Into Suez (27 page)

Nia was round the corner playing with the Websters’ baby – Norman’s idea, to cheer his wife up. And he’d be there to supervise, for Hedwig just sat like lead most of the day. She’d given up nursing the child herself, in case, as she said, her milk was bad. She didn’t want to poison Eric. Her milk had a fishy smell, Hedwig insisted: it was compromised. The father mothered the baby whenever he was at home and did it tenderly and with evident pleasure. Nia had accepted his invitation, not because she liked babies but because Mr Webster had promised Coca-Cola
with ice
! The promise of ice had overridden any anxiety about her father’s absence.
Right-o! Ta ta then!
she’d said casually as Joe bent to kiss her, his eyes dewed with tears.

Ailsa tidied the house until everything was in its right place. Then she stood at the window with her arms folded, humming dreamily to herself, rocking on the balls of her feet. There would be no more of that dreadful rutting like beasts on the floor. When Joe came home, she would have to tell him:
I am not that sort of girl. It’s not how I was brought up.

Ailsa took off her pinafore and hung it up. She sank down in Joe’s chair, her head in his dent, leaning on the cover that saved the chair from his hair oil, though the whole chair smelt of Joe. Oil and tobacco and the sweat of him that was acceptable and savoury, like no one else’s. She reached down a heavy library book from a pile on the table and opened it on her lap. Not a lot of call in the
desert for Victorian translations of Dante, the librarian had remarked, glancing her over appraisingly. There were facing texts, the mysterious and beautiful Italian on the left, the English key on the right.

‘Do you know Italian?’ he’d asked.

‘I have some Latin and I think I may be able to work it out on the page. I’m hoping so anyway.’

It had been a manifesto. There is more to me than all this.

The print was large and ornate, according each word its sonorous authority. The pages were a sombre khaki, speckled with mould, and smelt deliciously of libraries, her mind’s home. Ailsa read slowly aloud in Italian, entering the dark wood of this world with Dante, glancing over to the English to make sure of her path. It led, of course it did, to the book under the bed. She ran upstairs and hefted out the shoebox.

Quiet mornings, just the two of them awakening together, often in the same bed, for Nia liked to creep in with Mami while her father was away.

Nice cool Shropshire weather, Mami said, opening the curtains. After they’d washed, Nia watched her pull the newly pressed dove-grey dress over her head and then wriggle, her face hidden, hands waggling out of the cuffs.

‘Help me, Nia! I’m stuck!’

The waist of the dress was catching on Mami’s bosom. And she seemed to be all elbows.

‘Mami, for goodness’ sake breathe small. Go into yourself!’

Ailsa giggled and obeyed. Her head popped through the dainty white collar as her arms threaded through the cap sleeves.

Nia helped smooth the soft mothery fabric down over the silky sheath of Ailsa’s petticoat. She laid her head against the flat belly; breathed in the scent of ironed
cotton, combined with talcum powder and shampoo. It was hard to believe, what Topher had once told her, that she had once been inside there, like an egg, he’d said, in a nest. You’ve seen an egg? You’ve seen a nest? Well, like that, one in the other. There’s a chick in every egg, he’d said, a fluffy yellow chick. Surely you know that? It seemed to Nia that Topher had told her this only yesterday.

Nia went round the back of Ailsa and gently pulled down the hem, to lie evenly. Then she wound her arms round from behind, head nestled sideways against the small of her mother’s back. They rocked, the two of them as one creature, back and forth, as she’d seen Mona and her mother do. Together Nia and Ailsa shuffled to the mirror, where Nia peered round her mother’s body to assess how they looked. Though Mami’s expression was odd, Nia understood it. Ailsa had caught sight of a stranger in the mirror, as Nia herself sometimes did when, skipping into an empty room, she met a mocking mimic. It froze when you froze and stared, and sprang to rude life behind your back.

‘It’s all right, Mami,’ she reassured her. ‘Put your eyebrows down. I’m here.’

