A Cupboard Full of Coats (19 page)

‘Please.’

On his level now, I paused outside the living-room door.

‘Give you mum a few minutes,’ he said. ‘Come and keep me company.’

In the kitchen, I sat at the table and watched him. The male equivalent of my mum. Everything he did was so graceful; the way he stood, the stretch of his legs as he reached into the cupboards above the sink, the line of his arm as he lifted the kettle, the way they folded across his chest as he leaned against the sink, watching me and waiting for the water to boil. Again, that crazy certainty; he knew everything I felt without me saying a single word. Still, though, I said them, the words uppermost in my mind, the ones that had kept me awake the night before.

‘He’s going to kill her.’

‘No,’ he said, ‘he’s teaching her a lesson.’

‘What lesson?’

‘To respect him. It’s how we all came up: respect the teacher otherwise you get you arse cut, respect you grandmother or you aunty or you mother otherwise you get you arse cut; respect you man…It was a lesson in respect.’

In the silence he put his hand against the kettle, felt its clammy coldness and, realizing his mistake, pressed the button, turning it on. I didn’t know what to say to that. It felt like ‘respect’ was the wrong word but I didn’t know what the right word was.

‘Is she gonna be okay?’ I asked.

‘Depends what you mean by okay,’ he said. ‘Nothing’s broke. Her face will heal.’

‘This time. But what about next time?’

‘It’ll be fine,’ he said after a long pause. I waited for him to elaborate but he didn’t. He concentrated on the cups, putting the tea bags in, pouring the water, stirring. Finally he asked, ‘Sugar?’

‘Two,’ I answered.

He was trying to change the subject, treating me like a child, like it was that easy to make me forget, to get me focused on sugar and sweeties instead of murder.

‘How do you know?’

He sighed and stopped stirring. ‘Jinx, Berris is a very particular man and he likes things a very particular way. You mum just need to mind when he speak. If she can do that, she won’t have no problems with him.’

He had just said the opposite of what I’d heard him saying to her and I was shocked. I wanted to say something, but didn’t know how to without exposing the fact that I’d been hiding on the stairs listening to them. Why would he have said such different things to the two of us? When I thought it through, knowing what I did about the type of person Berris was, what he’d told
me
made more sense. And almost im mediately, it came to me. I knew why he’d lied to her and I wondered how I’d missed it before. He liked them being together no more than I did. If my mum followed his advice it would make things worse, not better, possibly even break them up for good. For a second, looking at Lemon was like seeing my reflection. He and I were one and the same and we wanted the same thing. I felt that unidentifiable stirring in my lower belly again. He must have been such a sweet boy when he was young. He was, even for an old guy, one of the most attractive men I’d ever seen.

He handed me my cup of tea. Embarrassed, I took it, then looked away.

‘Thanks,’ I said.

‘Any time.’

I missed Sam badly. I should have told her about what was going on at home from the beginning, but I hadn’t and it was like the more things that happened, the further I kept getting from the possibility, as if my whole life was a dark, dirty secret that was getting harder to explain the longer I left it, and at the same time all I could think about was discussing it with her.

I needed her.

I needed someone to talk to so bad at times it felt like the pressure of keeping everything inside would drive me crazy. But she’d stopped coming to school. She’d been off for nearly three weeks straight, even though we were supposed to be doing our O levels in two months’ time. I’d been to her house but I didn’t get past the front doorstep. Mrs Adebayo had acted so weird I hadn’t dared go back; so weird that only some kind of enormous shock could have made me go back, something that freaked me out to the max. And that’s exactly what I got.

For the three weeks Sam had been off, things had chugged along predictably at school. Then one morning, during registration, when our form tutor called the register, he missed off her name.

The class register was like a poem we’d been memorizing for five years, with the odd change here and there, but otherwise pretty much the same, and during that time Sam’s had always been the first name called. From day one. I was so accustomed to the rhythm of the register that Mr Botha had made his way through the following five names before I even realized it was being called.

‘Sir, you forgot Sam Adebayo,’ I said.

Mr Botha paused between names and looked at me. You were supposed to put your hand up if you wanted to speak, and I hadn’t.

