After the Storm (All I've Ever Needed)

by Moore, Jewel

  “Yes, he’s white. His name’s Stephano. His parents are Italian, but he was born here.”

  Her mother was silent for a moment.

  “How old is he?”

  “He’s twenty-eight.”

  “At least he’s not a dirty old man.”

  “Mum!”

  “Look at Sybil’s daughter—living with a man old enough to be her grandfather!”

  “Mum, David’s not old enough to be Sybil’s…” Her mother was right, but just barely as his eldest child was almost seventeen years older than his new lover. “Okay, he’s old enough to be her grandfather, but he’s not! And he loves her.”

  “Of course, he loves her. What’s not for him to love? She’s young and beautiful. Why didn’t he marry her before asking her to shack up with him?”

  “Maybe she doesn’t want to marry him!” Natalie retorted. Knowing Karen as she did, she was sure that the young woman Karen planned on being a pampered mistress for a while before moving on.

  “You think she prefers to live in sin with him?” Her mother made a dismissive sound. “He doesn’t want to have to give her half of his money if they get divorced. And why would he buy the whole cow when he could drink all the milk he wants?”

  “Mum, that’s so cynical.”

  “I’m just being realistic,” her mother insisted.

  Karen was a year older than Natalie. Their mothers had been friends as long as she could remember, but she and Karen had never had much in common. They’d chatted and played when their parents had thrown them together, but they had never made any attempt to deepened or further the friendship. Most people accused David of taking advantage of Karen because he was so much older, but all it took was one look to see that he was totally whipped by his younger lover. Karen had always been street smart and savvy; she had probably decided that she wanted a life of luxury and found a man to provide it. Natalie would be willing to bet that Karen was the one not wanting to get married and not the other way around—she had probably decided, why buy the whole bull when all she wanted was some meat?

  “Was Michael white too?” her mother asked.

  “Why do you ask that?” The question was so unexpected Natalie felt sick for a moment, thinking that Nathan had betrayed her although she had sworn him to secrecy.

  “You mentioned him all time and I got the impression that he was more than just a classmate. When you didn’t bring him home, I did wonder.”

  “No, Mum. Michael’s black. His stepfather’s from Trinidad and his mother’s from Jamaica.”

  “What’s his father’s name? I might know him!”

  “He never told me.” Natalie had asked him, wondering if the man was a friend of her father’s, but Michael had refused give her any details except to say that he was a ‘Trini bastard’. “His real father was Jamaica, but he and Michael’s mum split up when Michael was a baby.”

  Her mother was silent for another minute.

  “I expected Nathan to date a white girl with every Black British footballer, politician or celebrity marrying one, but somehow I never thought that you would date a white boy.”

  Nathan was popular and outgoing, like their mother. Growing up he’d had friends from all walks of life. His previous girlfriends had both been St Lucian, the last one two years older than he was. He’d met his fiancée Folasade at university. He’d admitted that he’d admired her willowy beauty from afar, but she had blown him away when she’d sung a cappella at a fund-raising event the university’s African-Caribbean Society had organized for victims of the Haitian earthquake in 2010.

  “I never thought I would date a white man either,” Natalie admitted.

  “Times are changing,” her mother mused. “Everywhere you go in London you see mixed couples now. White men dating black women has suddenly become quite trendy.”

  “I’m not doing it to be part of a trend, Mum!”

  “I never said you were, honey.” Her mother’s face suddenly became serious. “You know that your father isn’t going to take this very well?”

  Natalie knew he wouldn’t. She was a daddy’s girl and to him it would be like she was dating the enemy. Her mother was confident and outgoing and had friends of all races. Her father, though born in London, had only a handful of friends, all West Indian, but mostly Trinidadian, with whom he exchanged visits from time to time. He was most content to be home with his family when he wasn’t working as a building surveyor. Five years ago he had sued his employer for racial discrimination and won. He had been unsuccessfully in applying for a managerial role and had accepted their decision even though he had then been told that he had to train the appointee. When he’d discovered that the younger man was only partially qualified, although the job specification had clearly stated full qualification and professional membership of the Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors as requirements. He’d won the case and been paid substantial damages. He now worked freelance and admitted that he enjoyed the variety and the less-rigid work schedule, but the case hadn’t endeared him to white men. Surprisingly he had no problems with white women—her mother had often said it’s a man thing and borne of their competitiveness.

  “I know he won’t.”

  “He will be upset, but you have to live your life to please yourself, honey.” Her mother squeezed her hand as if willing her to be strong. “If your Stephano is a good man and he treats you well, your father will come around. Just give him time.”

  “I hope so.” Natalie wasn’t so sure that time would make a difference.

  “Honey, your dad is old fashioned in many ways, but he’s not going to disown you if you don’t date a black man.” Her mother turned so that she was facing Natalie fully. “Just don’t accept anything less from a white man than you’d expect from a black man.”

  “Mum, I would never do that!” Natalie protested instinctively.

  “I’m glad to hear it. I would be disappointed otherwise.”

