More Than You Can Say (12 page)

I couldn’t understand why Adeena was here with me. Why hadn’t she gone to her embassy and asked for help? Why had she come to me? And what on earth was I going to do about her? That was the real question. I was beginning to feel responsible for her, just because I had married her, even though we both knew that was a sham.

I looked at her as she walked along the gravel path and suddenly she smiled for the first time since I had met her. Since we had arrived at Hartlepool Hall she had become a different person: the haunted look had left her face. Now she
wore the expression of someone who found herself unexpectedly on holiday.

‘You are wondering what to do about me,’ she said, breaking the silence. ‘You were tricked into marrying me and now you want to find a way to get rid of me. Is that not so?’

She had not wanted to marry me, to say the least. When I met her for the first time it seemed as if she would rather cut her own throat. But now she appeared to have accepted, for better or for worse, that she was stuck with me for the moment.

For better or for worse: I wondered whether they used that phrase in Afghan marriage ceremonies. Because of my own habit of agreeing to almost anything anyone suggested to me, I had ended up getting married to a girl about whom I knew nothing and with whom I had even less in common. She was without doubt easy to look at, but she would never be easy to talk to: we had no friends in common, no memories that we shared. I had mostly seen her country from inside an armoured vehicle because the people who lived there sometimes shot at you or tried to blow you up.

I was beginning to realise what I had to do. Instead of running around the country with her, I had to get her back to London and then she could either go to her embassy or back to Aseeb. It wasn’t my problem. I turned to face her. If we were going to have a difficult conversation, the sooner the better.

‘Adeena,’ I said. ‘We need to talk.’

She came up to me and put her arm through mine. The physical contact was unexpected and pleasant.

‘This is a place like paradise. I have never seen such a
house, or such gardens. Thank you for bringing me here. It is so peaceful. There has never been any war here, has there?’

‘Not in a long time.’ I saw a stone bench set against a yew hedge a few yards along the path. ‘Let’s sit down for a moment.’

We sat side by side. The view across the gardens carried our gaze westwards, across to the encircling woods. Beyond was a hint of hills: the dales, running up to high moorland far away. My parents’ home was thirty or forty miles from here. The sun was lower in the sky now, and I had to shield my eyes from it. Adeena’s eyes were closed and she had tilted her face to catch the warmth of the sun. She looked tired and sad again. I felt sorry for her, but I knew what I had to say.

‘Coming here was a mistake. Another mistake.’

‘Why was it a mistake?’ she asked. ‘Did you mean to go somewhere else?’

‘No, I didn’t mean that. It seemed like a good idea. I was worried Aseeb would find you if we stayed at my flat. Maybe I was wrong. Maybe he wouldn’t have bothered … just cut his losses.’

After a moment Adeena replied: ‘I know Aseeb. He will kill us both if he finds us. He does not like people who do not do what he wants. He is full of anger. You do not know him.’

This seemed a bit melodramatic to me.

‘Well, maybe. But I shouldn’t have married you, you shouldn’t have followed me to London, and I shouldn’t have come here with you.’

There was another silence. Then Adeena asked: ‘Why
did
you marry me? Was it as a favour to Aseeb?’

I swallowed. I couldn’t speak for a moment, I felt so ashamed of what I had to say.

‘He offered me money,’ I told her. ‘It was thousands of
pounds. I don’t have a job at the moment and the money would have been very helpful to me.’

Adeena was silent. Then she said:

‘It is normal for money to be given when a husband takes a bride.’

‘It was an immigration problem, wasn’t it?’ I asked her. ‘You needed an English husband to get a residency permit. Do you know what Aseeb’s plans were for you after that?’

‘I cannot say,’ Adeena told me. She looked away and again I had the feeling she was contemplating something unpleasant. ‘But Aseeb would have kept me, and the things he would have made me do … would have been very bad. And if I did not do what he wanted he would find my brother in Kabul and harm him. Or he would send me back and give me up to the Taliban. That is why I had to escape. And when I escaped, to whom should I go? I know only one other person in the whole of this country.’

‘But even if I am your legal husband …’ I began. Adeena put a finger to her lips.

