by Peter Akinti
We took the train to Liverpool Street station and changed for the Metropolitan line to Paddington where we bought tickets to Penzance. The ticket salesman told us the next train left at 1.06. We walked around for a bit, bought munchies, books and magazines from WH Smith and shared a coffee (double mocha macchiato with whipped cream). We were tired by the time we got on the train. It was fairly quiet so we got one of those four seats with a table to ourselves. Meina worried that we would be asked to move but I told her it was cool. Eventually the train started to move. We packed our bags in the overhead rack and then, knackered, fell asleep. After twenty minutes, a black man in a blue uniform woke me up asking for tickets.
'You have them right?' I joked.
'No,' she said, 'I gave them all to you.'
I laughed and pulled the four orange tickets out of my pocket, like a magician.
'Ta-dah.'
The ticket man didn't find it funny. He took the 'out' tickets and punched a hole through them with his machine without saying anything.
Lickle shits.
Meina pulled out three gossip magazines and a book of short stories she had bought. I unfolded the Guardian and tried to hide my book, Another Country. She seemed engrossed in an article I could see was all about a TV presenter who was having an affair with another TV presenter. She saw me watching over my paper and laughed.
'You look like a proper Guardian reader,' she said and then moved over to the seat next to mine. She kissed me. It felt forced, a nervous gesture. I wanted her. Before she could back away I held her wrists and I kissed her back, feeling her strong pulse when I moved my fingertips to her neck. I guess she could feel me getting hard because she flinched. I slid my arms around her waist and for a moment she held me, then she let go and slid back on the seat, flushed with embarrassment. I couldn't quite work her out. Was she my girlfriend or not? Maybe tongue kissing in public was a bit much for her. Could she tell I was embarrassed too at my thing sticking up from my jeans? I shielded myself with the newspaper.
'Now I know what type of woman reads all that stuff,' I said, pointing to her magazines.
She smiled. But she still didn't look at me.
'How much do you think you can tell about a person by what they read?' she asked.
'Nothing,' I said. I slid my Baldwin novel under my Guardian.
'Everything,' she said. I hoped I wasn't sweating.
'What's going on in the serious papers?'
'Can you believe it?' I said. 'After thirteen years they think they've got the evidence to convict those five white guys who killed Stephen Lawrence . . . Thirteen years, that poor woman.'
'What poor woman? Who is Stephen Lawrence?'
I shook my head. 'Who is Stephen Lawrence? Are you serious? Don't they test you people when you come into the country?'
'You people? What do you mean by that?' She tried to kick me under the table.
'Stephen Lawrence is our Emmitt Till. My brothers used to bang on about it all the time. I remember 5 said his death made it all clear. He said Stephen Lawrence was the black boy who showed the world that the black man in the UK had no bollocks, was dead, had no value. He said we stood by, we watched, we did nothing.'
Meina just stared at me blankly.
'Don't look at me like that. What are you looking at me like that for?'
'You look funny when you're angry.'
'I'm not angry, just thinking.'
'Really?' She laughed and raised her eyebrows. 'So what else does the paper say?'
'Not much . . . Some celebrity has adopted a black boy. From Senegal . . . that makes me sick.'
'Why?'
'What do you mean, why? It's part of that Western fantasy to own all things exotic. These are black boys we're talking about who'll grow into black men. Not Louis Vuitton bags.'
'Being adopted is the best thing that could happen to these children. It's a blessing,' she said.
Exasperated, I folded away my paper. 'I've probably read more gossip stuff in this than all those magazines put together. What about you? What's going on in your celebrity world?'
'Nothing much. There are a few pictures of some royals. What do you think about them?'
'I bet you can guess,' I said. 'I had time for Diana but they killed her because she was with an African.'
Meina gave me her 'what are you on about?' look. I waved her off dismissively and tried to cross my legs. 'Meina, can I ask you something?'
'What?'
'Will you go out with me?'
'Go where?'
'I mean, you know, be my girl?'
