by Jacob Ross
‘Gotta go,’ she says, ‘I need my sleep.’
He follows her to the doorway at the back of Venus’s place. Her cheeks and eyes are hollows under the bulb that lights the yard. She is hanging on the threshold and he hopes she’s feeling the same reluctance that resides in him.
‘Can I,’ she says in a voice so soft it seems to slip beneath his hearing and settle in his chest. ‘Can I feel your hair – before I go?’ Her hand alights on his head. Her touch is light and querying. His head is full of the sea-scent of the girl. He can hear her breathing – the slow rise and fall of her life-tide.
He takes her hand and lowers it. ‘Stay,’ he says. He swallows on his fluttering voice and blinks at her. ‘That’s… that’s all I came to say this evening.’
A small smile twitches her mouth. ‘And then?’
‘That’s all I came to ask.’
‘The sea has no branches, you said. And now you’re offering me one?’
‘Mebbe I offering meself one too.’ Amos lifts his head and holds her gaze. Her eyes are seamless bits of glass in the yellow light.
‘Uh-huh,’ she says, ‘Makes a lot of sense now. I realise… I’m… I’m stronger than you. You see, I prefer…’
She stares past his head for a long time, sighs, hunches and hugs herself. ‘Maybe. Maybe I come first thing tomorrow. Maybe I come tonight. Maybe I stay in that dinky little house of yours until we fall together. But right now – it’s Amos, isn’t it? Right now, Amos, I need my sleep.’
Amos swings his head in the direction of the hills. ‘I’ll wait,’ he says.
Nancy nods, flutters her wrist at him and turns away. He listens to her footsteps as she climbs the stairs. A door creaks, then slams.
Amos walks the sand-road home. The air is agitated with the sound of gulls fishing in the shallows. The channel glints darkly under the watery light of the moon.
Beyond it, the black Atlantic breathes.
4: FLIGHT
IS EASY
His head is in the air, and he seems unaware of the gesturing calling women hunched over the stalls that line the street on either side. Busy walkers swirl around him on the sidewalk, and she on the other side, considers the man from under lowered lashes.
A black leather bag hangs from a long strap on his shoulder. The cloth bag in his right hand says CARICOM. The other words, in red, are hidden by its cotton folds.
He’s neither tall nor short. The skin of his arms and face are the colour and sheen of nutmeg shells. His hair looks freshly cut. This is a fella that she could press a nice shirt for, hang his trousers on a line to dry, watch him step out of their doorway every morning and walk down the steps of a perfect little concrete house with baskets of flowers hanging off the veranda.
He would come home every night, tired from work but satisfied, and if he’s worried or pressed down by the day, there would be food for him, a soft chair to rest his back against. She would not fuss around him when he rests, but move quietly until he stirs and talks to her about his day. And when they’ve had enough of talking, they will retire to a clean bed.
She’s so forgotten herself that, for a moment, she does not realise that the man’s materialised beside her.
He wants to know how to get to the house they call The Rectory.
Before she answers, she dares a quick glance at his face and just as she imagined him from across the street, his face is smooth and shaved and cared-for.
‘Is easy,’ she says, raising a finger at the sharply climbing road behind him. ‘Up Market Hill. De steps on Lucas Street make de climbin shorter, but if you take it, de sweat break outta you. So, easiest is hardest.
‘Top of de hill, turn lef, Anglican Church goin be right behin you. Cyahn miss it – it big an ugly like it got no right mongst dem pretty lil pink house up dere.
‘In front ov you, de court house. Look like a weddin cake dat some wicked man kick down an mash-up. Used to be pretty befo. Used to be really nice – yunno?
‘Walk a little, till you come to a road. It nice an smooth an welltake-care-of. Right at de end of dat little road, you see a pretty concrete house, not big, not small. It got a yellow veranda wit’ a few basket ov flowers hangin down. An you reach.’
