Goodbye Lucille

by Segun Afolabi

  SEGUN AFOLABI

  Goodbye Lucille

  VINTAGE BOOKS

  London

  Contents

  Cover Page

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Dedication

  About the Author

  Also by Segun Afolabi

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  This eBook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorised distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author’s and publisher’s rights and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly.

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  Epub ISBN 9781407091136

  www.randomhouse.co.uk

  Published by Vintage 2008

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  Copyright © Segun Afolabi 2007

  Segun Afolabi has asserted his right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 to be identified as the author of this work

  This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition, including this condition, being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

  First published in Great Britain in 2007 by Chatto & Windus Random House, 20 Vauxhall Bridge Road, London SW1V 2SA

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  Addresses for companies within The Random House Group Limited can be found at: www.randomhouse.co.uk/offices.htm

  The Random House Group Limited Reg. No. 954009

  A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

  ISBN 9780099485193

  The Random House Group Limited supports The Forest Stewardship Council (FSC), the leading international forest certification organisation. All our titles that are printed on Greenpeace approved FSC certified paper carry the FSC logo. Our paper procurement policy can be found at www.rbooks.co.uk/environment

  Printed and bound in Great Britain by CPI Bookmarque, Croydon CR0 4TD

  For my parents, and for Martha and Y

  GOODBYE LUCILLE

  Segun Afolabi was born in Kaduna, Nigeria and grew up in various countries including Canada, the Congo, East Germany and Japan. He is the author of a collection of short stories, A Life Elsewhere, and has published in literary journals including the London Magazine, Wasafiri and Granta. His short story ‘Monday Morning’ was awarded the 2005 Caine Prize for African Writing. He lives in London.

  ALSO BY SEGUN AFOLABI

  A Life Elsewhere

  ‘It is curious how people can build such warmth among themselves so swiftly.’

  Kazuo Ishiguro – The Remains of the Day

  1

  I LEFT LONDON to get away from myself. The job that materialized in Berlin was simply an excuse to run, and when I ran I did not look behind to the past, only ahead to where the future lay. I arrived in the middle of a winter that made Kentish Town seem a tropical paradise. There were blizzards and the snow fell nearly every week like overzealous Christmas decorations. Hearts gave out when the temperature dropped beyond fifteen below; old hearts, tired hearts that had witnessed war and privation, people threshed and divided like fields of wheat. Or the newlyweds smashed by a runaway lorry on black ice across the autobahn. People whispered that it had been shame and blessing both that they had perished together at the start of their new lives. Or the children who skated to the bottom of the Fauler See when the ice sighed and swallowed them whole. School kids sang about the creature of Tiergarten that winter, but by spring it was all forgotten. I didn’t know the language then, and when I asked, it seemed to me macabre that they should sing about such dreadful things.

  Three years later things hadn’t improved all that much. But were they ever meant to? Had I ever really wanted to tame the wild heart of ambition? The job I came for fizzled out soon enough – assistant curator at Mattias Trommler on Fasanenstrasse, a poor imitation of a gallery, with only a thimbleful of staff stretched hopelessly on opening nights, withered with ennui the rest of the year. But here I was, away from myself once more, relieved to breathe freely again.

  Now it was hot – a broiling summer, the kind a European city can become unused to. People complained from morning to night about the stultifying heat, the closeness, the stickiness of things, just as they would caw about the lack of sun or the poor summer had we been subjected to that instead.

  Then came the Henkelmann affair. Whoever killed him left behind a string of clues. It couldn’t have been a hit man; Henkelmann was bludgeoned to death. Not the work of a professional. Tyre marks were discovered at the scene. Two sets: Henkelmann’s and his assailant’s. A sliver of bright yellow plastic was lodged deep within the deceased’s left cheek. I don’t know what that means, other than he might have been killed with a toy or a dustpan brush. Could he have been killed with a toy? I’m not a detective; I am a photographer. I don’t normally think about these things. I remember the Thursday morning, though, the rendezvous with Marie. ‘Bliss café … the corner of Dieffenbachstrasse and Schönleinstrasse,’ she had said. ‘Don’t be late.’ By the end of the day Herr Henkelmann was dead.

  2

  For the past couple of years I have worked as a freelance photographer. It’s not all I expected; there’s never much work and what there is can be far from satisfying. I always wanted to be a high-profile photographer, taking pictures of the stars. Having to turn down Prince, say, because I had been booked for a shoot with Ella. Or packing my bags for South America for a year, photographing everything – the extremes of wealth and poverty – then observing people debate whether my pictures were art or reportage.

