Queenie

by Candice Carty-Williams

  I listened to Tom breathing heavily through his nose. I opened my mouth to ask what I could do to get him to talk to me again when he finally spoke. “You know that’s the first time you’ve apologized?” He laughed softly. “The first time you’ve actually said sorry. After everything. The pushing away, the lashing out, the mood swings. The first time you’ve apologized.”

  “It can’t be,” I said, before realizing that he was probably right. “Well. I am.”

  I started to walk up the stairs toward Tom, but he put a hand out to stop me. “It’s too late, Queenie,” he said quietly. “It was too late months ago, I thought you got that!”

  I stumbled backward down the wooden steps and grabbed onto the handrail to stop myself from falling and cracking my head open on the tiled floor.

  “But we love each other!” I said, trying to convince him. “All this time, I thought we loved each other,” I said, trying to convince myself. “And the text, at New Year’s, I said I wanted us to have a good year, and you replied with a kiss?”

  “Yeah, sorry about that, I was hammered. I should have realized you’d read too much into it.” His words were like a punch to the gut.

  The door to the flat opened and the girl from before stepped out. “Sorry to break this up.” She looked down at me apologetically. “Tom, are you coming back in?” she asked, putting her hand on his waist.

  “Yeah, give us a sec, Anna,” Tom said, turning around to her. “I’m just saying good-bye.”

  She closed the door behind her, but Tom continued to face where she’d been standing. “You should go.”

  “Who’s that? I thought she was a neighbor,” I told him. No response. “It’s okay if you’re sleeping with other people, I don’t mind that, it’s not like I hav—”

  “I—uh.” Tom swallowed loudly. “Anna’s my girlfriend, Queenie. Has been for a while now.” He wouldn’t look at me.

  “But,” I gasped, “I agreed we should revisit where we were in three months?”

  “I thought you meant we’d see how the other was,” Tom offered weakly. “I didn’t think you meant we’d kick things off again.”

  I felt like I was going to keel over and die.

  “So we’re really done?” I asked. “Forever?”

  “We’re really done.” Tom shrugged.

  I opened my mouth to tell him about the miscarriage. Surely then he’d care, surely he’d be forced to think about what that actually meant, how heavy that was. “Tom.”

  “What? What?” he asked me, annoyed. And I realized that I’d rather keep it to myself. He wouldn’t care. I’d rather have him not know than have his apathy.

  * * *

  I walked home in the rain listening to “Losing You” by Solange and “When You Were Mine” by Prince on rotation. By the time I got back, I was shivering so visibly that Rupert actually made me a cup of tea.

  “Where did you go?” he asked as we sat in the kitchen, me still in my sopping wet clothes, rainwater dripping onto the lino.

  “Just for a walk,” I lied. My breath caught in my throat. “I should go and—” I stood up, and the kitchen seemed to warp. I pulled myself up the stairs while everything spun around me, and flopped onto my bed. My breaths were getting shallow. I tried to call out, but it felt like a giant was standing on my chest. I could hear a ringing in my ears, and then everything went black.

  * * *

  I came to on the floor next to my bed. I tried to get up, but my limbs felt heavy, so knocked my phone from my bedside table to the floor. I couldn’t call any of my friends, I didn’t want them to see me like this. I couldn’t call my grandmother, she was too old to deal with this. Maggie! She’d probably try to sprinkle holy water on me, but at least she was good at staying pragmatic in the face of illness. I dialed her number and curled into a ball on the floor.

  “Hello, Queenie, what’s happening?” Maggie answered cheerily.

  “Aunt Maggie?” I rasped. “I don’t feel well.”

  “Oh dear, you sound off. What’s wrong?”

  “I don’t . . . know.”

  “What do you mean, you don’t know? Is it your women’s troubles again?” she asked suspiciously. “I’ve been praying for your recovery, so it can’t be—”

  “No, I can’t . . . breathe.” It was getting harder to talk.

