On Beauty

by Zadie Smith

  ‘Me? I’m fine. I’m fine.’

  ‘OK . . .’

  ‘Really,’ said Kiki.

  ‘You don’t sound great.’

  ‘I’m fine.’

  ‘So . . . what’s going to happen? With you . . . you know . . . and Dad.’ He sounded almost tearful, anxious not to be told the truth. It was wrong, Kiki knew, to be antagonized by this, but she was. These children spend so much time demanding the status of adulthood from you – even when it isn’t in your power to bestow it – and then when the real shit hits the fan, when you need them to be adults, suddenly they’re children again.

  ‘God, I don’t know, Jay. That’s the truth. I’m getting through the days here. That’s about it.’

  ‘I love you, Mom,’ said Jerome ardently. ‘You’re gonna get through this. You’re a strong black woman.’

  People had been telling Kiki this her whole life. She supposed she was lucky that way – there are worse things to be told. But the fact remained: as a sentence it was really beginning to bore the hell out of her.

  ‘Oh, I know that. You know me, baby, I cannot be broken. Takes a giant to snap me in half.’

  ‘Right,’ said Jerome sadly.

  ‘And I love you too, baby. I’m just fine.’

  ‘You can feel bad,’ said Jerome, and coughed the frog from his throat. ‘I mean, that’s not illegal.’

  A fire engine went by, wailing. It was one of the old, shiny, brass-and-red-paint engines of Jerome’s childhood. He could see it and its fellows in his mind’s eye: six of them parked in the courtyard at the end of the Belseys’ road, ready for an emergency. As a child he used to go over the hypothetical moment when his family would be saved from fire by white men climbing through the windows.

  ‘I just wish I was there.’

  ‘Oh, you’re busy. Levi’s here. Not,’ said Kiki cheerily, wiping fresh tears from her eyes, ‘that I see hide nor hair of Levi. We just do bed, breakfast and the laundry for that boy.’

  ‘Meanwhile I’m drowning in dirty laundry here.’

  Kiki was silent trying to picture Jerome right now: where he was sitting, the size of his room, where the window was and what it looked out upon. She missed him. For all his innocence, he was her ally. You don’t have favourites among your children, but you do have allies.

  ‘And Zora’s here. I’m fine.’

  ‘Zora . . . please. She wouldn’t piss on somebody if they were on fire.’

  ‘Oh, Jerome, that’s not true. She’s just angry with me – it’s normal.’

  ‘You’re not the one she should be angry with.’

  ‘Jerome, you just get to class and don’t be sweating about me. Takes a giant.’

  ‘Amen,’ said Jerome, in the comic way of the Belseys when they were putting on their ancestral Deep South voices, and Kiki echoed him, laughing. Amen!

  And then to ruin everything that had gone before Jerome said, in all seriousness, ‘God bless you, Mom.’

  ‘Oh, baby, please . . .’

  ‘Mom, just take the blessing, OK? It’s not viral. Look, I’m late for class – I’ve got to go.’

  Kiki snapped her cell closed and wedged it back into the very small gap between her flesh and her jean pocket. She was on Redwood already. During the conversation she had hung the paper bag with the cake box in it from her wrist; now she could feel the pie shifting around dangerously. She threw the bag away and put both hands under the bottom of the box to steady it. At the door she pressed down the bell with the back of her wrist. A young black girl answered with a dishrag in her hand, with poor English, giving her the information that Mrs Kipps was in the ‘leebry’. Kiki didn’t have a chance to ask if this was a good time, or to offer up the pie and then withdraw – she was led at once down the hallway and to an open door. The girl ushered her through into a white room lined with walnut bookshelves from floor to ceiling. A shiny black piano rested against the only bare wall. On the floor, on top of a sparse cowhide rug, hundreds of books were arranged in rows like dominos, their pages to the floor, their spines facing up. Sitting among them was Mrs Kipps, perched on the edge of a white calico Victorian armchair. She was bent forward, looking at the floor with her head in her hands.

  ‘Hello, Carlene?’

  Carlene Kipps looked up at Kiki, and smiled, slightly.

  ‘I’m sorry – is this a bad time?’

  ‘Not at all, my dear. It’s a slow time. I think I’ve bitten off rather more than I can chew. Please sit down, Mrs Belsey.’

