by A. D. Koboah
I swore loudly and hit my fist against the bathtub, wincing at the pain that shot through it. Then the realisation of what I had been about to do hit slowly and I slumped against the bath, staring at the items that were scattered on the bathmat.
What was happening to me?
Closing my eyes against the sight of my betrayal, I drew my legs up and rested my head against my knees, rocking myself against the pain in my stomach and also the pain I felt in my head when I thought about what I had been about to do.
Sitting in the cold bathroom with the contents of Eva’s bag scattered around me, I could see with terrifying clarity that heroin wasn’t the angel of mercy I had perceived it to be.
I had become a slave to the drug without even realising it and sometimes it seemed as if it was the devil himself and I a powerless puppet. But as much as that thought scared me, I knew that if I ever decided to free myself and cut those strings holding me up, I would crumble into a lifeless heap as heroin was the only thing keeping me from the trauma of a past that refused to stay buried.
So I sat there like that, my thoughts and emotions a thick soup of shame and self-loathing, repeatedly wondering what I was going to do until I was jerked out of my reverie by a sharp knock on the bathroom door.
“Peace?”
I looked up and then down at the handbag and its scattered contents. Her purse was still in my hand.
“Peace, you all right in there?”
“Yeah, of course,” I said although I could hear guilt making my voice a pitch higher than normal.
“Can I come in?”
I leapt into action and clumsily gathered the things back into her handbag.
“Come in? I’m on the toilet! What the fuck do you wanna come in for?”
Shame made the words come out harsher than I would have liked. I heard nothing else from the other side of the door and I hoped she had returned to the living room and that I would be able to slip her bag back before she could notice it was gone. She knew it wasn’t unusual for me to spend over an hour on the toilet as I was always constipated, a side effect of using, so I waited breathlessly.
“There’s no money in there, Peace,” I heard Eva say gently from behind the door.
I opened my mouth to speak but then a wave of guilt silenced me.
“Open the door please.”
I opened the door with her bag still in my hands.
I couldn’t look at her.
I couldn’t look at her and see the effect of my actions painted across her face.
“Eva, I...I just needed some lip balm and I thought you had some in here,” I said lamely.
She stared at me then held out her hand. I obediently dropped the bag into it, doing my best not to touch her fingers.
“Peace,” she said gently. “I don’t ever bring money here with me. I know...I just know.”
I desperately tried to think of a more plausible lie to explain what I was doing with her bag but I knew there was no point.
“I swear I was just borrowing some...some...” My words sputtered to a stop like a car stalling. I revved them back into life, needing desperately to explain away my actions.
“You know I would’ve paid you back, right? I would’ve given you back double anything I took I just—”
“It’s all right, Peace.” She forced herself to sound light-hearted.
“No, it ain’t all right. I don’t know what got into me. It was like I was watching someone else and I...I just—”
“Peace, I said...” She stopped when the faint sound of her mobile phone reached us and the furtiveness I was getting used to seeing returned. She stepped out of the bathroom and looked toward the living room and the sound of the ringing phone.
“You might as well answer that, I’m gonna head out.”
“You’re going out?” she asked and an anxious look crossed her face. “Give me one sec,” she added before walking hurriedly toward the sound of the insistent ringing.
I took the opportunity the phone call had given me to get my coat and handbag. When I popped my head around the living room door a few minutes later to say goodbye, she was standing by the window talking in a treacherous sounding whisper. It stopped the moment I entered the room.
Guilt at what had happened wrestled with suspicion at the way she was looking at me.
“Who are you talking to?” I tried to make my tone sound light.
“No one.”
“No one?”
She met my eyes steadily and repeated firmly, “No one.”
“Are you gonna be here later?” I asked after a few seconds.
“No. I’m going to go to the library and then head home.” She gave me a nervous smile.
“Oh.” I stared at her, wanting to ask if that was what she would really be doing but didn’t. “I’ll see you tomorrow then.”
She nodded and didn’t put the phone back to her ear until I left the room. I tried to listen out for the sound of her voice as I walked to the front door, but it appeared as if she was waiting for me to leave before she resumed her conversation.
I left the flat and walked off into the busy streets. I had nowhere to go, and although I was trying not to think about what had just happened with Eva, suspicious thoughts alternating with a bruising shame continued to assert themselves in my mind.
“Peace.”
I glanced over my shoulder to see Jason a few feet behind, jogging and dodging past people toward me. I froze, reminded once more of that juggernaut and the terrifying sense of being hunted down. I started walking again as fast as I could and tried to calm the irrational fear I could feel as I tried to lose myself in the crowd.
“Peace!” I heard him call my name again, sounding as if he was right on my heels, and before I could break into a run, he had caught hold of my arm and pulled me around to face him, bringing us to a standstill amongst the throng of people moving past us. Standing with my back to a wall, I folded my arms across my chest and looked up at him defensively, trying not to let him see the cold fear his presence had stirred up.
“What? Are you lot following me now?”
“I was on my way to your house,” he said, his tone calm and even.
