Eleven

‘I told you, love. Seven hundred.’

‘But it cost £3,000,’ I said.

It was the next morning. I was standing in a wire compound, full of used cars, on the Canterbury Road.

‘Somebody’s been playing silly buggers with these gears,’ said the salesman, patting my car bonnet. He had an inflamed face; I hated him. ‘And the bodywork’s in a right old state, isn’t it? Seen underneath?’

It was odd, being in the outside world. Everything seemed to be going on as normal. It was raining; cars passed with a hiss.

‘Make it a thousand,’ I said. ‘You’ve got to!’

‘I’m sorry, sweetheart.’

‘Please!’

‘Well …’ He paused. Then he gave me a wink. ‘I’ve always been a fool, where women are concerned. Especially pretty women.’ He sighed. ‘Oh, eight-fifty then.’

‘Cash?’ I asked.

He nodded.

I walked to Taste Buddies. Lorries thundered past, splashing my legs. I felt weightless. Now I knew that my children were in Pakistan, I wasn’t really walking along the verge of the road at all. I didn’t exist here.

Sonia was alone, filling devilled eggs.

‘Hi,’ she said. ‘I’ve decided you’re not having my lawyer, he ballsed-up my divorce. But I’m on the track of another one.’

‘Can I take some time off?’

‘Of course, honey.’

‘Er, I was wondering,’ I said. ‘Can you lend me some money?’

‘Sure. I could do a couple of hundred, but it won’t go far with those bloodsuckers.’

‘What?’ I said.

‘Lawyers. They have this meter running. Shake your hand and it’s fifty quid down the drain. Then they start to refill their pipe, and you’re taking out a mortgage.’

‘It’s not for a lawyer,’ I said. ‘I’m going to Karachi.’

She stared. ‘You can’t.’

‘Have you got it here?’

‘What?’

‘The money,’ I said.

She wiped her hands and came up to me. ‘Listen, pet, you can’t just go.’

‘Why not?’

‘We’ve got to suss out the legal situation—’

‘Bugger the legal situation! He’s stolen my children!’

‘Wait till we’ve talked to someone,’ she said.

‘They’re mine!’

‘But you don’t know anybody in Pakistan,’ she argued. ‘You can’t even speak the language.’

I sat down. ‘Christ, Sonia. I thought you’d understand. You’ve got kids.’

‘Yeah, I wish somebody’d steal them.’ She paused. ‘Look, Marianne. What I mean is, you’ve got to think about them. What would happen to them if you went there.’

‘I am thinking about them! What do you think they feel, stuck in another country halfway across the world?’

‘I don’t even know where Pakistan is,’ she said.

I stared at the pile of eggshells. ‘How could he?’

‘He hates you. If he sees you—’

‘I’ll manage,’ I said. ‘I just need the money.’

Back home, I had one last search through the house. My hands were trembling, I kept knocking things on to the floor. There was nothing in Salim’s desk, no clue as to where his parents lived. I cursed Aziz. On the top of the desk were some photos, in frames—our wedding photo, a picnic on the Downs. The clearest one of Salim was the photo I had taken on the ferry, that day when we were so happy. I wrenched it out of its frame.

Something had been stirring at the back of my mind. I ran up to the children’s bedroom and rummaged in their cupboard. At the back was a pile of stuff from school.

I found Yasmin’s scrapbook. It was called All About Me. She’d made it a few months before; I remembered her bullying us for photos.

I turned the pages, feverishly. On page three was a snapshot: ‘My Granny and Granddad.’ Salim had given it to her. It showed his parents, standing outside their house in Karachi. I remembered looking at it curiously. An elderly man; a squat woman in a sari. They looked utterly alien. It had given me a jolt to realize they had brought up Salim, that this was his life before he met me.

The house was modern and white—two storeys high, with a balcony. In front was a garden, surrounded by palm trees or something, and a high white wall.

I was going to tear the photo out, but at the last moment I couldn’t bear that. I took the whole book.

My mind raced. There was something else I’d forgotten, something that could be useful. What the hell was it?

