Unless I went off on my own it wasn’t going to happen, until Melissa arrived. Kane did not dance. Ever.
I went back to him, and thankfully Braids was nowhere in sight.
‘I need to talk to you,’ I said. He frowned, but followed me a short distance away.
‘Who was that bitch who kept touching you?’
‘What bitch?’
‘Kane, you know who I mean. Braids. Phoenix tattoo. You’ve slept with her, haven’t you?’
‘Nat, we ain’t doing this tonight,’ said Kane vehemently.
‘Anyone else here?’
‘Did you just hear what I said?’
‘I’m not going to freak out. I’m just telling you, I’ve got nicer breasts.’
Kane grinned.
‘You need to tell me that’s true, Kane.’
‘Baby, your breasts are fucking unbelievable.’
‘Am I better in bed?’
‘Yeah, course.’
I narrowed my eyes at him.
‘Nat, I don't remember her. I remember every time with you. Come here. He kissed me. In the middle of that club, in the middle of all those people. It was the longest, deepest kiss; it nearly had me fall over when it ended, except Kane was still holding me in his arms.
‘You don’t like doing that in front of other people,’ I said.
He kissed me again.
‘You remember who you belong to tonight,’ he said.
‘Same goes for you.’
A pair of arms stopped me from following Kane toward the bar. Melissa hugged me like she hadn’t seen me for a year.
‘Natalie Kempe, I need to dance.’
Despite the club’s massive size, it was jammed with people, and the dance floor was packed. Luckily, Melissa was good at making space; she’d just repeat certain moves in an outward growing circle, which meant other dancers didn’t have any choice but to give her room to move. Somewhere along the way we got separated from her friends, and that was when the two of us got really crazy.
We started adopting each other’s dance moves. Melissa would call it, and together we’d either dance ‘Mel styles’ or ‘Nat styles’. Hysterically, we kept coming up with more and more outlandish moves for the other to copy.
Eventually we became desperately thirsty. After we’d downed about three glasses of water each up at the bar, I bought beers for her, Kane and me with the very last of my Grandma’s money.
It took us ten minutes to find Kane. He was standing with a group of guys near the entrance to the club. All of them, including Kane, were laughing their heads off about something. You know the sort of laughter where people are laughing so hard they kind of push each other, and there’s always that one person protesting about it, but they’re laughing too. It was so good to see Kane laugh like that. He looked young, and he looked at ease.
I delivered him his beer, which led to comments about beer and booty, and an invitation for Melissa to sit on the lap of a guy who’d got a bar stool from somewhere and was the only one seated.
Melissa surprised even me by climbing up on his lap. He was quite a big guy, and her perching on him like that led to a whole lot more laughter and comments, and still more when she wouldn’t share her beer with him.
‘Girl, you ain’t parking for free,’ he said.
‘Boy, you ain’t no parking enforcement officer, and I don’t see no ticket machine,’ replied Melissa.
As they kept joking about reserved parking and nice bumpers, Kane introduced me to Chuck.
He didn’t look a bit like Callem. In fact, apart from his Afro, Chuck looked more white than black. His skin was light, and his eyes, behind his clear-rimmed glasses, were green. He was wearing a fitted silver-grey suit with a black tie. He had tattoos on his hands, and colored ink covered his neck.
He wanted to tell me about the first time he inked Kane, but Kane wouldn’t let him.
‘He hyperventilated,’ said Chuck.
‘I was thirteen,’ defended Kane.
‘Which made you how old?’ I asked Chuck.
‘Fifteen, and yeah, I took a beating from my old man. Not for using his shit, but for doing such a bad tatt.’
‘It is a bad tatt,’ agreed Kane.
‘Which one?’ I asked.
‘The hammer,’ they replied at the same time, and then cracked up laughing.
