Butterfly Fish (14 page)

Queenie London 1970: Gift Mouth

Queenie got the job at Gift! During the interview, she had the impression Ella would have given her the position even if she'd had no experience and could only speak pigeon English. For whatever reason, Ella had taken to her and the interview seemed to be a formality. She worked Mondays to Wednesdays so she could shadow Ella who was warm, pragmatic and efficient. Queenie began her training in the stock room, sorting piles of items into baskets.

After her first week she could identify the different areas and items from the clothes racks to the bookshelves to the clusters of china with her eyes closed. The new display window had two female mannequins at opposite ends dressed in Forties fashion. Sometimes, Queenie thought she saw the footsteps of passers-by rotate in the mannequins' plastic eyes. Sometimes she envied their stillness and wanted to join them in that window, complete with braided hair and flared black trousers. She would be on display just in case he ever wandered by and discovered his little girl all grown up in a shop window.

One evening after a tiring shift, she came home to her lonely hostel room and the echoes of other people's lives in the building. They had become familiar to her; the skinny Pakistani student whose room smelled of cardamom spice, the white lady with rhinestones for eyes who always snuck her scruffy, gap-toothed junkie
boyfriend in and the strange girl blessed with fine features and close cropped hair that reminded Queenie of a helmet. The girl claimed she'd escaped from a cult and that mice in the building had stolen her voice. The receptionist called her “Jeanie the habitual liar.” They were all misfits in one place with lives intertwining in tiny steps. It wasn't like back home where people living in such close quarters would know much more about each other.

On her bed, Queenie heard doors shutting, the wide yawning of windows opening. And broken conversations gathering like the breeze between fan blades. She rummaged through one big travel bag she kept under the bed, fished out a brass head and some pictures, things she'd borrowed from her mother without asking. The brass artefact, a warrior's head, stared back at her with an intensely calm expression. In one photo, her parents posed next to a white Volkswagen car, filled with youth and laughter. Her father wore a green army uniform; her mother was dressed in a pretty dress the colour of a purple seashell. She was laughing at something in the distance; he was looking at her mid-chuckle, as though seeing her for the first time again. A memory fell through the ceiling and her parents were there in the middle of her room, dancing to Fela Kuti. Their bodies threw robust moves and they were staying in love. They danced in an invisible, movable frame. Queenie silently asked the memory to stay the night. The weight of the brass head sank into her left hand.

After two weeks, Ella moved her on to the till and she learned quickly. She became used to the curious gazes of customers and their questions.
Where are you from? Is it just you or did you bring a family along? Oh Africa sounds fascinating but… is it safe? Did you fly here?
Some of the questions were asked in a friendly manner and she was fine with that.
Simple curiosity never killed anybody
. But there were a handful of people who asked those questions in an accusatory tone. When she picked up on this, she answered mischievously.
No, she hadn't come alone, she'd brought eleven members of her family with her and they lived a cramp, gleeful existence in a one bedroom flat. Oh Africa definitely wasn't safe! In fact, when you arrived at Lagos Airport
there were taxi cab drivers in horn helmets that lured stupid foreigners into their cars. They butchered them and used their flesh to make money, bought land and dined on suya for days. And no, she hadn't flown to England but she'd ensured all eleven members of her family had been illegally smuggled into the country. Ah Ah! She herself had arrived on a boat so weighed down by bananas; it had nearly sunk en route.
When she made these comments, chuckling within at some of the ignorant questions thrown her way, a small red sea frothed in the corner of the shop floor, then flooded the faces of guilty parties. Glints of embarrassment turned into cataracts in their eyes. Their lips pursed tightly, curved upwards reluctantly as though the wanted to rip their smiles off and use them to strangle her. “Oh Ella! Delightful girl! Interesting humour…” One customer said. And Queenie smiled too, hiding the daggers beneath her teeth.

On the morning of her first experience of a Gift! Banquet for the homeless, all signs pointed to a good day. Sunlight streamed through the cream curtains of her bedroom, filling her rat-infested palace with a special kind of hope. She had a clean pair of odd socks to wear, something she considered good luck, one blue, one red. She'd also managed to save a bit of money for a shopping trip to Petticoat Lane market on the weekend. She'd try to decode some of the cockney lingo falling from the mouths of traders. If that failed, she'd simply ask what the hell they were talking about. Queenie was pleased she managed to send some money to her mother, having queued behind all the other foreigners at the bank watching them hand over their hard-earned cash many with relief showing on their faces. The same feeling swelled in her chest. That exchange indicated their sacrifices meant something, deep in the cold, loneliness and unfamiliarity of an alien country. Then they left with all the expectations of home on their shoulders, stalking through the streets like rooted up trees.

