Lawrence looked surprised. He stood up and walked around the kitchen. He ran his hands through his hair. “Yeah,” he said, “I really think you would.”
“I would. Please do not imagine I would forgive you, Lawrence. I would make sure I hurt you.”
Lawrence looked out at the garden. “Oh,” he said.
I waited. After a long time he said, “It’s funny. I’ve been lying awake all night thinking what to do about you. I thought about what would be best for Sarah, and what would be best for me. I honestly didn’t even think about what you’d do. I suppose I should have. I just assumed you wouldn’t be so switched on. When Sarah talked about you I was imagining, I don’t know…not someone like you, anyway.”
“I have been in your country two years. I learned your language and I learned your rules. I am more like you than me now.”
Lawrence laughed down his nose again. “I really don’t think you’re anything like me,” he said.
He sat down at the kitchen table again, and held his head in his hands. “I’m a shit,” he said. “I’m a loser, and you’ve got me over a barrel.”
He looked up at me. “You won’t really tell Linda, will you?”
His eyes were exhausted. I sighed and sat down opposite him.
“We should be friends, Lawrence.”
“How can we be?”
“We are not as different as you think, you and me.”
Lawrence laughed. “I’ve just admitted to you that I’d sell you down the river if I could. You’re the brave little refugee girl, and I’m the selfish bastard. I think our roles here are pretty clearly delineated, don’t you?”
I shook my head. “I am selfish too, you know.”
“No, you’re really not.”
“Now you think I’m a sweet little girl, do you? In your mind you still don’t think I really exist. It does not occur to you that I can be clever, like a white person. That I can be selfish, like a white person.”
I realised I was so angry I was shouting. Lawrence just laughed at me.
“Selfish! You? Took the last biscuit out of the tin, did you? Left the top off Sarah’s toothpaste?”
“I left Sarah’s husband hanging in the air,” I said.
Lawrence stared at me. “What?”
I swallowed more tea, but it was too cold now and I put the mug down on the table. The light in the kitchen was cooling too. I watched the glow fade from all the objects in the room, and I felt the cold flow into my bones. All of the anger went out of me.
“Lawrence?”
“Yes?”
“Maybe it is better that I go somewhere else.”
“Stop. Wait. What did you just tell me?”
“Maybe you were right. Maybe it is better for Sarah and better for Charlie and better for you if I am not here. I could just run away. I am good at running, Lawrence.”
“Shut up,” said Lawrence quietly. He gripped my wrist.
“Stop it! That hurts!”
“Then tell me what you’ve done.”
“I do not want to tell you. I am frightened now.”
“Me too. Talk.”
I held on to the edge of the table and I breathed in and out against my fear. “Sarah said it was strange that I came on the day of Andrew’s funeral.”
“Yes?”
“It was not a coincidence.”
Lawrence let go of my arm and he stood up quickly and he put his hands on the back of his neck. He went to the kitchen window and stared out for a long time. Then he turned back to me. “What happened?” he whispered.
“I don’t think I should tell you. I shouldn’t have said anything. I was angry.”
“Tell me.”
I looked down at the backs of my hands. I realised that I did want to tell someone, and I knew I could never tell Sarah. I looked up at him.
“I telephoned Andrew on the morning they let me out of the immigration detention centre. I told him I was coming.”
“Is that all?”
“Then I walked here from the immigration detention centre. I came in two days. I hid in the garden.” I pointed through the window. “There,” I said, “behind that bush where the cat is. Then I waited. I did not know what I wanted to do. I think I wanted to say thank you to Sarah for saving me, but also I wanted to punish Andrew for letting my sister be killed. And I did not know how to do either of these things, so I waited. I waited for two days and two nights and I did not have anything to eat, so I came out when it was dark and I ate the seeds from the bird-feeder and I drank the water from the tap on the outside of the house. In the daytime I watched through the windows of the house, and I listened when they came out into the garden. I saw how Andrew talked to Sarah and Charlie. He was terrible. He was angry all the time. He would not play with Charlie. When Sarah talked, he just shrugged his shoulders or he shouted at her. But when he was alone, he did not stop shrugging or shouting. He would stand all alone at the end of the garden and talk to himself, and sometimes he would shout at himself, or hit himself on the head with the side of his fist, like this. He cried a lot. Sometimes he would fall down to his knees in the garden and weep for an hour. This is when I realised he was full of evil spirits.”
