Thicker Than Soup (28 page)

Perhaps because she'd slept in Hiba's bed, or perhaps just because she'd slept, she woke feeling unusually refreshed. Somewhere in her head a voice protested; ‘mourn'. It insisted, ‘mourn and mourn again'. But the new energy was irresistible. She had another whole, free day before Arif would be back and discarding her creased shalwar kameeze she stepped into the shower. Scalding water stung her scalp and cascaded down her body, filling her mouth, her nose and her lungs with steam. She lathered her hair and body and rubbed until her skin tingled and suds circled her feet. Then she scrubbed her skin with a sun stiffened towel until she'd punished herself enough for enjoying this undeserved solitude.

She wanted tea. And eggs. She'd have to go to the market and buy food. But people would see her, criticize the light in her eyes, the bounce in her step. Taking her as yet unworn burka – destined for the visit to Mecca they'd planned to make – she covered and hid behind anonymity. She'd buy chicken, fresh coriander and chillies. She'd prepare the meal for Arif's return the following day. Chicken, sizzling with spices and lemon. And she'd ask Rachel to come for tea, to talk about work. She tidied Hiba's room, smoothing the sheet and turning the pillow to hide the creases her head had made. Shamila would wonder if she saw a used bed and Sally had no intention of sharing the secret of her sanctuary with anyone.

*

After another night in Hiba's room she woke again with energy. With fresh tea in hand she picked up the papers that Rachel had brought and saw the first folder contained a batch of applications for the new term that Rachel had already registered. Eight already; a whole new class. Another folder was full of letters that Rachel had answered and needed no more than a glance and her initials to indicate she'd read them. The third folder held a letter clipped to a batch of papers which she quickly saw, was the lease for her school premises. Unlike the other letters, this one didn't have Rachel's reply attached. Sally read more slowly as the words became meaning. The family who owned the building were giving three month's notice of their intention to repossess the property. No! She read the lines again. Why? Rachel had told her she must look at the lease, but not why. The letter was dated the previous day; she had just three months to find new premises. And turn it into a school. And inform everyone – who might not … it wasn't fair! “I don't want to move.” She protested to no-one but the page. Her eyes glazed with tears and the letter, then the lease and its folder, slid from her fingers to the floor, taking with them the energy she'd started the day with.

*

The sounds of the gates opening and Arif's car roused Sally from Hiba's room. She closed her eyes tightly, resenting his – or anyone's – intrusion on her solitude, then realised she'd done nothing to prepare the meal she'd shopped for other than rub spices into the chicken the previous evening. Hastily tidying her daughter's bed she ran through the house and into the kitchen before the front door opened.

“Sally? Ap kahan hai?”

“Arif! I'm here, in the kitchen.” She went to greet him, wiping her hands on a cloth as if she'd been busily preparing food. “Let me help.” Taking his hat she saw that the pallor of his face had, if anything, deepened. “The journey was difficult?”

Arif shook his head. “No, not difficult. Just tiring.”

Where was the warmth of their reunion; a kiss on her cheek, an enquiry of wellbeing? The despondent silence lay heavy and she let her feet turn her away. “I'll make tea. Sit down; I'll bring it to you.”

*

The room, with its curtains drawn against the sun was dark but heavy with heat. Placing tea and a plate of biscuits by the side of Arif, she touched his hand. “Arif? Are you sleeping?”

His eyes remained closed but his hand moved and covered hers. “Sallyji.” After a moment his eyes opened. “Sit with me. Please.”

She switched on the ceiling fan and sat below it, opposite Arif, and waited. There was so much to be said and yet so little they could say. Arif roused himself. “Sammy?”

“In school.” Dust swirled in a sliver of sunlight. “Karim and Pazir?”

“Yes, they have returned. Pazir's flight left on time.”

Her eyes followed the dust and her mind cried out to her husband, ‘Talk to me about Hiba. She's here! Can't you feel her?' The tea cooled, the biscuits went untouched and the distance between her and the stranger she was married to lengthened.

