* * *
Greenall’s pages lie spread out across the table before him. It’s surprising perhaps that his uncle had been prepared to commit such terrible words to paper. But it was vital having the account in writing in order to digest and reflect, and deal with such complex emotions. Maybe Uncle Martin had known that his story deserved the respect of this silent unfolding.
Make your peace with your ghosts, Margaret had told him. Has the letter allowed him to do that? When someone is taken unseen and never returned, it’s all but impossible to accept. The way Gulnaz had spoken about the knock at the door or the face in the crowd, he knew so exactly what she meant. Greenall’s confession closes the book on that chapter at least. But his father’s sedition? Could he reconcile this with the devotion he’d heaped upon that monster, with all those punishments he’d endured? Well, oddly, yes, in a way, he can. Greenall’s damning words may have turned his admiration into scorn, his respect into contempt, his pride into shame, but they’ve helped turn something else too: that vast tide separating father and son. Across those seas, Richard George had always seemed so untouchable. No paternal embrace when the tight-lipped officer left dock or when the bold hero sailed home, when the master of the house packed them off to bed or barked at them to get up. But in knowing now that the man’s granite-like face had shattered at least once, Alex finds himself newly empowered to step forward and reach out. He can look into that tyrant’s face and for once see something of himself – the stare of a cowardly child. And he can say to that child, ‘One day, father, perhaps I’ll forgive you,’ and feel the first infinitesimal stirrings of love.
At the sound of Gulnaz’s distinctive tap on the door, he quickly gathers the pages together and calls her in. The smile he gives her is only half returned. Whatever it was that had been preying on her mind and keeping her away is still there.
“I’m sorry if I was insensitive earlier,” she begins a little awkwardly, eyeing the papers. “Going on and on about my father like that. It was selfish of me when you’d just had the shock of that letter. I hope it wasn’t too hurtful.”
Whether she means hurtful to have read the letter or hurtful to have sat through her tale, he isn’t quite sure. To be on the safe side, he just answers with, “Not really,” and then realises it’s the worst answer in either case.
She props herself against the edge of the table. “But I just wanted to say how much I appreciated you encouraging me the way you did. It’s a long time since I’ve spoken about my childhood to anyone.” Her eyes are regaining their sparkle. “You listened so sensitively. I felt very carried. It was painful of course, but a good pain, not a pain that should stay buried. I feel much lighter for it.
“You know… talking things through can be incredibly healing. Alex, if you’re starting to remember things, bad things, you do know we’re ready and willing to help, don’t you?”
“Yes, I know. You told me. Your friend Prentice can’t wait to get his hands on me.”
She gently reproaches him. “I promise you, Alex, Jon Prentice only wants what’s best for you. You’ve made such outstanding progress since arriving here; he’s not about to put that at risk. Nobody’s going to force you to remember things that are best left untouched. You’ll remember only what and when you want to.
“He’s a lovely man, you know. You’ll like him a lot when you get to know him. Which you will. He has made an incredibly charitable offer – just to help you back onto your feet. They have a little self-contained annex to their house that was converted when Jon’s mother was thinking of moving in.”
“They?”
“Jon and his wife, Cathy. It was their house you slept in the night I took you from the flat. They want you to stay there, free of charge, to give you a temporary address while your records are sorted – database updated, National Insurance number issued; that kind of thing.”
And his wife Cathy; the single word that spells automatic disqualification from the race for Gulnaz’s affections. So, he and the fine doctor are to become housemates rather than rivals. A somewhat mixed blessing, but at least Gulnaz would be just minutes away. He can just picture them after her shift, taking another romantic stroll through the park. He decides to test her.
“I thought maybe since the fire alarm you’d been avoiding me.”
She becomes defensive, “No! No, not really. I’ve been very tied up,” then sighs. “Well, I suppose I have a bit. I was aware you might ask to hear the rest of my story. To be honest, I didn’t know if I could handle it.” She raises her eyes. “But of course those memories came bullying their way into my day anyway.”
“Well, you said it yourself: talking it through helps. So, maybe you should.”
“You really don’t have to pretend to be interested.”
“Guli, I’m not pretending. Tell me, please.”
At the prospect of another extended monologue, she pushes herself off the table and lowers herself gently onto the edge of his bed, centres herself and wets her lips. It makes Alex want to kiss her.
“I was remembering school. At school we didn’t need the radio because the sirens were only a few blocks away. When the bombers came over we didn’t have shelters there, so they would take us all to a store room which had only one window.”
