Only We Know (17 page)

Lauren asked me about my family, listened to
my stories, probed a little but never pushed it. She, too, was sketchy with detail about
hers – there was pain and disappointment, I could tell: her mother had been married
before, but it hadn’t worked out, so
she’d remarried. Her father worked in a community college teaching history and she
had a brother and a sister.

I sit up and let the alcohol do its work.
Lauren has taken Julia’s invitation into the bedroom, but something of its
aftertaste lingers. I think of the events that lie ahead of me and feel the hours that
are to come already dragging me down. The peculiarity persists. It’s pointless to
think I can dispel it now, not until all of this is done. I drag myself from the couch,
enter the darkness of the bedroom, lie flat on the bed, and listen to the gentle rhythms
of my wife’s breathing.

I lapse into a half-waking, half-sleeping
state, and I’m there again, at the coroner’s. She, the coroner, walks ahead
of me. ‘Follow me,’ she has said. And I do. My legs are weak as we enter the
room; a heaviness fills my chest. The light is ghostly. There is a single table, a body
covered with a sheet, which the coroner carefully draws back. I look at it, trace the
lifeless limbs, the torso, and when I come to the face, I ask: ‘The blood on his
eyelids and lips?’

From the surrounding shadows, she answers:
‘Hanging compresses the veins, but arterial blood flow continues. It causes small
bleeding sites on the lips, inside the mouth and on the eyelids. The face and neck
congest with blood and become dark red.’

I look back at the body. But what I see now
startles me, because it is not Luke’s face or Luke’s body on the table in
the morgue, but my face, my body.

I wake with a jolt. I’m covered with
sweat. The room arranges itself around me and my heartbeat slows. I lie
down again to await sleep, but it stays with me, the image:
my own pallid face, lidded and blank.

In the morning I take a shower, then stand
in the kitchen drinking the hot coffee that Lauren has brewed. It’s black and
tarry with a bitter tang, and I’m grateful for its strength. Lauren sits on the
couch, legs curled under her, a mug of coffee in one hand as she sifts through the
post.

‘I think I’ll go out,’ I
tell her, and she looks up. I say nothing of the dream.

‘But the service?’

‘It’s not till four.’

‘Right – but I told Julia we’d
be there early to go through things with her. And we still have to pack for Mara
…’ She trails off, watching me as I reach up to the top of the press and take down
my helmet. ‘Where’ll you go?’

‘Downtown. Don’t worry,’ I
tell her, as I lean in to kiss her goodbye. ‘I’ll be back in
time.’

I keep the bike in a lock-up behind the bar
below us. It’s not the safest place in the world but it’s close to home, and
when I unlock the door, it’s a relief to see the old KTM still there on its stand,
bodywork gleaming as the sun breaks through the gloom. I’d spent a good deal of
time getting it cleaned up before the wedding because it was meant to be our honeymoon
transport, and as I put my lid on and wheel the bike outside, a strange feeling comes
over me, a premonition, perhaps, that Lauren and I weren’t meant to go to
Madagascar.

I throw my leg over the bike, give myself a
little shake, gun the engine and take off out of there, dust kicked up in my wake. My
plan was to head out to Lavington and swing
by the old homestead, but now that I’m on my way,
something in me rears up against that idea. Instead, I turn the bike around and head
south towards Kibera.

It’s been a while since I’ve
been out this way, but nothing much has changed. Still the same depressing poverty, the
same tide of filth and waste. The sprawling mass of human tragedy is so vast, it splits
into villages, and it is here, in the village of Kianda, that I have come to find
Murphy.

For all the money that has come pouring into
the coffers of ALIVE since my mother started it ten years ago, little seems to have been
spent on the premises. The structure is sound, a few steps above the makeshift
corrugated sheds that line the streets here, but it’s not much to look at. A
block-built hut with a tin roof and a wooden door, iron bars over the windows. I pull
the bike up outside and chain it to the post, casting an eye around the street for any
possible trouble. Three young boys are sitting on the steps and jump up when they see
me. I look down at them, their skinny limbs and infectious grins. One is wearing an
ancient sweatshirt, the colours faded, although I can just about make out
‘E.T.’ on the chest.

‘Here,’ I say, giving them some
change. ‘Keep an eye on the bike, yeah?’

