Open Water

by Caleb Azumah Nelson

  A few months before, you had attended a talk on an exhibition of Sola Olulode’s work, in a gallery in Brixton. Her paintings were expressions of joy. Blue canvases, the bodies moving freely in celebration of life. Even in the silence of a canvas, the beat is loud and physical, channelled through her subjects, the Black woman centralized in her work. Aside from the feelings the work evokes, her craft is extraordinary. The brushwork! You haven’t seen such attention to craft since ­Lynette –

  But you’d hate to conflate, so you stay silent. It’s enough to be in this room, in this space, where those who are usually looked at, and objectified, are seen, heard; can live, laugh, breathe.

  When the talk was over, you took the time to speak to both artwork and artist, marvelling at the figures struggling to be contained on the canvas, your eyes dancing across the cloth she has taken so much time and care with. You thanked her for the work and watched a sly smile spread across the face of a woman who was still wondering if she was supposed to be here, is yet to convince herself.

  Still, as you parted ways, you wondered if you’re wrong, if freedom isn’t as full as you ­imagine – no, if freedom is not an ­absolute – no, try ­again – if freedom is something one could always feel. Or if you are destined to feel it in small moments here and there.

  It’s one thing to be looked at and another to be seen. You’re asking to see her as you take her portrait, hurtling through ­south-­east London. There, as a solid shaft of amber light breaks through the glass, grazing cheeks, lips, eyes, the eyes themselves like light diffracted through infinite glass; you see hazel, green, yellow; you see a trust you are grateful for. The mechanism in your camera snaps shut as your finger touches the trigger. Her face on celluloid, development pending.

  You follow each other around the supermarket, searching for snacks you know won’t sate your hunger. Down an escalator, exchanging nothings as you avoid the impending split, she heading to north London, to a house party, you south, to meet friends. On the concourse, you press her cheek against yours, wrap arms around a lithe body you have grown to know, the small moans of reluctance slipping from your mouths not enough to convey what you are feeling. Not that words are ever enough.

  You’re on the phone to her on the other ends of your Tube journeys. She stays on while you foolishly decide to walk through the forest in this furthermost corner of south London, the trees like gnarled arms stretching skyward on either side. As you emerge into a clearing, she says she wrote something about you on the train. Your chest tightens, like the hands of the forest are clutching your torso. You speak a little more as you walk her to her ­party – strange that your voices soundtrack so much of each other’s lives, but it feels right, you wouldn’t pick ­another – and, finding someone to let her in, her voice leaves you, but when she hangs up, it’s as if her hand is still in yours, long fingers interlocked, her thumb caressing the flesh below your wrist. Every few moments, you check your phone, only to be rewarded with a blank screen. You’re, as always, thinking of her. You wonder if she’s decided against sending it. You wonder if she’s taken back her words, only to leave you with what could be. You wonder as you wander, taking in a view from the clearing akin to that from her balcony, wide and sweeping, looking out across the city. Then, like when you are tangled on her sofa watching red lights flicker across London’s skyline, she gives your hand a little squeeze. You check your phone once more and see her name on the screen.

  On the parched patch of grass, you stand still, stunned. Read her words once, twice, hearing the sweetness in her voice with each turn of phrase. You lock yourself in the toilet when you arrive and take them in once more, letting the sentences caress your scalp. Think of this: she closes her eyes and prises open your chest, one rib at a ­time – she knows what to do, she doesn’t need to ­see – slipping her sentences next to your beating heart, the small bundle of muscles swelling beneath her hand. A symptom of something which could only be known as joy.

  ‘Are you two a thing now?’

  The journey you have made is to an apartment your friend Abi and her boyfriend, Dylan, have rented for his birthday. They both live at home, so they wanted a little more space. You’re early. It’s just the three of you. More are on their way. Something slow, funky, with a heavy bassline spreads from the speaker into the living room. Night has fallen. Time has slowed, as has your rhythm.

  ‘I guess,’ you say.

  ‘You guess?’ Abi takes a sip of her wine. ‘Don’t be scared now.’

