by Anna Legat
He has to rush back. He is on the late shift, already working with trainee drivers, already earning his big bucks. Wanda will change her mind when she discovers how much he can save in the next six months. She may even let him extend it to a year. The offer is on the table. The company want him to stay – they value him.
The bloody traffic is a nightmare. Andrzej weaves in and out of the fast lane, which isn’t any faster than the rest of them. He is heading directly for the depot; no time to go home and get his sandwiches from the fridge. Damn it! It was that unexpected stop-over at the hospice. Wanda just had to wave goodbye to her patients. Perhaps she should reconsider leaving them in the first place? No, that’s just mean thinking! She is better off at home with Paulina. She is right to be there. Paulina comes first. Andrzej comes second. He hopes he does! A cheeky smirk quivers on his lips. She’ll get over it! Six months, maybe a year.
Miraculously, he clocks in with two minutes to spare. Genius! His student is already there – naturally. He is keen, and a quick learner. Young. From up North. He will do well, Andrzej will make sure of that. They will run the routine checks first, then Andrzej will let him take the wheel tonight.
‘Hi, Malik! It’s your lucky night – you’re in charge! How does that sound?’ Andrzej slaps Malik on the back affectionately.
Malik’s face breaks into a rare grin. ‘I thought you’d never ask!’
XIV
‘You’re looking good.’ This isn’t an empty compliment. Perversely, prison seems to agree with Sean. Gillian expected to find a battered old man resigned to his self-inflicted fate, but he is far from that. The clean-shaven look suits him. His bright Irish eyes smile at her.
‘I’ve been working out – weights mainly,’ he says, ‘Not much else to do here.’
‘I see.’
‘I have to be seen to be fit to survive in this jungle. Earning respect. I’ve got a few good years to go.’
‘Sixteen, isn’t it?’
‘So the judge said.’ The smile has vanished. ‘Let’s not talk about me. So... what brings you here?’
‘I thought you may want to know how Corky is getting on.’
‘And how is he getting on?’
‘Slowly. Suffered a few minor injuries in skirmishes with Fritz over the territory, but the pecking order is now firmly in place and the boys stay out of each other’s way.’
‘Good.’
‘He misses you.’
His eyes well up; he pinches his nose and laughs. ‘Pity they don’t allow dogs here. I’ ll have to complain about that. Could do with someone to talk to.’
‘I’ll pop over from time to time.’
He rounds on her with a hard glare. ‘Why would you? You hardly know me.’
‘I hardly know myself. Too busy for retrospection... Anyway, I don’t have to know you to like you, and I like you for some reason.’
‘Thanks, but still -’
‘It’s easy to talk to you. For one, you aren’t going anywhere – you may as well sit and listen,’ she tries to crack a joke. He rewards her with a snort.
‘I’m just saying you don’t have to -’
‘I know, but I’ve got too much time on my hands: I’m on leave.’
‘Suspended?’
‘No!’ Gillian rolls her eyes. ‘I’m on leave – a holiday, heard of that? Three weeks.’
‘That doesn’t sound like you.’
‘I morphed into the new me. I’m seriously considering packing it all in – the police work. Sick and tired of it... I guess I’m an old-timer – I don’t get the PR stuff or the bloody crime statistics analyses. The paperwork does my head in.’
‘Can’t teach an old dog new tricks?’
‘Something like that. I’m going to enjoy life.’
‘Good luck with that.’
‘Tara is getting married...’
He nods as if contemplating the news, but his face is impassive. He only knew Tara for five minutes. Why should he care? Perhaps coming here to see him was a mistake. Gillian can’t think of anything else to say. She feels rather foolish. He is a stranger. Like so many people who have entered and exited her life without leaving a lasting effect, Sean has been a flash in the pan: intense when it happened, but without the staying power. It isn’t his fault – it’s hers. She is the one who skims on the surface, never allowing herself to peer deeper, to dive in and commit. She’d rather contend with that big black hole in her private life; she knows how to deal with it – you just pretend it isn’t there and keep yourself occupied elsewhere. Don’t complicate things, that’s her preferred alternative to getting a life.
