Afterlife of Alanna Miller

Part 4

FOUR

I sipped a lemon, lime and bitters as Dad nursed his whisky. I'd rarely seen him drink at home – he'd consumed more alcohol tonight than I'd seen him drink in a year. Once again, he'd picked an isolated corner table as if he was afraid of being overheard. Yet he sat in silence for several minutes.

"What happened a few months ago?" I prompted when impatience got the better of me.

"I was in Dubai for a couple of days before my flight to Sana'a, having coffee, minding my own business, when three men approached my table. The thinner, better-dressed of the three sat down across from me, while the other two flanked him, like bodyguards. And those two were armed. So instead of asking what they were doing at my table, I got up to leave and the seated man said, 'Stay, Malcolm Lockyer.'" He laughed nervously. "He had two blokes with guns, so I stayed.

"But then he said, 'You were Fatima's husband, weren't you?' The last thing I expected him to say. Twenty years of never hearing her name and here was this scary bloke speaking perfect English, who mentions her. And she was all he wanted to talk about.

"He explained that he was her cousin and when Fatima's family fled to Saudi Arabia, she stayed with his parents. She was his favourite cousin, even though he was a bit younger than her, because she wanted to get out and see the world, too. He'd been shocked to see her heavily pregnant – he hadn't even known she was married. Because he was home between finishing school and going to university in France, he spent all his time with her. And she told him stories about this crazy Englishman who thought she was going to kill him, but who loved her and wanted to take her to Australia to live with him. Her and her little girl – you. He said he'd never seen her so happy. And she made him promise to visit her in Australia on his holidays from university.

"The baby wasn't due until after he left for France, but Fatima went into premature labour and you were born a month early. August, not September. He said how much she adored you – couldn't look at you without smiling. She wouldn't allow her father to hire a nanny to help her care for you. She wanted to do everything herself because in Australia, she wouldn't have servants and she'd need to know. Fatima had her life all mapped out with me and I didn't even know.

"Then he went to university and everything was fine, until he received an early morning phone call from his father, telling him that Fatima had died. He jumped on the next plane home and made it just in time for the funeral. He demanded to know why her husband and daughter weren't there. Not even her own father stood by the graveside to see her buried. He swore that he would make those who'd killed her regret their actions in both this life and the next." Dad sniffled though not a single tear fell, and he drank again. "When he reached home, he found the house in an uproar. His uncle, Fatima's father, was shouting at his own father about trust and family and obligation and treachery, but it was clear that he was leaving. He said he approached Fatima's father to offer his condolences and was told that he was the only one in his family to be sorry for her passing.

"When he couldn't get much more information out of either man, he sought out his sister, who seemed to be avoiding all the arguing. She had her own problems, he found – she'd been promised in marriage to someone only a week before and she was angry at being sold, as she called it. When he asked about Fatima, she told him she'd been very sad about her husband's rejection for some time, so she'd killed herself. His sister had been the one who found her."

For the first time in my life, I watched my father burst into tears. "She killed herself because I didn't find her soon enough."

Roles reversed, but I didn't care. I hugged him, trying to soothe a grieving widower whose grief I could never comprehend, for I'd never lost my own world and believed myself responsible.

Some time later, I coaxed Dad into finishing his whisky and I helped him upstairs to his hotel room. As he hiccupped, he related the final tidbits of his meeting with my mother's cousin. "He said her father died earlier this year and he'd been named as heir and executor of the will. Under Islamic law, it had to be a man, and Fatima had no brothers, only younger sisters. In her father's effects were some photographs of Fatima that he thought I'd like to have. He wanted to visit me in Australia and bring them with him. Visit us, so he could see you again."

Dad dropped his keycard twice before I took pity on him and unlocked the door with my steady hands.

"And what did you say?" I asked, dying to know before I left.

"Whatever he wanted," Dad replied, laughing shakily. "I'd have agreed to whatever he wanted, because he had two bodyguards ready to shoot me if I didn't."

I bade him goodnight and headed downstairs for a taxi. The whole ride home, Dad's words were swirling through my head. My mother's death was suicide and her cousin had sworn vengeance – her scary cousin, who brought heavily armed bodyguards with him to have coffee – and he wanted to meet me. None of it made any sense. All I knew was that my life was about to get a whole lot more interesting.