Losing My Identity Read online

  When he got his breath back, the spokesman pointed to the existing leather chesterfield. ‘We’ve to take this one, I was told?’

  ‘I’m not the owner. I’m only here to let you in.’

  His hostile expression cleared a little. He consulted his paperwork. ‘My instructions are that we’ve to take this one back to the storage depot meantime.’

  Leila shrugged. ‘If that’s what it says…’

  ‘Sign here, please.’

  She texted Hari. The thing you ordered is here. I haven’t dared go down to see what damage they’ve done to the stair walls.

  A smiley face pinged back by return.

  She couldn’t decide whether she wanted to wait for him to get home, or to flee. The photo was still burning holes in her heart. She knew she was an emotional coward. She’d never manage to adjust to not being the only one. Hari should have understood that. After all, he was an only child too. Perhaps he did understand it – possibly that’s why he always avoided talking about Anita and his son, and had thrown such a hissy fit when she confessed about Sam? But Leila knew she needed someone with no past, no baggage. Just as he, in his heart, wanted her to have no past.

  She dialled up iTunes on her phone and put Springsteen’s ‘I wish I were blind’ on repeat play. It was her own fault. Hari had never intended her to see that photo. Or the one that her mind had constructed: the two of them in bed together, Anita’s fragile body crushed under his energetic one…

  When she was about twelve, she’d read the copy of Rosamond Lehmann’s The Weather in the Streets from Greer’s bookcase. She’d despised Olivia, who behaved so decorously, and proclaimed ‘I’m not the jealous type.’ Leila was. It was how she was made. And yet at university, she’d put on a smug act of being the opposite. The thing with Tarquin had justified the lessons she’d learnt from Lehmann: it is the ‘other woman’ who inevitably gets taken for a mug. And Leila had always known she’d be the candidate least likely to settle into a cosy ménage à trois; she’d happily have slit Angela Buckley-Ford’s throat. Didn’t say much for any attempt at embracing her Middle Eastern heritage. More Dennistoun than Damascus.

  If she fled now, it would have to be to somewhere he couldn’t find her. He had a key to her flat. He knew the way to the cottage. She’d need to find a hotel or an obscure B&B to hide out in while she gathered her thoughts.

  She remembered that the rabbits were still locked in their pen, and absent-mindedly released them. Feeling suddenly exhausted, she stretched out on the new sofa – it was certainly comfortable. She got up again to fetch a couple of the cushions from the old one that had been thrown in a corner, and settled down afresh. Within minutes both rabbits had climbed up and snuggled beside her. She decided to lie there for a few moments more, so as not to disturb them.

  The next thing she was aware of was Hari’s voice. ‘Hello, you three. You look cosy.’

  Leila came fully awake to the memory she’d meant to be furious with him, since she was already furious with misery. ‘Why on earth did you order this?’

  Even Hari looked a little nonplussed as he took in exactly how much the monstrosity filled the room.

  ‘You know I like to stretch out in the evenings, to rest my back after being on my feet all day.’

  ‘You could stretch out on the other one.’

  ‘Yes, but not with you beside me. With this, we can have an end each. And a rabbit each. Or even cuddle together at the same end.’

  Leila harrumphed. Hari deposited both rabbits carefully on the floor, lay down beside her and drew her into his arms. ‘See? It’s perfect. It’s comfortable.’

  She stayed silent.

  ‘Why are you in such a bad mood with me? I know I should have consulted you before buying this, but it seemed such a good idea at the time. Leila – you’re the only person I need. The one I want to be beside. Can’t you indulge me a little?’

  ‘You didn’t need to “consult” me. It’s your house. You furnish it as you please. I wish you’d warned me I was going to have to deal with three furious delivery men.’

  ‘To hell with them. It’s their job. It’s our furniture. I don’t want you to think you have no say in what we have here.’

  ‘They said they’d been told to take the other one to storage?’

