Not everything in England is better, Mary thinks. Perhaps it will be different in the country, when I go to the village with Vanessa. Perhaps there are still harvests in the country.
Mary’s never been to the English countryside, though twice she and Omar went to the seaside, and stayed in what they called a ‘B and B’. They were the only black people, and everyone stared, in that English fashion where the eyes flick away and then they pretend they are not interested, though they were kind to Jamie, and not unfriendly, and Jamie loved the water, and played on the sand, and he could be naked, and no one bothered…
She sees him, suddenly, gilded by the sunlight, maybe three or four, running for the sea, and his laughter is blown back towards them by the wind, and his sturdy body gets smaller and smaller as his little legs pound down the firm sand, and she suddenly sees he will run straight into the water and sets off after him, hurrying, but he goes faster, and the tiny black figure plunges into the wide band of wavery silver and screams at the cold, then disappears, and she runs faster, and at last she finds him.
Omar was untroubled, reading a paper. Omar thought Allah would look after him.
And she prays, silently, fiercely, clearly: Jesus, please bring me news of my baby. You who see everything, find him, please.
Vanessa sees Mary staring fixedly at their offerings on the meagre table, and whispers in her ear, “Well done, Mary. You saved the day.”
Mary blinks at her, startled, far away. “I don’t understand.”
“Your Savoy cabbage. Look. I’d say it’s the absolute star of the show.”
“Thank you, Vanessa.” Yet her face is almost haughty. “Vanessa, it is time for the collection.”
“Oh heavens, Mary, I hope I’ve got some money.” Vanessa starts digging through her handbag. Mary knows there is always money in that handbag, untidy bunches and sheaves of notes. She decides to help Vanessa get into heaven.
“It is OK, Vanessa. Twenty pounds is enough. If you have not got anything larger.”
Vanessa draws her breath in, sharply, but the maroon brocade bag on its wooden handle is almost there, carried by an ancient sidesman, and resignedly she finds a twenty, and pushes it in to the maw of the bag, though she’s almost sure Mary only gives five, there is a glimpse of blue-green in Mary’s dark pink palm, and further along the row she hears the chink of coins, and she wonders why Mary Tendo is smiling.
And then Vanessa thinks of the phone-call this morning, and the voice, so unfamiliar, drops into place, a voice she knew from over a decade ago. “Mary,” she hisses, “I’ve just remembered. Somebody rang. I mean, once or twice. I think it might possibly have been your husband.”
She is not prepared for Mary’s ghastly face, the smile dying, the sharp intake of breath.
And now Mary Tendo starts praying in earnest, she sinks to her knees on the hard stone floor, there is no time for the embroidered hassocks which hang unused on the back of the pew, and she squeezes her eyes into concentrated darkness, she prays for light, she prays for help: Please not now, Jesus. I cannot bear it. Mwatttu sikati yesu! Jamie is young, he understood nothing. Please take this cross away from me.
But even as she prays, she knows it is hopeless, she has known ever since the first news came of her son leaving home in Tripoli. And yet, if she hears Omar say those words — if she must hear her husband, and Jamie’s father, saying the words she fears so much—
Lord, take this cup away from me. But if it is your will — Mary cannot go on. She fixes a polite smile on her face, pushes along the pew, passing Vanessa and Trevor and Justin with the faintest acknowledgement, because they have slipped into a world of ghosts, and walks out of the church, the swing doors crashing.
40
She runs all the way home, breath tearing, heart thumping, Mary who never hurries, never runs, and rings her husband in Libya, which Vanessa owes her, and has always owed her, she thinks, as she furiously punches out the numbers: “Omar,” she says, as his familiar voice answers in guttural Arabic. “It is I, Mary. Is there any news?”
Omar sounds strange, surly, in rusty English. “I have been ringing you since three weeks…Mary, you promised to give me your mobile number.”
“I lost my mobile. I will give it to you now.” (But even his surliness is a relief. If Jamie were dead, he would not be surly.)
Omar’s story is long and fractured, full of ‘if and ‘perhaps’ and ‘maybe’. There has been a possible sighting, in Baghdad. But it comes at three or four removes. The source is ‘a crazy boy called Mohammed’, the cousin of a cousin of Omar’s new wife — Omar is going to meet him tomorrow. Mohammed is one of the rash young men who trekked to Iraq as volunteers, hoping to fight the Americans. He came home, injured, some time after the war, and spent months in Tripoli recovering. “He says the volunteers had a terrible time. No one in Baghdad was ready to trust them. The civilians were worse than the military. You see, people think they are suicide bombers. No one was going to let them fight—”
“I do not care, Omar. Tell me about Jamie.”
“There is a zoo, you know. A zoo in Baghdad.”
“What are you talking about, a zoo? Is Jamie alive? Do not torture me.”
“Be patient, Mary. Let me finish my story.”
And so she stands and suffers, clutching the phone, while the story continues at Omar’s pace.
Baghdad Zoo was in a desperate state, because of the bombing, the shortages. There was a blind bear, some mangy wolves that once belonged to Saddam Hussein’s son, everything half-starving or half-mad. “According to Mohammed, a Libyan was there. He heard about him from another volunteer. This boy was young, like Jamil, and from Tripoli, helping out because there was no one else. Mohammed is not sure of his name. But then Awatef asks Mohammed if it could be Jamil, and he says maybe. But only maybe. Then I ask him on the phone, and he says he thinks it is.”
“He is not certain.”
“He is not certain. I think he never met him, he just heard about him.”
“It could be nothing,” says Mary, slowly.
“It can be everything,” says Omar. “You know our son, how he feel for the animals, how he wants to take care of them.”
“If it is him,” asks Mary, suddenly agonised, “why hasn’t he rung us? Does he hate us, Omar?”
“Perhaps he is ashamed of running away. Perhaps he is ill. Or perhaps it is not Jamie. Mary, I am going to Baghdad next week. I could not go before, because my wife — my other wife — is ill, Mary. I cannot leave her with the little son.”
“The other son,” says Mary, sadly.
She sits, face blank, the tears streaming steadily, for several minutes after putting the phone down.
News. Some news. It is better than nothing.
But it is so much worse, as well. Stirring up all she has tried to bury. Hope is painful, like the pains in her hands after going outside in the UK winter — the worst pains come when she is back in the house, when the blood pushes slowly back into her ringers.
Mary goes upstairs and washes her face, and puts on lipstick, and starts cooking lunch. Whatever happens, people have to eat. She hears the door open as the Henmans come back. “Coo-ee, Mary. Are you all right?” And in fact, in an hour or so, she is all right.
But a little hope can grow too quickly, even in darkness, with nothing to feed it.