by Zadie Smith
Hampstead to Archway
That bit of the Heath where the main road runs right through and the pavement disappears. It was dark and raining softly. They walked the tarmac in single file. Natalie felt the cars very close on her right and on her left brambles and bushes. Nathan had his hood and cap to protect him. Her own half-destroyed horseshoe-braid was wet to the scalp. Now and then he offered a warning over his shoulder. Keep to the left. Dog shit. Slippy. She couldn’t have asked for a better companion.
If I ruled the world!
(Imagine that.)
I’d free all my sons.
Black diamonds and pearls.
If I ruled the world!
Was the song he was singing.
The rain got heavy. They stopped in a pub’s doorway, Jack Straw’s Castle.
Them shoes are bait.
They’re not shoes, they’re slippers.
They’re bait.
What’s wrong with them?
Why they so red?
I don’t know. I think I like red.
Yeah, but why they got to be so bright? Can’t run can’t hide.
I’m not trying to hide. I don’t think I’m hiding. Why are we hiding?
Don’t ask me.
He sat down on the damp stone step. He rubbed at his eyes, sighed.
Bet there’s people that live in them woods, blud.
On the Heath?
Yeah. Deep in.
Maybe. I really don’t know.
Just living like animals in there. Had enough of this city. I’m tired of it right now for real. Bad luck follows me, Keisha. That’s the thing. I don’t follow bad luck. Bad luck follows me.
I don’t believe in luck.
You should. It rules the world.
He started singing again. Singing and rapping, though the two were so low and melancholy and close in sound that Natalie could barely tell the difference.
There’s that fucking ’copter again.
As he spoke, he took a packet of Golden Virginia from his pocket and flattened a Rizla on his knee. Natalie looked up. Nathan tried to tuck himself in the shadow of the doorway. Together they watched the rotating blades slice through a cover of cloud. They had smoked and smoked. She was as high as she’d ever been in her life.
This rain ain’t stopping neither.
I could show you a diary. Your name. Every third line – your name.
My friend Leah, her diary. That was basically my childhood – listening to her talk about you! She’d never admit it but the man she ended up marrying – he looks like you.
Is it.
It’s just weird to me that you can be so vital to another person and never know it. You were so … loved. Why are you doing that? Don’t you believe me?
Nah, it’s just. That’s one piece of truth my mum did speak. Everyone loves up a bredrin when he’s ten. With his lickle ball ’ead. All cute and lively. Everyone loves a bredrin when he’s ten. After that he’s a problem. Can’t stay ten always.
That’s a horrible thing to say to a child.
See but that’s how you see it – I don’t see it like that. To me it’s just truth. She was trying to tell me something true. But you don’t want to hear that. You want to hear some other shit. Oh Nathan, I remember when you were this and that and you were all fucking sweet and shit, you get me? Nice memory. Last time I was in your yard I was ten, blud. Your mum ain’t let me past the gate after that, believe.
That’s not true!
Once I got fourteen she’s crossing the street acting like she ain’t even seen me. That’s how it is in my eyes. There’s no way to live in this country when you’re grown. Not at all. They don’t want you, your own people don’t want you, no one wants you. Ain’t the same for girls, it’s a man ting. That’s the truth of it right there.
But don’t you remember –
Oh Nathan, ’member this, ’member that– truthfully, Keisha, I don’t remember. I’ve burnt that whole business out of my brain. Different life. No use to me. I don’t live in them towers no more, I’m on the streets now, different attitude. Survival. That’s it. Survival. That’s all there is. Talking ’bout ‘we went to the same school’. And what? What do you know about my life? When you been walking in my shoes? What do you know about living the way I live, coming up the way I came up? Sit on your bench judging me. Arksing me about ‘who are dem girls’? Keep your head in your own business, love. You and your fucking lezza friend. Bring her here I’ll tell her too. ‘You was so good at football, everybody loved you.’ What good’s that to me? And you go home to your green and your life and where’s my green and my life? Sit on your bench. Talking out your neck about me. ‘How does it feel to be a problem?’ What do you know about it? What do you know about me? Nothing. Who are you, to chat to me? Nobody. No one.
Just in front of them a little drenched bird landed on a leaf and shook itself. A passing car took the corner sharply, sending up a sheet of water.
What you crying for now? You ain’t got shit to cry about.
Leave me alone. I know where I’m going. I don’t need you to walk me there.
Drama. You’re one of them types. Love drama.
I just want you to go. GO!
But I ain’t going nowhere though. Can’t run, can’t hide. Look, you don’t have to get all moody and that just because I talk some truth at you.
I want to be alone!
Want to feel sorry for yourself. Had some bust-up with your man. Half-caste, your man is. I seen him getting on at Kilburn with his briefcase. Look at you, all sorry for yourself. You know you made it when you’re crying over that shit. You give me jokes.
I don’t feel sorry for myself. I don’t feel anything for myself. I just want to be alone.
Yeah well, you don’t always get what you want.
Natalie stood up and tried to run. Almost at once she caught a soggy slipper in a divot in the road and was down on her knees.
Where you going? Give it up, man! Give it up! How many more times?