He’s pulled his brows together and she is worried that she did not make herself clear. But then he mutters thanks, smiles and turns to look at the climbing road. He smells of faraway, foreign things. He takes a step, then turns abruptly, his brows still pulled together.
‘You always talk like that?’
A flush of embarrassment heats her skin. She does not know how to take his question, feels herself retreating. ‘Is how everybody round here talk,’ she says; and then she’s riled, but it is just a feeble stirring in her stomach that she knows will never reach her voice. ‘How I talk?’ She looks away.
‘Nice,’ he says. ‘Real nice.’ And then he’s gone.
She sees that he is following her words exactly as she offered them. Once or twice he looks up, checks for the signposts that she gave, and keeps on climbing.
At the top of the hill he turns. Her eyes follow his rising hand. She does not lift hers in return, but gathers her skirt around her knees and sits before her tray of fruits and spices.
FLIGHT
Most mornings, the ambulance has already been and gone. A couple of aide-soignantes sit on the courtyard benches, their heads bunched together while gendarmes, dressed like robocops, walk the grass and patrol the squares of tape.
Always, these women choose the fifteenth floor, two days after their exam results. They would pack their bags, their books and scarves and leave a tidy room. What are they thinking when they leap?
Adara is not with her today, standing breast to shoulder, looking out across the campus, past Grenoble to the Swiss Alps.
Adara of the soft hands who smelled of argan oil and sleep, who filled her mind with photographs of minarets, hot bazaars and the veiled curves of the women.
The last two winters made them warm together, disdainful of the glaciers of air sliding down the Alps and the Frenchness of the French who’d replaced their names with étrangère.
They survived the loneliness – she and Adara – and the language that rebelled against their tongues.
In bed, a couple of days ago, a snowstorm stirred from the heights of the Jura Mountains rattled the high walls of her room. Adara spoke of home, family-honour, the contentment of religion; of watching falcons hunt, and what grace there was in killing. The memory of her betrothed fluttered her lashes and softened her nervous mouth. And she, Teresa, distracted by an impulse, listened with half a mind, until – startled and appalled – Adara lifted her hand and brought it up before her, fingering the red trace there. The amber of her eyes had darkened. Bedouin eyes, Teresa thought, gone pale from staring at hot distances.
‘Look at what you done, Teresa! Now I can’t go home.’
Leaving France is always easier. L’immigration wishes you bon voyage, hurries you into the air.
And as the thrusting engine lifts, she sees, far ahead, the white smile of the Alps.
She turns a downward eye at the strutted roof of Aeroport Isère, awkward from this height and angle.
Like the wings of a mangled bird.
RAISING TYRONE
Me like that girl ever since me meet her on me doorstep in the rain and bring her inna me house. Me decide me really like she fi Tyrone.
She talk to me nice an respeckful; seh her madder from Wales and her fadder from one of them small island, though she never tell me which one. Perhaps me never ask.
She waiting outside of me door two hours fi Tyrone. Inna the cold! You nuh call that love?
Me tell her, seh, never mind sweetheart, me warm you up with a nice cuppa cocoa.
Nice girl yuh see? Pretty nuh rarse. She got long eyelash – no false ting dat – and she eye dem big an lovely like cat eye. The way she look at me: nice smile, nice teet – I see she likkle shy.
Me really like that girl fi me son.
But me no care; like my madder use to seh, that’s life. Long as me know is not Tyrone fault. Every young girl out there want a piece of my Tyrone. Dem never satisfy. Im give them likkle sinting, them want more. Is so woman stay; we never satisfy.
But this one – she nice. She fit Tyrone perfect. She light-skin like im, yunno. Dem goin mek nice pickney; pickney hair won’t break no comb. Dem pickney going ave clare skin-colour that help them get on better in the world, specially in this yah England.
See im picture deh? Filim star pose! Good lookin, nuh rarse. See how im lean back boasy on im car? Is so im stay. Im ‘mind me of im fadder, Munro. Strict, yuh see? Munro never mek no joke. Yunno how much time me used to have fi call police fi Munro? But im had good-looks; is why me did fall fi im so hard.
