In Our Mad and Furious City

by Guy Gunaratne

  Walking up the stairs now and I see the wallpaper peeling. Mums will be on me about that. And the damp. Man of the house now, ennet, at least until I leave for uni. Try not to think about what happens after that tho. Dad and my marge. Fuck knows. Maybe Mum will retire like Aunt Pauline. Move into a smaller flat so it’d be easier to take care of Dad. Water spills onto my hands as I turn the corner into the hallway. Mums knows I’ll be going Brunel and go dorms. She knows I ain’t sticking around here for no one. Dad’s door is unlocked and I lean against it to open. As I’m leaning my eyes find a photo on the wall showing them two when young. They on a beach in Montserrat, not much older than I am now, holding hands and laughing. Must’ve been time back, back home. I imagine a photo just like that but taken today with them all wrinkled.

  Except Dad would be in his wheelchair, ennet, and her hands would be on his shoulders like a nurse smiling just as bright.

  I open the door to his bedroom. See Dad lying there still. His feet are bent left-ways like a pyramid painting. I set a square blanket under them and they tiny like a child’s. I raise them slow and check the toenails for length but they neat enough tho. His toes look like berries, proper swollen black. The hard skin on his soles, white and dry lines make webs around the curves of his feet and ankles. I slowly sit knees bent by the foot of the bed and take the drenched cloth. I wring out the water, it feels good against my hands. With the first soft stroke I glance up to his face. Dad’s head is small against the pillow, his pouched eyes closed and undisturbed. He looks sunk and dreaming. Peaceful, still.

  I settle into the rhythm then, long drawn lines. A soak then and a stroke, and then again, and then again. I breathe in the steam and squint at the light spilling in through the drawn curtains. My mind wanders and I think of Ardan. Myman with the bars. Then I think of his face when I left him last night, all gassed up. Smile to myself at that. Think of Missy and the wildness in her office. Think of the back of her figure as she walked away. Allow that. Got no use for that girl or any of the rest, ennet.

  I shake away my thoughts and feel Dad stir in his sleep. The cloth goes into the cooling water. Pat down Dad’s wet feet with the towel. I take out the balm and it smells heavy with eucalyptus oil. I dab my fingertip into the balm, smear the grease against my fingers, and rub it into the cracked skin on the heels and between his toes. His skin feels like paper to wood to paper again, the relief of my dad’s sole.

  My mind wanders again as I settle back into rhythm. I did right by myman. Ardan looked happy when he came out from the stage and laughing. Alive and taller somehow. Brighter than I’ve ever seen him. Man just gets on mic and says what he says, ennet. Watching him on that bus, warring with that bus boy, it was like he didn’t even have to try. Why would he need to tho? If he does what’s natural to him, gets to do what he’s here for and loves.

  I place my dad’s feet down on the damp towel. His skin shines now, thick with the healing balm. Makes me think tho. What am I here for and what’s the thing I love to do? I can think on it but know I’ll come up empty. Spent so long learning to discipline myself, like Dad taught me, that I don’t even know what I do it for anymore. Every day I make sure to be the best, like he told me to be. Before he had his stroke he’d tell me, ennet. Told me self-direction was the key. In his voice, so old country and grave. So worried I’d get swayed by the wrong crowd. He was always on at me about standing straight and tall. Even stopped me from bopping my head to music one time. Couple times. Greatness will not wait for ones pecking them heads like a pigeon, he’d say, greatness wait for a locked body, them who go after the single thing and not a many. So now I listen to my tapes and keep running. I don’t have whatever Ardan has. Some dream, some talent. But I wouldn’t give a kingdom for it either. I just know a way out of this place and maybe that’s all I need.

  Can’t shake this feeling of anger tho. Suttan in me fighting. I run because I got to Dad, get me? I run and sweat and box my shadow every fucking day. Not because I want it but because I got to, I got to. If you taught me to want suttan just to want it then you shouldn’t’ve had me here. London ain’t no place to have some future you want and wish for, only one you take. You of all people should’ve known this. To stay still here means to lose your form. And in this city, man don’t get nuttan without form. Stay still, lose the fight, and you die lost like a sideman. I ain’t even need your advice for that, this city taught me that on road.