  But you are. You haven’t admitted it to anyone, perhaps this is the first time you’ve admitted it to yourself. You’re scared of this moment, which feels like when you wandered onto the beach to photograph lightning in the middle of a storm, volatile and gorgeous, unpredictable strands falling haphazard from the sky. You didn’t know what you would capture, and you knew it was a risk, but it was something you had to do. Here, you know that this is a feeling you cannot ignore.

  It’s one thing to be looked at, and another to be seen; you’re scared that she might not just see your beauty, but your ugly too.

  ‘Where is she?’

  ‘At another party.’

  ‘Is it far? Tell her to come.’

  What if she says no?

  ‘She’s not going to say no.’

  ‘Did I say that out loud?’

  ‘You didn’t have to. Call her.’

  She picks up after a couple of rings and the party spills onto the line.

  ‘Where are you?’

  ‘I’m still at the party,’ she says. ‘Leaving soon, though.’

  ‘I think you should get into an Uber and come here.’

  ‘You think I should get an Uber and come to you?’

  ‘Yes.’

  There’s a pause, and it’s like everything has stopped. Even the party has lulled in the background.

  ‘Send me the address.’

  You’re holding the camera once more. Her long frame curled up on the windowsill, puffing on a cigarette. You take the shot, and she takes the camera from you, places it on the side. Takes your hand instead. The warmth of her hand in yours, the thumb at work once more. She blinks, slowly, just before her lips stretch into a smile. She pulls you closer. She’s swaying a little, and you realize she’s leading you in a dance. The bassline is thicker, faster, but slow enough that this doesn’t feel like a rush. Slow enough to gaze into her eyes as you press closer, moving in an easy, measured rhythm.

  You’re scared. But when you hear music, and something, something takes you, closes your eyes, moves your feet, hips, shoulders, bobs your head, reaches inwards, invites you to do the same, leads you, if only for a moment, towards something else which has no name, needs no name, do you question it? Or do you dance, even when you don’t know the song?

  19

  Speaking of music and rhythms, it’s Carnival Sunday and what should be dub shaking your bones is the muffled roar of rain. It comes as warned, steady and light. She had already made her decision to seek alternative arrangements, but it doesn’t hurt to lament.

  ‘The one day in the year when I just want to turn up, and dance, and have ­fun – and we get this,’ she says, signalling the spit falling from the dirty grey sky. Thunder crackles, like the distant rumble of a giant’s stomach, and she sighs, the short whoosh joining nature’s sounds.

  The night before, you had been sitting on her sofa, when she made the declaration.

  ‘I don’t think that’s a good idea,’ you said.

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘I just . . . it’s quite sudden.’

  ‘But I want to. Come on, come help me.’

  In the bathroom, you laugh and giggle as she wets her hair, flattening the curls with water. You don a glove and help ease the dye across her soft scalp, once, twice, until the desired colour is reached. She is going from dark to blonde, spreading chemicals as one does in a darkroom, to encourag
e an image to emerge from celluloid. The beauty of shooting on film is in the unexpected. You don’t know what will appear out of the development process. You are doing the same here, the bleach on her dark roots producing a glow like sunshine at golden hour. When you settle in bed for the night, you run your hand through her yellow curls, and she murmurs towards slumber.

  ‘This feels good,’ she says. ‘This has felt good. I’ve enjoyed this summer together.’

  ‘It’s not over yet,’ you say, but she’s already asleep.

  Carnival Sunday. Bits and pieces like a film strip: walking through puddles on Rye Lane, determined to find a space where she would feel safe. Peering into the barbershop, doing a walk by. Holding her by the underside of your forearms. It will be OK, you tell her, not because she’s nervous, but because you believe it. Inside, waiting for a chair to become free. A measure of rum to ease the jitters. ‘Is that your boyfriend?’ The answer is too complex: when you have the words to explain, they will still feel inadequate. ‘I won’t hurt her,’ the barber says, noticing how you eye him as the razor glides across her scalp. You hear the conversation and know she has found another place to feel comfortable. Two dots of blood on her forehead as he lines her up. You both promise to return. It doesn’t feel empty.

