The Years She Stole

‘Rachel? It’s Pam. I think you should come home. Your mum . . .’ I hear a catch in her voice. ‘Your mum’s not got long.’

I don’t know what to say. And, coward that I am, I say nothing. Just then my phone vibrates and I don’t know what’s going on. Is Pam sending weird messages down the line?

I then realize I have another call coming through so I look at my handset. I have had a mobile phone for about a zillion years; you’d think I’d be able to handle ‘call waiting’ by now. I hit a button, any button, and soon I hear my PA’s voice.

I never say ‘wee while’. And for some reason I even said it with the whiff of a Scottish accent. I’m in shock. McShock, even.

Instead of trying to find her number I find myself pacing the room, glad of the air con. I feel the leather flooring beneath my bare feet and each step feels like a step on ice.

‘There’s something weird going on with your phone,’ she says. ‘It’s not going ring ring, it’s just going beep. Like a long beep.’

I lie on my bed for five minutes, staring at the ceiling. I am catatonic. The stillness is reassuring; it brings me comfort. It also brings me out in a bit of a sweat.

It’s as if I am paralysed with shock. My head is blank with white noise. This will not do. I have to get. My. Shit. Together.

As the sweat is still trickling down my neck I grab a towel and dry it, while I open my laptop and start looking into plane times. Then I remember that I have a PA who is paid to do exactly this job for me.

‘Oh, is it a better time now?’ she asks, with a slight hint of sarcasm to her tone.

‘Didi, I need you to do something for me,’ I say with brisk efficiency. ‘I need to come home. I need you to get me a flight to London as soon as possible.’

‘Oh, I don’t mind doing that –’ and then she lowers her voice – ‘I just can’t do it on your company credit card. I think he’s still a bit het up about the JuJu Quick hoo-ha.’

Let me explain. JuJu Quick is an international pop star. With huge ideas above her station. I work for Ben’s company Venus Travel and we organize all her travel around the world. Recently we had a massive problem on our hands when the address of the five-bedroom town house I had found for her to stay in while she was recording a new album in Toronto was leaked to the press and she threw a hissy fit. We very nearly lost her as a client. In fact, Ben was so desperate to win her back he promised her a week in Marrakech, so I have come to the hotel we have planned for her to check everything is in place for her arrival. I also have to go everywhere on her itinerary and make sure it’s up to her sort of standard. Basically I have to go to every shop she’s likely to go in and eat in every restaurant we have booked for her. Tonight I was meant to be doing three in one go.

‘No,’ I reply, trying my best to sound both disappointed and frustrated. ‘I’ve been on the phone to the airline. I can’t get a plane till tomorrow. I promise you, Pam, I’ll be home as soon as I can. I really must go, Pam. This’ll be costing you a fortune.’

If you think travelling on your own as a woman is bad, try travelling on your own as a pregnant woman. In the hotel I get pitying, sanctimonious looks. Outside in the souk, the stallholders assume I have mislaid my husband or that ‘he come along later’. But in the hotel there’s no escape, you can’t pretend. They know I’m on my own and the absence of any man is the elephant in the room. Or the elephant in the riad.

In Marrakech hotels aren’t really called hotels; on the whole they’re called riads. A riad, as far as I’m aware, is a traditional Moroccan house with a garden or courtyard at the centre of it and the building constructed round it in a sort of square shape, with rooms off the central space.

The riad I am staying in is very fancy. It has to be; JuJu Quick only does fancy. Fancy schmancy, my mum would say. And this place is the epitome of that. Hence the leather floor in my room. And hence the feeling that I’m in some old episode of Ab Fab where they come to this hot country to pick up knickknacks and rugs. Knick-knacks and rugs are what the souk is famous for. Honestly, you could get lost in that city-wide maze of a market for weeks. It’s got to the point where I daren’t go out there, I’m so sick of getting lost and asking for help to get me back here.

