If You Save Me l3s4d

If You Save Me

Lisa-Anne Julien

KWELA BOOKS

For my parents. And their parents.

To avoid the journey back is to avoid the self, to avoid life. In a way, I learned about it in the streets. If you’re frightened of something in the streets, you walk towards it. Turn your back and they’ve got you. – James Baldwin

All skin teeth ain’t laugh. – Caribbean proverb

Carl

No. He’d never felt the urge to hold a human heart. Too tightly wound. Too much like a fist, itching to punch you the second you took your eyes off it. Instead, Carl Kleinhans was bound to livers. Large, flat, dark, uninspiring slabs of flesh with the ability to put up with night after night of binge drinking more patiently than a long-suffering wife. True, the liver wasn’t nearly as sexy or romantic as the heart. It didn’t find its way into every discipline from psychotherapy to creative writing. No one ever talked about intuitions being felt deep down in their liver. But – and he wasn’t a gambling man – he preferred the odds of an organ with an altruistic nature, one that took a little to make a lot. The heart? Too bloody rebellious. Beating, literally, to its own rhythm. Frankly, he just didn’t trust the thing. But to Dr Hughes, he simply said, ‘No.’ ‘Really? Never?’ Dr Hughes, using his right elbow to pump the soap dispenser onto the nail brush, gave Carl a disbelieving glance. The emerald-green scrub cap and mask gave Dr Hughes’ grey eyes more than the usual degree of … Carl wondered if at age thirty-eight he could get away with using the word … mystique. In any case, the look was entirely too familiar and mischievous for a surgical intern in his first month. ‘I thought, you know, every surgeon at one point wants to do heart transplants. I mean, it’s the heart. And you being from South Africa and all … You guys practically invented the stuff.’ You guys? Stuff? From what online, barely accredited institutions was Hallington Hospital finding these interns? He looked down at the foam between his fingers, its shape changing with the rapid movement of his hands.

‘So, every surgeon starts off wanting to do heart transplants.’ Carl bent slightly so the water ran down from his elevated hands to his elbows. He was irritated. And it wasn’t Dr Hughes. Dr Hughes who, with his shoulder-length dirty-blond hair could probably wake up on any day of the week and tell his parents he preferred tuning organs to transplanting them. Dr Hughes who could be called handsome if only – the urge had struck Carl the first time he saw him and now he could hardly get rid of it – he could place his thumbs just beneath Dr Hughes’ eyes and widen the cheekbones a touch. No, it wasn’t Dr Hughes. It was today. This day. Something he’d only realised as he’d snatched up a Times at Clapham North that morning. He’d tried to enjoy the walk from the tube station to the hospital, tried to appreciate that summer was holding on for dear life into the few first days of autumn. But he couldn’t shake a feeling of dread. And part of him felt that he shouldn’t want to. ‘Well, I guess it’s like the way every dentist starts off wanting to be a doctor.’ Dr Hughes chuckled, before following up his claim with, ‘Hey, I got nothing against dentists. My cousin … no, second cousin, is a dentist.’ ‘So you think liver transplantation is a consolation prize?’ Both men’s arms were perfect Vs as they backed into the theatre. ‘Oh, no, no, Mr Kleinhans. Seriously, I’m thrilled to be shadowing you. I mean, what you’ve done with the transplant unit at this hospital is extraordinary.’ ‘Morning, everyone.’ An older black nurse, arranging the instruments shortest to longest on the table next to the sleeping patient, stopped what she was doing. ‘Good morning, Mr K.’ She held out the sterilised gloves for Carl to slip his fingers into. ‘How are you this morning, Nurse Gladys?’ In so far as height, colour, width and the oceans they’d splashed around in as children, he and Gladys couldn’t be more different. But once they had discovered they could, with tight lips and quick strides, put the fear of God into junior nurses and interns, Gladys had declared in her thick Jamaican accent: ‘You wicked. But we cut from de same cloth.’

‘The sun rise this morning, Mr K. I rise with it,’ Gladys said, tying the gown close to his neck and then again in the middle of his back. ‘That’s about it. And you, doctor? Today’s a good day?’ The lilt in her last question was drawn out. But Gladys’s questions were always like that. As though emerging from a trove of information she couldn’t possibly have. He watched Dr Hughes chatting to a young nurse, a redhead. ‘No, it’s not, Gladys.’ That was good enough. He knew she wouldn’t pry any further. He looked at his watch: the cue for everyone to gather round. ‘He’s fit, isn’t he?’ the redhead whispered to Dr Hughes as they approached the patient. ‘You think?’ ‘Look at those abs.’ ‘They’re all right, I guess.’ ‘Oh my God, you’re so jealous.’ Carl lifted the scalpel from – he had to it to himself – the patient’s welltoned stomach and narrowed his eyes at the whispering pair. He stepped back a little to let Gladys mop up the blood oozing from the incision. Glancing at the vital signs monitor, he was happy to see the patient’s blood pressure more stable than his own was threatening to be. ‘Dr Hughes, exactly what are you doing all the way over there? Are we performing surgery on the patient’s feet?’ ‘No, Mr Kleinhans.’ Dr Hughes grabbed up one of the small folded white cloths from a plastic container on the trolley and stood next to Gladys, dabbing with a good degree of futility. She cut her eyes at him with a ten-degree shift of her head. Something was off. Something more than today’s date. He realised the only noticeable sound was the ventilator, rhythmic and exaggerated as though it was

doing all the breathing and exasperated sighing for everyone there. He looked over at a nurse in the far corner and pointed to the ceiling speaker. She fumbled around on the small table beside her and held up a CD cover with Stravinsky’s arms raised in a mid-conducting motion just below his bespectacled, oval face. He gave her a thumbs up. He knew very well, though, The Rite of Spring, with its fevered crescendos, with its endless possibilities of doom and death, was slightly too dramatic for the operating room that day. ‘Perhaps you can tell me, Dr Hughes, what part of the liver will I be using for the donation?’ Carl took the retractor from Gladys’s hand. He loved the way oldschool nurses like Gladys didn’t have to be told which instruments to . They followed the procedure closely, always accurately predicting a surgeon’s next move. Dr Hughes leaned over the sleeping patient. ‘The left lateral segment, doctor.’ ‘And why do you say that?’ ‘Because the recipient is a child, doctor, and so the best bet, I mean, from a surgical perspective, a left lateral segment would give the best graft for transplantation.’ ‘Wrong.’ ‘Oh … um … really?’ ‘Yes, really. Wrong.’ He knew he was being a bit of a shit. But how happy these young people were. So clueless and free of worry that the sight of a muscular abdomen about to be opened up didn’t do much more than prompt feelings of bodily envy. ‘Dr Hughes, how old is the recipient? What the –’ The sounds of a saxophone floated from above. The quickening of its melody, always somewhat random, he felt, followed by a languid note, seemed to bring a light melancholy to the room. Coltrane. How had he gotten in there? Oh, right. The previous week, he’d tossed

a bunch of CDs from the dusty bottom shelf of the bedroom cupboard into his bag. Trevor never did have the patience to expend the two extra seconds that would make sure the right CD was going into the right cover. Streaming could not have come fast enough for people like Trevor. Carl looked over at the nurse with the recently appointed DJ’ing responsibilities. But she was picking her nails. Of course. She wouldn’t know Bach from Biggie, a line he’d heard on a sitcom a long time ago, although, he had to it, he hadn’t known then and still didn’t know who this Biggie was. He wondered if it meant anything; that Coltrane, who’d died of a liver tumour, was now in his operating room. Or had that been Miles Davis? He signalled to the nurse to lower the volume. This time she saw him. ‘Yes, tell me, Dr Hughes, how old is the recipient?’ ‘Um, I think she’s four years old, doctor.’ ‘Have you seen her?’ ‘No, doctor, I’ve been meaning to but I’ve been busy with –’ ‘That’s really no excuse.’ Carl prodded the liver, looking for the easiest place to begin to dissect the blood vessels and bile ducts. ‘I’m sorry, Mr Kleinhans. I did read the file, though, and it said she’s four years old.’ He looked up at the intern who, despite a contrite trace in his voice, had both hands alongside his straight back, giving off a tense, almost arrogant air. ‘Well, it’s clear you didn’t read through the file thoroughly. Do you know her name?’ Dr Hughes shifted from one leg to the other. ‘No, doctor.’ ‘Her name is Portia. Do you have any idea how much Portia weighs?’ ‘I, ah, I don’t know, doctor. I would guess, thirty-five to forty pounds.’ ‘Guess? Guess?’ He tossed up his chin. Gladys brought the surgical lamp with its circular cluster of lights like newly laid eggs closer to the patient’s body. ‘Is that

what we do here?’ ‘No, Mr Kleinhans.’ ‘She’s a bit of a chubby little thing at just over four stone.’ He looked over at Dr Hughes whose eyes were now darting around as though a light had gone on in his brain and things were finally moving around in there. ‘So, Dr Hughes, tell me, what part of the liver am I going to take for a recipient of that weight?’ ‘The left lobe, Mr Kleinhans.’ ‘I’m sorry? I didn’t hear you.’ ‘The left lobe, Mr Kleinhans.’ ‘Thank you.’ He looked at the patient’s chest again, rising and falling steadily. Sometimes he took this for granted: a person’s decision to lie down on his surgical table and get cut open. But there were moments, like now, when it suddenly hit him. This was love. Would his father have done this for him? The question didn’t even have to ricochet around his brain for more than half a second. Yes. Yes. His father would’ve lain here, readily anaesthetised into troubled sleep … but for all the wrong reasons – guilt, secrets and pretending to the world things were fine. His father would’ve lain here only because of his own wretched imperviousness to change. Rosenhof had shown all this. Rosenhof. Maybe, today being the day it was, it was time to tell Trevor about Rosenhof. Carl reached for the scissors in Gladys’s palm and was about to cut the first of the blood vessels when he noticed something. No way. No fucking way. Using his gloved hand – contamination was likely a non-issue at this point – he brought the lamp down even further and squinted. ‘Dr Hughes. Come have a look at this.’

The intern leaned in with an expression that looked one quarter curiosity and the rest trepidation. ‘What do you see?’ ‘Mr Kleinhans?’ ‘Come, stand closer to me. I don’t bite. At least not before lunch.’ It was a lame attempt to soften his sternness from earlier and make the boy feel like he could come out on top. ‘What do you see?’ Dr Hughes picked up a pair of forceps. ‘May I? What am I looking for, Mr Kleinhans?’ ‘Not looking for. We’re not looking for anything. Tell me what you’re looking at.’ Dr Hughes lifted the base of the stomach in an attempt, it seemed, to get a better view of the pancreas. He peeked under the left side of the diaphragm. ‘The liver looks good, Mr Klein–, oh wait. Oh shit. Um, sorry.’ Dr Hughes moved the forceps over the top of the stomach. ‘Is that what I think it is, Mr Kleinhans?’ There was a subtle thrill in Dr Hughes’ voice. To anyone else it would’ve sounded repulsive but Carl knew it was very first-year-surgical-intern specific. The uglier, rarer, more malignant any disease, the more it excited them. ‘What do you think it is?’ ‘A submucosal lesion?’ ‘Or in other words?’ ‘A tumour.’ ‘A tumour.’ Carl pulled his left glove off on an inhale and the right with a sigh. ‘Well, it might not be. Let’s hope it’s just a polyp. You want to close him up?’ ‘Really? I mean, yes, Mr Kleinhans. Thank you. Sutures or staples?’ ‘Sutures.’

‘Awesome.’ Carl sat down on a high stool where he could still see Dr Hughes’ hand and needle weaving over the patient’s skin. ‘Here you are, although you don’t deserve it yet.’ Gladys smiled and offered him a bottle of water. He laughed. ‘Thanks. Please tell the staff in operating room three that Portia won’t be getting her liver today. I hope they haven’t put her under yet.’ Bad frigging luck. It was one thing to wake up from a surgery, look at a scar across your belly and take comfort in the fact that the surgery had gone well. It was even one thing to wake up from a surgery, look at the scar across your belly and hear that the surgery couldn’t happen and had to be postponed. It was an entirely other thing to learn, while fingering your scar, that the surgery hadn’t happened, your daughter was still sick and you might have cancer. Shit. ‘Mr Kleinhans, is this fine?’ He walked over to Dr Hughes. He was relieved to see a neat, very slightly curved stitch looking like a caterpillar with too few legs. ‘Looks good, Dr Hughes. Gladys, please take the patient to recovery room six. And, please, see if you can be there when he wakes up. Maybe put a nursing assistant on it. But the minute he opens his eyes, I want you to buzz me. Also, please Oncology and find out where Dr Michelson is.’ As he said the last bit, he looked over at the sleeping man. Whatever other dimension he was in right now, he was still floating on the belief that he was saving his daughter, that the body he inhabited was unblemished, suitable for healing, for medical magnanimity. For love.

***

‘You busy?’ Trevor asked over the line.

‘Always.’ ‘You sound out of breath.’ ‘Just on my way to see a patient. What’s up?’ ‘You still up for tonight?’ Shit. The Turkish film festival. He’d forgotten about that. ‘Oh please, Carl.’ Trevor’s voice held a mix of pleading and sarcasm. ‘Don’t bail. Every year we try to get there and something comes up.’ ‘Ahhh …’ ‘C’mon. There’s a special on Sedat Pakay I really want to see.’ ‘Who?’ ‘He did that short documentary on James Baldwin in Turkey in the early seventies? Plus loads of other stuff. He died a couple years ago.’ Maybe immersing himself in another culture for a few hours would be good for him. Maybe concentrating on subtitles, getting lost in images of people in tea gardens and boats floating on the Bosporus was just what he needed. ‘I’ll sneak in a bottle of wine.’ Trevor’s voice was a whisper, as though the cinema ushers were looming over him at that very moment. ‘De Aar?’ ‘Why not.’ Neither of them had ever heard of the De Aar vineyard before walking into the off-licence two blocks down the road from their flat. But like any good immigrant away from home for too long and prone to reaching for meaning in the corners of any experience, they were drawn to it. The fact, too, that De Aar, one of the many green specks on the vast Karoo, was almost equidistant between their homes in Johannesburg and Cape Town, and rumoured to export only a hundred bottles each year, was lure enough.

‘Sounds good.’ ‘You good, though?’ ‘I’ve gotta go … but …’ ‘Yeah?’ He walked onto the ward and a nurse with adult acne approached him. He held up his index finger and turned away slightly. ‘Today an intern asked me how come I’ve never held a heart.’ Trevor laughed softly. ‘You’ve never? Well, that’s kinda fitting if you think about it.’ Fitting because I’m tightly wound, he wanted to say in a biting tone. Fitting because I have a fundamental tendency to avoid connection with another human being? Instead he said, ‘I’ve gotta go. Chat later.’ He turned to the nurse. ‘Sorry about that.’ ‘No problem at all, Mr Kleinhans.’ ‘You have a Joel Sheedy here?’ ‘Yes, this way.’ At the end of the corridor, the nurse stuck her head through the curtains before pulling them back. The woman beside the bed sat with shoulders hunched, breathing high in her chest. When the amorphous figure in the bed turned, a man gazed up with jaundiced eyes. The woman immediately fussed over him, trying to lift his head while pushing a straw into his face, hardly changing the rhythm of her breathing as he swiped the cup of water away with a brisk hand movement. ‘Oh, Joe.’ She blotted her dark blue jersey with a tissue, stopping only when the water mark was barely visible. She looked up, using two fingers to push her short blonde hair behind both ears. ‘Oh, hello. Are you a new doctor? Where’s that other one? Dr Hassan or something like that?’ ‘Dr Khan. He’s still your doctor. But I’m Mr Kleinhans, the surgeon. Thank you,

nurse.’ ‘You’re welcome, Mr Kleinhans.’ The nurse dusted something off the edge of the bed, turned and left. ‘Surgeon?’ the woman asked. ‘Why’s she calling you Mr Kleinhans if you’re a surgeon?’ ‘An old boring rule set in the Middle Ages. But doctors are called doctor and surgeons are mister.’ ‘Blimey, that’s strange.’ Carl gave a soft laugh. ‘It is. But don’t worry, I don’t mind if patients call me Dr Kleinhans.’ He picked up the chart. ‘Mr Sheedy. How are you feeling?’ The man, with the help of several ahhs, grunts and fucks, tried to sit up on his elbows. ‘Doc, you ever heard the one about the Irish and the teabags?’ ‘Excuse me?’ ‘So, you got this Irish family, right? Their cousins in England send them over a box of teabags. Just your regular English tea and all. So, after a few months, the English cousins give them a ring to find out how they liked the tea. And what do ya think the Irish folk say? “The tea was just lovely but we had a devil of a time tearing open all those little sachets.”’ The man’s loud laugh was interrupted by a cough that sounded like his chest was cracking open. Smoker’s cough. ‘Mr Sheedy –’ ‘And before you get all PC on me, doc, I’m Irish, all right? And some of the dumbest lads you’ll ever come across are in me own family.’ ‘Joe! I’m so sorry, doctor.’ ‘That’s quite all right. Mr and Mrs Sheedy –’ ‘Joel and Niamh. No need for the formalities. You’re a surgeon, right? You’re

going to be cutting me open and seeing all the shit, literal shit, that I’m made of, aren’t you? For that, you can call me Joel.’ ‘John Cleese,’ Niamh said as Carl sat at the edge of the bed. ‘That’s it. I’ve been racking my brain thinking who you remind me of. A very young John Cleese. Well, with blond hair.’ ‘Sorry?’ ‘John Cleese? Fawlty Towers?’ ‘I … I know who he is.’ ‘Yeah. You’ve got that longish face. Square jaw. Well, he was very handsome. Had a bit of a crush on him myself. The young version though. Anyone ever told you that you look like him?’ ‘No.’ He smiled. It was the wrong day for difficult patients but he exhaled long and hard without letting them see. He pretended to be reading the chart. ‘I’m sure you’ve been through all this with Dr Khan but the untreated hepatitis B infection, and the fact that you’ve been drinking heavily for a long time means you’re now sitting with an advanced stage of cirrhosis.’ ‘That’s not so good, is it?’ Niamh bit her bottom lip, looking as though Carl had just told her Bus 322 wouldn’t be stopping at the hospital’s front entrance but rather at the back. ‘Cirrhosis is very serious. We’ll have to do some more tests but the fact that Dr Khan asked me to come and see you suggests a liver transplant is now a real consideration.’ ‘Transplant?’ Niamh fiddled with the gold cross around her neck. ‘Oh, doctor, no. He can’t handle that.’ ‘Well, let’s have a look, shall we?’ Carl checked Joel’s eyes and felt his glands before holding his wrist for a pulse reading. His skin reminded Carl of an expired lemon, the once taut ripples of the external layer now soft, with an unhealthy yellow tinge. He felt his phone vibrate. Perhaps Portia was awake, crying and asking for her father. He reached for it.

‘Yes, Laurelie. Okay, I’ll be there soon. Oh, Laurelie –’ But she hung up before he could ask her to order him one of those muffins from that café. Last time it was something as imaginative as chocolate-zucchini. But it had worked. The time before that, the mix of pesto, pine nut and tomato had felt like a festival in his mouth. He got up. ‘Joel. Your doctor will try to treat the hepatitis first. Then he’ll talk you through what it means to put your name on a liver transplant waiting list. He’ll explain everything to both of you, all the do’s and don’ts and the commitment you need to make to the hospital, and more importantly, yourself, if you want to remain on the list. You’ll see me again when we get closer to the possibility of surgery.’ ‘God, I need a fag,’ Niamh said. ‘Just give me a minute, won’t you, doctor? Can I just pop down to the gift shop and get meself a packet?’ ‘Christ, it’s a bloody hospital, Niamh,’ Joel said. ‘You really think they sell fags between the get-well cards and giant balloons? They’re trying to fucking cure cancer here, not spread it.’ The scene in front of him, the tolerant wife and the bitter old man, was the last thing Carl wanted to see. And why did this man, so different from the sleeping, selfless patient, also remind him of his father? Did there have to be duality in everything? Yes, Trevor would say. Why should life make things easy when it’s so much more fun to make everything fucking complicated? Carl bent down to speak to Joel, who had slumped beneath the sheets again. ‘Mr Sheedy, do you understand what I said just now?’ ‘He understands,’ Niamh said quickly. ‘He must get onto a twelve-step programme. He’s got to stop drinking. We’ll need evidence of this and also regular urine tests. But Dr Khan will talk to you more about that.’ He hung the chart back onto the edge of the bed. ‘We’ll speak again.’ ‘Can I ask something, doctor?’ Niamh said. Joel’s head shot up. ‘Don’t listen to her, doc. She’s in with the Nigerians.’

‘Oh, do be quiet, Joel,’ Niamh hissed. ‘And my friend is not Nigerian.’ ‘Seriously, doc. She’s always got some crackpot scheme or other going. And trust me, that’s not a pun.’ Niamh laughed. ‘Don’t listen to him. He’s just jealous I have a wide circle of friends from all cultures.’ She lowered her voice. ‘Can we have a quick word?’ Looking back to make sure Joel was facing the wall again, she led Carl down the corridor. ‘How long is the list? The transplant list?’ Her big blue eyes had a vacancy about them, beautiful if, he suspected, you didn’t look to them for anything real, anything serious and life determining. ‘I can’t tell that for sure. There are factors that establish where you should be placed on the list.’ ‘And we have to wait for someone to die, don’t we? God help us. Is there no other way?’ ‘Well, Mrs Sheedy, um, Niamh, is it? Yes, there is another way. We do living donor liver transplants at this hospital.’ ‘Living?’ ‘Yes, we use part of the liver of a living donor.’ ‘Must it be someone we know? Like a relative?’ ‘It doesn’t have to be but it would be great if it were. Is there someone in the family who can donate?’ The unblinking eyes were looking past his right shoulder. He didn’t need to turn around to know they were seeing things far beyond what stood behind him. ‘But perhaps we’re getting ahead of ourselves here. For someone like Joel, with his age, and, well, he’s not overweight but he’s a robust adult, if you get me, you’re looking at a lot of liver to be donated. It could be a complicated procedure. I really should be talking with Joel about this, but you think this is

something he would consider?’ She bit on the nail of her index finger for several seconds. ‘Mrs Sheedy?’ ‘I don’t think he’ll talk about it.’ ‘A transplant?’ ‘A donor,’ she said softly. She looked up at him. ‘He has a son.’ ‘You guys have a son? I don’t think I saw that in the file.’ ‘Not us. Him. But don’t worry, doctor. Leave it to me. Now, I’ve simply got to get a fag.’

Promise

‘Gogo, I need to take a photo of you.’ Promise swiped her finger across the screen on Anneke’s phone. ‘Promise, I’m working here.’ ‘Just one, Gogo. Please.’ She zoomed in, watching her grandmother bend over and squeeze the wet mop between her hands before twisting it around and around. Anneke had stopped trying to get Gogo to use the fancy new mop. The one where all Gogo had to do was press the handle down on the side and the dirty water went down into the old blue bucket. Anyone could see that would be easier. But not Gogo. No. She liked it the hard way. Gogo slapped the mop on the floor and wiped her forehead with the back of her hand. ‘Wait.’ She straightened the doek on her head. ‘Okay, go ahead.’ Gogo smiled. It was the fake smile she always had when Anneke’s friends came over. When she had to hurry with the tray of tea and coffee and biscuits and rusks and water and whatever else those old white ladies wanted. And when her hands hurt but she couldn’t say anything. ‘A real smile, Gogo.’ Even though Gogo’s mouth was closed, Promise could see her ing her tongue over her top teeth. She smiled wide. ‘Better?’ ‘Can you move the mop and bucket? Wait, no. I change my mind. Lean on the mop instead.’ ‘Ai. C’mon, child. Anneke is going to be back soon and I need to clean this kitchen before she comes back.’ The phone clicked a few times.

‘Do you think Anneke will print these out for me?’ ‘Miss Anneke. How many times must I tell you? And why do you want to print them?’ Gogo was moving the mop slowly from side to side. It was hardly getting into any of the corners. How many times had her gogo mopped these floors? She tried to use the mental maths way Miss Fourie taught the class. Three times a week. Fifty-two weeks a year. No, fifty, if you minus the two weeks she and Gogo always went to the Eastern Cape. Times forty years? Yes, since before Uncle Carl was born. She closed her eyes and tried to see the numbers in a straight line in her mind, but they just danced around. It was better just to forget about it. ‘My teacher said I must bring a photo of my mother in her wedding dress.’ ‘So why did you take that picture?’ ‘Because you always say you’re married to your job.’ Gogo laughed. ‘Promise –’ she started to say. ‘It’s just a joke, Gogo.’ ‘Well, I don’t want the joke to be on me. Make another plan.’ Gogo began fanning the wet floor with an old newspaper. What was she going to do? Gogo didn’t have any photos from her wedding to Baba Mkhulu. That was years and years ago. Were cameras even invented then? ‘Why is your teacher asking for that?’ Gogo asked. ‘Why does she assume all children have parents that are married?’ ‘I don’t know. She just said we must bring it.’

Gogo was wiping the counter, mumbling and complaining that she was to blame, that she had allowed Anneke to convince her about this Model C school business. ‘You should be going to a good township school.’ Promise didn’t believe her. How many times had Gogo looked at those children walking from Ntombekhaya Primary and talked about their dirty shirts, their holey tros, shoes with no laces and dusty backpacks that looked empty? ‘Like Ntombekhaya?’ Gogo looked up quickly. She looked worried. It was weird. ‘No, not there. But another township school.’ Then her face went back to normal. ‘And this teacher expects that all the children will bring photos of their parents in long white dresses, and veils and with bridesmaids?’ ‘Well, Zandi already told Ma’am that her parents aren’t married because her father can’t pay lobola.’ ‘Hmm, does your teacher even know what lobola is? What if you got married in traditional clothes? Does your teacher know anything about that? Does she know anything about black culture?’ This was boring. She couldn’t answer any of Gogo’s questions. She just wanted to go into the garden, lie on the grass and think about wedding dress ideas. Plus, sometimes Miss Fourie went home with a black man in a silver BMW. So, she must know about black culture. Best not to tell Gogo about that. The garage door was opening. Anneke would hoot before the door was even all the way up. Yep, there it was. Gogo was already walking to the side door in the kitchen that opened into the garage. A few minutes later Gogo came in with the groceries, the plastic handles of the heavy shopping bags sinking into her chubby palms. That couldn’t be helping the pain in Gogo’s hands either. Promise imagined everything bursting and spilling on the floor.

‘Promise,’ Anneke called. ‘Come help here, my angel.’ In the garage she looked at the bags filling the boot. Vegetables, juice, milk, rusks, rice, meat that Gogo would put in the locked freezer at the back of the house, little packets of soups. ‘Wow. How much did all this cost, Anneke?’ ‘Too much,’ Anneke said. ‘Too much for an old lady like me. Here, take these bags in.’ When Anneke finally came into the kitchen, carrying only her handbag, she was fanning her neck with her fingers. ‘You okay?’ She pinched Promise’s cheek. ‘No.’ She told Anneke about the wedding photo project. And how sad she felt about not having a mother. Never mind a mother who wore a wedding dress. Never mind a photo of a mother who wore a wedding dress. This always worked whenever she needed Anneke to feel a bit more sorry for her. ‘Ag, shame.’ Anneke pulled her close and they walked to the dining room table together. Anneke always smelled of flowers. Like that spray that Gogo filled the bathroom with after she’d been in there for a long time. But on Anneke it was a happy smell and when she hugged her and it got everywhere, even up the nose a bit, it felt as if everything was going to be okay. ‘Let’s make a plan.’ Anneke turned on the laptop Uncle Carl bought her last time he was here. They both sat in front of the screen, waiting for the picture of Anneke, looking so skinny and young, with a small Carl playing on the beach. ‘You can have your pick of mothers in wedding dresses.’ ‘What?’ Gogo, ing the duster gently over the books on the bookshelf, was looking at them in a funny way. Frowning. It was the same look Miss Fourie gave some children if she thought they were maybe cheating on a test but wasn’t sure. ‘Well, your teacher doesn’t know what your mother looked like,’ Anneke said. ‘We can just find any nice photo of two black people getting married.’

‘And then how would we print it?’ ‘On the printer.’ ‘But that won’t look like a real photo. She’ll know we just printed off the internet.’ ‘All right,’ Anneke said, sighing. ‘Pick a picture and then I’ll save it and get it printed at CNA. Then it’ll look like the real thing.’ ‘Anneke, Promise shouldn’t be giving you so much trouble.’ Gogo hit Promise playfully with the duster. ‘It’s no trouble. Plus, Dorothy, do you want her to be the only child in the class who doesn’t have a photo?’ Promise thought about telling Anneke about Zandi but she thought she’d better just keep quiet. Gogo kept quiet too. They spent a long time looking at black women in wedding dresses. And handsome husbands too. If she was going to imagine the whole thing, then why not make her father into a super-cute man who gazed at his wife with a happy smile?

***

That evening, just after Gogo had washed up the dishes and they were about to go to their room for the night, Promise knocked gently on Anneke’s door. ‘Who’s who?’ Anneke was on the phone. ‘Never heard of it. But nothing about … you know …? The thing. Rosenhof. I know, I know. Yes, I’m more paranoid in my old age.’ Promise stepped back. Uncle Carl probably. All Promise knew about Uncle Carl was that he lived with

his boyfriend in England, something Gogo made her promise never to tell her friends at school. And that he was the only person, other than Promise, that Anneke spoke all lovey-dovey to. She wondered what paranoid meant? Promise waited till she heard Anneke say goodbye. She wanted to say thank you for the pretend wedding photo. She peeked through the door. Anneke was on the bed, doing nothing, just staring into space. Then Anneke’s shoulders started to shake. She was sniffing and about to turn around to grab a tissue from the box on her nightstand. Promise stepped away from the door.

***

Promise squeezed her brown school cap tightly when she walked past Miss Fourie. Really, Miss Fourie would be so pretty if she didn’t frown all the time. Like, all the time. Anneke had been right. Buying two school caps at the beginning of the year had been a good idea. She kept one in her desk all the time. It meant she always had one during break time. ‘Where’s your cap?’ Miss Fourie was looking Zandi up and down, and when she stopped that, stared at Zandi’s empty hands. ‘I lost it. I forget it.’ ‘Which is it?’ ‘I forget it.’ ‘Forgot. Forgot it. Go and sit under the tree.’ This was one of those things that made Gogo cross. She would go on and on about it. Whoever said you can’t play in the sun if you don’t have a hat? You think those children at Ntombekhaya Primary are worried about skin cancer and sunstroke? That is a white person’s rule. Or as that comedy guy said on TV the other day, white people’s problems. She would go on and on.

Promise would’ve liked to have sat in the sun, near to the fountain that didn’t spout water anymore, but decided instead to sit with Zandi under the big oak tree. Plus, Edgar was sitting at the fountain. Edgar was funny but out of nowhere he would just turn around and hit her. She didn’t know why he did that. Zandi said it was because he liked her. Weird. She unzipped her lunch bag. The faces and dresses of Cinderella and Snow White on the front had almost disappeared. She only knew who was who because Snow White’s hair was still black. ‘Where’s your lunch?’ Zandi was moving a pine cone around with the tip of her shoe. ‘I forget that too.’ ‘Do you have any money?’ ‘No.’ ‘Want to share my lunch?’ ‘What is it?’ ‘Hang on.’ Promise opened the Tupperware and lifted the top slice of the bread. ‘Looks like chicken polony, with some cheese and, yuck, lettuce.’ ‘Okay.’ ‘You want the lettuce too?’ ‘Yeah.’ When they had finished the sandwich, Zandi asked, ‘You got a snack too?’ Promise took out a small box of Coco Pops. It looked exactly like the normalsized box only as if, by magic, it had shrunk and got cuter. She pulled the bag of Coco Pops out from the box, opened it with her teeth and poured half out into the box. ‘You’re spilling,’ Zandi said, picking up a few of the brown pops from the ground and putting them in her mouth. ‘Five-second rule.’ They sat watching some Grade Ones throwing a ball to each other. ‘Did you do

the wedding photo project?’ Promise asked, standing up and dusting some Coco Pops from her skirt. ‘My mom found a photo of her and my dad going out to somewhere. They were dressed real fancy. So she just gave me that. You?’ ‘I found something too.’ ‘What? How? Your mom died.’ ‘Yes, Zandi, I know. Anneke found me a photo.’ ‘Where?’ ‘Gosh, why do you have to know everything? I just found one, okay?’ Most times she could tell Zandi anything … well, because usually Zandi forgot about it right away. But still, she wasn’t always sure she could trust Zandi. Maybe Zandi might just decide to take her thumb out of her mouth during class – which ten year old still did that? – and tell Miss Fourie that the whole thing had been made up. After break they had to put their wedding photos out on their desks. Promise walked around to look at the others’. Long veils. Big puffy sleeves. Lots of lace and shiny, golden pieces of cloth all on top of one another. You could barely see Carla’s mother’s fat face. She looked like a big cupcake with lots of icing around. She wasn’t super-exactly sure, but she was almost sure she’d seen some of those photos on the internet. Miss Fourie picked up Promise’s photo. ‘Your mother is beautiful. Was. Is beautiful.’ Miss Fourie was touching her forearm. ‘Thank you, Ma’am. My grandmother said the wedding was really nice. Lots of people came and there was so much food. Everyone in the township came. And the cake was this high.’ She stretched her hand up as far as it would go. ‘And my father was a really good dancer. And when he took my mother to dance for the first time, Gogo was wiping her eyes and everyone was smiling. And they danced all night because they were in love. That’s what Gogo said, Ma’am.’

Miss Fourie’s grey eyes looked like large pools of water. ‘I’m so sorry about what happened to your parents,’ she whispered. What happened to her parents. She knew if she had a few more minutes with Miss Fourie she could come up with something better than a mom who had something wrong with her blood and a father who disappeared the way a magician makes someone disappear in a big puff of smoke. Except, with magicians, most of the time people came back to life. Little Esme, with her wild hair and tiny hands, was calling Miss Fourie from the corner. Promise went over to see what was going on. Miss Fourie leaned over Esme and looked at the picture of two men, both of them very handsome in black suits and small white ties. One of them was holding a baby. ‘Well,’ Miss Fourie said. ‘This exercise is about looking at different dress patterns, Esme. Go and sit on the cushion and look through those magazines until you find a dress you like. Then cut it out and bring it back to your desk.’ Esme turned the photo over, stared into space for a few moments, then put the photo back in her desk. She dragged her feet as she walked to the corner and fell down on the cushions on purpose. She didn’t touch the magazines. Silly girl. Didn’t her dads have internet at home?

***

They waited for Gogo on a wooden bench near the school gate. Promise watched a group of girls reaching into the ice-cream tub on Sam’s rusty bicycle and pulling out colourful sticks with waves of frosty air around them. She felt her mouth watering. ‘Are you sure you don’t have money?’ she asked Zandi. ‘I don’t.’

Whenever Sam looked her way, she moved her head to one side then the other, smiling and swallowing over and over. She hoped she looked thirsty. But Sam was old and knew all the tricks. He just looked at her, then looked away. As she sat wondering if Sam used to go to this school when he was a small boy, she heard a noise behind her. ‘Psst!’ The sound came from behind the big bush with lots of purple flowers that covered the school fence. She got up and moved slowly towards the bush. ‘Don’t,’ Zandi said, pulling at Promise’s forearm. She shook her off and looked around to see if any of the teachers or cleaners were around. Only Mr Nkosi sat in his tiny security booth by the school gate, his head down, reading his paper. ‘Come here,’ a voice whispered. ‘I’ve got something to show you.’ Promise carefully pushed through the bright flowers and branches, hoping they didn’t have thorns. Two boys stood on the pavement, holding a small, shaggy dog. All three looked the same colour of brown. The boys, with their dirty faces and pieces of their T-shirts flapping about in the wind, ed their hands over parts of the dog’s hair, hair that looked as though it was stuck together in lots of places. The dog’s pink tongue, looking thirsty and playful, seemed to be the only pretty thing there. ‘What do you want?’ ‘You like dogs?’ The taller one, with his cap on the wrong way, was looking left and right. She knew that look. People only did that when they were lying or had stolen something and hadn’t been found out yet. ‘Yeah. Clean ones.’ ‘C’mon. He just needs a wash. We were throwing the ball around with him in the park, that’s all.’ Promise looked around for a ball.

Then she felt Zandi squeeze in next to her. ‘Oh my gosh, he’s so cute.’ ‘You see, your friend likes dogs.’ Promise looked at the smaller boy. He had a chain with red, yellow and green beads around his neck. He didn’t stop looking at the ground, not even for a second. She asked him, ‘What’s your name?’ ‘His name is –’ ‘I asked him. Can’t he talk?’ ‘Look, I’m in charge here.’ The taller boy pushed the dog against the fence. ‘You wanna buy him?’ ‘Are you crazy? Why would I want to buy a dirty dog? He could have all kinds of diseases.’ ‘Well, if you don’t want him, we’re gonna have to throw him in the middle of the dam. The one in the park over there.’ Promise felt her breath come into her mouth and stay there. ‘You wouldn’t do something like that.’ ‘Yeah, we would. We can’t look after him. He’s gotta go.’ ‘But is it your dog?’ Zandi asked. ‘Where did you get him?’ ‘It’s his. His cousin gave it to him for his birthday.’ Even though Promise knew a lie when she heard it, she still asked, ‘How much?’ ‘How much you got?’ She wasn’t even sure why she was asking. She didn’t have a cent. Plus, Gogo would never let her keep it. ‘Fifty rands,’ Zandi said, pushing herself forward so that she was just a little way in front of Promise. Promise stared at her. So Zandi did have money. And she’d sat there, eating the half sandwich and almost all the Coco Pops. She’d sat there, while the two of them melted in the sun next to Sam’s box of ice cream.

‘Zandi! You’ve got fifty rands?’ ‘Yes.’ Promise tried to imagine what fifty rands in ice creams looked like. ‘Fifty rands?’ said the tall boy. ‘Do you girls know what type of dog this is?’ ‘Look, fifty rands is all we have. Do you want it or not?’ What was she doing? If they gave the money, would the boys even hand over the dog, or would they just run? And if they did, there was no way Mr Nkosi would open the gate to allow them to run after the boys. Worst of all, if the boys did hand over the dog, where was it going to stay? Zandi had told her one time that the flats she lived in didn’t allow pets. And Gogo would have a fit. But Anneke. Well, maybe. ‘Okay, okay. Hurry up and come out.’ Through the bush she could see parents and learners walking along the pavement. They slowed down as they saw the boys, but no one stopped to ask any questions. ‘Hold on, we’re coming.’ Promise stepped back slowly and let the bush close in front of her. For a second she felt as though they were in some sort of secret garden, where things, wonderful things, happened behind a magical bush. Except this wasn’t story time. ‘How are we going to get it?’ Zandi was digging in her bag. ‘Don’t worry. Just give me the money.’ She wondered where she should put it. Couldn’t stuff it under her bra strap like Gogo. No boobs and no bra. If she put it in the elastic of her panties, how was she going to lift up her dress in front of the boys to get it? Her short afro was no help either. She bent over and slipped the R50 note into her shoe.

As they ed Mr Nkosi he looked up from his newspaper. ‘My grandmother is coming now.’ She pointed towards the street. ‘She’s just over there.’ Mr Nkosi stretched his neck to look down the street. Promise couldn’t believe her luck when she saw two old ladies coming down the street wearing uniforms like Gogo’s. ‘We need to run to meet her. Bye, Mr Nkosi. Have a nice day.’ But Mr Nkosi wasn’t ever going to be the problem. It was Sam they needed to worry about. Sam. The quiet know-it-all who’d been selling ice creams outside the school for a hundred years and always told the teachers if strange things were happening outside the grounds. She could almost feel Sam watching her as she quickly walked towards the boys. She handed over the money. ‘Does he have a name?’ The boy had taken off his cap now. He had a mean smile. ‘Call him whatever the fuck you want.’ ‘Don’t swear,’ Zandi said. She took the dog. The other boy fiddled with his chain. ‘His name is, well, I …’ His voice was so quiet Promise had to bend her head close to his. ‘I call him Tuks. He likes to –’ But his friend was already pulling him away and after a few seconds, they disappeared around the corner. Now that the dog’s smell was all around them and she could see him making grey marks on Zandi’s skin, Promise felt panic in the middle of her heart. The dog was really alive. It was alive. And it was theirs. What were they going to do with him? A kombi stopped close to them. Two people were on the loud radio, arguing about Bafana Bafana. Something about the coach and goals. The kombi door opened and two men jumped out. They both had to push the door to get it closed again. Anneke said those kombis ran on masking tape and a prayer. A woman who looked like a nurse, but in long blue pants, was running towards them with her finger up. The driver told her to come in. The car behind the kombi pressed the hooter and, when he drove around the kombi, shouted “Voetsek”. But the

kombi driver didn’t seem to notice, not even when two other cars did the same thing. He just pressed his own hooter a few times and pointed to the sky. One lady with a baby tied up and sleeping on her back got in before the kombi drove off. She took the dog from Zandi. He was lighter than she thought he would be, as though his body weighed less than all the dirt on his hair. ‘What am I going to tell Gogo?’ ‘I know.’ Zandi stood in front of Promise and the dog so people walking on the pavement wouldn’t stare. ‘Do you in Grade One when Mrs Rantie picked some of us to take turns looking after Sammy? We had to feed him and bathe him and read him a story at night? Well, we could say we have to do the same thing now.’ ‘Zandi, Sammy was a teddy bear!’ It was only after she rolled her eyes a few times that she realised it wasn’t a terrible idea. They had to do something. The dog was starting to look droopy and tired. Gogo was coming at them quickly in her cream and brown uniform, her feet in white Tomy takkies. But soon, very soon, she slowed down, her shiny forehead wrinkling and her mouth hanging open. ‘Don’t say anything,’ Promise whispered to Zandi. ‘What is going on here? Who, or I should say, what, is this?’ Gogo was looking around and into the school through the dark green palisades, as though she wasn’t sure she was on the right street, or outside the right school. And she was looking up and down at Promise, Zandi and the dog as if she was seeing them for the first time. ‘This is Tuks. He’s my assignment for Life Orientation.’ Actually, her class did Life Skills but she figured ‘orientation’, a term the bigger kids used, sounded more important. Gogo didn’t like arguing with big words. ‘This is mad.’ Gogo set off towards the gate. ‘I’m going to speak to your

teacher.’ ‘No.’ Promise’s voice was so high that even the dog jumped. ‘I mean, she’s gone home already. Please, Gogo, my friends will laugh at me if I take him back now. The teacher said he’s my responsibility. I have to look after him, make sure he’s clean and healthy.’ ‘But it’s filthy.’ Everything on Gogo’s face seemed to scrunch together in the middle. ‘What kind of teacher will give such an assignment? And would hand over such a dirty dog to a little child?’ ‘You know that Miss Fourie is a bit crazy, Gogo.’ Gogo breathed hard through her nose. ‘I told you.’ ‘But I have to prove that I can look after him. It’s about emotional, and human rights, and lifestyle wellbeing.’ She tried to all the words from assembly that morning when the principal said stuff about helping kids with cancer. ‘It’s for marks,’ Zandi said suddenly. ‘And she’ll get a big prize if she looks after him well.’ Promise glared at her. Now on top of everything she needed to come up with a prize for herself. Thank you, Zandi, she wanted to say out loud. ‘But how did he get so dirty? Whose dog is it?’ ‘It’s Miss Fourie’s. Don’t worry, Gogo. She made him dirty on purpose. Otherwise it would be too easy for us.’ Gogo was wiping her forehead and fixing her doek lower on her head, things that told Promise she was slowly accepting everything that was going on. ‘How long do we have to keep him for?’ She liked the sound of ‘we’. ‘I … I’m not sure. I’ll check with Ma’am tomorrow.’

By the time they walked Zandi to her flats a few streets away from their house, Tuks was asleep in Promise’s arms. When they got home they washed him in an old basin with shampoo for hair and Lux soap. He yelped at first but then just looked up at Promise with big eyes. She couldn’t believe his coat was almost golden.

***

She was playing with Tuks in the back garden when she saw Anneke coming towards her, the tall, heavy body wobbling from side to side. ‘What’s all this now?’ Gogo was busy locking the garden shed but came over quickly. She told the story exactly the way Promise had earlier. Anneke looked down at Promise, her face serious. She knew. ‘Dorothy, can you please bring me a cup of tea?’ Anneke turned to Gogo. ‘And a few rusks.’ When Gogo was gone, Anneke bent over and ed her hand lightly over Tuks, who was biting a worn plastic ball. ‘The truth please, Promise.’ When she finished telling Anneke every bit of the truth, she thought this serious Anneke would go away and the kind Anneke would give her a hug and tell her it was going to be all right. That she was a hero for saving the dog. But, even though Anneke was petting Tuks, the serious face was still there. ‘Can I keep him? Please, Anneke?’ ‘But you have no idea whose dog this is.’ Tuks was digging himself into the grass. He turned over on his back, his four legs in the air. Promise tickled his stomach.

‘Maybe those boys were telling the truth. Maybe it was their dog. And mine now.’ ‘Promise, this isn’t a stray dog. He’s a good breed. Maybe even a pedigree.’ ‘What do you mean?’ Anneke stood up. ‘I’ll explain later. This is someone’s dog, my dear.’ ‘But can we keep him?’ Promise tilted her head to the side, hoping her eyes would fill with water and a tear or two would run out. Anneke was looking to the patio where Gogo was putting the tea tray out onto the iron table. ‘No.’

Ché

He was perspiring at a frightening rate, weakening with each drop of water collecting in the groove above his top lip. He was going to die. He was going to melt away and slump onto his mother’s cheap linoleum floor. It would be a stupid, ugly and dirty death. One cockroach, looking as though it paid rent on a regular basis, strolled across the floor without so much as a pretence of urgency. It was here that his heart would give up. He grabbed a kitchen towel and wiped his face, watching his mother cowering in the corner, her hands clasped together in front of her heart. Her lips moved rapidly, almost imperceptibly. He gasped for breath and she reached for the fridge door. ‘I don’t want any water,’ he spat. ‘Precious blood of Jesus is my salvation,’ she whispered over and over. He longed to let out a winding, creative expletive full of fucks and Jesuses, but even through the haze of his own anger and sweat, he knew that would be going too far. Even though she had done wrong, very wrong, she wouldn’t hesitate to abandon her position of penitence at the mere whiff of sacrilege. Blasphemy trumped lying any day of the week and twice on Sundays. He wasn’t sure how much time had ed but when he brought his head up from his still damp forearms, he was sitting at the small table in the corner. The kitchen was quiet, save for the dull and persistent hum of the fridge. She sat across from him, eyes red, lips at last at rest. ‘Ché. Sorry. I so sorry.’ She covered her face with her hands. The two braids on the side of her head glistened with what he assumed was hair oil. Her tears were new and different. Every other time he’d seen her cry the Holy

Spirit had been somehow implicated. And even then, there were always just two long tears that maddeningly refused to go beyond her puffed up cheeks. But now, her body shook, the tears hurried from every corner, and her nose ran. She sucked up the mucus and leaned over the sink to spit it out. ‘Sorry doesn’t explain anything. Is how long now you telling me you don’t know where my father is?’ ‘I didn’t. Well, I wasn’t sure. It was so long since we hear from him, I wasn’t sure if he was in the same place or what.’ ‘That is not what you been saying. You always just said you didn’t know. As though he just disappeared. Meanwhile, he was always in the same place and you just never tried to get in touch.’ ‘Why we should make with someone who not making with us?’ ‘Mummy, please. Please. We never even got to that part of the conversation. Every time I ask you, you always say you don’t know where he is.’ Her hands were shaking and her entire body took on a decrepit vulnerability. She shuffled to the front door and flung it open. No breeze came through and the kitchen remained strangled by stale, oppressive air. He heard her clearing her throat and greeting Miss Barbara next door. ‘Howdy, Abigail,’ Miss Barbara said. He went outside. Miss Barbara was shoving a swollen white plastic bag into the black dustbin. ‘Eh, eh, is Ché? Long time no see. How you going?’ ‘Fine, Miss Barbara. And you?’ ‘Comme ci, comme ça. You know I meant to ask you, Ché –’ She stopped and looked towards the gate. ‘Oh gosh, no, no. Not today. I ain’t able.’ She hurriedly placed the dustbin lid back on. ‘Not today, Jehovah Wickedness. Today is a different day. See you later, Ché.’

He turned around as she scurried for her house. Between the two small gates stood a smartly dressed group of four, The Watchtower visible in at least three palms. He waved them away and turned back to his mother. ‘Is any of what you told me about the two of you true? About how you met and went out and all that?’ ‘I can’t what I told you.’ She walked down the few steps to the small garden and picked up a metal watering can. Since July, the rains hadn’t come nearly as much as they’d hoped. She held his gaze as she opened the pipe on the side of the house. ‘Some true, I’m sure.’ ‘Unbelievable. You can’t even keep track of your lies.’ He took the watering can out of her hands, interrupting the perfectly arched showers of water over the tomato vines. ‘Well, you can’t escape the truth now, you know. You going to have to tell me everything. And this woman? She just called you out of the blue?’ ‘Yes. I never spoke to her before. I knew … I knew he had a wife. Long time now.’ ‘So, first time you and she talking and she just drop it like that? Oh, by the way, my husband need a new liver, could you ask yuh son if he could give him some of his? Is so people doing it nowadays?’ The top of his mother’s stomach jiggled. Was she actually laughing? ‘Mummy, this ain’t funny.’ ‘I know, Ché. To answer your question – yes. Yes, that is almost how the conversation went. To be honest, at times I wondered if she was totally right in her head. But anyway, yes, she said Joel not good, not good at all. And in London now they doing these liver transplants where they taking a piece of liver from a living person. And if, well, if I could ask you about it.’ The nerve. The belly – and he didn’t pardon the pun in his mind. The unmitigated gall. ‘And how did she get your number?’ ‘She didn’t say. Joel, I guess. So, you want to help him? You want to help your father?’