  Carnival Sunday. You’re scraping the plate with your forks. Leftovers from the day before, rice and peas, jerk chicken, the meat slipping from the bone.

  ‘I have to go soon,’ you say. ‘You still heading out?’

  ‘I think so,’ she says, suppressing a yawn. ‘We’re taking a nap,’ she says, leaving the room.

  In her bedroom, you clamber into bed, pull the duvet over yourself, suddenly tired.

  ‘Wait,’ she says.

  ‘What?’

  She giggles. ‘Did you really think we were taking a nap?’

  Carnival Sunday. You return later that night after leaving her house for a few hours. Kick off your shoes without undoing the laces. She’s where you left her, in bed, the grin still traced on her lips, her words still echoing pleasantly, like laughter: ‘Did you really think we would take a nap?’

  It’s night now, and the rain has stopped. You describe the party you left her for and wonder about the enormous street party you didn’t make it to.

  ‘There’s always next year.’

  She nods, settling into the folds of her duvet. You wrap your arms around her, letting them linger, comforted by her warmth. Her curves and juts are familiar. The shape of her recognizable, even with the newly cropped blonde hair. She smells like her, which is a ­cop-­out, really, but if pushed, you would say she smells like a place you call home.

  20

  Miserly grey of a London sky on Carnival Monday. Hot and muggy and stiff. Summer’s beginning to stall and dwindle. You ran into a friend at Victoria train station. You hadn’t seen each other for years, not since way before he found his freedom being taken from him, but this isn’t the time or place, no, this is a time for joy and so neither of you mention the letters you wrote to each other during his ­eighteen-­month stint, neither of you joke about his slim frame gaining mass, neither of you suggest that there might be something else, something like tired, swimming in his dark brown eyes. You embrace and exchange numbers, promising to link up later in the day, both knowing the possibility of phone reception during Carnival is slim. You split, heading underground. When you emerge, London is still grey, the sky a single colour. As luck would have it, you bump into more friends trudging along the route, following sound and signs. Heading towards a house party. Rooftop vibes, they’ve got a little balcony. You’re reminded of Leah and Michel taking up Frank’s invitation to an amazing carnival pad in Zadie’s NW.

  You can see everything from here. No need to lumber through the mass of people searching for a toilet or chicken or avoiding noise and violence on the ground, there’s always violence here, I guess that’s what you expect ­when – yes? That’s what you expect when? And in the silence, someone offers you a sausage roll and a Red Stripe and tells you to eat and drink until you are content. The room begins to spin in blue anger. There’s mimicry of broken English, like patois was a luxury, rather than a necessity, like the language did not emerge from Black body being split. There’s a Rasta wig here too. You are unsurprised that you don’t have fun. No one notices you slip onto stairs onto street into Carnival, just in time to witness a crime being committed. Woman, bringing the yellow pastry of a patty towards her open mouth. Man, charges towards her with no regard, his elbow knocking hers, faint surprise as her pastry falls to ground, landing with a thud. He does not look back. She is too confused to chase. She looks up to see you, the witness, and you both grin in pain. This is how you found yourself standing in line with a stranger, relaying the events of the house party with rooftop vibes to her. While you talk your voice wobbles as you describe language plucked, plundered for the amusement of a few. She takes your elbow in her soft palm, asks if you’re OK. You tell her that you’re real cool because this is a place you have come to live. Come on then, she says, weaving between clustered joy, heading towards sound system where you feel bass slap thud, like a heartbeat. There is a pleasurable freedom in this slowness; where the frequencies lower and it is not so much a matter of the head but of the chest. She winds hips loose like elastic, takes your hand around her waist and encourages you to slow down. You take pleasure in the muddy fervour of a generous moment found under the miserly grey of a London sky on Carnival Monday. Unexpected miracle in these moments of freedom. Catch wines, sweat under arms and resting on foreheads, but no mind. Slow down and be guided by bass thudding in lazy rhythm. There’s a nudge on your elbow, a young man offering small hazy fire between finger and thumb. Eyes crackle red with each soft gulp until pupils turn wide and Black. Slow down. Take pleasure. Your hand around her waist, small fire in palm, eyes ablaze. Loosen up, she says, and your hips break like the language. No need for mimicry. Miserly grey of a London sky on Carnival Monday, muggy heat stalling on bare back as you danced the day away with a stranger.

