The Dirty South (19 page)

I don't think she realised it was sixteen carat. But the look on her face told me that the nine hundred and ninety pounds I had shelled out was worth it.

‘And I have something for you, Dennis,' she said. ‘Only a card though.'

She went to her handbag and took out an envelope. It was about the size of a DVD case but to think that she went out of her way to
buy it especially for me made me feel all tingly-like. She gave me her gift and I saw that it wasn't sealed. I took out the card in an instant, wanting to see what she had written.
To Dennis, the main contender to my heart, perhaps the only contender
. I felt like dancing on the table but instead I returned the kiss. She pulled away after ten seconds and tried her bracelet on. I helped her with it, enjoying the smooth skin of her wrist and left hand. I gave her another kiss. It was kinda funny seeing Akeisha get embarrassed.

‘It's funny,' she said.

‘What's funny?'

‘My mum gave me a bracelet when I was a girl. Nothing like this one, it was wooden… Hand-carved.'

I had to close my eyes for a second. I prayed that my guilt wouldn't show itself upon my face. Why didn't she forget about it? As she said, it was only wooden. She's got something much better now.
Burn
the wooden thing…

‘It was given to her by this rastaman,' she went on. ‘You might have heard of him, Jah Nelson. He was well known back in the day. He used to go around in his sandals and a walking stick.'

‘Yeah, I've heard of him,' I nodded, almost leaping out of my chair… ‘I even know him. He's a friend of my paps and mum. He was at their wedding. He blessed me when I was a baby!'

‘Anyway, my mum was quite a rebel when she was young,' Akeisha continued, ignoring my name-dropping. ‘She grew locks when she was sixteen years old and she was always out at reggae dances till the morning. My grandparents, being Seventh Day Adventists, couldn't tolerate that so they kicked her out. On a downer, Mum went to social services and they put her up in a hostel. It was while she was living there when she met Jah Nelson. Not sure of the details but they met on that march to protest about that fire in Deptford that killed nuff youths.'

‘Jah Nelson used to come to my house,' I interrupted Akeisha. ‘He used to give me and my sis lessons about black history and shit. He's my sort of godfather. Well, after the official church service he blessed me in his own way.'

I don't think Akeisha heard my last line because as I looked at
her she was in deep thought, perhaps trying to put her memories in order so she could tell her tale… It was so frustrating 'cos I wanted to tell her
my
Jah Nelson memories… Better not tell her that he scared the fuck out of me with his missing eye.

‘It wasn't a romantic thing with Jah Nelson and my mum, he was so much older than her,' she went on. ‘But he counselled her, made her feel good, made her feel strong and proud. He carved her the wooden bracelet before he went away. To Africa I think. The day after she put it on for the first time, she met my paps. So Mum always felt that bracelet was special, almost mystical… She gave it to me when I was about eight. She thought it would offer me some kind of protection, some kinda good fortune. I never used to race without it. But I lost it while running at Tooting Bec track. At the time I didn't even realise it had come off. I was in a right state that day 'cos I know how much it meant to Mum. I didn't tell her for two days but she noticed in the end. She was well upset. Soon afterwards I had my bad leg injury… Mum put it down to me losing the bracelet. She even went to Tooting Bec track to see if it was still there.'

While Akeisha was telling this story my insides were spinning with guilt. How could I ever give it back now? She would see me as bad-mind. I wondered how long she would refuse to see me if she ever found out about it.

‘Maybe this gold bracelet will give me the same protection and luck as the wooden one,' Akeisha smiled. ‘It's beautiful. I hope you didn't spend too much on it, Dennis.'

She leaned over and kissed me again on the forehead. This time her lips lingered on my skin and a neat shock of pleasure electrified my whole body. Now wearing her gold bracelet, she ate her chocolate and ice cream with a teaspoon. There is something so sexy about buff women eating ice cream. I watched every bite, every swallow and every gulp. I couldn't believe she was with me. Why me? What was she doing with me? Why not somebody else who had a better job and better money? Well, maybe not the money, I had nuff P's.

