The Darkening Hour (23 page)

I grow hot. If I say anything to Mona in front of my friends they’ll think me unreasonable. Mona’s not stupid, that’s becoming more apparent each day – she knows I
won’t want to appear harsh in front of them. But if I say nothing, I’m letting her step over a boundary – mixing socially with my friends. She must know this is not allowed. So
why is she flouting an unspoken rule? Is she trying to inveigle her way into the affections of my friends as well as my father and son?

‘That’s an interesting book,’ I say.

Mona looks up, startled, realising I’ve come into the room. Seeing my expression, she relaxes and smiles back.

‘Sally, she offered to teach me about London.’

‘I did indeed,’ says Sally. ‘I was telling Mona she should go to the Tower, Madame Tussauds, and both Tates while she’s here.’

‘Mona, it’s Daddy’s bedtime,’ I say.

She put Daddy to bed some time ago, but I raise my eyebrows at her, hold her gaze.

She blinks up at me. Gets the hint.

She picks up the book. Turns as she gets to the door, looks at Sally, or is it Bob – I wonder again if she’s flirting – and says, ‘There is just one problem. I
haven’t time to go to see these beautiful places. Or the money.’

It’s gone 2 a.m. when Sally and Bob – the last of my guests – leave. I go into the kitchen. Mona’s gone to bed. She retreated into her room hours ago,
but the dinner-plates are piled unwashed on the side, the sink is full of pans.

I push open her door, switch on the light. She’s asleep. I shake her awake.

‘The kitchen,’ I say. ‘You haven’t cleared up. You’re to finish your chores before you sleep!’

I march upstairs feeling her eyes on me as I go, refusing to look back. How dare she insinuate to my friends that I’m not paying her enough? How dare she suggest I’ve not given her
time off?

I lie in bed, listening to her crashing about with the dishes until sleep finally comes.

I work in the kitchen while the rest of the world sleeps. The hums and clicks from the fridge and the pipes keep me company; the light from a streetlamp outside lends
everything a soft orange glow. The constant vibrations beneath the city cease for a while. The cat creeps in and jumps onto the work surface. I push it off, shoo it down the hall and out of the
front door.

Sayed has Ali’s photo! I can tolerate any amount of scrubbing and washing pans and scouring to be with Ali again.

The first time Ali left our small village to study in the city, I thought that once there, he would meet new clever educated women and forget me. But he came back, brought me to the white house,
where I lived as his wife while he studied and worked. That was my happiest time – when I fell pregnant with Leila, and then when she was a baby, Ali working by day, studying by night. We
were the perfect, happy family. I learned to love cooking, and cleaning, and caring for Leila. I didn’t miss my work at the garment factory. At first I missed the talking with my women
friends there, but then I started to meet with a group of mothers in the Andalusian Gardens where we’d sit with the children and exchange gossip and recipes.

It was the first time I’d had equipment with which to make the dishes I liked. A tagine, a couscous steamer, pans and earthenware bowls. People came to our house for dinner and
congratulated me on my bread, my
sfouf
, my
harira
and clafoutis. I dreamed one day of working as a cook, not a garment worker. Sewing was dry and methodical, but cooking was
sensual and comforting. At the same time I was learning some English phrases from Ali, who came back each day more convinced he would be fluent enough to find work in Britain or in the States once
he’d qualified.

When he came home each day, he’d grab Leila, throwing her into the air so she laughed with such intensity I was sometimes afraid she would explode. Then he’d put her down on one of
the couches that ran along the walls and kiss her. I’d never seen him so lit up. We were both happy. His silence now can only mean one thing, that he’s become stuck somehow, lost his
phone, his papers, unable to go home to Morocco or to contact me.

I go to my bed at last at about three, locking the door behind me, welcoming the privacy.

I wake up to a harsh banging. It’s already morning.

I drag myself up. Look at my mobile. It’s 6 a.m. – I’ve only been asleep for three hours. The thumping comes again.

‘Why did you lock the door?’ Dora’s scowling, her face rumpled after her drinking last night.

‘I need to sleep. I didn’t want to be disturbed.’

‘I hope you had the monitor on, for Daddy.’

‘Of course.’

‘Today you’re to buy a Christmas tree from the market. I want it placed in the front window. Leo will help you. He needs to get out and about and he’s always enjoyed getting
the Christmas tree.’