Mami’s eyebrows were strong wings over the greenness of her eyes. But when she was worried, they rose up and crinkled her forehead. Now her face smoothed; she brushed her freshly washed hair and said Nia could do up all these fiddly buttons for her if she would be so kind, with her small, expert fingers.

While Ailsa perched on the pouffe, Nia fastened mother-of-pearl buttons one by one, her heart tickling with a fussy sort of pleasure.

‘How do I look?’ asked Ailsa.

‘Nice.’

‘Good. Now, what about breakfast.’

Nia cupped a brown egg between both palms, to coddle it. Ailsa allowed her to lower it on the spoon into bubbling water and to cut her own soldiers. The butter melted deliciously into the soldiers and she hummed as she chewed. They would see Auntie Mona today, as they did every day. It made Nia feel calm and still inside. She felt Mona’s presence all around them. They’d bumped into her by pure accident the day after Daddy left –
Well! What a surprise! How are you, my dear?
– as if it had been necessary for her father to go out of one door for her auntie to come in through another.

But first of all the Roberts girls would read their books. When the breakfast table had been cleared and the washing up done, mother and daughter would remove the table cloth and sit at angles to one another with crayons, pen, books and paper. Daylight fell on their open books, each page like a pale, absorbing face. They’d read snippets aloud and sometimes remain so quiet that the steady pulse of their breathing would hush Nia into a half-dream.

‘What are you writing now?’ she’d ask when Ailsa opened her fountain pen and began to scribble in a special green notebook. And Mami would read aloud beautiful things, such as the way in the Nile Valley the strong, clear sun would pile the colours on top of one another in layers: lifting the blue sky on to the yellow cliffs, on to the green land, the black bank, the blue river. The sunlight in Egypt is different from anywhere else, Mami had written. It shrinks the distances so that the colours all walk forward. This formed a picture in Nia’s mind, which she drew for her mother, with herself standing between Mona and
Mami next to a tiny pyramid and a big camel. For the three of them had been to Cairo in Mona’s Land Rover and viewed the Pyramid of Cheops. They’d stayed the night at Mena House, before motoring home to the bungalow.

Nia had run around with nothing on her feet across Mona’s cool marble floors, soles slapping on cold surfaces, and perched on a red cushion with the pussy cat, Isis. A feral cat – a wild, mangy tempest of a creature from the streets, so Mona had said. Isis would never be really tame. Nia had ordered the two women to make room and then to
cwtch
up round her, and settled herself between them, safe as houses between two lots of bosom and two sets of skirted thighs. Auntie Mona had carpets on the walls, nearly as nice as the carpet at Nia’s home.

Mona had no child, only Nia.

Mona had no country of her own. She would like to go to Jerusalem again, she said. It was her dearest wish. But she was
persona non grata
. It was a bad thing to be. Nia knew this, though Mona said it briskly and cheerfully.

Habibi
was a big, funny man whose legs were like stilts. He’d tossed her high in the garden till she screamed; he’d danced with Mona and Ailsa, his arms round both their waists. His fair-haired best pal, Alex, had sometimes crouched down and played jacks with Nia. Presently the two men had been sent off in their turn to exercise in the desert.

‘Salaam aleicum!’

‘Aleicum salaam!’

Mona’s friends would wait for them in a room in Ish bright with brass, hangings and tassels, and a chandelier. They were the Palestinians who’d been thrown out of their own country. Not Mona’s relatives who all wore normal
dress and went to church on Sundays but friends who were Muslims and covered their hair because it was too lovely for men to be allowed to see. She remembered an oval platter in the centre of a low table containing meatballs; there were salads, rice dishes, fried potatoes. Everyone reached to take what they wanted in their fingers. Nia’s meal had been an uncontrollable mess, her chin and hands running with sauce. Afterwards Ailsa and Mona had drunk thick coffee out of baby cups and Nia a glass of sherbert. Polite murmurs of conversation had swollen into passionate discussion.