“He was clinically depressed. It was very hard for Sarah.”
“I think it was very hard for him too. I watched him for a long time. One time when he was weeping I watched him too hard and I forgot to hide myself, and he looked up and he saw me. I thought, Oh, no, now this’is it, Little Bee. But Andrew did not come towards me. He stared at me and he said, Oh, Jesus, you are not real, you are not there, just get out of my fucking head. And then he closed his eyes tight and he rubbed them, and while he was doing this I hid myself back behind the bush. When he opened his eyes he looked again where I had just been, but he did not see me. Then he went back to talking to himself.”
“He thought he was hallucinating you? Poor bastard.”
“Yes, but I did not feel sorry for him at first. It was only later. On the third day he came out into the garden again, when Sarah was at work and Charlie was at the nursery. He was drunk, I think. His words were coming out slow and twisted.”
“That would have been his medication,” said Lawrence. His face had gone very white now, and he was still staring at me with his eyes very bright. “Go on,” he said.
“It was still early in the morning. Andrew started shouting. He said, Come out, come out, what do you want? I did not say anything. Please, he said. I know you are a ghost. What do you want to make you go away? I stepped out from behind the laurel bush and he took one step back. I am not a ghost, I said. He started hitting himself on the side of the head. He said, You are not real, you are in my head, you are not there. He closed his eyes and he shook his head. While he had his eyes closed I walked right up to him, close enough to touch. When he opened his eyes and saw how close I was, he screamed and he ran inside the house. I felt sorry for him then. I followed him into the house. Please listen, I said. I am not a ghost. I came because I do not know anyone else. Then he said, Touch me. Prove you are not a ghost. So I moved closer and I put my hand on his hand. When he felt my hand, he closed his eyes for a long time and then he opened them again. I walked up the stairs and he walked in front of me. He walked up the stairs backwards. He was screaming, Get out! Get out! He ran in to his work room, his study, and he closed the door. So I stood outside the door and I shouted, Do not be afraid of me! I am only a human being! There was a very long silence, so I went away.”
Lawrence’s hands were shaking. There were ripples on the surface of the tea in his cup.
“A little while later I came back. Andrew was standing on a chair in the middle of the room. What he had done, he had tied an electrical cable around the wooden beam in the ceiling. He had tied the other end around his neck. He looked at me and I looked at him. Then he whispered to me. He said, It was a long time ago, okay? A long way away. Why won’t you just stay over there? So I said, I am sorry, it is not safe over there. And he said, I know you di
ed over there. I know you’re only in my head. He looked at me for a long time. His eyes were red and they were flickering around the room. I moved closer to him but he started shouting. He said, If you come closer I will step off this chair. So I stopped. I said, Why are you doing this? He answered in a very quiet voice. He said, Because I’ve seen the person I am. I said, But you are a good person, Andrew. You care about the way the world is. I read your articles, in The Times, when I was learning English. Andrew shook his head. He said, Words are nothing. The person I am is the person you saw on that beach. He knows where the commas go, but he wouldn’t cut off one finger to save you. So I smiled at him and I said, It doesn’t matter. Look, I am here, I am alive. And he thought about this for a long time. He said, What happened to the girl who was with you? So I said, She is fine. She could not come here with me, that is all. He looked into my eyes then. He looked and looked, until I could not look him in the eyes any more and I had to look down at the floor. And then he said, Liar. Then he closed his eyes and he stepped off the chair. The noises he made from his throat, it was like the noises my sister made while they killed her.”
Lawrence held on to the kitchen worktop.
“Shit,” he said.