At around 9.30am Queenie arrived at the WAC Arts Centre to assist Ella along with all the other volunteers. The old basement hall where lunch and dinner would be served from 1pm was a large space with the capacity to hold two hundred people. The stage area had
blood red, pleated velvet curtains, with the smell of old performances trapped inside them. There was a tall, standing lamp covered by a colourful chintzy lampshade. A black leather chair faced the audience and in case the chair wanted to talk into it a microphone stood directly in front. Big square windows with glass panes were slightly were open. The polished dark oak floor gave the room warmth. Golden, ornate candlestick holders were mounted on the walls.

Ella had rounded up all volunteers in the kitchen area, tucked away through an archway on the right. They gathered like troops; social workers, teachers, nurses and all sorts. Queenie was repeatedly surprised by how many people Ella seemed to know. How was a woman who managed a charity shop so well connected? She noticed a tall, broad shouldered, bald-headed black man amidst the group. When he laughed the whole room filled with it. For some reason they gravitated towards each other. Maybe it was because they were the only two black people amongst the volunteers. He walked right up to her, swallowed her hand in his. “I'm Mervyn, willing victim and volunteer. Who are you and how did Ella bribe you? Come nuh, don't be shy.” The musical lilt of his Jamaican accent was attractive. A good tool to disarm people with Queenie thought but she smiled and held his gaze. “Queen, I work in the Gift! Shop.”

He chuckled then as if an anecdote he'd heard was coming to life. “Oh! So you're the African lady. I've heard a lot about you.”

She felt self-conscious then, a little annoyed at him for having a hand he'd been waiting to play all along.

“What have you heard?” she asked, unable to keep a slight bite from her tone. For some reason, she found herself standing a bit straighter, lifting her chin; a compass that pointed north. He bit back another smile. “Well for one, I've never met an African. You know? A Motherland princess.”

She nodded her understanding. “Ah, I know what you mean Methalyn.”

“Mervyn,” he corrected.

“Ok Melvyn, we Africans even walk and talk at the same time!”

They both burst into laughter, the ice had melted.

“Sorry,” Queenie mumbled, shoulders still shaking with mirth. “It's just sometimes people say really stupid things to me!”

“I know me too!” Mervyn said and they both collapsed into a heap of laughter.

She discovered from him that Ella's family was rich, her estranged father was an earl and the charity was her passion. Mervyn was studying to be a lawyer. He told her that one day he'd own his own practice. He had a fiancé who was a nurse. She couldn't come since she worked nights and needed daytimes to sleep. Queenie saw her then, hovering above their heads deep in sleep; a curvy, Jamaican woman in a blue nurse's outfit stretched taut against her dark brown skin, a thermometer tucked in the corner of her mouth.

They filled the hall with circular, wooden tables decorated in red and blue checked tablecloths. Rings of wine-red fake flowers and upwards facing playing cards lay on top. There were small, glass bowls bearing pick “n” mix sweets. One chair on each table had loose Christmas-style lights draped around it. Printed cream coloured menus with gold lettering rested on tables in square, wooden holders. On offer was a traditional hotpot with a twist and a prize for whoever guessed what the secret ingredient was. Prawn cocktail, Spaghetti Bolognese, chilli con carne, beef risotto and Chicken Kiev were options. Pork pies, sausage rolls, cheese and pineapple on small sticks were also on the menu. For dessert; butterscotch angel delight, arctic roll, black forest gateau and lemon meringue pie.

By 12:30pm people started filing in. As meals were served and Queenie interacted with the homeless men and women, she discovered there were people from all kinds of backgrounds. One teenage girl had run away from home due to her mother's violent, alcoholic boyfriend. Another man had been a civil servant. When his wife left and took the children, things spiralled out of control. One woman had been sharing a house with squatters but the property was torn down and she found herself on the streets again. Queenie enjoyed talking to the people. They were underdogs down on their
luck. She knew what that felt like, maybe not to the same extent but she understood.

