Should We Fall Behind, page 27
‘So Ebele,’ Daban said, completely unexpectedly, ‘When was the last time you went out properly? I mean to see some music or eat in a restaurant?
Once again the lightness in his voice surprised her. It was as though he saw through the second-rate version of herself she presented to the world.
‘I don’t go out. You know I can’t. Because of Tuli. Especially now. There’s no one to leave her with, not anyone I can trust.’
‘Well, maybe we can go for an early dinner, to one of the Turkish places along the Parade, and Tuli can come along too. Those places are full of families.’
Ebele smiled.
‘Why are you so patient with me, Daban?’ she said. She imagined him on the other side of the line, scratching his head, thinking of what to say. He spoke immediately.
‘Life is short. And, as far as I know, there’s just one shot at it. I decided long ago to make it the best I could, to see the best in people. We don’t have much, people like us, but there’s nothing worth having we can’t have. And, I like you. I like you a lot, Ebele. I think about you.’
She blushed. She was glad he couldn’t see her: hair frizzy and unkempt, yesterday’s make-up; a faded tee-shirt for pyjamas, the funk of morning hanging around her.
‘Okay,’ she said. ‘An early dinner with Tuli sometime. But not yet, it’s too soon.’
‘What about a walk in the park instead? Less pressure.’
‘Maybe a walk in the park,’ she said. ‘I’ll see you at work, Daban.’
Ebele was alone in the shop most of the morning. Makrides was out on business and Daban was yet to arrive after an early delivery. There was no sign of any customers, on or offline, so after she wiped down the displays, readjusted bed-covers and sifted through emails, she made herself tea and half-heartedly scanned through the week’s copy of the Gazette which lay idle on the counter. Outside, a stationary vehicle blasted out Beyonce’s Single Ladies as a couple of old women in niqab shuffled by; she smirked at the incongruity of the scene. When she returned to the newspaper something else caught her eye and she stared at the page for a long time, re-reading the headline and looking closely at the image alongside. It declared the Body in the River Identified. A girl missing for nearly a month, gone just days after her mother’s funeral. There was no father, just a grandmother who’d identified the girl as Betwa Bansal, aged nineteen. The grandmother was devastated. She’d searched for the girl tirelessly. She was traced through letters she’d written to her estranged daughter, Betwa’s mother. The letters were discovered in a locked case stowed above a cupboard in a flat on Shifnal Road. Some dated far back, to when Betwa was just a baby. The news article said there was CCTV of a man in a suit who the police wanted to question in connection with the death but as yet no one had come forward. Ebele was shaken by the story. She wondered which end of Shifnal Road the girl lived on and how many times they’d passed each other in the street. She felt sick at the thought of it. She shoved the newspaper into her bag and slipped into the utility area to splash water on her face before anyone came into the shop. When she emerged, Makrides was stumbling through the entrance loaded up with fabric samples.
‘Don’t just stand there looking at me like I have come from the moon,’ he said. ‘Come and help me. Take these and put them on the counter. We have a very important customer coming. They are interested in the sofa set. Come on, hurry up. I don’t pay you to stand around.’
Later, when Tuli was fast asleep, Ebele lay next to Daban on her bed, listening to the rain and watching dapples of neon light throwing patterns across his naked body.
At midnight, he said, ‘I better go. Before the little one wakes up.’ Ebele watched silently as he dressed in the dark. ‘It’s been a good day,’ he said as he pulled on his coat. ‘Thank you.‘
Ebele switched on the bedside lamp and sat up. ‘Don’t go yet,’ she said. ‘I need to show you something first. It’s to do with your friend, Jimmy. I wasn’t sure whether to show you at all, whether it’s too much to know, but I don’t want to keep it from you. Not now.’
She reached into her bag and pulled out the crumpled newspaper and passed it over. When he finished reading, he sat on the edge of the bed with his face in his hands. She put her arm around him and he rested his head against her.
‘I don’t know if it would be more cruel to tell him or not to tell him,’ Daban said after a few minutes.