  “What do you mean, you can’t breathe? You wouldn’t be able to talk to me if you couldn’t breathe, sweetheart.”

  “Can you . . . come here? Sorry to, ask, I just, can’t—”

  “Okay. I’ll get a cab over,” Maggie said. “I’ll have to bring Diana. Her dad forgot that he was meant to take her this weekend. Honestly, that man, he alw—”

  “Maggie, please . . . come.”

  * * *

  I managed to stagger down the stairs to the kitchen for a glass of water and lay on the sofa as my stomach churned. I tried to take big gulps of air down, but whenever I breathed in, something stopped me. I eventually gave way to hyperventilation. After a lifetime of waiting, the doorbell rang, and I hoisted myself up from the sofa. When I opened the door, Diana charged past me and Maggie bustled in after her.

  “See, Mum, I told you it smells weird!” Diana wrinkled her nose in disgust, her tucked-up septum piercing catching the light from the upstairs hallway.

  “Diana’s right, Queenie, it smells like the whole place is damp. I didn’t know you were living like this.”

  I sat on the stairs and put my head between my legs.

  “Diana, you go and sit down, find the front room. Don’t take your shoes off, the floor isn’t clean.” Maggie stood over me and bent down, looking into my eyes. “You’re shaking! Am I going to have to get an old priest and a young priest in here?” she joked, putting her hand on my shoulder. “No wonder you’re shaking, you’re soaking wet!” she exclaimed.

  “Can’t breathe,” I told my aunt. “And my head is swimming. My hands are shaking . . . and my stomach doesn’t hurt, but it just feels like it’s flipping over.” I stopped talking so that I could try to take some deep breaths.

  “Do you feel sick?” Maggie asked, rubbing my back. I shook my head. “Let me know if you’re going to be sick,” she said.

  “I’m not going to be sick.”

  “Diana, can you find a bucket, please?” Maggie called out. “Queenie is going to be sick.”

  “Maggie! I don’t feel nauseous or anything, but I feel like something is going to come up out of my mouth,” I said, flapping my hands frantically. “I don’t know how to explain it. I feel like something really bad is going to happen, I feel like I’ll never feel better.”

  I closed my eyes to stop my aunt’s face blurring in front of me.

  “Panic attack,” Diana said knowingly as she walked into the hallway.

  “When did you turn doctor?” Maggie asked through tightened lips.

  “It is a panic attack, though.” Diana crossed her arms and leaned against the wall, smug with her diagnosis. “Some girl in my class had them when we first started school. She used to feel like that before every class, so she had to take lessons in a room on her own.”

  “Are you under a lot of stress?” Maggie asked, the sentence getting quieter so that by the time she said “stress” she was mouthing it. Jamaicans don’t typically believe in mental health issues. “And have you been praying?”

  “What do you mean by stress?” I ignored the latter part of her question. “I’ve never had a panic attack.” I gasped as a wave of what I immediately recognized as acute panic hit me.

  “Doesn’t matter, Henny hadn’t. They just started,” Diana said, picking at bits of the peeling wallpaper.

  “Okay,” Maggie said, composing herself by smoothing down her bright orange kaftan. “Diana, stop touching, please. Queenie, get out of those wet clothes and grab your overnight things. Let’s go to Mum’s. Can we try to get the bus, or should I call a cab?” Maggie asked, adjusting her wig.

  “I don’t want to go out,” I whimpered.

  “You�
�re not turning agoraphobic on me—come on, let’s go. I’ll call a cab.” Maggie clapped her hands as Diana helped me to stand up.

  I looked at my little cousin. “Sorry about this.”

  “Don’t be sorry,” she said, helping me up the stairs.

  I shoved my headscarf and my laptop into my rucksack. As soon as we got into the cab, Maggie was on the phone to my grandmother, speaking in what I think she thought were hushed tones: “. . . I don’t know, Mum. She doesn’t have a fever, she doesn’t have a stomachache. I don’t know if she’s eaten. . . . Should I call Sylvie? . . . She’s her mum, she’d want to know! . . . Okay. Well, we’ll be there in twenty minutes.”