  There being no other chair, Kiki took a seat on the piano stool. She wondered what had happened to first names.

  ‘Alphabetizing,’ murmured Mrs Kipps. ‘I thought it would take a few hours. It’s a surprise for Monty. He likes his books in order. But I’m been in here since eight this morning and I’m not past C!’

  ‘Oh, wow.’ Kiki picked up a book and pointlessly turned it over in her hands. ‘I have to say, we’ve never alphabetized. Sounds like a lot of hard work.’

  ‘Yes, it is.’

  ‘Carlene, I wanted to give this to you as a way —’

  ‘Now, can you see any B’s or C’s over there?’

  Kiki put her pie down beside her on the stool and bent over. ‘Oh-oh. Anderson – there’s an Anderson here.’

  ‘Oh, dear Lord. Perhaps we should stop for a while. We’ll have a cup of tea,’ she said, as if Kiki had been by her side all morning.

  ‘Well, that’s just perfect, because I brought some pie. It’s humble pie – but it tastes great.’

  But Carlene Kipps did not smile. It was clear that she had been offended and couldn’t now pretend otherwise.

  ‘There’s no need for any such thing, I’m sure. I should not have assumed – ’

  ‘No, that’s the point – you should have assumed,’ insisted Kiki, lifting a little out of her seat. ‘It was just damn rude of me not to answer your lovely note . . . things have been a little complicated and . . .’

  ‘I can understand that possibly your son feels –’

  ‘No, but that’s the stupid thing – he’s gone back to college anyway. Jerome – he decided to go back. There’s no reason at all why we can’t be friends now. I’d like to be. If you’d still like to,’ said Kiki, and felt ridiculous, like a schoolgirl. She was new to this. The friendship of other women hadn’t mattered to her in a long time. She’d never needed to think about it, having married her best friend.

  Her hostess smiled impassively at her. ‘I’m sure I would.’

  ‘Good! Life’s just too short for –’ began Kiki. Carlene was already nodding.

  ‘I very much agree. Much too short. Clotilde!’

  ‘Sorry?’

  ‘Not you, dear. Clotilde!’

  The girl who had answered the door to Kiki came into the room.

  ‘Clotilde, may we have some tea brought in please, and Mrs Belsey has a pie you can cut up. None for me, please –’ Kiki protested, but Carlene shook her head. ‘No, I can’t digest a thing before three in the afternoon these days. I’ll try a piece later, but you go on ahead. Now. It’s so good to see you again. How are you?’

  ‘Me? Fine. I’m fine. And you?’

  ‘As it happens I’ve been in bed for quite a few days. I watched the television. A long documentary – a series of programmes – about Lincoln. Conspiracy theories regarding his death and so on.’

  ‘Oh, I’m so sorry you’re feeling bad,’ said Kiki, looking away with shame at the thought of her own conspiracy theories.

  ‘Don’t be. It was a very good documentary. I find it’s not true what they say about American television – not all of it, anyway.’

  ‘Why, what do they say about it?’ asked Kiki, smiling rigidly. She knew what was coming and she was annoyed by it, but also annoyed at herself for being annoyed.

  Carlene shrugged in a fragile way, not quite in control of the movement. ‘Well, in England we tend to think of it as awful nonsense, I suppose.’

  ‘Right. We hear that a lot. I guess our TV’s not
so great.’

  ‘Actually I think it’s much of a muchness. I don’t really follow any of it any more, it’s too fast . . . cut, cut cut, everything so hysterical and loud . . . but Monty says that even Channel Four can’t compete with the kind of liberal programming you find on PBS. He can’t bear PBS. He sees through it terribly – the way they promote all the usual liberal ideas and pretend it’s progress for minorities. He hates all that. Did you know most of the donors live in Boston? Monty says that tells you all you need to know. And yet this Lincoln documentary was really very good.’

  ‘And . . . that was on . . . PBS?’ said Kiki despondently. She had lost her grip on her clip-on smile.

  Carlene pressed her fingers to her brow. ‘Yes. Didn’t I say that? Yes. It was very good.’

  They were not getting very far, and whatever had moved so felicitously between them three weeks ago appeared to have vanished. Kiki wondered how soon she could make her excuses without seeming rude. As if in response to this silent speculation, Carlene leaned back in her chair and lowered her hand from her forehead to place it over her eyes. A pained murmur, lower than her speaking voice, came from her.