  As things have turned out, it wasn’t to be that way. I’ve had to turn to other areas to make a living and have veered away from what I most wanted to do. I haven’t had much work now for several months. Things are slow and I have never been good at networking, spreading myself out. I don’t have the inclination for hard toil. Only the need to pay rent has kept me relatively busy. When Marie phoned the other day, I realized I had been in a jobless stupor.

  Off the Wall is a magazine devoted to the fringe sections of the city. It doesn’t have a high circulation, but its reputation is sound. I once managed to sell a photograph to the Morgenpost that Marie happened to spot. She got my number from a friend at the paper and phoned to ask if I could do some work for her. If you look at a particular back issue of the magazine, the one with King Sunny Ade on the cover, you’ll see some early photographs of Wynton Marsalis on pages twenty-three and twenty-five. Those are mine. He wasn’t so well established at the time, but now he’s one of the giants of jazz. Last I heard, he’d even turned down Rolling Ston
e, so it appears I was lucky to photograph him when I did.

  Marie edits the magazine, but since it’s not a large operation, she always has her hands in other pockets and she will more than often pen an article herself. The magazine belongs to her and her husband, Stefan, an architect, who is only nominally involved, so she can do more or less as she likes. When she phoned the other day she said she was planning to cover a conference in Kreuzberg. The speaker, Heinrich Henkelmann, would be combining an entrepreneurial exercise with a little hands-on politics. Meeting ordinary people. Getting to know the neighbourhood. ‘A common political ploy – being seen to take an interest in the people of a deprived area,’ Marie scoffed. ‘But I have heard interesting things about him and I don’t want to miss out on the start of anything important.’ Marie knows I switch off at the mention of politics, and she guessed I’d be reluctant to take the job, but she added that as I lived in the area, there would be hardly any travelling involved. ‘You might even find it interesting,’ she said. She knew I needed the money.

  ‘Well … if you give me some more details,’ I hesitated, ‘I’ll think about it.’

  She said she would arrange for a press pack to be sent out to me, then slipped in, ‘See you on the day,’ as if I had already accepted. I suppose I had.

  Marie is what I would call a handsome woman: not young enough to be pretty, not alluring enough to be beautiful. She is striking, though. I can’t remember which, but one of her parents is Egyptian. She has only ever mentioned them once in all the time I’ve known her. Whenever I visit her office, I’m always surprised at how I tower over her. And I am not so tall, only fat. I wouldn’t call her petite – she would hate that – but the woman has not got height on her side and she’s very slender. Yet whenever I think about her, she seems very much larger than she is in reality. She fits the halfway mark of someone who is very attractive in an unusual, intelligent kind of way. You might catch yourself staring at her if you saw her in the street. You might glance, perhaps drawn by the sound of her melodic voice, then look back because her face, the way her hips tug at her dress, simply call out for your attention. I can’t explain.

  When the conversation ended I made a note on a scrap of paper and went through to the kitchen. When I say ‘through’, I mean I walked to the other end of the lounge as I rent an open-plan apartment where everything appears to be in the same room. This isn’t strictly true; I have a separate bedroom, which is more than can be said for most of the apartments in this building. I also have extra space in what used to be a second bedroom, which I long ago converted into a darkroom – about six feet by eight, barely suitable for a child. Frau Lieser claims the other tenants ‘manage just fine, thank you very much’, but what else is she going to say? That’s half the function of a landlady after all, to mollify without actually improving anything.

  I stuck the piece of paper on the refrigerator door, which is covered in similar messages: Must phone Johann – Don’t forget! Call Lucille on the 27th! Lieser – 1st – Rent!! I had no idea who Johann was. I told myself to remember to check all the notes as soon as I had an opportunity to do so in case there was something vital I had forgotten. I could have checked them there and then, but it didn’t seem to be the right time. I would make time, I reasoned, when I had more time. Marie is always encouraging me to become more organized. That way, she argues, I would be better able to manage my workload, and people would come to rely on me more. I’ll usually agree and promise to do something about it: join the Filofax craze, build a card index, something along those lines. But the idea will fizzle out a minute after I’ve thought about it, which usually comes as some relief to me.

  I phone Lucille every other day or so, always in the evening. We have an on-off relationship that seems to be going round in circles, which cannot be all bad seeing as a circle never ends. I have one of those telephones that can memorize numbers. All you do is press a digit and it dials. That’s the Eighties for you; technology is everything. It’s ideal for someone like me; in the past I would invariably have had to phone the operator because I’d forgotten the code to London. Then I would have had trouble remembering Lucille’s number. I could have written it down once and for all, stuck the note on the refrigerator door with all the others, but that would have required someone with far better organizational skills.

  I dialled by pressing the number seven digit and waited for the connection. I visualized the hallway in the Caledonian Road house where she lives. I could see Rachel curled up on the burgundy sofa in front of the television or ironing clothes for work the next day. Then Sumitra was stepping into the shower, shampooing her hair, soaping herself liberally. I felt guilty, so I imagined her running down the stairs – still naked – to answer the telephone. Someone picked up the receiver.

