Exposure (35 page)

'Don't be silly. Please. You're both exhausted. Come on, let's get you in there,' he said. As he spoke, he thought how much he liked the good-natured insistence in his voice, the gentle authority. 'Listen, you must eat as much as you like,' he said, and spread his arms wide. 'You must eat the
whole restaurant,
if you like.' He put his hand on Goran's shoulder and Mila smiled at him with deep gratitude. This unexpected opportunity for largesse had made Luke feel purposeful and elated. What an amazing thing it was to be able to help two good young people! How very much more pleasant it was than wondering who had their hands on Arianne, whose lower lip she was biting in her excitement.

 

He had not eaten in a self-service restaurant since he was at university and even then it had been on only a few occasions when, on one of their road trips, he and his friends were ravenous with 'the munchies' after smoking comical quantities of dope. Since then the food had improved immeasurably. He remembered gorging helplessly on solid fried eggs and baked beans dried out under the lamps, on brutally stunted frozen waffles, waxy chocices, flat Coke and bitter instant coffee with little packets of dried milk. But England did not seem to produce food like that any more. Jessica said it had given up its defiant stand against Continental sensuality.

Now there appeared to be a little something on offer from selected corners of the world: Irish stew,
coq au vin,
couscous, steak and kidney pie, chicken tikka, mushroom risotto, Swedish meatballs. The dishes were listed on a printed
faux
-blackboard in a novelty 'handwriting' font.

Another blackboard announced ice-creams, jam sponge and custard, New York cheesecake and tiramisu among other 'Sweet Treats!'. There were rows of plastic cases from which portions already served on to plates could be removed through transparent hatches. On the 'chilled drinks island' beside the till, there were little bottles of Chardonnay or lager, Coke, orange juice, apple juice, mineral water, guarana wake-up soda, diet lemon-lime crush.

Goran and Mila queued with their trays and Luke went straight to the coffee counter and ordered himself a cappuccino and a white-chocolate-chip muffin. When he looked round to check that the others were OK, he saw that Goran was swallowing frequently, his mouth watering hard at the sight of the hot food. Again, Luke felt his heart race with—there was no other word for it—this was a kind of
love.
It was love of his fellow man. He was overwhelmingly afraid that Goran and Mila would not take enough food, that they would be shy about the expense and come away hungry.

They
must
eat, he thought. Did they realize how absurdly rich he was in comparison to them? He tapped his fingers on the aluminium counter until his coffee arrived, wondering how he could persuade them to take enough. A soup-bowl-sized cappuccino was set in front of him. 'Chocolate, cinnamon, vanilla or nutmeg?' the boy asked him, pointing at a rack of shakers.

'It's fine like that,' Luke said. He picked up the tray and rushed over to the
'Something for dessert? (Go on, treat yourself!)'
section. He chose a plate of cheeses, some French bread and a couple of slices of fruit cake, which seemed to have an international quality to it, unlike the sponge pudding, which, he thought, might well offend the Serbian palate. He had never liked sponge pudding himself. As an afterthought, he picked up two apples, a packet of dry-roasted peanuts and a king-size Go-Go bar.

Goran moved away from the hot-food queue while Mila was served. He stood facing out into the room. Luke got into his eye-line and beamed, clownishly, lifting his tray, but when Goran gazed back at him it was with a remoteness that was like a blast of cold wind. It was as if he had forgotten what Luke looked like; as if the shape of yet another pink-faced, spoilt English boy standing near the till had failed to register in his consciousness.

Tentatively Luke tried the smile again and, holding the tray with his left arm, he raised his hand a little and waved. Goran shook his head as if he had been dreaming, then grinned with recognition. But Luke knew he had fallen out of significance for a moment. He felt slightly deflated as he pointed at the till. Goran and Mila brought over their trays and placed them beside his on the conveyor-belt.

'It's ... um—it's all together,' Luke told the cashier in a half-whisper, making a little circling gesture with his down-pointed finger. Goran was obviously uncomfortable and Luke wished he would just go and sit down with Mila. He hadn't meant to embarrass anyone. It must be the right thing to do, mustn't it, to buy lunch for people in need?

