Hard Word (12 page)

‘One morning Mrs Mishra came out to me and said my duties would be changed. I would no longer do the shopping and sweep and cook at the back of the house. Savitri would now do that, and I would do the lighter duties inside. I pleaded with her – I was the servant, not Savitri, it was shameful – but she would not listen.

‘Savitri became terrified. ‘‘They will burn me,'' she kept saying. ‘‘There will be kitchen fire.'' ‘‘No,'' I told her. But I knew. This had happened already to our cousin. Mrs Mishra even hinted. ‘‘You must take care in the kitchen,'' I heard her say to Savitri. ‘‘Kerosene is dangerous.''

‘One night we ran. Savitri's husband was away from the village for the night, and we ran. Savitri had broken into his box, and taken half of what was there. We did not go by the road but across the fields and through the forest. We waited at the edge of the neem grove until the train was almost there, then ran to the station and bought two tickets east, all the way to Delhi. At the next station we got off and bought tickets to the south, to Bombay. When we came back through our station, we hid in the toilet. Through the bars of the window, we saw already on the platform Savitri's husband, a number of men,
gundas
, policemen with lathis, talking excitedly. One policeman whipped with his lathi at the legs of the station master, whose cries we could hear over the noise of the train.

‘In Bombay we were lost. We had never been this far from home. The city was so big, and our money soon ran out. We got work with a tailor, we could both sew. He locked us in his house at night, we could not go out to the street. For the first weeks this did not worry us so much, knowing Savitri's husband would come south, searching for her. If we were not on the streets, we thought it would be much harder to find us. But we had to do more and more work for Chandanan, the tailor. Cook and clean after sewing all day, and then one night in the corridor, he would not let me past. He put his hands on my breasts, touched me. I shouted, and Savitri came. ‘‘No,'' she cried, ‘‘leave her, she is a girl. Leave her.'' ‘‘Well, you then,'' Chandanan said. She looked at him, then at me. ‘‘Go,'' she said. ‘‘Savitri – Go'', she said, ‘‘and lock the door. I will be there later.''

‘This went on, one month, two. We were fed, but badly. When Savitri asked for our wages, Chandanan laughed. ‘‘Wages,'' he said, ‘‘for two
laundiyan
with no parents? Where have you come from?'' he said. ‘‘Who is your master, huh? Your husband?'' Savitri stopped asking. Often she did not come to the room till late, and lay awake till dawn, when we must begin work. She would not speak, even to me. ‘‘Go to sleep,'' she would say. ‘‘Tomorrow you must sew.'' She was becoming sick.

‘One night Chandanan brought another man. They were both drunk. In the morning, Savitri said: ‘‘Now we can go, there is nothing now.''

‘It frightened me more than anything when she said things I did not understand, and then would not explain.

‘We escaped from the tailor's, but we had no money. And then, by a miracle, we did. I saw Savitri talking in the marketplace one afternoon with the man who had come back drunk that night with the tailor. She returned with a handful of coins, and we rented a backroom in the home of a Parsee, and could eat. Each night Savitri would go out, locking me in. In the mornings, when she came back, she would let me go to the market to shop. I would cook for her, and she would sleep all day. She was getting weaker. The drunk man came and waited outside for her. I knew what she was doing.

‘She became sicker and sicker. One night she could not go out. The drunk man came to the door: ‘‘Where is your sister?'' ‘‘She is sick,'' I said. He looked at me. ‘‘And you?'' he said. ‘‘You look pretty, you are strong.'' ‘‘No,'' Savitri said. She had got up. She spat at him. ‘‘Old fool,'' she cried. ‘‘She is a girl, she is just a girl – can't you see?'' The drunk man looked at me again. ‘‘I will come,'' Savitri said. ‘‘I am better now.''

‘ ‘‘If only we could leave,'' Savitri would say. ‘‘Europe, or Australia.'' Savitri went to the officials, to UNHCR. ‘‘Put it in writing,'' they said. A scribe wrote for us. Forms came back, but the letter said any process would be long. We had no family, and there were thousands in the queue before us. ‘‘I will die before that,'' Savitri said. ‘‘And what will happen to you?''

