Long Lies the Shadow (20 page)

Saturday in Grahamstown. Michael showers quickly, humming to himself, but does not shave. It’ll do, he thinks, pulling on old jeans and a T-shirt. Flip-flops. January is too hot for shoes. The weather is scorching, African summer at its height. Michael loves it, thrives on the sun hitting his skin. So different to Denmark, to London. He is happy to be home. He still feels it, four months on, and is relishing the imminent start of the academic year.

He stands for a moment at the window of his bedroom, looking over the shaded back garden that has been allowed to run wild. Ivy and vine have slunk their sinuous way between thorny stems of dog rose. Tendrils of jasmine reach like fingers then stop, mid-air,
wavering
hesitantly, not knowing where to go. He leans forward, his head touching the cool window-pane.

It had been great to see Viv. She seemed happy with Nick, if
somewhat
nervous. It is Gin he has missed most. And he worries about her, about how she is coping. When he’d phoned, she’d been distant, or not there. He had left messages, but there had been no reply as yet. But it had been good to spend time with her, good even to see those brooding British skies. The autumn had come early after a
lacklustre
summer full of warm rain. At least the weather meant
something
there, compared to Denmark. He had not wanted to go back to Denmark at all, to a Denmark headed dark and cold for winter. A Denmark with its uninspired landscape, its flat sea, its constant smell of pig farms. And a wife he no longer loved. A wife he had never loved. He thinks of Kristina rarely and is grateful for this small
mercy, because when the thoughts come, they bring with them a guilt that is apt to depress him. Guilt had almost incapacitated him.

Michael trails a finger across the pane. Fortunately, he has had a busy time so far, and his intellect has started to come alive again. Denmark, he realises, had stunted him. Having missed the
transition
to democracy, he had thought adapting to home would take some doing. Instead, the euphoria of change and the relief of a bloodless revolution had dissipated such that he finds the political tension much the same as before he left. But he appreciates anew the fortitude of South Africans, of all races, their resolute determination to survive. Beyond oppression, beyond corruption, beyond
suffering
, beyond hope.

Michael had found himself in a minority of optimists.

He shifts himself from his reverie. He has a lot to do.

He stops at the chemist, the library, the supermarket, Grocott’s Mail, the off-licence. On his way back up High Street, he drops in at the university bookstore.

The bookshop is crammed with the year’s intake of students, some having evidently arrived early to search out their prerequisite reads. Michael edges towards the counter at the back of the store. He nods at the assistant, who seems unusually frazzled.

The man nods back, recognising him. “Yes? Can I help you?”

“I ordered a book. I’ve paid for it already.” says Michael. “
The
Primal Child
. Arthur Janov.”

The assistant’s face screws up with concentration. His eyes, already close-set, approximate somewhat alarmingly to Michael. “I’ll just check,” he turns with a petulant flounce.

A voice behind him, the faintest of accents, “Michael?”

Years melt away as he turns.

She stands, her head cocked to one side. Her hair is cut shorter than when she was a girl, but it is still dark and glossy, and it still curls. She is wearing a cream linen suit and a wide white smile on
a perfectly made-up face. Flawless as ever. Michael is suddenly
conscious
of his unshaven face, his thin T-shirt and torn jeans.

“Oh my God, it
is
you,” she says, moving forwards, full of joyous surprise.

“Hannah.” He breathes her name as he hugs her. She smells like summer, he notes. Like an English summer, fresh and fragrant. She moves back to look at him, taking in the sight of him. He wishes he had shaved.

“Michael, what on earth are you doing here?”

He fills her in briefly, the job offer, the move. He wants to tell her about Gin, about his marriage, his divorce, but finds he cannot. Instead he asks her the same question.

“Oh,” she says, “I’m just home, visiting family, friends.” As if
realising
he is one of those friends she might otherwise have looked up, Hannah adds, “I didn’t know you were here, Michael. Last I heard you’d gone to – where was it? Sweden?”

“Denmark.”

“Yes, that was it. How
are
you?” With emphasis.

“Fine,” he says. The truth of it hits him and he repeats, “Yes, fine.”

“So you’re living here now?”

“Yes, just around the corner. The same complex where Gin stayed.”

