Losing My Identity Read online

  ‘Don’t be silly. You must eat what you want. I just won’t join you. It’s not a problem.’

  He was studying her face. ‘Leila, you did realise I’m Indian?’

  Oh, bloody hell! She felt she might as well just get her coat. ‘Ermm – I hadn’t really thought about it.’

  He was grinning broadly. ‘When you first joined the choir, the moment you walked in I thought you might be Indian too. Then when Phyll introduced you, I thought, “No, she’s a Muslim lady. She won’t look twice at a poor Hindu boy like me.” But I took a tiny bit of comfort from the fact you didn’t cover your head. I thought you might not be a terribly strict Muslim.’

  Leila didn’t know how to respond; she was still feeling awkward and foolish. ‘What an idiot I am! Gill sounds like a Scottish name. And you sound Scottish.’

  ‘You don’t mind that I’m Indian?’

  ‘Not at all.’ She found herself telling him about the Indian ladies who’d come to her grandmother’s china painting classes, and how fascinated she’d been by the sumptuous colours of their saris, and how she’d longed, in those days, to be able to wear one herself.

  ‘So what did you think my origins were?’ he asked.

  ‘I assumed you were mixed race, like me. The reason my name’s Ghazali is that my father was Egyptian. It was your Scottish accent, I suppose.’

  He shrugged. ‘I was born in Glasgow. Ghazali is a pretty name. I looked it up – I think it means “gazelle-like”?’

  ‘So I believe. Inappropriate, huh?’

  ‘I wouldn’t say that. You seem pretty graceful and long-legged to me.’

  And a ghazal is an Arabic love-poem…

  She felt herself start to blush again.

  ‘What did your mother look like, in terms of hair colour and so on?’ he asked suddenly.

  ‘Red hair.’ That wasn’t doing justice to the colour it was when Greer was young. It was deepest copper. Glorious. Leila had worshipped that beautiful mane when she was a child. By the time she was a teenager, and might have envied it, the colour had faded. ‘Blue-green eyes.’

  ‘Wow! You look much more like your father then?’

  ‘So I’m led to believe.’

  Harry looked puzzled.

  ‘I don’t remember him,’ she added. ‘In fact, as far as I know, I never set eyes on him, nor he on me.’

  He reached across the table and squeezed her hand gently. ‘I’m sorry. He died?’

  ‘He died all right. When I was a teenager, as far as I know.’

  ‘But you weren’t brought up here in Glasgow?’

  ‘I was so. Born and raised a Wegie.’

  ‘You certainly don’t have a local accent.’

  ‘Once I went to university, I realised that a provincial accent labelled you as dumb. In those days and that place, anyway. I adapted pretty damn quickly. My English friends think I sound Irish. My neighbours think I’m English.’

  ‘But surely they know you’re not?’

  ‘Dennistoun’s a place that’s seen a lot of changes of fortune over the years. People move on quickly. There’s no one left who remembers me from school days. No one I speak to anyway. I hardly know my neighbours.’

  ‘That’s sad.’

  ‘No it isn’t! I value my anonymity.’ Until I drop dead. Then I want to be missed. ‘Anyway – you haven’t exactly got a strong accent yourself. A Glasgow one, I mean.’ She could feel the flush creeping up her neck.

  But he was laughing. He glanced round to make sure no waiters were within earshot and produced a perfect impression of Peter Sellers impersonating an Indian. ‘Goodness gracious me!’ Then he lapsed into pure Frankie Boyle. ‘Glasgow Academy did not encourage this sort of thing either.’

  ‘When did your parents come to Glasgow?’

  ‘In 1948. They’d lived in Lahore all their lives till then.’

  ‘But they were Hindu?’

  ‘They couldn’t have stayed in Pakistan; they wouldn’t have been safe. Not just because of religion, but because my father had a good job. He’d worked for the British raj.’

  ‘Was he a doctor too?’

  ‘An engineer. When he moved here, all he could get was a job as a tram conductor. But he was a clever man. By the time I was in school, he’d worked his way up to be an inspector, and he went from there into transport management. They couldn’t have afforded to send me to a good school otherwise.’

  ‘Did you always know you wanted to study medicine?’

