Taiwo removes the leash and Delphine scrambles into the house, along the hallway, into the kitchen and out into the garden. Thomas sits sprawled beneath the parasol in shirt-sleeves and jeans, poleaxed by the heat. The contrast between his skin and his shirt makes the shirt appear brilliant white.
‘Jus’ catching my breath,’ Thomas calls. He touches Delphine on the head, just once, then wipes his fingers on the lawn. ‘Come and sit down and drink something before you pass out.’
They all gather beneath the parasol except for Delphine who investigates the periphery of the garden and sniffs around the barbecue area.
‘Raymond, why you carry your raincoat in this weather? Heh?’ Thomas asks. ‘You English, you always hoping for rain.’
‘Well, actually …’
‘Rain wouldn’t be a bad thing today,’ Taiwo cuts in. ‘I for one hope we get some soon. Poor Delphi – she didn’t even have a drink before we left.’
‘Don’t get up,’ Thomas says. ‘I got to turn the food. May as well kill two birds.’ He stands, stooping slightly so as not to bump his head against the parasol, and goes into the house for Delphine’s water. At seventy-three he is younger than Raymond by two years, older than ‘the girls’ by three. He places Delphine’s water bowl outside the kitchen door and lopes to the other end of the garden to turn the meat. ‘It’s very slow,’ he says, sitting down again, sighing. ‘Will be ages till it’s ready.’ He casts a cool eye towards Delphine at her water bowl. ‘She’s not a bad bitch, you know.’
Taiwo flinches.
‘Well behaved.’ Thomas again.
‘Raymond said you went to the pub by yourself,’ Kehinde says, drawing attention away from her husband. ‘All the way to the West End?’
‘Yes, that’s right. Yesterday evening.’ Taiwo shrugs. ‘It was nothing really.’
‘It was a daft thing to do is what it was,’ Raymond says.
‘You go all by yourself?’ Thomas asks. ‘Why you want to do a thing like that?’
‘Exactly what I said,’ Raymond continues. ‘We went to the same pub in Soho several weeks ago, after some shopping. Only, there were two of us then. Taiwo discovered that there were lots of couples and groups. Only one or two people on their own.’
‘And they were men,’ Taiwo says. ‘We didn’t see any women. Not by themselves, anyway.’
‘That’s how the trouble began,’ Raymond says. ‘I said, “Why would a woman want to sit by herself in a place like that?’’’
‘An older woman,’ Taiwo adds. ‘A granny.’
‘And we had an argument about why that should be. I said it would never happen, a woman of a certain age sitting by herself in a pub. Only with a chap. Next thing I know, Tai’s announcing that she’s off to town. Said she’d see me later. I really didn’t know what to think.’
‘She could have met someone,’ her sister giggles. ‘Then where would you be, Raymond? Hmm?’
‘I told you not to go, didn’t I?’ Raymond says, staring at the green plastic surface of the garden table.
‘I just wanted to sit there for a while, that’s all,’ Taiwo says. ‘Just for a few minutes. It seemed straightforward when we were there before, but actually sitting on my own, well, I couldn’t relax. People kept looking at me as if they had never seen an old woman before. Or a black woman. Or both. I wanted to be anonymous. In the end I was glad to leave.’
‘It was a daft thing to do!’ Raymond exclaims. He stands and takes several faltering steps towards the rhododendrons, and sifts the mulch for something to throw. ‘Delphi!’ He hurls a small piece of bark to the opposite side of the garden. Delphine watches its progress and takes a few steps and looks to Raymond again, puzzled. She turns and resumes her explorations.
‘Come and sit, Raymond,’ Taiwo says. ‘You’re going to get sunstroke standing there.’
Raymond retrieves the bark and throws it, calling Delphine again, trying to rouse her interest one more time. But she only meanders towards it, discovering other smells on the way. She sniffs the bark and carries it towards another part of the garden before discarding it. Raymond gives up and returns to the shade of the parasol.
‘So, anyway, I decided to take the bus,’ Taiwo is saying. ‘You’ll never guess what I saw as I was going over the Thames.’ She looks straight at her sister.
‘The royal yacht?’ This is Thomas. ‘The Britannica?’
‘Eh? No, I mean on the bus. Who.’
‘The Britannia, Thomas,’ Kehinde says. ‘Anyway, it’s out of service, isn’t it?’
