NW (25 page)

Iz for mum really.

right

also, I really love him.

lust him.

Important to him and he wants to.

It’s what people do innit.

sorry clerk one min

enough reasons?

I think I’m going to wear purple

Also for Pauline

And gold like a catholic priest

Hello?

Sorry that is really great—congrats!

Does this mesn

Mean procreation??

FUCK OFF WOMAN

FUCK OFF WITH YOUR SMILEY FACE

cant believe you getting hitched

whats happening to

me too

universe?

we iz old

we’re not fucking old

at least u achieving something. I’m just slowly dying

this my 2nd year as pupil. May be pupil for rest of

dying of boredom

life

don’t know what tht means

it = not good. Most peole tenant after ONE YEAR

anyway boring—can I ask question and you not get off

offended sorry

fuck most people

haha I am so not getting off right now

can I?

when u get hitched you have to give up everyone else anyway.

that’s the idea, isn’t it?

Stupid idea.

haha

So just more people to give up.

That answer your question big lady jesus?

Haha yes. You iz mind reader for realz

and when all else fails:

www.adultswatchingadults.com

passes the time

you know what I’m chatting about. Come on girl!

Oi mate don’t leave me hanging!

Sorry. Work shitstorm gotta go love you

bye noe

“bye noe”

124.
A tenancy meeting question

Ms. Blake, would you be prepared to represent someone from the B.N.P.?

125.
Harlesden hero (with parentheses)

Natalie Blake did not expect to be offered tenancy. To convert an external judgment into a personal choice she told herself a story about legal ethics, strong moral character and indifference to money. She told the same tale to Frank and Leah, to her family, to her fellow trainee barristers and to anyone else who inquired after her future. This was a way of making the future safe. (All Natalie’s storytelling had, in the end, this aim in view.) When, contrary to her expectations, she was indeed offered tenancy, Natalie Blake was placed in an awkward position
vis-à-vis
her personal ethics and strong moral character and indifference to money (or, at least, as far as the public representations of these qualities were concerned) and was forced to refuse the offer of tenancy and take the paralegal job at R senb rg, Sl tte y & No ton that she had been talking up for several months. A tiny legal aid firm in Harlesden with half its stencilled letters peeled off.

126.
Tonya seeks Keisha

Natalie Blake’s clients called at inappropriate times. They lied. They were usually late for court, rarely wore what they had been advised to wear and refused perfectly sensible plea deals. Occasionally they threatened her life. In her first six months at RSN, three of her clients were young men who “went Brayton,” although they were much younger then Natalie Blake herself. This caused her to wonder if the school had gone downhill—further downhill. She snatched lunch from the jerk place opposite McDonald’s, sat on a high stool and had trouble keeping the oil off her suit. Pattie, fish dumpling and a can of ginger beer, most days. She tried to vary this menu, but at the counter any spirit of adventure abandoned her. A long-term plan existed to meet Marcia and Marcia’s sister Irene, who lived nearby, for lunch, but this fantasy appointment, with its two hours of idle time and no need to read briefs, never seemed to arrive, and soon enough Natalie Blake understood that it never would. Fairly often she saw her cousin Tonya on Harlesden high street. On these occasions—despite her new status as a big lawyer lady—she experienced the same feelings of insecurity and inadequacy Tonya had compelled in her when they were children. This afternoon Tonya wore sweatpants with HONEY written across the posterior and a close-fitting denim waistcoat with a yellow bra underneath. Her fringe was purple, the hoop of her earrings brushed her shoulders. Her platform heels were red and five inches high. Despite the toddler and the baby in her double buggy Tonya retained the proportions of a super-heroine in a comic book. Natalie meanwhile was sadly “margar,” as the Jamaicans say. To white people this translates as “skinny” or “athletic,” and is widely considered a positive value. For Natalie it meant ultimately shapeless, a blank. Tonya’s skin was never ashy but always silky and gorgeous and she was not prone to the harsh pink acne that sometimes broke out across Natalie’s forehead, and was present today. Where Natalie’s teeth were small and gray, Tonya’s were huge, white, even, and presently on display in a giant smile. As Tonya approached, Natalie was sure she, Natalie, had dumpling oil round her mouth. But perhaps all this displacement of anxiety into the physical realm was a feminine way of simplifying a far deeper and more insoluble difference, for Natalie believed Tonya had a gift for living and Natalie herself did not seem to have this gift.

“These children are so good-looking it’s criminal.”

“Thank you!”

“Look at André—he blatantly knows it.”

“That’s his dad. His dad bought him that chain.”

“Now he’s like: I’m a three-year-old playa.”

“You know what I’m saying! Seriously.”

Underneath the smile, Natalie saw that her cousin was disappointed with this exchange, wanting, as usual, to make a deeper “connection” with Natalie, who wished to avoid precisely this intimacy and as a consequence retained a superficial and pleasant exterior with her cousin as a means of holding her at bay. Now Natalie put down André
and picked up Sasha. Neither child ever seemed real to her no matter how many times Natalie felt their weight in her arms. How could Tonya be the mother of these children? How could Tonya be 26? When had Tonya stopped being 12? When would her own adulthood arrive?

“So I’m back up in Stonebridge, with my Mum. Elton and me are done, that’s it. I’m finished wasting my time. It’s all good, though. I’m back to school, up in Dollis Hill? College of North West London. Tourism and hospitality. Studying, studying. It’s hard but I’m loving it. You’re my inspiration!”

Tonya put her hand on the shoulder of Natalie’s ugly navy skirt suit. Was that pity in her cousin’s eyes? Natalie Blake did not exist.

