Desiring Cairo

It never takes him long to get to why.

‘I think she’s been writing me letters.’

‘Does she think you killed her husband?’

‘Well yes she does, actually.’

‘Join the club, darling. We’re a flaming conspiracy, evidently. I killed him, by writing that article, which apparently affected his heart. Every policeman you ever saw killed him, by being a policeman, which was contrary to what he liked. The jury killed him, separately and together, by finding him guilty when he would have preferred not. The prison warders killed him; the prison doctors killed him, the judge killed him and chopped him up into little pieces and left him out for the birds. How did you kill him then? By being the object of his unrequited desires?’

‘I suppose so … God, Fergus, that’s a relief.’

‘Did you think it was only you? So did I, till I got to gossiping. You should get out more. You know Harry killed him too, and Ben Cooper, only no one’s told him yet that everybody else did too because they like to see him suffer. What has she done to you then? Letters? Phone calls?’

My journalist filter went up.

‘Are you going to be writing about this?’

‘I’ll just say “a girl he admired”. Nothing to identify you. Promise.’

‘Oh Fergus …’

‘Please. For colour. There’s no sex in it so far. Please.’

I thought for a moment. I did quite want to give him something, because he’s a friend and he’s helped me in the past. I did also want very much to keep my nose clean.

‘I tell you what,’ I said.

‘What,’ he said.

For a second I was about to say ‘I’m not telling you’. That’s Lily’s great joke: ‘You know what?’ ‘What?’ ‘I’m not telling you.’

‘I think … let me think about it.’ I was thinking that perhaps I wanted to see her first, clear the air, then I thought no, if she’s feeling that way about so many people I don’t need to. She’s not going to firebomb the lot of us.

‘Is anyone taking it seriously? Has she made any threats at all?’ (This Irishness is contagious. I don’t know if it’s my dad’s Liverpool Irish blood coming out in me but whenever I talk to an Irish person I start using their accent. It makes Brigid, Cork born and bred, piss herself laughing.)

‘Not to my knowledge. I think they’re all taking it with a pinch of salt. I was exaggerating a little bit, you know. I don’t think she’s been pestering the judge. The woman may have some sense. Have you met her? She’s a funny woman and that’s for sure.’

‘What’s she like?’ I realised I had a clear picture of her as being a bit like the Queen, but younger. Respectable, pretty, pearls, elegant in a dull way. Grace Kelly. Handbag. Why? Because she lived in Monaco? Because Eddie had classy taste and modern art?

‘Oh, she’s basic gangster Euro-trash, a Marbella queen. Army father, boarding school, home counties, ran wild, ex-model, still wearing the make-up that was in style when she was young and gorgeous, and her heyday hairdo. Brigitte Bardot without the class. White stilettos, shiny eye-shadow. Permatan. Permapissed, as well. Drinks like a Mexican maggot. When Eddie started ignoring her she took to astrology and small dogs. And possibly younger men, but she’s always been crazy about Eddie. And terrified of him. Flaming lunatic, basically. There’s a lot of them around.’

Oh.

‘What’s her name?’

‘Didn’t your boyfriend tell you, then?’

I hung up on him.

He rang back ten seconds later, apologising profusely.

‘OK,’ he said. ‘OK, you mean it. I’m sorry. Her name’s Chrissie. She’s born Christine Louise Evans, then Chrissie de Lisle, no less, and for no reason other than sheer pretension, in her salad days, and now she goes as Christina Bates. So we’ll speak on Monday, will we, or over the weekend?’

‘Yeah. No promises. Would you let me know if anything else … you know …’

‘My darling, I’m gossip central on Mrs Bates. Short of anyone blowing a fuse and trying to sue, I don’t think anything’s going to happen except more of the same. And you know what our friends in the Bill are like, till the stalking law comes in they can’t move on this stuff till she’s pouring petrol through your letterbox. But I don’t think she will. She’s an old bat exorcising her sad old life, if you ask me. Ignore her and she’ll go away.’

‘Thanks, Fergus. I’ll speak to you.’

‘Indeed you will,’ he said.

It occurred to me as I hung up that Fergus didn’t know I’d hit Eddie on the head with the poker, and that I didn’t know if Mrs Bates knew or not. And I didn’t know if she’d been visiting him in prison, and I didn’t know when the funeral was. Which I wanted to know, even though I didn’t want to go. So I rang back and asked him. Yes she had, she’d been regularly, and there had been something of a rapprochement between them; and next Tuesday, 11 a.m., at Southgate. The same cemetery where Janie is buried.

I was relieved by our conversation, but not that relieved.

Then I ate a bowl of cornflakes and went to get Lily.

*

When we got back from the park Hakim was standing in the middle of the kitchen with stars in his eyes.

‘I speak to her,’ he said. ‘I go tomorrow. I want to tell you.’ Then he grabbed my face and kissed me, grabbed Lily’s and kissed her, then disappeared into the bathroom, presumably to wash off our touch because moments later he reappeared and then disappeared again, out the front door, crying, ‘I go to mosque.’

Lily looked bemused.

‘His mother,’ I explained. ‘He hasn’t seen his mother for fifteen years, and tomorrow he’s going to see her. After fifteen years.’

She gazed after him. ‘So will I see my father after fifteen years?’ she said.

Childish logic. I sat on the floor and drew her to me.

‘Oh, darling, I don’t know,’ I said.

She wouldn’t sit with me. ‘Well you should know,’ she said. ‘You know everything else.’ Then she looked at me, and then she went into my room and sat silently on the bed.

For a moment I was dumbstruck. Then I followed her in.

‘I wanted to go into my room,’ she said in a tiny voice, ‘but it’s not really mine.’

I sat by her. ‘Sweetheart?’ I said.

‘I don’t want to cry,’ she said.

‘You don’t have to,’ I said. ‘You can if you want.’

‘I feel bad but I haven’t done anything bad.’

There are times when you feel completely bloody useless.