  He looked a little shame-faced. ‘It struck me that it might be nice to have it at the cottage? If you don’t mind, that is. You don’t have a sofa there. I should have asked you beforehand, but it’d have spoiled the surprise. If you’re not keen, I can get them to take it to the British Heart Foundation shop.’

  Leila didn’t want to deprive the BHF of funds, but it was a pleasing chesterfield, and in almost pristine condition.

  ‘Well, I suppose it’d be handy to have it there.’

  ‘Fine. I’ll organise delivery for the first Saturday we’re going to be at Ardvreckie.’

  Weekends at the cottage were more relaxed by then. She’d begun sending her coveralls to the laundry along with his stuff on a Friday evening, and they’d finished painting all the window frames and doors, and got the garden under control. They could afford to be lazy and act like holidaymakers. All the time in the world to loll on a sofa.

  ‘Hari?’

  ‘Mmmm?’

  ‘Please don’t buy a house without telling me.’

  He was the only one giggling. A sofa wide enough for cuddling, right enough. And long enough for each of them to have their own end, as he’d said, so he could read while she watched TV, or vice versa, their legs stretched companionably alongside one another.

  We all have a basic choice: live alone, or compromise. I wonder if Anita was restless, rather than a steady person?

  When a mobile rang two nights later, Leila assumed it was Hari’s. She prodded him, and he lifted his phone from the bedside table.

  ‘It must be yours, I think,’ he said sleepily.

  ‘What time is it?’

  ‘Half-two.’

  ‘Damn! Who’d be phoning me at this hour?’ She leapt out of bed and retrieved the phone from her bag. One new voice-mail. Leila, it’s Margaret from upstairs. Can you call me when you get this? I think there’s been someone in your flat – I knew you were out, because your car’s not there. We called the police, but no one’s come yet. Don’t worry if you’re away from town – you gave us a key, so I can let the police in when they arrive. Whoever was there’s gone now anyway.

  ‘Hell’s teeth!’

  ‘What’s up?’

  ‘I should have listened to you after all. The flat’s been broken into.’ She rang back. ‘I’m on my way. I should only be half an hour or so.’

  Margaret sounded relieved. ‘I thought you might be away at the other end of the country. They’d broken a window, but John says he can find some wood to put over it meantime. He used your key to get in, in case there was something that needed attended to. He didn’t want to touch anything until the police have been.’

  ‘You say whoever it was has gone?’

  ‘We heard the noise, and John went down through the close out to the back green. He shouted through the window that we’d dialled 999. Then he went back to the front to see if he could see any strange vehicles. We think the guy must have gone out the back again and got over the wall. John opened the front door – there’s no one inside now.’

  Leila was already pulling on clothes, the phone clamped between her ear and her shoulder. ‘I’ll be as fast as I can.’ She hung up.

  Hari was dressing too.

  ‘There’s no point in you missing your sleep. Doesn’t sound as if there’s a huge problem. The neighbours heard them and chased them off. Just a broken window, probably. Go back to bed.’

  ‘No chance.’

  Leila went straight through to the sitting room. She knew glass birds from Finland were not targets for opportunist thieves, but you heard about them breaking things from spite. The cabinets were intact. She scanned the walls: all the paintings were where they should be.

  Not such
a happy tale in her bedroom. Every drawer from both chests emptied onto the floor.

  John was hovering in the background. ‘What a mess! I wonder where these cops are? Never there when you need them.’

  Hari punched a number into his phone, and walked into the kitchen, where they couldn’t hear him. He came back through within two minutes. ‘Don’t touch anything in the way of woodwork where they might have left prints.’ He shook John’s hand. ‘We’re tremendously grateful for your help. You have saved a lot of damage to Leila’s home. We’ll let you know what happens. Hopefully, the police will be here, at some point.’

  Margaret had joined them. ‘Maybe if John hadn’t called out, they could have caught the guy red-handed?’ She sounded guilty.

  ‘That’s unlikely,’ said Hari. ‘These opportunists tend to be in and out within minutes. We’ll wait here for the police.’

  ‘You think they’ll come after all?’

