The Darkening Hour (22 page)

‘She might not be educated, but my God she knows how to cook,’ says Bob. ‘You could put her on
MasterChef
.’

‘
We
could do with someone like her,’ says Sally. ‘It’s a bloody juggling act working, with the kids at two different schools, and Bob away most
weekends.’

‘Where the hell would we put a live-in maid?’ asks Bob. ‘We talked about having an au pair and agreed we don’t have the space any more. Or the money. You have to have
room. Dora’s lucky. She’s only got herself and Leo here and it’s a nice big house.’

Sally gives him an accusing look, which says something like:
If it wasn’t for you, we wouldn’t be in this situation
. Sally’s a teacher but she married Bob when he was
earning a massive salary in some boom company that was hit by the recession. They had to downsize and now live in a cramped house in Brockley. Sally resents him for ‘deceiving’ her,
even though she knows the economic crisis is not solely Bob’s fault.

‘You have to give them a decent space of their own,’ I agree. ‘Mona has her own room, where she can do what she likes in her free time. She goes in there to read, write, watch
TV, or what-have-you.’

‘Quite a nice life really,’ says Gina. She’s moving around the room with her gin and tonic, as she always does when she comes to mine, picking up books and turning them over as
if she’s checking I haven’t acquired anything I haven’t told her about. She’s a very competitive best friend.

‘She’s got that lovely spare room up at the top of the house to retreat to, hasn’t she? Spends the day doing a bit of mopping and polishing, then a couple of hours in her room
to read. Then – what – a couple of hours preparing dinner, popping in to see your father.’

I wish Gina would sit down, stop examining my things.

‘The best thing is that you know you’re helping them out,’ I say.

I’m feeling stupidly ashamed that I’ve misled Gina about Mona’s room; worried my tiny lie might be spotted. That one of my guests might put their head round the study door and
see where Mona’s really sleeping.

Mona comes into the room with the steaming tagine.

Everyone’s voice drops as she moves around the table, and Bob thanks Mona as she serves the lamb which is savoury with the zing of fresh coriander and a spicy undertone – saffron
maybe, and cinnamon.

‘Has she got family?’ Rachel asks when she’s gone again.

‘She won’t talk about it. It upsets her.’

‘Bloody hell,’ says Bob. ‘That’s dreadful. I wonder what she’s been through?’

‘So I suppose she had nothing to lose,’ says Rachel. ‘In coming over here, I mean. It must have been a lifeline.’

‘But can you imagine it? Working for another woman, having to be subservient in
her
house. I’d hate that,’ Sally says.

You can divide the world, I realise now, into those who feel it’s OK to hire help and those who don’t. It’s a flashback to the times when the classes in England were more
divided. It was easier then, when the employer and the servant had clearly defined roles and the rules about socialising were strictly adhered to. Now everyone’s so conflicted about it,
feeling guilty on the one hand for affording help, on the other pleased to be able to offer employment to someone who otherwise wouldn’t have it.

‘She’s used to domestic work,’ I say. ‘She’s not got a problem with status, it’s her job. Things have always been like this. Once upon a time every house in
Deptford had a domestic servant, even the working families with no money. It’s nothing new. Some people are born to serve. It’s what they do.’

‘And others to be served upon,’ says Gina, who’s knocking back the wine and sounds tipsy.

‘Anyway, going back to what we were saying, I think it must be bloody tough, leaving her own home in order to work so far away,’ Sally goes on.

‘Don’t be too soft, Sally,’ says Gina. ‘These migrant workers know which side their bread’s buttered. She’s got a contract, hasn’t she, Dora?
Stipulating her hours, days off and all that. Holiday pay and so on.’

This is the second time I’ve heard talk of a contract recently; it was Anita who assumed we had one last time. But Roger made no mention of a contract and for the time being I’m
happy to muddle along without. It’s a learning process for me, and I wouldn’t know what the contract should consist of anyway. I need to keep our arrangement informal until I’ve
ascertained exactly how much I’m going to need Mona to do.

‘But what courage,’ Sally persists, and I begin to wonder whether she does indeed have a hidden agenda – that she wants to make me feel guilty for some reason. ‘When we
travel, it’s for amusement, even those who claim they’re contributing. You know – gap-year students, gap-year oldies.’

