Hugo was in a fluster. Worse, he was in a real state, dropping his papers as he stuffed his briefcase, in a great rush. Nattie felt sympathetic, but relieved that his mind was elsewhere and impatient to have him gone. She was in a frenzy of anticipation. To be seeing Ahmed in hours . . .
‘I’ve done Lily’s lunch box,’ she said, trying not to sound too pressuring. ‘She’s out in the garden, I’ll just get her in. She’s feeding Moppet an entire salad drawer.’
‘That guinea pig’s going to need treatment for obesity soon,’ Hugo remarked, though he was only half tuned-in. He gazed at Nattie with the sort of pained, helpless look that usually meant he was about to ask a favour. She steeled herself, wary, in no mood for helping with anything that took time.
He had a press launch that morning for one of his clients, the bed people, SleepSweet, who were bringing out a new made-to-measure luxury range. They’d always been an easy client to handle, he’d got on well with the chief executive, but the man had just been headhunted and his successor, so it seemed, was all attitude and had it in for Hugo. He sounded a real box of nails. Nattie hoped Hugo would calm down and not worry, but she feared he’d let his nerves show.
‘What is it?’ She smiled, hardly focusing.
‘I hate to ask when you’re going in today, but can you take Lily just this once? It’s getting harder to park anywhere near the school these days, which means quite a walk to the tube. Be a real help if I can go straight from here. It’s getting late . . .’
‘Okay, I’ve just got time.’ Nattie forced a smile. Hugo didn’t have to bundle Tubsy into the baby-seat, do a round trip in rush-hour traffic and miss the chance of precious minutes alone. Lily’s school was on the way for him.
‘Thanks,’ Hugo said with a heartfelt smile. ‘Sorry I’m a bit uptight, but this new CE, Murray Beard, is after my guts. I bet he’s got a pet PR firm of his own, the fucker, and wants me out.’
Nattie frowned. Lily was still outside, but she didn’t want Tubsy swearing before he could walk.
Tubsy was clinging to her knees and she lifted him up. ‘Forget Beard,’ she said, settling Tubsy on her hip. ‘Just be your special self and you’ll do fine.’ She shouted for Lily. ‘Time for school! I’m taking you; Daddy’s got late. Come and say goodbye to him.’
Lily raced in from the garden and into her father’s arms. Nattie caught a whiff of Moppet and despaired of the mud that Lily had managed to get on her clean white socks, a grass stain too on her pink-and-white-striped uniform dress.
Hugo set his daughter down and kissed Nattie, even as she gently propelled him towards the door. ‘I wish I knew what’s eating you,’ he said. ‘You’re very wound up.’
‘No, I’m not – you are! Good luck today, but hadn’t you better get going now?’
The moment he’d gone she felt ashamed of feeling so resentful. Taking Lily was the least she could do. It scared her how Hugo, with all his own panics and preoccupations, could read her so well. He’d been watchful all weekend and had started asking questions. She would need to have some very believable answers at the ready for later.
She couldn’t go on with excuses and evasion, guilt piling on top of guilt like a stack of pancakes. She wasn’t built for deception, couldn’t cope. One lunch.
To be seeing Ahmed in hours seemed unimaginable. Seven years. He was a lost world. What was she going to find? Strong pillars standing tall? Crumbling buildings that echoed faintly of old ecstasies? Or nothing but a few haunting memories carried on a sighing wind?
Tuesday morning. Ahmed gave up on work. He sat back in his chair and tried to dissect his motives for coming. Why now? What was he doing here? Why take the risk? There were no safe havens in any country, least of all here in Britain.
He’d risked coming simply because he had to see Nattie. His feelings for her had become impossible to contain. He’d saved her life and the lives of those thousands of people – small beer really, instinct took over, you rode the fear when you knew what you had to do – only to have to flee the country for his own safety.
Now, years later, he wanted her to know that loving her had propelled him to make something of himself; his small achievements were all for her. Not to make her feel wretched – he’d done with bitterness – but to share the years, explain, talk to her and see her lovely face.
It was no good, he had to accept how selfish and irresponsible he was being by coming; he had to spell out the reality of the risk to Nattie and say he couldn’t let her take it. But was it really so terrible to want to meet a couple of times, to have the chance to say what was in his head and heart? To spill out the feelings he had carried round for seven years? He knew there could never be closure while she was married; she couldn’t bear to hurt Hugo. She’d saved the man, brought him back from the abyss, and the fear of a relapse would always be there. She’d feel duty bound as well as feeling a great fondness. She always had. That was the fucking rub. Ahmed felt an intense, impassioned frustration; those very qualities, her soft nature and strength of character, were at the heart of his love for her.
He thought back to the beginning of it all, reliving yet again the past and pain of leaving. He’d found his niche on the Post, loved his job, revelled in the stimulation, the excitement of breaking news, working to deadlines. He remembered the thrill of leaving his childhood home in the Harehills district of inner-city Leeds, the dark terraced house in a steep sunless street. Top of the street was the wide white mosque with its vast mint-green cupola. He’d felt trapped in that closed community, desperately longing to grow his horizons and be off to cosmopolitan London. Leaving Harehills had been a high day.
A junior reporter was as lowly as a washer-up at the Ritz, but he could go places, he’d known. He had a quick mind and could write – although he’d feared his editor with the rest of them. Every last wanker in the building had held William Osborne in terrified awe. He strode the desks, barking out orders, slagging off, singing praises while having unexpected laughing fits and genius ideas. Ahmed had felt about to be sacked any time the man was near, yet his first real encounter had been seminal, branded forever on his psyche and soul.