“Nowshera? Your friend was well?”

Arif nodded. He stood, moved to the window and pushed aside the curtain, stirring more dust mites into a frenzy. “I've been to Rawalpindi. Not to Nowshera.”

He'd lied to her? Why? Arif didn't lie.

He stood with his back to her. “Before I tell you what I have to say I want first of all to tell you that I love you. It's important that you know this is the truth. I hope you will one day be able to forgive me for what has happened and also for what…” Blood suffused his neck and Sally tasted foreboding. “When I took blood, yours and Hiba's, to Islamabad, it was to test not for pneumonia antibodies, but for this fear they call AIDS. You've heard of it, though no-one speaks of it. I couldn't do the tests in Abbottabad; people know us here.”

Why didn't he turn and look at her? Why couldn't she move?

“I can hardly say this but you have to know. We have the virus. It is confirmed.”

The table at her side fell sideways, her cup smashing into splinters and tea. She'd heard about AIDS; it had been on the news and in the newspapers when she'd been in London. It killed people, slowly. Dreadfully. The actor, Rock Hudson had died of it. And also Freddie Mercury, about two years ago. They'd said Freddie Mercury died of pneumonia but everybody knew he was gay. Photos had shown him like an old man, his skin stretched across bones like Faiza's had been. Faiza! She made the connection; pneumonia and Hiba, and Arif's words ricocheted off the gilt mirror frame, the wooden chair backs, the brass topped table.

“I am a doctor. But I've failed.”

His voice, an echo. Hers too. Unreal.

“But it's a gay disease. AIDS is a disease of gay men!”

“My dearest wife, I have this dreadful virus, and I, may Allah forgive me, have given it to you. And our daughter. Because I failed to see. It is unforgivable. Faiza died because of me, and our little daughter, Naimah too. I believed we didn't have this virus in our society. I believed it to be not only a disease of homosexuality – the word sat uncomfortably – but a Western disease. I was blind. I allowed complacency to lead to this. Allah granted me a good life and I have not acted wisely. Many years ago Rachel's first husband died in my care and I now acknowledge his illness for what it must have been. A needle stick injury is careless; I remember he flailed about as I injected him. This is when I must have contracted this dreadful, hateful, and,” he paused momentarily, “incurable virus.”

Sally saw him turn, felt his hands take hers and saw his face before her. This man, this doctor who was her husband, was responsible for her treasured daughter's death.

“Our beloved Hiba is gone, and in all probability, Sammy will be alone before he is a man. If Hiba isn't enough, you'll bear this too.”

Sammy? Here was another horror!

“Rachel will also worry, but it is a long time ago for her, and she and her family are healthy so I think she must be safe though I do not know how. I do not know how I have lived for so long without being ill. I suppose my cough and skin…..”

Of course, Rachel's first husband!

“Sally, my heart is broken. I am sorry. I ask forgiveness without a right to expect it from you, but in hope. There is money; I will make arrangements for my Mother, and for Pazir and Karim, and for you and Sammy. I've made a new will…”

He'd known for a month! He'd not told her. Hiba's grey, frightened face appeared before her, her lips blue as she sucked for air, her terrified eyes pleading. Her head falling back as the tube was pushed down her throat. The pumping of her chest and the silent heart monitor. “Nooooo….” Sally's wail obliterated her husband's words, inflating and expanding into a howl that enveloped her, filled the room, became everything…

Michael was still sitting at the table when John came back to the kitchen. He looked small, deflated inside his skin. “Dad. Your tea.” He pushed the mug forwards.

“Yes. Thank you.” Michael's hands wrapped round the mug. “Neil and Linda gone?” John nodded. “I asked them to put her clothes into bags. For Oxfam.”

“That's good.”

“And I've told Linda she can take the flower arranging stuff. To give to Lucy. Lucy does flowers.”

“That's good too. They're good people, Linda and Neil.”