‘A tree? In the house?’

‘Yes, Mona. Christmas is coming, I want to make it nice for Leo and Daddy. The decorations are in the loft. Hoover up first. The room must be clean for the tree. I’ve left a list of
shopping for you to do. Then the washing needs sorting. I’m popping into work to do a bit of research.’

As soon as she’s left for work, I phone home. Leila answers, which is unusual.

‘How’s Tetta?’ I ask, alarm surging through me. Why hasn’t Ummu picked up? Did the scan find something serious that needed operating on immediately?

‘The doctor says she must stay on the pills. We buy them with your money. But it’s never quite enough. Hait’s coming in every day to help me. When are you coming home,
Ummu?’

‘Soon, sweetie. I’ll come soon.’

‘Before Eid?’

‘Of course.’

I think she knows I’m lying. That I have no idea when I’ll be home.

‘Are you being a good girl?’

‘Yes, I am. Ahmed has lent me his scooter. We’ve been playing out on the alley. But I’ve been watching Tetta. I make her mint tea – Hait showed me how.’

‘Good girl. Let me speak to Tetta.’

My mother’s voice is even rougher than it was before. She has to break off the call to cough.

‘How was the scan, Ummu? Have they told you anything?’

‘No results yet. I have to go back and ask next week. But I don’t feel any better, Mona, if you must know.’

‘Ummu, I’m worried about you. Is there anything else I can do?’

‘You can just carry on with what you’ve been doing. The money’s what we need. Badly. Mona, once we’ve bought medication, there’s barely enough for food. Can you
send more?’

Perhaps it’s the bad night’s sleep I’ve had, or the lack of sunlight, or hearing Ummu wheeze into the phone, but everything feels hopeless, and home, and Ali, and everything
I’ve been working towards further away than ever.

I give Charles his breakfast, get him into his coat, help him up the steps and round to the front door. I fetch his wheelchair from the cupboard under Dora’s stairs and
push open the drawing-room door.

‘Your mother wants a Christmas tree,’ I tell Leo. ‘I can’t carry a tree with the wheelchair by myself. You’ll have to get up, get dressed, and come with
me.’

I leave Leo and his grandfather choosing a Christmas tree from a stall on the High Street and pop into Sayed’s shop. If he’s heard anything, anything at all, it will give me the
strength to carry on.

He tells me he’s on the case, but so far there’s been no news.

‘I’ve got a mate who says he can check out the immigration holding centres,’ he says, looking at me askance, ‘but he’d want skrilla for more info.’

‘Skrilla?’

He rubs his thumb and fingers together. ‘Money, mate.’

‘I already gave you money, Sayed. How much more does he want?’

‘Ooh I dunno. I’ll ask him. But he won’t do it for nothing.’

If I could, I’d check these centres myself, but it’s impossible with my inability to read English. I think of the city, sprawling for miles in every direction. The thought of
venturing into its endless crowded streets, finding my way through the traffic, and the buildings, the subways, the shops and tower blocks and across its great river, is so intimidating I
shiver.

Yet I can’t afford to pay anyone else to search, with Ummu so badly in need of every dirham I earn.

I give up, tell Sayed I’ll think about it and, feeling worse than ever, go out to find Leo and Charles.

Charles is pleading with Leo to take him home so we rest the tree on the handles of the wheelchair and push him back down the street, the spiny branches scraping against my arms as we go.

Leo sets the little green fir tree in a pot in the window of the drawing room, where it gives off a fresh piny smell like the trees in the forest where the basket-weavers work
at home. Then he says I’ll have to help him get the decorations down from the loft.

We leave Charles in the drawing room, and I follow Leo upstairs to the spare room beside Dora’s bedroom. I haven’t noticed the trap door in the ceiling before. He unhooks it with a
pole, pulls it open, letting down a ladder which he then climbs up, his head disappearing into the black hole.

‘You’ll have to come up,’ he calls.

I climb the ladder and follow him up into the roof.

There’s a massive space above the house, a secret cavern overhead, full of suitcases and trunks, boxes and crates. Through the darkness, for there is no window here, I can make out the
shape of a child’s cradle, a cot, a train set. Remnants of Leo’s childhood stashed away and forgotten.

