by Ellen Wiles
He headed away, and walked through Green Park, a pretty space that lived up to its name, before crossing over a busy junction and passing through a set of tall gates to enter Hyde Park.
Pausing by a lake, he watched people pedalling around in bright blue plastic boats that looked like oversized bath toys. Near the bank, a party of people were already eating a picnic they’d set up with full foldable furniture including a wicker hamper and real wine glasses. Not far off, two guys lounging under a tree were shooting up, apparently for all to see, although nobody else seemed to be watching. Yonas wandered up and down some paths, lost his way a little, and found himself gravitating towards a small crowd, standing around a man in a tracksuit bellowing into a loudspeaker. ‘THIS CREEPING CAPITALISM IS A CATASTROPHE WAITING TO DECIMATE OUR SOCIETY – PRIVATIZATION IS STRANGLING OUR NHS, IT’S PUT UP OUR RAIL PRICES AND OUR HEATING BILLS, IT’S RUINING OUR EDUCATION SYSTEM, IT’S POLLUTING OUR ENVIRONMENT, IT’S DISTORTING OUR MEDIA, AND IF WE DON’T ACT NOW, IF WE DON’T GET TOGETHER AND PROTEST, IF WE DON’T STAND UP AND DEMAND RADICAL CHANGE FROM OUR GOVERNMENT, IF WE DON’T RAISE OUR VOICES LOUDLY, IF WE DON’T DO THIS RIGHT NOW, TODAY, IT’S GOING TO BE TOO LATE! WE NEED A REVOLUTION!
A few children were giggling, some people were taking photos as if the man were another tourist attraction, and a few observers were listening intently. Who was this person? Yonas wondered. Why was he here? Who did he represent? Was this an organized event? Was this man really free to say all that through a loudspeaker to whoever wanted to listen, almost within hearing distance of Westminster and the Palace? He lingered, transfixed, until he realized the time, and had to jog to get to the gallery on time.
It was Victorian-looking, built from brick, with white columns at the front and a triangular roof with a birdcage-like tower on top. Leaning against the wall, holding a paperback, was Nina. She looked up and glanced around left and right, her forehead creased down the middle, and started biting the insides of her fingers. Obviously hadn’t seen him yet. He’d forgotten how slight she was, how small and pale and pointy, like she could be folded up and slipped into a letterbox. His residual crossness with her was already fading.
He walked towards her, and when he was a few metres away, she noticed him. ‘Joe! I’m so glad you came,’ she exclaimed. He smiled back, but felt himself flush at her use of the name ‘Joe’. Veata knew his real name now, and the authorities knew it, so if he and Nina were going to start again – if she was really going to be a friend – shouldn’t he tell her? He halted when he reached her, unsure of the appropriate gesture for a greeting, but she leaned forward and kissed him awkwardly on the cheek, her lips barely meeting his skin, like a bird pecking tentatively at a tiny berry, and then seemed to change her mind and hugged him, tightly but briefly. He couldn’t stop himself from an audible in-breath at the twinge as her body pressed against his bad arm.
‘Oh God, I’m sorry, Joe… What happened to your arm?’
‘I just fell,’ he said lightly. ‘On the stairs. It is fine now – it was just a small fracture.’
‘Must be so hard to manage with a sling,’ she said. ‘I remember breaking my arm playing netball. It was so hard, just doing up buttons and silly things like that, things you don’t even think about normally.’
‘Putting make-up on is the hardest for me,’ he said, which made her laugh.
‘Well, your face looks immaculate,’ she said. ‘So, shall we go in?’
As they queued for tickets, Yonas skim-read the leaflet. The artist had won a major prize, made portraits of black people and pop culture, and liked splattering elephant dung on his paintings. Yonas bet he’d be yet another example of an African conforming to an infantilizing, exoticizing stereotype, and prepared to be cynical. But when they stepped inside, the paintings were so bright and vigorous, so confident, soulful and funny, that he felt immediately uplifted, and wished he could show Gebre. This was an artist having fun parodying perceptions of black culture, not submitting to them, and it felt thrilling to be admiring the work of a black African artist in a place like this, with the Palace and that grandiose parade a stone’s throw away. He laughed out loud just at the title of one picture – The Naked Soul of Captain Shit and the Legend of the Black Stars – before he’d even looked properly at the painting itself, but then heard the sudden, jarring sound around a faintly shocked space and cleared his throat, embarrassed. He glanced over at Nina, but she was silently engrossed, just like she had been at the Portrait Gallery. Drawn though he was to the paintings, after a while he found himself surreptitiously spending more time watching Nina look at them, observing her concentration, the set of her lips. He wondered what she was thinking, and whether she saw what he saw. Was she getting creative ideas from this for her own painting? he wondered. What was she working on?
