by Jackie Kay
Colman never reads a book or a paper on the tube. He likes to keep his wits about him in case somebody tries to do him over. This is a mean city. You’ve got to watch out. London is not the London it used to be. It’s all broken up. It’s defeated. It stinks. He’s relieved to be cutting loose. Going somewhere on a train. Actually escaping. He is getting the fuck out of it. He feels something in him lift and float, something light and fluffy. Time is a dandelion clock now. He can blow each hour off and make the time up.
The big departure board at Euston blinks down at him with its frightening list of the wrong cities and times. He stares at it panicking. It’s a while since he did this, get on a train on his own. He stares at the wrong cities, sweating. Where is Glasgow? Why isn’t Glasgow up? He realizes he’s looking at arrivals and not departures. Asshole. There it is. Glasgow 11.15. But no platform. Why isn’t the platform number up? Who can he ask? He’ll just need to stand watching the big black board till the number appears. Fuck. The number will appear at the last fucking minute and every anxious fucker will be rushing down the platform, banging their trolleys into the backs of others’ legs and struggling with that tight gang of trolleys to get their quid back. Carlisle. The train is stopping at Carlisle. That’s on the border. ‘The minute I hit Carlisle, I know I’m in my own country. My heart starts beating the minute I cross the border,’ his father would say. Well, why don’t you go back and live there then? Colman would ask him. He’d just shake his head. Not enough work.
Not enough work, my ass. His mother. That’s why he didn’t live there. His mother was alive.
His mother is alive. Does Josephine Moore’s mother know that her daughter is dead? Will he have to tell her? Shit. He rushes and buys a tuna sandwich and a diet Coke. Still no platform number. He scoots into Menzies, gets one of those puzzle books where you find words, diagonally, horizontally, vertically. They make him feel clever; he can’t do crosswords. He hates crossword people: conceited bastards, always humming to themselves, thinking, thinking with all their thoughts showing on their face, sitting with their sharp pencils or their fancy pens, sly, working out their cryptic clues. Saying ‘Ah’ ostentatiously and triumphantly filling in another anagram. His mother can do crosswords. His mother has tried to teach him the secret of crosswords on and off through the years. His mother would have loved that kind of son; the kind of son who would have listened, got it and in no time been filling in his own puzzles in the Guardian.
Colman moves about in the queue from foot to foot. Impatient to get going. What is it about travelling that makes him so anxious? He sees other people looking harassed and wound up, shouting at each other. Over the top. Everybody’s over the top, except for a few business wankers with suits who will probably sit in the first class, cool as fucking cucumbers. Well, he’s cool really. He’s got his ticket, his sandwich, his reservation. Everything’s cool. No problem. No problem.
He strides down the platform, longer steps than usual, easily overtaking all the old people and the women with children. He is looking for H. He can never understand the order of this carriage business. It doesn’t seem to be straightforwardly alphabetical. He has to walk practically the length of the train before he sees the hopeful H. He hopes someone else is not going to be sitting in his seat. He’s had that before and he’s always lost the battle of the train seat. Even though his ticket has said the same thing. He’s always lost. Got himself into a fight with the railman, the other customer, the other fuckers on the train staring. It is not easy to travel in this country. Black guys like him. People always think they are going to be wrong or they’ve done something wrong or they’re lying, or about to lie, or stealing or about to steal. It’s no fucking joke just trying to get about the place with people thinking bad things about you all the time. He knows they think these things. They don’t fool him with their surprise and pretence. It’s written all over their faces. They are wary of him, scared of him, uptight. How many times has he had to say, Hands up, it’s OK. I don’t bite. He doesn’t want the hassle of it, someone else sitting on his seat and treating him as if he had no fucking right to a seat anyway. Out of the window another train pulls out slowly giving the impression that his own train is already moving. The sensation scares him. He panics, wondering if he is on the right train, or if he should be sitting across the line in that other train with those people that are pulling out. When he hears the word ‘Glasgow’ he relaxes. Should he eat his sandwich now? His stomach is empty and weird. He keeps forgetting to eat. Since his father died, his eating is all over the place. His stomach has started to make weird noises every time he does remember to eat, noises that remind him of science experiments he did at school, bubbling and garbling. He keeps having to fart or burp to get any relief. Just as well nobody is sitting next to him. He decides to open the sandwich at Milton Keynes.
