Queenie

by Candice Carty-Williams

  “You’ll find out when you’re old enough,” Kyazike told her.

  “Er, I’m her cousin and I’m sixteen now, you can tell me.” Diana looked at me.

  “It’s nobody. Nothing,” I said, glaring at Kyazike.

  “And if she can get through this year, she can get through anything,” Kyazike continued. What else was she going to say? I looked around again as my face got hot.

  “Dassit. I’m done. Let’s eat,” Kyazike said, sitting back down.

  “I’d like to say something,” Darcy said, standing. She patted her floral dress down and opened her mouth to speak.

  “Please,” I said, covering my face with my hands.

  “Now, I haven’t known Queenie for as long as you guys, but when I met her, I knew that she was grea—”

  I yanked Darcy back down into her seat. “That’s enough, thanks.”

  “Well, I wanna say something,” Diana said, standing on her seat.

  “Diana. Get. Off. The. Chair,” my grandmother and Maggie said, staccato and in unison.

  “I think that Queenie is very brave and I’m very proud that she’s my cousin,” she said quickly, stepping down.

  “Yes, we’re all proud of you, Queenie,” Maggie said. “In fact, before we say grace, I’d like to say a few words, in Jesus’ name—”

  “No grace today, Maggie, your father needs to eat,” my grandmother cut in.

  “Thanks everyone, that’s enough,” I said, taking a sip of water. The lump in my throat was rising.

  “She’s my daughter,” my mum said, looking at Maggie pointedly. “So I’m going to say something.” Everyone turned to look at my mum.

  “Go ahead, Sylvie,” said my granddad, trying to hang his cane on the back of the chair.

  “Next year is going to be better,” my mum said, picking up her wineglass. “To Queenie.”

  “To Queenie,” the table said.

  “Everything okay?” Darcy asked quietly, knowing how little I liked being the focus of attention.

  “Yes, all fine.” I looked down at my pizza and began to cut into it slowly. Trust my appetite to start waning at the dinner to benchmark my getting better.

  “Oh, hello you!” I heard my mum squeak, my eyes still fixed on a piece of mushroom that looked particularly challenging. “Don’t you look well, Cassandra? You’ve really blossomed since I last saw you.”

  I looked up and saw Cassandra standing behind Diana’s chair, biting her lip aggressively. She flipped her hair over her shoulder and smiled as our eyes met.

  “Why are you here?” I asked, turning to look at Darcy, who shrugged and smiled at me as if to say “Sorry for majorly fucking up but I thought it would be okay, though now I realize that I was totally wrong about that.”

  “Have you come for your money?” I asked drily. “I can’t pay you back yet, but I will.”

  “No, no, don’t worry about that.”

  “Okay,” I said, with no choice but to accept her presence. “I’ll tell the waiter that we need another chair and menu.”

  I stood up to find someone, and Kyazike stood up too. “Want me to handle it?” she asked. I shook my head and walked away from the table. Cassandra followed me, and we stood by the waiters’ station, both staring ahead.

  “Go on, then.” Cassandra broke the silence. “Have a go at me, tell me I told you so.” I looked at her and caught the tail end of her rolling her eyes.

  “Why would I do that?” I asked her. “I’ve never done that.”

  “Because I went running off to the middle of nowhere with a guy who started sleeping with a new colleague after two weeks of us being there.”

  “I didn’t know that,” I said, completely unsurprised. “And even if I did, I wouldn’t say I told you so.”

  “I thought Darcy would have told you. I messaged her a few weeks ago and asked if you hated me.”

  “Nope. I had a lot going on, Cassandra. Too much to waste time hating you. Though I’m guessing you knew that?” I asked her. “Things were falling apart before you left.”

  “Darcy filled me in. But I didn’t want to text you, I thought it might be too, I don’t know, whimsical.” Cassandra shrugged. “When I caught Guy cheating, which he did in our bed, by the way, I packed my stuff up, but he did his usual ‘transitional weakness’ spiel and I forgave him, again. But when he did it again I left him.”

  I looked around to see if a waiter was coming. I’d have to build a chair for her, at this rate.

  “Cassandra”—I turned to her—“you haven’t even said sorry.”

