Read The Art of Unpacking Your Life Online
Authors: Shireen Jilla
The Art of Unpacking Your Life
SHIREEN JILLA
For my mother
âEvery family has its joys and its horrors, but however great they may be, it's hard for an outsider's eye to see them; they are a secret.'
Anton Chekhov
Chapter 1
The sociable weaver bird nest splayed across the acacia thorn tree like an ancient, sun-damaged headdress. Teeming with over three hundred inhabitants, this nest weighed over a ton and had broken most of the lower branches. Brown-capped heads whipped in and out, shrill with gossip. Past weavers had poked in each individual straw in a communal effort to create a dense, cool apartment. This generation had merely moved into their century-old home without even doing renovations, the guide Gus explained to Connie who was eager for every detail.
The reserve had turned this classic Kalahari feature into their airstrip reception. A thatched roof slid protectively over the nest, leaving the top of the trunk jutting up into the deep blue. Connie had only seen such an unblemished block of sky in children's paintings.
A blonde South African, whose badge labelled her a Kimberley, was under the roof, sheltered from the bleaching thirty-five-degree glare. Her make-up was flawless, despite the heat she must have endured to get to the airstrip. She held out a wooden plate of icy face towels neatly wrapped like swaddled babies. A jug of homemade lemonade and two black bowls, one of watermelon cut into cubes and another of glistening date and coconut balls, were on the table beside her. The china was arranged on a silver platter on the yellowwood table. Connie was grateful for the towels, the nibbles and furniture chosen to transition unnerved guests like her friends into this remote environment.
Connie lowered her camera and nervously reviewed her photo. It was extraordinary to see her five dearest university friends together in the Kalahari. They were all just about in shot. She hadn't asked them to pose as a group, because every one of them appeared to shrink from the ferocious heat, the wilderness of high spring grass and deformed thorny trees marked by blood-orange Namibian sands. They were nearly at the reserve, yet they seemed to have had enough of travelling and waiting. No one bothered to talk.
It was her idea to bring them back together on this holiday, yet Connie was stunned. She had imagined herself cool in white cotton like Kristin Scott Thomas, light among an eye-watering desert of dunes. Her MP husband, Julian, was hardly up to the role of Ralph Fiennes. Watching him rub his forehead with one of his vast white handkerchiefs he usually employed on his blocked sinuses, Connie suppressed a smile. He could have been taken hostage from his desk in the Treasury in his work shirt and brown suede slip-ons. His collapsed chinos were the only sartorial marker that he was on holiday.
Connie looked down at the camera screen again. She knew Julian's slight sneer masked his extreme discomfort, which Connie could see was mirrored in Sara's expression. Sara had come straight to Heathrow from her chambers, 2 Bedford Row, in a black suit and off-white silk shirt. Her tailored barrister's jacket was neatly folded into her large handbag, but the blouse clingfilmed her. She was distracted: alternating between staring at her BlackBerry, eyeing the reserve and hoovering up the date balls.
Only Matt's American wife, Katherine, refrained from exhaustedly bingeing. Matt's marital bulk was coiled around her wicker chair, as she sipped lemonade. True
to her title, London editor of
Women's Wear Daily
, Katherine had changed at the hangar in Jo'Burg into a barely grey pair of cotton combats, cream canvas shoes and a diaphanous silver shirt. Her translucent face was partially armour-plated by enormous black Chanel sunglasses. Spying the sun darting through the open sides, Katherine sprung up and strode to the centre of the reception. Matt silently followed, carrying her chair.
His over-protectiveness irritated Connie, because it made her, in turn, feel protective of Matt. After his ex-wife had brutally upgraded him for a partner in their law firm, he had come to dinner at least once a week. Until he met Katherine. Considering he was one of Connie's old friends and not in politics, Julian was unusually fond of him.
Connie was abruptly distracted from Matt and Katherine by Lizzie's voice, which snapped into the silence.
âI had no idea it was going to be this hot. I'm like a beef Bourguignon on a hot stove. Am I red, Luke? I feel purple. I might actually be allergic to this kind of heat. Knowing my luck. How unfair would that be?'
A blotchy heat rash had formed a patchwork across Lizzie's neck and face. Luke didn't reply. Lizzie fanned herself with her rumpled scarf, the fringe of which flicked into her left eye.
âOw. Have I got a piece of my scarf in my eye? Can you see, Luke? It's hurting in the corner.'
Lizzie hadn't been hopeless when they had all shared a house in their second year though she now moaned to Connie that she would never live in such a lovely house again.
Lizzie didn't wait for Luke to examine her eye. âI wonder whether Sara's got a mirror in that gorgeous Mulberry Bayswater handbag of hers. She is lucky to be able to afford it. Eight hundred and ninety-five pounds. You must know that: I haven't got the money to buy a sock on your website. I can't believe one of my best friends owns such a posh online shop.'