‘No more now. I understand what you will tell me. But I do not want to hear it. I am tired. I have not slept properly since I left Kabul. Take me back to the house and ask the servant to show me to my room.’

I awoke after sunset. I opened the curtains and wandered next door to have a bath. By the time I had finished wallowing – it was one of those deep, old-fashioned baths in which you could lie flat out without your toes touching the taps – it was nearly time to go downstairs for dinner. There was no sign of Adeena. I wondered whether I should knock on her door, but decided to leave her to wake up in her own time.

Downstairs I found that Horace had lit a fire in another
room lined with books from floor to ceiling. On the drinks tray behind the sofa was a selection of bottles and glasses including a jug of milk with clingfilm over the top. I helped myself to a whisky and water and sat by the fire. Then there was a rustle and Adeena appeared at the door. She looked like a different girl; someone who was used to coming downstairs dressed for dinner in a house like this. She was wearing a long black evening dress with silver edging. It had not been one of her purchases that morning.

‘Where did you get that dress?’ I asked, getting to my feet.

‘The kind servant put it on the bed for me. He said it belonged to – I cannot pronounce her name – the woman who lived here before your friend. His mother. Do you like it?’

The dress could have been made for her. She looked wonderful in it.

‘You look fantastic.’

Adeena was pleased with the phrase.

‘Fantastic! That is how I feel – like I am living in a fantasy.’

Later, over dinner, I tried to return to the afternoon’s conversation, but Adeena would not let me. She surprised me by using my name for the very first time.

‘Richard, I know what it is you wanted to say to me this afternoon. You are right. We should not have been married. You should not have taken the money, and I should have not let Aseeb threaten me.’

‘But you were scared. You have every excuse for what happened and I have none.’

‘Please,’ said Adeena. ‘I do not want to talk any more about it. Just for the next few hours, I would like to pretend. I would like to live in this fantasy house, in this fantasy dress, and pretend it is all mine. There is no Aseeb, no Taliban, and
we have always lived here. Let us agree that it is all real, and not just a dream. Will you not do so?’

She seemed so earnest. I smiled and said, ‘Of course.’

After dinner we went back to the library and Horace brought us coffee. We sat for an hour or so, not talking very much, but this time the silences were not awkward. When it was time to go upstairs, I followed Adeena to the landing outside her room, opened the door of her bedroom for her and said, ‘Goodnight. I’ll see you in the morning.’

She did not reply but stood there in her black evening dress, her blonde hair falling to her shoulders, giving me a look that could have meant anything. I thought it meant that I could go through that bedroom door with her if I wished. I knew that I would like to do that – I would very much like to do that – but also that getting any more involved with this girl would be absolutely crazy.

‘Goodnight,’ I said again.

‘Goodnight,’ she replied, then shut the door softly behind her.

The next morning, after breakfast, Adeena asked me whether she could phone her brother in Kabul, to make sure that he was safe. I referred the matter to Horace.

‘Of course, sir. There is a telephone in the library. Lord Hartlepool suggested you might like to ride while you were here. If that would suit, I can call the groom and arrange for some horses to be saddled up and brought around to the stable yard.’

The idea pleased Adeena. As she hurried off to make her telephone call, a thought struck me.

I said to Horace, ‘Is there another line I can use?’

‘Of course, sir. There’s one in the estate office, if you will come with me. All the phones have ten lines. Just press any button that isn’t lit.’

I found the phone and made my call. It was to my bank. It had just been an impulse, because I felt certain I knew what the answer would be. I was wrong. Someone had transferred the sum of ten thousand pounds into my account.

Why had Aseeb done that? I had felt sure that the moment I kicked Kevin, I had sacrificed my pay-off. In fact, I had also felt a little better about myself, knowing that I had not taken the money after all. But Aseeb had paid anyway. It wasn’t a good feeling. Whoever this man was, it would now look as if I was on his payroll. I returned to the breakfast room, trying
to think through the implications of this, but before I could reach any conclusions Adeena came back.

‘Did you speak to your brother?’

‘Yes, after a while I found him. He is well, thank God.’

‘You didn’t say where you were, I hope?’

‘I don’t
know
where I am, Richard. Only that it is in England, somewhere very nice.’