“I tried to help him but he was too heavy. I could not lift up his body. I tried until I was exhausted and I was crying but I could not take the weight off the cord. I pushed the chair under his legs but he kicked it away. After a long time he stopped struggling but he was still alive. I could see his eyes watching me. He was spinning round on the cord. He was turning very slowly, and each time his body turned to face me, his eyes followed me until he spun around too far. His eyes were bulging out and his face was purple, but he was watching me. I thought, I have to help him. I thought, I must call for the neighbours or I must call an ambulance. I started running down the stairs to get help. But then I thought, If I call for help, the authorities will know that I am here. And if the authorities know that I am here, they will deport me, or maybe even worse. Because here is something, Lawrence: after they let us out of the immigration detention centre, one of the other girls I was with, she hanged herself too. I ran away from that place but the police must know I was there. Two hangings, you see? The police would be suspicious. They would think I had something to do with it. I could not let them find me like that. So I ran out of Andrew’s study and I held my head in my hands and I tried to think what to do, whether I should give up my life to save Andrew’s life. And first I thought, Of course I must save him, whatever it costs me, because he is a human being. And then I thought, Of course I must save myself, because I am a human being too. And then after I had been standing there for five minutes thinking these things, I realised it was too late and I had saved myself. And then I went to the refrigerator and ate, because I was very hungry. After that I went back down the far end of the garden to hide, and J did not come out until the funeral.”
My hands were shaking. Lawrence took a deep breath. His hands were shaking too.
“Oh, God, this is serious,” he said. “This is very, very serious.”
“Do you see now? Do you see why I want to help Sarah so much? Do you see why I want to help Charlie? I made the wrong choice, Lawrence. I let Andrew die. Now I must do everything I can to make things right.”
Lawrence was walking up and down the kitchen. He was holding, the dressing-gown closed around him, and his fingers were twisting on the cloth. He stopped and looked at me.
“Does Sarah know any of this?”
I shook my head.
“I am scared to tell her. I think if I tell her then she will make me go away from here, and then I will not be able to help her, and then there will be no way for me to make up for the bad thing I did. And if I can not make up for it, then I do not know what I will do. I cannot run away again. There is nowhere to go. I have discovered the person I am and I do not like her. I am the same as Andrew. I am the same as you. I tried to save myself. Tell me, please, where is the refuge from that?”
Lawrence stared at me.
“What you did is a crime,” he said. “Now I don’t have a choice. I have to go to the police.”
I started to cry. “Please, don’t go to the police. They will take me away. I just want to help Sarah. Don’t you want to help Sarah?”
“I love Sarah, so don’t fucking well talk to me about helping her. Do you really think it was helpful to come here?”
I was sobbing now. “Please,” I said. “Please.”
There were tears running down my face. Lawrence slammed his hand down on the table.
“Shit!” he said.
“I’m sorry, Lawrence, I’m sorry.”
Lawrence slapped the palm of his hand against his forehead.
“Oh, you fucking bitch,” he said. “I can’t go to the police, can I? I can’t let Sarah find out. Her head is fucked up enough about all this. If she knows you were there when Andrew died, she’ll lose it. And it would be the end of me and her, of course it would. I couldn’t go to the police without Linda finding out. This would be all over the newspapers. But I don’t even want to think what this is going to be like, being with Sarah when I know this and she doesn’t. And the police! Fuck! If I don’t tell the police I’m as culpable as you are. What if it gets out and they realise I knew all along? I’m the one who’s been sleeping with the dead man’s wife, for fuck’s sake. I’ve got motive. I could go to prison. If I don’t pick up the phone and call the police, right now, then I could go to prison for you, Little Bee. Do you understand that? I could go to prison for you when I don’t even know your real name.”
I folded my two hands over Lawrence’s hand and I looked up into his face. I could not see him at all, just a pale shape against the light, blurry with tears.
“Please. I have to stay here. I have to make up for what I did. Please, Lawrence. I will tell nobody about you and Sarah, and you must tell nobody about me. I am asking you to save me. I am asking you to save my life.”
Lawrence tried to pull his hand away but I held on to it. I put my forehead against his arm.
“Please,” I said. “We can be friends. We can save each other.”
“Oh, God,” he said quietly, “I wish you hadn’t told me any of this.”
“You made me tell you, Lawrence. I am sorry. I know what I am asking you. I know it will hurt you to keep the truth from Sarah. It is like asking you to cut off a finger for me.”
