I wondered what had happened to all the anger that had been directed at politicians and a world she couldn’t bear?
‘I have to make a living somehow.’
‘That’s why you became a pickpocket?’
‘I’ve never stolen from anyone who couldn’t afford to lose what I took.’
‘How can you possibly know that?’
She shrugged.
‘Does Ahmed know about this?’
‘Yes.’
‘And is he a pickpocket too?’
She hesitated before she answered.
‘There’s a part of my life you don’t know about,’ she said eventually. ‘I’ll tell you. The year after Harriet died, I hitched all the way to Barcelona. On a few occasions I had to fight off men who thought I’d got into their cars to do them a service; I always had a steel tail-comb at the ready. In the Pyrenees I once had to stab a guy in the cheek. I was afraid he might die; the blood was spurting all over the place.
‘Anyway, I managed to get out of the car before anything happened. I was going to Barcelona to join a demonstration against Spain’s abortion laws. I had a friend, Carmen Rius, who lived in a part of the city called Poble Sec; the people there are not exactly rolling in money. We took part in the demo, but then Carmen asked me to go with her to Las Ramblas, an area frequented by tourists. She didn’t tell me what we were going to do, she just said I should stick close to her and take anything she passed to me. Her English wasn’t very good, and my Spanish was even worse, but I went along with her all the same. I watched as she approached a Japanese tourist, a guiri as she put it. The woman had a rucksack on her back, and one of the pockets was open. Carmen removed a wallet so fast that I hardly saw her do it. She gave it to me and hissed at me to hide it. I slipped it into my handbag and Carmen disappeared. The Japanese tourist hadn’t noticed a thing. I realised then that Carmen was a carterista, a pickpocket. I was astonished at how easy it had been.
‘When I asked her how it felt to be a thief, she insisted that no one who lost their wallet or phone would go under. She never went for the poor, only tourists who could afford to travel, and therefore could also afford to lose a few possessions. I allowed myself to be persuaded, and she taught me how to do it. After a few weeks Carmen let me have a go. An Asian tourist with her money in her back pocket was my first victim. It went well, and Carmen said I was now a fully-fledged carterista. Strangely enough I wasn’t nervous at all. I stayed for six months and became part of a group of four women working together.’
She paused and waited for my reaction.
‘Now you know how it started.’
I was sure that she was telling the truth. She really did want me to know.
‘Ahmed,’ I said. ‘You said he’s from Algiers, but you’re telling me about Barcelona?’
‘I didn’t meet him there. Carmen was arrested, and I moved to Paris. I met him through friends of friends, and we were a couple.’
‘Did you tell him you were a pickpocket?’
‘Not right away. Not until I was sure we were really together.’
‘And what did he say?’
‘Not much. Nothing. But he’s not a pickpocket, even though he does have fantastic fingers.’
‘But he lets you do it? What kind of a man is he?’
Louise leaned across the table and grabbed my hand.
‘A man I love. The only man I’ve ever loved before, although in a different way, was Giaconelli the shoemaker. When I met Ahmed, I understood what love could be.’
I gave a start; there was a man standing in the doorway. I had no idea how long he’d been there. He was unshaven with cropped dark hair and was wearing a white vest and striped pyjama trousers. His bare feet were extremely hairy.
‘This is Fredrik, my father,’ Louise said in English. ‘And this is Ahmed, my partner.’
I stood up and shook his hand. He was considerably younger than my daughter, probably no more than thirty years old. He smiled at me, but his expression was watchful.
He pulled out a stool and sat down at the table. He looked as if he was expecting me to say something. Everything to do with my daughter was completely incomprehensible as far as I was concerned. I would never be able to work out how she had become what she had become.
‘I believe you’re a security guard,’ I said tentatively. ‘I hope we didn’t wake you.’
‘I don’t sleep much,’ Ahmed replied. ‘Perhaps deep down I’m already an old man. I believe you sleep less as you get older.’
I nodded. ‘Before that final slumber we sleep less and less over a number of years. As a doctor I ought to know why, but I can’t give you a reason.’
Louise poured coffee; Ahmed didn’t want any. I could see the love in her eyes when she looked at him. As she walked past him with the coffee pot, she quickly stroked his hair.
I asked Ahmed about his parents.
‘My father is dead. He worked on the docks in Algiers, and he was struck by a steel hawser from a ship. The tension was too tight, and it broke. He lost both legs and bled to death.’
‘I’m very sorry to hear that.’
‘Thank you.’
‘And your mother?’
‘Dead.’
He didn’t explain how she had died, and I didn’t ask.
‘Do you have any brothers or sisters?’
‘Two who are unfortunately no longer with us, one still alive.’
I thought that Ahmed was surrounded by many dead people. I tried to change the subject and asked about his job.
‘I look after stores where I could never afford to shop. Every night I enter a world which is otherwise closed to me.’
He looked at Louise.
‘To us,’ he corrected himself. ‘And to our child.’
‘Congratulations, by the way,’ I said. ‘I know these days people often find out in advance whether it’s a boy or a girl?’
Ahmed frowned. ‘We would never do that.’
‘We’re just having the scans to make sure everything is OK, given my age,’ Louise said.
I was finding the situation difficult to deal with. I suspected that Ahmed regarded me with a kind of controlled contempt. The fact that Louise was so besotted with him also bothered me. There was something submissive about the way she looked at him, the way she caressed his head. This was a Louise I had never seen before.
I couldn’t think of anything else to say. I almost felt insulted. Louise’s life choices were beyond my comprehension. She was a pregnant pickpocket living with an Algerian immigrant who had a hopeless job working nights as a security guard.
Ahmed got to his feet and left the kitchen; I wondered if he had read my mind.
‘He seems very nice,’ I said to Louise.
‘Do you really think I would have chosen to have a child with a man who wasn’t nice?’
Before I had time to answer, Ahmed was back. He had put on a pale blue shirt and a pair of shorts with Arabic lettering down the sides. He was carrying a glass bottle on a wooden stand, like a classic ship in a bottle.
‘A present for you,’ he said. ‘I might have to earn my living as a security guard at the moment, but this is the kind of thing I really want to do.’
He carefully put down the bottle and adjusted the table lamp so that I could see the contents.
This wasn’t a sailing ship that had been pushed through the narrow neck of a bottle to rest on stiff blue waves and then erected with the particular magic that characterises that patient art. This bottle contained a desert, its dunes billowing very differently from the waves formed by the sea. There was an ornate Bedouin tent, the opening allowing a glimpse of the interior, where men in white sat on soft cushions and veiled women served coffee or brought hookahs. Outside the tent a Bedouin dressed all in black was sitting on a horse, handing the reins to a servant. His turban was skilfully wound around his head.