  ‘Can I speak to Lucille?’

  ‘I’ll just get her.’ Rachel. ‘One sec.’ I could hear the sound of the television in the background, someone speaking in a clipped, formal manner. It sounded odd to hear English spoken that way after so long. I glanced at my watch and realized it must be the nine o’clock news.

  ‘Hello,’ Lucille said. ‘What happened to you?’

  ‘Nothing much.’ My mind started to back pedal. ‘How are you … What d’you mean, “What happened?”’

  ‘You didn’t phone last weekend. It was your turn.’

  ‘It was?’ I couldn’t understand how I had forgotten.

  ‘Never mind,’ she continued. ‘I was supposed to phone this time, but you’ve done it now. It’ll be your turn next as well.’ It seemed fair enough, the way she explained it.

  We talked about work – she’s an exhibition sales executive – and then became sidetracked about how she was losing control of her life because of her MA, which she is studying for part-time.

  ‘Well, you’ve got to organize properly,’ I said. ‘Make sure you prioritize, set yourself realistic deadlines. There’s no need not to have leisure time as well.’ Management speak. I felt the hypocrisy of it all racing down the telephone line. Lucille is one of the most efficient people I have ever met so my words to her were glib and insubstantial.

  ‘I guess you’re right,’ she said. ‘I should really plan things more in advance.’ She was using her thinking voice; half in the conversation, half in her head. ‘I’m still working on the final draft of an essay. If all goes well, it should be ready two days before deadline, but that’s cutting it a bit close.’

  I’ve never handed in anything on time in my life, so I was nonplussed at her anxiety. Nevertheless I said, ‘Well, yes. That is leaving it a bit late. You don’t want them to start getting a poor impression of you now. These things matter.’

  I was pleased I had steered the conversation away from what I was doing with my own life.

  ‘It’s been almost a month now,’ she said. ‘Isn’t it about time one of us visited?’

  ‘One month? Already? It can’t be,’ I said. ‘Well … things are busy at the moment. I’m not sure whether I’ll be here in the next few weeks.’

  ‘Oh! You’re going somewhere?’

  ‘Yeah … might have to cover a couple of concerts – Los Angeles and Montreal.’ I didn’t elaborate because I’m not so good at lying.

  ‘You could come here for a change,’ she suggested. ‘On your way back. Sumitra’s away every weekend. Rachel’s always at her boyfriend’s.’

  ‘We’ll see,’ I said, but with such a lack of enthusiasm that she didn’t mention the subject again.

  We parted undecided and I felt bad about that. I thought I should phone her back, but realized I really didn’t want to further the discussion. The thought of doing so brought on a kind of heaviness in me.

  When I first moved to Berlin, Lucille and I used to visit each other nearly every weekend. I would travel to London, sometimes by train if I had the time, by plane if I could afford it. Lucille always flew; she can’t stand the tedium of long journeys. This continued for almost six months and although I should have been saving my earnings, I di
dn’t feel uncomfortable about spending money that way. But I had never taken to London. My trips grew more infrequent until it came to the stage where it was only Lucille who seemed to be making any effort. She made the physical effort, that’s true, but we would always share the financial burden.

  In the afternoon I made a start on the invoices that had been occupying a corner of my desk over the past few weeks. I sat and cleared a space so there would be a clean surface to work on. It didn’t take long as I am unusually tidy, which sometimes confounds people because they know I’m not an organized man. Nevertheless, I am not good at untidiness.

  I realized I hadn’t had a drink and although it wasn’t yet lunchtime, breakfast seemed a distant memory. I scanned the contents of the refrigerator: half a carton of orange juice, several cans of lager, two apple doughnuts and four eggs. The orange juice may have been there weeks, perhaps a month. I ambled back to the desk with a lager and the doughnuts. The invoices loomed up at me. I needed a paper napkin so as not to soil the forms and leapt up and sauntered back to the kitchen.

  It seemed like the ideal time to check the notices on the refrigerator door. There were three notes to ring Lucille. One contained her work telephone number, but I had copied it down incorrectly – two of the digits had been swapped round. I left it as it was. I ate a whole doughnut before realizing it was stale, and washed down the unpleasant taste with several gulps of beer.

  There were several messages to ring people – picture editors mostly. One, for Thomas at Zip magazine, I had emphasized with large exclamation marks. I hadn’t contacted him in over three weeks after making a point of telling myself to phone four days after he had written to me. That way, I reasoned, I wouldn’t appear too eager for work and I would also give the impression of being reliable. I was so perturbed about this omission I made my way back to the invoices.