by Rebecca Ley
‘No,’ I say. ‘I can’t.’
We listen to him breathing all through the night, watching as the candles burn down. Mathilde falls in and out of sleep, her head resting against his sheets, and I sit cross-legged, her hand in mine. I look at the candles and at his feverish face. I think back to when I was a child, and all the lights I left on. All the switches I clicked and bulbs I left burning. All the streets I walked down lit up for no reason other than so people might see the way.
I think of Diwali, and that comforting ritual we had, so like this one, where we turned off all the lights in our house and lit candles. We covered the rooms in candles.
We filled brown sandwich bags with sand and stuck red candles in them and lined them up the driveway to our house. We boiled milk and strained mixtures through cotton and added sugar and laid it out and cut them into sweets. And we lit so many candles.
Diwali is warm and surrounded by people, not like this. I swallow a sickening taste in my throat, thinking this is now my Diwali, the only one I’ll get. Lighting candles because we have to, around my ill son (yes, mine, too), sitting with all the family I have. It is nothing like it once was. I feel guilty at the thought that I have let my grandparents down, how sad they’d be if they could see me, and see what we have got ourselves into. How they might be ashamed of me for being like this. How I am ashamed of myself, that Hugo will never know the farcical exchange of identical gifts, and my grandmother’s false surprise at receiving the same sweets each year. I imagine their fudgy softness on my tongue, but I cannot dream of a thing like that anymore. And he will never know that kind of sweetness for its own sake.
But he will know candles. There is no temple for him, only a church. And maybe one is not better than the other, but one is more foreign than the other. I long for it: to push back against all those years and sit on the floor with the crowd of women, our hair long and covered and our feet bare, and praying for something, whether we knew what it was or not, praying to something.
If I could push back on those years and be in Kenya, and be with my family, and show Hugo to them, I would. If I could tell my grandfather about my son, and tell him the idea I have that he might play cricket, or at least play a ball game, that he might play the piano; that he might taste roti, one day, and tear it up, and roll it about his tongue, just like he did, and continue on, like us; if I could tell him that and it was true, in this instant, I would wipe away everything else. Looking at him, lying in this pathetic cold flat, surrounded by this hopeless dream we had for him, I realise I would rather take back the past, in all its sincerity and splendour. I would rather take back the past in my imagining of it, than have anything we have now.
I watch Mathilde and wish I could show my wish to her. I wish she could see what I can only dream of. And I wish I could see hers, too. I wish she’d spoken French to Hugo because then I could hear her say the words, I could imagine another life for her. I could re-learn her, and all that she is. I could meet her for the first time, and all the magic of it. I could watch her as though I was only now just meeting her, a beautiful stranger to me, once more.
The candles burn down and the others stay asleep. I watch their breathing, checking their movements, carefully, making sure. I look at the candles, and the dripping wax, and how wasteful that might be. But I still light them. When they go out, one by one, I still strike our last matches, and light them.
Part 7
Mathilde
Matilda
1
George arrived back to his house without a word spoken about what had passed. I was sitting in the kitchen, dressed for later, looking at my hands, with the radio turned on, loudly.
I had picked up the telephone again several times, after I got back from the pub, and listened. I tried to decipher the pattern of noise it emitted, and I spoke words into it, to no one. George entered the kitchen jangling a set of keys in his hand. He put them down as soon as he saw me.
‘Why are you just sitting there like that?’ he said, a frown on his face. ‘You look miserable.’
‘I was just waiting for you,’ I said, and tried to smile.
He looked at me fiercely, then to the radio. He marched towards it and pushed the button forcefully to turn it off. ‘It’s this damn radio, isn’t it. This damn violin music you listen to incessantly. Honestly, Matilda. It’s driving me insane.’
He gestured with that word – accompanied by a high screeching sound to exclaim insane! – and hit the radio with his hand, so that it fell from the counter and onto the cold, hard floor. My face crumbled, and I held my hands up to it.
