The Darkening Hour (7 page)

‘You’ve taken on the sole care of your father on top of having your son at home? You’re a bloody saint, Dora.’

Her expression belied the fact she was wondering whether I’d bitten off more than I could chew. I knew what she was thinking, that my looking after Daddy was going to impinge on my
professionalism, the way young children are supposed to on working mothers. I was determined from the beginning to show her this wasn’t going to happen. But it was a close call, until
now.

She shifts some papers in front of her.

‘I’m very pleased to hear it, Dora. We were worried that you’d taken on a little too much. As you know, I’m keen for you to go for the new chat show that’s being
mooted. You really stand a very good chance with your track record. The main thing is not to let your personal views impinge on the phone-in.’

‘Have I ever . . .?’

‘Not recently, no. But there has been the odd occasion, when you were under stress. Look, I’m only saying this because I’m gunning for you, Dora. I want to see your name in
bright lights!’

I feel my heart swell at the thought that moving on up to a prime-time show is now a reality. It is, of course, what I’ve always wanted. What I’ve been working towards. The show
she’s talking about is a coveted one, involving celebrity interviews, and is more high-profile than anything I’ve done before. If I get it, I’ll be achieving a lifetime goal.

‘Dora! You’re looking fab.’ Gina, my researcher, hands me today’s agenda and runs through the callers she’s already spoken to. ‘We must go
for a drink later. How about it?’

I place a hand on her shoulder and squeeze. ‘Maybe later in the week. I’m still getting used to leaving Daddy with his carer.’

‘OK, one Friday then. Promise?’

I nod. ‘All being well.’

‘Right. Better get on with the show.’

‘Remind me who we’ve got first?’

‘The mother-in-law who feels it’s her place to comment on the way this caller runs her home. The caller feels she’s doing quite enough having her husband’s mother in the
first place.’

‘Couldn’t agree more,’ I say, accepting another coffee from Hayley.

‘It’s a popular one. Feelings are running high,’ says Gina.

‘I hope the mother-in-law isn’t listening!’ I say. It never ceases to amaze me what people are prepared to impart on National Radio, as if they were in a private sitting
room.

‘Her problem, not ours,’ says Gina, settling herself at her computer.

The adrenalin kicks in as the jingle goes out: ‘Theodora Gentleman, Voice of South-East England, here to turn your worries around.’

I’m at my happiest on air. Engaged in conversation, deep in thought, orchestrating these discussions.

I lean into the mic.

‘So, Sue, your mother-in-law has moved in. For the benefit of our listeners, can you explain the circumstances?’

‘It’s like she moved in the minute her hubby died,’ our caller Sue begins. ‘I’m all right with it – it’s like, what you do, isn’t it?’

Her face floats into my mind’s eye. Plumpish, attractive, bags under her eyes, and straightened, light brown hair. She’ll be wearing something from H&M, fashionable, a little too
young for her. Too much flesh on show. I always try to visualise my callers. It’s a way of keeping myself engaged, though from experience I know faces rarely match voices. The truth, if and
when one ever gets to see it, is always a surprise.

‘When was this, Sue?’

‘Six months ago now.’

‘Does she have her own room? Her own space in your home?’

‘Oh yes. She’s got my son’s old room – he’s moved out, is at uni. She’s got use of her own bathroom. We’ve done all we can to make her feel at home. I
didn’t have any choice. My husband insisted she couldn’t live alone after she was widowed.’

‘Can she look after herself?’ I ask. ‘Is she incapacitated in any way?’

‘Oh no. She’s very young for her age.’

Sue goes on, explaining how she has never got on with the mother-in-law but has worked all her married life to smooth over potential conflicts.

I say nothing. I’m not here to give my views, but I play the psychologist anyway, to myself. It’s always so obvious what’s going on. This time it’s a husband with an
Oedipus complex. A son who is unable to detach entirely from his mother and to fully love his wife.

‘Which would be fine,’ Sue says, and I can hear she’s close to tears, ‘but now she’s determined to find fault with the way I do things.’

Personally, I would have refused to have her move in at all, is what I’m thinking. It’s not as if the mother-in-law needs care like my father does. And, though I love him dearly, I
don’t even have
him
in the house. It’s thanks to the flat that I’ve been willing to have him nearby. But I don’t give my opinion – that’s not what
I’m here for. I’m just a facilitator.