The cashier made a great show of counting up all the food. 'Right. Where are we? So, that's two main items, no,
three
main items ... oh, no,
two
— I
was
right, because that's a snack item, isn't it? I never know with the sandwiches.
Right.
Then
three
dessert items...' She stood on tiptoe and leant over the till to count it all up. It came to thirty pounds. Goran shifted uneasily. He put his hand on Luke's arm and said, 'Luke, you are sure you—'

'Please, Goran,' he said quickly. 'Forget it. It's
nothing.
God, I spend this much on—' He had been going to say that he spent that much on a jumbo-plate of sushi for lunch sometimes—and usually left half. But how could he admit that? He said, 'Seriously, just forget it. Could you take the trays over and I'll follow when I've—when I've done this?'

'Yes. Thank you, Luke. You must know we will ... In some way we will pay you back.'

'Of
course
you will, Goran. You think I won't make you? You can take me out for dinner in London,' he said. 'I'm
crazy
about caviar and champagne.'

Goran laughed. 'Thank you, Luke. You are a kind man.'

Luke noticed with horror that Goran had tears in his eyes. He felt crushed by the force of this gratitude: he knew it came out of a scale of pain that he did not have the imagination to understand. 'Well, wait until you taste your food. You and Mila may never forgive me. That might be couscous but it was still made by an English cook.'

Goran laughed again. 'Ah, no. We are safe.' He nodded in the direction of the women serving the food. 'One cook says she is from Jamaica and the other is from Taiwan.'

'Oh. Well,
thank God for that
,' Luke said. He smiled, but he felt lonely and uncertain. He was suddenly afraid that he did not know how to behave and that he wasn't sure what was rude and what was polite any more.

 

When they got into the car, Mila lay down in the back and Goran sat in the front with Luke so that he could smoke a cigarette with him. Mila stretched out and fell asleep straight away.

They headed out on to the motorway again. The sky was deep blue. It was the blue Luke thought of as 'church blue' because it was always in paintings of Jesus or angels or the Virgin Mary. He had never forgotten the oils and frescos he had seen at sixteen on a school trip to Florence—yet he had never been into a gallery since. It was odd. He particularly remembered the Fra Angelicos in the litde monks' cells and how the men in the pictures had often fallen asleep while the women were still quietly praying. It was a little joke still audible through the centuries—and it had touched him. Why had he never looked at paintings again?

It was as if all that sport, all those stupid parties with Ludo, had stolen an important aspect of life. Why had he let this happen? Just then, he wanted to go back and see those frescos again and, forgetting about Goran and Mila and even Arianne for a second, he wondered if that was exactly what he needed to do. Yes, to see frescos, he thought, to see a bit of church blue and smile again at that tender old joke. He wondered where his camera was.

'We are lucky to get here alive. You know?' Goran said. He blew the smoke in a sharp jet out of the side of his mouth. 'We could be killed many times.'

Luke let go of his thoughts about frescos as if they had been so many balloons. He stared straight ahead.

'Our journey was very bad. We go Serbia, to Croatia, to Slovenia. We take always these buses. You know? Terrible buses with so many people it is hard to breathe.' He made litde legs out of his forefingers and walked them across the dashboard. 'Then we walk Slovenia all way to Austria—through Alps mountains.'

Luke heard the inappropriate sound of skis. He bit his Hp, pushed back his hair.

'It was bad time in these mountains. We sleep outside three nights—in the forests. Black trees and black sky and wind Mila say is sound always like somebody crying. It was very cold. Bad cold in your body, in blood. You know?'

'Yes,' Luke said quickly.

'Then we come to Austria and we have a name of truck company. The driver you can pay them and they will take you in England. They drive Austria to France and then on this boat to Dover. It was pizza truck. You know? Twenty people. No light,' he said. He pinched the bridge of his nose. 'I was very scared. Mila she just hold me like this always.' He clenched both fists to show the force of Mila's grip.

Luke's hands imitated it on the wheel.'
Twenty
people?' he said.

'Yes. AH kind of people—dark, light, eyes like this and like this.' He stretched his eyelids to show the different races. 'Where are they from? From nowhere. Nobody has passport. Nobody has identity.' Goran checked Luke's face to see how much it was safe to say. 'We throw our passports away in mountains. We burn them.'