‘Right! Are we done?’ Nina asked, and they started walking out. ‘Shall we go to the café in the Pavilion outside?’ she suggested. ‘It’s a temporary structure, designed by a different architect every year.’
‘Sounds great,’ he said. ‘So, what did you think of the exhibition?’
‘Fantastic, wasn’t it?’ she gushed. ‘So carnivalesque! I’m not convinced by the dung, to be honest, but hey, why not throw a bit of shit at the establishment?’ He laughed. ‘How about you?’ she asked. ‘What was your favourite piece?’
‘I liked The Holy Virgin Mary,’ he said, instinctively. This was the picture the leaflet said had caused a big stir in the art world – not only was the Mary figure black, with a wide, flared nose, but she was surrounded by porn magazine cuttings and had an elephant dung breast. He suddenly worried that Nina would think him lewd for choosing a picture with an exposed breast. An exposed breast made of shit, no less, and multiple naked bottoms…
‘Good choice – definitely sensational in both senses of the word,’ she said. ‘And I love the idea of a hip hop old master.’
The Pavilion was built of wood, with a dome-shaped roof and slanted sides, planks criss-crossed into hundreds of small square shapes, and windows open to the elements. ‘I like how different this is to the gallery building,’ Yonas said, crossing the threshold. ‘Who is the architect?’
‘Let’s see…’ Nina pulled the leaflet out of her jeans pocket, and read aloud as they queued for drinks. ‘A Portuguese duo, who wanted it to have a dialogue with the neoclassical house…’ She looked around. ‘The wooden beams are supposed to refer to the trees outside.’
Yonas looked out at the leaves fluttering in the breeze. It was delightful to be sitting in this light, wooden space in the middle of a park, like a giant tree house. The geometric patterns of the wood contrasted with the curvature of the ceiling. ‘It reminds me of Asmara,’ he said. ‘Did you know that our capital city was a playground for Italian futurist architects?’
‘Seriously?’ Nina asked, as they joined the queue for the counter.
‘Of course. We have many buildings from that period. A huge petrol station, a building that used to be a prison but is now a bank, three cinemas… Some people call it La Piccola Roma.’ Yonas’s stomach rumbled, and he wasn’t sure whether Nina would offer to pay, and whether it would just be for a coffee or for food, and whether he should immediately accept or demur…
But then she made it easy. ‘Tell me more, but shall we decide what to order? I’m starving.’ ‘I’m going to get one of these salad boxes, I think. And a coffee. On me obviously. What are you having?’
Yonas picked out the biggest sandwich on offer, and said he’d love a coffee too, trying not to feel emasculated. There was just no point in him offering anything. He couldn’t even afford the bus, and she probably knew it. He should focus on what he could offer her. ‘Asmara also has one of the ugliest sculptures in the world,’ he said, as they took the coffees over to a table by the window and sat down.
‘Oh? Of what?’
‘A huge pair of plastic sandals. As big as a house.’
‘Sandals?’ Nina laughed. ‘Why?’
‘The libe
ration fighters wore them, to beat off the Ethiopians in their big army boots. So the sculpture is very symbolic. It means a lot to many people. Which does not make it beautiful. But it is unique. Asmara is a nice city – the cleanest in Africa, probably. There are wide streets, palm trees, coffee shops… You should go there, one day. When things get better. Fifty years from now, maybe! I will show you around. You would like it – there are lots of espresso bars and tree-lined avenues, and the city is up on a high plateau so the temperature is always nice.’ He remembered talking to Sarama about walking arm in arm around Asmara together once the war ended, going to the cinema, being a normal couple, their relationship out in the open. ‘Maybe we will both need sticks by then and have grey hair,’ he added – but immediately felt he’d stepped over the intimacy line. It was overwhelmingly unlikely that he and Nina would be in touch as old people. Unlikely that he would even make it to old age, if he got deported.