I go up to sit on the roof of the riad looking out over the sun-bleached city, the canvas coverings of the outdoor market stalls, the tiled roofs of the souk, the clock tower overlooking the main square, in the distance the Atlas Mountains. Although it’s blisteringly hot here and I am grateful for the shade of an olive-green canopy, over there the mountains are dusted with snow. I take a deep breath, slowly exhale, and think of the words that Pam has said on the phone.

I order a non-alcoholic mint julep and try to put those words to the back of my mind. Like it’s normal to feel so little when you hear your mum is about to die. Like it’s normal to think, well, if I just stay here long enough I might not make it in time and will be saved the deathbed farewell. If only I wasn’t pregnant. If only I could drink a proper drink, a proper mint julep, and ease the journey to blocking it all out. I’d even drink gin tonight, and I hate gin. There’s something about the taste, makes me feel anxious and sicky. And I love a good drink!

But I can’t. I’m just not capable. After everything my mum has done to me I still love her. So I take out my phone and try looking for flights online.

I’ll be honest. When we had to do our damage limitation exercise with JuJu, it was my idea to send her to Marrakech, and why? Because although I have done a whole heap of foreign travel through work, it’s one place I’ve always wanted to visit but as yet have not had an excuse to. When I suggested it, Ben thought it was a glorious idea.

I was first drawn to Marrakech because of my slight obsession with Doris Day. Although not close to my mother now, growing up we did share a love of old movies. They were some of the few times I remember her being happy, curtains drawn on a Saturday afternoon, cigarette on the go, television on in the corner of the room with some Technicolor dance routine or Doris Day emoting over a picket fence.

The Man Who Knew Too Much has long been one of my favourite Doris Day films and, even as a child, when I first saw the shot of that bus squeezing under the arch as it entered the riotous town square on its arrival in Marrakech, I knew I would have to visit it one day. I just never thought it would take me till I was thirty-six. Thirty-six and up the duff. In retrospect, not the best place to come when heat is an issue for you. The staff at the riad have been very kind and furnished me with my own fan, with which I waft myself now. They’ve also given me my own parasol for when I venture outside. All very good but I can see it in their eyes every time they look at me. Weird Englishwoman about to drop, coming here in the heat, silly moo.

‘You model yourself too much on Doris Day,’ Jamie used to say. ‘Sometimes I feel like I’m with her and not with you.’

Which was, frankly, ridiculous. And now, looking back, was just a good excuse for him to draw away from me.

Yes, I might do my hair like Doris did in some of her movies. I’ve always liked to bleach it and keep it cropped short. Even now I’m pregnant I haven’t slacked with the bleaching brush. I’d always believed that hair dyeing wasn’t allowed if you were ‘with child’, a bit like soft cheese and cartwheels, but even the bores on mums-to-be chat rooms seem to think that these days it’s okay to try to keep up with the latest follicle fashions, no matter which trimester you find yourself in. But to say I model myself on the star is taking it a bit far. That gives the impression that I wander through life expecting everything to be apple-pie perfect, that I enter kitchens in a soft-focus glow and a Fifties buttercup-yellow frock with a chuckle in my voice.

Oh no. I am definitely far too bitter for that! But that didn’t stop Jamie making a typically hurtful jibe. Now I look back, he was often belittling me.

The irony is that in some of Doris’s most successful films she was paired up with the delectable Rock Hudson and we were meant to believe that they were a crazy, heterosexual, will-they-won’t-they couple, whereas history informs us that Señor Hudson was of course gay, and sadly went on to die from an AIDS-related illness. One of the first high-profile stars to do so. And like life imitating art, so the same happened with Jamie. Oh, he didn’t die of AIDS. He just came out to me. Shortly after the twelve-week scan. Great timing.

I’ll never forget it. He started crying as the nurse showed us the shady image of the outline of our baby. As the sound of the heartbeat filled the room. I thought the moment had moved him to tears. But then afterwards he’d blurted out – and I always thought people never really blurted anything out . . . it seems so childish – he blurted out, ‘I can’t do this any more. I’m gay.’

