When the knock comes, it is a stout, smiling man, holding a brown paper bag soiled by oil. She rounds the corner your house sits on in a hurry, coming through the gate as the delivery man exits.
‘Sorry, sorry.’ You hug on your doorstep and, as you pull away, she says, ‘Can I be honest?’
‘Go on.’
‘I don’t really have an excuse. I’m just late. Was being lazy.’
‘You’re all good. Come in.’
She takes in her surroundings like a traveller mapping new lands. You watch her eyes graze over the photographs hanging in the hallway, working out what leads where, quickly gaining her bearings.
‘Just you, your mum and dad?’
‘My little brother too. He’s at uni but comes home for the holidays. And whenever he wants, to be honest.’
‘What’s the age difference? This him?’ She points to a photo of you and him, arms around each other’s shoulders, mid-laughter, taken at a wedding the year before.
‘Five years,’ you say, nodding. On some days, like today, when he called and teased you about her coming over, the gentle ribbing descending into a back and forth which is never sharp, always underscored by rhythmic giggles which don’t quite match your large bodies, on some days, like today, the distance is short and easy. This is your brother, partner in crime, stubborn opponent, gentle man. And on other days, like today, in the same phone conversation, when the laughter broke and you could hear him gulping for air, could hear the panic in his body trying to rise, could hear the tears, and he asked you to help him, to care for him, which wasn’t a problem, is never a problem, except you have been doing it for years, especially when your father’s love failed, when your father was far, in body or in spirit, and the responsibility fell to you, without much choice, and it was hard, difficult for a child to take care of himself and another, impossible to do without one or other being neglected, on other days, like today, you’re reminded the distance is long and hard. This is your brother, your charge, your duty, your son.
‘You are a carbon copy of your mum,’ she says. She gazes at a photo of your dad, but doesn’t ask, so you do not tell.
She continues to map her route using familiarity, heading towards the kitchen to fill the kettle.
‘Tea?’
‘Shouldn’t I be the one asking you?’
‘Well, I’m here now.’ She tries one cupboard, then another, and finds the Earl Grey. She catches you smiling.
‘What?’
You shake your head. ‘Where are you heading later?’
‘Back to my old school. It’s a bit of a journey.’
‘You doing alumni stuff ? Talking to the kids?’
She laughs. ‘Something like that. Milk?’
‘No, thank you,’ you say, opening the fridge and passing her the carton of soya. ‘I had to do something similar last year.’
‘Where’d you go to school?’
‘In Dulwich.’
She stops. ‘You went to that school?’
‘Not that one, but one close to it. Same foundation. Similar group of people. Same set of fees.’
‘How’d that happen? I’m interested.’
As luck would have it, through taking a different route. You didn’t like the larger, single-sex school, with its sprawling grounds and a feeling of discomfort you may come to know as implicit bias. But the journey home, on an alternative route, trying to avoid roadworks, will yield a glimpse of the smaller, mixed-sex school. Smaller is a relative term here: you can’t see how far back the school stretches, but judging by the immaculate lawn preceding the casual hulk of the red-brick main building, it will be larger than your prepubescent self can ever understand.
It’ll be the last set of exams you sit, and the last offer you receive. The kind man – you’ll learn that kindness is rarely enough, but equipped with a certain knowledge and awareness, it can be – talks to you about Arsenal and United in your ‘interview’. In the main hall, he’ll direct you towards the biscuits: thick, crumbly shortbread laid out in rows, served by a Jamaican woman with a single gold tooth, who you’ll later befriend. Your mother doesn’t tell you exactly what was said; the interviewing teacher never tells you what he wrote in the letter of recommendation to ensure you wouldn’t pay for this elite secondary-school education. Before you leave, he shakes your small and slender hand, his large and vein-ridden, bringing you close, as if to embrace.
‘We need more kids like you, young man.’
At your blank expression:
‘We need more young Black kids. We really do.’
‘O-kaayyy,’ she says. ‘This makes sense.’
‘What does?’
