One Secret Summer (20 page)

At 1 p.m. the following day, she hurried out of the office and almost ran all the way to the employment agency. There was
a cheque waiting for her. She took it from the receptionist with shaking hands. As soon as she was outside, she ripped it
open: £157.46. There were a number of deductions, including something called an Emergency Tax – she couldn’t have cared less.
She’d applied for a National Insurance number, but until it arrived, the government would take more than they needed and she
would have to claim it back later. She’d listened to the receptionist with half an ear. She looked at the cheque again: £157.46
for a week’s work. It seemed like a small fortune. She took it straight to the bank as she’d been told and cashed it in, revelling
in the small bundle of notes and the plastic sachet of coins. She stopped at the flower seller just in front of the station
and bought a small bunch of yellow tulips. Those were for Anna. She rushed back to Sarafin’s. Anna looked up in surprise as
she walked in.

‘I just wanted to give you these,’ Niela said, uncomfortably aware of the lump that had suddenly formed in her throat. ‘Just
to say thank you.’

Anna blushed. ‘You shouldn’t have,’ she said, taking the bunch from her. ‘Really. It’s not necessary.’

Niela held her eyes very wide. She shrugged. ‘It’s nothing. If I could do more …’

‘Don’t be silly. You’ve been a real help this past week.’ Anna hesitated for a second. ‘Look, if you’re not doing anything
this evening … would you like to come round to mine? I’ve got a three-year-old son … it’s just the two of us. Nothing fancy,
maybe some spaghetti … but only if you’re free, of course.’

Niela felt her face crease into a smile. There was a graceful generosity about Anna that touched her deeply.
Only if you’re
free, of course
– what else would she be? ‘If you’re sure … ?’ she said, hoping she didn’t sound too enthusiastic.

Anna nodded firmly. ‘I’m sure. Boris and I don’t often have company. He loves it. We’re not far from here … it’s the big housing
estate next to Pimlico tube station. I’ll give you the address. How about seven? Boris goes to bed at seven thirty, so we
could have a glass of wine together, if you like.’

‘Seven’s great,’ Niela said, feeling ridiculously happy. ‘Thanks. Shall I bring anything?’

Anna shook her head. ‘Nothing. Absolutely nothing. See you later.’

Niela glanced down at her new jeans: £4.99 from a shop in the station arcade. She’d found a sweater for a fiver, two pairs
of socks, three pairs of panties and a new bra for a tenner … some shampoo, deodorant, a couple of grips for her hair … she
felt like a new person. She
was
a new person. A week ago she’d slept on the floor of a public toilet and bathed in the sink. Today, she’d earned her first
week’s wages and, thanks to the kindness of a complete stranger, she had a roof over her head. Even better, that same complete
stranger was now on her way to becoming a friend. She scanned the front doors: 16, 17, 18 … there it was – 19, Formosa Court.
She lifted her hand and pressed the bell.

‘Hi.’ Anna opened the door almost immediately. A chubby little boy clung shyly to her legs, peering out at her. ‘You found
it.’

‘It was easy. Just as you said.’ Niela bent down so that her face was on a level with the boy’s. ‘And you must be Boris, right?’
He nodded, still too shy to speak. He was round-faced, with bright red cheeks and dark, almond-shaped eyes. Niela drew out
the orange she’d been carrying and presented it solemnly to him. He looked up at his mother as if in confirmation. She smiled
and nodded.

‘Better than sweets,’ she said approvingly. ‘Go on, take it. Say thank you, Boris.’

He held the orange between his pudgy hands as though it might bite. ‘Fank you,’ he said softly. He was still shy.

‘Come,’ Anna said, turning to go into the house. ‘Come inside. It’s warmer in here.’ She led the way into the small living
room.

Niela followed her in. She looked around in pleasure. It had been so long since she’d been inside a home – a proper home,
with pictures on the walls and children’s toys lying around, splayed-open magazines and a half-drunk mug of tea – she’d forgotten
how much she missed it. Anna’s home was small but cosy. The dining room, little more than an alcove really, led directly into
the kitchen. The room was filled with the scent of onions and basil. Niela’s stomach rumbled. She couldn’t remember when she’d
had her last home-cooked meal.