Her questions were veiled but he couldn’t figure out what they were concealing. What was she really hoping would happen? ‘Father?’ he said scornfully. ‘What father? How easily that rolling off your tongue now. Like it was always like that, like he was always there. Like for years you never act like you don’t know where he is. Look, I not running off to London to help someone I don’t even know. Especially since I don’t even know the story between both of you.’ ‘Jesus said we must forgive.’ Her mumbling words fell onto the sweet peppers and rows of pak choi. ‘Jesus –’ ‘Jesus know you been lying?’ She was quiet for a few moments and he wondered if she was listening to Miss Barbara singing along to what sounded like a slightly upbeat version of ‘The Old Rugged Cross’. ‘Maybe things happen for a reason, Ché.’ She was twitching in discomfort under his stare. ‘Like you want me to do this, Mummy. But why?’ ‘The Lord –’ ‘Why? Really. Why?’ At that moment he knew what people meant when they said silence spoke volumes. Everything she was not saying, all the secrets she was holding close to her chest, were as heavy as the shiny, purple melongene weighing down a bright green stalk next to his leg. For the second time in ten minutes, he felt he couldn’t breathe. But he was a grown, sane man. He knew when it was best to leave a situation rather than do or say something he would regret. Act in haste, repent at leisure. Wasn’t it in this very garden, on those very steps with the slight slant and irregular paving, in that very house that looked as worn down as his mother, that he learned that phrase? He went back inside and grabbed his keys.

***

In an absent-minded haze he ended up in the wrong lane on the highway and found himself going south, instead of north-west towards Mandisa’s house. He cursed the near-empty, endless expanse of road before him and the engineering design that prevented him from making a U-turn. Ordinarily he would have agreed with any idea that dissuaded drunks from meandering, one leg crossing in front of the other, across a busy highway. But now he found it irksome and punishing. He exited at the next off-ramp, grumbling as he made the equally interminable journey in the opposite direction. It was a quiet afternoon. Most Trinidadians were still sleeping off decadent Sunday lunches or swimming, miles away, at the coast. The loneliness of the road did nothing for his feelings. His father was alive to him again. He didn’t have a clue if he should be happy or sad. He pulled over onto the shoulder. Sugar cane carpeted the landscape as far as his eye could see. He turned up the radio. Dionne Warwick’s ‘Heartbreaker’ filled the car, part of the station’s Sunday promise to send the nation into a nostalgic miasma. The song caused a tickle deep in his stomach. He turned up the volume, willing the lyrics to disgorge some sort of emotional torrent before he saw Mandisa. He wasn’t sure how she would handle things if he broke down. He was the one who did the comforting. He was the one who offered a host of well-argued psychological theories about letting go and being prepared for anything. He could hardly now come blubbering, inarticulate, unable even to define his feelings. He dialled her number. ‘Hi, you home?’ ‘Yeah, you coming round?’ ‘Yeah. I’ll pick you up.’ ‘You all right?’

‘Ah … yeah.’ He wished Mandisa was the type of woman who would be waiting at the gate. He wasn’t in the mood for the necessary pleasantries with the family. But if he dared to honk twice and keep his ass in the car, whatever gains he’d painstakingly made with her father over three and a half years would dry up like the orange salt prunes Mandisa ate on a daily basis. The two Dobermans announced his arrival. ‘Is Ché!’ Sade called over her shoulder after flinging open the front door. ‘Mandy, is Ché!’ He swooped Mandisa’s little sister up in his arms, nuzzling his mouth into the nape of her neck. She screamed with laughter for a few seconds and it warmed him. ‘What did you bring for me?’ Sade patted his pockets as he put her down. ‘This.’ He knelt down and reached from behind his back to make a huge arc with his arm. He brought it round to her back, smiling as she twisted herself round to see it. Then he closed both his arms in a tight hug. She sucked her teeth as she walked away. ‘That’s not something real. I want a real present.’ He wiped his feet on the mat and his stomach lurched. The air in the house still heaved with the remnants of Sunday lunch. It was then that he ed he hadn’t eaten. It was the reason he had visited his mother in the first place. He could smell what was left of the macaroni pie slathered with callaloo and stew chicken. He imagined it went with rice, coleslaw, fried plantain and sweet potato, all washed down with a choice of ginger beer, tinned orange juice or mauby. He peered in at the sitting room. Sonia’s leg was swung over an armchair as she watched long-haired blondes walk along a beach in tiny swimsuits. Her father lay asleep on the other chair, his small stomach rising and falling to a delicate rhythm. ‘Hi, Sonia,’ he whispered.

She turned her head slightly and looked him up and down. ‘Hi.’ She brought down her leg and crossed it over the other, as though she was aware that, at the age of sixteen, she was expected to be both modest and suspicious around men. ‘You want me to call Mandy?’ ‘No, it’s fine, I’ll –’ But she was already tumbling off the chair, the creaking making a gigantic fuss in his head. ‘No, no.’ But it was too late. ‘Hey,’ the old man muttered sleepily. ‘Good afternoon, Mr Sheppard.’ Ché stepped forward and stuck out his hand. The just-call-me-Kenneth hadn’t come even after all this time. Mr Sheppard didn’t get up but accepted the handshake. ‘Sit, sit,’ he said. ‘How you doing?’ ‘Not too bad, thanks. You?’ ‘Yeah, yeah, good.’ Mr Sheppard rubbed his nose, scratching his throat loudly at the same time. ‘Just taking a five, you know.’ Ché sat and stared ahead, feeling Kenneth looking at him. It was always the same story. No, he wanted to say, the age gap between me and Mandisa hasn’t changed since the last time you saw me. And no, the age gap between you and me ain’t widened either. But he kept his eyes on the television, the bikini-clad girls on the screen not helping the awkwardness of the moment. ‘So, how’s Patsy?’ Ché asked. He knew it was strange that he was on a firstname basis with Mandisa’s stepmom but not her dad. ‘Probably cleaning up. You want something to drink?’ ‘No, thanks. We going out.’ ‘Oh? What y’all up to?’

He scrambled for an answer, wondering why Mr Sheppard even asked. Did fathers really want the truth to such questions before they retired to bed? From what he could figure, fathers wanted to hear that their daughters, even twentysix-year-old daughters, were going out for ice cream and coconut water around Queen’s Park Savannah. Or to a seafood restaurant on the promenade, followed by a walk where the only thing a man would grab was her hand. Certainly, a father didn’t want to think of his daughter drinking alcohol and making bad decisions. Chasing the sunrise home and, while fooling none of the adults that she’d been there the entire night, caring enough about dear daddy to make sure he found her there, coverlet up to her neck. But what would he know about what fathers wanted? ‘Fisherman’s Wharf.’ ‘Oh right, right. Nice. Little fried fish in the open air. Been a while since I’ve been down that side.’ The clicks of approaching heels on the wooden floor might as well have been oversized magnets so strongly did they pull him towards them. ‘Yuh good?’ Mandisa asked casually, looking like a vision in a short denim skirt and a see-through, long-sleeved shirt. He got up and shook Mr Sheppard’s hand again. ‘Later. Take care.’ ‘Right-o.’

***

He knew he should ask her about the salon and promise to massage her feet. He knew she stood for hours on end doing braids or weaves and whatever hairstyles women were claiming they couldn’t live without these days. On their first date, he’d interrogated her – her words, and a claim he always denied – about having a head full of dreadlocks whilst making money working with fake hair all day. In turn, she’d accused him of myopia and being out of touch with how younger

people, women, saw themselves. He should ask her about her week. But the truth was he just wanted to hold her tightly. Feel the soft material of her shirt, his hands across the clearly visible white bra, bury his nose in the scent of the black coconut oil that moisturised her hair and guess the perfume she was wearing. But they were arguing even before he got onto the main road running parallel to the harbour. ‘You don’t understand.’ ‘I understand that this is an opportunity to reunite with your father. That’s amazing.’ ‘What amazing about it, exactly? Please, tell me.’ ‘Someone you thought was, well, for all intents and purposes, dead, come back to life.’ ‘You realise how ridiculous that sound? He was dead to me, in a way, he still dead to me because I ain’t see or hear head nor tail of him. But now that he, as you say, come back to life, he close to death’s door anyway. So he might be dead again soon. For real this time. See how crazy it sound? What business I have getting involved in all of that?’ ‘So, you thought about it already? You make up your mind?’ ‘I ain’t make up anything. I’m still thinking.’ ‘What’s there to think about? Yes, you need to find out the whole story but that’s secondary. You got a second chance at having a father.’ She crossed her long legs and folded her arms. And even though she was craning her head to look out onto the harbour, he knew her pout could damn near kiss the window. ‘Do you know what I would give to have my mother back?’ ‘This isn’t about you.’ He had expected the conversation to go down this route, as it almost always did. ‘I know that,’ she said. He could hear the words fighting to get out through gritted teeth. ‘I was just trying to say that, no matter the circumstances, he is alive. Alive to talk to and share things with. Didn’t you ever wish you could

share things with your father?’ ‘Not a piece of my fucking liver.’ Everyone always assumed people like him longed for the absent parent. He honestly wasn’t sure if he did or didn’t. Could someone miss what they’d never had? Hell fucking yes, of course, especially if they had an active imagination. But people weren’t in active imagination most times of the day, or most days of the week. Most times, people, especially kids, just got on with life as it came. Every year at Trinity Hill Primary, in the week before Father’s Day, he would be given a sheet of colourful cardboard and a set of crayons. With these he made vibrant and elaborate cards for his grandfather or one of his many uncles. Some years he made a card for his mother. She loved these no end. Now he wondered. Was he as unaffected as he’d told himself? He sifted through the mist of long-buried memories, even giving it a deliberate, revisionist slant. But no clarity came. ‘Sorry.’ As he drove into the parking lot, he reached for Mandisa’s hand, which was buried in the crux of her still-folded arms. ‘I was wrong to speak like that. I know you miss your mom. But at least you her, right?’ They took the elevator five floors to his apartment. As soon as they entered he went to the bathroom. When he returned to the living room, he found Mandisa curled up on the couch with a beer. The sound of Alicia Keys came softly through the speakers. When he looked closer he saw a book in her hand. Their Eyes Were Watching God. It was an olive branch and he took it. ‘I think if I read this book again, it would be totally different,’ she said, flipping the pages with her thumb. He positioned himself behind her and she lay on his chest. On the book’s inside cover the worn Ree/LeaveMe sticker was still there. They snickered at her comments in the margins. He ed the instant pull they’d exerted, the references to Jane Austen, Derek Walcott and Frantz Fanon, a shortcut into the wonders of her mind. Her clear Trinidadian roots gave him a palpable sense of possibility that he found intoxicating. Because of that he’d devoured much of the

book during his journey from King’s Cross to Heathrow. ‘I didn’t actually plan on leaving the book on the tube, you know that, right?’ she said. ‘But that’s the idea, babe.’ ‘Well, the plan was to leave it on the Eurostar from Paris, but I forgot. When I ed I was already at King’s Cross, so I just left it on the tube.’ ‘And I’m glad you did.’ He kissed her on the mouth lightly, parting her lips with subtle suggestiveness. She sat astride him and they continued kissing. He nibbled her neck. Dolce & Gabbana’s Pour Femme, bought for her in Miami the previous summer. He was sure of it. She moaned softly. ‘Do you think people still do that?’ She reached for the last of her beer. ‘What? Leave books on trains for other people to find? Not sure. Don’t even know if those people, that company, I mean, are still around.’ He wondered how many relationships, successful, that is, had been born out of Ree/LeaveMe. Probably no more than a handful. More likely it was responsible for creating a number of relationships people thought they should be having. You picked up a book left by someone you were convinced could be your soul mate, just by the choice of book or their immortal scribbles on the pages. Cruel, really, the overpowering suggestion that the right person had just jumped off a train, maybe minutes earlier, and all that was left was a small, intriguing bit of themselves. Maddening, yes. But he’d been a little more persistent. ‘What if you hadn’t signed your name in that book?’ He was gently brushing her cheek with the outside of his fingers. ‘Where would you and I be now?’ ‘You’d be trawling the internet stalking some other chick.’ ‘Did I stalk you?’ The sunset’s reddish glow streamed through the sliding door, giving the room a warm light. ‘Yes.’ And she brought her mouth to his with an aggression he loved but didn’t

often see. They made love on the couch, quick, with a slight hint of savage. He figured her sexual audacity was meant to distract him, to give his mind a rest from having to think about anything, and to make him feel as though he could be on top of everything. He loved her for it, even if it didn’t entirely take the whiff away from their earlier argument. ‘So, we need to talk about your father,’ she said, pulling on her panties. And just like that the whiff became a stink and he closed his eyes.

***

He took her home just after 9pm, earlier than usual, after she’d laboured her point and ended up making him feel as though he was the one being selfish and unreasonable. ‘Your mother is hurting and your dad is sick. You the only one here that’s totally indulging in your emotions without thinking about anyone else,’ were her last words before she stepped out of the car. Dad? Who was this ‘dad’, all of a sudden, he wanted to ask her. But instead, he watched her walk to her front door before driving off. He decided to drop in at the hospital. He wasn’t the duty nurse in charge but already Caroline, still new to this responsibility, had called him twice that evening for advice. Three patients in the Scarlet Ibis ward had, it appeared, coordinated their psychotic episodes to result in what felt like complete chaos. But when he walked into the ward’s common area, some of the psychoses, which he sometimes thought of as real entities, had been strangled into submission by modern medicine. The place was dead quiet. Bellies heaved in spectacular rhythm. Mouths drooled. Eyes were vacant. Monica was sitting on a chair watching a muted television.

‘I think there’s a re-run of Dallas on Channel 6,’ he whispered to her. ‘You like that one, don’t you?’ ‘No,’ she responded flatly. ‘Since when?’ ‘Since I realised I’m not in it.’ He chuckled but she stared at him, expressionless. He got up and headed for the nurses’ office. ‘Thanks for coming in.’ Caroline’s voice sounded as tired as she looked. ‘We’ve given Colin another five millilitres of Clonazepam. That’s in addition to his night meds, so honestly I don’t know what’s up with him.’ ‘What happened?’ ‘He went down the ladies’ corridor and into Claudette’s room. Then told her she must take him back to St Vincent.’ ‘St Vincent?’ ‘Don’t ask,’ she said with a wave of the hand. ‘Last week it was Barbados. He’s been as high as a kite lately. But he’s asleep now. So, how you doing?’ He didn’t know Caroline that well. But even if he had wanted to unburden himself to her, before he could open his mouth he spotted Colin tumbling down the men’s corridor, his long, spidery arms pushing his skinny frame off the walls with every few steps. ‘You said you topped him up?’ Ché said over his shoulder to Caroline. ‘Colin? C’mon, man, what’s this behaviour?’ ‘I have to go home,’ Colin slurred. Ché put two hands on Colin’s shoulders. ‘Come and go in yuh bed.’ Ché called to two young male nursing assistants. Together they escorted Colin back to his room, Ché twisting Colin’s right arm behind him and pressing the

wrist down in a classic restraint. They met Caroline walking briskly down the corridor, a small plastic cup with a clear liquid in her hand. ‘I’ve checked with Dr Hosein,’ she said, breathing hard through her nose. ‘He can still have 5ml of Lorazepam but then that’s it. If after that he still mad, then God put a hand.’ ‘A foot and a nose,’ one of the nursing assistants said quietly before they both started giggling softly. ‘I think he’ll be okay for now,’ Ché said. ‘But maybe keep that in the sluice room just in case. I’ll make a quick check down the female corridor.’ As he got to the end he heard a loud, one-sided conversation from Claudette’s room. Peering through the small square window at the top of the door, he saw her gesticulating excitedly, her eyes shining and her teeth glistening against her dark skin. She was asking questions, some clearly of a serious nature, and was tickled by the responses. The tilt of her head suggested her companion or companions resided somewhere between the space above the bedroom door and the ceiling. He knocked. ‘Claudette?’ ‘Well, Nurse Alexander. What you doing on night shift?’ Her room was crammed with framed family photos. Anthuriums, daisies and sunflowers sat in cloudy, greenish water in plastic vases. ‘What is this Nurse Alexander business? You know you must call me Ché. I needed to see Caroline about something. How you feeling?’ ‘Me? Wonderful.’ She looked genuinely happy, not like someone who’d been through the revolving door of the psychiatric system for over thirty years. ‘You want something extra for the night?’ ‘I done take my meds already, thanks.’ ‘Yes, but … a top-up? It sounded like the voices bothering you.’

‘Why you think they bothering me?’ She got down on her knees and pulled her slippers from beneath the bed. ‘I like them.’ ‘You don’t want them to quiet down a bit?’ ‘No, no. That’s me mammy there.’ She pointed to the ceiling. ‘I talk to her all the time. My aunt just next to her. You see she? And my godfather come too sometimes. Why you think I want to stop hearing their voices?’ He searched her face, looking for the madness that had brought her here. But all he saw in her was calm. ‘But the reason you’re here is for us to help you stop hearing the voices.’ ‘So you say. You and the doctors. But that’s not what makes me happy. I good just like this. Is my damn daughter that like to call the ambulance every time she get worried about me.’ So, Claudette was happy living a life that conformed to no one’s expectations. Had he been doing the same, living contentedly with his mother for all these years? Society told him he needed a father just like they told Claudette she needed medication to drown out voices that no one else heard. But Claudette was happy and he had been too – up until now. ‘What’s the matter, doo-doo darling?’ she drawled, edging closer, smelling like Ovaltine. ‘Something bothering you, eh? Tell me. Tell me.’ With her eyes wide she suddenly looked as crazed as her thirty-year-old file suggested. He stepped back and excused himself. As he walked past the nurses’ office, he felt his phone ringing. His mother. He waved to Caroline and headed for the door.

Trevor

It was as Alvaro was pulling on his Calvin Kleins, snapping the white elastic with a smug, conquistadorial air, that Trevor saw the beginnings of his next series of paintings. He practically shouted when Alvaro reached across the bed to grab his T-shirt, his contoured leg making an almost perfect right angle. ‘Stop. I need a photo.’ He pulled open the bedside table drawer and reached in carefully for the bulky camera. Alvaro grinned and began pulling his underwear off again. ‘Just the legs,’ Trevor said, fitting the shorter lens on. ‘My legs?’ Alvaro placed his palms open on either side of his thighs, looking down at them as if he’d never really noticed their definition before. He pulled his muscles taut so that the hamstrings bulged, and stood in various turned out poses like a ballerina taking a break during a rehearsal, before putting one leg on the bed and resting his elbow on it. ‘Bien?’ ‘Relax,’ Trevor said, pulling the camera around his neck. ‘Seriously, it’s just the legs I want. Natural. Not tensed or anything. Just normal.’ ‘Well, I’m glad I could be your inspiration. Your, how do you say it … ah, sí, your muse.’ Muse? Sure, muse conjured up a faraway, Renaissance period that was just the thing to remove from the reality of his present-day Clapham. But the truth was, in the coming weeks he was planning to photograph the legs of the homeless man outside the nearby Tesco, the sprinter with the prosthesis Carl had talked about, and Edith, the fat social worker who lived next door. Carl. He clicked mindlessly for some seconds. ‘Do you gym every day?’ He moved around Alvaro, letting his camera dip to the

tight butt where the soft black cotton was in the midst of a gentle pull. ‘Few times a week. Only to help with my cycling though. Hey, I’m doing a cycle tour in Barcelona in a couple weeks. You should come with me.’ Trevor looked at him. ‘You can’t be serious. I just met you.’ ‘Yeah, you just met me.’ Alvaro looked around the bedroom. ‘And we’re here.’ ‘That’s different.’ He hoped this wasn’t going to prise open some sort of philosophical debate about the sanctity of sex. Don’t ask why, he chanted in his mind. Don’t ask why. ‘¿Por qué?’ ‘It just is.’ He sighed, taking the camera from around his neck. ‘It was sex. We’re adults. Let’s just keep it … things … uncomplicated. Okay?’ Alvaro lay back on his elbows, his six-pack like some sort of human grater. ‘Really, are those the only photos you want to take of me?’ He was stroking his crotch, eventually pulling out his erect penis to look at it with fascination. Trevor exhaled slowly, willing his face not to react. He needed to get this guy out of here. But he could feel his expression shifting and his cheeks push up slightly. The veins on Alvaro’s dick were bulging and criss-crossing like a language, beckoning him. Christ, you want to fuck the guy, he told himself, so fuck him. Just don’t pretend to be Coetzee up in here. He picked up the camera again. Click. Click. He could feel the framing slightly off this time. ‘Ven aquí,’ Alvaro whispered, stretching out his arm. Trevor shivered as Alvaro ed his fingers over his newly shaven head, his skin unexpectedly inflamed with goosebumps. ‘This is so fucking wrong,’ Trevor said softly, before finding Alvaro’s lips.

***

Afterwards, as Alvaro used the bathroom, Trevor sat on the bed deleting the nude photos. He shook his head, biting his lip in a mock gesture of despair as the pictures disappeared one by one. He lingered over a photo of both of them he’d taken using the timer. Alvaro, with his black wavy hair hanging just over his eyebrows, high cheekbones and dark eyes, looked wild and playful against Trevor’s more serious expression, the slightly over-exposed photo giving his skin a saintly glow. A saint was the last thing he was at this point in time. He calculated he had just under two hours to clean the house, including washing and drying the bed sheets, and cooking the dinner before Carl got home. That meant the thirty-minute cycle. Hopefully, Carl wouldn’t notice the shoddy treatment of his five-hundred-count Egyptian cotton sheets. Despite his prods to hurry things along, Alvaro spent several precious minutes looking at the painting of three laughing women in a crowded fish market above the console table. ‘Nice. Pero …’ ‘Huh?’ ‘Just one of those things that look better from far away. I mean, they not even really looking at each other. Is like no connection between them. And this lady, her one eye is looking too much off to the right.’ Trevor looked at him. He’d said the exact thing to himself after Carl had hung it. He couldn’t fathom why Carl thought this was the best of his paintings from his first year in graduate school. ‘You paint?’ ‘Me? No. I work freelance graphic designer for a bunch of magazines. So I have, how can I say it, a bit of an eye.’ Alvaro pointed to the painting. ‘Who’s the artist?’ ‘No one. Time to go.’ Alvaro pointed to a framed photo of Carl and Trevor in the London Eye just

beneath the painting. ‘That’s him?’ ‘Who else?’ ‘He’s white.’ ‘Yeah, so are you.’ ‘Well, I’m Chilean. That’s Latin American, not white.’ ‘Can we have the cultural debate another time?’ One hour, forty-five minutes to go. ‘I mean, with your history in South Africa and all. Isn’t it strange for you to be with a white guy?’ ‘No. And this is London. No one gives a flying fuck.’ He opened the door and pressed the small of Alvaro’s back. ‘I’ll call you later.’ ‘Wait.’ Sighing, feeling the air coursing hotly through his nose, was literally having no effect on the irritation stuck somewhere between his stomach and chest. ‘Yes?’ ‘What if it wasn’t just sex for me?’ Fuck.

***

Fuck. The cupboards were bare. Something his friend Zainabu wouldn’t believe. She, without shame, still thought of gays as people who had lives chock-full of shoes, brightly coloured shirts, spices taking up two shelves in a walk-in pantry, street art hanging unframed. Bare? You mean you have to resort to that bottle of

massaman curry sauce you bought from Marks and Sparks because, oh my, you’re all out of curry leaves? she would sneer. But the cupboards really were empty and, come to think of it, it was her fault. He would’ve done the shopping yesterday had she not called and dragged him to her Cuban salsa class at Casa Caliente. It was where he’d met Alvaro, thrown back too many tequila shots and ended up groping him in the alleyway alongside the restaurant. He tried to tell her that was her fault too, to which she graphically pointed out that despite her many skills, her long arms couldn’t reach through walls and fit protruding parts into willing holes. They’d met in the first week of the first semester, totally by accident, at one of Goldsmith’s campus bars and hit it off almost immediately. ‘Seriously, Zai,’ he told her after their third pitcher of margarita. ‘How many degrees are you going to chalk up before you accept the fact that you gonna have to get a job eventually? This is what? Your third Bachelor’s? Second Master’s? I can think of better places your father can put all that Nigerian oil money.’ ‘I can think of a place too.’ He looked in the cupboards again, moving half-empty packets around and making no attempt to throw out expired stuff. Where had he heard that expiry dates were merely suggestions? And weren’t there supermarkets somewhere in the back canals of Copenhagen that sold only expired goods? He worked out that there were at least two dishes he could rustle up if Carl could forgive the absence of an ingredient or two: quinoa with tomato but no thyme, or Nigerian red bean stew with no peanut sauce. able but not particularly exciting. Christ. Maybe Zainabu had a point. When had he become so … gay? Hadn’t he grown up on fish paste sandwiches and slap chips drowned in salt and vinegar? Before he’d gotten lost in Cézanne at London’s National Gallery, hadn’t he lost himself in the icy waters of the coloured beaches around Cape Town, wishing he could swim to the horizon? No doubt some of his family were, at this very moment, doing nothing to dispel certain stereotypes about coloureds. Drunk, unemployed and denying the babies on the hips of women who knocked on the front door. He could run to the shops to get the missing ingredients but the light rain was threatening to turn nasty. And anyway, he didn’t feel like going out.

His phone beeped. He ignored it. Probably Alvaro. He hoped he was wrong but just before he’d closed the door on Alvaro for good, he thought he saw a fatalattraction-bunny-boiler glint in his eyes. More beeps. When the phone rang he flopped his head back on the cushions, cursing the price of casual sex. But he still peered over to look at the number. Not Alvaro. ‘Hello? Can you hear me?’ His mother always shouted on the phone even though the line was as clear as if she was speaking over the wall to Miss Florentine. ‘Hello, my boy. How are you?’ ‘Great, Mummy. You? How’s everyone?’ ‘I’m going to put you on speaker. Aunty Ruth just came over to drop off some crayfish.’ ‘Hello?’ a female voice said. ‘Trevor?’ ‘Hi, Aunty.’ ‘Hello, my sweetheart. How are you? How you coping with the winter over there?’ He laughed. ‘I’m managing. After three years I’m used to it. It’s not winter, though. We’ve just started our autumn. How’s Kendall?’ ‘Ooh, don’t ask. He’s trying his best to kill me but by the grace of God, I’m staying strong.’ One by one his nieces and nephews came on the phone and he dutifully asked about school and extramural activities. They moved on quickly and he was barely able to finish a sentence before another voice came on. ‘But why can’t you send even ten pounds?’ Ellie asked, always the most precocious of them. ‘Do you know how much that is in rands? Almost two hundred!’ ‘It would take me a lot more than that to send it,’ Trevor said, amused by the idea that no matter the era, children never failed to have a wide-eyed fantasy

about faraway places. ‘And what would you do with two hundred rands?’ ‘Make-up. Airtime. Gifts for my squad.’ He pictured her walking home from school in knee-high socks and a too-short skirt, skipping over puddles and laughing with friends. Was she even aware of the scale of drugs sold, sniffed, injected, in her two-kilometre walk between home and school? He realised the voices on the other end of the phone were receding. Silence. ‘Hello?’ ‘Hey, bra.’ The voice was slow, low. Mischievous. ‘Hey, Bones.’ Hadn’t Mummy thrown him out? ‘What you up to these days?’ ‘You mean if I’m living here or not? If I’m behaving?’ ‘Well, are you?’ ‘Have some faith, Trev. I’m starting a new job next week.’ Starting wasn’t ever the problem. ‘That’s good. Where?’ ‘Yusuf asked his dad to try me out as a driver.’ ‘I didn’t know you got your licence.’ He opened the fridge and looked for the sparkling water amid the sports drinks and V8. ‘Got it back, I mean.’ ‘I sorted something out.’ He closed the fridge, causing the notices to flutter against their magnets. His semester schedule, with its mandatory visits to the Tate Modern, was pinioned by a colourful tiled Barcelona magnet beside an Eiffel Tower. Flyers for art exhibitions criss-crossed chaotically over Carl’s printed, perfectly upright, workrelated invitations and reminders. Four magnets secured these invites, one per corner. In every one the date, time, venue and dress code were highlighted in bright colours. ‘You there?’ Bones asked.

‘Yeah. Good luck with the new job. Who else can I say hi to over there?’ He quickly calculated the time. Francine would have just left for her night shift at the hospital. ‘Listen, bra, I need a favour.’ Trevor figured Bones had stepped outside. The wind howled through the phone like large pieces of paper being continuously crumpled. Also, he could tell Bones was putting his hand over the mouthpiece to speak. Trevor exhaled loudly, feeling the sound tickling his throat. He didn’t care to hear about a new scheme, knowing that when it came to Bones, the noun and the verb were one and the same thing. And shit, there was a chance they were out of fabric softener. ‘Trev, can you hear me? I need a favour.’ ‘I haven’t got money right now.’ ‘Well, that’s fucked up. How do you know that’s what I’m going to ask you?’ Why hadn’t his mother, with all her acute senses, sniffed out that Bones and phone had disappeared from her radar? He was probably behind the Wendy house, although Lizelle or any of her three kids should’ve heard him by now. He could picture Bones leaning against the wooden structure, his left hand deep in his jeans pocket, kicking mindlessly at the succulents peeking out of the sand and struggling grass. His light brown eyes would be darting around, willing the latest plot to come together. ‘What is it, then?’ ‘I mean, I’m not asking you to just give me money. It would be a loan. I’m starting work next week, I told you.’ ‘What do you need money for?’ ‘I told you, I start a gig soon. I’m gonna need some decent clothes.’ ‘You just said you gonna be a fucking driver. You need a three-piece for that?’

‘I still need to look decent, Trev. And I’m gonna need travel money to get to work and back until I get paid. And what if I’m out as far as, I don’t know, Paternoster or George, and I have to get my own lunch every day?’ Trevor ran his hands over his head and closed his eyes. Wasn’t twenty-nine still too young to assume total responsibility for his family? He didn’t open his eyes as he spoke. ‘Bones, I really haven’t got money to send right now.’ ‘Shit, man, the pound is like a thousand to one now. It’s nothing for you. But like a ton of rands for us.’ ‘It is something for me.’ Trevor felt a pinching heat beneath his T-shirt as his voice rose. ‘And we don’t pay the bills here in rands.’ ‘Do you pay any bills at all?’ ‘What the fuck does that mean?’ ‘Look, I’m sorry. Trev, please.’ There were heaves and hisses in between the words. ‘I’m in trouble.’ ‘Are you still on that shit?’ Trevor was shouting now. Over the years, how many items of little monetary but huge sentimental value had disappeared out of their mother’s living room cabinet? ‘No, no, I promise you, I’m not. But …’ ‘But?’ ‘There’s still some guys I owe.’ ‘When you going to get your life together, Justin?’ He’d called him by his Christian name, a move they both knew heightened the gravity of the conversation. ‘When you going to stop putting Mummy through this?’ ‘I’m trying.’ The words were hollowed out and staccatoed by the crackling wind. ‘We can’t all be perfect like you.’ Trevor drained the water bottle. He wasn’t going to get drawn into this. Growing up at the mercy of what their mother could find lying around the kitchen, they’d

all eaten from the same unimaginative pot. They’d all smelled the same stale beer and cheap wine that surged out of their father’s mouth almost daily and at double the usual frequency come Friday evening. No one had escaped the fights, the swear words that couldn’t help but ricochet sharply between the cramped walls. They’d all, in their own ways, tried to limbo beneath, slink through, and leap over the web of shitty genetics and hard luck they’d known for most of their lives. For Bones, though, the web had been a bit stickier. He wanted to ask Bones how much he needed, more because the amount would tell him the degree of trouble the egghead had gotten himself into. But he kept quiet. Bones was bound to see any questioning as wilting resolve on Trevor’s part. He stood silently over the side table in the corner of the living room, fingering the stained-glass lamp, the uneven ridges giving him a peculiar inner calm. ‘I can’t, Bones. I’m sorry.’ Trevor could hear his mother’s shrill voice advancing in the background, asking questions in quick succession without waiting for answers. He pressed the phone against his ear, hoping to hear the resounding klap he was sure his mother’s hand was about to make against the back of his brother’s head. Even though it didn’t happen, or maybe he just didn’t hear it, he found himself laughing. ‘Trevor, don’t listen to any of his nonsense,’ his mother said. ‘You hear me? Not a bit of it, my boy.’ For the remaining ten minutes of the call she ed the phone around, even to Miss Florentine just over the wall.

***

‘Mom sends her love,’ Trevor said to Carl as soon as he walked through the door. She hadn’t really but he was sure she’d intended to. He wondered if shoving one’s jolly-faced mother and her manufactured greetings into the conversation wasn’t too obvious an attempt to liven up the atmosphere. ‘How is she?’ Carl asked, hanging up his coat.

‘Everyone is fine. Bones is asking for money again.’ ‘And how much are you going to send this time?’ Carl peered into the kitchen, which made Trevor aware of the absence of mess and aromas. That must make as loud a statement as the lack of Coltrane, who always kept him company while he cooked. Seemed like only yesterday they used to eat in bed, Egyptian cotton and all, drink wine, watch television, and make love. In that or any order. ‘I’m not sending any.’ He felt his indignant tone wavering under Carl’s one upturned eyebrow. ‘Not this time.’ Carl walked over to the couch, bent down and kissed Trevor lightly on the lips. As he was about to move away, Trevor grabbed his chin, which, along with Carl’s inflamed cheeks, had brought in the cold. In the early days, such predatory urgency would have been a highway to all manner of ions. Now, every dart of the tongue felt like it was trying to erase something, will away the fragrancefree kitchen and over-fragrant sheets. Or call something back. ‘I’m sorry about dinner,’ Trevor whispered. ‘Can we order in?’ ‘Let’s go out,’ Carl said, sitting down on the couch. ‘Out? It’s raining.’ ‘It’s drizzling. Let’s go to Little Axum.’ ‘Hmmm. Boks Head?’ Was going back to their first meeting place trying too hard? ‘I’d prefer Little Axum.’ Axum’s living room feel, its suggestion of intimacy, was just what he didn’t want. Leaning back on soft colourful cushions, feeling their strain in a place that was like home but not home was too much mental energy. Still, he knew they had to devour the dishes and cheap prices while it lasted. Buoyed by a review from the Guardian or TimeOut, it could all change in an instant. ‘Uber?’ Carl was already heading to the bedroom to change. ‘Let’s just walk.’

***

Trevor watched Carl move through the persistent drizzle. He’d refused to share Trevor’s umbrella, annoyed by the constant need to negotiate the small space while bumping into people on the narrow pavements. Carl’s head, largely obscured by a faux fur-lined hoodie, was at a downward angle, his hands deep in his pockets. It reminded Trevor of the Harrow half marathon the previous year when Carl had trudged through the mud and rain to the finish line. Trevor’d been on the side, a few metres away from the end, cheering madly and calling Carl’s name. But Carl hadn’t noticed. He’d led his body with the top of his head, sliced through the rain as though each drop was a dagger he had to repel. His face had been creased with pain and anguish. Of course, it was probably just running for nearly two hours and fifteen minutes in London’s miserable excuse for a summer, but Trevor couldn’t shake the impression he’d had at the time – that Carl had been trying to penetrate some kind of invisible barrier with each heavy step. ‘Welcome back.’ The whites in the hostess’s eyes matched her smile and her long, light cotton dress. The air in the restaurant was warm and thick with roasting coffee beans and berbere. They sat on small wicker stools crowned with cushions made of brightly coloured Ethiopian textiles, glossy in places and reflecting variations of the Coptic cross in others. After they’d ordered, Carl ed Trevor a magazine. ‘Ever heard of this? Who’s Who Out of South Africa?’ Trevor sipped on a glass of red wine. ‘I’m guessing it’s a take on Who’s Who in South Africa?’ ‘Yep. Great South Africans with amazing skills and resources, doing amazing things overseas and contributing absolutely nothing to their country.’ Trevor sniggered. ‘That’s a cynical way to look at it. You could put a positive

spin on it. You know, like, “ambassadors for South Africa” or “putting South Africa on the global stage”, “ripening South African minds to return home to make a difference”.’ He was gesticulating, tracing imaginary headlines in the air. ‘Turn to page five.’ Trevor flipped past ads for Amarula and rooibos tea. ‘Wow.’ He tucked his chin in a little, giving Carl a big smile. But seriously though, when had this interview even happened and how could Carl not have told him about it? ‘Can I read a bit? “Before Dr Carl Kleinhans began performing living donor liver transplants at London’s Hallington Hospital, he was part of an international team of doctors who spent nearly ten months in Kerala, India, trying to contain the deadly Nipah virus. Kleinhans, who began his medical career as a gastroenterologist at Johannesburg Hospital, knew his career path was determined on Christmas Day 1986 when his father bought him the first toy he could – a medical kit.”’ ‘Please, stop. Seriously, I can’t even hear that shit.’ ‘Why? It’s a good write-up. What, they got something wrong?’ ‘Not factually incorrect. Just … incomplete.’ ‘What do you mean?’ ‘I mean anyone reading that would think I’m this great guy –’ Carl reached for a napkin and wiped the right side of his mouth even though there wasn’t a morsel of food there. ‘You are.’ ‘I mean, that that’s all there is to me. These things that I’ve done. Like that’s the whole story.’ ‘Give the rest of us in the non-medical world some credit, Carl. We’re not so simple. We get that people are complicated. No writer, no matter his skills, can get someone’s life on one page.’ ‘I don’t mean that. I mean … aren’t they exaggerating a bit? Not everything I’ve

done is so amazing.’ ‘Well, everyone has skeletons, stuff that’s happened to them. I’m sure the ten people who’re gonna read this magazine know that.’ ‘I’m not being funny. But … what if some things are bad enough to cancel out all the good you’ve done?’ It was a child-like way of putting things. Not like Carl at all. What the hell was going on? ‘Well, have you done something bad enough to reverse all the good you’ve done?’ ‘No, no, of course not.’ But Carl said it too quickly and, Trevor noticed, had taken a sip of spiced tea that anyone could see was too hot. ‘Fuck.’ Trevor drained his glass and motioned to the waitress for another. ‘You’re kinda scaring me. Is there something you need to tell me?’ ‘No, don’t be silly.’ ‘I mean, I know your dad was a bit of an asshole.’ Carl blew on the tea. ‘A bit?’ ‘You’ve been saying you’re going to start writing down some of your memories of him. Try to understand why he was the way he was. You making any headway on that?’ ‘Nah. Not sure I want to spend the time trying to figure him out.’ ‘It wouldn’t be just figuring him out, Carl. It would be figuring yourself out too.’ ‘Actually, I already have him figured out.’ ‘Yeah, but I’m saying it’s about you –’ ‘You know my dad’s dad had a few kids with a few different women, right?’ Trying to direct the conversation to a place that Carl didn’t want to go was

pointless. Trevor reached for his wine again. ‘Yeah, I know.’ ‘So his dad was hardly ever around. But then again, who would want someone like that around? Anyway, I think, although my dad had more opportunities than his own father – better paying job, a stable family, ha ha, a decent house – he never felt he did much better than him. My dad never made any real money, wasn’t promoted in the police force. Wasn’t shrewd enough or couldn’t think strategically enough. I think he knew something was stopping him from having this bigger life he felt he was owed but he couldn’t figure out what it was. Why are we talking about this again?’ ‘We were talking about the article.’ ‘Oh yeah.’ ‘And you seemed a bit … like there was something you wanted to say.’ ‘Nah, it’s nothing. It’s just weird to see your life summed up like that, that’s all.’ But it wasn’t all. Still, he knew Carl well enough to know nothing was going to be revealed over the massive plate of assorted dishes the waitress had just placed in front of them. Half the plate was filled with vegetables and in the centre a perfect circle of shiro, a rich, powdered chickpea sauce. On Trevor’s half, two chicken legs swam in a spicy berbere sauce, topped with a boiled egg. She poured warm water over their rubbing hands and collected it in a bowl below. ‘Well, babe, congrats. Let’s drink to you.’ They raised their glasses. Later, in bed, Trevor hugged Carl from behind. ‘You’re something out of South Africa,’ he whispered. ‘And everyone should know it.’ The silence that followed was a sign of where they were and where they were headed. Trevor rolled over onto his back, listening to the sounds of the traffic outside, willing sleep to come.

***

‘I knew you couldn’t stay away.’ Alvaro poured warm oil on Trevor’s back. ‘Well, you’re fucking persistent, I’ll give you that.’ ‘So is that why you called me back?’ ‘I thought the best way to get you out of my system was to fuck you out of my system.’ ‘Oh, so I’m in your system?’ Alvaro gave a quiet laugh. He began to work his thumbs into Trevor’s shoulders. ‘No, you’re not.’ But the words were lost in the doughy bulk of Alvaro’s pillow. Trevor’s eyes fluttered and he succumbed to the firm, sensual movements across his body.

Joel

What’s the bloody fuss, he wanted to say to Niamh. It’s only death. He reckoned that in the time he’d been sitting at the kitchen table watching a film form on top of his half-drunk coffee, dozens of people around the world had died. Some at peace. Some poor buggers without the slightest bit of warning. So he was going to die. Was that a real tragedy? True, his mother, God rest her soul, would be sad he’d checked out just five years short of his allotted three score and ten. But, generally, their lot weren’t the type to get overly emotional about things. At family wakes his Uncle Colm would always raise a glass and say, ‘Death. That’s one fecking fiddler you know’s bound to show up.’ No chance Niamh would be that nonchalant though. She was pottering around their cramped kitchen, purposeless and distracted. Every few seconds she stopped and inhaled slightly as if she was going to say something. Then she gave her eyelashes an extended flutter before shaking her head and moving to the next futile thing. ‘Something on your mind?’ He shuffled through the half a dozen used scratch cards littering the kitchen table. ‘What?’ ‘Is there something you want to say?’ Her exhalation was audible, exaggerated and downright irritating. ‘Is that a no?’ he asked, surprised by the patient tone of his own voice. ‘No.’ Joel glanced down at the headlines in the Daily Mail. Scores dead in another bombing in Syria. He felt a certain sick vindication for his earlier internal rant.

His stomach ached. He reached over to the empty packet of Camels and swore under his breath before tossing it to the other side of the table. He looked at her, bent over looking in the cupboard for the saucepan. The faded green dressing gown, with its better days behind it, stretched across her wide ass. He ed the days when he would find her in that position and his only thought would be to sneak up behind her and lift up her clothes. They slid off easily back then. Now he could predict her every move. He waited for her to put the saucepan on the front right burner, one of the two working. After touching it quickly with her fingers she put in two circles of cooking oil before twirling it from side to side. She cracked four eggs in succession with one hand. He was expecting her to reach over and pull open the top drawer, rummage through it and pull out the cream-coloured spatula. But instead she just stood still, staring down at the large yolks, the whites around them getting crispy. Then her shoulders began to shake. Blimey, was she going to cry into the eggs? He went to her. ‘Aw, c’mon. Don’t make this a big deal.’ ‘Well, it is.’ She sniffed and reached for a paper towel. ‘Joe, you’re going to die if something doesn’t happen soon.’ Is that what you were chatting to Dr Kleinhans about, he wanted to ask her, but didn’t. He shrugged. ‘People die.’ ‘What?’ She blew her nose, the coarseness of the paper towel causing her nose to redden slightly. ‘People die.’ He pointed to the newspaper on the table but she just looked around the kitchen, confused. ‘What are you saying?’ They hadn’t been this close, facing each other, in a long time. Her breath had a sourness to it. He couldn’t pinpoint when exactly the corners of her eyes, her cheeks, the sides of the mouth had just all given up and in to gravity. ‘Look,’ he began. But he winced in pain and leaned over the sink. He felt

Niamh’s hand on his back, the hesitation in her touch. It made him unreasonably angry. If she was going to hug him, then she should hug him. ‘Look. I don’t want pity or nothing resembling it. Okay?’ ‘Well, I can’t just sit here and do nothing. I have to do something.’ ‘You are.’ He gestured to the stove. ‘But them eggs are burning.’ Niamh narrowed her eyes. As he stepped back and opened the top drawer, she rattled things around before reaching for the spatula. She fished the eggs out and put them on a plate beside the sink. ‘Don’t get upset,’ she said as she threw four sausages and two pieces of black pudding into the now egg-flavoured oil, ‘but –’ ‘Nothing that starts like that ever ends well,’ he said, digging into her bag for her Marlboro Lights. ‘I called Abigail.’ He looked up slowly. He wanted to see her expression but her head was bent, supposedly occupied with the business of frying. Had he heard correctly? ‘I told her about you.’ Had she really said the name Abigail as though she were some distant cousin they hadn’t had over to tea in a while? ‘What?’ he managed to whisper. A coldness had gripped his insides, deepening and moving around the pain he was already feeling. Instead of the warm, healing hands he’d secretly hoped she would place on him a few moments ago, she’d delivered a swift, powerful punch. He stood up quickly. Too quickly. The chair behind him fell on its back with a loud crash, making Niamh jump. When she turned to look at him there was fear in her eyes but a defiant set to her mouth. ‘You did what?’ he growled in a low voice.

‘It’s … it’s an option,’ she stammered. ‘It’s a maybe. That thing I was telling you about. What the doctor said. The living donor thing. I told her about that. And, well, it’s an option, isn’t it? Something we can at least talk about.’ ‘But we didn’t fucking talk about it, did we? You just did it.’ ‘Because I knew you would act like this.’ She went behind him and put the chair upright. ‘And who’s going to do this liver thing?’ She stared at him. ‘Well … you know …’ ‘No. I want you to say it. Say his name. The name you barely know. The person you’ve never seen but who you see fit to volunteer to, what? Save my life? Say it. You stupid …’ ‘What? Bitch? Cunt?’ She was still holding the spatula. Maybe she was going to dip it in the hot oil and sprinkle him with it, like back in the days when he stumbled in drunk as she was making breakfast. ‘I’m a bitch for wanting to help you?’ ‘I never said you were a bitch,’ he mumbled before he sat back down. ‘But Abigail? That’s crazy.’ ‘Why? Why is it so crazy? Why can’t we just consider talking to her about it?’ ‘It’s not her we need to be talking to,’ he shouted. But he might as well have been in another room. Niamh just rambled on in a daze. ‘What happened with you two? For the love of God, just tell me what happened with the two of you that makes it so insane?’ He wanted to tell her that she was the insane one, thinking that a woman he hadn’t seen in over thirty years and a son whom he hadn’t laid eyes on since he was a baby, would even contemplate helping him. That was what he wanted to shout out.

But deep down, what he couldn’t tell Niamh was that her idea was not the stupidest, not the most ridiculous in the world. And that was because it was Abigail they were talking about. His wretched life was not worth anyone’s discomfort, even in the slightest. But if there was anyone who could find a speck of virtue in somebody and exaggerate it to make it look like something, it was Abigail. At least that’s what he ed. He had no way of knowing if she’d changed. And the boy? The man. Ché. What could Joel say about his half-arsed efforts in the first few years to send his son some useless trinkets and cheap toys through the post? And what of the years, the decades of silence? Niamh was looking at him. She seemed to be waiting for a response but he couldn’t the question. ‘I need to lie down,’ he said. ‘This is a lot to fucking take in on a Saturday morning.’ He stopped at the doorway and turned back. ‘So,’ he began hesitantly. ‘What did she say?’ ‘What do you care? Thought you said this whole thing was a stupid idea.’ At that moment he truly hated her. He turned to go. ‘She didn’t say no,’ he heard Niamh say. ‘She was shocked, yes. Who the hell wouldn’t be? But she didn’t say no.’

