Damascus (6 page)

‘You want me to leave, don't you?'

‘No,' Spencer said, ‘no I don't.'

‘You do.'

‘I do not. I just have to go out. But I definitely want you to be here when I get back.'

Forcefully, using the bottom of his fist, Spencer started to erase the drawing he'd made on the tile. Hazel walked round the table, put her hands on his shoulders and kissed him on the ear.

‘What was that for?'

‘I've no idea,' Hazel said. 'It must be your birthday.'

11/1/93 M
ONDAY
08:24

Just when you thought you were actually getting somewhere. Bam, life could change, just like that. Spencer had to go and get a woman involved.

William faced up squarely to the front door. He straightened his braces and checked his flies. He took a deep breath. All he had to do was open the door and step outside. He would come to no harm. The last time and the time before that the traffic had been unusually frenetic, or in the street an unscrupulous contractor had been using paint with a high solvent-content, poisoning William's nerves, increasing his heartbeat, deflating his resolve. High-solvent paints were everywhere. It was often in the paper.

He should pull himself together. Even though it was the last day of Britain he was still British, and people not unlike him had until very recently controlled a quarter of the earth. There was therefore no need to be frightened, and he could manage perfectly well without Spencer.

He failed to reach out for the latch and corrected himself: it was only good sense to be frightened. He checked his braces and his flies. He tried to flatten his hair. His knowledge of outside life came almost exclusively from the daily paper, and hidden away on the inside pages of
The Times
were most of the modern possibilities of a day, including stabbiegs, shootings, stranglings, muggings, stonings, and a single instance of murder by a poisoned pellet fired from a customised umbrella. He could be shot in the face at point-blank range, abducted, tortured, left for dead on forgotten wasteground where he wouldn't be discovered for more than a month. It never seemed to get any better. As of today, for example, someone out there had nearly two thousand pounds of stolen Czech Semtex, of which any one pound could turn up under a nearby car wrapped in an Irish or Algerian or Libyan flag. William would die instantly, or on the way to hospital, or in surgery, and all this was as true for the new Europe as it was for the old Britain. There were mad killer nutcases everywhere, and when not hiding behind black hoods they looked just like everyone else. It was only natural, therefore, faced with the front door and these possibilities for outside life, that William should hesitate to reach for the latch.

He noticed the junk mail on the mat. Sighing, he supposed he should pick it all up, and by pushing aside two copies of the Yellow Pages he found space for it on the telephone table. He discovered, now that he was suddenly inclined to count them, that there were sixteen items, including an introductory offer for American Express Membership Miles Points, a subscription discount for
Antique Collector
magazine, a 2 for 1 coupon from Pizza Express, and a prize draw from the Leukaemia Research Fund.
Don't Delay!
this last envelope was franked,
It Could Be Your Lucky Day!

Of course it could, and William was about to open the door and step outside and come to no harm when Spencer nearly gave him a heart attack. Or at least, Spencer was behind him and William didn't realise and then Spencer said something. He said:

‘Already finished the paper?'

‘God you gave me a shock,' William said, recovering himself.

‘Going out on your own?'

‘Maybe.'

‘I thought you wanted an escort?'

‘And maybe not.'

William stared hard at the empty Celtic mug in Spencer's hand, with its obvious rim-prints of lipstick like an extra design.

'Things change,' William said.

Spencer shook his head and turned towards the kitchen. William followed him. ‘How
could
you?'

‘We always knew this might happen.'

‘But not like this. It should have been with Jessica.'

‘I don't see what difference it makes.'

'If it's not Jessica you might be wrong. What colour hair does she have?'

‘Who?'

'This other one.'

‘Her name is Hazel.'

‘What's she doing now?'

‘She's busy.'

‘What's she doing?'

‘She's reading. I gave her one of my library books.'

Spencer stacked Hazel's mug in the sink with the rest of the washing-up, then looked William in the eye as he wiped his hands on a cloth. Definitely not at ease with himself, William judged, and not enough sleep either.

‘What does she do as a job? I bet Jessica has a better job.'

‘She's a teacher,' Spencer said.

‘It's Monday. She'll be late for school.'

On his way out to the hall, controlling himself and his voice, Spencer patiently explained that she was a distance-learning teacher. This meant that she taught adults by correspondence and telephone, and surprisingly, because it was the first time he'd ever thought about distance-learning, William discovered that he didn't like the idea of it. At the same time he knew he ought to give Spencer a chance, because maybe this girl was the one. It was unlikely, because it was always unlikely, but it was also always possible. There was even the cautionary example of William at the same age, but history didn't have to repeat itself. Expecting it to do so was a sure sign of growing old.

Spencer unlooped his raincoat from a crucifix-shaped pole they used as a coat-stand. He shrugged himself inside it and picked up the plastic bag full of books which he'd left by the door.

‘I have to take my library books back.'

'I thought you said she was reading one.'

‘I'll take it back tomorrow. One day for one book won't make any difference.'

Just before Spencer opened the door, William put a restraining hand on his arm.

‘But she's not Jessica, is she?' he said. ‘That's my point.'

‘I don't know,' Spencer said, reaching for the latch. ‘She might be.'

It is the first of November 1993 and somewhere in Britain, in Carrick or Kidderminster or Redditch or Holt Heath, in Howe of Fife or Egham or Marlborough or Herne Bay, Hazel's mother is taking charge. As often as she can, she drives back from the hospital in her husband's Ford Mondeo or Peugeot 405 or Vauxhall Cavalier. Mr Burns is away on a sales trip to New York or Delhi or Moscow, but he telephones at least once every hour, either to the hospital or the house, where Hazel is thirteen years old and all alone. She knows that at her age she shouldn't mind so much, but today everything is different.

