The Wall(35)

‘Ah – love. The love of a partner. The sweetest thing in life, to have it, to be possessed of it. The greatest of sadnesses to look back on, in later life, in adversity, the cruel twist that your greatest happinesses become your greatest pain.’ Then she leant forwards – the cottage rooms were small, so our sofa and her chair were close to each other, catty-corner – and took my and Hifa’s clasped hands in hers. ‘Enjoy it!’ she said. She got up and left the room to get her communicator to ask the Help where she was and why she was being so slow.

‘Holy fuck,’ I whispered to Hifa.

‘You get it now.’

‘Absolutely. Want me to do something? I can call Hughes, get him to call back, fake an emergency. Sudden summons back to the Wall. We can, I don’t know, go and stay in a B & B.’

‘Or we could just kill ourselves, that would work too,’ said Hifa. Then she squeezed my hand and let go. ‘This too shall pass. She’ll ease off from now, it’s worse when she’s nervous.’

That proved true. The Help came back from the shops and served an absolutely delicious cream tea, an old-school treat that I’d heard of but never had, with fresh scones (Hifa’s mother: ‘made under my direction’) and fresh clotted cream, and jam made by Hifa’s mother the previous autumn. I made the mistake of asking for the recipe, out of nothing but politeness, which gave her the opportunity to say: ‘The balance of sugar and sharpness has to be just right, as sweet as love, as bitter as loss.’ There would be these moments when Hifa’s mother suddenly went off on one. The rest of the time she was OK, and she could be very funny, especially about her neighbours. Also, as always, it was good to be away from the Wall and especially so to be with Hifa. We went for a walk down to what had been the seafront and was now a strange marooned parade of shops in the lee of the Wall, their facades oriented towards a promenade and a view which were no longer there. We did a lot of walking that weekend, as a device for getting out of the house.

‘How come she can afford Help?’

‘I haven’t asked but I can guess. Dad sends her money. He felt guilty about going off and leaving her – leaving us. He had to pay child support, but even when he didn’t have to any more, he still sent cheques.’

‘She told you that?’

Hifa gave me a look.

‘Of course not. He did.’

‘I thought you never saw him?’

‘I don’t. Hardly. Anyway, she’s canny with money, always has been. When she was working she saved.’

‘I feel a bit sorry for the Help. More sorry than usual, I mean.’

‘Yeah – I wouldn’t be at all surprised if she decided to swim for it.’

I laughed. Being with Hifa’s mother made me think about my parents; about the difference between me and them, so different from Hifa and her mother, and yet maybe not, at the same time. Who broke the world? They wouldn’t say that they did. And yet it broke on their watch.

Hifa was right, though: it did get easier. Her mother dialled it down a bit. That gave Hifa the chance to relax a little and as she did she told me about her childhood, the dad who was great when he was there but was prone to go away without warning, until one day he never came back; the charismatic, flaky, loving, difficult mother. The small-life country childhood which makes you need to get away so badly you can feel it in the roots of your hair. We wandered all over the town and the countryside around it. The paradox was that you couldn’t see the sea when you were close to it, because of the Wall, but if you went for a walk inland, and climbed up a bit, you could. So you went inland to see the sea. I was at that point of recovery when you feel annoyed by your own weakness; when you are bored, as a prelude to getting better. Bored with my physical condition, I mean. In other respects I was feeling better than ever. I was imagining a future off the Wall, once we were pregnant. We’d find work, take turns looking after the baby, maybe take turns going to college, and it would be onwards and upwards. There would be a new life, and we would be living a new life. It felt like too much to hope for, but not in a bad way, more the kind of thing you stop yourself thinking about for superstitious reasons, because if you let yourself imagine all the details, it’s less likely to happen. Breeders got good accommodation, so I wouldn’t have to go back to live with my parents and Hifa wouldn’t have to go back to live with hers.

By the fourth day of that week, my arm was out of its sling, and my shoulder, though it still hurt, hurt in a specific numb way which was unlike the access-all-areas pain I’d had when I was wounded. Unexpectedly catching a glimpse of myself in the mirror – there were lots of mirrors in the cottage – I thought, who’s that good-looking dude, then realised it was me, looking rested and well.

At the end of the week, Hifa’s mother walked us to the train station. By now we were on nodding terms with the neighbours, who waved or nodded back as we walked past. She stood on the single platform and waited until the two-carriage train came in. She held our hands together and looked at us for a long time.

‘Courage,’ she said, tears in her eyes. ‘Courage, my brave, brave darlings. I feel for you. Courage!’

She squeezed hard and then let go.

‘I cannot watch you go away. I will leave you now,’ she said. And she marched out of the station with her cane, a handkerchief in her right hand, dabbing it to her face as she disappeared back into the town. Hifa and I got into the train.