Rainbow Milk

by Paul Mendez

  “What did you think?” asked Thurston as he and Jesse left the auditorium, among the crowds, in baby steps. People were laughing and altogether seemed happy with what they had seen.

  Jesse sighed, while he weighed his words.

  “Erm, yeah,” he said, doubtfully. “I didn’t love it.”

  “Oh,” said Thurston, surprised. “Why not? I thought it was great. I thought the director brought a lot of fresh nuance out of it. It’s not easy to do something new with one of the most-performed plays in the canon. I very much liked how Desdemona was played by a mixed-race girl, and Emilia was played by a black woman, your friend.”

  “Of course, I loved all that commentary on colourism and social class,” Jesse said, “but I didn’t like the way the white man was seen to get away with it at the end, just to go off and wreak more havoc somewhere else.”

  A white woman, in front of Jesse in the stream of people leaving, checked her peripherals and ever so subtly moved her handbag around her front.

  “Hmm. Well, his punishment wasn’t written in the text,” said Thurston, considering Jesse’s point. “Lodovico left Cassio, as the new governor, to decide on it himself. But perhaps that makes it a comment on male accountability.”

  Jesse laughed. “I suppose only very clever and liberal people like yourself will see it like that,” he said, aware he might be coming across as condescending and bratty. “The rest will witness righteous white males going unpunished for what they alone think is the right thing to do, especially when there are black women involved. And Cassio’s just a twerp who Iago knows won’t have the authority or imagination to close him down.”

  “Oh, okay well, I’m sorry you didn’t enjoy it,” said Thurston, as they came out onto the Thursday evening bustle of Old Street, with far too many people around for that time of night. The temperature had dropped further, and Jesse wound his scarf tighter around his neck.

  “But thank you for bringing me,” Jesse smiled, and laughed, buffeted by crowds funnelling into the Tube station, their hot breath freezing on the air. “I’m sorry. I don’t want to sound ungrateful. You’re right, it was a great production. I loved the animation, and, you know, it was really well acted, and, yeah, the music and everything was great, and very surprising.”

  “Yes, I adored the use of Janácˇek’s ‘The Madonna of Frydek’ in the scene where Othello adorned Desdemona with the handkerchief. Exquisitely done, I thought.”

  After the Duke ruled in favour of the marriage, Iago alone, with the audience, watched as an animation was projected onto the back wall, in white lines on black, of two crude figures engaged in livid sexual contact, each splash of semen morphing into endless devilish progeny, while Othello took Desdemona gently from behind by the waist and carefully tied a black handkerchief dotted with strawberries around her neck, as they moved together in peace to the piano music—the Janácˇek—played live by Desdemona’s father Brabantio, much to Thurston’s delight, Jesse could sense. The stage emptied, Iago, murderously, last of all.

  The two black girls who had been sitting in front of Jesse and Thurston came out of the theatre and smiled at them as they walked past, heading west towards Holborn.

  “Bye,” said Jesse.

  “Look, what are you doing now?” said Thurston.

  “Well, Gini said we should wait for her here. She said she won’t be able to hang around for long because she has to go and see her mother, who’s been unwell.”

  “Oh, what’s wrong with her?” asked Thurston.

  “Breast cancer,” Jesse said, more with his eyes than with his voice, in case anyone who knew Gini and her mother was standing around. “Don’t let on that I told you. She’s very sensitive and worried about it.”

  “Understood. Well, I’m terribly impressed that she was able to put in such a measured and energetic performance, considering what’s going on in her personal life.”

  “It probably helped inform her emotional arc,” Jesse said, grandly.

  “Did you ever consider acting yourself?” Thurston said, looking at Jesse with a mildly teasing smile.

  “Me? Haha. No. Why?”

  “You’d be terribly good at it.”

  “Really? That’s sweet of you, but I know the work Gini and her colleagues put into training and I know I’d just embarrass myself with my ineptitude. Here she is.”

