The Last Gift (13 page)

She was just in her twenties when she had them, and to her, for the first time in her life, it seemed that there was nothing to worry about. In a way, she felt herself growing up with them and did not have to force herself to enjoy their endless games. She felt the difference in their ages, hers and Abbas’s, through the children. How irritated he sometimes was by their chatter. How he could not always throw himself into their hilarities. He did his best, hid his smiles when he felt he had to be stern, and bought them unpredictable and unexpected presents. But sometimes he seemed to her like someone who had grown older than his years.

Anna was in slight trepidation when she arrived in Chichester that first Easter weekend. She had never been invited to stay the night with any of her previous boyfriends’ families. She had known Nick for only just over a month, and from all the things he had said she expected his parents to be stiff and patronising, prosperous people who knew their worth and who were exacting in their judgement of others. Perhaps they would be frosty towards her for intruding into their family festivities, and she wondered how enthusiastic they really were about inviting her. Without intending to, Nick had made them sound difficult to please and censorious, describing moments of tension with them and some of the things they disapproved of in him. She felt as if she was heading towards the kind of scrutiny in which she would inevitably fail to impress, and yet she would have no option but to try to please, and defer and play the fool. But when she arrived, Nick’s mother embraced her and kissed her lightly on both cheeks, smiling at her with her whole face. She was a slim woman with a lean face and short fair hair, dressed in a light-grey blouse and a patterned skirt, blue eyes smiling. She held on to Anna for a moment, leaning back to have a good look at her.

‘I am so glad you could come and see us, Anna,’ she said. ‘We have heard so much about you.’

The courtesy was practised but Anna liked it anyway, for its own sake, and because the words and the hint of warmth in her voice were a relief after what she had been dreading. She thought that kind of warmth was a gift that some women of a certain age had, an unforced kindness that she knew her own mother had too, a studied mildness, which was intended to reassure and reconcile, and with it came a civil inflection of the body that conveyed something affectionate and sympathetic. She had not met many women in whom she saw those gifts. ‘I am Jill,’ she said, ‘and this is Ralph.’

Nick’s father stepped forward from where he was hovering and held out his hand. He was a tall man of about sixty or so, with grey hair receding at the temples. As he shook hands he bowed slightly from the hips, a jaunty and satirical gesture at gallantry. He was wearing a light-blue jacket and an open-necked shirt, and somehow managed to look formal in his attempt at informality. ‘How do you do? Do come in,’ he said, smiling, and then stepped aside to usher her and his wife ahead of him into the sitting room. As soon as she entered she saw what the outside of the house and the hallway had already hinted at. There was wealth here. It was a large room, furnished with old-looking furniture she could not have named, all of it in exquisite condition. The windows overlooked a large garden with a lawn and some trees in blossom. It was too late in the evening to see clearly, but she thought she saw a summer house or a pergola towards the bottom of the garden and a glint of water nearby in the gloom.

Nick sat beside her on the sofa, and Jill and Ralph were attentive to her, asking about her journey, offering her a drink.
You must be starving
, Jill said.
Dinner won’t be long
. There were flowers on the dining table and the light was muted, and when they sat down to eat Anna was struck by the elegant simplicity of the meal and the intimacy of the room. By then, Ralph was in charge of the conversation, orchestrating and prompting mildly, glancing at Jill every few minutes as if to seek her agreement. Now and then she repeated the last phrase or two he had said, but there was no deference in this echo. Anna sensed her self-assurance even though she ate silently while her husband talked. It made her think of her mother Maryam and how so much intimidated her, neighbours, teachers, doctors. She guessed that the very stubborn Spanish lady doctor would behave differently if she were dealing with Nick’s mother. It was historical, she guessed. All those centuries of overlordship of the world must have made some impact on self-esteem, even as they corrupted generosity and understanding. But also from her own achievements. She knew from Nick that Jill
ran
a hospital, (while her mother used to clean one), so she had a powerful, professional position, a huge salary, independence. As she thought this, Anna imagined how courteously Jill would be able to intimidate her mother Maryam if she ever felt the need, and how, if that necessity arose, she would do it without hesitation. She felt a slight shiver of dislike, as if Jill really had done that to her mother. Jill must have sensed something because she glanced up and caught Anna’s eye with a look of enquiry, her head slightly tilted, ready to oblige. Anna shook her head, smiling, and turned back to listen to Ralph, feeling as if she had slandered Jill who had been so friendly and easy in her welcome.