‘More and more, as the sickness took her, I would find her watching me. ‘‘Shamila,'' she would begin. And then cough, and say nothing further.

‘One morning in the market, as I shopped, the drunk man stopped me. ‘‘Well,'' he said, ‘‘has your sister made up her mind?'' ‘‘About what?'' I said. ‘‘She has not told you?'' he said. ‘‘No,'' I said. I was more frightened than ever. ‘‘People will pay huge prices,'' he said, ‘‘lakhs and lakhs of dollars, a king's ransom. To them it is nothing.''

‘ ‘‘But we have nothing to sell,'' I said. ‘‘Oh, not to me,'' he laughed, ‘‘I am nearly as poor as you are.'' Still I did not understand. When I got home, I asked Savitri. ‘‘He is mad,'' she said, ‘‘he drinks. Take no notice.'' But she was lying, I could tell from her voice.

‘Next time I went to the market, I deliberately looked for the drunk man. ‘‘My sister is dying,'' I told him. ‘‘We have nothing to sell.'' ‘‘You have one thing,'' he said, ‘‘that people will pay for. Foreigners, Europeans, in the big hotels,'' he said. And then I understood. ‘‘But Savitri only makes enough money to pay for the room, our food,'' I said – but I guessed already what he would answer. ‘‘Savitri is a woman,'' he said. ‘‘She is not unbroken.'' He looked at me. ‘‘Three thousand dollars for one night, maybe more,'' he said. ‘‘One night. Savitri will prepare you,'' he said. ‘‘I will arrange for the clothes.'' ‘‘Did Savitri say that?'' I said. ‘‘I do not believe you.'' ‘‘You have only one ruby,'' he said. ‘‘You can waste it on some
achhoot jati
of a husband, or you can sell it. And leave. You and Savitri. You can survive.''

‘ ‘‘They would pay that much?''

‘ ‘‘Yes,'' he said. ‘‘Because they can only buy it once. From you. And you can only sell it once.''

‘Aah –

‘ ‘‘The sari should be red?'' the drunk man came to us and said, and Savitri whispered, ‘‘
Yes
.'' She could hardly hold up her head by then. ‘‘No,'' I said, and this was the first time I had ever contradicted her. ‘‘White,'' I said. ‘‘I will go in white.'' And I did …'

After a minute's silence, the clapping and reaching out begins. It is slow, almost uncertain at first, while they absorb the last part of her story. Which Shamila has rushed.

‘Thank you, Shamila,' I say. ‘Does anyone have any questions?'

As usual, I have a question of my own, but I cannot ask.
Why
white, I want to ask her – and why today, I wonder. What is she telling us? I cannot bring myself to ask this, but I feel trivial and stupid not knowing the answer. And I wonder again what I have released here, with these stories.

‘Is it true?' I hear Maria say to Shamila as they leave together at the end of the class. It is not a question, though it is in the form of a question. It is the
way
something is said that makes the difference. That, at least, I know. Now.

Grandma Vera

Fatso's back. Like Louie the Fly. Old Bloodbath's back.

‘Nobody's going to steal the cat from you,' Bloodbath says.

‘Cat?' I say.

‘Yogi,' she says. ‘If you keep hiding him under your cardy all the time like that, he's going to scratch you. Eventually,' she says. She chews her gums. Well, that's all she'll be chewing here, if I can help it. House and home, otherwise. Fancy anyone. Fancy, Old Bloodgum.

I watch her moving her arms. I could do that, move my arms like that. I used to do that. Move my arms like that. With the long, bone things.

‘Did you ever knit, Mrs Harcourt?' she says.

‘No,' I say.

‘It's very relaxing,' she says. Moving her arms.

‘How's the grandson?' I say then. This comes from Em's notes. I've learnt all Em's notes by heart. ‘It
was
a grandson, wasn't it?' I say again to Fatso. Because she hasn't answered.

‘You can be very cruel,' she says.

‘And the car?' I say on impulse. ‘That was a write-off as well, wasn't it?'

