by Paul Mendez
“When there isn’t even a single white person in the Bible!”
Jesse, who grew up being suffocated with the Bible as if it was a pair of used Y-fronts, had never even thought of that.
“Right? You’re right. You’re absolutely right. But I just got so caught up in all these blogs and all this discussion, and it explained exactly why my life was the way it was, exactly why my mother was such a bitch to me, exactly why she was such a bitch full stop, exactly why Trayvon Martin died and the killer got away with it, exactly why Stephen Lawrence got murdered and my dad, my white adoptive dad, said, Oh well, he must’ve done summat to piss ’em off, exactly why it’s taken twenty fucking years to bring those callous motherfuckers to justice, exactly why black people get overlooked for a white person for most jobs, exactly why the prisons are full of black people who get punished ten times harder than a white person. White supremacy permeates every aspect of our society.
“Obviously, I was learning a hell of a lot about black history and black thought, and having the way plotted out for me to read further, Frantz Fanon, the nonfiction of James Baldwin, C.L.R. James, Audre Lorde, etc, etc. 12 Years a Slave came out and I burst into tears the second that poor mother got separated from her babies and they were all sold off like fucking actual cattle, and I knew that it was true, and I knew that my ancestors, albeit in a different part of the world, went through something similar, and I realised what a fucking miracle it was that I could be alive because, white fucking men, not God, had decided who worked where and who fucking bred with who and my line survived.
“But do you know why I deleted my Tumblr? Because for every one of those brilliant blogs I was following, for every long and sensationally enlightening essay someone posted, I was also following a blog featuring white American daddies showing their assholes, because I just couldn’t fucking not, and very quickly I was scrolling past the brilliant essays just to see that next pussy, and I just couldn’t deal with what I was feeding into my brain, the dichotomy of wokeness and the attraction to lick, suck and fuck white male ass, because I was literally still licking the oppressor’s ass or worse still dreaming of licking the oppressor’s ass at the very same time as being fed the truth about the long history of his terrorism. I was basically saying to my phone screen, You can kill my body, you can tear me to pieces and you’ll get away with the whole damn lot but can I rim and fuck you first?
“It was so fucked up. So it all just had to go. But if I blame individual men for all or any of that, I can’t live. I wouldn’t be able to cope. I’d been seeing Owen for less than a year when all that happened. He didn’t know what was the matter with me. I actually almost came to the conclusion that I was never going to speak to a white man again as long as I lived, or at least not have sex with one. But how can that be? If I write a book, who’s gonna buy it? White people. If I try to borrow money from the bank, who’ gonna sanction it? White people. They have us by the fucking everything, never mind the balls.”
“Babes, I don’t even fuck white men outside my relationship any more. I don’t give them the satisfaction,” Jean-Alain says as he parks the Evoque somewhere with a pub on the corner and a market on. Several pubescent boys see Jesse and visibly scowl. They cross the road, and Jesse stares down at his own feet. He catches the word “Dudley” on a drain cover. Better still, it says dudley & dowell ltd cradley heath staffs. Made up the road from where he was born. Cradley Heath, which for a couple of hundred years made sixty-pound chain links for the world’s ship anchors (and much smaller ones to bind slaves). How he missed it. The Black Country. Home.
* * *
—
Owen and Jesse walked back to their flat after the picnic and Owen opened a bottle of red wine. They talked about everything Jesse remembered, everything he had ever been told or had been curious about not having being told. Owen had to stop him from ringing up his parents and screaming. The fact that Robert died of AIDS, and was still alive in at least 1990; perhaps Thurston had met him at that group show in ’91. It was staggering for him to think that he had been alive for at least eight years while this man—the man Jesse was now giving himself the option to believe was his father, because why not! and how cool!—was living in London painting nude portraits of himself with flowers.
