Stubborn Archivist

by Yara Rodrigues Fowler

  Still. This week she would avoid tight-waisted skirts. Undo her button after lunch. No melted cheese.

  Lying on the bed, she closed her eyes. She touched her fingers on her fingers.

  And as the spring began they wanted to take her out. In Peckham. Jade and Elena and this girl Gee from Jade’s art school.

  Hm

  At least it’s not Dalston, they said.

  Hmm.

  You don’t have to drink, Jade said. You can cycle home if you want.

  Fine. Okay. Fine.

  So she got dressed at home. She put her make up on. She got the tube and then the Overground. She stood on the outdoors platform, her hands in her pockets.

  Walking down the stairs at Peckham Rye station all together they ran into the little brother of a girl who they’d known at school.

  Elena whispered his name and pointed at him.

  Is that—

  The other two looked at the back of the man’s head, then back at Elena.

  Errr

  Jade leant to the side.

  Yup! It is.

  Jade ran ahead, stopping beside him and tapping him on his high up shoulder.

  Oh my god—Jonathan?

  Hey hi oh wow

  Jonathan!

  Jade

  How are you doing? How are you?

  Good great

  The guy nodded at her.

  Jade held her hands to the side incredulously. You’re fucking massive!

  Jonathan laughed.

  I remember you screaming that time the tree fell down in front of the science block, you must have been in year seven you were so scared. Do you remember that?

  Yes

  To be fair it was a big tree

  How old are you anyway?

  Seventeen

  Jade looked very seriously at him—What you doing out so late then?

  Jonathan looked at her and then to the side.

  Pause

  Jade laughed—I’m joking, I’m fucking joking Jonathan!

  He laughed.

  They laughed.

  Inside, under the moving indoor lights, three drinks down, loud heart beating, she began a conversation—

  Look everyone I have a question. Okay stop listen but I have a question.

  Ok ok—

  Go!

  It’s a very important question. I’ve been thinking about it for a while and I’m baffled.

  Okay shoot

  They were sitting in the bar in the corner where it was quieter and you could talk.

  She began—

  Right so, you guys have casual sex, one night stands sometimes, yes?

  Jade said—Yes I have had a couple.

  Gee said—Yep yes ahem.

  Elena said—Mmm. Not really.

  Okay well this is a question about one night stands. Elena maybe you will still have some insights anyway.

  Right.

  Okay, that’s fine.

  The three of them looked at her.

  So?

  So—

  Deep shallow breath—So so when you have a one night stand, you’ve usually been drinking the night before. Correct?

  Usually

  Yes most times

  Not like super drunk but just happy drunk.

  Yep

  Well, and I think this is normal but I’m not sure—

  What?

  What is it?

  Just say it!

  Well I think this is normal but when I drink usually in the mornings I get weird . . .

  Weird?

  Weird belly.

  Oh

  Ah ha ha ha

  That’s normal right?

  That’s normal!

  I get that

  I always get that

  It’s absolutely normal

  So I was wondering

  Yes

  When you have a one night stand, and if you like don’t want to run home in the middle of the night, or like if you fall asleep, and if you’ve been drinking the night before, and you’re there in the morning and you have a weird belly and you need to do . . . what do you do?

  Jade was laughing. Elena was laughing and shaking her head. Oh my god.

  Gee held her hands up—Okay okay this has happened to me! I have a technique! But firstly, yes very sensible question.

  She laughed. Okay. What I do is when I go to the bathroom, and I turn all the taps on in the sink and I get the shampoo and I pour it into the sink and then make it all bubbly and shampooey fruity and I splash the steam around and . . .

  Jade shook her head. But some flats have those separate toilet rooms. Where the sink is in the bathroom. Jade shook her head. I think you just have to go for it. You just have to go for it.

  Elena—I would invite them out for breakfast and then do it in the cafe toilet.

  She got home to the house in Tooting a little drunk quite late but not very late and lay on the sofa with her laptop open and found the seventy-nine “Tiago Miguel Da Silva”s in London. She scroll scroll scrolled.

  Twelve are old-looking, and a couple have no photos just soft-coloured backgrounds with the message—

  Jesus ama você <3

  and

  Deus é FIEL

  There is a photograph of a darkened figure a man standing with the light behind him in front of the sun by the Houses of Parliament.

  He’s wearing a fitted denim jacket and black shorts and bad sunglasses.

  She fell asleep on the sofa.

  She wakes, suddenly

  And how is it that everyone who did approach her for directions was Brazilian? They asked her for directions to places that she had never been like Buckingham Palace and Madame Tussauds and Harrods or the London Dungeon. Sometimes she didn’t even wait for them to finish their slow English questions before replying—

  Yes this is the Victoria Line, you need to change at Green Park

  The museum is in that direction, there’s a subway that goes to the entrance

  I’m sorry I don’t know where the Abercrombie store is, but this is Regent Street

  Sometimes they started visibly when this green-grey eyed not pale white-skinned woman, whose loose fitting camel-coloured coat and black big heel boots told them she was nowhere more at home than in the stern mute lines of the European silhouette, announced herself with a floating São Paulo accent.

