Over two days I developed the photos and noticed a strange infiltration. The young woman I’d chased in Harlesden appeared in the background of some shots. I recognised the flurry of her long limbs, her rich dark skin and angular face. She was flicking a coin up behind a picture of a bald woman with a stud in her tongue like a small, silver nipple. Next to the dread-headed African man who sat by his stall in Dalston wearing an orange Fela Kuti shirt, she was naked but adorned in heavy, pink traditional jewellery. There were white markings on her face, a blackboard on which past and present were rewritten. Behind the blank-faced gypsy woman selling dead flowers in Brick Lane, she held the flowers and they were alive, becoming purple flames in her grasp. She looked directly at the camera, at me, as somebody on the fringes getting closer.
On Friday night I broke my sometime habit of watching film noir while slowly sipping Irish cream absorbed in the moody world of dark vices, intrigue and tortured loves. In one of my favourites Bogart and Bacall’s razor-sharp dialogue exchange and electric chemistry entirely transported me. I missed my days as a student, smoking weed, sitting cross-legged writing song lyrics and strumming my guitar, singing folk songs and stealing looks at inanimate objects as if they’d give feedback.
I’d checked TV listings earlier and Spike Lee’s She’s Gotta Have It would be coming on Channel 4 at 1am. It annoyed me that channels usually showed black interest films late into the night when nobody could watch them. I fought sleep, entering the hazy space between sleep and wakefulness. I spotted a stray feather from my pillow, grabbed it. I heard the hum of traffic from outside and cars running over conversations that limped into the night. By this time of night the foxes would be rummaging, the glow from their eyes rivalling the street lamps while they sent ahead prowls to cover more ground. I saw the woman walking through the photos, swapping backgrounds and settings as if it were a game, armed with the wits she’d honed in travel and the wet second tongue she used to pick locks and change the lines of things. I saw her reduced to a small, jagged entity in the corners of pictures, and the early arrival of wear and tear lines creating a white silence over her mouth.
At 1am I was still up and headed to my room. The “blue den” I called it. My crappy, old Alba TV had no antenna so I fashioned one using a hanger. It still produced semi-decent pictures. I’d left the window open earlier and the scent of smoke teased my nostrils. I went to close it and looked into my garden and those of some neighbours. In her garden, Mrs Harris stood over a short mountain of fire, a cigarette wedged in the corner of her mouth. Some of her hair was upright in white tufts. She was having a clear out, burning what looked like documents. Smoke twisted into the sky. I retreated back to avoid being spotted. For a few minutes, I watched flames lick and curl piles of paper in illicit, final kisses.
Cunning Man Die, Cunning Man Bury Am
Half a season passed. The Festival of Yam came and the Oba was bombarded with the best the farmers of Benin had produced that year. The unusual seeds they had planted in the palace garden bloomed into flowers with blue stained petals that covered the ground. The wives continued to bicker amongst themselves. And whenever Oba Odion came to visit Adesua in her chamber he remained uncomfortable, shooting ill-at-ease glances at the brass head as if it would attack like an enemy. The brass head however had seen the slow blossoming of Adesua. It had noticed her desires seeping through her skin, her need for adventure, her longing to hunt. Sometimes in the evening when the hum of Benin settled to a gentle murmur Adesua liked to wander, beginning at the forest, behind the blue garden and onto the weathered pathway that led to the Queens’ palace.
Then a worrying thing began to happen; Adesua would wake in the mornings to find the brass head rattling on the mantle. The first time it occurred she dismissed it, walked to its place and steadied it. But it continued like that over a few mornings as though shaking with anger. She reported it to the Oba who in turn told her she had an overactive imagination and wasn’t it time she adjusted properly? Instead of creating tales about a gift he was kind enough to give her, he warned her to learn from the other wives or she would lose his favour. It was not long before the Oba began to avoid coming to her quarters. She would see him walking out of Esezele’s door, rushing to Omotole or Ono’s chambers. Adesua struggled to know how to feel about the Oba’s rejection of her but there was small comfort in one thing. Filo was ignored too, and Adesua did not believe it was only because Filo had been unlucky during childbirth. There was a strange quality to Filo, pain so strong a pungent aroma emanated off her skin. You looked into her eyes and saw the shadow of things you couldn’t put a name to as she flitted about the kingdom injured but still breathing. In a way, this made Adesua warm to her.