  I look at him and suddenly see his eyes open, his eyes on me. He’s awake. Barely. Awake in his own way, in and out of sleep. I get up slow and move by his side. See his face, lines deep and his mouth pitched down like a saucer. This small man with a faint heart. My dad is so old. So old. Before he got ill I never looked at his face, not really, but now it’s all I do. Every Saturday while I wash his feet. His eyes are rheumy with white foggy film. His hair is trimmed short. Looks proper smart tho. He used to read bare books back in the day. Bare writers from old. It’s where I got my name, ennet. His day. I watch his irises dart around and then fix on me. He tilts his head my way. I wonder what he sees. A Selvon-shaped figure in his world, the shape of his son. His mouth makes one of his tiny smiles and I smile back at him.

  You all right Dad, yeah?

  He stirs and his arms come up weakly to touch mine. His smile stops and he’s looking at me now sad and confused. I stay still and keep quiet. He looks so scared suddenly. Is it me he’s afraid for? He opens his mouth but all that comes out is some soundless whine. I tell him to calm, place back his arm under the bedsheet, and I plump up his pillow. He settles and his head returns to the posture I found him in, and he’s staring forward now. Proper vacant.

  I stand up and look about to find the remote control. It’s by the windowsill. I take it and press the red button. The television by the corner of the room flashes on and the channel is set to the local news like it always is. I place the remote control under his other hand, his long bony finger set to the on switch so he can off it if he wants. I look around him, make sure he’s good with his pillow, sheet, and TV remote. I gather up the water bowl and cloth and leave Dad to his news, the sound of the newscaster reeling off the local headlines as I close the door. That’s the only window to the world for him, ennet.

  ARDAN

  I never could break eggs proper. I crack shells on the side of the frying pan like I seen Mum do a million times but it’s the yolk tho. The yolk always fucks up and drains into the whites. Fuck sake, it’s a mess. Anyway. Thought that counts, ennet. I listen to hear Mum in the bath. Been in there for time now. I been trying to manage the heat on the stove so it’ll still be warm by the time she’s out. Bacon is done. Beans are hot. I slide the bacon onto our plates, moving the kitchen clutter aside. Meanwhile Max is in the corner sitting on a floor cushion, chewing out one of my old monster machines.

  I go to the curtains and open them wide. The lace underneath is all grimed up, the smell of cigarettes and moldy air. A new day. I try to straighten the lace up but they still look shit in the morning light. I turn and look around and see how dirty the flat has become. Everything exposed and suttan like shameful. Look how all our stuff is scattered around the place after months of the same old routine. Mugs and dishes and jars all randomly left where Mum has used them last. Few months away from looking like a crack den, swear down. Newspapers and magazines all piled up by the sofa. That’s where she usually sits and eats packets of crisps and sleeps in the afternoons. Stains on the carpet are only there if you know where to look tho. It’s like I see our flat with new eyes almost. I lean against the wallpaper. What’s this feeling I got of being nervous about telling her? These nerves are wanting me to show her more than tell her. Show her it could happen, that she could be proud of me or suttan. But I look around the room and it sounds stupid and small. Like why am I trying to fix suttan that’s unfixable for?

  I turn and open the fridge for the butter. There’s three opened tubs in there and I take the one that’s got the most recent expiry. Pop up the bread from the toaster
and I start spreading. I glance at the clock on the wall and it’s 10:10 a.m. I stop spreading now and brush my hands clean against my side. I listen and slowly walk to the bathroom door. I hear the sound of the tap turn and the water stop. I move away from the door and back into the kitchen. Switch the stove off. Take the flat spatula and flip over the mess I made of them eggs. Quickly wipe my hands again and slide it all onto the plates. Eggs, beans, bacon on toast. It ain’t great but it’ll do. I stand there then, looking at these two plates not even hungry, not even bothered if she eats it. I just want her to listen, ennet.

