The Darkening Hour (37 page)

He hangs onto my arm and slowly we make our way up the steps. He stops after a few steps.

‘I need my handkerchief.’ He starts to turn. He wants to go back to the flat to fetch it. If it takes him as long to go back as it’s taken to get here, we’ll be here all
night.

‘I’ve got tissues in the house, Daddy. Keep moving.’

‘I need the handkerchief. I’m not using paper things. I’ll have the embroidered one Maudy did for me.’

‘Then you’ll have to let me get it. It’ll take you forever.’

I leave him hanging onto the railing on the steps. It takes me ages to find the hankie he wants.

When I get back to him, he takes it, starts to slowly wipe his nose. He’s shaking from the icy-cold night air. I grow impatient, want to shout at him, ‘Move faster, Daddy, I
haven’t got all day!’ I want to pick him up and carry him if it means we’ll get there quicker. Instead we have to move laboriously, stopping every other step for him to gather his
wits or regain his balance. I had no idea what hard work it was, these days, taking Daddy out. Imagine if I had tried to get him to concerts and the things Anita and Simon are constantly advising
but failing to help with themselves.

It takes forever to struggle with him round to the front, along the pavement, up the steps.

At last I manage to get him into the house and install him in the drawing room in front of the TV.

I realise with repulsion that he’s wet himself. His pyjama bottoms are sodden. I need Mona! Do I dry him first? Bathe him? Pull off his soiled trousers, or find him some dry ones before I
do anything? I run back down to his flat, fetch a towel and some thermal underwear. By the time I’ve sorted him out, I feel exhausted.

I look at him half-asleep, oblivious to the world and everything that’s happening to me.

Daddy then opens his eyes and demands to see Mona.

‘I’m trying to find her, Daddy! I’m doing all I can.’

At last Leo comes in. ‘Mum, I think Grandpa’s really unwell. I reckon he needs a doctor. His colour, it’s not good. He looks jaundiced.’

I’m wondering where Leo has heard the word
jaundiced
before. He’s never revealed any medical expertise in the past. He’s right though. Daddy’s skin is an odd
dark yellow colour and he’s barely able to open his eyes; his breath coming in short gasps.

How can he do this to me now? With the picture in the newspaper taunting me. Now that they’ve found Max’s body! And with Mona goodness knows where.

‘You’ll have to shift off the sofa,’ I say to Leo. ‘Help me make up a bed for Daddy. He isn’t well enough to move again.’

Together we fetch pillows, a duvet, a hot-water bottle and his medication and try to make Daddy comfortable.

‘Where is Mona?’ Leo asks. ‘Has she gone?’

I look up sharply.

‘What do you mean? Why would she be gone?’

He shrugs. ‘She just seemed a bit edgy, a bit homesick, since I brought her the
babouches
.’

‘She can’t be gone,’ I say without thinking. ‘I’ve got her passport and documents in my bag. She wouldn’t dare leave without them.’

Leo stares at me.

‘You what? You took her passport?’

‘It’s normal,’ I say. ‘Anyway, there’s no time to discuss Mona now. We need to sort out your grandfather.’

‘Look, Mum,’ says Leo with uncharacteristic grace, ‘Grandpa needs you. I’ll look for Mona. You stay in the drawing room with him in case he gets worse.’

‘Where will you look?’

‘She must have gone to the High Street. I must have missed her. Perhaps she got chatting with someone. Something must have delayed her.’

I say nothing, but am quietly appreciative as he goes upstairs for his hoodie and some duty-free cigarettes, and then yells, ‘See you later!’ as he slams out of the front door.

He’s doing something to help, at last.

I don’t know which attic is the last. They seem to be eternal, one opening after another. I see these attics as representations of my life, how each stage has felt dark,
then revealed a way out to me, led me into a new space, from which I’ve then had to escape. How I have to keep on moving: one more and I’ll be a step closer to Ali.

The one I find myself in now is cramped and dark and smells of rotting things. The trapdoor in the ceiling hangs half-open; the ladder down.

I crawl across to it. Lights are on in the house below. I put my ear to the opening.

I can hear voices.

Relief washes over me.

Sayed, Johnny.

Hearing the voices of people who have tried to help me, even if it was at a cost, is such a relief I almost weep.

