Losing My Identity Page 20
‘They are. If a little predictable.’
‘By the way, when Christina asked me what I do for a living, I said I was a doctor. I thought that was easier than having to go into details.’
‘Wise decision. You should try to sleep a little more on the way back.’
‘I’ve got my second wind now. I’m sure it’s a bit like jet-lag – better to stay awake now and go to bed at the usual time. Or even a little early?’ He patted her thigh. He was sounding like his old self.
‘Don’t distract me when I’m driving this contraption!’
‘Leila,’ he said as they neared the outskirts of Glasgow.
‘What?’
‘I need you. I’ve tried not to, because there’s nothing so unattractive as a needy person. But I can’t help it.’
‘It’s OK. I’m not going anywhere.’
He took her hand as they climbed the stair to his flat. ‘Thank you for taking me with you today. You have no idea what a difference you’ve made.’
He fell asleep again on the sofa after dinner. She let him alone for an hour, then roused him and made him go to bed.
Sixteen
Leila still worried over whether they’d manage to stand so much of each other’s company once they both retired. Hari dismissed this at once.
‘We won’t be at all bored. What had you planned to fill your time with, after you retire?’
She wasn’t about to admit that she’d once harboured a fantasy of turning private detective, like Miss Marple. A by-product of reading too much Scandinavian crime fiction.
‘I hadn’t made any specific plans.’
‘There you are then. We’ll travel – after all, we can afford to.’
They’d started to draft their bucket list.
‘Have you visited the Taj Mahal?’ She shook her head. ‘Neither have I. We’ll go together. Now where else – Egypt? I guess you’ve been.’
‘Never. I don’t think I want to go. Not as an ordinary tourist.’
He looked disappointed. Turned out he’d watched a programme that featured Zahi Hawass excavating some of the workers’ houses beside the Great Pyramid. Some artist from that time had ordered carvings of himself and his wife for their tomb, and specified the figures were to be of equal size. ‘Hawass said that showed how much he loved her,’ Hari added. ‘They’d be together for eternity. I thought it was so romantic. I’d like to see that place.’
Leila muttered platitudes about maybe, some day. When she was in her teens, she’d read Lawrence Durrell’s Alexandria Quartet, and tried to picture her father as part of that desperately cool, bohemian, cosmopolitan set in pre-war Egypt. Like Paris with better weather and better food. Like Sam’s version of Beirut. Nowadays, she’d have been afraid of recognising parts of her heritage she’d sensed rather than experienced; the loud, importuning voices; unpleasant smells; dust – dust on the windows, on her skin, between her teeth, gritty and impossible to either swallow or spit out.
And she had subsequently read a good deal about the history of Egypt. She had understood (she thought) why her father found himself in England at the end of the Second World War. Egyptians weren’t eligible for membership of the Gezira Sporting Club, or the Turf Club. Edged out in his own country. By the Brits.
She and Hari ran through the rest of the usual suspects: Paris, Florence, Lisbon. He hadn’t been to Brussels, so that went on the list, along with Louvain, Bruges and Ghent. Leila had spent time in all of them, when she’d had to fit in visits to the European Commission. She loved Belgium. It was the one country she’d found where a woman eating alone wasn’t consigned to an obscure spot beside the loos, with the second setting of cutlery whisked away as if she might contaminate it. She’d be placed en plein centre, an extra candle and rose in a vase added to her table, the maître d’ himself dancing attendance. So she was inordinately fond of the country. When Sam and she were together, and living conveniently close, in Paris, he’d usually come to Brussels with her, and take her to tiny restaurants in the working-class suburbs; the sort of places where workmen would come in still wearing their bleus, and you could get an excellent meal with a carafe of decent red for a few francs. Once she had to travel there alone on work, she often hankered after one of those simple meals. But she’d been afraid to go alone. Some of the areas she’d visited with Sam were almost ghetto-like now. And possibly she was not so fearless as she liked to think.