‘Maybe it’s better to let him have some hope; it’s not like he has much else. I’m sorry, Daban.’ she said.
‘It’s not your fault, Ebele. It’s somebody’s fault but not yours.’
The next morning, as Tuli ate breakfast cereal on the floor of her bedroom, Ebele said, ‘You’ve still got a grandma you know,’ and she watched her daughter’s eyes light up.
‘A real one, Mummy? Not a story one?’
‘Yes, Tuli. Look.’ She held out her phone.
‘Am I the baby?’
‘No, it’s me, silly. She’s holding me when I was a baby.’
‘Oh Mummy,’ Tuli said. ‘She has the same face as you but in white.’
Ebele took the phone back and peered at the profile picture. ‘Really?’ she said. ‘Do you think so?’
‘Is that grandma lost, Mummy? Why didn’t she come to see me already?’
‘She’s sort of lost. I think I lost her, or she lost me. I can’t remember but maybe the time has come to try and find her. She doesn’t even know about you yet and it’ll be a big surprise.’
‘Will I be a good surprise?’
‘You’ll be a wonderful surprise, Tuli.’
‘Mummy, do you think she likes chocolate?’
Tuli hummed and bounced her favourite soft toy on her knee. Ebele kissed her daughter’s cheek and peered out of the window to see if Jimmy was there. All was still at the back of the gardens, except for a ginger cat who tiptoed across the wall and jumped when it reached the zigzag of glass.
35. JIMMY
Daban arrived in the early evening with shopping bags. He pulled out beer and crisps, firelighters and kindling and handed over a can to Jimmy.
‘I wasn’t sure if you were going to stick around or not but I thought I’d give you a send-off either way,’ he said. He spent the next ten minutes making a fire in the centre of the concrete floor beyond the tangle of brambles and bushes. When the fire was lit, the two men sat on a half-built wall staring silently into the flames.
‘This was going to be a pottery shed for Makrides’ wife,’ Daban said casually. He tossed a twig into the fire; it hissed and spat sparks towards them. ‘It was a present, a surprise for her but she died before he had a chance to finish it. He loved her very much, they say.’
Jimmy watched as firelight glowed across Daban’s face. He’d known this man for no more than a few days yet he could hardly imagine not knowing him.
‘Things rarely turn out as planned,’ he said, and they sat in silence again.
‘Don’t suppose you know where you’re going next?’ Daban asked.
Jimmy warmed his hands in front of the fire. For a few moments the only sound was the crackle of the flames.
‘Maybe it’s time to stop searching,’ Daban said after a short while. ‘Everyone knows someone who knows someone around here,’ he added. ‘It’s not as big as people think. You would have found her by now if she was around these parts.’
‘She’s got to be somewhere.’
‘You should call home,’ Daban said as he passed across another can.
Jimmy opened it and took a long swig,
Daban held out his phone. ‘It’s unlocked.’ When Jimmy didn’t take it, Daban laid it on the low wall between them. ‘I’m going to go over there,’ he said pointing towards the bright window where Jimmy had first seen Tuli. ‘It’s where my girlfriend lives; that’s her daughter’s room you can see. I’ll be back in twenty.’
Jimmy picked up the phone and turned it over in his hands, running his fingers across the digits until, almost subconsciously he dialled the only number he knew by heart. It connected straightaway and before he could change his mind there was a familiar gruff voice on the other end.
‘Who is this? Speak up will you.’
He wanted to throw the phone into the fire but instead he forced out words.
‘It’s me, it’s Jimmy.’
The phone went quiet for a few seconds until a different voice came on the line
‘Jimmy, oh my god, Jimmy. We’ve been searching for you everywhere. We thought you’d gone, like Anthony.’
It was a shock to hear Jenny’s voice, even more so than Frank’s. He cut the call without responding but the phone rang back immediately and he knew it would be Jenny and not Frank.
‘Please come home, Jimmy,’ she said. ‘Please, it’ll be fine, I promise.’
When Daban reappeared, the flames had fizzled out and only embers remained. Jimmy was glad there was so little light.