I climb down the rickety ladder into the house. The carpets here are damp. There’s a fetid stench of stale smoke, and mould. There doesn’t seem to be anybody about, but I slip
quietly down the stairs, the pulse in my throat banging.

I’m in a narrow hallway, mirroring Dora’s own, but even less well-kept than hers was when I arrived. It’s badly painted and the carpet underfoot is in shreds, scattered with
debris – as if it’s never been cleaned. Along the passage, through a chink in the doorway, I see Sayed, sitting at a kitchen table rolling a cigarette or a joint.

He looks up, alarmed, as I walk in.

‘Sayed, I need your help.’

‘You! How did you get in here?’

‘Through the attics.’

The two men laugh, looking at each other in surprise.

‘Why didn’t you come down the street like a normal person?’

‘It’s not funny. I had to get away – I am in danger. I had to leave the house without being seen. I don’t know how long I’ve got.’

‘We’ve been waiting for you to come to the shop, haven’t we, Johnny? You never met Hamid, but it’s probably for the best. He was into something dodgy.’

‘You said you had an address, for Ali?’

‘Yes. We’ve got an address. But you never came by, so we couldn’t tell you. We know where he’s living, but there’s a bit of a problem.’

‘Tell me!’ They glance at each other. ‘If it’s money, if that’s what you need to give me the information, look, you can have this.’ I hold out the locket
reluctantly – once I’ve let it go, I have nothing left but hope.

They exchange another glance. Johnny takes the locket. Examines it.

‘Oh Jesus!’ he says. ‘This is worth mad skrilla, man.’

‘Can you get me to his address – please – without anyone seeing?’

‘Calm down. Yes, we’ve got the address, but . . .’

‘You can have the locket, Sayed, but only if you take me to him.’

I feel a surge of excitement tighten my stomach muscles. Once I’ve found Ali, I won’t need documents or passports. I am his wife.

I can take his name, share his documents.

My goal is within reach. I close my eyes and pray.

Sayed drives his scooter through the night like a djinn.

I cling to him, my head clamped against the leather of his jacket. We zip between cars and buses. We dip beneath railway bridges and zoom over tube tracks. We veer left and right, tipping this
way and that so at times I feel we’re going to turn right over and I’ll fly across the road under the great tyres of a truck. But I’m not afraid, I’m not afraid of anything,
because I’m about to see Ali.

Sooner than I imagined, Sayed pulls up in front of the gateway to an estate of flats. He looks round at me, speaks through his helmet.

‘Paradise Street. You sure you want to go alone?’

I nod, climb off. ‘You go, Sayed, but thank you.
Barak Allah feek
. May God bless you.’

He shrugs, revs his engine. And then he’s off, and I’m alone. I wonder how I look. I must be dishevelled, windswept, and my clothes are the ones I work in – tracksuit bottoms,
a fleece, old trainers. The hideous spare overall.

But Ali has seen me looking exhausted after Leila’s birth, he’s seen me with my hands in dishwater, he knew me as a child, he loves me for who I am. I do not need to paint myself for
him.

I walk through the gate.

The estate is a square of reddish-brick blocks around a central yard. Here, behind wire-mesh fences, teenagers rollerblade under spotlights, over black tarmac and up steel ramps covered in
graffiti. A group of little kids squat in a group on the only scrubby patch of green outside, staring at a mini-beast of some sort, a worm or a snail. Unused to wildlife, amazed by the movement of
such a tiny thing, they are poking it with sticks, seeing if they can make it move, make something come out of it, or make it go back inside.

There are several entrances with the flat numbers displayed. I find numbers 150-250 and climb the concrete stairwell. It smells of stale urine and things cooking. Number 204 is on the second
floor, along a shadowy walkway past front doors. Each door is different. Some have windchimes or fancy door numbers screwed on. Others are unadorned, tatty, the paint peeling. Tricycles lie on
their sides, next to airers for washing, empty bottles and piles of newspapers. Muted voices float out from the open windows: a child crying, a man shouting, a radio blaring out an Adele song. More
cooking smells – spices, curries, chips. Down below, the whoop of a car alarm, the screech of a siren. And further off, other sounds of the city – the rumble of traffic up on the main
road, the rattle of trains, the drone of aeroplanes.