‘America,’ she said. ‘I’ve always wanted to hire a car and drive the whole way across. Not the tourist spots. The real backwoods, red-neck America.’ Hari would take some convincing on that one, judging by his expression. She needed to explain it further for him. She needed to take him to see some Hopper paintings; she knew these represented urban America, but somehow the ambience of them struck her as being true of the smaller towns in the 21st century. Night Hawks – that could be anywhere in the Midwest. Her favourite was Automat. Some people interpreted it as the epitome of loneliness, but Leila knew it was self-sufficiency, resilience. The woman sitting alone wasn’t needy. She wanted to see the original of that, in the Des Moines Art Center in Iowa – though she suspected Hari would perceive only the loneliness and isolation. She needed to give him Tom Piazza’s short stories to read, plus some Raymond Carver.
‘Venice?’ he said.
‘Haven’t you been there?’
‘Only for half a day on a side-trip when I was at a conference.’
‘You’d loathe it. It’s so crowded you can’t breathe, and the canals smell.’
‘We could go in winter when it’s quieter.’
It turned out he’d read Miss Garnet’s Angel. ‘A colleague lent it to me,’ he said vaguely. Leila squirrelled away that nugget. The same colleague who had enticed him into joining the choir?
‘I can picture us sitting in Café Florian, watching the world go by,’ he added.
‘Watching our bank balances evaporate, more like!’
‘You sound like a mean Scot. And I really, really want to visit Murano, and see where the glass is made.’
‘It’s full of tourist tatt nowadays.’
‘Not all of it! And have you been to Burano?’
‘It’s nothing but seafood restaurants.’
‘Nonsense. I read an article about a place there that makes the best risotto in the world. I bet they’d make us a vegetarian one. We could travel on the Orient Express. We could stop off in Venice, then get on again a week later and go all the way through to Istanbul.’
That was getting too close.
‘Beirut’, she wanted to add. She’d always known she had to visit, sometime, but she’d never been able to face it alone. But maybe with Hari… Sam would be buried there, but she wasn’t sure where. Because of his split family, he could be in either a Christian or a Muslim graveyard. She should go, and find out, and lay flowers. Or at least visit with him. Too much unfinished business. If there was a grave at all (and she realised she had no idea what happened with blast victims who’d been close to the bomb – what did they bury? All the bits they could find and reassemble? Hari would know, but there was no way she was reopening that conversation…) she needed to see it, then perhaps she could stop believing that she was still Samir Gemayel’s wife. She had the death certificate; somehow a piece of paper wasn’t enough, no matter how official.
But it wasn’t his city any more anyway. She couldn’t have borne that. Just borrowed memories.
‘Can we go to Lyme Regis sometime?’ she asked.
‘You want to find out more about your friend?’
‘I have no idea what happened to her body.’
Hari was immediately business-like. ‘In a case where they had to advertise for relatives? Cremation, without a doubt, unless she had a will that had express directions otherwise.’
‘That means there’s probably nothing at all to remember her by. I thought maybe I could see if there’s a place I could have one of those benches put, with a plaque on it.’
‘That’s a kind thought
. I’m sure it wouldn’t be difficult to arrange. And I can see it’d make you feel better.’
‘It would.’
‘And you called me sentimental? We’ll do it anyway. Cambridge,’ Hari added suddenly.
‘You must have been there? Everyone’s been there.’
‘Of course I have – but it didn’t mean anything to me then. I’d like you to show it to me.’ He was already on Pinterest, finding pics of St Severus. ‘Wow! Look at that chapel! If you’re a graduate, you could get married there?’
‘I don’t think they do services for agnostic Hindus and agnostic Glaswegian half-Muslims.’
‘They’ll oblige anyone these days, for the right money. At least, most churches will.’
‘Barcelona,’ she said. ‘Tourist trap par excellence – and it’s the only place I’ve ever had my pocket picked, but I never tire of the Gaudí buildings.’
After some minor squabbling, they agreed to spend a week in Florence early in October.