‘Ohh –' she says, and rushes out to the clawroom.

Something about a grandson, I've hooked into. A car, something about a car. A car and a grandson. I'm like Miriam when I'm like this. If I ever want to hurt, my mind is so clear. A gift of mercury. Some days it shines, my brain, like it's coated with silver. Like today. I could run Parliament.

Miriam's sad, she's sad, sad. She's not happy. She had the picture thing out again, the picture thing with the covers. And the writing in it.

‘Do you remember this one, Mother?' she says, pointing to one of the picture things. But it's not like she's really asking. More like when we played school, and she was the teacher, and expected me to fail.

I shake my head.

‘What about this? Who's in this photo?'

‘Is it a game?' I say.

‘Look,' she says, ‘it's Dad.'

‘Dad?'

‘Bill,' she says, ‘it's you and Bill. On your wedding day.'

‘That's a good idea,' I say. To encourage her. Since she's so keen on this game. But then I can see she's getting upset again, and I realize she must be losing. She's sad. She's not happy. Sad. Miriam's sad. Living with Greeks like this. She should be in a home. But what if you were too small for a home? What if you went to a home, and couldn't see over the mat? That's what'd frighten me. Or you had to share with a mouse? Or a rabbit?

‘I'd like you, Mrs Harcourt,' Bloodstock once said, ‘to think of me as a special friend.' And poor Mrs Johanson, I thought then. Having no one of her own, and having to make friends with the prisoner. But it was too late. Because I already had a special friend – I've got Emily. Em still writes. After all these years. Em still does, Em does … Miriam doesn't know about Em. If she did, she'd be jealous. She'd try to stop her. Bloodstock should get someone like Em. She tells me everything, Em does. She leaves messages for me, notes in my room, Em does. Letters, notes.

Miriam used to leave notes.
Take this, Take that, Don't forget your pills with lunch.
Now she's taken all the medicine away, and hands it to me pill by pill herself. She says I can't read the notes properly, when I can. So Emily leaves the notes now, but in secret places where no one but me will find them, inside clothes in the drawers, in the tea tin, under the cushion on my chair, once in the soap box where it got so wet I could hardly read it.
Ask Bloodstock about the grandson,
it said.
Keep asking,
it said. That's how I remembered this morning – is it morning? To ask. Some of the notes have answers written underneath, so there's someone else who knows, who writes as well. Like,
The car was a write-off, too,
under the one about the grandson. Sometimes I don't understand them. They're too short. Like,
Watch the Greek.
But which Greek? The place is full of them. Or they're about people I don't know. Like,
The one with the moustache is Bill,
or
If it's a woman in white, it's you.
I wondered at first if it was Miriam who was writing these answers – clues for the game, or something – but it wasn't. I tried them out on her. ‘Who's this?' she said, pointing to the picture things. Pointing to a woman in white. ‘It's you,' I said, remembering the note. ‘No, it's not me, Mother,' she said. ‘It's you.' ‘That's what I just said,' I shouted. She shut it then, the picture book thing. ‘If you're only going to get upset,' she said. When she's the one who gets upset. Especially if she's losing. She's always hated to lose.

But I've got to learn these notes, I've got to remember them – I know this – for her sake. So she won't get angry – won't get red with me – and send me away. Bloodstock's the problem, Bloodstock and her grandson. Miriam doesn't like them hanging around all the time the way they do. I have to get rid of them. It's up to me. If I wasn't here, they wouldn't come at all. I'm sure of that. They have no right. Miriam doesn't really know how often they're here. They only come round when she's out. When she gets back, and finds them, she sends them packing soon enough.
She
doesn't put up with them. But she's got to give them money, I've seen that, to get rid of them. She hands them money. They won't go otherwise. It's disgusting. Why should she have to throw good money away on people like these? She'll get sick of it soon, and send us all packing – me as well. It's not right, she shouldn't have to put up with it. Maybe I should try the police again. They won't come any more when I just phone. I'll have to go out and find them myself. Tell them the whole story, this time.

Philip

‘Jesus,' Tony Ryle says. ‘Who's this?'

