The Hand of Fatima

THE HAND OF FATIMA 

We hear so much these days about the legal profession, how they work so
slowly and spin everything out that I was completely unprepared. I had
gone to attend the reading of my aunt's will and found myself with time
to spare before I had to be at the solicitor's office. Thanks to Dr.
Beeching and subsequent cuts, I could have arrived half an hour late or
an hour and a half early. It was so long since I had been there that I
decided to reacquaint myself with the town. In fact it must have been
when I was a child and had gone there to stay with my aunt that I had
last seen it, but it seemed hardly to have changed at all. An old
coaching town on the Great North Road, it had been a sleepy place then.
Now it has been bypassed; the A1 no longer runs through the town but in
a cutting a mile away, and the main street seems incongruously wide.
Many of the same shops seemed still to be there, the chemist with the
huge glass flasks of red and green liquid, the shoe shop with the giant
boot on a pole, and in the grocer's, the coffee roaster still rumbled
away in the window. As I passed the door,the heavy aroma of the
roasting coffee transported me back, and I was amazed to see that the
system of pneumatic tubes for processing the bills was still in place.
I well remembered watching the shop assistants popping the paperwork
into the shuttle, followed by the sighing and plopping as it
disappeared into the recesses of the office.
There were new shops as well. I don't remember ever seeing antique
shops in those days. I suppose then they were called junk shops, and
people who bought things there looked down on for not being able to
afford to buy new. But whatever it's called, I can never pass by an
antique shop, and as I still had time, went in to have a look round.
I'm always on the lookout for small pieces of glass for my collection,
and have often found items of interest in out of the way places. As I
pushed open the door, the proprietor looked up from the book he was
reading in the corner and smiled, but said nothing. There were all
sorts of things there, piles of old Punch magazines, chipped plates,
tools, pictures and even some quite nice furniture, but no glass of
interest. I carefully moved aside a stack of old 78's that half covered
a glass topped jewellery case, and my eye fell upon a small blackened
pendant in the shape of a stylised hand, apparently with a thumb on
each side. I picked it up and gave it a rub with my finger. A little of
the blackening lightened, showing a silvery glint. Looking closer, I
could see it was well made and of good silver, although I could see no
hallmark. I put it down but didn't forget it, and when I had seen
enough, went back and picked it up again.
"Do you know anything about this?" I asked the proprietor, hoping he
would overlook its quality.
"It's called the Hand of Fatima," he replied, "popular in the Middle
East for good luck with the ladies there. I could let you have it for
five pounds, as it hasn't got a chain."
That seemed quite a lot for such a small piece. After all, I could buy
something similar new for not much more. He saw me thinking and spoke
again.
"It's well made and good silver too, it would make a nice gift. I'll
see if I can find you a chain to go with it if you would like
it."
I supposed he was right and agreed, and while he was looking for a
suitable chain, I glanced up and was surprised to see that I had only
ten minutes to get to the solicitor's office.
"I'm sorry to rush you, but I only have a few minutes to get to my
appointment."
"That's all right," he smiled, "I know how easy it is to let time run
away with you. This one will do, I think," and he slipped the items in
a bag, as I almost thrust the money into his hand, thanked him and
sprinted out of the shop. I couldn't believe an hour and a half could
have gone by just like that, but my watch agreed with the one in the
shop so it must have been right. Luckily the solicitor's office was
only a few doors away, and I burst puffing through the door just on
time. The receptionist, a middle aged lady with long grey hair and a
surprisingly unlined face, looked up from the magazine she was
reading.
"Can I help you?" Clearly she was not overworked.
"I'm here for the reading of Miss Windlesham's will," I announced,
"Richard Travis"
"I'll tell Mr. Potter you're here Mr. Travis."
She buzzed through and almost immediately the door opened and a small
round balding man waved me into the office.
"Pleased to meet you, Mr. Travis, come in and sit down. You look
flushed, can I get you anything?"
I explained about the antique shop and the time, but declined his
offer. He seemed unconcerned.
"I'll get straight down to business, Mr. Travis. I knew Miss Windlesham
quite well; we used to have long chats, she and I. She hated fuss, but
I'm sure you know that better than I do, so let's get started, shall
we?"
I didn't like to admit to him that he probably knew my aunt better than
I did. I seldom spoke to her on the phone, which only left the exchange
of cards at Christmas and the occasional meeting at family funerals.
There had been no one except me to have a wedding, and now the next
funeral would be mine. It almost seemed unfair that I should be a
beneficiary, I knew her so little. I was beginning to wonder what on
earth we would do with an influx of extra furniture into our already
cluttered house, and must have appeared to be miles away, as Potter
coughed quietly into his hand to attract my attention.
"No one else will be here for the reading, Mr.Travis, so with your
permission, I'll summarise the provisions."
He passed a thin sheaf of typed papers across the table.
"With the exception of a number of bequests to charities and certain
specific items as listed on page three that are to go to friends, her
entire estate goes to you. It seems her father made some very sound
investments which she never disposed of. On the contrary, she built on
them throughout her life, and as you know, she lived frugally. As far
as I know, she never travelled abroad or made any big purchases. She
always seemed to be happy to live a quiet, simple life, so I was
surprised myself to find how much Miss Windlesham left. The house has
been valued at ninety thousand pounds, the contents at a further
fifteen thousand pounds, and her investments at two hundred and seventy
thousand pounds."
I was stunned. Could this be true? Maybe some mistake had been made and