  ***

  As she drove back to her flat in Fulham that evening, Natalie thought about her mother’s parting words. Would she be accepting less from Stephano than she would from a black man? Not compared to her relationship with Michael. She hadn’t known about his girlfriend Melissa and even when he told Natalie that she wasn’t good enough to be his main girlfriend, Michael hadn’t given her a choice to end their relationship. With Stephano she would choose to be the other woman, or not.

  As usual, the thought of Michael make Natalie grit her teeth unconsciously. It had been a dark period in her life. He had sensed her little insecurities—her shyness, her height, her dark skin and short hair—and fed them until they’d become phobias.

  The only person she’d never been shy with was Nathan. She was seventeen months old when he was born and she’d loved him from the time she’d laid eyes on him, looking like one of her dolls come to live. They had shared a bedroom and did everything together until their parents moved to a larger house when she was nine. It was a safer neighborhood and Nathan started to spend more time outdoors playing with friends. At first, missing Nathan, she had spent time cuddled into her father’s side whenever he was home, having him read to her or reading one of her books as he watched the news or sport on TV. He was an innately shy man and though he masked it effectively, she’d recognized the shared trait. But gradually she began spending more and more time in her bedroom which had been painted the soft pink of her choice. She discovered teen romances two summers before she was officially old enough to read them and spent every spare minute in her bedroom reading one after the other. On returning to school the next term, she’d found it difficult to connect with her friends. And as the years went by it became increasingly difficult after each school holiday. By the time she’d left to go to university she’d had no close friends at school.

  Her mother was a beautiful, confident woman who couldn’t understand her child’s reticence. She delighted in telling her children how she had ‘hooked’ their father when he had come to Trinidad for carnival one year. She
had seen him at a party and decided that she wanted him, so she put some extra movement in her waist as she danced and he had come over and asked her for a dance. Less than a year later he had returned to the island to marry her and bring her back to the UK.

  Her father, convinced that Natalie would master her shyness, had constantly told his wife to stop worrying. Her mother had thought differently and though Natalie hadn’t applied for any out-of-London universities, intending to live at home and travel to lectures daily, her mother had insisted that she spend the first year at least living in student halls of residence.

  Intellectually Natalie had understood her mother’s actions were motivated only by her concern—she’d thought forcing her daughter to fend for herself in the outside would prepare her for live as an adult—but it had been hard not to feel resentful. She had been unable to sleep at first in a room that was so small it felt as though the walls were closing in on her. When she finally dropped off to sleep she was often rudely awoken by loud noises or laughter coming from adjoining students’ rooms. She’d been too proud to plead with her parents to go back home and after the initial shock of having to fend for herself, she began to really enjoy the freedom of having her own place.

  Michael Evans hadn’t been the image of the man she’d imagined would be her first boyfriend, except for the fact that he was unfairly good looking in a way that most vertically-challenged men seemed to be. She had certainly never been attracted to guys who pumped their bodies up, expanding it sideways in an effort to make up for what they thought it lacked lengthways.

  Like Natalie, he had been one of the sixteen students in the large undergraduate class starting the four year Master’s program. He’d no interest in her except as a sort of walking encyclopedia and someone to borrow a missed lesson notes from when he slept in late and didn’t make an early morning class, until a group conversation about first-time sex changed everything. Natalie had attempted nonchalance, trying to give the impression that she had no wish to discuss her sex life, but the attempt had failed miserably as she had stammered out the words. Michael had sat up and looked at her as though seeing her for the first time.

  She’d laughed off his sudden interest at first, never having considered dating a shorter man. But he had an abundance of charm and before long she found herself lying on her sofa one evening exchanging soft kisses with him.

  Sex had been good and nowhere as painful as people claimed first times could be. Michael had patiently used his tongue to arouse her, making her come before he took her virginity.

  From the very next time they’d made love Michael had spent less time pleasing her. He hadn’t gone down on her as he’d done the first time, though he had made her perform on him. The pattern continued and since he always rushed to leave after sex, she chalked it up to him having a lack of time and hadn’t been overly worried.

  She hadn’t told her family that she was dating him, partly because she was embarrassed by the fact he was shorter but more because he categorically refused to meet them. When she had pressed him, he’d slapped her and said that he didn’t want to meet another ‘Trini bastard’, meaning her father. She’d been offended, but he’d been so apologetic afterwards, she’d felt compelled to forgive him. He had cried bitterly as he’d told her about the constant physical abuse he had suffered at his stepfather’s hand as a child. When he talked about going hungry most nights and being so malnourished it stunted his growth, Natalie let go of her lingering resentment and made a secret vow to shower him with enough love to make up for all he had lacked in his early life.

  He didn’t strike her in the following weeks and she forgot the incident, chalking it up to a one-time thing. As a student she knew that he didn’t have much funds, but she had anticipated that they would do something special for Valentine’s Day.

  She’d bought a short, sexy red dress and a gorgeous pair of kitten-heeled shoes and waited patiently for him to tell her what plans he’d made. When he’d come over after lectures and prepared to leave after they had made love, she’d asked what time he would be back that evening.

  He had looked at her blandly and she’d reminded him that it was Valentine’s Day.

