The Drowning Lesson (22 page)

We have lost each other too. We walk around at home silently, ghosts in a dead marriage, saying almost nothing. There is an unspoken pact about the girls. They mustn't suffer any more so we are polite. No one would know, though now I recognize other couples, like us, who don't talk or touch, who walk one behind the other in the street.

Megan phones halfway through the day. ‘Hi, Emma.'

‘Hi.'

‘You okay?'

‘Mmm. Clearing out a cupboard. You?'

‘It's just … Hear me out. Mrs Ridley Scott talked to Adam this morning and he's asked me to call. Apparently she wants to know –'

‘No. Not yet.'

I can't return to work. Not now, not ever. How could I deliver babies, watch them being held? It's not only that: before I finish a sentence I've forgotten the beginning. I could probably operate safely but I can't hold a conversation.

We exchange a few more words, then she has to go.

The girls return from school. Zoë plays with Kodi, and Alice hands me a brass pendant she's made in art. A step forward.

Adam comes home later. He reads the report and lays it aside. I see him thinking there's nothing really new in it. The facts don't hit him afresh each time as they do me. He wants to talk about the press conference in Gaborone in a couple of months' time: the one-year anniversary. ‘Alice is better,' he says. ‘She'll be fine without us.'

‘Without us?' I stare at him. ‘I'm not going, Adam. She's not ready. We can't possibly both leave.'

‘The message will be stronger if we go together,' he says.

‘Go without me.'

‘I bumped into Dr Harnham in the car park today.' He carries on calmly. ‘He thinks a short break from us could do Alice good. She's ready to be trusted with a little more independence. We'll only be gone a week.'

‘Who would look after them?'

‘Can't they board? I thought there was provision for day girls to board, if necessary. They'd be together. We can phone every day. Kodi can go to my registrar – his wife is nuts about dogs.'

He makes it sound so easy. Alice would be fine. Zoë would be fine. Even the dog would be fine. All we have to do is the journey, then the arrival at the airport, though the last time we did that I'd had Sam in my arms. We'd meet Goodwill and Kopano, other policemen. The Met have long gone, and so has Adam's private detective; after all, they were no more successful than the police already on the ground.

Then we'll go back to the house in Kubung, along with all the journalists. We'll be photographed in the garden. I walked past Highgate cemetery in the rain last week on my way to the library; the fresh scent of pine brought back the garden, the first night of searching and all the nights after that. I had to lean against the railings until the giddiness passed. Returning will be beyond me.

We go up to sit on the children's beds and talk. Alice tells us a little about her day. We don't talk about Sam: the psychiatrist told us to wait till she's ready. Zoë now says her prayers, kneeling by the bed and whispering into her fingers. She never used to pray. None of us did. I wonder who she is talking to and if she's asking for her brother. Sometimes when I watch her, the memory of my own whispered prayer
and the cold bones in my hand floats for a moment in the pretty bedroom, unreal, like a dream or the memory of a dream. Adam watches her too; I think he's pleased. I think he secretly says his own prayers, too, but we don't talk about belief or anything else that might disturb the flat surface of our lives.

Sometimes I remember my father's voice as he called from the boat and the feel of his hands as he pulled me in, but there is a silence where his words used to be. I can't remember how he sounded – I can't feel his hands, I can't even bring his face to mind. He has vanished completely and I am on my own.

Gulls lift and slide in the grey sky above the Post Office Tower. It must be rough at sea. The wood of the bench is dark; wet seeps through my jeans. There is a scrabble of dogs on the grassy slope below me: an Alsatian, spaniels, a thin greyhound. They bark and run and skirmish, same as a school playground, the leader, the sycophant, the small one on its own. Kodi is the class clown: he rolls on his back and jumps at the others, eager to please and mostly ignored.

Around the pack, women are chatting as they watch the animals. They have prams and pushchairs and children clinging to their legs. Standing well apart, two middle-aged men tuck their chins into their coats and shift their weight from foot to foot, glancing at me; they recognize me from somewhere but can't place where it was. One of the women follows their glance then nudges her friend. They stare and whisper. I call Kodi. It's time to fetch Alice anyway. He bounds over, a typical Labrador, sweet, obedient. Halfway down the hill, one of the
pram-pushing women passes me. She is almost running, pulled along by the German Shepherd. As the pram moves ahead, all I can see are small white fingers curled on the cover. They must be icy. I want to tell the mother to put the little hand safely under that cover, but she's too far away now.

Later, in the kitchen, Alice wants a second doughnut. I try not to look too pleased; Dr Harnham says act normal but I can't remember how.

‘So, Ally, how did it go today?' When I picked her up earlier, we'd talked about Kodi and the dogs he'd played with; giving her time.

