Love Me (8 page)

I'm sorry I never told you when your grandmother passed four years ago, Eden. I didn't want all the hypocrites flocking round the coffin with their long faces and tricky eyes when they don't care! I'm the only one who really cared for her and I'm the only one who'll miss her now she's gone. She was a hard woman to love and her parents are long dead, as are her brothers.

If you want to honour her, make a small plate when you're having dinner. You just put a bit of everything on it, because she was a greedy woman, and a big helping of ketchup on
the side. She'll come sit by you. She loved ketchup! Put some white rum in a glass and play her dead behind some Jim Reeves. That's how you say a proper goodbye.

And you can tell your dad that no, I don't worship the devil just because I burn candles and light incense! How people so damn ignorant? And because I have locs that means I must be a Rasta? I have no problem with the Rastas but dreadlocks been around long before they started worshipping Haile Selassie! My hair is a conduit to things unseen, Cherry Pepper, just as yours is. We are women of power. People come from all around for my spiritual guidance and protection, people from all walks of life. Doctors, musicians, lawyers, politicians. I make a better living now than I did at the firm. There's plenty of room for you here. Come whenever you like, don't worry about a thing. Give yourself time to heal and blossom.

You wanted to know why loneliness is my DNA. Well that's because there is a split in my world. My body is almost sixty years old in Brooklyn, but my spirit is still eleven, dark and bony, kneeling outside in the Soufriere sun. Sharp stones cut into my kneecaps. My hands are balled into fists. Sweat and tears sting my eyes. And Angeline is standing over me with eyes that aren't mother's eyes. A little black
salope
like you can't take the sun? That hard black skin you have there and you think stones can prick it? A knife couldn't prick it!

My mother ruined me for the world. She mellowed in later years, as most do, but it was too late. I spent my childhood being punished for imagined evil glances. I tried not looking at her, but still I was beaten. I was burned with the iron while I pressed and starched my sister's dresses. I was doused in boiling water while I cooked dinner for the house. I was ugly, I was black, I was stupid and I was doomed. Nobody would love a girl like me. I will never get that time back, Eden, it is something I accept. What was taken was taken
for good. I flinch at sudden moves; I can't be touched. I sit behind my curtain and blank out the world and laugh at all the chattering people.

I've done it all, Cherry Pepper. I've been the A-grade student, the law graduate, the responsible home owner, and when your grandmother died and there was no love to be had, I became the junkie. I woke up in houses I didn't recognise, with men I didn't recognise. I woke up in the streets with no memory of how I reached there. Now I've come back to the middle and I help others, and that's given a pattern to the cloth. I am at peace. The worst is behind me and ahead is . . . nothing more.

Aunt K

OPEN THE FRONT
door and my house is spilling over with whingy old-time country music. What a racket. My father's miserable, tuneless wailing doesn't help either. When he sings, it sounds like he's having his arm hair plucked out with tweezers.

‘Daaad!' I yell, but no way he can hear me over all the guitar-accompanied drama of Peggy Sue running round town and breaking a cowboy's plaid flannel heart in two. ‘You're back!'

The kitchen smells like dinner. My tall and round-bellied father is frying plantain, swaying and singing with fervour. His hair is neatly cut and his beige slacks match his shirt. For the past four days I've had the house to myself while he was away, I'm not sure where. Probably on some team-building trip, learning how to sell televisions with more cultural sensitivity or some such. I'm shocked by my relief at seeing him. I must really be bored. Perhaps Juliet is right that I shouldn't have quit the day job. Now there's nothing to do but watch vapid daytime talk shows and eat and brood.

‘Daaad!' I shout over the music. He rears back completely shocked, like I don't live here. ‘What if I'd been a BURGLAR?!'

‘Hmm? I can't hear you!'

‘I'm not surprised.'

‘What?'

‘I said I'm not SURPRISED you can't HEAR me!' I
scream. ‘Are you trying to go DEAF? Please give the country a rest, Dad! I'm losing my will to LIVE.'