Her mind again is in another world. “We were squashed together. None of us took it very seriously. Some of the older boys would brag about how their parents let them go up on the roofs and watch the bombings from there. But the teachers were very strict. They made us sit and recite passages from the Qur’an until the all clear came. That was the best sound in the world, the all clear.”
This time, the memory is not attended by any rattling of bells. Her words hang there in the silence. He fills it by wheeling himself a little closer and leaning forward.
“That’s really chilling. You must have been so brave.”
A moment’s struggle back to the memory and then, “The teachers tried to make it seem very matter of fact. They didn’t tolerate fear – they said it played into the hands of the enemy. But I did see fear in my teacher’s face that afternoon, when she came back into the classroom after someone had called her out, and when she said my name.” Around her mouth, Alex can see the muscles contracting. “She told me to collect my things. A stranger was waiting for me in the corridor. He looked dirty and had a face like death. He terrified me more than the Iraqis. He spoke to me in a strong Kurdistani accent and said we had to go.”
Gulnaz’s house had been bombed. A direct hit. She doesn’t recount the scene, only that her mother had been inside. They’d never let her see the ruins, not even the street. The stranger had skirted the area, driven her out of town and into the countryside to a place she didn’t know. Her grandfather was there with a group of men; part of a cell that Gulnaz called Mujahidin. Alex has heard the name on the news. The remainder of her fantastic tale details her passage across mountains, through heart-stopping checkpoints, safely into Turkey, on to France and at last across the channel to England, where they’d fought for asylum and eventually won. Her story has transported her into a nightmare childhood and out the other side without stopping. She barely pauses for breath; her tears run unchecked down her face.
He moves closer and touches her arm. How easily he could take advantage of this moment – a woman opening up her heart, at her most vulnerable – but to do more than just hold her now would be a terrible abuse of her trust. So instead he just stays with her pain, listening and watching. Her story is now moving closer to home. She’s saying things to which he can again begin to relate.
“My grandfather tried to bring me up the Kurdish way. I think he wanted to repair what he saw as the damage done by my parents. He was an intensely proud man. Proud of his country and proud of his god. I owe him my life. And I loved him dearly. I’m glad that I could care for him at the end. I’m glad I have his grave to visit each week. But my love for him could never equal the love I had for my parents.”
Only then does she snap ou
t of her dream state. There’s a shift in the focus of her eyes, from a horizon far away to a point in the centre of Alex’s face. He expects her to say that now it’s his turn to talk of the past. But instead she softly shakes her head and says, “It feels so strange telling you all this. Forgive me, but I can’t help it. I keep seeing you as Daniel. It’s so weird. You’re now so completely like him in appearance – like he was when we first met. And yet you’re so utterly different. Never in a million years would I have had the confidence to say any of these things to him. I wanted to, but he didn’t have it in him to listen. I don’t know he really cared that much. I don’t blame him, but well, you know what he was like. Sometimes I wonder why I ever fell for him.” She laughs. “I so wish he’d been you, Alex.”
He sits on the bed and puts an arm around her, and after a minute she leans over and kisses his mouth. He’s seeing her in a car park, cradling the hood of her parka; now he’s in a car, Daniel’s car, being pinned to his seat, in Daniel’s bed, feeling her soft skin beneath his fingers. When their lips part, he’s sure her eyes stare straight into his heart and he wonders who exactly she sees there.
“It’s late,” she whispers. “You need to rest. Thank you. You don’t know how much I mean that. You’ve no idea how freeing this has been for me.”
“And for me,” he croaks back. She might so easily have stayed, her struggle is written all over her face. They could have justified it, a case to be made for a carer releasing the frustrations of a patient who for weeks had been trapped inside a frozen body. She’d have willingly agreed to sex. But he’d been the one to break off the kiss. Because first he has to tell her everything. If she isn’t freaked out, if she can cope with the crossed wiring between his mind and Daniel’s, with the curse of his second sight, and with all his crazy false memories, then perhaps something might come of this love. But until then it wouldn’t be right.
At the door she turns. The bedside light puts half of her face into shadow. But it picks out her lips and the kiss she blows him.
“Goodnight, Daniel.”
If she had a pin, she might wish to drop it to shatter the silence. If she had a hole, she might want to fall into it. “Alex. Alex. Oh I’m so sorry!”
If he were to tell her now she would think he was mocking her, so he simply smiles and returns the kiss.
~~~~~