Luke stretched his left bicep across his body. Even in this extreme heat, he had this new nervous energy that surprised Connie. Freshly divorced from Emma, Connie was concerned that he might be unhappy on this holiday. Instead, he appeared to have extricated himself without a scar and with custody of his children, a fact that shocked Connie. She hadn't expected it from him.
He stretched both his arms above his head, forcing his sporty top to glide up a few inches. Connie couldn't help staring at the muscles that bound his torso. She had forgotten how handsome he was. She turned away.
There was no relief. Dan was ignoring Alan, his partner for over a decade. Their silence seemed to be the tail end of an on-going argument. Alan created a second tower of coconut and date balls, before rapidly demolishing them, as if he was determined to upset health-conscious Dan, who ignored him. He meticulously applied suncream to his face from a neat black tube, using the silver platter as a mirror to re-check his coverage, before opening the sketchbook and tin of pencils beside him. Looking up occasionally, Dan started assiduously drawing.
Connie was worried that there was a distance between all of them that hadn't existed yesterday at Heathrow, where the excitement of their extraordinary holiday and Sara's famous case had made the conversation flow easily. The whole of the UK was gripped by the Jade Sutton trial: a photogenic, middle-class couple accused of murdering their only daughter. Sara's team had successfully got the wife, Joanne Sutton â if Connie remembered her name correctly â off. And the group had been eager with questions.
Time had become elongated on their overnight flight from London. The slow way it passed reminded Connie of sleeping on the floor under Hector's bed, on Neptune Ward in Chelsea and Westminster hospital, after Flora had absentmindedly dropped that yellow Irish fishing buoy down the stairs on to his head. They flew to Johannesburg, fast tracked with the reserve's âfixer' through frenzied passport control at O.R. Tambo airport, and then drove in an air-conditioned Mercedes people carrier to a depot-style building, which housed the check-in for their private ten-seater plane.
The plane was burnished with San bushmen's watery illustrations in earthy tones of northern Kalahari eland, springbok, abstract shapes and dancing figures. The bushmen's stories described their landscape in practical terms, though they engraved images from dreams and trance-like states.
âTherefore we are the Stars we must walk the sky,
for we are the Heavens things Mother is Earth's thing, she walks the earth
She must lie sleeping in the ground, we are which must not sleep
for we walks around, while we sleep not, we are the Stars which sleep not.'
Connie wanted to absorb everything about this adventure. But the others seemed reluctant to let go of their lives in London.
After a short flight they had been released into this Kalahari reception. Feeling uncertain and unnerved, Connie looked towards their guide, Gus, who was standing beside a cream safari vehicle with another man, presumably their tracker. Connie had developed a shorthand with Julian and her children, and without it she felt rusty, staid and gauche but she did what she always did: she smiled broadly and talked through the tension.
âWe're here. Really we are. Wow. Can you believe it? We're in Africa. Well, the Kalahari. How incredible. Unbelievable even.'
Julian interjected, âSelf-edit button, Constance.'
Lizzie giggled. Luke turned away. Dan pursed his lips.
Julian's jokes were acerbic, but Connie knew Julian would sense his mistake and quickly re-establish equilibrium. It was what they did well together, what made them a potent husband-and-wife team.
Julian tucked Connie's hair behind her ear. âSorry, campers. I appreciate it's too bloody hot to joke. Can someone please switch on the fucking air con?'
They all laughed, except Luke.
Lizzie unhooked the outsized woven bag weighing down her shoulder. âOh, I almost forgot.' Leaning the bag awkwardly on to her hip, she delved inside, struggling to take out a large royal blue photo album. âYou are all going to love this photo.'
Nothing measured up to their time together at Bristol University for Lizzie. She hadn't moved on. Connie looked over at the photo. They were drunk and laughing. They were always drunk and laughing.
Lizzie dropped the bag on the ground and flicked the thick plastic-covered pages. âLook! It's all of us that weekend we moved into Harley Place. Can you believe it really is us?'
âWho else might it be, dizzy Lizzie?' Sara said.
âOkay, Sara, but I had this amazing idea.' She waited dramatically but no one took Lizzie's obvious bait. âWe could take the same photo of us in the same position. Twenty years later.'
âDo you have to keep reminding us,' Sara murmured.
Lizzie didn't appear to register her reluctance. âKatherine or Alan, maybe one of you can take it? I'd love one of just the six of us back together again.'
âYeah, course, Lizzie darlin',' said Alan, pretending to frame them with his fingers. âShall I airbrush out the decades?'
Lizzie laughed, âIf only. Can you airbrush out the fat as well?'
âLizzie, don't be banal,' snapped Sara.
Katherine looked back at the album. âMatt, honey, I can't believe that's you with long hair.'
Matt ruffled his dark, thick hair now layered into a sensible solicitor's crop. âI was always built for comfort not for speed. No change there.'
Connie looked at him and then back at the photo. He had been an unusually broad, solid man in his late teens.
âYou're not larger,' Lizzie stated.