The rain fell harder than before. She saw his hand stretched out for her. She ignored it, put her hands on her right knee and sprang up. She shook her arms and legs out like a gymnast. She stood up and started walking as fast as she could, but when she looked over her shoulder he was still behind her.
Hampstead Heath
I see you trying to work me out.
I’m not trying to do anything. Face front!
You finished? You take long.
There’s more involved for a woman.
Best hurry up. Some geezer and his dog heading in.
What!
Nah. Chill.
I wish you’d leave me alone.
I ain’t saying nothing.
But you are saying something.
Pick-er-nick time. Let’s all have a pick-er-nick.
So? I used to go to picnics here. Picnics. You never had a picnic? I’m trying to describe to you what a normal life looks like.
Yeah. You love up explaining.
I used to come up here with my church.
There you go.
There you go what? You never came up here?
Nope.
Never. You never were on Hampstead Heath. When we were kids.
You never came up here.
Why would I come up here?
I don’t know – because it’s free, because it’s beautiful. Trees, fresh air, ponds, grass.
Weren’t my scene.
What do you mean it wasn’t your scene? It’s everybody’s scene! It’s nature!
Calm down. Pull your knickers up.
Corner of Hornsey Lane
Stop following me. You keep talking to me. I can’t hear myself think. I need to be alone now.
But I ain’t in your dream, Keisha. You’re in mine.
I’m serious. I need you to go now.
No, but you’re missing it. Listen: my dream is my dream. You get me? Your dream is your dream. You can’t dream my dream. What you eat don’t make me shit. You get m
e? That’s my dream – you can’t get in there.
Jesus Christ, you sound like the Magic Negro.
I’m pure magic.
Just go home!
I ain’t going nowhere.
If you’re going to hurt me, there’s no point. You’re too late.
Now why would you even say that to me? We’re walking nice and friendly. I’m not a bad person, Keisha. Why you acting like I’m some kind of bad man. You remember me. You know who I am.
I don’t know who you are. I don’t know who anybody is. Stop following me.
Why you being cold to me now? What have I done to you? I ain’t done nothing to you.
Who was that girl, the little one, in the headscarf?
Huh? Why you worrying about her?
You live with her?
That’s your problem: you want to be up in everybody else’s dream.
We’re friendly – we’ve been walking nice and friendly. Why’re you stepping to me now?
Wasn’t she at Brayton? She looked familiar to me. Is her name Shar?
Didn’t know her then. That ain’t her name with me.
What’s her name with you?
We in court? I call my girls all sorts.
What do you do to your girls? You send them out to thieve? You pimp them out? Do you phone women up? Do you threaten them?
Whoa whoa, slow down, man. You got me twisted. Listen, me and my girls stick together. That’s all you need to know. They got my back. I’ve got theirs. We’re many but we’re one. Fingers on a hand.
You hiding from someone, Nathan? Who’re you hiding from?
I ain’t hiding from no one! Who says I’m hiding?
Who is that girl, Nathan? What do you do to your girls?
You’re not right in your head. You’re talking some pure craziness now.
Answer the question! Be responsible for yourself! You’re free!
Nah, man, that’s where you’re wrong. I ain’t free. Ain’t never been free.
We’re all free!
But I don’t live like you though.
What?
I don’t live like you. You don’t know nothing about me. Don’t know nothing about my girls. We’re a family.
Strange family.
Only kind there is.
Hornsey Lane
Hornsey Lane. Said Natalie Blake. This is where I was heading.
That was true. Although it could be said that it did not really become true until the moment she saw the bridge. Nathan looked around. He scratched at the sore on his neck.
No one lives here. Who you looking to see up here? Middle of nowhere up here.
Go home, Nathan.
Natalie walked towards the bridge. The lamp posts at either end were cast iron, and their bases moulded into fish with their mouths open wide. They had the tails of dragons, winding round the stem, and each lamp was topped by an orange glass orb. They glowed, they were as big as footballs. Natalie had forgotten that the bridge was not purely functional. She tried her best but could not completely ignore its beauty.
Keisha, come back here, man. I’m talking to you. Don’t be like that.
Natalie stepped up on to the first little ledge, just a few inches off the ground. She had remembered only one layer of obstruction, but the sixfoot barrier before her was topped by spikes, like a medieval fortification: spikes up and spikes down, an iron imitation of barbed wire. This must be how they stopped people going nowhere.
Keisha?
The view was cross-hatched. St Paul’s in one box. The Gherkin in another. Half a tree. Half a car. Cupolas, spires. Squares, rectangles, half-moons, stars. It was impossible to get any sense of the whole. From up here the bus lane was a red gash through the city. The tower blocks were the only thing she could see that made any sense, separated from each other, yet communicating. From this distance they had a logic, stone posts driven into an ancient field, waiting for something to be laid on top of them, a statue, perhaps, or a platform. A man and a woman walked over and stood next to Natalie at the railing. Beautiful view, said the woman. She had a French accent. She didn’t sound at all convinced by what she’d said. After a minute the couple walked back
down the hill.
Keisha?