He looked at my reaction, grimly satisfied. Then he stamped on the radio until he drowned the music from my world.
*
‘I’ve got something for you,’ he said. I tore my hands away from my face and I looked up. He looked happy.
‘Oh?’ I said.
‘You have to come outside and see.’ He gestured towards the front door and I followed him. He opened it and I stood on the threshold. I hadn’t put my shoes on. I didn’t need to step out any further; it was bright and possessed, unapologetic.
‘It’s a car,’ I said, trying to hide the horror in my voice.
‘Yes,’ he said, laughing and tugging at my arm in childish delight. ‘Can you believe it? I finally found one. I’ve charged it up, it’s ready to go.’
‘Go where?’ I said, scared of getting in such a thing controlled by him, alone, facing forward, cramped, so near the front window and so close to smashing through onto the streets. ‘Are you allowed?’
He shrugged his shoulders, ‘Of course, they’re not illegal.’ He gave me a look, perturbed by my lack of enthusiasm. ‘You should be pleased that you’re with someone who can afford the power for such a thing.’
‘I am,’ I said, looking up at him, trying to show some willing. He pulled my arm and I stepped forward onto the street. The pavement was burning underneath my feet. I lifted them up, one after the other, to try and cool them.
‘Look at the seats!’ he said. ‘The interior.’
I looked. I didn’t know what I was looking at. Grey upholstery with buttons. Dials and switches and glass, glass everywhere. Seatbelts, I checked. Everything looked new. Plump tires with deep grooves, for grip. Grip along these paved Westminster roads? You could go somewhere in that car, you could really go somewhere. If you could afford to charge it up. If you could find somewhere that still did that kind of thing. ‘It’s marvellous,’ I said. ‘I’m impressed.’
‘Exactly.’ He held my hand. My fingers twitched. ‘Are you ready for Gloria’s later?’
‘Yes, I’m ready.’
‘Good. I need to change my tie.’ He looked down at my feet. ‘What on earth are you doing with no shoes on? You’ll burn your feet to cinders.’
I padded them up and down on the hot stone.
The door was open when we arrived at Gloria’s, and no one responded to our knocking. We walked up the staircase alone, ourselves. I spent the whole ride over gripping the window ledge of the car, and looking out of the glass. I stared at the traffic lights and watched them change, usually indicating to no one in particular. It was a smooth ride, even though George had to keep braking along the city streets, remembering the speed limit. Around the city centre, the car crawled past a few pedestrians. Their heads flicked around as the car went slowly by. We went driving around the streets before heading north to Hampstead, so he could show me what the car could do, how it could drive.
‘I wish there were fewer people around so we could really get this thing going,’ he said, before turning out over Waterloo Bridge.
I looked onto the roads and wondered how you could want that, in this desolate place.
From the bridge you could see where the city was lit. Hospitals, schools. Some lights still emanated at night. The lamps on the bridge were turned off. A few people lined its edge. One woman stood on the first rung of the railing, and as we passed and our headlights lit her up, she turned. Her face was a b
lack smudge against the river, her eyes widened. She didn’t step off.
As the car headed north and the roads emptied and widened, George sped up. He laughed, jumping a meaningless red light.
‘Isn’t it wonderful?’ he said, turning his head towards me, unafraid.
I didn’t say anything. I felt smothered by the car. What I didn’t say was I was embarrassed. I hoped no one saw me, even if they were strangers and I never saw them again. I didn’t want to be in anyone’s memory as a person in a car. I didn’t want to be remembered in any form, even a blink, a tiny accumulation of molecules for one millisecond, as someone using electricity to drive from Westminster to Hampstead.
I hoped no one would see us as we pulled into Gloria’s drive, greeted by two other cars. I hoped Jaminder had come. I hoped she hadn’t touched another piece of fruit, not even to hold it. I hoped she’d never ridden in a car, not even as a child. I hoped she had nothing to be ashamed of.