‘Someone on the bus?’ Raymond asks. ‘Tai, please don’t keep us in suspense. We’ll never guess.’
‘Oh, you’re no fun, you,’ she says. ‘Well, can you guess?’ She looks at her sister again.
‘Um … no, I don’t think so. You know I’m no good at guessing games.’
‘Oh, well … I saw someone who looked exactly like Idowu,’ she says. ‘The spitting image.’
‘You didn’t tell me that,’ Raymond huffs. ‘You never tell me anything.’
‘Oh my!’ Kehinde says. ‘What did he look like? Did you talk to him?’
‘I said he looked like him. It wasn’t him, though. And no, we didn’t talk. He didn’t even ask for my ticket – he was the bus conductor, this man.’ Her eyes flit towards Raymond, then away, to the end of the lawn.
‘How exciting,’ Kehinde says. ‘I wish I’d been there. I would have talked to him. Maybe he’s trying to reach you. Do you think he’s trying to tell you something? I’ve heard of things like that. You see someone – there is a powerful resemblance. But only for you. And a moment later it’s gone; they look like they’re the person they’re supposed to be again.’
‘Stop it,’ Taiwo says, but without force. ‘It was just someone who looked like him, that’s all. I wish I hadn’t mentioned it now. He just looked, for a moment … It doesn’t matter. It wasn’t him.’
‘How could it be him?’ Raymond snaps. He is still staring at the table top, not looking at anyone, his face set. His fingers are doing a frenetic jig, but he does not notice this.
‘Raymond?’ Taiwo says. ‘Raymond, dear?’
There is a silence and no one looks at anyone else. Raymond rises and moves towards the barbecue. Delphine scampers ahead of him, anticipating his destination.
The two sisters and Thomas remain beneath the parasol. Raymond drags his left leg, moving slow, then fast. He hears the women laugh at something Thomas has said, and then Kehinde stands and calls, ‘Sit Raymond! Come and sit!’ as if she is talking to the terrier. ‘Let Thomas help you with that!’
But Raymond does not listen and Thomas fails to rise. Delphine watches eagerly as the sausages are inspected and the chicken drumsticks are forked onto a wide ceramic dish. Taiwo keeps glancing up to see what her husband is doing, before being drawn back into the conversation. The air is thick with heat and only occasionally does a light breeze shift the smoke from the barbecue across the neighbour’s lawn.
‘Mrs Arkwright, she talks to her husband all day long,’ Kehinde is saying. ‘As if he is right there next to her. Talking about all sorts. As if he never left.’
‘You think Mrs Arkwright see her husband?’ Thomas snorts. ‘Mad old witch with her cats, talking her head off to no one. She crazy, that’s all.’
A wasp circles the plate of food. Raymond tries to swat it and misses and brings down the spatula hard against the side of the dish. It flips into the air and the drumsticks sprawl across the concrete slabs. When the plate smashes, Taiwo screams.
Delphine gawks at the scattered chicken. She sits, then stands again and yelps, not knowing whether to lunge or remain at an obedient distance.
‘Sorry about the plate,’ Raymond says, stooping to gather
the broken crockery. He does not kneel because he knows he will not be able to stand up again easily.
‘Don’t worry, Raymond,’ Kehinde says, picking up the pieces, storing them in the cup of her hand.
‘Chicken just need rinsing
,’ Thomas says. ‘Will be good as new.’
‘Raymond, come in and wash your hands and let’s sit down,’ Taiwo says. ‘You’ll hurt your back bending like that. Please. Please leave it.’
He straightens and sighs and is still for a moment. Then he follows his wife into the house.
‘I’ve made an awful mess of things, haven’t I?’ he says, rubbing his soapy fingers under the cold kitchen tap.
‘Nonsense dear. You were only frightened by the wasp. I would have been much worse, you know that. Let’s just sit and relax and let Kiki and Tom look after us.’ She looks at him. ‘I don’t know what you’re so angry about. He was my brother, not yours.’
‘What do you mean? No. No, it wasn’t that.’ He dries his hands on the tea towel she is holding out for him. He leans his hands against the edge of the sink and straightens his arms by pushing out. A line of ants trails along the window sill and down the wall beside the door frame. ‘It wasn’t … Anything could have happened, Tai. I waited two and a half hours, not knowing, thinking the worst – that you were lost or that you’d fallen or someone had said something to you. Something unkind.’
