The Memory of Love (55 page)

The day is coming to a close. They should be going if they are going to make it to the ferry port. Still, Kai prefers, for a few more moments, to watch the children play. The little girl dances on the tide line, Abass scoops up fistfuls of wet sand. And then whatever it is they have been seeking has been found, and the little girl laughs.

The laugh comes back to him, time and time again. It comes in the night, and at other unexpected moments, in his dreams – an echo of its pitch and timbre. But from the little girl it comes whole, pure and absolute. It is Nenebah. And in an instant the sound of that laugh can return Kai to a hillside overlooking the city eight years ago, to the moment following a lost joke, the playful bite during a morning’s embrace.

During his days at the hospital he pauses at occasional moments to think of her. One day last week a lizard dropped from a door lintel on to his shoulder and then on to the floor. The creature backed itself into a corner of the room, watched Kai out of one rotating eyeball, before hastening past him through the open door. The sort of occurrence that would have made Nenebah smile and search for hidden meanings. Kai walks from theatre to ward to staff room, crossing the courtyard under the glare of the sun. He arrives early in the day when the south wall of the building is purple with the morning glory that now grows there. By the time he leaves in the evening, the flowers are twisted sweet-papers. Yesterday he altered his route out of the building for no particular reason except that he felt like it, so it took him through the children’s ward, where he walked the length of the room while a paper plane circled in the air above him, carried on the eddying wind of the fan.

On other days Kai passes the room where Elias Cole died, one day before dawn two years ago. Nobody else had been present, so there was no saying in what manner he had faced his end. A preacher was called. The man administered a belated blessing, requested from Kai his taxi fare home and a donation to the church. Babagaleh cleared the room of Cole’s belongings. To Kai, Babagaleh gave the photograph of Nenebah, in which she appeared both to turn from and to confront the camera. Kai kept it alongside her other possessions and her clarinet. He passes the old house from time to time. It is closed up now. Babagaleh has returned home to the north and the love of his estranged wife.

Last night, the first time in many months, Kai woke during the night. He had been dreaming and, though the images of the dream were lost to him, he was left nevertheless with a sensation of well-being, of possibility. He left his bed and walked out into the yard. There was a breeze, unusual for the time of year, it was still early for the harmattan. It carried with it a hint of moisture, of night blooms and wet fruit. In the darkness the city dogs sang to each other. Somewhere in the long grass a frog called for an unknown mate. Kai breathed deeply. He sat down upon the step, his back to the house, and settled down to wait. And finally, above the houses, he saw rising slowly the muted, insistent radiance of dawn.

Today Tejani comes home.

The little girl’s laugh lingers in the air, is swept away by the tide. Kai stands up and calls the children. They make a race of returning to him. He meets them halfway down the beach. The little girl opens her hand to show him a five-petalled sand dollar lying upon her palm. They have arrived rolled in sand, like a sugar coating, and Kai leads them back down to the water. The little girl likes to ride into the waves upon his shoulders, rides him like a bull through the white horses.

From the front of her house, where she stands surrounded by sleeping dogs, Ileana waves goodbye. And then they are in Old Faithful, driving along the beach road. People have polished their vehicles and brought them out for the Sunday cruise, a motorised promenade. A blind man, a yellow bag slung over his shoulder, uses a broken crutch to tap his way along the road. The sound of the metal tip sings through the noise of the traffic and the crowds. They stop in front of a young girl sitting by a basket heaped with silver fishes and the line of traffic is overtaken by the blind man. In the back of the car the children play with an old stethoscope given by Kai to Abass. They take turns pressing the metal disc on to each other’s chests, the car window, the sand dollar, the space between Kai’s shoulder blades.

Ten minutes and they are on the move again, turning around the roundabout, leaving the other cars behind. Now they are driving with their backs to the sea. Ahead of them the peninsula bridge unfurls, straight and true. Kai rolls down the window on the opposite side of the car and briny marsh air flows through the car. There are people out in the marshes, searching for shellfish; the sound of their voices resounds across the emptiness. Kai pushes the cassette into the player and leans back, one hand on the steering wheel. The sudden sound of the drum beat causes the children to stop playing with the stethoscope. They stand and squeeze themselves into the space between the front seats.
Well they tell me of a pie up in the sky
.

They all see the kingfisher flash from a street lamp down to the water right in front of the car. The bird rises, a fish glints on the end of its beak. The little girl screams with pleasure. They do not see, for they cannot, as they cross the peninsula bridge, the letters traced by a boy’s forefinger into cement on the far side of the bridge wall half a century ago, beneath the initials of the men who once worked the bridge.
J.K
.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

The Memory of Love
is a work of fiction. There are those, however, upon whom I have relied to research certain aspects of the background, setting and factual detail of the story and to whom I would like to offer my thanks. The patients and staff of Kissy Mental Hospital, Freetown, and in particular Dr Edward Nahim, who helped me towards a greater understanding of mental illness and of PTSD. For opening up the world and work of the orthopaedic surgeon, my thanks to the staff and patients of the Emergency Medical Hospital, Goderich. And for general medical advice and the practical challenges of running a hospital in Africa, the late Dr Mambu Alphan Kawa. I would also like to take this opportunity to remember the late Dr Aniru Conteh, a specialist in lassa fever who in 2004 died of the virus he had spent his life combating, as does Dr Bangura in
The Memory of Love
, the sole character in the novel some details of whom I have based upon a real person.

My thanks also to the following who read and commented upon the manuscript: psychotherapist Polly Bagnall, the psychologist and psychoanalyst Louise Lyon, Michael May and Blake Morrison. I would also like to thank David Godwin, a master of positive thought who always sees the big picture. To the team at Bloomsbury, in particular Michael Fishwick, a great friend and discerning editor, to whom I can hand the reins with confidence, and have done three times now. And to Simon Westcott who walked every step of the long crossing with me.

Adrian’s reference to ‘the fragmentation of conscience’ is drawn from the work of M. Scott Peck,
People of the Lie
. ‘The plain fact of the matter is that any group will remain potentially conscienceless and evil until such a time as each and every individual holds himself or herself directly responsible for the behaviour of the whole group – the organism – of which he or she is part. We have not yet begun to arrive at that point.’