***

The moment he stepped out of the blustery, light rain and into the back room of St Paul’s church, he felt like having a drink. It was Thursday night at The Ennis

Arms. Linda would be there in all her flamboyant glory, shaking her tits while shaking drinks that didn’t necessarily need shaking. Her red lips would pout at him in mock comion as she half-listened to his hard-done-by stories about meagre pensions and how much pork belly had gone up at the nearby butcher’s. Then he’d tell her she was wasting her time and talents at the pub. She’d wink and toss in an extra quarter shot of Jameson’s into his whiskey sour. His mouth began to water. He stood in front of a table set out with plastic cups, iced water, orange Fanta, instant coffee and tea. ‘Is this for our consumption?’ he asked a heavy-set woman standing next to the whistling urn. For a second she looked at him the way he expected to be looked at. Like some idiot concealing his desperation for a drink with fancy, strained words. ‘Yes, of course. Help yourself.’ He sneaked glances at her as he stirred two spoons of sugar into his coffee. She was red-cheeked and friendly to everyone, tufts of ginger hair sticking out from under a black beret. He tried to imagine her drunk and legless, a couple of strong punters having to carry those heavy arms on either side, cheeks even more inflamed. Was everyone here a recovering drunk? He didn’t know. Maybe she just had social worker or religious tendencies. Or was empathetic because she grew up in an alcoholic house. His own father used to stagger home at night and, fortified by the drink, rain fists onto his mother. He walked into the room, made to feel light and carefree by its high ceilings and white walls. Everywhere he looked there were cheerful New Age pick-me-ups alongside the more sombre biblical instructions. The two-metre-long heavy wooden frame encasing the details of the twelve-step programme were like the commandments on Mount Sinai. He stood awkwardly in a corner. As a new person, he didn’t know if he should sit at the back. He’d been to AA meetings before but who knew, maybe things had changed. Maybe it was going to be like a bloody evangelical meeting,

calling for new folk to stand up so the group could try and cleanse them inch by sinful inch. Then he saw an old man, a few wisps of thinning hair on the top of his head, moving the chairs around to make a circle. He should’ve known. No chance of slinking into oblivion here. Should he offer to help? Magnanimous gestures might lead to conversations. Questions might lead to a false sense that he liked to talk. He stuck his hands deeper into his tracksuit bottoms. As he eyed an empty seat next to a window, from where he figured he could glance out during moments of tedium, a young woman gestured for him to come over. He didn’t want to get dramatic, turn around to see who, if anyone, was behind him. He dropped his eyes to the floor. When he looked up again she was mouthing something and patting the empty seat next to her. He walked slowly towards the chairs, hands still in his pockets. ‘Hi.’ She smiled, revealing a few slightly crooked bottom teeth. ‘First time?’ ‘To this one, yes.’ ‘Where do you normally go?’ ‘Well, it’s been some years.’ He didn’t want to say decades. And back then, it had been at Niamh’s insistence. In any case, things had taken a disastrous turn three months in when Niamh found out he’d been having a fling with a woman he’d met at the meetings. Now it was Dr Kleinhans’s voice ringing in his head. A drink or a liver. Your choice. Since he’d already made some peace with death – before Niamh brought up this Abigail business, that was – there hadn’t been a desperate sense of urgency to follow the doctor’s orders. Still, he figured he should try to stop drinking.

‘Do I have to sit here?’ He could tell his voice sounded raspy and irritated. ‘Oh, I’m sorry.’ She looked genuinely startled and put up her hands, with their skinny, ringed fingers. ‘You just looked a little lost. The lady who organises these meetings always encourages us to reach out, you know, to make any newcomers feel welcome. Especially if they look, well, a bit uncertain.’ ‘Sorry. Didn’t mean to come off like an arse. I appreciate the welcome. It’s just strange being back in these places.’ ‘Much changed?’ He looked around the room. A shiny, dark-skinned man in an African print dress – he couldn’t think of another word – worn over pants in the same material sat clutching what looked like a New Testament. An old Indian man was whispering something to a young, busty woman with a nose ring and colourful streaks in her hair. Almost everyone else’s head was bent at an angle over their mobiles. Like the woman next to him, at least half the group looked under twenty-five. ‘Yeah, kinda,’ he mumbled. A man stood up. Across his face, a war waged between the youthfulness which still claimed its right to be there and the ravages of drink. He mumbled his name and something or other about being an alcoholic. ‘Look, I don’t mind coming to the meetings. I just hate knowing that I have to. My life won’t ever just be mine again. I’ll always have to share it with you guys. No offence intended, please. I’ve tried stepping back sometimes, especially when I think I’m better. Next thing I know, I’m out there again. And the next thing? Back here. It would be a right laugh if it wasn’t so fucking exhausting. How is it I can drink for twenty hours straight, no problem, no fatigue, nothing. But this, this interminable cycle of coming here, getting clean, feeling good, stepping back, fucking up, coming back here … God … fuck, it’s so bloody tiring.’ He let out a long sigh. ‘Thank you.’ Throughout the man’s speech the woman next to him nodded, making murmuring, affirming sounds. When she wasn’t playing with her rings, she was crossing and uncrossing her legs, tapping her foot on an imaginary surface in the air. He kept watch for the flow of sharing. He didn’t the process too well

and even if he did, would have to wait to see if it had changed. There didn’t seem to be any particular order to the sharing and he doubted everyone had to speak. He watched a little black woman staring vacantly at the floor and rhythmically moving her bottom jaw. Suddenly, she stood up. ‘Hi, my name is Charmaine and I’m an alcoholic.’ Her accent was surprisingly middle class, laced with a mild Jamaican dialect. ‘It’s like I have unfinished business with alcohol. I keep going back to it to see what else it’s got. What more questions it’s gonna ask me. What am I gonna ask it. It’s like this insanely dysfunctional dialogue that always ends up with me on the fucking floor. When am I going to learn that I’m talking to myself? Sometimes I say to it: “I’m not going to indulge you tonight. I just want to have a chat.” That means, of course, just one drink. Before I know it I’m having eight. No such thing as a social drink for me. And I hate that. Everyone else is out having one, two or three. And they’re fine. But not me. No middle ground for me. Most times no fucking ground at all. I’m just floating up there, totally out of it. And still sometimes I want to go back to that conversation. I want to say to it: “That’s all you got?” I want to reason with it, tell it not to give me such a hard fucking time. But it’s got no mercy. You just want an inch and it’s willing to give you a bloody yard. How’s that for irony?’ People were nodding, smiling. Well, there weren’t actual smiles, just upturned mouths in iration. ‘Coming here,’ she continued, ‘these meetings, helps me keep that crazy conversation at bay, at arm’s length. I’m grateful for that.’ She sat back down and within seconds became that absent, slightly nutty-looking person again. He listened to the same story over and over, with different ing characters, in different accents, played out in different cities. But it was always the same story: loneliness, people long broken in a world that was moving too fast. He could identify – that was supposed to be a recovering alcoholic’s favourite word – with much of what they said. What he longed to hear was the normality of it all. From where they all came, getting drunk was simply normal. Why wasn’t anyone talking about that? Why wasn’t anyone talking about growing up in pubs or families where alcohol flowed faster than water. Where it was

expected that people would get sloshed every weekend? If you weren’t drunk it just meant you weren’t drinking enough. And if you didn’t want to be drunk, people looked at you funny. Part of him was itching to say something. But would he sound like a right arse? He ran the points over in his head again as everyone said goodbye to a guy leaving early. Joel inhaled and cleared his throat. ‘Okay, everyone, that brings us to the end of the meeting,’ said the ginger-haired woman. ‘Thanks for coming. Thanks for sharing.’ He mumbled through the Serenity Prayer. ‘So, what did you think?’ his meeting companion asked as they walked out of the building. ‘Joel, by the way.’ ‘Oh my goodness, I’m sorry. Chelsy.’ She stuck out her thin hand and gave his a firm shake. ‘Your old man was a fan of the Blue Lions or something?’ ‘What? Oh no, it’s not like the football club. I can’t stand football. It’s spelled Ch-e-l-s-y. So, anything stand out for you?’ ‘I liked that one guy … in the beat-up leather jacket? The one who left early?’ ‘Oh yeah, why?’ ‘I liked what he said. That he really, really loves a drink. He really enjoys the feeling. He knows it’s wrong and it leads to all sorts of fucking mess. But he likes it, even now. Felt honest, you know.’ ‘Is it like that for you?’ He sighed. He didn’t know what he liked or didn’t like anymore. He could barely sift liking from dependency, real happiness from things that were just familiar. He was just existing. And a drink or two, or five, was just part of all of

that. ‘I dunno. And you? How long have you been coming to these meetings?’ ‘About a year. So, are you going to do the twelve-step?’ ‘Look, and I know you hear this a lot and you probably gonna shit on me for this, but I’m not really an alcoholic. Not in the same way as all those guys.’ She laughed. ‘Those guys? I’m in that group, all the way in. I’m an alky, love. I’ll be the first to it. And here’s another shock to your system – you’re in that group too.’ The rain had stopped but the pavements still glistened. The crispness in the air fortified his sense of rightness. He didn’t even care if people were giving them strange looks as they walked to the bus stop. He, an old, crumpled man in sweatpants. She, bright and bejewelled with blonde roots in her dark hair. ‘All I’m saying is that I came because of an operation I need to have, because I got this doc breathing down my neck. Liver’s all fucked up, you know. I need a transplant.’ ‘Really? And how did your liver get like that?’ ‘Yeah, okay, I drank, sure. But I drank over a long period of time. It wasn’t binge drinking, getting drunk and barfing all over the place. I would’ve stopped if it got like that. But it never did.’ She grinned as she pulled out a box of cigarettes, extracted one, tapped the end and flicked a lighter. Her nose ring glowed to a bright yellow. ‘It’s not denial or anything.’ ‘Look. I’m not going to spend time trying to convince you of anything. You have to come to that yourself. If there’s one thing I’ve learned in these meetings it’s that there are two issues people like us, oh, sorry, people like me, have to deal with. One is the alcohol. The other is me. Me and my shit. The alcohol is just a symptom.’ He wanted to leave things there. She obviously had more experience in

articulating the issue and its … what did people call those? Oh, yeah, nuances. She was clever in taking that non-confrontational stance. He got the feeling she was, with those long sparkly fingers, handing him the rope. ‘And you? When and why did you start?’ ‘Drinking?’ ‘Coming to the meetings.’ ‘About a year ago. I already told you.’ ‘Oh, yes – sorry.’ ‘I started coming here with my boyfriend.’ ‘And where’s he now?’ She pulled on the cigarette. ‘Overdosed.’ ‘On alcohol?’ ‘Heroin.’ He wanted to continue the questioning but for no more than his own curiosity. Did she do heroin too? Had she been there when her boyfriend overdosed? He wondered, on behalf of Niamh really, what it was like to shake a dead person and realise they’re dead. They ed a thin, mangy-looking dog outside a Marks and Spencer store. ‘Hey, boy,’ Chelsy crooned, bending down and snapping her fingers. The dog ambled towards them on unsteady legs. ‘Hey, you don’t know what that dog’s got,’ he said. ‘Probably all kinda diseases.’ ‘Well, all the more reason he needs some love and attention.’ She was stroking his back, all the way to his bottom, where he was trying to reach and nibble, Joel presumed, at the million mites there. ‘And it’s cold, poor thing.’ He shook his head. This lot always confused him. They claimed they cared for the poor and needy of any species but couldn’t for the life of them look after

their own bodies. Downing and injecting shit at will. ‘You know if it’s got mange, you can get scabies.’ She stood up. ‘I know that better than anyone.’ She took out a small packet of biscuits from her bag, crunched them up in her palm and placed it close to the dog’s mouth. ‘I work at Best Friend Rescue. The animal shelter on Abercrombie Avenue?’ He wasn’t a dog person. Niamh had given up trying to make him one, although he’d given in to her persuasion a few years into their marriage and agreed to a Jack Russell. But he soon grew impatient with the whining at night and house training trials in their small flat. Once she caught him kicking it after it chewed the straps off his favourite sandals. The next day the dog was gone. She never told him what she did with it and he never asked. They walked on and a few minutes later arrived at the bus stop. ‘You should come by the shelter sometime,’ she said, her eyes on the approaching 432 to Crystal Palace. He scratched his beard, watching her dig in her bag and take out her bus . ‘That wouldn’t be … appropriate.’ He hoped he sounded responsible, sober. Her head jerked upwards and she stared at him. ‘Oh, you must be fucking joking. You could be me dad.’ She laughed. ‘Me granddad even.’ ‘Steady on.’ ‘No, really, you should come. You can see what we do, how we do it, maybe help us out a bit.’ He’d never in his life thought about helping an abused animal. But he found himself agreeing. ‘And it’s a good distraction.’ She flagged down the bus before turning back to wink at him. ‘We need distractions, don’t we?’ The rain stung him as he walked home. It felt good. Like little jolts of electricity,

charging him, bringing him back to some sort of life.

***

‘Where you off to?’ Niamh called out. She’d been engrossed in one of those secret phone conversations where she lowered her voice but then had to raise it every so often to enunciate something. Clue words like ‘savings’, ‘’ and her date of birth told him she was deep into another potential scam. But he shrugged it off. He was keeping to his word after the last – how should he it? – incident. She was on her own with this one. ‘Another meeting.’ He hadn’t told her much about the first one except that it hadn’t quite been the same old shit he’d expected. He thought it best not to mention Chelsy or Best Friend Rescue. He went into the living room to retrieve his charging phone. Niamh was on the couch, her feet in a low-rumbling foot spa, Deal or No Deal on a muted screen. ‘You all dressed up.’ It was stupid really, wearing a new pair of jeans to see and, God forbid, touch a bunch of stray and neglected animals. He shrugged and took her extended hand. ‘See you later.’ She was smiling, her hand covering the bottom of her mobile. Whoever was on the other end seemed to be piling it on thick. Her face was flushed, as though doing its best to hold together an inner delight.

***

He wondered how he’d never noticed Best Friend Rescue, sandwiched between a Mothercare and an off-licence. He asked to see Chelsy. A young boy ushered him through a narrow ageway with rooms on either side. Through open doors he could see cages and tables, the cacophony of barks, whines and shrieks almost too much to bear. In the weak sunshine and cool air of a courtyard at the back, Chelsy played with a small, shaggy-haired dog. ‘I knew you’d come,’ she said, smiling and picking up the dog. ‘This is Raúl.’ Who would name a dog that? He couldn’t even say it how she said it, in a way that conjured up some sort of Latin American stubbornness. ‘I’m not even sure what I’m doing here.’ He glanced over at the young boy filling dog bowls with water. ‘Here, take him.’ She thrust the dog into his chest. ‘Hey! Hang on. I mean, I just got here. I need a minute.’ But she ignored him. He grabbed the dog, its bony ribs moving about under his fingertips. He felt slightly queasy. ‘What happened to him?’ ‘His owner, may his ass rot in hell, used to put him in dog fights.’ ‘Aw, shit.’ ‘Yeah.’ He looked at the dog again, searching for evidence of bloody battles. But the animal just nestled itself into the crook of his elbow. When he checked himself again, he was stroking Raúl’s back.

Trevor

‘So, what do you think?’ he asked from behind, his chin resting gently on Carl’s shoulder. ‘What’s the name of the piece again?’ Carl asked, his hands deep in his pockets. ‘StandOut.’ ‘Uh-huh.’ Uh-huh? What exactly was uh-huh? An expiration of breath? A lazy throatclearing? Did it even have a lilt at the end to suggest it could be a question and therefore open for discussion? No. Uh-huh was nothing. But, he thought as he took his chin back, it might as well have been the Berlin Wall. He reached for a baby quiche from a bored-looking waiter meandering by. People were squeezing past, holding up with great care wine glasses that were full to the brim. The DJ, a young guy with dirty-blond shoulder-length hair, had a clear and unapologetic bias towards reggae. The room pulsed with an easy, happy vibe. ‘Here he is.’ He felt a poke in his ribs. Zainabu was standing next to The Art Scene’s leather-clad manager, Christos Papadopoulos, or Chris Pappas as everyone called him. Chris was famous for two things – his infatuation with young Czech women and working hard to put unknown artists on the map. ‘She was looking lost, so I say to her, I find him for you,’ Chris said. ‘This place is so bloody far. Hey, Carl.’ Carl turned around and gave Zainabu a kiss. ‘I know, right? Who even knew there were art galleries in Islington?’ ‘Is this an art gallery? I thought it was just someone’s living room.’ ‘Hey, stop it, both of you,’ Trevor interjected. ‘Shows what you know. Places like this, small, low overheads, they’re saving the art world. It’s a platform for us

emerging artists. No bureaucracy, no fighting to legitimise its existence to the big funders. Like the name, it’s an art scene, for art lovers. Anyways, Zai, this is mine. Whaddaya think?’ ‘Hmm, nice. But where’s the bar? All this deciphering and analysing is easier with a glass of wine in my hand.’ ‘Jesus. It’s in the corner, over there.’ Heads turned to watch her as she walked away. Zainabu always walked as though she had an unassailable right to be wherever she found herself at any moment. Her light-coloured, partially kinky dreadlocks which behaved only on some parts of her head and the high cheekbones she inherited from her Scottish mother gave her a racial ambiguity that spelled freedom and world citizenry. Not the identity confusion and lack of belonging with which he’d always associated mixed races, not least his own. He looked at Carl. ‘So, does it make you feel anything?’ Carl cocked his head to one side, then the other side. ‘Is that Edith from next door?’ He pointed to a pair of darkened, obese legs in the painting. The legs were crossed, although he could see how the abundant folds of skin, cellulite and darkened patches on the inner thighs made it difficult to distinguish one leg from the other. ‘Yeah.’ Trevor took a gulp of his wine. He winced. Stupid move. He didn’t care so much for extra-dry white and he’d already had two glasses. ‘Well, I think I get it. It’s interesting,’ Carl said finally. ‘I like it.’ Interesting. Really? The most clichéd, over-used word ever to enter an art gallery? Why not say it’s a pile of shit no one except starving, paint-eating artists would understand? Then at least he could award Carl a point for honesty. Another for creativity. And the grand fucking prize for coming up with a sentence of more than ten words. How had things got like this? ‘You can’t do better than interesting?’ It came out bitter.

‘What?’ Carl asked, his voice low. Trevor stared at him. ‘You can’t do better than interesting?’ The extra-dry white was getting to him. Coming closer to his chest and his heart, swimming in his head and mind. It was becoming friendly, making him feel righteous for wanting to indulge his mood, as dangerous and transient as it was in that moment. ‘You know how hard I’ve worked on this piece. You’ve seen what I’ve put into it. This exhibition is a huge deal.’ He swung his wine glass as he made an arc around the room, spilling some wine on a young woman ing by. She glared at him with heavily made-up eyes. He raised his left hand in apology. ‘Yeah, I know,’ Carl said, a confused, slightly embarrassed look on his face. ‘And I said that I liked it. That it was –’ ‘Don’t say it. Don’t even say it.’ He watched the little muscles working away on Carl’s jawline. No apparent rhythm he could make out. Clench. Release. Nothing. Clench. No release. ‘Why don’t you say it,’ Carl said. ‘Why don’t you say what you need to say?’ The wine was willing him to take the dare. His tongue was heavy, laden and ready with confidence and witticisms. But something in Carl’s eyes brought a sobering clarity to the fog in his head. Did Carl know something? He felt himself stumble slightly and then Carl’s long fingers on his elbow. ‘God, are you drunk?’ Carl said, his tone disbelieving. ‘Of course not.’ Trevor straightened his back. ‘I just haven’t eaten anything all day. I’ve been busy with setting things up here, if you hadn’t noticed.’ Suddenly the wine felt counterfeit. It wasn’t making him cute and invincible. It was giving him a mother of a headache. And where the fuck was Zainabu? He gave his near-empty glass to Carl and rubbed his eyes. ‘I’m sorry. I’m just really tired.’ He stood on tiptoe, looking for Zainabu, a stupid move given the amount of alcohol he’d had.

‘Ow, that’s my foot,’ Carl hissed. ‘Will you fucking stop? This is getting embarrassing.’ ‘I’m just looking for Zai.’ Was that her over there? He waved to her and it looked as though she saw him. She was talking to a man in a pink shirt, a man whose face he couldn’t see. No surprise there. It never took her long to pull. But why was she pointing madly to the man’s back? He turned Carl roughly back to the paintings. He knew he was being slightly theatrical but figured he could always blame it on the wine. ‘Tell me, what do you really think?’ It was another long silence before he heard, ‘Es magnífica.’ The voice, confident and lyrical, wafted from behind, and through the space between him and Carl.

***

He checked his watch. Four-fifteen. Wagamama was quiet but he welcomed what he presumed was the lull between lunch and dinner. He wasn’t exactly looking forward to the conversation he was about to have. He sat at the end of a long wooden table, watching the cooks in their hairnets toss mountains of noodles in woks. Another twenty minutes ed. No messages on his phone. And it was impossible to this guy to find out if all was okay. Perhaps he was lost. Maybe, he thought, as the waiter poured green tea into a little cup, he should have offered to meet him at the train station. ‘Trevor?’ The man with short-cropped blond hair was pulling a slim, dark-haired woman along behind him. He wore a Springbok sweater over jeans. ‘Hey, Mark.’

They shook hands firmly. None of the man-hug stuff that was so popular here. Trevor searched Mark’s eyes, his touch, his body language. It was a little hard to believe Mark was suddenly okay with gays. That there was no lingering sense of that teenager who, according to Carl, would cry and pray at family Sunday lunches for his cousin to change, repent and avoid going to hell. But Mark seemed at ease, blowing on his hands and looking longingly at the flames leaping out of the pans in the kitchen. ‘It’s cold, man. This is your autumn? God, don’t want to be here during winter. By the way, this is my fiancée, Bianca.’ ‘Pleased to meet you. Fiancée? Carl didn’t mention.’ ‘What does that guy ever mention?’ Mark said, with a smirk and a shake of the head. It was an irresistible opening. At home, things were more strained than ever. Not helped by his own caginess after the stunt Alvaro pulled at the opening. Getting into Carl’s head, even if through his distorted relationship with his cousin, seemed something to reach for. They sat down and turned over the paper menus on the table. ‘What do you mean?’ Trevor hoped the crease on his forehead was dented just enough to feign surprise. ‘He’s sorry he couldn’t meet you, by the way. Surgery and all.’ ‘What do I mean about what?’ ‘About what you just said. That thing you just said about Carl not mentioning stuff.’ ‘Goodness, does one dish need to have a thousand little ingredients? Well, whatever’s coming out that kitchen smells good though.’ Mark looked up at Trevor. ‘C’mon, you telling me you don’t know Carl’s secretive.’ ‘I’m starving,’ Bianca interjected. ‘I don’t recognise anything on this menu. Order for me, hon.’ ‘Hey, guys. Ready to order?’ Trevor found himself studying the waiter’s face. Too handsome to just be, well, a

waiter. He must be trying to break into modelling or the West End or something. He ordered the grilled duck ramen, while Mark ordered the teriyaki lamb, pork ribs and a portion of steamed chicken dumplings. He wanted to, calmly and unobtrusively, steer the conversation back to Carl. But it seemed too transparent, too desperate. ‘So how was New York?’ he asked instead. He listened with contrived interest as they regaled him with tales that all firsttimers to New York felt compelled to share. Trips to Times Square, the Empire State Building, Fifth Avenue, the Statue of Liberty. And so on. As they droned on, he wondered why he never met people, particularly South Africans, who got excited about eating soul food in Harlem, or walking through trendy Brooklyn suburbs like Park Slope or Carroll Gardens, taking in an off-off Broadway show. And even if someone was drawn to Manhattan, wasn’t taking in an art show in The High Line, that uniquely elevated public park built on a few kilometres of railroad track, way more interesting than being pushed by throngs of cell phone-carrying, selfie-taking tourists? Ever since he’d studied the Harlem Renaissance in his second year of varsity, his fascination with Harlem, especially 125th Street, had been something he’d longed to share with Carl. He’d heard about the open air African markets, with their colourful kente fabrics and mud cloths piled high on sidewalk tables. But by the time they’d finally got there a couple years ago, they were too late. By well over a decade. The expansive market scene had long been swept up by the big Giuliani duster and dumped into a parking lot a few blocks down. It was hard to believe the street corners where people like Malcolm X had preached Black Power and where writers like James Baldwin lived in cold poverty now housed Starbucks and Whole Foods. Carl had enjoyed it, though, despite ing on the rich macaroni and cheese and collard greens from Sylvia’s Soul Food and only just liking something called Irish Moss. Still, it had been one of their best holidays, exploring everything not-Manhattan and trying, joyfully but in vain, to and find Queens landmarks shown in Ugly Betty. He missed that Carl. ‘Did Carl tell you about his magazine article?’ he asked, watching Mark attack the spare ribs. Bianca was shifting the lamb and rice around on her plate.

‘An article he wrote?’ ‘No, one that he’s in. Something called Who’s Who Out of South Africa.’ Mark snorted. ‘Never heard of it. What was it about? The one about him, I mean.’ ‘Just this and that. His work, you know?’ Mark guzzled his beer. ‘Yeah, I can imagine.’ There was a dry sarcasm he wasn’t trying to keep out of his voice. ‘What do you mean?’ ‘I mean it’s the same type of article he’s always done. Surface level. That guy. He doesn’t tell you or me what he’s really thinking, you think he’s going to tell the world?’ ‘What isn’t he telling the world?’ Trevor could feel his heart beginning to race a little. Mark was loudly and desperately trying to get something out of his back teeth. ‘Probably the same thing he’s not telling you.’ ‘What do you mean?’ There was an uneasy silence. Then Mark laughed. ‘Look, sorry. I don’t know what I’m saying –’ ‘Fuck that. Tell me.’ He didn’t mean to sound so abrupt and Mark looked surprised. ‘Sorry, sorry. But why don’t you say what you want to say? Is there something about Carl I don’t know, that I should know?’ ‘Of course there’s stuff about Carl you don’t know. There’s stuff about Bianca I don’t know. C’mon, babe, it’s true.’ Mark shrugged. ‘Has he ever mentioned Rosenhof?’ Trevor didn’t know if he should be more concerned about what or who Rosenhof was or the fact that the name meant absolutely nothing to him.

In all these years together why had Carl never mentioned Rosenhof? ‘Yes, Rosenhof. Well, I know he’s worked hard to put that incident behind him,’ Trevor said, wondering if the lie was showing on his face. ‘Is that what it was?’ Mark drained his beer and burped. ‘An incident?’ What? What the hell was happening here? Trevor looked down at the duck and noodles swimming in broth. He pushed the bowl away. ‘Well, what would you call it?’ ‘Me? What do you mean?’ He didn’t know what the fuck he meant. ‘I mean, were you around? Did you know what was happening?’ ‘No. Seriously, I don’t know what – or who – Rosenhof was. Or is. But I grew up hearing it being thrown about between my mom and Aunt Anneke, in secret, by the way, and it always had something to do with Carl. So I’m not trying to be all mysterious. I just really wondered if he’d talked about it. Anyway, speaking of Aunt Anneke, you’ve got the stuff?’ The question snapped Trevor back to the present. He’d forgotten the reason for seeing Mark in the first place. ‘Yeah, here it is.’ He handed Mark a bag. ‘Oh, for fuck’s sake. Are you for real? I might just lose it on purpose down the toilet at Heathrow.’ Mark held up the blue Chelsea shirt against his chest. He dropped it back in the bag and pulled out the blue and white scarf. ‘Blue Lions my ass. They should just hang themselves with these things.’ ‘I’m guessing you’re a Leeds fan.’ ‘Spurs.’ He never knew why Bones decided on Chelsea when most of the family were Liverpool fans. And why, despite all Bones had done and was probably continuing to do, it was hard to up the opportunity to spoil his little brother with a gift. ‘And, ah, do you mind ing some money along too?’

Although he’d brought the money, it was only at that point he decided to hand it over. Sending it through the bank or Western Union was way more expensive but in a way, less hassle. ‘Five hundred.’ ‘Wow. No Chelsea dude is that deserving.’ Trevor laughed. ‘It’s for my mom but my brother’ll by and collect it and the soccer stuff when he’s in Joburg next week.’ ‘Okay. So, he’s good though? Carl?’ Trevor thought about the dinners he’d cooked in the last few weeks, always half eaten because they ended up being for one. Carl’s morning runs that were starting earlier, even with the longer autumn nights. The silence in the bedroom. The sense that Carl knew something he wasn’t ready to tell. The buried scents of Alvaro around the flat. And now, Rosenhof. ‘Yeah, he’s good. Working like crazy, as usual.’ ‘You guys making a visit home anytime soon?’ At the mention of the word home, Trevor felt an unexpected pang of nostalgia. Maybe it was the blustery grey that awaited them outside the restaurant but he found himself longing for a Sunday morning coffee, a Cape Malay koesister smothered in desiccated coconut and a view of False Bay. ‘Can’t say that we are, to be honest.’ Bianca was coming back from the toilet and Mark was looking at his watch. ‘Well, we’ve only got about an hour or so before we have to get the train back to Heathrow.’ ‘Sure.’ Trevor motioned for the bill. ‘Got to make the most of this frigging expensive in-transit visa, you know?’ ‘You gonna walk around Covent Garden for a bit?’

‘Where’s Buckingham Castle?’ Bianca asked. Trevor was g the credit card receipt. He had prepared himself to wave his hand in protest if they’d offered to pay any part of the bill. They hadn’t. ‘You mean Buckingham Palace? It’s three stops from here on the tube. But you sure you want to chance it with only an hour to spare?’ They insisted. He walked them to the station and pointed out on a subway map where they needed to get off. ‘Thanks again for taking the stuff,’ Trevor said to Mark. ‘No problem.’ Bianca stepped forward and gave him a hug. When she stepped back he realised how beautiful her aquamarine eyes were against her alabaster skin. For the entire lunch she had seemed a faded, hungry-looking figure behind the broadshouldered Mark. He began walking to nowhere in particular, thinking about the remainder of his day. Bones to talk about Joburg and his plans for collecting the stuff. his mother to talk about her plans to keep an eye on Bones. Call The Art Scene to see when he could collect the money from a piece sold on opening night. As he turned onto Neal Street he stopped cold. Alvaro, a few metres away, was looking into a shop window. He hated that his heartbeat quickened. It betrayed him. After all his internal monologues in the last few weeks, it was supposed to have had no reaction to the sight, sound, thought and smell of this man. More than the disgust he felt at the thumping in his chest, he was annoyed by not knowing why he was reacting this way. Was it hatred for what Alvaro did at The Art Scene that night? Was it a return of the fear he had felt at how close Carl had

come to finding out? Or was it, and this was the sickening worst of it, plain lust. The old-fashioned dirty kind, heavily seasoned with danger and self-loathing. ‘Are you fucking kidding me?’ Trevor approached Alvaro, who seemed intensely interested in a series of turtlenecked mannequins. ‘Hola. How are you?’ ‘I don’t enjoy being stalked, for a start.’ Alvaro looked around dramatically. ‘Stalked? You found me standing here. Maybe you’re the one stalking me.’ ‘So you’re telling me you’re interested in the new autumn trends of yellows and greens, hitched over an ugly pair of gabardine tros.’ Alvaro laughed. ‘We call those colours custard and woodbine. And by the way gabardine is making a comeback. Are you sure you’re gay?’ Trevor didn’t laugh. ‘What are you doing here?’ Alvaro stepped closer. Don’t, Trevor thought. But he didn’t take the step back he knew he should. ‘You think too much of yourself,’ Alvaro whispered. ‘You think I’ve got nothing better to do than follow you around London?’ ‘Just tell me what you’re doing here?’ ‘If you took an interest in something other than my dick, you would know that I work just down the road. I told you I’m a freelancer, right? Well, I’m doing some stuff with Kitsch magazine.’ ‘Kitsch? What the fuck?’ ‘It’s supposed to be ironic. Come. I’ll show you the office.’ ‘No.’ Trevor turned to go. ‘Oh, c’mon, Trevor.’

‘You turned up at the opening.’ It came out louder than he’d planned. A few people stared at him as they walked past. ‘You never told me I couldn’t come.’ ‘What? I told you Carl was coming with me. If that doesn’t mean stay the fuck away, then what does?’ ‘I just wanted to see the painting.’ ‘Really? Is that why, every time I found myself alone, I could feel your hands on some part of me?’ ‘Oh, you saying you didn’t like it?’ ‘I fucking hated it.’ He hadn’t. And he hated that he hadn’t. It had been illicit and hot and an escape from Carl’s depressing company. But it had also made him feel sick with shame. ‘I’m not sure what your problem is,’ were Carl’s last words as they’d stumbled together into the cab. ‘But you’d better sort it out. We’re on thin ice.’ Or had he said, ‘This is not nice.’ Either way, things hadn’t come right since. ‘Okay, okay, I it it,’ Alvaro said. ‘I was curious. About the two of you. To see you together. But I mean, c’mon, Carl isn’t even –’ ‘You know what? Don’t say his name. Keep his name out of your mouth. You don’t know anything.’ Alvaro put his hands in the air in surrender. ‘Just stay away from me.’ For the first time, he actually meant it. The thought that Carl and Alvaro were even in the same room meant that some murky, unsavoury connection had taken place. He began walking away. ‘So that’s how you do it, hey? Use people and throw them away?’

He didn’t want to keep having this conversation with Alvaro. He’d seen it before. The stickiness, at first flattering, became obsessive, then frightening. The thing was, of course, that up until now his lust had given his protests no weight whatsoever. He kept on walking. ‘C’mon, Trevor. Qué locura. I promise I won’t say anything to Ca–, sorry, your boyfriend.’ Trevor stopped. He felt a coldness enter him. He turned back around slowly. ‘Who said anything about telling him? Are you fucking threatening to tell him?’ ‘You’re getting paranoid. Why would I go all the way up to … where’s he working again? Hallington Hospital?’ The blood was rushing to his head. Or was it away? He didn’t know. Times like this he willed all the myths about growing up in the Cape Flats, like being born with the ability to kick the shit out of someone, would come true at that moment. But he found he couldn’t move a muscle. He needed to fix things with Carl. That was all. That was going to make everything all right.

***

Carl tiptoed into the bedroom. He looked startled to see Trevor propped up on the pillows. ‘Hey.’ ‘Hey.’ ‘Can I ask you one question?’ Trevor asked.

‘Well,’ Carl said, kicking his shoes off. ‘You can ask.’ This wasn’t going to be easy. Still, he decided to brave it. ‘Can you tell me about Rosenhof?’

Carl

‘Manipulate the water,’ his father used to say whenever they went to the local pool. ‘Swimming is like dancing. You must dance with the water.’ Carl always wanted to cringe when his father used lyrical language or complicated metaphors he suspected he didn’t fully understand. He would’ve preferred it if he’d simply stopped at ‘manipulate’. It was almost sacrilege that his father should use a word synonymous with self-expression and at the same time glare with open hostility at a man walking along the edge of the swimming pool in a pair of too-tight red and white trunks and with a barely concealed swagger. Carl could almost see the word moffie on the bed of cigarette smoke that escaped his father’s lips. And for all his pompous oration, rhythm didn’t feature much in his father’s life. Watching him, totally out of step with his marriage, his job and a new South Africa, wasn’t funny the way an awkward nerd was funny on his high school dance floor. No, it was a lifelong, embarrassing wince. Carl wondered why some people looked more pathetic when they tried their hand at something respectable. Like a hooker at an interview for a nine-to-five. Like when his father tried to converse with Papi and Dorothy in the few Xhosa phrases he knew. Not caring that Papi was from Zimbabwe and Shona speaking. Not seeing Dorothy grimace when his pronunciation was off, his intonation on the wrong side of a word or sentence, making everything, at least to Carl’s ears, sound like a command. Unlike his father, Carl could feel when the rhythm was off in his own life. He could hear the off-beats, sense the absence of a centrifugal, grounding force. There was a middle C he could return to, a place that would tune his life back to a pitch he was familiar with. Trevor was fucking around. He could feel it. Smell it. Well, maybe that was a bit of a stretch. But there had definitely been a heightened sense of unease between them. And Trevor was acting cagey, particularly when his phone rang or when a message came through.

The previous night Carl had hardly slept. Somewhere around 2am his body, fed up with cerebral torment, had simply given up. Still, he kept being thrown out of the fitful slumber in periodic spasms that, he was sure, made him look ridiculous. Each time he was roused to Trevor’s light snore, he found the gentleness and predictability of the wheezy exhalation wholly irritating. Who could sleep in such comforting resignation? They were, after all, as far as relationships went, in trouble. In the eye of an emotional cyclone. Or maybe, he thought as he dragged some of the duvet away from Trevor and back onto his bare legs, he was alone in the eye. Maybe he was the eye. He stared into the darkness, silvered only slightly by a full moon, and fixed his eyes on the white flecks of the Slava Ilyayev hanging next to the bathroom door. He tried to place himself into the rainy, autumn scene. Imagined himself as half of the happy couple beneath the umbrella, flanked by trees bursting with orange, red and yellow foliage, walking on shimmering water. He closed his eyes and wished that the white light, the one the couple walked towards, could wash over and seep into him. No such luck. Rosenhof always came to him. Sometimes there were two rooms. Sometimes two hundred. Always dark. Ominous. Windowless. He had a sense not to worry, that he was in fact dreaming. It was something he’d developed since he’d learned to fall asleep in his tree-house. His father out doing goodness knew what. His mother readying herself for his father’s return. Dorothy enraptured with the Xhosa voices that came out of the small radio in her room. His descent into sleep would be a controlled one, as though he wasn’t entirely relinquishing the waking world. So, he was dreaming. He didn’t need to ask himself why the real Rosenhof, with its naturally lighted classrooms, walls plastered with juvenile imaginations, its mangy sports field, had turned into this. In the dream he tried to move. But he couldn’t. Not even an inch.

The building seemed close. Closer still. And then, it was upon him. He jumped up for the last time. It was just after 7am.

***

All eyes, well eight pairs at least, were on him as he muttered apologies and made for the nearest empty seat in one of the many meeting rooms of the hospital’s fifth floor. Laurelie was giving him a strange look that intensified the warmth rising from his neck. He unwrapped his scarf and tried to ease out of his knee-length coat without attracting too much attention. He hated that he hadn’t had time to go to his office, acclimatise his body to the temperature and look out of his window towards the London Eye, while negotiating himself into work mode. ‘Are you okay?’ Laurelie mouthed. He gave a tight smile and a small frown, meant to thank her for the sympathy and steer her back to the seriousness of her minute-taking. But she continued, her lips surreptitiously forming a word he couldn’t understand. He widened his eyes. A move he hoped conveyed that the last thing he was likely to be good at, at that moment, was charades. She was writing on her pad with her right hand, her face towards Dr Hiddleston as he made a point about the pioneering HIV-positive organ transplantation currently being carried out at Johns Hopkins. But her left index finger was pointing to the cream file on her lap. She turned her left palm up in a questioning gesture before pointing again to the file. Shit. There was a file locked in his office. Joel Sheedy. He’d been looking over Joel’s

X-rays and test results the evening before. She glanced at him again and he shrugged. What he heard flowed past him in a blur. Would Trevor be awake now? Was he lying down, staring at the ceiling, trying to make sense of the previous night’s conversation, if anyone could call it that? ‘Is it a place? Rosenhof?’ Trevor had asked. Carl hadn’t responded, not trusting what might come out of his mouth if he tried to lie, make light of it. It was inconceivable to think that Rosenhof had now been added to the vocabulary of their home. Had wormed its way into their relationship. How the hell had Trevor found out? But ‘Who told you about Rosenhof?’ or ‘Who’ve you been talking to?’ would’ve made him sound suspicious and paranoid. Then it hit him. Mark. Of course. ‘Did something happen there?’ Trevor had said. ‘What makes you think it’s a place?’ Shit. His tone had been too sharp. ‘Well, what the fuck is it then, Carl?’ He felt bad for welcoming the anger and for using it as a wedge between them. He’d glared at Trevor, willing his eyes to carry a bit more sting than usual. He’d got into the bed wordlessly, wishing, and full of shame because of it, that the sirens in the distance would come closer and closer, maybe even to their building. So that they might drown out the thumping of his heart, which he was sure Trevor could hear. ‘Carl, I’m sorry.’ ‘Look, I really need to sleep. I have a team meeting in the morning.’ Dr Hiddleston was coughing. The hacking cough that always appeared at the beginning of autumn and led him to take three weeks in his holiday home in Antigua. Perks of being head of the Transplant Unit.

‘This is probably not the place for this but The Friends of Hallington Hospital have proposed that we have a charity dinner to honour some of our first and still surviving transplant recipients.’ Murmurs, generally positive, could be heard around the room. ‘And what about those who’ve died?’ Dr Martins asked. Carl looked at her in surprise. It wasn’t often the quiet anaesthesiologist had something controversial to say. ‘It’s not that type of event, my dear.’ Dr Hiddleston gave a cough that sounded slightly more contrived, as though designed to discourage further discussion. Had Trevor already searched for Rosenhof on the internet? Rosenhof and Carl Kleinhans? Trevor, as creative as he was, would likely never guess what nouns, verbs, adjectives he should type in order to link the words and give the full story. And what full story? There was none out there. Sure, there was a factual of something. But it was incomplete. Nothing about the invisible nudges, degrees of separations, crazy factors and random incidents that had brought things to a head. ‘Dr Kleinhans?’ How long had he been distracted? Had they moved on to liver transplants? Or were they still talking about the reunion? He took a chance it was the latter. ‘Sorry. I was just thinking that such an event is long overdue.’ ‘So, would you?’ Would he what? He pushed his lower lip to meet the upper one in what he hoped could for a smile. All the while he bided his time, moving his head from side to side like the bobbleheads on Laurelie’s desk. He could see from his quick glance at her that she’d never seen him this rattled and unprepared. ‘I was thinking,’ Dr Hiddleston continued, ‘that being from South Africa, where the first heart transplant was done, it would be nice for you to say a few words.’

A bead of sweat had formed on his temple and was threatening to run down the side of his face. The relief was quite literally pouring off him. He mopped it up with a disguised scratch to his cheek. He found himself saying yes, cornered by his secret humiliation of being found distracted. ‘Good,’ Dr Hiddleston said. ‘Now, how about taking us through your list.’ Laurelie ed him the three files that, luckily, weren’t still in his office. He felt all his vitals returning to the normal range. No one in the meeting had much to say about the two young children scheduled for liver transplants in the coming week. One, suffering from an inherited metabolic disorder of the liver, would receive a cadaveric liver from the victim of a stabbing in Peckham the night before. The other, whose father, the initial donor, was found to have cancerous cells on his stomach lining, could receive some of the adult cadaveric liver as well. Another patient, fifty-five-year-old Olufemi Adebayo, would be coming in for a retransplantation. He’d seen quite a few of these in his time, often related to hepatic artery thrombosis. ‘I thought we had a policy on retransplantations,’ a voice piped up from the corner of the room. He peered over Dr Hiddleston to see the figure in black, tablet in hand. ‘Do we, Miss Steiner? And what is it?’ ‘That we don’t do them. It’s more expensive than the first surgery and the survival rates are lower. It’s just not financially viable.’ He couldn’t whose idea it had been to include the hospital’s finance department in these multi-disciplinary meetings, people who did cost–benefit analyses on care, on people’s right to avoid death. ‘As far as I know that policy has not been finalised. So, Ms Adebayo will have her surgery next Monday.’ He made a mental note to email Miss Steiner the recent journal from the American Association of Modern Liver Transplants on the improved success rate of retransplantation in the last few years. Hell, he would send it to the entire finance department.

‘Is that all?’ Dr Hiddleston asked. ‘Don’t we have a Joel Sheedy on the list?’ Carl was surprised that Dr Hiddleston had this detail, especially given Joel’s missing file. ‘Well, yes. Ah, initially, Mr Sheedy was seen as a viable candidate,’ Carl began. ‘Most of his blood work, as well as his X-rays, revealed relatively normal health problems for a man his age. His blood pressure was a bit high, yes, but he’s nearing seventy and not in the greatest of health. We’re also treating the hepatitis B. But I noticed his fatigue, shortness of breath, chest pains, and it was a little worrying. So I requested that he undergo a transesophageal echocardiogram and a right heart catheterisation. I suspect Mr Sheedy may have class two, possibly even class three pulmonary hypertension.’ He saw Dr Martin’s eyebrows rise. ‘Dr Martin, do you mind explaining to the team what this means for the patient during a liver transplant op?’ Dr Martins stood up. ‘Well, in cases of pulmonary hypertension, we would be trying to reduce cardiac distress on the right side of the heart. Maintaining right ventricular output. It’s very tricky. Basically, the morbidity and, unfortunately, mortality rate for patients with pulmonary hypertension under anaesthetic is very high.’ ‘So, I think given his age and the possibility of the pulmonary hypertension, we should reconsider doing this surgery.’ Carl reflected for a few minutes on his unpleasant interactions with Joel. ‘And this person is a heavy drinker. He’s been ordered to get into a twelve-step programme but I’m not sure he’s sticking to it. And his personality, well, he doesn’t strike me as the most compliant of individuals, so we aren’t even sure he would stick to the post-op regime. That is, if he survives the surgery.’ ‘So, you would perform a second transplant on Mrs Adabayi but reject Mr Sheedy as a possible recipient?’ Miss Steiner said. ‘Mrs Adebayo is not at a very high risk of dying on the operating table,’ Carl said. ‘Second grafts are not that uncommon these days.’ Dr Hiddleston coughed. ‘Tell me, Dr Kleinhans, are we not aware of any new

research or practices on pulmonary hypertension and liver transplantation? Have you thought about this from all angles? Have we really been as creative as we can get?’ Creative? With a patient’s life? It was a strange sentiment coming from Dr Hiddleston who’d been practising medicine, relatively conservatively as far as he knew, for over half a century. Carl looked at the ageing medical patriarch with his bow tie, thick tweed jacket and bushy eyebrows. Since when did the Transplant Unit stick its neck out for sixty-five-year-old alcoholics? What was really being asked of him here? ‘And the possibility of a living donor transplant?’ Dr Hiddleston asked. Carl stared at him. After all he’d just said about Joel’s condition, why put a living donor through that risk? ‘Let’s see what we can do about Mr Sheedy,’ Dr Hiddleston said, his tone closing the subject somewhat. Then added rhetorically, ‘We’re in the business of saving lives, no?’ As they moved onto heart transplants and then to lung, Carl kept a look-out for a repetition of Dr Hiddleston’s foray in the creative, into – and he wouldn’t be too off course in saying this – medical recklessness. But Dr Hiddleston threw no challenges to the other specialists. What was it about Joel Sheedy then? As everyone filed out of the room, he checked his silent phone. No message from Trevor. As he was trying to decide if this was a good thing or not, a voice came from behind him. ‘Dr Kleinhans, may I have a word?’ He turned around. ‘Of course, Dr Hiddleston.’ ‘Can we go to my office?’ As he entered Dr Hiddleston’s office, with every book and paper resting on some shape of clunky mahogany, he fought the instinct to rush to open a window. It had the same stagnant air as the offices of his professors back at his university in Johannesburg. Rooms stained with the residues of apartheid. Walls, like this one, making an effort to lighten the mood with the odd watercolour and too many

Dutch – wasn’t it always Dutch? – landscapes. He figured rooms like these encouraged the regurgitation of old ideas. He was wrong. ‘Carl, let me get right to the point. We, my office, that is, have had some communication with Joel Sheedy’s wife, Niamh Sheedy. She’s very relieved that we’re looking into a transplant for him. She wants to make a very generous donation to the unit.’ Donation? He ed Niamh. The nervous, plump woman who had hovered around the irritable Joel, trying to attend to his every need and neither one the better for it. He ed her clothes, the way she’d blotted her sweater after Joel tossed his hand carelessly and spilled water over her. The sweater. It hadn’t exactly been Salvation Army but definitely not High Street either. And Joel, with his baggy tros, days-old stubble and shuffling, hopeless gait. Donation? Generous? ‘Well, frankly I’m a little surprised. Did she say how this was going to happen? I mean, how she came to be in a position to make a donation?’ Dr Hiddleston cleared his throat and leaned back. ‘Carl, do you know the last time I practised surgery?’ In an instant he was back in his mother’s kitchen, standing beside his father, who was wolfing down sausages and eggs at the head of the table, scowling at the trembling note in Carl’s hand. ‘Do you know how much a school trip cost when I was a child?’ The words showed what his father thought of the school trip. Frivolous. ‘No, sir,’ Carl said, feeling as though he were speaking as much to his father as to Dr Hiddleston. ‘It was 1998. Do you know what I’ve been doing ever since?’ ‘Fundraising, I would imagine.’ ‘Ahh yes, you got it. That’s the nice, decent term for it. Much of my time is spent trying to squeeze a sixpence out of somebody’s tight fist. And having to make a fanfare about it at the same time.’

He wasn’t sure if he was expected to commiserate. ‘Dr Hiddleston, I’m curious. How much is Mrs Sheedy offering?’ ‘Oh, Carl,’ Dr Hiddleston scoffed, pressing his palms forward as though pushing away the very idea. ‘Please. I can tell Mrs Sheedy is …’ He see-sawed the outstretched fingers on his right hand. ‘Trust me, I don’t think for a second she’s capable of that. And even if she was, I’m not about to get this hospital shut down and you and me struck off the medical practitioners for accepting a bribe.’ ‘So? What are we talking about here then?’ ‘I it, her visit had me thinking. We need something pioneering, Carl. We need to be pushing the envelope. Look at what Johns Hopkins is doing these days. Apart from the HIV stuff, they’re big on combination transplants – lung/liver, liver/heart. Not to mention some of the things coming out of India and China. You’re an amazing surgeon, Carl, that goes without saying. We just need, something … edgy from time to time, you know what I’m saying? I mean, let the bloody funding proposal write itself for once, you know?’ Edgy? On the tube he saw what he considered edgy posters: animal whisperers talking about how the collective trauma of just one poultry farm could be compared to Auschwitz. He could see how the message could easily get someone to tip their thoughts and imagination into an alternative, even shocking space. At any rate, a place they hadn’t intended to go to, until the second the tube lurched forward and they held onto the carriage poles and looked up. That was edgy. But in theatre, tipping over the edge could mean a change in blood pressure that could easily lead to death. ‘Carl, what’s the real situation with Joel Sheedy?’ ‘Well, as you heard in the meeting, I’m reluctant at the moment because of the pulmonary hypertension. I’ll be in a better position after he’s had a few more tests.’ ‘And the possibility of a living donor?’ He thought about his conversation with Niamh. ‘I honestly don’t know. You heard Dr Martins –’

‘Look, what I’m asking here, Carl, is, think big, broad. Think innovation. Think like a modern medical practitioner. There’s so much we don’t know yet, so much still to discover.’ Dr Hiddleston’s voice was getting higher and higher, like a child in a toyshop, running to the next new and shinier toy. ‘Mr Sheedy’s case is not the worst in the world. Think of how you could make it happen. Let’s make an impact. Let’s do this for all the times in the world when we should’ve been bigger than we are, should’ve done something out of the ordinary. And didn’t. Do you have those regrets, Carl?’ He did. He waited until the sound of a low-flying plane overhead had receded before nodding a little. Dr Hiddleston came over and put his hand on Carl’s shoulder. ‘I know I do.’ A few minutes ago he thought he was being coerced into doing a risky surgery for money. Now he realised he was being coerced into funnelling himself back into dark spaces in his mind, ing long-forgotten-but-not-forgotten events. And facing them. Answering them. Redeeming himself. They both sat in silence for a few moments. What a fucking day. He looked at his watch. It was only 10:30pm.

