And then, from halfway up the staircase, her mum said her name. And again.
And then—
Vovó and vovô are on Skype
Oi oiii oi
Can you hear us?
Do you want to come down?
She didn’t say anything. She heard her mother tread tread slowly up the stairs until she stood on the other side of the bedroom door.
Her mum spoke in a low voice with pauses—
Vovó and vovô are on Skype
Darling?
They are going in a minute
Do you want to say hello?
She didn’t say anything. She was awake. She lay still. She didn’t say anything.
She waited without speaking until she heard her mother’s socks shift on the carpet. She heard the voices on the other side of the laptop screen.
She must be asleep, next time.
Yes she works very hard and she gets very tired.
You know what young people are like they can sleep forever.
Her mother began to move down the stairs.
The light from outside the curtains spread over her eyelids like concrete.
Jade was coming for roast. That Sunday Jade was coming for roast. Her mum had said the week before—Why don’t you invite Jade over? And her dad had said—Yes, it would be great to see Jade! What is she up to now?
When she woke up on the Sunday morning that Jade was coming for roast she had a shower straight away and did not go back to bed. She put on a clean vest, soft trousers that didn’t pressure her stomach, and moisturised her face. In the late morning she went downstairs and sat at the table with her parents as they prepared the meal.
Good morning
Good morning!
Her mum was peeling potatoes.
Vovó and vovô called on Skype yesterday.
Oh?
But you were asleep.
Oh.
We did not want to wake you.
Thanks.
She sat at the table.
How are they?
Good. Good. There is a new tree in the garden
Oh?
Jabuticaba
Oh.
You know it is the small black almost black fruit
I know it. She paused. That’s nice.
Yes.
She looked at her dad.
Her dad smiled at them. I’ve got a large chicken because Jade is coming today.
Yes.
Her mum looked at her. Jade is coming today, yes?
Yes. She got her phone out of her pocket. Yes she texted me this morning.
They looked at her.
She said she should arrive at one o’clock.
Great.
Great.
Her mum was staring at her.
Mum?
Sorry. Her mum restarted peeling the potatoes.
Her dad was doing something important at the stove. In response to no one, he said—Yes. Food should be ready at about one fifteen.
She put a piece of bread in her mouth and watched them from her side of the table.
They made this meal together every week, every Sunday just the same since she had been a child. But it was her dad’s meal really. Her mum peeled the potatoes and made sure there was enough ice cream to go with pudding. He bought and chose the vegetables, which always included parsnips and swedes and marrows and other turnip things that only grew in England. And he prepared the chicken. Today with butter and pieces of garlic and—I’m experimenting here folks, so let me know if you notice anything different!—a lemon inside.
When she was growing up it had been unusual for them to eat the roast just the three of them. Her mum had always found and invited some random Brazilian nurse or new doctor from the hospital who had always brought their partner or sister or daughter who was wearing a fleece, visiting Europe for the first time. Or there was one of their cousins, or cousins’ cousin, visiting from Manchester or Bristol or São Paulo. A house like this should be full of people, her mother had said, although recently it had only been the three of them.
The doorbell rang.
I’ll get it.
She closed the kitchen door and stopped for a moment in the corridor. She could see the shape of Jade on the other side of the stained glass front door.
Jade came from the dark grey late winter into the kitchen where all the window wall was steamed up.
Hello!
Hello
Jade! Her mum removed her glasses and stood up and gave Jade a hug—You look so beautiful and grown up Jade.
Aw thanks. Thank you.
Her dad looked up from the gravy and shook Jade’s hand.
Oh hullo Jade!
Hello!
And the dog also wanted to sniff her tights and sniff her handbag.
They sat down around the table. Jade had arrived a little early.
We’re not quite ready yet Jade.
Oh don’t worry—
Would you like a glass of wine?
Yes! Thanks.
All ready on the table was a tray of goose-fat crunch crispy potatoes and carrots and onions and parsnips, cabbage in a dish, water, wine, wineglasses. The fruit bowls and flower vase were pushed to the sides of the table around their plates.
They sat around the table and looked at each other. Her dad poured the gravy into the gravy boat and handed it to her mum, who set it down on a mat.
Her parents were embarrassing her.
Jade, so tell me have you graduated?
No, next year
Ah well good luck good luck.
And your degree will be in—what’s the name exactly?
Fine art.
Oh right and what does that, you know
Well I did like films and sculpture, sort of both at the same time sometimes
—Jade’s work is great.
Her mum said—Yes I would love to see it, we always want new pieces for the hospital
Mum—
What?
