A Lady Cyclist's Guide to Kashgar (8 page)

He stroked the wings and ran his fingers along the shimmering-grey neck. Millicent lit a cigarette. Spread below us was the vast, pink-dust Old Town. It looked like an insect mound, or a child’s city made from clay or earth.

‘I did not understand what this melodious sound was,’ Father Don Carlo continued, ‘but after being here in Kashgar for perhaps a year, I realised that the sound came from the air and would fade away, like heavenly music.’ His hands gently continued to stroke the feathers of the sleepy pigeon on his arm.

‘I even began to wonder if it was a celestial crowd singing to me, but then I met a man who explained to me the unusual Kashgar tradition of breeding pigeons. They tie light reed-pipes to the longer tails of some of the bigger pigeons, so that when they fly, when they swoop suddenly up or down in the air, you can hear these strange tunes come from the sky.’

‘How lovely.’ Lizzie had walked to the edge of the roof which had no wall, but simply a drop. She held the Leica to her eye to take photographs of the toy-town below us. I felt it imperative that I understand the political situation, for the purposes of my Guide, but I was struggling. The bicycle was left at the back of the souq and I was also worrying about thieves.

‘So, this Marshall Feng, why does he cause you trouble, Father?’

‘He has been given official sanction for the Christian Church on the borderlands, but it is not a comfortable arrangement.’ Father Don Carlo’s face grew blotches of purple red as he spoke.

‘Why is that, Father?’

‘The natives here resent his ways and are suspicious of his motives, making the work of conversion even more difficult for me and no doubt for you, too, when your Mission is established.’

‘Who is suspicious of him, Father?’

‘Everyone. He takes a
political
approach you see,’ the priest spoke in a calm, soft voice, as if lulling the pigeon on his arm. ‘He is less concerned with souls than with halting the opium trade which has been by far the most fruitful export trade in this area.’

Millicent scratched her cheek; she couldn’t have been less interested in the discussion.

‘He converted local farmers, encouraged them to sow wheat instead of opium in their fields,’ the priest continued.

‘But surely that is a good thing, Father?’ I said. On our journey here I have already seen what the hated opium pipe could do to men, making them useless, sleepy, unable to work.

‘No. The Christian farmers refuse to pay the opium tax, so the levy was raised for other farmers. The natives resent it.’

He leaned forward and put his pigeon back into its cage.

‘I ask for nothing,’ he said. ‘I make wine for Mass which I undertake to read by myself each day, without fail. But I know things! I travel about the city and I talk and I discover. The General is feared. He beheads people without trial. He isolates people. They disappear. The postal, wireless and telegraph offices are all under the control of his censors. He pretends to tolerate the Islamic religious and cultural identity amongst the Turkic people here, but it is only enough to avoid sparking a revolt. He hates the Universal Mission of Christianity from the West.’

‘That does not sound very optimistic – for us, I mean,’ Lizzie said.

Millicent stood up, ‘He cannot do us harm,’ she said with confidence. ‘It would be too much of a diplomatic scandal. Come, I want to talk alone for a moment.’ She took the priest’s arm and they left us on the terrace and went back inside. Lizzie pointed down to the narrow street below.

‘Look: Mohammed’s man.’ He was waiting for us, skulking near a wall. She whispered to me, nodding towards the priest as he climbed down the steps. ‘Do you think he’s a bit touched?’

‘Perhaps.’

Lizzie looked back at the birds once more before we made our way down the ladder to join Millicent and the priest. Our departure was protracted as our new friend repeatedly congratulated us on our imminent new house and promised to visit.

Back at the inn Mohammed was waiting, severe with the news that our new house is ready (he might as well have said
riddance!
). Thus, we are to be cast out on to the wrong side of the city walls. Lizzie whispered to me in the kang room that it is official that Millicent is to be charged with murder. The date of the trial is set for a month’s time, but I wonder how it is that she knew that, and I did not.

8.
London, Present Day

Google

A search for Irene Guy brought up Guy + Irene Wedding 6 October 2009, Irene Guy Dr GP, consultation in 53 Railway Avenue, 6111 Kelmscott and Irene M. Guy Obituary Cleveland. None of them seemed to apply so Frieda picked up the phone, holding the letter in her hand and called the number. Her palm on the window created a black starfish against the sunlight as a man answered, ‘Hello, Deaths.’

Frieda hesitated for a moment, then, ‘Can I speak to Mr Griffin please?’

‘Speaking.’

‘Hi, yeah, I have received a letter about Irene Guy who is . . . who died recently.’

‘Yes?’

She took her glasses off. She was about to say that there had been a mistake, that she didn’t know who Irene Guy was nor why she was listed as next-of-kin, but she didn’t. Instead she said that she wanted to arrange to visit the flat, to clear it.

‘Can I have the reference number please?’ Frieda read it out to him.

‘Looking you up on the system . .  Yes. OK. The address is 12A Chestnut Road SE27. We will be there at 2.30pm today with the key. You have one week to clear your belongings.’

‘Right. Thanks.’

Why on earth had she done that? She pulled at the bad job of her fringe and put her glasses back on because without them she was mole-blind. Once Nathaniel had said, ‘You look stoned when we’re doing it, your eyes all glazed, amazing,’ and she had not wanted to disappoint him by letting him know that astride his torso she simply couldn’t see as far as his face.

She couldn’t quite say why. A chance to look around a stranger’s house appealed. Irene Guy. She was curious. She would call work and tell them that she was jet-lagged and exhausted.