He tried googling him. He freaked out to find Robert Alonso Twitter handles and Robert Alonso Facebook profiles but they were all white Latin American or Spanish and nothing to do with the Robert Alonso mentioned twice in exhibition catalogues from around 1990 that had been scanned as PDFs and weren’t hyperlinked to anything. Images, predictably, brought up nothing at all. He texted Thurston—without telling him why because it would sound so far-fetched—to ask if he could have another look at the painting. Where was the rest of his work? Conroy might know, or at least be able to find out.
He kept saying to himself, I have a dad and he was a painter I have a dad and he was gay or bi I have a dad who was still alive in the early nineties I have a dad and his name was Robert and he had eyes just like mine I have a dad. He had been given no explanation for how his father had died, as his mother had claimed he had, in 1984, when Jesse was two, or of why she had failed to put his name on the birth certificate. Perhaps it had been just a one-night stand. Artists are often itinerant; perhaps she hadn’t been able to find him. He imagined her going to take an HIV test, despite the fact that Jesse would’ve been conceived in the summer of ’81, earlier than the first diagnosed case of HIV in Britain.
He took several forgotten books down from the shelves at home and buried himself in them. Rotimi Fani-Kayode and Alex Hirst; By the Rivers of Birminam by Vanley Burke; Black Britain—A Photographic History, with an introduction by Paul Gilroy. He watched Horace Ové’s Pressure on the BFI Player before bed. He filled his mind with pictures of tall, gangly men in skinny flares and Afros under flat caps, as Robert Alonso might have looked in the seventies, and the naked or leather-clad bodies of dark-skinned black homosexuals in the eighties. Owen warned Jesse against getting too excited about an unconfirmed attachment to somebody so long gone. But he was my dad, Jesse reminded him. My name is Jesse Alonso. He imagined that name on the cover of a book.
He realises all too quickly that he’s the only black person among the crowds at the market, his only company being a couple of wistful, straw-chewing Negro slave ornaments, a framed photograph of a grinning minstrel in blackface playing a banjo, and several golliwogs. Political correctness has not reached this part of the country. Wokeness is a century away. He wonders about the diversity programmes that increasingly fill every bronchiole of London life but that would be pointless here because there are no people of colour, so people do not get taught—and do not expect to be pulled up on—why it is so offensive, and triggering, like a swastika to a Jew, for black people to be confronted with a giant big-red-lips-white-teeth golliwog sitting on the centre of a mantelpiece.
He wonders what would happen if he tried to steal something, as several times he approaches stalls to pick up an object to examine it, only for the stall-holder to turn his back. His skin burns under the glare of a thousand pairs of eyes that drop away from him as soon as he locates them; people stare, but don’t want to be caught doing so in case they might be accused of being racist. They glance at his brown legs and suppress laughs. Haughty, dignified, white gay male couples sitting outside cafés in the sun with their arms folded, looking as if butter wouldn’t melt, do stare at him, blatantly, as if to say, Seriously, what are you doing here, city nigger? We came here to get away from the likes of you. Then they realise he’s with Jean-Alain, the hairy bubble-butt muscle-bear fantasy they anaemically tried and failed with on Scruff because he only likes eight inches or bigger, and Jesse’s the one left grinning.
Black people appear in the English countryside on TV, on the national news, either as criminals, sportspeople or readers. Jesse wonders whether they might think the BBC News is overrun by blacks and Muslims, so overr
epresented are they compared to the world they know. Each man, woman and child who walks past him sets off another schoolboy taunt in his head. It gets to feel like he can’t look anyone in the eye, even when he orders a coffee from the organic food store Jean-Alain is rooting around in the back of. He waits outside until it’s ready. He doesn’t want to have to deal with people’s individual responses. He doesn’t want to have to ask himself why one person flinches and another refuses to look, while another is being too polite. His legs are the same colour as his face, and he does not have a physical disability. He doesn’t want to scare anyone. He doesn’t want to be pressed against or follow someone who might think he’ll try to steal from or rape them. In Brixton, he crosses the street, or at least makes himself obvious by pretending to talk on the phone, just so that he doesn’t come across as attempting to creep up on people, especially women, at night, when he happens to be walking in the same direction, a couple of seconds behind. He feels like an escapee in plain sight, waiting to be trapped. There’s little he can do in a marketplace. He hears a snatch of conversation between two women walking past—They’re everywhere, now, aren’t they—Yeah, I thought that, and wonders whether they’re talking about him.