Obviously it’s not like that—how would you put a film
What do you mean it’s not like that, why not, Jade you could make something for the hospital
Yeah I suppose I could!
Anyway
Jade have you got gravy there
They passed around the gravy boat.
So what kind of job will you have?
Well right now I work in a cafe but
I mean do you know what kind of thing would you like to do?
I’m not sure yet.
You could always keep up your art
Yeah I
Jade, would you like more chicken?
Jade held out her plate. She turned and said—
But anyway how is your job?
Yeah! Good, they renewed my contract.
Amazing.
Yeah
I’m so happy for you
Her dad said—It was a really hard-hitting programme about plastic surgery in Brazil.
She looked at her dad.
Her mum looked up too.
Jade looked at her—Cool.
No I mean, it was—she was flustered—it was like the presenter was English, you know she’s the um the blonde lady with the fringe from um I forget what she was called, but anyway it was her and she had various theories about the whole thing. Like she asked the women if they were doing it for the husbands
Right
They said no, most of them didn’t even have husbands
Right
Jade was listening.
Looking at the wall behind Jade, she winced—And then the presenter said, did they want their noses to look less African? She asked them if they voted and they said, yes and voting in Brazil is compulsory. She said, why didn’t they go to the gym or run on the beach instead
Jade frowned.
Afterwards they loaded the dishwasher and her mum took the little pudding plates and little forks out of the cupboard.
Your father has made fruit salad, it has a little rum in it. And there are two typ
es of ice cream, this one with strawberry bits I think is a bit fancier the other is just vanilla.
This is lovely thank you
Yes you can get very ripe fruit at the market
Mmm
Are these lychees?
Yes. Yes they are lychees.
They ate.
How is your mum Jade?
She’s good. She’s on holiday right now.
And Andy?
Also good.
Does he still work at the council?
Yeah. Yep he does.
Right.
Yes.
Well do send my regards to them.
Yes.
Still sitting at the table, Jade asked her—Do you want to go to the cinema?
Her parents were moving around the kitchen, stacking plates.
I don’t think—
Elena’s going.
I have a thing
We’re going to watch the scary one—
I have a thing I have to do.
Okay.
Sorry.
If it had been summer perhaps they might have sat in the garden together.
Before Jade left, they hugged by the coats in the doorway.
I’ll see you soon though.
Definitely.
Yes
Jade smiled at her. Okay then.
Bye
Byebye
And then after the front door shut and outside started getting dark she sunk down into her bed with relief and opened the computer, typing in the letters of his name.
Do you remember what his flat looked like in winter all dark grey with the lights off?
Do you remember what his flat looked like in all dark grey covered in two hundred tiny candles?
Because—be honest with yourself
There were good times
(yes)
Hey!
Hey
Hey.
Hi
Hiya
Hello!
Hello
It’s me
I know it’s been a while but
Leo—
She didn’t tell anyone this but walking home from the N155 bus stop, on a night when she had actually been out drunk a couple of drinks, walking home from the bus stop as she crossed the high street she heard a voice call her name.
She heard the
syl
la
bles
Felt her whole body thrill unthrill
She heard the
syl
la
bles
She kept walking, her back to the nighttime name sound.
(Of course it wasn’t him
she’d know the voice)
She kept walking
It was dark and
this was a new coat these shoes were new boot shoes; she wore no evidence of herself as he had known her on her body
She kept walking swish swish swish
(Of course it wasn’t him
she would know the voice)
She turned the corner—
ran.
Yes she was back.
The next weekend on Saturday she went shopping with her mum. They drove to the big Sainsbury’s in Tooting Broadway.
But
Her mum held up little yoghurt pots—Sugar free? No? Do you prefer honey or mango? Do you still like lentils?
No
Yeah
No
Mum—
But
Two roads from the entrance—she knew the spot. She had spent probably over three hundred evenings there. In the maisonette garden. Every time she was watchful in the Sainsbury’s. Checked the shoppers in all directions. Tall light hair slim fingers? Black jacket football shorts, his naked back.
Darling will you go to the freezer section please?
We need peas and ice cream and prawns little prawns shrimps
And can you think of anything else
Her mum bent over the trolley.
She shook her head.
She took a bath. Filled it full and hot and covered it in bubbles.
She took off her blazer and her blouse and her tights and her other clothes. Got her whole body in the bath. Didn’t look at it.
this broken body
this broken up body.
