Sam appeared at her shoulder.
‘He’s doing the service,’ she said. ‘Peace and so on.’
They stood in the cathedral’s high porch under a glass-engraved, two-metre-high Thomas à Becket. Sam and Sophie stared at each other, both agitated, both visibly anxious. Sam’s eyes began darting everywhere; Sophie spun one-eighty degrees then back again. Just over Sam’s shoulder, she caught sight of an elderly man approaching. Grey-haired, black-suited and wearing an ornately patterned skull cap. He walked with four other men, two on either side. They too wore skull caps, these in a plain black fabric. They walked with deliberation and solemnity, as though behind a flag. She nudged Sam and they both watched the new arrivals as they approached them. She caught the eye of the grey-haired man.
‘Good morning,’ he said with a slight nod of the head.
‘Good morning, rabbi. Are you here for the peace service?’
‘Of course.’ He smiled his reply as he passed. ‘Aren’t you?’
He was inside before Sophie had thought of a response. ‘I suppose we are,’ she said to herself.
The other side of the glass, a man in grey robes was greeting visitors. Warm handshakes, pats on shoulders. Old friends.
‘So, do we go in now, Sam?’ she said. ‘Is that what we do? Give it five minutes then catch a bus to the university?’
Sam checked his watch.
‘Ten more minutes on the steps,’ he said.
‘Really?’
‘This service seems slightly more significant than its humble billing suggests. Maybe we should have paid more attention to it.’
‘OK,’ said Sophie. ‘Watch for ten. Inside for five.’
‘Deal,’ he said. ‘And there’s a bus in fifteen.’
They scrambled back up the steps. Resumed their watch. Sophie leant against the railing, Sam sat on a step.
79
8.45 a.m.
THEY HAD BEEN told the journey was ten minutes. Maybe fifteen if the traffic was bad and the diversions were still in force. The van was silent. There was nothing left to say. Hari sat on the floor, pressed against Kamran and Binici. Collins was opposite. If the van hit a bump in the road or braked suddenly, their feet touched. Gregor drove. The radio was off, the windows were closed.
Hari’s eyes were shut, his hands clasped. He felt the hilt of his knife pressed hard into his stomach. He felt the length of Binici’s knife against his thigh.
The van slowed to a stop. Hari didn’t open his eyes. It would be traffic – they’d only been travelling a few minutes. His breath came in short bursts, his heart beating so hard he was sure it was visible through his T-shirt. He took a deep breath, felt his scabbed wounds stretch, his ribs push up against a restless, fidgety Binici. Maybe the man was excited. The revolution he’d longed for was here at last and he would get to play the butcher after all.
His finger traced again the raised outline of the photo in his pocket. Millie and Amara had been a surprise to him. He’d been used to life being just him, his mother and grandmother. There was a rhythm and pattern to everything. The absence of his father tackled with order and routine. His grandmother had seen to that. If she could no longer be a revolutionary in India, she could at least be a revolutionary in her own household. His father had been ‘weak’ and ‘reactionary’. If he was ever discussed, he was usually dismissed as a class enemy.
The van was moving again.
So when two sisters appeared, Hari’s world shifted dramatically. The order of the old life disappeared. As his mother and grandmother were enveloped in the twenty-four-hour-a-day struggle with the twins, Hari felt liberated. His sisters were a gift. He had held Millie first. Sitting in the hospital chair, his grandmother had passed the tightly wrapped bundle to him, barking instructions about how to hold her. A squished and frowning face stared out of the towelling. Hari smiled, Millie frowned some more. Amara had been asleep when passed to him but Hari had blown on her face to wake her up. His mother was annoyed but Hari was captivated. His last year of primary school had been his favourite. He was a brother.
High revs, second gear.
Millie was the wilder of the two, Amara the more thoughtful. Millie was the louder of the two, Amara the more wily. Millie was the singer, Amara the story teller. They dressed identically, always. Their hair was cut identically, always. If you looked hard enough, you would notice that Millie’s eyes were wider and that she still frowned a lot. That Amara’s shoulders were slightly rounded and her front teeth were larger and slightly irregular. But most people were just happy to declare that they could never tell one from the other. And then that they were the most beautiful princesses they had ever seen. Hari was happy to agree.
Low revs, fourth gear. Moving faster now.
In Hari’s secondary school, his sisters were better known than he was. Hari was just the boy with twin sisters. It was, he had decided, what some people thought was the most interesting thing about him and he didn’t care. On a school open day, his grandmother had brought Millie and Amara along with her. Hari had shown them round, Millie holding on to one hand, Amara the other. He’d felt like a king. On the day before he left for university, they both had brought him some torn clothes to be repaired. Millie’s elephant T-shirt and Amara’s jeans both, miraculously, needed some of his fabled needlework skills at the same time. He had worked, they had watched transfixed, as though he was performing some mystical spell, using an ancient long-lost skill. He had handed back the patched-up clothes and received a fierce, prolonged double-hug for his labours.
Stationary traffic, engine idling.
He left the photo where Amal had put it. Removing it now would serve no purpose. He knew every millimetre of its surface. Millie on