  “Well, I am sorry, obviously.” She rolled her eyes again and flipped her hair over her shoulder.

  “It’s not in any way obvious.” For the first time, I was actually standing up to her and not feeling terrified.

  “I’m sorry,” she said quickly. “Okay?”

  “Cool.” I put my arm around her stiffly. I was a stronger person now, and one who wasn’t going to be petty even if it killed me. “Let’s put it all behind us, and move on.”

  “That’s very adult of you!” she exclaimed. “Did you have a lobotomy?”

  “Well, I’m trying to be better at letting things go. What is it you said to me?” I snorted. “ ‘Some of us don’t let the past dictate the way we live our adult lives’?” I mimicked her voice so perfectly that she looked shocked.

  A waiter finally made himself known, and I asked him to seat Cassandra. It would be one of Maggie’s blessings if I was able to eat anything at this meal. We sat down and tried our best to hold independent conversations despite being distracted by Maggie lecturing our table (and all surrounding tables) on how Brexit would fuck us all over but how, ultimately, faith in Jesus would save us, with my granddad being uncharacteristically vocal in his support.

  “This sparkling drink is nice,” my grandmother said to the table. “What do you think, Wilfred?” she asked, trying to get him off Maggie’s line of fire before he had a heart attack.

  “Very nice,” my granddad said, finishing what was in his glass and pouring some more. “I’ve had three now.”

  “You know that’s alcohol?” I said to my grandmother across the table.

  “No it’s not, it’s a sparkling soft drink.” She picked up the bottle and passed it to me. “Look.”

  “No, it’s literally alcohol. Look here,” I said, tapping the sticker on the bottle. “It says five-point-five percent.”

  “Jesus Christ,” my grandmother said, terror in her voice. “Get that wine away from Granddad,” she told Diana, who immediately started to prise the glass from his hand.

  “Maggie, we’ve poisoned ourselves! Get us some water,” my grandmother shrieked. “Sylvie, you call the ambulance.”

  “Nobody is calling an ambulance,” I said, standing up.

  “You’re right, a cab to the hospital will be quicker,” my grandmother said, snatching the bottle of water from Maggie and pouring a glass for my granddad. “What’s that thing you use? H’uba? The H’uba, call the H’uba!”

  “Just drink water, you’ll be fine!” I said. “I’m not getting you an Uber!”

  “We’re on so much medication, Queenie, we don’t know how the alcohol will mix with it,” my grandmother barked at me. Panic had taken over. This was obviously where I got it from. “Is anyone in here a doctor?” she shouted across the restaurant.

  “Cassandra, your boyfriend’s a doctor, innit, shall we call him?” Kyazike grinned. Cassandra pretended not to hear her.

  “I need to go,” I said to Darcy.

  “To go where?” she asked. “They’ll honestly be fine if they stop flapp—”

  “I’ll be back in a sec.” I walked to the loo and turned back to see if anyone had seen me leave. Kyazike was pouring glasses of water for my grandmother while my granddad drank from his glass with one hand and flapped himself with his flat cap with the other; my grandmother was rooting around in her handbag and handing Cassandra various boxes of pills and asking her to read what happens when each tablet
was mixed with alcohol; my mum was trying to explain what was happening to the restaurant manager while Diana filmed it all on her phone and Maggie told her off for not taking it seriously.

  I pushed the bathroom door open with my foot and stepped inside, taking deep breaths as I stood in front of the sink and looked in the murky mirror. It was quiet in here. The only noise I could hear was the steady drip of a tap. My grandparents would be fine, that wasn’t the issue. Despite everything, I wanted to call Tom, to tell him that my life was back on track, that I was celebrating being mostly better in more ways than I knew I could be. I took my phone out of my pocket and scrolled through my phone book. I found Tom’s contact page and stared at it. My finger hovered over the call button.

  “Are you ill?” Darcy walked into the loo.

  “No. Not physically, anyway.” I put my phone into my pocket. “What’s going on out there now?” I asked tentatively.

  “They’ve calmed down. Turns out the manager used to be a doctor, and as soon as he told your grandparents the alcohol was too weak to make a difference to their medication, they went back to normal. It was weird. Like someone turned their hysteria switches off.”