Lawrence pulled his hand out from under my hands. Then he took his hand away completely. I sat at the table with my eyes closed and I fejt the skin of my forehead itching where it had rested on his arm. It was quiet in the kitchen, and I waited. I do not know how long I waited for. I waited till my tears were dry and the terror inside me was all gone and the only thing left was a quiet, dull misery that made my head and my eyeballs ache. There was no thought in my head, then. I was just waiting.
And then I felt Lawrence’s hands on my cheeks. He cupped my face in his hands. I did not know if I was supposed to push his hands away or to place my hands upon his. We stayed like that for a little while and Lawrence’s hands trembled on my cheeks. He turned my face up towards his, so I had to look into his eyes.
“I wish I could just make you disappear,” he said. “But I’m nobody. I’m just a civil servant. I won’t tell the police about you. Not if you keep quiet. But if you tell anyone, ever, about Sarah and me, or if you tell anyone, ever, about what happened with Andrew, I will have you on a plane to Nigeria, I swear.”
I breathed one long, deep breath.
“Thank you,” I whispered.
Sarah’s voice came from upstairs. “Who said you could watch TV, Batman?”
Lawrence took his hands away from my face and he went to make more tea. Sarah came into the kitchen. She was yawning, and her eyes were screwed up against the sunlight. Charlie came with her, holding her hand.
“I mighf as well tell you the rules,” said Sarah, “since you’re both new around here. Superheroes, especially dark knights, are not al
lowed to watch television before they’ve eaten their breakfast. Are they, Batman?”
Charlie grinned at her and shook his head.
“Right,” said Sarah. “Bat flakes or bat toast?”
“Bat toast,” said Charlie.
Sarah went to the toaster and put two slices of bread into it. Lawrence and I, we both just watched her. Sarah turned around.
“Is everything all right in here?” she said. She looked at me. “Have you been crying?”
“It is nothing,” I said. “I always cry in the morning.”
Sarah frowned at Lawrence. “I hope you’ve been looking after her.”
“Of course,” said Lawrence. “Little Bee and I have been getting to know one another.”
Sarah nodded. “Good,” she said. “Because we really have to make this work. You both know that, don’t you?”
She looked at each of us and then she yawned again, and she stretched her arms. “Fresh start,” she said.
I looked at Lawrence and Lawrence looked at me.
“Now,” said Sarah. “I’m going to take Charlie to nursery and then we can start to track down Little. Bee’s papers. We’ll find you a solicitor first. I know a good one that we sometimes use on the magazine.”
Sarah smiled, and she went over to Lawrence.
“And as for you,” she said, “I’m going to find a little time to thank you for coming all the way to Birmingham.”
She put her hand up to Lawrence’s face, but then I think she remembered that Charlie was in the room and so she just brushed her hand against his shoulder instead. I went into the next room to watch the television news with the sound turned off.
The news announcer looked so much like my sister. My heart was overflowing with things to say. But in your country, you cannot talk back to the news.
Eight
I remember the exact day when England became me, when its contours cleaved to the curves of my own body, when its inclinations became my own. As a girl, on a bike ride through the Surrey lanes, pedalling in my cotton dress through the hot fields blushing with poppies, freewheeling down a sudden dip into a cool wooded sanctum where a stream ran beneath the flint and brick bridge. Coming to a stop, the brakes squealing from the work of plucking one still moment out of time. Throwing my bicycle down into a pungent cushion of cow parsley and wild mint, and sliding down the plunging bank into the clear cold water, my sandals kicking up a quick brown bloom of mud from the stream bed, the minnows darting away into the black pool of shade beneath the bridge. Pressing my face into the water, with time utterly suspended, drinking in the cool shock. And then, looking up and seeing a fox. He was sunning himself on the far bank, watching me through a feathery screen of barley. I looked back at him, and his amber eyes held mine. The moment, the country: I realised it had become me. I found a soft patch of wild grass and cornflower by the side of the barley field, and I lay down with my face close to the damp earthen smell of the grass roots, listening to the buzzing of the summer flies. I cried, but I didn’t know why.