Hannah’s face changes, and he kicks himself. He wonders whether to expand, to add that he has seen Gin, to update her, tell her about Ellie. But Hannah is Simon’s cousin, he reminds himself. Gin would not want her to know. How Gin can keep it from Simon’s family forever, he does not know, but in any event, it is not his secret to tell.

The assistant interrupts, “The book you ordered, sir.” He hands Michael a packet. “If you could just come and sign for it, sir.”

Michael, irritated, forces himself to be polite. He pushes his way to the desk and back again. “Now that you’re here, can we have lunch? Dinner? Can you stay?”

“Oh, Michael, I’m so sorry, I can’t. I’m not staying. We’re only here for the day.”

We
. “Is your husband with you?”

“Oh no, he stayed in New York – we live there now.” Hannah updates him briefly on her life.

It sounds rehearsed, thinks Michael, a well-practised version for people like himself.

Then she says suddenly, “You remember my cousin Simon?”

She is watching him shrewdly.

He cannot bring himself to lie. “I heard he was killed in a car accident. I’m sorry.” For a moment he imagines she is going to ask him about Gin.

Instead, she says simply. “I didn’t know if you knew.” She looks around the shop as if searching for someone.

A young man is standing to one side, peering at the books. There is something familiar about him that Michael cannot place. He is tall, broad-shouldered, with curly black hair.

Hannah beckons him forward. “This is the real reason I’m in
Grahamstown
,” she says to Michael. “I’m showing him around as he’s thinking of studying here next year.” She reaches an elegant arm out to draw the young man to her. “Aaron,” she says to him, “this is my very dear friend Michael.”

The young man nods at him, extends his hand. He has dark eyes flecked with green, notes Michael, shaking hands.

“Michael,” says Hannah, “this is Aaron. My cousin Simon’s son.”

Simon’s son
. The pieces fall into place. Taller than his father. Same eyes. Michael thinks of Gin, alone in London with this young man’s half-sister. “So, you’re coming here next year?”

“If I can. If I’m accepted. I like it here.”

“Good. Well, I’ll give you my number. You’ll have to look me up if you do.”

Aaron thanks him, excuses himself, and walks away to look at the
books again. Michael turns back to Hannah who is watching him.

“That’s nice of you, Michael. Thank you. Simon’s death hit him hard, as you can imagine. I appreciate it. He needs a father figure.”

Michael doubts he will even hear from the intense young man, let alone become a father figure to him. “Do you have any time at all?” he asks, “for some tea perhaps?”

She shakes her head, her sleek curls swinging. “I’m so sorry, Michael. I just can’t.”

Can’t or won’t?

“We must go,” she reiterates.

“Let me give you my number,” he says. Adds quickly, “For Aaron.” He pats his pockets in vain for pen and paper.

Hannah smiles, opens her handbag, an orange suede, and hands him a leather-covered notebook and a pen. He scribbles down his name and number, closes it and hands it back to her.

She is looking at him with something like fondness. “You look the same, Michael.”

He laughs self-consciously, runs a hand through his hair. It is long again now, like it was when he was a student. “You haven’t changed either.”

“Rubbish,” she waves her hand at him, a slight blush to her cheeks.

“No,” he says, and it is the truth. She looks much the same. “No, Han,” he repeats seriously, “you’re beautiful.”

The blush deepens with pleasure. “You old charmer. I bet you say that to all the girls! And I bet the freshers all fall in love with you, Prof.”

“Not Prof yet.”

Aaron hovers nearby. Hannah leans forward and hugs Michael again. Her hold is brief, but tight. Michael inhales her heady perfume once more, enjoying the moment, trying to commit it to memory.

He had not told Gin, but he had always known about Hannah and Gabe, long before Gin had.

Hannah steps away from him. He wants to ask her what they had promised each other that day so many years ago, but neither of them has mentioned Gabe. He looks at her, is about to say something when she puts her hand up to his lips, the merest of touches. Her hand drops away so quickly that afterwards he will wonder if he imagined it. Her eyes are bright.

He watches them leave the bookshop. Hannah turns and looks back at him when they are outside. She gives him a little wave. She is haloed in sunshine.

Michael raises his hand in reply, although he doubts if she can see beyond the reflective glass of the bookstore window. He watches her walk away and he does not go after her. He does not go after her and tell her. He watches her walk away from him and he does not tell her he has loved her all his life.

