Ibrahim & Reenie (6 page)

Later that day, when it was time for him to sleep again, Gary contemplated the importance of timing; how time and coincidence play such an important part in anyone's life. It was typical for that kind of thought to pop into his head just as he was trying to get some sleep, and that night he was kept awake by the idea that just a few minutes difference could change somebody's life completely, and that this could in turn begin a chain reaction, influencing others, each minor event triggering another, until the shape of the world was somehow different. The next morning he sat in front of his computer and read about the so-called Butterfly Effect and chaos theory and fractals, but he came away no wiser than when he had sat down.

If he stayed in the café a few minutes longer, or took a different route home, he wouldn't have entered their house just as Emma turned on the television. She was standing in the centre of their living room, still wearing her dressing gown, a steaming mug of tea in one hand and the remote control in the other. He kissed her on the cheek, noticing that she still had that morning smell – stale but not unpleasant – and he said ‘Good morning', but then his attention was drawn to the television.

On the screen was the night-time image of an orange tent pitched beneath a concrete flyover.

‘The Coldra, Newport,' said the television: a woman's voice, soft but sincere. ‘Irene Glickman is seventy-five years old. She's lived in Cardiff more than forty years, but is returning to London, the city where she grew up.'

A pause, as the camera lingered on the image of an old woman in a deckchair, sipping from a white mug.

‘What makes Irene's journey remarkable,' the voiceover continued, ‘is that she's doing it on foot. Irene is
walking
the one hundred and sixty miles to London,
alone
. She is travelling with all of her belongings in a supermarket trolley, and tonight she will sleep in a tent next to one of the busiest roads in South Wales.'

It cut to a close-up of the old woman. Hard to tell whether she was happy about being filmed. If anything, she looked as if she couldn't care less.

‘I've just got so many things,' she said. ‘And I wasn't planning on coming back to Cardiff. Thing is, I haven't got a car, and I couldn't take all this stuff on the train. It just made sense.'

Emma dropped herself into an armchair and shook her head. ‘Mad old thing,' she said. ‘Walking to London? That's the
Coldra
, isn't it? She must have Alzheimer's, or something.'

The image on screen switched to the reporter; beige suit, rigid hair, too frosty and pinched for Gary to find sexy.

‘Earlier today, police in Newport moved Mrs Glickman on from a busy roundabout on the other side of the city. A spokesperson for Gwent Police told us that while they were concerned for Mrs Glickman's welfare, she had not committed an offence. They said, “Mrs Glickman is of sound mind, and capable of making her own decisions. This is why we have not taken the matter further or referred her current situation to social services.'''

Gary turned to his wife. ‘What was that you were saying about Alzheimer's?'

‘Meanwhile,' the reporter continued. ‘Irene Glickman still has a very long way to walk.'

‘Still think she's mad,' said Emma. ‘They should put her in a care home, or something. It's not right, leaving her out there. Even if she ain't a danger to the public, she's a danger to her
self
.'

‘She seemed alright to me,' said Gary. ‘I mean, she only wants to get to London.'

‘Well, couldn't somebody have driven her there? I don't know… a neighbour or something?'

‘Maybe she hasn't got anyone.'

The news moved on to another story, leaving the old woman where they found her. From what Gary had seen as he drove around the Coldra, she was still there now. And she had no one. This alone bothered him. We think the world will always provide for us, that there'll be friends and family to keep us safe, that we won't be abandoned or ignored, but how many years had the old woman been alone? When had she last had a conversation, a proper conversation, with anyone? He imagined her in a supermarket, chatting away to the staff because they were the only people she ever spoke with. And maybe they knew her by name, but they didn't really
know
her. She had no one.

So many of them. The old woman sleeping under the motorway. The old man picking fag butts from the gutter. One city, and two people that alone, that desperate. Just one city. Not even a big city. Not even that many people. But two of them. Two people like that.

‘D'you want a cuppa?' said Emma, but he was on his feet and out of the room before she'd finished the question.

On reaching the landing, the first thing he noticed was an open door, and the bright and colourful light from the room behind it. There, visible through the narrow gap between the door and its frame, he saw the blue and pink border decorated with teddy bears. That door was usually shut, which meant Emma had been in there again, something she only ever did when he was out. He closed the door gently, hoping she wouldn't hear it, and went to their bedroom.

For a moment he sat on the edge of their bed, and caught sight of himself, reflected in the mirror above Emma's dressing table. He aged the face he saw, adding further creases to the corner of each eye, drawing the hairline a little further up his forehead and peppering the hair with dashes of grey. He imagined his life without Emma, without friends or family, in which his only conversations were with the people on supermarket checkouts.

In the bathroom he brushed away the aftertaste of coffee and cigarettes and splashed cold water on his face to remind himself it was morning. Emma had already sensed something was wrong, or that something was
different
, by the time he came back downstairs and walked out of the house, and she followed him as far as the front door.

‘What
are
you doing?' she asked. ‘Ain't you going back to bed?'

He didn't answer her at first. Instead, he opened the van and began taken out his equipment – the tool kit; the industrial-strength vacuum cleaner; the different tools and devices for detecting water mains and electrical currents. He stacked as many of those things as he could, and carried them up the short driveway.

‘Oh no,' said Emma. ‘You are
not
bringing
that
stuff in
this
house. Gary? Gary. I said you're
not
bringing that stuff…'

He was already past her, and carrying everything through to their kitchen.