Moments before, while she was engaged with these thoughts about Jill, Ralph had been talking about Zimbabwe, and she came back into the middle of what he was saying. He was worrying about the government campaign that was then just beginning, to expropriate land owned by farmers descended from European settlers and give it to African peasants. She heard him say that whatever the rights and wrongs of such situations, you cannot make anything better by turning the clock back, especially as the enterprise of these farmers is now the mainstay of the economy.

‘I know it sounds like victors’ logic,’ he said, and she saw Nick nod, ‘but you have to think cleverer than just reversing a historical injustice, otherwise you end up committing another one and making everyone poorer into the bargain.’

‘There is one word you are leaving out there, Dad,’ Nick said. ‘To give the land
back
to African peasants. It’s only two or three generations ago that that land was taken away. People still remember what belonged to them.’

Ralph smiled, nodding in return. When he spoke, his voice was warm, friendly. There was no rancour in these exchanges: ‘There is feasible evidence that sooner or later it is the political barons who really acquire the land, which is exactly what you would expect in any society, so I am not sure how much goes
back
to the peasants in this situation or in any situation like this. But in any case, think of the legal problems, the compensation, the break-up of complex modern farms into allotments, aside from the abuse of constitutional rights. Why, it would be like trying to make up for the Clearances by bringing all those Highlanders back. It might fulfil some ideal of justice, but it would create absurd difficulties and new injustices. You have to take the long view in these matters and not dwell on the cruelties of the present moment or the recent past. That only leads to a paralysing sense of grievance and then to an irrational extremism.’

‘Maybe we can think so calmly because we are spared the daily consequences of those cruelties,’ Nick said. ‘I doubt you would think quite so calmly if you were made poor as a result of such an injustice.’

Ralph shrugged apologetically. Anna thought there was something theatrical about that gesture of uncertainty when she guessed that he was expressing firmly held views. They sounded like firmly held views. ‘That seems all the more reason why we have to maintain a rational and intelligent attitude to what at first sight looks like intolerable injustice,’ he said. ‘We have to look far in the distance when we try to put right what is wrong at the moment. We should worry about what new problems we create when we try to solve a problem, and that is what Mugabe is not worrying about.’

Nick shrugged in his turn, and Anna guessed that they had had this conversation before and had now arrived at a familiar impasse. Father and son smiled at each other, silently agreeing to leave the matter there, and Anna felt some dissatisfaction at the disinterested manner they could debate injustice and then just lay it aside, but she also felt a stab of envy at their ease with each other.

Ralph started talking about a recent trip to Tunis, where he had gone on business. He did that skilfully, putting down one topic and taking up another, as if he had a whole shelf of them and he could pull down one or the other as the need arose. He was not an oppressive talker, and spoke unhurriedly as if what he was saying was of no great significance, just telling a story or offering an opinion, which he had a good idea would prove interesting. He leaned forward at times, eager to convince or persuade, and Anna thought it was a likeable mannerism, expressing a kind of modesty as if he was not certain if his case could stand on its own. ‘To an ignorant visitor like me,’ he said, ‘the city seemed relaxed and at peace and prosperous. The shops were full of merchandise, the cafés and restaurants were crowded. People were hurrying everywhere, going about their business. I stayed in a smart and elegant hotel that was full of guests, who to my eye looked Tunisian rather than tourists or wealthy foreigners. On the Sunday I went for a stroll in the park, and it was crowded with families doing all the very things you would expect to see on a Sunday afternoon in the park. In the streets everyone was well dressed, especially the women, whether they were wearing smart fashions or their national dress. So it was a surprise when my host – a Tunisian himself – told me not to point to the ramparts of a seaside villa, or not to look too directly at the armed policeman walking beside the sea wall, or turned me away from staring at a building that had caught my eye. He turned his face nervously away from the villa and from the policeman as he gave me this warning, as if concerned that his words might carry, or someone might read his lips. This was on an outing to Carthage, yes the same Carthage that belongs to all of us. The President has a seaside villa there, the very one I was pointing a finger at. Apparently the security apparatus is nervous and brutal, and is very suspicious of the slightest interest in the Big Man, yet you would have no idea of this from looking at the way people were quietly going about their business. What do you think of that?’

