Dancing In The Shadows of Love (2 page)

It had always been clear that they hated me, except perhaps
Sub-Prioress
Dalia. ‘Pity my simplicity,’ I continued to whisper without hope that my
plea
would be heard. I did not flinch, because the kicks always came faster when they sensed my fear. ‘And suffer me to come to thee…’

Above the scuffles, we heard
Sub-Prioress
Dalia’s steps, sharp with anxiety, as she returned. With one last kick, Taki said, ‘You’d better not tell on us, you child of the
Levid
, or it’ll be worse for you.’ She cast a feral, warning glance at the others. ‘We’ll tell the
Controllers
she tripped.’

Today, I carry within me the rage born in that moment.

I snarled. A little snarl, one they didn’t hear above their laughter as they gawked at me sprawled in front of them.

They heard the next one, though. It stunned them into immobility and I surged upwards, clenching the red pick-up-stick in my fist. The force I stabbed with pushed it backwards through my palm. I ignored the pain; even welcomed it, as the thin plastic toy became a nail lodged deep in Taki’s leg. I will carry a small, round scar on my hand for the rest of my life. Nothing much. Not compared to my satisfaction at her yowl of pain, her pack around her as they bayed their sympathy.

Before they remembered me, I fled. This time, I didn’t run towards the holding camp court, where the smell of incense and the
nova
high above the altar used to soothe me. For I had already begun to ask: when has the
Spirit King
ever answered any of my
petitions
? Instead, sucking the blood from my wounded palm, I ran outside. I ran through the rose garden I saw on my arrival—three straggly bushes of white roses the
Prioress
indulged herself with—and over the dry river bed bordering the mountains until I could fling myself beneath the buffalo-thorn hedge. I crawled deep into the filmy branches, their gentle leaves and vicious double-hooked thorns my protection. For aeons, they have collected the spirits of the lonely dead returning home from exile. There, in their dark silence, I was always welcome.

• • •

Later, much later, as I lay on my narrow bed—nothing more than a slab of concrete topped with a thin foam mattress—my face wet with tears of hunger and the exhaustion of my unhappiness,
Sub-Prioress
Dalia glided in.

‘The
Spirit King
is your friend,’ she whispered. She placed a slice of bread, lathered with honey, and a glass of warm milk, mixed with a teaspoon of red wine, on the bare pine table next to my bed. ‘You are his beloved,’ she added, ‘so you need to love them. Just love them.’

My rage, so recently birthed, was too great. I turned my face away, away from her and her unbearable words of love. She hesitated, as if she wanted to say more but, without another word, she left as softly as she had come and I smelt the promise in the sweet, sweet fragrance of the single white rose my beloved laid next to my pillow.

“God shall be my hope,
My stay, my guide.”

Jamila was a teenager when she decided she would never be poor again. Never. She would spend her life building a safe place. A beautiful place where fear and ambiguity, shame and uncertainty, would not crush her under the burden of other people’s laughter. There, in that safe place, she’d remember her Papa, large and bald, his grey suit crumpled, the elbows and collar of his jacket so often mended there was no place for another patch. There, in that safe place, she’d wipe out the other memories: Papa standing on the street corner where the traffic lights intersected before the tennis club entrance, his cardboard placard in one hand and a tin cup for other people’s pity pennies in the other.

His eyes, the same pale green that stared back at her from her mirror, too often gave him away. When his
ezomo
ruled, when he was swallowed by the despair that stopped him from even trying to lift them out of the poverty that ground them down, they weren’t the eyes of the big, bluff man who made her laugh, or told her she was his poppet. They burned right through her until she joined him on his begging corner and ran from car to car as the traffic light turned red.

There she learned how sharply people’s judgement could carve a lesson into one’s heart.

‘Thank you,’ she’d say, bobbing in gratitude, even when the arm that casually dropped the coin in the tin belonged to the mothers of the children she went to school with. ‘You’re very kind. May the
Spirit King
bless you,’ she’d add as Papa had taught her. She’d ignore the whispers and giggles of the small faces lining the back seat, the faces she saw every day in the classroom.

When she arrived with the lunch her mother sent him, two slices of brown bread, thickly spread with peanut butter, her shoes were as clean as she could make them, her school tie neatly tied and her pristine white shirt tucked tightly into her skirt.