She wakes from a bad dream
It was true she checked his Facebook. She had thrown away all her shiny paper photographs of him at some point she must have done it, she couldn’t remember when, including the tiny ones they had taken in the photo booth at the station in Brighton. To be honest she had been checking his Facebook. She checked it more now that she was back home. These had been their places after all. Although unlike her, he had never left. She had never gone back right up to the door of his flat. Although somewhere, in some drawer, she had the key (and the other day for the first time in years she had held it in her hand again)
She almost called Jade almost saying I had a dream where he had broken his arm
In her sweaty sheets childhood bed she looked through the pictures on his Facebook, the ones that she had access to. He didn’t upload new ones often. So she couldn’t tell if he was happy or sad or where exactly he was living.
A photo of him by the sea
A photo of him with some dog in a living room she didn’t
recognise
A photo of him in a bedroom she didn’t recognise
A photo of him wearing blue scrubs like on TV and smiling
A photo of him broad shouldered in a suit
A photo of him with new glasses, his hair cut shorter than she
had liked it.
A photo of him by the sea
Every time, she cringed when she saw his face, its shocking unrepeatable asymmetry. The way it shouted out to her in his voice. We used to fuck, his white body said to her as it stood by the sea, you used to fuck my mouth.
He crouched in the living room she didn’t recognise. His asymmetrical smile. Under all the clothes in all his photos she saw his naked body.
White like a glowworm.
But there were good times
There were good times. Come on. Be honest with yourself.
Yeah the sex had been good sometimes.
You called it great
I know.
You called it—
Sometimes it was ugly.
But still
And she had loved him.
Yes.
And he had said—If you love me don’t you leave me
(if you love me)
And there were other things. But she’s a stubborn archivist.
Tall light hair slim fingers
his white and naked back
And unlike her, he hadn’t left.
Had he?
Hey—I recognise you
Yes
What’s your name?
He repeated the syl-la-bles.
Yeah that’s nice, where’s it from?
It’s from Brazil.
Jeeeez. He bent over and whistled.
And you kissed his face all over every single part of his white paper no face face, cheek and ears and teeth and mouth and mouth and you almost bite it off and chew
Hey!
Hey
Hey.
Hi
Hiya
A photo of him, by the sea
Hello!
Hello
It’s me
I know it’s been a while but
And I’m sorry
Jade I need to talk about—
She wakes up from a bad dream
a face seconds above her face a white face above her face
It was bound to happen
And she didn’t tell anyone about it but she had heard a voice call her name
She ran home and sat on the toilet, shitting, sweating, her face in her hands.
Part II
1991
Natal
The first time Ana Paula came to England was to see her sister’s baby.
It was her fi
rst time on an aeroplane and her first time over the wide grey ocean and the first time she used her passport.
It was the first time Ana Paula left Brazil.
Isadora was sitting on the sofa in the living room in their small flat in Tooting in the late morning. She was breastfeeding and trying to eat mushrooms and tomatoes and bacon and toast from a plate on the coffee table. Richard was in the kitchen, and Isadora could hear his kitchen movements as he made his own breakfast plate.
Richard came into the living room.
Without looking up she said—Their plane arrives at one.
He nodded, eating.
They land at one.
Yes. Yes.
Then, looking at the sky in the window, he said—Yes, they must be somewhere over France at the moment. Near the Pyrenees I would imagine.
Isadora did not respond. She took a bite of mushrooms and mushroom-soggy bread. The second bedroom was made. The heating was on, the flat was warm. Ana Paula would have to sleep on the sofa but there was nothing they could do about that. When her parents had first responded to her letter they had offered to stay in a hotel but she had said, over the phone, No no claro que não. Imagina.
Isadora looked at the baby then back at Richard—She is still hungry.
Richard paused. Well—
Well?
Richard sat next to Isadora on the sofa and put the side of his hand on the baby’s head. Well, I could go to the airport and you could stay here—with the baby.
Isadora considered. Isadora shifted.
You go pick them up on your own?
Yes.
Isadora shifted. The baby made a small sound.
Then she said, slowly—I think they will really like that.
Great.
Great.
Richard looked at Isadora.
She smiled at him. Thank you husband.
But—she said—but in case you don’t recognise each other, just in case, let me make you a sign.
Isadora handed him the baby and moved the breakfast plate. She took a piece of white A4 paper from a pile of letters on the coffee table. On the back of it she wrote, first in orange highlighter then traced over in black biro—
A M A D O
(Vovô, Vovó e Tia Ana Paula)
She stood and held up the sign.
She was laughing—Okay?
Richard looked at it and then he frowned.
So what do I call them—Mr. and Mrs. Amado?
Isadora repeated, in a Deep English Voice—Mistuh und Missus Uhh-maar-doe
Stubborn Archivist Page 3
