Before She Was Mine (40 page)

I’d like to tell Nicky, I mean to her face, about how we have to pretend we’re married so we can stay in the compound together. The daily lying’s a giggle, as is trying to keep
track of who actually knows the truth. Should I confide in Natia, I’ve been wondering lately. She’s young, she’s western – Polish – but strict Catholic, so probably
best if I keep my mouth shut. I don’t want to put her on the spot. The trouble is, you can never predict who’d be cool about it and who might throw a fit.

I so miss having a girlfriend to confide in.

I daren’t let myself miss my mothers.

‘I get homesick too,’ says Michael, taking his cup from the waiter and handing me mine. It turns out he can read my mind, this fake husband. Or is it his guilt talking? Now I’m
out here he claims he tricked me into travelling through reverse psychology, that setting himself in opposition was the only way he could get me to commit. Personally I think that’s pants. In
the end I came to Nablus because I wanted to come to Nablus. But I know he’s terrified I won’t hack it, that I’ll have some kind of breakdown or accident, and it’ll be his
fault.

His expression right now’s so earnest that I want to lean across the table and kiss him, not that you’d ever do that in public here. A great bubble of love swells up inside me till
it seems to fill the entire room. Surely everyone else in the café can feel it? The two young men in checked shirts by the window, the old guy in the headdress, the pipe smokers in the
corner, the waiter? The whole space is huge with emotion.

‘You’re hiding something. Something’s on your mind. Look at you, jiggling your leg under the table. You’re all twitchy. It’s more than Liv and Melody’s caper,
isn’t it? Come on, give.’

I’m more excited than I’ve ever been, but also more down because of what I’ve got to tell him. ‘I’ll just say, shall I?’

‘Bloody hell, Frey.’

‘I’m leaving Nablus.’

‘You’re going home?’

‘No.’

His eyes are all confusion. ‘Where, then?’

‘OK. Right. There’s this village outside Nablus, the one I went to last week. The one where the houses have domes on the top. Where that man was chasing a goat and he slipped on some
dung. And Natia had a nosebleed while we were waiting to go through the checkpoint.’

Michael nods.

‘And what it is, the woman Natia interviewed was telling us about the group of internationals, mostly church types, who stay in one of the village houses and keep an eye on things. I think
they get involved here and there with bits of farm work too. Olive-picking and stuff. So they’re just a helpful presence. And it’s coming time for them to change over. Plus
there’s a big Christian conference coming up that some of them want to attend, and they need a couple of replacement volunteers.’

‘You?’

‘Me and Natia.’

‘Why?’

‘Because she asked me. Because it’s a really beautiful spot, and the locals are really appreciative.’

I wish I could tell him how it made me feel, standing in the bowl of the green-brown valley and watching the shepherds and the small sheep track their way across the dry slopes. The light was so
strong it picked out every detail, every thorn and rock edge and leaf fold. There was this surreal sense of ages past, of Biblical times preserved and meeting the present. The clouds were moving
over the land with a kind of sad majesty and I found myself filled up with an amazing sense of peace, which I know is mad considering how troubled this place is. Natia thought I’d had a
religious experience. I told her it was sunstroke.

Michael sighs deeply. ‘I see.’

‘Do you?’

‘Uh huh. What you’re asking for is some space. You need a break. From me. Shit, I’ve been so happy in myself I haven’t given enough thought to you.’

‘No, I—’

‘’Cause it’s all been too much, getting together after so long, and not telling the family yet, and the pressures of living in a foreign country and this secret marriage
business. I mean, I’ve found it intense at times. It would freak anyone out. Only there’s no need to leave Nablus, that’s crazy. You can move to a different accommodation block.
I’ll have a word with Samah and he’ll sort something. And you don’t have to come round to the garage every day. I’ve so many classes to teach, I won’t be bored. I can
give you room to breathe, Freya.’

‘
No
.’ I shove my sage tea away in frustration. ‘It’s not about you. This is for me. It’s like, I came out here and you’d already put everything in
place for me and that was great, really kind, really helped me settle in. Only now I’ve got used to the routine, I want to try something for myself. Something more hands-on. The
copy-editing’s OK and we can still work on Natia’s project while we’re away, but I want to try other stuff, too. There might be something horticultural I could have a bash at in
this village. If not, I know how to use a hammer and a screwdriver, I can cook, I can look after children. I want to learn some Arabic. I want my experience to be more – I don’t know
how to explain it. Immersed. No, that sounds stupid. Bloody hell. The place just feels as though I should be there for a bit. It’s calling. I need to go.’

‘You’ve found your sweet spot, is that what you’re trying to say?’

‘Yeah. My mix is right. I’m tuned. I should have started with an engine metaphor, then you’d have understood me straight off.’

He’s still looking stunned. I knew he would be. Ever since I arrived, he’s been like a gracious prince showing me round his domain.

‘Three months, that’s all. I’ll only be the other side of a military checkpoint. Nothing but a soldier up a watchtower and a few metres of razor wire to stop you
visiting.’