As if reading her thoughts, he says, ‘I really don’t think you should’ve come, Gillian.’
‘No, I shouldn’t.’ She gets up, covers his hand with hers and smiles ruefully, ‘Take care, Sean. I must dash.’
There is a moment of hesitation in his eyes. It seems he has changed his mind. He holds her hand for that little bit longer than he should. He is about to say something – something important, something personal – but decides against it. He says, ‘Goodbye, DI Marsh.’
Gillian is taking her life seriously – the personal aspect of it. It isn’t a large chunk of her life, and so far, it hasn’t been the most important one, but this is about to change. She will catch up with Tara before the girl flies the nest, and that already means catching her mid-flight. Gillian has been regarding Tara’s marriage to Charlie as the final nail in the coffin of their mother-daughter relationship, but now she sees it as an opportunity to show contrition and, hopefully, earn Tara’s forgiveness. Three weeks. She has three weeks to make up for lost time. She will use her holiday wisely. In any event, she wouldn’t know what to do with all that spare time on her hands. She’s never holidayed before, not in the proper sense of the word. Doing nothing goes against the grain of her Calvinist mentality. She has inherited workaholic tendencies from her father. This is her first attempt at rehab.
Grace, Sasha’s mother, is so much better at it! In her sweeping Jamaican fashion, she has beaten the hotel manager into submission. ‘You give us respectable discounts on the rooms and we’ll give you many happy, drinking guests. If people have somewhere to put down their weary heads, they’re more likely to buy that one extra nightcap, no?’
‘Well -’ starts the manager. After the hard bargain driven so far by Grace with great virtuosity, his already ashen face is getting even greyer. ‘Well, we have standard rates -’
That isn’t an answer Grace expects to hear so she doesn’t let him finish. ‘Look here, if our guests have to drive home, they won’t enjoy themselves ’cos they won’t be able to have a drink. I don’t want the guests at my daughter’s wedding – and her best friend’s wedding too – I don’t want our guests to feel like they have to rush home! It’s a big thing for us. We want everyone to enjoy themselves, don’t we, Gillian?’ She nudges Gillian, who blinks like a dazzled hedgehog in headlights. ‘So two weddings, two lots of guests, two lots of paying customers – if that’s not wholesale prices then I don’t know what is!’
‘We’ve already agreed on the twenty-five per cent off the venue hire,’ the manager endeavours to point out the obvious, but that, to Grace, is yesterday’s snow. She flays her arms like she is fighting off a swarm of wasps, ‘No, no, no! That’s sealed and dusted! We’re talking the rooms now.
We can’t have our guests sleeping in the car park, can we now? I couldn’t look them in the eye!’
‘Rooms will be reserved for your party as soon as I know the numbers.’
Grace glares at the manager, her huge eyes rounded in disbelief. ‘You’re not serious! You know what we’re asking you, or am I not speaking English? Can we start talking business now, or shall we take it elsewhere? There are other hotels round here...’
The manager hunches under the threat. Even Gillian feels slightly intimidated, though she has nothing to fear: she’s on Grace’s side.
‘Tell him, Gillian!’ Grace despairs. ‘Maybe he’ll understand
it better coming from you!’
‘We have guests coming from afar, some of them from abroad... Jamaica, South Africa... They may need to stay longer than just one night.’
‘You’ll still make a hefty profit!’ Grace stomps her plump foot on the plush, five-star carpet.
‘Ten percent,’ the manager clenches his teeth.
‘Double it and we’re all yours!’
OK, two middle-aged women may not be what the man is after. It may, in fact, have the opposite effect to what Grace intends, Gillian fears, but she is wrong. Just to close this hard bargain and make it to his therapist by the close of business, the hotel manager says, ‘Done!’
Grace spits into her hand and offers it to the man to seal the deal.
‘We have the venue and the rooms sorted,’ Grace announces to the girls over a high tea in the hotel restaurant, which is on the house of course, compliments of the management. ‘Don’t worry, the cost is on us. What else are parents for? You just turn up and look gorgeous.’
‘Thanks, Mum,’ Sasha beams at Grace. ‘Is Dad in on it?’