They ate quickly, all attention focused on Boris, who’d soon outgrown his shyness. He chattered away happily in his special
mixture of Serbo-Croat and English, oblivious to the fact that Niela might not understand. At 7.30 on the dot, Anna picked
him up and announced it was bedtime. Niela smiled to herself; she remembered the struggles the maids had had with Raageh when
it was time to go to sleep. Boris had no such difficulty. He clambered on to Niela’s lap and gave her a wet, sloppy kiss of
such genuine affection that Niela’s eyes misted over almost immediately. She felt his arms go around her neck; he touched
the soft, curly mass of her ponytail in wonderment. Anna laughed and swept him off Niela’s lap. ‘He’ll be wanting you to read
him a story in a minute,’ she said, tweaking his nose. ‘Come on, little man. Bedtime. You can play with Niela’s hair next
time. He’s such a little flirt. I’ll be back in ten minutes or so. Just make yourself at home.’ She disappeared down the short
corridor with Boris in her arms.

Niela picked up her glass and wandered over to the bookcase at the other end of the living room. She looked through the titles
with interest. There were a few she’d read – some texts she remembered from school: Shakespeare, Thomas Hardy, Wharton. But
there were others – books in Russian, heavy-looking
titles on economics and trade, a few girlish novels … she tugged a couple out, impressed. Anna was clearly a keen reader.
As she, Niela, had once been. She thought for a second of the shelves in her own room in Mogadishu. What had happened to all
the books?

‘Do you like reading?’ Anna had come back into the dining room.

Niela turned around. She gave an apologetic shrug. ‘I used to … back at home.’

‘Where did you say you were from again? Somalia?’

Niela nodded. ‘We left when the war broke out.’

‘Like me.’ Anna gave a small, tight smile. She picked up her glass from the table and came over. She sat down on the couch
and let out a deep sigh. ‘I’m lucky,’ she said, taking a sip of her wine. ‘He goes to sleep easily.’

‘Who looks after him in the daytime?’ Niela asked.

‘My neighbour. She’s also from Bosnia. Without her, I don’t know what I’d do.’

‘What about Boris’s father?’ Niela asked the question delicately.

‘What about him?’ Anna gave a wry smile. ‘He took off the minute I told him I was pregnant.’

Niela didn’t know what to say. ‘That must have been hard,’ she said finally.

Anna shrugged. ‘I’m better off without him,’ she said simply. ‘What about you? D’you have a boyfriend back home?’ Niela’s
face burned. She took a gulp of wine to cover her confusion. She shook her head, unable to say anything. ‘Pretty girl like
you?’ Anna teased. ‘I’m surprised.’

‘Wh … what about the rest of your family?’ Niela asked quickly, desperate to change the subject.

‘They’re still in Mostar. My brother …’ Anna’s voice faltered for a second. ‘My brother was shot. In the war. My parents won’t
leave.’

Again Niela didn’t know what to say. She looked across the table at Anna. Her face was closed off; there was a tightness
around the mouth that she hadn’t noticed before. She wasn’t the only one to have suffered through hard times, Niela thought
to herself suddenly. It happened to others too. To people you wouldn’t expect. She thought back to her first day at Sarafin’s.
She would never have guessed that the efficient-looking secretary sitting behind her desk with a formidable array of pens
and pencils and a large computer screen in front of her was a refugee, just like herself. That she had a three-year-old son
whose father had disappeared or a brother who’d been shot. It just went to show … you couldn’t tell anything about anyone
any more. Anna had no idea what had happened to Niela. A shudder went through her suddenly. Hamid on their wedding night.
She pressed her legs together as if trying to physically block the memory.

‘Are you all right?’ Anna’s voice came to her, sounding concerned.

Niela forced herself to relax. It was all in the past now. There was nothing Hamid or Fathia or her family could do to her
now. It was behind her. ‘Sorry, I was just thinking … I have two brothers. I … I miss them.’

Anna nodded. ‘It’s hard,’ she said after a moment. ‘I mean, English people are very nice, don’t get me wrong. I came here
with nothing and they gave me everything. Papers, a place to stay, language classes … they were unbelievably kind. People
talk about being a refugee now, but those were the hardest years of my life. And most people I meet,’ she waved a hand in
the air, ‘they can’t relate to that, you know what I mean? My father was an accountant … I’m not someone who grew up in a
refugee camp. But it doesn’t mean anything to them. They hear the word ‘‘Bosnia’’ and they think I’m some Eastern European
mail-order bride.’

Niela gave a small half-smile. ‘I would never have guessed, you know. You sound so English.’

