Sweet Fruit, Sour Land

by Rebecca Ley

  It’s easier for us to go alone and have these conversations away from her, so as not to trouble her. I savour these walks, knowing that whatever I tell him he’ll keep and turn over in his head in amazement. Whatever I tell him might not have a solid image to go with it, and might only be an imagining, but I like to think it helps with his monotony.

  We pick up a few potatoes before we get to the other stalls, and the woman behind the table tells us they’ve run out of green beans, the string kind that you used to top and tail, before it became wasteful. I laugh, jubilant, and she looks at me, surprised.

  ‘It’s the end of the world,’ I say, expectantly, and she furrows her brow and turns to someone else.

  ‘What’s wrong,’ Hugo says, and he tugs at my coat sleeve and pulls me in the opposite direction of the food.

  ‘It’s a French expression,’ I say, ‘Maman taught me once. C’est la fin des haricots. It’s the end of beans. When all you have left are beans, and then they’re gone, you’ve had it. It can’t get worse. It’s the end of the world.’

  ‘I don’t get it,’ he says, and I repeat it to him, pronouncing it badly. He looks at me, confused.

  I wish I could say something to Mathilde. I wish I could say to her: maybe we’ve reached rock bottom. Maybe it’s a sign, maybe that’s it. And laugh with her. But she doesn’t acknowledge even these little expressions anymore, as though she’s forgotten them, as though the whole language doesn’t exist. So I remember them for her, and say them out loud for her. And tell Hugo for her, just in case one day he might want to know. In case one day a few French words might be familiar to him. But I urge him not to repeat them, not to say anything. I can’t explain why, and this confuses him more.

  ‘Is it really the end of the world?’ he says, pulling me towards a table full of broken down telephones and shiny metal things. I know he can’t conceive of what he’s asking. Because if he knew, he might not ask. He might think his question answered.

  Still, I say, ‘No. It’s not. We’re still here aren’t we?’ I hand him a small portable block phone, that will never switch on again, that once contained someone’s whole life; their messages, their thoughts, their plans, their pictures.

  He looks at the blank screen. ‘Where is everyone else?’ But he’s not listening, not even to his own question, as he strains, mesmerised at his faded reflection in the black glass.

  The next day I pull on Hugo’s small wellington boots. A godsend, a thing like that, up here. Ruby had them from when her boys were smaller, and gave them to us. We have nothing to give back, and no way to thank her. Ruby says she has more things to give us, and we are reluctant to take them. We are desperate to get our hands on anything like that, anything unusual that we could give to Hugo and make him happier. But we know we can never repay her, and so pretend we have a mixture of pride about it and let her assume that because we are from London we have things. That we have anything.

  We make our way to the church, which isn’t too far from our flat, so we are able to shield ourselves from the rain. We hold each of Hugo’s hands in ours and swing him forwards over the deepest of puddles. He shrieks with delight, as the rain sodden earth is his playground, and he revels in it.

  It is Mathilde who is agitated as we reach the church with its low stone wall and worn away graves. Religion wasn’t encouraged where she was, she never got used to it. She had another kind of guilt to get used to.

  Even though I spent much of my early years in temples rather than churches, I am just as comfortable here as anywhere else. London made me like that. I know stories from the Bible and I know the symbols they use and I know that light is as important for Christians as for Sikhs. Peace, too. I know they have God and we have God. I know not everyone believes in God and that feeling is not particular to any religion at all.

  We see the light from the church as we approach it. The way the candles flicker out from the old stained-glass windows. It’s a magical thing and it silences Hugo. We haven’t taken him anywhere like this since he was a baby, when he was too small to remember.

  ‘Is this where God lives?’ he asks, and Mathilde sighs as we walk up the gravel path to the wooden door.

  ‘If he lives anywhere,’ I say, gesturing around us, my arm becoming wet. ‘It would be here.’

  Mathilde shushes me. ‘He can decide about all that later.’

