Chris Cleave Ebook Boxed Set (26 page)

That is how we lived, happily and without hope. I was very young then, and I did not miss having a future because I did not know I was entitled to one. From the rest of the world all we knew was from that one old movie. About a man who was in a great hurry, sometimes in jet planes and sometimes on motorbikes and sometimes upside down.

From the windup radios we had a little news, but mostly music. We also had a TV, but in Understanding there was no reception and you had to make the programs yourself. Our TV was just a wooden frame around where the screen used to be, and the frame sat in the red dust underneath the limba tree, and my sister Nkiruka used to put her head inside the frame to do the pictures. This is a good trick. I know now that we should have called this,
reality television.

My sister used to adjust the bow on her dress, and put a flower in her hair just so, and smile through the screen and say:
Hello, this is the news from the British BBC, today ice cream will snow down from the sky and no one will have to walk to the river for water because the engineers will come from the city and put a stand pipe in the middle of the village.
And the rest of us children, we would all sit in a half circle around the television set and we would watch Nkiruka announcing
the news. We loved these dreams of hers. In the pleasant afternoon shade we would gasp with delight and all of us would say,
Weh!

One of the good things about Understanding was that you could talk back to television. The rest of us children, we used to shout at Nkiruka:

—This ice-cream snow, exactly what time will it occur?

—In the early evening, of course, when the day is cooler.

—How do you know this, Madam Television Announcer?

—Because the day must be cool enough or the ice cream would melt, of course. Do you children know nothing?

And we children would sit back and nod at one another—evidently the day would need to be cool enough first. We were very satisfied with the television news.

You can play the same trick with television in your country, but it is harder because the television sets do not listen. Early in the morning, after Sarah had gone back to bed when we came home from the service station, it was Charlie who wanted to turn the television on. He appeared in the kitchen in his bat costume and bare feet. I said,
Good morning, little bat, do you want breakfast?
He said,
No, I doesn’t want breakfast, I does want TELEVISION.
So I said,
Does your mummy say it is okay for you to watch television before breakfast?
Charlie looked at me and his eyes were very patient, like a teacher who has told you the answer three times already but you have forgotten it.
Mummy is asleep, actually,
he said.

So we went into the next room and we switched on the television. We looked at the pictures without the sound. It was the BBC morning news, and they were showing pictures of the prime minister making a speech. Charlie put his head on one side to watch. The ears of his Batman hood flopped over.

He said, “That is the Joker, isn’t it?”

“No Charlie. That is the prime minister.”

“Is he a goody or a baddy?”

I thought to myself.

“Half the people think he is a goody and the other half think he is a baddy.”

Charlie giggled. “That’s silly,” he said.

“That is democracy,” I said. “If you did not have it, you would want it.”

We sat and watched the prime minister’s lips moving.

“What’s he saying?” said Charlie.

“He is saying that he will make ice-cream snow.”

Charlie spun round to look at me. “WHEN?” he said.

“About three o’clock in the afternoon, if the weather is cool enough. He is also saying that young people who are running away from trouble in other countries will be allowed to stay in this country so long as they work hard and do not make any fuss.”

Charlie nodded. “I think the prime minisser is a goody.”

“Because he will be kind to refugees?”

Charlie shook his head. “Because of the ice-cream snow,” he said.

There was a laugh from the door. I turned around and Lawrence was there. He was wearing a bathrobe, and he stood there in his bare feet. I do not know how long he had been listening to us.

“Well,” he said, “we know how to buy that boy’s vote.”

I looked at the floor. I was embarrassed that Lawrence had been standing there.

“Oh don’t be shy,” he said. “You’re great with Charlie. Come and have some breakfast.”

“Okay,” I said. “Batman, do you want some breakfast?”

Charlie stared at Lawrence and then he shook his head, so I switched through the TV channels until we found the one that Charlie liked, and then I went into the kitchen.

“Sarah’s sleeping,” said Lawrence. “I suppose she needs the rest. Tea or coffee?”

“Tea, thank you.”