‘Samantha is no longer a pupil here,’ he said. ‘I’m surprised you of all people didn’t know that.’

I felt like I could hardly breathe with the hammering inside my chest. He resumed his call and I sat and tried to think of a single spin I could put on what he’d said that would make those words mean something else. At break time I went to the office, but the secretaries wouldn’t give me any more information than I already had. Sam was no longer a pupil. Why wouldn’t she be coming back? What was going on? I stayed through physics, but as soon as the bell went for lunch I left. The only thing I could think about was going to see her, going to see and speak to the only friend I’d had for the last five years.

By the time I reached Pembury Estate it was a little after one. All the way there I hoped the rest of Sam’s family would be at school and work, because if her mum answered the door I might as well forget it. Outside their flat I rang the doorbell, then knocked the letter box, then rapped on the pane of glass in the front door first with my finger, then my key, but there was no answer. No one was in. She was my best friend and I would never see her again. My eyes smarted from the sheer unfairness of that on top of everything else going on in my life.

Then, for a split second, I thought I saw someone or a shadow shift past the kitchen window and I threw myself at the door, hammering and pounding away and calling her name. I felt reckless with desperation. I didn’t care any more if it was Mrs Adebayo inside, I just needed to see someone, anyone who could explain to me what was going on. There was someone in the house and if I had to pound all day I would. I swore I would not stop till the front door opened. And it finally did. What felt like ages later. And there stood Sam.

‘Oh my God! Where have you been?’ I asked her.

I wanted to hug her, but her body language was kind of hard to interpret. She moved back as though she knew the instinct was in my head, stepped back out of reach, and she shrugged.

‘I’ve been sick.’

‘For so long?’ I asked, studying her. The amount of time she’d been off I would have expected her to look half dead or something, but she didn’t. She looked normal. A bit pale, but that could have been the shapeless black jumper she wore. It hung on her like a baggy dress. Dark colours always made her look a bit anaemic.

‘Yeah,’ was all she answered.

‘Where’s everyone?’

‘My dad’s gone down the market. You can’t stay long. If he catches you here I’ll be in even more trouble.’

‘You don’t look sick.’

She shrugged again. ‘You coming in?’

I stepped into the hallway and waited while she shut the door behind me. She passed me and I followed her into the living room. There I found a state of chaos. There were towels and dresses and T-shirts, masses of clothing and underwear strewn about the settee, and in and around a couple of suitcases that were opened and being packed on the floor.

Some of the stuff was obviously newly bought, but the older stuff I recognized as Sam’s. When I met her eyes, my own were questioning.

‘They’re sending me to Ghana,’ she said with a slow blush rising.

I was terrified. ‘For a holiday?’

She shook her head. ‘For good.’

‘But why?’

‘Guess.’ But she didn’t sound like she had the slightest interest in playing games and I didn’t either. It was too serious, too final for jokes.

‘I can’t.’

‘I’m pregnant,’ she said.

‘Oh my God…Who for?’

She rolled her eyes in exasperation. ‘Donovan, innit.’ ‘Does he know?’

‘Yep. Does he care? Nope.’

‘When’s it due?’

‘Six months. S’what the doctor reckons.’

‘But what about your O levels?’

‘School’s saying I can’t sit them. I’ll be showing by then.’ Her face was beetroot now. ‘Please don’t tell anyone,’ she said, and the first tears fell.

‘I won’t,’ I answered and, moving forward, finally hugged her.

‘Swear on your mother’s life.’

‘I swear.’

‘I don’t want everyone laughing at me.’

‘No one’s gonna laugh.’

She pulled away from me. Went and yanked a tissue from a box on the table, flicked it out then carefully folded it in half. ‘Why not? I’ve been so stupid.’ She blew her nose.

‘You don’t have to go. You could run away.’

‘And go where?’ she asked in a voice that was completely flat. ‘It’s not just me any more.’ Years she’d been talking about leaving home, getting her own place, doing her own thing, as soon as our exams were over. All that bravado had gone. It was like she had no more choices now. Like all options had been brought down to this one unimaginable one. What had her parents done to her to get her to this point? How had they broken her? Could this really be the last time I’d ever see her? I wondered why I wasn’t crying myself.

