Precious Things (27 page)

The alleyway narrowed, and there was a greater press of people. The crowd, which had fascinated her so much earlier, now thickened and pooled around her. Ulrika felt hands fondling her, touching her, pawing at her hair. She was being pushed backwards. Not only was she the only woman anywhere with an exposed head or pale hair but, she realised with a start, she was the only woman here at all. So odd, thin and out of place. So ready to disappear. To be consumed.

She gasped for breath. Her ribs compressed in the crush. The hands rubbed over her body, fingers pinching her side. She shouted out, flailed wildly. Someone grabbed at the back of her dress and Ulrika felt it rip, the beaded patch pulling tight across her chest. Her heart thumped wildly, and she felt herself shoved through a doorway. The bunched fist held at her spine and she kicked wildly at her assailant, felt wet skin beneath her nails as they dragged across soft flesh. A man screamed incomprehensibly in her face. Ulrika shook with adrenaline and fear, spasms travelling up her legs.

She felt herself losing it. Her legs buckled feebly.

Then a firm set of hands held fast and pushed the others out of the way. A woman. Her grip was tough and true. She led Ulrika out of the crowd, through the murky maze of dimly lit, close tunnels, in and out of windowless rooms. Ulrika was too breathless and frightened to see her saviour's face, but her hands seemed steady and strong and somehow made her feel safe – she would follow that woman wherever she led.

A thick wooden door slammed behind them, and the woman helped her to a stool, sitting her down at an empty table. Framed pictures lined the walls, of men wearing turbans and white thawbs. The old woman herself wore an intricately embroidered waistcoat draped over burgundy robes. Finally, Ulrika saw her face. The beakish nose and dark, kind eyes. A scarf was folded tightly over her forehead and under her chin. The woman stooped over a pot on a flickering gas ring and poured liquid from the pot into a mug, then pressed it into Ulrika's hands, urging her to drink. The flavour was bitter on her tongue but it cut through the fog in her mind. Ulrika sat quietly, feeling small and foolish. The old woman's hooded eyes flashed as she sat there with her, patting Ulrika's knee reassuringly.

Time slowed and stretched like honey from a spoon, the minutes expanding and dripping into nothingness. The door sat ajar, letting in a cool draught. Ulrika's teeth chattered with shock, but soon her ragged breathing stilled, as the breeze calmed her with its gentle breath.

Then, from a distant room, she heard an urgent keening like the lowing of an animal, and the shuffle of several pairs of feet. Ulrika's head jerked up violently at the sound, and the woman shook her head, hands patting the empty air reassuringly:
Calm, calm
. The woman stood up to leave, her burgundy robes rustling about her. Panicked, Ulrika stood up too. ‘Please? Don't leave me . . .' Ulrika whispered. The woman smiled, and beckoned her to follow.

Ulrika trailed behind her as she strode through mud-packed hallways and then the old woman disappeared around a corner. Ulrika entered the room. It was suffused with lamplight – a small, low-ceilinged chamber with no windows. Several women squatted around a figure lying on a bed. The globe of her belly obscured the young woman's face as she pushed and heaved and moaned. Ulrika caught a glimpse of the crowning head between the legs. The slimy shock of black hair.

The women in the room were now talking excitedly, gesticulating at the woman on the bed. It was clear there was a problem: the baby was stuck. It should be out by now. From the sounds the mother was making, she was in the final stages. Without drugs, and it looked as
though they didn't have any, Ulrika realised she would soon be too exhausted to make the final push needed for a safe delivery.

Ulrika moved towards them and the circle of kohl-eyed women made to block her way, talking to her in a fast stream of Turkish. ‘No, let me . . . I can help,' she said, wondering if she was making any sense. Even English felt thick and strange upon her tongue.

The old woman let fly with a stream of violent, gravelly words, and the women dropped back, standing silently aside to let Ulrika through. Ulrika's half-remembered training came back to her. She moved forward to dip her hands in the bowl of steaming water on the table, rubbing them clean.

She laid her hands on the woman's stomach, which roiled and moved under her palms. One of the women cried out and tried to slap her away, but the old lady who had helped Ulrika stepped in, stilling the woman. Ulrika moved her hands down, quickly felt around the baby's head, and then over the mother's skin, which was stretched tight around the head. Ah, there, she could feel it now, she thought. The cord wrapped around the baby's neck. Ulrika's long thin fingers manoeuvred around the cord's tight grip, loosening the hold and clearing its path. She counted the seconds in her head. She turned to look at the old woman, nodding to her, willing her to understand. ‘Tell her, one more push!' The old woman leaned into the exhausted young woman on the bed, smoothing back her sweaty hair and whispering in her ear.

As the tiny form slipped from his mother's body into her hands, Ulrika realised she'd been holding her breath. In that instant, the baby squalled, a surprisingly lusty cry. Eyes squeezed shut tightly as he yowled indignantly, his skin turned from blue to red and the women crowded her, taking the child and wiping the bloody mucus from his tiny body. The child was bruised and misshapen from his journey but also, somehow, perfectly formed. Sucking in a lungful of air, Ulrika felt the blood rush to her head. Another older woman grasped her shoulders roughly and kissed her on both cheeks three times, tears in her eyes.