It was a funny thing when a powerful man had more than one wife because the posturing never stopped. It increased even more when an opportunity for one to outshine the other arrived. Such a chance presented itself when the Oba suddenly became sick. His body burned with fever and he couldn’t hold food or water down. His stomach shrunk and his eyes sunk deeper into his head. He became bed-ridden and his medicine man was called upon to provide a concoction of healing herbs. The wives pounced, fussing over the Oba as if the illness was chronic. His fourth wife Ekere refused to leave his bedside for the first two nights till his sixth wife Remitan came and pushed her out, saying that the last thing a sick king needed was to be cared for by a wife struggling for good health who would only infect him with her feeble disposition. Ekere said that the last thing the Oba needed was a lying wife who would reassure him he would survive even if he were drawing his last breath. They bustled in and out, and continued to swap turns keeping vigils by his side. Remitan left and was replaced by Yewande who was shoved aside by Esezele, the oldest and first wife.
Omotole did not hurry to him immediately. She waited for him to improve, letting news of his progress filter through to her from the others before she deemed it safe enough to see him. After all, what use was a sick husband to her? And even the Oba noticed this despite his sorry state. Weak and scared he reached out a hand to her in relief as she had finally arrived to his aid, wiping his mouth and posturing the movements of a dutiful wife.
“What is the meaning of you only coming to see me now?” he asked.
“Oba, you know I’m not the first wife, so I have to give her respect as the eldest and wait till she saw you before coming. How would it look if I had openly ignored her position? I know you care about appearances.” She grabbed his hand and he said, “Omotole you are right, you are always right my dear.” She stayed there mopping his brow and cooing over his feverish body while confirming in her mind she was still at the forefront of his heart and desires.
Gifts
Gifts began to appear in my flat. I found a broken, pink beaded bracelet under my pillow. I kept it in my bedroom top drawer. On the kitchen counter an overly ripe plantain lay blackening, an audience of flies buzzing erratically about it. The bedroom mirror showed long, tapered handprints I didn’t recognise. A green fluffy towel in my bathroom was wet from having been handled. In the toilet, tiny drops of blood ran down the white bowl. I felt uneasy seeing these things, anxious. I ran to the bedroom to check my belongings and there was blood inside my trainers, in the heel area. I inspected my feet for cuts and bites I may have missed but there was nothing.
I padded back to the bathroom, flushed the blood down the toilet, and brushed my teeth. I glared at my reflection in the mirror in case she may have seen something but she only looked back at me wearing a perplexed expression. I pressed play on my answering machine and listened to messages reel off. There was one from Mervyn asking me to call back to check in. His deep voice filled the room, even from a machine. Another message came from Robinson Way debt collectors about an HSBC loan I’d been dodging paying back for years. A feeling of sickness crept up my throat.
In the kitchen I stuck my face under the tap, ran cold water to cool down. On the fridge a couple of holiday snaps from a trip to Greece tucked between stuck bottle
tops blinked at me. I noticed that I was missing from some of my pictures: the shot of me in a seafood restaurant next to large tanks of lobsters that threatened to smash through the glass and perch on tables. Another in the city square surrounded by brightly coloured sugar cube shaped houses with a large, grey fountain and birds swooping down to feed on light. On the boat after a day of island hopping, being helped off by a man holding a bottle of water, one by the old town wall where I’d popped my head through an opening. Only my head had disappeared and the opening was filled with a blurred, bright light.