  ‘Carlene? Honey, are you OK?’

  Kiki moved to stand, but with her other hand Carlene waved her off.

  ‘It’s a little thing. It’ll pass.’

  Kiki stayed on the edge of her piano stool, in mid action, looking from Carlene to the door and back.

  ‘Are you sure I can’t get you any –’

  ‘It’s interesting to me,’ said Carlene slowly, removing her hand. ‘You were worried too, about their meeting again. Jerome and my Vee.’

  ‘Worried? No,’ said Kiki, laughing casually. ‘No, not really.’

  ‘But you were. I was too. I was very glad to hear Jerome avoided her at your party. It’s a silly thing, but I knew I didn’t want them to meet again. Why was that?’

  ‘Well,’ said Kiki and looked down, preparing to say something evasive. Glancing up into the woman’s serious eyes, she once more found herself speaking the truth. ‘For me, I guess I worry about Jerome taking things hard, you know? He’s inexperienced – very. And Vee – she’s so incredibly lovely – I’d never say it to him, but she was a little out of his league. A lot. She’s what my youngest son would call bootylicious.’ Kiki laughed, but, seeing that Carlene was following her words as if they were vital, she stopped. ‘Jerome always tends to aim a little high . . . You know what the bottom line is? It just looked like broken-heart territory to me. I mean, the kind of broken heart that keeps on getting broke. And this is an important college year for Jay. I mean . . . you just have to look at her to see she’s a fire sign,’ said Kiki, resorting to a system of values that never seemed to let her down. ‘And Jerome – Jerome’s a water sign. He’s a Scorpio, like me. And that’s pretty much his character.’

  Kiki asked Carlene her daughter’s sign and was pleased to find her guess was correct. Carlene Kipps looked perplexed at the astrological turn to the conversation.

  ‘She might burn him up,’ she considered, trying to decode what Kiki had just told her. ‘And he would put out her fire . . . He’d hold her back – yes, yes, I believe that’s right.’

  But Kiki bridled at this. ‘I don’t know about that . . . actually, I know all mothers say this, but my baby’s very brilliant – if anything, it’s always a question of keeping up with him, intellectually speaking. He’s a live wire – I know Howie would say that Jerome’s probably the brightest of the three of them – I mean Zora works hard, God knows, but Jerome –’

  ‘You mistake what I’m saying. I saw when he was with us. He was so focused on my daughter, he almost couldn’t let her live. I suppose you call it obsession. When he has an idea, your son, he holds it very tight. My husband is like that – I recognize it. Jerome’s a very absolute young man.’

  Kiki smiled. This was what she had liked about the woman. She put things well: insightfully, honestly.

  ‘Yeah, I know what you mean. All or nothing. All of my children are a little like that, to tell you the truth. They set their mind to something, and my God, they don’t let go. That’s their father’s influence. Pig-headed as hell.’

  ‘And men become very absolute about pretty girls, don’t they?’ continued Carlene, inching along her own thread now, which was obscure to Kiki. ‘And if they can’t possess them, they get angry and bitter instead. It occupies them too much. I was never one of those women. I’m glad I wasn’t. I used to mind, but now I see how it left Monty free for other interests.’

  What could one say to this? Kiki felt in her purse for her lip-balm.

  ‘That’s a strange way to think about it,’ she said.

  ‘Is it? I’ve always felt that. I’m sure that’s wrong. I’ve never been a feminist. You would put it more cleverly.’

  ‘No, no – I just – surely, it’s about what both people want to do,’ said Kiki, applying a layer of colourless gloop to her mouth. ‘And how they each might . . . I guess enable their partners, no?’

  ‘Enable? I don’t know.’

  ‘I mean, your husband, Monty, for example,’ said Kiki, boldly. ‘He writes a lot about – I mean, I’ve read his articles – about what a perfect mother you are, and he . . . you know, often uses you as an example of the ideal – I guess, the ideal ‘stay-at-home’ Christian Mom – which is amazing of course – but there must also be things you . . . maybe things you wanted to do that . . . maybe you wish . . .’

  Carlene smiled. Her teeth were the only non-regal thing about her, raggedy and uneven with large childish gaps. ‘I wanted to love and to be loved.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Kiki, because she could not think of anything else. She listened out hopefully for the footsteps of Clotilde, some sign of imminent interruption, but nothing.