‘On a need-to-know basis, if you must know.’
‘Whoops!’
‘He’ll do as he’s told, no?’
‘He wouldn’t dare not to!’ Sasha laughs.
Tara is looking at Gillian. It has been a while since she looked at her that way. ‘Thanks, Mum,’ she echoes Sasha. Gillian smiles. God, she smiles! Everything inside her is warm and happy. ‘Who is having the last macaroon?’ She hopes it will be Tara. She loves macaroons – she used to before she stopped eating two years ago. A dreary, but distant past...
‘That’s mine,’ Tara reaches for it. The smile inside Gillian grows wider and warmer.
‘Did you know Tara’s dad invited us to spend our honeymoon on his farm in South Africa?’ Sasha announces. ‘The four of you?’
‘Well, yes! Sorry, you’re not invited, Mum.’
‘Never mind me. You just remember to say thank you when you get there.’
‘My father won’t be there. He will be staying in his house in Dorset after the wedding, until February, I think. We’ll have the whole farm at our disposal. Hortensia will be there – she’s always there. I can’t wait for you to meet her, Sasha! She’s a gem! She’s this mother figure...’
Gillian wishes she was that mother figure, or just a plain mother to her daughter. She will most certainly try her best to achieve it in the short time that she has left. ‘So all that’s left is your wedding dresses,’ she chimes.
‘And the bridesmaids’,’ Sasha gulps. ‘We know what we want. This amazing snow-white chiffon for us, with fake fur – you know, because it’s winter so we thought we’d make it Christmassy...’
‘If we can afford them,’ Tara rolls her eyes. ‘But we can always dream... Otherwise -’
‘No, no otherwise. We must make the dream come true,’ Gillian has learned a thing or two from the formidable Grace. ‘What else are parents for!’
Webber knocks on her door, yells Gotcha! when Gillian opens it, and pushes by her, heading straight for the kitchen. What on earth is he doing here? ‘Haven’t you got the kettle on?’
‘Put it on, then.’
He does, then sniffs around the kitchen for signs of food. Gillian folds her arms and leans against the kitchen door frame.
‘I thought I’d pay you a visit, see when you’re coming back.’
‘In three weeks.’
‘Only we’ve a sweepstake at the station around your return day. The odds are seven to one that you’ll be back within the first week. I bet a tenner.’
‘You’ll lose it.’
‘Even if I were to tell you that Scarface was bringing someone from Bath to take over the Hornby case?’
‘Even then.’
‘Are you feeling all right?’ He pauses, tilts his head and approaches her with the hot kettle in hand, slightly tilted and dripping hot water. Wisely, Fritz removes himself from the line of fire and vanishes under the table. From the safety of his hidey-hole, he gives out one warning yodel. Corky produces a short bark in response to that.
‘Mind the hot water! You’re scaring the animals!’
‘No, honestly, Gillian! What’s wrong with you?’
‘Nothing! I’m on holiday.’
‘That’s what got me worried in the first place! Thought maybe you were ill...’
‘Tara is getting married. I need time off work to get things ready.’
‘Get things ready? Not you! It’s a mid-life crisis, isn’t it? Age catching up with you?’
‘Fuck off, Webber.!’
He puts two mugs with milky tea on the bench-top and helps himself to two teaspoons of sugar.
‘Me too,’ Gillian says. She’s still propping the door frame.
Webber puts the sugar in her tea. ‘At least you still take sugar! I wasn’t sure it was you. You didn’t even phone in... So level with me – what’s with the new you?’ He sits down, rests his mug on a coaster and warms his hands around it.
She joins him at the table and takes a sip from her mug. The tea is too hot to drink, but she wants to hurry him up. ‘You’d better be quick, Mark. Tara and Charlie will be here any minute. Then we’re off to my parents with the wedding invite. Supper is waiting – I don’t want to come across as a bad host, but I’m busy.’
‘No, it isn’t you... What the hell happened to you?’
‘I don’t know, Mark. I’m tired. Maybe I’ve burned out. I just stopped caring. At this very moment, all I care about is my daughter’s big day. I want to be around when it happens, not running around the country, chasing shadows.’