‘Oh yes, I would love to go!’ Nina said. ‘I really hope the situation there does improve soon, so you get to go back and see your family. Although – it’s great having you here too, Joe. I’d be sad if you left.’
He smiled across the table, concealing a wince at the name, then looked down at the dregs of his cappuccino. It felt good to be with Nina again. So unexpectedly easy to spend time in her company. He couldn’t let her carry on calling him Joe. He opened his mouth… but wouldn’t she be angry to learn that he’d deceived her about something this fundamental? Wouldn’t her trust in him disappear in a puff of smoke? ‘Have you travelled anywhere in Africa before?’ he asked instead.
‘Oh, only to Morocco. I went there on a package holiday for a week with my ex, years ago, at university. Who was also called Joe, bizarrely.’
‘Oh,’ he said. ‘Really.’
‘Yep. But he cheated on me too, later that same summer, as it happens.’ Yonas clenched his teeth. ‘Don’t worry, he didn’t tarnish the name Joe for me for life,’ Nina added, sensing his discomfort. ‘I got over it soon enough.’
‘Right,’ he said, took his last sip of coffee, then choked on it. ‘Sorry. I was actually just going to say that, talking of names… I would like to tell you mine.’
‘Yours?’
‘It is not Joe.’
‘Oh. Okay. What is it then?’
‘Yonas.’ There was a pause. He scrunched his toes under the table.
‘Yonas,’ she parroted back musingly. He liked how it sounded when she said it.
‘I did not want to deceive you or Molly,’ he added, ‘it is just that, before I claimed asylum, I wanted to hide my identity, you know, in case the smugglers or anybody came looking. . .’
‘Yonas is a much nicer name,’ she said.
‘Oh, you think so?’ She didn’t look cross at all. He suddenly felt much lighter inside.
‘Definitely. Anyway, it’s you I’ve been getting to know. A name is just a label.’
‘I suppose.’ They smiled at each other, and Yonas looked down at his empty cup, embarrassed.
‘Having said that,’ Nina added, ‘I wish I’d kept my maiden name. Lambourne sounded like a lovely surname to me at the time Quentin proposed – romantic, even. And he was insistent I should take it so that we’d eventually have the same surname as our kids. But if I could turn back time, I’d stick with Muldoon. You know that’s Mum’s surname? It was actually her maiden name too. She kept it and insisted Dad changed his name to hers if he wanted to have the same surname as his child – and he agreed! Which is super-unusual in the UK. Even now. We’re supposed to have equality here, but women and children almost always take the man’s name still, as I went and did. That said, Dad’s surname was Smith, which is about as dull an English name as you can get, so he stepped up in the world with Muldoon. Gave himself an Irish flourish. His friends took the mick, but he didn’t care.’
‘Muldoon. It is a good name, especially for an artist like you. It sounds poetic. Could you change back?’ Yonas asked.
‘I could,’ Nina said. ‘I think I will.’
Chapter 21: Nina
WHAT ABOUT MY HUMAN RIGHTS, ASKS WOMAN BEATEN UNCONSCIOUS BY ASYLUM-SEEKER EX-LOVER FREED BY JUDGE
Hi. Skinny latte, please. No sugar, but just a tiny drop of that hazelnut syrup. Just for the flavour. Is that okay? Thanks so much.
So when I first met Yonas – or Joe, as he had us believe back then – I was petrified. I was sure he was about to mug me! He just appeared out of the shadows, this terrifyingly tall silhouette, right on my mum’s doorstep. Thankfully I’d gone round there for help as well, and I was too upset to scream. If I had, we’d probably never even have managed a conversation.
Before that night, all I knew about him was that he was a student in my mum’s English class at the Refugee Council who had somehow talked her into having him round for private lessons – which was okay (but I did wonder a bit about her safety) – and had then started working for her. So obviously at that point I’d asked Mum some basic questions, like what proof she had of his immigration status, but she went all vague on me. ‘You’ve got to check his papers at least,’ I told her, but she made some excuse and told me I was being over-anxious ‘as usual’. I was like: ‘Mum! Apart from anything else, you know Quentin’s campaigning on illegal immigration! Have you even thought about what’d happen if this came out, for him, and more to the point, for you? You could be fined. A lot of money. It’s a criminal offence. And you’d better hope this guy doesn’t steal all your jewellery first and dump you in the compost.’