  I bend down to him, ‘Or decide about it never.’

  ‘Have you not decided?’ he says, looking at the church now with a mixture of anticipation and fear, and back to me as though I will give him the right answer.

  Mathilde gives me a warning look.

  ‘We want you to make up your own mind. We want you to think for yourself,’ I say.

  He puzzles over this, and forgets it as soon as Mathilde pushes on the old door and it reveals a shining radiant pocket of people and warmth inside. There are candles everywhere, and there is Ruby and her two boys, by a low table. There are drinks too, small amounts of old spirits and wines. And there are potato wafers, for communion, presumably, but now a snack. The church has provided a feast.

  Hugo pulls instantly towards the table of food, laden with perceived treats, but we pull him towards Ruby, politely. Once he notices her children he forgets the wafers, jubilant. He has seen so few other small children to play with.

  Ruby exclaims, delighted, and pulls herself to her feet and introduces the boys (Jacob and Tommy) and Hugo introduces himself right back, stomping his feet in his wellington boots and thanking Ruby for his new shoes. I look to Mathilde and she is radiant with joy at his politeness. She laughs at Ruby, ‘We didn’t even tell him to say that,’ and Ruby laughs back.

  We leave the children with their small lead pencils and mish-mash of old plastic toys. Ruby leads us over to the priest. He is standing serving drinks at a table in his black robe and collar, just the same as in London. This consistency pleases me.

  ‘Father Anthony,’ Ruby says, ‘I want to introduce you to the two new girls in the village. This is Mathilde, and Jaminder, and their son – over there – is Hugo.’

  ‘Delighted,’ he says, extending his hand gratefully. And he does seem genuinely pleased, so much so that we are taken aback and cold until Ruby nods at us and we extend our hands, in turn, and shake them, exaggeratedly, to compensate.

  ‘It’s wonderful here,’ I say, gesturing to the lights and the wafers and the people.

  ‘We work hard to remain at the centre of the community. Especially if you’re one of Mrs Campbell’s. But everyone is welcome. You are most welcome.’ He smiles, and I try and look behind it, I wonder about it. I wonder what it must be like for him to sit in this privileged position, funded by the government and our garment trade, protected, fed and warmed.

  He rummages about below the table and retrieves a couple of inky printed leaflets. I examine the faded black letters and drag my finger across them, I wonder how he prints them. They smudge.

  ‘We have oatmeal here, every day, for our residents. If you show us your pay slips we will subsidise what you have.’ He points to the leaflet, which lays out the points as he runs through them. ‘We have blankets, and welcome people to come here whenever they need. We are open late sometimes, for special occasions. Midnight Mass, Easter Vigil. We are always here for shelter, and counsel. And we school the children here, every morning. Should you wish to enrol your son.’

  Mathilde livens up at this suggestion, and makes an appreciative noise.

  ‘Who teaches them?’ I ask, wearily.

  ‘Oh,’ he says, smiling broadly, ‘I do. It’s not just religious studies, it’s everything I can offer. Can Hugo read and write?’

  ‘Yes,’ I say, proudly. ‘We taught him.’

  ‘I tailor my teaching to different pupils. There are so few of them, I’m glad of it.’

  ‘Why are you glad of it?’ Mathilde says, a sharp tone in her voice.

  Father Anthony lays the leaflets down in front of us. He smiles awkwardly as someone approaches the table f
or a drink. He hands it to them and then looks back at us. ‘I can assure you,’ he says, ‘they are well looked after.’ He smiles, but the sincerity of it has disappeared. I can see he is hurt by the accusation.

  Ruby picks up the leaflets and puts them in her bag. ‘Fantastic,’ she says, ‘He’s a fantastic teacher. Hugo should join, along with my two. They really do enjoy it. And what else do they have to do?’