  And nothing gratified her more than being asked—But when did you move to London?

  Some of their contracts were nearly up.

  So the other young people from her office wanted to drag her out to South East London.

  Nathan said—You’ve got to come, who knows when we’ll be working together again!

  Let’s go out properly, it’ll be nice. Not just to the pub after work but out at the weekend.

  There is a bar club place in Peckham with taxidermy, you will really like.

  Okay, yes. No no of course I’ll miss you. Of course!

  She arrived by bike, sweaty and wet faced from the rain. Before meeting the others, she paused under a newsagent awning and put on her lipstick.

  They were all sitting in a corner of the bar, which was down a set of steps.

  Nathan waved at her and she walked over.

  This place used to be a church didn’t you know?

  Oh really. She put her stuff under the table but didn’t sit. She looked around at the new fake old stained glass and cocktails and palm trees drawn onto blackboards.

  I can actually get a caipirinha here. And coconut water.

  Hi I’ll have a coconut water.

  She leant forward on the bar—Can I ask, is it fresh? Thank you.

  She sat down next to Nathan. She drank the coconut water and then she drank a too sweet too expensive pineapple coconut drink with rum in it. Nathan was telling a story

  The people there were so lovely really

  Just so welcoming, right

  Absolutely absolutely

  I’m still in touch with them you know, the couple who ran the place
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  Oh really

  Really

  She sank into the dark leather chairs. Tom and another guy were speaking next to her—

  But did you see it coming?

  No I didn’t see it coming I was so hopeful right until they announced it

  That was a chilling moment

  I don’t think anyone saw that coming

  Well—

  There was a real shock in the room actually when the numbers came in

  By the way can I just say your lipstick is so striking

  What?

  Really. Your lipstick. Yes.

  Oh

  Would you like another drink?

  Um

  I’ll get it no no really sit down

  Oh

  After one or two or possibly three hours she turned to Nathan.

  You know Nathan, when I was growing up people didn’t come to Peckham.

  Yeah?

  Well I mean obviously the people who lived here lived here

  Yeah

  Right

  Nathan nodded. What was it like then?

  I don’t know. I never came here did I

  She laughed.

  The other guy called Sam said—So what you doing now, are you staying?

  Yeah, I have—

  That’s great!

  Yes. It’s with Melanie, well she’s got a lot of things on later this year. People keep being kidnapped, so

  Ah ha.

  Nice one.

  It’s lucky that you speak all those languages

  Right.

  Yes.

  Anyway. It doesn’t start for a week

  So you have a sort of holiday?

  Sort of yeah. I have a sort of holiday.

  Are you going anywhere? Back home?

  Er

  She looked at him.

  I’m staying in London.

  I’m actually from London, I’m from South London, sort of around here but not really

  Oh really?

  Yes

  Whereabouts

  Tooting

  Oh is that—

  It’s near Streatham, Clapham, or you might know Balham?

  Right.

  Yep

  And you still live there?

  Yes with my parents.

  Oh and how is that?

  It’s fine. We get along.

  I suppose there is a housing crisis

  Yes. But also I mean it’s not so awful

  No I mean my flat’s covered in mould and I pay

  I mean for example in Brazil people often live at home until

  Until?

  Until they get married or move cities or

  Well we should stay in touch because I don’t know when I’ll next—

  She looked around the bar.

  She turned to Nathan who sat next to her at work—God Nathan you know you know Nathan when I was growing up no one went out in Peckham

  He looked at her and clapped her jovially on the shoulder.

  He said her name.

  Yeah yeah we know, London’s changing. We know.

  When she cycled home on her blue bike it was dark but she had lights.

  She cycled past cemeteries down deserted high streets with small shuttered shop fronts and overfull rubbish bins, through the wide and willow curved back streets of Dulwich through

  crescent

  crescent crescent

  grove

  avenue

  hill

  estate

  road estate

  Herne Hill

  which was silent until the very last moment before it became Brixton.

  And through Brixton she moved past the tall town houses with ambitious growing palm trees and feather duster pampas and stained glass entrances in the quiet residential spaces between Streatham and Clapham before the dark and yellow-coloured common.

  As she rode she became too hot under her clothes. There was no wind in the street light dark. She stopped in the middle of an empty residential street where no one was walking and all the cars were parked and she removed the layer layers, peeling off her tights and stuffing them in her pocket, until she reached the damp sweat-swelled hair on the small of her back and at the top of her thighs and under her belly button.

  These are the same streets they used to walk down endlessly when they were sixteen looking for a park or house party to get drunk in or high in or make out with a stranger in.