  ‘I suppose.’ He gave that cheeky child’s grin. ‘I’m a walking cliché. Son of pushy Indian parents. If it hadn’t been medicine, it would have been accountancy. And yes, I always knew I didn’t want to be an accountant.’

  ‘Or a lawyer? I thought that was another popular career?’

  He shuddered. ‘I’m very glad I didn’t go in for that side. Either prosecuting scum who get off or having to defend them. No thank you! I prefer to be the one who unearths cold, hard facts for the others to juggle with.’

  ‘But pathology – surely you didn’t grow up wanting to be a pathologist?’

  ‘I got interested in it during my training. The guy who came in to lecture to us about it in fourth year was inspirational. I try to do my bit nowadays to encourage students to follow this path. We’re not just useful for slicing up cadavers you know. Pathologists have been at the forefront of discovering a lot of detail about disease.’ His eyes clouded and his expression became wistful. ‘I admit there have been times when I’ve wondered if I wasted whatever talent I was born with. I’ve spent my career in a cosy position in a safe country. I’m a doctor. Perhaps I should have been willing to work in one of the dangerous areas of the world. Or as a trauma surgeon in an A&E department, saving people’s lives. That’s one thing a pathologist can’t do.’

  ‘Forensic pathology though – that’s tremendously specialised.’

  ‘It’s interesting. Quite varied. Though it’s nothing like you see in Inspector Morse. There’s hardly one murder a week in the whole of Strathclyde Region, not several a day in one town! Though I admit that even ten years ago it was much worse. Probably one a week in Glasgow alone then. Most of what I do is investigate unexplained deaths. It’s pretty sobering. So was the sheer length of the training. I wasn’t fully qualified till I was into my thirties.’

  ‘Doesn’t it make you terribly angry when some case you’ve worked on gets thrown out of court?’

  He looked surprised. ‘I don’t usually pay any attention to that. I do my job and forget about it. I’d go loopy otherwise. I can’t afford to get attached to the outcome, any more than I’m sure you could afford to get attached to an animal you were caring for that had to be put down?’

  Leila had no answer to that. It was, after all, why she’d got out of general practice.

  ‘Do you ever worry about being blamed for missing clues?’

  ‘You’ve been watching that serial, Silent Witness, haven’t you? I just make sure I don’t miss anything. I’m lucky that I work in Scotland. Since they put the forensic work out to private contractors in England, I think it’s much tougher there. More cost-watching.’

  ‘You work in that funny wee building beside Glasgow Green?’

  ‘Not at all! We have the most modern mortuary in the UK now, over at the Southern General.’

  ‘I thought they were knocking down the Southern General?’

  ‘They are. The block we’re in is the first part of the new hospital. It’s a world away from the old police mortuary. I don’t know how we ever coped there, with so little storage, and such antiquated facilities.’

  There was more than a minute of silence. It felt like a year.

  ‘I’m sorry, I’ve always been hopeless at small talk,’ Leila said.

  ‘Me too. That was another reason to go in for pathology. I don’t have to talk to the patients.’

  ‘What would you have specialised in if not that?’

  She was trying not to stare at him too hard. There was the tiniest of vertical n
icks through that elegant left eyebrow, roughly two-thirds of the way along. How had that happened?

  ‘Some sort of surgery, because I have a steady hand, and you can knock ’em out before you start.’ He grinned again. ‘Surgery rather than the medical side. I’d never have made a GP – haven’t the patience for it. Maybe orthopaedics. I like to be at the cutting edge.’ He touched her hand briefly, across the table. ‘Let’s talk about something more cheerful. How about you – you always wanted to be a vet?’

  ‘From when I left school and had to decide.’

  ‘And what a decision! You’re a smart cookie, to have got into Cambridge. Much cleverer than me. I ended up going to the local university and living at home.’

  Leila had known even before she went that she wouldn’t fit in. But it was one way to get away from home. Well away. She had also been offered a place at Liverpool. That wasn’t far enough. And of course, it appealed to Greer. She could swank about it. She wasn’t so keen when she heard what her daughter wanted to read. ‘You could be anything you want, with grades like you’ve got,’ she said.

