White Teeth (49 page)

Infuriated, Irie grabbed the bed knob and marched round Clara’s side of the bed. ‘Why can’t you just sit up properly and talk to me properly and drop the ridiculous little girl voi—’

In the darkness Irie kicked over a glass and sucked in a sharp breath as the cold water seeped between her toes and into the carpet. Then, as the last of the water ran away, Irie had the strange and horrid sensation that she was being bitten.

‘Ow!’

‘Oh, for God’s sake,’ said Archie, reaching over to the side lamp and switching it on. ‘What now?’

Irie looked down to where the pain was. In any war, this was too low a blow. The front set of some false teeth, with no mouth attached to them, were bearing down upon her right foot.

‘Fucking hell! What the fuck are they?’

But the question was unnecessary; even as the words formed in her mouth, Irie had already put two and two together. The midnight voice. The perfect daytime straightness and whiteness.

Clara hurriedly stretched to the floor and prised her teeth from Irie’s foot and, as it was too late for disguise now, placed them directly on the bedside table.

‘Shatishfied?’ asked Clara wearily. (It wasn’t that she had deliberately not told her. There just never seemed a good time.)

But Irie was sixteen and everything feels deliberate at that age. To her, this was yet another item in a long list of parental hypocrisies and untruths, this was another example of the Jones/Bowden gift for secret histories, stories you never got told, history you never entirely uncovered, rumour you never unravelled, which would be fine if every day was not littered with clues, and suggestions; shrapnel in Archie’s leg . . . photo of strange white Grandpa Durham . . . the name ‘Ophelia’ and the word ‘madhouse’ . . . a cycling helmet and an ancient mudguard . . . smell of fried food from O’Connell’s . . . faint memory of a late night car journey, waving to a boy on a plane . . . letters with Swedish stamps, Horst Ibelgaufts, if not delivered return to sender . . .

Oh what a tangled web we weave. Millat was right: these parents were damaged people, missing hands, missing teeth. These parents were full of information you wanted to know but were too scared to hear. But she didn’t want it any more, she was tired of it. She was sick of never getting the whole truth. She was returning to sender.

‘Well, don’t look so shocked, love,’ said Archie amicably. ‘It’s just some bloody teeth. So now you know. It’s not the end of the world.’

But it was, in a way. She’d had enough. She walked back into her room, packed her schoolwork and essential clothes into a big rucksack and put a heavy coat over her nightie. She thought about the Chalfens for half a second, but she knew already there were no answers there, only more places to escape. Besides, there was only one spare room and Millat had it. Irie knew where she had to go, deep into the heart of it, where only the N17 would take her at this time of night, sitting on the top deck, seats decorated with puke, rumbling through 47 bus stops before it reached its destination. But she got there in the end.

‘Lord a Jesus,’ mumbled Hortense, iron-curlers unmoved, bleary-eyed on the doorstep. ‘Irie Ambrosia Jones,
is that you
?’

It was Irie Jones all right. Six years older than the last time they met. Taller, wider, with breasts and no hair and slippers just visible underneath a long duffle coat. And it was Hortense Bowden. Six years older, shorter, wider, with breasts on her belly and no hair (though she took the peculiar step of putting her wig in curlers) and slippers just visible underneath a long, padded baby-pink housecoat. But the real difference was Hortense was eighty-four. Not a littleoldwoman by any means; she was a round robust one, her fat so taut against her skin the epidermis was having a hard time wrinkling. Still, eighty-four is not seventy-seven or sixty-three; at eighty-four there is nothing but death ahead, tedious in its insistence. It was there in her face as Irie had never seen it before. The waiting and the fear and the blessed relief.

Yet though there were differences, walking down the steps and into Hortense’s basement flat, Irie was struck by the shock of sameness. Way-back-when, she had been a fairly regular visitor at her grandmother’s: sneaky visits with Archie while her mother was at college, and always leaving with something unusual, a pickled fish head, chilli dumplings, the lyrics of a stray but persistent psalm. Then at Darcus’s funeral in 1985, ten-year-old Irie had let slip about these social calls and Clara had put a stop to them altogether. They still called each other on the phone, on occasion. And to this day Irie received short letters on exercise paper with a copy of the
Watchtower
slipped inside. Sometimes Irie looked at her mother’s face and saw her grandmother: those majestic cheekbones, those feline eyes. But they had not been face to face for six years.