I remember my first sighting of this city, how massive it looked from above, how vast as we drove through it when I arrived. I’ve only occupied a tiny section of it. Beyond, lie endless
hubs and centres and seething crowds, the palaces and shops and parks and monuments I imagined, and have told Leila about, hoping to show her one day, but in all my time here have never yet
seen.

I look over the balcony. From here, all I can see are endless buildings and cranes lit up, their necks like stalks stretched out to peer at the bright London sky. The dark ribbon of river, with
its spears of light piercing its depths.

No one passes. No one sees me.

My heart batters against my chest. I’m so near to him.

Soon, when we’re together again, who knows, I might phone Ummu and Leila and get them to come straight over. I’m not sure what the visa rules are for dependants, but if we show
we’re a family, that Ali has been working here for months now, earning good money, paying taxes, then the authorities must allow us to be together. Ali will know what to do. Ali will sort it
out. Ali with his good English and his cleverness, his doctor’s charm. And even, perhaps, when he is fully qualified and able to get work, we will go home, back to the little white house on
the estuary, live as a family where we belong and want to be.

Whatever the outcome, all that matters is that I have found him!

I will not have to subordinate myself to another woman ever again. I will be in my own home, with my own family, my own work. I feel, in anticipation, the sweetness of relief, not to be holding
it all together alone any more.

Number 204 is nicely painted, unlike some of the others. It is blue, the colour of the better-kept doorways back home in the medina. Ali was always tidy, always paid attention
to detail. The flat has a familiar air about it; maybe it’s the box of flowers on the windowsill, holding light within them so the colours sing out even in the dark, as if a tiny piece of
Morocco had found its way into this hidden fold of London. A gold-framed arch-shaped mirror swings on the doorway. Another echo of Morocco.

Ali has been dreaming of home.

I feel warm, as if I, too, am close to home. Ali has kept his links with Morocco alive because I am part of them, a piece of home.

I imagine his face when he sees I’m here, that I have come for him, found him, when he must have felt it impossible for us to be together after his time in detention, his struggle to get a
visa.

Now that I too have been treated like an underdog, I understand why he lashed out at Driss.

I understand his longing to escape to a better life where he believed he’d be respected. For him it meant coming to a country where he could be the person he always planned to be – a
doctor, helping others. Where his crime would not be known.

I raise my hand to ring the doorbell, a proper electric doorbell. There’s a light on inside, but it’s dim, the kind Dora leaves on at night or when she goes out to tell burglars we
are at home. If he’s not in, I’ll sit on the step here and wait.

Funny how, having waited to hear from him for so long, these few minutes feel like an eternity.

I can hardly tolerate the silence as I ring the doorbell again, wait some more.

Please come
, I whisper to myself.
Please find me before Dora works out where I’ve gone. Comes for me, or sends the police after me
.

At last a shadow falls across the misted pane in the door, and there’s the rattle of a lock. The door swings open.

‘Hello?’

I jerk my head up.

There’s no one there.

I don’t know how many hours go by as I sit and wait for Leo to come back with Mona. Daddy’s breath is coming in shallow gasps. He’s staring up at me, frowning
slightly. I’m afraid that he’s going to die. I don’t want to leave him. Eventually, overcome by fatigue, I take some cushions from the chairs around the room and make myself a bed
on the floor next to him. I can’t get comfortable. Each time I relax, I become aware of a draught, or the itchy fabric against my skin, or the discomfort of the uneven surface beneath me.

After a while, however, I must have fallen asleep for I awake later in a terrible sweat, my clothes soaked. I’m shaking. A vision of Max has come to me in my sleep and remains before my
eyes, his face with its mouth open, his sightless eyes gazing up at me.

An incessant wind has been blowing all evening, a crane’s claw knocking against its side, like the toll of a bell. I don’t want to be alone with Daddy, his frail breath, his waxen
face. I wish Mona was with me. I need her here to soothe Daddy, to lie with him so I can go to my bed, get a decent night’s sleep.

How long before Leo finds her? Filled with a sense of foreboding, I look at the time on my mobile. If she’d gone to the shop, they would have been back hours ago.