How many years is it since he lived in Scotland? Twenty-five years? His father was always telling him: you are Scottish, you were born in Scotland and that makes you Scottish. But he doesn’t feel Scottish. He doesn’t speak with a Scottish accent. He can do a good one, like all children of Scottish parents, but it’s not him. What is him? This is what he’s been asking himself. It’s all the train’s fault: something about the way the land moves out of the window; about crossing a border; about seeing a cow’s tail spin round and round its arse to get the flies away. Why is he even on this train in the first place? He is going to find out about his father. That’s right, isn’t it? He’s going to meet the woman who is supposed to be dead. Find out about his father’s real life.
He looked real enough playing that horn in those smoky clubs; he looked real and unreal like a fantasy of himself. All jazz men are fantasies of themselves, reinventing the Counts and Dukes and Armstrongs, imitating them. Music was the one way of keeping the past alive, his father said. There’s more future in the past than there is in the future, he said. Black people and music. Black people and music; what would the world be without black people and music. Slave songs, work songs, gospel, blues, ragtime, jazz. (‘Rap?’ Colman would say. ‘What about rap?’ ‘No, that’s just a lot of rubbish,’ his father would say quite seriously. ‘A lot of shite. Rap isn’t music. Rap is crap. Where’s the story?’) The stories in the blues. All blues are stories. Our stories, his father said, our history. You can’t understand the history of slavery without knowing about the slave songs. Colman doesn’t feel as if he has a history. Doesn’t feel comfortable with mates of his that go on and on about Africa. It feels false to him, mates that get dressed up in African gear, wank on about being African with a fucking cockney accent, man. Back to Africa is just unreal as far as Colman is concerned. He’s never been to Africa, so how can he go back?
Where is he supposed to begin? Who is he meant to start talking to? Sophie Stones says she is going to find old school friends, neighbours. People come crawling out of the woodwork if you offer them a bit of dosh, she says. The thought of talking to anyone who knew his father when he was a girl makes Colman feel dizzy. Staring out the window, swallowing hard, his throat still sick and sore, seeing a black horse gallop along with the train and then disappear into the distance, Colman tries to imagine himself back in that place of his childhood, in Glasgow, walking down Accident Street, turning the corner. That sweet shop, the one where the weird sweet-shop man liked children too much, what was its name? He always gave you extra pokes. The thought of arriving at Glasgow Central fills him with excitement. He hadn’t reckoned on feeling this way. He hadn’t reckoned on feeling anything at all.
He can’t go through with it. He can’t go and talk to all these people who used to know his father. It’s not possible. It’s crazy. He’s crazy but he’s not that crazy. He’ll have to tell her. Just tell her. What can she do to him? She can’t make him do it. He’ll visit his father’s mother. He’s got to do that. He’s got to see her. See what she’s like. See if she actually looks anything like his father.
His father never talked much about having a white mother. Didn’t li
ke the subject. Know who you are and it doesn’t matter where your mother or father was from, he said. Did he? Did he really say that? How could he when he didn’t fucking know if he was a man or a woman? Black men need to be more gentle, his father would say. They could learn a lot from women. What a laugh. What a laugh he must have had to himself in bed at night. Chortling and choking. What a fucking scream. Colman likes talking about white people. He likes talking about black people and white people and how they do or do not get on. His father liked talking about the past. Colman said to him once, why are you always on about the past, old man? What’s Martin Luther King doing for you now? Is he going to help sell your new album? It incensed his father, talk like that. How can I have such a stupid son? What did I do to deserve you? All the black guys his father loved to talk about were American, black Americans. Black Yanks, Colman would say. You spend your whole time worshipping black Yanks: Martin Luther King, Louis Armstrong, Fats Waller, Count Basie, Duke Ellington, Miles Davis Black Yanks all of them. You are not American, are you? Colman grins to himself munching his tuna sandwich, remembering. I never said I was an American. What is the matter with you? No, that’s right, you’re Scottish, aren’t you? Proud to be Scottish. Why don’t you get a kilt and play your horn in a kilt? The jazz world would love that. And you know you are not allowed to wear anything under a kilt, don’t you. The Boogie Woogie Moody Men would have a brilliant time, peeking up your kilt.