As far as the house was concerned, six seconds seemed to have passed. Still dark, still dank, still underground. Still decorated with hundreds of secular figurines (‘Cinderella on her way to the Ball’, ‘Mrs Tiddlytum shows the little squirrels the way to the picnic’), all balanced on their separate doilies and laughing gaily amongst themselves, amused that anyone would pay a hundred and fifty pounds in fifteen instalments for such inferior pieces of china and glass as they. A huge tripartite tapestry, which Irie remembered the sewing of, now hung on the wall above the fireplace, depicting, in its first strip, the Anointed sitting in judgement with Jesus in heaven. The Anointed were all blond and blue-eyed and appeared as serene as Hortense’s cheap wool would allow, and were looking down at the Great Crowd — who were happy-looking, but not as happy as the Anointed — frolicking in eternal paradise on earth. The Great Crowd were in turn looking piteously at the heathens (by far the largest group), dead in their graves, and packed on top of each other like sardines.

The only thing missing was Darcus (whom Irie only faintly remembered as a mixture of smell and texture; naphthalene and damp wool); there was his huge empty chair, still fetid, and there was his television, still on.

‘Irie, look at you! Pickney nah even got a gansey on — child must be freezin’! Shiverin’ like a Mexico bean. Let me feel you. Fever! You bringin’ fever into my house?’

It was important, in Hortense’s presence, never to admit to illness. The cure, as in most Jamaican households, was always more painful than the symptoms.

‘I’m fine. There’s nothing wrong with—’

‘Oh, really?’ Hortense put Irie’s hand on her own forehead. ‘That’s fever as sure as fever is fever. Feel it?’

Irie felt it. She was hot as hell.

‘Come ’ere.’ Hortense grabbed a rug from Darcus’s chair and wrapped it around Irie’s shoulders, ‘Now come into the kitchen an’ cease an’ sekkle. Runnin’ roun’ on a night like dis, wearin’ flimsy nonsense! You’re having a hot drink of cerace and den gone a bed quicker den you ever did in your life.’

Irie accepted the smelly wrap and followed Hortense into the tiny kitchen, where they both sat down.

‘Let me look at you.’

Hortense leant against the oven with hands on hips. ‘You look like Mr Death, your new lover. How you get here?’

Once again, one had to be careful in answering. Hortense’s contempt for London Transport was a great comfort to her in her old age. She could take one word like
train
and draw a melody out of it (
Northern Line
), which expanded into an aria (
The Underground
) and blossomed into a theme (
The Overground
) and then grew exponentially into an operetta (
The Evils and Inequities of British Rail
).

‘Er . . . Bus. N17. It was cold on the top deck. Maybe I caught a chill.’

‘I don’ tink dere’s any maybes about it, young lady. An’ I’m sure I don’ know why you come ’pon de bus, when it take tree hours to arrive an’ leave you waitin’ in de col’ an’ den’ when you get pon it de windows are open anyway an’ you freeze half to death.’

Hortense poured a colourless liquid from a small plastic container into her hand. ‘Come ’ere.’

‘Why?’ demanded Irie, immediately suspicious. ‘What’s that?’

‘Nuttin’, come ’ere. Take off your spectacles.’

Hortense approached with a cupped hand.

‘Not in my eye! There’s nothing wrong with my eye!’

‘Stop fussin’. I’m not puttin’ nuttin’ in your eye.’

‘Just tell me what it is,’ pleaded Irie, trying to work out for which orifice it was intended and screaming as the cupped hand reached her face, spreading the liquid from forehead to chin.

‘Aaagh! It burns!’

‘Bay rum,’ said Hortense matter-of-factly. ‘Burns de fever away. No, don’ wash it off. Jus’ leave it to do its biznezz.’

Irie gritted her teeth as the torture of a thousand pin-pricks faded to five hundred, then twenty-five, until finally it was just a warm flush of the kind delivered by a slap.

‘So!’ said Hortense, entirely awake now and somewhat triumphant. ‘You finally dash from that godless woman, I see. An’ caught a flu while you doin’ it! Well . . . there are those who wouldn’t blame you, no, not at all . . . No one knows better dan me what dat woman be like. Never at home, learnin’ all her isms and skisms in the university, leavin’ husband and pickney at home, hungry and maga. Lord, naturally you flee! Well . . .’ She sighed and put a copper kettle on the stove. ‘It is written.
You will flee by my mountain valley, for it will extend to Azel. You will flee as you fled from the earthquake in the days of Uzziah king of Judah. Then the LORD my God will come, and all the holy ones with him
. Zechariah 14:5. In the end the good ones will flee from the evil. Oh, Irie Ambrosia . . . I
knew
you come in de end. All God’s children return in de end.’