Promise

This was stupid. This no-name dog business. How was she supposed to call a dog that had no name? She didn’t want to call him Tuks anymore. That was the name the boys at the school fence had given him but he wasn’t really theirs. Anneke hadn’t believed the story about the dog being a class project for one second. She’d told her to forget the dog. She guessed she should forget the name too. Well, she didn’t really like that name much anyway. That was an old name, part of his old life. But how could they tell her not to bother to give him a new name? That was mean. Something about finding his real owner or going to that place for lost animals. The PSA, or SA, or whatever it was. Probably had hundreds of cages to lock the poor dogs up all day long. She was going to make sure that didn’t happen to him. But in the meantime she had to find a name. She couldn’t say ‘Come here, boy’ forever. How was he going to respect her and sit when she told him to? And roll over, beg with his paw and walk on his back legs? ‘I mean, Gogo, how am I going to train my dog when I can’t even give him a name?’ She poked her spoon around her soft pap. She was sitting at the kitchen counter, loving the sun coming through the window over the kitchen sink and warming her back. She could hear three different kinds of birds singing. Thank goodness those awful hadedas, with their loud noises and long beaks, had gone. They woke her up every morning. The stupid things didn’t care if the week mixed itself up and Saturday became Wednesday. Papi loved the hadedas though. He said they killed all the bad insects in the garden. ‘Well, he is not your dog,’ Gogo said, bending over and putting her face close to

the row of buttons on the washing machine. ‘Ai, this new machine.’ Promise hopped off the high stool and stood next to Gogo, putting her hand on her grandmother’s back. ‘Are you washing white clothes?’ Promise bent to look through the glass hole in the front of the machine. ‘Darks,’ Gogo said. ‘And towels.’ Promise looked at her and frowned. Anneke always wanted towels washed separately. Gogo swiped her hand in the air. ‘Ai. Never mind that.’ Promise pushed the buttons to start the thirty-minute cycle and went back to her porridge. ‘Yes, I know he’s not really my dog but he’s here. For now. So don’t you think we should give him a name?’ ‘My dear, don’t even bother. Listen to me, don’t get attached to him. It will only hurt when you have to give him back.’ Gogo began telling a story about a lady who was planning to give up her baby. It was a boring story. Sounded a lot like something from one of the soap operas Gogo watched during the day. Jack? Rango? She looked at the sleeping dog next to the right leg of the stool. His small body didn’t look like a Rango. Coco? Cute but not really a boy’s name. Chip? Fluffy? No, somewhere she’d heard about a cat called Fluffy. She liked Chip. ‘Did you hear me?’ Gogo’s rough hand was waving a few inches in front of Promise’s eyes. ‘Did you make the poster yet?’ In the last few days she’d found all sorts of reasons to put off making the poster.

Dog Found. That’s what the poster was supposed to say. Exactly. That’s what she’d been trying to tell Anneke and Gogo. Chip was found now. Not lost anymore. ‘Well, did you?’ Gogo repeated. ‘No.’ Promise said, spooning the last of the pap. ‘Why not?’ ‘I don’t know what to say.’ ‘Really? Well, that’s a first.’ Gogo picked up the bowl and put it in the soapy water. ‘You’d better go and sit at Miss Anneke’s computer now and do it.’ She grumbled. Not loud enough for Gogo to begin an argument or one of her speeches. She’d so been looking forward to lying on the couch and watching hours of SpongeBob and Regular Show. Wasn’t that what all kids were doing Saturday mornings? Well, except poor Esme. Promise glanced at the clock on the wall. Esme would be just beginning her Sabbath School class. ‘Did you hear me? And why is the dog inside?’ ‘Anneke never said he couldn’t come inside. He just can’t sleep inside.’ Gogo made a sound in her throat and pressed her lips together. It meant she was getting cross and ready to give a speech. But instead Gogo began singing softly. Oh no. That was worse. It would go on for hours. Bulelani kuyeYehova kuba elungile. Gogo was always praising and thanking God for something. But more than anything, Gogo prayed. Promise didn’t know what for exactly, but every night her grandmother went on her knees and whispered things under her breath. How much praying did someone have to do for God to hear them? She watched Gogo leaning her ear close to the washing machine. She looked funny, listening for it like she didn’t believe this machine, with its quiet, buzzing

sound, was doing the same job as the other old, loud and shaky one. Did Gogo pray for this house, this job, this washing machine? Doing two buckets of laundry on a Saturday morning? Cleaning house a million times? Going to church every week just to pray more and more? Was she, Promise, what Gogo had prayed for? Chip was sticking out his paw trying to catch a baby Parktown prawn. The tiny thing was jumping all over the place and Chip looked ready to play, pushing back on his back legs. She laughed. But then she thought again about the Parktown prawn. Cute now but in a few weeks or months it would grow to a giant size. A cockroach on steroids. That’s how Papi described them. She didn’t know what steroids were but she figured it had something to do with how many times Anneke needed to hit the thing with her shoe before it died. She waited for the baby to do a few more jumps before she squashed it under her slipper. She wouldn’t tell Papi though. He liked Parktown prawns because they were like the hadedas. Papi was proud of how green the lawn at the back of the house was. He had been so excited when Anneke gave him a corner of the garden to grow vegetables. Now that his little friend was gone, Chip looked bored. He lay back down in his spot under the kitchen table. ‘Why don’t you ask God to bless Chip?’ she asked Gogo. ‘Who?’ ‘Chip. My … the dog. It’s like you don’t love him.’ ‘Promise, I sent you to do something. And I’m very busy here.’ ‘Do I really have to, Gogo?’ ‘If I have to say it again, you will feel it.’ Gogo held up her right hand, although

the bright yellow rubber glove didn’t make it as scary as Gogo probably wanted it to be. ‘Go and do what Miss Anneke and I told you to.’ Promise loved her grandmother. But she hated when she didn’t stick up for her. Always Miss Anneke this and Miss Anneke that. How hard would it have been for Gogo to promise Anneke that Chip wouldn’t be any trouble? And Anneke. All the years that Gogo had cooked and washed and cleaned. Couldn’t she just do them this one favour? She couldn’t decide who she should be more angry with. She screeched the chair back on purpose.

***

The computer screen was blank again. She wished Zandi was here with her. Together they could put something together that would sound good enough to be truthful. But which could also give her a few more days with Chip. She’d typed and deleted and typed for more than one hour. Gogo had already hung out the darks and towels and Promise had heard her putting in another load. Probably whites and everything not white. She was about to save her short paragraph when she heard the creak of Anneke’s bedroom door. ‘Morning, angel, what are you busy with there?’ Anneke was shuffling towards her, the flowered satin dressing gown dragging a little behind her. As she came up to the table, Chip began to sniff at her feet and rub his nose on the soft fabric. ‘What do you think?’ Promise said, pointing to the laptop. ‘ me my spectacles.’ Anneke pointed to the doily in the middle of the table. The spectacles were next to a vase of pink and red roses that Papi had cut a few days before.

Anneke’s eyes moved quickly from left to right. Pulling her spectacles down to the tip of her nose, she gave Promise that look. It was supposed to be a look of disappointment but the tiny lines around her lips were shaking, trying to hold back a laugh. ‘You’re not serious.’ ‘What?’ Promise turned the screen towards her again. ‘It looks fine.’ ‘Promise, please. He’s light brown, not grey. He’s not a Husky, not at all. You’re just making that up. I’ve told you he’s some sort of spaniel, I think. I don’t think that date is right. And I’ve never heard of that street.’ Promise sighed loudly, a sigh that was meant to tell Anneke that this whole thing was a waste of time. ‘These things never work anyway. I mean, do people really find their lost dogs with these signs?’ ‘Yes, they do. That’s why you see so many of them all over the place. It works. Now, fix those.’ She pointed to the bits about the date and address. ‘I don’t want to say anything about the two boys that gave us the dog.’ She’d been thinking about them. What if they saw her poster and figured she’d told on them? She ed their scruffy look and the meanness of the older one. Nothing would stop those two from waiting for her outside the school. ‘I think that’s a good idea,’ Anneke said. ‘Leave that bit out.’ ‘What kind of dog is he again? And how do you spell it?’ ‘Don’t worry about that. The poster is going to have his photo. They’ll see for themselves. And make sure and put down my phone number correctly. The cell, not the landline.’ Anneke moved towards the kitchen. Shit. Shit. Shit. So happy she could say the word in her head. If Gogo heard her saying it she would drag her into their room and ask her, in a shouting voice, where she was learning such language. And there would definitely be ukushaya. On the bum for sure. She looked down at Chip.

Chip. Why did that name suddenly not sound right for him? It was a happy name. But she had a feeling she wasn’t going to be happy for long. Soon someone would take him and she would never see him again. Maybe Jack was better. Happy or sad, he could still be Jack. She found Gogo hanging out the clothes on the round washing line at the back of the house. It was nice to feel the sun on her arms. But the breeze was strong enough for her to want to run in and get a jersey. ‘These clothes are going to dry now now,’ Gogo said. ‘Help me with those, my darling.’ Promise picked up the pink laundry basket and went to the corner of the patio. She began placing all Anneke’s underwear on a small wooden clothes horse. Geez. Anneke’s panties and bras were ginormous. No matter how many times she saw them she just never got used to how big they were. Sometimes Gogo tried to explain why underwear should never be seen and dried out in the open like the rest of the clothes. Something about privacy and it just not being right. Yeah well, all that was fine but maybe it was more true that no one wanted to see such big underwear. ‘Thank you, sweetie,’ Gogo said, picking up the basket. ‘Gogo, what if no one calls to say that Jack is theirs?’ ‘Who?’ ‘Jack. The dog.’ Gogo looked at Jack. He was barking that mad, happy bark and chasing frightened birds towards Papi’s vegetables. Gogo balanced the empty laundry basket on her hip. ‘We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it.’

***

‘How many times have you seen this episode?’ Anneke asked, standing over Promise at the edge of the couch. Promise knew she’d been mumbling the words that were coming out of the mouths of Mordecai and Rigby. She couldn’t help it. They were so clever and funny. She wasn’t sure what Mordecai meant by ‘Tuesday night is the new Friday night’ while they planned a party for Margaret. But it sounded so cool. ‘About fifty.’ She smiled up at Anneke. Then frowned at what she saw in her hand. ‘Here,’ Anneke said, handing her a pile of papers. ‘You and Dorothy can take a walk around this afternoon and put them up. I’ll keep a few too.’ ‘What for?’ ‘Well, I can put one up at the church and a few at that mall with the hairdresser and pet shop. That’s too far for you to walk.’ ‘Can Jack come with us?’ ‘Jack?’ Anneke looked down at the dog sleeping next to the couch. ‘Jack. That’s actually a nice name.’ ‘So can he?’ ‘No, my dear. You think walking a dog on the street is easy?’ She rubbed her thumb on Promise’s forehead, her hand feeling wrinkly and soft. ‘This isn’t as simple as you think it is.’ She watched Anneke walk down the corridor towards the kitchen, then threw her body back against the couch. She didn’t even laugh when Muscleman threw hundreds of Margaret’s party invitations to a crowd in the park and shouted: ‘Hey, completely random strangers, come to a party!’ She looked down at the poster. Jack looked sad in that picture too.

She realised there were happy voices coming from the kitchen. She ran down the ageway, stepping on the back of her shoes, not bothering to push her feet all the way in. Maybe the visitors meant Gogo would have to stick around. Then they would have to put off the walk. Tomorrow, she could say she was sick. And the next day was school. It could get her at least another week with Jack. She stopped as she entered the kitchen. There was money on the counter. But not the kind she was used to. The paper was bigger and shinier. It looked prettier than South African money, even though it didn’t seem to have any animals or Madiba on it. ‘Hey, Promise. Why you running like that?’ ‘Oh, hi, Uncle Mark.’ She wasn’t sure why she always called him ‘Uncle’. He was younger than Carl. And she always called Carl, Carl. But Uncle Mark was bigger, wider. He looked tougher, as if his strong arms were always ready for a fight. He just looked like the kind of guy that little children should call Uncle. She felt as though she should fix her shoes. Push her finger into the back of the shoes and get her feet in properly. Even tie the shoelaces, not just stick them in on the sides like she always did. She wasn’t sure why she felt that way all of a sudden. She just did. ‘What kind of money is that?’ She pointed to the cash Anneke was counting out carefully, licking her fingers and snapping each note between her middle finger and thumb. ‘Right, five hundred.’ Anneke looked across at Mark. ‘When is he going to by for it?’ ‘Who? Who’s going to ?’ Promise asked. ‘In a week or two, I think.’ Mark picked up his keys.

She wondered if he was off to see his skinny girlfriend. She went up to the counter and picked up the money. She put it to her nose. Smelled the same. Like money. ‘Is this real money?’ ‘Yes. Pounds,’ said Uncle Mark. ‘Pounds?’ ‘From England.’ ‘Did you go to England?’ ‘Just for a day.’ ‘Why would you go all the way to England just for a day?’ He laughed a little as he opened the tap and filled a glass with water. ‘We went to New York and, on the way back, stopped off in London.’ She waited for him to finish drinking, watching this thick neck moving and imagining the water going down to his stomach. His stomach that looked full of muscles. Zandi would call that an eight-pack. ‘Did you see Carl?’ Mark made a little burp. Gross. ‘Nope.’ He went over to Anneke, who was reaching for the tea tin from the top shelf of the cupboard. He took the tin down. ‘Later, Aunty. Let Dorothy make that for you.’ He looked at Promise. ‘Call your grandmother to come and make some tea.’ She was glad that he walked through the door right after that. She didn’t feel like calling Gogo. Plus, Gogo was probably lying down for a bit, getting herself ready for their afternoon walk. She went to the fridge and handed Anneke the milk. ‘Is that money from Carl?’ ‘No, it’s from Trevor. His brother will come by to collect it. And something else too. In that plastic bag. A shirt, I think.’

Anneke didn’t make a funny face or start speaking in a weird voice when she talked about Trevor, the way Gogo did. She didn’t seem to mind that Carl had a boyfriend and not a girlfriend. ‘No grandbabies for my poor madam,’ Gogo was always saying. She wasn’t sure why Gogo said that. Those two guys on Modern Family had a Chinese baby. Well, the truth was that she’d only seen the show once, and even then it was only part of it because Gogo turned it right off. But that part she saw. And plus, her friend Esme had two dads. Part of her wanted to ask Anneke these things. But Anneke was looking down at the counter. Was she waiting for the teabag to soak in properly? She liked her tea to be dark brown before she drank it. Or was she staring at the money? It was hard to tell. ‘Anneke? Should I take the tea in for you?’ Just then Jack came into the kitchen, his tail wagging happily. ‘It’s fine. I’ll sit here. Where’s Dorothy? You two should go now.’

***

‘How long have we been walking?’ Promise fanned herself with the few posters in her hand. ‘This is the same way you go to school,’ Gogo said. ‘Well, it’s a Saturday.’ ‘And?’ ‘I don’t know. It feels longer on a Saturday.’ Soon they were outside her school. There was something so strange about the

quiet, the nothing that came from the empty corridors and closed up classrooms. As she pressed a poster with Prestik onto a wall near the front gate, part of her even expected Mr Nkosi, in full uniform, to come out of his little wooden shed. ‘It’s almost not like a school anymore.’ ‘You’re right. It’s just an empty building. Do you know what that means?’ Gogo put her heavy arm around Promise’s neck. ‘What?’ ‘That it’s people that make a school. The kids, the teachers, are what makes a school. It’s not just the building.’ ‘Did you go to school, Gogo?’ ‘Ai.’ Gogo laughed in that high voice. ‘Long time ago. And only for a little while. But I will tell you about it another time.’ They crossed the street towards a piece of open veld some people had started using as a dump. With every poster she stuck up, Promise felt like she was letting Jack down. She thought about coming back tomorrow and ripping all of them down. She imagined a family coming to collect Jack. A white family with a father and mother and two little girls in pretty dresses in the back of a big car. A car that Jack would drive off in. His little face in the window would get smaller and smaller. She began to cry. Real, hot tears. ‘Ai, ai, what’s wrong?’ ‘I don’t want someone to take him.’ She pressed her wet cheeks into Gogo’s stomach. Gogo hugged her. ‘Come, I’ll get you an ice cream from the shop.’ But the only shops they ed by were the small spaza shops in front of people’s houses. Gogo didn’t think they would get what they wanted from there,

so they kept walking. How far were they from home? Around them the houses were smaller and more ordinary and people didn’t seem to like planting many flowers. How come things looked so dry? They ed a park but she didn’t feel like running to it like she normally would. The seat of one swing hung down to the ground and she figured the grass was so long that it would probably tickle her knees. She wanted to ask Gogo who was supposed to cut grass in parks but Gogo was too busy greeting all the people that ed by. Even though it wasn’t a nice park, close to a big tree there were people sitting on blankets and plastic chairs, and a man standing over a braai. He stuck a long fork into the meat. She wondered if it was chicken or boerewors. How hot must it be over those coals? She wondered if Gogo knew those people and if anyone would invite them to eat. She was sure she could smell barbecue sauce too. Some kids were playing even though the jungle gym didn’t look like that much fun. There weren’t that many bars for climbing and swinging upside down. Two boys ran up to the see-saw. The one at the top landed straight into a muddy puddle when he came down. Yuck. But the boys just laughed and kept on going. ‘Do you know where we are?’ she asked Gogo. ‘Yes. You don’t?’ ‘No. Have I ever been to this place?’ ‘It’s not that far from the house.’ That was when she realised they were about to by Ntombekhaya Primary. Although it was a Saturday, something seemed to be happening at the school. Kids, some in uniform and some in civvies, were running around the sports field. Well, it wasn’t much of a field. Hardly any grass. ‘Can we go in?’ she asked Gogo. She was curious to see what the school had and didn’t have. At the same time, she felt proud of her own school with its big blue swimming pool and green grass where the boys played soccer. Gogo didn’t look like she wanted to go in. She had a funny look on her face, like she was scared or something. ‘I thought you were tired.’

‘Just for a little while. Please, Gogo?’ They walked along the corridors. So much dust and litter. Mr Alleyne, the principal of Crestdale, would go crazy if he ever saw this much litter on the ground. The whole school would get detention. Gogo was rubbing her hands together and looking around as though they were doing something wrong. What was wrong with her? Promise peeped through the windows into a classroom. The walls were the same as her school. Colourful with ABCs, pictures and paintings. Lots more chairs and desks though. In one classroom there were just lots of little yellow chairs. ‘Gogo, look in here. There’s only chairs! How do they write?’ Gogo shook her head. ‘Madiba is turning in his grave.’ ‘What? What do you mean?’ ‘Never mind.’ She pulled Promise away from the window. The few people walking along the corridors were giving them funny looks. ‘But how do the children do work, Gogo?’ Gogo looked tired. ‘I’m thirsty. Do you see a tap around here?’ They found a tap just outside the toilets. After Gogo drank water, she splashed some on her face. The smell coming from the toilets was gross. Lots of pee. She looked at a boy and girl coming out of them. She wondered what things looked like in there. If there was paper, if there was soap, if the sinks were clean. ‘Gogo, that classroom with the chairs …’ ‘You know, I saw something like that on this show one time. The show that comes on on a Sunday night. What is it again? Carte Blanche. The kids kneel on the floor and use the chair as a small table.’ ‘What? Really, Gogo?’

‘Yes, my dear. Maybe you’re lucky to go to Crestdale. I didn’t use to think that but now I see it’s true.’ On the way out, they ed a small, new building. It was a library. She wasn’t sure why it made her feel happy to see shelves with lots of books and big cushions on a floor that had a carpet. She looked through the window and saw a big, colourful display. She squinted as she tried to read what was written on the big pieces of paper. ‘Car … car … ni … nee … val?’ ‘Carnival,’ Gogo said, looking through the other window. ‘What’s that, Gogo?’ ‘It’s like a big street fair. Let’s go.’ ‘Wait. I see the flag of Brazil. Is there carnival in Brazil? And what flag is that next to it? The red, white and black one?’ ‘I don’t know.’ ‘Wait, I can read it. It says Trinidad and To-bag-oh.’ She laughed. ‘To-bag-oh. Is that a country, Gogo? Is there carnival there too?’ ‘I have no idea. I really want to get out of here now.’ ‘Gogo, are you okay? Do you really hate the school?’ ‘It’s just time to go, my dear.’ She felt that way too. She was getting bored. Whatever had happened at the school seemed to be over. She’d even forgotten about the posters in her hand. When she looked at them again, there were only two left. She stuck one up outside the library. She was about to stick the last one outside an office when she saw something. A small gold block, part of the wall. Well, it wasn’t really gold anymore. Old and dusty and she could hardly see the writing on it. ‘Look at this,’ she said to Gogo, who was walking ahead of her. ‘What is it?’

Gogo turned around. ‘Some kind of plaque?’ Promise ran her hand over it to shift the dust away from the writing and went right up close to it. ‘Opened by,’ she read out, ‘Hendrik somebody. I can’t read his name. On this day, 5 January 1963. Rosenhof Primary School. Was this school called Rosenhof, Gogo?’ Gogo seemed to take a breath in but it didn’t come back out. ‘Let us go. Now.’ Her voice sounded strict all of a sudden. ‘And don’t tell Anneke you saw that. Not a word.’ Why did Gogo have to say that? Now she would have to find a way to ask Anneke about Rosenhof. ‘I mean it, Promise!’ Gogo was actually looking angry. And walking fast for an old lady. ‘Okay, okay. But why? Did Carl go to this school?’ Gogo didn’t speak again until they were out the school gates. ‘No, he didn’t.’

Ché

The cafeteria line moved forward an inch. Rumour had it the food was better in general hospitals than in mental health facilities. Well, now was his chance to test the theory. Maybe it was the perception that mad people were too mad to trouble themselves about their diet. Or that general hospitals, eager to free up beds, worked harder at healing, fattening up and discharging their patients quickly. With Dr Prakesh Teelucksingh holding an orange plastic tray heavy with a large roti – its size rendered inconspicuous by its folding – curried chicken, channa and a dark lump of curried mango, Ché figured the rumour held some credence. At the King Edward, anyway. ‘You going to work after that?’ Ché whispered into the doctor’s ear while pointing to the tray. ‘I going to stitch up a man they bring in this morning. You hear about the accident on the Beetham? Never mind. And then I have to run to a convention at the Hilton.’ Ché glanced at the long line of lunch ladies in their cloudy hairnets, lording over the food with long-handled spoons and grim expressions. He shook his head and handed back his empty tray. He and Dr Teelucksingh sat across from each other at a small table against the wall. Beside them, a table of nurses filled in the quietest of the group about the fete she’d missed on the weekend. ‘So, tell me, what’s happening?’ Dr Teelucksingh asked as he tore the roti between his fingers before shredding the chicken in much the same way. Ché inhaled deeply. His mouth felt dry. He should start talking. When he looked again, quarter of the roti and half the mango were already gone. ‘Ché? Something wrong?’ ‘I wanted to ask you about the liver.’

The liver. Whoever began a conversation with such a stupid opening line? But how else? He couldn’t bear to begin at the beginning. With Joel. His mother. And this absurd request. Absurd. Asinine. Why was he even using these words? Even his thinking was constrained, careful not to spill out of the bounds of standard English. In truth, it was the most dotish thing he’d heard that year. Dotish. Yet, here he was, asking questions. Being tentatively inquisitive and hating himself for it. Dr Teelucksingh reached for his ginger beer. ‘Okay. This is about your liver?’ He bit his lip. Yes, his liver. No, not really his liver. This entire thing wasn’t about his liver. His liver was fucking fine. ‘Well, yes and no. There’s no problem with my liver. It’s just that …’ He couldn’t understand why Dr Teelucksingh’s gentle tilt of the head had him on the verge of tearing up. At the same time, he knew this type of subtle comion was the very reason the Scarlet Ibis ward always transferred patients in need of general medicine to Dr Teelucksingh. Like the time Tony Gonzales decided to lie in the middle of the priority bus route on the east/west corridor and wait for one of the thousand buses that busied that road to run him over. Fortunately for Tony the only thing he’d suffered was severe burns as he lay for a long time on the hot, newly paved asphalt road that had been blocked off that day. When Tony returned from the general hospital, both he and Clive, the mental health nurse stationed with him, talked often about Dr Teelucksingh’s warmth and humour during his daily rounds. ‘You know much about liver transplants, doc?’ ‘I know a bit, more in theory than anything else.’ ‘About living donor liver transplants?’ ‘Oh.’ Dr Teelucksingh’s eyes widened. ‘Well, that’s a bit of a newer field. I’ve read an article here and there in my journals. But we don’t do them in Trinidad, you know.’ ‘Yeah, I know.’ Dr Teelucksingh wiped his hands on a napkin before putting a gentle hand on

Ché’s wrist. ‘Son, you want to tell me what’s going on?’ Son. That was the frigging problem. Ché squeezed his index finger and thumb into the corners of his eyes. Suddenly he felt like laughing. The whole thing felt so ridiculous. How to explain to Dr Teelucksingh that he now spent half his time thinking about his liver. The thing had taken on new meaning. He was convinced his body had begun to feel different. Instead of feeling good about the blood and oxygen being pumped to his organs during workouts at Crosby’s Gym, he became anxious about any potential strain. He found himself spending inordinate amounts of time mentally scanning his insides. At night he fell asleep to images of organs floating around in off-coloured liquid. He wondered about their aliveness, their ability to regenerate if something went wrong. In the mornings, instead of reaching for his penis as usual, he found himself touching the right side of his torso. That part just under the ribcage. He could save a life. He could lose his. He could save a life. What was he supposed to feel about that? Accede to that calling, because he was a nurse, because he was the son of Abigail – a living saint, according to Pastor Ernest from the Hail the King Tabernacle? Because he was, according to his girlfriend, a kind and generous man? When had he agreed to all these rules around societal, religious, emotional conduct? He blinked and looked up. Dr Teelucksingh was wiping up a near-empty plate with the last bit of roti. The ice cubes were small and swimming in light brown liquid. ‘Somebody asked me to be a donor,’ Ché said at last. ‘For a liver transplant. But I ain’t sure, not at all.’ Dr Teelucksingh seemed to be humming softly under his breath as he wiped his small hands with his napkin, digging beneath his curry-stained nails. Really? Was this the time to be singing Hindi folk songs? Maybe this was what he did while thinking, working. How infuriating for the nurses.

‘Doc?’ Dr Teelucksingh stopped humming and leaned back with his arms folded. ‘Well, I’ll say it again. I don’t know much about living donor liver transplants.’ He handed his tray of dirty dishes to one of the cleaning ladies. ‘But I will ask you the same questions I would ask any patient contemplating a medical procedure. What exactly are your reservations?’ ‘Well, it’s a big medical procedure. There’s the financial bit too – I’ll have to travel to meet that person. That part is okay, to be honest. My main thing is, doc, I just don’t know if I want to help this person.’ ‘So, it’s something about this person? If it was another person, you would help?’ ‘I … I don’t know.’ He couldn’t say for sure he hated his father. That would imply he felt something. And for years he had told himself he felt nothing. He could hear Mandisa’s preachy chant in his head: you only hate people you trying to love or who don’t love you back. ‘It’s true I have a problem helping this person. This one person.’ He was clenching his fingers in mid-air as though holding the head of an imaginary person. ‘But I telling myself there’s a part of me, a general part of me, that wants this person to be helped.’ ‘But this is not general, son. This is very specific. This is volunteering yourself to be cut open and part of you, a very particular part of you, taken out and given to another person.’ He felt an internal shiver. ‘So, what you saying? I shouldn’t do it?’ ‘I’m not saying do or don’t do. I’m saying that something like this can’t be decided by some general perceptions you have about yourself, or your goodness, or mankind’s need for goodness, or some mundane obligations or responsibility that’s out there.’ Dr Teelucksingh was gesticulating with his short, skinny arms. ‘It has to come from here.’ He pointed his fingers to his chest. ‘You have to feel some connection, some real purpose to this entire thing. The person. The operation. All of it.’ ‘And if I don’t have that?’ Ché asked.

‘Then that’s when I say, don’t do it. The worst thing is to feel guilt and resentment going into, during and after the procedure. If you going to do this, do it with a good heart.’ So that was it. That was the verdict. He knew Dr Teelucksingh was right. He felt a door closing on the turmoil in his stomach. Then Dr Teelucksingh said, ‘You know I lost a child.’ Ché was surprised, more by what his mother would term the ‘just so, dry, dry’ tone of the disclosure. ‘I didn’t.’ Dr Teelucksingh danced his hand in the air. ‘Ahh, it was a long time ago. Over thirty years or so. A little girl. Lots of physical and neurological problems. She only lived about eighteen months or so. It was so hard on my wife. All of us, of course, but really hard on Ardeena. The things she would’ve done for that little girl. But she needed all sorts of treatments. Too many things wrong. Ardeena would’ve given her a piece of any part of her own body if it woulda helped.’ He saw Dr Teelucksingh eyeing him, as though they were supposed to have reached the shared moral conclusion of the story at the same time. ‘I’m just saying, ironic, isn’t it? That in some cases no matter how much we wish to help someone else we can’t. And in other cases, we can but don’t. Won’t.’ Dr Teelucksingh was waving his arms again. ‘I’m just saying. No judgement. It’s just an observation, that’s all. This conversation just made me think of my daughter.’ ‘What was her name?’ Ché asked. ‘Gayatri.’ Dr Teelucksingh glanced at the clock on the wall before checking his phone. ‘Can you tell me who the person is?’ Ché thought for a second. ‘I can’t, doc. Not right now.’ ‘But it’s obviously someone that you don’t have a good relationship with.’

‘There’s no relationship at all.’ Dr Teelucksingh’s eyebrows rose. The gesture made him feel pitied and yet compelled the conversation forward. ‘Yeah, nothing between me and that person. So, part of my reluctance … no … it’s more anger. A big part of my anger is that they would even dare ask me. Involve my mother in this. Him. And his wife, I can’t even her name. Imagine, I can’t even the name of the woman who called my mother to ask her for a piece of her son’s liver.’ He decided to stay with his feeling of rage. It was heady, reeling him in a clear direction, no inward wrestling of the philosophical kind. Gayatri couldn’t be helped. That was unfortunate. She had been too ill. Joel couldn’t be helped either. And that was because he was a piece of shit bastard. He felt a resolution coming. And he would tell Mandisa, but only later. She, with her idealism and naivety, had a way of muddying these types of convictions. He was about to stand up and thank Dr Teelucksingh when he saw him looking pensive. He was humming again. ‘But you’re here,’ Dr Teelucksingh said, standing up and pushing his chair in. ‘What?’ ‘With all that you just said, you’re still here. Asking.’ Dr Teelucksingh hunched his shoulders, his palms facing up to the ceiling fan, and pressed his lips into an upside-down smile. He waved his entire head from side to side. ‘Contemplating. Curious.’ Ché’s stomach, as though not knowing how to feel anymore, how much lower to sink, how many times to flip over, simply began to cramp.

***

Instead of battling the Port of Spain traffic on his day off, he decided to walk around Queen’s Park Savannah. Only recently he’d heard that it was the biggest roundabout in the world. He walked aimlessly, ing midday joggers, children suspiciously idle in full uniform attire and people armed with fragrant takeaway boxes from food vendors. He churned Dr Teelucksingh’s words in his head, waiting to see what his mind would conclude. It was like his mother’s old meat grinder, the one she used to attach to the edge of the kitchen counter and throw bits of meat into, and where, after furious turns of the curved handle, he would wait to see what they transformed into down below. He thought about all that had been said and some of what he suspected hadn’t. Inwardly he opened himself to his longings, anger, fears, especially the irrational ones he felt entitled to as a child with no father. All this he channelled into a funnel in his head. As he ed the All Saints Church with its dirty brick façade and lancet windows, he wondered if this entire mess could become a lesson in forgiveness, selflessness. All the things his mother had been preaching. He shook his head and with it the pragmatism back into the situation. He didn’t have to do it if he didn’t want to. But did he want to? If he did want to, why did he want to? What did he think he had to prove? Were there some emotional, even spiritual accolades to all of this? Where were the brownie points, as Mandisa would call them, after all of this was said and done? And if he died, and the brownie points were handed out in the afterlife, what the fuck good was that? He sat down on a wooden bench under one of the enormous saman trees that lined the edge of the Savannah. A girl was at the other end, clicking away furiously on her phone. He could hear her intermittent giggle. He watched a young Indian boy, in holey three-quarter tros and a worn vest, standing in front of a cart swamped with scores of green and yellow coconuts. A minute hardly went by without the boy grabbing one of the coconuts out of an old freezer, tapping the nut with the dull side of a cutlass to check the amount of water and jelly inside and then deftly slicing off the top. Some customers drank greedily, directly from the surgical cut, hoping, he imagined, to alleviate the

murderous heat. Others, mostly women and hesitant-looking tourists, used a straw. He wondered how many years of his short life this boy had been cutting coconuts. There couldn’t be much diversity in the coconut water business. Normal or ice cold? Jelly or no jelly? Straw or no straw? Still, he didn’t bother to waste comion on the boy, who – and he had no evidence of this – probably lived with his father and grandfather, both coconut sellers all their lives, in some ostentatious mansion somewhere in central Trinidad. He thought about his conversation with Dr Teelucksingh again and the notion of an innate goodness. He couldn’t shake a shadow feeling that maybe he’d gone to meet the doctor in the hopes that he could help him get from the generic to the specific. Could make him that person who wanted not just to help everyone because he was a good man, but one who wanted to help his father, as undeserving as the old man was. He looked up as an empty coconut landed among its whole, cut, hollowed-out counterparts. They, the coconuts, would all eventually meet the same fate. What a terrible monotony. For the coconuts. For the boy. Like the coconuts, they, humans, would all eventually meet the same fate. And with that realisation, along with the familiar sinking feeling in his stomach, he realised his own life had been, up to this point, unremarkable. He’d been a good son, a decent boyfriend and a conscientious worker. But truth be told, he hadn’t set the world alight. As he got up and took one last look at the coconut cart, he couldn’t the last memorable thing he’d done.

***

Hail the King Tabernacle was the last place he expected the pull to come from. After his walk around the Savannah, he just took to driving, plotting ways to get deeper into his mother’s head. She had continued to infuriate him with her vague and colourless s of her time with Joel. Outward patience paired with rising inner anger, he’d watch her squint her eyes as though mentally wading through foggy memories. Then suck her teeth softly and shake her head as

though rattling the memories to life, before scolding the uselessness of the gingko she took every morning. He’d wait until she was finished with a story he suspected was largely fictitious, smothered with disclaimers like ‘don’t quote me but ah think …’ and then he’d get up and mutter, ‘What eye don’t see heart don’t grieve, right?’ to which Abigail simply wouldn’t respond. Yet, how many times, when he was young, had she regaled him with details of her time at the nursing college in London in the seventies? The Guyanese dormmate who threatened to spit on her from the top of the stairs when Abigail announced she’d been selected for a specialised course on frail care. The bonechilling winters and sour bedpans he could almost feel and smell as his mother spoke. When he shook himself out of the driving haze, he saw he was in East Dry River, a place that only made the news for its gang violence, drug busts or when the river burst its banks and flooded into the more scenic parts of the capital. The rains were on their way. He wasn’t old enough to start feeling it in his ts but he knew that in the coming weeks, or even days, the narrow streets would be submerged by a raging torrent of brown water carrying away colourful bits of debris – Corn Curls packets, Peanut Punch cartons, Milo chocolate wrappers, small tins of Lactogen Junior, bottles of Stag and Carib – perhaps all bought from Baby’s Sweet Shoppe outside whose gate he’d just parked. He considered walking up to the mesh window to buy a Coke when the corner of his eye caught the movement of something he hoped was only a lizard. Hail the King Tabernacle was a street away. Why not take a chance on Pastor Ernest? What did pastors do when they weren’t shouting and sweating and healing in front of their congregations? He decided against the Coke and walked over to the tabernacle. He approached a young man who was mopping the front entrance. ‘Afternoon. Pastor Ernest around?’ ‘Yeah, but he busy. He there with Pastor Ignatius.’ Ché didn’t know what the man’s raised eyebrows and sudden whisper at the mere mention of Pastor’s Ignatius’s name was supposed to mean. A financial status meeting? Their weekly concocting of miracles? ‘Best to come back later.’

‘I’ll just wait for him in there.’ Ché pointed towards the open tabernacle. ‘Suit yuhself.’ The man lifted the dirty bucket of water with some strain and walked away. Ché walked straight up to the office door and rapped lightly. ‘Yes?’ A voice called from inside. He opened the door carefully and peered in. Pastor Ernest sat behind an imposing wooden desk that was littered with papers and books. ‘Sorry to by like this, pastor.’ He felt small and unsure under Pastor Ernest’s blank expression. And why should Pastor Ernest recognise him? Ever since he was big enough to tell his mother he no longer wanted to attend Sunday worship, he rarely went, though he still, but only if he felt like it, accompanied her to church for special events. ‘Pastor, it’s me, Ché, Abigail’s son.’ It was at that moment that he realised that Pastor Ernest’s expression wasn’t one of non-recognition but of stunned joy. ‘Mighty is His name, mighty is His name!’ Pastor Ernest pushed his chair back and with some difficulty squeezed himself out from between the desk and nearby bookcase. His white teeth glittered in his dark face as he approached Ché. His mother loved Pastor Ernest. As far as she was concerned, Jesus didn’t have the monopoly on that walking on water business. Even when, some years ago, a young dougla girl, fresh from Guayaguayare, came to stay in the tabernacle’s back room, apparently at the behest of Pastor Ernest, Abigail took no part in the public lambasting. Not even when the girl fell pregnant. Back in the day, Pastor Ernest was a slim young man with a headful of hair. Now the middle button on his light pink shirt was taking great strain and his brown and white tie, secure beneath his almost non-existent neck, was tied with close to military precision. His bald head shone brilliantly beneath the fluorescent ceiling light.

‘My boy, my boy. The Spirit is really working here.’ He grabbed Ché’s hand but, as though realising a handshake would be inadequate, gave him a tight and long hug. Pastor Ernest smelt faintly of Paco Rabanne and strongly of milky Lipton tea. ‘Ignatius? Ignatius!’ As if by magic, Pastor Ignatius breezed through the door, holding a glass of what looked like ruby red grapefruit juice, the pips floating around ice cubes. Despite the relative coolness of the building, the glass was already sweating. ‘This is the man we just talking about,’ Pastor Ernest said to Pastor Ignatius. ‘Just talking about now.’ ‘Well I doh believe this, doh believe it at all.’ As he stood next to Pastor Ernest, Pastor Ignatius’s lanky frame and ample Afro conjured up a Laurel and Hardy moment, save for the race and a few inches, both vertical and horizontal. ‘We know there is only one Saviour. But sometimes, sometimes, He can send ah deputy.’ The two pastors laughed. He could put down their habit of repeating the same words and phrases to a Trinidadian idiosyncrasy. But why the hell were they so happy to see him? ‘Sit, sit. You want something to drink? Some tea?’ ‘No, thanks.’ Ché sat on a chair next to Pastor Ignatius. ‘How yuh mother going?’ ‘Well, this is what I came here to talk to you about.’ But Pastor Ernest wasn’t listening. He was looking down at some hand-scribbled numbers on a white page. He smiled and then laughed. Pastor Ignatius did the same. ‘Pastor Ernest …’ he began. ‘Boy, your mother, your mother,’ Pastor Ernest shook his head. ‘She too generous, yes. We been praying for some kind of miracle and God, God, He answer our prayers. Answer them, yes.’

‘Ah, okay. Not sure I really get you, Pastor Ernest. Let’s backtrack a bit. You said the two of you were talking about me?’ ‘Well, what you and your mother going to do for us, with the donation, we could fix the roof, extend the hall, organise some foreign speakers. Maybe something like the Gospel Fever Fest they have in England.’ Donation? He took all this in slowly, even more aware suddenly of the dusty strands of air being blown from the decrepit-looking air-conditioning unit. The near-wilted roses and carnations in a vase of cloudy water. A lone fly sitting on the edge of a cup on the table. He’d come here hoping the pastors would innocently share a side of his mother that remained invisible to him. Now, this. Unconsciously, he put his hand on his right side and wondered if blood could rush to the head and away from it at the same time. His face felt hot with rage for his mother’s apparent secret plot in which he and, he feared, one of his vital organs were implicated. At the same time an ethereal sense of … something … filled the room. Bewilderment buoyed him to the point that he felt he was looking down at the two pastors, their expectant smiles wide through the fog of innocent ignorance that surrounded them. As much as he could have throttled his mother at that moment, he didn’t want to expose her skulduggery to the two men. Also, he needed more information. ‘You know she would do anything for the church. She always said if she ever win the Lotto or something she would give away most to you.’ Not true. She never played Lotto and only on one occasion had she told him that if God saw it fit for her to be rich, she would add two bedrooms onto her house for her great-nieces who prayed daily to escape life in their north-east village of Toco. ‘And, you could imagine, this thing come as a surprise,’ Ché continued. ‘And, well, we still have to talk, me and her, about how this thing will really happen.’ Silence.

This polite and hazy exchange was getting him nowhere. ‘This is a beautiful tabernacle you have here, pastor.’ ‘By the grace of God.’ ‘But you say the roof leaking? And what kind of events you hope to have in a bigger hall?’ This would also give some insight into what kind of money they were talking about. Pastor Ernest at once became animated again, pointing in all directions and making references to parts of the church and the grounds Ché had never seen. ‘Well, it sounds …’ He struggled for the appropriate word. ‘Grand. Let’s keep this hush-hush for now, pastor. Please. And about the source of the money too.’ ‘You know your mother is a humble woman, so she not saying much about how she get the money but she just say that you have everything to do with it.’ He checked his watch. His mother would be at home now watching the Christian Broadcasting Network. He stood up and stretched out his hand to the men. They ignored it and hugged him, repeating incantations softly into his ear. He closed the door behind him as he heard them resume their happy chatter. Maybe his façade had been convincing. Maybe, and more likely, they were too dazzled by visions of a palatial house of God in the sky to notice anything else.

***

He found his mother nodding off in her favourite armchair, the heat of the front room too stifling for words. CBN was on the screen. He resisted the urge to slap dead a mosquito sitting on her arm. Instead, he brushed it away gently. On her lap her Bible lay open. ‘Mummy,’ he whispered.

She grunted softly but her body didn’t move. ‘We don’t pray anymore. Together. We don’t pray anymore.’ The words, which caused a flutter to his heart, had tumbled out through teeth and drool, as though escaping when they shouldn’t be. Her eyes were fluttering gently and he wondered if he was interrupting a dream. ‘Mummy.’ She opened her eyes and instinctively wiped the side of her mouth. ‘Is you,’ she said sleepily. He took a chair and sat squarely in front of her. He didn’t trust that his resolve would stand up under the minutes or even seconds it would take for her to ease herself from her slumber. ‘I just saw Pastor Ernest, Mummy. That money, a donation that he say you going to provide him? Where that money coming from?’ He watched her eyes widen and chest heave with the intake of air. She began to lift up her hands but he got hold of them with a firm gentleness, rubbing her fingers with his thumbs. Perhaps if he’d allowed her hands to roam free she would’ve placed them on her head and begun rocking back and forth, willing herself to speak in tongues. He was in no mood. ‘Okay. Okay. She say she will give me, give us, money.’ ‘Who?’ ‘Joel wife.’ He thought it better to take his hands back as he could feel himself wanting to squeeze something. ‘So you selling my liver now.’ She looked up at him in genuine surprise. ‘Why you have to make it sound so bad? Is not like that. For all the things that Joel do to us and didn’t do for us, we

deserve – these were her words – some kinda compensation. For all what you was going to do for him.’ ‘But you ain’t tell me nothing about this. And yet Pastor Ernest already building his new church.’ Was that the beginning of a grin on her face? Was this funny to her? ‘Doh study Pastor Ernest. He just get excited when I tell him that I might come into some money and that if that is the case, and believe me I said if, then of course the church will get something.’ ‘And how much money?’ He hated that he was asking. It suggested a certain degree of complicity. But he was, in fact, curious. Curious about what the amount would say about his father and his wife. ‘She didn’t say, exactly. But she say it going to be plenty.’ ‘Well, if they have plenty money, they could damn well buy a liver on the black market.’ ‘Well, I dunno anything about that.’ She was looking tired again, as though this type of cornering left her drained. ‘What is her name, by the way?’ ‘Niamh.’ ‘So she and Joel rich?’ ‘I dunno.’ ‘Well, was he rich when you knew him?’ ‘I dunno.’ What you fucking know, he wanted to ask. But he dared not. ‘He was just a delivery boy. He was working for a pharmaceutical company and would deliver things, you know.’

‘And over the years, you don’t know if he got rich somehow?’ ‘I hardly heard from him. You know that.’ ‘So you want me to do this thing now? All these years you never told me about him because you said you scared that I would want to go to England to find him. Now you ready to push me on the plane.’ ‘I want you to do what you want to do.’ She blew her nose with tissues she retrieved from her bra strap. ‘But as a Christian, I can’t say we mustn’t forgive him.’ ‘And that Pastor Ernest can’t get a new church.’ She looked up at him, her mouth stern. But there was that unmistakable twinkle in her eye again. ‘She leave her number?’ he heard himself ask. ‘You going to call her?’ For the last few weeks he’d been searching for philosophical, emotional clues as to what he should do. But maybe the decision lay in the bare facts of the matter, which, he suddenly realised, neither he nor his mother had in their entirety. ‘Well, it was bound to come to this. Where’s the number?’ He watched his mother shuffle to the small table next to the phone where she kept dozens of little pieces of paper, scribbled with notes and numbers. He texted Mandisa to find out the code to call the United Kingdom. He didn’t respond to the excitement in her voice and ignored her probing questions, promising to call later. He dialled. He could feel his mother’s eyes on him and it did nothing to quell the panicky ripples moving around his body. He had to hold the phone with both hands to stop it from shaking. What exactly was he going to say? And should he come across as polite? Polite but stern? Or just plain crass?

The weird ringing tone had stopped. There was dead silence and an empty hollowness was coming through the phone. ‘Hello?’ The voice on the other end, gruff and irritated, was a man’s. His heart stopped.

Joel

He knew the urges would come. They all talked about it. They all stood up there, pontificating like that fat preacher outside Brixton tube station, banging on about how things would get better. Who told them they had all the fucking answers? Clenching their fists and waving their arms like it showed off stripes earned in a war or something. Who told them urges only came short and sharp? He was shivering and sweating under the duvet. What was short anyway? Was the heat even on? And where the bloody hell was Niamh? Then there was the thirst. How to describe it? His throat wasn’t exactly parched. Sure, he could do with some water, but how to explain that he needed a drink to steady himself before he would even taste the water. He could actually smell the comforting oaky scent of the whisky. It didn’t take much to conjure up the tingling in his mouth either, accentuated, for reasons he could never quite understand, on the right side where his false teeth were. He looked around the room. There was a smell. But from where? He put his nose to the duvet. Nothing beyond that lavender fabric softener that Niamh liked. Lavender. Couldn’t she try something different for a change? Peach or rose or even aloe vera for Chrissake. Thirty years, fucking lavender. He staggered up and shifted the curtains, shocked to see it was dark outside. Where had the day gone? He opened the window. Along with the cold air that rushed in, a strong whiff of … not honey … not cinnamon … something like aniseed blew into the room. Surely the Greek bakery was closed by now. He was about to close the window when … salted fish. He was sure of it. It must be that old Jamaican man two doors down. He’d claimed to Niamh he cooked the best ackee and saltfish outside Kingston. Who cared? No matter how Niamh

tried to convince him to taste ackee, he couldn’t bring himself to try the yellow, pulpy thing that came swimming in a can of water. ‘Niamh!’ he called, as he closed the window. He pushed his head out of the bedroom door and listened for the TV or sounds coming from the kitchen. ‘Niamh!’ He felt his way to the kitchen, steadying himself against the wall. His head hurt like he’d been drinking. Blimey. If he was going to get this kind of headache from not drinking he might as well have a drink. The long-handled frying pan, a plate and cup were soaking in murky water in the kitchen sink. Bits of something that looked like wet bread floated on top. Fuck. He rushed to the small plastic dustbin under the sink. Even though he felt his stomach contract and a sharp movement in his throat, nothing made it through to his mouth. He told himself that, while he was down there, he should rummage among the plastic bottles, cleaners and scouring pads. Truth was, he didn’t trust himself to get up just yet. He was sure he could hear a ringing but he couldn’t tell if it was in his ears or not. It was disgusting down there. He thought he might retch again. He fingered the damp caused by – he couldn’t imagine what else – a slow-leaking pipe. He should get about fixing that. Maybe tomorrow. Couldn’t get a thing done today. Then he saw it. Johnnie Walker. All the way at the back. Green. Shiny. He watched his shaky hand reach through the cobwebs for it. He felt the beginnings of a smile; Niamh was never very ingenious when it came to hiding places. He unscrewed the top with a careful reverence. It was empty. He was glad she wasn’t at home. He might’ve flung it at her. Bloody cruel of her to do something like that. He put his nose to the top and inhaled. Whether the bottle really harboured an old smell of whisky or whether it was all in his head, he wasn’t sure. But in an instant he felt tiny parts of his brain opening. Like an antihistamine bulldozing through blocked sinuses. This shit was like magic.