He could vividly remember his shock and shaking knees, ordered back to the paper one night by the news editor, Desmond Wallis. ‘Better leg it back here and fast, laddie. Summons from on high.’
Ahmed had heard a blast on his way home to Brixton, smelled cordite, and turning on the television, he’d had his worst fear confirmed. A bomb had gone off at the entrance to the Leicester Square cinema where a film première was taking place. A Royal had been minutes away, about to step onto the red carpet. She must have tasted acid fear, drawing up in time to see the explosion. Eleven dead, others critically injured, it had been a horror scene of utter destruction.
The Home Secretary, Victoria Osborne, had come on air to make a statement, and since she was married to his editor, Ahmed had stayed glued to the set. She’d been a hate figure to many in his home community – people who’d actually believed 9/11 had been a conspiracy and that Bush and Blair had plotted the 7/7 bombings – yet watching her closely that night, he’d admired her fierce determination. He remembered being more aware of her as a person too, sensing her sensitivity, appreciating her delicacy and wide eyes. He had yet to meet her daughter, Nattie, and be on first-name terms . . .
Taxiing back to the paper that night in a great rush and panic, Ahmed had felt sure that Osborne must have had the television on in his office and been watching his wife too. Why summon back one of his most junior reporters at such a time? He’d decided that Osborne must simply want a Muslim slant.
Ahmed recalled with amusement his timid knock on the partly open door and Osborne’s peremptory command. ‘Come in, come in!’ It was his first time in the editor’s tenth-floor office and the view from its vast windows was awesome. All London was out there and at its heart, a hollowed-out cinema where lives and limbs had just been lost at the hands of a suicide bomber.
Osborne pointed to the grim scene on the television screen. ‘What do you feel?’
‘Anger.’
‘British anger, Muslim anger?’
‘British anger and Muslim shame.’
‘Why didn’t you become a suicide bomber?’
‘That doesn’t deserve an answer,’ Ahmed had snapped in fury, instantly cursing himself and expecting to be out on his ear.
Not so. They’d talked and he’d been given leave to spend time in his home community. He’d been picking up some disturbing signs on weekends home. Certain people, guys he’d known since school, were manipulating susceptible students; he’d had his suspicions and fears and been proved right.
Ahmed had given evidence in court, put those same guys inside; they had brothers, fathers, relations who were friends of his family. His seven-year absence felt like an eternity but it wasn’t, and the need for revenge could be infinite. He’d discovered too, having checked it out before leaving, that a couple of the lesser players involved in the foiled bomb plot could soon be up for parole. He had to tell Nattie he couldn’t let her take the risk.
Eleven o’clock, two hours to go. He’d already been out to buy flowers. After two days of prowling round the house, brooding, catching up on British news, having brief bursts of creativity at his desk, he’d had enough.
He’d decided over the weekend that trips to the local shops wearing his glasses – not supermarkets, you never knew where anyone’s second cousin worked – driving to shops further away, varying his routes, was a minimal risk. He was sick of takeaways and anyway, what could peering at the blurry monitor screen in the house tell you about the delivery boy on the doorstep with his cast-down face? Still, it had been a good precaution, having a televisual entry system fitted in advance. Jake’s trustworthy old cleaner, Mrs Cruikshank, who Ahmed knew – she’d looked after them years ago at the flat – had helped. She’d been at the house to receive the technicians and keep an eye during the installation.
Mrs Cruikshank, Nattie and Jake were the only people who knew he was in the country. He was simply Mr Bashaar to Jake’s lawyer, just a friend. He trusted Tom, Nattie’s stepbrother, and wanted to make contact with him, but that could wait. Nattie first, she came before everything else.
He kept seeing her smile, the wicked lift at the corners, the teasing warmth in her eyes, and wondered if she still chewed on her lip. Better she didn’t . . . The flowers he’d bought earlier looked fresh on the coffee table and mantelpiece. The shop girl had been keen on dahlias, but they were too bright and showy, kind of fake. The lilies and pink roses softened the look of the room. Nattie wouldn’t get to see them, she’d be going back to her office and there’d probably never be another time.
He went down the short flight of stairs that led to the kitchen; it was a bit too ‘cool school’ for his taste, too many bald surfaces and shades of white and grey, everything tidied away in shiny handle-free cupboards. He would have liked more clutter, a message board, books, herbs and bottles of oil. He approved of the long white table in a sky-lit extension that had sliding glass doors to the back garden. It was laid to lawn and there was an apple tree bursting with fruit.
He got a bottle of water from the fridge, took a few swigs, put it down. Looked at his watch again. Taking the tube would be best, head buried in a copy of the Post. He was used to the tension of fear, but his adrenalin had really invaded; it was buzzing like bees, speeding up his heart. Anticipation was overtaking his sanity.
He studied his hands, holding them steady. He remembered Nattie making the first move, slipping her hand into his, her slim white hand. Would she have changed? Become more self-confident and sophisticated? Have a slightly harder edge?
He locked up and set out for the tube station, thinking of her sentence in code. Infants never exactly easy, do tumble often, such effortful exhausting young obstinate upstarts, toppling over obstacles! He mustn’t take comfort from it. I need to see you too. She probably just wanted to say she was married and it was time to draw a line, but somehow he sensed her vulnerability coming through.