Lawrence boiled the kettle and he made tea for both of us. He put my tea down on the table in front of me, carefully, and he turned
the handle of the mug toward my hand. He sat down on the other side of the table, and smiled. The sun was lighting up the kitchen. It was thick yellow—a warm light, but not a show-off light. It did not want the glory for the illumination of the room. It made each object look as if it was glowing with a light from deep inside itself. Lawrence, the table with its clean blue cotton tablecloth, his orange tea mug and my yellow one—all of it glowing from within. The light made me feel very cheerful. I thought to myself,
that is a good trick.

But Lawrence was serious. “Look,” he said, “I think you and I need to make a plan for your welfare. I’m going to be very clear about this. I think you should go to the local police and report yourself. I don’t think it’s right for you to expose Sarah to the stress of harboring you.”

I smiled. I thought about Sarah
harboring
me, as if I was a boat.

Lawrence said, “This isn’t funny.”

“But no one is looking for me. Why should I go to the police?”

“I don’t think it’s right, your being here. I don’t think it’s good for Sarah at the moment.”

I blew on my tea. The steam from it rose up into the still air of the kitchen, and it glowed. “Do you think you are good for Sarah at the moment, Lawrence?”

“Yes. Yes I do.”

“She is a good person. She saved my life.”

Lawrence smiled. “I know Sarah very well,” he said. “She told me the whole story.”

“So you must believe I am only staying here to help her.”

“I’m not convinced you’re the kind of help she needs.”

“I am the kind of help that will look after her child like he was my own brother. I am the kind of help that will clean her house and wash her clothes and sing to her when she is sad. What kind of help are you, Lawrence? Maybe you are the kind of help that only arrives when it wants sexual intercourse.”

Lawrence smiled again. “I’m not going to take offense at
that,” he said. “You’re one of those women who has a funny idea about men.”

“I am one of those women who has seen men do things that are not funny.”

“Oh please. This is Europe. We’re a little more house-trained over here.”

“Different from us, you think?”

“If you must put it that way.”

I nodded.

“A wolf must be a wolf and a dog must be a dog.”

“Is that what they say in your country?”

I smiled.

Lawrence frowned. “I don’t get you,” he said. “If you understood how serious your situation is, I don’t think you’d smile.”

I shrugged.

“If I could not smile, I think my situation would be even more serious.”

We drank tea and he watched me and I watched him. He had green eyes, green as the eyes of the girl in the yellow sari on the day they let us out of the detention center. He watched me without blinking.

“What will you do?” I said. “What will you do if I do not go to the police?”

“Will I turn you in myself, you mean?”

I nodded. Lawrence tapped his fingers on the sides of his tea mug.

“I’ll do what’s best for Sarah,” he said.

The fear raced right through me, right into my belly. I watched Lawrence’s fingers tapping. His skin was white as a seabird’s egg, and fragile like it too. He held his hands around his mug of tea. He had long, smooth fingers and they were curled around the orange china mug as if it was a baby animal that might do something foolish if it was allowed to escape.

“You are frightening me, Lawrence.”

“I’m reacting to the situation, that’s all. That’s what Andrew didn’t do. He was like a stuck record. He stuck to his principles and he let this thing with you overwhelm him and Sarah. That’s why he lost her.”

I shook my head. “Don’t you have principles too?”

Lawrence sat forward in his chair.

“My principle is that I love Sarah. You can’t imagine what she means to me. Apart from her, my life is utterly mundane. I’ll do anything to keep Sarah.
Anything,
do you understand?”

“You are worried I will take Sarah away from you. That is why you do not want me here. It is nothing to do with what is good for her.”

“I’m worried Sarah’s going to do something silly to try to help you. Change her focus, change her life more than she needs to right at this moment.”

“And you are worried she will forget all about you in her new life.”

“Yes, all right, yes. But you can’t imagine what would happen to me if I lost Sarah. I’d fall apart. I’d hit the bottle. Bam. It’d be the end of me. That terrifies me, even if you think it sounds pathetic.”