He reached in to put the bottle back, grabbed the edge of the sink and pulled himself up off his knees. He hadn’t drunk. He could feel good about that. ‘It was empty, you stupid arsehole,’ he muttered out loud. Still, he hadn’t drunk. He heard the ringing again. This time he knew it was the phone. Where the hell was Niamh? He lifted the receiver. ‘Hello?’ His voice echoed back at him. Must be a long-distance call. ‘Hello? Hello?’ he said again, not trying to keep the impatience from his voice. Someone cleared their throat. ‘Who’s calling?’ He could sense the hesitation through the phone. It was one of Niamh’s Nigerian people. It had to be. He glanced at the clock. Just after 6pm. What time did that make it in Nigeria? Anyway, what did it matter? ‘Don’t call back here.’ And he hung up. He didn’t feel like being alone. Chelsy used to say he shouldn’t be alone when he felt like this. But where the hell was she? Disappeared. Just like that, without so much as a word, a goodbye, or even a bit of her usual hare-brained advice for staying dry. They’d met a couple of times at the meetings and at Best Friend Rescue, where she couldn’t stop talking about the things she’d got up to while growing up in a children’s home. The endless absconding, being brought back by the police and tossed over to carers who were young, inexperienced and had their own dangerously close brushes with the law. It had been nice spending time with someone who didn’t think him completely useless. Someone who didn’t think, like Niamh did, that he should be pitied. But now? Maybe she was plastered, fucked off her head in a pub somewhere.

He tried her phone again. As he’d expected, it went straight to voicemail. He wondered how much of that upbeat message, emitted through smiling, pinkpainted lips and slightly yellowed teeth, resembled what she might be up to now. ‘Hey,’ he grumbled into the phone. ‘Gimme a call. Hope you okay.’ As he scrolled through her previous messages, he heard a key in the door. He could see through the thin plastic bags at Niamh’s thighs that she’d been to the Brixton market. No doubt she’d bought more junk they didn’t need. Something that looked like an abacus stuck from the top of one bag. In his current mood he thought it better not to ask. ‘The dead has arisen,’ she said. ‘Don’t you start.’ ‘What’s wrong with you?’ But she had her back to him, clearly not caring for a response. She tipped the bags over and caught the shiny green and red bell peppers before they fell off the counter. He looked into one of the bags and pulled out a half-foot-long yam, dirty, dark brown and rough to the touch. ‘What’s this for?’ ‘It’s a yam, Joel.’ ‘I know it’s a frigging yam. What you gonna do with it?’ ‘Boil it. Like potatoes. You know, potatoes? The things Irish people been eating since Adam was in shorts?’ She was irritatingly upbeat and mouthy. There was even an extra-pink glow to her face, although that could be attributed to the chill outside. Still, there was something, well, unhinging about her mood. ‘So, what’s up with you?’ ‘What?’ ‘You seem … different.’ ‘I’m all right.’

She was clearly better than all right, taking what looked like an antique milk jug from the bag and putting it in the cupboard above the microwave. It sat next to at least a dozen others just like it. ‘So just keen to try out yam today?’ How in was she with these Nigerians anyway? ‘Change is as good as a rest. What you been up to? Besides a kip?’ Her question made him the phone call earlier. ‘I think someone called for you.’ ‘What do you mean, you think?’ She was walking towards the living room. ‘The number looked funny. And I couldn’t hear so well.’ ‘Did you talk to them?’ She was pressing buttons to see the last number that came up. She glanced back at him, a slight frown on her brow. ‘Eight six eight,’ she said. ‘That’s Trinidad.’ ‘What?’ All at once his head began spinning again. ‘Yep. That’s Abigail. Maybe it’s good news. Call her back.’ ‘Are you mad? I mean, why don’t you call? Maybe she was calling for you. This whole thing is your crazy idea.’ Then he ed his rude hang-up. Shit. Could that have really been Abigail he’d spoken to like that? He collapsed onto the couch, feeling nauseous. What sick bastard would speak like that to someone who was trying to help? How he wished that bottle beneath the sink held more than whisky-marinated air. ‘Yam?’ Niamh stuck her head through the living room door. The vegetable looked like a huge cancerous growth. He glared at her.

***

He was surprised when he woke up early the next morning to see a message from Chelsy asking him to come to Best Friend Rescue that afternoon. He looked over at Niamh, her lips still stained red from the day before, her mouth slightly open as though her dreaming was filled with wonderment. It would have been a pretty sight were it not for the thunderous sound coming from her chest and nose. Whenever he complained about it she claimed his snoring was twice as bad. Maybe. He had no way of knowing. In the kitchen he threw some coffee granules into a cup and clicked the kettle on. As he looked for his fags, he ed his dream. Well, bits and pieces at least. It was that night in 1981. Except in the dream Abigail hadn’t come to his house after the fire at her flat. She was out on Brixton Road, shouting that the riots were about to start up again. Ever so slowly, he allowed himself to what happened that night. The real night. Not the dream night. He lit a cigarette and heard the water fighting to escape the top of the kettle. He could hardly believe what he was permitting his arms and legs to do. He went to the living room and lifted the telephone receiver. He pressed the button, telling himself he should check the time first. It was probably in the middle of the night over there. That wasn’t fair. Abigail was no spring chicken. There would be no good reason for her to be up at that ungodly hour. Even if she did rise early to pray for the souls of sinners like him, this was taking the proper piss. He should hang up. But he knew if he did, he would likely never have the courage to attempt it again. ‘Hello?’ The voice wasn’t anything more or less than he’d expected. That of an old woman woken up in the middle of the night. But it crushed him still. So feeble, broken. So full of worry. Christ, what a heartless bastard he was.

‘Abigail?’ ‘Yes?’ She cleared her throat. ‘Who is this?’ As each second ed, she sounded stronger. And the stronger she sounded, well, the less of an idiot he felt. ‘Abigail, it’s Joel.’ He heard the bed creaking. How much did she weigh? He had absolutely no idea. Was it an old bed? Why was it creaking? Didn’t she have money to buy a new one? Now that he’d woken her up, would she have to run to the toilet? Shit. Oh, shit. He hadn’t even thought if there was someone lying next to her. This entire thing was a crock of shite disaster. ‘Joel?’ She still said his name as if there was a ‘well’ at the end of it. ‘I’m sorry about the time.’ ‘Are you okay? What happened? Wait, let me put on the light.’ He strained to hear if she was whispering apologies to someone. ‘You there?’ she asked. ‘Yes.’ He realised he was still standing, as though waiting for the situation to become comfortable enough to sit down. ‘I’m sorry about calling like this. I didn’t realise the time until … well, I saw you called earlier.’ ‘That wasn’t me.’ Jesus. It had been Ché. ‘I’m sorry. I thought he was someone else. I didn’t know it was Ché. I was … very rude to him.’ He wondered if this ission was enough for her to know what he was getting at. That he was too cowardly to apologise to Ché directly and hoped that she would do it on his behalf. ‘How are you … both?’

‘We okay. And you? You all right?’ Her voice softened. And because it had, he sat down. ‘I don’t know. Not really.’ ‘How you feeling? What the doctors saying?’ It was all too long-winded to go into at that hour of the morning. They would have to talk about it all eventually: what Niamh had instigated, his health, Ché and all the rest of it. But just for that moment, even though on his side of the world the sun was already trying to warm the chill outside, he imagined himself in a darkened place, quieted by the still of her night. ‘I had a …’ Dream? He couldn’t bring himself to say it. ‘I was thinking about something. It’s going to sound strange. Well, maybe with all that’s been happening, it’s not that strange.’ ‘What was it?’ ‘I was thinking about the time your flat caught fire.’ He didn’t want her to think that was a euphemism for the first time they had sex. He’d meant what he’d said back then. That he was happy she’d come to him. Her vulnerability and tears had intensified the drama of the story. Back then she’d had a naive, just-off-the-boat air about her, blended intoxicatingly with the anger most Caribbean people carried around in Thatcher’s turbulent south London. Relief washed through him when she giggled. ‘Why you thinking about that at this jumbie hour?’ ‘It’s morning here already.’ ‘Oh, yes, true. Well, that was something, eh? One minute I sleeping good, good. And the next I have to climb out a window. You always used to ask me why I stay in such place.’ ‘But you never listened. I warned you to stay out of dodgy places.’ ‘It was Brixton in the eighties. Everywhere was dodgy.’ They laughed together

and he was surprised at how good it felt. ‘Yeah, but drug addicts living on the ground floor? That was mad.’ ‘Nobody ever prove it was them that start the fire. But we knew. Sweet Jesus, that was scary. If I think about it now, I can still make meself frighten.’ ‘I’m glad you came to me. That night.’ There it was. He’d said it. Well, at least, alluded to what it had all led to. She didn’t say anything but he didn’t mind. She didn’t need to. It was enough that he reminded himself that he hadn’t always been a decrepit, complaining, bad-tempered shit. Sometime, long ago, people had come to him for help. ‘Listen, I, we, all need to talk about this … my situation,’ he said. ‘Ché, and how this whole thing is going to work. I know Niamh has been talking to you.’ ‘What she say?’ The words came out more rapidly than he expected. There was a trace of worry in her voice that hadn’t been there before. ‘What do you mean?’ She didn’t respond. He felt an immediate, inexplicable space settle between them. He wondered if he’d been wrong to bring Niamh into the conversation. ‘Yes. There’s a lot to talk about. But first, you have to right some things with Ché.’ ‘Yes, yes, I know, Abigail. I’m sorry. And I need to make him understand the risks.’ He was rambling. ‘We all need to know what’s involved. I mean, him coming up here for the pre-tests and then there’s some counselling we both –’ ‘No, Joel. I mean you have to right things with him. Before all that can happen, you have to make up things with him.’ Of course, she was right. He raised his head. The darkness was gone and the sun was streaming through a gap in the curtain. ‘I know. Give me your address?’

‘What address? An email address? I don’t use that. Don’t know the first thing about it.’ ‘No, your postal address. Maybe I can write him a letter.’ ‘The post? Man, what make you think you gonna live long enough for all that?’ He found himself sniggering. Abigail was like that. When he least expected it, she would sock a punch. He insisted on the address anyway. Maybe he just felt like seeing the stuff in his head land on a piece of paper. She was right: it was unlikely his medical prognosis allowed for such patience. Still, he had to do it at his own pace. ‘Maybe give me Ché’s email address too, if you have it.’ He heard rustling on the other side. ‘I think I have one of his cards here. Wait.’ Her voice was soft as she read it out to him. ‘Everything will be okay, Joel. I’m praying for you. Things will come right, in Jesus’ name.’ When he hung up the phone and did the math, he realised it was 3:52am over there. He still felt a little bad about that. But as he clicked the kettle on again he wondered at how, so many years on, he and Abigail had managed, once again, to make magic in just under ten minutes.

***

The minute he saw her carry a water bowl and place it in front of a small grey puppy, he knew she was drunk. The bowl, only medium sized, shook exaggeratedly, spilling water ahead of every step she took. She was walking through the balls of her feet, toes dead forward. There was a painful, strained look about the whole thing. ‘Long time,’ he said. ‘How you been doing?’ She looked up from stroking the dog, hand over her eyes to shield the glare.

‘Hey, you. Didn’t think you were coming.’ ‘Why?” ‘’Cause I said to meet me here at twelve o’clock.’ ‘No. You said two.’ He started to pull out his phone from his pocket. ‘Really? Okay then.’ She stood up and he noted her glassy eyes, coupled with a subtle clenching and grinding of the jaw. What the hell was she on? ‘So, how you been?’ she asked. He was glad he hadn’t responded because he would’ve been talking to her backside. She was striding at a quick pace clearly to nowhere in particular, greeting people she had likely already greeted. ‘Hey.’ He took her firmly by the elbow. ‘What’s the deal?’ ‘What are you on about?’ ‘Chelsy, you’re sloshed.’ In the same breath, he realised he was no one to talk, on his hands and knees just the day before, inhaling the remnant scents from an old whisky bottle. Still, he hadn’t had a drink. And what was the point of two drunks meeting up from time to time if they couldn’t help each other out? ‘Don’t be daft.’ ‘You are.’ She wrenched her elbow away. ‘Well, fuck off then.’ The slurring of her words did nothing to blunt their edge. He watched her struggling to lower a huge bag of dog food from a top shelf. Everyone else seemed busy in the kennels or on the small patch of grass some of the dogs were playing on. ‘Listen.’ He reached up and lifted the bag down. ‘Tell me what’s happening. Haven’t heard a word from you in yonks.’ ‘This and that.’

‘Is it …’ He was about to ask about her boyfriend. Shit, that guy was dead. ‘Is it your family? Is it money?’ ‘It’s … nothing.’ She filled a few bowls with dried food. ‘I’m fine.’ ‘Why don’t we meet at the church tonight?’ ‘There’s no meeting tonight. Plus, I can’t be arsed.’ ‘What’s tomorrow? There’s one tomorrow. How ’bout it?’ ‘No.’ ‘Look.’ He put his hand over the bag to stop her from pouring. ‘I know you’ve had a nip. And then some.’ He lifted up his hands as she began to protest. ‘You can feed some other geezer this horseshit but not me. I’ve got a lot more years on this than you. Let’s find a meeting today. Anywhere. Whaddaya say?’ She was looking down at her nails, bitten, dirty, with spots of purple nail polish here and there. ‘I don’t want to.’ It was a child’s response. She was smiling but the smile didn’t send her face into lines and early wrinkles as it normally did. ‘But I wouldn’t mind a bite somewhere. Just give me a few minutes to finish up here.’ He looked at his phone. ‘I can’t. I have to go to the hospital.’ He saw something like concern on her face. ‘The doctor called me. Told me we needed to talk. Freaked me out. Can’t be good news, I imagine.’ He hated that he was looking into her inebriated eyes, hoping she would say something inspiring, hopeful. ‘Look, Joel, you’re a nice guy. And ’cause of that I’m not gonna muck about and lie to you. You don’t deserve that.’ She began combing her hands through her hair and pursing her lips like she was about to say something profound.

‘Joel.’ She swallowed dramatically. ‘Livers aren’t easy to come by.’ ‘You’re the expert on livers now?’ He should just leave. Why couldn’t he? ‘Don’t get upset with the messenger.’ ‘What?’ ‘I’m just saying.’ She was making no fucking sense. ‘I gotta go.’ ‘I just don’t want you to get your hopes up,’ she whispered behind him as he was walking away. ‘I mean, you’re old. If they got a liver, wouldn’t they give it to a younger person?’ He turned and stared at her. With all the dramatic intensity her current state could muster, she threw up her palms and batted her eyes. ‘I’m just saying.’

***

‘I’m not going to lie to you.’ Dr Kleinhans was flitting around his office. Of course not. No one felt like lying today. ‘Liver transplantation is possible but there are some risks.’ The doc was pulling drawers out, lifting up papers on the desk and peering beneath them. When that didn’t get him what he was looking for, he stood in front of his bookshelf with his hands on his hips. Humming. ‘Listen, Mr Sheedy,’ Dr Kleinhans said as he sat back down. ‘Doc, when you say “Mr Sheedy”, I look around for me old man. Seriously, I

used to call him that. Mr Sheedy. You believe that?’ ‘Okay. Joel.’ The doc was shuffling around on the desk again. ‘But it’s going to be a lot to take in. Goodness, I thought I just had your X-rays and test results in an envelope, right here. Sorry. Let me get my secretary to find it.’ Dr Kleinhans reached for the phone on his desk but Joel raised his hand. ‘Doc, can’t you just give me the bottom line?’ ‘Have you and your wife been talking about living donor transplants?’ Joel scoffed and looked to his left, as though Niamh was seated next to him. ‘She’s hatched up this crazy plan about asking my son to be a donor. It’s crazy, doc. The plan, I mean. It’s just … it’s just so impossible.’ ‘Well, Joel, as you know, we ran some tests and your pulmonary hypertension isn’t as severe as I thought. In theory, living donation is possible. Anyway, we can talk more, about the risks especially, once you find out if you indeed have a donor. But for now, we’ll be doing a fairly standard right lobe donation.’ ‘You’ve lost me, doc?’ ‘Adult patients need quite a bit of liver to be donated. This will need to come from the right side of the liver, which is the larger.’ ‘And the risks?’ ‘Well, any operation has risks. But I think we might be getting ahead of ourselves here –’ ‘What are the risks?’ ‘Joel.’ ‘Doc, please, be fucking straight with me. Sorry to be blunt, but, please.’ Dr Kleinhans pulled out a small notepad and drew something that looked like a lady’s bonnet from the olden days, minus the straps hanging down the sides. ‘This is your liver. Transplants can be done using either the left lobe, here, or the right lobe, here. As you can see, the right lobe is larger so we normally take from

here but … taking more of the donor’s liver means a higher risk to the donor.’ ‘Then why for the love of God are we taking from the right? Why not the left?’ ‘When you look at the balance of risks, Joel, the right is safer.’ ‘For who? I don’t want to do anything that’s going to jeopardise my son, doc.’ When Dr Kleinhans gave a slight but emphatic lean of his head, Joel felt a soft pain beginning behind his eyes. He squeezed them shut. No way was he gonna cry here. ‘And the left side?’ ‘The left side is smaller so we get a lot less liver, so to speak. That means we run the risk of the graft being too small to regenerate itself onto your own liver. And that’s a risk to you.’ ‘I’d rather that than the risk to him.’ ‘Well, Joel, like you said, let me be blunt. As the surgeon here, I need to make that call. I need to balance the risks between donor and recipient and from where I sit, that’s a right lobe procedure. Actually, this hospital doesn’t even do left lobe donations anymore.’ ‘I can’t bear anything happening to him, doc.’ ‘And it won’t.’ Dr Kleinhans looked at the drawings again and smiled. ‘You’d think my art would’ve gotten better after all these years.’ ‘What if I don’t agree?’ ‘With what?’ ‘What if I say I’d only agree if you do the left lobe?’ Dr Kleinhans leaned forward on the desk and stared. ‘That’s a decision for the donor, Joel. And me.’ ‘I’ll tell him not to agree to do it unless it’s the left lobe. I will. I’ll tell him.’ He wasn’t sure what he was on about, talking as though he’d gone past Form Two Biology, a hundred years ago. ‘I’ll tell him to forget it. That’s my position.’

‘Joel –’ ‘I mean it, doc. I’d rather take the risk. I would. Can’t you find another way? Can’t you find a way to do the left and still have me take most of the risk?’ Dr Kleinhans stared out the window for so long Joel wondered if he was contemplating phoning hospital security to report a veiled threat or if he was just looking for a way to remove him from medical consideration altogether. ‘Or, should you even bother, doc? I mean, really. I’m on my way out. One foot in the departure lounge as my father, Mr Sheedy, used to say.’ ‘No. No. You’re right, Joel. Don’t lose hope.’ There was a sad resignation in Dr Kleinhans’s voice. ‘You’re right. It’s my job to look at all options.’ ‘And what happens if it doesn’t work?’ ‘By “doesn’t work”, you mean if something happens to either you or your son? What’s his name again?’ ‘Ché.’ ‘Well, I’ll be honest with you …’ He always wondered why people started sentences like that, as though they were making an exception just this once. ‘… If Ché dies on the table,’ Dr Kleinhans continued, ‘and that’s a huge if, this entire transplant programme could shut down. A lot of people would be in a lot of trouble. And it would be a tragedy, of course.’ ‘And if I die? Not so much of a tragedy.’ They both laughed though he was sure Dr Kleinhans wasn’t supposed to. ‘I mean, no one wants that to happen. It’s my job to make sure that doesn’t happen. As the primary patient, the person in need of a liver, you sign forms stating that you are aware of the risks. But I’m not going to play God with your life, Joel. If, during the surgery, we see that it’s really way too risky for either of you, we’ll abort. We’ll just close up and, well, look for another way.’ Suddenly, the reality of the situation came to him and, had he not already been

sitting, he figured he might’ve fallen over. ‘Joel, do you want to live? I know it sounds like a strange question and maybe the answer is obvious but we need to establish that first. We need to establish your will to live. If you’re motivated to live, then the rest is up to me.’ No, it wasn’t strange or obvious, he wanted to tell the doc. It wasn’t that he didn’t want to live, it was just that he didn’t mind dying that much either. But he sensed this position would be unpopular. And sitting in the light-drenched room with its potted plants, framed affirmations and Dr Kleinhans’s green eyes boring into him, he figured he should want to live. ‘Yeah, I wanna live.’ ‘Good.’ It was the first time he saw the effect of a real smile on the rest of the man’s features. Angular face. Pinchable cheeks. The doc was quite a handsome guy. Had himself a smooth set of pearly whites, not a smattering of stained, directionless teeth that seemed to plague the English, no matter their station in life. ‘You sticking to the programme, going to the AA meetings?’ ‘Yeah.’ ‘Good.’ Dr Kleinhans leaned back in his chair. ‘Let’s try to find a middle way then. Okay? We need to get Ché to come in as soon as possible. Where are you with that?’ He thought about his conversation with Abigail, preferring to it from her side. The auspicious hour. The darkness he’d imagined enveloping them. The easy blissfulness of their reminiscing. This had given way to a kind of intimacy that was not without a hint of mystique. And all these things, conspiring together, lent themselves to feelings of worth. And hope. ‘I’m working on it, doc.’

Trevor

He leaned over the platform just far enough to look into the tunnel of darkness. Not a splinter of light. It was a shocking cliché which, ordinarily, would have prompted faux disgust between him and Carl. By now, they would be having a friendly argument about why light wasn’t always better than darkness. Especially – and this, naturally, coming from Carl – if you suffered from photophobia. Or why such supposed wisdom, directed at a heteronormative, sighted society was discriminatory. Would a blind person give a shit about the light at the end of the tunnel? And what about a fugitive, using the tunnel as his escape route. Surely, the poor bastard was likely to get shot the minute he stepped into the light. And other such nonsense. But Carl wasn’t with him. Carl wasn’t … anywhere. He looked down the tunnel again. Apart from a huge rat strolling along the tracks, there was no life coming out of the darkness. He glanced over at the Thought for the Day. On the big whiteboard – the writing so neat the word ‘penmanship’ sprang to his mind – was a quote from Harun Yahya: I always wonder why birds stay in the same place when they can fly anywhere on the earth. Then I ask myself the same question. He read it a few times, thinking that Yahya wasn’t referring to anyone on this Clapham North platform. Or likely anyone on the train which, according to the monitor above him, would be approaching in twelve minutes. From what he could see, bodies of all types, facial features stretched, flattened, pointed and angled, hairstyles of every inclination, languages as diverse as the colourful criss-crossed train lines on the transport map on the wall, all swirled around him. The whole world seemed to be in motion. He spent a few minutes, mainly to see if an idea for a painting would reveal

itself, thinking about all the people he knew who’d crossed some kind of border, ocean or even tollgate to try to taste a different kind of life. It made him think about Bones, making his way up to Johannesburg on that eternal bus ride. It’s not too bad. Even have movies on the bus. Bones had messaged him the previous day. All he knew was that Bones was meant to, legitimately, thank God, pick up a car from someone in Kempton Park and drive it back to Cape Town. He hadn’t even told Bones of his intention to give him a small portion of the money he was going to be collecting from Carl’s mother. He wasn’t even sure it was a good idea. He would have to check with his own mother first to make sure nothing, of late, had gone missing from the house. Next train: approaching. The rat, probably also able to sense this from the gush of warm, incoming air, had gone. He couldn’t worry about the money. It had already crossed time zones, from palm to pocket to palm. By now, Mark would’ve handed it over to Anneke. He didn’t know her well enough to guess where in her house she would stash it. His own mother’s favourite place was her left bra strap and no amount of fake fawning and hugging was ever able to dislodge even one note without her knowledge. As kids they had tried and always ended up, all of them, laughing on the floor. Five hundred pounds in Bones’ hands. He didn’t need to know the exact exchange rate to know it would give his mom thousands of rands. As the doors opened and he was shoved into a carriage, he wondered if Bones had ever touched foreign money before. Bones. Unemployed. British pounds. Johannesburg. Dangerous recipe, was all that Carl had said in a soft-spoken and irritatingly know-it-all voice. A pregnant woman smiled as he offered her his seat. He eased closer to the door, but then found himself squashed between a buggy, the wide-eyed occupant staring at him with unabashed curiosity, and a Samsonite suitcase. Earlier on he’d googled Rosenhof again, although he already knew what would come up. Apart from a few guest houses and a small town with that name, the search didn’t bring up anything else, let alone something salacious. Or criminal. What was worse? He wasn’t sure.

Along with the name Rosenhof, he typed in everything from Carl’s parents’ names to places their family had been to on holiday. Clarens. Warmbaths. Lusikisiki. Nothing. He should check on Bones. Howzit? Kul. We got in this am We? Dex and heem wth me He stared at the message, moving the few words around on the screen with his mind, digging beneath and in between them. Shit. Dexter and Faheem. Bones must’ve left that bit out when he was selling the story to their mother. The boy could talk a nun out of her habit. And probably had. When had Dexter even gotten out? Will call Carl’s mom tomorrow. maybe by over the weekend to get the stuff. Can’t wait to see the Chelsea stuff. leaving for home on Monday. don’t worry bout nothin. Will keep everything safe. trust me. Bones was rambling, trying too hard, as though he could sense something. Of all the skelm friends Bones could’ve gone to Johannesburg with, and the choice wasn’t at all limited, Dexter and Faheem were the top picks. Trevor pictured the duo, their mischievous eyes set against hard expressions, high cheekbones and jaws cut too sharp for guys so young. Bones, though, despite ambitions, hadn’t quite grown into such a face yet. There was still a semblance of blind stupidity about him. Or was this just what a big brother saw? He knew there was no way of controlling any plans those losers had probably already cooked up. But he also knew the chance of the rands making the sixteen hundred kilometres into his mother’s bra strap was looking slim. Maybe he could ask Carl’s mom to just hand over the shirt and scarf and hold onto the money until he made a better plan.

B, don’t worry about the money. might have to make another plan He wasn’t expecting the call to come through as he rode the escalator into the bustling human traffic that was London Bridge station. ‘Trev.’ ‘Bones? You good? How’s Joburg?’ ‘It’s okay. The usual. Everyone in a big fucking hurry.’ ‘Where’re you guys staying?’ ‘With Heem’s uncle. It’s his kombi we’re driving back.’ ‘And it’s all … you know?’ ‘I can’t hear you. What’d you say?’ Trevor stepped into the corner of an Upper Crust, the smell of fresh baguettes and the piles of croissants triggering his hunger. He put his hand over his mouth. ‘It’s nothing illegal, right? No shitty, dodgy business. Nothing that’s going to worry Mummy, right?’ Now he was rambling. ‘No, of course not, Trev. I promised you. You don’t want us to get the stuff from Carl’s mother anymore?’ ‘Nah.’ ‘Why?’ ‘You telling me you don’t know why?’ ‘Trust me, the guys are okay. Dex isn’t going to mess things up after he just got out. And Heem’s father told him, in front of us, that he’ll fuck him up if he gets into any shit while we up here. Trev?’ He wasn’t sure what to do with the seconds of silence between them. He glanced up at the train schedule. The massive board flipped to reveal the new

destinations: East Croydon, Hayes, Sevenoaks. He could take any of those to New Cross. ‘Trev? You there?’ He closed his eyes, hoping the jazzy version of ‘Somewhere Over the Rainbow’ that crooned from a busker’s shiny saxophone would take away his sense that this was all a bad idea. Times like this he welcomed Carl’s firm hand taking the phone away from him and mouthing a script that left nothing open to interpretation. Tell them to voetsek, Carl would say. And you, next time use Western Union. ‘Trev?’ ‘Yeah, I’m here. Listen to me, Bones, and I mean, really fucking listen to me. You gonna call to arrange a time with Carl’s mother to collect the stuff. Yeah, the Chelsea stuff and the money. When you get there, and by the way dress decent, bathe, spray and pull your tros over your ass. Now, what was I saying? Oh yeah, when you get there, you and only you will get out of the car. I don’t want those two fuckheads even smelling the front gate. You’ll greet Carl’s mom – her name is Anneke, by the way. Actually, just call her Mrs Kleinhans. If she asks you to come inside, say no. No, thanks. Tea? No, thanks. Water? No, thanks. Blink only when she hands you the stuff. Other than that, keep your eyeballs straight fucking ahead, you hear me? Say thank you and then get the hell out. Got it?’ ‘God. You make us sound like we the 28s or something.’ ‘The 28s? Really? No, you’re not the 28s but keep going like you’re going and you’ll meet them in Pollsmoor Prison for sure. Look, Justin, you heard me, right? Tell me you heard every word I said?’ ‘Yes, yes, okay. I’ll do it like that. You should trust me a bit more, you know. Did Mummy tell you I helped her out at the church bazaar last weekend?’ What else did you help yourself to, he wanted to ask, finding himself grinning. He pictured Father Cornelius pacing slowly next to the family’s table of pumpkin fritters, koesisters, and milk tarts, his hands clasped behind him, his squinted eyes and furrowed brow openly suspicious. Despite the years, Father Cornelius had never quite made peace with the correlation between Bones’ two-

week stint as an acolyte and the unusually meagre collection take during that time. The busker stopped and wiped the mouth of his sax. Everything felt noisy and cold and harassing again. ‘Bones, listen, I gotta go. Keep in touch, okay? And stay out of trouble.’ ‘I will, boet.’ He checked his watch and realised he was cutting it close for the seminar. Nineteenth century Russian impressionism hadn’t exactly fascinated him until Alvaro took up the habit of reading Pushkin after sex. Even this had appeared concocted the first time it had happened. A lone book on the bedside table and it just happened to be The Tale of the Fisherman and the Fish? At the time, he’d wondered if it hadn’t been left there by an old lover. After that, Alvaro would read poems off his phone. Maybe it was Alvaro’s accent that gave Pushkin’s deeply romantic poems a further erotic layer. It was during these wine-sodden, post-coital moments that Trevor began wondering if early Russian painters had been equally obsessed with love and nature. Had their brush strokes been fluid and free? Or heavy and deliberate? Did their work accentuate the mysticism within Pushkin’s work or reject it for a more realistic depiction of harsh peasant life? He planned to ask these questions at the seminar. He was making his way to the train when his phone rang. ‘Hey, Chris.’ He hoped this meant more of his paintings had been sold at The Art Scene. ‘Trevor, how are you?’ He could detect something off in Chris’s voice. The usual wild intonations were absent and the unrelenting Greek accent, impervious to the decades Chris had been living in London, sounded tinged with worry. ‘Fine, Chris. And you?’ ‘I’m good. But … ah … I’m not so good.’

‘Okay.’ ‘I sold one more of your paintings.’ ‘That’s great.’ He couldn’t imagine bad news following that. ‘But I also got bad news. When you come to the gallery?’ ‘Is it urgent, Chris?’ ‘Is … yes, is urgent.’ He turned and looked at the train schedule again before glancing down at his watch. The inclinations of the Russian impressionists would have to wait. He began making his way back to the tube. ‘I’m on my way.’

***

He was surprised at first to see a long wooden table in the middle of the gallery, surrounded by a clutter of antique, retro plastic and office chairs. It couldn’t be a lunch function. Unless people were expected to eat off small, square canvases with long-handled paintbrushes and use palettes as side plates. Then he ed, it was Piñas and Paint night, where Chris supplied the paint materials and, despite the ad’s exotic suggestion, copious quantities of cheap wine to ten of the paying public. From what Trevor had heard about these evenings, it didn’t take long for people to believe they were channelling Da Vinci. ‘Trevor.’ Chris emerged from the small kitchenette. ‘Hey, Chris.’ ‘Let’s talk.’ Chris pressed his hand into Trevor’s back and nudged him in the direction of the office. At the far end of the gallery where he expected to see StandOut, stood a tall fern in a slim glass pot.

‘Oh, StandOut got sold? I thought it might have been The African and the Talisman? Great.’ He ignored Chris’s worried expression, which told him that he shouldn’t be feeling as upbeat as he was. But with the money from this sale, he and Carl could go to Istanbul for a few days. They needed a holiday, that was all. A few days of mad shopping, strong coffee and Turkish baths would make this absurd, sexless rut they were in disappear. Alvaro, Rosenhof, the hospital. All forgotten. For at least a while. He was sure the film festival had piqued Carl’s interest in Turkey. ‘Trevor, sit down. You want something to eat and drink? Kostantina just make halva. Is too nice. You want?’ ‘No, thanks. I’m okay.’ But he knew protesting was useless. These were just words leaving his mouth. Chris literally never heard refusals to his offers of food and drink. ‘Kostantina,’ Chris called. ‘Bring the halva. Trevor, you want coffee? Tea? Juice?’ ‘Well …’ ‘Try the coffee, is the best. It come direct from Athens just few days ago. You know, Trevor, we Greek people –’ ‘Coffee’s fine.’ Trevor looked around the cramped office. He wasn’t in the mood for one of Chris’s lessons, which, no matter the topic, was always prefaced with ‘we Greek people’. After bellowing the coffee order to Kostantina, Chris began rifling through the canvases leaning against the wall. ‘Good news about the painting though,’ Trevor said. ‘Has it been delivered yet?’ Chris peered back at him over his shoulder. ‘No.’ Trevor went over to him. ‘Chris, what’s wrong?’ Chris straightened up. ‘You know Mrs Landsman?’

‘Am I supposed to?’ ‘You don’t know Mrs Landsman? Short lady. Biggish nose. Silver hair. I know her for years. Sometimes she come in with these, how you call them … flyers. She has this group about, you know, mothers trying to stop drinking and driving. Her son, really nice boy, died few years ago. She always saying …’ Christ. How did Kostantina do it. ‘Chris,’ Trevor interrupted. ‘I don’t know her.’ ‘Well, she love my gallery. Maybe, two, three times a year she buy something she like. Last week she come in and go straight to your piece. The one with the legs. She buy it on the spot.’ So far so good. He couldn’t see the problem. ‘But she can’t take the painting.’ ‘Why not? Chris? Why not?’ Trevor almost cursed the strong smell of coffee that paved the way for Kostantina’s slow, grand entrance. She gingerly placed a tray down on the corner of the desk, which was messy with newspapers and art books. ‘Trevor koukla.’ Her fat open arms reached up towards his shoulders and he bent down for her multiple kisses. Her perfume, which gave off just the right mix of extravagance and cosiness, reminded Trevor of Chris’s regular claim – that, despite the occasional Czech distraction, he would never leave Kostantina. ‘You look skinny,’ she said, pinching his sides, causing him to giggle involuntarily. ‘You been eating? Tomorrow I make lamb. I bring for you.’ ‘I don’t really like lamb that much, Kostantina.’ ‘I make it the Greek way. You know, Trevor, we Greek people, we got special way to do lamb. Not like everyone else, you know what I mean? You gonna like it. Anyway, how are you?’ ‘I’m not sure. Chris was about to tell me something about my painting that was sold.’

‘Ah, yes.’ She took her arms away from his shoulders, folded them and shook her head like a disappointed parent in front of a child. ‘Crazy. Some people just do crazy things, you know what I mean?’ He didn’t. He felt as though he was the one being driven crazy. ‘Please, just tell me what’s going on.’ Kostantina and Chris exchanged looks. ‘Show him,’ Kostantina said. Chris resumed his earlier bowed position over the canvases. In an excruciatingly slow, vertical ascent, the painting came into view. First, his smoky background infused with patches of cobalt green he’d agonised to get right. Although all the legs appeared at the same time, he instinctively locked onto the bulge of Alvaro’s left calf. He ed how frustrating it had been to capture the illusion of just the right muscle tension beneath the skin. That soft, surprisingly hairless skin. His eyes followed the concave line of negative space down the leg, and saw how a pale smoky bit next to Alvaro’s ankle encroached slightly onto the silver prosthetic next to it. ‘Yeah? What? I don’t see anything.’ ‘What? You see nothing? You sure you got artist eyes?’ ‘Stop, Chris. Trevor koukla, look closely.’ He travelled his eyes – as though they weren’t his own but controlled by someone or something behind the eye sockets. And there he saw it, just beneath Fat Edith’s fat toes, in capital letters – I FUCKIN LOVE YOU. ‘Oh shit.’ He started a loud and fraudulent cough he imagined sounded ridiculous to Chris and Kostantina. Coughing, Carl told him once, was the quickest way to get the heart rate down. ‘First I think, maybe you put that there on purpose. But then Kostantina say no, in all the moving and hanging and getting ready for the exhibition, she would have noticed something like that. And for sure, I don’t think you the kind of artist to do that. It’s not your style. I don’t know you to be trying a Basquiat kinda thing.’ This was hardly the time to be discussing repressed tendencies towards neo-

expressionism. ‘Here, have some coffee.’ Kostantina began rattling the spoons on the tray. He looked at the painting again. The words had been written, no, almost etched into the canvas. More than the black ink, it was the shadowy nature of it, the ability to lurk behind something beautiful for God knows how long. Now that he saw it, he couldn’t not see it. ‘Do you know what happened? Or when it happened?’ he asked Chris. Best to gauge what they knew. ‘Yesterday evening I put the little sold dot just underneath it,’ Chris said, reaching for a piece of halva. ‘This morning I see it like this.’ Who else? Who else but that fucking Alvaro. And more worrying, what next? ‘And you didn’t have strange-looking visitors or anything like that?’ ‘No,’ Kostantina said. ‘I was here the whole morning, talking to Serg. Some people come in. A group of Chinese tourists, I . But nothing strange, you know what I mean?’ He sat down. He could pull out his phone to show them Alvaro’s picture from any one of his social media pages and ask them if they recognised him. But then what? How ugly could this thing get? There was minimal damage to the painting itself. But it was what the whole thing represented. ‘Can I just try to fix it?’ ‘Yes, of course. We want you to do that. The old lady already pay me for it. But the question is, why? Who can do something like that? I mean, on one hand it could just be a joke by some punks. But on other hand, it could be something more serious, no?’ He evaded the question. An anxious thought gripped him. He waved his index finger around towards the ceiling. ‘Don’t you have cameras though?’ ‘Ah.’ Kostantina threw her arms up in the air. ‘How many times I tell him to get batteries for the camera. I say. I beg. Every day. Please, buy batteries. You think

he ? No. Now those cameras just up there for fun. They like toys up there, you know what I mean?’ This was some comfort. It could buy him some time. To do what, he wasn’t sure. ‘I’ll take it now,’ he said. ‘In a few days it’ll be as right as rain.’ Although this was hardly true. He knew before he could even pick up a paintbrush, he would spend a long time just poring over the physical sacrilege made by the pen. He would have to take it to the studio on campus. Could never explain, or rather lie his way out of something like this to Carl. ‘I’m really sorry, guys.’ ‘No, no, we the ones that are sorry. For your work, your art,’ Chris said. ‘I mean, it’s not badly damaged or nothing. It didn’t go through the canvas. But still, it’s wrong to, what’s the word, deface someone’s work like that. And – I fuckin love you? – I mean, somebody got an obsession for you?’ Well somebody got a something for me, he wanted to say. ‘What are you gonna say to the old lady?’ ‘Don’t worry,’ Kostantina said. ‘Leave Christos to deal with her. Now let’s take this out the frame and we bubble-wrap it for you. Tomorrow, you by for the lamb. And you wait and see, you gonna feel better.’

***

He stood over the salad bar in the cafeteria. The few olives and sliced peppers in his bowl looked forlorn and unappetising. He abandoned them and went over to the vending machine. Caffeine, he decided as he selected a double cappuccino, would help calm him down to decide which voice in his head to listen to. He could be predictable. Call Alvaro, or maybe even wait for him outside his apartment building. Swear blindly, get Cape Flats creative. Threaten, maybe even get in Alvaro’s face as though a physical altercation was really possible.

He could ignore it. Take the high road. But would that encourage Alvaro even more? He waved to a couple leaning over a mountain of noodles with beef strips on the top. On any other day he would’ve been curious to know how the Russian impressionism seminar had gone. The woman pointed to the space on the long bench next to her but he smiled and pointed to the other side of the room. Times like this he was thankful for the impersonal nature of a university where he wasn’t expected to explain anything. He sat down in a corner and took out his phone. He couldn’t play nice. Crazy only respects crazy. Which person in his family used to say that? He wasn’t sure. But he ed their advice – if you find yourself, scared, on the train from Century City to Woodstock at 10pm at night, talk to yourself. Loud. Fly stuff out your nose, scratch your ass. Anything to make yourself look crazier than the fucker who’s thinking about messing with you. He dialled. ‘Mi amor.’ Without so much as a care in the world. ‘I wonder how you and that ass you love to flaunt gonna cope in jail?’ ‘You call to talk about my ass?’ ‘No, you fuck. I called to talk about jail. Which is where you’re headed. You know art galleries consider that damage to property.’ ‘What?’ ‘You think that you can just go to the Louvre and scribble something in the corner of the Mona Lisa?’ ‘No comprendo.’ ‘Well, comprendo this. They have a video. They have you on camera.’ Nothing. Except the sweet silence of a bluff just before you find out if the person

calls it or not. ‘Look, Trevor, can we talk?’ ‘Are you crazy? Oh, what the fuck am I asking? Yes, of course you’re crazy. And no, I got nothing to say to you.’ ‘Oh, come on. It was just a little note. Something between you and me.’ ‘Alvaro! The painting was hanging in the gallery. Someone bought it. It’s not even mine anymore, far from being some kind of message in a bottle between you and me.’ ‘This time, I really don’t understand you. Look. I didn’t plan to do that. I went there to buy the painting. I really did. I love that painting, you know that. Then I saw it was sold. I just thought I would make my mark. There was a pen there and well …’ ‘Alvaro. This is fucking unbelievable. I don’t know what else to say to you.’ ‘Why you treating me like this, Trevor? After everything.’ ‘What everything? Alvaro, we hung out a couple of times. That was all. It ran its course, that’s all.’ ‘Ran its course?’ ‘Well, shit, I certainly don’t know how to say it in Spanish. It means, okay for a short time and then, finito.’ He could bloody well understand that. ‘Finito? Hmm. You speak Italian now?’ Gone were the lyrical tones and heavytongued sounds that had made reading Pushkin a language in itself. Now Alvaro’s words, both English and Spanish, sounded flat. ‘I didn’t call to talk about you and … about anything other than my painting.’ ‘Let me pay for it.’ ‘It’s not about the money, Alvaro, it’s my fucking work. My work. You know what that means to me.’ To his surprise he found himself on the edge of feeling

and sounding weepy. ‘Listen. I won’t say anything to the gallery owners. They don’t know that I know you. But you’ve got to leave me alone. For the hundred and forty-seventh fucking time, leave me alone.’ Nothing. He could hear a woman singing softly in Spanish in the background. There was something sad and haunting in the melody. A lover who left her too soon. She never made it back to her childhood village. The children she thought she never wanted. Death hovered close, like the rains she could smell coming. ‘Alvaro? Okay?’ Just as the woman’s voice seemed about to reach a crescendo, the line went dead.

Ché

They were driving through Manzanilla. He glanced over at Mandisa, wondering what she could be thinking. For the last ten minutes she’d been staring out at the ocean, the view almost constantly latticed by coconut trees; trees he imagined as always existing along this road, dying to tell stories of when the British ruled and sugar was king. Her locks were bunched up at the nape of her neck in colourful kente fabric, giving her profile a certain mature, righteous look. Maybe it was the fishy air blowing through the car. Maybe it was the otherworldliness of this part of the island, with its backtrack into time and its grand but rotting beach houses facing the sea. Maybe it was the heavy silence, the only thing, apart from the crashing waves, between them. But he was sure, at that moment, that he loved her. He just didn’t love her telling him what to do about his father. He wondered when she would bring it up. They’d made it along the Valencia stretch with no arguments. As a child and particularly at night, the long road had scared the daylights out of him. With its dense forests on either side, he was convinced soucouyants, douens, La Diablesse, Papa Bois and all the other frightening characters of Trinidadian folklore came out to eat little children driving home at night with their mothers. ‘Look,’ Mandisa said, laughing. They were approaching two young Indian boys holding up bunches of crabs. He laughed too because he knew they were both thinking about that line from A House for Mr Biswas: ‘the crabcatcher was considered the lowest of the low.’ It was only as he watched the boys in the rear-view mirror that he wondered if he shouldn’t have bought a couple for Aunty Beulah. Aunty Beulah’s house was now only about ten minutes away and Mandisa was busy sending messages on her phone. Was she really not going to lecture him about calling his father? Especially after his father’s email.

‘Mayaro looking festive these days,’ Mandisa said as the commotion of the junction market came into view. ‘As compared to what days?’ He knew that, to her, these trips to the country, behind God’s back, as she put it, held a tourist-like quaintness. He could never convince her to spend a night. ‘When did Pizza Hut get here?’ she asked. When indeed? Was it wrong that he wished for the ole Mayaro days? When the market was full of fruits and vegetables from people’s gardens? And a fat Indian woman with a permanent squint under a stationary umbrella would watch over the aloo pies and doubles warming in a Styrofoam box? When a takeaway called Chicken Little could last, at the most, four months. Because people were accustomed to simply going to their backyards, chopping off a chicken’s head and stewing, frying, barbecuing or currying any part of the bird they wanted. They stopped at a traffic light just across from what looked like it might turn into condominiums in a few months. On the opposite side of the road stood an abandoned house of grey rotting wood which, despite its dereliction, was clinging onto some colonial charm amid mango and sapodilla trees laden with fruit. ‘Everywhere getting so built up and modern,’ Mandisa said. She’d read his thoughts but it set off an irrational and antagonistic nerve he didn’t try to restrain. ‘So what, the whole world must move ahead but you want to keep poor Mayaro back in times? Is nice to see a child bathing under a standpipe? Why you don’t take out your camera and go National Geographic on them? Like these people don’t deserve brick and mortar and running water inside their house like the rest of Trinidad? Like you, with your three hundred TV channels?’ In his peripheral vision he could see her head turning slowly, dangerously, towards him. ‘So what’s your story now?’ ‘What?’