Leila tried to tell herself that the business trip to Cambridge was a sort of pre-holiday holiday. She needed to spend all of Wednesday at the science park, with Scheiffers’ UK research guys. She had to make a presentation on her vaccine test results, but that was no hassle at all. She still loved the city, even though the memories it held were not unreservedly happy ones. When she visited, she walked with eyes focused straight ahead. Once or twice in the past, she had run after a stranger in the street, only to find it was someone who looked like Sam as he was in the 1970s…
Thursday, she was staying on to see Catherine in the afternoon and evening – the first time in over a year. Then she’d drive home on Friday.
Scheiffers weren’t over-generous with accommodation expenses, and Leila knew she was mean – she put it down to Grannie Eva. She decided to stay at the Travelodge in preference to anywhere more expensive. You knew what you were getting with places like that. They were usually scrupulously clean, and to a standard.
She made good time on the journey south, and spent the last part of Tuesday afternoon walking round all her old haunts. The city had changed a lot, but the colleges were the same as ever. She always felt young again when she crossed through the ancient stone archway into St Severus’s Chapel Court, with its immaculate lawn and ancient rose-bushes. It was an oasis of calm after streets crowded with herds of Asian schoolchildren getting the ‘wannabe’ tour.
She tired herself out walking around the city, and decided to have a pizza sent in. It was all she needed.
Hari rang her on Skype not long after she’d eaten.
‘What are you doing this evening?’
‘Having dinner in my room and an early night.’
‘Not going out?’
‘Not tonight. I’m tired, with the drive.’
‘I’m staying in too. Turn on your webcam,’ he added suddenly.
‘Why?’
‘I want to see you.’
‘Maybe I don’t want to be seen.’
He giggled. ‘Have you got on a face-pack or something?’
‘Can you see me using a face-pack?’
‘I can’t see you at all. Have you got a man there then?’ He started to croon the old Jim Reeves song, ‘He’ll have to go’.
That always did it for her, hearing him sing. It’s so beautiful. She tutted and switched on the camera.
He giggled again. ‘What’s that you’re wearing?’
‘Tartan flannelette pyjamas.’ Faded but still-garish Royal Stewart tartan, with two buttons missing from the jacket. Pyjamas that she’d brought from home specially. After she started sleeping with Hari, she’d bought herself a selection of pretty, feminine cotton nighties, even if they were usually for show on her way en route to bed. Hari liked to sleep naked; he preferred her to do the same.
‘So you are going out, to a fancy-dress party?’
‘Funny man you are. As a matter of fact, this is what I’d normally wear in the evening, after work, when I was staying in. This or similar. Topped by an ancient fluffy dressing gown, in the winter. When I’d had a long day, I was often in bed by nine. I’d lock the door, and only answer the phone if I could see it was someone I knew and wanted to speak to.’
His naughty-toddler giggle. ‘Sounds good to me.’ The laughter ramped up till he was almost hysterical. ‘Leila. I can do better than that.’ He pushed back the desk chair and moved away from the screen so that she could see more than his head and shoulders. He performed a pirouette. He was wearing what looked like tracksuit bottoms and an ancient sweatshirt with a tear under the arm.
‘This is what I normally wear in the evenings, after work.’
‘Nonsense. You’re always dressed for the country club or something. That’s why I need to keep up with you.’
‘Correction. You always dress smartly, so I need to keep up with you. I didn’t want you to think I was a slob. We’re a couple of idiots, aren’t we?’
‘Probably.’
‘From now on, you put on your PJs as soon as you’re home, and I’ll put on my casual gear too. Deal?’
‘Deal.’
‘I miss you terribly, Leila. I miss cuddling you. And other things…’
‘I miss you too.’ And scanning her mind for the usual feeling of duplicity, she couldn’t find any sign of it. She did miss him.
‘I’ve been the same as you – I like my own company. But I prefer yours. What are you having for dinner?’