  She can’t imagine another way. She can’t imagine where we’ve come from. And I note that Father Anthony doesn’t ask us – and doesn’t seem to mind – why we have travelled to this place and what for. Why our accents are so southern. He doesn’t ask (as I was so often asked in London, for no particular reason), if I am Indian, if I am Muslim, if I am something they can understand. It seems enough for him, just that we are people, and we are here, and it doesn’t seem to matter how far we’ve come, or why, what we have run from. It doesn’t matter to him that he can’t imagine what London is like, or what France was or Kenya, or that we have known many other worlds before this meeting.

  All that seems to matter is that we have ended up in the same place, and have met here, and he can offer us something. I am glad of his enthusiasm, which washes away our scepticism from our journey up here. I am glad for Hugo, not to be asked why he has two mothers, and for him not to know the answer. I know from the way he has dealt with us that he will never ask, and Hugo will be safe. I nod to Mathilde, and she nods at me. I know she is pleased, too. I pick up a small wafer, grateful to hold it in my hands.

  ‘We’d love for him to come to school,’ Mathilde says, and shakes his hand again, an awkwardly formal gesture, which I can only imagine she thinks is a way of being grateful to this Christian man in a language he might understand.

  6

  The thought of you was unavoidable, entering that church for the first time. I looked up at the crucifix and saw Jesus’ white, bony body hanging there; not in that bloody, visceral, Catholic way, but hanging there all the same. With that grimace on his face and that expression of pain. I wondered if you felt pain, too. I wondered if that’s what we had done: made a sacrifice.

  Of course, I worry for our boy. If he should belong to a church that is not a home for either of us. But we don’t really have a choice. Mathilde and I watch each other’s faces to look for the right thing to do. We don’t have to tell each other, after these long years, we just look at each other and know. In every passing comment, or moment of anger, any time she clangs her cup down or slams the door, I know she only does it out of love. I know that after all these years, that is what she has built up. I am working on it, too. But I also do things that aren’t motivated out of love. I look back.

  Mathilde is only glad to have got this far. I find it more difficult to be glad of it.

  I tell Mathilde, as a kindness, that I will take Hugo to school on his first day. I know she worries about it, and doesn’t want him to be afraid, or miss us, or miss Mrs Donald, or cry. But I find as I walk him to the church, his hand in mine, that he is only bouncing along on his feet. Maybe this is what he has wanted all along.

  ‘It’s okay to be scared,’ I tell him. ‘I was on my first proper day of school.’

  ‘Was your school in a church?’

  ‘No,’ I say. ‘It was in a building of its own because there were so many children.’

  ‘How many?’ He looks up at me, his brown eyes wide and wondrous, as though he is counting the imaginary children in his head.

  ‘I don’t know, Hugo, maybe a thousand?’

  ‘A thousand!’ He breathes the word out in great exclamation. ‘How did you all fit?’

  I laugh. ‘We squeezed in like sardines, our eyes popping out.’

  ‘What’s a sardine? Were you scared?’

  I think about this. I was scared of many things, but that wasn’t it. How could a child who hasn’t known any different understand that all I was scared of was leaving my grandparents, fearful that they might disappear while I wasn’t around to watch them? That they might forget me, or leave me there, that maybe that was their secret intention?

  ‘I wasn’t scared of all the children,’ I say. ‘Just one.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘His name was Boris. He went around asking everyone for their Lego, and if you didn’t give him your Lego, he’d bite you. I waited, knowing he would come to me eventually. And I wouldn’t give him my Lego so he bit me.’

  He swings my hand forwards and back, a sign of entrancement with the story.

  ‘I told Ms Sheeran and she took us outside the classroom. And she said that if I wanted, I could bite him back.’

  ‘Did you bite him?’ Hugo says, horrified.

  ‘Yes, I did. And Ms Sheeran went and got ice for my arm and left him outside. She was making a point.’

  Hugo stops swinging my arm and we walk quietly towards the church. I think he might be deciding what point Ms Sheeran was trying to make, and maybe I am still deciding too. But instead he just looks up at me as we approach the church’s low stone wall and says, ‘Mummy, what’s Lego?’