‘If you looking for a fight, don’t be vex when you get one, eh.’ She turned on the radio and John Holt’s reggae cover of ‘Stick by Me’ sounded ridiculous. She took her seatbelt off even though they weren’t at the house yet. The beeping noise that followed irritated him all the more. Why was she violating the national road traffic regulations? But what could he say? She should strap up in case Miss Hyacinth’s goats suddenly decided to amble across the road? He had to it that it had been kind of stupid to rile her up like that when they were so close to Aunty Beulah’s house. It left him thirsty for an argument. And being thirsty for anything on the baked pavements of Mayaro, where God took His time to do everything, even to send a little breeze, wasn’t a nice feeling. He watched her open the door and walk towards the house. Her straight back and nose in the air promised the drive back would be a long one. Fuck. A white dog hobbled towards them on at least one damaged hind leg. It had been sleeping close to one of the four stilts of the house. Although it looked blind in one eye, he didn’t trust it. He wouldn’t put it past dogs like this to walk up slowly to strangers, bite them and quietly back away. It managed a half-hearted bark, as though such exertion were tiresome and unnecessary in this heat. But it did bring Aunty Beulah to the front door. ‘Eh eh, is you?’ Her squint said it all: not sure who de hell you are but come in anyway. ‘Aunty, it’s me. And you Mandisa?’ ‘Ché? Well, boy, I thought yuh mother say you coming tomorrow.’ She accepted Mandisa’s kiss on her cheek. ‘Hello, darlin. You so pretty. She so pretty, Ché.’ He knew better than to utter a syllable. He even swallowed the sound at the back of his throat that was meant to acknowledge his aunt’s last comment. The look Mandisa gave him as she went through the door – what de ass my beauty have to do with you? – told him he’d done the right thing. He hugged Aunty Beulah. A faint smell of urine fought its way through layers of talcum powder and a sweet-smelling perfume. The top of her back curved

exaggeratedly beneath her thin cotton dress. He ed his hand over her scalp, visible through the thinning wisps of hair. ‘How yuh going?’ ‘Come inside.’ ‘Mansah here? I want to get this stove out the car first.’ Aunty Beulah went inside, calling Mansah. Two minutes later a gangly figure came from behind the house, a half-eaten mango in his hand. ‘Eh eh. Is Ché, boy. Long time no see.’ ‘Wha’ happening, Mansah?’ ‘I there. Mango for so in de back. You must take back some for Aunty Abigail.’ ‘All right. Give me a hand here with the stove.’ He decided to reverse into the dusty driveway where the dog, seemingly unperturbed by the encroaching vehicle, moved only after a shove from Mansah’s foot. ‘Back up a little more. Right. That good.’ Mansah came over to the driver’s side. ‘Nice ride. But these Peugeot parts too expensive, man.’ ‘Who yuh telling?’ ‘Next time something go wrong, bring it this side. I go sort you out.’ Ché looked across at the other side of the yard, which was beginning to look like a cemetery of rusty, dejected-looking Toyotas that would run if only they got the chance. He looked again at Mansah’s playful, conspiratorial squint and protruding chin. They struggled to get the stove out of the flattened back seat. Mansah lit a cigarette at the bottom of the steps, as though it was supposed to energise him for the task. They made their way up the stairs, Mansah’s skinny arms trembling

and his strained features still visible through the haze of smoke around his face. Ché had to talk himself out of laughing and dropping the damn stove on both their feet. ‘Oh gosh, my sister,’ Aunty Beulah said as they came puffing through the door. ‘God bless her. You bring the gas too?’ ‘It’s an electric stove, Aunty.’ ‘Electric?’ Aunty Beulah pushed up her bottom lip. ‘Mammie, electric is plenty more popular these days.’ Mansah took the cigarette out his mouth and looked with iration at the long piece of ash that had survived the journey up the stairs. ‘As if you cooking anything.’ ‘He’s right, Aunty Beulah,’ Ché said. ‘Then you don’t have to worry about when the gas finish and all that.’ ‘No, just about the electricity. And plus, when I want to turn down the fire, or when I tell Mansah to turn down the fire, is that what I mean. Turn down. Not wait five minutes for the plates and them to cool down. I know those kind of stove, you know. Jocelyn next door have one and oui papa, she tired burn the pelau. If I have to eat one more plate ah burn rice, I don’t know.’ ‘Aunty, don’t worry. I’ll show you everything before I leave.’ He looked over at Mandisa who hadn’t so much as glanced in his direction since he’d come through the door heaving and wanting some acknowledgement for his good deed. ‘Aunty Beulah, how old was Ché here? So cute. Was this the beach just by the church here? Look at him with his bucket and spade.’ Mandisa wasn’t looking at him, clearly quite content to ignore the real, live grown-up version of the boy in the photo she was poring over. But at least she seemed to be less angry than before. Aunty Beulah reached for her spectacles. She took the photo out of Mandisa’s hand, lifted it up, squinting. ‘You must have been about six or seven there, eh,

Ché? That’s his mother over there with the bucket collecting chip-chip. And my husband out there in the water. May he rest in peace.’ Ché sat down on the arm of the couch. He saw just the head of his Uncle Bernie, a champion swimmer and as relaxed as Aunty Beulah was fussy. Mandisa picked up another photo, this time of Ché at his First Communion. He ed that day, feeling smart in his white shirt and black pants and warm inside after ingesting what he had convinced himself was the flesh and blood of Jesus. ‘Oh, that’s a nice one,’ Aunty Beulah said. ‘Before my sister decide to leave the Catholic Church to go and shake and sweat with the Pentecostals. Every day is miracle over there, ent?’ He knew better than to get into a debate about religion. He thought about pastors Ernest and Ignatius. ‘Mummy’s happy there.’ ‘What about Ché’s father? You ever met him, Aunty?’ He adjusted his left leg quickly to break the fall he felt was coming for sure. What was this fuckery now? So this was the real reason Mandisa had wanted to accompany him down to Mayaro? He felt like grabbing a decent-sized piece of exposed flesh on her arm and giving her one of those slow pinches, the ones that took his fingers around in a circular fashion and would undoubtedly cause her a crescendo of pain. He couldn’t believe what he was hearing. And she’d made sure to square her back to him and her face towards Aunty Beulah. He watched the back of her head and was filled with a surprising rage and disgust at the few bits of curled hair that hadn’t made it into the headwrap. He felt like pulling them out. Two folds on the back of her neck had filled with sweat. How come? She wasn’t overweight. Rake-like, in fact. It repelled him. The sweat. Not her skinny frame which he wanted to haul out the room. He hoped she’d brought vex money. Because for sure, her ass was taking public transport back home.

‘Ché father?’ Aunty Beulah was giving him a strange look as if to say – you never tell this girl about your life? ‘Ché father from England. We never went there. He never come here.’ ‘Yes, but he used to keep in touch though, early on at least, no?’ ‘Well, Abigail ain’t call his name since forever.’ ‘She ever used to talk about him?’ He jumped up like the grasshoppers he used to put in the palms of his hands as a child. ‘What is all this talk about my father now?’ He hoped that his walk towards the kitchen told them that his question was rhetorical. He knew it wasn’t nice to come into his aunt’s house and cause a scene. Especially in a living room with statues and pictures of saints so numerous it was like they were trying to outdo each other. St Anthony, finder of lost articles. St Regina, saver from impoverishment. St Joseph, for a happy death. Where was the saint to manhandle girlfriends and stop them from running their frigging mouth? He looked into the fridge. ‘You want a beer? But I ain’t think those Carib so cold, nah.’ Mansah appeared from behind a curtain where the crooning voice of a young Lord Kitchener could be heard. Ché didn’t know what it was: the uncomplicated rhythm of old-time calypso, or the two women discussing him as though they knew the way the current pulled at his little ankles as he stood on the shoreline of Mayaro beach. Or how good a cup of Milo tasted after a day of jumping into every wave the ocean offered. Or Mayaro itself, with its stinginess in letting go of memorable sights, smells, textures, moments from one’s life. But he was feeling bouts of nostalgia being flung about him this way and that. And that email from his father. Mansah opened the freezer and handed him a Carib with frost covering most of the yellow label. The small ice chips that slid down his throat cleared his head. He walked back to the living room. ‘She did love that man,’ Aunty Beulah was saying.

‘She talked about him a lot?’ ‘No. That’s why I know she love him.’ ‘You know what happened between them?’ ‘Not really. I just think he wasn’t ready to have a chile. And she wanted to come back home because Ma, our mother, was sick, well, dying, from stomach cancer.’ ‘So he didn’t want a child?’ He burped. No, it was a belch. Long and loud and, if it had been anyone other than him, disrespectful. ‘Hey, de chile standing right here.’ Aunty Beulah cackled. ‘Big man now. I could do with something to drink too, you know.’ ‘You want some tea?’ He knew old people had an incomprehensible preference for tea in hot weather. ‘Tea? I ain’t reach there yet. me a Carib.’ ‘Serious?’ He walked backwards to the fridge, amused. ‘Since when you drinking Carib? I hope I don’t have to start worrying about you now.’ ‘When I stop drinking it is then you should worry. All yuh young people think we born big, eh?’ As he opened the fridge door he glanced at Mandisa. For the first time since they’d come into the house, she held his gaze. He lifted Aunty Beulah’s Carib and tilted his head towards it. Mandisa nodded and squinted slightly. Involuntarily, he squinted back. He sighed away the warm pain that had crept up close to his heart. She would be the death of him. Maybe it was this small ice-breaker or the fact that, moments later, they were all

holding bottles of beer, but the atmosphere in the stuffy room changed. And when a cool breeze ran itself through the room and out a small window bordered by several black-and-white photos of Beulah and his mother as children, he settled into an armchair and listened. ‘There was a time, though, when Abigail actually thought about going back to England.’ This was news to him. ‘You knew about that?’ Mandisa asked him. ‘Well, she mentioned something once, a long time ago.’ He put the bottle to his mouth quickly and didn’t look at Mandisa as he spoke. He didn’t want to lean into Aunty Beulah too obviously either. He just hoped she would speak clearly and he wouldn’t be caught staring. Mandisa could always tell if he was hearing something for the first time. ‘I that time well,’ Aunty Beulah said. ‘Abigail come down Mayaro with little Ché. Mammy dead by that time. So Abigail tell me that Ché father ask her to marry him and come back to England to live.’ Marry? What the hell? He’d never thought of his mother’s single status until his teens. And then probably only because his own hormones had been so out of control. He ed asking if she would ever marry and she’d answered, with a long, watery steups: ‘Why you want me marry? You feel I looking too happy or what?’ ‘Well, don’t know what did come over him, the father that is. Just like that, want to ups and marry.’ Aunty Beulah took a long gulp and then rubbed her chest. ‘There was exchange between them over the years, yes. Letters here and there. Phone call once in a while. But is like something happen with him on that side. Some big thing. Either sickness, maybe death, I don’t know. But something to make him realise is Abigail he wanted to be with.’ He couldn’t figure out if this was all conjecture in Aunty Beulah’s head or if these were things his mother had actually said. He wished he could ask without showing his ignorance.

‘Is that what his mom said?’ Mandisa asked. ‘That Ché’s father had some crisis, some near-death experience or something?’ At that moment, he loved her. He truly loved her. ‘She never said anything to me. But she knew why he asked her. It was in a letter she was holding in her hand but she didn’t let me read it.’ His mind raced back to his mother’s house and stood over the dusty boxes and old suitcases in the back room like a hovering ghost. Could the letter be buried there? He cursed himself for never having the time or the heart to sort out that room. But was thankful, and he never thought that day would come, for her hoarding tendencies. He figured he should find his voice in all of this. ‘So what advice did you give her, Aunty?’ ‘I tell her what I think she want to hear. To do it. When she was still in England she used to write and tell me about him. How she never thought she could like a white man. How, with England so cold and rainy, that she make a friend in this man. And all the business with black and white over there, people was burning up things, riots all the time. How, with all of that, they manage to, you know, get together and all that. She write and tell me about all of that.’ His life, his genesis at least, could be found in between words, strewn across yellowed handwritten letters he hadn’t even known existed. ‘But she never did it, obviously?’ Mandisa asked, finishing her beer and placing the bottle at her feet. ‘Well, I don’t know if she ever said yes or no to him. Because soon after that our father get sick. And I know she woulda never leave him to go to England at that time. He died not long after that. But I , at his funeral. Strange things happened. It was sad, yes, of course. We all crying, we all miss Pappy. But she, Abigail, was, I don’t know how to put it. She couldn’t catch herself at all. Nonstop crying. Then at one point, when everyone come to the house for lunch, I couldn’t find her at all. Our aunty start to worry and tell me not to come back to the house without Abigail. Well, lucky I found her just behind the chinee tamarind tree. Still crying but mumbling how Mammy and Pappy send her to England to do nursing. But she come back with a chile.’

She reached out a livered hand to Ché and smiled. It didn’t quite take the sting out of her last sentence but he was grateful for the effort. ‘And she crying that Pappy never see her married and all that. So, I say to her, but what about Joel, if you can’t still marry him. And she just say: “He married already.” And talk ’bout tears. Lawd. And after that she say she don’t want to talk about it anymore.’ He put the bottle to his mouth and gulped down the remainder of his beer, much too fast. Coughing and spluttering, sniffling as some liquid came back through his mouth and nose. It gave his eyes the perfect excuse to water, and for that he was grateful. They were both staring at him and he excused himself to the kitchen. How had he not known any of this about his mother? Then again, how would he know what he didn’t know? How would he know to even ask? His father had simply never been there. Now he was everywhere. When he got back to the living room the two were still talking. ‘So, I hear your father sick,’ Aunty Beulah said to him. It was stuffy again. The music in Mansah’s room had died. And he didn’t have the energy to start up the glaring at Mandisa again. ‘Yes.’ Aunty Beulah was looking at him as though she wanted more. But he had nothing more. ‘Why you calling this man my father? I don’t even know him. I didn’t have no father growing up, you know.’ ‘Yes. I can’t fault you for saying that.’ Aunty Beulah pulled herself up to the edge of the couch. She took Mandisa’s hand and heaved herself up. ‘So I don’t have to do nutten for him. He have real belly coming to ask me for anything.’ ‘I agree.’

‘Serious?’ ‘Yes. Everything you say is true. But …’ ‘Oh gorm, nothing about the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, please.’ He had never been this rude to his aunt before. ‘No, no. Although a little lesson in comion is always a good thing. But relax yourself. No sermon today. Nobody can argue with you, Ché. You have every right to do nothing for someone who did nothing for you. But … is your mother I thinking about. What she say?’ He looked at Mandisa who gave him a few slow blinks to let him know she was sympathising. ‘She say help him.’ Aunty Beulah peeked into Mansah’s room. ‘How this man could fall asleep just like that I don’t know.’ She looked at Ché again. ‘Your mother say help him? Well, I coulda tell you that. Your mother and that man.’ She shook her head. ‘That man.’

***

They walked along Church Road, towards the strip of ocean that promised relief from the sun. ‘Should’ve brought a hat,’ Mandisa said. He was about to accuse her of being a tourist again but thought better of it. Even light teasing might not survive this heat and he was not in the mood for an argument. He looked back. The main road was quite a distance away. But why didn’t the ocean look like it was coming any closer?

He began to run. It was insane. Probably unhealthy to run at this time of day in such weather. But he ran. ‘Ché. What de hell? Why you running?’ He turned around and trotted backwards. What answer could he give? To get further away from Aunty Beulah’s house? To get closer to a vast expanse of something that he could drown himself and all his worries in? ‘It just too damn hot. Come. Run. Sea water wastin.’ She started laughing and before he knew it they were undressing and kicking off their shoes much too soon on the burning sand. ‘Oh shit. My foot burning.’ They ran to the water’s edge but didn’t stop there, their knees high in the air as they leapt over waves. They probably looked like giant, graceless praying mantises. ‘This one,’ he shouted as they reached the breakers and a huge green swell appeared. They laughed as their heads broke through the water. He swam to her, grabbed her neck and kissed her. ‘Look at you, sweet now.’ ‘And you salty.’ ‘Oh, fuck, that is so lame.’ But she wrapped her legs around his waist and nibbled on his ear. ‘Everything will be all right. You know that, right?’ ‘I love you.’ ‘And I love you.’ He gave in to the push and pull of the current and tide, ignoring a sneaky feeling that they were getting too far out. Like his life. Was he too far out? Or not far enough? Enough for what? To feel alive? To feel like he could swim to the

horizon, something he always thought about as a child. Because he’d figured heaven was the place just behind the horizon, he imagined he would swim there, tear open the wall of sky that met the horizon and find tons and tons of Holy Communion wafers. He told this to his Catechism teacher one time. Instead of agreeing that he’d completed the supremely ecclesiastical task of locating heaven, she put him in the corner to copy out the Ten Commandments, a topic she’d apparently painstakingly prepared that day and in which he apparently showed little interest. They kissed again until they heard the shrill of the lifeguard’s whistle. They dried off while sitting on a fallen trunk of a coconut tree. His eyes were stinging and the drops of water that fell from his hair tickled him all over. Mandisa tied up her locks with her towel. He was grateful for her silence. The rhythmic crash of the waves, the occasional laughter from the lifeguards, the choir of squawking and singing from the nearby birds, were enough competition for the voices in his head. He looked up at the sky. ‘You know what it mean when corbeaux circling overhead like that?’ ‘What?’ ‘Dead carcass somewhere.’ ‘Please, that’s country talk.’ As an approaching couple got bigger before his eyes, he watched the spliff between them. It reminded him that beneath Mayaro’s picturesque character, all types of drugs got shipped in. These either stayed in the village and quickly helped metastasise the crime and moral decay among the bored youth, or were transited to bigger towns. A little way off a man was standing at the end of a rope; the other end led out into the sea. He gestured to a boat, bobbing far off in the distance. ‘They pulling seine,’ Mandisa said. ‘I didn’t know people still did that.’ ‘Oh, a city girl like you know about pulling seine?’ She was quiet for a bit and he thought that maybe she felt insulted.

‘You want to talk about the email?’ she asked. ‘No. But I have to. I know.’ She reached sandy fingers gingerly into her bag and pulled out her phone. ‘You want me to read it?’ That was too dramatic. And anyway, he’d read it so often he practically knew it by heart. ‘Nah.’ ‘Part of it? Just this little bit. Where is it now? Here, when he says: I keep telling the doctor that they shouldn’t bother with an old pain in the hole like me. Whatever good livers they’ve got out there, like yours, Ché, they can give it to someone who’s got some kinda chance at making something of themselves. It feels a little late for me. Gosh, that’s so sad, Ché. Then he talks a little about his wife, that she’s off with the fairies. Then he says: if they save me, what am I going to do for the world that’s worth anything? He sounds almost depressed, doesn’t he?’ ‘I wouldn’t know.’ ‘You’re a mental health nurse, for goodness sake.’ ‘I don’t diagnose people. Especially not from one email.’ But she was right. There was a current of despair that ran through the letter. His father didn’t believe he amounted to anything and thought he wasn’t even worth the trouble of saving. But that question … what am I going to do for the world? That question. ‘Can’t you picture him? An old man in, where … Brixton library, typing with two fingers?’ She scrolled along her screen. ‘And the kids were watching him crying as he was typing. Oh my gosh, Ché.’ ‘What?’ ‘He was crying.’ ‘And? He want a medal for showing an emotion?’

‘Soften your heart a little, nah? The man said sorry. He said sorry for hanging up the phone on you because he didn’t know it was you. He said, wait, where is it? He said: Ché, I’m sorry. I could’ve done better. A thousand times better with you and your mom. I was a messed up young man.’ ‘Yes, yes. Then he go on about how he grow into a messed up old man. Yes, he really fuck up.’ ‘And funny you should say that because then he said: The only good thing I did in my life was be part of a conception, that’s pretty fucked up. Is it okay if I swear? I don’t know if you swear or not. I would imagine your mother wouldn’t approve. It’s so sad. He doesn’t know anything about you.’ ‘That’s the point. So how I could even think about doing something so big to help him.’ ‘Maybe that is the problem.’ ‘What you mean?’ ‘Well, you’ve been thinking about it for a while now. Not sure the thinking is helping. Go with your gut feeling. Either you do it or you don’t. If you not going to, then tell him. The poor man says he’s going to go to the Brixton library every day to check emails. Heartbreaking.’ A line of red dots slid into his peripheral vision. The lifeguards were coming down from their wooden tower. He and Mandisa should leave now. He didn’t relish driving back through the coconuts after dark. When he was a child, the exaggerated roots of the mangroves, like giant splayed fingers, always held a sort of Grimm-fairy magic. But as an adult, with his girlfriend in the car, he didn’t want to be worrying about some man or bandit emerging from the forested shadows. He didn’t welcome the occasional pair of yellow nocturnal eyes either. ‘Rain could come at any time,’ he said. ‘Best we go.’ As he got up and started picking up their things, he saw a small group of people, including two of the lifeguards, gathering around the man with the rope. ‘You ever pull seine before?’ he asked Mandisa.

‘You mean before today?’ She laughed and ran towards the group, the towel falling off her head before she could catch it. She cursed, shook the sand from it and wrapped it around her waist. Within a minute people had gathered along various points of the rope that trailed into the sea. The other end was tied around the waist of a short, muscular man in knee-length pants. ‘Pull on three,’ the man shouted. Children appeared, seemingly out of thin air, their skinny arms grabbing sections of the rope as though their effort could make all the difference in the world. ‘One, two, pull!’ He pulled. So hard that he fell back a little, pulling Mandisa, two children and an Indian woman towards him. ‘One, two, pull!’ He was surprised by the pain shooting through his biceps. It felt good. He wished it would move through the rest of his body, shocking parts of it back to life. He pulled as though he alone were responsible for bringing in the catch. Feeding the village. Bringing people like his father back to some sort of life. They drove home, the fading orange light filtering through the coconuts and the occasional smell of carite finding its way from the trunk to the interior of the car. He hugged and kissed Mandisa outside her gate. As he turned to go he felt two or three heavy drops of water on his face, reminding him of the way the Mayaro parish priest, with a silver ball on a stick and a bucket of holy water, sprinkled blessings and redemption on young souls.

Carl

‘Professional suicide. Forget it.’ Dr Khan shook a Sweet’N Low into his chai tea with a go-to-hell carelessness, before creating a centrifugal force that sent drops of liquid over the side of the mug. Christ, this guy would make a terrible surgeon. ‘Tell him to take his wife for a ride up to Devon,’ Dr Khan went on, reaching for a lemon poppy seed muffin and a banana so yellow it looked like part of one of those plastic displays that used to sit in his grandmother’s house. ‘Let them find a cosy B&B, sit and think about the good times. Laugh, cry over the children they never had, blah, blah. Then let nature takes its proverbial course. But don’t do it. Don’t get involved in that shit, man.’ Easy for a mediocre doctor to say. That was unkind. And why was he in the hospital café with this guy? Well, it wasn’t like he’d planned it. Dr Khan had caught him on his way down in the lift, staring through its glass sides at buildings made into shapes that had not yet been named and architecture from every century. Agonising about whether he was fucking with Joel Sheedy’s life by even considering this surgery. ‘Getting out?’ Dr Khan had asked when the lift doors opened and the lunchtime restaurant bustle came into view. He couldn’t even what floor he was supposed to be going to. Or why. And since he had this new tendency to run with any coincidence which might show him where he was supposed to be and what he should do, he didn’t simply walk past Dr Khan. Might as well get some advice. ‘Or maybe the Lake District? It’s nice in October … This table’s good … Suggest the Lake District.’ Have you met Joel and Niamh, he wanted to ask Dr Khan. Can you see that guy taking any leisurely holiday with the wife?

‘You don’t think we have an obligation to try?’ Carl was in the mood for a green tea. But the minute he thought about it, his mouth began a mildly nauseous watering. Something tart, something to jerk the fatigue out his body. He settled on lemon and ginger. It had been another night where the drool on the pillow suggested he’d slept but, in his mind, he’d been awake the whole time. And for the first time in a while, it wasn’t about Trevor. ‘You have an obligation to not kill someone and jeopardise your career,’ Dr Khan said in the same voice he used when he lectured his wide-eyed medical interns. Who the hell eats a bit of muffin, bites into a banana, and then, there he goes, back into the muffin again? Carl’s phone beeped. He took it out, looked at it for a second, and could feel his face pull into a mix of a frown and a reluctant smile. He shoved it back into the pocket of his white coat. ‘And, oh yeah,’ Dr Khan continued. ‘Make yourself a pauper in the process. I dunno, maybe you have a big house and land back in South Africa that you can go back to.’ He thought about his mother’s two-bedroom house in a suburb of Johannesburg that would barely raise a gasp from anyone, either way. He wondered if Papi still looked after the garden every other week and whether, come the middle of June, convinced nothing grew in winter, the old guy still packed himself off to see his family in Mutare. The last time he’d been home, it had felt good to put a carpet down in Dorothy’s room. And pay someone to build a wall that connected her room and the ading toilet. At least, when she, or Promise for that matter, had to tiptoe out to pee during the night, they didn’t freeze their asses off. Much. Dr Khan was looking at him as though he really wanted an answer. It wasn’t the first time this guy, with the arching of his right, no left, tapered eyebrow, alluded to Carl having left buried apartheid treasure somewhere. As if Carl was transplanting people’s livers for sheer entertainment. Or until he got bored.

Seriously, what the fuck. He didn’t assume Dr Khan, and his hair that never moved, lived in Bethnal Green with mother, grandmother, three unmarried sisters and a cousin who’d just come from Jaipur. Well, okay, he had a bit in the beginning. And truth be told, he’d felt somewhat stupid when he’d learned that Dr Khan was actually from Guyana. His phone beeped again. He slipped it from its pocket just enough to see the screen and dropped it back in. ‘Well, don’t keep me in suspense.’ Dr Khan seemed to think he could dig something out from between his incisor and canine with a well-eaten-down nail. Probably a poppy seed. The banana skin was sprawled out on the table, making the space feel suddenly dirty. ‘What?’ ‘I was asking you about your house, where you lived, back in South Africa?’ ‘You want to know where I grew up?’ ‘Yeah.’ ‘In a tree.’ Dr Khan’s muffin-holding hand didn’t, as Carl expected, stop midway to his mouth. Not even the subtlest of pauses that might suggest surprise, or that living in a tree was not the norm. The man just chewed, smiled and twirled his hand round and round in the air. But Carl didn’t feel like going on. Why was he even telling Dr Khan this stuff? They were supposed to be talking about Joel and the surgery of all surgeries. He ignored another beep on his phone. ‘My father made me a treehouse when I was about ten.’ He bit his lip to stop the next sentence from sneaking out. Something about it being the only fucking thing his dad had ever done for him. No. The only nice fucking thing. ‘I spent a lot of time in there.’

‘Did your parents fight a lot or something?’ To fight you’d have to talk, he wanted to say. To fight you’d have to have some kind of common ground, some initial, similar idea about something, and then, with ion and favour, disagree. To fight you’d have to care. ‘I was just a loner, that’s all.’ In fact, most evenings he’d watched the dusk give way to the darkened sky while lying on his back in his treehouse, the light of the moon squeezing its way through the haphazard planks of wood and making silvery patterns on his body. It was a crudely built structure which fitted its way among the branches of an African flame tree in their front yard. The treehouse’s precarious slant had never failed to frighten his mother. With Dr Khan’s gaze on him now, a look that sat somewhere between bemusement and, with another lift of the eyebrow, wariness, he had a sense that he’d suddenly become way more interesting. His phone rang. Without taking his eyes off Dr Khan, he clicked the button on the left side of the phone, and when the ringing continued, the one on the right. ‘Someone looking for you? Never mind, none of my business. So yeah, from where I’m sitting, not too much has changed in that regard. The loner stuff, I mean.’ He sucked in air softly and was about to expel it with a barrage of all the places he’d been and things he’d done when he realised none of it would likely convince Dr Khan that he was a gregarious, people-loving person. Whose farewell party in the boardroom had he last attended? It was probably more than six months ago that he’d accepted an invitation to meet up with the other doctors at the Ennis Arms. And with the reticence of a new wife among her inherited inlaws, he’d hung back a few paces behind a tipsy and animated Trevor at the Transplant Unit’s last Christmas shindig. No. He was courteous to his patients. He cared about them, he really did. But no one was going to mistake him for the life of the party. The life of anything. Okay, so he was a loner. So what?

‘Listen, Dr Khan. Joel. Mr Sheedy?’ ‘Are you still on that?’ ‘I think I’ve found a way to do it.’ ‘Really?’ ‘Yes. The caudate lobe.’ Dr Khan just stared at him. ‘Why?’ ‘Why the caudate?’ ‘No, really, why? Mr Kleinhans, you don’t strike me as someone who’s looking for fame and fortune. So this isn’t about prestige. You’re part of one of the best transplant units in the country. And because of that, you’re too good a surgeon not to know that the risks are too high. I just don’t get why you’d want to do it. I don’t think you even like the guy that much. Not that that’s important in our profession, I know. But this doesn’t make sense.’ ‘So, you don’t think I’m good enough to pull this off?’ ‘Pull this off? Listen to yourself. With all due respect, this isn’t a magic trick at a kid’s birthday party. This guy isn’t the best candidate to bet on. Especially for an unfamiliar procedure like one involving the caudate. I mean, yeah, okay, maybe, I can see it. But still, it’s risky. That means you want to do a left lobe graft, no?’ Carl didn’t respond, preferring to look past Dr Khan to where gesticulating interns were laughing and probably eating dessert before entrées. And where no doubt they were conjuring up and theorising pioneering surgeries to change the world. ‘Carl?’ ‘Yes, the left lobe. Plus the caudate.’ ‘When was the last time you did a left graft, on someone like this? Not to mention, the caudate. I thought we didn’t even do those anymore.’ Dr Khan gathered up the rubbish in his two hands and pushed his chair back. ‘So why

now? I don’t get it.’ Didn’t you ever want to do something, try something momentous, memorable, life-changing, stupendous, to pull you out of this shithouse that people try to convince us is life, he wanted to say. Even if it meant only getting within a tenmile radius of some great, never-before-conceived power and beauty and potential? Didn’t you ever want to take the biggest risk for the things, the people … not the ones closest to you … the ones that touched you briefly like floating dandelion seeds and then ed on? Floating dandelion seeds? Shit. What was going on with him? He pushed his chair back and winced at the grating sound the legs made on the tiled floor. ‘I can do it. I’ve found a way.’ As they both stepped aside for a group of nurses to come through the restaurant doorway, he felt his phone vibrating continuously. Even before he took it out, he looked at Dr Khan through the web of heads and necks, big hair and braids, and wondered what gesture would mean thank you. Thumbs up? Peace sign? Fuck no. Quick downward nod of the chin? In the end he mouthed the word ‘thanks’ to the swift turn of Dr Khan’s right shoulder. He looked down at the phone. He shouldn’t. Nothing good could come of it. He shouldn’t. He pressed the green button and tried to twist the blush from his face. ‘Hello.’

***

Had he, in fact, found a way?

This had been Joel’s simple question as he’d cornered Carl coming out of his office the day before. ‘I’m really working on it, Joel. But you know, the first thing we’d do when your son gets here is the routine health tests to make sure he’s a viable donor. We would test for HIV and hepatitis, diabetes, and all that. Make sure we have a thorough medical history. I’m going into surgery now but you can walk with me a bit. What’s your son’s blood type?’ After some long silent seconds, he said, ‘Okay, never mind that – what’s your blood type?’ ‘B.’ ‘Okay, so your son’s blood type needs to be either B or O. Can you find that out as soon as possible?’ ‘Ah, yeah, sure, doc. So, have you thought anymore about this left and right lobe thing?’ Carl studied Joel. That early belligerence in his voice was gone or at least had softened considerably. Joel’s care, curiosity, vulnerability were clear in the way they shaped his questions, the lilt of his voice. And the deliberate squinting of the eyes? The guy was really trying to understand what was going to happen to him. Or maybe, Carl thought before he could pull back the judgement from leaping ahead, he was just thirsty for a drink. ‘You up for taking the stairs? Great.’ They stopped on a staircase landing. Three nurses ed them, chatting, sipping from disposable cups, the aroma of good coffee unmistakable. ‘Joel, as I’ve said, the official position of the unit is that we don’t do left lobe transplants for adult patients.’ The slight echo in the staircase gave the conversation an ominous feel, as though they were discussing classified information. ‘But in my mind, it still may be an option. But I’ll have to motivate for it.’ He didn’t want to add he was probably hinging his entire career on it. Joel leaned on the rail. ‘Doc, you saying you can take from left and still make sure my son doesn’t die on the table?’ This was dangerous territory. He shouldn’t even be discussing this at all. He

wasn’t at a convention. He wasn’t speaking to peers. This, giving a patient hope on a wild idea that hadn’t even been properly thought through, was near irresponsible. ‘What, doc?’ ‘I shouldn’t be saying anything but yes, I’m looking into a procedure. It’s very technical. They don’t even do it in this hospital anymore.’ ‘Oh Jesus, doc, please just tell me.’ Carl shook his head. This was a mistake. But fuck it. ‘In some instances, very few instances, there are cases of surgeons using the left lobe, together with what’s known as the caudate lobe, which is in between the left and right lobes. Look, let me stop there. I’m wrong to be …’ ‘Continue. I’m following you.’ He sighed, loud and exaggerated. But Joel’s eyes stayed on him. ‘The caudate lobe can add between eight and twelve per cent of the total liver donated. But the procedure is complicated, very technical. And vein reconstruction can be very tricky. I personally have never done it and, as I said, they’ve stopped doing it in this hospital because it’s a very difficult surgery, on top of an already difficult surgery.’ ‘But it’s an option, doc. You can take from the left and get a bit from that, that other part.’ ‘It’s not that easy, Joel. It’s not like you’re baking and realise you don’t have enough flour so you think, let me use some polenta, or almond flour, or whatever shit bakers use.’ Christ. He was out of line. Totally and completely. ‘I apologise. I don’t know if it’s an option. Maybe. But really, I don’t know.’ He began walking up the stairs again. ‘C’mon, Joel, I’ve got to get to surgery. I promise you, I’ll keep you posted.’

***

‘My father killed someone.’ They were sitting in two of only six chairs in a greasy, more takeaway than sit-down Chinese restaurant in Waterloo. ‘Well, he was a policeman, so he probably killed more than just someone. But, this time, the time I’m talking about, I kinda saw it.’ Kinda. From beneath the bed, among the cobwebs and huge bundles of what smelled and felt like solidified mustiness his mother couldn’t bring herself to throw away, he’d seen a pair of lower legs. Strong, and then not. To say they crumpled to the ground wouldn’t be physically, medically accurate. But something happened north of them that made the man wobble. He tried to explain this, in simple English, to the man in front of him. ‘Something?’ ‘There was a shot.’ ‘My God.’ God was right. What in God’s name was he doing here? They’d met a couple of days earlier on a running trail close to the hospital. Who knew that only a day after he’d picked up his old habit of running during lunch, he would run, literally, into a man. The guy seemed to come out of nowhere. There’d been something about the man’s touch as Carl inspected his injured shin before pulling him up. The glance that, if it had lingered any longer, would’ve become a stare. The slight familiarity he couldn’t put his finger on. The questions: curious, bordering on invasive … but flattering. How long have you been running? Your profession? You come here every day? They’d stopped beside a duck pond to exchange numbers, to plan their collisions in the future, the guy had joked. Although he probably hadn’t used the word collisions. Maybe accidents. Maybe it just felt better to describe it that way. Collisions held some sort of potential for poetic justice, something lurking beneath the timed chaos of events. It suggested that everything, even the swelling and the small haematoma forming on the guy’s shin, was preordained. Accidents were closer to how he thought about most things that happened in the world – random, erroneous, regrettable.

Just like, as the cashier-cum-waiter placed their food on the table, this scene right now. The Cranberries’ ‘Linger’ was coming through a small speaker next to the cash . Faint but audible enough for him to his mother turning up the radio every time the song came on. His mother had peculiar taste in music, or at least that’s what he’d thought at age fourteen. Her penchant for sad songs about unrequited love, conjuring up existential crises on lonely highways, meant he grew up with the Pet Shop Boys, the Moody Blues and ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’. This, when most kids his age were probably getting annoyed while waiting the twelve seconds for their cassettes to rewind ‘Insane in the Brain’. He had to it he grew to love ‘West End Girls’ but no matter how much he mixed hair gel and hot water, in different ratios, he couldn’t get Neil Tennant’s curl in the middle of his forehead. And when he heard the slow screech of his father’s Mazda in the driveway, he would rip off the long black coat and sandwich it back between the brown gabardine jacket and the long-sleeved white shirt, before shaking the pseudo curl out with his three middle fingers. Back then, London, East End, West End – or girls, for that matter – meant nothing to him. Might as well have been the London of Dickens, with its slums, cholera epidemics and workhouses, so far was it from their quiet Johannesburg suburb of Wicksburg. He couldn’t what details he’d imagined about London as a kid. He figured, though, he must’ve held onto them until the time he actually stood beneath a sky the colour of boiled oats outside Heathrow Airport. And like most fantasies, these faraway imaginings had evaporated, cackled away with a mischievous taunt into the cold, dreary light of reality, leaving him with only what he could see in front of him. ‘Her name was Dorothy.’ ‘The one who was shot?’ He looked at the man across from him, eating egg foo yung and sweet and sour pork. The guy’s heavy accent, or maybe it was just a heavy tongue, caused his vowels to hang around in his mouth longer than they should. It made everything he said, and by extension, their union over the Formica table, sound and feel cocooned. Why, with the steam from his own braised bean curd in oyster sauce reaching for

his chin, was he checking out this guy’s tongue? All at once, he understood why it was often easier to talk to a therapist, a stranger, hell, anyone who wasn’t a partner, friend or family member, about things long buried. To tell any version of the story you wanted, without worrying about guilt, dispensing hurt or people squeezing themselves into its meaning, was a relief. He was unburdening himself to this person because it was likely he would never see him again. And how had they even got to this topic of conversation? On a dare. On a tell-me-something-you’ve-never-told-anyone tip that fell in so easily with the illicitness of the meeting, the seductiveness of the accent. He wasn’t being totally honest, though. He couldn’t bring himself to talk about Rosenhof. Still, this story was the next-best-guarded thing. ‘No, not Dorothy. She wasn’t shot, but she might as well have been.’ When he was asked about what Dorothy was like, although he didn’t feel like any form of self-censorship, he struggled to find simpler synonyms to describe Dorothy’s smell as he lay strapped to her back while she cooked the family’s dinner and swept the stoep. The smell that was a concoction of curry seasoning, Vaseline and the slightest hint of Moon Drops, his mother’s favourite perfume. He lifted a scrap of fried tofu and green vegetables with his chopsticks and began eating. He just had to tell it like it happened. ‘When the men came in that night, it was Dorothy who woke me. It was weird. Everyone wakes up groggy, I know, but I’d never really seen her in anything but her uniform. She looked so strange in her nightdress and her hair … there were these little bald patches everywhere. She looked frightened and kinda crazy. Her being frightened, frightened me. I’d never known her to be scared of anything. She pushed me under the bed and put her finger over her mouth so I knew not to make a sound.’ He took some egg fried rice and mixed it into the tofu. ‘The men were loud and irate …’ He saw the look of confusion. ‘Very angry.’ ‘They spoke to Dorothy in her language and she answered them. I could hear doors and cupboards opening and slamming shut. I think I heard my mother crying. Those were all the noises I heard – crying, a language I didn’t understand

and someone rummaging …’ ‘Rum …?” ‘Digging through things, looking for something. Oh, and footsteps. In and out of my room.’ ‘And your father?’ ‘At the time I thought he’d fallen asleep at my Uncle Albert’s again. He used to do that sometimes, after playing cards. Then I heard the shots and saw the person fall.’ It would’ve sounded too dramatic to say that his mother, sobbing without restraint, burst into his room and screamed, apparently at the sight of his empty bed. He’d crawled out from his hiding place, covered in cobwebs, only to have her rush over to him and snuggle his face, half wet with her tears, into her silk dressing gown. But he craned his head to look at the body on the floor, sprawled across the small rug he’d so often sat cross-legged on, playing with his toy soldiers and plastic dinosaurs. ‘My mother took me to her room and told me to stay there but I could hear everything everyone was saying. My father had come home. He saw a strange car outside the house, switched off his lights and parked. He always kept a gun in the car. And, well, the rest you can figure out. But it was what they did to Dorothy –’ ‘The intruders?’ ‘No, the police. They got there fast, of course – my father was a cop – kept asking her over and over about this plan she’d devised with her friends, her brothers, to come and rob our house. She kept saying she didn’t know them and asking, begging them for her dressing gown. It was horrible. She was crying, they were swearing, calling her kaffir …’ ‘Kaffir?’ ‘It’s like nigg– Never mind. Just one of those things that you shouldn’t say anymore. Don’t say it again.’

‘Kaffir?’ ‘I’m serious. Don’t.’ The guy was smiling. ‘Okay, I’m sorry. What happened after that?’ This was why you shouldn’t speak to strangers. Not only did he feel like closing the subject, he wanted to go back and erase everything he’d just said. His only consolation was that, if he wanted to, he could erase the stranger from his phone and life. ‘Everything was okay after that.’ He pushed aside his empty plate, streaked with brown sauce. He didn’t care to say that, for a long time after the incident, Dorothy had been different. She’d no longer hugged him randomly as much as before or tried to teach him Xhosa. He’d known she would not keep her promise to take him home with her to Lusikisiki for the Christmas holidays. And she no longer smelled of Moon Drops. ‘Listen to me. Listen to me. Sit down. You don’t need to pay right now. I pay anyway. Don’t get upset. I can see you, your anger.’ He hadn’t actually stood up, but clearly pushing his chair back was indication enough. He stayed seated but didn’t pull the chair forward. ‘I appreciate you telling me that story. I really do. You needed to tell me, well, tell someone. I can see that. And I was here. Hey.’ He shrugged his shoulders, shoulders that came through the sleeveless puffer jacket looking square and hard. ‘So, do you ever think about the man? The one who died?’ ‘What do you mean?’ ‘I mean, like, I don’t know … did he have family, kids or something?’ He looked down at the left side of his shirt to see if his heartbeat was visible through the yellow material. It must be. He looked up again. ‘Why would you ask that?’ ‘Ahh … Just a question –’ ‘I have to go.’

‘It’s early. Not even seven o’clock.’ Would saying he needed to get home to his boyfriend make him sound like an asshole now? Up to this point he hadn’t mentioned Trevor. ‘Look, Alvaro. I’m in a situation.’ A situation. Trevor would expel a litany of swear words in his Cape Flats dictionary if he ever heard him describe their relationship like that. Alvaro leaned back on the white plastic chair, the palms of his hands open to the ceiling. ‘We not doing anything wrong.’ ‘All the same. I’d better go.’ ‘Look, there’s also someone in my life. Someone who I like a lot. That doesn’t mean I can’t have friends.’ Now it was Alvaro who stood up. ‘But, no problemo. I understand. Would like to hear more, about you, South Africa, but it’s okay.’ ‘Let me get this.’ Carl reached for his wallet in his jacket. ‘No, no, I know you a famous surgeon and all, but it’s okay, it’s just cheap Chinese, I can get it.’ Alvaro looked at the cashier and laughed. ‘Oh, sorry.’ ‘How did you know I was a surgeon?’ The cashier was taking Alvaro’s card, but his eyes were moving between the two men. Alvaro laughed again. It almost had its own accent, heavy, throaty, and somewhere in there the tongue was implicated again. ‘You told me.’ He wanted to say he hadn’t but the cashier was already looking as though being a witness to this unexpected reality soap opera was the highlight of his evening. ‘When I fell,’ Alvaro continued. ‘You said something like, I’m a surgeon, let me see if I can help.’ He couldn’t the last time, outside a work situation, he’d introduced himself as a surgeon. A doctor, maybe. But Alvaro was smiling, his shoulders lifted, as though suggesting there was no other way he could know. And Carl

couldn’t put his head on a block that he hadn’t said it. They walked to the door. ‘Let’s go to dinner sometime.’ ‘Really, no, I think this has gone far enough. I’ve told you my situation.’ There it was again. Situation. A word, noun, so loaded it could be its own adjective. ‘Gone far enough? Where has it gone?’ When Carl looked down, it wasn’t Alvaro’s index finger wrapped around his own pinky that frightened him. It was the rush of warmth in his stomach and the immediate acceleration of his heart that he felt almost betrayed by. How could it just leap like that, without warning? He was a doctor, no, a surgeon, and he knew the heart inside out. But he also knew its infuriating and infantile tendency to bring grown men to their knees. ‘I need to go.’ Alvaro, with the use of thumb and little finger, put an imaginary phone to his ear. ‘Sí?’

Promise

Jesus. Fun. Jesus. Well, okay, he was fine on his own. And fun. Everybody knew what that meant. But Jesus and fun together? Really? Everyone in the Exodus Children’s Ministry was singing and clapping, looking happy to be there on a Sunday morning. Not like they were sorry to be missing anything on Cartoon Network or Nick Jr. Plus. Jesus is our friend. What do you do with a friend? You laugh, you have fun, you don’t have to pretend He’s always there for us, through rain or sun Jesus is fun. Loving Jesus is fun. It was okay to sing and all that. But if she had to be honest, in all the pictures she’d ever seen of Jesus, she couldn’t imagine him having fun. Not that he’d been really serious or anything. Always had a nice look on his face. Maybe even a smile here and there, especially if he had his arms around children or was kneeling down next to them. But she wouldn’t say he looked like fun. Didn’t look like he would jump on a swing and yell for his friend to push him higher. Or hang upside down on the jungle gym. Well, that would be weird with that long dress he wore anyway. Couldn’t imagine him going swimming in the … she looked down at the picture they were supposed to colour in after singing … the Sea of Ga-lie-lee. Or was it Ga-lee-lee? One of the YMCs, the one with big teeth and a scary smile in a yellow T-shirt, was dancing in between the kids. Raising her arms up, shaking her hips and going down to the ground and back up. And then she got all the kids to do the same thing.

Really? A YMC? Youth Messenger for Christ? Shaking her big behind like that? It was fun for sure, but Jesus was okay with all of this? Dancing as though they were in some kind of nightclub. Not that she’d ever been to a nightclub. Except that one time when the Grade Sevens hung black plastic bags over the windows in the school hall during the Christmas fete, and played all the songs on the Greatest Hits 2010 and Beyond CD. There were a lot of songs on that CD she hadn’t known, but some of them she did because they played on channel 302 or 310. Channels she was definitely not allowed to watch. Would Jesus punish her for watching such things? Then, worse than Jesus, was Gogo. It was only when she was sure that Gogo was sleeping or having a bath or in the toilet that, with sweaty, shaky fingers, she pressed the numbers on the TV remote. And, with the mute on, she watched with shock and a giggle here and there, the things going on on the screen. How could someone’s bum do that? One time, one of those videos came on just before Gogo sat down to watch Muvhango. Gogo’s mouth stayed open for about a minute as if she was waiting for a fly to go into it. ‘Hayibo, does this girl not have parents? What does her father say when he sees her like this?’ She always wondered why Gogo said such things. As though the normal thing was to have a mother and father. Jesus is fun. Loving Jesus is fun. ‘Your church is so nice,’ she shouted to Zandi. ‘What?’ ‘I love your church.’ ‘This is the best church in the world,’ Zandi said. ‘I’m never going to your church again.’

That was a little mean, but she couldn’t blame Zandi. Everyone at Gogo’s church, mostly old people, sang slowly and always looked sad and frightened, as though tomorrow would be that day when God sent his fire to kill all the bad people. That Redeem Day. No, Redemption Day. They were always looking up to the ceiling as though something was supposed to come through it. Like they were about to cry, shaking their heads slowly and swaying from side to side. Really, what was so sad? And not just one time. What was so sad, each and every Sunday? Even though Pastor Gatyeni would preach about being joyful and celebrating, those people never looked happy. How much sadder would they be at a funeral? She didn’t even want to think about it. The only good thing about going to church with Gogo was the sweets in her handbag that she handed to them during the service. Loving Jesus is fun. It felt as though someone had turned up the volume and closed the windows. Hot air was all around her neck. She threw her arms up in the air. Even a little baby came into the middle of their circle, stamping her two feet so hard that her long nappy, reaching almost down to her knees, jumped about too. She hummed with her eyes closed, swishing the end of her dress from side to side, dreaming that there would be some cream soda after all of this. And maybe some of those chocolate biscuits with the white icing inside that Gogo never bought because they were too expensive. What about cupcakes? Surely, a nice, white church like this would have pretty cupcakes like the ones in her fairy-tale books? Or maybe proper food, like hot dogs and chips. She was sure she could smell something coming from the long corridor they were told they couldn’t go down. Someone was tugging her arm. Then shaking her. She opened her eyes and saw Zandi, so close in front of her she could smell her breath, which wasn’t fresh. Behind Zandi were a group of boys, two with very light hair who looked like twins, and another coloured one peeping out from the group, looking at her up and down. A girl in a pink dress was standing with her hand over her mouth and her stomach, her fat, jiggly stomach, was moving by itself. Everyone was staring. When had the music stopped?

‘What’s the matter with you?’ Zandi grabbed her elbow. ‘What? I was having a nice time.’ ‘You didn’t hear that the song finished?’ Bright Yellow T-shirt came and handed them a plastic bucket full of crayons. ‘Nice to see you having fun.’ ‘Yeah.’ Promise wasn’t sure it was okay anymore to it just how much fun. Those looks were mean. They sat down at a table and she dug around in the bucket. How could a nice, white church like this, with a jungle gym three times bigger than the one at her school, have so many broken crayons? ‘Is this your first time here?’ Bright Yellow T-shirt sat down on one of the tiny plastic chairs. She imagined the legs of the chair trembling, sweat popping out of its back as it cried for help under that big butt. She pushed her chin into her neck, hoping the laugh wouldn’t come out. Maybe Gogo was right. Maybe she did watch too much TV. ‘Yes. She comes here all the time.’ She pointed to Zandi. ‘This is her church. But I go to a Xhosa church.’ ‘Welcome to Exodus. My name is Bernadette. But call me Bernie.’ Now that Bernie was sitting there, Promise knew it was going to be hard to do what she’d planned – colour Jesus’ hair in blue, green and red, and make them into dreadlocks. Add some wings on his back. Draw a cell phone in his right hand and dogs and cats in the big waves. ‘So, you should tell your mom to bring you again next Sunday,’ Bernie said. ‘Gogo.’ ‘Sorry?’