'So you'll be staying with me?' she said and I felt myself blush.
I lowered my eyes. 'For a while, God willing.'
She laughed nervously.
'I'm sorry I kissed you like that before,' I said.
'It's OK,' She turned her face to look out of the window. 'It looks so peaceful.'
I pressed my head against the glass. I have lived in London all my life and I had never seen anything like it; it looked vast, unending. 'It's true what people say about us Londoners and the M25,' I said, but I'm not sure she understood what I meant.
Later, a woman in her late twenties got on and sat in our carriage. She wore a T-shirt under her coat with a Basquiat image on it and cooed softly into a mobile phone but I couldn't hear what she was saying. I fell asleep. When I woke up she had gone and two businessmen in dark suits and colourful striped ties sat in her place. One, with chubby red cheeks and clear green eyes, read the Financial Times. The other, with dark circles under his eyes and hair that he kept pushing behind his ears, was snoring loudly one minute, and reading a book by Andy McNab the next. Every now and then the men spoke to each other in the same flat tone. I must have been staring because one of them looked up at me like I had my nuts out, as though they were in his face. Suddenly a woman in her fifties with a long black scarf – patterned with liquorice allsorts – wrapped several times around her neck entered the carriage carrying a large silver case; it looked like some sort of instrument. She sat and placed the case upright between her legs. As I watched her stroke the loose wispy hairs that had escaped her bun I noticed the sticker on her case – 'Beware the cello player'. I tried to imagine the sound of a cello. I couldn't. For a second I wished for a world where it was OK to ask strangers for favours.
'Meina? Can I ask you something else?'
'What?'
'Do you blame me for what happened to Ashvin? Be honest.'
'No.' She stared at me, then asked: 'Have you done Anna Karenina at school yet?'
'Who's she? I haven't touched her,' I joked.
'No, silly, it's a book. She's a character who commits suicide.'
'I go to Forest Gate Boys, babe. Nobody knows Anna Karenina. I don't think I've had the same teacher in any subject for more than six months.'
'Anyway, Anna Karenina kills herself. Not because she is trapped but as a form of revenge on someone. I wondered if Ashvin was trying to hurt me.'
'Don't do that to yourself, Meina. Ash just couldn't see another way round it. What God, the world, the universe had done to him. He tried to move on. He tried.' I reached out to touch her hand.
'I did blame you at first,' she said. 'But now I understand his death is a test that I have to survive. I believed in him because he promised me things would be all right. You know, we didn't speak much, the two of us. Sometimes we could spend a whole day in the same room without saying a word. I miss him.'
She leaned in closer to me and touched my face. We kissed.
We both dozed during the long journey but fortunately we were awake as the Great Western train took us close to the cliff edge and we saw green hills, the harbours, the impressive churches and old buildings as we went through the main stations in Cornwall: Liskeard, St Austell, Truro and Carbis Bay. The train slowed and we arrived at Penzance soon after five. We didn't have to wait long for a taxi. It was a green Mercedes. The driver was a white man in his forties with an old-school moustache that turned down at
the ends. As he drove slowly through the small fishing ports along the Cornish coastline it felt as though we had stepped into a different time. There were farmhouses with signs that read 'Closed for the season'. Great white birds with black beaks stretched their wings and floated through the low-hanging clouds.
'Are you nervous?' Meina asked.
'About what?'
'Seeing your sister.'
'Not really. She's not really my sister, is she? She's my half-sister. We don't even know each other.'
'Half-sister? We have no such words at home. Your sister is always your sister and your brother your brother. What's her name?'
'Belinda. She has my grandmother's name.'
'When did you last see her?'
'At my father's funeral. It was kind of awkward because our mothers weren't even mildly polite to each other but I remember we were sitting at the same table. I have a picture of us somewhere eating cake. We looked alike. I don't know how true it is but I think she was on his lap when he was shot.'
'What did he die of?'
'He was shot.'
