was tiny, after all. But after the cyclone it might well be chaos there. And it was not possible to go directly from London. You could only reach it via Mauritius. Genie would have to fly there first.
Come with me, Genie said. Time you went back. We could make it a bit of a holiday. We could go and visit Grandmère.
She doesn’t even know who I am, said Mam.
No, but you know who she is.
I won’t go. Someone once said that to love your country you must leave it, and I did. But I will hate it if I go back. In a strange way I can understand why Paul would want to. He seems to have some unfinished business there. But I don’t know why he’s gone running off to Rodrigues .
Troubled souls seek the wilderness, said Genie.
(i) Mauritius
Ten days after Cyclone Kalunde had reached a peak over the Indian Ocean, Paul, in a plane to Mauritius, was retracing its path. Up here, with only an indifferent sea below him, Paul felt free of everything he had left behind in London. He wondered if it would be possible to live on a plane, forever in international airspace. He thought of Grandmère, cut loose from the present tense. ‘International airspace’ was a less painful way to think about dementia.
Paul was drunk. But it was a reserved, self-contained kind of drunkenness – the only kind you could smuggle past the cabin crew. Paul had got drunk because of his fear of flying. That, and shame at his fear of flying, which to him signified a failure of imagination. Not fear of flying, Paul corrected himself. Fear of crashing . Then he thought ‘ smuggle ’ and bit his lip to stop himself from laughing, thinking of the pills in his suitcase. It was strange to think of them all the way down there in the hold, but still with a hold on him. He had meant to flush them before boarding but had been too paranoid. After Genie’s collapse Paul had determined to hang onto them. While he still had the pills, they could not harm anyone else. So he’d not wanted to let them out of his sight, out of his control. And then, after a while, he had begun to feel as though they wouldn’t let him go.
After Genie’s collapse Paul had run home to Mam’s. Then he had run around his room, yanking at drawers, grabbing armfuls of clothes, groping for the tub of pills he kept behindthe wardrobe, stuffing everything blindly into the small suitcase he’d taken from Mam’s room, Mam’s suitcase, the small cardboard one she’d carried through Heathrow in 1981 when they first came to London, the one he’d used now and again these past thirteen years, shuttling from squat to squat. The broken suitcase he’d had to tie a belt around to stop everything from falling out.
Hotel Europe, he’d thought, running to the bus stop. He could hide there.
As kids he and Genie had walked past it every Sunday on their way to Grandmère’s. He had wondered even then about the kind of tourists who found themselves there, in run-down Hackney, on a major road where lorries thundered past heading for the docks and warehouses of Essex. The guests at Hotel Europe were Bangladeshis and Somalis and pinch-faced white people. They always seemed bewildered. They had never looked much like tourists to him. Then, when Paul was older, he would catch his breath as he walked past the place, thinking of the blonde girls in suspenders who wandered the rooms inside: it was a whorehouse, he told himself. It was the gauzy curtains drawn across open windows; something teasing about the lazy way they stirred in the breeze, at once inviting and secretive.
For a cheap hotel it wasn’t so cheap, Paul discovered, though he suspected there were special rates for long-term guests. He thought he could guess who these were – they seemed defeated, no longer surprised to find themselves there. Paul unlocked the door to his room and, trembling, got into bed. It was already dawn. He pulled the covers up to his chin and lay there waiting for sleep. He lay there for several hours. He needed
Come with me, Genie said. Time you went back. We could make it a bit of a holiday. We could go and visit Grandmère.
She doesn’t even know who I am, said Mam.
No, but you know who she is.
I won’t go. Someone once said that to love your country you must leave it, and I did. But I will hate it if I go back. In a strange way I can understand why Paul would want to. He seems to have some unfinished business there. But I don’t know why he’s gone running off to Rodrigues .
Troubled souls seek the wilderness, said Genie.
(i) Mauritius
Ten days after Cyclone Kalunde had reached a peak over the Indian Ocean, Paul, in a plane to Mauritius, was retracing its path. Up here, with only an indifferent sea below him, Paul felt free of everything he had left behind in London. He wondered if it would be possible to live on a plane, forever in international airspace. He thought of Grandmère, cut loose from the present tense. ‘International airspace’ was a less painful way to think about dementia.
Paul was drunk. But it was a reserved, self-contained kind of drunkenness – the only kind you could smuggle past the cabin crew. Paul had got drunk because of his fear of flying. That, and shame at his fear of flying, which to him signified a failure of imagination. Not fear of flying, Paul corrected himself. Fear of crashing . Then he thought ‘ smuggle ’ and bit his lip to stop himself from laughing, thinking of the pills in his suitcase. It was strange to think of them all the way down there in the hold, but still with a hold on him. He had meant to flush them before boarding but had been too paranoid. After Genie’s collapse Paul had determined to hang onto them. While he still had the pills, they could not harm anyone else. So he’d not wanted to let them out of his sight, out of his control. And then, after a while, he had begun to feel as though they wouldn’t let him go.
After Genie’s collapse Paul had run home to Mam’s. Then he had run around his room, yanking at drawers, grabbing armfuls of clothes, groping for the tub of pills he kept behindthe wardrobe, stuffing everything blindly into the small suitcase he’d taken from Mam’s room, Mam’s suitcase, the small cardboard one she’d carried through Heathrow in 1981 when they first came to London, the one he’d used now and again these past thirteen years, shuttling from squat to squat. The broken suitcase he’d had to tie a belt around to stop everything from falling out.
Hotel Europe, he’d thought, running to the bus stop. He could hide there.
As kids he and Genie had walked past it every Sunday on their way to Grandmère’s. He had wondered even then about the kind of tourists who found themselves there, in run-down Hackney, on a major road where lorries thundered past heading for the docks and warehouses of Essex. The guests at Hotel Europe were Bangladeshis and Somalis and pinch-faced white people. They always seemed bewildered. They had never looked much like tourists to him. Then, when Paul was older, he would catch his breath as he walked past the place, thinking of the blonde girls in suspenders who wandered the rooms inside: it was a whorehouse, he told himself. It was the gauzy curtains drawn across open windows; something teasing about the lazy way they stirred in the breeze, at once inviting and secretive.
For a cheap hotel it wasn’t so cheap, Paul discovered, though he suspected there were special rates for long-term guests. He thought he could guess who these were – they seemed defeated, no longer surprised to find themselves there. Paul unlocked the door to his room and, trembling, got into bed. It was already dawn. He pulled the covers up to his chin and lay there waiting for sleep. He lay there for several hours. He needed
Similar Books