  “They’re Jamaican, Darcy. Doctors are the only people they trust. If he’d told them the alcohol was going to kill them, they’d have jumped in a cab to the cemetery.”

  “What’s wrong?” Darcy said, squeezing next to me and putting an arm around my shoulders. I rested my cheek on her hand.

  “When all of that commotion was happening, I saw everyone in the restaurant looking at us, and it made my head feel funny, and when my head felt funny, my stomach dropped, and I felt a bit like I did before. And I know it sounds stupid, but I just wanted Tom to make it right. After everything he—”

  “Yes, Queenie, that sounds incredibly stupid,” Darcy said, cutting me off. “After everything that’s happened this year, that is honestly the maddest thing I have ever heard. Take a few deep breaths, have a think about why it’s the maddest thing I’ve ever heard, and when you’ve finished, come back out to the restaurant. We, all of the people who love you, who have been there for you, will be behind that door.”

  “Firm words. Are you channeling Cassandra?” I asked her as she left the bathroom.

  “I’m not a therapist.” Cassandra turned back to look at me. “Nor do I need to train to be one to tell you that you love what Tom represented more than you love him. We both know that he’s incredibly basic.”

  * * *

  “Okay,” I said aloud to myself, after I’d checked that there wasn’t anyone in either of the toilet stalls. “Even though things aren’t tiptop, they are definitely better, and here’s why.” I stared at my reflection.

  “One. In a shock twist, Gina told you that after your ‘surprisingly great’ gig review, the Daily Read is going to give you a regular music writing slot. Scary, yes, and not quite as political as you wanted, but you can get there. So you’re doing great things at work, even though you were almost fired for sexual assault earlier in the year. Talk about a comeback! Two. Ted’s been fired for misconduct and lying by omission and you never have to see him again. Three. You’ve deleted those bleak-as-fuck dating apps that only really served to make you forget that beneath the big boobs and bum you are a human person who is easily damaged. Plus, now you don’t want to look at men, never mind have sex with them.” I tensed up as the men of the last year flashed before my eyes. Mouths and hands biting and pulling and smacking and scratching and— I took some deep breaths to stop myself from getting all het up again. Darcy might be right, but I still missed Tom. I missed him a lot. Maybe if I apologized to him again, with a bit more space between us, maybe he’d soften? I should have been able to tell him what I was going through. I won’t make that mistake again, I promised myself, if someone—nonmarried (times two), not sexually aggressive or with a girlfriend, not manipulative or a secret neo-Nazi—ever wanted to be with me. I took some more deep breaths. I was feeling better. “Four. As for the anxiety, and the head feeling weird and then the stomach following, even if you do go back to how things were, you made it out before, you’ll make it out again. You have tools to cope this time, and even though deep breathing and safe spaces don’t sound like they’ll help, they do. Five, the night terrors have eased off. Maybe not forever, but at least you haven’t punched your grandmother in the night or fallen out of bed for a significant amount of time. Six, when you go back into that restaurant, look. Look at all of those people who love you. You are worthy of love, and they prove that. They’ll always be there for you, like they have been when you needed it most.” I paused. “Possibly not Cassandra, she is definitely a variable. And . . . seven. As for Tom,” I said, pulling my phone back out, “you know what you need to do.” I unlocked it and looked at Tom’s contact page again. Something shifted. His picture was the one I’d taken on our one-year anniversary, on Clapham Common where we first met, just after he promised that whatever happened between us, he’d never abandon me. “Time to move on.” I accepted.

  * * *

  Delete.

  * * *

  I walked back into the restaurant, and with the heat that hit me, a different type of warmth filled my chest. I sat down at the table and looked around at my family: Kyazike was showing Diana a video on her phone that taught her how to blend her makeup. My grandmother was very loudly listing to Dr. Manager all of the medication she was on while my granddad eyed up the sparkling drink, ready to risk it all again. Maggie was talking loudly, obviously, and slicing up her pizza, putting bits on my mum’s plate for her to taste. Cassandra and Darcy were locked in an intense conversation that I had no plans to get involved in; Cassandra was clearly being made to feel very bad. I looked over at my mum as she picked up a slice of pizza with her hands and bit off a huge mouthful. She threw her head back, laughing so hard at something Maggie said to her that she put the pizza down and slapped her thighs with both hands. I stood up to pour myself a glass of water, and we looked at each other as she turned in my direction. She smiled at me, and I smiled back. “My queen,” she mouthed, lifting her glass.