We went down to the stable yard and met the groom, who was leading out two horses. Adeena mounted her horse as if she had been doing it all her life. The groom told us where we could find a bridle path that would take us in a wide loop past the home farm and through the fields, then into the woods on the far side of the lake. He said we would be back to the house in time for lunch.

It was another soft autumn day. We jogged slowly along past stone farm buildings, then along through fields of barley stubble, and round into the woods. As we rode among the trees a golden light filtered through the branches and I felt a great sense of well-being. After living a semi-nocturnal life in London for so long, the unaccustomed fresh air and exercise were doing me good. But it was more than that. I was enjoying being with Adeena in a way that, a day ago, I would not have imagined possible. I was riding behind her and found myself admiring the straight-backed, elegant way she sat upon the horse.

I paid for this loss of concentration a moment later. As I nudged my horse to jump over a fallen tree trunk, it sensed my inattention and decided to jump it as if it were taking the last fence at the Grand National. I fell off, slowly, and landed upside down with a gentle bump in a huge cushion of fallen leaves. Gentle or not, the fall reminded me of the cracked rib
and bruises that Kevin had inflicted on me. My horse gave me a look, then wandered down the track. Adeena stopped, and dismounted, leading her horse back to me.

‘Are you all right?’ she asked. She was smiling down at me.

‘I’ll live.’

‘I thought all English gentlemen could ride? Is that not so?’

‘I was in the infantry, not the cavalry,’ I said, sitting up and rubbing my back. Adeena laughed. She bent down to give me a hand.

‘You look so funny, lying there on the ground.’

I was almost overwhelmed by an impulse to pull her down beside me. Then I remembered that was exactly what I had decided I was not going to do. I climbed to my feet and brushed the dead leaves from my clothes.

We found my horse cropping grass in a clearing. It did not object to being remounted and we rode back through the woods towards the house. As we approached I saw an old Land Rover parked by the front steps. I hoped it had nothing to do with us.

After riding the horses around to the stable yard and handing them over to the groom we walked back through the house into the hall. There was a stranger standing there, a man of about my own height, quite red-faced and with bright blue eyes. There was something familiar about him. As we entered, he came forward and said, ‘Good morning.’

‘Hello.’

‘You don’t remember me. I’m Eck Chetwode Talbot. We met at Freddy Meadowes’ in Oxfordshire a day or two ago.’

‘Oh yes, of course. I’m Richard Gaunt. And this is … Adeena.’

‘I am Mrs Gaunt,’ said Adeena in a formal voice.

‘Delighted to meet you,’ replied Eck. ‘I’m sorry to drop in on you like this. You know I tried telephoning you after we met, but there was no answer. Then when we got home last night I rang Horace to find out if Ed was expected home this autumn. I should explain I’m an old friend and a neighbour. Horace mentioned that you were staying. I thought I’d look in and say hello.’

‘Of course,’ I said. ‘Nice to meet you again.’

I wondered what he could possibly want. I should have recognised him but his appearance here at Hartlepool Hall was so unexpected.

‘I must go upstairs and change,’ said Adeena.

‘We’ve been out riding,’ I explained to Eck. ‘I fell off.’

As Adeena walked away and started up the stairs Eck asked, ‘Adeena … where is she from?’

‘Afghanistan.’

He seemed surprised.

‘Really – she looks quite European: a very striking girl. Congratulations. Have you been married long?’

‘Not long,’ I replied. I waited for him to get to the point and explain why he was here. Instead he asked another question.

‘Were you in the army in Afghanistan? Is that how you met?’

‘No,’ I said. ‘I mean, I was in the Middle East, but mostly in Iraq. I did one tour in Helmand.’

‘What did you do in Iraq?’ asked Eck.

‘I was with the Special Forces Support Group. We were providing support to Task Force Black.’

‘Oh yes,’ said Eck. He gave me a look, as if seeing me for the first time. ‘I’ve heard about that operation. They killed a lot of insurgents, didn’t they?’

‘We took a few people off the street. You were in the army yourself?’

‘I came out some years ago. I was in Afghanistan briefly – that’s why I was surprised when you told me your wife was Afghan. She doesn’t look much like the ones I met.’