  * * *

  “Wake up. Queenie. Wake up.” I opened my eyes to see Diana’s face looming over mine. “We’re here. Do you need me to help you in?”

  “No, I’m fine,” I said, swatting my cousin away. “Why are you being so helpful this evening? It’s not like you.” I stepped out of the car and struggled up the gravel path with Maggie and Diana toward my grandmother. She was standing with her hands on her hips. I stepped through the porch door and she pulled me in by the arm and looked at me.

  “Wha’ wrong wid yu?” she asked as Diana sat on the stairs and got her phone out of her pocket.

  “I don’t know.” I shrugged, looking at the floor. My grandmother put her hands on my cheeks and lifted my face so that my eyes met hers.

  “Tell me, nuh?” she insisted.

  “I don’t know. I feel weird.” I moved her hands from my face.

  “Have you eaten?” she asked, pursing her lips.

  “I’m not hungry,” I told her, moving from the porch into the house.

  “I didn’t say are you hungry, I said have you eaten?” My grandmother’s lips were tighter, but still she managed to speak.

  “No, I can’t. Can I just go to sleep?” I said, going to walk up the stairs.

  “Food first. I put some fish fingers on for you,” my grandmother told me, and pointed toward the kitchen. Food Is Love is my family’s unofficial motto. Pity that the motto is also Have You Put on Weight?

  My grandmother and I sat in the kitchen, Diana and Maggie’s chattering in the living room occasionally broken up by my granddad begging that they “stop being so loud. Please!” and my grandmother barking, “Stop being miserable, let them live!” through the wall.

  As I forced fish fingers and soggy toast down, I wondered if I should tell her about what had happened with Tom. I couldn’t bring myself to offer the information, so decided to wait until she brought it up. I was surprised she hadn’t asked already.

  Diana came in to rummage for food, which prompted my grandmother to jump up and start preparing her a three-course meal, so I took the opportunity to sneak upstairs. Needing to watch something for distraction, I pulled my laptop out of my rucksack, and swore as the contents of the bag came out with it.

  “Do. Not. Swear. Me teach you fi swear?” My grandmother had crept up the stairs.

  “No, sorry. Sorry for making a mess,” I said, sitting on the edge of the bed.

  “Get into bed. Here’s a hot water bottle, and here’s your nightie. I washed it for you.” She handed me a white calf-length nightgown speckled with lavender flowers. Lace frills overwhelmed the bust and sleeves.

  I removed my clothes shakily and put it on as she picked up the various bits of crap that I carry around daily from the floor.

  “What’s this?” she asked, unfolding a piece of paper.

  I leaped over to her and grabbed it out of her hand. “Nothing.”

  She looked at me and pursed her lips.

  “Get some rest. You’ll feel better in the morning.” She turned the light off and left me standing in the dark.

  “I won’t sleep, it’s nine o’clock!” I called out after her, getting into bed and hugging the hot water bottle to my stomach.

  It’s over, I thought, Tom’s words bouncing around my brain. How can it be over? I fell asleep almost immediately.

  * * *

  As always, at my grandmother’s house, I woke up not knowing where I was, but immediately recognized my surroundings when I saw the moonlight shining onto a painting of the Virgin Mary on the wall opposite the bed.

  THE CORGIS

  Queenie

  It’s more bad news, corgis

  Queenie

  Tom has a new girlfriend

  Queenie

  Turns out he thought we were over all along

  Queenie

  He said “When you said we should revisit things in three months, I guess I thought you meant we should see how the other is”

  Queenie

  ????

  Queenie

  And I’ve just been here waiting for NOTHING while he’s been moving on

  Queenie

  I don’t know how much more of this I can take, you know. What next?