'But why? Why did you do that?'

'Because you come from nowhere then where they will send you back?'

Luke nodded.

'We leave Kosovo quickly. We sell everything—TV, stereo, bed, all clothes. Albanian woman wears Mila's necklace.' He laughed, then his face became serious. 'But we must sell everything for money for our journey. You know? We just say:
Now. This is life. Go!

'My God.'

'No. God was not there. Not in Kosovo, not in mountains, not in this pizza truck.'

Luke allowed a Porsche to overtake him and watched it accelerate out of sight. 'How long were you in the truck?' he said.

'I am not sure. There is no light so we cannot see if a day has passed. I think maybe it is two days, maybe three. We had no food. We try to eat these pizzas, but it is not cooked and it makes you sick. We drink the ice in the freezers. It is very hot with twenty people. This is why Mila is ill. In Kosovo she is a beautiful strong girl. I also am much stronger. I lift weights. Ninety kilograms. You do this?' Goran smiled and squeezed Luke's biceps.

'Sometimes,' Luke replied, not sure what he was saying. 'I mean, I haven't for a few weeks.'

'Oh, I have women's arm!' Goran said.
'Look.
But I become strong again soon. And Mila also. I think we
cannot
die, Luke. What is left? MiloŜović, NATO air strike, UN in our city, Pristina. And then this bad, bad journey.' He threw his cigarette butt out of the window.

'It sounds ... Shit, I'm just so sorry,' Luke said.

'Why you are sorry? It is your fault?'

'No, I just ... It's just a way of saying it's not fair, that's all—when I'm so lucky.'

'I am lucky, too. I have Mila.' Goran swivelled round in his seat and put out his hand to stroke her leg. She seemed unconscious. 'We are together since fourteen and eighteen,' he said. 'We will get married. She is Serbian Orthodox Church and she cares about this, you know? Me, I don't care, but for Mila I will do anything. Her family think I am a bad man for her because I do not go to church, because my parents do not have family feast in the old way. Also it is because I am not very rich man like this
amazing
Vladimir, the cousin husband. You are married, Luke? You have girlfriend?'

'No.'

'No?' Goran tilted his head and frowned. 'Why not? English men are all as handsome as you? Like Hollywood film star?'

Luke laughed. 'Oh, most of them are far more handsome. I'm a terrible example. No, my girlfriend left me, actually,' he said, rather enjoying the bracing honesty. 'It all happened a few weeks ago.' He smiled lightly at Goran, hoping both to be understood and misunderstood at the same time.

Goran's face contracted in sympathy. 'You love her?' he said simply.

'Yes. Yes, I do.'

Goran was fascinated by the childish determination on the other man's face. He thought Luke was like a litde boy smacked by a bully, struggling not to cry. It was strangely primitive—disarmingly so. He said, 'Oh, Luke, it is very bad. I am sorry.'

Luke turned, smiling at him.

'Why are you sorry, Goran? Is it your fault?'

Goran brushed invisible dirt off his jeans and looked out at the road, 'No,' he said, 'nobody's fault.'

 

It was still broad daylight when they arrived and Luke knew there was no question of getting spare pillows or sheets from the house until later, when his mother had gone to meet Suzannah as she had said she was going to do. The best he could do now was to take Goran and Mila down the side passage, rather than across the lawn, and let them into the annexe. He would come back later. He would have to wait until his mother went out before he could rummage in the linen cupboard. Somehow she knew what went on in the house—she always had: she
sensed
people in rooms and had a habit of coming to see if she was right, no matter what time it was. When he was about fifteen she had once sensed him and a girl called Hattie Matthews (who, rather fascinatingly, never wore knickers) in the double bed in the first-floor spare room. She said she had 'actually felt it' when the pipe burst in the cellar. And, of course, she had sensed Sophie at four in the morning, lying unconscious on the kitchen floor, having swallowed every last aspirin in the house.

Luke parked the car and led Goran and Mila up the side passage, then told them to wait behind the hedge while he went into the house and found out where his mother was.

Rosalind was in the sitting room, at the little desk, writing a letter. She glanced up anxiously as he came in. He explained that Alistair was staying in Dover for the night and she nodded wearily, her eyes glazed.