It’s something Max loves to hear about. My position at the mic, listening, suggesting, analysing – but keeping my true opinions hidden. He likes me to tell him what I really think of
these conundrums – it’s one of the things we laugh about when we’re together.

The discrepancy between what I say, and what I think.

‘Right, Sue,’ I say. ‘We have Donald on the phone who wants to make a suggestion.’

Donald is, I suspect, one of our regulars. I recognise his voice, though he changes his name each time he phones in. He’s one of those who love to offer advice, a psychotherapist
manqué who spends his whole time listening for opportunities to offer spurious solutions to problems he hasn’t – and wouldn’t ever, or so he maintains – have to deal
with himself. Or maybe he’s moved to phone simply so he can hear his own voice on air. There are plenty of those.

‘You’ve got to write up a contract,’ Donald says. ‘Make it clear what you’re prepared to provide, and what you expect in return. All parties must sign
it.’

‘Well, there’s a thought, Sue. Now we’ve got Marcia who’s had a similar experience. Over to you, Marcia.’

This morning the scenario’s genuine, but lots of nutters phone in. Gina filters the more extreme cases, but there are those with problems that make the programme all the more lively,
people who enjoy sexual practices that lend the programme a salacious appeal that just slips through censorship. Foot fetishists or people looking for sex with no strings attached, women
who’ve discovered that their sister is really their mother. I’m amazed that people are prepared to reveal their problems over the radio, ignoring the fact that the whole of the
south-east might be listening in. I’m astonished that they confide, that they feel I’m their friend, someone they’ve never met and know nothing about. I wonder why they
haven’t got friends they can talk to in private about these things. But I know I’m a construct for each of them; they make me what they’d like me to be. A sort of omniscient
goddess figure . . . Theodora Gentleman. And to hand it to them, my listeners are appreciative. I get hundreds of emails, texts and tweets thanking me, even some grateful handwritten letters from
older listeners.

Rachel comes over as I’m about to leave.

‘Well done, Dora,’ she says. ‘Things are going so well for you. I’m talking to the directors later and hope I’ll have some good news.’

I think of Max, his pride at my success. I think of my siblings, how, though they’re all better off than me, they’ve always been in awe of my career.

Even Daddy will surely recognise how well I’ve done, through the mists of his decaying mind?

It’s all falling into place.

And in a way, I think, as I make my way home to see how Daddy got on today, it’s all possible now, because Mona’s come.

When the old man’s had his breakfast I go back to the main house, hoping to spend a little time in Dora’s bathroom, and come face to face with the son. For a few
moments we stand and stare at each other, saying nothing. Now he’s standing I see he’s tall with broad shoulders and a large stomach. Dressed in a T-shirt, track-suit bottoms and thick
socks. His eyes are cold and his face pale. A tide rises up – a fear that grips me though its origins are in the past. I’m alone in the house with a man I know nothing about. My body
has a memory of its own. It reacts before I’ve time to register that I’m afraid. I break out in a fine sweat.

The best thing to do when confronted with someone you fear, Ummu once told me, is to stand your ground, look them in the eye. Disarm them with your confidence.
Make friends with the dog, but
don’t drop the stick
, she said. And so I don’t move, but keep my wits about me.

I follow him to the kitchen, where he fills a mug with water and drinks it down. Fills it again. He takes a plastic bottle of pills, shakes two or three into his hand, swallows them. I wonder if
perhaps he is ill. Is this why he was on the sofa all day yesterday, half-asleep?

‘Can I get you something?’ I ask. ‘Some breakfast? An egg? A little coffee?’

‘You can make me tea when I get up,’ he says.

‘You’re going back to bed now?’

He shrugs and walks out again, his head low. He does remind me of a dog! The kind with raised shoulderblades that hangs their heads, the sort you don’t trust at home for they’re
sometimes rabid. I listen. Hear his heavy footsteps on the stairs, the click of his bedroom door.

The house falls silent.