The barista calls out, Flat white and Americano for Jesse. He collects and mutters a thank you, eyes down like he’s being questioned by the police.
* * *
—
Everyone turns up impolitely early or on time. Jean-Alain, in a breast-baring unbuttoned short-sleeve shirt and ass-hugging white trousers, has left the kitchen momentarily to introduce Owen and Jesse to Father Alexander Merrick-Shaw and his Canadian husband Patrick, who look almost identical, with gym-toned bodies, perfectly groomed yin/yang beards, double-breasted tailored suits and loafers without socks; “Please, call me Alex!” is about twenty years the senior.
Quickly behind them Jean-Alain introduces Jesse to the Tory peer and Brexiteer Clive, Lord Groombridge. Jesse recognises him immediately, and hopes to God, with a rising panic, that the recognition is not mutual. He’d know that floppy side-parting and those golden-grey caterpillar eyebrows anywhere, and was sure the rather leering stare and sweaty lingering handshake, that felt like putting his hand into a boxing glove someone else has just vacated, would lead to an alarming change of facial expression, but Clive maintained a lofty sheen of ignorance (which was perhaps even creepier). He imagines Clive’s wife, Lady Pamela, possibly the poshest-looking woman he has ever met, would destroy him if she found out. A nimble sixty, with warm brown hair and full make-up, she’s wearing a jade-green tailored satin dress with a patent crocodile-leather Delvaux clutch under her arm, and enough jewellery to bring on back trouble. The soles of her stilettos are as red as her lips. She stares blankly into his eyes, smiles and firmly shakes his hand, quickly moving on to Owen—who insists they’ve met before but she doesn’t remember—as if she were there for twenty minutes to cut a ribbon.
While Owen talks to Father Alex and Patrick, Jesse sneaks himself back into the airy coolness of the kitchen, a blue-white grid of lines, right angles and consistent panel gaps that serve to exaggerate further the male-Kardashian curves of its inhabitant. Jean-Alain pops a garlic sourdough crouton with anchovy and Roquefort straight into Jesse’s mouth, encouraging him to suck his finger and thumb; the sourdough is pleasingly crunchy and soft, almost chewy.
“I really enjoyed our little swim,” he says.
The water had been freezing cold at the start but they got used to it. There were other people there so they did wear trunks. They splashed about and wrestled, bit each other, kissed in violent little dabs. Jean-Alain is a man of great physical strength, and Jesse is sure he is quite a handful for his tops. He had the audacity to cup Jesse’s dick, hard even in the cold, struggling in the seersucker swim shorts, under the water. Mmm, nice, he said. Naughty, Jesse said, grabbing handfuls of his ass, finding him with a finger. A family turned up and it was time for them to go. Jesse wonders if Nick and Owen are aware of the flirting. He thinks they probably are, but that it is probably par for the course with Jean-Alain, in particular, and Nick knows all about Jesse’s promiscuous past.
They drove back from the pond with the windows down, blazing a playlist on Jean-Alain’s iPhone called “Black Girl Pop.” Timbaland’s drums had never sounded slicker. Wearing their shades, they clicked their fingers and flicked their necks to Missy Elliot and Da Brat’s “Sock It 2 Me,” pretending they were in the music video fighting belligerent robots on a faraway planet. They sang along to Brandy & Monica’s “The Boy Is Mine,” word-for-word; Jean-Alain began singing Brandy’s role in her octave, so Jesse had to test himself singing Monica’s in hers, going into falsetto too early and having to stay there. The quality and power of Jean-Alain’s voice surprised him; when he asked, he told Jesse that he’d been in choirs in his youth and had been encouraged to train as a countertenor, but his then-chronic shyness prevented him. Jesse remembered experiencing the same with school bullies picking on him for playing the trombone.