‘You have no taste in music,' he says, turning down his surprisingly powerful little ghetto blaster. ‘You alright?'

‘Yeah I'm cool.' I take a seat at the kitchen table. His apron says
What's missing in ch_rch?
I laugh.

‘What?'

‘Nothing.'

He gives me a suspicious look, then says, ‘That's how you went out of the house? Those trousers don't even look clean.'

‘But you haven't seen my footwear!' I say, poking one grubby trainer from under the table for his inspection. ‘Check me out! Can't get more ladylike than that!'

‘You are something else,' he says, shaking his head. ‘You should make more of yourself, you know. Why don't you get your hair . . .
done
?'

‘Relaxed? That's what you mean, right?'

‘Well . . .'

‘So I could flick it back over my shoulders like this,' I demonstrate, ‘and twirl it daintily around my fingers? I could be a little black Barbie. Doctor Barbie. Or accountant Barbie, perhaps.'

‘Oh, don't start with your theatrics! It would be nice and neat, that's all. You'd look pretty, and it would be good for job interviews.'

‘Very subtle,' I laugh, getting some cranberry juice from the fridge. Ever since I left the market research job he's been on at me every day to get something else. ‘So . . . where've you been?' I ask him, before he can ask me about my latest trip to the job centre. ‘I haven't seen you since Thursday.'

‘Big people business.'

‘Come on, Dad. I
am
big people now!'

‘Not in my eyes. You'll always be a dirty-nose chile to me!'

‘You been out with old Chanders again?'

‘Don't call her that, Eden. I told you already. But . . .' he whispers, ‘yes, I have spent some time with the lovely Ms Rose Chanderpaul.'

‘Nice.'

‘I took her to Paris.'

‘Wow,' I say, trying to smile. ‘And I thought you were working. How was it? Aren't dirty weekends against your religion?'

‘Separate rooms of course, Eden!'

‘Oh, you animal! Tell me all about it. Did you have fun?'

He shoots me a look, and decides to treat my enquiry as a sincere one, telling me how lovely and really-a-great-bargain his trip was; frying plantain again and pottering around his yellow kitchen. He painted it last year in a fit of DIY fever so now it's sunny, just like he's been lately with his novelty aprons and trips to Europe. At least the food is familiar. The smell of stewed chicken wafting over from the pots on the stove; rice and peas, and the macaroni cheese in a Pyrex dish on the counter covered in foil. Whatever happens out in the world, the Sunday menu has always been the same in this house. Even if it's just the two of us.

‘As it happens, Dad, I've been thinking of making a little trip of my own.'

‘Oh yes, where? To work?'

‘Ha ha. No, to New York.'

There's a long silence.

‘Why?' he asks, although he already knows the answer.

‘Aunt K.'

He shakes his head and snorts. ‘Humph! I already told you about Katherine! I know she's your family, but that won't protect you from what she's involved in. She's an
obeah
woman. It's better if you have no contact.'

‘Oh, please! She's just lonely.'

‘There is evil in this world, you know, Eden! There are spirits! Aunt K was always one to try and play with things that a good Christian shouldn't. What have you got in common with her, anyway? It's been ten years since you've seen her. Just let it go.'

‘I have
everything
in common with her because she's my family! How would you like it if anyone told me not to talk to your sisters?'

‘My sisters are good Christian women! Trust me. Leave that woman alone because she is the last person you need in your life. Look at the way you've been for the past couple of weeks! I thought you were finally getting on your feet lately, but look at you, you've completely lost your sense of direction! You have no job; you leave the place disgusting. All you do is sit in that room. And I'm not saying that she did anything to you, but when you mix with certain people you just don't know . . .'

‘I can't believe you! This is my mother's sister we're talking about! How could you even say that? Even if she was some bloody evil witch, why would she want to hurt me?'

‘Just be careful. That's all I'm saying.'

‘I think she's right, you know, Dad. You have it in for her, don't you?'

‘I don't!'

‘Yes you do!'

He makes a fed-up noise and goes back to his food. ‘Just get a job, Eden,' he says. ‘Then maybe you can think about travelling the world.'

