The Last Gift Read Free Page B

her on its own and which made her smile. Perhaps it was also to mourn that ease that was now so completely past.
    She saw him for the first time in Boots in Exeter, such a long time ago, in an almost imaginary life. They were both standing in a queue and he smiled. People did not always smile when they caught her eye that way, or she did not think they did anyway. More often than not she looked away before she could read what was in their eyes, so perhaps they did smile after she had broken eye contact, but in those days she was afraid of their despising, sneering looks and their angry faces, and preferred not to know. He was a slim, strong dark man, wearing a light-brown, polo-neck sweater and a denim jacket. He was ahead of her in the queue, and she had time to have a good look at him as he looked this way and that way while he was waiting his turn. Then he looked back and saw her, and looked again and smiled. It made her feel good, that smile, as if she was someone he had recognised, as if they were part of an understanding, of something the two of them knew that no one else there did. She was not surprised when she found out later that he worked as a sailor. It was the way he looked, like someone who had been places and had done things, someone who had known freedom. She was born in Exeter and had never been anywhere else or done anything. She was living with Ferooz and Vijay then, and that life was becoming difficult. The thought of Ferooz and Vijay made her wince, as it always did even after all these years, and she stretched her shoulders and neck, and then gently eased that memory away.
    She knew, just by looking at Abbas then, without knowing anything about him, that he had done things. He had a certain look in his eyes, a mean look, a look that said I am not taking it quietly, whatever you have in mind. She had to say it was a mean look. When she knew him better she saw that it was not in his eyes all the time, only in passing when he did not like what he heard or saw, or when he suspected he was being treated with disrespect. He could not bear disrespect, all his life, even to the point of silliness. Sometimes that look was like something burning, his eyes glowing, and his face would be angry and determined, as if his mind had taken him somewhere else. When he was not about to burst like that, his eyes were calm and big, like someone who liked to see, and when she first met him she thought he was someone who liked to please.
    Yes, that was how she would always remember him, while memory lasted, that slim restless man she met in the first summer after her last year at school. She had a job in a café at the time . . . and here she was still doing the same sort of thing a whole lifetime later. She thought then that if she could earn enough she would move out of Ferooz and Vijay’s flat and into lodgings with one of her friends from work. But the money was no good and the work was a drudge, although she liked her mates. It made a difference then, when everything was so hard, to work with people you got on with, people who laughed at everything as if all their lives were a stupid joke. Later she got a better-paid job in a factory, which was where she was working when she saw Abbas again. She still went to the café sometimes to have a cup of tea and meet with the people she used to work with, and always got a cream cake on the house. That was where she saw him the second time. He glanced at her and recognised her. He hesitated for a moment and when she smiled at him, he came over. He hovered for a moment with his tray and then sat down.
    ‘Boots,’ he said, smiling.
    ‘It’s a pleasure to meet you, Mr Boots,’ she said, and they both laughed.
    They chatted for a while and then he said goodbye, see you again some time. He told her his name and said that he worked on ships. She told him her name too and said that she worked in a factory. Even that exchange seemed somehow amusing. She knew, without knowing how, that