He drifts off to the strange sleep of trains. Half of him is sleeping and dreaming about Scotland and the other half is shouting, Shut the fuck up! to some screaming kid who keeps saying over and over, ‘But I want that one there.’ And the mother’s voice saying again and again, ‘Ewan, I’m not going to tell you again.’ A man’s voice behind him says, ‘I’m telling you. If it wisnae fir me the place wid have been ransacked. They didnae know I wis there.’ And a woman somewhere down the train talks into a mobile phone, or rather shouts into a mobile phone. Mobile phone voice, ‘Hello, hello, I’m all on my ownio. Hello? Hello hello hello.’ Shut the fuck up, Colman says to himself, trying to get his dream to drown it all out. He is there at the very back of himself, bare knees, long shorts, running across some field, a big hay field on a farm.
The dream has slipped away completely. He checks for his father’s letter in his holdall, in the side pocket. He still hasn’t given it to Sophie Stones. He keeps pretending to have forgotten it. He looks at it again. ‘To be opened after my death.’ He wonders if he should open it now. If now is the moment. But he can’t. He puts it back in the zipped side pocket. At least two or three times a day, he checks to see that the letter is still there.
The black man is carrying two cups of tea and is swaying from side to side. Graceful. He doesn’t bang into anyone or trip over any foot. Colman watches him come along the corridor when suddenly he sees that it is his father. He starts to sweat. The coat is the same dark coat. The shirt. The shirt’s the same. He’s coming towards him. He’s smiling. Christ almighty, he’s smiling. Staring straight at Colman, swaying with the cups of tea from one side to another, coming towards him. Walking down the train with such dignity, such fine balance, his back straight, his eyes staring straight ahead, with neither kindness nor cruelty in them. Walking down the train as if that is all he does with his day, walk up and down the infinite train in this way, as if that is all he has been doing his whole life. Colman stares at the man in disbelief. The man passes him. Colman turns round to see where he is going. The man keeps walking.
Colman gets up to find the guy. He walks down the aisle, stumbling. He trips over some asshole’s foot and nearly goes flying. He can’t find the guy. Where’s he gone? He can’t see him. Maybe he’s in the john. It says occupied. Maybe he’s gone to hose off. Colman waits outside. But the one further down says occupied as well. Maybe he’s in that one. Just as Colman is about to go back to his seat, the man comes out the john. It is not his father. Of course it is not his fucking father. Now he’s up close, he doesn’t even look similar. Colman goes back to his seat. Walks right past it, turns, walks back again and finds it. Losing it, he says to himself. Spinning out. This is out of order. He gets out the puzzle book and finds DOUBLETAKE right away. Circles it. That’s better.
This morning Colman phoned Sammy. He wanted someone to keep an eye on his flat, but more than that he wanted to tell somebody he was going away. He always liked to tell somebody when he was going away. Sammy was surprised to hear his voice. ‘Cole, where are you at?’ Sammy said. Colman was not sure if it was his imagination or not, but Sammy sounded embarrassed, awkward. He told Sammy he was going to Scotland to do a book.
‘What kind of book?’
‘You’ll see. I’ll give you a signed copy when it’s done.’
‘Don’t do anything you won’t like in five years,’ Sammy said.
He gets his holdall down from the top quickly. Zips up his black anorak and gets off the train. Tells the taxi the name of the hotel and sits back staring at Glasgow to see if he remembers anything. But he doesn’t see anything he recognizes. Nothing. The buildings look the wrong colour. Sammy’s sentence rings in his ears: ‘Don’t do anything you won’t like in five years.’