In admiration she watched Ella steering the whole operation with ease. With her slender frame, you could spot her easily. Pink hair now gone, she sported a sharply cut black bob and her features while delicate were reminiscent of Popeye's Olive Oyl, only much prettier. She wore a red jumper and red floral-patterned trousers, as if she'd arranged her outfit to coordinate with the décor. She ran the whole operation effortlessly, gliding from table to table, chatting with people warmly. She'd organised the team of volunteers commandingly, thanking them now for their efforts and seemed to be everywhere at once, cooking, serving, taking orders and liaising with the arts centre staff. She'd hired an artist for a few hours, a scrawny guy with long brown hair, holes in his green jumper and a thick moustache. Queenie got the impression this guy lived on other people's sofas. He spent his time drawing amusing caricatures of people who captured his imagination and worked on a piece depicting the joyous, chaotic scenes there that he called “
The Banquet
.” At one point, holding a stack of plates, sweating profusely and balancing three orders on her tongue, Queenie passed Ella by the kitchen. “Oh God! How can you look so calm, it's chaos out there!”

“It's great isn't it?” Ella replied. “From my count we've had an even bigger turn out than last year. Inside, I'm not calm, just resigned to the fact that no matter how precisely I plan, something always goes wrong!”

Sure enough it did. The house band Ella booked as part of the evening programme had been double-booked. Mervyn pulled a favour from a ska band he knew called The Pipers. By 6pm the evening programme kicked off; a mix of writers, open mic poets and the band. There was some good poetry and some terrible poetry. The band held it all together nicely, playing infectious, melodious songs to an audience who'd really only turned up for some free food but were happy enough to be entertained. Behind the scenes Queenie and Mervyn exchanged anecdotes.

“Come nuh, did you see that drunken guy reciting the poem about catching his girlfriend in bed with someone else?”

“Oh God! Yes, now I wan you ru die a thousan' deaths a thousan' different ways!” Queenie mimicked the poet's slurred delivery. “I didn't see the whole thing but I thought he was going to fall off the stage.”

“He did,” Mervyn said, cracking up.

“Are there a thousand ways to die?” Queenie asked.

“Probably.” Mervyn answered and they convulsed with laughter.

At the end of the evening Queenie was exhausted. After the room had been cleared, rubbish tied, leftover food distributed in Tupperware, and volunteers filed out of the back entrance, swathed in her new £15 grey tweed coat from Petticoat Lane Market, Queenie waved an animated wave goodnight to Ella and Mervyn. She walked through the hallway where the large notice board hoarded leaflets that flapped like pinned paper wings whenever the door opened. She felt someone grab her elbow from behind, turned to find Mervyn, one hand buried in his pocket. Cool and casual. “Hey Africa, you escaping already nuh? The night is young. Come for a drink, The Pipers and I are heading to this blues bar. We can give you a lift in the van.”

She noticed specks of food stains on his rolled up blue sleeves, fine hairs on his arm. Her pulse slipped into the face of his gold watch. “I don't think so, you have a girlfriend remember?” She said, tugging self-consciously at her jacket lapels.

“Oh come on man! Just as a friend. I'd like to hear about Africa, I'm curious. Besides, if I was trying to get you into bed you'd know it, trust me. And…”

“And?”

“You're interesting but you're not my type, so rest assured girl, I won't be pouncing on you any time soon.”

Queenie didn't know why but a small part of her felt disappointed. Did he really have to tell her that last bit of information? Typical.

Sheepishly she said, “Okay, why not.”

The Blue Havana in Oxford Circus was a cosy, smoky bar with low lighting perfect for shape shifters. Alcohol-lined voices in intimate conversations rose and dipped in cycles. Plush leather chairs and tall, black stools were dotted around a marble bar area. The barman's weathered face and rough voice gave the impression he'd probably sampled every drink they served. On the tiny stage, a black woman wearing a slinky, long purple dress cried into the microphone under a blue spotlight. A white flower grew out of her head. She sang as though she lived on disappointment, cigarettes and whisky. In that light, Queenie worried Mervyn would see under her skin and realise half of her was mangled. Since she arrived, she'd been walking on a rolling tide throughout the city but something about him steadied her. He was a man who took things at his own pace, even in England. They talked, laughed and talked some more. He watched her knock back shots of rum in amusement, often adding, “Gwaan girl!” and “Is that you?”