Vanessa opens a door, and looks anxious.
But the bedroom Mary will sleep in is pretty. It is larger than Mary’s front room in Kampala. There is a fine bed, a small pink armchair, a dark dressing-table with a table-lamp, a framed picture of sheep in a flat green field. The room is light, because it doesn’t have the insect screens which cut out the sunshine in Kampala. It has a nice view across the front garden to the road and beyond it the motorway to Heathrow. In the blue-and-flamingo-pink-streaked sky, Mary sees a plane sweeping up into the clouds. Perhaps it is leaving for Uganda. A red sun is sinking. She will see the sunsets.
My life is a story of arriving and leaving.
“I like it. Thank you for my room, Miss Henman.” She says it before she thinks about whether it is better not to thank her until she has been paid, and Vanessa is relieved, since she has spent an hour agonizing over whether to give Mary a better room, with its own basin, and a view of the back garden, the long lawn and the willow trees, which is normally the guest bedroom. But Mary is Ugandan: this must seem like a palace. “You will see you have got your own television, Mary. And do remember to call me Vanessa.”
Mary hadn’t seen it. It looks small and smart and she doesn’t yet know it is just black and white. On impulse, she kisses Vanessa again, and Vanessa flushes with shame and pleasure.
“I shall go down and finish the supper.”
By the time Mary joins her, Vanessa is carving, her long blade shearing the white like silk. The dining room has been painted yellow, and there is a light Mary thinks very beautiful, made out of thousands of pieces of glass, hanging like a waterfall, full of rainbows. This light must have cost a lot of money. Perhaps Miss Henman has become a rich woman. Mary begins to smile with pleasure.
She sees that the table is set for three. It bears a vase of yellow roses, two shiny candlesticks, three patterned glasses, a decanter of wine, with fine writing on the side: yellow squiggles of butter like caterpillars, and creamy-pinky shells of white bread. Mary loves white bread, though she prefers slices. The curtains are soft velvet, with twisted gold cords. The walls are lined with crowded bookshelves.
For a second Mary doesn’t know what to look at. Everywhere you turn there is something to see. It has been years, and she has forgotten. Life is so much barer and simpler in Kampala.
And yet it is cold. Mary starts to feel chilly. She is shy at the prospect of a meal with Vanessa.
“I may go and wake Justin?” Mary inquires.
“To be honest, I don’t know what to say.”
“I’ll go, Miss Henman.”
“Don’t be long,” says Vanessa. She is carving the chicken, and she is hungry. She goes on slicing for three or four minutes, and pours some wine, and puts the vegetables in dishes, although that will make more washing-up for Mary—
No, she thinks, I must wash up myself. This first evening, I’ll wash up myself.
Vanessa finds she wants to eat quite badly. She takes a long swig of the red wine. The chicken smells glorious, so does the gravy. Please may we eat before it all cools down.
She can hear a low murmur of voices from upstairs. Mary has succeeded in waking him, then. A very small, secret part of Vanessa is hoping it won’t be too simple for Mary, that Justin won’t just put on his clothes and come down meekly as if nothing’s been the matter, that his love for Mary will not be the single perfect key to unlock all the misery.
Because if it is, what does that say about Vanessa?
Why have I been such a useless mother?
The fat on the gravy is a solid sheen. With a sigh of impatience she sets off upstairs. The murmur of voices is getting louder.
She pauses for a second outside Justin’s door.
What Vanessa hears astonishes her. She feels the blood come and go in her cheeks. He is actually laughing. Laughing quite loudly. She hasn’t heard him laughing in ages. Curious, envious, she opens the door. Justin is entwined with Mary on the bed. Both of them are giggling. They could be lovers. Justin’s face freezes as he sees his mother.
“Are you coming down to eat?” Vanessa says abruptly. She tries to smile, but her face is stiff. “I have carved the chicken. It is getting cold.”
But Justin is retreating under the covers.
“Coming, Miss Henman,” Mary says.
Neither of them looks her in the eye. Justin is just a blind mountain of bedclothes. Mary follows the older woman downstairs. She sees Miss Henman’s hair has grown thin.
Vanessa scoops out potatoes clumsily so that one rolls on to the tablecloth, tears off a chicken wing and gives it to Mary, though there are neat pale slices ready on the platter. “Look for goodness sake don’t call me Miss Henman.” Vanessa sits down and gnaws like a fox, suddenly desperate for nourishment.
But the food soon starts to work its magic, restoring the blood sugar the wine had sapped. Within minutes, Vanessa feels better again. Mary is chewing guardedly, thinking about the advance on her wages. Vanessa takes a deep breath and smiles, wondering if Mary has noticed her teeth. “What happy times we all had together. And you are looking well. Not a day older.” She lifts her face to the chandelier, waiting for Mary to compliment her.
“It is because of our skin,” Mary says, pleased. “Ugandan skin is very strong. It does not go in wrinkles like English skin.”
Vanessa remembers that Mary is tactless. Never mind, she is here at last. She gazes on Mary and is satisfied. She looks so solid, healthy, happy. She looks like someone who can — save the day. Mary, Mary. Stay here and save me.
“How did you find Justin on the whole?”
“He is tall and handsome,” says Mary, carefully.
“Thank you,” says Vanessa. “He has always been wonderful. Everyone has always said so. Handsome, brilliant, so polite. But now he is terribly ill, you know. He hardly eats. And I never see him. If he goes on like this, I’m afraid he will die.”
“Here I am, Mother,” Justin says.
He stands in the doorway, in ill-matched clothes, heavy track-suit bottoms and a pink Hawaiian shirt, his beard gingery and formless. But he is here, and he is awake. He takes a plate, and begins to load it with dark leg meat, potatoes, bacon. “‘Obviously I’m not going to die.”
For a moment Vanessa thinks she has been dreaming, that the last six months have been a bad dream. But she knows her son has been very ill. And almost at once she starts to worry.
“Have some breast, Justin, it’s better for you. There’s plenty, darling. Lovely white breast.”
His hand, which is vigorously spooning out gravy as he bends right over to the centre of the table, stops in its tracks, and he freezes for a second, the light from the chandelier brilliant on his hair, which looks so blond it is almost colourless, the ash-white ringlets of a giant baby. He puts his plate down on the table with a crash. A little spill of juice darkens the cloth, a little emission of mess and chaos. He stays bent over, as if waiting for blows.
“I will get a sponge,” says Mary automatically, and gets to her feet, and pats at Justin. Then Justin straightens, and his head hits the light. There is a tinkling sound, and hundreds of pieces of rainbow light spin around the table. He puts up his hand, perhaps to calm the crystal pendants, but Vanessa cries out, sharply reproachful, “It’s a new light, for heaven’s sake be careful! Honestly, poppet, you don’t know your own strength!” and he changes his mind and lurches upwards again, butts at the chandelier like a goat, laughing peals of riotous, masculine laughter, and strikes it again and again with his forehead until the white skin is pitted with red. “Goal, Mother! Three goals to me!”