  “Hi!” called Gini, jogging towards them, holding her arms out. She looked excited and happy, more so than Jesse had seen her in some time, transformed from the ashy, tired-looking, barefoot Emilia with an all-off-white outfit, black knee-high boots and a strong lick of bright red lipstick.

  “Hello, beautiful! Congratulations, you were amazing, of course!” She held him tight and he kissed her on the cheek, and she laughed. “You look wonderful,” he told her as they disengaged. “How are you feeling?”

  She nodded her head, quickly and enthusiastically, her smile as sharp as the moon was on that clear night. Surely this was more than just the adrenaline of having finished a show.

  “I’m feeling good,” she said. “Really good! I love this show, I love my fellow actors, I love the production, my agent keeps calling me with new scripts, Soon Come’s been taken up by the Royal Court, it’s all good!”

  Jesse’s eyes were brimming.

  “So nice to see someone in the family doing well,” he said, turning to Thurston. “Gini, please meet my friend, Thurston Bradfield. Thurston, meet Ginika Redmond Ndukwe.”

  “Pleased to meet you, and thank you for coming to my show!” she said.

  “Thank you! You were wonderful!” said Thurston, whose voice, for all his enthusiasm, sounded suddenly muddy and muffled next to Gini’s, which had rung superbly as she called out her stage husband’s heinous crimes. “We’re really lucky to catch it. Pretty much every performance was sold out.”

  “I know. I’m so blessed,” she said, as she tried to be discreet at checking her phone in her bag. “How’s Owen?”

  “Good, he’s good. He’s up north with his mother. She was in Australia for Christmas so they’re having a delayed bit of time together. She’s moving there for good.”

  “No! How does Owen feel about that?”

  “Bloody ecstatic, though he’ll miss the house,” said Jesse. Gini cackled, then commiserated. “One less thing for him to worry about. His daughters give him more than enough stress. Chloe’s broken up with her girlfriend and apparently is in a bad way so he’s coming back tomorrow.”

  “Oh no, sorry to hear that,” she said, with half her attention on her phone. “Wait, how old is she?”

  “Eighteen. Oh, don’t worry about the girlfriend, they’ll be back together again soon. It’s not the first time. It’s the stress of her exams that’s making her like that. Emma’s the natural academic. Chloe’s bright but it takes a bit more time, with her.”

  “Families, eh?” Gini put her phone back in her bag and pursed her lips, smoothing out the shocking red.

  “How’s your mum?” Jesse asked, gently.

  Completely unexpectedly, Gini beamed and started jumping up and down. Her eyes moistened. She grabbed him by the arm.

  “Remission!”

  They both screamed and jumped up and down as if they’d been holding their breath until the veins started popping in their temples.

  “Oh my God, that’s incredible news! Oh my God!” They hugged tight again, and were both crying. “I’m so proud of her!” said Jesse.

  “Innit!”

  She nodded, like a little girl, and wiped her eyes with a tissue from her Mulberry bag.

  “I’m still gonna run and see her, though, cos all the family are gonna be there. I just want to give her a big hug. We only found out today, with the doctor, and I was doing a casting elsewhere when I got the news, then I had to be here at four and it’s just been a lot. But hopefully, soon she’ll be able to see m
e on stage herself.”

  Jesse liked the way she addressed both him and Thurston, as if Thurston, being close to Jesse, was just as much family to her as Jesse was.

  “I’m so happy for you, and proud of you and everything you’ve achieved and are going to achieve. You’re so beautiful and talented, and you’ve got a heart this big, and I’m really so, so proud of you.”

  “Aww, shut up! Very soon you’re going to achieve something huge too,” she said, looking right into his eyes. “This is just my turn. A you next!”

  She kissed him fully on the lips.

  “Look, I’ve gotta run. I love you and let’s see each other real soon. Pleased to meet you, Thurston. Bye!” And straight away she flagged down a cab and disappeared.

  “Wow, what a force of nature!” said Thurston, who, blinking and grinning stupidly, looked like he’d just had a line of cocaine.

  “Yes, people always say that about her. She should be Ginika ‘Force of Nature’ Redmond Ndukwe.”