‘My gogo. I don’t have a mom. She died.’ Bernie looked up from colouring in the boat a dark brown. ‘I’m so sorry.’ That wasn’t anything new to say. She always heard those words when she told people she didn’t have a mom. But something about the way Bernie had said it, looking at her as though they were in a staring competition, was different. Bernie didn’t have that I-feel-so-sorry-for-you look. Her voice was soft, not trembly like that of Mrs Haffner, the vice principal, who, after saying the word ‘parents’, always said the words ‘and guardians’, really slowly as though she was talking to kids at crèche. ‘My mom ed away too.’ ‘Really?’ She didn’t know anyone whose mother had died but whenever she thought about it, which wasn’t that much really, she always figured they would be like her. But here was Bernie. Big. White. Maybe rich. With glasses. Big boobs. And huge teeth. Everything she wasn’t. But they were sort of the same. Maybe she should ask Bernie the questions most people asked her when they heard her mother was dead. How did she die? Was it a long time ago? Do you miss her? No. She hated those questions. Maybe Bernie’s mom died a long time ago, just like her mom. Or maybe she died a few days ago. Whichever it was, those questions were stupid and boring. And sad. If she had to ask questions, they would be questions that could bring on those little fluttering feelings in her chest she couldn’t explain, like a bird trying to get out. Like, what song would your mother sing to you if you had a bad dream? Or, if your mom found you putting on her red lipstick, would she shaya you with her shoe, or laugh and say that you should try on the pink one instead? Or, was your mom more ticklish under her feet, under her arms or on her neck? She realised she was giggling when she saw Bernie and Zandi were looking at her. Oh no. It was the dance floor all over again. Better to just ask Bernie the questions she would ask her own mother. Questions

that Gogo or Anneke couldn’t answer or that got them mumbling and moving around, hoping she would lose interest. ‘Does Jesus like dancing?’ ‘Oh yes, Jesus loves to see us dance and have a good time. As long as it’s a clean good time.’ ‘What do you mean?’ ‘Well, nothing that’s too sinful-like.’ ‘What do you mean?’ ‘It must be … well, the kind of dancing that He would approve of. Not be too … okay, forget that. Hard to explain. But yes, I think Jesus likes when we dance.’ ‘Does the Bible say so?’ ‘I can’t tell you offhand where in the Bible it talks about dancing, but I’m sure it does.’ ‘Did Jesus ever dance?’ Bernie stopped colouring and looked down at the floor. And then up at the ceiling. ‘That’s a good question … sorry, what’s your name again?’ ‘Promise.’ ‘Promise. Good question, Promise. I’ll have to look into that one. Come next week and I’ll have the answer for you.’ She turned to Zandi. ‘So you’ll have to bring her back next week. And your name? Zandi? Okay, Promise and Zandi.’ ‘Jesus never danced,’ Zandi said. Promise turned to Zandi. ‘So you know everything about Jesus now because your church is bigger and richer?’ ‘I just know. He never got angry or sad. He didn’t do all the things that human beings do. He was perfect. That’s what my mom said.’

‘Well, Zandi, I think you’re wrong there,’ Bernie said. ‘Not about the perfection bit. He was perfect, He is perfect, in my eyes. But the other bits. Jesus did actually get angry. I don’t know if you’ve ever heard of the Bible story about the wedding in Cana?’ Both Promise and Zandi shook their heads at the same time. Thank goodness Zandi didn’t know it either. Thank God she hadn’t said in her squeaky voice, Ooh yes, I know that story, my granddad told me. It would’ve been a big, stinking lie. Everyone knew she didn’t have a granddad. ‘Jesus was at a wedding in a place called Cana where he turned large barrels of water into wine. After the wedding, he went to Jerusalem where he found that some people had turned the temple into a marketplace. He was so angry that he turned the tables over and spilled the coins on the floor. And, you know, maybe Jesus danced at that wedding in Cana too.’ Jesus danced and then threw the tables over? So Zandi didn’t know what she was talking about at all. Not only did Jesus sound like a normal person, he sounded like a drunk normal person. ‘Does Jesus say it’s okay for two men to get married? My cousin Carl is getting married to his boyfriend.’ Why had she said that? None of it was true. Carl wasn’t even her cousin and no one had mentioned a thing about him getting married to Trevor. But this was church. Jesus wasn’t going to get angry with anyone in church. Even people who told little, tiny lies. And hadn’t she said she would ask Bernie questions she would’ve asked her own mother? Bernie was a YMC. It was her job to answer. ‘Promise.’ Zandi was hissing the end of her name like a snake. ‘Gogo said not to …’ She opened her eyes wide at Zandi, wishing she could shoot something out of them. Fire, light rays, snow and bad weather like that woman from X-Men. Anything to make the girl shut up. But more than that, she wished she and Zandi had their own secret language. Then she could make Zandi understand that the kicks she was giving her under

the table were meant to spell out: Gogo is not here. ‘It’s okay.’ Bernie put her crayons back in the box, although she was only halfway through colouring the ocean a bunch of different kinds of blues. ‘We encourage kids to ask all kinds of questions.’ There. She was the winner. She had to hold herself back from sticking her tongue out at Zandi. ‘I will tell you what the church says. According to the church, it’s wrong. It’s a sin for two men to be together.’ ‘A big sin?’ ‘Good question. In the Bible, God tells us there are different kinds of sin. There’s iniquity, transgression, mortal sins …’ What did those things mean? Bernie should just say if Carl and Trevor were going to burn in hell or not. ‘But everyone is a sinner. We are all born into sin. That’s why we get baptised. Even after baptism, we do wrong things all the time and things that God disapproves of. So, whether we’re homosexual or not, anything we do that takes our focus away from God is sinful.’ Homosexual. She’d heard that word once or twice. One afternoon, lying under a tree with Gogo and the other domestics, pretending to be asleep, she had listened to them. Ma Thuli, the loudest and skinniest one in the group, wanted to know why people only spoke about men being homosexual and women being lesbian or gay. Another person said homosexuality was a word for both men and women. Ma Thuli said she wasn’t sure that was true but she wanted to refer correctly to these people. Ma Ncebo said she’d heard the Deputy President talk about same-sex couples. ‘That does not help anything,’ Ma Thuli had said. ‘So, if I’m a woman and I like another woman I must call myself same-sex?’ She clicked her teeth and squeezed in next to Promise to get away from the moving sun. In the end, they’d decided on gay. Mainly because it was the shortest word. ‘Also, it is too hard to translate to isiXhosa or Sesotho,’ Ma Thuli had added.

‘Just let it stay as gay.’ She realised Bernie was still talking. About what? This was getting boring. When was the cream soda coming out? ‘So, it’s wrong?’ ‘I didn’t say that, Promise.’ ‘So, it’s right?’ ‘No.’ ‘So, it’s wrong?’ ‘Yes. But we all do wrong things. When was the last time you sinned?’ Was going into Gogo’s purse and taking money, that was probably going to be hers after Gogo died anyway, a sin? Then there was Jack. She was happy to go on pretending he was hers. Was praying every night that his real owners wouldn’t call, another sin? She killed ants around the sugar bowl all the time. And sometimes, at the back of the house where no one could hear her, she said every swear word she knew, over and over, in different order, just because they sounded nice and angry and important, especially if she spat a bit when she said them. ‘I can’t .’ ‘Well, you can be sure you did. We all do. But as long as we ask forgiveness, Jesus will forgive us. But we must recognise the sin and ask forgiveness.’ ‘But what if you don’t think that it’s wrong?’ Zandi asked. Oh no. Why couldn’t she have asked such a fancy question? ‘Yeah. A girl in our class has two dads. And Carl and Trevor sent a photo to Anneke outside a statue of Madiba in London, hugging and looking happy. Like there was nothing wrong.’ Everyone else was packing up their books and crayons and thank goodness there was a lady in blue overalls with a tray and cups.

Oros? After all this? Oros? ‘Eventually we are all going to have to answer to God about everything we do. But we shouldn’t wait to fix it on Judgement Day or when we die. We should try to fix our life while we’re alive. C’mon, let’s have some juice. I really enjoyed chatting with you little ladies. And Promise, I hope you’ll come back next week.’ Fix our life while we’re alive. Something about that sounded cool. She felt ready to do some fixing. From now on, only one and two rand coins from Gogo’s purse. Five rands only if she was really desperate and there was going to be cotton candy at the tuck shop. But no notes. Not again. And Jack? How about just praying his owner would find another dog? Yeah, that was good. Then everyone would be happy. And Carl and Trevor? They were far away. And how were they going to ask for forgiveness and fix their life when they were busy being happy about everything? The Oros was warm and tasted funny. The rain made sure the jungle gym, three times bigger than the one at their school, was off-limits. No cupcakes; only a dry biscuit that stuck in her throat. The Oros just went past it.

***

Sundays were always strange, quiet days at home. Anneke never liked having people come over. On Sunday afternoon their house was the only one on the street without six or seven cars parked outside the gate. She hated that there were no oumas and oupas being helped out from the back seat by someone carrying a cake or milk tart in one hand. No children screaming just before a loud splash in the pool. And the quiet was just that. The quiet of nothing. Not the quiet that came just as

people fell asleep after eating roast chicken and vegetables. Or from children busy playing board games after their swim. Just the quiet of nothing that followed more nothing. She knew it was stupid to complain about the day feeling long. That would mean she wished for Monday to come. And there was no rush for that at all. But always, right after Sunday lunch, if she turned down the volume on TV the house felt like midnight. It was lonely. She wondered if Anneke felt the same way. Did Anneke miss Carl on Sundays? Or Carl’s dad? Probably not the dad. Anneke hardly ever talked about him and, if it wasn’t for the dusty wedding picture on the bookshelf which Gogo didn’t even bother to clean anymore, no one would him. Anneke always said Saturday was the busy day. The shopping should be done. Her family could come over for lunch or dinner. Even the ladies from church or her bridge club could come for tea and rusks. Or, as Anneke said, for whatever tasteless diabetic dessert they were making for old people nowadays. But on Sundays, people were supposed to leave her alone. As usual, Gogo agreed with Anneke. ‘God rested on the seventh day. Why can’t we?’ So when Zandi’s mother dropped her home after church that day, the white car outside the front gate looked strange. Who didn’t know they shouldn’t visit Anneke on Sunday? She could see the heads of the people in the car. Were they coming or going? She began to fiddle with the lock on the car door. ‘Hang on.’ Zandi’s mother pressed the button to unlock the door. ‘I’ll walk you in.’ She couldn’t explain why, deep inside her heart and stomach, she didn’t think that was a good idea. If they all walked in together, all of them, even those people in the white car, that would just put Anneke in a bad mood. And that would make Gogo want to stay out of the way, which meant both of them stuck

in their little room for the rest of the day. With the quiet of nothing squashed in between the happy sounds next door. No way. She knew she had whispered it. If she hadn’t just been to church, she might have said, no frigging way. ‘It’s okay, I’ll be fine. Bye. Bye, Zandi. See you tomorrow.’ She closed the door before they could say anything but when she looked back, Zandi’s mom was still watching her and hadn’t moved her car at all. Before she even got to the open back window of the white car, she heard them. ‘I’m not fucking staying here. How you gonna tell me what to do? You embarrassed? We not good enough for your … what the fuck is she to you anyway?’ ‘I got strict instructions. You not even supposed to smell the front gate. Those were his exact words. Fuck, bra, don’t make this difficult. Just stay here.’ So that’s how swear words sounded when you put them in sentences. She got to the window, feeling her heart pounding up to her head. No, pounding down to her stomach. Whichever way, it was loud. ‘Hello.’ They all stared at her. The parts of their eyes that were supposed to be white, well, weren’t. On one guy, they were red. On the other guy, kinda brownish. His face seemed tired because his eyebrows just fell to the side. The guy behind the wheel didn’t seem to have eyes at all. When he looked back at her he squinted so hard, she couldn’t see anything besides two brown lines that seemed to go deep into his face. She looked at Zandi’s mom again. Still watching. Looking a bit more worried now and still not reversing the car out. Promise gave a thumbs up. ‘Hello, little girl.’ The one with the red eyes had brown teeth. Would the one with the brown eyes have red teeth? And the one behind the wheel not show teeth at all?

‘What’s your name?’ Whenever she answered the landline and someone asked her name, Anneke always told her she should ask the person their name first. But something told her she should forget that rule now. ‘Promise.’ ‘Promise? Don’t tell me, you from Zimbabwe, right? Yo, my bra, I’m telling you. There was a Zimbabwean guy at my last job called Evidence. Seriously. Evidence. We were praying for a crime, any crime, to happen in that place and for the police to come and say: we’re here to collect evidence.’ He laughed. He was the only one. ‘Stop lying. You’ve never had a job.’ ‘I’ve had plenty fucking jobs.’ ‘Watch your language. She’s just a kid, you fff …’ ‘Ha. Can’t find another word, right? I know. Sometimes you just need to call someone a fucking idiot.’ ‘Shut up.’ The guy behind the wheel spoke for the first time. He sounded like the boss and he hardly opened his mouth when he talked. But everything still came out clear. ‘Promise, that’s your name, right? Promise, do you live here?’ ‘Yes.’ ‘Can you call your madam?’ ‘She wouldn’t be her madam. She doesn’t work for her.’ ‘Listen here,’ the one with red eyes said. ‘I’m Trevor’s brother, Justin. I’m here to collect something from Anneke.’ Trevor. She felt that after hearing his name, everything was supposed to feel okay. Lighter. That her heart was supposed to stop beating like a drum in her

chest. But it didn’t. ‘Okay. I’ll tell her you’re here.’ She opened the front gate, feeling that if she looked around, all the red and brown and no-colour eyes would be on her. Instead, she heard car doors slam and turned to see three of them walking towards her. Justin started to say, ‘Guys, I told you –’ but the boss just looked at him and he shut up. They helped her close the gate. She didn’t know if she should say thank you or not. They followed her so closely she could feel warm air around her, like a big superhero cape blowing gently to the side and back of her. Problem was, she didn’t feel like a superhero. She put her face against the security gate of the kitchen. ‘Gogo?’ Jack came in running and barking. He stopped wagging his tail when he saw them. She bent down and rubbed his face, more to keep him quiet. Something told her she should just keep him quiet. She looked down at their shoes. Two of the men were in shoes and the other one in flip-flops. She figured the really big shoes belonged to the boss. But she couldn’t bring herself to look up and make sure. He would look like a giant. She looked at the laces. If she had to lace up those types of shoes she would die. Criss-crossing like crazy until you got a big square chequered box? Weird. Even more weird was that he didn’t look like the kind of guy who would wear bright pink laces on blue shoes. When she stood up again, the boss was holding onto one of the heart shapes on the gate just above her head. She looked up and followed his straight arm all the way to the elbow, stopping to read the tattoo. Mom. A heart with an arrow. 1962–2015. The muscles from the elbow, all the way to the shoulder, bulged out, up and down and up again. It was impossible to see what picture the mix of green and red colours was supposed to make. ‘Gogo?’ Anneke was playing that song again. ‘Nights in White Satin’.

Some Sundays, Anneke played it over and over, drinking port. And if she ever took out her old family album while the song was on, she never got to the end, closing it halfway and resting her head back on the chair as though she was sleeping. The song filled the whole house. For a second she forgot the three men behind her. The eyes. The teeth. The tattoos. The smell. The same smell Papi sometimes had when she saw him stumbling over the flowers when he was supposed to be pulling out the weeds. The song. She’d danced to it one Sunday when she was bored and the quiet outside was the quiet of nothing. Anneke told her it was an old, old song. But even though it was old, Gogo didn’t know it. Gogo said it wasn’t a song from her world. It wasn’t township jazz music like ‘Manenberg’, that song by Abdullah somebody. Anneke’s songs were from a different world. Promise didn’t know what that meant but she liked imagining different worlds whenever she heard any of those songs playing. Would she still play this song when she was old like Gogo? She hoped so. The worlds would still be different. Even more different. Maybe more different worlds. The music was taking her far into the future. But the boss’s cough, just one small cough, brought her back. ‘This is Trevor’s brother,’ she said quickly when she saw the smile on Gogo’s face disappear. Gogo fumbled with the keys. Promise shouted for Anneke as the gate opened, forgetting to wipe her feet on the mat. She looked back and saw that none of the men did either. They weren’t fat. Actually, the one who told the story about the Zimbabwean person was really skinny. The other one, Trevor’s brother, was normal. And the boss, well, all anyone probably ever saw were his muscles and shoulders. They weren’t fat. But the three of them together filled the room. Everything felt stuffy, like there was nowhere to move. Anneke came in.

Everyone said hello to everyone but no one shook hands or hugged. When Anneke told them she would be back in a little while, the skinny one leaned over a little to see where she was going. ‘So how is Trevor?’ Gogo asked. ‘Yeah, he’s good. As far as we know. Living the good life in London.’ She wanted to tell him she’d just been talking about Trevor at church. About his life. The good one. But maybe not so good. Maybe a life he needed to fix. It didn’t seem the right time for that. But, then again, maybe it was. ‘Is he and Carl going to get married?’ ‘Promise!’ The men laughed. But she didn’t feel clever or happy to be making someone laugh. It made them look at her differently. Longer. Like this was the first time they were really seeing her. ‘You a smart girl, nuh?’ the skinny one said, tilting his head. ‘She is.’ Gogo pulled her backward and into her chest. The boss hadn’t moved at all, except if you counted his eyes. Now that she could see his eyes, she realised they hadn’t stopped moving. ‘Well, here we are,’ Anneke said, walking back into the room and handing Justin a plastic bag. ‘Yassis.’ Justin took out the blue shirt and put it against his chest. He had a big smile on his face. ‘Something nice to bury you in,’ the boss said. ‘Chelsea’s dead this league, bra.’ ‘Are you crazy? Their hands are tired holding up that trophy. And they gonna do it again. Did you watch them play –’ ‘And, ah,’ Anneke said. ‘This.’ She handed him a white envelope. It should be five hundred.’

He counted it. ‘Perfect. Thanks.’ No one moved. Nothing moved, except the voice of the singer in between and around them. And I love you. Yes I love you. Oh how I love you. Oh how I love you. Finally, Justin shoved the money into this pocket and gave the empty envelope to Gogo. She could tell Gogo squeezed the paper the same way she probably wanted to squeeze her face up when she hated something. Her eyes got close together and she pushed out her mouth before pressing her foot onto the rubbish bin lever and throwing the envelope in. ‘Say hi to Trevor for us,’ Anneke said. They walked out, tros hanging down, showing their underwear and walking too slowly back to their car. They looked left and right. The skinny one even tried to peek at the space between the garage and the wall but Justin pulled him back. The car made coughing sounds before it drove off. With the nothing outside, it sounded like a long, loud cry. Even though air had rushed back into the kitchen, making it feel like there was space again, no one moved. The three of them just stood there until the song was over.

Ché

Moron. It was a bit harsh but somehow, the cap fit. The dunce cap. And now he couldn’t stop thinking it. Moron. Ignoramus. Frigging fool. It’d started with him thinking about oxymorons. How standing with Pastor Ernest’s solid hand on the crown of his head was his punishment for not recognising the oxymorons circling the dome-shaped tabernacle. Brief prayer. Quick offering. Short recitation of the Psalms. These contradictions had shot out of the cassava-filled mouth of Pastor Ernest when Ché and his mother showed up to announce his impending trip to London. But Ché, better than most people, knew these things were simply not possible in the Pentecostal church. How could he have forgotten that? Every Sunday morning women put their pigeon peas in the slow cooker before heading off to church. Many of them thought nothing of slipping out during Pastor Ernest’s sermon to check that the peas were bursting nicely. They crept back into their pews long afterwards, knowing full well that Jonah was still in the belly of the whale. He was being prayed on for well over half an hour and would cuss anyone who tried to tell him it only felt like that. Children, who inexplicably were not at school at 11am on a Tuesday, appeared and disappeared at the side door of the church like apparitions. ‘And Father, we ask for your divine protection as our brother Ché goes forth into an unknown world. A world that has strayed so far from the virtue and goodness you first sprinkled on Adam and Eve. A world full of evil and misdeeds. Walk with him, Father, comfort him during any difficulty he might experience. We know our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the powers, against the world forces of this darkness, against the spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly places. As God said in …’ Geez an ages. This supposed to be the comforting wings – his mother’s words – upon which he would meet his estranged father? With this he was expected to lie

calmly on a surgical table and have his liver cut out? Would Psalm 31 help to weave the anaesthetic evenly through his blood and disintegrate the nursing staff into soft, white pixels? And what if, as he descended rung by rung into the subconscious as though on a ladder in space, he reached the rung of no return and … clung to it. What would happen if he held onto the misty threshold on the off-chance that it gave a grip? What if, just as he plummeted into a forced sleep, he wanted to scream: I’ve changed my mind. And worse, what if, against all medical rationality, the anaesthetic didn’t work and he woke the fuck up? He’d only gone to the church to please his mother. Once he’d told her his decision to do the surgery, her twenty minutes of wailing which, she assured him, were tears of joy, was followed by only one request – that he not leave for London until he’d got the blessing of Pastor Ernest. This, he knew, would be more important to her and a stronger sign of their love than any weepy airport scene. ‘And the people said to Joseph in Genesis 47 verse 25, let us find grace in the sight of the Lord. And as Jesus said in Matthew 6 verse 28, if God doth so clothe the grass in the field, which to-day is, and to-morrow is cast into the oven, how much more shall he clothe you, O ye of little faith?’ Had his right leg not gone to sleep he would’ve kicked himself for forgetting Pastor Ernest’s legendary ability to quilt the Old and New Testaments together seamlessly. Pastor Ignatius, standing behind him, was breathing deeply, his hand slowly slipping over Ché’s shoulder making its way towards his shoulder blade. Was the man sleeping standing up? His neck was beginning to hurt. Despite having bench-pressed one hundred and forty pounds the day before, the weight on his shoulders was getting the better of him. It seemed the more fired up Pastor Ernest got about the story of Ruth and her mother-in-law – that wholly inappropriate wherever-you-die-I-shall-die speech – the heavier Pastor Ignatius’s trembling hand felt. He wondered if it would be rude to look up and then roll his head around a few times. Then Pastor Ignatius, bless him, with a soft snore and a buckling of the knee, just went down. It wasn’t a harsh thump to the floor but a slow, graceful folding of

his tall frame. Even as he lay, sprawled, his small T-shirt riding up over his brown cotton pants to reveal no belt and two torn belt loops, he looked unfazed. As though in a sweet dream that not even gravity’s fell swoop could disturb. Ché turned around to see his mother getting up slowly from her pew behind him and dusting the pleats on her brown skirt back into submission. And Pastor Ernest looked more annoyed about not being able to finish the story of Ruth. No rush for smelling salts. No exclamations about possible concussions or the breaking of any bones. No comment on the fact that Pastor Ignatius’s twisted body looked like it should have white chalk drawn around it. No nothing. Pastor Ernest slowly took a handkerchief out of his back pocket and wiped his forehead, before using his index finger to dig and seemingly dislodge all manner of things from the crevices of his outer ear. ‘Don’t worry, this is a regular ting. Blood sugar. He need to keep that in check.’ Oh yeah, that’s what needed to be kept in check. His mother came up beside him and peered down at Pastor Ignatius. Her look also suggested that Pastor Ignatius should’ve had the good manners to pick a more considerate time to fall, sleep, faint or fail to have a sweet handy. Ché could see from the flush on Pastor Ignatius’s face that he would be okay. He told his mother this. ‘If Tuesday fall on a Friday he not bothered,’ was her only response. ‘Bring some water,’ Pastor Ernest called to the children who’d ventured closer but immediately scurried out like poor mice the moment he spoke. He looked up at Ché, smiling. ‘So, England, boy. The ole motherland. Plenty to see there. But look out for those terrorist people.’ What was the last half hour if not protection from the terrorists, he wanted to say. ‘Do well there. Do good things. Make us proud, okay?’ Shit, did they think he was off to university? And he wasn’t going to give credence to this ridiculous idea that his mother would receive a donation from

Joel’s wife if the surgery went ahead. ‘Here, Pastor.’ Pastor Ernest took the glass of water from the girl and sprinkled it over the stillsleeping Pastor Ignatius and – if Ché hadn’t heard it with his own ears, he wouldn’t have believed it – began speaking of Ruth and Naomi’s return to Bethlehem. This is damn foolishness, he was pretty sure he muttered under his breath. He bent down and lifted Pastor Ignatius’s head in the crook of his elbow and shook him. ‘Pastor Ignatius, you feeling all right?’ ‘Eh, eh, like ah fall. Ché?’ Pastor Ignatius sat up. ‘Ché. Do us proud, my boy. Okay? Do us proud.’

***

‘Ow! What de …’ He stopped moving and looked down at Mandisa. Eyeballs which were usually rolled back in pleasure were now staring at him with fury. Hot air came through her nose – nothing was getting past those terse lips – and he could smell the Guinness they’d both had earlier. ‘Too hard?’ ‘Oh please, don’t flatter yourself.’ ‘I mean, I was too rough? Why you carrying on like such a bitch?’ He immediately regretted it. ‘You know what?’ He felt her unlink her ankles from the small of his back and

take back her legs, knocking his taut arms and in the process, him, off balance. ‘Just let me do you a favour. How about I just cut out my pussy and leave it here for you. Then you can continue your business without actually having to that someone else is here too.’ ‘Okay,’ he sighed, watching her pull up her G-string. ‘I –’ ‘No, no, it’s fine. As a matter of fact, let me just punch a hole in the wall over there. And you could just fuck that.’ ‘Oh Jesus, Mandisa. Why so crass?’ He watched his flaccid penis curl up between his balls and he knew how it felt. He just wanted to curl up among his pillows and forget everything. ‘If I wanted to be dramatic, I would have been bawling out – and not in a good way, mind you – bawling out blue murder when you were going at it and staring into space like I wasn’t even there.’ ‘Okay, so I a little distracted.’ She pulled out one of the drawers and began digging around. It wasn’t the time to remind her that she should fold everything back the way she found it, mess would just make him feel worse, but he kept quiet. Eventually she pulled on a dark blue Guess T-shirt. One of his better ones and definitely not one to laze about in during a domestic squabble on a Friday night. But he kept quiet. ‘Look, Ché, I love you. I really love you. And I know you love me too. But I not going to mash up my vagina so you can feel like …’ She threw her hand in the air, searching for the words. ‘I don’t know, like some big man or something.’ He sat up on his elbows. ‘What?’ ‘You not going to take out all your fears or issues, or whatever, on …’ She let out a loud sigh as he sat at the edge of the bed. That, he decided, was unforgivable. At least for the rest of the night. He headed for the bathroom. ‘Okay, sorry, sorry,’ she said. ‘That was a really wicked thing to say.’

‘You finished?’ ‘You know what I’m talking about.’ ‘I’m going to the bathroom if you haven’t noticed.’ ‘C’mon, Ché, I mean …’ She went over to the bedside table, picked up a book and held the cover up to him. ‘Seriously?’ ‘What?’ ‘Ingrid Betancourt? I mean, really, you have something in common with a woman who spent six years as a captive in the Colombian jungle?’ ‘It’s just a novel.’ She pulled open the small drawer. ‘Long Walk to Freedom?’ ‘Who don’t love Mandela?’ ‘127 Hours: Between a Rock and a Hard Place?’ ‘What’s your point?’ ‘Planning on cutting off your right arm with a blunt knife?’ ‘No, just a piece of my liver.’ ‘Ché …’ ‘Really, what’s your point?’ ‘You bought all these last week.’ She waved the receipt which had fallen from the pages of 127 Hours. He’d been using it as a bookmark. ‘Again, Mandisa, if you have a point, make it.’ ‘You want to understand how it is to survive something, Ché.’ He turned his back to her, opening the door to the bathroom. A mix of fruity smells rushed at him, reminding him of the shower they’d had earlier. But truth

be told, he couldn’t much else. The comfort of the warm water on him, for sure, but that was it. Maybe she had a point or two about that distraction thing. ‘Ché?’ ‘And so what for that? So fucking what?’ ‘Because you not even talking to me about it. Why you going to Ingrid Betancourt and not coming to me?’ He closed the bathroom door behind him, figuring to slam it would make him look too childish. Still, he made sure to flick the lock loudly. Just before he turned the shower on he heard her playing the latest Stephen Marley. Same scratchy voice as his father, but minus a certain authenticity that only came from knowing ghetto living up close. She didn’t for sure. What did she know? Sheltered little bitch. Okay, he didn’t know either but he’d had a lot more absence in his life than her. He’d struggled more, damnit. It counted for something, didn’t it? He could read about Ingrid Betancourt and Mandela and Aron Ralston in a way that she couldn’t. No wonder she carried on like a banshee. She didn’t get him. She really didn’t. He would have to re-think this relationship. If she didn’t understand him during what was probably the most important time and decision of his life, what good was she? He stripped off his clothes and turned the shower on. His second one in half an hour. His mother would pronounce this a wicked waste of water, before re-telling her childhood stories of having to walk half a mile a few times a day to get water from the corner standpipe. He turned the tap on full blast, increased the temperature and reached to adjust the silver shower nozzle to the massage function. He leaned his palms against the shower wall, picturing the water running down his back and over his ass, the tilts and dips of its journey over the muscles in his thighs. He was a healthy man. A strong man. He kept telling himself that over and over. As he turned off the water he heard a knock on the door. Had she been knocking all this time?

‘Ché?’ She turned the locked handle. He dried off, opened the door and walked past her, hoping his emergence out of a large cushion of steam would appear masculine and rid her of any doubt that he was in charge of, well, something. She was naked again. Interesting. ‘I’ll go with you,’ she said, taking a towel and blotting his face gently. That was unexpected. He stood there, staring at her. ‘I’ll go into my credit union . Or get a loan. Don’t worry about it. I’ll come with you.’ She began wiping him all over, eventually getting a bit rough with the source of the continuous trickle of water: his wet, curly hair. ‘Who’s going to look after you once the surgery’s over?’ His mother had suggested staying at Shelley’s, Aunty Beulah’s adopted daughter, despite the fact they hadn’t really spoken to her in years. Shelley lived in a place called Croydon, which someone told him was London but … not really London. Beyond that he really hadn’t thought much of it. ‘I’ll be there.’ She kissed as she dried. Well, she semi-dried. He allowed himself to be led to the bed. Stephen Marley was still on. The guy really had his own brand of legitimacy, he had to it. He should appreciate that more. ‘Go for it,’ she said, climbing on top of him.

***

‘Bye Ché.’ Claudette was smiling, her eyes appearing glazed in the weak fluorescent light.

‘Huh?’ She winked. ‘You leaving, right? You must be happy. It’s time for you to leave. It’s really time. Bye.’ She waved as though on the deck of a ship departing to some new world. What in heaven’s name did Claudette know? He wasn’t due to leave for London for another week or so. And who was talking his business on the ward? He began to arrange the medication cups in front of him. ‘Claudette? You okay?’ ‘Yes, I was just saying goodbye.’ ‘But why?’ She pointed upwards and he followed her index finger to the clock on the wall. ‘Is eight, forty-five. Time for you to go home.’ He exhaled slowly. Telling himself to stop having mini panic attacks about everything was clearly not working. ‘Oh, no Claudette. I’m doing a double tonight.’ ‘Double? Why?’ Why indeed. ‘You not happy to see me?’ ‘Yes, yes. But is Saturday night. Nice, good-looking man like you have no plans? No girl? No party?’ ‘Speaking of party, Ché …’ Colin, his face animated by all types of mischievous plotting, came up alongside Claudette. ‘No party tonight, Colin. Plus, look at that rain outside.’ ‘Ché man. You killin my vibes, dread.’ ‘You doctor reduced the lithium, right? Here.’ ‘But is …’ Colin took the little plastic cup from Ché’s hand and squinted down at

the round white tablet among two colourful oblong capsules. He opened his mouth and threw them all in, contorting his face. ‘Is that fete in the Savannah tonight.’ He offered Colin some water. ‘I-man good,’ Colin said, clearing his throat loudly. ‘Don’t need no water like no pussy.’ ‘Watch your language.’ Claudette’s voice thundered from behind Colin. ‘Doh make me have to wash out your mouth with soap this hour of the night.’ ‘If is the lavender one then is all right,’ Colin said. ‘I used to eat soap when I was small, yuh know? It was poverty in we fucking ras, dread.’ Claudette glared at him. ‘Okay. Sorry Tante.’ ‘Dr Hosein said I only take Lorazepam at night, when I need it,’ Claudette said to Ché. ‘And how you feeling tonight?’ ‘I don’t need it. Well, I don’t think so. I ain’t sure.’ She bit her lip and looked worried for a few seconds. ‘Yes, yes, I’m fine. I don’t want it. No, I mean, yes, I want it.’ Ché turned his back to her, poured out the tablets onto his palm and fished out the small orange tablets. ‘Here.’ To no music that Ché could hear, Colin danced behind an oblivious Claudette, his bony chest isolating itself out his thin white vest. Then he clasped his hands behind his head and began gyrating two inches behind Claudette’s bottom. Ché pressed down hard on the clipboard while he initialled, doing his best not to laugh. Colin – the poster boy for the happiness of mad people. ‘Claudette, yuh better lock yuh door tonight, girl,’ Dianne cackled from across the other side of the room.

Claudette turned around quickly and jumped when she saw Colin right behind her. But by now, he was stationary, wearing an intellectual, far-away expression. ‘Some people just on this earth to breathe other people air.’ She drank her water while eyeing Colin. ‘You think you too old to get a cut-ass from me?’ ‘Colin, go and relax over there, please,’ Ché said. ‘Oh gorm, Ché. I feeling that fete in meh bones, man.’ ‘Not tonight, Colin. And look at the weather?’ The trees, succumbing to the gale force winds, were bent forward, or backwards some might have argued. Part of him wanted to walk in it, drench himself in the downpour like he did when was a child and sailed paper boats on the swollen drains at the side of his house. ‘I don’t fraid water. And the fete is indoors.’ ‘I don’t think so, Colin.’ ‘Watch, I voluntary you know, dread.’ True, Colin could come and go as he liked. He’d been coming and going for years. And it wasn’t as though the hospital didn’t allow some patients to go at night for a while. He looked over at Colin, pacing the corner of the patient area, dancing sporadically, laughing too loudly at conversations not directed at him. The boy was just too high right now. He sighed. He really didn’t need any problems tonight. He needed a clear head. Or no head at all, just to close his eyes and succumb to the quiet darkness of the ward. The hospital wasn’t at all what most people, Mandisa included, imagined it to be. She pictured a kind of nineteenth century lunatic asylum hell, with people screaming at night – always at night – without reason or recourse. In fact, the ward at night was the epitome of calm and sanity. But he knew, as did all mental health nurses, that the key was to drug them up to the eyeball, make sure they drank their cup of Milo, and like children, send them off to bed with the lights off. After that, he planned to put up his feet and close his eyes himself. Well, one eye at least. Sleeping on the night shift was not only potentially a joblosing activity but left nurses extremely vulnerable. How many nurses claimed to be taking a light sleep, as if there was ever such a thing, only to flip their eyelids open to find a patient five inches away from their faces, watching them intently?

‘Watch, let we compromise here.’ ‘Colin.’ ‘Listen, listen. How about if I just go for two hours? I go be back by midnight. I don’t care if rain wet me, dry on me and wet me again. I don’t care if lightning strike me. I just want to go. Midnight, Ché, I’m telling you, midnight.’ ‘Colin, fete don’t start until one o’clock. What’s the point of that?’ ‘I just want a taste, dread. I just want to hear some soca, loud, loud. Not the one in my head only. I just want to smell some corn soup. I want to see some nice woman who dress up nice with everything hanging out. Try to take a wine on she and watch she get on bad. I just need the vibe man. I going crazy in here.’ Yuh don’t say. ‘True story, Ché. Two hours. And I back here.’ He knew when Colin spoke like this he could be trusted to keep his word. Apart from the twitching left leg, which was nothing new, Colin was staring at him with the earnestness of a teenage girl pleading to her parents for an extended curfew. ‘Two hours?’ ‘Two hours.’ ‘That means no Bunji, no Fay-Ann. Because you know them don’t come on until late. You think it worth it to go all that way and not see even one decent soca artist?’ ‘That’s all right. I see Bunji plenty times. And plus, I friends with he brother. I was just hanging out with them last week.’ This was a lie. But best to leave Colin to his grandiose delusions. ‘Hang on. Let me talk to Caroline about it.’ Caroline, busy with patient notes in the office, gave him a cursory glance as he

came in. ‘What’s Colin’s story now?’ ‘He want to go to the fete in the Savannah. He say he’ll be back by twelve.’ Caroline’s head snapped up. ‘Twelve what?’ she said, curling her lips. ‘Twelve o’clock midday tomorrow?’ ‘Nah, that’s not his style. I believe him when he say midnight.’ They both looked at Colin, who was doing push-ups with one hand in front of the television. ‘Well, he have energy for days.’ Caroline said. She yawned. ‘I don’t want to deal with that tonight. If he stay here, he wouldn’t shut up. And I don’t feel to hear him sing every Peter Tosh song he know. Let him go. He had his meds, right?’ ‘Yeah, that was no problem.’ Caroline stretched. ‘One less mad fool. And he bound to come back. That we know.’ Ché went to the office door. ‘Colin. Midnight.’

***

Even through the thunderstorm, he heard the bell of the Anglican church chime midnight as he and Caroline sat in the sluice room. She pulled the Velcro strap off his arm. ‘One hundred and twenty-nine over eighty. Perfect. Healthy as a horse.’ ‘Yeah, I know.’ He didn’t want to tell her he’d been checking his virility in all kinds of embarrassing ways. Searching, testing, digging for the tiniest of faults that would suggest he should be concerned; creating phantom symptoms that saw him running to the nearest health professional. But he always found nothing.

Not so much as a pimple where it shouldn’t be. His port was in order. His British citizenship intact. His use of the UK National Health Services authorised. Not even a death in the Royal family was going to stop things from going ahead. ‘You should be grateful.’ He should be all sorts of things that he wasn’t. ‘I know I’m healthy. That’s kinda the problem.’ ‘Explain.’ He looked at his watch. ‘Past midnight. Hmmm, that Colin, eh.’ ‘When you going up for the surgery?’ She was wrapping up the blood pressure monitor but staring at him. ‘Week and a half’s time.’ ‘You ready?’ There was a knock at the door. He got up but looked back at her. ‘Anybody ever ready for something like that?’ Saanjali was heaving and puffing at the door. ‘Is Colin. I was just speaking to the police. He got into a fight down at the fete.’ ‘What?’ Caroline shot through the door past her and headed for the office. She looked back at Saanjali as though expecting the trembling nursing assistant to be at her heel. ‘Shit. What happened?’ Ché closed the door to the office and the three of them sat down. ‘I not exactly sure. And it was loud so I couldn’t hear the officer so well. But he say something like Bunji was about to come on –’ ‘What? Before midnight? Bunji come on early, boy,’ another nurse said without looking up from writing her notes.

They all looked at her and then each other. ‘Carry on,’ Caroline said. ‘Yeah, so like, well, true what Tiana just said, like nobody expected Bunji to come on this early and so people start rushing through the gates when they hear him on the stage. But it seem like Colin was trying to go the other way, like trying to get out.’ Ché and Caroline looked at each other, both sighing at the same time. ‘Anyway, seem like he get into a fight or scuffle with somebody as he was trying to get out and, well, it escalated a bit. When the police hold both of them, Colin told them he was staying here and they called. I took the officer’s number and told him the nurse in charge will call him back.’ ‘Lawd, and here I was looking for a quiet night.’ She looked at the piece of paper with the number on it before folding it in her palm. ‘One of us will have to go down there and accompany the police back with Colin.’ Ché got up. ‘I’ll go.’ ‘Ahem, no, you won’t.’ ‘I’m the only guy here.’ ‘Exactly why you need to stay. And …’ She gave him a look. ‘With all that drama down there? No. Keep yourself safe, you.’ She bent down to get her handbag out of a small cupboard. ‘I’m sure Colin head just get hot and you know he hate police. I don’t feel he will be a problem, especially when he sees me. I coming back soon.’ Ché walked her to the front door. ‘Seriously, Caroline. You shouldn’t be out there this time of night. Let me go.’ At six one she was eye level with him. Putting her hands on her wide hips and pushing out her huge breasts, they both laughed at the ludicrous idea that some asshole was going to mess with her. They went through the first set of security doors together. ‘But really, I can go,’ he said.

She lifted the access that hung around her neck and pressed it to the blue sensor on the wall, opening the door. ‘You dancing with something?’ ‘What?’ ‘That’s what my aunt used to ask me when she knew I was hiding something, or when I clearly wanted to put myself in harm’s way to make a point. “You dancing with something?” she would ask me.’ A mild but continuous beep could be heard, signalling the open door. He couldn’t meet her eyes but when he did, he was relieved they didn’t look as irritated as her voice sounded. ‘I was just saying I could go. That’s all I was really saying.’ ‘And I’m saying, Ché, really saying,’ she put her hand on his arm, ‘you can’t.’

Trevor

He was mad. Even as he thought it, he figured he wasn’t supposed to be just mad. Like emotions and their explanations were supposed to be sophisticated or something. All layered and shit. Like he was meant to be the embodiment of that stupid fucking cliché of a tortured artist. But he was just fucking mad. And growing madder with every step through Tower Hamlets centenary park. Worse, he was on the lookout for squirrels getting too close. Why people thought these overgrown vermin were cute just because they stood upright and were draped in slightly more fashionable outfits than rats, was beyond him. ‘You grew up with those things,’ Carl told him once, as though they’d been some sort of family pet. He was at pains to explain that, yeah, sharing the lawns at Company’s Garden with squirrels on a Sunday afternoon picnic with his family was one thing. Young boys selling packets of peanuts for feeding, children squealing and chasing the little buggers while tourists took photos, was all acceptable. Pleasant even. But here, in London’s East End, with the weather schizophrenic as fuck and him reaching for his scarf again every time the sun cowered behind the moving clouds, his one last good nerve was giving up. The constant appearance and disappearance of the squirrels, their jerky motions, unsettled him and made the space feel chaotic and dirty. It was like Dickens’s London all over again, except with squirrels instead of rats, a comparison Zainabu would have loved considering where she was dragging him off to. A fat squirrel crossed in front of him in no great hurry. For reasons he couldn’t figure out, it reminded him he needed to call his mother. With things between him and Carl going from bad to shit fucking bad, he hadn’t checked if Bones had kept his word and collected the cash, and more importantly, sent it on to her. As they got closer to the outstretched, dirty hand of a Pakistani boy, he felt he could grab the boy’s wrist and twist it hard before shoving him into the dried-up fountain in the middle of the park.

Instead he just said, ‘Get a fucking job.’ Zainabu stopped and looked at him. A big part of him hoped she was going to tell him he was a fucking asshole. At least there would be confluence about how he felt and how things actually were. ‘What’s the matter, love?’ Zainabu asked. Carl doesn’t love me anymore and I don’t blame him. Alvaro doesn’t want me anymore and I blame him. My life has no direction. The world is a fucking cesspit. And I’m cold. These words made a beeline from his brain to the pit of his stomach. ‘I’m just angry. And certain people are supposed to care, and don’t.’ ‘Well, I’m people, and I care.’ ‘You wouldn’t get it.’ ‘Why?’ ‘You just wouldn’t.’ ‘Because I’m not gay?’ ‘I never said that.’ ‘I had a girl eat me out in my last term at boarding school. Does that count?’ He laughed. ‘Sometimes I feel bad that you have to resort to making shit up just to get a rise out of me.’ ‘Is this where I’m supposed to deny it?’ ‘Seriously? Boarding school?’ ‘So it’s not the girl bit, it’s the boarding school bit?’ ‘Didn’t you go to a Catholic school?’ ‘Trust me, they’re the worst. The only virgin in that place was Mary, and even that was in doubt, depending on who you spoke to. Now, what’s wrong?’

They stopped and stepped away from each other to let a cyclist through. As they resumed their walk he could smell something like coconut oil rising from her. ‘Carl and I are just in a really shitty place right now. I’m not helping matters for sure. But there’s all this unspoken stuff between us. And he’s keeping something from me, I know.’ ‘And you? Aren’t you keeping something from him?’ ‘What do you mean?’ ‘I mean that guy. What’s his name again?’ ‘Alvaro.’ ‘Alvaro? Spanish?’ ‘Chilean.’ ‘You globetrotting? Sanjay or Jiang next?’ ‘Funny.’ He would’ve continued along this road, the conversation and the actual road, walking past uninspiring shop windows and warehouse-like buildings, had she not stopped at a plain-looking iron door and pushed it open. ‘This is a museum?’ He looked at a handwritten sign on an easel. ‘Welcome to the Ragged School Museum. Yep, guess it is.’ The floor creaked. The warmth that greeted them came with an old, musty smell, the source of which he assumed was a pile of clothes in the corner. On the wall above the clothes was an invitation to dress up like a child of the Ragged School. ‘Geez, why Ragged School? Wasn’t it enough that they were shit poor and probably dying from something like the plague in an East End slum?’ He dusted off a grey cap with a brown button attaching the front to the brim and tilted it onto his head. ‘How do I look?’ He arched his eyebrow while his index finger rested in the groove between his cheek and jaw. ‘Like Oliver Twist with a sexual identity crisis.’

He stopped laughing when he saw how stupid and big his teeth looked in the reflection in her glasses. ‘Anyway, I’ve told Alvaro to stop calling me. Plus, he was getting really weird.’ ‘Like how weird?’ ‘Like, I’m-a-musician-living-in-the-Dakota-apartment-building weird.’ ‘Huh?’ ‘Chapman.’ ‘Speak English.’ Her arms were stretched out and fingers on both hands splayed. ‘We’re back in the Victorian era, for Chrissake.’ ‘Lennon. C’mon, what am I working with here? Anyway, weird.’ ‘So you’ve stopped?’ ‘I have. Trust me I have.’ ‘So you don’t think about him anymore?’ He didn’t respond. ‘Of course you do,’ she said, as they started up the winding staircase. ‘It’s like that part of Madame Bovary, when the guy’s old wife, the first one, forbade … forbade? Is that the right word? Sounds so old English somehow. Anyway, forbade him to see Emma. He said something like, the interdict gave him the right to love her. Like when one sense or avenue is shut off, there’s gonna be compensation somehow.’ ‘Well no one forbade me. I forbade myself.’ ‘Same difference. The idea is that when something is taken away, or given away, that void can attract all kinds of new things. Good or otherwise.’ ‘Christ. Dickens? Madam Bovary? I hope when all this is over we can find a bar, preferably with a man in his underwear to dance right in my face. Shoot me back straight into the sordid twenty-first century.’ He picked up the cane that hung by

the side of a blackboard dated 1886 and gave her ass a playful whack. ‘Hey,’ she said, rubbing the dark blue faux pocket patch on her faded jeans. ‘You think they weren’t sordid back then? You know, this is my second time reading Flaubert … well, first time studying him in real depth anyway … and I can’t believe how different it is. All those hidden agendas I missed. Emma, the feminist anti-hero, breaking down patriarchal stereotypes of women in the nineteenth century, and all that.’ ‘Really? And here I thought she was just a ho with too much time on her hands.’ ‘I don’t know why people think these are so antique.’ She squeezed herself into the space between a wooden school desk and its attached seat. She lifted up the flap and seemed genuinely excited to find a small bottle of ink, a pen and some blank pieces of paper. ‘Go to any public school in Nigeria and they’re all over the place, if the school is lucky.’ He flipped through a huge, hardcover notebook on display, fascinated that its red binder was still so defiantly shiny despite the brown and yellow pages it bound together. One page tore slightly in his hand as he flipped it over and he immediately looked to see if Zainabu had noticed. At first, he thought it might have been a school attendance record, or even a visitors’ book where relatives and good Samaritans came to take the poor orphans out on an afternoon. But looking closer, he couldn’t make sense of some of the entries. Like the one entered on 1 August 1909: Two ladies by surname of Hughes Thro’ Cobham walked in their shoes But sad to relate The rain came down straight It was enough to give them the blues What the –? Entries just below that about the sweet smell of Hadley Brewery and something about one pound being sent to The Daily Howler seemed totally disconnected.