“I know what autosomal recessive means, Jonnie,” she says, harsher than she feels.

He backs away slightly and Gin feels bad. No doubt he is used to the venom of parents, knowing how they must blame him for the bad news he so often has to bear. But for her anger, she realises, he must be ill-prepared.

She had arrived early, caught him poring over Ellie, checking her chart, adjusting the patterned rose blanket over her daughter’s frail body.

His words penetrate further. She thinks slowly, her mind dulled.

Autosomal recessive
.

Ellie has a genetic disorder. She and Simon both carried a gene, defective. A chromosome, mutated. And their daughter has
inherited
one copy from her, one copy from Simon. So now the disease manifests. Gin closes her eyes.

Simon’s eyes, watching her
.

This is what it means, she thinks distractedly, the sins of the fathers. Oh, Simon, what have we done?

“What’s going to happen to Ellie, Jonnie?” Her voice is strong and direct.

He takes her arm. His grip hurts her, but she welcomes the
physical
pain. Jonnie leads her into the square room behind the nurses’ station, the square room meant for the doctors, the matron. The square room meant for bad news. He pulls out a chair for her and shuts the door. The nurses will know the sign. The worst of news.

“It means, essentially, that Ellie cannot make an enzyme, which
breaks down an acid.” He pauses. “So the acid accumulates in the brain and it interferes with the formation of myelin.” Jonnie stops, and looks away from her. He rubs the back of his neck.

Gin’s gaze does not waver. She sits and waits.

“Gin, Ellie can’t make the fatty lining to her nerves. They’re eroding away.”

“That’s why she’s lost muscle,” mutters Gin.

He nods, his voice drained. “The brain tissue is disintegrating. Even the most elemental signals aren’t getting through.”

“What else is going to happen?” she asks, and her voice is clear again.

She listens while Jonnie tells her how Ellie will never hold her head up, how she will go blind, and lose the ability to swallow. She listens while he explains that Ellie will require feeding tubes to stay alive, and eventually fall into a vegetative state.

Not now, God, she begs. Not now, when Ellie means everything to me.

She listens while Jonnie destroys her world.

He stops talking, rubs his neck again. Sounds from the ward seep through, the constant beeping of machines, the nurses’ talk, the busy insistent ringing of a phone. It strikes her anew how noisy hospitals are.

“Gin,” says Jonnie. She looks at him. He looks away, and then back at her, but his eyes askance, not looking at her directly. He clears his throat. “The earlier this manifests,” he speaks slowly, as if to choose his words, “the worse the prognosis.”

She speaks then, her voice stark. “How long has she got?”

He swallows, and hesitates. Then he tells her there are going to be more seizures, and worse, before it is over. But Ellie is going to die. And soon. “Not long, a couple of months at most. It’s bad, Gin. She may only have weeks.” He looks out of the window that spills light into the cramped room.

Gin hears a sound escape from her own throat. Suddenly the
room is shifting. Her arm is burning, her leg on fire. She tries to get up, to open the door, but it warps away from her and she feels herself slide sideways. She hears Jonnie call for a nurse, for some water. His voice is very far away and she wonders why. She tries to sit up, but his hand stops her.

“Lie there for a minute,” he orders. “Wait.”

The pitted oblongs of the false ceiling line her vision. She closes her eyes. This then, is her punishment.

This time Jonnie lets her sit up. He offers her some water, putting a glass to her lips, but she pulls her mouth away.

“Are you okay?” he asks, worried, and, when she does not reply, “Ginnia?”

“Yahrtzeit,” she murmurs.

It is only a fortnight till the anniversary of Ellie’s conception, the anniversary of Simon’s death.
Yahrtzeit
. This date Gin has dreaded, watched it loom ceaselessly ahead, inexorably creep closer. She has tried to give it neither form nor substance but despite her effort it had grown, energised and fed by her repression. Become huge.

Yahrtzeit
. Would the dreams stop, she had wondered. Would he leave now? Would he finally leave now, take his presence away from her, away from her and Ellie, his unknown family?

His presence that has never left, not for a moment has she felt him gone. Now, in these moments, she realises he is going. Simon is finally leaving her, and he is taking his daughter with him.

“Are you okay?” Jonnie asks again.

She wants to laugh at him. She is never going to be okay again.