But Marsha, though she pats the bed beside her, has her busy daylight face on now. Has her glasses on, and is looking at him over the top of them while she consults her to-do list.
‘Jerk chicken,’ she says. ‘Ewa Agoyin. Okra soup. Pepperpot soup. Goat curry. Potato salad. Rice and peas. Cocktail sausages for the little one. For desserts, ice cream and lemon meringue. We’ll have to get a move on after church.’
Always the lists, with Marsha. Always the sense that life is a campaign requiring meticulous planning. In fact, the chicken has been in its jerk marinade since last night, the clingfilm-covered steel tray filling a whole shelf of the fridge, the goat meat is soaking up its herbs and curry powder down where the vegetable boxes usually are, and the beans have soaked overnight too. She is well ahead of the game, as always. But there are going to be fourteen people eating lunch in the garden at three o’clock, and the shape of the extended family requires her to show out simultaneously at both Yoruba and Jamaican food. In the café she’s feeding strangers, and nothing is at stake but their livelihood. For this, her pride is involved.
‘It’ll be fine,’ says Ben. ‘You know it will.’
‘It will be fine because we make it fine,’ she says.
Ben could not say whether Marsha’s rescue of him counts as a departure from her usual practicality or an example of it – whether she saved him because she wanted to do something mad for once, or whether she only applied her methodical mind to his floundering soul the way she would have reviewed a menu, or gone through her monthly suppliers’ bills. He had been going from agency job to agency job in the terrible year after the 36C went driver-only, shifts doing shelf-stacking, warehouse-unloading, washing-up, any old thing so long as it was badly paid. And one day he got sent by the agency to Café Metro in the gentrified bit at the top of Bexford Rise, expecting from the swags and curlicues of gold on the glass that it was going to be some kind of deal with scurrying waiters in black aprons, where he would be banished to a sink far out of view, only to discover that it was in fact a one-woman band, operated by a small plump brisk dark matron who insisted that he started off by washing his hands, and stood over him while he did it, sniffing disapprovingly at the lingering reek on him of last night’s ganja.
‘Right, now do the bacon,’ she commanded.
He looked at the glistening mound of streaky, pale fat and pink flesh surely so close to human meat, and he blenched.
‘I can’t,’ he said.
‘Why not?’ she barked.
He muttered something and prepared to flee.
But rather than accepting this, she put out a hand to his chin and turned his face so he had to meet her gaze. (‘Why did you do that?’ he asked her later. She said, ‘You looked like someone who thought no one could see them. But I could see you.’) It was the first time anyone had touched Ben kindly in longer than he could remember. Perhaps Marsha was the first person since his mother to have done it. It shocked him, it made his heart pound and his blood ring in his ears. But it also made him feel as if, for the first time in equally long, in a world of tormenting vapours where thoughts were always stronger than things, he had taken hold of something truly solid. Or in fact as if something solid had taken hold of him. He might flap, he might flail, he might panic, but where she touched him he was rooted, he was joined somehow to the strong ground.
‘Why not?’ she repeated.
And held in her grip as in her gaze, and exhausted by so much despair, Ben did what he had never done before. He burst into tears and told her. Tried to tell her, anyway. Obvious though his horrors were to him, they came out incoherent, and more puzzling than they had ever seemed inside. Yet the relief of even trying was intense.
‘I am a bad man,’ he finished. ‘I am full of … horrible things.’
‘A bad man,’ she repeated, but not as if she believed him. By this time they were sitting at one of the little round black tables. She’d had to release him when they sat down, but he had reached for her hand, so as to be able to go on talking, and she was letting him hold it. ‘You are a bad man. Okay. Tell me what bad things you have done.’
‘I … don’t know.’
‘Are you a murderer?’
‘No.’
‘How many people have you eaten?’
‘… None.’
‘Are you a thief ? Do you go out and mug people?’
‘No.’
‘Do you hurt children?’
‘No!’
‘Well, then. I will fry the bacon, and you will do all these rolls. And then I expect I had better show you how to work the percolator. Hurry up, we open in twenty-five minutes.’
And she took him into her business; and she took him to her GP, to be prescribed anti-depressants; and she took him to her church, to have an evil spirit removed; and eventually, she having been widowed for two years at that point, she took him into her house and her bed and her heart.
‘Why?’ he asked.