‘We call our home our own,’ one of the women had said, with unimaginable sadness in her voice. ‘We must believe we shall return. Otherwise there is no life.’

Nia, bored, prowling the edge of the room, had discovered a cage covered in green felt. Lifting the edge and peeking, she’d seen a sleeping bird, lime-green and yellow, head under wing.

Later Nia had overheard Mona telling Ailsa of a shocking, obscene thing that was done to girls of six.

‘The
dawa
comes. To cut it out at the root. She buries it in a hole. It is of the devil. Girls often bleed to death.’

Ailsa’s face had been twisted and ugly, her arms crossed over her breasts.

Mona had played rippling rivers of notes on the
three-legged
piano. Creeping underneath with Isis, Nia had enjoyed its gentle boom and sweet throb. She’d watched Mona’s beautiful bare feet, with dirty soles, working the pedals. She’d stretched on her tummy, eyes close to the feet, enthralled by their fleshy pushing of the metal. Thrill had flipped into shock as a roar erupted from the body of the piano, thundered into Nia and split her head wide
open. Purple in the face and screaming, Nia had shot out and so did the cat.

Oh little
habiba
, did I give you a shock?

Not one drop of shampoo did Mona get in Nia’s eyes when she bathed her. She sleeked the soapy hair up in a wet pixie peak. The two women bundled Nia in a thick towel and Mona sat on the lid of the toilet and sang. Nia had two mothers.

‘That’s enough of my yodelling,’ Mona said.

The two mothers washed one another’s hair and combed it out, taking turns to sit in front a big gilt-framed mirror in candle light. Mona bent to kiss the nape of Ailsa’s neck and when Nia copied her, she smelled blossomy shampoo on clean, moist skin and saw Mami’s silver teardrop earring gleam in the soft light.

Nia had basked on the exciting little bed with Isis, whose pelt shone like coal. Eyes half closed, vibrating with purrs, the creature had stretched back over the pillow and given herself up to bliss, Nia stroking her belly. They were staying overnight.

In the officers’ quarters
, Nia thought.
Ha!

She’d thought about Daddy in the desert when the waft of roast lamb and gravy and roast potatoes reached her from downstairs. Which Daddy loved. His plate was always a mountain range of potatoes. A lake of gravy. Second helpings. The dad-pad will be getting fat! he’d say, patting his middle. Mustafa had been cooking a Sunday dinner, even though it was not Sunday. Mustafa was not a servant. He was a respected friend, a chef from Palestine where he had owned a restaurant. Palestine was not Israel. That was a lie. The smell had roused juices in Nia’s mouth, sickishly.

In the slatted, mothbally wardrobe along one wall of
Mona and
Habibi
’s bedroom, she’d found a row of crisp shirts and ties, blazers and suits. And two full robes of dark material with a bodice, back and panels of intricate rich red embroidery, a wide silken belt to go with them. The pattern and colours told people which village you came from. Mona was selling them for the Palestinian women friends who’d made them. Ailsa had said she longed to buy one but didn’t think she could take it home.
Keep yours here with me then
, Mona had offered. Inserting herself into Ailsa’s kaftan, Nia had drawn the cool folds round her face. Then she’d sat and played with violet mothballs that hung on strings and tempted her appetite like sweets. She’d put out the tip of her tongue and tasted one. Dry and cool, not at all minty.

Leaving the wardrobe, Nia had sat on the edge of the big bed and bounced. Feeling under the pillows, she’d touched a nightie. She’d peered in the drawers of the bedside cabinets at either side and sniffed small private smells. Among Nivea jars and nail clippers, had been a rubbery thing in a packet, with an interesting shape, which she put in the pocket of her shorts to look at later.

‘Nia! Din-dins!’

Scooping up the bulky cat, she’d lugged her, squirming and spitting, downstairs.