  I stop. I stare at the two plates. Remember my dad sitting me down to eat just like this. At that McDonald’s when I was five. Remember I was so excited that he took me to McDee’s on a Wednesday. We never went on a weekday. All I thought about was that happy-meal toy and my feet dangling under the seat. That’s when he told me, ennet. Don’t even remember what he said but I know it was the last thing he said before he left. I remember him sitting across from me while I ate, not smiling, not nuttan. He took me to eat, sat me down, watched me eat, and drove me back. That was that, ennet. I wonder how he told my mum. If it was just as shit a goodbye as he gave me. Or even if he did tell Mum anything or if he just dussed out like a right cunt.

  Anyway.

  I take the two plates and put them on the table in front of the sofa. I pick up the empty, half-empty crisp packets, the cut-out newspapers, bottles of Coke, and cigarette boxes. Clear everything. I leave only the plates for the both of us to sit and eat. So I can tell her properly, ennet. Tell her I’m going to try with this music ting. That I’ll try and maybe she’ll smile and we can just eat.

  I look up and the door opens finally.

  She’s standing there in her towel and her hair still wet and dark by her shoulders. She just staring at me standing there between the living room and the kitchen. Her skin is red from the water.

  What’s all this then? she says looking at the kitchen, sniffing at the smell of bacon.

  I brush my hands again and don’t look at her but at the plates.

  I made breakfast, ennet, I says, saying as if it’s obvious, like it was nuttan, like she shouldn’t be so surprised by me making breakfast for the first time in time. She looks at me and then to the table and the eggs and bacon and toast and beans.

  Touches her hair and tightens her towel.

  What did you go and do that for? she says.

  I can’t find a thing to say back to that. I just stare at the plates and cross my arms folded like, ahn’t know. Mum shakes her head like she’s confused. Looks at me as if I’m sick or suttan.

  No, look. I’m not even hungry. What do you want to go do that for? I’m not even hungry.

  She is looking at me, my clothes as if she’s trying to work suttan out. She walks back into her room, leaving me standing there. I feel heavy somehow, like the breath in me is weighted. As if the open door sends a thick steam my way, bringing me back to fucking reality. I look down at the two plates and all I hear is the dripping showerhead in the bathroom. I rub my eyes and I go to take her plate. I pick it up and stand there a minute, listening to her moving around in there, getting changed while I clear it up. Her voice comes.

  Ardan?

  Yeah Mum.

  Will you get me a packet of fags? There’s some money in my coat pocket.

  I step on the bin pedal and empty my mum’s breakfast into it. The bacon and toast fall into the black bin-bag. I let the beans drip until the only thing left is orange slime on her plate. I set the plate on the kitchen table and stare at it.

  Yeah okay, I says.

  You know what kind? she calls.

  Yeah I know what kind, I call back.

  I glance at my own plate still set on the table. I head to the door and go through her coat to get a handful of coins like she told me. I call Max and he scampers over, still sleepy. I’ll take him for a walk. I take the leash hung by the door and grab my jacket. Allow it, ennet. What was I thinking? I do it all like I’ve done a hundred times before. Like it’s clockwork. Like this is me here. Back where I started. Another day. I go to open the door, but then stop.

  I turn and look over to the answer machine by the kitchen counter. I close the door and brush Max in with my foot.

  Stay, I say to him.

  I walk over to the phone and clock the red light flashing. One new message. I take a breath and scratch my neck. I unhook the phone and press three digits to erase all calls from yesterday. No new messages. Must have been dizzy for a mo. Slipped, ennet, the flames and the excitement got to me last night. Forgot where it was I am. Where it is I’m at.

  Come we go Max, I say, and he follows me out the door into the Square.

  NELSON

  It was a second start after I leave the Grove. And it was here in Neasden, some sad little sink, where I end up settling and plotting another way. I fix myself a room soon enough. It was perch above a small stationer shop own by a Irishman name Jack or John or Joe. It have a wallpaper that peel to touch. A stove what put a black mark on the ceiling. And was bloody cold once winter come. But it was my own. My own air I breathe, so it was all I need.

  Never told nobody where I go or for what. I was alone in London again, in the north and west. And all them others who haunt me, brother Jimbroad and Claude, that Keith Jacob, brother Clive and Shirley and all the rest, I want leave them to my past. For the purposes of my heart. And the city was so big, I might never see them again, I thought. So I move to a place where nobody know me. Where nobody pull me back. So as to begin again. Keep my promise for a boat-train ticket home for Maisie, begin again in Neasden, this other broken end.