‘Because I liked the way you looked. A little bit like something that comes out at night, with big eyes, but nice. I’m shallow like that. Don’t keep asking, stupid man. I might change my mind. Ach, I’m teasing. Olorun a de fun e. God bless you and shut up.’
Marsha is a strong believer in Sunday best, and Ben is in a suit and tie and well-polished shoes as they drive over to the Assemblies of Salvation church, based in the old Odeon. That’s minimal, though, a bare masculine nod of respect to the day, compared to the full African glad-rags she has on. Today, a puff-sleeved number in violet, green and gold, with matching headcloth, regally folded and tucked till it climbs up nearly to turban height. Most of the splendour will be hidden when she puts her choir robe on, but that’s not the point. It will be there, visible to the good Lord. It will also have been clocked by all the other choir ladies.
Pastor Michael welcomes them in.
‘Curtis and Cleveland not with you today?’ he rumbles, genially.
‘All coming over for lunch later. The whole family,’ says Marsha, head high. ‘With Curtis and Lisa’s new baby.’
‘Splendid, splendid,’ says the pastor. ‘And does he have a name yet, the baby?’
‘Theo,’ says Marsha.
‘Ah yes, a godly name. Splendid. Brother Benjamin, how are you?’ the pastor asks, enfolding Ben’s small hand in both of his large ones.
‘Very well,’ says Ben.
‘I rejoice to hear it,’ the pastor says, and pats his hand proprietorially.
Pastor Michael disliked him, Ben thinks, when they first met, because Marsha as a widow lady with a prospering business would have represented a nice and natural prize for one of the older men in the congregation; who knows, perhaps for the pastor himself, judging by the odd appreciative glance Ben has detected. But all that has been wiped away by the glorious success of what the church has done for him, their stringy bedraggled interloping white guy. Now Ben is an object of pride, one of Bexford Assembly’s very own miracles. ‘Come out of him!’ Pastor Michael cried, and either then or round about then, either because of the hurricane of prayer they sent scouring through the house of his mind or at least for reasons that included it – out of him the evil spirit came. Ben has been lost, but now he is found. He has been dry bones, but now he lives. He has been wreckage, but the fiery gale of holiness has blown upon him, cleansed him, ordered him, set him upright, made him a man again. He is a walking, talking evidence of redemption – so it is all right that he is holding Marsha’s hand.
Some Sundays are Youth Sundays, with more or less continuous music interspersed with testimonies from the teenagers as they try to tread the straight and narrow way in Bexford among the temptations of crack and the gangs. Some Sundays see the under-tens on parade in their cherubim and seraphim uniforms. Many Sundays have guest preachers, rotating around the Assemblies of Salvation circuit. But today it is Pastor Michael’s own turn again, and the service is an hour-long discourse from him, prowling the stage and the aisles with a mike in his hand, sweating and earnest and inc
reasingly hoarse, raising up devotion to a pitch from which the choir can raise it higher still, by means of gospel settings of old hymns, and a touch of Highlife for those nostalgic for Ibadan, and new worship songs from the sacred (but still funky) end of soul.
‘Except the Lord build the house,’ says Pastor Michael, ‘they labour in vain that build it. Psalm one-two-seven verse one. Except the Lord build the house, they labour in vain that build it. What do they labour in? Vain! Amen. That’s right. You can build your house high and down it will fall, if the Lord don’t keep it for you. Down it will fall. Nothing but a load of bricks. All smashed up. Gone! Doesn’t matter how high it is, doesn’t matter how strong it is. It could be a ten-storey house. It could be a twenty-storey house, it could be a skyscraper, it could be a mighty tower, and if the Lord don’t like it, down it comes. What did the Lord do to the tower of – where? Babel! Amen. He put it down. Right down, tumbled down, nothing left. Think of that. Think of all the work the people do, to build up the high tower; all those days with the bricks and mortar, with the wheelbarrow. Now you know – maybe you don’t know – when I come to this country, I’m looking around for work, you know, and it’s not a very friendly place for a boy from Lagos, you know what I mean? And I got only fifty shillings in my pocket. But my arms are strong, you know, and I get a job on the building site. Man, it’s hard. (Amen.) Every day I push the barrow, and the barrow is heavy, and the plank is shaking. So I know this, that it’s a lot of work to build a house, just a little house, and the more tall the house the more the work. But God can pull it all down! Praise God, he can! And then all that work, all that sweating, it’s wasted. They labour in vain. Now that’s a hard word, isn’t it, brother? Isn’t it, sister? You work and work and it come to nothing. That’s hard, that’s desperate. But do you know why? Yes, you know why. Lord have mercy, the Lord himself tell you why. You forget to bless it. You don’t remember, you got to give it to the Lord to keep. Except the Lord build the house, it gonna come tumbling down. Except the Lord keep the house, you gonna lose it all again – all that work. Your childern gonna fail their exams, your daughter gonna get knock up, your son gonna do those drugs. No blessing, and your house, it’s like a magnet for the bad luck. A bad magnet for the bad spirits. So, get that blessing! We got to ask for that blessing! Bless us, Lord; bless us in our homes and in our hearts; bless us deep, bless us strong; bless us in abundance. And you know, when we ask, he answers. He always answers. You could have left me standing there … (Help me, sisters.)’