‘Gran, I haven’t come to find God. I just want to do some quiet study here and get my head together. I need to stay a few months — at least till the New Year. Oh . . . ugh . . . I feel a bit woozy. Can I have an orange?’

‘Yes, dey all return to de Lord Jesus in de end,’ continued Hortense to herself, placing the bitter root of cerace into a kettle. ‘Dat’s not a real orange, dear. All de fruit is plasticated. De flowers are plasticated also. I don’t believe de Lord meant me to spend de little housekeeping money I possess on perishable goods. Have some dates.’

Irie grimaced at the shrivelled fruit plonked in front of her.

‘So you lef Archibald wid dat woman . . . poor ting. Me always
like
Archibald,’ said Hortense sadly, scrubbing the brown scum from a teacup with two soapy fingers. ‘Him was never my objection
as such
. He always been a level-headed sort a fellow. Blessed are de peacekeepers. He always strike me as a peacekeeper. But it more de principle of de ting, you know? Black and white never come to no good. De Lord Jesus never meant us to mix it up. Dat’s why he made a hol’ heap a fuss about de children of men building de tower of Babel. ’Im want everybody to keep tings separate.
And the Lord did confound the language of all the earth and from thence did the Lord scatter them abroad upon the face of all the earth
. Genesis 11:9. When you mix it up, nuttin’ good can come. It wasn’t
intended
. Except you,’ she added as an afterthought. ‘You’re about de only good ting to come out of dat . . . Bwoy, sometime it like lookin’ in a mirror-glass,’ she said, lifting Irie’s chin with her wrinkled digits. ‘You built like me, big, you know! Hip and tie and rhas, and titties. My mudder was de same way. You even named after my mudder.’

‘Irie?’ asked Irie, trying hard to listen, but feeling the damp smog of her fever pulling her under.

‘No, dear,
Ambrosia
. De stuff dat make you live for ever. Now,’ she said, clapping her hands together, catching Irie’s next question between them, ‘you sleepin’ in de living room. I’ll get a blanket and pillows and den we talk in de marnin’. I’m up at six, ’cos I got Witness biznezz, so don’ tink you sleeping none after eight. Pickney, you hear me?’

‘Mmm. But what about Mum’s old room? Can’t I just sleep in there?’

Hortense took Irie’s weight half on her shoulder and led her into the living room. ‘No, dat’s not possible. Dere is a certain situation,’ said Hortense mysteriously. ‘Dat can wait till de sun is up to be hexplained.
Fear them not therefore: for there is nothing covered that shall not be revealed
,’ she intoned quietly, turning to go. ‘
And nothing hid, that shall not be known
. Dat is Mat-chew, 10:26.’

An autumn morning was the only time worth spending in that basement flat. Between 6 and 7 a.m. when the sun was still low, light shot through the front window, bathed the lounge in yellow, dappled the long thin allotment (7 ft × 30 ft) and gave a healthy veneer to the tomatoes. You could almost convince yourself, at 6 a.m., that you were downstairs in some Continental cabana, or at least street level in Torquay, rather than below ground in Lambeth. The glare was such that you couldn’t make out the railway sidings where the strip of green ended, or the busy everyday feet that passed by the lounge window, kicking dust through the grating at the glass. It was all white light and clever shade at six in the morning. Hugging a cup of tea at the kitchen table, squinting at the grass, Irie saw vineyards out there; she saw Florentine scenes instead of the uneven higgledy-piggledy of Lambeth rooftops; she saw a muscular shadowy Italian plucking full berries and crushing them underfoot. Then the mirage, sun reliant as it was, disappeared, the whole scene swallowed by a devouring cloud. Leaving only some crumbling Edwardian housing. Railway sidings named after a careless child. A long, narrow strip of allotment where next to nothing would grow. And a bleached-out bandy-legged red-headed man with terrible posture and wellington boots, stamping away in the mulch, trying to shake the remnants of a squashed tomato from his heel.

‘Dat is Mr Topps,’ said Hortense, hurrying across the kitchen in a dark maroon dress, the eyes and hooks undone, and a hat in her hand with plastic flowers askew. ‘He has been such a help to me since Darcus died. He soothes away my vexation and calms my mind.’