I try not to make a sound as I go up to Dora’s bathroom. It’s a beautiful room, though it’s been neglected. There are wooden floors, in need of a polish, the curling carpet,
and a huge bath with feet shaped like a large cat’s. Along the shelves are cubes of soap, glass bottles of oils and lotions. I turn the enormous brass taps, just to see the water flow. There
are two taps, one hot and one cold. I let the water run for some time, discover the hot, enjoy the soothing feel of it upon my skin. Then I lean for a minute on the basin, in a pool of pale yellow
sunlight, and gaze out of the window. Next door a woman moves down her garden with a basket of washing. I watch her peg it on a circular washing line, like a small tree. When she’s finished,
the tree starts to turn circles, the washing swirling around in a kind of dance in the wind. It reminds me of the trees I’ve seen in the desert, where people tie coloured fabric as fertility
offerings, and I feel a pang, and wonder when I’ll next stand on home soil.

Later I’ll make this room beautiful. Clean the bath and sink, polish the taps. One day when I have more time I’ll take a bath. Use a few of Dora’s luxury products. For now I
just have a wash, dry myself on a thick towel, rub a little cream into my hands from one of the tubes on the shelf. Feeling fresher, I go down to Charles.

He’s wearing good clothes – a crisp shirt, wool jacket and trousers. Leather shoes that look as if a shoe-shine boy has just had his hands on them. I think of Ummu in her funny
assortment of clothes that she’s worn for years and wonder who keeps his so pristine when Dora clearly hasn’t the time. I lean over him, catching the scent of his soap, a lemony smell,
and a waft of something sweeter, the talc he keeps in his little bathroom.

‘I need to get to Billingsgate,’ he says. ‘Have you ordered my taxi?’

‘Dora asked me to take you to the market,’ I say. ‘To buy your oranges. Have you been to the toilet?’

The minute I’ve asked, I wish I hadn’t. He has pride. He has dignity. I’ve offended him. I take his arm. Lead him out of his front door and up the steep steps to the back
garden.

‘I don’t understand why you live down there when there’s the big house that’s so much easier to get in and out of,’ I say, and he looks at me. He doesn’t ask
me to translate.

Charles walks so slowly it takes us over ten minutes to cross the garden with its fallen fruits and go along the path round to the front. He waits while I go into Dora’s hallway, tug the
wheelchair from under the stairs, pull it down the steps and help him in.

The woman I saw hanging out the washing next door is sweeping her front steps. ‘Morning, Charles,’ she calls out.

‘Good morning, Desiree,’ Charles says, and I nod too and smile, but she doesn’t notice.

There’s no one else around. The doors along the street are closed, the cars that were parked when we arrived, gone. Only the little stone figures watch as we pass.

The minute we turn the corner at the end of the street, however, everything changes. A market’s in full swing. The smell hits me in the face. Foreign odours mingle with those so familiar
– griddled meat, hot leather – that when I screw my eyes tight shut, I could be at the souk.

Drunks lounge openly on upturned buckets or crates, chatting idly, holding cans of lager. Women march past in groups, their hair corn-rowed, or shaved, or dyed bright colours, pink or white or
blue. They glance and laugh, reminding me of my friends in the medina when we were young and would have done the same, gossiped and giggled as we walked along, thinking we were the centre of the
world.

Music blares out of doorways.

It’s like entering a party I have not been invited to.

Snatches of languages I recognise – French, Arabic. Others I’ve never heard before. Signs on shops in Arabic and Roman script and Chinese. Shops filled with bright fabrics, a window
of mannequin heads in different-coloured wigs, purple and yellow and green. Things I didn’t expect to see here: halal meat stores, and moolis and a whole stall of eggs. There are beauty
parlours, supermarkets. Shops with watches and jewels in the window. Women in African dress, and in burkas, men in turbans and in djellabas, teenagers in denim and leather and shell-suits or Rasta
colours. A man with no legs goes past in a wheelchair.

This is not the England I pictured or that Ummu dreamed of.

This is a cross-section of the whole world.

And somehow it lifts my spirits.

If the whole world is here, why not Ali?

We’re moving through stalls of mobile phones, pans, cakes and hairpieces, nuts and bolts, bags and scarves. Round piles of rubbish and discarded boxes. Through racks of lovely long dresses
and jackets and trousers and out again into the light. That’s when I see him. My fingertips fizz, my knees buckle. He’s at a toy stall, bent over a doll, its eyes blinking as it moves
back and forth on a battery-operated swing. I know that black hair, the white djellaba he wears over baggy trousers, a leather jacket over the top; his hands, the hands I love, holding the toy so
tenderly. Only the trainers look different, new. He’s thinking of Leila. I stare, feeling a warmth spread all over me.