‘What do you think of that?’ Jill echoed, with an enthusiam that made Anna start. Her repetition was so blatantly unnecessary that it made Anna wonder if, despite her appearance of self-assurance, Jill was struggling against shyness. And blurting out Ralph’s last words like that was like announcing that she was there too, and not to be ignored.

They were silent for a few seconds while Ralph gave them the opportunity to say what they thought, but since no one spoke, he continued: ‘I could not imagine British citizens living with that kind of intimidation with the same equanimity, I really could not. Do you suppose,’ and here he turned towards Anna, whom she assumed he imagined to be an expert on the subject, ‘you can become so habituated to oppression that you cease to feel it as oppression? Or do you think it is a matter of national character? I don’t mean biological character or the renowned British phlegm or the bloody-minded island people myth, or not that altogether, but something to do with the culture of a nation, how citizens of a nation see themselves.’

He paused again, as if allowing room for objection, as if inviting comment, but perhaps just seeking reassurance that he was not alienating his listeners. He glanced again at Anna, who reached for her glass of wine to evade his scrutiny and saw that it was empty. In that instant, before turning back to Ralph, she caught the look in Jill’s eyes, which were also resting on him. Her eyes were expressionless, as if she had taken herself away, or perhaps deliberately blanked them in disapproval, and even from that brief glance Anna was struck by how different that look in her eyes was from the friendly way she had seemed earlier on. Anna looked away quickly and realised that she herself was as intimidated by this stern self-absorbed woman as her mother would doubtless be. As Jill filled up her glass and she turned to thank her, she saw that the look in her eyes had changed again. Her eyes were now smiling, waiting for Anna to turn, watching her greedily. She lifted her own glass slightly in a silent toast.

‘Some peoples just will not put up with injustice,’ Ralph continued, and she thought she heard Nick grunt in agreement, and guessed that the chorus of freedom-loving people was about to begin. ‘They will march and commit arson and throw up barricades if pushed too far. Massacres, executions, imprisonment will not extinguish this stubborn refusal of tyranny. Other peoples are cowed and obedient. It may even be that they do not recognise their oppression as injustice but as the order of existence. Is it something in their cultures that incline them to be that way? Is it religion? Is it a historical conditioning of brutal misuse?’

Is this what happened every mealtime? She thought Nick might speak, might even start to feel embarrassed, but he seemed absorbed in his food and glanced at his father between mouthfuls. Jill also seemed to have recovered her poise and seemed ready for more. She found out later, when she knew him better, that Ralph liked to make these comparisons of national character, whose real point was to observe that, at its best, British steadiness was a force for decency and a quality to admire. No, he not only liked to make these comparisons, it was an obsession of his; a way of understanding the world. He made his comparisons without insistence, without enthusiasm, but as if they were calm observations of civil truths. She wondered that Ralph did not seem to notice the abrasive underside of his comparisons, which was a smug suspicion of everyone else’s unsteadiness. On that first meeting, she could not help thinking that Ralph was talking so much out of awkwardness about her presence, that he did not like her there but was too polite to let it show.