Me tell Tyrone, doan tek no back chat from no woman, cos me never give im fadder no back chat. Me tell im ee’z a man and man haffe stanup fi imself. Im don’ ave no problem cos he nice-lookin and ooman tick on the ground. He doan haffe tek no shit from dem. And yunno, im lissen to me, cos anyone of dem get fiesty with im. Two bax! Just like im fadder. Heh!
Same temper like Munro too, an same bad-man walk. Like me seh, is so im stay.
What about me? What about me! Well me’z im madder and Tyrone gots to ave respek fi me. Me tell im from im small, a good son never disrespek im madder. Im tek it in. Caar yuh see how good im is to me?
Me not sayin he don’t get likkle upset sometimes. But im save most of dat fi outside, and them likkle woman who won’t leave im alone. Nuff times im get vex, break up a coupla tings – mostly me dishes, yunno. Dunno what im got ‘gainst plate-an-saucer. But the vexness never last fi long. Afterwards im tell me sorry. Last time was the window. Me mek im find the money an fix it. And yunno im fix it? Better than dem dutty thief dat call demself carpenter in this ya Englan.
Me never blame im becos me know im tek the hothead from im fadder, Munro – that daag. Besides, like me seh, im temper never last fi long.
But that girl me tek in from the rain. Is she me want fi im. What she name again? Mavis or Marva or Marble. Anyway, me know er name start with ‘M’. Me tell she seh, whenever Tyrone get likkle rough with ‘er she mus come an lemme know. Me goin talk to ‘im, because is she me prefer fi Tyrone.
See im deh! See how im pretty in dat picture? Is good breeding and good feeding dat! Is so me raise im. Proper. Strict, yunno. Strict like my madder used to be with me. Yuh think I could a gwaan like all them likkle woman I see im bring up regular to im room? Naah sah! Me wouldn ha been here today. Me would ha been dead.
So! Mek im gimme likkle pickney granchile with that gyal, who goin look like my Tyrone, walk like my Tyrone –an pretty same way.
With manners an good prospects like my Tyrone.
Cho!
GIVING UP ON TREVOR
The roof lights went off and on a couple of times; the driver banged the glass of the cubicle. ‘Road finish. End ov jorney. Bus stopping heyah!’ A flustered voice at the back mumbled something about ignorant Nigerians.
Ennis sucked her teeth, glared at the rain-streaked windows, then at the impassive face at the wheel.
She had to walk the part of Harlesden High Street she hated most. Once past the library, she would get a cab to Wembley Mews.
More mist than rain outside. Not the kind she would bother to shelter from, but a fine persistent drizzle that would soak her if she stayed in it too long.
She dipped into her handbag, fished out her scarf and tied it on her head. As she walked, she registered her progress along the pavement by the noises and smells on either side of her: the crack of dominoes in the pub on her left followed by the deep-throated uproar of old West Indian laughter, then the slinging match of slack-chat. Across the street, the soft assault of male voices under the awning of the Indian takeaway where young men, the peaks of their caps pulled down over their noses, leaned against the shopfront with hands stuffed in their pockets.
She adjusted her bag on her shoulder and hurried through the smells of twice-fried Chinese food, overripe plantains and something-or-other the Turkish man in the shop across the road was shaving into the pursed mouths of a row of pitta bread.
Just before the library, the noises and the smells cleared up. The road ahead empty; there was even a breeze.
She heard a soft whinnying to the left of her just as she reached the music shop. Three young men – cowled, chins pressed down on their sternums, raised feet planted against the wall of the shop, hands making bulges of their pockets. They were at the mouth of the alleyway that led to the posher houses further back. The whinnying came again, though now she no longer thought that it was the young men taking the piss at her expense.
She would have walked on had she not heard the cry, pitched higher, then abruptly cut short. The protestations of a woman. No mistaking it, and the tremorous underlay of fear.