‘Oldies?’ I ask.

‘Yeah! Semi-retired people who bugger off thinking they’ll help build schools in Burundi because their kids have left home. Frances did it – that woman I used to work with. But
that’s temporary, a lifestyle choice. Imagine not having a choice, your only hope being to work for some complete stranger in her house. It must be horrid.’

‘Horrid? I hope not,’ I say. ‘I hope she appreciates living here with me. She’s earning a better living than anything she would achieve in her home country. What you have
to understand, Sally, is that Mona was desperate. She was terribly poor. It’s hard to imagine what that means, sitting here in middle-class London. Literally, she was living hand-to-mouth,
one step from begging.’

I pause. I don’t really have any idea about the circumstances Mona’s left behind, she’s so closed. So proud.

I go on.

‘Here, she’s getting huge advantages, apart from the wage – a comfortable bed, regular, wholesome meals, she’s learning English, and it’s taking her mind off
whatever happened to her husband. So I don’t think there’s any need for middle-class guilt.’

‘I wouldn’t call it middle-class guilt,’ says Sally. ‘If you put yourself in her shoes, you can see that it must be lonely sometimes, and you know –
demoralising.’

‘Oh come on, Sally,’ says Gina. ‘We don’t know what’s true and what isn’t! Could be she just fancies a British passport. You’ll have to watch she
doesn’t bring her whole family over. You might have taken on more than you bargained for, Dora!’

‘Does she get the chance to meet up with other women from her country? People in a similar situation? Does she get to ESL classes or anything like that? Does she get time off?’

I open my mouth to say that I’m not a charity, that Sally’s concern is all very well, but when you find yourself caring for an elderly father, whilst supporting an unemployed son,
when you’re in charge of a programme which goes out to a whole swathe of the country – you make use of the resources available. Which includes domestic workers eager to improve their
lives. But I’m getting a little tired of the conversation.

Rachel senses this, and steps in.

‘I think we need to recognise that Dora’s situation is problematic at the moment,’ she says. ‘Employing Mona has been the best thing she could have done for everyone. For
her father, for Leo and for Mona herself.’

I smile across at her. I know what she’s saying: it’s also the best thing I could have done for my career.

Mona brings in the dessert.

‘And,’ I say, ‘she likes it here. You like the river, don’t you, Mona? We had a lovely day walking up to Tower Bridge, didn’t we? We had cupcakes.’

Mona smiles, her eyes darting round the room from one to the other of us.

‘And you like taking Daddy to the market, don’t you? Choosing fruit and vegetables. Mona’s an excellent cook.’

‘I can see that,’ says Bob. ‘This is all bloody delicious.’ He smiles and winks at Mona. Is he flirting?

I wonder if Mona’s the kind of woman men find alluring because she looks naive, vulnerable. And the thought flashes into my mind that perhaps she knows just how to exploit it.

‘Do you get out much?’ Sally asks her. ‘Have you seen any of London’s tourist attractions?’

I give Mona a look. She glances at me, understands what she’s meant to say.

‘I hope to, soon. I’ve seen Tower Bridge,’ she says, ‘and I’d like to go to Harrods.’

Everybody laughs.

‘Selfridges is better than Harrods these days,’ says Rachel, ‘isn’t it, Martha?’

‘Oh yes. Selfridges is fab. You mustn’t miss it.’

Sally says, ‘Or Harvey Nics.’

It’s lucky that at this point, Mona backs out of the room. My friends have talked to her quite enough.

I carry the steaming tagine into the sitting room.

If I were at home, as I should have been this weekend, we would never eat in such a lavish way on a Friday night. We would be content with a simple couscous. Or the cheap cuts of meat the
butcher sells off at the end of the day. And this thought causes a torrent of resentment towards Dora for refusing to let me go home just for a short while.

Here she is, laughing with her friends, charming them, as she did me when I first arrived.

I now wonder whether this is all an act. Amina’s message has unsettled me. But Zidana was a young girl who probably didn’t know how to look after herself.

Ali once whispered to me that when people took advantage of him, as they sometimes did when he worked as a guide, he found ways of retrieving what they had taken from him in terms of his
dignity. He might take something small from them, or he might give them a piece of false information that led them to a rough neighbourhood rather than a tourist attraction. Just some little
practical joke that gave him a sense of redressing the balance.