I stood on the landing, clutching Yasmin’s book. Outside, I heard my next-door neighbour starting up her car. It must be midday; she was going to fetch her husband from work. He always came back for his dinner. I wondered how much they knew. At odd moments, trivial thoughts like this came into my mind. It was like when somebody dies and you wonder what happened to their stuff at the dry-cleaners. I couldn’t be going mad, could I, if I still wondered what the neighbours would say?

Salim’s shirts. I darted to the chest of drawers, and pulled out the bottom drawer. There they were; the Brian Poole ones. Since I’d laughed at them for being old-fashioned, he had never worn them. All those years ago.

I pulled out a shirt. There was the label: ‘Mohammed Ismail’s Tailors. Elphinstone Street. Karachi.’ My family has used them for years, their stitching is superb.

I got a pair of scissors and cut off the label. Then I put it into my suitcase, with Yasmin’s book and the photo. I sat down heavily on the bed and waited for my heart to stop thumping.

I was standing in the post office, getting my family allowance. I fished out the money from under the grille, and counted it anxiously. I had known the post office man for years; he was an Asian.

‘Could I have next month’s too?’ I asked. ‘I’ve got to go into hospital.’

He shook his head. ‘I’m sorry. You have to have a signed letter.’

I paused. ‘Listen, can you help me?’

‘I’m afraid you have to have a signed letter—’

‘No, I don’t mean that.’ I fumbled in my bag, and brought out a piece of paper and a pencil. ‘Could you tell me the Urdu for “Do you recognize this man?”’

‘I beg your pardon?’

‘The Urdu for “do you recognize this man?”’

He shook his head. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘I come from Bengal. I don’t speak Urdu.’

I paused. ‘Oh. Never mind.’

I went out into the street.

I walked to the Coach and Horses. It was three-fifteen. On the way, I passed Darren’s mother. She was going to school.

‘Aren’t you going in the wrong direction?’ she said to me, smiling.

When I got to the pub the colonel was still there. He was sitting in his corner as usual. I hurried over to him.

‘Make that a large Bells,’ he said, holding out his glass. ‘There’s a dear.’

‘I don’t work here anymore,’ I said.

‘Nor you do.’ He gazed at me vaguely; he was well oiled.

I sat down beside him. ‘You were in India, weren’t you?’

He nodded. ‘Lahore, Quetta—’

‘Can you help me?’ I asked, quickly. ‘Can you remember some Urdu?’

‘You’ve come to the right chap, my lovely. Spoke it like a native.’

I took out my pencil and paper again. ‘What’s the Urdu for “Where is this house?”’

‘Syu, mera ghoda eithar la do!’

‘What’s that?’ I asked.

‘Syce, bring me my horse!’

‘House?’

‘Horse,’ he said. ‘Syce, bring me my horse! They were all Pathans, you know. Big, strong chaps, flashing eyes—’

‘No,’ I said. ‘I mean—’

‘Bearer, ye chai bahut thonda hai!’

‘What’s that?’ I asked.

‘Bearer, this tea is too bloody cold!’

‘I don’t want that!’ I cried.

‘Tum muze dhokka de pahe do! You are swindling me, you rascal: your prices are too high!’

He stared into the distance, his eyes glazed. I gave up.

Back home, I phoned the Pakistani embassy and asked about a visa. A man answered the phone. His accent sounded like Salim’s; I’d forgotten, all these years, that my husband had an accent. The man told me to hang on; I heard him talking to somebody in Urdu.

He knew who I was, he knew everything about it. He was going to forbid me to go to Pakistan. Everyone in Pakistan knew about this by now; they had closed over my children like a lid. They were whispering my name, Siddiqi, not really my name, in their foreign language. What did Pakistan look like? It was a shape on the map, to the left of India. I knew that much; a bit more than Sonia. Pakistan was a white house, with strange trees in front of it. Salim had a big family, he had told me. He had a lot of cousins. Where had they hidden my children?

The man told me I could come up the next day for a visa. He said I ought to have a cholera jab.

Sometime later—it must have been the same day, but dark now—I was sitting in my doctor’s waiting room. I was inching through the day, moment by moment. The other people looked as if they came from another planet. I lit a cigarette.

A girl had come in and she was talking to me.

‘Has Yasmin got it too?’ she was saying.

She was from school. Stacey, that was it. Her mother was with her.