  ‘Yes, and I want to be a vet. I’m very lucky to be accepted for the course. It’s incredibly competitive.’

  Greer harrumphed. ‘Why animals? You could be a doctor. Medicine’s a respectable career, specially for a woman.’

  ‘I’m doing medicine. Veterinary medicine.’

  Her mother’s disappointment appeared to hinge on the fact that the quality didn’t send its sons and daughters to Cambridge to study veterinary science.

  In the end, Leila had made very few friends there. Her fellow-students, with their high-pitched, nasal voices, terrified her. All except Catherine Fitzherbert, who was the daughter of an Anglo-Irish family that gravitated between a vaguely decaying estate in Norfolk, and an even more decaying one in Kildare. Catherine had a brother, but he displayed no interest in Leila, nor she in him.

  Despite the elocution lessons at Hazelbank, she’d been immediately conscious of her Glasgow accent. In an effort to disguise it, she ended up sounding as if English was her second language. It all contributed to the myth that spread through St Severus and beyond, that she was some sort of Arab princess. It went along with her figure (one particularly obnoxious twerp described her, in her hearing, as ‘statuesque’). And it was a useful cover for the fact she had no wish at all to go out drinking night after night. Not after a few initial encounters with pubs stuffed to the brim with braying public-school yahoos. She became solitary and supercilious and smug.

  But it also meant she kept her head down and studied hard; she was a model student. And she’d never regretted her decision. She loved Cambridge. She relished the fact you could stroll through living history in the ancient stone and brick quadrangles of the various colleges (St Severus was far from being the oldest-established, but its buildings were handsome, and its grounds lush and private), whether mellow under sunshine or sparkling with frost – and Leila remembered clearly how cold it was in winter, in the late ’60s and early ’70s.

  ‘I made my escape from home at the first opportunity,’ she told Harry.

  There was another long moment of silence.

  ‘I like it that you don’t smoke,’ he said suddenly.

  ‘I never have. I like it that you don’t either. I won’t even let a smoker into my house.’ Oh really? But that’s different. It’s all in my mind… They don’t even make Balkan Sobranie cigarettes now (she had checked; at home, she still had one of the white enamel tins they used to come in. She kept pins in it, and now and again she opened it to smell the ghost of the tobacco: dry and woody, a little like unsweetened dark chocolate).

  ‘Tell me why you decided not to work in a veterinary practice,’ said Harry.

  ‘I found it depressing. It was the owners more than the animals. I love animals. But you get the pet-owners who try to make humans of their pets and can’t let go. I lost count of the numbers of cats and dogs I had to euthanize in my last practice months – years, even – after it should have been done. I couldn’t deal with other people’s emotional investment in creatures that, nature being nature, could only possibly live for a fraction of their lifetimes. Then there was the guilt I felt because I couldn’t keep Fido or Tiddles alive for a week longer. On the other hand, you get the farmers who don’t call the vet out until it’s too late, because of the expense. Mind you, I always found them easier to deal with. They are, at least, pragmatic.’

  ‘I’d never thought about that aspect.’ He looked troubled for a moment. ‘I hope I have the sense not to get too emotionally-invested in my pets.’

  ‘Anyway, after they changed the law to allow non-vets to own practices, the big boys started buying in. It wasn’t the same any more. There are still independent practices, but most struggle. I never wanted to be part of that. Now all I have to do is a round of dairy farmers who have agreed to trial a vaccine, and write up the results for the pharma company. I’m my own boss, so I can make my own hours.’

  ‘I’m impressed! You’ve always been based in Glasgow?’

  ‘Not at all. In fact, I’ve only been back here for a couple of years – though I still live in the house I grew up in. I’ve worked in various parts of England, and I even lived and worked in Paris for a short while.’

  She was desperate to move the conversation away from herself. ‘Do you feel Indian?’

  He shrugged. ‘Not terribly. I mean, I speak a little Punjabi, but it’s very rusty. My parents were very careful only to speak English at home. They didn’t go to a temple, or anything like that. We celebrated Diwali, but that was about it. I don’t listen to Indian music, though I’ll admit to sticking with the cuisine. I’ve never even visited the country. Any distant relatives I have will all be in Pakistan.’ He practically spat the word. ‘To tell you the truth, I’m sometimes a bit taken aback when I see myself in a mirror. I’m Glaswegian to my toenails.’