Natalie Blake looked out and down. She tried to locate the house, somewhere back down that hill, west of here. Rows of identical redbrick chimneys, stretching to the suburbs. The wind picked up, shaking the trees below. She had the sense of being in the country. In the country, if a woman could not face her children, or her friends, or her family – if she were covered in shame – she would probably only need to lay herself down in a field and take her leave by merging, first with the grass underneath her, then with the mulch under that. A city child, Natalie Blake had always been naïve about country matters. Still, when it came to the city, she was not mistaken. Here nothing less than a break – a sudden and total rupture – would do. She could see the act perfectly clearly, it appeared before her like an object in her hand – and then the wind shook the trees once more and her feet touched the pavement. The act remained just that: an act, a prospect, always possible. Someone would surely soon come to this bridge and claim it, both the possibility and the act itself, as they had been doing with grim regularity ever since the bridge was built. But right at this moment there was no one left to do it.
Keisha, it’s getting cold up here. I need some warmness. Come on, man. Keisha, don’t be moody. Chat to me some more. Step down.
She bent over and put her hands on her knees. She was shaking with laughter. She looked up and saw Nathan frowning at her.
Listen, I’m out. I got to keep moving. You’re a fucking liability. You coming or what? Asked Nathan Bogle.
Goodbye, Nathan. Said Natalie Blake.
She saw a night bus coming up the street and wished she had some money. She did not know what had been saved exactly, or by whom.
visitation
The woman was naked, the man dressed. The woman had not realized that the man had somewhere to go. Outside their window came the noise of a carnival float testing its sound system, somewhere to the west, in Kensal Rise. Out in the street they call it murda. After a few bars the music stopped and was replaced by the tinkle of a passing ice-cream van. Here we go round the mulberry bush. The woman sat up and looked for the letter she had left on the man’s side of the bed, in the early hours of the morning. It had taken her a whole day and most of a night to ‘marshal her thoughts’. Finally, as Monday began, she had licked the glue on the white envelope and placed it on his pillow. He had moved it to a chair, unopened. Now she watched her husband place his feet in some fine Italian tasselled loafers and draw a baseball cap down low upon his curls. ‘Aren’t you going to open it?’ asked Natalie. ‘I’m going out,’ said Frank. The woman knelt up in an imploring position. She could hardly believe that she had awoken to find herself in the same situation as yesterday, and as the day before, that sleep could not erase it. That she would be in the same situation tomorrow. That this was her life now. Two silent enemies shepherding children to their social appointments. ‘I’ll be out for a few hours,’ said the man. ‘When I get back I’ll take the kids till seven. You should find somewhere else to be.’ The woman picked up the envelope and held it out to the man. ‘Frank, just take it with you.’ The man took a thin volume from a bookshelf – she was too slow to identify it – and put it in his back pocket. ‘Confessions are self-serving,’ he said. He left the room. She heard him go down the stairs, pausing briefly on the second floor. A few minutes later the front door slammed.
There was a choice of either stasis or propulsion. She got dressed quickly, dramatically, in bright blue and white, and ran down a flight of stairs. Her children met her in a hallway. Naomi was standing on an upturned box. Spike was flat on the floor on his stomach. Both were silver. Silver faces, silver-sprayed clothes, foil hats. Natalie couldn’t tell if this was the consequence of a dramatic event, a form of game, or something else again.
‘Where’
s Maria?’ she asked, but then answered her own question: ‘Bank Holiday Monday. Why’re you wearing that?’
‘Carnival!’
‘Again? Who said both days?’
‘I’m a robot. There’s a competition. Maria made them. We finished up the foil.’
‘Both robots.’
‘No! Spike is a robot dog. I’m the main robot. It starts at two. It is five pounds.’
If she kept receiving these kinds of clear, helpful descriptions of phenomena from her children there was a possibility they might all get through the next few hours. The next few years.
‘What time is it now?’ Natalie’s children waited for her to check her phone. ‘We can’t stay here. It’s a beautiful day. We need to get out.’
Each child had their own room – there was enough space in the house for them all to sleep alone – but ignorant of the logic of capital the children insisted on sleeping together, and in the smallest room, in bunk beds, surrounded by a mountain of their own clothes. Natalie dug through this mess looking for something suitable.
‘I don’t want to get changed,’ said Naomi.
‘I don’t want!’ said Spike.
‘But you look ridiculous,’ argued Natalie.
In her daughter’s eyes Natalie saw her own celebrated will reflected back at her, at twice the intensity. Downstairs in the front hall she put the robot dog in the buggy and had an argument with the robot about whether or not it should be permitted to take the scooter. She lost that one, too. She closed the front door and looked up at an expensive pile of bricks and mortar. Soon it would surely be divided, have all its contents boxed and redistributed, its occupants separated, resettled. Finally a new arrangement of optimistic souls, intent on ‘building a life’ for themselves, would cross its threshold. And in a sense it was not difficult to project oneself into the future in this way, so long as you stuck to abstractions.
Two minutes down the road, Natalie’s daughter grew bored of her scooter and asked for a piggyback. Natalie hooked the scooter to the buggy and accepted her daughter upon her back. Naomi stretched her head round so her soft cheek pressed against her mother’s face and her wild hair Oew in her mother’s mouth.