Anna smiled. ‘When I got here, I changed everything. My name, my accent, my past … everything. It’s the only way you’ll make
it, I promise you. I don’t know what your war was
like, but ours was terrible. I’ve seen things I shouldn’t have seen, I know about things that I shouldn’t have to know about,
ever.’ She stopped suddenly. ‘Oh, why are we sitting here talking about it … listen to us! We say we want to forget everything
and then all we do is constantly bring it up.’ She shook her head. ‘Silly, really.’

Niela was silent. She couldn’t articulate it the way she would have liked, but Anna was wrong. It wasn’t silly. It was necessary.
In ways she was only beginning to grasp, the disintegration of who she was – Niela Aden, seventeen-year-old schoolgirl – which
had started the moment they fled Mogadishu, might now be halted. She’d lived with it for so long … all those months of not
knowing whether they were coming or going, where they would go, how they would get there, who they would be … it had become
normal to her, just as the waiting had been normal, or the sense of impending doom. And that was the dangerous part. For the
first time ever, on the strength of a few minutes of conversation with someone who’d been through it too, she grasped intuitively
that there was hope. If Amra could reinvent herself so completely and succeed, so could she. It wasn’t a matter of luck or
circumstance. It was a matter of will. What was it her mother always used to say? Good things come to those who wait. Her
mother was wrong. Good things come to those who grab them.

JULIA

London, September 1996

Julia made her way carefully down the path towards Gray’s Inn, conscious of her heels sticking awkwardly in between the stones.
The line of clipped trees bordering the path fell away from her; in the distance, beyond the brick wall that separated Gray’s
Inn from the main road, she could see the top decks of a long line of red buses, crawling along. A tiny shiver of excitement
ran through her. She pressed the buzzer on the front door and stood back, waiting for the door to open. The discreet brass
plaque gave little away.
Bernard, Bennison & Partners
.
Barristers
. The words sent a small thrill running through her. She was about to start her year-long pupillage with one of the most prestigious
law firms in the country. The door opened; she walked in. ‘Can I help you?’ the receptionist asked pleasantly.

‘Er, yes. I’m Julia Burrows. I’m starting my first six today.’

‘Oh.’ The girl looked momentarily confused. ‘Yes, yes, of course. Burrows. We’ve got a name badge for you. If you don’t mind
signing right here … ?’ She slid a piece of paper across the counter. Julia signed her name and tried not to think about the
girl’s telltale slip. It was always the same, though not at the Oxford Pro Bono Publico where she’d worked for the past four
years. In the shabby offices just off Turl Street there’d been lawyers like herself – working class, fiercely dedicated, a
hundred per cent committed to what they did. But although she’d thoroughly enjoyed her time there, her heart was set on becoming
a barrister. For that she needed a London-based pupillage, and after three interviews and a month of waiting, her dream had
finally come true. She’d sold the small house in Elswick that her
grandmother had left her and whilst it wasn’t exactly worth a fortune, it was the only way she could afford to continue her
training. During the year-long pupillage, she’d be paid an absolute pittance – another one of the reasons why working-class
girls like her rarely became barristers … they simply couldn’t afford to live and work in London on what was effectively a
student stipend. It was harder than she thought to sever her ties with Elswick. The day the house was finally sold, she walked
up and down the streets where she’d spent her childhood, looking at the rows of almost identical houses whose occupants she
no longer knew, wondering if she would ever come back again. The cemetery where her parents and her grandmother were buried
was on the other side of the Tyne. She tenderly placed the three bunches of flowers she’d brought with her on their graves
and stood up, wiping away her tears. In all likelihood, she knew, she would never return. The following morning she caught
the train back to Oxford, packed her bags and said goodbye to the three people with whom she’d shared a house in Headington
for the past four years. Dom, ever loyal, drove her down to London. She stayed at the Barrington-Brownes’ Chelsea townhouse
for a fortnight whilst she looked for a place to live. The flat she found in an ex-council block just off the Euston Road
couldn’t have been more different from the Barrington-Brownes’ four-storey house on Cadogan Square, but she didn’t mind. Chelsea
made her nervous, she told Dom when they went together to look at it. Claire and Alison, the girls with whom she would be
sharing, seemed nice enough. Claire was a nurse at UCH, just up the road, and Alison was a postgraduate student in fine art.
Dom wrinkled his nose at the tiny room and the state of the garden, of course, but Julia couldn’t have cared less. A new chapter
in her life was about to start and she couldn’t wait.