Ulrika's saviour took her aside and tenderly cleaned her fingers with the bowl of water and a piece of clean linen. Then, like a mother with a young child, she folded a scarf neatly over Ulrika's head, tucking it under her chin. She draped a large sheet of cloth over her shoulders and led her up a flight of stairs. Grasping Ulrika's hands, she kissed them quickly before pushing her, foal-like, out into the sun where she'd first entered the bazaar, back towards the hotel.

Ulrika looked in through the heavy glass doors of the foyer. She was standing on the small strip of pavement outside, hidden in the shadows formed by the hotel's flapping signage. There were bags sitting neatly just inside, awaiting collection. The whole team were due to leave at any moment.
Where were they?
Ulrika wondered. Had they left already, and what time was it?

Then someone moved away and Ulrika could see Celine standing in front of the reception desk, tapping her foot against the marble floor as she studied the bill. It must be extensive; Celine was turning over page after page, a slight frown on her face. She was wearing a sleek Ossie Clark number in crêpe de Chine, clearly dressed for the plane. Black with a plunging neckline, it hugged her subtle curves and fell flatteringly on the bias. And there was Jack, at her side, velvet jacket slung over his shoulder, looking bored and louche. Had it only been hours ago that they had been in bed together? Looking at him, lounging on the desk next to Celine, Ulrika suddenly saw it clearly. She knew, of course, as she had always known. Celine and Jack: they were a couple. Maybe they always had been. He'd just been baiting Celine by flirting with Ulrika, and it had worked. But Ulrika had wanted to believe him and had been taken in by the tantalising power of his want. Just at that moment Jack leaned over to say something to Celine, and his hand slipped down to cup her left buttock. Celine's lips parted in a smile. Ulrika saw her pointy red tongue run over her sticky lips.

Repulsed, Ulrika stepped back into the shadows. She didn't want to see this, and didn't want them to see her. Turning, she looked at her shadowy self reflected in the shop window. She still wore the drab, dishevelled sheet over her dress and the scarf the old woman had given her, which was wrapped in an ungainly fashion about her head. Her body was muffled by the layers into anonymity, her pale hair hidden. Yet under the scarf, her eyes were wide open and clear – clearer than they had been for months.

The thought hit Ulrika like a shock of cold water. Her body felt like a burden she wanted to escape and she had a momentary wish to break free of it – to be like the ascetics and the monks she'd read about. Ulrika had thought herself a grown woman in New York but now caught an image of herself, clearly, through other people's eyes, as half-woman half-child, naïve and as vulnerable as a newborn. She closed her eyes against that truth, and the sensation of the baby being born, slick and slippery, into her hands, came back to her. Ulrika felt the imprint of the whole mysterious experience fall gently around and over her, like a strange blessing. Unlike the beaded patch at her chest, which she suddenly couldn't wait to tear away. She ripped at it with her hand, roughly, and felt it pull, tearing the dress into shreds beneath her fingers.

Entering through the glass hotel door, clutching the piece in her hand, its beads biting vengefully at her palm, Ulrika gathered herself. This new person she'd become wrapped closely around her; she felt protected. Looking calmly back at Jack and Celine as they gaped at her, she walked past them and up to her room to collect her suitcase. They had been playing a child's game with her. But now, Ulrika decided, it was time to grow up.

‘Mummy, look,' Pearl ran across the marble floor until she was standing under the massive, avant-garde chandelier by the central reception desk. Neck craned to the ceiling, she pointed at the sea-coloured glass and spun around in circles, excited and giggling. It made Maggie dizzy just to watch. Stella followed behind, dragging her feet, affecting her usual, weary,
I don't want to be here
expression.

‘Lovely day for it, eh Maggie?' The portly security guard said, indicating his thick head of white hair towards the pelting rain outside. Maggie brushed a few drops from her coat's shoulders and smiled. ‘Hi, Pat.'

The guard handed her a plastic bag for their umbrellas and Maggie took the offering with gratitude. Giving him a little wave, Maggie nodded and moved off to join Pearl.

Stella sidled up beside her. ‘Do you know that guy?' she asked, studying Maggie out of the corner of her eye.

‘Patrick? Yes. He's been here forever. Wife died last year, poor chap.'

They were standing in the main entrance of the Victoria and Albert Museum, after crêpes in South Kensington, hot chocolate at Bibendum and a quick zip around the Conran Shop (very quick, thanks to the death stares from the assistant when Pearl went to touch a bright red spinning top on the shelf of the children's section and it fell, noisily, to the floor). All three of them were spending the day together, but Maggie could hardly believe Stella had agreed to come. The morning had even been surprisingly pleasant, so far.

When she'd floated the suggestion at breakfast, Stella had only grimaced. ‘God! No thanks,' she'd snorted derisively. ‘A museum? Boring as.'