You could have left me standing there
With no one, no one to care
But you promised me you’d be there on time
And you did just what you said
(I gave it up) That’s when you bless me
(Oh I let it go) That’s when you bless me
(Lord you brought me through, now I’m brand new)
(I said have your way) That’s when you bless me
(Oh I’m here to stay) That’s when you bless me
(Lord you promised me you would hear my plea)
And you did just what you said
‘So you know what to do, don’t you, brothers? Don’t you, sisters? The Lord told you how to build your house, he told you himself. Matthew seven verse twenty-four. You’ve got to build your house on – what? A rock! That’s right. And you don’t build it on – what? The sand! That’s right. For the rain descends, and the flood comes, and the wind blows, and it beats upon your house, and if you’ve got sand down there in the foundation, oh man, uh-oh, that’s not good, that’s a disaster on the way. Down it falls, down it all falls, clattering and tumbling. But if you build it on the rock, then it don’t matter what comes, it don’t matter what get thrown at you. Bring it along! Let it all come. Let it rain, let the flood come, let the wind blow. You’re okay. You’re on the strong foundation, you’re on the strongest foundation in the world. “The house fell not, for it was founded on the rock.” That is a house that is safe from trouble. Don’t matter what trouble. Could be any trouble. Let it come: come on, bad luck, come on, diseases, come on, thieves, come on, police problem, come on, unemployment, come on, bad spells and conjuring, come on, anxious mind, come on, wicked heart. Come on, anything! No need to be afraid, sisters and brothers. No need to be afraid at all. Your house will stand. Your house has the strong foundation. Your house is built on – what? The rock! Amen. The rock. And what is the rock? The rock is the Lord Almighty. The rock is his holy word, in his good book. The rock is the Lord Jesus, strong to save. The rock is the mighty Spirit of the Lord God of Israel. That’s right. Because the Lord is my shepherd … (Sing it with me.)’
Because the Lord is my shepherd
I have everything I need
He lets me rest in the meadow’s grass
and He leads me beside the quiet stream
He restores my failing hands
and helps me to do what honours
That’s why I am safe
that’s why I’m sa-a-a-afe
sa-a-afe
in his arms
‘Safe today, brothers and sisters. Safe tomorrow. Safe forever after. Praise him for that! Praise his great name. Now that’s a lot! Isn’t that a lot to praise him for? Amen! But that’s not all. That’s not all. The Lord don’t just want your house to stand! He’s got you safe – you, sister, you, brother. But he wants more. He got bigger plans. He want to hold this whole wicked city in his hand. Listen to him! Psalm one-two-seven again, back we go. Except the Lord keep the city, the watchman waketh but in vain. You hear? The watchman wakes up in the night and he looks around. What was that sound? Was that a fox, you know, rummaging in the bin for the cold kebab? (You know that sound, eh, sister?) Or was it a burglar, breaking in? He doesn’t know, so he worries and he worries. But it does no good. It is in vain, unless the Lord keep the city. Unless the Lord take it all in his hand. Now Jerusalem, you know, was a city just like London. It had nightclubs. It had bad areas. It had dealers in wickedness. It had rich people, proud people, unrighteous people, with mischief in their hearts. But the Lord, brothers and sisters, what did he do? Did he want to burn it? To wash it away in a mighty flood? No. No. He went another way to clean up that dirty place. He loved it. He want to redeem it. And he did redeem it. He wash it with his blood. He wash it bright and clean. He make it new. The New Jerusalem, brothers and sisters, beautiful like a bride; think of that. And you know? It’s just the same with London. This dirty town, he want to hold it all safe in his hand as well. He want to build it again, on the rock of salvation. He want to make it new and holy. He want to wash the pavements till they shine like diamonds. He want to dress it in a shining robe. He want to bring it all to salvation. Do you think he can? Tell me if you think he can, brothers and sisters. I can’t hear you. Yes, he can! Yes, he can! He can take this great city, he can make it new. He can wash it clean. He can redeem it. He can make it sing and praise his name. Praise his name! Praise his holy name! Praise him, Bexford! Praise him, London! Praise him, Ess Eee Fourteen, and all the other postcodes! Praise him with the sound of the trumpet! Praise him with the psaltery and harp! Praise him with the timbrel and dance! Praise him with stringed instruments and organs! Praise him upon the loud cymbals! Praise him upon the high-sounding cymbals! Let every thing that hath breath praise the Lord!’