I loved drawing as a child and could spend every waking hour from dawn till dusk doodling away on scraps of paper. One day Mum bought a long roll of white wallpaper for me to draw on. When her back was turned I lay down on the wallpaper and drew round myself with a marker pen. I then went out of the back door and ran round to the front door and rang the bell. When Mum opened the front door I held the wallpaper up in front of me and said, ‘Mrs Taylor! Your daughter has been run over by a steamroller!’

I honestly thought she’d buy it. I honestly thought she’d scream and faint or gnash her teeth or beat herself around the head with her rolling pin.

Oh no. Instead I heard, ‘Get in, Rachel. I didn’t even know you were out.’

And back there, in the hospital, that’s how it felt. Not only had I been steamrollered but I’d also been humiliated. Again, I felt stupid.

And to make matters worse, as I processed the information Jamie had just given me, all I could think to say was . . .

Relations had obviously cooled for a while. With me not answering, never mind returning his calls, his texts, his Facebook messages.

There was no way I could have a termination now I’d seen an actual photograph of its outline. There was no way I could get rid when it had stopped being a cluster of cells and become an actual person. Oh, don’t get me wrong, I’m not some happy-clappy pro-lifer, far from it. I just could not go through with getting rid of a baby I’d ALREADY NAMED.

And, okay. It was very childish of me, when Jamie changed his profile picture on Facebook to a screenshot of the scan, to write underneath it Who says it’s yours, prat?

Though I was quite proud that the comment got seventeen likes and several of his friends commenting ‘LOL’, etc.

Civil actually to the point where he has recently started to get on my nerves with his new-found over-attentiveness. When I said I was jetting off to Marrakech he went into meltdown.

Are you sure you should? It’s a long way from home if anything goes wrong? You might get raped.

Are you sure it’s a good idea going somewhere so hot? What if you get the squits? You don’t even like aubergine that much.

What if you pass out on the plane? What if you die in your hotel room and no-one finds you for days?

I wait. The only good thing about having a gay ex-boyfriend who’s fathering your child is that you call all the shots. He has to be nice to me at the moment as he feels so guilty about what has happened. I know he will reply soonish. And indeed he does.

Shit. I’m so sorry Rach. What you gonna do?

Getting first plane back. Laters.

Laters xxxx

I order another non-alcoholic mint julep as I have found a flight in the morning that has space on it. But before it arrives I’m already regretting it as I hear a familiar voice calling, ‘Rachel!’ and without even turning to see who it is I know it’s the other Single Woman on Holiday on Her Own. Brigit from America. ‘RACHEL!’ she calls again, and I turn and smile, seeing her sidle up to me.

The problem with Brigit has been that she’s never really understood I’m here to work and not to have a scream.

The other thing with Brigit is she doesn’t understand my current need for personal space. I’m six months gone. When I first got pregnant I was convinced I’d be constantly feeling claustrophobic or agoraphobic. And for a while I did feel both. I hated the idea of being squeezed in tight anywhere – tube journeys were a nightmare. But then open spaces freaked me a bit too. I felt too vulnerable, like a gust of wind could lift me off the planet and jettison me into space.

But then this was soon overtaken by an almost constant feeling of joy. Of excitement. I wanted to stop people in the street and tell them, ‘I’m brewing a baby in here, babes!’

I didn’t. I’m not daft. But I did feel like it. I walked around like I was surfing on a wave of euphoria.

I remember telling Jamie, not long after we’d split up, just how euphoric I felt.

He thought about it a while. Then said, ‘That was a Eurovision winner a few years back.’

And then that high was overtaken by a feeling of overprotectiveness. Nobody was going to hurt my bump. Again, tube journeys were a nightmare, but fortunately I live very centrally in London so I just took short cab rides or walked.

And Brigit is useless at not accidentally jabbing me in the stomach, or banging into me. She is useless with personal space. As she heads towards me I instinctively flinch.

‘Oh gee, have I had a shoporama today!’ she calls. ‘I totally nailed the souk, Rachel. Totally bartered my ass off. I am EXHAUSTED. I’ll have what you’re having. Two of them, Pedro!’