But within minutes of actually meeting Yonas, I knew she was right about him. I don’t know how I knew, apart from a gut instinct – a feeling that I could confide in him about anything, from foxes to political philosophy to parenting. I mean, it really is quite strange, in retrospect, how natural it felt to sit there on the step and talk to him like that, when I usually take a while to open up to people, and minutes earlier I’d thought he was an axe murderer. I mean, rationally I had still been right that Mum should have checked his status, but still, once I’d talked to him myself, I regretted the assumptions I’d made that’d sent my tone all Bertha Rochester. On the other hand, Mum didn’t need to rub it in by calling me ‘over-anxious’ – she knows anxiety is a real struggle for me, and she has never dealt well with it. It all goes back to Dad dying: her way of grieving was to get out there and do things for others ‘as he would have wanted’, whereas I found it really hard to recover, which she saw as a failure, and has constantly felt the need to remind me to stop worrying and embrace life ever since. Which I do, as best I can. Making art helps a lot. But Mum always manages to hit the old nerve!
Still, I wish I’d listened to her years ago when she was sceptical about Quentin and I was determinedly telling her that she was the one being over-anxious, for once – it’s galling to think that, there I was, having a go at her about Yonas, partly to defend Quentin, while he was busy betraying me – I just didn’t know it yet.
I just never expected he’d cheat. We’d been together since our last year of university. We’ve always been very different, but he was just so absurdly confident, he made me feel safe, I guess. Actually, my first impression of him was of cockiness. I couldn’t help noticing him in lectures (philosophy – that was our overlap subject), because he was always the first one to ask a question. You know, the kind of question that’s more about showing off your knowledge than finding an answer? I didn’t speak to him until we found ourselves at the same orchestra rehearsal, when he turned up to play a Mozart piano concerto. He played so sensitively – it was calming, just listening to him from the middle of the cellos. Watching his fingers ripple around the keys reminded me of my dad a bit – he used to play piano too, although Quentin is way better, technically, and also loathes jazz when all Dad ever played were standards. But anyway, as I watched Quentin at the piano, I thought: maybe I was wrong to judge him. And that would have been that, but I was just packing up when he tapped me on the shoulder, said he recognized me, and ended up asking me ou
t.
He whisked me off to classic films – like The Godfather which I’d never seen before – concerts and union debates. He soon picked up on my anxiety, but he took it in his stride. It was even he who suggested I get back into making art, as a way to deal with it. I’d mentioned to him how I used to love painting with Dad as a child, and he knew I’d done art for A level, so one day he said he’d heard there was an art room in Christ Church, and I should try it out. I obediently went along, expecting to be uninspired and rusty. But actually, it was a lovely, peaceful space, and there were a couple of artists making beautiful prints there and several friendly students, and I experienced this sudden yearning to create, just to make expressive marks on paper, and as soon as I did, it felt like a miraculous release. So I got back into watercolours, and being able to retreat to that room most days, splash colour around, then scrunch up the paper or leave it behind, got me through the rest of university, for sure.
And, I mean, when it comes on, my anxiety is physical. I get insomnia, and it feels like there’s this tight fist lodged in my chest, where my ribs join, and it seems to get more and more compressed, and my heart starts fluttering and my breathing gets shallow… Quentin got really sharp at anticipating my episodes, and basically ordering me to go off and make art. Which made me think he was the only person who understood me.
So when we got married and got our own place, and I quit my soulless consulting job and started an art foundation course, I was super-happy! I poured everything into it, working all hours, loving every minute – barely saw Quentin, actually – and went on to do an MA in Fine Art at the RA. Honestly, those two years were just the best fun – I started experimenting with fashion, wearing eccentric shirts and doing up dresses in kooky ways, I went to tons of exhibitions and lectures – and most of all I just so enjoyed the licence it gave to make art all the time, without having to think about selling it. Most of the other students were younger than me, but that was okay – they accepted me, and I felt so lucky that I’d had enough life experience to really appreciate the opportunity I had. And then I was lucky enough to get noticed at our end of year show – some well-known collectors bought a couple of pieces… But then I had just got pregnant.