HOUSE AND HOME
I always liked Sundays with Joss. Sundays with Joss at home, not travelling with the band. Sundays at home with me. We wake and fall back into sleep together several times before we get up. Each time we wake we smile kindly at each other, full of sleepy love. Our faces have the lines of dreams on them. Joss’s pillow is damp from dribbling in his sleep and this tiny pool of dampness makes me feel tender towards him. Sometimes I wake alone for a bit and lie watching him sleep. I love watching him sleep. His face often looks quite moody when he’s sleeping and it makes me laugh. He lies on his side facing me, one arm thrown back over his head, the other hand possessive on my hip. In his sleep he strokes my hip, the dip of it is his favourite place, the dip where my hip meets my waist. In his sleep he loves me terribly; he remembers me, whether he is conscious or not. He knows every part of my body. If I was sad, he would wake and ask me what the matter is. I drift off with him, back to sleep, another ten minutes, just another ten minutes.
I wake to Joss kissing me, lightly on my cheeks. His lips just brush my cheeks, patiently over and over again. His hands move up my body and across my chest. I stare at him. He has that look on his face. His eyes are very serious, intense, dark. He wants me. I know he wants me. He wants me so badly he will sulk if he doesn’t have me. I pretend I am not interested. It is late. We’ve slept for so long. We need to get up. Get up and get on with our day. We want to go for a long walk. Remember. A long walk. His breathing has changed. His breathing is fast. His breathing excites me. Come on, he’s saying. Come on. He’s pulling open my legs and moving down me. His fingers move first slowly then faster and harder deep, deep to the back of me. I feel myself being taken away. Transported to another time. Another place entirely. I am barely conscious any more of what is happening to me. I can hear my own noises through the blur. I don’t know if they are loud or soft noises. I can feel my mouth open to make them. I feel myself being turned around. He straddles me. Pushes himself into me. He pulls me back round again and kisses me, kisses me everywhere, muttering things to himself. He touches me firmly, getting faster and faster till I’m shaking with desire with the need to let go, to climb really high, right to the very very top and let go. I feel myself falling down, exhausted, tearful, exhilarated. I curl myself into him and he holds me, rocking me back and forth, telling me he loves me again and again. He is smiling. Full of himself. I am weak. I am totally and utterly loved.
I like Sundays. First the lovemaking, then the newspapers. Sometimes there’s an interview with Joss in one of the supplements; or a review of one of his gigs or new releases; or some gossip about the trio. I usually laugh heartily at whatever is written. Joss often gets bad-tempered about it, or too sensitive, or too conceited. But I go easy on him about this sort of thing on a Sunday, especially if he has just taken
me to our other world. Our secret world that is just his and mine. Nobody else’s, just his and mine.
We get up and Joss makes the breakfast. He is good at breakfasts, talented. We have perfectly scrambled eggs, not too hard and not too soft, creamy and yellow, toast, bacon, grilled tomatoes, black pudding (What’s a breakfast without some sheep’s blood? Joss says to make Colman squirm). Freshly ground coffee. Joss loves coffee. Loves the smell of coffee shops and choosing his own beans. Moroccan, Kenyan, medium roast, dark. Loves the description of the beans in the shop. Like personalities, he says and laughs. Comes home and grinds them in his newly bought grinder, that is his current favourite toy. Fresh coffee, hot milk, which he heats in the pan and then whisks till it is good and frothy. Freshly squeezed orange juice. More newspapers.
We never miss Sunday brunch if we are at home. ‘Sunday brunch!’ Joss always announces it, as if we were in a restaurant and he was shouting out the menu for his customers. ‘Joss Moody’s Sunday Brunch.’ Colman is rarely impressed. Joss sings to us as he puts each plate down on the table with a flourish. Da da da dah da da da dee da didi bum bum bum brup brup brup baaaaade dup dup. Scatting. Making it all up. If Colman is irritable he will shout, Stop it, Daddy, or latterly, Shut up, and Joss will start singing louder and louder, stamping his feet and moving the plates in time to his rhythm dancing across the kitchen floor. Just give me my breakfast, Colman will say. And I’ll look at Colman reprovingly. Why do you have to spoil everything? I’ll ask him. Your dad’s just having fun. What is the problem? Be nice.