She wonders if he is referring to the colour of her skin, but she does not say anything.
‘I didn’t know, that’s all, and it made me panic, like I panicked with the wasp out there. I’m just a fool, I know. Now I’ve made a mess of the lunch.’
‘Oh, Raymond. Stop saying that. You haven’t made a mess of anything. Kehinde’s second-hand plate broke, the chicken got a bit of dirt on it. We’re both worriers, you and me. We’re never going to change, let’s face it. Let’s have some lunch before Thomas finishes it, hmm?’
They eat the sausages and chicken and salad. Taiwo strips two drumsticks and feeds Delphine who sits blinking at them. There is lemon drizzle cake for dessert, but they are too full and only pick at it.
‘So when is your next trip to town?’ Thomas chuckles.
‘Next time my sister wants to take off like that, you let me know, Raymond. You hear? I’ll go with her and we can have an adventure.’
They laugh and Delphine looks from one face to another, and barks until Raymond scolds her. Thomas stands and moves his chair closer to Raymond’s in order to chase the fleeing shade.
‘There was someone else,’ Taiwo says. ‘I wasn’t going to tell you, but … I keep thinking about it. It won’t go away.’ She looks at her husband.
‘Someone else?’ her sister says.
‘Yes. There was a woman. She was on her own, too. Another woman. Young. She was very well dressed. Nails nicely done, bangles on both wrists.’ Taiwo holds out her arms to illustrate. ‘And a necklace – not showy, but you could tell it wasn’t cheap … Beads. Very neat. And a lovely linen dress, in lilac. A little tint of red in the hair. Not too much, though. You know, like Patricia’s daughter? Very smart. But there she was, sitting on her own near the door with a glass of something on the table. Could have been water. Could have been gin for all I know. Well, I arrived there. I smiled, but she didn’t smile back.’ She stops and looks down at Delphine who is gazing up at her.
‘What is it, dear?’ Raymond asks. ‘Did something happen?’
‘Well, yes and no. This woman … she seemed to be looking for someone. At first I wasn’t sure. She kept checking her watch, twisting it around her wrist. The bangles were making this noise; they must have been made of wood, or I don’t know. Not metal. When a man came in she would ask, “Didier?” or “Are you Didier?” She didn’t seem to know this man she was looking for. I thought, maybe she was waiting for someone – that they had agreed to meet for the evening – you know, when they don’t know each other?’
‘Blind date?’ Thomas suggests.
‘Yes, that’s it,’ Taiwo says. ‘But later I noticed she was asking all of the men who came in, young or old, whether they were in a couple, in a group, on their own. It didn’t seem to matter. Even when someone went out and came back again, she would ask. She would ask him again. Well, that’s when I knew something was wrong.’ She shakes her head and stares at the table as Raymond had done. ‘She didn’t care whether people were laughing at her – and some of them were, some boys. I couldn’t think of them as men. Well, I had to look away. She seemed so lost, this woman. I began to be afraid.’
Delphine moves away from the table to lie in the shade by the kitchen door. She has discovered an old tennis ball and is chewing it vigorously.
‘But what were you afraid of?’ Raymond asks.
‘Oh, I don’t know,’ Taiwo says. She picks at the sleeve of her yellow blouse, removing imaginary lint. ‘It seemed all wrong. I don’t know. She seemed so adrift there. I couldn’t imagine that she had anything else. I tried, but I couldn’t see it. I thought something had gone very wrong. Like Mrs Arkwright. Mrs Arkwright and her husband. I had this feeling that we … that woman, me, the boys who had drunk too much, everyone talking and laughing, drinking. Everyone. We were all alone.’ She throws up her hands. ‘I’m not explaining it well, I know. It seemed clear to me then, very suddenly. Now I don’t know what I was thinking.’ She looks up – the sky is so blue she winces – then back to the table top. ‘I only hope that he has peace and comfort wherever he is – our brother. I hope he is not alone.’ She shrugs and manoeuvres a pinch of cake to her mouth and savours the lemon zest.
‘What a dreary evening you must have had,’ Kehinde says. ‘I thought you were going to say you’d met someone. A man. Now, that would have been exciting.’