  He gave a lop-sided grin. ‘I’m sure they will.’

  ‘I’m so grateful for what you did, you two,’ Leila said. ‘It’s a miracle you even knew my number.’

  ‘You gave us one of your business cards a while back,’ said Margaret. ‘I put it behind the clock.’

  After the couple left, Hari came back into the bedroom. ‘Where do you keep your jewellery?’

  ‘Where does any woman keep her jewellery? In the chests of drawers. But I have hardly any good stuff anyway. I had a purse in here with a few hundred euros in it – that’s gone.’

  ‘Your necklace?’

  ‘Damn! I’d forgotten that.’

  She started to rake through the items from her bra drawer, and gave a shout of relief as she felt the heart-shaped box, tucked between two padded bras she didn’t think she had ever worn. Biting her lip, she opened it, then held up the necklace triumphantly.

  ‘Thank God! What else was there – you had nice earrings that went with it?’

  She raked further. The earrings were gone, with their box. The gold torc was missing too. She’d hardly ever worn it anyway. ‘It’s not the end of the world. They weren’t old ones. My mother’s rings and her pearls were in the wardrobe.’ She stood on a chair and felt at the back of a shelf, behind shoe boxes. ‘They’re all here. I’ve got off very lightly. Now – you should go home and get some sleep. I’ll stay here, in case any cops ever materialise – though they don’t turn out for burglaries these days, do they? Not till weeks later.’

  ‘Your car’s at my place.’

  ‘I can pick it up in the morning.’

  ‘I’ll wait. The police will come, believe me.’

  As if in reply, there was a ring at the doorbell.

  Predictably, not a fingerprint anywhere. Even the opportunist bampots clearly had the nous to wear gloves these days. The detective asked Leila if she had a photo of the earrings that had gone.

  ‘No,’ she said, distracted.

  Hari was scrolling his phone screen. He held it out to the female officer. ‘You can just about see them in this.’ Leila looked over his shoulder. He’d found a picture of her at the choir competition. A head and shoulders shot, which he’d zoomed in on.

  ‘I didn’t notice you take that photo?’ she said, once the police had left.

  He grinned. ‘I know. You’d probably have had me done for stalking or harassment.’

  They moved aside the clothing strewn over Leila’s bed, and grabbed a couple of hours’ rest before Hari had to turn out for work.

  ‘Where did you put that necklace?’ he asked, as he was about to leave.

  ‘Back where it had been.’

  He held out his hand. ‘Give. And the pearls, and the rings, and any stashes of Krugerrand you have about the place.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘I not only have a burglar alarm, I have a safe. That’s where they’re going meantime.’

  ‘You’re a secretive guy, aren’t you?’

  ‘I’ll show you where the safe is, now your stuff’s going to be in it, even pro tem.’

  And what the hell does he keep in that?

  He dropped a kiss on the top of her head, and was off.

  Leila wandered around the flat, waiting for the glazier to arrive. She looked at her phone from time to time, to check there were no messages from Hari. Then it struck her: suppose he had fetched her phone last night, and absent-mindedly hit the button to access her photos? Suppose he ever did that, no matter how out of character?

  She keyed that menu herself, and found the image she’d grabbed of the ‘happy families’ shot. She gazed at it for a moment, then pressed ‘delete’.

  It wasn’t until she wandered distractedly into the kitchen that she remembered she hadn’t checked the small fridge in her study. She laughed aloud when she saw the empty container. Holy shit! I wonder if I need to tell the cops about that too?

  To take her mind off it, she decided to start weeding her CD collection. Twice she consigned to the charity shop bag the Mazzy Star album Sam had brought back from America in 1993. But it revived too many memories of all the years when she’d never known when he might show up, unannounced but never empty-handed. That had been the hardest part: accepting that it’d never happen again. She finally added the CD to the ‘keep’ pile, then took it out of its box and put ‘Into Dust’ on repeat play. She remembered hearing somewhere that the BBC had a watch-list of music that was considered a suicide-promoting risk. She wondered if ‘Into Dust’ featured on it.