‘Sorry,' Tim told her, folding up his newspaper and dumping a cereal-crusted bowl in the sink. ‘Got a meeting.' Maggie willed him to look up and acknowledge her, but he bounded upstairs, oblivious to the longing stare she directed at his back. He had been so . . . so distant, lately.

‘Come on, Stella. Call it research for your history exams,' Maggie cajoled, wishing things were better between her and Tim. He hadn't been very understanding when she'd told him about the awful visit to her mother, too preoccupied by work to give her the support she'd been looking for. Had Stella noticed that everything seemed less than rosy? She hoped not. Although Pearl had asked, just the other night, ‘What's wrong, Mummy? You look sad.'

Maggie looked across at Stella over breakfast, and at the pained expression on her face. ‘There's some amazing pieces from Henry VIII's court at the V&A,' she said, forcing herself to sound more encouraging than she felt. ‘We could go shopping as well, if you like . . .' she continued, and Stella perked up at the mention of shops.

Maggie had been thinking she would help the girls buy a birthday present for their dad, maybe some new shirts to replace his old ones, which were growing rather tight around the middle, but if Stella thought she was getting some new gear out of it as well . . . Well, it wasn't such a bad way to kill two birds, Maggie had thought.

They wandered around the V&A, looking inside all the glass display cases with their mannequins dressed in elaborate outfits from across the ages. Maggie showed the girls the threadbare Persian rug, said to be over three thousand years old, which was displayed in its very own room. She pressed the button to illuminate the carpet, before it faded back into darkness. The threads of the ancient piece were knotted together so harmoniously, Maggie thought they seemed to contain a whole secret world within the swirls.

Looking disinterested, Stella moved off to another room and Maggie and Pearl followed behind her, holding hands. Despite Stella's attitude, Maggie's heart gave a little flip of joy.
This is nice
, she thought, wandering from one room to another.

As they entered another section of the museum, Pearl ran off, leaving Maggie and Stella to pick up their pace behind her. Pearl was the first to spot the heavily embroidered silk dress on the child-sized mannequin, and pointed excitedly. She pressed her nose up against the glass. ‘What does it say, Mummy?'

That's my girl
, Maggie thought, unable to help breaking into a smile at the sight of her daughter looking so enthralled.

Stella bent down to read the plaque. ‘It's called a mantua – made for wearing in palaces, apparently,' she said, studying the intricate patterns covering the frock's bodice and skirt. ‘How'd they get it through the door?' she asked, confused. She craned her head around the dress's wide, wing-like sides and looked to Maggie for explanation.

‘Most likely they only wore it for royal receptions in the grand ballrooms . . . Fittings would have been done in ante-rooms off to the side.'

‘That's a bit of a faff, isn't it?' asked Stella, wrinkling up her nose.

‘I suppose so,' replied Maggie, ‘although it would have been such an honour to attend, I doubt they'd be thinking all that much about the fuss.'

‘Honour? Curtseying and “yes milady”-ing . . . sounds rubbish,' Stella snorted. But Maggie noticed her gaze was still firmly fixed on the mantua and its matching headpiece. When it was finally time to move on, Stella had to tear her eyes away from the exhibit.

They spent another few minutes wandering about, before Maggie realised she couldn't ignore the signs any longer: Pearl was growing restless. She was tired, poor love.

‘Time to go,' Maggie said with a sigh, wondering when she'd be back next, and thinking how nice it would be if she had the opportunity to come more often. It was exactly the type of excursion she wished she'd had more of in her own childhood.

‘Um, Maggie?' Stella said. Maggie turned around, half-expecting a complaint.

Stella was standing by a rack of postcards near the gift shop. The surprise must have shown on Maggie's face. ‘Yes?'

‘Could I get this, do you think?' Stella asked, pulling out a card featuring a photograph of the silk mantua.

‘Sure,' said Maggie, pulling a few pounds worth of loose change out of her pocket and handing it to Stella. ‘Here you go. Buy a few, if you like.'

‘Nah, one's fine,' she said, before heading over to pay the cashier, who placed the single postcard in a small brown paper bag, and slid it across the counter towards Stella with a smile. Stella looked almost shy for a moment, her cheeks reddening as she thanked the man politely and clutched the brown paper bag to her side.

Well well
, Maggie thought.
Wonders will never cease.
Stella rarely let her guard down enough to reveal she was interested in anything – or anyone, for that matter. Maybe she should say something to Tim. This was a good sign, surely?

But when they finally did arrive home, Tim answered the door with a gruff, ‘How did you go?' in his old holey painting jeans, and Stella rolled her eyes mockingly. Brushing past him, she let her coat fall to the floor and disappeared up the stairs without another word. Maggie's shoulders slumped.

‘Fine,' she said, before catching herself. ‘Good, I mean,' and reached up to kiss him. His lips were cool and dry, and he still seemed preoccupied. He retreated back into the study, the door banging behind him, and Maggie gathered up an exhausted Pearl in her arms with a sigh before following Stella up the stairs.
Perhaps I will take Michael up on that dinner
, she thought, flinging the new shirts for Tim from South Ken on the bed with her free hand, and watching her daughter's eyelids flutter and close as she fell, quickly, into an afternoon sleep.