‘What?’ I said.

‘Chicken pox. Is that why she’s not at school?’ She pulled up her jumper. ‘I’ve got some spots too.’

‘Stacey!’ said her mother.

‘I bet she’s given it to me,’ the girl said. She pointed to the doctor’s door. ‘Is she in there?’

‘What?’ I said.

‘Is Yasmin in there?’

I didn’t reply.

‘She’s got my Barbie wedding dress,’ she said.

Just then the doctor’s door opened and a man came out. The receptionist called me. ‘Mrs Siddiqi?’ she said.

On the way back, the bus passed the car dealer’s pen. In the dark, the cars were spotlit like film stars. Mine was there. It had a sticker on it: ‘Excellent Runner—Perfect Condition—£1,999.’

My phone was ringing. Whenever I was out of the house I heard it. My children were trying to speak to me. They wanted to ask me what was happening, they wanted me to fetch them home. How could he tear them away from me?’

My body felt raw and shivery; I felt sick all the time. That night I found myself sitting on their bedroom floor and I was making these wailing noises. They were high, like a cat’s, and they went on and on. I wondered, for a moment, who could be making such a weird sound.

I had no idea, then, of the stages I was going to go through. I thought it would soon be over. I was scared shitless, of course. I was terrified of the flight, of being alone, of what I would find when I got to Karachi. But I thought it would be solved. Salim was hot-tempered but he couldn’t stay angry for ever. Once I spoke to him he’d see sense. He must.

That’s what I thought.

Sonia wanted to come with me, but I knew she couldn’t really leave her work and her kids. Besides, she’d lent me all her money. She came round the next morning, with some paperwork, so she could sit by my phone while I went to London.

I got my visa and a plane ticket for the next morning’s flight. I can’t remember much about that day, Thursday. I felt like a robot. When I was walking back from Ashford station a car stopped beside me, and somebody called my name.

I turned. For a moment I didn’t realize who it was.

‘Hello, loveliness!’ said Terry. ‘I’m back!’

He jumped out of his car. I remember staring at him. All I heard was the traffic rumbling by, and there was this man, grinning at me.

He stepped towards me. ‘It’s me!’ he said.

He tried to touch me but I pulled away.

‘Hey!’ he said. ‘It’s me, remember?’ His face loomed close; he was holding my arm.

‘Get away from me!’ I shouted.

And then I was running down the street, towards my bus stop.

Nobody had phoned. That night I packed my things, and some of the kids’ stuff. Not a lot, because I thought I’d be bringing them back home with me. I just took Yasmin’s koala bear and her ear drops and one or two of Bobby’s favourite toys.

Sonia stayed the night—she’d left her girls with their dad—and drove me to Heathrow Airport at dawn. We didn’t speak in the van. There didn’t seem anything left to say.

The departure hall was loud and dizzying. Where were all those people going? They trundled trolley-loads of suitcases. The tannoy made my stomach churn.

Sonia kissed me goodbye.

‘Now tell me again,’ she said. ‘What’ve you got to go on?’

‘A photo of Salim, a photo of his parents’ house and the address of his tailor.’

‘Terrific,’ she said, doubtfully. ‘Do you also know the Pakistani for “You lousy bastard”?’

I shook my head.

‘They don’t like pigs, do they?’ she said. ‘What about “You lousy, double-crossing piece of pork”?’

I smiled weakly.

‘That’s better,’ she said. She took a packet of sandwiches out of her carrier bag and gave them to me. ‘Smoked salmon. You can’t eat that airline muck.’ She gave me a half-bottle of champagne, too. ‘Now, remember. Take your malaria pills and keep your pecker up.’

‘I don’t know what I’d have done without you,’ I said.

‘Don’t worry, pet. You’ll find them. He’ll have cooled down by now.’ She paused. ‘Even Salim.’ She kissed me again. ‘Anyway, they’ll be missing Grange Hill.’

The tannoy came on. ‘This is the last call for passengers for PIA flight 147 for Kuwait and Karachi.’

‘Give them my love,’ she said. ‘Give me a ring.’

We hugged each other.

‘Good luck, darling,’ she said.

I went through to passport control. When I turned round, she had gone.