I hadn’t been sleeping very well for a while, staying up late and I didn’t even know why. My nerves were frayed and my body clock had washed down the bath plughole; upright with its eyes open. My Doctor prescribed anti-depressants and anti-anxiety medication but I wasn’t sure they were doing much. I always swallowed the white tablets with trepidation. Looking like pit stops on my tongue, I sometimes saw tiny versions of myself resting on them to catch their breath. When I couldn’t sleep I watched films late into the night, surfed the net or cut out pictures from magazines to create odd random images on my collage board. A man entering a shark’s mouth, a baby’s head growing on a cactus, a dirty angel flying out of a fan.
The notion of an uninvited guest lingered. In my mind’s eye I saw her at the flower stall, in the photographs I’d taken. She appeared to be doing her long-limbed dance from a distance but each time she and the dance drew closer.
Queenie London 1970: London Nah Wah
After two months in England Queenie still hadn’t fully adapted. She missed her mother’s marauding smile. She caught it circling the sink taps in her room or hovering near cracks on the white ceiling. Sometimes it was the last thing she saw before falling asleep. She missed the sight of lone street vendors on hot tarmac roads, selling spicy rice and stew on broad, green leaves and warm balls of greasy akara. She longed for raucous house parties where there was always somebody new to meet. And the pleasure of bodies dancing so close you could smell intentions mingled with sweat.
She missed the markets. She often recalled the endless chatter and the lingering rich scents of fresh fish, sweet ripening fruits, people’s strong, healthy bodies. Markets in London were not the haggling, bustling markets of back home. Lagos markets fed off the heat. They were animals in their own right, with the heads being the upper halves of traders mid-custom and the tail-ends the backs of customers walking to stalls. Queenie now carried the unfamiliar sensation of the cold in her bones. It even changed her walk, instead of the practiced sashay she’d unleashed in Nigeria drawing admiring glances; she now walked hurriedly, body tucked in and braced with the cruel cold climate perpetually at her heels.
At times at night her room got damp, making her fear of catching flu very real. Mice had gnawed their way through floorboards making holes in her underwear the weight of a yawn. They screeched at each other in an abrasive language and repeatedly flew across the table as if they planned to topple it. In retaliation, Queenie threw anything she could grab quickly at the moving targets of sound. Usually weapons that had no impact: books, shoes, a purple hot water bottle. Sometimes, she saw herself caught in a mousetrap, giant mice hurling objects at her.
One evening she took a walk up Lavender Hill, an undulating stretch of road peppered with shops. She liked the odd, interesting stores; the retro sweets haven selling multi-coloured sins that became small planets on your tongue, the pink and white umbrella shaped treats in tall glass jars that made her think of sugar cane sticks. There was a typewriter shop with rare models in the display window, neatly arranged in rows of five on each side. She imagined the ribbons coming undone at night, pressed against the glass imprinting half formed sentences.
At Sal’s Café, an armpit of a place sporting chipped wooden tables, maroon walls were decorated with old film noir posters and the smell of coffee and hot chocolate intertwined. She saw men who worked construction slouched in their seats, dried bits of cement splattered on their jeans, faces bearing an unhealthy pallor. Broken shadows inched forward and sipped from their cups. Sal himself was a stocky Italian with thinning black hair and a tic in his face travelled through his features. He always wore a stained white apron over his clothes. She liked Sal’s because it was warm and cosy, and because occasionally the same drunken tramp would come in spouting poetry. He’d tell her she was beautiful, and eventually stumble out with a piece of cake in his hands. Sal’s became one of her havens; she often rushed in counting coins from fingers made crooked by the cold unintentionally blowing cloudy breaths in the paths of those she crossed.
