Aminatta Forna - The Memory of Love

Outside the sun has almost set. The rains have cleared and the colours of the earth have suffused the sky with a deep red. The skeletons of the two kites flutter on the razor wire. Outside somebody is walking down the corridor; the sound of their footsteps mounts and then recedes down the hall.

Adrian says, ‘I’m not sure I understand.’

The old man sighs. ‘Babagaleh knew where to find me. Don’t you see? I expect he must have known all along. Perhaps Saffia knew too, who knows?’

‘Where were you?’

‘I was with my mistress.’

Adrian covers his surprise.

‘Yes, my mistress. From the fourth year of my marriage to Saffia I had kept a mistress. Always the same one, in that respect I was loyal. You must understand … no, I would like you to understand, she gave me something Saffia never did. With her I did not feel wanting, second-best. All very banal, I’m sure. Believe me, I was aware of it at the time. It made no difference.’

‘And you were at her home at the time of Saffia’s car accident?’

‘With Vanessa, yes.’

The heavy air holds the last note of the clarinet as she crosses the patio. Adrian has half risen from his seat when she drops into the chair next to him, picks up the bottle of beer and raises it to her lips. Her dress is damp, her face and neck wet. He kisses her cheek, a taste of salt and sweet.

She puts the bottle down and gasps, like a child. ‘How was it? Could you hear properly?’

‘Absolutely. It was great.’

She nods and adds, ‘Except the duff note halfway through.’

‘It was fine,’ says Adrian, who wouldn’t know.

‘It was so-so.’

People pass by the table. Mamakay high fives with one of the other band members and the man slips into the seat next to her. They converse for a few moments about music, in language opaque to Adrian.

During the course of the day Adrian has thought of little else except his conversation with Elias Cole, until Mamakay stepped out on to the stage and began to play. He takes a sip of his beer. Mamakay has almost finished hers. He holds up a hand for two more.

Elias Cole had been asking him to help. He didn’t know, at least Adrian was fairly certain he didn’t know, about Adrian and Mamakay. So in that sense it was not a direct request and Adrian could yet ignore it. Nor is it in any way his professional responsibility. At the same time it is not in his nature to shirk what ought to be done, for he was raised otherwise and now it is embedded in his character. And there is Mamakay. Elias Cole is her father. Elias Cole is dying. Adrian takes a swallow of beer. He watches the people in the club, the people still standing on the dance floor in the wake of the performance, a waiter in oversize shoes crossing the floor with a large tray of drinks, the bare-shouldered hookers at the bar, Mamakay talking to her friend. He watches the way her hands and fingers fly and flutter, the same way she plays the clarinet. He remarked upon it once and she told him it was a mark of poor technique. She is never detained by fantasy, only the escape provided by her music.

Last night, when the moon was less full than it is now, he watched her sleeping. He watched the movement behind her eyelids and knew she was dreaming. He wanted to wake her up, just to ask her if she was dreaming of him.

He loves her. Last night he would have told her so. He would tell her now, but he mustn’t. It is too difficult, too complicated. There is home. There is Lisa. There is Kate. Oh, God. Kate. He mustn’t think it. He looks away from Mamakay towards the sea, out into the blackness. Behind the noise and music comes the sound of the waves on the shore, like shattering crystals.

And because he wants to talk about her, about the two of them, but most of all about love, instead Adrian talks to Mamakay about her father.

Walking down the darkened beach. Behind them the Ocean Club is slowly emptying of people. Adrian relates the conversation of earlier in the day, while he sat at the old man’s bed, does so as accurately as he can, careful to choose the right words. Not everything, just that which concerns her. When he is finished they walk on. Silence, softly punctuated by the sound of their steps, the faint squeak of wet sand. He turns to see her profile traced in moonlight.

‘He’d like to talk to you, I’m sure.’

Mamakay doesn’t reply. Adrian waits through her silence. No sound save the sound of the surf, the occasional sweep of a car on the beach road. Ahead of them a sparse constellation of lights marks the peninsula. Presently they reach a beach bar, closed and empty. There are cement tables set into the sand. She sits on one of them, tucking her legs under her.

‘You don’t understand about my father,’ she says.

‘I don’t know him as well as you, no.’

She shakes her head and looks past him to the sea.

‘Try me,’ says Adrian. ‘Tell me what I don’t know.’

‘OK. I’ll tell you a story. I’ll tell you a story about my mother and my father. Something that happened. That made me begin to understand what was going on between them. I told you I always acted as the go-between, remember? We never did anything as a family,’ says Mamakay.

‘I remember.’

‘Well, once when I was ten or maybe eleven, my mother took me out for a treat. We went to the Red Rooster, a chicken restaurant in town. It wasn’t anywhere near my birthday and I remember I asked her why we were going. She told me it was because I was such a good daughter. I didn’t really believe her, a child can always tell when a parent is palming them off. Still, I didn’t care. I was happy to have a treat. So we went to the Red Rooster and we ordered chicken wings and soft drinks. My mother was in a good mood, making jokes. I liked it when she was like that; it didn’t happen often. Around my father she was, well, she was much more reserved.’

Mamakay stops, takes a breath and tilts her chin up at the sky. ‘We’d been there half an hour or so when a friend of hers came in. It’s a small city. It was even smaller then, everybody knew everybody else. You’ve seen how it is. And yet I’d never met this man before. I didn’t recognise him from my parents’ circle of friends. The Red Rooster was in the centre of town and a lot of people from the offices around used to eat there, so I thought this man worked near by. He was wearing a suit, I remember, but his hair was quite untidy and his beard untrimmed. He had a nice way about him: he spoke to me directly and treated me like a person instead of just a kid. My mother became very animated in his company; I remember I felt jealous because I had been enjoying his attention. They started to talk to each other and more or less forgot about me. I sulked for a bit and then it was time to go home.’

Mamakay swings her feet down from the table and walks towards the sea. Adrian follows.

‘In the car on the way home my mother told me not to mention we’d been to the Red Rooster to my father. She said he’d told her not to spend money on treats, so we should make it our secret.’ She shrugs. ‘I said OK. I didn’t really think about it again. Later, when I was older and all the girls started talking about boys, I wondered if my mother was having an affair with the man at the Red Rooster. In my head I sort of settled on that as a suitably dramatic explanation.’ She laughs. ‘But in time I forgot about that as well. God, I feel like a cigarette. Do you have one?’

Adrian, who doesn’t smoke and didn’t know she did, says, ‘No. Shall we buy some?’

‘Don’t worry. Let’s go.’

On the walk back along the sand Mamakay removes her sandals and allows the water to run over her feet. ‘Some years went by. I must have been about fifteen. I was rummaging around my mother’s sewing box. I found an old newspaper cutting. I remember it because it had been cut with pinking shears and the edges of the paper were jagged. There was a photograph and a story. I recognised the picture. It was the man we had met at the Red Rooster that day. It said he had tried to blow up the bridge over to the peninsula.’