  ‘But you’re a Hindu?’

  An attractive religion. One that taught you got as many bites at the cherry as you needed. Or was that Buddhism?

  ‘I’m not really anything. I suppose it’s one of the less exclusive religions. I can’t bear the cliques like Muslims and Jews. The ones who don’t want to “marry out”, and don’t actually want to mix. Hindus aren’t like that. I’m sorry, I’m being very indiscreet. I guess your father was a Muslim?’

  ‘I have no idea. I suppose so. If he was, I don’t imagine he was terribly orthodox. There are Coptic Christians in Egypt, but I’ve no reason to believe he was one of those.’

  ‘How about you? In terms of religion, I mean.’

  So much for the published rules of conversation on a first date. If that’s what it was. He’d be onto politics next… ‘I’m not a Muslim either. Or a Hindu.’

  He had the grace to smile.

  ‘I’m like you,’ Leila added. ‘Not attached to any one label. You’re an only child?’

  ‘I am. A bit of a lone wolf, by choice. I have a feeling you’re the same?’

  She nodded. ‘It’s very much by choice!’

  ‘This work of yours. You get to meet all those strapping young farmers?’

  ‘And their strapping young wives. Call me picky, but I’ve never fancied a man with a tang of dung about him.’

  Something she’d noticed about Harry, over the weeks: he always smelled pleasant. Some sort of cologne that was on the subtle side; more subtle than Eau Sauvage, but she noticed it.

  ‘Well, a gentleman farmer, then. Someone with a thousand acres or so and hired hands to do all the work.’

  She’d been there. Almost got the tee-shirt. ‘Thanks, but no thanks. Anyway, I watch the crime dramas on TV. All those glamorous young female detectives throwing themselves at men like you.’

  He guffawed. ‘Fiction is a lot stranger than truth.’

  They’d finished eating. Harry lingered over drinking tea. ‘I’d like to cook for you. I’m told I’m a good cook. Would you come to my place for dinner?’

  ‘I’d lik
e that.’

  He leaned forward eagerly. ‘Tomorrow? Or can’t you bear the thought of curry two nights in a row?’

  ‘I’m sorry, I can’t manage tomorrow.’ She had no plans in fact, but she was keen to stop her heart running away with her head.

  He looked a little crestfallen, then cheered up. ‘Next Friday then?’

  ‘Yes, I’m free that night.’

  He insisted on driving her home.

  ‘Do you remember that time you were haranguing me about walking by myself in Glasgow, and your phone rang?’ she said as he pulled up in front of her home.

  ‘I remember all our conversations. I wasn’t “haranguing” you. I was concerned for your safety.’

  ‘I thought it was your wife ringing to check up on you.’

  ‘It was work.’

  ‘I realise that now.’

  They shared another shy grin.

  ‘Shall I pick you up next week about seven?’

  ‘I’ll take a cab.’

  He looked relieved. ‘That will certainly make it easier to get your dinner ready in time.’

  ‘I need your address then.’

  Giggling, he wrote it down on a sheet from a small notebook he produced from his pocket. ‘It’s in Dowanhill. Any cab driver will know how to find it. I won’t be there next Thursday, by the way. Just in case you wondered. I’m in Edinburgh all day, and I know I won’t be back in time.’

  He didn’t attempt to kiss her, just pressed her hand as she made to get out of the car. When she went to the sitting room window, he hadn’t driven off. He waved. She waved back. Then she turned a cartwheel right across the floor (she drew the curtains first).

  She switched on the computer and checked when Diwali was that year. October twenty-third till the twenty-seventh. She wondered if she’d still know Harry Gill by October.

  Six

  Harry lived in a very swish street in Dowanhill. Red sandstone tenements, just like the Drives, but much larger individual flats, and closes tiled in superb art nouveau tiles all the way up. No street trees, but then neither had Dennistoun. Glasgow didn’t go in for them. In Cambridge, by contrast, the most unprepossessing side streets had a full complement of massive plane trees that heaved up the pavement and restricted parking spaces.