The Witch of Portobello Page 0,46

up her son, do well at her job, earn more money, remarry, and respect God as we know Him.

But Sherine wasn't listening.

'It was one night when we were sitting round the fire, drinking, telling funny stories and listening to music. Apart from in the restaurant, I hadn't felt the need to dance all the time I was there, as if I were storing up energy for something different. Suddenly, I felt as if everything around me were alive and pulsating, as if the Creation and I were one and the same thing. I wept with joy when the flames of the fire seemed to take on the form of a woman's face, full of compassion, smiling at me.'

I shuddered. It was probably gipsy witchcraft. And at the same time, the image came back to me of the little girl at school, who said she'd seen 'a woman in white'.

'Don't get caught up in things like that, they're the Devil's work. We've always set you a good example, so why can't you lead a normal life?'

I'd obviously been too hasty when I thought the journey in search of her birth mother had done her good. However, instead of reacting aggressively, as she usually did, she smiled and went on:

'What is normal? Why is Dad always laden down with work, when we have money enough to support three generations? He's an honest man and he deserves the money he earns, but he always says, with a certain pride, that he's got far too much work. Why? What for?'

'He's a man who lives a dignified, hard-working life.'

'When I lived at home, the first thing he'd ask me when he got back every evening was how my homework was going, and he'd give me a few examples illustrating how important his work was to the world. Then he'd turn on the TV, make a few comments about the political situation in Lebanon, and read some technical book before going to sleep. But he was always busy. And it was the same thing with you. I was the best-dressed girl at school; you took me to parties; you kept the house spick and span; you were always kind and loving and brought me up impeccably. But what happens now that you're getting older? What are you going to do with your life now that I've grown up and am independent?'

'We're going to travel the world and enjoy a well-earned rest.'

'But why don't you do that now, while your health is still good?'

I'd asked myself the same question, but I felt that my husband needed his work, not because of the money, but out of a need to feel useful, to prove that an exile also honours his commitments. Whenever he took a holiday and stayed in town, he always found some excuse to slip into the office, to talk to his colleagues and make some decision that could easily have waited. I tried to make him go to the theatre, to the cinema, to museums, and he'd do as I asked, but I always had the feeling that it bored him. His only interest was the company, work, business.

For the first time, I talked to her as if she were a friend and not my daughter, but I chose my words carefully and spoke in a way that she could understand.

'Are you saying that your father is also trying to fill in what you call the blank spaces?'

'The day he retires, although I really don't think that day will ever come, he'll fall into a deep depression. I'm sure of it. What to do with that hard-won freedom? Everyone will congratulate him on a brilliant career, on the legacy he leaves behind him because of the integrity with which he ran his company, but no one will have time for him any more life flows on, and everyone is caught up in that flow. Dad will feel an exile again, but this time he won't have a country where he can seek refuge.'

'Have you got a better idea?'

'Only one: I don't want the same thing to happen to me. I'm too restless, and, please don't take this the wrong way, because I'm not blaming you and Dad at all for the example you set me, but I need to change, and change fast.'

Deidre O'Neill, known as Edda

She's sitting in the pitch black.

The boy, of course, left the room at once the night is the kingdom of terror, of monsters from the past, of the days