‘Why we get along so well. Same thing. Seven . . . interesting years.’
She glances at the countertop behind her, body primed to leap up and seat herself atop the counter, but decides against it.
‘What was being at school like for you?’ you ask.
‘It was . . . a lot. I never felt unwelcome but there was always something I didn’t feel privy to.’
You, too, were likeable for a myriad of reasons, many of which you couldn’t comprehend. There should be no reason for the group of sixteen-year-olds to see your confused and lanky frame, unsure how you have managed to wander so far from the building which houses your cohort, and approach with the intention of friendship.
‘You look lost, bro.’
‘I am.’
‘Where are you going?’
‘Lower school.’
They walk you back, grateful for this makeshift security detail.
‘Who is your form tutor?’
‘Miss Levy.’
‘What? She used to be our form tutor. Tell her we said hello.’
One of them studies you closer. ‘He looks like Gabs, doesn’t he? What you think, Andre?’
Andre gives a non-committal grunt. Gabs, when you meet, is an enormous Nigerian boy, holding a quick-witted charm with an easy smile. The comparison is obvious, a little lazy. When faced with this supposed doppelgänger, there were questions: Do we look like each other? Are we all meant to be the same? Do you feel this strange feeling too, Gabs, the physicality of it, something hard and heavy at the top of your chest, like a shot of something clear which won’t slip down? And if so, do you have a name for it?
Instead of an impromptu Q and A, you perform a complicated, natural handshake, to the glee of lookers-on. You don’t say much to each other, but nod as you depart, understanding what has gone unsaid.
‘Can I ask –’
‘Three. Me and two other girls. You?’ You’re on the sofa now. She knocks your hand with her knee as she bunches her limbs up to assume a cross-legged pose. She’s miscalculated, or perhaps this is a precise manifestation of desire unspoken; either way, neither of you say anything as her leg rests against yours, your hand now lazing atop her thigh.
‘Four. Two boys, two girls. Year below me didn’t have any,’ you say.
‘Lonely, no?’
Like Baldwin said, you begin to think you are alone in this, until you read. In this instance, two books are being spread open along the spine, despite the fact you don’t remember some of these pages. She’s looking at you and there is nowhere to hide here, nowhere to go. An honest meeting.
‘Sometimes. Had some good people, though. And I found ways of coping,’ you say.
‘Yeah?’
‘Yeah. You would find me either in the library or on the basketball court.’
‘Of course, you played basketball.’
An activity which seems wholly arbitrary yet is anything but. The first time, you all stood in a semicircle and your coach showed you the moves – a bounce, pick up, two steps, extend towards the hoop, soft against the backboard, the ball slipping through the net. He told you it wouldn’t
come straight away, no, this would take practice. The confusion when you picked the ball up and did it the first time. Do it again. It wasn’t a fluke. You just got it.
How does one articulate a feeling? There was a sensuality to the sharp movements you took towards the basket. Feeling rather than knowing; not knowing and feeling it was right. The moment slipped and shed. You had new skin. Bypassed something, the trauma, the shadow of yourself. This was pure expression. The steps were quick and sure like the intention of brush on canvas. No, you didn’t just put a ball through a hoop. You received a new way of seeing, a new way of being.
It made you skinny, that game, that life. The T-shirt hugged your chest, long, strong arms hanging loose out of the material. Time will do that. You measured time in how quickly you could get up and down the court, the squeak of rigid rubber soles an aural stopwatch. In the last few years, on Fridays, you were relegated to the smaller sports hall, where badminton lines criss-crossed with your scoring markers. Basketball was an afterthought in this space, the court boundaries pressed up against the walls. You had to crack open the fire-exit door to soften the sting of chlorine wafting in from the adjacent swimming pool. Warm in there too. Just you. Sometimes, a teammate would join for the first hour; when fatigue began to set into your bodies, they would depart, while you continued to work out angles, to shoot until the swish of the ball through the hoop gave the sound of a violent snap. Practice? We talking bout practice? You had no real understanding of your ability – a blessing, a curse – but knew that this was something you must do. Especially after the injury, your shoulder out of your joint like an unfastened button. Trauma makes you considerate.