  I slid out of bed and wedged my feet into my childhood slippers. I went over to the door and turned the doorknob almost imperceptibly slowly so as to make as little noise as possible.

  “Queenie? What’s wrong?” my grandmother shouted, and I jumped out of my skin.

  “Nothing, I’m just going for a wee,” I whispered, creeping along the hallway.

  “Mind the stairs,” she shouted.

  “I’m going in the opposite direction to the stairs!” I whispered.

  “But it’s dark,” she replied. I wonder how much sleep my granddad gets on average? I sat on the toilet, feeling for the toilet paper in the dark.

  “Do you feel better?” My grandmother turned the light on. I squinted and covered my eyes.

  “I don’t know, it’s the middle of the night. Go back to sleep, Grandma!”

  “Do you think I sleep, with all of you to worry about? I don’t think I’ve put my head on the pillow and slept a full night since 1950.”

  I got back into bed, my grandmother shuffling downstairs to get me some water. She came back up and put a glass on the bedside table.

  “Move over.” She climbed in next to me and I turned to face her, putting my head on her chest. She wasn’t as plump as she used to be. She felt smaller, frail, underneath the weight of my head, so I lifted it and hovered it slightly above, letting my neck take the strain.

  “You think I can’t take your weight? I carried you when you were a baby, and I could carry you now. Try to sleep, Queenie.”

  chapter

  TWENTY

  THE CORGIS

  Kyazike

  What do you mean, he’s got a girlfriend?

  Queenie

  I mean I went back to our old flat and he was there with his new girlfriend, he was topless, she’s so small she was drowning in nothing but one of his T-shirts

  Queenie

  And he literally said the words “Anna is my girlfriend” to me

  Kyazike

  Excuse me? How has he already got a whole girlfriend with official labels? It ain’t been that long?

  Darcy

  Oh, Queenie, I’m so sorry xxxx

  Darcy

  Why didn’t he tell you before you went there and found out?

  Queenie

  I’ve been trying to recall our last conversation? I’m sure it wasn’t clear that we’d broken up? I’m SURE of it

  Queenie

  What if I just heard what I wanted to?

  Kyazike

  Nah, he should have made it clear, fam. BUT at least this means you haven’t been cheating on him these last few months

  Queenie

  I mean, I guess? Thanks, Kyazike

  Kyazike

  What’s she like? She a mzungu?

  Darcy

  Sorry Kyazike; I looked that up on Urban Dictionary but it’s not there . . .

  Kyazike

  LOL, mzungu is my language. It means white girl

  Darcy

  Thanks! I should have been able to figure that one out

  Queenie

  Course it’s a white girl. But we knew it was going
to be, didn’t we

  Kyazike

  Fam. We knew

  * * *

  As Darcy and I stood in the kitchen, the fridge beeped angrily, louder than ever, and the neon light flickered dramatically.

  “I looked her up on the way home,” I said, showing Darcy pictures of “Anna” on my phone. “I knew I recognized her. Look, she works in his office.” I navigated the girl’s profile, showing Darcy bits of information I’d seen so much that I’d memorized. “I fucking told him he needed a white girlfriend. Just never thought he’d get one WHEN WE WERE ON A BREAK.”

  “I’ve just had a thought. Do you think that they were—” Darcy said, her hand flying up to her mouth.

  “If you’re going to suggest that they were seeing each other before we broke up, then please don’t.” I swallowed down rising dread. “I think you know that I can’t handle that in my current state.”

  “Well, at least if that were the case, I guess it would mean that you could start properly hating him. And hating someone is a vital stage when it comes to getting over them.” Seriously, there was nothing Darcy couldn’t find a solution for.

  “Whatever,” I said, putting my phone away. I’d looked at enough pictures of Anna to paint her from memory. “I need to suppress that for now. Got a meeting with Chuck.” I left the kitchen and went over to Chuck’s desk, feeling very managerial when I asked him to show me his progress.