She was on her way to Sal’s that day, when she caught the white handwritten sign in the Gift! charity shop window: Store Assistant Wanted. Stop by for details. She peered in, noticed racks of used clothing, stacks of crossword puzzles next to old videos, scuffed shoes dented from rough travels. Beautiful abstract paintings were propped up against mauve walls. Bookshelves teemed with paperbacks. Records, lampshades and china tableware all shared an area. A jewellery display cabinet was positioned beneath the cash register and in the window display sat a family of puppets.
Slouched and wide-eyed, the puppets looked as if they spoke to each other between the ringing of the cash register making up stories about the customers, where they’d come from and who they were buying gifts for. A slender, pink haired woman wearing blue-framed glasses emerged from a set of double doors with a poster of a naked woman entering a lamp. Next to the doors a white arrow read Staff Only underneath. The woman also carried a basket of scarves. Queenie pushed the shop door open gently and was greeted by an upbeat song on the radio about rockets. She smiled at the sole staff member who darted a quick, curious glance her way. She walked leisurely through, studying items that grabbed her attention picking up a few here and there.
“Looking for anything in particular?” the lady asked a warm, open expression on her face. She’d set the basket at her feet next to a rack of empty hangers and was efficiently slotting scarves into them. Queenie edged closer. “Actually, I’m here about the sign.”
The woman’s face crinkled in confusion. “The sign, what sign?”
“The position,” Queenie said, her accent suddenly sounding thicker to her own ears.
“Oh the job!” Realization dawned with a half laugh on the woman.
Sighing audibly, Queenie internally admonished herself for not stopping by after having prepared. “You are a charity?” she said with a tone of uncertainty that Ella the store manager found charming. As if she’d come in on a hunch and Ella liked the idea of Gift! delivering the unexpected.
“Yes, we’re a homeless charity. Do you like the shop?”
Queenie’s lips curved. “A lot, it’s like a contained mad market indoors.”
“I never thought of it that way but you’re right. That’s a good way of putting it!” Ella replied, already half way through emptying her basket. They were still the only two people in the shop and the song on the radio changed. A man was now singing about living in a missing train carriage with a bright-eyed girl in rough, urgent tones over heavy guitar riffs.
British people nah wah! Queenie thought, even their songs were strange.
“Sorry about earlier, sometimes there’s just too much going on in my head. Have you had any experience working in a shop?” Ella asked, glancing at her over a shoulder and admiring Queenie’s striking features.
“A little, back home I worked in our local tailor’s shop. I learn fast and I like people.”
“Well, liking people certainly helps in this job, in fact a lot of jobs I suspect!” Ella was intrigued by this warm young woman who seemed very present. Queenie walked towards the display window. “I love the family of puppets. You sold one?”
Ella followed suit, they stood together behind the items. The puppets leaned into each other.
Bending forward, Ella touched one. “They came in last week. Great aren’t they? No we sell them as a complete set.”
Tugging at her coat, Queenie decide
d that she’d get a warmer jacket as soon as she had more money. “One’s missing.”
“Shit!” Ella darted forward for a closer inspection. “How did you know that?”
Queenie shrugged as though it was nothing. “It’s a family and there’s only a little boy, usually there would be a girl too. And… they look as if they’re missing something.”
Brow furrowed, Ella touched the boy puppet in case he disappeared before her eyes. “God well spotted! Somebody must have pinched it.”
“Pinched? Who goes around pinching objects?”
“Sorry, pinched means stolen, some little thief helped themselves. We’ve had trouble with thieves for a while, another reason it would be good to have an extra pair of hands and eyes.”
Digesting this information, she held Ella’s gaze. “So how many people work here?”
“At the moment, there’s just me and Simon. They locked eyes briefly. Queenie saw that she was being sized up. Then Ella finally said, “You know the WAC Arts centre down the road?”
Queenie nodded.
“Well,” Ella continued, “Every six months we convert their basement hall into a restaurant for the homeless, serve them three course sit-down meals so they can eat and have some dignity. We’ve served up to a hundred people in one day and the atmosphere’s great. We get lots of volunteers come down to help.”
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