“How’s your mate? That nice girl. The redhead one.”

“Leah. She’s good. Married. Working for the council.”

“Is it. That’s nice. Kids?”

“No. Not yet.”

“You lot are leaving it late, innit.”

Tonya’s hand moved from her cousin’s shoulder to her head.

“What’s going on up there, Keisha?”

Natalie touched her uneven parting, the dry bun, scraped back, unadorned.

“Not much. I never have time.”

“I did all this myself. Microbraids. You should come by and let me do it. It’s just six hours. We could make it an evening, have a good proper chat.”

127.
The connection between chaos and other qualities

At RSN Associates the law burst from broken box files, it lined the hallways, bathroom and kitchen. This chaos was unavoidable, but it was also to some extent an aesthetic, slightly exaggerated by the tenants, and intended to signify selflessness, sincerity. Natalie saw how her clients found the chaos comforting, just as the fake Queen Anne sofas and painted foxhounds of Middle Temple reassured another type of client. If you worked here it could only be for the love of the law. Only real do-gooders could possibly be this poor. Clients were directed to Jimmy’s Suit Warehouse in Cricklewood for court dates. Wins were celebrated in-house, with cheap plonk, pita bread and hummus. When an RSN solicitor came to see you in your cell, they arrived by bus.

128.
“On the front line”

Now and then, in court or in police stations, Natalie bumped into corporate solicitors she knew from university. Sometimes she spoke with them on the phone. They usually made a show of over-praising her legal ethics, strong moral character and indifference to money. Sometimes they finished with a back-handed compliment, implying that the streets where Natalie had been raised, and now returned to work, were, in their minds, a hopeless sort of place, analogous to a war zone.

129.
Return

The commute was “killing” her. Sometimes a simple choice of vocabulary can gain traction in the world. “Killing” became the premise for a return to NW. “And what about my commute?” protested Frank De Angelis. “Jubilee line,” said his wife Natalie Blake, “Kilburn to Canary Wharf.” Carefully she drew up a contract, negotiated a mortgage, split the deposit in half. All for a Kilburn flat that her husband could have bought outright without blinking. When the deal went through Natalie bought a bottle of cava to celebrate. He was still at work at six when she picked up the keys, and still there at eight—and then the inevitable nine-forty-five phone call: “Sorry—all nighter. Go on without me, if you want.” Motto of a marriage. Natalie Blake called Leah Hanwell: “Want to see me carry myself over the threshold?”

130.
Re-entry

Leah turned the key in the stiff lock. Natalie crept in behind her, into adult life. Notable for its silence and privacy. The electricity was still unconnected. A clear moon lit the bare white walls. Natalie was ashamed to find herself momentarily disappointed: after camping in Frank’s place all these months, this looked small. Leah did a circuit of the lounge and whistled. She was working from an older scale of measurement: twice the size of a Caldwell double.

“What’s that out there?”

“Downstairs’ roof. It’s not a balcony, the agent said you can’t—”

Leah went through the sash windows and on to the ivy-covered ledge. Natalie followed. They smoked a joint. In the driveway below a fat fox sat brazen as a cat, looking up at them.

“Your ivy,” said Leah, touching it, “your brick, your window, your wall, your light-bulb, your gutter pipe.”

“I share it with the bank.”

“Still. That fox is with child.”

Natalie thumbed the cork out. It bounced off the wall and dropped away into the dark. She took a messy swig. Leah leaned forward and wiped her friend’s chin: “Cava socialist.” Now watch Natalie recalibrate the conversation. It is a feminine art. She places herself halfway up a slope that has at its peak Frank’s friends, all those single young men with their incomprehensible Christmas bonuses. She found it pleasing to describe this world to Leah, who knew almost nothing of it. Chelsea, Earls Court, West Hampstead. Lofts and mansion flats unsullied by children or women, empty of furniture, fringed by ghettos.

“Correction: there’s always one big brown leather sofa, a huge fridge and a TV as big as this flat. And an enormous sound system. They’re not home till two a.m. ‘Entertaining clients.’ In strip clubs, usually. It all just sits empty. Five bedrooms. One bed.”

Lean flicked the end of a joint toward the fox: “Parasites.”

Natalie was suddenly stricken by something she thought of as “conscience.” “A lot of them are OK,” she said, quickly, “nice, I mean, individually. They’re funny. And they do work hard. Next time we have a dinner you should come.”

“Oh, Nat. Everybody’s nice. Everybody works hard. Everybody’s a friend of Frank’s. What’s that got to do with anything?”

131.
Revisit

People were ill.

“You remember Mrs. Iqbal? Small woman, always a bit snooty with me. Breast cancer.”

People died.

“You must remember him, he lived in Locke. Tuesday he dropped dead. Ambulance took half an hour.”

People were shameful.

“Baby born two weeks ago, and they haven’t let me in yet. We don’t even know how many kids are in there. They don’t register them.”

People didn’t know they were born.

“Guess how much for eggs in that market. Organic. Guess!”

People were seen.

“I seen Pauline. Leah’s working for the council now. She always had such big ambitions for that child. Funny how things turn out. In a way you’ve done quite a bit better than her, really.”

People were unseen.

“He’s upstairs with Tommy. He spends all his time with him now. They only come out of that room to go and charm the ladies. Jayden and Tommy spend all their time and money charming the ladies. That’s all your brother thinks about. He needs to get himself a job, that’s what I keep telling him.”

People were not people but merely an effect of language. You could conjure them up and kill them in a sentence.

“Owen Cafferty.”

“Mum, I don’t remember him.”