‘Mmm?' I say. I'm trying to get a letter finished before lunch. Tony's drawn stumps early and has spent the last ten minutes roaming around my office, flinging himself in and out of chairs, going to the window and back, picking up files and bits and pieces from my desk and tossing them down again, and generally behaving like a blue-arsed fly. Normally none of this would bother me.

‘Miriam doesn't mind?' he says.

‘What? Mind what?' I say. I keep my eyes locked on my screen, hoping Tony will finally get the message.

‘Thi – ss,' he says. And he says it with such emphasis that I have no choice but to turn from the screen and look up. He's holding one of the three small framed photos that I keep on my desk. ‘You're actually telling me,' he says, ‘that Miriam's happy about sharing top billing on your desk with young loveboat here? What are you in – an open marriage or something?'

Tony always wants to know about these things. He's always pressing for details, and not just about the present. ‘You and Miriam,' he'll start. ‘Did you do it first night? Second? When, then?'

‘And what about now?' he's just as likely to say, under the cover of jocularity, of mateship. ‘You and Miriam …' he'll say. ‘You still faithful to one another?'

This last question, I've always suspected he's taken a special interest in. Miriam tolerates him, she sometimes finds him funny. ‘But he's a bit …' she always ends up saying and leaving it to me to fill in the blanks. I know what she means. I take the photo from him now and put it back in its place on my desk before he drops it.

‘That's Laura, you idiot.'

‘Well, I didn't think it was Petrarch,' he says.

Mostly, I suspect, he adopts this smart alec approach because he's anxious about forgetting his origins, his roots – rural, small farm, battling – and he doesn't want to get sucked in by all this ‘Big Town, Bourgeois Lawyer Bullshit', as he puts it. His taste in ties alone has won him reprimands from the Bench. All of which tells you just how tempted he is, and how much he wants.

‘The point is,' he's saying, ‘who the hell is Laura? And what's her phone number?'

‘It's the same as mine,' I tell him.

‘You, what?'

‘Laura,' I spell it out, ‘is my daughter. Okay? Now if you just let me finish this letter, we can get out to lunch.'

‘Your daughter?'

‘Laura,' I say. ‘See?'

‘Jesus –' he says, looking again. He's actually met her at the house, once, maybe twice. ‘She looks –'

‘She's wearing her hair differently, that's all.'

‘When was it taken?'

‘A week or so back, that's why you haven't seen it before. She's just turned fifteen. Now if you'll please –'

‘But, fuck, Philip, I mean.'

‘What?'

‘Well, she's not really your daughter, is she? She's Miriam's.' ‘Step-daughter, then. So?'

‘Well, fuck –'

‘Tony, what are you trying to say?' I look at the photo again. It's the new Laura, her hair swept back, up. She has Miriam's bones, though the eyes are her own. Stavros' presumably. And looking at them – their black, moody irises – I suddenly see why Miriam was so attracted to Stavros. I look at Miriam in one of the other photos, and I see how alike and how different she and Laura are. And I realize, too, how Miriam always arranges us in a photo so that she and Katie are on one side of me, balancing Laura, but away from her, so that they're not competing. Mother and daughter.

‘I'm just pointing out, that's all,' he says.

‘Pointing out what?'

‘That she's not … bloodline. Okay, okay, she's your stepdaughter, but it's not as though she's really your daughter.'

‘Look, Tony, I've told you –'

‘No offence.'

‘No offence taken,' I say.
‘Yet.
But you're getting into strange water, Tony. It's Laura, and to all intents and purposes, she's my daughter. So, let's drop it, huh?'

‘Sure, sure,' he said, hands up, palms open towards me. ‘Word to the wise.'

‘Now piss off to your own office while I finish this letter, and I'll pick you up on the way out.'

‘Sure, Phil, sure.' He pauses at the door. ‘You're not –?'

‘No.'

‘I didn't mean anything. I was just –'

‘Yes, I know.'

After he leaves, I pull back into the screen to finish the letter, but can't for the life of me re-discover my train of thought. The words stream like coloured fish within the glass screen, and just as meaninglessly. I push my chair away again and sit for a few minutes looking at the photos. Then take my jacket from the cupboard and head out to lunch.

