She prays to Jesus, “Help me to hope. But help me not to hope too much.”
41
Two days later, Vanessa and Mary Tendo set off for the village, with Mary driving, since she’s always enjoyed it, and Vanessa responsible for map-reading the puzzle of lanes at the end of the journey. Justin is not coming, after all. At the last minute he has cried off, claiming to have a painting job to finish for his father. (It is true, but he also means to sleep with Anya, who does two hours on Saturday morning. He’s noticed she means to sleep with him. Justin has almost stopped being depressed.)
“You are coming as a friend, and not to work,” Vanessa says to Mary, regally, as the two women pack the car. “I wish that Justin would come as well, but he is being obstinate.”
“I think he has something to finish for Trevor.”
“Oh honestly, Mary, it’s not a real job. Tigger’s only getting him to help as therapy. He could sometimes try to please his mother.”
“He has to be a man now,” says Mary.
“As if I did not want him to be a man!” Vanessa stares at her, indignant, but something in what Mary says strikes home, and settles there, so they do not quarrel.
Mary has remembered something she needs. “I have forgotten my Bible,” she says to Vanessa.
“Oh honestly, Mary, you won’t have time to read it. The whole village will want to talk to us.” (As Vanessa says this, she hopes it will be true, that they won’t think her weird for bringing Mary, that they won’t be, well, racist, that Mary will be happy.) “In any case, we really must get started.”
But Mary looks unhappy, and gazes at the house. “There is something else that I have forgotten.”
“I’m sure you’ll be able to buy it in the village. Now get in, Mary, we have to go.”
“Vanessa, I think it is important—” But Vanessa’s in the car, and has slammed the door.
So Mary gives up, and climbs in beside her. God will protect them, if he chooses to.
Soon they are whizzing down the motorway. Mary Tendo loves speed, and drives rather fast, mouthing Luganda oaths at men who try to cut in. She leans forward slightly, towards the windscreen, and seems to scan the far horizon. It is as if by leaning, she can make them go faster, like a sprinter dipping towards the tape. She uses the horn with brutal vigour, marking each time she changes lane.
After a bit, Vanessa says, “You don’t look awfully comfortable like that, Mary. If you keep leaning forward, you’ll strain your neck.”
Mary smiles and nods, but she keeps leaning forward. They are going 90, and burning up the distances, but Vanessa is anxiously aware of the lorries, enormous as houses, thundering beside them. It is as if Mary enjoys a good race. She never willingly yields her space. Of course, she must be a competent driver. When she was younger she drove Justin everywhere.
“Perhaps we could slow down a little. We don’t have to fight to stay in the fast lane. ”
The volume of traffic is slowly mounting as the late October day gets underway. If anything, Mary is leaning further forward, her eyes screwed up tensely, her dark head bowed.
“Mary, honestly, that is a very odd position.”
“But Miss Vanessa, I must drive like this. Do not worry, I am a very good driver.”
“Why must you, Mary?” Vanessa is indulgent. Perhaps it is a Ugandan style of driving. (But wasn’t Uganda famous for car crashes?)
“Because, Vanessa, I am very short-sighted. When I lean forward, I can see the road.”
The speedometer is showing 95.
“What do you mean? Don’t be ridiculous!” Vanessa shouts as Mary swings out and edges a petrol tanker out of their way. They both have to shout; the noise is deafening, and Mary is adding to it, blaring her horn. “Do you actually know what short-sighted means?”
“Yes, Vanessa. It means I perhaps need glasses. I sometimes wear glasses when I am driving, but today I left my glasses in, the house.”
“You’re crazy! You should have gone back for them!”
“Miss Henman, you said that we must leave.”
As the argument intensifies, she seems to go faster. Vanessa sighs, and shrinks back in her seat, and consults the still safe surface of her map, and attempts to fold herself into that miniature world, to ignore the thunderous, terrifying racetrack, but when she shoots a glance across at her driver, she sees that Mary is enjoying this, she is gripping the wheel in her strong broad hands, her eyes gleaming, her lips curving upwards or muttering gentle encouragement to herself as she cuts up yet another juggernaut, and leaves another man making gestures in her mirror, the impotent rage of the defeated male ape.
Vanessa shuts off. They will live, or die. She cannot always take control of things. At least, now, Justin is finding his feet, in however feeble and hopeless a way. So if she did die, it would not be so awful. And perhaps her novels might survive in libraries. And her cousin would know that she tried to come back, and did not entirely forget her family.
Her mind wanders away to Beardy. Or Alex, to give him his proper name. He did say that he admired her novels. Of course he was aggressive, as many men are, but in his short story, he had described her as ‘tensile, like a dancer. And ‘in a good light, beautiful’. Vanessa is feeling rather old today, because she is anxious about going to the village, where her coevals may look younger than her, where her pretty cousin may still be prettier, where everyone who once loved her may have vanished, where people may think her a sad old stick…
But a man in London thinks her beautiful. Reads her novels. Believes in her.
The car swerves left, but she knows they’ll survive.
42
Vanessa arrives at her aunt’s in a state. Things went wrong once they left the motorway. Here was the straight, noisy main road that had always cut the village in two, and then the patchwork of lanes on the map she expected to know like the lines on her palm. But she recognised nothing. They drove in a circle, and ended up back on the main road.
She found her landmarks: the steeple, the old school, perched like toys athwart the rushing traffic. But they didn’t help her when all around them was a sprawl of raw red, which meant nothing to her, small modern houses with small tight gardens spread along the lanes like beads on a necklace. Everything looked different. Where was the centre? There didn’t seem to be one any more. She tried to rotate her brain, but all it did was make her feel giddy. For a moment she thought it was the wrong village, and stopped a cross cyclist who grunted the name, and it was her village, although he was Indian. “Where are the shops?” she called after him, pleading, although he was already two metres away. “What shops?” he asked, and grinned unpleasantly. Evidently he had not understood her. The traffic was so loud that he probably couldn’t hear. “Garage,” he called back over his shoulder. “Over there,” but Vanessa was too deafened to hear him.
But they did find the garage — at least there was a garage. It sold sweets, papers and birthday cards. She recognised, with a leap of the heart, the glitter-scattered card that Lucy had sent her. The man behind the till had a local burr and was probably not much older than Vanessa. Or maybe around the same age as her. She showed him the address, which she had written down, and he scratched his head, as if it meant nothing, but when she asked for her cousin by name, his face lit up. “Oh, Lucy Henman! I’ve known the Henmans all my life. The old man isn’t doing so well. And who may you be?”
“Vanessa Henman.”
“Oh, I heard about you. Didn’t you go off to Cambridge? Course I was only a kid at the time.” He gave her directions, and touched his cap, and she would have felt better if they had then found it, but Mary seemed obstinate and obtuse and didn’t listen carefully to her instructions, so they ended up driving in more circles.