We took a cab back to her place. Akeisha insisted that she should pay the fare. We didn't speak much. She held me by the hand as she
led me to her room. It was like a proper zoo. There were cuddly toys all over the place. Tigers, leopards, frogs, bears, panthers, owls, ponies and even a few monkeys. She had a double bed and the animals took up most of the space on it. On one wall there was a poster of Mary J. Blige. On the opposite side was a pin-up of Marvin Gaye. She had three shelves fixed to another wall and they were full of accountancy text books and those self-help books that black women love so much. My mum has loads of them at home and I know they piss Paps off. They were all about finding the inner you and shit like that.

Beneath the shelves was Akeisha's computer and desk. Next to her mouse was a pair of those Chinese chiming balls. Mum has a pair and when she gets stressed out she twirls them around in the palm of her right hand. This pisses Paps off too 'cos every time they have an argument in the bedroom, Mum reaches for the Chinese balls.

Akeisha's video collection, piled up on her dressing table, was your normal American black coming-of-age shit like
House Party 1
and
House Party 2
. But her musical tastes were different to any other chick I knew. She had shit by Cab Calloway, Duke Ellington, Bessie Smith, Mahalia Jackson, Aretha Franklin, Ray Charles, Gladys Knight and Sam Cooke. My mum would sing that kind of thing on a Sunday morning while boiling the red kidney beans and it fucked everybody off.

Sitting down on the bed, I looked at the photos of Curtis that were all around the rim of her dressing table mirror. I wondered if one day he would call me
Daddy
… Would I make a good father? I will try not to lecture like Paps but I'll keep his education and books thing.

Akeisha took off her suede jacket and placed it in the wardrobe. ‘Do you want a drink, Dennis?'

Want a drink! Is she crazy? Have a drink and delay making love. Is she kidding me?

‘No thanks, Akeisha. That wine in the restaurant oiled me enough and to be honest it's making me kinda giddy.'

She smiled then walked over to her mini-stereo. She switched
it on and pressed the play button… H-Town started singing a slow jam in that over-the-top way of theirs. Why is this happening to me? I asked myself. She then sat beside me and looked at me square on in such a way to make me uncomfortable. I remembered the groping incident in the kitchen. I placed my hands behind my back.

‘Dennis, I'm feeling you but you must be yourself,' she said. ‘You're very articulate when you wanna be. You're witty and clever and sometimes so cynical you make me laugh like crazy!'

She kissed me on the forehead. ‘And you're persistent,' she laughed… ‘My mum thought you was nuts the way you called every day and she saw you waiting outside my gates one morning.'

I returned the kiss upon her mouth but I still kept my hands to my side. ‘All that got me you though, innit,' I managed.

She then placed her hands on my collarbone and smothered my face with kisses. ‘But you gotta learn to transcend Brixton,' she kinda stuttered between kisses. ‘Transcend the ghetto. You're not like the rest of them… You don't have to go on like them with their macho bullshit. You don't have to be a shotta to prove how much of a man you are. They haven't got anything else so they trade with their macho bullshit. You're
not
like them. You're different.'

Shocked, I pulled back from her. ‘You know?'

‘Of course I know! Bricky's a small place. I was bound to find out, Dennis… It's no big deal, Dennis. So you shot herb. So what? My mum smokes it. Nine out of ten people in Angel Town burn it. As long as you ain't shotting harder drugs I'm not gonna get all moral about it.'

We got back to our kissing and her last words seemed to free my hands and they started wandering. She didn't mind. ‘It's just that you're better than that, Dennis,' she went on. ‘Don't believe what the shitstem has planned for you. I heard you say once that your paps expected you to be a professor or something. You said you can't live up to that. Why not, Dennis? Listening to you makes me think you have all the potential in the world.
Don't
believe what
they
want you to believe.'

To be honest at this stage I was in no fit state to continue the
conversation with Akeisha… Adrenaline and all sorts of other feelings were pumping through me and I almost tore her clothes off. She left me for a second to switch off the light and when we finally made love, I made sure that her face was pressed next to mine throughout… I just wanted the sensation of her warm breath blowing upon my neck. I wanted to be close up to any movement of her neck, every taking in of breath and to every sound.