As we reached the room at the top of the stairs the mood was ashen. People milled about, quietly, but my heart lifted as I heard the piano. But Jaminder’s playing was slow and deliberate, not even close to the energetic, jolly tune I had heard once before.
I looked at the food on the tables. Some of the fruit had turned. The plates were laid out just as yesterday, half-full. The bottles were depleted.
‘No delivery today then,’ George mumbled.
I didn’t ask from where. The electric lights were off, and this time there truly were only candles lit, held in black candelabras all around the room.
Gloria was sitting by the large sash windows, facing towards the glass with her hand extended from her, cigarette in place. I was relieved to see her, even like that.
‘Smoking indoors are we?’ George said, with great amusement in his voice. He dropped my hand and walked towards her, but her head didn’t turn. No one addressed him. I looked to Jaminder, and her head turned to me; a slight shrug of the shoulders, I don’t know, her movement said.
Gloria’s hair hadn’t been brushed and she was wearing old blue jeans, the kind that fit tightly all the way down the leg. She didn’t have shoes on. Her hand flicked the cigarette ash onto her lap. Her fingernails were painted in Affair in Red Square, or I imagine they were because I think she would’ve liked that. It would have pleased her to have that again in my telling of it.
Gloria didn’t move for a long time to talk to her guests or look towards them. She stayed, contemplative, peering past her reflection in the window out onto the street below, one leg tucked over the other, cigarette after cigarette greeting her fingers. The party was quieter than normal, and discussion quickly turned amongst the groups of people to the lack of care taken over the night’s proceedings. Glasses hadn’t been washed, floors hadn’t been swept, food or drink hadn’t been ordered. Frank had obviously tried, in haste, to fix the neglect of his wife, but it was noticeably different. It was discussed among guests if she was ill. Why then did she sit at the window? People tried to talk to her directly and they were ignored; one woman went to touch her and Gloria only flinched, but didn’t look towards them. Frank walked around, apologising, laughing, filling glasses and taking care to address each person in turn. But the atmosphere was lost.
Frank came towards me, pressing his glasses up his nose with one hand, and holding a bottle of something with the other.
‘Is Gloria okay?’ I asked him.
‘Oh, yes,’ he said. ‘She’s just having a quiet moment. Don’t we all need that, sometimes? I’m sure Proust had many of them, didn’t he?’
‘Who?’
He frowned at me. ‘Gosh, you’re as English as tea, aren’t you?’ he said, before patting me on the shoulder and wandering off. I waited patiently for a break in Jaminder’s playing, and time seemed to slow to a pulpy thickness I couldn’t get to as I watched George working the room, I watched Jaminder hit the keys, mechanically, and I watched Gloria, unmoving.
I thought she might never leave the window. I imagined her for all eternity sitting there, as the buildings crumbled around her and the world flooded. I suppose that is how I imagine her, in my eternity, now.
When Jaminder stopped, and left her stool, I released an intake of breath and followed her to the food table. She glanced up at me. I touched her arm, ‘Jaminder?’
’Slim pickings today,’ she said, as though she were talking to anyone.
I whispered to her. ‘Do you know what’s happened?’
She looked up, taking a bite out of a cracker. Her eyes scanned the room in one quick sweep.
‘No,’ she said, ‘I don’t. But I think I need your help.’
That was the first time she asked me for anything. I remember that feeling of inclusion. She touched my arm, the arm that touched hers, and we were one linked body like that. It made me feel strong. I would have done anything for her then.
’Follow me,’ she said, ‘once I have Gloria. Follow us.’ I didn’t ask why, but she told me anyway. ‘I’m afraid I can’t do it on my own.’
I wonder if she suspected, then, what might have happened. The inevitability of it. She might not have known at all (and this is what she claimed later), but she knew that anything could have happened; that it was all possible; and it scared her.