They returned to find Nick and Owen still holed up in the study, only emerging to quickly shower before dinner. With the door open, Jesse saw an empty cafetière, empty wine glasses, a plate with the remnants of biscuits, a pile of papers and a stack of other writers’ collections, reminding him of the still lifes on the walls up the stairs. Owen told him the meeting went well, that Nick loved the new poems. Now that he’s got that load off his shoulders, he’s emptying his glass quicker than it can be filled.
* * *
—
Jesse heads out with a tray, and follows it, once empty, with the champagne to top everyone up.
“Never not working,” quips Nick, who, as a host, is doing nothing more physical than watching the barbecuing hake.
The alacrity with which Jesse finds himself taking up a servile role frustrates him. He says, I’m used to it, when Patrick compliments him on his style of champagne pouring, and smiles uncertainly when Alex and Lady Pamela size him up with admiration, as he emerges with the second tray of canapés flat on his left palm. Yet he laughs off any suggestions to the negative when Jean-Alain, perhaps spotting a minuscule eye-roll, asks him if he’s sure he doesn’t mind helping. He throws his lips at Jesse and plants five big smackers on his cheek. Extra nibbles for you, he says. He desperately wants to tell Jean-Alain about his history with Lord Groombridge, but feels, for the sake of the evening, that he’ll have to keep his mouth shut, difficult when so many varied provocations are making it so slippery wet.
Jean-Alain sits the party down in the air-conditioned dining room; Jesse has not seen this much polished silver, on the table and in the backlit cabinets lining the burgundy William Morris–covered walls, since he last visited the V&A. He’s next to Lady Pamela; Nick, at the head of the table; and opposite Lord Groombridge. Nightmare.
“We’ll swap before dessert,” Jean-Alain reassures.
The first platters go down—a warm courgette salad with pomegranate, Lebanese tomatoes, radish, cucumber, coriander, molasses, chilli and zahtar, and warm hunks of homemade baguette.
“Doesn’t it look delicious!” says Lady Pamela, talking to Jesse for the first time.
“It really does,” he says. “By the way,” he gestures, so that she’s aware of the bit of parsley stuck to a top tooth, which she removes with the tip of a varnished nail.
“Gone?”
“Yes.”
“Should come with a warning, haha,” she says. Everything she does and says is accompanied by a monied laugh, as she shakes her expensively blow-dried hair back from her face. “Ooh, red, please, haha.”
Nick’s going around pouring the wine. “White, or red?” he says, at Jesse’s shoulder, a little too firmly, as if in resentment at serving someone he should be being served by.
“I’ll start with some white, please.” Nick pours the 2012 Hermitage Blanc splashing into Jesse’s glass. “I’ve never tried a white Côte du
Rhône before,” he says, trying to impress, but Nick moves on to Clive without responding.
The dining room is a-murmur with the mmms, oohs and continued chatter of eight salivating mouths, and the tinkles and scrapes of silver on porcelain. Jesse is experiencing something quite different, with Lord Groombridge sitting right opposite, discussing the inner machinations of the House of Lords post-referendum. Jesse might have fun with the red-top press if he was still broke, but then again, if he was still broke, he wouldn’t be attending a dinner party sitting in a medieval throne-chair.
He’s dared to look Lord Groombridge squarely in the eye. Nothing. Perhaps it’s just an act, one that counts on him being just as secretive about his past as Lord Groombridge is about his. Perhaps it’s a function of upper-class white male arrogance that he doesn’t in a million years think Jesse will have the guts to open his mouth and talk. He’s stood with his back to the wall and his hands clasped in front of his dick in so many private dining situations before, as a waiter, while important people have been very indiscreet in front of him. Discretion is a part of both of the careers that have defined him, but he finds it outrageous that people will in front of him discuss damaging personal and political gossip, on the assumption that he, as a server, will not be intelligent or literate enough to do anything with that information.