At the time I was shocked, and told him he was wrong, but now I’m understanding more and more that when you’re a subordinate, you have to do little things to preserve your sense of
self.

As I carry the dish to the table, I pass two women who sit close together – a couple, I’m guessing – one with grey hair shorn like a boy’s, the other tall and black, her
long legs sprawling across the other’s. She stares at me as I move and I wish I was invisible, that the tagine could carry itself across the room so I was not the subject of their
curiosity.

A short fat man opens his tight little mouth as I pass.

‘Did you make these . . . whatever they are?’ he asks.

‘Briouates,’ I say, and nod.

I feel his eyes on me, the way men’s eyes are drawn to a woman’s body.

The others smile politely, and wait for me to leave. They all have glasses in their hands; they’ve already drained one bottle of wine, and Dora’s going about filling their
glasses.

Outside the room I pause, put my ear to the door. They’re discussing me. It seems one of the women is concerned for me.

‘Is she attending ESOL classes?’ she asks.

I could burst in, shout, ‘No, I’m not – but I’d like to. Even better, I’d like to attend IT classes. Please, have a word with Dora. Suggest she lend me the money to
visit Ummu.’

Of course I don’t do this. I know my place.

I return to the kitchen.

I take a knife from Dora’s block and slice oranges. The blade’s so sharp it slips straight through the flesh, sending juice spurting up into my eyes where it catches and stings. I
place the glossy slices on a decorative ceramic dish she must have bought when she lived with Roger in Morocco, lift it, weighing it in my hands, imagining the crunch it might make were I to drop
it from a height . . . sprinkle the orange slices with sugar, add cinnamon from a tiny glass jar.

As I move across the kitchen there’s the ping of a text coming into a mobile. I look around. My phone is tucked in the bottom of my bag, and the sound was closer than that. Then I spot it
– Dora’s phone that she left lying on the kitchen table when she was having her large martini before her guests arrived.

I click ‘inbox’.

I can just about work out that the text is from Dora’s man. Max.

I peer at it.

I wonder if I’ll ever meet him, this wealthy doctor. I think of Ummu, her insinuation that it’s the men who one can make use of when one is in need. Perhaps she has a point. After
all, he’s from the States, that legendary land all my friends used to dream of getting to – including Ali.

There’s a photo of a statue with the text. A naked girl with a dolphin. What an odd fascination Dora and Max have with these monuments! The girl in the photo by Dora’s bed, then the
day she went off to meet him beside the famous Boudicca statue. Ummu will find this amusing.

I can’t read the text which is, of course, in English, but I pick up my phone and put Max’s number into my contacts box. Just in case. Just because you never know who might come in
useful. It’s something Ummu taught me, to look out for those who might help you get out, move on.

I put my mobile back in my bag, take another look at the text and smile.

‘What are you doing?’

I look up.

Dora is standing in the kitchen doorway watching me, and I freeze.

‘Nothing,’ Mona says. ‘I’m doing nothing. I heard a text. I think it’s yours.’ She hands me my phone.

I take it from her, see at once there’s a text from Max. My heart lifts.

‘I’m going upstairs,’ I say. ‘Mona, kindly take in the next course.’

If it wasn’t for the fact Mona can’t read a word of English, I might have felt disturbed by the fact she had my phone in her hand, but I’m far too eager to read Max’s
message to worry about anything else now.

In London on 12 December
, he writes.
Be under the Girl with a Dolphin. By Tower Hotel St Katherine’s Dock. 7 p.m. Can hardly wait. Miss you badly
.

I smile. Tower Hotel! I know what this means. He only books hotels if he doesn’t have to leave before morning. I’m filled with warmth and goodwill. I sit down on my bed and compose a
text to send back to him. It’s as if he has a sixth sense, knows how much I have been yearning for him all evening.

When I get back downstairs, Mona’s sitting on a stool amongst my guests, a book open in front of her.

Sally is pointing out pictures of London monuments, and giving Mona a potted history lesson.

‘You must try and go to St Paul’s while you’re here,’ she’s saying, ‘and, of course, the Houses of Parliament.’