  That’s when he’d explained the reality of their relationship.

  “I thought you understood how it is.”

  “Understood how what is?” she’d asked bewildered.

  “I thought you understood that a guy like me can’t be seen with a girl like you.”

  He’d said enough for her to get the picture, but she’d needed him to be more explicit. “I don’t understand what you mean?”

  “You’re my side dish, okay,” he’d said dismissively. “Melissa is my main dish.”

  “I thought you broke up with her months ago.”

  “A man says what he needs to say when he wants some pussy.”

  The horror of it must have shown on her face and his next words were an attempt to soften the blow, but they made her feel worse. “Look, you’re a pretty girl, prettier than Melissa, but you’re too tall, you’re too dark and your hair’s too picky.”

  “You’re such a bastard!” she’d yelled at him.

  The punch had come so quickly, she was on the floor wondering how she had gotten there a few seconds later.

  “Don’t you ever call me a bastard again!”

  “I’m sorry.” She’d apologized, not calling him the unflattering word, but for reminding him of the truth of his birth, something he’d said his stepfather had taunted him about daily.

  Michael had walked out of her flat, leaving her lying on the floor holding the injured side of her face. It had been slightly swollen the next day, but she’d avoided speaking to anyone face to face and thankfully no one at the university had noticed.

  He had come around an hour after she got home and apologized for hitting her. He’d said that calling him a bastard was the cruelest thing she could have said to him. And again he’d seemed so vulnerable and remorseful, she had forgiven him.

  When he’d tried to make love to her she’d refused, reminding him that he’d admitted he and Melissa were still together.

  With the speed of a striking snake, he had grabbed her by her hair and forced her down in front of him, opened his fly and made her go down on him, holding her in place while he’d emptied himself. Then he’d left the bathroom door open and let her watch as he’d moistened and lathered a wash rag and cleaned himself. It was then she’d realized that he wasn’t fastidious as she’d always thought him, just diligent in erasing all traces of their sexual activity before going home to his girlfriend.

  She’d stumbled to the bathroom and thrown up as soon as the front door closed behind him.

  Her face had still ached from his punch the previous night and with her scalp tingling in places where he had gripped her hair so tightly he’d pulled several strands out by the root, she had felt as thought she was living a nightmare. She’d kept willing herself to wake up.

  She’d always wanted to marry the first man she made love with, although she hadn’t expected to be a virgin on her wedding night. She had shared something with Michael that she would never share with another man and she wanted them to at least remain friends. He had been struggling to complete coursework even with her help, she knew he would fail on his own, unless he could find someone willing to do most of the work for him as she’d done.

  He didn’t attend lectures for the next two days.

  Natalie waited apprehensively for his return, hoping that he would be in a better mood so they would be able to sit down and talk rationally.

  She badly wanted to tell someone in her family, but she was too embarrassed to explain the full nature of the abuse. Her mother worked with victims of abuse and would have insisted that Natalie pressed charges. And even after all he had done, Natalie couldn’t have borne the thought of Michael locked away in a prison cell. Her father or Nathan, both almost a foot taller, wouldn’t have hesitated beating Michael to a pulp. The thought of either of them ending up in the
very cell she wanted Michael to avoid was even more harrowing. And she couldn’t have ruled out the possibility of her fiery mother picking up the nearest available object and bashing Michael’s brains out if she found out about the abuse and he was in proximity.

  The swelling on Natalie’s face was less visible but still very painful when Michael rapped on her door that Friday evening. She peeked through the spy hole in the door at him before letting him in. He looked calm as he entered, taking off his Nike trainers at the door as she’d always requested before asking her for a copy of her notes. He’d acted as though nothing had happened, for the first time not apologizing for hitting her.

  Not wanting to antagonize him, she hadn’t brought the subject, deciding if he didn’t have the decency to at least offer an apology, she didn’t want his friendship. The next time he could find someone else to borrow the notes from because she would wash her hands of him.

  When he’d said that he had to leave but needed a blowjob first, she’d thought she’d misheard him. He repeated the request saying that Melissa didn’t believe in going down on a man and he needed it done badly.

  Something inside Natalie had finally snapped and she had slapped him as hard as she could.

  He had thrown three punches in quick succession, one to the left of her face, close enough to the previous blow to make her see stars and another to her right jaw before driving a last hard blow into her stomach, forcing the air out of her body. For several moments he’d stood watching as she gaped like a fish out of water, trying to catch her breath. Finally she collapsed onto the floor, instinctively rolling into a ball as he’d then started to kick her and call her every derogatory name he could think of. She had been so grateful when she had examined the painful but superficial bruises later, that he hadn’t been wearing his trainers and had had to be mindful of his toes. Finally his anger had abated and he’d made a dismissive sound and left, carrying his footwear in his hand.

  Natalie had lain there curled up in a fetal position for over an hour, too shocked to move and feeling so worthless she’d wanted to die. The kicks had been less painful than the punches, but somehow they made her feel a thousand times worse. She’d felt strangely like she had disappeared, had become so empty she was nothing. Only the pain of her numerous injuries had reminded her that she was alive.