This sends them into whoops of ecstasy. I
leave them, jumping and pulling at each other, and step in through the open door, my
eyes adapting to the gloom of the room. Murphy is on the phone, seated behind his desk.
He raises a hand to me, signals that he’ll be with me in a minute. The walls of
his office are plastered with posters warning about AIDS, clean water, immunizations,
education, and a massive corkboard swarms with dozens of
local community advertisements printed in a neat hand on
various coloured postcards. A large map of Nairobi is tacked up on one wall, marked with
coloured pins and flags, lines drawn in blue and red ink.

I take a seat at the second desk, and wait,
swinging in my chair, my eyes roaming the room. Murphy is on his feet, anxious to finish
his call. Finally he tells whoever is at the other end of the line, ‘Look, I have
to go,’ and hangs up.

‘Trouble?’ I ask.

‘No trouble, Nick,’ he says,
forcing a smile. ‘You been up to the Safari Club yet?’

‘Not yet.’

‘Well, there’s time
enough,’ he says, glancing at his watch.

I feel a twinge of guilt. I suppose I should
have called to check on Julia, but a sense of estrangement has already crept between us.
After the service, when I went to hug her and felt the thinness of her body in my
embrace, a whole clatter of thoughts went through my head – that this was the body my
brother had loved and worshipped and ultimately abandoned, that this woman and I were
linked by name, and yet, without Luke, the bond seemed tenuous. I found myself wondering
whether, after all this was over, Julia and I would ever speak to each other again.

‘I do regret not making it to
Ireland,’ he says, with a look that is both intent and troubled. ‘You know I
would have … It’s just that things here have been so busy and I didn’t feel
up to the journey.’

‘It’s all right, Jim, you
don’t need to explain. Luke would have been happier at the thought of you
remaining here to steer the ship.’

‘Yes, well …’ He nods awkwardly.
‘I wish I could have
been there for
him. He meant the world to me. You both do. When you walked in that door just a few
minutes ago, and I saw you, you reminded me so much of Sally. It was just like thirty
years ago when she stepped over the threshold announcing her willingness to
help.’

He smiles at me then, a grin tinged with
nostalgia and the light that comes to his eye whenever he speaks of my mum and dad.
‘What was it she said to me?’ he says, almost to himself. ‘Oh, yes –
“I’m here to help.” Like I should have been expecting her. You’d
swear she was answering a job advert instead of just showing up here on a whim –
ha!’ He gives his sudden barking laugh. ‘But that was Sally all over.
Christ, but you’re so like her, Nicholas.’

‘Well,’ I say, leaning against
the opposite desk and raising my palms, ‘I, too, am here to help.’

‘You, Nicholas? You’re not
serious?’

‘Why wouldn’t I be?’ I
ask, with a grin to mask the surprise of hurt. ‘There’s no one else to do
it.’

‘It’s very good of you to offer,
Nick – it’s the honourable thing to do. But it’s a lot to take on, and you
have your own life to lead – you and Lauren. Nobody expects you to yoke yourself to this
place.’

I examine the laminate surface of the desk,
my fingers going instinctively to the edge where it is starting to peel away. ‘I
feel I should. Luke wrote me a letter some time ago, asking me …’

‘Of course, of course,’ he says
swiftly. ‘If that’s what you wish to do, then please, don’t let me
stop you. I’m only looking out for you.’

There is a sharpness behind his tone despite
the kindness of the words. Exhaustion is etched into the creases of
his face. Murphy is an old man now. It isn’t fair to
expect him to carry this thing alone.

‘So, where do we begin?’ I
ask.

He takes a deep breath, collects himself and
moves purposefully to the filing cabinet.

Onto my desk he piles several folders in
different colours, each marked with text in Magic Marker. He leaves me with them and,
for about an hour, I pore over the pages, trying to make sense of the columns of
figures, the printed information, the projections and memos. The air in here is fetid
and clotted with heat. The only air-cooling device is the open door.

Eventually I get up and stand with my hands
in my pockets, staring out at the narrow streets shabby with rubbish and waste, effluent
running along a channel at my feet. Two of the boys are sitting on the motorbike, one
wearing my lid – outrageously oversized above his skinny shoulders, as if the weight of
it alone might cause him to lose his balance and topple into the dirt. It’s ten
years since my mother began her campaign out here – Mum and Murphy battling the evils of
poverty together – but with the vast sprawling slum of Kibera before us, I can’t
help but think that it hasn’t made a bit of difference. With Murphy getting on in
years, who knows how much longer he can continue, and then what?