You wanted to put a ball through a hoop, and repeat. You didn’t want to have to think about what it meant to wander the unending acres of the grounds, the series of coincidences and conditions which confirmed your place there, loud in the silence. You didn’t want to have to think about what was seen when you offered a grin in the corridor; the discrepancy between what they thought they knew and what was true scared you. You didn’t want to play a game in which you had no say in the rules, or the arena.
So, you retreated – or let’s say you advanced – to the basketball court. The move was to grow closer to yourself so this was progress, no? You wanted to carve a home here, on the wooden floor with fading markings. You wanted to stretch into the outer limits of your body and beyond. You wanted to be breathing so hard you became breathless. You wanted to sweat. You wanted to ache. You wanted to launch a ball from half court, the orange orb spinning quicker and quicker as it approached the basket; the net making a splash when leather hits string. You wanted to smile, raising your hands in jubilance. You just wanted to feel something like joy, even if it was small.
You just wanted to be free.
‘And you?’
‘And me?’
‘What was your thing?’
‘My thing ?’
‘You’re making me sound crazy. Come on. Black kid at private school? We all had a way of staying sane. Even if it was just yours.’
She nods, appreciatively. ‘I hear that. Dancing. That was my thing. Still is.’ You feel her body ease into the sofa as she speaks. ‘When someone sees you – I’m just talking about day to day, you know – you’re either this or that. But when I’m doing my thing?’ A pause, as memory holds her, warm, thick, comforting. ‘When I’m doing my thing, I get to choose.’
The silence is similar to whatever memory has gripped her, and you’re both content to swim in it for a moment. A distant grumble approaches and groans, like an oncoming train speeding through the station, and she asks, ‘Shall we eat?’
The sky is darkening and it’s late afternoon. She places the last dish in the drying rack and turns off the tap. ‘Think I gotta get going soon.’
‘Is that all you’re wearing?’ you say, in a way you hope sounds caring, not judgemental. It’s here that you notice how tidy and slender her frame is. She’s wearing a white polo neck and a black wraparound, black tights, and arrived with only the clothes on her body.
‘Yeah,’ she says, looking down. ‘I’m gonna be cold, aren’t I?’
‘Take my hoody.’
‘The black one? That’s your favourite.’
‘Take it. You can give it back or I’ll come get it off you or whatever.’
‘If you’re sure?’
‘I’ll go grab it from my room.’
‘Can I come?’
‘Yeah.’
‘Can you give me a piggyback upstairs?’
‘Erm, sure,’ you say. You turn, bending your knees slightly. Her fingers find tender purchase in the grooves between your collarbone and shoulder blades, and she takes refuge on your back, laying her cheek across the side of your neck. Her thighs in your hands, you make the short journey with ease.
‘I’m not too heavy, am I?’
You shake your head as she dismounts. She wasn’t heavy but there was a weight to her which didn’t match the lean figure you studied in your kitchen. Which is to say there was more life in your hands than you expected.
‘Jheeze.’ She cranes her head ninety degrees to read the spines of the towers of books on your table. Takes a perch on the edge of your bed. Her eyes dance across the titles. ‘I miss being able to read anything. I’m doing English Lit at uni,’ she adds.
‘Ah. Well, feel free to borrow anything.’
‘I’m reading this great book at the moment: The Same Earth by Kei Miller. But I’ll be back,’ she says, here and not quite. ‘Maybe,’ reaching towards the smallest stack, a pile you always return to, ‘for some Zadie.’
‘Good choice.’
Bellingham station is a short walk away, and you cut through the park en route. In an enclosed area, four young men converge to play basketball on a day free of the mist and gloom spring can bring. Three are dressed for the occasion, one is not. The latter holds a tiny, yapping dog on a leash, while dispensing tips for success.