By the time we arrived at the accommodation Mr Bloom had arranged for us, just outside Hayle, night was falling. The bed and breakfast was an old stone farmhouse surrounded by vines, ferns and roses. We rang the bell at the front door and a thickset woman with droopy eyes, mousy-brown hair and a veil of freckles on her face opened it. She looked distracted.
'I'm Pearl. Please come in,' she said.
The hall was more like a living room – large with soft wall lights. It was simple and unpretentious but there was a musky smell about it, like a damp towel, as though the windows had been shut all summer. The paint on the walls and doors was flaking and there were random objects everywhere: jars, bottles, brass animals, colourful feathers.
'Only two bags?' said Pearl as she tried to pull them from me.
'It's OK, thanks,' I said, but she took them anyway.
'You have a lovely place,' said Meina.
'I have the world's best collection of objects with absolutely no value,' said Pearl. She gestured up at the storm lanterns hung in rows around the walls. 'I put those up to help guests to find their way back on dark nights.' She headed for the stairs. 'Follow me. Try not to disturb my husband. He had a stroke but he doesn't miss much.'
Meina and I both turned to our left and only then did we notice the man wrapped in a heavy blanket, sitting in a wheelchair in the far corner of the room behind a dining table. The table, dressed with blue gingham fabric, had been decked with a bottle of red wine and berries in a basket. The man leaned forward, nodding his head involuntarily. He had a napkin tucked around his neck and a head of wavy black hair.
'Mr Bloom said separate rooms. Is that right?'
It sounded like a question, but it wasn't. She was already on her way up the stairs as she spoke.
'We have six guest rooms, nothing fancy mind. Three small rooms on the first floor and three rooms on the second. I'll put you both on the top.'
The wide stairs were imposing. I had to hold on to the iron railings to keep from making them creak so much. There were several doors on the second floor, very close to each other and painted different shades of blue. Pearl smiled as she handed me the keys.
'Rooms four and five,' she said. 'No fighting.'
Meina peeked her head through to look at the rooms before handing me the key to number 5. As far as I could tell, the rooms were exactly the same, simple with blue walls and a view out to the sea. The beds set in a niche in the far wall were painted white and had been laid with cushions and patterned eiderdowns.
After I had washed I got straight into bed – it had been a long journey and the food I'd eaten on the train had upset my stomach. Lying down felt like being inside a boat. I couldn't sleep so I got up and stared out at the view through the window. The sky was dark except for the silver-blue light from the crescent moon reflected on the sea, which altered with every shift of the waves. I felt humbled by the vastness of everything around me. It all looked so vivid, yet so still. It was as if there was a message in the sky from God. I didn't know what it said, but it felt like everything had a reason for life here. All my senses were suddenly amplified. When I looked out of that window all my doubts, all the pressure, all the dangerous thoughts shattered into thousands of pieces and disappeared into the sky. I turned to see Meina standing at my door, her thumb between the pages of a book. She had been watching me.
'Breathtaking, isn't it?' she said, coming to stand next to me. 'It's the first place I've been here that reminds me of home.'
'Really?'
'If my country were peaceful this is how beautiful it could be. This looks like Mogadishu used to, near Buujimo Shineemo, the old cinema that used to be surrounded by brightly coloured buildings put up near the market by the Italians. Now there are sandbags everywhere, where Ethiopian soldiers with camouflage on their backs and flip-flops on their feet hide in the shadows with heavy guns. People in robes crossing at intersections back and forth. Everybody scurrying around because death can come from anywhere.'
'What's wrong?' I could see her cheeks glistening.
'Nothing,' she said.
'No, come on. What is it?'
'It's nothing, honestly, I'm OK.'
I remained silent for a moment, chewing on her lie.
'What were you reading?' I asked.
'It's a book of short stories, I told you already,' she said.
'I meant which one?'
'It's called "Bright and Morning Star" by Richard Wright. Do you know him?'
'Yes, but I haven't read that. What's it about?'
'I'm not finished yet but so far it's about a mother worrying about her son who is out trying to organise a Communist meeting.'