She was aware, for a moment, of the innumerable flight paths above the ceiling of her flat, above the roof of the building, up in the sky. She could hear, now, as she listened, the engines (at least two of them, simultaneously) zinging along invisible paths in the sky. It was the wrong way round, her being on the ground. Usually it was Frieda up there, knees squeezed behind plastic trays, head resting on a grubby window looking down at a view half-obscured by a wing, at the mini-lives being lived in toy houses, wondering how she was meant to be a part of it.

Perennial ryegrass. Cock’s foot. Couch and sedge. Crossing the cemetery she began to fear that the sound of her wheels on gravel was disrespectful to the great stretch of dead laid out all around her so she pushed the bike on to the grass instead. Up in the highest part of the cemetery, grandfatherly oaks stood nodding like village elders. Reaching the exit, Frieda pulled the letter out of her bag to double-check the address and looked again at her A–Z, squinting at the confusion of red, yellow and blue stains.

Out of the gate. Twenty yards. Immediate right.

It was local authority, a red-brick ground-floor flat. She D-locked her bike to a post and looked up and down the street. There was no sign of an official with a key, just an unwelcoming stairwell leading to a front door. She decided to wait on the street and she pulled out her phone and looked at the time. An elderly man cycled past, wobbling across the road, right into the other lane and then back again, his wheels wheezing with each turn. Her dad answered just as a bin lorry consumed the entire road like a tank, lights flashing, its skip-carrier at the back wide open like a ravenous mouth.

‘What? What?’

‘Dad, it’s me.’ Frieda turned away from the lumbering truck as it pulled off and looked down the street into the sun instead.

‘Oh, you. Listen to this,’ he said. There was a thwacking noise.
Thwack thwack thwack
.

‘What do you think?’ He sounded nasal, as if his nose was stuffed up. She wished he would blow his nose, clear it, or not sound so . . . congested; she would much rather have an uncongested father.

‘What is it?’ She placed both of her feet so that her heels touched the kerb and her toes met the yellow lines.

Thwack, thwack, thwack
.

‘What do you think?’ he repeated, nasally.

‘Well, it’s a little difficult to tell over the phone. What is it supposed to be?’

‘What do you think it is?’

‘No idea.’

‘Delicious isn’t it? Satisfying. Doesn’t it sound brilliant? Best hundred pounds I’ve ever spent.’

‘On what? What is it?’

‘It’s a divining rod, made out of beech. Beautiful, really beautiful.’

‘You paid a hundred pounds for a beech rod?’

He let out a sigh. ‘It doesn’t just
divine
, it can also be used as a wand, a drawer down of energy, a phallic energy courser.’

‘Right,’ Frieda said, holding back a sigh. ‘Listen, Dad, have you ever heard of someone called Irene Guy?’

‘Don’t think so, why?’

‘Because I am outside her flat now and apparently I am her next-of-kin.’

‘Hold on,’ he said, ‘aren’t you supposed to be in Egypt or Jordan or China or somewhere?’

‘Yeah, I’m back now. I am on some Council list as being connected to her.’

‘You could have told me you were home. It would be nice if you could let me know which country you are in, at the least. And when are you visiting?’ A disingenuous question, she was sure, because he doesn’t actually want her to visit. It would ruin his cosmic alignments, made all the more cosmic and aligned with his new girlfriend Phoebe, an aromatherapist. Or physiotherapist. Or masseuse, or something.

‘Dad! Irene Guy?’

‘OK. I don’t know. Maybe you had a teacher with that name? Or we had a neighbour?’

‘Really, or are you just guessing?’

‘I’m guessing.’

She sighed. The same sigh that dated back to that unhappy day when it occurred to her that everything he believes in, she does not.

‘Are you just totally making it up?’ She could hear him whacking with his cane. ‘Do you think it’s a mistake?’

‘I don’t know.’ He sounded weary now. Frieda leaned down and picked up a chipped brick from the edge of the kerb.

‘Do you think it is something to do with Mum? They seem very sure, on their system, I’m down connected to her.’

‘A possibility.’

‘Do you think? Have you any idea where she is?’

‘Last heard of on a commune in deepest Sussex – and I am not even joking.’

‘Come on. It’s a bit surreal.’

‘I’m serious. She sent me a letter asking for money. Communes are expensive, it seems.’

‘Do you know how I can get hold of her?’

A young woman with an overloaded buggy walked towards Frieda. Three children appeared to be stuffed uncomfortably into it and numerous supermarket bags weighted the handles; she scowled as she passed. Frieda tried to smile at the young mother but was demonstrably ignored.

She surprised herself by asking, ‘Have you got the address, Dad?’

‘You want to contact her?’

‘Maybe.’

She waited for him to find the address, listening to the sound of him rustling about, her toes resting on the kerb. She remembered an instance when, as a child, she had trapped a caterpillar under a glass, one of those black and orange hairy ones, and watched it concertina back and forth. She recalled that behind her the caravans had been full of divine brothers and sisters, there for satsang. Satsang was a meeting but what it really meant was
don’t make a noise Frie’, we’re meditating
. A divine brother had come up to her in the garden.

‘Hey, Frie’, what you doing?’

‘Nothing.’

He had an enormous beard, enormous forehead and enormous glasses. He looked like God, according to the Seven Days of Creation illustration.

‘Nice caterpillar,’ he’d said.

‘Thanks.’

‘So, tell me . . .’