Her head bends over her plate, her shoulders shake. I feel sick. Perhaps Dr Harnham upset her. When she lifts her head she is laughing, not crying. Zoë is staring with surprise so I laugh too, keeping Alice company. If it sounds real it is, a laugh of relief.

Zoë pokes her sister, smiling. ‘What's so funny?'

‘Nothing,' Alice says, her face growing still, eyes watchful.

But it was something, along with the second doughnut. Another sign of repair.

‘What about you, Zoë? Did you have a good day?'

Zoë is colouring, leaning close to her paper on the table, her breathing loud. A slip of tongue protrudes between her teeth. Before she can answer, Alice says,
‘Dr Harnham asked me how I was getting on at school.'

‘Yes?'

‘I told him it was okay.'

‘That's great, Ally.'

She picks up her bag. ‘Think I'll do homework in my room.' The bag swings as she walks to the door.

The kitchen is quiet. The February wind is spattering rain against the window. I love that sound. I used to long for rain in the heat.

As if on cue, Zoë says, ‘We're doing Africa in assembly tomorrow.' Casually, like any piece of school news.

‘Right.' My heart is instantly racing.

‘They asked me to say something.'

‘Fine.' But it isn't fine. How could it be? How could they ask?

‘I can say anything I want.'

‘Okay.'

What could she talk about? Not the animals. She lost the ones she'd collected. The scenery? Those desolate spaces would be too difficult for a child to describe. Maybe the people, but she only really got to know three or four. What if she talks about the day we lost Sam?

Zoë bends closer over her picture, pressing hard with a yellow wax crayon. ‘I'm going to say it was hot. Look.' She holds up her picture of a yellow sun; it takes up the entire page.

‘Brilliant, Zoë.'

The heat at Kubung hurt your skin. Grass withered; donkeys died of thirst by the road.

‘We'll go to her assembly, of course.' The children are in bed and Adam is eating supper. I'm leaning against the stove, watching the rain still falling on the grass outside. They would be glad of this rain in Kubung. ‘We have to support her.'

‘Of course,' he replies. I wonder what the other parents will say when they see him again. He's always been thin but now he's skeletal. He moves more slowly.

‘Talking of Africa …' He looks at me hopefully and I look away.

‘Maybe.'

It's not just the smell of pine. The dusty scent of the bush reaching through Gaborone and into the hotel garden is instantly familiar. I needn't have worried about what it would be like, returning to the same place. It's as if we have come to another country; any country where it's hot and labour is cheap. The hotel is new since last year, a five-star monster. It has efficient air-conditioning, muted lighting and thick linen tablecloths. Beyond the plate-glass windows of the dining room the swimming pool glitters, surrounded by ranks of sun-loungers. We could be hundreds of miles distant from Kubung or maybe thousands of years. Compared to this opulence, the village had been medieval. Little running water, electricity or Internet. Not many goods in the shops or shoes on the children. It's only when I hear the warm tones of the Motswana chef and catch the smile of the young girl bringing our tea that I can begin to connect the two worlds.

We came straight to the hotel in a taxi. No one
knew we were arriving at the time we did, apart from the police. We want to use the journalists this time, not the other way around. We were caught in the media headlights before. Adam booked three days here for us to acclimatize and prepare for the press conference.

On the first day I'm restless. By breakfast on the second, I've Skyped the girls and swum in the pool. As I'm towelling myself dry, a chameleon on the branch of a jacaranda tree catches my eye. The same colours as the lichen markings on the wood, its eyes gleam as the lids close and open.

At the breakfast buffet the plates around us were piled high with layers of food, eggs and bacon on pancakes, haddock on top of that. Oiled bodies stretch out around the pool, iced drinks alongside. Children bicker in the background.

‘I can't stay here, Adam. I'll go mad.'

He's been making notes since breakfast, anticipating the media questions and trying to craft replies that strike the right note between hope and being prepared. We mustn't look like victims, but we must be grateful to the police. Now the notebook lies on his face; we had both forgotten the heat.

‘Can't you relax?' His voice is muffled. ‘We need to rehearse soon.'

‘I have to escape this place.'

The book slides off as he raises himself up on one elbow, studying me. ‘You mean it, don't you?'

‘I'll go to the main mall. I could buy something for the girls.'

‘At least try to avoid notice. Wear a hat and dark glasses.'

‘Not a false moustache?'

‘I'm serious, Emma.' He scratches his neck. He's always serious.

‘We have to control the media this time,' he continues. ‘We want publicity on our own terms.'