  “People say that all the time about Josette, too,” Thurston said of his best friend, Josette Cunningham, a Labour MP he met at Oxford.

  “What do they have in common?”

  “They’re both black women?”

  “Powerful black women. Forces of nature. To be feared.”

  “Interesting,” said Thurston.

  “Powerful white men don’t get called forces of nature. Older women, I note, get called ‘formidable.’ White men never get called that. Do you ever wonder why these things are?”

  “Never thought about it before, but you’re certainly not wrong,” said Thurston. “So, what are you doing now?”

  “Nothing. Why? Might just go home, I don’t know.”

  “You live in Brixton, don’t you?”

  “Yes. Are you still in Dulwich?”

  “I am, so would it be too much of a detour to stop by at mine for a drink?”

  “Really?”

  “Don’t worry, not for…anything like that. Just to catch up properly. The company would be nice.”

  Jesse checked his iPhone for the time. It was just after ten o’clock. He’d been listening back over Sugababes’ first album, playing the last track “Run for Cover” on repeat. The original line-up had just got back together after eleven years, and he still hadn’t forgiven himself for not booking New Year’s Eve off work so that he could go to their comeback show at Ponystep, the Hoxton clubnight.

  “Okay. I could get the number three bus back from yours, of course.”

  “We could go by Tube to Brixton and get the bus, very easily, or we can get a taxi.”

  “Let’s just get a cab, it’s cold,” said Jesse.

  * * *

  —

  He’d forgotten the house. He’d only been there once, of course, but as they got out of the taxi under a spidery naked lime tree, certain memories returned—the bus stop across the road; the red-and-gold chessboard gable. The silver Audi estate had been replaced by an up-to-date smaller model, an A3. A dog started barking as soon as Thurston opened his front door, and he shushed it down; Jesse remembered another dog, barking twice. He was standing in a hallway that, when he first visited it twelve years before, was painted yellow, he was certain. The walls were now a warm grey, though the floor remained black and white mosaic tiles. There were still paintings up the stairs, and Jesse suddenly remembered the one of the black male nude holding a big red flower and with blood dripping down his arm. Every time he’d seen a depiction of Christ on the cross, he thought of Thurston’s picture, but as he ducked down to remove his shoes in the hallway, he noticed that it was gone. In its place was a watercolour of a more demure, lighter-skinned man, naked, viewed from behind.

  “Can I get you something to drink?” Thurston said, opening the door to the kitchen and hanging up his coat while a Dulux dog sniffed around his feet.

  “Yes, please,” said Jesse, as the dog trotted out to do the same to him. “Hello!”

  “This is Bella,” Thurston said. “She’s very, very friendly.”

  “You’re gorgeous!” Jesse said, rubbing her under her chin as she looked up at him. “How old is she?”

  “Three and a half,” he said. “Still only a puppy.”

  The dog that lived there when Jesse first visited would have passed away. Bella was looking right at him, almost purring like a cat, and he didn’t want her to get too obsessed, or to get too much hair on his jumper, so he followed Thurston into his kitchen, which was countrified, with light beige fascias and black worktops, dusky pink walls and matte apple-green tiles. The slightly bleached-looking parquet floor was warm underfoot.

  “It’s lovely in here,” Jesse said.

  “Yes, I keep the Aga on all through the winter. So, I’m having a whisky. Will you join me? Or would you prefer wine? White or red? I don’t think I have any beer.”

  “Whisky’s good, actually.”

  Thurston smiled and nodded, and scrunched his nose up a little bit, as if to say, It’s the best thing, isn’t it, whisky, on a night like this, and took down a bottle of Laphroaig from a high cupboard, and two tumblers from another. Then he stopped for thought.

  “Do you like Laphroaig? It’s not to everyone’s taste.”

  “It’s perfect.”

  It was still Owen’s favourite single malt, despite everything, and they always kept a bottle in the cupboard.

  “Ice?”

  “One cube, please.”

  “Like a gentleman,” he said. “Do sit down.”