When day came, Jimmy surveyed the detritus of his recent life sprawled across the back seat of the car: grubby sleeping bag, mud-caked clothes, the tartan wool blanket, relatively clean. Anything of value was already packed away in the rucksack: two paperback books, pages smudged, corners creased, and Betwa’s denim jacket neatly rolled beneath them. That was it, all he owned. He flung the bag over his shoulder and waited as a song playing on the car stereo faded out in the background.
Mrs Banu appeared mid-morning, just as she said she would. She was wrapped in a thick coat, heavier than the one she usually wore.
‘Winter has come promptly,’ she said. ‘Autumn hardly had a chance to thrive and now suddenly it has disappeared.’
‘Yep,’ he said. He took the coffee and the package of cellophane-wrapped food she offered and pushed it into his bag. ‘I’m leaving the blanket,’ he said nodding at the back seat. ‘But I’d like to keep the flask? I’ll replace it one day, I promise.’
‘No need,’ she said. ‘Once, me and Satish took hot tea in a flask every time we went into town or had a little day trip out of the city. Now I have little use for these things.’
‘Well, I’ll be glad of it later,’ he said.
‘I hope you have a good journey, Jimmy.’
‘Thank you, me too,’ he replied.
There was nothing left to say but she hesitated and his urge was to embrace her, like he would Nan. Instead he reached out and put a hand on her shoulder. She looked like she might cry.
‘You are a good boy, beta,’ she said. ‘I hope you find the peace you are looking for.’
‘I hope you do too,’ he said as she walked away, but she didn’t appear to hear.
Before he left the alleyway Jimmy glanced up at Tuli’s bedroom window. She was there, framed, with her back to him, dancing with her arms outstretched.
Acknowledgements
The support and encouragement of others has enabled me to write this book. Thank you to all those who have been there along the way and apologies to those not directly mentioned here.
Firstly, thank you Kevin Duffy at Bluemoose Books for publishing this novel. I am proud to be with a publisher who works so passionately on behalf of writers and readers, to make the industry better, fairer, more diverse. Thank you to the wider Bluemoose team behind the scenes too. I am especially grateful for the valuable insights, patience and skills of my editor, Leonora Rustamova, and Hetha Duffy, who I know does more than she ever lets on.
Funding from Arts Council England almost certainly allowed this book to happen. Thank you to them for crucial financial support at a time I needed it most, and also for funding organisations which work tirelessly to develop and champion new writing and writers. On that note, a massive personal thank you to Lesley Wood at New Writing South for providing me with time, space and moral support throughout the writing process. It is appreciated. Thanks also to Writing West Midlands for allowing me to access Room 204 and receive useful feedback from fellow writers as a result; and to The Literary Consultancy, for sending me in the direction of Anna South whose comments on an early draft were instrumental in the development of this story. Thank you to West Dean College of Arts and Conservation for inviting me to be a writer in residence and thereby giving me space to finish, and to Brighton & Hove Libraries, where I spend almost all my writing days.
Many thanks to the Write Process group for peer support, good company and expert writing advice: Laura Wilkinson, Anna Jefferson, Katy Massey, Bridget Whelan, Lou Tondeur, Jules Grant, Rosie Chard and Kate Lee; all brilliant, talented and generous writers. Thanks too, Beth Miller, Mark A Radcliffe and many others who are an important part of my community of writers. In particular, Amy Raphael for comradeship over many years and, in this instance, for being one of my early readers alongside Joe and Ruben.
Thank you to Małgorzata (Gosia) Łapsa-Malawska for letting us use her stunning painting, The last conversation (why?) Bright sky after the storm as the cover of this book; it is perfect.
Love and gratitude to: Joe, Milan, Ruben and Varsha, my mother, Brij Bala Duggal, late father, Sarb Jit Duggal, my sisters and brothers and my extended family. And to my friends for their vital companionship and unwavering solidarity. Finally, a special thank you to Stella Boosalis (née Porpaxias) for specific advice and inspiration but especially for unrivalled friendship over almost four entire decades.
Sharon Duggal, Should We Fall Behind