“What do you want, Jason?” I asked sharply.
“Mohamed asked me to come and see you. He wants to know why you didn’t bring Dante to see him like you said you would.”
I stayed silent.
“Peace?”
“Leave me alone, Jason. I don’t have anything to say to you or Mohamed. I don’t owe either of you anything.”
I unfolded my arms and went to walk past him but he casually stepped in front of me and blocked my path.
“Why are you doing this?”
“What do you mean ‘why am I doing this?’ You were there. You saw how he treated me and his son. He treated us like we were nothing and now you lot expect me to be bowing and scraping to Mohamed just because he suddenly wants to know. You should’ve seen the way he was carrying on when he came to my house, like he was doing me a favour just by showing up. Like I said before; I don’t owe him or you anything, so leave me alone and tell him to stay away from me.”
“You know that ain’t gonna happen, so wake up. I know Mohamed did bad. I was there, I saw it all and I get why you’re angry. But you can’t leave things like this.”
“This has got nothing to do with you, Jason.”
“I know, but Mohamed’s my bredren and he asked me to come and see you ’cos you won’t talk to him. Why don’t you want him to know where his son is anyway?”
I didn’t answer and he let his words marinade in the silence for a few moments before he spoke again.
“How old is...Dante, ain’t it? How old is he now anyway? Four, five? Ain’t he at the age where he’s gonna start asking questions soon about his dad?”
“Don’t go there. Don’t you dare go there with me, Jason.”
“What are you gonna tell him when he starts asking you stuff like that?”
“I’m not
listening to this.” I tried to walk past him again but he placed his hands on my upper arm, keeping me from moving forward.
“Seriously. Can you justify keeping him from his dad when he’s so sick?”
I looked away quickly at the mention of Dante’s fictitious illness, but not quick enough it seemed as Jason’s hands tightened around my arms.
“He is sick, ain’t he?”
“Of course he’s sick,” I snapped.
He released his hold on my arms and stared down at me.
“Is he really, Peace?”
“Fuck you, Jason. If I tell you my son is sick, then he’s sick.”
“I really hope for your sake that you wouldn’t lie about something like that. Mohamed and his family are already talking about lawyers and court cases. How do you think he would react if he found out that you’ve lied to him about something that serious?”
“I told you, I ain’t lying!” I cried but I couldn’t even look at him anymore and blew my nose miserably with a scruffy bit of tissue in the silence that followed.
“You sick or something?” he said eventually.
“What?”
“Are you sick? ’Cos you don’t look well.”
“Um...yeah. It’s flu. Just flu,” I said, fidgeting under his relentless gaze. “Jason, I have to go. I don’t have time for all this right now.”
“All I need you to tell me is where Dante is?”
“Tell Mohamed he doesn’t have a son.”
“You keep saying that. Why? I spoke to your friend Eva and she told me she didn’t even know you’d had a baby.”
“When did you speak to Eva?”
“Why are you acting like this? You must’ve known Mohamed would come looking for you one day.”
“This has got nothing to do with you,” I said with a snarl wanting him, his cold, probing eyes and relentless questions gone. “So fuck off and leave me alone!”
He didn’t move.
“What the hell has happened to you?”
The question threw me off guard, especially when he gently took hold of my hands. It was a completely unexpected gesture and I don’t think he even realised he had done it until I pulled my hands out of his and folded them over my chest again.
“Tell me what’s going on? Tell me why you don’t want Mohamed to know where Dante is.”
“There’s nothing going on, Jason. This whole thing doesn’t concern you, so please, stay out of it. Let Mohamed sort out his own sorry mess.”
He stared down at me steadily, seeming as if he could read my thoughts and feelings.
“I can’t do that,” he said quietly after a few moments. “There’s a lot more going on here than you’re letting on and it’s starting to bother me. We’re gonna sort out a time for you and Mohamed to sit down and talk so that the two of you can sort out your issues. I’ll even come along and play mediator if you want.”
“I told you, I don’t want anything to do with him. Just tell him to leave me alone.”
“All right, fair enough,” he replied. “You don’t have to have anything to do with him if you don’t want to, but we’re gonna sit down and talk about what’s going on ’cos things can’t be left like this.”
“Jason, I need to go,” I said, trying to move past him. But he blocked my way again.
“We’ll meet up tomorrow evening so we can go somewhere and talk.”
“Whatever, Jason.”
“I’ll come by after work at around seven. Okay?”
I stared angrily out at the sea of people moving past us.
“Okay?”
“Okay,” I mumbled and stepped past him.
He didn’t try and block my path but let me take a few steps, taking hold of my arm again before I got the chance to walk away.
“This ain’t gonna go away. You’ve got some time before we meet up tomorrow, so use that time to think long and hard about what you need to tell me.” He paused for a few moments. “I don’t know what’s going on with you, but if you lied about anything, you need to tell me so we can figure out what to do about it. Mohamed has a lot of people behind him and they can make a lot of trouble for you if they want, so think about what I’ve said to you and let me help you sort this out.”