  acknowledgments

  TO THE MAIN MATRIARCH, my nan Elaine, thank you for loving me more than you love anyone else (and admitting to the favoritism), and for being my #1. Thanks to my mum Yvonne, and my sister Esther. Gang gang gang. The two funniest people in my life, you’ve not just always managed to make me laugh, but also to navigate my moods. Well done both.

  To my Ugandan sister Isabel Mulinde, forever in my heart and forever making me laugh. There is nobody like you on this earth. To Claude Hylton, the brother I picked up aged six and stuck to, thank you. To Selena Carty and the rest of my siblings (seven and counting), we don’t talk but I know you’re out there, and that’s enough. Aunty Su, Aunty Dor, and the rest of the Forrester/Browns, love to you all.

  To my godmother Heidi Safia Mirza, I simply wouldn’t be who I am without your unrivaled love, guidance, kindness, and uniquely undefeatable approach to life.

  Lettice Franklin, I could fill hundreds of pages thanking you for too many things, for being my personal problem solver, for keeping so many of my secrets, and for never judging me. Tom Killingbeck, you are still the only person to make me laugh so much that I’ve fallen on the floor, you are also still the only person to have unironically sung “Cool” by Gwen Stefani at me when I was going through a breakup. You are 10/10.

  To my first readers with whom I would trust my life: Hayley Camis, Lettice Franklin (obviously), Sharmaine Lovegrove, Harriet Poland, Susannah Otter, and Jessie Burton; you saw Queenie when she was in bits and pieces (in all senses), and you gave me important, funny, loving, and critical feedback. I am very lucky to have had your eyes.

  To Alison Callahan, thank you for understanding Queenie’s recklessness so uniquely, and for instinctively knowing how to make her story its best self. Your editorial brain is so brilliant. Thank you also to Brita Lundberg for being such a joy and for answering any and all of my mad questions. Special thanks
to copy editor Joal Hetherington for really taking me to task. Thank you also to Meagan, Jen, Abby, Diana, Mackenzie, and Anabel of Scout Press for all of the comms.

  Deborah Schneider, your excitement and love of Queenie has ensured that her story reached America and that in itself is gigantic and completely beyond me. Thank you so much.

  To my personal corgis: Morwenna Finn, Cicely Hadman, Lydia Samuels, Hayley Camis (so good you’re acknowledged twice), Daniellé Scott-Haughton (wife), Anya Courtman and family, Patrick “it will happen” Hargadon, Selcan Tesgel, Selina Thompson, Afua Hirsch, Ella Cheney, Hazel Metcalfe, Hannah Howard, Hattie Collins, Keso Kendall, Nikesh Shukla, Julian Obubo, Indira Birnie, Will Smith, Will White; your love and your phone calls and texts and voice notes and songs and inspirational playlists have sustained me. Special shout-out to Lydia for forgiving me after I crashed her car.

  Michael Cragg. Babes. The only person I could ever wish to be stuck in an office in Dalston with whilst a riot rages outside. Thank you for lots of things, but most notably for the £200 you lent me. And thank you for lending it to me when I needed it again after I paid it back. And then again. I’m not sure where we are with it now; please let me know.

  Thank you to Kid Fury and Crissle of The Read podcast; your voices kept me company, and kept me laughing, when I was sat in front of a laptop in the dead of night and everyone else was asleep.

  And finally, thank you to Jojo Moyes and Charles Arthur. No matter how much you protest, this book probably wouldn’t have been started if it weren’t for your kindness.

  #BlackLivesMatter

  A Gallery Books Readers Group Guide

  Queenie

  Candice Carty-Williams

  This reading group guide for Queenie includes an introduction, discussion questions, and ideas for enhancing your book club. The suggested questions are intended to help your reading group find new and interesting angles and topics for your discussion. We hope that these ideas will enrich your conversation and increase your enjoyment of the book.