She released my arm and stuffed another cracker into her mouth before pouring a tumbler of gin and gulping it whole. She nodded at me and then left my side. My eyes followed her, as she walked over to Gloria at the window. She said her name gently. Gloria’s head moved and lifted towards Jaminder. Her eyes were glassy and vacant, but they gradually focused on Jaminder in front of her. She stubbed out her cigarette onto the windowsill and followed Jaminder from the room.
A noticeable ease took hold of the party then, a great exhale of breath. The awkward presence had been removed and the jollity continued. Someone put on a record. Someone screeched a laugh.
I saw George’s stern face across the room, and before he could look for me, I slipped out the double doors and circled back to the exit Jaminder and Gloria had taken.
I heard them before I saw them. A small wail from upstairs. I followed the noise and it led me to the upstairs bathroom. I had been in it once before; large antique bath on feet, porcelain sink, tiled floor. Plush towels and bottles. Cupboards and cupboards of bottles. I tapped lightly on the wooden door. A bolt slid across and it opened. Jaminder stood behind it, and ushered me through quickly. Gloria was sitting beside the sink, leant against the wall facing the bath. Her mouth lay open, her eyes followed mine as I sat opposite her. I hitched my knees up as she had done and Jaminder sat beside us, the circle complete. We were like schoolchildren then, gathered on the floor of the bathroom.
Gloria looked at Jaminder. ‘What’s she doing here?’
‘She can help, she knows things.’
‘She’ll talk to George.’
‘I won’t tell him a thing,’ I said.
She looked at me, at Jaminder. Jaminder nodded.
Gloria’s face relented. ‘I got this today, with our food delivery.’ She handed me a folded piece of brown paper. I took it, looking at Jaminder to gauge what kind of reaction I should have.
The paper had a dark, uneven surface. It was an invoice, a list of food, in some kind of Nordic scrawl, with the English translation next to it.
‘Your food delivery?’ I said.
‘Look at the last item,’ Gloria said, her face a contortion of worry.
My eyes ran down the list in swirling black pen; a list of all the usual items that arrived nightly and were laid out on the buffet table. All the bananas and apples, and small tins of fish and dairy too: six eggs, and a small pot of cream. At the bottom lay an additional item, written in dark pencil, different from the rest, rendered by a strange hand. It read, with soft, cramped markings: FIGS
‘Figs?’ I said, not understanding.
Jaminder gave me a sharp look.
Gloria lit a cigarette. ‘Figs,’ she said, slowly. ‘Don’t you remember? They were always the fruit
I was glad to see the back of, the wrinkled things I hated the most. Wendy used to tease me about them, and I said,’ she took a drag, her hands shaking. ‘If figs ever appeared on my list, something terrible must’ve happened.’ She shook her head. ‘We always joked about it being our code word for the death of all good things. It was the only way to get a message to me. Inconspicuous, perfectly unnoticeable amongst the rest. Means nothing, to anyone else.’
‘Where is she?’ I said, quietly. ‘Where is she now?’
Jaminder released Gloria’s hand. Gloria’s cigarette butt hung from her fingers, burning through. The ash slowly drifted down to her jeans. She didn’t wipe it away. Gloria lifted her head up towards me, a sickening expression on her face. ‘The little hive George has by the coast, that was his first foray into foreign investment. He imported these bees and tried to breed them. And people liked it. They liked tasting what they hadn’t had in years. They’re obsessed by this idea, George in particular, that now we’ve fucked nature up we can own her. That we can create this little utopia in London where we can have whatever we want, while everyone else starves.’
Jaminder was shaking her head and I frowned. ‘Where do they get it all from?’
‘George organised it all. There were still close ties to Northern European royal families after ours was lost. And they fared best, didn’t they? They avoided the worst of it all, and so production carried on well for them. Until the influx of people in Norway brought yellow fever. Then they were desperate for people. They can grow everything there, better than here, but not people.’
‘We’re not animals, can’t they see that?’ Jaminder said, sickeningly.
‘They know we’re screwed,’ Gloria said. ‘Why not save the privileged few that can be saved, why not live in the lap of luxury for your remaining years, if there are ways to do it.’