  Then she spent twenty minutes on the phone to Scheiffers, telling them that she wanted more vaccine supplies to replace the box that had been in the fridge, in case the door had been opened and the temperature disrupted, and that no, the special fridge hadn’t been damaged, and that new security measures were being put in place, and that no, it wasn’t industrial espionage, but a random, routine wee drugged-up radge looking for a fix. She didn’t use exactly those words.

  In an excess of guilt, she next spent a long time in the password-secured files on the computer, looking through Scheiffers’ data for the marketing authorisation. It was very doubtful that the mastitis vaccine would actually kill a human, if injected into a vein. She wondered idly if the wee tosser who’d stolen her earrings made himself thoroughly ill? Pity she couldn’t collect that data… Assailed by thoughts that he might have tried to sell on the phials to someone else, she finally dialled the number on the card the detective had left her and told him she’d discovered another item that had been stolen. She’d expected him to give her a hard time, but he didn’t.

  She was upset about the loss of the earrings, more than the fact she’d lied to Hari about them. Sam had bought them for her, in 1986, to celebrate their anniversary. Just before he’d set off to attend that conference in Chile…

  Leila had learned of Sam’s death from a newspaper headline, in October 2012. Cambridge Academic Killed in Beirut Blast. She’d been back in the town for a brief break. She had almost passed the news-stand by, but doubled back and bought a paper, through sheer curiosity. Fortunately, she had gone into the nearest café before opening it, so she was sitting down as she read the report. The first emotion was anger. No one had thought to tell her? It had never seemed worth the hassle of a divorce: she had no intention of marrying again, and neither, apparently, had Sam had any such inclination. She was still technically his wife, God damn it! But presumably no one knew that, apart from the two of them. He still had relatives there. They’d not have thought to try to trace her.

  She scanned the text again. Cambridge academic?

  She read that Dr Samir Gemayel (63), with his doctorate obtained from the University’s Department of Applied Mathematics and Theoretical Physics in the 1970s had worked as a senior lecturer in Beirut’s American University, and also in the Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro.

  Leila read and re-read the account of how he had died, trying to understand exactly what had happened. A random car-bomb, in Achrafieh, in formerly calm East Beirut. What had he been doing there? He’d told her so many times, over
the years, that he could never have lived anywhere other than the West of the city, even if it had been the hardest-hit by the civil war. That’s where his heart was, not in the genteel Eastern sector. The irony, to have come through the worst years in the least safe place, then this… All the times in the ’70s when she’d been sure he must have been killed, and now he had been, and no one had told her.

  He’d died six days before his birthday.

  A freak accident, in many ways. Wrong place, wrong time. Beirut was relatively calm by 2012. It was the first large-scale bombing incident in the country since 2008. Sam and the half-dozen others who’d been killed by the car-bomb had been very unlucky. She prayed it would have been very sudden, so that he didn’t suffer at all. And she wondered if she’d been in his thoughts at that last moment.

  Her immediate instinct had been to book the first available flight to Beirut. To visit his city, at last. But she had no idea how to contact whatever relatives he still had there. And there was an even more pertinent drawback: she had no idea if he’d been living with another woman as his wife.

  Over the ensuing weeks, Leila read every available news report on the incident. She could spot nothing in the names and ages of the other people killed that seemed to have been connected to Sam. She couldn’t find a list of those injured, but clung to the conclusion that Sam had been alone.

  Subsequently, she had all the hassle of obtaining the death certificate from Lebanon. It took a year, but at least after it arrived she could regularise her position. She was officially a widow. It brought a sense of closure. In a frenzy of grief, she had changed her mobile number and private email address, to mark the finality of closing a chapter. She had shared her new contact details with the bare minimum of people.

  Casting her mind back over that time from the comparative calm of almost two years on helped Leila understand something that had been puzzling her. She fathomed, at last, why Hari had never divorced Anita. You could stay in love with the first version of a person long after they’d changed irretrievably. Then you got the double whammy when they died prematurely.