‘What’s this?’ Papa would ask and point to her shoes. ‘Haven’t I taught you better? Take them off. No one will give you money if you wear shoes.’ He’d watch her bend unwillingly down to remove her shoes and socks. Her feet would cramp as the heat of the tar seared them. As she straightened, Papa would take off her tie, hiding it in his pocket. He’d half-pull her hair from its neat ponytail before rubbing dirt along her cheeks.

As he changed her, his eyes—those eyes that were his, but not his—turned inward, away from her, but not for long enough. As soon as he found the secret place he searched for, the place where he was a man of worth, he added, ‘There, that’s better.’ He’d straighten his spine and say, ‘They’ll help a poor child before they’ll help a poor man!’

‘They’re my school friends, Papa,’ she dared to whisper. ‘I don’t want to take money from them.’

She always hoped she could reach the part of him that was real, but there was no reason in the stranger who called himself her Papa. Some days she escaped after an hour. She’d run to the small zinc hut they called home. Other days, the worst days, she stayed until she was sure every one of the children in her school had driven past her and laughed.

Mama said she must tell them she was collecting for the local
Court
. She did. But they asked why she was always dirty. She’d say she tripped as she crossed the road to avoid a car pulling hastily away when the traffic light turned green. The sneers and the taunts that greeted her said no one believed her.

‘What happened to your clothes, child? And your face is so dirty!’ Miss Phipps asked one Saturday afternoon. Breathless from having eluded the begging corner while Papa was away buying cigarettes with the morning’s collection, Jamila arrived at the school gate for the sports afternoon at the same time as the tall middle-aged headmistress. The woman leaned forward to cup Jamila’s chin. She turned Jamila’s face this way, then the other way, and grimaced as she saw the streaks of dirt. Jamila gagged from nerves and the heavy sweet perfume Miss Phipps wore.

‘I fell,’ she said, but Angela Rocco, school trend setter and one of the beautiful people, walked past with her disciples and heard her lie.

‘Jamila always says she’s fallen, Miss Phipps,’ the girl said. From the comfort of her perfect, safe life, she added, ‘She has problems at home.’

Miss Phipps frowned as the other girls tittered. Jamila thought she heard them, or one of the teachers drawn by the throng at the school gate, call out the name of Papa’s
ezomo
. ‘Her father’s too lazy to find decent work,’ someone said.

‘I don’t have problems at home! I fell!’ She rattled out the words so the headmistress wouldn’t hear those lies.

‘What happened?’ Miss Phipps was gentle, but Mama said let’s pretend it’s not true. Don’t tell anyone how poor we are. It’s our secret and no one must ever find out, or Mama will die of shame. Jamila, too, was shamed because she wanted people to see her real Papa: the good one.

‘I fell,’ she said, stubborn from desperation, and heard the muffled giggles as Angela contradicted her.

‘You did not. Your father’s the beggar at the second traffic light past the tennis club. You’re dirty
and
dirt poor!’ She sniggered at her own joke.

‘What’s your name, child? What happened? You must tell me the truth. Otherwise,’ Miss Phipps urged, regret laced into her words, ‘I’ll have to ask Angela to tell me.’

Jamila didn’t want to meet Angela’s avid stare. She lifted her gaze high, up past the letters that read “St Mary’s
Court
School for Girls” and up as high as the dusty old
nova
that adorned the arched gate. The
Spirit King’s
pained grimace echoed the ache in Jamila’s muscles and the iron face blurred with tears she would not let fall. Yet somehow it gave her a strength she didn’t realise she had. ‘I’m Jamila Johnson, Ma’am,’ she said. ‘I tripped on the way to the school.’

The ripple of response from Angela and her friends reached out like a breath of darkness, dangerous and lurking beneath the ordinariness of their faces. Jamila held her gaze on the
Spirit King’s
face. As she watched, the sun came over the roof of the school hall and, as it warmed her, it glinted off the dew on the
Spirit King
.
Please
, she appealed to the iridescent figure,
please let them leave me alone
.

As if she heard the silent
plea
, Miss Phipps turned to those gathered round them. ‘Leave, everyone,’ she ordered. ‘I’ll deal with this.’

