Those few days with her father had a special quality. It seemed as though they were woven out of threads of gold: intensely fragile and immeasurably precious. She and Mike learned more about each other in those hours than they had in the twenty-one years before she left.
She discovered a man she never knew existed. She was fascinated to hear him reminiscing about his own childhood in Northampton, and how he refused to go into his father’s shoe-making business.
‘The truth is, I didn’t really join the army for the career,’ he said. ‘Certainly not for the pension! I joined up to get as far away from Northampton as I could. I wanted to see the world, be my own person.’
‘What did Grandpa say?’
Mike shook his head. ‘I was a disappointment.’
He talked about his brother Robert, who’d done the right thing and was still making shoes. They’d never got on very well. There were swathes of army life that he still glossed over, especially the years of the Bosnian war. It struck Cairo that there were things he’d done—things he’d seen, and feared, and loved, and been a part of—that changed him forever. He had his own version of Gethsemane.
Sometimes she had to share him with others, but there were hours alone together. She brought in books to read, and sat beside him while he dozed. Often they played cards, desperately pretending that he wasn’t very ill at all, and that she wasn’t leaving again. In a week. In six days. In five. In four.
It was too soon. The gold-thread days were passing too quickly.
‘Looks like I might get home before you leave Blighty,’ said Mike on Tuesday. ‘That’s Friday, right? Well, I’m hoping to escape before then. We’ll make some new memories. Be a family again, for a night or so.’
‘Fingers crossed,’ said Cairo. ‘I bet these poor nurses are desperate to get rid of you.’
That evening, the girls turned the conservatory into a bedroom. They were carrying a chest of drawers down the stairs when Diana came into the hall.
‘Cassy?’ she said. ‘There’s an email from Rome. I think you’d better read it.’
Hi Mrs Howells,
I hope you are well. I was given your email address by Barry at the Four Seasons Motel. Please could you pass on this message (below) to Cairo (Cassy)?
Yours truly,
Rome Calvin
‘Good old Rome!’ cried Cairo. ‘He’s found a way to get in touch!’
‘Not stupid, your boy,’ said Tara approvingly.
Cairo leaned closer to the screen.
Hi Cairo,
I hope you got home in time to see your father.
I’m in Rotorua. Don’t worry, I’m not on the streets, but I have been expelled. When Justin heard that you’d left and I’d helped you, he went mad. That’s the only way I can describe it. He called me Judas. He said he knows I’ve been telling people he’s paranoid and sick, he knows I’m trying to turn the Watchmen against him. He punched me in the face. He’s a fighter, and I’m not. He knocked me over, and he shouted that he never wants to see me again, that I’m not his son. He used words I’ve never heard him use before. He was like a different man.
I was on Ikaroa five minutes later, and I couldn’t take anything with me except what I could fit into a pillowcase. I couldn’t find your mother’s phone number and assume they’d already found and destroyed it. Otto and Kyoto drove me to Rotorua, gave me a hundred dollars and left me by the side of the road in the rain. Those men are like uncles. I’ve known them all my life. I sat in a bus shelter for a while because I didn’t dare move. I have never felt fear like it! And I never want to again!
But in the end I got too cold. I knew about the dormitories in the hostels being the cheapest place to stay, so I walked into town and found one.
Cairo read this with guilty horror, knowing that Rome had lost everything because he’d helped her. She imagined him by the side of the road, clutching a pillowcase. He was born in Gethsemane. He’d worked for years, seven days a week, for no pay. He’d put one foot wrong, and he was out.
‘How could they?’ she said. ‘How could they?’
I’m okay compared to others who’ve been expelled. I know my way around, can drive and use technology. When I told the girl on the desk at the hostel what had happened she fetched the manager, Phil. They helped me claim some emergency cash from the benefits office. Phil’s letting me stay here in return for work.
I’ve begun to look for jobs. Life out here is complicated though! I don’t have any references and I’ve had to sort out things like a tax number. Phil’s friend works at the hospital, and he got me an interview for a job as a porter. They’ve offered me a week’s trial, starting tomorrow.
I must face the fact that Justin is just a man. A man I love, but just a man. He’s not even a very good man. And if that’s true, then what hope is there for the world? What meaning is there for me? Who AM I?
Your children were okay last time I saw them. I’m afraid Suva is VERY angry with you. The Companions have separated them from Aden at night, to make sure Aden can’t leave. They’re all staying with different families.
Aden understands why you left. He believes Justin will let you come back, for his sake if nothing else. He said if I managed to contact you I was to tell you that he and the children are counting the days until you come home.
That’s all for now. I’m staying at a hostel called Kit and Meg’s. I’m feeling quite lonely. Please write back soon.
Rome
•
Such a lovely afternoon for fishing. Aden was showing Suva how to cast while Damascus and Quito waited their turn. From time to time the two little boys shared some hilarious joke, understood only by three- and four-year-olds. Havana sat in a wicker basket, wearing nothing but a nappy and chewing on a nectarine. There were wispy curls at the nape of her neck.
A family day out. Sunlight flashing on mercury, under a burning sky.
Then the boat tipped, flinging Cairo overboard. The mercury was cold and heavy, dragging her down. The children were screaming for her. She saw their wide-open mouths.
Aden leaned over the side of the boat—Grab my hand, Cairo—but she couldn’t touch him. The waves were smooth and silver and poisonous. She was going under.
Then the children were pointing, they were smiling—Justin was coming! He was walking across the water, straight towards her. A ray of brilliance moved with him because the sun was his own personal spotlight. His feet made little dents in the surface of the mercury, as though he was walking on a silver cushion.
She held up her hands, gasping, ‘Save me, Justin!’
But he didn’t reach out his hand to her. He watched her struggles, smiling beatifically.
‘I’ve been keeping an eye on you,’ he said. ‘Oh dear. You can never run away from God.’
‘I’m dying! Please, Justin, help me.’
‘I know you’re dying. But hey—good news!’ He opened his arms. ‘It’s your turn. I died for you once. Now you get to die for me!’
The last sounds she heard were the wails of her children. Then the mercury closed over her head.
Blinding light. Electric light.
‘What the fuck?’ snapped Tara. She was standing in the doorway in her nightie, one finger on the switch. ‘Someone being murdered in here?’
Cairo was staring around the room, heart pounding. The dream was still with her. She could still hear the screams.
‘He can see me,’ she gasped. ‘He can hear me. He knows everything.’
‘Well, if he can hear you, I feel sorry for the bugger because you’ve got one hell of a set of lungs.’
‘He smiled. He watched me drown.’
‘Seriously, sis,’ said Tara, throwing herself onto the bed, ‘you should train as an opera singer.’
They both lay on their backs, sharing one pillow, staring up at the ceiling. Gradually, Cairo’s heart rate slowed.
‘I can’t believe they’ve separated my family,’ she said. ‘All sleeping in different cabins, so Aden can’t leave.’
‘Isn’t that a breach of his human rights?’
‘They’re a little unit, the children. Every morning, the boys go and get Havana out of her cot. They’ll be bewildered now, they won’t understand.’
‘Mean bastards,’ said Tara. ‘Poor little kids.’
Cairo didn’t even try to defend Gethsemane. The Companions had gone too far.
I’ll be with them soon, she thought, as she listened to a police siren wailing in the night. Just another few days. We’ll all be together again.