'Will you read it to me?'
'I don't know, James. It's very sad.'
'You have to stop doing that.'
'What?'
'You keep worrying that I can't handle stuff. I can.'
'You tried to commit suicide. Why are you kidding yourself into thinking you're all right?'
'Kidding myself?'
'You're acting as though nothing happened, but it did. Something did happen. I lost my brother.'
I kept silent. I'd known all along that she still blamed me.
'Will you read it to me or not?'
She did. We lay on my bed and she read in a quiet voice. It was one of those stories you read and you never forgot, one that made you feel for your ancestors, one that made all your own troubles pale in comparison.
'I'm going to try to write a short story like that one day,' she said when she had finished.
'I think you will. Can you recite poems like Ash?' I asked.
'No.'
'Yes you can. He told me you could quote loads. He used to recite his favourite poem sometimes when we were together. He said it was by Langston Hughes. I know some of it by heart. "Suffer Poor Negro –"'
'That's by David Diop. It's in a collection of poems edited by Langston Hughes.' Meina laughed. 'My brother was so dumb. And it wasn't his favourite poem. His favourite was . . . I don't remember all of it or who wrote it but our father liked it very much. It went something like:
'You are a man, my son.
You are a man tonight.
They are all here:
Those of your first moon
Those you call fathers,
Look, look at them well;
They alone are the guardians of the earth
Of the earth that drank your blood.'
Her chin began quivering. The room was quiet save for a gentle tap on the window of naked tree branches blown by the wind. She sniffed her runny nose and then turned and wept into my pillow.
'Big girls don't cry,' I said patting her back. I didn't know what else to do. 'If you stop crying I'll buy you a . . . pretty dress.'
She sat up and looked out at the moon. Something like a smile parted her lips.
'You promise?'
'Promise what?'
&nb
sp; 'To buy me a dress, silly,' she said pushing her palm against my chest.
'Of course,' I said. 'A real expensive one like Victoria Beckham from the magazines.' I pulled her towards me.
Something happened between us on that first evening in Cornwall. Something sudden and carnal and frantic that left my heart pounding in a blissful state where I was unsure whether I was dreaming or dead or alive. Afterwards we lay naked, side by side, holding hands. She stayed with me, and this time I held her tightly. She buried her head under my chin, on my neck, as the wind whistled through the cracks and the sea crashed violently against the shore.
When I opened my eyes an hour later I felt bad for lying on her arm. But I was glad she hadn't let go of me.
'Are you still tired?' I asked.
She didn't answer.
'I'm starving,' I said.
'I could eat too.'
'Shall we go to my sister's?'
'Right now?' she said surfacing from under the heavy sheet.
'Yes, I want to get it over with.'
'Come on, then,' she said, rubbing her eyes. 'Let's go.'
The night was peaceful. I took a long look at a stocky man standing under the glow emitted from a street lamp. He was in a baseball cap and jogging bottoms. Just as I got nervous he began jogging down the street and I noticed the gleaming eyes of a black-and-white dog strolling beside him. Most of the streets sloped down to the centre of the town but we walked in the opposite direction for almost twenty minutes past huddles of granite cottages and cobbled courtyards with the warm sea breeze wafting over us like an embrace. We had a full view of the green hills over which the moon poured a bold light.
'It looks like a stage,' I said.
Meina tilted her head. 'It's beautiful,' she said. Then, after a while, 'Are you sure this is it?'
'Trevescan Place, number 14. This is it.'
The moment I knocked on the door, I was sure it was a mistake.
'Let's go,' I said, but it was too late.
'Bell? I've told you a hundred times. Where's your key?'
I knew she was only forty-five but she looked older. She was tall and scruffy-looking, only just this side of fat. She smiled when she saw us.
'Oh, sorry,' she said, 'I thought you were my Belinda. You must be here for the sleepover. It's not here this week, it's in the cave on Hell's Mouth. Just follow the signs on the road until you see their lights in the cave.'