Kane and I were still talking to Chuck ten minutes later when our school basketball team walked in. Callem’s height and looks ensured he stood out from the rest of his teammates. Chuck walked over to greet his cousin, and I glanced at Melissa. She had managed to claim the stool for her own. The guy who’d been sitting on it stood close beside her, his arm around her shoulder. Melissa was staring at Callem, and then her eyes shifted to me. You just know when you and your best friend are thinking the same thing. And what we were thinking was Damn! Callem was looking good.
I wasn’t being disloyal to Kane. As far as I was concerned, Kane was the hottest guy ever, and to me he had an edge over Callem in that he wasn’t perfect. Kane looked like he knew the streets. He looked hard. He had scars, and mean expressions. You only had to look at Kane to know you’d better be prepared if you were going to mess with him. Callem was just incredibly good-looking.
When he walked past us, he gave Kane a nod but he didn’t look at me.
Melissa wanted to go dance again. She’d spotted some of her friends on the dance floor and wanted to join them. I hesitated, but Kane told me to go ahead.
At that moment, I saw Braids approaching, no doubt about to make a beeline for Kane.
‘Please come and dance,’ I said.
He held up his empty beer bottle.
‘Fine, but I know where you’re at. And I know where you live. And don’t let that bitch touch you.’
Following my gaze, Kane looked behind him. He saw Braids, quickly turned his back to her, and screwed up his nose at me.
I giggled and gave him my beer and my jacket.
‘Nat,’ said Melissa impatiently, reaching for my hand and tugging on it.
‘Don’t have too much fun, baby,’ said Kane.
I looked over my shoulder at him as I went to walk off.
Kane’s eyes met mine and then purposefully traveled to my butt. He tilted his head to one side, and I could just see what he was thinking. He glanced back up at me and raised an eyebrow.
I’ll never forget how he looked in that moment. Young and untroubled. But thin; thin in his face, and thin in his build. Too thin.
I just had time to pout my lips at him before being dragged off by Melissa. Knowing he was still watching, I made sure to swing my hips as we disappeared into the crowd.
Just as Melissa and I made it to her friends, the beat of the music slid into my favorite Rihanna song. It felt like a sign. Like I was exactly where I was meant to be, and I was born to move to the music.
Song after song, my body moved of its own accord, guided by the tempo of the music and the depth of the beat. Circles of dancers formed and dissipated and formed again, but Melissa and her friends and I stayed on the edge of things.
Suddenly, my consciousness was jolted out of a song by something I’d caught sight of beyond the dance floor.
I grabbed Melissa’s arm.
‘When did they get together?’ I shouted over the music.
I pointed through the crowd of moving bodies to where I’d glimpsed Callem sitting on the edge of some staged seating, with Jordeisha DeRoy leaned up against him. Maybe they thought they were concealed, but they weren’t. Every time the lights flicked in their direction we could see them: Jordeisha’s hand was on Callem’s crotch. While we were still looking at them they started making out.
Melissa turned away.
‘I can’t believe that,’ I said. ‘She’s a liar, and a whore.’
Melissa shrugged. ‘She’s liked him for ages. And she’s Callem’s type - gorgeous.’
‘No she’s not,’ I replied, having to shout even louder as the music suddenly rose in volume. �
�And even if she were it doesn’t excuse the lying. Or being a whore.’
Melissa giggled, and then said ‘Nat styles,’ and started bumping her hip against mine.
I laughed, and we kept dancing. I would have danced on and on, but guys started coming up to us wanting to dance. That was fine for Melissa, but not for me.
When the guy who’d given up his stool for Melissa approached her and they began grinding on each other, I decided to leave.
I said goodbye to Melissa, she smiled and waved, and then her attention was taken by the stool guy kissing her. By the time I was off the dance floor they had their tongues down each other’s throats.
The tone of the club had changed. It was just that much later, and everyone was that much more wasted. Guys kept trying to talk to me. With a couple of them, I even used Kane’s name, just to get them to back off and leave me alone. Asking if they’d seen my boyfriend Kane around.
‘You know, the fighter?’
More often than not, it was effective. Kane really knew a lot of people, and they really weren’t keen to mess with him.