  Late at night in this last week in the bath she thinks about thinking about Tiago.

  But—

  She touches her hands on her ankles in the dark wet of the bath

  But—

  She wakes from a dream.

  It was the first hot evening and they were eating outside on the table in the garden at ten p.m. under the huge white and yellow rose bush that her dad had planted nearly twenty years ago.

  Standing, her dad said—Well thank you that was delicious

  Good!

  And now I’m going to watch the news.

  And, taking his plate, he climbed the concrete steps into the kitchen.

  Her mother leant back and sighed, closing her eyes. She looked at her mum. Before her mum could begin a new topic, ask her about her work or the dog or had she watched that new crime series with the man from that film they had seen together last year, she said—

  Mum

  Yeah?

  Mum did I tell you about the Brazilian man at my work?

  What Brazilian man?

  The one I told you about, he works in the cafeteria.

  Oh. How old is he?

  I don’t know. Under thirty. Maybe twenty-six.

  How long has he been living here?

  I don’t know. A year? Two years?

  What does he do at your work?

  He works in the cafeteria. That’s where I met him

  He said he wants to study.

  What does he want to study?

  I don’t know.

  Her mother lowered her glasses.

  What?

  So is he good-looking?

  Um I don’t know.

  What do you mean you don’t know!

  Mum

  Is he handsome, like good-looking fit, “buff” do you still say “buff”—she moved her hands around

  OK. If you are asking whether he conforms to traditional male beauty norms prescribed by—

  Baby, why don’t you invite him round?

  No.

  Why not?! I always invite Brazilians I know who’ve just arrived round I think it’s nice

  No no no

  There’s Marcia and her husband, they’re coming on Thursday

  No. No no

  Why not?

  It would be so awkward. I don’t know him at all, and neither do you I mean it’s not like he just arrived here, he has plenty of friends. Also I haven’t seen him in ages.

  Okay

  Okay.

  It’s just an idea

  Thanks for your idea

  She looked away but her mother was still looking at her.

  You know in my day Brazilian men were . . .

  Mum I’m not going out with him.

  Okay.

  Pause.

  In your day Brazilian men were . . .

  I don’t know

  So why did you say it?

  Well—she put her fork down—well you know I had a lot of boyfriends before your dad

  Yeah

  And then I moved to England.

  Yeah

  And then I had some more boyfriends.

  Okay

  Well and me and my friends—my Brazilian friends in England—we used to think the Brazilian men we knew could be difficult, more traditional.

  But lots of English men are traditional.

  Oh yes. That is very true. I once asked your Grandpa Simon to peel a potato and he became very distressed.

  Okay so what is your point

  I don’t know boneca just be aware of that.

  Okay. Thumbs up. Note
d.

  On Friday she has trouble in the morning.

  Sitting on the loo in her underwear she thinks about what she’ll wear. It’s not cold outside. This is climate change for sure, she thinks. Spring summer never used to be like this.

  She thinks about wearing the clothes she only wears in Brazil. The stretchier more colourful dresses and soft shorts that she gets for Christmas and wears in the days after over her bikini at the beach and then packs and unpacks away in the bottom drawer when she gets home.

  She picks out an orange vest. It’s silky and actually she bought it in London but she wears it with blue jeans and white havaianas. She takes off the havaianas and puts on shoes. She thinks about Tiago. His body in this teeming moving city, his routes her routes, her roads his roads, her bus his bus. Tiago in the cafeteria.

  Okay.

  Inside the card swipe building before she goes back to the basement she takes a deep breath.

  The cafeteria is emptier because people are starting to eat outside. He’s there, Tiago behind the counter. She holds her tray.

  The pause after he serves her is longer than before.

  Hi

  Tudo bem?

  Tudo tudo.

  Okay

  She smiles at him.

  Brigada

  She sits down. Looks at the vegetables.

  He stops to leave a salt shaker on the table where she is sitting. She pauses then he says—

  Where in London do you live?

  I live in South London, like Clapham and Streatham around there

  I also live in South London with some other brasileiros who work in the kitchen, it’s a place called Tooting—

  What! But—

  He looks at her.

  But I live in Tooting, I grew up in Tooting!

  She looks up at him. She’s smiling.

  He puts his palms on the table top.

  Vamos go for a drink sometime—he says, saying “go for a drink” in English.

  (Panic—

  Does he go out to the same places you go to?

  Why have you never seen him on the way to work?

  Does he ride a bike into work

  Does he want to have a drink one on one or are his friends coming

  What if it is cold or raining

  Does he have English friends

  Should you give him your number?

  Should you ask for his number

  What would you text him?

  What language

  What if he uses slang you don’t know

  What does he smell like

  What does his body look like

  Does he have sex with women

  Does he have a girlfriend?

  Who is he having sex with?