Helen Forrester - The Lemon Tree

As she tucked the little parcel well down into her skirt pocket, she cried helplessly. She was nearly fourteen years old, tall for her age and very thin, with eyes that were sadly old for one so young and feet that seemed too big for her stature.

Since her mother was in no state to do it, Helena sat down at their rickety table in their tiny apartment and wrote to her only surviving blood relative, Uncle James in Liverpool, to tell him of his brother’s death and the penury of his widow. Tears blotted her shaky unformed Arabic script

By the time they received a reply six weeks later, the landlord, a kindly man, had grown tired of a tenant who was not paying him rent, even though she was a pretty widow, and told them they had another week in which to start paying again, plus something towards the arrears.

If it had not been for a large bag of rice, which her father had obtained shortly before his death, and the kindness of their neighbours, Helena and her mother would have starved.

In his reply, Uncle James wrote that, if they could manage to pay their fares to England, he would be happy to give both mother and daughter a home. Unfortunately, he was not yet earning enough to send them their fares; he had just leased a small factory building and installed his first soap boiler, and this had drained his reserve and his credit.

He did not know how to express his own grief at the loss of a well-loved brother, so contented himself with the usual polite phrases. Leila’s troubles were great enough without his adding to them.

He did not mention that the home he offered would actually be in a house owned by his English mistress, Eleanor. As he wrote, she was sitting on a chair opposite him, nursing their year-old son, Benjamin.

It had taken a great deal of coaxing on his part to persuade this downright little Liverpudlian that he owed shelter to his sister-in-law, Leila, and her daughter, Helena. It was a duty he could not evade, he assured her, and he would have to find another place to live if Eleanor could not help him.

‘She’s foreign,’ Eleanor had protested.

James had looked up from his letter and responded dryly, though with a twinkle in his eye, ‘So am I.’

‘You’re different, luv,’ she told him, and smiled at him.

James’s eyes were bloodshot from private weeping on top of long hours of work. He looked so drained that she impulsively got up from her chair and leaned over the baby to kiss his cheek. ‘Well, never mind. Don’t you fret,’ she said kindly. ‘I suppose I could give ’em the second-floor back room to theirselves. I’d have to give Mr Tomlinson notice, though, so as he can find somewhere else.’ Mr Tomlinson was one of her three gentlemen lodgers, other than James Al-Khoury himself. She sighed heavily, as she sat down and rearranged Benjamin on her lap. ‘I’d have to ask you for a bit more housekeeping to help out, like, ’cos I’ll have two more mouths to feed – and I won’t have Mr T’s rent.’

‘Of course I’ll give you more,’ he assured her, without any idea of where he was going to get the extra money from. He put down his pen and got up to embrace both mother and child; Eleanor was a wonderful comfort to a lonely man, a real help – and she had given him a son. He prayed to God that his new venture with George Tasker, the Soap Master, would prosper.

Eleanor told herself she would do anything she could for him; she’d never again meet a man like him. Mr T must go; she could not imagine her despair if James left her. She wasn’t getting any younger; and now there was little Benji to think about.

In Chicago, a surprised Leila read his kind letter. Puzzled, she looked up from her meagre lunch of boiled rice and weak coffee, and asked Helena, ‘Did you write to Uncle James?’

Having seen the English stamp on the letter, Helena was tense with anxiety, as she said eagerly, ‘Yes.’

Leila sighed. ‘I should have done it.’

‘I did ask you, Mama. But you didn’t listen.’

In the seven weeks since her husband had died, Leila had grown quieter. Though she did not cry so much, she was very listless. Nothing that Helena could do or say seemed to rouse her to the realization that, unless they did something quickly, they would die of starvation.

Now, seeing the letter, a wild hope surged in Helena. ‘May I read Uncle’s letter, Mama?’ she asked eagerly.

Leila handed it to her without comment.

As the girl read, a tremendous relief made her want to shout with joy, the first sense of wellbeing since her father had died. ‘Isn’t he good, Mama? And his wife, too. We’ll have to sell your jewellery – or some of it, Mama?’ A hint of doubt had crept into her voice. Despite their desperate position, Leila had sullenly refused to part with the last of her chains and brooches. Her husband’s declaration that he would only sell them in extremis had meant, to her, only in the case of death. A Lebanese, longer established than the Al-Khourys, had accepted a gold chain from her and had arranged Charles’s funeral. That to her had constituted a time to sell.

Leila did not immediately reply to her daughter; she sat fretfully toying with her coffee cup.

‘To get the fares to go to England, Mama – we have to get the fares from somewhere.’

Leila felt morosely that fate had dealt her an unbearable blow in the loss of her husband. In these last seven weeks of prostration, she had been waiting for that same fate to compensate her in some way. Her brother-in-law’s kindly letter did not appear to do that, and she said capriciously, ‘I don’t want to go.’

‘But, Mama, what else can we do? Uncle James is a dear – you know that.’

‘He’s kind,’ Leila admitted reluctantly. She was quiet for a moment, and then, as if to justify her refusal she added, ‘I simply can’t change countries again. It would be too much; I couldn’t bear it.’ She buried her face in her hands.

Helena swallowed, and replied carefully, ‘It wouldn’t be much different from America, would it, Mama? I liked Liverpool when we passed through it’

‘It would be quite different,’ her mother replied shortly. She rose from the table and, dragging her bare feet on the planks of the floor, she went to Helena’s small bed at the back of the room. She lay down on it, her face towards the wall, as if to shut out a life which was a burden to her.

Helena went to sit at the foot of the bed and continue the argument.

Without looking at her, Leila protested, ‘Helena, you can’t imagine what it would be like to be penniless in Uncle James’s house. No matter how kind he is, we would be dependent upon the whims of his – er – wife. She’s bound to resent us – or she’d make use of us as servants. It would be insupportable.’

Helena took another tack. ‘I always imagined that Uncle James wasn’t married?’ she queried.

Leila bit her lower lip. She was not sure how to explain Uncle James’s domestic affairs. She said cautiously, ‘Some men have a woman friend who lives with them. Uncle James’s situation could make it harder for us.’ She turned slightly, to look at the frightened girl. ‘In the West, it’s not quite honourable, though I’m sure your uncle has his reasons for not marrying her …’

‘If she’s not his wife, couldn’t he send her away? Then we could look after him.’

‘I doubt he wants to be rid of her. They’ve been together a long time.’

‘I see,’ Helena muttered. But all she really understood was that her mother seemed totally incapable of doing anything. It was to be a number of years before she became aware of the profound effect her uncle’s lack of a marriage certificate was to have on her own life.

Helena continued to sit by her mother on her bed and to beg her to reconsider her uncle’s offer. She got no response, except for peevish monosyllables. Hope died in the girl and was replaced by dread.