‘
WHAT KIND OF
work would you like to get involved in?' says a chirpy little woman in a pink shirt. Her name badge reads ‘Margaret'. She's obviously not been here for long enough to fully absorb the profound sense of futility that's sunk into the bones of her colleagues. ‘Something else in market research, perhaps?'

‘Not sure.'
I'd rather shave my head and stick it in a hot chip fryer.

‘. . . Office admin . . .?'

‘Um . . .'
Are there any lottery winner positions left open? International superstar? Heiress?

‘. . . and there are quite a few retail positions available if that interests you.'
Spy? Assassin? Prime minister? Astronaut?
‘What do you think?'

‘I dunno.'

‘What skills do you have?'

‘Not many.'
I can hold my breath for thirty seconds. I can levitate. I build bombs. I can burp the Old Testament in Latin.

‘You must have some! It looks like you've done a few different kinds of jobs.'

‘I know how to use computers.'

‘Great! What programs?'

‘Mahjong Tiles,' I say. She gives me a confused smile. ‘Quite good at that,' I add.

‘Mahjong Tiles?' she repeats slowly, drawing out the words in the hope they'll make more sense that way. I look around at all the other unemployed people sitting in chairs, listing
the reasons they may be of practical use. To someone. Anyone. Everybody looks bored, including the ones asking the questions. All of them look like they've been asked to play a game in which the winner's already been picked out and it's none of them.

‘Yeah, and Pacman.'

‘I'm not really sure I understand . . .'

‘Minesweeper. Inkball. Solitaire occasionally.'

‘Solitaire?' Margaret pushes the fringe out of her face and then, ‘Ohhh!' she laughs. ‘Funny!'

I don't laugh. ‘How much am I gonna get a week?' I ask.

THERE'S A WOMAN
who guards my dresser from inside her £1.99 clip frame. She's a photo I took once, a few years ago. I call her ‘The Woman Who Got Away'. Right now she's hanging out between a calendar and a couple of flyers that I've failed to get rid of from a show Zed did. A lot of the time I don't even notice The Woman, but when I do she speaks to me.

You notice her eyes first, a pale, vacant blue. She's looking up into the air as if the 253 bus – this was taken at the bus stop – may descend from above like a bolt of lightning. But she waits without excitement or dread. She just waits. Soon after the transparent blue eyes, you'll notice the precise, bobbed haircut. You'll notice the fitted denim jacket, buttoned to the neck, her slim jeans and bright flip-flops. You may even notice her painted toenails. Then you'll wonder what's wrong with the photo; why does it have that crazy finish?

But it's not a trick of the light. It will become clear that the woman is, in fact, blasted with dirt from her flip-flops to the precisely cut bob; so dirty that it's very hard to determine the actual shade of anything but the wet blue of those eyes. She's dressed for summer, but if you look into the background of the shot, you'll see several people bundled up in puffa jackets wielding umbrellas against the drizzle. She doesn't belong there, dressed as she is for the summer on a cold, miserable winter day.

I've invented dozens of histories, but the one that sticks
is that she was a perfectly normal girl, doing all those things you do to be normal. And then one day she thought ‘enough!' There was no tragic event. Maybe she was on the way to work, looked at her watch and suddenly it all flew apart and she couldn't bear it anymore, all of those things you do just to get back to basic. You fix the bed and then you sleep in it and mess it up and fix it again, drink tea and wash the cup and dirty it drinking tea again, and you feel lonely and phone a friend and talk crap and hang up and feel lonely; and meet someone attractive and have sex and don't get called and meet someone else attractive and have sex and fall in love and meet the family and break up and fall in love and – and – and . . .

But at some point during the course of all this doing, she was done.

Never again would she make her bed, change her clothes, eat Sunday dinner, make a cup of tea, read a magazine, pay a bill, laugh, have sex, fall in love. She would abandon all those mindless cycles and instead wander the indifferent streets of London, acquiring layer after layer of grime.

Sometimes when I look at her, I'm almost broken with sympathy. But mostly I'm just envious.