‘I don’t know, Murphy,’ I
say. ‘I don’t know what to do. As my father used to say, I’m all at
sea.’

‘Come on, Nicholas,’ he says
kindly, his hand heavy on my shoulder. ‘Let’s leave these decisions for
another day, when we’ve less weighty things on our minds.’

I nod, step out into the midday sun and turn
back to him. ‘Best get ready, I suppose.’

‘Good
man.’

‘You’re travelling down to Mara
tomorrow?’

‘Indeed.’

‘Karl is giving me and Lauren a lift,
but I’m sure there’d be room for you.’

‘No, no. Don’t worry. An old
friend is driving me there.’

‘All right,’ I say, my voice
betraying my uncertainty.

He picks up on it straight away. ‘Is
everything okay?’ he asks, with concern. ‘Are you worried about
tomorrow?’

‘I don’t know,’ I say
quietly. ‘It’s just strange, I suppose. It hasn’t really sunk
in.’

I let the words hang, and Murphy nods,
understanding, then puts his hand to my back solicitously. ‘Don’t worry,
Nick. It’ll all be fine.’

I go down the steps, wrestle my helmet from
the youngsters, and reward them with a handful of sweets. Their laughter carries back to
us as they run off down an alleyway. I turn back to Murphy. ‘Actually,’ I
begin, ‘when I think of Luke – of laying him to rest – I feel more than strange. I
feel … scared.’

‘Scared?’ His face is poised and
still, a shadow passing over it. ‘But what are you scared of?’

‘Me?’ I whisper.
‘I’m scared of myself.’

He stands at the doorway and watches as I
steer carefully along the street. I can see him in my side-mirror, his broad shoulders
and solemn face, his eyes squinting in the sun, until I turn a corner and he is
gone.

We get to the Safari Club an hour before
the service is due to start, and join the others in Julia’s suite. To
anyone’s eyes, we are an odd gathering, Julia, her mother and sister,
tailored in pinched black suits, heels that
could puncture tyre. Lauren has persuaded me to wear my wedding suit, but now I wish I
hadn’t – it seems disrespectful, somehow, not to mention the confusion it creates,
the two events merging in my mind. Lauren stands to one side, unusually sober and
understated in a dark blue dress and sandals. We haven’t spoken much today – she
didn’t ask where I’d been all morning, and I never said.

Julia breaks free from the cluster of her
family and I catch her mother throwing me a glance loaded with suspicion. It makes me
wonder what Julia might have said about me. Or is it less about me and more about my
brother? After all, he was the one who abandoned her.

‘You’ve seen the room?’
Julia asks me, taking me by the elbow and leading me to the window.

‘Yes,’ I say.

‘Do you think it’ll be all
right?’ she asks nervously.

I see all the tension, the toll these last
weeks have taken on her, and can’t help but feel sorry for her. So I don’t
tell her that I think the room is a joke, with its ostentatious displays of flowers, its
sterile furnishings and manufactured reverence, like some kind of fake chapel set up a
stone’s throw from the cocktail lounge. Instead, I say: ‘It will be fine,
Julia.’

Out of the window, the horizon is blotted
with cranes and scaffolding. Nairobi is a building site. It is being dug and reshaped
into something else. Drills, engines and sirens fill the air, and my ears. All I want to
do is block it out.

Julia is talking to me, telling me, in a
voice that sounds controlled and a little cold, the order of play, so to speak,
who will say what, the roles we must take.
I listen to her with a kind of distant fascination, as if I’m not really present
in this scene, but a spectator watching from afar – trying in an absent kind of way to
stave off the anger that is building within me at the charade of grief. It’s only
when she hands me a piece of paper busy with words that I focus on what she’s
saying.

‘I’d like you to say this
poem,’ she tells me. ‘I know it’s very long, and if you prefer, you
can swap with my sister, Andrea – she’s reading the psalm. But I think
you’ll do it justice.’

I stare at the paper – ‘The
Castaway’ by William Cowper – and something in me rails against it. I look up at
Julia and she sees the defiance in my eye.