Comfort Zone

Maude proceeded to the rear of the house, crossing a lawn where no daisy had ever trod. The back of the big house was of brick; evidently the costly stone fronting the house served only as a mask. She came to a summerhouse, sheltered by two silver birch trees. This summerhouse, all of wood, had a small balcony at the front, facing south, towards Righteous House. Mounting the balcony, Maude tapped at the door.

A young woman opened immediately, welcomed Maude in, and then locked the door from the inside. She was of the lightest coffee colour, with beautiful deep-set dark eyes and a neat fleshy nose. Her intense long black hair was coiled over one shoulder, her head covered by a light shawl, the ends of which were tied beneath her chin. She clasped prayerful hands together. ‘Salaam Aleikum.’

Maude had learnt to respond in kind. In the summerhouse was the scent of sandalwood. A joss stick was burning. Om Haldar was the name of this young woman who, with grave courtesy, settled Maude in a cushioned wicker chair. She brought her visitor a plastic bottle of mineral water, which she opened for the old lady, pouring some of the water into a glass.

‘Are you well, Om Haldar?’ Maude asked. She could hardly bear to take her gaze from the girl, so graceful were Om Haldar’s movements, and her every gesture, some of which rattled the bracelets on her arms.

‘I am perfectly well, thanks to Allah.’ With these words Om Haldar flashed a sad smile, showing even white teeth. She was also perfectly remote, despite her closeness. She gave a quick glance through the window to see that no one was approaching across the lawn.

‘This morning, we will speak of the Hadith, the deeds and sayings of the prophet Muhammad. Are you prepared, please, Mrs Maude?’

‘Yes, I brought my notebook.’ She produced the notebook from a capacious side pocket and then looked up expectantly at her instructress. Om Haldar had never questioned Maude about the reason she was turning to Islam rather late in life. Maude’s impulse was obscure even to herself. She knew only that she had been offended by her daughter Janet’s funeral service, by the perfunctory way the parson had read the prayers and, in particular, the manner in which the coffin was almost dropped into its grave.

From that moment, inconsolable, she had sworn to have nothing more to do with the C of E. Yet, lonely woman that she was, she felt the need for a faith. And one day she had happened upon Om Haldar. She had never asked the young woman what she was doing, or why she was living in the Fitzgerald summerhouse. Although she was curious by nature, she liked the mystery; it reinforced the sense of adventure in turning to a new faith. To turn to this young woman was to turn to her faith. She thought – or liked to think – that behind the courtesy of this young woman lurked a terrible story. She revered, even loved, this strange girl with her isolating courtesy. Perhaps she could ask the withdrawn Deirdre Fitzgerald about it one day?

‘Unfortunately, terrorists and obsolete traditions have given the name of violence to we Muslims,’ the girl had said by way of introduction. ‘Although I have my reasons to regret some of the laws of my country and my religion, I wish to stress to you, kind Mrs Maude, that for many centuries we have been peaceable. The West has in the past benefited from our learning. You may have heard of the Taliban, who banned women from education, but that was not the case everywhere.

‘So now,’ she said. And again there was this distance which Maude found intriguing. ‘We speak of the Five Pillars. These are the basic religious duties, gladly entered upon. Firstly there is Shahada, where the formula we use is the declaration of faith expressed in the phrase, “There is no god but God.”’

As she continued, Maude scribbled industriously in her notebook. There is no god but God. Yes, she thought, that must be true – but what did it mean? It meant nothing as yet, but first she had to believe and then meaning would dawn. That meaning could bring some happiness into the void.

When her session was over, Maude struggled to her feet, formally paid her teacher and said goodbye. She always wanted to kiss Om Haldar, but did not know if it would be acceptable. The session was closed, and Om Haldar turned her gentle back on her pupil. The way to the gate and the road wound close to the rear of Righteous House. As Maude was approaching the house she heard a shrill voice within calling to her maid: ‘Vera, Vera, go and see who that is walking about my garden!’ A minute later and a young woman whom Maude knew as Vera looked out of the back door.

‘You all right, ma’am?’

Maude said gently, ‘Please tell your missus it’s Maude. I visit Om Haldar every day at this time – and with her permission.’

‘Mrs Fitzgerald is a touch short-sighted.’

‘Thank you, Vera. I’m sorry if you were upset.’

The maid grinned. ‘I’m not upset. I’m used to it.’

Once she was alone again, Om Haldar’s manner changed. She moved more briskly. She snatched a stout stick of a type known to the Irish as a shillelagh from its hiding place beneath a rug and laid it under the sofa on which she slept, so that she could more easily grab it if she was attacked.

A coloured curtain hung over the rear wall of the bungalow, concealing a wooden door. She checked that the bolt was secure. Going about these protective measures, Om Haldar sang to herself in a low voice.