While I was walking away from yet another guy, I bumped into a girl who looked at least twenty-five. She had paw prints inked down her left arm, and she snarled at me.
‘Watch it, bitch.’
I apologized and quickly kept moving. My happy dance buzz had all but gone.
One moment I was hemmed in by people, the next Kane had created space in front of me.
‘Hey, baby.’
‘I’ve been looking for you.’
‘I just saw you from the balcony, and came down.’
‘What time is it?’
Kane checked his watch. ‘Nearly two.’ He looked at me closely. ‘You want to go?’
‘That’s still early, isn’t it?’
‘Not if you want to leave.’
I didn’t say anything, but he knew.
He held out my jacket and I slipped it on.
19
That night we slept upstairs. Wayne wasn’t home and, thanks to the holes in the wall, downstairs was as cold as outside.
‘Where is Wayne?’ I asked.
‘He’ll be at his woman’s.’
‘He won’t come home and yell at us for being upstairs?’
‘Nah, he barely stays up past ten anymore. If he ain’t here now then he’s asleep at hers.’
We took a shower together. Hot water, and Kane’s hands on my body. The clean smell of soap. It was like everything bad was banished, and in that small space only good things existed. Good things like Kane standing behind me, and being able to feel that he was hard and that he wanted me. His arms went around me, and he soaped the front of my body. He massaged my breasts and then rubbed my stomach in slow firm circular motions, the bar of soap hard against my skin while bubbly suds ran down my body and pooled at our feet before draining away. Then his strong fingers moved down my body, across my hips, before kneading hard into each side of my butt.
I turned around. My mouth found his. It wasn’t enough. My hand went to the back of his head, pulling him deeper. I still wanted more.
I moved his hand between my legs. He pressed me back against the shower wall. One moment it felt good, and then the next, I had an intense feeling like nothing I’d ever felt before. I was clinging to Kane, and I must have moaned, because somehow he knew to increase the pressure in that one place. I pressed my mouth to his shoulder, my teeth grazing the skin that covered hard muscle.
The feeling became even more intense, like I was building up to something. I wanted more of it, but at the same time I didn’t know what it was I was building up to.
‘Kane, I can’t,’ I said, reaching for his hand.
‘Can’t what?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘Just go with it, baby,’ he said, his mouth on mine: crushing, demanding, devouring.
I trusted him. I did as he said.
Slowly things started coming back. Who I was. Where I was. I opened my eyes and Kane was looking at me like I was the most amazing thing ever.
‘You alright?’ he asked.
I looked at his body, the shower water sluicing down it.
‘I’m alright,’ I replied, although my voice trembled a little when I said it.
He smiled, more to himself than me. Then he gently kissed me as his hands went under my butt and he lifted me up.
I’d never been so willing to have him inside me. As soon as he had come I said, ‘Can you do that to me again?’
He did, but in bed, and it was different. He was different; gentler. It still felt amazing. Kane kept kissing me after, and I mean kissing me everywhere. And then I did everything he asked me to. We were both serious. In the past, there’d often been joking and teasing, or he might have tried to convince me to try something new. And always in the background was the fact that I wanted to do it because he wanted it. I wanted to make him happy, I wanted to be close to him, but I didn’t actually want it.
But that night, it was even. I was getting from it what he always got from it.
Every time I moaned or swore he would tell me that I was hot, that I was beautiful, that he wanted to fuck me more. I’d gasp his name and he’d tell me I felt fucking incredible.
I remember collapsing on his chest and seeing that the sky was full of light.
20
My dad died.
The way it happened reminded me of the way he used to go to work following his first stroke. He’d just quietly walk out of the house, without saying goodbye.
That’s how he died. He just quietly left.
There must have been something there, more than I ever knew, that linked Mom and Dad, because when he’d gone, she knew.
It was in the evening, and the only warning I had was her knock on my door.
‘Your father’s died,’ she said, without coming into my room.