Pedro. She always calls Mohammed ‘Pedro’, for some reason. Possibly a racist one.

‘I got this heavenly little table, they’re wrapping it and bringing it round for me later. God knows how I’ll get it on the plane, maybe as hand luggage, I just don’t know. But I had to have it. You know when you just know? Oh, and look at this dress I got for twenty bucks. They saw me coming.’

‘Massive rip in it, God knows what I was thinking but I was in the ZONE. Know what I mean, Rachel? And I had to have it. What’ve you been up to?’

‘Sun too hot? Let’s take these inside. My veranda is TO DIE FOR. Come on, let’s walk and talk.’

‘Oh.’ And that oh was much more dramatic. I almost ask her to say it again. Once more with feeling, Brigit. OH!

Well, there’s no arguing with it really, is there? Your mum’s your mum’s your mum. I ignore the mint julep as it arrives and practically run back to my room.

The one thing that makes me realize I should be heading back to England is the idea of getting there too late. I imagine myself arriving and the funeral already underway. In my absence Pam has had to organize it and I arrive halfway through and nobody knows who I am. The house has been sold and the proceeds given to the local cats’ home.

Actually, this wouldn’t surprise me. But even if this is what Mum is doing I know I owe it to her to at least pull my weight. Get back there and supervise everything so that I know her wishes are carried out, even if I do walk away with nothing. I am her daughter, she gave me life, that is my responsibility now.

And of course if I get back sooner rather than later I will get a chance to say goodbye.

I suddenly feel very guilty. Even if I have never been that close to her, she brought me into the world; is it not now my job to see her out of it? But what am I doing instead? Baking in the sweltering heat on the roof of a house in Marrakech. Good work, Agent Taylor.

But I have an excuse. The wifi in this very expensive place keeps freezing. I have now been trying to choose my seat for twenty minutes. That can’t be right, surely.

Every step I take in this building, every corner I turn, each staircase I hurry down, it’s like running through an advert for interior design. The green-and-white tiled floors, the bougainvillea in huge tan pots, the multi-coloured rugs, all look like they’re camera-ready for a magazine shoot. Shame then there’s a squat, fat woman running through each potential photo looking alarmed.

Back in my room I fire the iPad up and look for flights to London on there. I must be starting to panic because I keep spelling Marrakech wrong, and then London wrong, and the page keeps freezing as I’m clearly doing something else wrong. As the panic increases I hurl the iPad onto the bed and scarper down to reception, where the nice black woman from London is sitting feeding a tortoise.

You have to be really careful in this riad. On the ground floor they have tortoises everywhere.

I’m really glad I’m not drinking; I dread to think how many I’d have killed if I was meandering tipsily back to my room one night!

I tell the nice woman what’s going on and she tells me to leave it with her. An hour later she comes to my room looking disheartened and confirms that the next flight I can get out of here is tomorrow morning. I’m here for the night.

‘I’m so sorry,’ she says. ‘But I have managed to get you on the ten a.m. flight tomorrow.’

I tell her it’s okay, order room service, and once I’ve nibbled my way through a few chicken skewers decide I might take one last trip to the Jemaa el-Fnaa.

I should be going to three restaurants. They’re all expecting me and have tasting menus for me to try so I can tell Ben I’ve tried everything on the menu and what I recommend. But I just can’t face it. I need to be amongst people. Not doing something akin to a five-star Bushtucker Trial.