‘What were they going?' Tony asks as soon as we sit.

‘Four million, plus costs.'

‘Jesus. No wonder you're the golden-haired lad at the moment. You want a beer?'

‘I'm working this afternoon.'

‘Very funny.'

The restaurant is deserted. It's Monday, and I'm surprised they even bother to open at all. Mondays, people just tend to grab a sandwich and work through lunch. The fact that we're here at all means Tony's got something on his mind. Something else, for once. I think I know what it is. But we chat while waiting for soup. Chat with Soup, deal with Mains. Is the general rule round here.

‘So what line did you take?'

I'm being buttered up with all this pretend interest – Tony knows the case as well as I do – but I don't mind it. If I'm honest, I like it. And it
was
the biggest public case the firm's had in years. Lots of media, because it involved the media. Defamation, Supreme Court, a politician, corruption, a wife who'd been labelled promiscuous – all the high notes – QC prosecuting, with a hand that should have been a
misère.
Especially in front of Frank Fletcher, who likes to be seen. Society parties, galleries, opening nights. And all I had was a tabloid newspaper mogul with attitude, greyhounds, and a taste in ties that matched Tony's. He should have gone for four million at least. Plus costs. On style alone.

‘Did the paper actually
say
she was a tart?' Tony asks.

‘It didn't say she was professional.'

‘Big difference. What about the politics, the corruption, what'd you submit?'

‘Qualified privilege.'

‘Ah,' he says.
‘Sinclair VBjelke-Petersen, 1984
.'

Tony's smart. Not entirely pleasant, but smart. Defamation's not his bag, but he'll out-cite you case for case across a whole range of fields: criminal, commercial, administrative, trusts, tax. He brings the same curiosity to this as he does to sex. Which is one of the reasons I never tell him much. Much personal, that is. Ten years from now, I suspect, it could be cited against me.

‘And the wife?' he says. ‘What'd you argue on her?'

‘Fair Comment.'

‘And they went Malice?'

‘Yes.'

‘So?'

‘So we'd lined up a succession of previous ‘‘boyfriends''.'

‘And the Prosecution had no idea?'

‘They took one look at the witness sheet and they realized – to say nothing of hubby and his career in Parliament …'

‘Christ, you mean she hadn't told him? He didn't know either?'

‘If he had, do you think they'd have brought the suit in the first place? Anyway they realized they were on a hiding to nothing if we ever got any of these guys into the box. So they folded. Said they'd exposed the paper's gutter tactics, and that's all they ever wanted. Fletcher was really pissed off at the time, but he had no choice. He found no case, gave us costs. He was okay later. He was at the party, remember?'

‘And the wife? Was she really promiscuous?'

‘No idea.'

‘Now whose was the onion soup?' a waiter says.

‘So, what did the firm make out of it all?' Tony opens the dealing as soon as the Mains come. He's ordered the veal, I've chosen
entrecôte
of lamb. Both with
frites,
though mine look more like chips. And a Hunter shiraz. It's Monday, but it already feels like Friday. ‘Two?' Tony says. ‘Three hundred thou.?'

‘About three,' I say.

‘And Philip Trent? What piece did he get of all this?'

‘Look, Tony,' I say. ‘I know where you're headed, but it's no go. Not at the moment anyway. I've got too much on my plate.'

He raises his eyebrows. ‘Bad pun, Phil,' he says.

I smile, but I don't want him to get the wrong idea.

‘I know you're sick of the firm,' I say. ‘I know you want out. I know what you think of the partners.'

‘Mortlock's a mental defective, and Jameson couldn't find his own butt with both hands. In a lighted room.'

I laugh. I can't help liking Tony. Despite.

‘Sure,' I say. ‘And what are you going to do after lunch?' ‘What do you mean?'