‘Gary? What are you doing?'

Groaning with the weight, he crouched and placed the stack of tools down on the kitchen floor. ‘Just making a bit of room,' he said, as if this made perfect sense.

‘But
why
?'

‘I've got an idea.'

He walked back through the house, and out through the front door, and began taking more things from the van.

‘What do you mean? What idea?'

‘I'm gonna drive her over the bridge,' said Gary, carrying the last pile through the house, and putting it down next to the first. ‘There's room for all her stuff.'

‘Who're you on about?'

‘The old woman,' he said. ‘Off the telly. I've got a couple of hours spare. I can drive her over the bridge.'

‘Gary. Have you gone mad?'

‘No, love. I'm not mad. I just think… it makes sense.'

‘Makes sense? You're gonna drive a complete stranger, a mad old woman, over the Severn Bridge in your van, with her trolley and all her rubbish, and you think that makes sense?'

‘Yeah.'

‘Listen to yourself. You're tired.'

He laughed. It was a long time since anyone had told him he was tired. Wasn't that what his mum and dad would tell him, when he was a kid? The minute the grizzling began, they'd tell him he was tired, and he remembered perfectly the indignation he felt. He wasn't tired, he was angry, and right now he wasn't tired, he was determined; determined to use his day to shape the world, to be more than just another cog, turning because a bleeping pager commanded him to turn.

‘I'm not tired,' he said. ‘Anyway. It won't take long. I can be over the bridge and back in an hour and a half. And think of the time it'll save her.'

‘But you don't know her,' said Emma. ‘Why should you drive her?'

Gary shrugged.

‘You know what would make me laugh?' said Emma. ‘Is if you get there and they're queuing up. All the white van men who saw her on the news, queuing up to offer her a lift.'

‘Yeah,' Gary laughed. ‘That would be funny.'

They were in front of the house, Emma holding her dressing gown a little tighter around her thin frame, accentuating her belly, and Gary caught himself glancing down and feeling that dreadful, familiar wave of shame and horror and grief. He gasped, too quietly for her to hear, and he turned away to look inside the van. Plenty of room in there for a trolley, he was sure of that. The old woman could sit up front, assuming she said yes. And maybe Emma was right; maybe he'd get there and they'd be queuing up. He closed the doors with a loud clunk.

‘I won't be long,' he said. ‘Promise.'

He kissed her, this time on the lips, a kiss that couldn't help but feel like an apology, and he climbed into his van. The engine started with a splutter and cough, and he drove away, leaving Emma on the driveway, watching him until he'd gone.

6

‘Must be nothing else happening in the world,' said Reenie. ‘I mean, why'd they want to talk to me? Don't make any sense.'

Ibrahim shrugged. Despite his sleeping bag and the cushions Reenie loaned him, he'd woken up cold and tired. The pain in his right leg had subsided, but he knew this couldn't last. It would return as soon as they were walking again, but perhaps the pain might give the day some focus. He had decided that today he would make it over the border and into England.

‘And why didn't they talk to you?' asked Reenie, as if he'd said something in reply. ‘I thought that was odd.'

‘Must be because you're old.'

She responded with a scowl.

‘What?' he asked, unsure what he'd said to offend her.

‘Who're you calling old?'

‘Well you
are,
' said Ibrahim.

‘I know that, but no need to be so blooming blunt about it.'

He had been here before; said something, and watched somebody's expression change. Said the wrong thing. Not a lie, not an insult. Just wrong. Used the wrong words. It hadn't always been like this.

‘What I mean,' he said, ‘is that they took one look at us, and thought you'd look better on TV.'

‘Well,' said Reenie. ‘I don't mind you saying
that
. Even if you don't mean it in a nice way.'

He knew he was right. The minute the reporter and camera crew arrived, they seemed perplexed, almost put out, by his being there, as if he damaged the story somehow. First, the researcher, Kirsty, had spoken to them both, taking their names – which they gave reluctantly – and making notes. She told them that they – ‘they' being the BBC – were interested in the story, about their reasons for walking to London, but as the conversation went on, more and more of her questions were aimed at Reenie. By the time the reporter joined them, with the cameraman and sound technician in tow, it was clear they had no more interest in him.

He found it funny they would never see themselves – or Reenie, at least – on screen. The next leg of their journey would take them further away from the towns and cities, and they were unlikely, even if they wanted to, to find a television before nightfall.

When they'd finished packing the trolley, he took the folded maps from his bag, and showed them to Reenie.

‘This is the way we should go,' he said, dragging his finger across the page. ‘Up through Chepstow, over the border. We should make it as far as Lydney.'

‘And how far's that?'

He paused, gauging the distance between his forefinger and thumb.

‘I don't know. Twenty, twenty-five miles?'

‘Twenty-five miles?'

‘Yeah.'

‘How long's that gonna take us?'

‘Seven or eight hours?'

‘Are you having a laugh? With this?' She gripped the trolley's handlebar, shaking it for emphasis. ‘And with me? I'm seventy-flippin-five.'

‘Yeah, alright. No need to go on about it.'

‘And you've got a gammy leg.'

‘What does gammy mean?'

‘It means you're almost a cripple, love.'

‘A crip–? Look… we'll be
fine
. We'll take breaks. If we set off now we can get to Lydney before it's time to set up camp again.'