Leo has disappeared into the shadows on the far side of the attic. The sounds from outside, from downstairs, fade. We are alone in this strange dark space. I remember the way I was afraid of Leo
when I first saw him and I stay near the ladder so I can move quickly if I have to.

‘I’ll show you something,’ Leo says. ‘I don’t think even Mum knows about this. Watch.’

He’s in the shadows by the far wall, pushing against a tiny door, barely big enough to crawl through. The door gives and he goes forward on his hands and knees.

‘Come and look!’

From behind him I can see that the door opens onto another greater, lighter space.

‘Next-door’s attic. Desiree’s. I wonder if she’s got anything worth nicking?’

‘It’s not your house!’ I say, feeling a little thrill at his nerve. It reminds me briefly of Ali, when he said it was OK to take from those who stole your dignity. I
don’t think I really knew what he meant until I came to work for Dora.

‘You’re not to steal,’ I tell Leo, thinking of the woman on the street who greets Charles but always ignores me. ‘You’re not to take things from next-door’s
house.’

He’s backing out towards me again. ‘I’m worried I might not squeeze back through if I go in there,’ he says. ‘I used to fit – before I put on weight. I used
to go right to the other end. Meet up with Sayed and Johnny from the shop. The attics interconnect. I guess the original builders couldn’t be bothered to put partitions up.’

I remember now, Sayed saying he lived in the same street as Dora. You never know who lives nearby, with the doors all permanently closed. For a wild second I imagine that Ali could live in one
of these houses, that we might just have missed each other, coming and going at the wrong time of day and night. Then the thought strikes me as foolish, one that only serves to make the reality
harsher.

I leave Leo hanging the decorations on the tree and go to complete the chores Dora asked me to do. It’s almost dark again by the time I return. The tree is now covered in little animals
and baubles and figurines, and a string of white lights.

‘When you’ve finished your fussing with the tree, you can take me to Billingsgate,’ Charles says, watching from his chair.

‘OK, we’ll do it, won’t we, Mona? Take Grandpa to Billingsgate,’ Leo says. ‘We’ll leave really early one morning. Before five. It can be your Christmas
present, Grandpa.’

It’s the happiest I’ve ever seen Leo, showing his grandfather the coloured balls, the little things in the shape of birds and stars and reindeers that he says he remembers from when
he was a child.

After lunch, when Charles has fallen asleep, I go up to find Leo who has retreated to his room. I want to check my Facebook page.

We sit side by side at his desk.

‘What do you do at the computer?’ I ask him. ‘Apart from all this social networking?’

‘I look up stuff,’ he says.

‘What do you look up?’

He glances at me and away again, pulls up his hood, wraps his scarf tight around his neck.

‘Illnesses,’ he says.

‘Illnesses?’

‘To see if I’ve got one.’

I remember the first time I tried to use the computer, the body parts and cross-sections that popped up.

‘Why? Do you have pain?’

‘I don’t know. Sometimes I do.’

‘What pain?’

‘Not pain, feelings. Do you understand the word “tingle”?’

‘Tingle?’

‘Your skin feels as if it’s fizzing. Pins and needles.’

I know what he means, the feeling you get when you have pure fear.

‘Or I think perhaps it’s something deep, slow, that might take a long time before I know I’m going to die.’

I know that feeling too. A long, slow journey towards something inevitable. I shiver.

I run my eyes up and down his big strong body.

‘But if you don’t have a pain, a sign, then you don’t need to be looking for some illness you might or might not have. You can be happy that you are well, without
symptoms.’

‘But what if I’m not well?’ he says. ‘If I don’t spot it?’

‘You don’t have to look for it. Your body tells you. Is this why you have this in your room?’

I hold up a zip-up bag of medicine and pills and monitors.

He nods slowly.

I want to laugh. I’d even like to give him a hug.

I stare at this big, tough boy, with his massive shoulders and his head like a dog’s, and remember the first day I saw him.

How afraid I was of him.

And I realise that the reason he cannot find work, and doesn’t like leaving the house unless he’s drunk or on some kind of drugs is not because he’s lazy and good-for-nothing,
but because he’s paralysed with fear. His fear isn’t like mine and Leila’s back in our country after Ali disappeared. His fear is not of poverty or people who can exploit or harm
him, but of demons inside his head that tell him he’s sick when he isn’t.