I’ve never been anywhere like the night market in Marrakech. The hustle and bustle in the town square in the daytime is one thing, but as the old pop song goes, ‘in the evening, the real me comes alive’, and it certainly does here. One of the things I love about this city is that it feels like nothing you could find in England. There’s no Starbucks or KFC to make you feel you’re in yet another identikit place. Marrakech is the real deal, no imitations here, thank you. I’ve never known an atmosphere like it. I’ve never are seen crowds like it. Now normally I’m not a big one for crowds, but the energy of this place and the excitement of the people here are infectious; all bets are off. You want a snake charmer? They’ve got one. Actually they’ve got several. You want your photo taken with a monkey? Roll up, roll up! Actually, I wouldn’t bother rolling up; the monkeys (wearing nappies) don’t look like the best-treated animals on the planet. In fact I seem to recall that one of the on-location tales about The Man Who Knew Too Much was that Doris’s love for animals and her fight for their rights began in this very square. She refused to continue filming until she saw that the horses queuing up to do horse-and-trap rides were fed properly. Looking around tonight I wouldn’t bet much money on any animal-rights advancements since then.

Aside from the market stalls, small circles of people gather round various entertainers. It might be a musician playing the accordion, it might be a woman painting hands with henna, though my particular favourites are the men who sit gabbling away as onlookers stare wide-eyed. I asked a guide on my first day here what was going on with these particular groups, and I was told that these were Storytellers. They told exciting stories and people flocked round to be entertained. I loved it. It was like this was the origin of radio and television. It seemed so raw and immediate, and it does again tonight. I can’t understand what the stories are that they’re telling, but again, like the other night, the people listening are enraptured. And it strikes me as apt, because this square is full of story for me. For this is the square where Doris Day and James Stewart walked as Broadway star Jo and her doctor husband Ben and had their son Hank abducted from them. I remember the shock I felt when I first saw the film as a kid. The idea of that horribly weird British couple kidnapping the little boy and keeping him hostage in that eerie church in Brixton. It made me feel sick to the core. Even I, with my odd upbringing in a dark country cottage with only my depressed mother for company, knew that was preferable to being held hostage by the baddies in the film. Though of course at such a tender age I believed every second, every shot of the film. It was real and they were really horrible. Now, of course, I appreciate how well cast the movie was. Hitchcock baddies were always so good. Their faces always looked so troubling, or distinctive, that you remembered who they were any time they popped up on screen.

I look around. Above the sea of sparkling lights are the roof terraces of various hotels and restaurants where tourists sit and eat and watch the cacophonous spectacle below. I could willingly sit on one of those terraces and watch the movement below as if gripped by the best TV series in the world.

But I’m only doing a whistle-stop visit tonight and so I push on and savour the sights and smells of the food cooking on the stalls, the spices for sale, the nuts. I pause awhile next to a snake charmer. Back home I am petrified of snakes. But here it just seems so natural, so much a part of the fabric of everyday life, that there doesn’t seem anything to be scared of.

Behind the snake charmer a woman is reading fortunes. She sits on the floor under a huge embroidered umbrella, turning over cards from a pack and placing them on a low plastic table for a woman in front of her. She is talking animatedly. But then catches my eye and freezes. She stops talking. Her change in demeanour is so obvious that her customer can tell there’s something up and she looks round to see what her fortune teller is looking at. I smile awkwardly, wondering if I’ve broken some social rule here. Maybe there is a reverence attached to fortune telling that I am unfamiliar with and I shouldn’t be eavesdropping. Maybe this is like me shoving my head in a confessional box back home, earwigging on someone’s sins. I mouth the word ‘Sorry’ – for what it’s worth – and move on, looking away. I walk towards the horses, the big line of horses and traps waiting to take tourists on trips around the town. I breathe through my mouth, keeping my nose blocked as the smell here is far from fragrant. I try to put the look from the fortune teller to the back of my mind. Her stare was so unsettling. But then I feel someone tugging at my top and I look round, worried someone is pickpocketing me.

I stop in my tracks. Now I have turned round it’s like she’s unsure what to say.

‘Be careful,’ she says. ‘You are about to go on a difficult journey. Be careful.’

A difficult journey? She has to be a charlatan, surely. Someone hanging out there to put the fear of God into people, encouraging them to sit for a reading to prove things couldn’t possibly be that bad. Well, she won’t get the better of me.

Before I leave the square I twist my neck and look back. She hasn’t moved. She is standing there watching me, a tiny figure in the fading crowd.