I took a sip of tea. I tasted it very carefully. I shook my head. “It is not pathetic. In my world death will come chasing. In your world it will start whispering in your ear to destroy yourself. I know this because it started whispering to me when I was in the detention center. Death is death, all of us are scared of it.”

Lawrence turned his tea mug around and around in his hands.

“Is it really death that you’re running from? I mean, honestly? A lot of the people who come here, they’re after a comfortable life.”

“If they deport me to Nigeria, I will be arrested. If they find out who I am, and what I have seen, then the politicians will find a way to have me killed. Or if I am lucky, they will put me in prison. A lot of people who have seen what the oil companies do, they go to prison for a long time. Bad things happen in a Nigerian prison. If people ever get out, they do not feel like talking.”

Lawrence shook his head, slowly. “But whatever’s going to happen to you is going to happen eventually, whether I do anything or not. This isn’t your country. They’ll come for you, I promise you they will. They come for all of you in the end.”

“You could hide me.”

“Yeah right, like they hid Anne Frank in the attic. Look how that worked out for her.”

“Who is Anne Frank?”

Lawrence closed his eyes and folded his hands behind his neck, and sighed.

“Another girl who wasn’t my problem,” he said.

I felt a rage exploding inside me, so fierce that it made my eyeballs hurt. I banged my hand down on the table and his eyes snapped open wide.

“Sarah would hate you, if you told the police about me!”

“Sarah wouldn’t know. I’ve seen how the immigration people work. They would come for you in the night. You wouldn’t have time to tell Sarah. You wouldn’t get to say a word.”

I stood up. “I would find a way. I would find a way to tell her what you had done. And I would find a way to tell your wife too. I would break both of your lives, Lawrence. Your family life and your secret life.”

Lawrence looked surprised. He stood up and walked around the kitchen. He ran his hands through his hair. “Yeah,” he said, “I really think you would.”

“I would. Please do not imagine I would forgive you, Lawrence. I would make sure I hurt you.”

Lawrence looked out at the garden. “Oh,” he said.

I waited. After a long time he said, “It’s funny. I’ve been lying awake all night thinking what to do about you. I thought about what would be best for Sarah, and what would be best for me. I honestly didn’t even think about what
you’d
do. I suppose I should have. I just assumed you wouldn’t be so switched on. When Sarah
talked about you I was imagining, I don’t know … not someone like you, anyway.”

“I have been in your country two years. I learned your language and I learned your rules. I am more like you than me now.”

Lawrence laughed down his nose again. “I really don’t think you’re anything like me,” he said.

He sat down at the kitchen table again, and held his head in his hands. “I’m a shit,” he said. “I’m a loser, and you’ve got me over a barrel.”

He looked up at me. “You won’t really tell Linda, will you?”

His eyes were exhausted. I sighed and sat down opposite him.

“We should be friends, Lawrence.”

He laughed. “I’ve just admitted to you that I’d sell you down the river if I could. You’re the brave little refugee girl, and I’m the selfish bastard. I think our roles here are pretty clearly delineated, don’t you?”

I shook my head. “I am selfish too, you know.”

“No, you’re really not.”

“Now you think I’m a sweet little girl, do you? In your mind you still don’t think I really exist. It does not occur to you that I can be clever, like a white person. That I can be selfish, like a white person.”

I realized I was so angry I was shouting. Lawrence just laughed at me.

“Selfish! You? Took the last biscuit out of the tin, did you? Left the top off Sarah’s toothpaste?”

“I left Sarah’s husband hanging in the air,” I said.

Lawrence stared at me. “What?”

I swallowed more tea, but it was too cold now and I put the mug down on the table. The light in the kitchen was cooling too. I watched the glow fade from all the objects in the room, and I felt the cold flow into my bones. All of the anger went out of me.

“Lawrence?”

“Yes?”

“Maybe it is better that I go somewhere else.”

“Stop. Wait. What did you just tell me?”

“Maybe you were right. Maybe it is better for Sarah and better for Charlie and better for you if I am not here. I could just run away. I am good at running, Lawrence.”