I buy a large pair of sunglasses along with a wide-brimmed black cotton hat in the boutique in the hotel lobby. Then, up in our bedroom, rummaging in my suitcase, I find cotton trousers and a linen jacket, my smart sandals. My face is shaded by the brim of my new hat. I brought no makeup. Searching in my case for a tube of lipstick, my fingers close around a small plastic tub in the side pocket. I draw out the forgotten pot of ground herbs I'd stashed away a year ago. Unscrewing the lid, I inhale the acrid scent, which makes me sneeze. I dip a dampened finger into the powder and dab it on my eyelids, quickly, before I change my mind. Why not? What's the worst that can happen after all? A rash?

Down by the pool Adam is writing again. He glances up, then gives me a narrow-eyed stare. He
nods. I've passed the test. As I climb into a hotel taxi, the blue of the jacaranda tree in the courtyard glows like wet plastic.

The mall is thick with people and stalls. I long to throw off the jacket, and wish I'd worn shorts and flip-flops. Stalls spill over the walkway, displaying pinwheel baskets, bags of sweets, piles of peanuts; lengths of blue cotton lie across a rack, the orange circles stand out sharply, the colours bright enough to sting. The stall owner begins an aggressive pitch. As I turn away, an iridescent line arcs across my left field of vision. A migraine, gathering strength.

A crowded little tea room fronts the mall; sitting at a tin table near the back, I rummage for paracetamol and swallow two with a sip of burning tea that the café owner brings. She rests a generous hip against the table edge. ‘On holiday?'

I nod: easier to lie.

‘You like our country, then?' She wipes her hands on her apron, waiting for my reply. Her rounded face is very kind; for a moment I want to tell her that we lost our son in her country and that everything she might be proud of, the wide sky, the warm people and the energy in the streets, has faded to dust for us. That I wish to God we had never set foot here. Instead I swallow the dark tea, hoping she will leave.

‘You are happy here?' she persists.

I catch a brief memory of my outstretched hand rimmed by sun, the sensation of Sam's soft baby hair beneath my fingertips, then both vanish; I find I simply can't remember what happiness feels like. A man thumps on the counter, calling loudly for a cool drink; the café owner stares at me a moment longer, then hurries to the front of the shop.

I leave the tea unfinished and walk down the street but there is nowhere to go, no friend to visit. I can't risk another café or go back to the hotel and face a day by the pool, rehearsing for press interviews that I know will be pointless.

I take turning after turning, walking rapidly, looking intently at the houses and the yards full of washing and bikes and chairs; then the noise of children reaches me across the road. There is a large building on the opposite side of the street with at least thirty children playing in the yard. Two women stand inside the gate, leaning against the wooden frame, watching the children and gossiping together. A school or an orphanage, perhaps. Two small boys kick a punctured football about, and, as I watch, a thought arrives, welcome as a cool drink: I do have a friend after all. Claire. The address of her orphanage is still on my phone. I could get a taxi, sit in her kitchen, listen to her brisk but kindly talk. Adam will understand. Scrolling through my phone for her name and address, I cross the street, reach through the gate and show
the screen to the women. They nod in recognition; they know Mma Stukker well. She runs a smaller orphanage than theirs but, still, a good one. Talking loudly, contradicting each other and starting afresh, they indicate I can easily walk there: it's about five blocks distant. Right. Two lefts. Second right, then turn down by the large garage. The orphanage is halfway along on the left. I'll know it by the big tree over the gate.

Tidy stacks of tyres line the pavement outside the garage; the smell of hot rubber follows me down the street. Halfway along there is a large mopane tree hanging over a white metal gate; inside, a wooden bench has been placed under its branches. I collapse in the shade, catching my breath; it was further than I'd thought. Ahead, a flight of wooden steps leads to a red door. Children's voices are coming from inside, with the clash of crockery. Lunchtime; I should wait a little. The door opens and two young girls emerge. One is talking loudly as she takes off her apron, the other is wearing a hat; both are smiling. Assistants coming off duty, happy to be outside and on their way home. The talkative girl is short and well built, her black dress stretched so tightly that the fabric shimmers in the sun. Her friend is small too, but slim and, unusually, blonde. The neat bob glints under her hat, too perfect to be real, a wig perhaps. She wears a pretty red and green African print dress and carries a
large package. Her dark glasses, like mine, are huge, hiding her face. As she descends the steps, her right leg seems to drag behind just a little. The limp is so slight I could be imagining it. Perhaps I am.

The girls pass without a second glance, slap hands and part at the gate; the short girl runs across the road, waving and calling goodbye. The blonde sets off to the right and, unable to help myself, I start to follow. She walks rapidly, despite the tiny limp, turning quickly at street corners. Out of sight, I run to catch up; she seems a little taller than Teko was, or perhaps she's fatter.

Adam will be dismayed that I'm still following strangers, but he needn't know. I won't tell him. This is the last time, I promise myself, as I hurry. The very last time.