I know what he’s thinking.
Aren’t I enough for you? What’s wrong with this?
And I almost smile because I so clearly remember sitting in his van on Christmas night
eighteen months ago, overlooking the black lake, asking the same questions. How much it hurt when he talked about moving on. He’ll remember that conversation too, at some point. He will catch
up.

‘If you have to go.’

‘I think I do.’

He pushes his saucer till it’s touching mine; as publicly intimate as we dare get around here. ‘Strange, I always thought I had you sussed. But I don’t know you at all, do
I?’

‘How could you? I don’t know myself.’

The steam from our drinks rises and mingles, and through the window I see two men in robes wheeling a white melamine chest of drawers on a small cart between them, a boy trotting behind carrying
a stool.

My last night in England, Melody was a wreck. Was drunk before I even got to Love Lane; became maudlin almost immediately. ‘You’re going to hate the Middle
East,’ she slurred. ‘Think of the insects, and the plumbing. Plus, how are you ever going to survive without alcohol? No way, hun. You’ll be on a plane home before Liv’s had
time to launder your duvet.’

I thanked her for the vote of confidence, at which point she collapsed into self-pity mode.

‘You
and
Michael, though. Both of you gone, why both of you?’ she kept saying, as if it was some great puzzle she couldn’t fathom. Perhaps she guessed.

I stuck
Empire of the Flesh-Eaters
in the DVD player, and she got out the old photos Liv had sent her over the years I was growing up. Then she spread them out over the carpet in order so
I could see myself, round-faced toddler through to uncertain teen. Ages she spent kneeling, picking each one up and studying it, laying it back down and squaring them all up.

‘You’ll be too busy at your art gallery to even notice we’re gone,’ I told her. But I don’t think she heard me.

‘I was a mess before I met you, Frey.’

‘No, you weren’t.’

‘I was. I had a great big hole in my heart. You didn’t see. How would you know? You’re my best achievement.’ She squatted there stroking the last picture, while behind
her head a truckload of determined zombies attempted to ram raid an army base. Later on I helped her into bed. It felt like the last of the old times.

Liv was much more restrained. Whatever terrors she was feeling as I piled up my case and backpacks in the hall, she presented the usual calm front. She did hold me very tightly, and made me
promise to email once a week. All the while Geraint swayed behind her, in his usual agony of awkwardness. ‘You keep yourself safe, now, girl,’ he’d muttered. ‘Don’t be
doing anything daft. I’ll look after your mum for you.’ ‘Make sure you do,’ I said. And I actually found myself hugging him, can you believe it?

I’d like, now Michael’s taken himself back to the garage, to take a peaceful, thoughtful stroll, but on a street in central Nablus there’s no chance. Taxi horns blare, a
minibus is blasting out Celine Dion through the open passenger windows, and ten yards in front of me a young man is shouting at another across the street, yelling at the top of his voice. I know if
I don’t keep moving, if I give even the suspicion of loitering, someone will try and talk to me. If I hang around in a shop, the owner will be over straight away. So I keep walking towards
the compound, passing under hanging racks of T-shirts, under banners and wooden signs and awnings and makeshift scaffolding, past endless posters of dead men, and shelves of flat loaves and
vegetables and sweets. Ahead of me is the hillside with its white multi-storeys and domed prayer tower.

I wonder what my mothers are doing right now.

It strikes me that if they were suddenly here, this second, I’d want to say thank you for everything they’ve taught me: out of my scrambled upbringing, all those small but vital
skills that make up the person I am. Liv gave me shelter, Melody gave me space. Liv raised me under the banner of my own conscience, Melody showed me how to relax and have pure, brilliant fun.
I’m a product of both their worlds. It’s not everyone who knows how to ID vole poo, or the best reggae track to crank you up for a night on the town (‘Wear You to the Ball’
by the Paragons). Never mind all the things they’ve taught me that I don’t even know I’ve learned yet. I walk through this strange land wearing, as I’ll wear forever, the
invisible cloak of their mothering.

Of course since I’ve been here I’ve learned a whole lot of other stuff – the correct way to speak to a man holding a gun, the value of half an onion if you run into tear gas,
that if you hang your washing outside you should hide your knickers between other items of clothing. That I’m not nearly as useless as I thought I was.

And that I love Michael, and he was worth every bit of the massive risk I took in telling him so. Being with him makes me happier than I’ve ever been, unbelievably happy, and complete. I
feel stable and brave and grown up. But I’ve also learned from my mums that whatever alliances you make in life, ultimately you’re on your own. Tonight, when I take him to bed,
I’ll try and explain again why I need to go away.

Afterwards we might lie awake for hours, talking or not talking, listening for the sound of heavy vehicles passing below.

And when at last sleep comes, I know I’ll dream not of him or of life in the compound or the refugee camps. I’ll dream of one or other of my mothers, as I have done every night since
I’ve been here.