And Ben thinks, dazed as he always is as the pastor reaches his climax and the choir ascends to ecstasy: I am safe. I am, though I don’t know how or why. Thank you.
By the time they get home it is twenty to one, and the tasks required to get lunch ready for three stretch ahead of them in unbroken sequence from the minute Marsha gets their church clothes back into their dry-cleaning bags in the closet. She whizzes up the soaked peppers and dried crayfish for the Ewa Agoyin, and starts the smoky business of bleaching the palm oil. Ben chops – onions, spring onions, okra. He washes and sets simmering the new potatoes. He beats up the egg whites for the top of the lemon meringue. He sous-chefs away, in short, making sure that each time she
’s ready to assemble a dish, the bits are to hand, in drifts of chopped white, chopped green, chopped red, chopped yellow. This is how they work together in the café, and there’s a practised speed to it, a comfortable co-ordination of their two rhythms. (It has occurred to Ben that one reason for his peaceful mind, maybe not the whole thing but a contributory factor, is that life with Marsha is so continuously bloody busy, with zero brooding time.) But the quantities they’re cooking are bigger than domestic, with only a small home kitchen to do it all in, so the activities are constantly jostling up against each other, and they have to squeeze past each other on their way to and fro in a kind of controlled whirlwind. The feeling is nearer the edge of chaos than it would be in the café, though not of course over it, thanks to Marsha’s list. As he crosses behind her, he kisses the nape of her neck. ‘Get away!’ she says, and bats at him with a wooden spoon. But when she next passes behind him, she pinches his bum. She is nervous, he knows; she always is when her sister comes over. Soon he is washing up as well, to keep her supplied with fresh pans.
‘Right,’ she says, when the pie is in the oven, the curry is bubbling, the okra is done and waiting on the side, the Ewa Agoyin is savourously red-black, and the little sausages are popping under the grill. ‘Barbecue!’
Out goes Ben into the garden with the steel tray of chicken and a bag of charcoal. He drags the barbecue out of the immensely orderly shed onto the little patio, and while the firelighters catch and he waits for the little briquettes to begin to glow, he has a moment to look around. They need not have worried about the weather. It’s a lovely day, with that early-summer brightness to the green of leaves and the blue of the sky that makes them look as if they have just been washed. In the border, up against the fence that Ben creosoted a few months ago, the peonies bob in pink globes, the mallows are a mass of blowsy white, cored pink and gold, and the blue lobelia shine out sharp and electric. Everything looks fresh and new. In the sky overhead a plane glints, tiny as a metal cracker toy, and draws a roar reduced to a whisper after it, as it follows the flight path over Bexford Hill towards distant Heathrow. There’s always a plane up there if you look, near or far, visible or only betrayed by a line of vapour, but always moving westwards. It’s as if – thinks Ben, putting the first thighs and drumsticks onto the griddle – it’s as if the aeroplanes were part of the mechanism of the garden; a necessary part. As if this tidy patch of lawn surrounded by its fence, with its brilliant blossoms too many to count and its coiled yellow hose, together formed the bottom half of a machine of bliss, which required for its complete working the dome of sky above, and for the furthest component of its clockwork the timekeeping planes on their celestial track. Patiently they tick from east to west. Or perhaps they are joined to the sky, and it is the sky that is moving, a blue sphere studded with occasional silver that cranks around, and around, and around.
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