Even when we had finished our lovemaking I wanted to feel her body upon me, her weight pressing down on me. I'm sure she was uncomfortable but she finally fell asleep… But I couldn't sleep. I spent the early hours simply stroking her hair, not wanting the morning to come. Not wanting another day to start. Why couldn't the world just stop for a while? Just to hear her breathe was a pleasure for me. Simply to watch her toss and turn in her sleep was enough. Man! I had it bad.

She got up about 4 30 a.m. and she put her white dressing-gown on over her naked body. She then sat down in the chair beside her bed. I pretended I was sleeping but after ten minutes of this I was beginning to feel cold and neglected, I sat up. ‘Something a matter, Akeisha?'

‘No,' she answered. ‘Just thinking.'

‘Thinking about what?' I asked.

‘You.'

‘About me?'

‘Yes, Dennis, and how intense you are.'

‘Intense?'

‘Yes, Dennis. You gotta let me breathe when I'm with you. You know. In bed and out of it.'

‘Did I do something wrong? I haven't done it for a long time. Was I that bad? A bit too rush-like? Was I too eager? I fucked up, didn't I? I fucked up!'

‘No, no! You made me feel
so
good and you certainly know how to give a girl your full attention. But afterwards let's just, er, relax. Take it easy… Go to sleep. I'm not going nowhere, Dennis. Now I'm
your
girl.'

‘Oh, I get you. I'm kinda smothering you, right?'

Akeisha nodded and then laughed. I got out of the bed, reached for her hand and pulled her back in. She playfully pinched my butt and then rested her head just beneath my throat and collarbone. I couldn't resist the sensation of that so we ended up making love again. This time it was slower, nicer, although I continued the face pressing face thing. She didn't seem to mind. Afterwards, I did allow her to sleep on the bed instead of me but we did interlock our fingers and the feeling was good.

I did crash out afterwards 'cos the next thing I remember was waking up and seeing Akeisha had already got washed and dressed.

‘Come on, get up, Dennis,' she said. ‘I've got to go and pick up Curtis.'

She threw me a spare flannel and towel. ‘It's a bit nippy but I'm gonna take him for his walk in Brocky Park.'

Pulling on my slacks I said, ‘Can I come with you?'

Akeisha stopped in her tracks and looked at me hard. ‘You don't have to do this, Dennis. Yes, we made love and it was good and you stayed the night… But you don't have to do this fathering thing, Dennis. You've impressed me already.'

‘I want to,' I said.

‘You sure about this?'

‘Yeah, I am.'

‘I don't bring people into my son's life if they're not gonna stay around.'

‘I'm not going nowhere.'

‘Curtis eats, shits and sleeps. In between that he wrecks the flat. And he's my life. Can you be second to that? You're not yet eighteen.'

‘Age ain't nothing but a number.'

‘You've been listening to Aaliyah too much. This is real life, Dennis.'

‘I can only go with how I'm feeling now. Right now, today, this minute, I wanna be with you. No matter what. Simple as.'

Akeisha smiled, walked up to me, cradled my jaw with her palms and kissed me on the forehead… ‘You'd better go home and change your clothes.'

An hour later I reached home. I had this fucked-up grin on my face that for the first time in my life had nothing to do with me burning a fat-head. Man! Was I happy. Davinia saw me coming in, quickly realised that I spent the night with Akeisha and burst into giggles. I was too happy to slap or cuss her so I went to my room, closed the door and took out Akeisha's hand-carved wooden bracelet from its secret place at the bottom of my wardrobe. I looked at it for over five minutes and I seriously wondered if its mystical powers were now working for me. ‘I ain't never gonna fling you away,' I told it. ‘No, man.
Never!
'

N
oel and myself looked well buff at Uncle Royston's wedding. We were both wearing Italian-designed tailor-made suits and our hair trims looked as sharp as a knife in an
Itchy and Scratchy
cartoon. I doubt if there was another pair of twenty-year-old brothers who looked as slick as us at the reception. No, I don't doubt it, there wasn't. Our chicks looked proper sweet too. Priscilla, who had now graduated to the front passenger seat of Noel's new ride, was showing off this pink dress while Akeisha dripped class and buffness in this cream and black outfit. She was soon to be twenty-two and I couldn't believe that Akeisha and me had been going out for two and a half years.