  We open the church door and the heat hits us like stepping into another country. It’s heat left over from the nights of parties and drinking and bodies and the small amount of heating the church can get. It reminds me of stepping off a plane and walking across the shiny tarmac and being hit by that wave of heat and that smell – red, dry earth, and frangipanes in Mombasa, by the coast. Coconuts and salt air.

  I try, but I can’t smell it now. It is only that old English smell of damp and dust, stale bread, and thick, padded, prayer cushions sewn together decades ago.

  Father Anthony greets us, and leads us to the back room where the children are sitting around low tables, quietly contemplating their sheets of paper. They are well behaved, and it is nothing like a school I once knew. There is no screeching and wailing and excited movement and bodies thrumming together in a small space, anticipating the day. They are fascinated by the things given to them, in miraculous contemplation. Maybe for this reason I am reticent about releasing Hugo’s hand and letting him join them. We can’t know what this will do, how this might change him. The company of other children is a wonderful delight, but the rest. I am anxious and look around the room, studying the walls and trying to locate some sense of normality pinned upon them.

  I let go to pull out his small chair for him at the table, next to another girl who is older than him. There seems to be little segregation of ability here and I wonder that anyone this far north has been schooled at all. But age would have no impact on what they might have learnt. Some children may have learnt nothing in their lives but how to thread a needle.

  ‘Can I see what you’re teaching them?’ I ask Father.

  ‘Of course,’ he smiles at me, and hands me a few sheets of paper that are handwritten. The paper is thick: that old recycled stuff they stopped circulating years before. But I imagine it is all they have. There’s basic arithmetic and reading. There are sheets of words, bringing me back to being young, when words like that were difficult and had to be spoken first inside your head. I feel that Hugo might be beyond this, but I’m not sure. We have never been able to challenge him as much as we’d have liked.

  ‘Can I keep this one?’ I say, holding up the page of sums.

  He doesn’t question me on it. ‘Absolutely.’ I think about studying maths in school all those years ago and how I knew more then than I do now. I want to test myself.

  ‘I’ll bring it back if you need it.’ I fold it up and put it in my pocket.

  He tells me he’ll feed them something for lunch, and then we can pick him up afterwards. I’m grateful for this, and find it a marvel that there is somewhere where we can guarantee he will be fed, at least once a day, and that one worry is catered for.

  I leave him, and Hugo doesn’t cry at my departure, in fact barely glances up at me. But I know I will feel guilty about leaving him there all day. I know I will think of him, every minute, and feel my stomach lurch, and worry that he is safe. W
orry that he fears I may not come back and collect him, worry that I have left him, abandoned – in a church! A foreign place, even to me, even now.

  As soon as I walk from the room I feel guilty for my singularity, that I am on my own and the people I love are occupied. I am free to do as I please until lunchtime, on my day off, with no one to look after. It’s a strange kind of luxury, and one that I haven’t had or known what to do with for years. Even before we had Hugo, our free time never seemed to be our own, not really, not in the sense that we could move about as we pleased and be in our own bodies as we pleased. You made sure of that.

  I wonder what you would think about Mathilde’s son in school, almost five years old, my son (yes, he is mine, too) as beautiful as anything that was ever born of man. That was ever born at all.

  I try to extinguish the crushing weight of your face from my mind, and find that I can’t. I look up involuntarily to that Jesus, hanging there, his arms pulled up in a perfect arc of pain and I see you again, your arms on Mathilde, your arms everywhere.

  That’s when I notice it, more perfect than anything I’ve seen in years. I stop, dazzled by it, afraid. I imagine myself at it, my feet moving, and my hands, and the peace that they search for. The peace that I might find in light, but not in a church. I imagine the music, and the slippery keys, and I imagine that this is what people speak of when they say Jesus died for something. That all of us die for something.