I pushed past her, tore down the stairs, ran into his room and came to an abrupt halt. He was in his bed. Utterly still.
The deep lines had been smoothed on his face, and he looked very small.
Mom didn’t join me in his room. I sat alone with my father’s body, and held his hand. It was warm. I noticed his nails needed trimming so I clipped them, and then I brushed his hair. I told him I was sorry I hadn’t been with him when he died. That I was sorry I hadn’t even realized he was going to die. He needed a shave, but by then my hands were trembling.
A doctor came first, and then the undertakers. My mother produced an old suit of Dad’s, along with a shirt and shoes. The suit had dry-cleaning tags on it.
‘That will be too big for him,’ I said.
‘Pin it,’ said Mom to the undertakers.
Dad came back home. It was the one final act Mom did for him. His casket lay in the living room between the sofa and the television. The television wasn’t turned on once during those two days. Mom didn’t accept any callers, but the two bouquets of flowers that arrived – one from Melissa's family and one from Aunt Sarah – I placed in vases in the living room, and she didn’t take them away.
Kane knew that Mom didn’t want him in the house, but he came anyway. He spent each day holding my hand, looking at my dad’s body and saying he wished he could have known him better. The first time he saw Mom, the day after Dad died, he stood up from the dining table and said how sorry he was for her loss, and that if there was anything he could do for her to let him know.
Mom didn’t thank him. Or reply in any form, other than to turn her back on him and walk out of the room.
‘I’m sorry,’ I said to Kane.
‘Baby, the only thing I care about is you.’
Reverend Joe rang me about a service for Dad. He had never met Dad, but he knew about his history with the church. He told me he’d recently discovered that Mom and Dad had paid for one of the church’s stained glass panels. I knew that. I’d remembered them arguing over it. Mom hadn’t wanted to do it, and Dad paid for it anyway. I didn’t tell Reverend Joe that. I thanked him for his support
and said I’d talk to Mom about a church service.
Mom wouldn’t even contemplate the idea. I told her it was what Dad would have wanted, and it was what I wanted.
‘You don’t have a say in this,’ she said.
‘I’ll just do it anyway. You don’t have to come.’
‘You don’t have a say in this,’ she repeated. I realized her meaning. I didn’t have any rights over Dad’s body. She had them all.
The notice she got the funeral directors to put in the paper only had Dad’s name, his date of birth, the date he died and the words ‘private service’. Not her name, not Lisa’s name or mine. But Aunt Sarah must have got hold of the funeral directors, because when Mom, Kane and I got to the room next to the crematorium there were a whole lot of people from church there, including Reverend Joe and his wife, Julie. Nothing much was said. One of the funeral directors officiated. No one said a eulogy. I got up and said the Lord’s Prayer beside Dad’s closed casket. It seemed like everything was going to be over then, but Aunt Sarah stood up. She walked up to Dad’s casket then turned around and faced us. My mother shot her a cold look. Aunt Sarah looked straight at her, but her expression wasn’t cold like my mom’s; it was sad. She put her hand on Dad’s casket like she was patting him on the shoulder.
Then she began singing: ‘Nearer, my God, to thee …’
Everyone but Mom, Kane and me stood up and sang with her: ‘Still all my song shall be, nearer, my God, to thee …’
I sat with my head bowed and my eyes closed. Kane put his arm around me. I wept.
After the service Mom left without speaking to anyone. Aunt Sarah invited everyone back to her house. She had a pretty but small two-bedroom house within walking distance to Saint Andrew’s. The walls were covered in framed photos of her children and grandchildren, and her husband, who had died when I was a child.
When Kane and I got there, there was already food prepared and cups of tea and coffee being handed out.
Everyone was so nice to Kane and me. And they were so nice about Dad, telling me their memories of him. The times he’d helped them out; the son he’d found a job for; the support he’d provided to a recovering alcoholic; the fundraising he’d done for church projects – all things about my dad that I hadn’t known. Things that gave him a life outside of our family, outside of him being sick. It was comforting.
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