Awakening in the night, Nia had heard women’s voices and rustlings through the wall.

A lady was at the door. Nia knew from the knock that it couldn’t be Mona, who had her own
pom-de-pompom
rap. Ailsa however rushed to the door, stripping off her pinnie, calling out, ‘Darling!’

Nia played with her fuzzy felt.

‘I did write, Ailsa,’ came Topher’s mum’s hangdog voice. ‘I did write to Joe.’

‘Oh my goodness. But we didn’t realise you meant to come so soon. Are the boys with you?’

‘Topher! Topher!’ Nia shrieked, and sped out into the hall.

There was no Topher. Just Mrs White in a twinset and pearls, and white leather shoes with a hole through which her stockinged big toe peeped, covered in dirt. She’d put down a large and a small suitcase at the end of the path.

‘Ah, it’s little Nia! Hallo, little miss!’

‘Where’s Topher, Missus?’ Nia bawled.

‘I’ve left Christopher and Timothy with my
mother
-
in-law
, dear. No point in uprooting them until I know what the arrangements are. Is Joe, perhaps, about, Ailsa?’

‘No, Irene, he’s in the desert.’

‘In the
desert
?’

‘Exercises. Nothing to worry about. Look, do come in and sit down and have a drink, Irene. Something to eat? Freshen up? Where are you staying?’

In Irene came. She didn’t know where she was staying. She had meant to ask Joe’s advice. But he was in the desert. How long would he be away? Oh dear. Another two weeks? She looked wan and weak.

‘Oh, whatever shall I do, Ailsa?’

‘You will be all right. Just sit and get your bearings. That’s the way. How did you get here?’

‘I flew in a York aircraft. With a lot of public school kiddies vomiting. It was a nightmare.’

‘Oh dear. Not pleasant.’

‘No, not pleasant at all.’ Irene dissolved into tears, hiding
her face in both hands, swaying to and fro. Nia backed away from the moist lady who had been spewed on.

Nia could hear reluctance and duty in Ailsa’s voice, and then the resolution to do what was required of her as she placed her hand on the back of Irene’s neck, where Nia knew it did most good in calming you. ‘It’s all just been awful, you poor girl. Nia, run and get a glass of water for Mrs White. Run the tap so it’s good and cold.’

Nia shuffled in, a brimming glass clasped in both hands. Topher’s mother couldn’t help smiling.

‘Oh you good girl,’ she said as she accepted it. ‘Aren’t you clever, not spilling a drop. You have careful hands like your mummy.’

‘You can go off and play if you like, Nia, while we have a chat,’ Ailsa said.

Nia slouched out into the garden and swung on the gate, looking down the sandy road, in case Topher was coming, though she knew he wasn’t. Then she went into the back garden, sidling her way into position under the open sitting room window.

‘Don’t be cross with me, Ailsa dear! Don’t! Please!’ Mrs White wailed.

‘Whyever would I be cross with you, Irene? Of course you can stay here with us, as long as you need. It’s no trouble, none in the world.’

Nia went back in and put her hot hand on Mrs White’s leg. ‘Have you brought your knitting needles with you, Mrs White? Are you thinking of knitting a sock?’

Irene laughed. She said Nia was so droll. She was growing up, wasn’t she, a proper young lady. Would she like Auntie Irene to teach her to knit while she was here? Which reminded her, she’d brought a little present for Nia.
And Christopher, who’d been such a naughty boy in England, and wet the bed and bit his little brother (such a good child, Timothy, such winning ways) … Christopher had not forgotten Nia and had staged such a tantrum when he heard Irene was going to see her that his grandma had smacked his legs, you never saw such a spectacle as Christopher in a rage, she told Ailsa, it is volcanic.
He will go to the dogs
, his grandma always said. But Christopher had sent Nia something. Wherever was it? She’d remember as soon as she unpacked her things. Irene raised to Ailsa a spaniel face.