  21

  You are ending the summer like you began the winter together, twisting through the backroads, from New Cross to Deptford. You run into one of her friends, and you watch their conversation dance around each other, such easy rhythm, such beauty in being. Walking on, comfortably drunk. Sobriety extends a hand in the late-summer evening, and you both bat it away. Not now, not yet.

  When you’re a turn away from her flat, your fingers tangle. The seed you planted so long ago grown, the roots clutching in the darkness, pulling each other closer. Your lips meet under the canopy of a tree already showing autumnal symptoms.

  You are ending summer, splitting a cigarette with her. She watches you fumble with the lighter. You’re not a smoker, and she knows it, but the alcohol makes it easier to succumb to the idea. Besides, there’s an intimacy to sharing this with her which you love. She takes the cigarette from you as she has done many times before, kindly, calmly, lighting up.

  ‘You know,’ she pauses to take a drag. ‘OK, we’re doing this now, I’m drunk, and we’re doing this now.’ Another drag. ‘I was talking to my friends about you, about us. And there’s parts of me you’re gonna have to learn and understand.’ She gazes at the ground for a moment. ‘I haven’t really done this before. I mean, I have, you know that. But this feels different.’

  There are words and phrases rattling about your brain. You want to tell her, one day at a time, as you have been. You want to tell her you cannot wait to learn more about her, about all of her. But that you can and will wait, that time means nothing to you and her now, not really. You want to tell her how much you love her, but you’re met with an impossibility, so instead you chuck under her chin and pull her towards you for a kiss, hoping she understands.

  You are ending summer, hands resting on each other’s thighs. Sitting across from each other on the train home, you were holding a gaze you could be forgiven for suggesting
will never break. In moments such as these, time acts as it does in your relationship, falling away; past, present and future melding in the warmth of their touch. Neither of you wish to let this gaze go, but you know you must, if only briefly, knowing the return is an inevitability.

  Later, lying in bed together, the feeling of timelessness heavier now you have come to a halt. This moment seems to be going on forever. What is it Kierkegaard says of the difference between a moment and an instant, of the fullness of time? Unimportant, as you fumble in the dark, knowing each other fully, in a way which will not be forgotten, in a way which feels right.

  You are ending the summer, wondering how it is possible to miss someone before they have gone. There are lives moving around you but they are of little concern. Leaning against a noticeboard, your arms around her, running your chin over the softness of her shorn blonde head. You’re both watching nervously for her train platform to be announced, and right on ­time –

  ‘That’s you,’ you say.

  ‘That’s me,’ she says.

  She’ll go from London to Holyhead and take the ferry to Dublin. On the platform, she kisses you, one foot on the train, one foot off. The whistle blows once. You need to step away from the train but you’re not ready. You have never loved from a distance, but then you have never known love like this. You want to tell yourself, and her, that it will be OK, that nothing will change, but you don’t know. All too quickly, the whistle is blowing again, and the train doors are sliding shut. You hold off the tears until the train has pulled away, until you are stumbling down the platform. It is like the summer has been one long night and you have just woken up. It is like you both dived into the open water, but you have resurfaced with her elsewhere. It is like you formed a joint only to fracture, only to break. It is an ache you have not known and do not know how to name. It is terrifying. And yet, you knew what you were getting into. You know that to love is both to swim and to drown. You know to love is to be a whole, partial, a joint, a fracture, a heart, a bone. It is to bleed and heal. It is to be in the world, honest. It is to place someone next to your beating heart, in the absolute darkness of your inner, and trust they will hold you close. To love is to trust, to trust is to have faith. How else are you meant to love? You knew what you were getting into, but taking the Underground, returning home with no certainty of when you will see her next, it is terrifying.