‘I understand that. Family comes first.’
‘You should know that, of all people!’ Mark is the prototype of a family man. Despite all adversity and despite Kate’s depression, he has been holding his lot together, never easing up and never giving in to doubt.
‘Yes, but after the wedding... you’re back in action, right?’
‘I don’t know yet. I need to think it through.’
XV
It is an apocalyptic sight – a large, flat area covered with torn huts, bits of tarpaulin flapping on broken structures, trying to take off; cardboard and corrugated iron strewn across the desolate muddy ground. There is graffiti written in Arabic on a billboard advertising Coca-Cola, which is serving as a wall of somebody’s shack. Haji can’t read Arabic, but he likes the lettering, which is like terraced arches and pointy minarets punctuated with one-eyed snakes. The writing is a reflection of the desert, and Haji is Sandman, a desert-man – he is bound to like it.
The smell is that of burning, and indeed many of the makeshift structures have been set on fire and are wholly or partially charred. Haji wanders into the camp, kicks a pot which tumbles away, bouncing on a stone and coming to an abrupt standstill. A poor excuse for a door in a poor excuse for a dwelling sways open. A young black man steps out. He eyes Haji with suspicion. ‘What you want?’
So there are still people living in the Jungle, Haji discovers. People are like rats – they can make a home out of anything. Ingenious. Tenacious. Survivors. Haji has lots of respect for rats. He doesn’t have to like them to respect them. He doesn’t have to like people either, and many of them he doesn’t like, particularly those he can’t trust. But unlike with the rats, Haji has no respect for those people. The world should be rid of them.
‘Nothing,’ he tells the black man. ‘What happened here?’
‘You too late. Everyone gone – detention centre.’
‘In the UK?’
‘Ha, ha!’ the black man makes a deep and resonating noise when he laughs. ‘You wish!’
‘You are still here,’ Haji observes. ‘And others,’ he adds upon noticing two more heads popping from the dark interior of the dwelling. It is astounding how they managed to gather a mismatch of materials to reconstruct their shack and make it look like an integral part of the mess, so that it blends in perfectly.
‘I stay. They go and come back from
detention centre. Some do, some don’t.’
‘Any Afghans you know?’
‘No. You go other place. You too late for the Jungle. Bulldozers come tomorrow. Police come. You go!’ The black man waves him away.
‘What about you?’
‘I go the UK. Not detention centre.’
‘Good luck.’
Haji walks away, swerving towards the motorway. He comes across more and more Jungle dwellers. There are those who are buried in everyday domesticity, cooking a meal using an oil drum as a stove. A group of younger men, who look no more than teenage boys, are playing cricket. Haji stops and watches. He listens to their arguments. They are Pakistani, a faint whiff of home...
So it isn’t the end of the world. It isn’t the Apocalypse. It isn’t as bad as what he has left behind. Not half as bad. Not yet.
The burning smell was the same, though: acidic and suffocating. And the black smoke unfurled across the sky and made night out of the day. And people cried – those who were still alive cried for those who had been killed. Haji cried.
It had started with such promise. Haji had been given a three days’ leave of absence, and left the British compound in Helmand Province to travel to Pandsher Valley for his little sister’s wedding. It was going to be a big wedding in the best of Tajik tradition. Haji had not seen his sister in three years, since he had left the kishlak and joined the British in the fight against the Taliban. Haji had unfinished business with the Taliban – they were behind Masud’s assassination and he wasn’t going to let them walk over his country’s grave unchallenged. He had become a much-valued interpreter working for the Coalition forces. It was one more war he had to fight before it was all over, once and for all. Before he could reclaim his old life.
But on that day, he wasn’t a fighter – he was the big brother of the bride. He barely recognised her when he lay his eyes on her upon arriving in the kishlak. She was a princess, bathed in red and golden robes! She took Haji’s breath away.
The family were all there, every generation of uncles and aunts, cousins and countless other relatives. No expense was spared for the feast. Some of the delicacies must have been smuggled from Pakistan. A band of local musicians brought their instruments and played old, well-known songs. People danced. It was as if time had retreated in its tracks. It was like it used to be before the wars began.