I stared at him for a few seconds, then snatched my arm away and walked off angrily into the crowd.
When I was a few yards away I glanced back to see him watching me as I walked away, expecting to see his usual expressionless gaze. But I found it had been replaced with an unease I had never seen trouble his handsome features before and I found that even more unnerving than the coldness I had come to expect from him.
My mobile phone started ringing a few seconds later and I took it out of my bag to see Daniel’s name flashing away on the display. This time I answered it, having nowhere else to turn.
Chapter 12
Dante was three weeks old by the time a stony-faced Nicola turned up at my flat unannounced. She gave me a limp hug and handed me a Mothercare bag which contained babygrows and a card.
“You look tired, man.”
“You have no idea,” I said.
I was in fact exhausted.
Dante and I had been woken up by our upstairs neighbour arguing with his girlfriend. They had kept us awake until the early hours of the morning, the sound of Dante’s distressed cries competing with the disruptive noises reaching us from the upstairs flat. Thankfully, he had slept for most of the morning and I had taken the opportunity to tend to the backlog of housework. Then I had fed and changed him and then climbed into bed for a much-deserved rest when Nicola arrived.
We entered the bedroom which, unlike the other empty rooms in the flat, was crammed full of furniture. Every available space was taken up with something, making what was a decent sized room look painfully small. It was also the only room in the flat that was carpeted.
The last time I had seen Nicola was at my mother’s house when I told her I was pregnant, and even though I was exhausted, I was really pleased to see her. The only other people I saw were my mother and sister and I yearned for a snippet of normality, for the light-hearted conversation and idle gossip that flowed so freely whenever she was around. But she was uncharacteristically subdued. In fact, she was staring at the cot in the corner with something close to tears in her eyes and had unconsciously placed her hand on her stomach. She then removed it quickly as if what she was expecting to find there had been plucked away.
“So how did you get my address?” I asked.
“I saw your sister yesterday an’ she gave it to me.”
“Really? I saw Barbara that evening and she didn’t say anything about seeing you.”
“I’m not surprised.” Her face clouded over. “She was really rude.”
“Rude?” I was used to Barbara’s sharp tongue and I knew she had never taken to Nicola. But her opinions had always been limited to sarcastic comments and snide remarks whenever Nicola was out of earshot. “What did she say to you?”
“It don’t matter. So come on, where is dis baby?” she asked and she made that unconscious movement of hand to stomach again as she stepped closer to the cot.
“He’s here,” I said, beaming with pride as I led her to a Moses basket by the bed.
He had grown quite big and had changed a great deal in those three weeks. His tawny complexion was now a shade darker and his features increasingly resembled Mohamed’s with every day that passed.
Most people who saw the baby fell in love with him straight away and couldn’t stop saying how beautiful he was. But Nicola simply stood at the foot of the Moses basket and stared as if the sight of him was causing her pain.
“He weighed six pounds and six ounces when he was born,” I said more to fill the silence. “It’s hard to believe that he’s really mine. He just seems to get more and more beautiful every time I look at him.”
He began to stir at the sound of my voice and cooed quietly, his large bright eyes searching round for me.
“I’m here, baby,” I
said softly and picked him up, smiling at Nicola. “Do you wanna hold him?”
She looked startled and was acting as if the baby was a bomb that was set to explode.
“Here, don’t be scared,” I said handing Dante to her. “Just make sure you’re supporting his head, that’s it.”
She took the baby reluctantly, keeping him away from her body in an awkward hold.
“He’s cute,” she said finally, looking at him with an unreadable expression.
“Don’t you think he’s the spitting image of Mohamed?”
She flinched at the mention of Mohamed’s name.
“He don’t look like either of you,” she countered, sounding defensive.
She was holding Dante so awkwardly that he started to whimper and his eyes began searching for me, so I took him out of her arms and put him back into the Moses basket. Kissing him softly on his head, I made cooing noises to soothe him whilst Nicola walked away from us and over to the window.
“Do you want a drink or anything?” I asked after a few minutes of silence.
“Nah, I’m cool.”
“So what exactly did Barbara say to you?” I asked, deciding that her strange mood must have been because of whatever Barbara had said.
“She was rude. She really cussed me. She went on an’ on asking why I ain’t bin to see you yet an’ dat I was really out of order. She must think I’m jus’ sitting at home doing nothin’. I got exams an’ essays to hand in in a few weeks. She had no right to talk to me like dat.”
“I’m sorry, Nicola. You’re right. She shouldn’t have carried on like that.”
I wanted to ask her why she hadn’t been to see me earlier and why she hadn’t returned any of my phone calls either.
“She had no right to force you to come and see me,” I added quietly.
“She was really out of order,” she continued, missing my last point. “She’d better not try nothin’ like dat again, ’cos I’ll make sure I tell her about herself next time.”
I doubted that as she had always been scared of Barbara. She walked away from the window and sat down on the bed, giving the Moses basket a wide berth. It seemed as if she was trying to avoid looking at Dante.