‘I don’t know. Something light.’ No way she was going to admit she’d already eaten junk food. Hari always seemed to eat sensibly. She felt like a naughty child who’d escaped from her parents for a couple of nights.
‘Not a nice, juicy steak?’
‘Funnily enough, you’ve weaned me off meat, Professor Gill. Why – what are you having?’
‘Dunno. I may have something in the freezer I can reheat.’
‘Don’t sound so glum. I’ll be back in a couple of days.’
She had a moment of wondering if she should dress again, cancel her meetings with Scheiffers and Catherine, and drive all night back to Glasgow. Silly. One should never act purely on impulse, whether one was sixteen or sixty-something.
Can you be too independent? she googled, after they’d both hung up. ‘Yes’, appeared to be the consensus, if it was a reaction to being hurt rather than born from choice.
Eenie, meenie, minie, mo…
She spent the morning before she met Catherine trekking round every shop she could find, looking for suitable casual wear. No way was Hari a flannelette PJs man, in his heart. She ended up with two good-as-new velvet kaftan affairs from a vintage clothing store. Sorted. In a shop in the Grafton Centre, she found a man’s sweatshirt that bore the slogan ‘Trust me, I’m a doctor’. The perfect present.
She wasn’t feeling great, and almost phoned Catherine to cancel, so that she could drive home that very minute.
Every time Leila saw her friend, it gave her a shock. She’d known her longer than anyone else, and in her mind’s eye, they were both still twenty. If she caught sight of their reflections in a shop window, she’d find herself wondering ‘Who are those two elderly women, wearing the same outfits as we are?’
Leila drove straight home to Roseisle Drive on Friday, and phoned Hari.
‘I’m whacked. I’m going to stay here tonight.’
The briefest of pauses. A sigh. ‘Have you eaten?’
‘Not terribly hungry.’
‘Look, if you’re tired you won’t feel up to cooking. I’ll throw some things in a bag, feed the bunnies and come over. They’ll be fine till the morning.’ Then when she didn’t reply quickly enough, ‘Leila? Is that OK?’
‘I’m probably better on my own tonight. I have a bit of a headache.’
‘Sweetheart! I’ve missed you so much. Please – I won’t stay over if you don’t want me to. Let me come and see you.’
‘All right.’
As soon as he arrived, she was glad he was so persistent. It was comforting to get a cuddle.
And by the time he’d cooked a meal, at which Leila merely pecked, she didn’t want him to go home.
‘Your pillows always smell lovely,’ he observed, his voice meditative.
‘Probably the fabric conditioner.’
She opened one eye and looked at him. He was watching her quizzically.
‘OK – I sometimes spray a little cologne on them.’
He grinned and stretched alongside her. ‘This is a remarkably comfortable bed. Maybe I should get one the same.’
‘That’s daft, when we have this one. They’re expensive.’
‘How expensive.’
She told him.
‘Holy fuck! You could get a small car for that! Was it delivered in an armoured van?’
Although she was feeling worse by the minute, she couldn’t help laughing. Because he never swore, she found it inordinately amusing when he did.
‘I spend a lot more time in my bed than in my car, so I consider it money well spent.’
He tickled her. ‘I’m not saying it’s not worth that price. It’s heavenly.’ He paused. She could hear his mind ticking over. ‘Does the fact you said “we have this one” mean you might be thinking seriously about us getting that bigger place together?’
‘Might be.’
‘And the rest?’
‘One thing at a time.’
He leapt out of bed and grabbed his iPad. ‘Shall we look on Rightmove?’
‘Too tired.’
He laid his hand on her forehead. ‘Jesus! You’re burning up, Leila. Your temperature’s easily over 101. No wonder you have a headache.’
‘I think I must have caught a cold,’ she croaked.
He climbed out of bed and came back brandishing the thermometer from her medicine cabinet. ‘101.3,’ he announced, drawing it out of her mouth a few moments later. Even in her befuddled state, Leila registered that his prediction from touch was less than half a degree out. How odd. Presumably he’s not used to feeling hot skin…