She turned to face the alley. The seepage of misted light from the streetlamp overhead revealed nothing. One of the men pushed himself off the wall. She eased her handbag to her front, raising her chin at him, holding his gaze until he shrugged and dropped his back against the wall.
She could just about make out the shape of a man and the slighter one of a woman close up against him, their profiles defined by the brightness at the other end of the alley. Then came his voice – edgy and upbraiding.
She would have turned away, made herself believe she was mistaken, but the man raised his voice again and although the rage in it was foreign, she would have recognised it anywhere. Her son had the girl pulled up against his chest, his left hand stiff under her jaw.
She was about to speak when the hand dropped and the woman disengaged herself. Then she was half-running, halflimping up the street, the sound of her high heels clattering on the dirty flagstones.
The three young men had moved off up the street with long, side-shifting strides.
Her mouth had gone dry; she felt a pulsing at her temples. She remained where she was, no longer mindful of the rain, her eyes on the back of the boy until he disappeared at the other end of the alleyway.
She was soaked when she got home. The numbness that had slowed her pace hadn’t left her limbs.
She dropped her bag on the kitchen table, went into the bedroom and changed into a pair of slacks and a pullover. In the darkened room she sat on the edge of her bed, swallowing on the congestion in her throat.
It was past midnight when she stirred – not knowing where the time had gone. She should have been in bed by now, or finishing off her work at the computer. There was a letter to write to the hospital, an email to the mechanic about picking up her car sometime during the weekend, and a notice to Selfridges to cancel the sofa she’d ordered the week before. The one-to-one talk she wanted to arrange with Mr. Wallace was important, but that and the other things could wait.
Instead, she climbed the stairs, unlocked Trevor’s door and stood looking about his room as if she might uncover something about her son that had escaped her.
His toiletries and array of grooming products were laid out on top the chest of teak drawers in which he kept his socks and underclothing. On a matching table to the side of it, a bright array of trophies won in his earlier years when the school in Harrow wanted to make an athlete of him – until she visited the principal and changed all that. Above them, framed copies of his degree and school certificates.
On the little bedside cabinet was a full-length photograph of him she preferred not to look at. Tonight she stared at it. It brought back an old sensation – one so sharply defined, so present, it felt as if she was nineteen again, arriving at the bus stop and enco
untering his father, Spooner, for the first time. Spooner with his back against the signpost, appraising her, then locking her in a gaze that told her what he wanted before he said a word.
She would have turned the picture away had she not felt a draught and realised that Trevor had arrived, although she had not heard the door or the jingle of his keys. She moved only when she felt the vibration of his footsteps on the stairs.
If Trevor was surprised to see her on the landing he did not show it. He muttered a greeting, brushed past her and walked over to his bed. He dropped a couple of music CDs on the duvet and busied himself with the table on which his trophies sat.
‘Could we have a word?’
‘Not now, Mam.’
‘I wasn’t asking,’ she said. ‘Come downstairs.’
He would take his time. To pass the wait she emptied the dishwasher, dried the plates and stacked them on the shelves above the cooker. She was hungry but did not want to eat. She was about to raise her voice and call up to ask if she should prepare something for him, but suppressed the urge and turned to tidying up the kitchen counter.
She sensed his presence before she saw him at the kitchen door. That silent way of his – from the time he was a child – no longer startled her, although she’d never got used to it.
She rinsed cups she’d already washed and dried, reluctant to turn to face him. Instead, she focused on his blurred reflection in the window above the sink. ‘Tell me it wasn’t you,’ she said.
She thought he was going to lie; found herself half-hoping that he would. But he knew that she would see through any bullshit straightaway. That was his father’s greatest frustration with her.
She dumped the sponge in the sink and turned around to face him. ‘Who’s the girl?’
Trevor passed a hand across his forehead. Shrugged.
‘It wasn’t Lena. I’m sure of that. Sit down.’