John took a knife from the block. “For you?”

For a moment Michael looked blank, then comprehended the change of topic. “Go on then. Your Mum reckoned Linda used to make those cakes to use up the bananas that Neil couldn't sell, and when he retired, she couldn't stop making them.” He accepted a slice and broke away a corner. “She said Linda's cakes weren't as good as hers, but they all tasted good to me. I never told her so, though.” He chewed the corner piece absently. “It must be eight years since they sold that business. Do you still get your vegetables from the new people?”

The banana cake story was as stale as the banana cake, and the new people weren't new people any more. “I do. Their stuff's fresh and they have a variety. Herbs too. They're good.”

He started to clear away the tea things but his father resisted. “Leave it, John. Leave it for now.” His eyes were pink rimmed and watery. “Sit down. Talk to me. It's been three weeks since Frances died, and no-one even says her name. They think I'll get upset if they mention her. Even Linda. I'm grateful for what she and Neil are doing, but I wish she'd stop being so busy when she's here, and would just sit down and talk about her.” Michael pushed his empty tea mug aside. “Tell me how you are, John. Tell me how
you
are coping.”

Being busy, particularly around his father, was how he was coping. It was how they were all coping. “I don't know, Dad. Sometimes I forget she's gone and then I remember and it hurts that I could have forgotten. It's a surprise that she's not here, now, with us.” He reached for an ashtray from the dresser and saw a card with a Picasso dove. “You've got some more cards. Shall we go through them?” It felt like a useful thing to do. “There's quite a lot; and letters too. We should answer the letters, and some of the cards too.”

Taking silence as agreement, he put them on the table and opened the first one. “Brian and Jane.” He thought for a minute. “Weren't they the people who lived across the road, who went to Bournemouth?”

Michael took the card. “They did. We went and stayed with them once. Beautiful gardens down there. And a theatre. The Winter Gardens. Your Mum pinched a cutting off their white begonias. She was always getting cuttings from somewhere or other.” He picked out a second card and looked at the flowery water-colour before opening it. “Oliver and Susan. I play golf with Oliver sometimes.” He read aloud.
We wanted you to know how sorry we were to hear about Frances. We didn't know her as well as we did you, but we remember the beautiful flowers she did for our daughter's wedding.
He looked at a potted hyacinth, flowering on the windowsill. “Everyone talks about her flowers.”

As they read, Michael's eyes regained some animation. He read kind words from Diane and Malik and then picked up another one. “Anthony.” He paused. “Anthony knows what it's like. It's been four years since Moira died. Same thing. Ovarian adenocarcinoma.” He pronounced the word as though he'd been using it all his life. “They caught Moira's earlier. You'd expect that, wouldn't you, with Anthony being a doctor. It was another five years before she died. Your mum was already in stage four when hers was diagnosed. Perhaps it was better that way. Not knowing, I mean. But it was too late for the surgery and chemo they gave her. It made her last months hell, going through all that.”

John took Anthony's card and put it back with the others. “Dad, the surgery and chemo might have helped. It might have worked. But it happened so quickly. Last summer Mum was well. She was pleased because she'd lost some weight. She had no pain. Nothing until just four months ago.” Four short months. He recalled how she'd stay in bed for a day or so every month when he'd been a boy. He hadn't understood it at the time, he'd just accepted that she wasn't well. When he came back from college, she was miraculously better; it didn't happen anymore. The oncologist had said there might be a link between endometriosis and ovarian cancer. “No one knew, Dad. There was no warning about the cancer until it was too late.” Privately he agreed with his father and wished they'd spared her the traumas of chemotherapy and surgery. “We don't know what might have been, Dad, and we can't change anything.”

Michael cut another slice of Linda's cake, his movements slow and heavy. “Have another piece.” He offered the slice. “Do you want to read your Mum's will?”