Potter had written to the wrong person. It must have been a different
Miss Windlesham. My aunt couldn't have been a financial wizard all
those years without anyone knowing. But I looked down at the papers he
had given me and looked at the list of charities she had chosen as
beneficiaries. They were mostly familiar, the sort of good causes most
people support in principle if not in substance. On the next page were
listed the contents of the house, "dark oak settle, mahogany drop leaf
dining table, long case clock with painted face, pair windsor chairs",
the sort of furniture so many people had, but then near the bottom of
the page, I caught sight of an entry for "pair of paintings in oil in
gilt frames, one titled 'Execution at the Oasis', the other 'In the
Hareem of the Sultan'". It had to be right, no one else could possibly
have two such pictures. As a child I had been fascinated by them,
unrelated as they were to anything else she had. I had sat before them
for hours it seemed, drinking in their atmosphere and detail. I had no
idea then whether they depicted any sort of accurate scene, but it was
their very strangeness that drew me, and now I supposed that, unless
she had left them to anyone else, they were to be mine. I quickly
scanned through the bequests to her friends, noting Potter's name among
them, and found no further reference to them, so they must be mine.
When I looked up, Potter was looking concerned.
"Is everything in order?" he asked.
"Yes, I was rather surprised by the size of my aunt's estate, and to
tell you the truth I was checking through the list of contents of the
house to make sure that it really was hers, but everything seems
fine."
"Then if you have read it through and you approve, all I need is your
signature here and here."
We finalised the papers and Mr. Potter asked me if I would be selling
my aunt's house. It was too soon for me to decide and I told him we
would come to have a look at it in a week or two, although I knew it
shouldn't be left unoccupied for long. The way he had asked, I had the
feeling Potter had a hankering for it himself.
Before taking the train back home, I walked to the house and stood
outside, leaning on the gate post, looking in through the slightly
untended garden. The afternoon sun lit the brickwork and butterflies
danced among the flowers. Realising how foolish I was standing outside
my own house, I pushed open the gate and walked into the garden. In the
back, the alarm calls of the blackbirds and the windfalls under the
apple trees took me back. I could almost hear my aunt calling me in for
tea, and I felt nearly overwhelmed with sadness. She had been a good
woman, and like so many young people I had been too full of my own life
and not paid her enough attention, and now it was too late. Would she
want Jen and me to have the house, I wondered, had she left it to me
just out of family duty, or would she really rather someone else had
it, Potter perhaps- he seemed to know her as well as I did. I realised
suddenly I had a letter in my hand that Potter had given me as I left
his office. I sat down on the swing seat that hung from an apple bough
and opened it.
"My Dear Richard," it read; she always opened her letters like that,
"when you read this, my house and most of what is in it will be yours.
It was my father's house and my grandfather's house before him, and it
doesn't so much belong to me as I to it. When you used to stay with me
as a child I realised that you belong here as much as I do, and I hope
you will be able to live here after me. I haven't seen you nearly as
much as I would have liked, but you have often been in my thoughts, and
I hope you will be happy whatever you decide to do, your loving aunt,
Dorothy."
I looked around, and she had been right. Although I hadn't been there
in the garden for so many years, I felt so at home, I did belong. I
just hoped Jen would feel the same. The letter had dispelled the
feeling of sadness, but I still felt the regret that I had known my
aunt so slightly. I walked down to the bottom of the garden to where
the berries were starting to colour on the brambles. The other side of
the blackberries, a new housing estate had been built since my
childhood, but the houses were not too close, and I still felt I could
be in the depths of the countryside. In any case, I have never felt
that there should be no development in rural areas, only that it should
blend in where possible, and I felt no resentment towards these
newcomers.
From where I stood, the house was almost hidden by the fruit trees. I
realised I was already starting to think about tidying the garden up,
nothing radical, just a natural evolution. This must be it then. The
decision had already been made; all I had to do was sell it to Jen, and
on my way back to the station I checked out the local facilities, and
on the train I worked out the balance of costs and benefits. Perhaps I
should have got her something bigger and more impressive than the
pendant, and I took it out of my pocket, unwrapped it and felt it with
my fingers. Now at my leisure, I could see that the detail was very
fine, but not sharp or angular, so that I guessed it had been worn for
many years, and it occurred to me that if it conferred good luck, we
might have no disagreement over the house.
As it happened, I need not have worried. We travelled up the following
weekend, collected the keys from Potter's office, and Jen fell in love
with it at once, seemingly without the feeling that she had to change
everything round to make it hers. We walked from room to room, checking
the inventory of contents, until we came to the two pictures I
remembered, and then I realised what had drawn me to the pendant I had
bought Jen in the antique shop, for there in the picture of the hareem
was a servant holding a large fan in the shape of the Hand of Fatima,
and the other picture, of the execution, had a border of the same
pattern running all the way round it. Jen fingered the pendant.
"Is that why you bought it?" she asked
"No, I'd completely forgotten they were there", I told her, but perhaps
it had been at the bottom of my subconscious all the time.
It must have been a month almost to the day after we moved in that Jen
put her arm round my waist, and whispered in my ear, "I wanted to be
sure before I told you, I'm pregnant."
We had been trying for so long.
"If it's a girl," I said, "shall we call her Dorothy?"

END