‘But, Miss Phipps…’

‘Go, Angela.’ No one argued with the headmistress when she spoke in that tone.

When they were alone, Miss Phipps was quiet for a long while. ‘Jamila,’ she said, ‘I’ve seen your father when I drive past the tennis club.’

Jamila would not move her gaze away from the
nova
. ‘My Papa is a good man,’ she said.

‘Of course he is.’ The headmistress sighed and took out her handkerchief to wipe away as much dirt as she could from Jamila’s cheeks. ‘Be careful, child. Our
ezomos
ruin the best of us.’

She left Jamila there, standing alone in her black skirt with her dirty white blouse neatly tucked in and her shoes, black and shiny and clean on the outside, but filthy on the inside where the dirt from the road had rubbed off her bare feet. Jamila didn’t see her go, for she gaped at the miracle of the
nova
.

Shame had again shredded her on this day, and yet the kindness coming from an answered appeal had sewn her back together. Dazed, and a little awed, Jamila floated through the arched gate, fresh life breathed into her by that glowing
nova
.

She made two decisions.

With her newly birthed allegiance to the
Spirit King
to give her strength, she would escape. Unlike Papa, she would never let her
ezomos
trap her into a life she did not want.

And she would always be kind to those people who, like herself, were the easy victims of the pious malevolence of the Angela Roccos of this world.

“Art thou some god, some angel, or some devil,
That mak’st my blood cold?”

A glorious riot of fragrance wafted from the roses arranged in the centre of the dinner table, but it failed to soothe me. I forced the storm back into the quiescence of utter control. When I was calm again, I called for a servant.

‘Ma’am Zahra called?’ The girl sidled into the formal dining room, her eyes, as always, locked to the floor. Did she think I couldn’t see the white rim of fear? I was pleased when she feared me, for then I was in control. And when I was in control, Little Flower—my secret nemesis, the other me—was dim and muted and I could pretend she was truly gone. ‘Ma’am called?’ the servant said again.

‘What did I say about the roses?’ I glared. It drew my eyebrows down to meet over my nose and made me formidable; I practiced the look often. Like armour on a fallen warrior, dull and tarnished, it worked. The servant shuffled her feet and chewed the end of her braid. I waited a dangerous beat. ‘Haven’t you got any ears?’

Silence. I could almost hear her mind scurry in frantic circles as she tried to remember the day’s orders. I helped her. ‘White roses, girl. I wanted white roses.’

Her head sunk lower. If she were other than a Dark One, she would have blushed with nerves. I deepened my frown to harness my own nerves. Even after years as a Templeton wife, I was unused to servants who, too often, saw my weakness. ‘Well?’

‘Ma’am, sorry, ma’am.’

‘Sorry doesn’t do the job. Take these away.’ I waved a languid hand, another gesture I practised when my husband Barry had left for his pharmacy.

Some called him ruthless. I was proud of his ambition. His latest project was to expand the family’s pharmacy into a nationwide chain of stores. Three blocks down, old Mr Reubens complained that, since Barry took over his father’s store, his pharmacy had lost business. Barry’s father, he said, hadn’t poached his customers with discount prices and special offers. They’d respected each other’s turf and there’d been customers enough for both of them.

When he complained, Barry waited for my nod before offering to buy him out.

‘He’ll sell soon,’ I said to Barry every night and he believed me.

Barry worked hard. Between his business, and his visits to his mother, I hardly saw him. Those days, she was often on her sickbed—deathbed, I sometimes hoped, before I pushed the thought away. Everyone said she’s a lovely woman. I guess she was. But I couldn’t help thinking this: when she died,
I
would be the matriarch.
I
would become the real power behind the Templeton Empire Barry built with every new store he opened. And then no one would ever make me powerless again.

The servant stood there, tense and anxious, as I lost myself in my future. ‘Go,’ I said and released her with a nod towards the door. ‘Bring the white roses.’

As I watched her flee the room, the sympathetic cry of a child echoed inside my heart. A cry that reflected the fear on her face and made me long to call her back and mumble sorry, sorry, I don’t want to hurt you; I’m as scared as you are…but I could show her no weakness. For, if I had, what would I have done if Little Flower returned?