He'd expected that, at some time, his father would mention the will and was curious, but felt ashamed that his thoughts had wandered into such matters so readily. There'd been money, inherited from her father some years previously, and through her generosity he'd started the Bristol restaurant. And she'd paid for his holiday in Greece. He assumed that any monies left would go to Michael. “Should I? Can't you just tell me what it says?”

“I've got a copy if you want to see it, but the solicitor will be writing to you. Soon. It's straight forward; a few bequests and everything else coming to me. The surviving spouse. Except for her shares. Her ‘portfolio'.” He mimicked Frances's voice, trying to make it sound amusing. ‘Portfolio'. It echoed in John's head. “And a sapphire tie pin that belonged to her father. They're yours. I'll get you the pin later; it's in her jewellery box. And the solicitor will send you the shares stuff. ”

John swallowed. He hadn't expected that. The stocks and shares were valuable; enough to pay off his mortgage if he chose to. Or think about another restaurant. It was hard not to be pleased, despite the circumstances.

“And it's not in the will, but she always told me she was going to give you her engagement ring. She didn't wear it anymore; it didn't fit her. But she hoped that, well, one day……” Michael's words trailed off. “Anyway. You'd better have it.”

One day. Tomorrow? Any day? Words took you forwards in time but didn't stand still long enough to be caught. Frances had yearned for family and it had saddened her to be denied children of her own. To also be estranged from the grandchildren she'd have loved, nurtured, and spoiled, had been an added heartache. “I'm sorry I couldn't make her happy, Dad.” An image of the old photograph of Sally and her family skittered through John's mind. “I'll keep the ring, and when the ‘one day' comes, it'll be used.” An empty promise?

“Ay, John. Do that.” He gathered cake crumbs on the table. “There's another bequest.” He pressed the crumbs on to his finger and ate them. “For Sammy.”

“Sammy?”

“Yes.” Michael's voice was carefully casual. “We thought about him a lot, you know. Frances worried about his future. She wanted to help him have a good education and so she bought some bonds after she sold her father's house. They're tied into a trust fund.”

Bonds? Trust funds? Astonishment overcame his initial outrage. Frances had secured a future for Sammy without discussing it with him. “She had it all worked out, didn't she?”

Michael shook his head. “No. She left that to the trustees; me and the solicitor. I've written to Sally.”

This second revelation was undeniably an intrusion, and only with an effort, did he remain calm. “You have her address?”

“Yes. I got it from Diane. I wrote a few days ago.”

He was astounded. The news that Michael had undertaken such things without telling him astonished him. He looked at the man in front of him, and saw beyond the seventy-eight year old frame to the man who had always known he was right – even when he wasn't. “You wrote to her. Without telling me?”

“You never wanted children. We wanted to do something for him.”

“Never wanted?” John struggled to control his voice. “Dad, you have no idea. Why didn't you talk to me before you wrote to Sally. Why did neither of you talk to me about a trust fund?”

Michael looked away. “We thought you'd say no.”

It was then that he realised what Frances had done and his anger dissipated. She'd been clever, very clever. She'd crafted a key for John.

Michael plucked a letter from one of the sympathy cards. “Do you remember Alice, your Mum's old friend?” It was a rhetorical question. “She says she'd like me to go and stay for a few days. That's kind, isn't it? Maybe I'll go.” He folded the letter and laid it back on the pile. “One day.”

*

With Frick away, and less than half of the tables occupied in the Bristol restaurant, admiration for what his mother had done was tempered by Frick having given his notice. He'd tried to dissuade Frick from the current trip to Belfast, sure that ‘the troubles' as Frick called them, were no more than a local vendetta, but ‘the troubles' had unnerved Frick's wife, and she was set on leaving England. The tin of paint thrown over the family car had been infuriating but had been passed off as malicious nonsense until the letters started to arrive.
The car was first
and
Get out or look out
had been followed by newspaper cuttings about the Warrington bombings. Frick's wife had become frightened and though he tried to talk Frick into a less distant move, Frick said they were fed up with looking over their shoulders and were going home. The final straw had been when his son had returned from school with a blackened eye, which might have been the result of a clash on the football field. But there'd been cruel words about Irish Catholics, and Frick had said they couldn't live like that. But he wouldn't go until he had a job, and that's where he was; at an interview near Belfast.

