is . . . where’s Yves?’
‘He’ll be here this afternoon, darling. His plane gets in at one and he’ll come straight over. He hasn’t slept a wink, Annie . . . you gave us all such a fright. No, don’t try and talk. Just rest. The baby’s fine. You should see him . . . he’s tiny, so fucking tiny. Sorry, darling, I shouldn’t swear, I’m just—’
‘She’s going. Don’t worry, it’s just the Pethidine. It’ll knock her out for a bit. There she goes . . .’
She heard nothing further. Her last fleeting thought was that it was a boy.
TASH
Watching someone slide into oblivion was possibly the second-scariest thing she’d ever experienced, Tash thought to herself as she watched Annick sink. The first had to be the phone call. It had taken her a good few minutes to work out that it was Annick and that she was in trouble. What happened next was a blur, even now. She dimly recalled punching in ‘999’ and screaming for an ambulance. They’d asked her for the address and her mind had gone completely blank. ‘It’s . . . it’s next to the college. Next to a block of flats with yellow scaffolding. It’s . . . Jesus Christ, I can’t remember the address! It’s in Lambeth! Morley College, fuck, I can’t remember the road.’
‘Morley College . . . Lambeth, you say? That’d be King Edward Road,’ the operator said, his voice miraculously calm.
Tash could have wept with relief. ‘Number eight, that’s it. Number eight. Get an ambulance there quick! She’s pregnant. Oh, I don’t know . . . eight months? I don’t know what happened . . . she’s bleeding . . . she just called . . .’ The words tumbled out of her mouth incoherently. The operator kept her on the line, talking her calmly through it all. She could have kissed him.
Now, watching Annick sleep, the panic that had propelled her off the sofa, thrust her feet into her boots and picked up her handbag rose in her again. She felt nauseous. She hadn’t slept all night; it was now nearly eleven. In a couple of hours, Yves would be there. She’d rung Rebecca a dozen times but there was no answer. She’d left messages on her mobile and on the landline but nothing yet. She was exhausted. No, more than exhausted. She couldn’t even think straight. Annick had very nearly lost the baby and no one seemed able to tell her why.
‘Miss?’ A nurse had come into the room.
Tash looked up. ‘Sorry, I must’ve just dozed off,’ she mumbled.
‘No, it’s fine. There’s just something . . . the duty nurse forgot last night. She
held out a crumpled piece of paper in her hand. ‘Your sister insisted we give this to you. She was ever so agitated.’
Tash reached out for it. It was a letter, bloodied and crumpled as though someone had scrunched it up many times over. ‘Thanks,’ she said, puzzled.
‘Sorry about that. The rest of her belongings are in there,’ the nurse said, pointing to the locker in the corner of the room. ‘But she kept insisting we give that straight to you. Well, I’d better get on. The ward sister’ll be in to see her shortly.’
‘Thanks,’ Tash said automatically. She waited until the nurse had left the room and then smoothed the letter out. She frowned. It was in French, from the Conseil d’État. She struggled to understand what was written. Nous avons le regret de vous informer que malgrénotre attention sincère aux récents événements survenus dans votre pays, la République du Togo, nous ne pouvons porter assistance à un citoyen français qui aurait renouncéa sa nationalitiéantérieurement. Who was Yves Ameyaw? Yves? She read it again but it made no sense. She folded it carefully and slipped it into her pocket. When Annick was well enough, she’d ask her. In the meantime, there was a premature baby in intensive care to worry about, as well as an unconscious mother. More than enough.
98
ANNICK