Page 111 of Someone Else's Shoes
She thinks of the trips to Africa they had taken over the past few years, other pairs of shoes he has bought her: dark blue Gucci courts, cream Prada platforms. Had any of these been altered in the same way? Had she been an unwitting mule every time? Were these blood diamonds? Stolen? Contraband? And here is the worst of it: she, the ignorant courier, could have been caught at any time. Arrested. She has meant less than nothing to him. How could any husband care about someone he would use in that way?
She climbs out of her bunk, taking care not to wake Grace, and pulls on the old lavender dressing-gown she has become used to wearing. It smells comfortingly of Jasmine’s home, her fabric conditioner. It is almost 2 a.m. She makes her way to the living room and quietly opens the door onto the balcony, where she lights a cigarette. She checks the time, then dials a number.
‘Ray?’
‘Hi, Mom.’
His voice is low, ominously quiet.
‘Are you okay?’
There is a short silence. She takes a long, anxious drag on her cigarette. ‘Ray? Are you okay?’
He doesn’t answer for a moment. ‘Yeah.’
‘You don’t sound good.’
‘I don’t want to be here any more, Mom.’
‘It’s not much longer. I promise.’
‘Emily and Sasha left and it’s just me and the eating disorders. Everyone else is going home at weekends. I just watch TV on my own.’
‘I know.’
He gives a long sigh. ‘You’re going to say you’re not coming yet, aren’t you?’
She closes her eyes. ‘Soon, baby. I have the shoes. I do have the shoes. Things are happening. And I have some things to discuss with your father about … about the settlement. Then I will come and get you.’
‘I feel like …’ his voice is soft, resigned ‘… I feel like you’re never coming.’
‘Why would you say that?’
‘When I was ill. That time you said you were going to come, and Dad made you go to Toronto. I was so sad, Mom, and you guys just went to Toronto. You just took his side.’
She remembers the journey, how she had wept on the plane and Carl had become steadily more irritated and said that all teenagers got moody. She and Ray needed to be less sensitive, and the boy was in the best place with the psychiatrists and people who could deal with that stuff. He had already raised two teenage boys with his first wife. He said it had been the same with them, and they’d grown out of it, and the worst thing you could do was keep fussing around them, and she had believed him. Even though his adult sons seemed to despise him, unless they wanted money, she had actually believed him. What had she known about good parenting, after all?
‘Ray. Ray. Listen to me. Just give me a couple of days more, okay? I promise. Even if everything goes wrong when I speakto your father, even if I have to go get another passport and borrow money from my workmates for a plane ticket. Even if I have to swim the damn Pacific I will come get you.’
‘It’s the Atlantic.’
‘That too.’
He lets out a reluctant laugh.
‘And I’m a fast swimmer. You know it.’
‘I hate my life. I hate living like this. It feels like nobody wants me and I’ve just been dumped here.’
‘None of that is true. I am coming, baby.’
A long silence. She closes her eyes and drops her head onto her knees. ‘I love you so much, sweetheart. Please hang on in there. I won’t let you down again, I promise. It’s just going to be you and me together from now on.’
She can hear his breathing, the million unwelcome thoughts whirring around his head.
‘Want me to sing for you again?’ she says, when she cannot bear the silence any longer. ‘You are my sunsh–’
‘Not really,’ he says. And ends the call.