John was tired. As he called the final order he felt like he'd worked a long, hard shift rather than the quiet evening that had passed. “Normandy Pork, to go,” and “Beef rump”. Despite working all evening with food, he hadn't eaten since Linda's banana cake and taking a fresh steak, he slapped it on the hotplate. A handful of pre-fried chips went into the fryer, and he poured a large glass from the remains of someone's ‘87 Bordeaux. Months of watching his mother die and the emotional decline of his father had taken its toll. He was exhausted. Not just fatigued, but bone weary, and he longed for space and distance and energy. He wanted… a holiday! The idea rolled around a few times and he liked it. A few weeks somewhere, alone, was extremely tempting. France? It had been almost a year since Sandy's last visit and he imagined her face light with joy as he turned up, unannounced, at her home town, then he chuckled as he visualised the more likely dismissal. She barely spoke about her life in France, and he assumed she had a good reason not to share it with him. Perhaps she was married; he didn't want to meet a husband. The charade of a clandestine affair – if that's what it was – brought its own excitements. No, Sandy wasn't the answer. He thought of somewhere unfamiliar, exotic. Pakistan? The name rolled around his mouth a few times. Sammy would be eleven; an age where his education might be considered. Sally's husband – he tripped over the term ‘husband' – had looked tall and severe, and military. An officer probably, perhaps one of the Generals he'd read about in the newspapers. Articles about Pakistan caught his eye. It seemed an unruly place, dominated by the military and religion, with politicians and ministers being shot and bombed. He'd read recently that Benazir Bhutto had become prime minister for the second time and that Western politicians were talking tentatively of economic and social stability. It might be a time to visit, though he'd never heard of anyone going to Pakistan for a holiday. He played with the idea for a while until sense told him of its futility.

But the seeds, once planted, germinated. He considered The States. Barrie Bates, his old college friend, rebranded (wasn't that the term?) as Billy Apple, working impressively alongside greats like Jasper Johns and Andy Warhol. Was he still in ‘The Big Apple'? Probably not. Or he might take his mother's legacy and double it on the gaming tables of Las Vegas. Or go to the Grand Canyon. He hadn't had a break, a proper break, for years. Julia and his chefs would manage for a few weeks without him, and Alain could handle any crises. The idea warmed. New people, new foods, new ideas. It would refresh him, and Seagrams would benefit from that. As a student he'd tried to paint giant abstracts of the Grand Canyon, fusing dramatic landscape shapes with rock and river and sunset colours. With youthful delusions of brilliance he'd tried oils, then pastels, and finally collage, but they'd lacked conviction and he'd blamed the lack of realism in abstraction rather than his lack of skill. And because it sounded impressive. But the Grand Canyon was inspirational and he felt an urge to visit. Then reality asserted itself. All he'd been through was still happening; Michael, at the kitchen table, was bent by a loneliness he didn't know how to live with. John couldn't leave him. Not yet. Reluctantly, he put the dreams into his ‘one day' box.

*

Fresh rain drops splattered the already shiny streets as he claimed space behind two chatting cyclists on a right turn. His father inhaled audibly, and he couldn't resist teasing him. “Don't worry. There're plenty more students. I'll bag a couple later.” He drove on, newly accustomed to this quiet man his father had become. “Fifteen minutes, and we'll be there.” Rows of bicycles, strong and determined, rested along the side of the Bodleian Library, some standing proudly upright, some battered and disintegrating, tangled into each other as if they'd given up hope. Like his father, thought John. In need of an overhaul, a refit. It had been a blessing when he'd agreed to stay with his gregarious bachelor brother in Oxford where music, books, eating and drinking, and of course, debate with Geoffrey's interesting friends, was not for the downhearted.