  But truth was, I was hurting bad. First line of worry under my eye as a young man. No matter how much I want put it behind me, that club-fisted madness what color the heart, it never disappear for long. I was angry with myself. I did not blame the people I fell in with at the Grove, but I knew they had twist me away from my purpose. And this city, this place what allow for such a bitterness to breed, it had made them forget themselves too. I think to myself, all right, if this Mother Country is a bitch then I will be a bastard son. I will work. But I will work for my own self. I will ask nothing from nobody. Was like my soft heart turn hard at last and I want put my pain to work.

  Months passed. It was not difficult to find a wage in Neasden. Not when I was willing to do all sorta job for little money. It was easier alone, in fact, and not have the noisy bluster of the world asking me to join the fracas. Instead I mop the floor for the market, clean the window for the mansion house, mix the mud for the tower block, work machinery for a factory, all for good pay. I would not protest, I would not raise a rab, not even make a friend worth calling a friend, but I will get my money.

  Nearly a year I work like that. Asking Maisie to be patient in every letter I send she. Tell she that I was serious once again, that I was working hard and that soon I will come and we be together. But it was tough. Some days I came home with my back paining like it never have, my finger and foot numb with sores all over. Was as if the loneliness, pain, and love for Maisie was a fuel I use to keep on. And if I needed a reminder all I have to see was them shoddy housing estate tower what they was putting up around the place. I tell myself I rather die than have Maisie live up in them nest-hole. The rest of Neasden was a pit. People living cheek and jowl, like I, same temporary lines. Living off whatever food they can afford. I make a second vow to myself after seeing all that. I never want take no government allowance, never want check myself into the labor exchange like all them others, never owe nothing to this country. So I save my money. I have it in a sack under the bed before I spend it on any other extravagance.

  Was I lonely? Man, of course. But I was lonely among plenty others who want be left alone. I walk past them Neasden nobles daily, never a greeting or a smile, just a nod like we living off the same sad passage. They was immigrant too mostly, all a similar shade from Punjabi Indian, Nigerian, Zairean, them Ghanaian young ones, and old Irish som
e of them, and a few Jamaican and St. Lucian too. But not many English. They was all walking alone with a heavy breath toward no brighter thing. I feel a kinship with them. A closeness that I never have with Jimbroad or Claude or whoever. Neasden natives, them who accept the tide as it come instead of some further battle.

  It make me think that all them Association rattler, the firebrand troop I knew back in the Grove, they was all spitting into the wind this entire time. This other lot have forfeit all that, them relations, everything, to come here, like I have, to start again. Ashy, dusty skin and sunken eye. No lineage or duty to commit to except survival. And that was my goal after all, to survive long enough, save long enough, for Maisie to come and join me.

  And I never look at a newspaper during all them days. I was too frightened, or bitter, or some other prideful feeling what have me think that the news of the world was no longer my concern. I see a headline now and then. And the radio give word about the horse race and the score. But was only after the middle of the next year come that I see a clipping that catch me by surprise. It was a bit on that villain Mosley. The short ink tell me that the riot had spark off a worrying tension, but that it had ease up after Mosley got routed at the election. The bastard had lose badly. See a photograph inset, a blurry image of Mosley getting pull off a sodden crate at some assembly. And I recognize the black fellar doing the pulling, round and stocky. It was Claude. The old fellar had finally got a hand on the bigot, and had shown him the pavement. I remember that fearsome Claude. He told me plenty time how he one day will tell that Mosley, black face to white, that while he was fighting the Germans, Mosley was rotting in cell 18B and not lifting a finger. He finally done it. I find a smile when I see that. I remember thinking that my former friends was the real rebel sort, not cowards like I. But I was happy for them. When I put down that newspaper, I feel good. Like after my first year in this Britain, I can still feel a victory and feel like I did not have to untie a knot that not need untying. The rest of the year come and go in a routine of a slave. But it was worth it. For I start the next with Maisie by my side.