‘What do you think I mean? You're going to go back to the office, put your feet on the desk for an hour, get the switch to say, ‘‘I'm sorry, Mr Ryle's in a conference right now, can I take a message?'' and when you wake in an hour you're going to flick through your files and bung eight times seven minutes on some poor bozo's bill and call it
legislative research and conferencing with a colleague: three hundred and fifty bucks.
And you know and I know that if we were out there on hard street, having to hand over an account, personally, to a client, instead of sitting behind a wall of secretaries and accountants and the
Certainly I'll ask him and I'll get back to you on that one,
all protected by the big chairs and waiting rooms and the musak in the lifts and the thick carpets and the silence of Shyster, Shyster & Quack, we'd maybe make a fortune and we'd maybe be out on the streets chasing ambulances or doing Legal Aid with blacking over the holes in our socks and the arse out of our pants –'

‘Jesus, Phil, this isn't like you.'

‘What isn't?'

‘Risk aversion. What's the matter with you? You wouldn't have taken on MP & Tart if you weren't keen on a punt.'

‘Sure, but how often does a case like that come along? And you think media moguls are going to be tramping along to Trent & Ryle –?'

‘I was thinking more Ryle & Trent.'

‘… who have a shop front on the High Street over Beagle Bros and next to the Lebanese takeaway in Liverpool West? Or are they going to be here, downtown, CBD point spot, with Mortlock & Jameson –'

‘Shyster, Shyster & Quack,' Tony says, laughing. Pouring again. For me. But not himself, I notice.

‘Of course,' he says, ‘I realize all that's true. At first. And it means we've got to cover the spread. At first. You can't specialize –'

‘But I like to specialize.
And
I like the money I'm earning.'

‘Chicken feed. Three hundred thou., Phil – more. Just think about it, will you?'

‘Tony, look,' I say. ‘I need to tell you. I've got more problems than I can handle at the moment. Right?'

‘Woo-hoo,' he says. ‘Domestic, right?'

‘Yeah, but not the way you think. It's not me and Miriam. Not primarily, that is.'

‘But secondarily?'

‘It's Mother.'

‘Mother? But I thought –'

‘Not my mother. Miriam's.'

And you call her
Mother
?'

‘Tony, this isn't helpful.'

‘Tell me.'

I can see him resolving to be silent. While he finishes the veal. The salad looks as though it walked from the fridge through the weekend.

‘Miriam's mother,' I say. ‘I thought you knew.'

He shrugs. Eats.

‘She's got Alzheimer's.'

‘And you don't remember you haven't told me?'

‘I thought you were going to be quiet … ?'

‘Okay, okay.' He holds up a hand.

‘Everything's on hold at the moment,' I say, ‘that's all. Life, fun, travel, peace, sleep, you name it.'

‘Sex,' he names.

‘Don't get smart, Tony.'

Again the hand, signalling coffee this time. We're through Mains. I've hardly touched mine, but as the wine hits, I know I should have. I realize I'm not feeling that good. Not physical, just down. But I don't want to go down with Tony.

‘So what? Miriam's holding out? What does she want?'

How, I wonder, do I respond to this. I don't know what Miriam wants, I don't think she knows what she wants, what she feels about what's happening, to her, to Mother. I don't want to share this with Tony. I want to go back to my office and ring Miriam. Just hear her voice.

‘It's not like that,' I say. ‘We're just pretty stretched. Neither of us wants more pressure at the moment, that's all.'

‘Phil, I'm not saying tomorrow. I'm a patient man.'

‘Yes, that's what I worry about. That you think you are.'

He leans across, punches me on the arm as coffee comes, and I feel like I have to confide. Something at least. Since he's taken the trouble.

‘Things can't go on as they are,' I tell him. ‘She went wandering again, Friday night.'

‘Miriam did? Or Mother?'

‘We still don't know how she got out. She wanted the police. Something to do with her sitter, Mrs Johnson.'

‘Your mother-in-law's a painter?'

‘Miriam's nearly out of her head with worry as usual. The neighbourhood's up. Mother's missing.'

‘I thought Miriam didn't much take to her mother?'

‘Ten o'clock there's a knock on the door, blue lights winking in the driveway, no siren, but you know …'

‘Brother John to the rescue –'