‘Hold it with one hand . . . nah, that one is just for support. There you go.’
One of the other players, imbued with fresh knowledge, launches a shot skywards. The arc is nice, but as the ball spins through the air, it’s clear theory will not marry practice. The ball misses everything it can: backboard, rim, net. The young man shrugs off the teasing, gathering the ball, assuming the position, willing to try again.
She falls into your stride as you make your usual journey – down the hill, through the park, along the main road of this tiny London town, complete with its Morley’s and the off-licence, the Caribbean takeaway, the always empty pub – to the top of the small slope where the station waits.
‘I guess this is goodbye.’
‘For now,’ you say, hoping the disappointment doesn’t show. You don’t want your time together to end.
‘For now. I’ll see you soon. I kinda have to now,’ she says, tugging at the hoody. ‘I’ll link you before I go back to Dublin.’
The groan escapes before you can contain it.
‘What?’ she asks.
‘That’s far.’
‘It is,’ she says. ‘I’ll be back, though.’ The train pulls in and she taps her Oyster card on the reader, stepping on board. You both wave as the doors close. She smiles at you as she settles into her seat, waving again. You begin to do the same, chasing after the train in pantomime fashion, spurred on by her laughter. You run and wave and laugh until the train gathers speed and the platform runs out. She escapes the frame, until it is just you on the platform, a little breathless, a little ecstatic, a little sad.
7
And it wasn’t that day, or the day after, but sometime after that, you cried in your kitchen. You were alone in the house and had been for a week or so. Headphones sending sound into the silence, a tender croon stretched across drums designed to march you towards yourself. In an easy rhythm, th
e rapper confesses his pain, and so you stop and ask yourself, How are you feeling? Be honest, man. You’re sweeping debris across the kitchen tiles, reaching into the corners for far-flung flecks. Moving the brush in an easy rhythm, you begin to confess, your joy, your pain, your truth. You dial for your mother but she is still far away, wrestling with the grief of her mother’s passing. You want to tell her that you miss her mother, to confess that you lost your God in the days your grandma lost her body and gained her spirit, to tell her you couldn’t face your own pain until now. She would need you intact, you think. You end the call you initiated. You dial for your father, but you know he will not have the words. He will hide behind a guise, he will tell you to be a man. He will not tell you how much he hurts too, even though you can hear the shiver in the timbre of his voice. You decline the call. You dial for your brother, but he too carries the house of your father. He will not have the words.
So you’re in the kitchen, and you’re alone, but this isolation is new. Something has come undone. You are scared. You know what you want but you don’t know what to do. This pain isn’t new but it is unfamiliar, like finding a tear in a piece of fabric. You cry so hard you feel loose and limber and soft as a newborn. You want to pull and push and mould yourself back together. The headphones slip from your head as you slide to the floor, loose and limber and soft. You’re wailing like a newborn. You’re alone. You don’t feel in rhythm. There’s nothing playing. The music has stopped. A break: also known as a percussion break. A slight pause where the music falls loose from its tightly wound rhythm. You have been going and going and going and now you have decided to slow down, to a halt, and confess. You are scared. You have been fearful of this spillage. You have been worried of being torn. You have been worried that you would not repair, would not emerge intact. You lost your God so you cannot even pray, and anyway, prayer is just confessing one’s desire and it’s not that you don’t know what you want, it’s that you don’t know what to do about it. You’re on your knees, and the music has stopped and you’re wailing like a newborn. Your mother calls. You decline the call. She would need you intact and you are not so. You need to face this alone, you think. Something has come undone. Your cup has runneth over, and now it’s empty, the flow has ceased, but you’re still loose and limber and soft. You want to push and pull and mould yourself back together, so you rise from the cool kitchen tile. You stumble from kitchen to hallway, making it to your stairs. The wail has dwindled but you still feel tender. You gaze at the mirror on the wall, and though the music has stopped and the rhythm has fallen away, you confess your joy, your pain, your truth. You stop and ask yourself, how are you feeling?
Open Water Page 3
