Louisa Young - Tree of Pearls

‘What was the disagreement about?’

I didn’t answer. He didn’t push it, but he didn’t retreat either. All I wanted was to know that Sa’id and Hakkim were all right. But Sa’id and Hakim are not my business any more.

‘Are you in touch with the el Arabys?’ he asked.

‘No.’

‘Hakim el Araby has been questioned. He’s not a problem. But Sa’id has not made himself available. Do you know where he is?’

‘No.’

I was thinking about Sa’id’s family: Abu Sa’id, Mariam, Madame Amina. Oh god, all these decent people. Caught up. I told him I shouldn’t have gone to stay at his aunt’s while I was dealing with Eddie.

‘He took a flight to Athens ten days ago. Have you heard from him?’

‘No.’

‘Despite their being such good friends of yours? Staying with you and all that?’

My heart was falling, slowly, gently. I am just at the beginning of my days of healing and rebuilding. What’s it to me if Sa’id goes to Athens? If Eddie moves on? Leave me alone. My old enemy and my old lover. They’re not mine.

‘We were hoping you could help. If either of them gets in touch with you,’ he went on, ‘you must let us know.’

I gave him a long low look. Does he have the slightest idea what he is asking of me here? What he is doing to me? What either of these men has been to me? How Eddie, despite the quick, spontaneous, devilish pact we made that night when I prevented Hakim from knifing him, has never been anything but my enemy, my complex enemy, on many many levels? The serious enemy – the one who brings out from your own depths your own worst faults, your weaknesses? It was to Eddie that I did the worst thing I have ever done, and I hate him for it.

It’s part of the story. There’s no avoiding it. A year and half ago, when he kidnapped me in London … I’ll put it simply – he was trying to fuck me, I resisting. I hit him with a poker, knocked him out. Then as he lay unconcious and, due to the workings of the autonomic nervous system (I looked it up later), still hard, I fucked him back. Did to him the bad thing he had been trying to do to me. Out of anger and revenge, I gave him what he wanted in a way he could never enjoy. And my worst self enjoyed it very much. So I hate him.

There. Very simple.

And Sa’id? Sa’id taught me to leave the dead alone, showed me how forgiveness works, made me capable, in myself, of seeing off Eddie and his frightful attachment. And, if I am honest, mine. My frightful … not attachment. My … interest. Something.

‘I don’t imagine,’ I said, staring at him, ‘that either of them will.’ Don’t you stir this up, you. I’m trying to win the peace here. I have a child to look after. Leave me alone.

‘If they do,’ said Preston Oliver.

‘Sure,’ I said. Easily, because they wouldn’t, and if they did – well, I lied.

*

Then it was time for me to fetch Lily. She and I ambled home in the dark, unable to hear each other speak for the traffic heading west on the Uxbridge Road. We cut into the small streets as soon as we could, and admired other people’s lives glowing through their bay windows: their televisions and their teas. Lily wondered why we don’t live in a house.

‘Because we live in a flat,’ I said, interestingly. I was tired.

She said she’d like to live in a house. I concurred in a non-committal grunting fashion.

Then felt bad about my lack of interest. ‘Why?’ I asked.

‘So that when you die I can bury you in the garden and you’ll still be near me.’

‘Oh sweetheart,’ I said. ‘Oh.’

‘I know it won’t really be you,’ she said. ‘I know it’ll just be your body, and worms will eat it, even your eyes, and your lovely little nose.’

I looked down at her, and she reached up, and touched the tip of my nose tenderly.

Oh sweetheart,’ I said.

‘But what I really want is a leopard that can read my mind, and knows where to go.’

Oh my god, I thought. And said: ‘So do I.’

It was seven by the time we got home – time Lily should be getting ready for bed. Harry was sitting on the doorstep, up at the end of the long red-brick balcony that leads to my flat, reading the Independent and ignoring the cold. He looked to Lily first. She seemed to have forgotten all about him – and then remembered.

‘Dada!’ she trilled, blinking at him. He stood – unfolding himself as he does, like a camel or a telescope – and picked her up, and her legs hung down as if she were a puppet on his hand. Long dangly big-girl legs. She’s five now. A creature of playgrounds and reading books and the girls’ gang, no more the plump little dimpled thing I used to know. My girl.

He smiled at me over her shoulder. As you see dads do. Dads in coats carrying big girls in coats. In the park, at the playground. Girls climb up on their dads. My girl, her dad.

I opened the door and they followed me in. The hallway seemed smaller than usual. So did the kitchen. What with this new identity spreading out all over the place. Of course Harry’s been there many a time before, but Lily’s father hasn’t. And he seems to take up space.

I’m not complaining.

I started to make an omelette, automatically. It wouldn’t be a very nice one because I was rather too weary to whisk it up properly the way she likes. I tried to do a little yoga breathing as I whisked. Just because a policeman asks you some questions it doesn’t mean your life has to be upended again. It came out as a sigh.

‘Can I do it?’ Harry said.

I just stared at him.

‘Why not?’ he said.

No reason at all.

‘Make up for lost time,’ I said. I have cooked tea for his child seven nights a week for five years; he has never.

‘Can I put her to bed too?’ he said.

‘You don’t have to ask,’ I said. ‘At least you don’t have to ask me.’

‘No you can’t,’ said Lily. ‘But you can read me a story.’

Harry eyed her.

‘You know what?’ he said.

‘What?’

‘You don’t boss your father.’

She thought about it. I observed, interested.

She changed the subject. Enquired about the omelette, wanted milk, carried on with normal business. Much like I’m doing myself, now I come to think of it. My normal business of my family. Of Lily. Of incorporating Harry. And this is going to be such an interesting business. I must keep my mouth shut and let them work it out for themselves even though I know everything much better than they do. She can tell him what she wants; he can learn. I’ll just stand by. Or lie in wait. Or bite my tongue. Or something.