  The dining table, which had room for eight, was in a small extension at the bottom of the kitchen, overlooking the garden, which was unseen in the dark, though Jesse thought Thurston might switch on some lights, as people who had such things to show off usually would.

  He had been covering someone else’s shift at the Light Café when an older white man and a black woman had been seated with menus in his section. Jesse’s voice had certainly changed—his accent had grown more neutral—but Thurston looked up at him with immediate recognition which, when it fully registered, caused him to blanch. In a few seconds, Jesse remembered who Thurston was, and thought him different now, sexless, unlike the lithe fifty-one-year-old he’d met so early in his London journey. They said Hello to each other properly, without giving anything away, but at the end of their dinner, throughout which Jesse had given them his most attentive service, Thurston said to Jesse: “May Josette know how we met?” If Thurston wasn’t embarrassed, thought Jesse, nor should I be; Josette took it completely in her stride, seeming rather proud of Thurston, and smiled at Jesse as a friend for the first time. Thurston left Jesse his card with a tip under the bill plate, in the hope that they might see each other again as friends, and Jesse, though he didn’t enjoy two wildly different versions of himself meeting face-to-face across time, emailed him, just to say hello and with no expectations, which led to the invitation. Thurston was curious about the Foundlings Theatre, but didn’t know anyone young and cool enough to visit it with, and Jesse had been ill with flu when Owen attended the press night without him.

  Thurston now lit a couple of candles and switched on the floor-standing Anglepoise in the corner, next to the antique oak dresser, which displayed a collection of blue-and-white Wedgwood plates. Bella crawled under their feet as Thurston put down a bowl of salted cashew nuts. They reminded each other that they were born in the Black Country—Jesse in Wordsley, a village near Dudley, Thurston just down the road in Wolverhampton—which amused Jesse. Thurston was too elevated and grand; Jesse remembered reading somewhere about Queen Victoria closing her blind in disgust as she passed through Brierley Hill—the inspiration for Tolkien’s Mordor—on her train up to Balmoral. Thurston stressed its first syllable, like a Pathé newsreader: WULL-verhampton, while most people from there say Wull-VRAMpton, slightly rolling the r. Thurston told Jesse he was the son of a rector, who’d grown up
in Tettenhall (Tetten-hall; TETT-null), a historic village in what was then Enoch Powell’s constituency, attending the private school there; he was seventeen and studying for his Oxford entrance when Powell made his “Rivers of Blood” speech. Jesse had the thought that his mother would have been just six, attending her Dudley state school amid spiralling immigration and rapidly filling classrooms, while all of this politics was going on over her plaited head. Thurston, growing up five miles away in a pretty village where everyone was white, saw little of the racism Jesse’s mother’s generation had to endure, though everyone his parents knew sided with Powell.

  Thurston drained the last of his drink.

  “Would you like to join me for another, more comfortably?”

  Jesse was about to say no, but didn’t, so Thurston poured another each, and Jesse followed him, and Bella, through.

  This must have been where Thurston’s partner used to sit watching television, Jesse thought. It was a large room made cosy by the sheer amount of stuff in it, though noticeably colder than the Aga-heated kitchen, with a white-painted open fireplace, two marshmallowy white two-seat sofas opposite each other in front of it, and a leather-topped coffee table between them.

  Thurston put on all the lamps and then turned off the overhead light, before starting a quick tinder fire, to which he added logs. It had the feel of one of those preciously maintained rooms at the Soane Museum. The walls were painted emerald and crowded with small framed paintings and drawings, both landscapes and portraits, and above the fireplace was a beautifully ornate, gilt-framed oval mirror. The recesses either side of it were stacked floor to ceiling with books. Everywhere he looked there was something to look at, a fragile ornament, an exquisite decoration or an elegant candle holder. The small television was in the far corner of the room, facing an armchair in front of the bookcase at that end. Jesse sat on the sofa and petted Bella, who wagged her tail and leaned her jaw into his hand.

  “Do you live here alone, now?” he asked, as Thurston poked the fire with a brass rod and swept old ash back into the grate with a matching brush.