Taiwo looks at her sister, her twin, and smiles. ‘You too will never change.’ She wipes the cake crumbs from the tips of her fingers and reaches under the table for her husband’s hand.
MRS MAHMOOD
ISOBEL AND I live above the route of an underground line. We hadn’t been told this before we moved in so it came as a shock the first time the 6.25 rumbled beneath our heads. Isobel thought it might be an earthquake. I knew exactly what it was. My heart sank. Now, sometimes I lie awake at night waiting for another train to pass so that I can fall asleep; I find it comforting somehow. The regularity, the mild vibrations, the dim, distant thrum of carriages carrying other people elsewhere. I couldn’t live in a quiet place now. My tolerance for tranquillity has gone.
In the sports shop where I work it’s noisy too; it can quite often seem overwhelming. We are not large area-wise but we have a high concentration of stock. Also, being near the university is a boon during term time. It gets busy, and I prefer that to sparse custom.
What happened the other week should not have come as a surprise. Deidra was serving on the cash till. I was balanced on a ladder, rehanging the tracksuit bottoms, smoothing them down where people had thrown them back haphazardly. Cedric was serving a boy of about thirteen, helping him choose a pair of running shoes. Nike. Size nine.
I shifted the ladder to another section of the shop. I think a clean, immaculate appearance is the essence of a caring, responsible enterprise. It sends out a message beyond the doors: Experience and Understanding you will find here. That’s what I believe in. Understanding. It’s what I strive for.
They do not like me doing this, the other staff, the rinse and interference of it. I think they would prefer me out the back taking care of the accounts, harrying suppliers, rushing in new stock. I don’t know this for certain. I am the manager, I should have mentioned. Perhaps it puts them on edge, as if I am constantly watching, scrutinising. But that isn’t my priority. I’m just particular about order, things running in straight lines. Dust doing a disappearing act. Perhaps I get this from my wife.
I wasn’t paying particular attention to what was happening in the shop. I tend to run on automatic pilot when I’m doing the mundane tasks. That way I can free my mind to concentrate on improvements, long-term plans. The boy with the trainers was wandering around the shop floor, testing out the shoes. He walked a few metres, stopped, then reached up on his toes. Sometimes I’ll look at the young, wonder whether they are headed for great things. This one seemed to soar l
ike a gazelle, he did not waver on his feet. Then he crouched down low, stood up again and made his way back to the chair. I like that in a customer, someone who really knows what he wants. Someone who can pick out strengths and weaknesses and isn’t afraid to do so in the setting of the shop. A lot of people are quite shy. They’ll wear a pair of shoes, stand up, sit down, then immediately say, Yes, I’ll take these. They might look flushed, a little sheepish, as if they have caused an inconvenience, put out a member of staff. Often I will want to say something to them. Ask them to walk around a bit, deliberate. But I don’t say anything of course; it’s money in the till after all.
Cedric asked the boy some questions, went through the usual routine about the feel of them, what they might be used for. The boy looked down at the shoes and scrunched his feet around. He wore a slight grimace as if he couldn’t quite make up his mind. There was another boy then. I don’t know where he appeared from, but he had been inside the shop all along. He called for assistance and Cedric moved to help him. It occurred to me to step down from the ladder, to assist, but then I did not.
Without a moment’s hesitation, the boy in the trainers walked out of the shop. He did not run or look behind himself or suddenly tear off down the street. He walked away as if he had been wearing his own shoes, walking out of his own house. I watched impassively. By the time I had reached the door, he was some way down Tottenham Court Road. I started to run. He glanced around, noticed me, and then he began to sprint. There were pedestrians about, tackling their Christmas shopping. I like this time of day because people seem less brusque; they are more relaxed. The hard, brittle city edge that coats the beginning of the day has worn down.
Perhaps it is odd to see an older man puffing down a street. The clumsy sweep and sway of it, the heavy body bounding along. All I know is that very few people were looking at the boy, but all eyes managed to fix on me. Paths cleared. People stood back. It may have been an alarming sight.
*
When I was seventeen, I took a coach to Hastings. There were thirty of us on board. There was an athletics meeting between four or five schools and we all knew this occasion was important. Gold medals in any event might lead to county representation. Our athletics instructor, Mr Mayers, paced the coach, dispensing pep talks, trying to steel our morale.
A Life Elsewhere Page 18