She stays mostly in the front room, where she sits on the beige sofa or on one of the matching chairs. She turns the television on or off. She plays the piano or she doesn't. She reads a paragraph in the newspaper or starts one of Olive's books. She makes chess moves on the board where the king of the black pieces is Napoleon or King Richard or Mao Tse-tung. She tries a crossword book or stacks dominoes or loiters by the window, waiting for the arrival in the drive of Mum in Dad's car.

Everything around her, which only yesterday seemed so familiar, is both all she can be sure of and instantly forgettable. A print of Vermeer's
Guitar Player
over the fireplace, that much she remembers, or it might be a Lowry or a Van Gogh. A shelf displaying card invitations to the New Paradigm Conference or
The Times
Dillons Church Debate or the Getty exhibition at the Royal Academy. The bookcase neatly filled with the complete works of Orwell or Kipling, Kenneth Grahame or Edward Lear,
Rebecca
or
Pride and Prejudice
or
Little Women
or
Kasparov vs Short 1993
, The glass corner cabinet with its collection of china animals: at last, something which never changes.

Hazel's Mum likes to collect them in pairs. She already has dogs, cats, rabbits, seagulls, goldfish and horses, and every time they move house Dad buys Mum some new ones. The latest addition is a pair of badgers, a good sign because they move house whenever Dad gets a better job, to somewhere slightly larger, quieter, and a little further from the town centre. This year Hazel's Dad has been voted Salesperson of the Year ‘93, and they've moved house again.

Hazel sees all these objects and herself and her family moving from house to house as if none of it has anything to do with her. For the first time she stands separate from her own life and watches it from the outside, actively trying to memorise this room, this moment, her mother's china animals, because who knows what else might be different before tomorrow?

Exactly now, the Ford Mondeo or the Peugeot 405 or the Vauxhall Cavalier pulls into the drive. Hazel picks up
The Times Book of Jumbo Crosswords
, suddenly embarrassed to be thinking thoughts which seem out of place, under the circumstances. Or it might have been
The Times Jumbo Concise Crosswords
or just
The Times Crosswords
or even the
Jubilee Puzzles
, but whatever it is, Hazel puts it down again as soon as her mother opens the door. She is carrying a plastic bag bulging with provisions from Tesco's or Sainsbury's or Waitrose or Safeway, and Hazel follows her through to the kitchen, asking if there's anything she can do to help.

Together, mother and daughter unpack and stack in cupboards muesli, soya beans, cod-liver oil, apples, oranges, milk, prunes, walnut-halves, lavender tea, instant chicken soup.

‘She's still not well,' Mum says. 'I bought her a few things, in case she wakes up.'

She holds open the bag and Hazel looks inside. There is a box of Jaffa cakes, a packet of Bourbon biscuits, a bar of Cadbury's chocolate, a Mars bar.

‘She likes Jaffa cakes,' Hazel says.

Mum says: ‘We all have to be brave.'

Olive has been admitted to the Queen's Medical Centre, to the Royal Princess Margaret General Masonic St Mary's Hospital. She is still unconscious, and X-rays have revealed extensive head and back injuries. It is possible, it is a possibility, that she may not wake up at all, Mum says. The bag swings between Hazel and her Mum as they both remember, on the way to the swimming pool, sudden traffic cones and a hole in the road. The car spinning round and round and then hits something, a wall or the bottom of a bridge or something. In the front of the car, Hazel and her mother unhurt, then outside the car, watching firemen take twenty minutes to cut Olive from the wreckage of the back seat. Mrs Burns, now in her own kitchen (back at the wrecked car) now in her own kitchen, takes Hazel in her arms and rocks her softly, side to side, forwards and backwards, stroking her hair.

Yesterday, Hazel would have been too old for this. Today, her age and her expectations seem irrelevant. All that matters now is now, and she moves with her mother, side to side, forwards and backwards. Her mother's cheek turns and presses against the top of her head.

‘It's alright,' Mum says. ‘Everything's going to be just fine.'

Hazel remembers this morning, waking up excited: Monday, swimming after school. She pinches and punches Olive for the first day of the month, not as hard as she could have, but still pretty hard, meaning Olive you are as embarrassing as ever with your non-swimmer's glasses and your books and being only eleven all the time. Probably it's all Hazel's fault for pinching and punching harder than allowed because it's only supposed to be a game. And now Olive may be dying while everything else is alive and carries on, her mother's hand on her hair, her own hair against her skin, her skin her skull her bones.

‘You have beautiful hair,' Mum says. ‘You
both
have beautiful hair.'

She slowly pulls herself away and says she has to go now, back to the hospital, and Hazel finds she's old enough to understand that her mother is being brilliant. She has made herself useful at the hospital, contacted her husband, garaged the smashed car, made Hazel feel involved. At last, something terrible has happened and Mrs Burns can cope with life like this because knowing she has always been right makes her strong. Her fears have been realised, so she is no longer frightened, and she acts without panic because a child in the hospital comes as no surprise to her.

She carries the nearly empty carrier-bag along the corridor and opens the front door. She shivers as if it's cold, looks back at Hazel and smiles, says ‘at least it's not raining,' and then closes the door behind her.

Almost immediately the phone rings and it's Dad sounding far away, saying everything twice via the echo of the satellite. He is checking all the airlines trying to get a flight, but when Hazel tells him that Olive is still unconscious (in her most controlled voice, imitating her mother) he runs out of things to say. Hazel suddenly knows why, without knowing how she knows: it's because he can't find a positive angle which applies to this, he doesn't know how to sell it to her. Instead he starts calling Olive Olivia.