Grasses glitter with the dews of morning

For the little birds to suck.

Where I come from no birds or dews

Came to greet the dusty pinks

That herald one more starving dawning

Where the wild dog comes and drinks –

The Great alone feed, while for us to pluck

No mangoes, schooling, justice, luck

I drown in all my thoughts, my sorrows.

How can my pa be so unkind

Who once held me on his knee?

How can I ever purge from mind

The death, the dagger? I can see

But pa is blind. From vengeance, death, I flee.

My yesterdays and worse tomorrows

Surely are not writ and signed?

Here amid this land of strangers

Much I see is clean and neat

Much I see is calm and sweet

And yet they have no god to praise

And those I know breed dangers, dangers.

Allah, let me see your face –

I must be ever on my ways

Or I will die for my disgrace –

My little fault, my love, my days –

To some other foreign place …

She took her duster to clean the windows and to watch, singing to herself, hoping Allah would understand her plight and be merciful.

Justin’s house, Clemenceau, was solid. He had grown fond of it. Clemenceau aspired to none of the grandeur of Righteous House. It stood with its sturdy façade towards the street; it was the house in which Janet Haddock had died. It marked the end of the street, beyond Ivy Lane. The street was one-sided. On the other side of the road opposite Clemenceau was a wilderness of trees and bushes, behind which lurked a small special school. Sometimes, standing on his front doorstep, Justin could hear the cries and calls of a different species of being: schoolchildren. Since his wife’s death, or – as he sometimes liked to describe it – the divorce, this old grey house of his had become the necessary shell of the crustacean within. Clemenceau was one of the old modest stone-built houses standing not exactly close, not exactly apart. It had originally consisted of two rooms at ground level and two upper rooms. Later, two more rooms, an upper and a lower, had been tacked on. Then a room serving now as a living room had been built to the rear. When Justin bought the house, he had greatly extended it, lengthening it with a generous hall and study, above which was a room Janet had liked to call her own, together with a spare bedroom and toilet en suite. This simulation of organic growth in the building presumably marked an increase in British fortunes across the years. When he lay in bed of a night, he listened to the many noises the house made to itself, a succession of creaks, bumps and groans, as if the old place were talking to itself, muttering about its early past before central heating was invented. In the back garden, Justin had turned up the remains of a well, with an old mattress stuffed down it. Also, as he dug himself a vegetable bed, the yellowed bones of an aged dray horse had been uncovered. These were further indications of an earlier, less comfortable, age. Justin crept about his familiar rooms. A certain dread lurked that he might, through infirmity or impoverishment, have to forsake the house in exchange for a single room. He had a relationship with the house. Not quite a love affair, more a kinship: a place where he might cling to his humanity as long as possible. He had filled the place with etchings and paintings and some of his own abstract oils. The walls of several rooms were choked by books; books on or epistles by Byron or Mary Shelley and her group, histories of World War Two, catalogues of Kandinsky exhibitions, learned works on G.B. Tiepolo’s etchings, biographies of John Osborne and the letters of Kingsley Amis, works on Sumatra and other countries, and of the solar system. It was not so much that he feared death: he hated to think of his library being broken up. That was the final dissolution of personality, of his personality and of Janet’s. Sometimes he chose to forget Janet was dead and imagined her living in Carlisle. Surely she would return, wanting to see their son again?

He heard Maude enter the house, but did not go to greet her. She went quietly to her part of the ground floor they shared. He had recently redecorated the downstairs lavatory with a soothing green emulsion paint. A pretty green summer dress of Janet’s hung on the back of the door. He had yet to make up his mind to part with it. Like the rest of the house, this lavatory was fairly shipshape. It was only the outside drains and gutters that still required the attention of the elusive builders.

He was comfortable enough in his house, even sharing it with Maude. No one had ever broken into it. Nevertheless he was uneasy, not understanding what trouble Maude seemed to be involved in. He had spoken to Guy Fitzgerald, with whom he was on fairly formal terms. Guy owned Righteous House; he was an anaesthetist at the JR, the local hospital, the John Radcliffe. He had shed no light on the matter of Maude’s conversion, or of who was living in his summerhouse, beyond the fact that he thought their lodger held no immigration papers.

Justin’s living room was unremarkable, somewhat dated. Janet had furnished it; he had never changed it, except to add a large TV screen to one corner. The windows looked out on the garden and his courtyard. Morning sun flooded into this room. The sun tried to tempt a big unkempt succulent standing on the window sill to flower. This tousled plant had not flowered for three years. He forgave it, liking its grand disorder. When and if it ever flowered again, it would give forth the most brilliant blossoms, opening mouths of unimaginable colour.