‘You better go. Before my dad gets back.’

‘I don’t want you to go,’ I said, and as if someone had pulled the chain, my own eyes filled.

‘Can you imagine me as a mum?’ she asked.

I nodded. ‘You’ll be the best.’

‘I’ll write to you,’ she said. ‘Send you pictures and that.’

‘Okay.’

‘Promise me, Jay, you won’t make the mistake I did. If you end up with a black guy, get a costume. My mum told me enough times. I wish I’d listened.’

‘Okay.’

‘If you don’t, you’ll end up wasted. Like me.’

‘You’re not wasted.’

‘Promise me,’ she said.

Even if Sam had worn a collection of costumes to bed every single night of her life, it wouldn’t have stopped her getting pregnant, because she hadn’t gotten pregnant in the nighttime lying in her own bed, but in the daytime over the garages under Nightingale Estate. She was such a drama queen. Would there be anyone in Ghana to love that about her? ‘I promise,’ I said.

‘He could be back any minute. You have to go.’

But I threw my arms around her instead and hugged her for the last time. I didn’t want her to leave me on my own. She was the last person I had left. In the end it was her who untangled me and literally pushed me out the front door.

It was too late to go back to school and too early to go home without a thousand questions, so I walked up to the high street, went into the library, found a quiet corner to hide in and sat there for hours. Everyone I cared for was vanishing before my eyes, moving out of touching distance, leaving me behind to face the emptiness alone. I felt like I’d been boxed into a tight place with too little air to breathe and I didn’t know just how I was supposed to make it through the rest of my life.

They were dancing to Randy Crawford when I came in. High day in broad daylight, and the two of them had their arms wrapped around each other, dancing in the middle of the living-room floor, locked away in their own private world, oblivious to everything. Neither of them heard me enter the room. More spookily, they didn’t even sense me as I stood watching them. It felt like it wasn’t just my life and the people in it that were vanishing, it was my very person, like if something didn’t happen soon, I would cease to exist.

She was wearing the red high-heeled clogs again and a black coat I had never seen before that fitted her so close it was like it had been tailor-made. It goes without saying it was beautiful: leather, falling over her body almost to the ground, with a red satin lining that shocked every time the split at the back shifted to reveal it. When the track ended, it was Berris who opened his eyes and saw me standing inside the doorway. He stiffened and his smile faltered. He tapped her on the back with his fingers, lightly. Slowly, she opened her eyes and, as the haze lifted, finally realized I was there.

She smiled and winced and instinctively her finger went up to her face, touching the bruised lip and checking her finger for signs her mouth had begun to bleed. Then she remembered Berris and glanced at him quickly, curling the finger along with the others into her palm, giving him a small smile and touching him with that same hand as if to say,
It’s okay, honey, it’s healing
. She whirled away from him, coming to a sultry pose in front of me even though that coat required nothing whatsoever from her to look good.

‘Do you like it?’ she asked. ‘Berris bought it for me. Isn’t it gorgeous?’

‘It’s wicked,’ I answered, and it was. ‘Hi,’ I said to Berris.

When he smiled at me his eyes were mocking, but swiftly, they returned to her, because nothing else of importance existed for him anywhere.

‘What’s for dinner?’ I asked.

‘I’m taking you mother out,’ Berris answered, looking at her as if she might be one of the items on the menu. He asked, ‘Did you tell her?’

My mother looked a bit embarrassed. ‘She knows we’re getting married,’ she answered.

‘I’m talking ’bout the party,’ he said.

Her colour rose a fraction higher. ‘Did I say we were having a party?’ she asked, as though she couldn’t quite remember, when we both knew blatantly she hadn’t.

‘No.’

‘For the engagement,’ Berris said.

‘Oh.’

‘On Saturday. You can invite as many of your friends as you want,’ she added.

I couldn’t think of a response to that. ‘What time you going out?’

‘About eight. Lemon’s coming round to babysit –’

‘I’m not a baby.’

‘I know, I know. He’s just gonna be here till we get back, just in case...,’ she said.

‘Of what?’