  ‘And Kiki – when you were young? I imagine you did a million things.’

  ‘Oh, God . . . I wanted to. I don’t know about doing them. For the longest time I wanted to be Malcolm X’s private assistant. That didn’t work out. I wanted to be a writer. Wanted to sing at one point. My mamma wanted me to be a doctor. Black woman doctor. Those were her three favourite words.’

  ‘And were you very good-looking?’

  ‘Wow . . . what a question! Where’d that come from?’

  Carlene lifted her bony shoulders once again. ‘I always wonder what people were like before I knew them.’

  ‘Was I good-looking . . . Actually, I was!’ It was a strange thing to say out loud. ‘Carlene, between you and me, I was hot. Not for very long. About six years maybe. But I was.’

  ‘You can always tell. You still have a good deal of beauty, I think,’ said Carlene.

  Kiki laughed raucously. ‘You are a shameless flatterer. You know . . . I see Zora worrying all the time about her looks, and I want to say to her, honey, any woman who counts on her face is a fool. She doesn’t want to hear that from me. It’s how it is, though. We all end up in the same place in the end. That’s the truth.’

  Kiki laughed again, more sadly this time. Now it was Carlene’s turn to smile politely.

  ‘Did I tell you?’ said Carlene, to end the brief silence, ‘My son Michael is engaged. We heard only last week.’

  ‘Oh, that’s great,’ said Kiki, no longer so easily wrong-footed by the disconnected turns of Carlene’s conversation. ‘Who is she? American girl?’

  ‘English. Her parents are Jamaican. A very plain, sweet, quiet girl – a girl from our church. Amelia. She couldn’t throw anybody off balance – she&rsqwo;ll be a companion. And that’s a good thing, I think. Michael’s just not strong enough for anything else . . .’ She broke off here and turned to look through the window at the backyard. ‘They’re going to have the wedding here, in Wellington. They’ll come at Christmas to look for the right place. You’ll excuse me for a moment. I must check on your lovely pie.’

  Kiki watched Carlene leave the room, unsteadily, leaning on things as she went. Alone, Kiki put her hands between her knees and pressed in on the
m. The news that some girl was about to start out on the road she herself had walked thirty years earlier gave her a vertiginous feeling. A clearing opened in her mind, and in it she tried to restage one of her earliest memories of Howard – the night they first met and first slept together. But it could not be conjured so easily; for at least the past ten years the memory had presented itself to her like a stiff tin toy left out in the rain – so rusty, a museum piece, not her toy at all any more. Even the kids knew it too well. Upon the Indian rug on the floor of Kiki’s Brooklyn walk-up, with all the windows open, with Howard’s big grey feet halfway out the door resting on the fire escape. A hundred and two degrees in the New York smog. ‘Halleluiah’ by Leonard Cohen playing on her dime-store record player, that song Howard liked to call ‘a hymn deconstructing a hymn’. Long ago Kiki had submitted to this musical part of the memory. But it was surely not true – ‘Hallelujah’ had been another time, years later. But it was hard to resist the poetry of the possibility, and so she had allowed ‘Halleluiah’ to fall into family myth. Thinking back, this had been a mistake. A tiny one, to be sure, but symptomatic of profound flaws. Why did she always concede what was left of the past to Howard’s edited versions of it? For example, she should probably say something when, at dinner parties, Howard claimed to despise all prose fiction. She should stop him when he argued that American cinema was just so much idealized trash. But, she should say, but! Christmas1976he gave me Gatsby, a first edition. We saw Taxi Driver in a filthy dive in Times Square – he loved it. She did not say those things. She let Howard reinvent, retouch. When, on their twenty-fifth wedding anniversary, Jerome had played his parents an ethereal, far more beautiful version of ‘Halleluiah’ by a kid called Buckley, Kiki had thought yes, that’s right, our memories are getting more beautiful and less real every day. And then the kid drowned in the Mississippi, recalled Kiki now, looking up from her knees to the colourful painting that hung behind Carlene’s empty chair. Jerome had wept: the tears you cry for someone whom you never met who made something beautiful that you loved. Seventeen years earlier, when Lennon died, Kiki had dragged Howard to Central Park and wept while the crowd sang ‘All You Need is Love’ and Howard ranted bitterly about Milgram and mass psychosis.