He wondered if the boy who shouted ‘Extra Extra Read All About It!’ worked for The Daily Howler. Nah, too damn obvious. ‘This is going to be interesting to your blog readers?’ he called out to Zainabu while she peered into a wooden box mounted on the wall. With its mesh wiring on the front, he figured it had functioned as some sort of fridge back in the day. ‘The way I write it, it will be. I told you, these under-the-radar museums are really interesting if given half a chance. By the way, next on the list is a doll museum in Islington.’ ‘Kill me now, why don’t you.’ ‘Wait till you read my review of Majdanek. I’m ing it this week. Everyone goes to Auschwitz. But Majdanek is much more intact because the Germans got caught off-guard and didn’t have time to destroy stuff before the Russians came. Gas chambers, all that, as it stood in 1944.’ He stared at her. ‘What a life you lead.’ They moved into a kitchen that, if there hadn’t been an information leaflet about it being an early twentieth century replica, would’ve caused him to absentmindedly look around for his mother and grandmother. With the exception of a fake fireplace, which his mind easily replaced with the primus stove they’d grown up with, the scene recalled his earliest family memories; wooden shelves displaying enamel cups and plates still to develop, mysteriously to him, those circular, random rusted patterns. The oversized enamel tub, waiting for his mother’s daily load of washing, sat next to white pails where a mop, swimming in brown, dirty water would be rung by her wrinkled, stiff hands. When he looked closer, he realised of course he’d been wrong. The era was totally off. The antique mantel clock and the flat candlestick holder with its exaggerated thumb loop prompted him to think of Mr Rochester in a long white gown on his way to the attic. The small black iron on faux heated coals was from a completely different time. Yet, it was the warmth of the kitchen that was familiar; the idea that this was the space where, because of the heat and the promise of food, everyone assembled, where homework got done, stories regurgitated or embellished or both. ‘So beautiful,’ Zainabu said, sighing behind him. ‘Things were so simple back

then, eh?’ ‘Yes,’ he said, his sigh three seconds longer than hers. ‘Shit poor was very simple.’ She turned and walked away, the upright middle finger of her right hand trailing behind her. ‘So, you feel better now? Less angry?’ she said, when they were back downstairs, browsing in the small gift shop. ‘I guess I am. Thank you, my lady,’ he said, with a quick curtsy. ‘So what you gonna do about your situation?’ ‘Nothing. It’s resolved itself. I don’t see the guy anymore. And Carl, well, Carl and I … I don’t know. Can’t believe I’m saying this but maybe I’ll suggest couples therapy or something.’ After Zainabu paid for a few postcards and a second-rate-looking coffee table book about the Barnado’s Homes, they both walked towards the front door. ‘He’s never suspected you of cheating?’ ‘I don’t know about never suspected, but he’s never confronted me about it.’ ‘And he’s never –?’ ‘No way.’ ‘Oh, you’re so sure about that. It’s the quiet ones, you know.’ ‘Don’t get me wrong, Carl is attractive. If you’re into the mysterious, aloof, emotionally-unavailable-on-a-fundamental-level, deeply wounded kinda guy. Which, clearly, I am.’ ‘Bloody hell. That would do my head in.’ ‘Oh no, no, it’s fine, don’t feel sorry for me. He offers, randomly and on a whim, just enough insight into his tortured soul to keep me interested. And look, he’s successful too, no doubt. Professionally, I mean. But he’s got no game at all. No

swag. He can’t even flirt, that guy. If he felt someone trying to pull him, he’d probably run a mile. Say something nerdy like he’s got a liver transplant to perform or something.’ ‘Yeah, what a bore. Saving lives and all that business.’ They hugged their goodbyes outside the Starbucks on the main road. He wondered if he should call Carl to suggest lunch? It wasn’t like there had been any kind of epiphany in the last couple of hours, but he was hungry. Maybe Carl was too. Why not feign naivety at the tension between them? Anger or no anger, people gotta eat. And Hallington Hospital, like anywhere in London, was a tube ride away. He should call first though. Surprises were never, ever a good idea outside a well-written screenplay. Instead of gushes about how sensitive and spontaneous someone was, there was awkwardness at best. And at worst, the party being thrust upon ended up harassed, clearly inconvenienced and ultimately more stressed at having to schedule in a self-absorbed partner with too much time on his hands. He felt his phone vibrate in his pocket. No way. This kind of alignment never happened to him. He took it out and saw a South African number on the screen. He pressed the green call button, put the phone to his ear and listened. ‘Is he saying anything?’ said a hushed voice. ‘Shhh.’ ‘Well, why don’t you say hello?’ ‘I’m waiting for him to say it first.’ He was about to hang up, to tell these two little girls their prank call wasn’t funny, when one of them said, ‘Tell him Carl’s phone doesn’t work. That number’s wrong.’ ‘Hello?’ he asked, confused and intrigued in equal measures. But there was only

snickering on the other end. ‘Hello?’ ‘Hello?’ The voice, child-like at first but after a throat clearing sounding more mature, finally said, ‘Is this Trevor?’ ‘Yes, this is Trevor.’ ‘This is Promise.’ Promise? Promise in South Africa. Promise who had his number and knew Carl? He looked out at the throngs of people crossing the High Street. In a kaleidoscopic moment, with a feeling of spatial unhinging, he felt a connection with the commotion in front of him, the certainty that he was it and it was him and he was exactly, perfectly, in the right moment of his life. Above, beneath and all around this realisation was the knowledge that every experience of his life, those he couldn’t and those still to come, were deliberate and fortuitous. For fuck’s sake, was he stoned? He heard her calling his name again and wondered in which part of his unpredictable life had he, Trevor from the Cape Flats, crossed paths with little black Promise. It was a riddle that, were he to solve it in the next five seconds, would be greater evidence of how everything could, with the greatest of ease, simply come together to make sense. Six seconds. Nothing. Nothing was shooting from his memory bank. Not the slightest bit of familiarity coming his way. ‘Hello, Promise.’ ‘Hello.’ ‘Does your mom know you’re calling me?’ ‘My mom?’ Shit. ‘I mean, are you supposed to be calling me?’ ‘Not really. Shut up.’

‘Sorry?’ ‘Oh, I was talking to Zandi. My friend Zandi is here. Hush, I’ll ask him. Stop rushing me.’ Zandi? Zandi. ‘I’m looking for Carl’s number. I found a number in Anneke’s phone but at first it was off and now he’s not answering. So we think it’s not the right number.’ Ahhhh. Promise. Dorothy. Anneke. It took him a second to recover from the realisation that life was not, in fact, weaving an intricate series of prompts and clues in a bid to lurch him closer towards his enlightenment. But only that he’d been implicated in this rather mundane, blended family tree. In the second that followed, panic flooded his insides. ‘Is everything okay, Promise? Is Anneke all right?’ ‘Yes, well … no, well … yes, she’s not sick or anything. But she’s not that happy.’ ‘What’s wrong?’ ‘I don’t know. Gogo just said she’s not looking okay and that she should talk to Carl. But Anneke didn’t want to.’ ‘But what exactly –’ ‘And then Zandi came here because there’s no school today because they’re fixing something in the school and we have no water. So the teachers said we should stay home. And Zandi said we should call Carl. Yes, it was you, Zandi, it was. Anyway. Maybe that number for Carl is not the right number. But we found your number in Anneke’s phone too. And because you and Carl are married … yes, I can say that … hush, stop talking. Anyway, we are looking for Carl’s number to call him to tell him that Anneke is sad or worried and keeps saying to keep the gates closed because of those three guys.’ ‘What three guys?’ ‘The ones that came to get money.’

Bones. Fucking Bones and wastes of DNA Dexter and Faheem. Had they gone into the house? After all his threats and warnings, had those fuckers actually darkened Anneke’s doorstep? ‘Listen to me, Promise. Don’t worry, okay. I’ll call Carl now. Actually, I’m going to see him now, so I’ll tell him to call his mom. Tell your gogo and Anneke not to worry. And those three guys aren’t going to come back. Trust me, okay?’ ‘Okay.’ ‘And Promise?’ ‘Yes?’ ‘You’re a smart little girl for calling me.’ He could hear various versions of I-told-you-so before the line went dead. As he placed the phone back in his pocket he wondered if he’d ever been that savvy at that age, about ten, he guessed. He did feel a touch guilty that Anneke’s predicament had given him a legitimate reason to call Carl. He dialled. But the phone just rang and rang.

***

Laurelie’s look said everything. And he knew looks. He studied looks. This talent came in handy when he painted portraits. He could see cheeks drop a quarter of an inch, eyebrows that jerked towards each other before the owner could compose herself enough to scrounge around for a fake expression. He knew, contrary to everything written in novels, that mouths never dropped open. More often, lips, suddenly dry, parted just that much to show a thin line of teeth. He knew eyes that studied ceilings or floors, or worse, stared him dead in the face, did so to deflect the lies circling about. He knew looks. And Laurelie had just given him one.

‘Carl’s not here,’ she said, slowing her pace just as she turned the corner and saw him at her desk. But a thousand little things had occupied her face before that. And they all said he shouldn’t be standing where he was. It was a look that asked Why are you here? No, not why. How are you here, when you should be with Carl? He decided against pressing her for more information. He walked through the main hospital doors and stood there, looking left and right, feeling foolish. He told himself he was angry but suspected it was only a dictum for other feelings, like fear, insecurity and wow-you-got-fuckin-played, to stay away. And no, he told his mind out loud as though it was the shadow beside him, he was not going to walk past every restaurant on Bailey Street, perusing mounted menus as though he had an indecisive palate, all the while looking out for Carl. He was about to stop at a bus stop a few metres away, get onto the first bus going anywhere, when he glanced across the green beside him. His eyes went over the heads of runners on the path, skimmed the dam like a flat stone thrown by a bored country boy, and locked onto a familiar face. No, two familiar faces. Small people in the distance. But there was no mistaking that black, shiny hair. Untamed. Just like its owner. He heard the bus approaching, felt its exhaust envelop him even before it came to a complete stop. Heard the door flap open like a giant sigh, people thumping down the stairs with an ‘Excuse me’ here and there. He stomped towards the two men, expecting them to get bigger as he got closer. But they stayed the same size. Maybe he was getting bigger as he approached the wooden bench they were about to sit on. As he approached, they straightened. They all looked at each other. Any er-by who dared to claim he or she’d witnessed the scene would have been hard pressed to say who the majority of looks were between. It was a perfect, equilateral triangle of awkwardness. What the fuck is this about, he was about to say, when he stopped himself. Who knew what? Who’d said what? Who was in the fucking wrong?

Carl looked broken. Alvaro had a small grin only Trevor could see. Although he felt he couldn’t deal with the situation, he was sure he didn’t give away a look. Instead, he swore at his spine and legs, threatening them not to let him down. Commanding them to turn him away. To walk him away. As he got through the exit gate, he ed Anneke. He turned back but couldn’t see them. Fuck it.

Joel

‘Bless me, Father, for I have sinned.’ The profiled figure on the other side didn’t move. Joel couldn’t see the priest through the criss-crossed woodwork, but could detect the wheezy, nasal breathing. He imagined air on its way out, ing thousands of little nose hairs. It was likely warming up the little cubicle and mixing in with that priestly smell, undefinable, yet inescapable. It was something close to a deep, earthy incensefragrance, together with a tiny whiff of altar wine, mingling freely with that particular brand of body odour he always found priests to have. It was a stale, heavy air that managed just to escape the layers of the gown and hover right above the skin, giving physical manifestation to vows of poverty and, to a more remote extent, chastity. Every Irish Catholic child knew that smell. Silence. ‘Bless me, Father, for I have sinned.’ The priest turned his head. ‘And?’ His mind went blank. His mother was definitely rolling over in her grave. No matter what – potato famine, Dunmanway massacre, losing the Irish punt – no self-respecting Irish ever forgot what to say in the box. ‘And … er … I’m here for confession.’ Was it confession? A confession? ‘Repeat after me,’ the priest said. ‘Bless me, Father, for I have sinned.’ He thought he’d said that already but this wasn’t the time, place or, most importantly, person, for an argument. How did he get himself into these situations? He’d only sat in the front pew to wait for anyone associated with the church to appear so that he could ask to have a word with the priest. Trust him to stumble upon the random confession time of 10.30am on a Tuesday. He must have looked a right fool, motionless for too many seconds as the priest, about to step into the side door of the small confession cubicle, gestured for him to come along. ‘Bless me, Father, for I have sinned.’

‘It’s been,’ the priest continued, ‘however long since my last confession.’ ‘It’s been, however … what? Ah, okay, I get it now. Sorry, Father. It’s been a long time since my last confession.’ The slot opened. He was surprised to be looking into a young, freshly shaven face with a Mediterranean tan. ‘I’m going to need you to be more specific.’ Why? He really wanted to ask. Was there a science to how penance was meted out these days? Were priests multiplying number of years absent from confession by the number of sins confessed, and then dividing the score on a contrition scale of one to ten? And then what? Bam. Five Hail Marys and three Our Fathers would spit out like a receipt from a cash ? He felt himself about to swear and wondered if he shouldn’t just do it and confess later. ‘It’s been a while, Father. It’s been ten years or so.’ He was pretty sure it hadn’t been that long but figured a bit of self-flagellation would serve some purpose. Somehow. The priest was nodding and twirling his right hand around in a manner that Joel knew meant the entire fucking – no substitute for that in his mind right now – the entire fucking sentence had to be said all over again. ‘What are your sins?’ He wondered if he should go with the somewhat generic list. Lying, swearing, picking fights with his wife, wishing the Chinese Christians outside the Pret a Manger in Brixton would die or get displaced by the more interesting Nation of Islam, masturbating in the shower. No, wait, was that last one even a sin? Surely something like that, something that prevented a far worse state of affairs, like cheating on his wife, couldn’t be considered a sin? ‘I’ve been having some … impure thoughts, Father. Father …?’ ‘Father Dylan.’

‘Father Dylan. I’ve been spending too much time thinking about things I shouldn’t be thinking about.’ Priests. To think they volunteered themselves to listen to this rot all day. ‘Tell me.’ He squinted, trying to catch the expression on the priest’s chequered face. Was that a raised eyebrow? The biting of a bottom lip? Was this the most stimulating thing the poor sod was going to hear all day? ‘I’ve been thinking a lot about my ex. Ex-girl –’ No. ‘The mother of my child.’ ‘And what kinds of thoughts?’ Thoughts of longing. Not for sex. Not for any physical action or decision of any kind. But for a time, so long gone it felt like it was another life he was asking God to resurrect. Something so real and at the same time, illusory. Like grabbing a ing cloud. Or a man running after a beautiful stranger seated in a train slowly pulling out of a platform. ‘Yes?’ the priest said. ‘You don’t have to feel uncomfortable.’ He realised not only had he not had any truly sexual thoughts about Abigail beyond their last phone call but if he had, he could never willingly filter them through this wooden sieve for interpretation by a total stranger. ‘More reminiscing than anything. Not really a sin, is it, Father?’ ‘Well, thoughts have power. Thoughts are energy, you know?’ This was all pretty New Age. But did that actually mean anything? Was the Catholic church really so hard up for followers it was getting into bed with all this Eastern philosophy business? ‘Tell me more, Father.’ ‘A thought is an action, a mental action. You’re doing something when you have a thought. It’s not an innocent or neutral action. You’re being propelled into a particular line of physical action when you have a thought. Everything or rather, everyone, starts doing something, good or bad, with a thought. A thought has a frequency.’

Christ. ‘Are you married?’ ‘I am, Father.’ All at once, he was happy he’d taken the 133 to Oval and not gone to St Helena’s. There, despite his infrequent appearances at Mass, he was convinced the parish priest would associate him with Niamh and her fanatical cleaning of the church on, and only on, Good Friday. ‘I have a feeling you’re here for more than confession.’ It wasn’t a bad opening. In fact, he couldn’t have asked for a better one. And he had. For a full ten minutes while waiting in the front pew. Fumbling prayer words, pulled from the Lord’s Prayer and, for sure, getting it confused with Hail Mary, all the while employing intricate, religious negotiation even God was bound to find threatening. His mother would’ve turned twice. But Father was asking. ‘My son’s doing something for me that I don’t deserve. I’m sick, Father. Liver’s all ff – all messed up. I’m in AA, trying to get sober. Trying to get well enough for this surgery to happen. And it’s risky, by the way. It’s that living donor thing. He’s giving me a piece, can you believe that? A piece of his liver. Father, to be honest, I’m just tired talking about it. Even thinking about it. Just makes me wanna fucking lie down.’ He realised his slip too late but was surprised when the priest barely moved his head. ‘And why don’t you deserve it?’ ‘I just don’t. Nothing I’ve done deserves that. Even if I had done something for the boy, which I can’t say I have, still … this? Nah. I haven’t seen him in a long, long time. Doesn’t live in London, not even England.’ ‘So why do you think he’s willing to do it?’ ‘Because, like his mother, he’s got a heart of gold. I dunno. Honestly, if I was him … I don’t think I could … or would do something like that.’

But Father Dylan’s question was the question of his life. Why was Ché doing this for him? He’d written him a couple of letters, on actual stationery bought at the Poundland. He wasn’t sure which moment had been his most awkward – spending a half hour looking through packets of stationery covered in dusty thin plastic and red half-off stickers. Or watching the details of his childhood become clearer with each letter he wrote and every refill of coffee from the Portuguese Café. Or shoving the letters at the bottom of his underwear drawer and never sending them, killing his hope that he and Ché could, themselves, have revived the art of letter writing. He had, however, sent a few emails from Brixton library and was both relieved and disappointed about the impersonality of it. He wished he could’ve known when exactly the emails were delivered and opened. When he saw an email from Ché in his inbox, he had to go into the nearest pub, inhale, exhale, wave the protest off the face of the bartender who knew all about the instituted self-ban, before going back to face the computer. He’d clicked nervously on the message, afraid it would somehow delete itself if he pressed too hard on the mouse. Hi Joel. I’ve thought long about this. I will do it. He scrolled down, left and right, a hundred times to see if there was more. Hi Joel. I’ve thought long about this. I will do it. It was kind, cold, concise, leaving little room for anything really. And yet at the same time, it left so much wide open. It was the most exciting and scariest thing he’d ever read. But why did something feel so wrong and foreboding? Had Father Dylan been talking all this time? ‘So you see, we Catholics have an example of selflessness. The best example: Jesus sacrificed his life for us. For sinners. And we surely didn’t deserve that.’ How could he say to Father he preferred the New Age stuff? Jesus crucified on a cross was just too much to take in right now. And not entirely helpful. Who gets crucified these days? And if it was a metaphor, who had the energy or motivation to decipher it?

‘But what if it’s a mistake, Father? What if he’s sacrificing his life for me and something happens to him? He won’t resurrect on the third day, that’s for sure. You know he’s coming to London? Just for me. Just to do this for me. My own son whom I haven’t seen in decades.’ ‘Well, your son, a grown man, by the way, seems to be making up his own mind.’ ‘He just doesn’t understand.’ ‘Understand what?’ How much I’m not worth it, he wanted to say. But instead, like a small child eager to get his punishment out of the way, he asked the priest for his penance. ‘We’ll get to that in a minute. Have you heard the story about the old man and the scorpion?’ A story was the last thing he was in the mood for. ‘No, Father.’ ‘There was once an old man who kept trying to fish a scorpion out of the river. You know, thinking the scorpion was drowning. Every time he tried to scoop it up, the scorpion stung him on the palm on his hand. Over and over he kept on like this. Until eventually, someone, man, woman, I’m not sure which, came over and saw what the man was trying to do. They laughed at him, asking him why was he so stupid to keep trying to save the scorpion only to get stung each time. And why didn’t he rather just kill the scorpion? The man said, “Why should I kill the scorpion? It’s the nature of the scorpion to sting. But it’s the nature of man to love. He’s just doing what comes naturally. So am I.”’ How Joel wished he could tell the priest he identified with the old man. That he could easily write himself into that picture – leaning over a running brook in a dense forest, cupping his large hands gently so as to not hurt the scorpion but at the same time happy his coarse palms likely shielded him from the harshest part of the sting. The fact was, and he didn’t need to be in a church to know he shouldn’t lie, that he was more likely to be one of the cynical bystanders. And if, by any stretch of the imagination, he was the old man in the fable, the first sting would see him fall belly first into the river, where the splash, he hoped, would kill the little fucker.

‘I know you’re probably thinking you’re not like that old man,’ Father Dylan said. ‘Most of us aren’t.’ ‘Maybe you are.’ Bloody hell, you should be, at the very least. ‘I was thinking about your son. Maybe he’s that old man.’ The feeling that overcame him was swift and unexpected. He was horrified to feel something about to run down his nose. He took out a handkerchief from his pocket and blew his nose. ‘Yes, yes. He is. Despite the mistake his dad is. You’re right, Father.’ ‘When’s he coming to London?’ ‘Today.’

***

‘I thought your wife was going to be here,’ Chelsy whispered as people filed into the room and chose seats around a large wooden table strewn with CDs and pamphlets. ‘Yeah.’ He didn’t look at her because he didn’t have much more of an explanation than that. Niamh had been asking to come to the meetings. He did want her to come. Just not today. ‘Why you so nervous?’ she said. ‘What?’ He didn’t know what he’d been doing the last five minutes for her to say that. Had he been shaking one of his legs? Was he wringing his hands or rubbing his palms on his tros? ‘How can you tell?’ ‘You’ve been looking at your watch every thirty seconds.’

‘Sorry. Expecting a visitor at the house.’ No, visitor was a horrible word, although the truest he could think of at that time. ‘Actually, my son is coming into London today. Him and his girlfriend.’ Her mouth dropped open for a few seconds before she clapped the tips of her fingers together in mini applause. ‘No fucking way, no fucking way.’ Her enthusiasm almost made up for how meanly she’d treated him the last time he’d visited Best Friend Rescue. That, and her thousand and one apologies by text since then. The chair was looking their way. ‘Can we have everyone’s attention, please? Sorry, Sarah, continue.’ ‘I’m so happy for you,’ Chelsy whispered. ‘It’s gonna be all right, you know. You’re gonna be fine, ole man.’ She smiled. Her bottom teeth looked darker than usual, as though trying to put down the bottle had caused her to take up some disgusting habit like chewing khat or something. The chair looked around the room. ‘Would anyone else like to share?’ Chelsy crossed and uncrossed her legs three times before clearing her throat. ‘Yes.’ He didn’t know why his heart quickened its pace at that moment. In a flash of, call it self-absorption, he wondered if Chelsy was about to talk about him. She stood up. ‘Hi, my name is Chelsy and I’m an alcoholic.’ ‘Hi, Chelsy,’ the room murmured. ‘I was in the south of Spain last weekend.’ He shifted his entire body toward her. He hadn’t known that. ‘I went with a friend. Went over there with her. Didn’t come back with her. Actually, I don’t really know how exactly I came back. It’s all a bit of a blur really. I think we had a fight, me and her, although I’m not sure about what. Probably something stupid. Or maybe not something stupid, maybe it was about

my drinking. Anyway, I found myself … huh, that’s a strange phrase, I found myself … Like I’m not me, like I’m outside myself … but anyway, that’s exactly what it was. It was like I woke up and there I was, on a road, at night, hitching a ride. Did I say night? More like two-thirty in the morning and hardly any cars were on the street. I was wondering about that too. The hotel we’d chosen was in a pretty busy area. So, I had to really ask myself, where the fuck was I? Sorry for the swearing. I had this massive headache and my mouth felt like I’d been sick, but where or when I wasn’t sure. Then a car ed me. A small car and I saw a man with spectacles in the driver’s seat. When I looked into my bag to get a fag and looked up again, I realised the car had stopped and was reversing.’ He was mesmerised by her calm recounting of what he thought sounded terrifying. Young people. Didn’t they fear anything? But he knew all too well how alcohol made you grow balls. While you were busy running your mouth about everything you thought you knew, positive that your gestures were commanding and carefully choreographed, your jokes original and your commentary witty, all everyone ever saw was the truth. A fucking sloppy drunk chatting a load of bollocks. The eyes on you weren’t because you were holding court with flair. It was pity, and a hope, although no one would put their money on it, that at least your car keys weren’t nearby and you hadn’t drunk away your cab fare. ‘He was a decent bloke though. I always get lucky to get picked up by decent blokes.’ How many bloody times had she done this? ‘He dropped me off at a twenty-four-hour coffee shop next to a garage a few miles from where he picked me up. Maybe I fell asleep in the toilet in the café. Or at one of the tables. But I got myself back to the hotel. My friend had checked out by then, thank the Lord. Because I was going to catch hell, I know. Sometimes I wonder if there’s a God. Why would He save me from a situation that I stupidly put myself into and yet kill people, little children and all that, like in Africa or something? Who am I that He should save me? For what? So I can have another drink? Have another go at this shitty life?’ Her voice was cracking now. He wished he hadn’t used his handkerchief back at the church. A box of tissues skated across the table and he pulled out a few and offered them to her.

‘Today I’m seven days sober.’ Everyone clapped. ‘Day seven and look at me. I’m a mess. It’s like I drank down all my emotions and now, seven days sober, they spilling all over the place. Sometimes, sometimes I can’t believe my life. That this is my life. This is my fucking life. That I need a drink to get through the day. That before this, I was never sober. Never. Ever.’ She looked down at Joel. ‘Even times when people thought I was, I wasn’t. That’s how good I was at deception. That’s a big word. Let me just say, lying. I was good at lying. I was a liar. And now … I’m frightened. I’m frightened about what life without drink is going to be like. I mean, I know drinking is fatal. People die, not so much from the drink itself, I read this somewhere, but from accidents. Or fucking walking off the roof of a building. Or getting hit by a car at two in the morning in the south of Spain. It’s fatal. I know that. But drink was my security, my familiarity, my cover. What’s life gonna be like when that’s gone?’ She remained standing even when she’d stopped speaking, staring ahead of her. She looked as though she and the question were facing each other. ‘Thank you, Chelsy. Would anyone else like to share?’ He could feel his body trembling and knew that, if he didn’t get up now, he never would. ‘Hi, everyone, my name is Joel.’ ‘Hi, Joel.’ Say it. Say it, damn it. ‘And I’m an alcoholic.’ He shifted his weight between both his legs. ‘My dad always told me – never trust someone who doesn’t drink.’ A few people sniggered and one person nodded. ‘Like it was perfectly normal to get blind drunk, smash a few things and then go home and beat your wife. Anyone who didn’t do that was, I don’t know, a fag, or working for the IRA or something. Is it okay if I sit down?’

‘Of course,’ the chair said. Jesus. He’d forgotten how hard this shit was. ‘I don’t want to sit here and blame me dad or anyone for what is, well, my responsibility. But he did make it a bit easier. He didn’t make school easier, or getting a job easier, or being a husband easier … well, come to think of it, maybe he did since he made such a rotten job of it. Set the standard pretty low. But drinking, he definitely made that easier.’ Blimey. He sounded bitter. Depressing. He knew he didn’t need to, shouldn’t be, censoring anything he said. Or try too hard to be inspirational. But damn, he wasn’t trying to send people to the pub after this either. ‘Actually, maybe I will stand,’ he said, hearing a slight commotion and hushed voices behind him as the door opened and shut again. ‘The truth is I always saw drinking, and the extent to which I drank, as my own business. I mean, it was my own bloody problem if I slipped and fell into a drain and cracked me skull open. If I couldn’t get up for work and lost me job. I know I sound like the most selfish sod but that’s how I felt for a long time. Even when I saw what my drinking was doing to my wife, I’d think, well she doesn’t have to bother with me. It’s her choice. My drinking isn’t affecting her. It’s my money and my body. Even when I found out about my liver failure this year. I thought, oh well, it’s not anyone else’s liver. It’s in me, not the other guy. I didn’t even mind so much if I couldn’t get a transplant. Would save the NHS a bunch, I figured. But that all changed when I realised my liver could, what’s the word, , with someone else’s and begin to heal. That someone else is my son … sounds strange saying that, because I don’t know him at all and I have no idea why he would do something like that for someone who’s been so useless to him as a dad. So, all of a sudden, it wasn’t just my degenerate liver anymore. It wasn’t just my drinking anymore. I was part of a chain reaction now. One drop and they’ll withdraw considering the surgery, and all that I’ve put my son through up until this point will be for nothing. And then, well, worst of all, is that there’s a risk to him. Anyone who gets on that operating table takes a risk, don’t they? And if something should happen to him …’ He knew how Chelsy had felt earlier on. The figures in the room retreated into two dark columns that had appeared on either side of his head and the question stood in front of him – What if something went wrong? He just had to press on. ‘I think it was you … sorry, I can’t your name

… last time you were here you said something ing spirituality to help you understand something. I went to see a priest today. He told me a story that made me realise something. It helped me understand my son. He said that some people are just wired differently. Wired to help people. Selfless. He said some people’s nature is, well, to love.’ He didn’t know how to go on after that. And perhaps it was a good word to end on. He said ‘Thank you’ and sat down. The rest of the meeting ed in a daze. He couldn’t stop himself from mentally recounting his speech, inwardly embarrassed about every tangent he’d allowed himself to go off on. And at every dead end his mind travelled down, there was the question, large and unavoidable. What if something went wrong? The Serenity Prayer came tunnelling through his thoughts and he was grateful the meeting was over. ‘You okay?’ Chelsy had been sniffing throughout his share and hadn’t stopped yet. ‘I’ll be fine. Beautiful share that was. I’d love to meet your son.’ He laughed softly. ‘I’d love to meet my son.’ They got up and turned towards the door. It wasn’t Niamh’s pink and yellow necklace with the ivory-looking bits, the one he always found too crazy and colourful, that caught his attention. And it wasn’t her smile that held some mischief or more likely, madness, that made his feet suddenly feel like there were two lumps of iron clamped to them. Not even the fact that she’d unexpectedly turned up and had, most likely, heard everything he’d said. It was the two figures on either side of her. A young black woman, attractive, with gold tips at the ends of some of her dreadlocks, looking cold despite her aviator jacket and fluffy scarf. And on the other side, eyes. His own eyes, looking back at him. Eyes that searched with intent and purpose but at the same time, were fearful about what they might find. The man was tall. Taller than Joel had expected. But, God, handsome, with a

strength that only accentuated the dark blue puffer he wore, as opposed to the other way around. It was a strength that, Joel was certain, had a delicate nature to it. The nature of love. Ché walked towards him. ‘I wanted to meet you at the house. But we were too late. Sorry, I got lost.’ His legs still wouldn’t move but he reached out and took Ché’s hand. ‘Me too.’

Ché

His father’s hand was both warm and clammy. He could barely distinguish between the trembling of his own fingers and Joel’s but figured it didn’t matter. He wanted to tell himself that it wasn’t an awkward moment, that something would step in to make the scene momentous, an epiphany. But with people filing out and knocking his shoulders from either side, and him trying to ignore mundane announcements like twelve-step CDs being available at the front table, he couldn’t deny the part of him that wished he wasn’t there. Still, as they moved out of the way of those exiting the room and Niamh could be heard giggling after someone asked her about her journey to recovery, he had to it he’d been moved by what his father had said at the meeting. The stuff about feeling guilty about putting his son through the surgery. Yeah, that, at least, was a good place to start. He searched his father’s face for his own. At that moment he wasn’t sure he knew his own nose, or if the nostrils were as slightly upturned as his father’s. No one had ever commented about how far apart his eyebrows were. And yet, the rift between the thick eyebrows that looked trimmed and natural at the same time, was familiar. Apart from the DNA woven throughout their bodies, could there be other things that connected them? Would there be time to find out? ‘You arrived just now?’ ‘This morning. We already took our things to my cousin’s house in Finsbury Park.’ ‘So, you hungry then?’ The question wasn’t whether he was hungry. The question was whether he could eat. ‘What you have in mind?’ It was lunchtime and he wondered if Joel was trying to control the same racing thoughts he was having: What did they eat? What didn’t they eat? Who was allergic to what? Who hated what? Did they like or hate the same things? Was Joel on some special diet?

His father still held onto his hand. ‘There’s lots of places in Brixton market.’ ‘How about The Rosebud?’ Niamh chimed in. ‘Oh, they’ve got lovely sandwiches. Nice salads. Unless you want some Caribbean food. We’ve got loads of those as well. You can get ackee and saltfish from that guy next to the train station, and those beef patties too. But good Lord, they’re too spicy for me.’ He looked at Mandisa who, he knew, was itching to say that those foods were distinctly Jamaican, itching to educate Niamh about Caribbean diversity and heterogeneity; literally, the tagline for a documentary she’d been dreaming of making despite not knowing the first thing about films. Mandisa was convinced those Travel Channel presenters who sipped coconut water through a straw, got drunk on fifty-five per cent rum and danced to reggae’s off-beat in some poorly ventilated club, couldn’t distinguish one island’s Yeah mon from another. He shrugged his shoulders and looked at his father. ‘I’m … we’re … easy.’ ‘Well, we can keep our eyes open along the way.’ At the front door to the church, Joel stopped to greet the woman who’d made the announcements during the meeting. Ché figured they were going to exchange words of thanks for the meeting, so he kept walking through the door and into the cool air, when he heard his name called behind him. When he turned around, Joel’s arm was stretched out. ‘Come here a sec.’ The woman smiled warmly. She had long, brown hair that fell in playful chaos all over her shoulders and occasionally onto her glasses with the random gusts of wind. She looked up at both of them, coming up to no more than two-thirds of their height. ‘Hello. I’m Catherine.’ ‘This is my son, Ché.’ He wasn’t prepared for just how quickly his heartbeat responded to those words. A sentence he’d never, ever heard before. ‘Oh wow, your son.’ If she was straining not to glance over at Niamh for a confused minute, she didn’t show it. She kept her eyes on him and the smile, even warmer now, grew on either side of her puffy cheeks. ‘Well, lovely to meet you.’

‘Nice to meet you too.’ ‘Do you live in London?’ ‘I’m just visiting.’ ‘Well, enjoy. Apparently, we’re in for a mild autumn, so you’re lucky.’ She squeezed Joel’s forearm, smiling some more and closing the door. He’d read somewhere that British people often spoke like that: wishful and in full denial when it came to weather forecasts. When they got onto Brixton road, Mandisa looked as though the human traffic, hardly picking a side, would knock her right over. But he loved it, felt as though he could hug the shifting madness in front of him and thank it for telling his head it was in good company. Nothing needed to be neat and organised and reasonable, Brixton seemed to be saying. And that was all okay. Judging from the sleepy eyes of the tall Rastaman that ed them and the smell of ganja he left trailing behind him, all was okay. The wheels still turned and somehow things got figured out. In fact, the world – if the world was a journey from Trinidad to London – had gone and got itself in a big hurry. And unlike Mandisa, who had been irritated by unwritten rules like having to stand to the right on subway escalators, he found the combination of a fixed, age-old sense of organisation with a chaotic sense of newness, exhilarating. People in thick woollen scarves that seem to function solely as the base for keeping heads upright and gazes forward-looking, had places to go, things to do. He ignored the part of his brain taunting him that his Alice-down-the-rabbithole-idealism was childish. Everything was as it should be. They walked towards the market. The mix of essential oils ri from a small table covered with small bottles and incense, hanging carcasses of halal meat and smoke from sheesha were all perfectly normal. He glanced over at his father as they walked past pubs, their arched, canopy-covered windows and dark, welcoming entrances contrasted by rectangular, hanging flower pots bursting with colour. He wondered if any of these pubs were his father’s favourites and how it felt to know you could never, or should never at any rate, step foot in there again.

But there was a bigger problem that, two minutes into the walk, he couldn’t ignore. There were four of them. Too many to walk all in a row, even though London pavements were wide and double strollers moved all over the place with ease. They would have to walk two in front and two behind. But who should walk next to whom? It was obvious he shouldn’t walk with Mandisa. Had he exhausted the introductory time with his father? Surely it would only be polite to walk with Niamh now. They hadn’t had much chance to chat when she’d met them at the door of the church. Then again, what in the hell would they chat about? He was never so thankful to centuries of unconscious, gendered engineering as when Mandisa stopped to finger scarves on a bald black mannequin and Niamh gravitated towards her to do the same. Joel stood beside him, hands in his pockets, himself not wearing, or perhaps not needing to wear a scarf despite the blustery winds and tumbling dark clouds above them. ‘You’ve always lived in Brixton?’ It was a safe question. He would have to wait until they were alone to ask about some of the things Joel had mentioned at the meeting. Stuff about Joel’s father. His grandfather. A person, if truth be told, he’d never thought about. But with one mention of the man, he wondered if new, previously blocked portals into a more rounded sense of identity were suddenly open to him. Could he now legitimately feel some allegiance to that first, delicious sip of a Guinness, the ridiculous levels of cool that was Bono? ‘Pretty much. Had a few years out in Kent in the late nineties, took a job with a pharmaceutical company out there. Didn’t last long though. Your mom ever talk about Brixton?’ Ché grunted good-humouredly. ‘She claims she can’t a lot of it.’ But it was, as they all started walking again, too early to be flinging his mother’s name about. Plus, Niamh was in earshot. What were the rules there and how far was Joel prepared to let his nostalgia go? ‘Right,’ Joel said through a smile. And there it was. The offhand, monosyllabic way a person lets another person know there’s an entire world, history, secret corridor to a soul they aren’t privy to. In the silence following his reply, Ché could see how Joel’s connection to his mother, as worn as it was, was as real as the clasped hands swinging everywhere

they looked. Had his mother and Joel locked fingers, arms, bodies in a marbled swirl on these very streets? And was all the racial strife back then a wedge between them? Or had it heightened their attraction, he wondered queasily, as his mind fluttered on the sexual act carried out, likely, in a room within one of the Victorian-era buildings around them. They made a left into the heart of the market. He thought The Rosebud would be much busier at lunchtime than it was. As they moved their glances between the plastic menu and the specials on a blackboard above the cashier’s head, Joel began to groan. ‘Don’t feel so well.’ ‘What’s wrong?’ Niamh asked, signalling to the waiter. ‘You want some sparkling water?’ Joel gave her a glare. Then smiled as he said to Ché, ‘She thinks everything can be solved with a good burp. Just don’t feel so good, that’s all. Comes on like this sometimes.’ The waiter arrived but Joel just swiped his hand, then seemed to think again as the young red-haired guy was about to turn away. ‘Sorry, sorry. Just give us a minute.’ ‘They work so hard, God love ’em,’ Niamh said, watching the waiter walk back to the main counter. ‘How you feeling, love?’ Joel’s only response was to put his elbows on the table, press his palms into his temples and shake his head slightly. So, there it was. Again. But this time, the real thing. Forget the giddy feeling of Brixton being lifted off its well-paved roads and moving from left to right as though perched on a little motorboat over rough waters. Forget the beautiful chaos, the randomness of the connections that seem to run up, out and through everything he saw, including himself and his life that began on the streets of Brixton. He still hoped those things housed a potentiality for a truth; a truth to be revealed at some future stage. But the real and current truth was facing him now. Sickness. Awkwardness. Fear and uncertainty about what to do. ‘Do you need to go to the hospital?’ He still hadn’t decided about how to address

his father. Dad was too familiar. Daddy, out of the question. Joel, too informal. Maybe. Maybe it would have to be Joel. He always thought people who were on a first-name basis with their parents were either incredibly close or incredibly sad. ‘Nah. But maybe I do need to lie down for a bit.’ Joel’s colour hadn’t changed and his cheeks remained flushed from the brief walk in the crisp air. He didn’t look sick. But both Joel and Niamh began to push their chairs back, apologising in sign language to the waiter. Who was he to know, or even second-guess what someone claimed he was feeling. But looking at Joel with a deliberate searching, and receiving what seemed to be the briefest of a not-quite-completed wink, Ché wondered if his father had sensed a futility in the small talk they had undoubtedly sat down for. Mandisa was still looking longingly at the menu. Maybe they should hang around Brixton a bit. He wanted to as much as possible, take tons of photos to show his mother when he got back. ‘So? Shall we walk you back to your house?’ ‘No worries. We’ll be fine. But thanks.’ ‘So?’ ‘Can we meet tomorrow? Here, maybe? Or you can pick the place.’ ‘I wouldn’t know what to pick. But weren’t we supposed to meet with the doctors as soon as possible?’ ‘One day won’t make a difference. Well, actually, it might. But in a good way.’ ‘Well, maybe we can meet just outside that bookshop over there?’ Joel nodded. His hands, in his pockets, looked like they weren’t coming out. It was too early in their relationship for hugs. But too late in their lives for goodbyes that simply fell between long arms. He slapped and rubbed Joel’s shoulder. ‘Well, go home and take a rest. I’ll call

you tomorrow morning to see how you feeling.’ He reached out and kissed Niamh who, likely clueless about her role as a kind of emotional conduit, appeared thrilled and kissed him back.

***

‘I like your dad. I really like Niamh. But oh gosh, I love Brixton. I’m so glad you’re doing this for him. Did you see how sick he looked at the restaurant? Just after walking for a few minutes? You actually look a lot alike. Something about your jaw, or cheekbones. But how strange that his eyes are green and yours are light brown. Wait, let me look again … yeah, yours are, well, maybe they’re brownish greenish. I mean, I know that, but it’s like I’m seeing them properly for the first time. But you definitely got your mom’s forehead. I was trying to picture them together. But I couldn’t. I don’t know if it’s the black–white thing or if it’s something about their personalities. She so sweet. And he looks, well, a little rough around the edges. You don’t mind me saying, right? Not with you, more with his wife. But how cool is Brixton? That was weed we smelled by the beauty salon next to the pub? I was looking at the prices in there. Lawd. I really under-charging people. Even when you convert. And it didn’t even look like they had a coffee machine in there. At least people get a cappuccino when they come by me. But anyway, I was reading an article that said some years ago they made smoking weed in Brixton legal. Well, not legal but not illegal either. Decriminalised. Something about if it’s a small amount for personal use, then they won’t bother to arrest you. I could see how that would be popular. So many Rastas. Felt like it was the Drag Mall back home, back in the day. So nice that you could have a Moroccan restaurant next to an ackee and saltfish stand, oh, by the way, imagine Niamh not knowing that we don’t eat ackee and saltfish. Well, saltfish yes. But I could see you didn’t want me to make a big deal out of it. I wanted to stop in to have something at that Thai restaurant, you know, I don’t know if I’ve ever had really authentic Thai food. Not sure about that place on Arapita Avenue. You know, the one we tried a couple weeks ago? I know I’m not supposed to like the gentrification of Brixton but since I didn’t know what it was like before, I don’t feel bad to say that I love what it looks like now. And that I love that part of the market with all the trendy stalls and fresh juices and how they call it? Artisan foods? So cool. I’m so glad we came. I’m really happy

you’re doing this for your dad. What you call him? Dad? Daddy? Joel? Anyway …’ She went on like this, her moving mouth on his chest, until the traffic sounds died down to sporadic interruptions in the thick, dark night. Even after she fell asleep on her side of the pull-out sofa, the sounds of Miles Davis … or was it John Coltrane … came through Shelley’s closed bedroom door and kept him awake.

***

‘Is here okay?’ ‘It’s fine.’ ‘It’s new. Windrush Square.’ ‘Yeah, I read about it on the plane. The in-flight magazine, I mean.’ ‘They got all the names too, of people who died.’ ‘I saw that too.’ ‘You okay?’ ‘Joel, I’m … I … I just want to ask you the things I need to ask you.’ ‘Okay. You sure you don’t want to get some coffee or something? There’s a place just across the street.’ ‘No, I’m good.’ ‘Okay, go ahead. Gotta say though, Ché, I’m a bit nervous.’ ‘Well, that makes two of us. And I not trying to make this difficult. It’s just that, if I think too much about it … well … I just want to get it out.’

‘Okay.’ ‘Why didn’t you ever keep in touch with me or Mummy?’ An argument – or maybe it was the couple – sounding worn and rehearsed, could be heard behind them. She, upset about him not coming to her mum’s house the night before. He, fed up with her nagging. ‘A lot of things happened very fast. Did your mother ever tell you what happened between us?’ ‘I’m asking you.’ ‘That doesn’t answer my question.’ ‘Well, you not answering mine.’ ‘Well, from what you’re saying, I can tell your mother hasn’t told you much.’ ‘Don’t worry about what she has or hasn’t told me, I’m asking you.’ ‘I know she hasn’t told you. I know her well enough to know that.’ ‘You really think you know her?’ ‘I knew certain things, once. Important things. Just because time ed doesn’t mean those things didn’t mean anything. They were part of her then.’ ‘Maybe they aren’t part of her anymore.’ ‘Maybe. But when I think about Abigail, I think about those times. Brixton. 1980s.’ ‘See, that’s the problem. Abigail, my mother, isn’t someone in the past. She’s present. I’m present. I’ve always been present.’ ‘I know, I know. I don’t know what the fuck I’ve been doing all these years.’ Were they sounding like the bickering couple? The girl was moaning about them not doing anything together anymore.

‘Listen, I not trying to fight with you.’ ‘I wouldn’t blame you.’ ‘Really, I not fighting. I’m trying to have a real conversation. We don’t have to pussyfoot around. Frankly speaking, we don’t even have time for that.’ The birds in the branches over their heads tweeted furiously. How come he hadn’t heard them before? Surely, they’d been here the whole time, witnessing him ploughing through his first real conversation with his father. Did they notice the quiver in his voice, the irritation that laced his questions even as the honesty of the moment washed over him? He looked up, although he didn’t expect to see them through the thick foliage. Now that he was listening they were really going at it. Not too different from the couple nearby. He wondered if birds in Brixton had it harder than their cousins in Trinidad because of the fewer trees, stingy sunshine and general sense that people here were too busy to deliberately drop them so much as a crumb. ‘Mind if I smoke?’ ‘Ask your liver.’ ‘Oh, don’t you start. I get enough of that from Niamh. Seriously though, do you mind the smoke?’ ‘It’s okay. This is probably gonna be a conversation that could use a stimulant or two.’ ‘You want one then?’ ‘No, thanks. I like my lungs.’ ‘So, you see that little street over there? On the left?’ ‘Where?’ ‘Twist your neck a bit more. Wee little thing, almost like an alleyway. Just past that little gift shop.’ ‘Oh, yeah. I see it now.’

When had the couple made up – or exhausted each other – and left? ‘Back in the eighties there used to be a pub in that lane called The Tudor Arms.’ ‘You guys used to go there?’ ‘We couldn’t. ’Cause there it was. A big fuckin sign. Well, okay, not big but visible. No dogs, no blacks, no Irish.’ ‘Are you sure?’ ‘Whatcha mean – am I sure?’ ‘Because I read somewhere, can’t where now, maybe a travel magazine or something or a post on Facebook, I dunno, that said it’s all a myth.’ ‘What is?’ ‘Those signs. Yeah, people say that all the time, that there were these signs in London back then but no one can find any of them.’ He smelled him before he saw him; the homeless man standing in front of them, a vertical mound of tattered clothing blowing here and there in the wind and carrying scents this way and that. They both shook their heads at the dirty fingers sticking out of woollen fingerless gloves. The man moved on. ‘Ché, whatcha mean no one can find them?’ ‘You can’t find a single one in a museum anywhere, that’s what the article was saying. To this day, no one has brought them out from their basements or attics or wherever. They not anywhere. So, some people wonder if those signs ever really existed.’ ‘Listen, I’m telling you, the owner of that pub, skinny little gobshite with red hair and big ears, can see him in me head now, had that sign in the corner of the window. You can ask your mother. That’s how things were back then. Whether you believe the signs were there or not, the signs were there. You get me?’ ‘Yeah.’

‘Anyways, we never went in there, of course. Went to the Duke of Wellington instead.’ ‘Wait, my mom used to drink?’ ‘Oh, c’mon. Your mom was young once, you know. Could put away a pint of the black stuff as well as any Irish.’ ‘Gosh.’ ‘And then there were the riots and all that. Jesus fuckin Christ, that was something. But anyway, all through that, your mother and I were close, getting closer all the time. Jesus, she was beautiful. You feel funny hearing all this?’ ‘Yeah, but go on.’ ‘She was just lovely, what can I say? Smooth skin, a smile that made you forget the sun hadn’t come out that day. Funny. She was funny back then. Always laughing. She was studying nursing. I was working for a delivery company and used to bring stuff to the hospital. Fuckin useless, I know. Never finished school and the like, so I was happy to get even that. So all of that was happening. What can I say, you know. We were poor, Thatcher was a bitch, I missed Ireland even though it was just over the water. That was the eighties. But we were happy. Then you came.’ ‘And you got happier?’ ‘I won’t lie –’ ‘Good. Don’t.’ ‘It was a shock. We weren’t prepared for it, financially, professionally –’ ‘Professionally? I thought you were a delivery man.’ ‘Christ. That’s harsh. Well, it was to say we just weren’t prepared.’ The smell of coffee from a nearby café was so strong, he swore there was an invisible woman swirling around him with roasted coffee beans in a small pot, a ritual he knew took place in Ethiopia.

‘Emotionally?’ ‘Well, you can get prepared emotionally. After the shock of it, you can get used to the idea. Excited even, which is what happened. So yeah, there was happiness. But worry too. I didn’t worry that much. I was in a council flat so that was all right. I figured if the job wasn’t going to be enough I would just go on the dole or something. But your mother, she was petrified about what her father would say.’ ‘Was there ever any talk about … you know?’ ‘What? Marriage?’ ‘No.’ ‘About what then?’ ‘About … not having the baby.’ ‘Blimey, no. Never. She wanted to go back to Trinidad right there and then. Face her father. Forget all about the relationship and her studies. I convinced her to give birth here at least, hoping it would give me time to change her mind.’ ‘And you wanted to marry her?’ ‘I would’ve married her.’ ‘You’re not answering the question I asked.’ ‘Look, maybe it wasn’t the ideal situation. But what the heck ever is? We didn’t have money or good jobs or nothing. But I loved her and yeah, I would’ve married her. And in fact, I did ask her.’ ‘Well, I heard you asked her after she went back home.’ ‘Ah, so you do know a bit of the story?’ ‘Not from her, though. From Aunty Beulah. She said you wrote a letter to my mother, a letter she claims she can’t find, by the way. In it you said something happened that made you realise you wanted to be with her.’

‘Really?’ ‘What, you can’t ?’ ‘I wanting to ask Abigail to marry me and asking her. I don’t any particular trigger. I her saying no, though.’ ‘Nothing major happened in your life during that time?’ The coffee smell brought on a fierce longing, not for coffee but to give in to a memory forming in his mind. It was not his memory per se but one ed along by his mother, likely picked apart and embellished over the years. It was a vision of a very young Abigail in Mayaro, opening the door to her grandfather who, almost every morning before going off to work in the oil fields, came to share a cup of coffee with Abigail’s mother. His mother loved these exchanges, her grandfather’s warm laughter as he tipped the tin of condensed milk over the mug of black coffee, raising and lowering it in the air. ‘What year was that?’ ‘You don’t the year you proposed?’ ‘C’mon, Ché, I didn’t get down on one knee in the middle of Hyde Park with a diamond ring. I wrote a letter, asking her. She wrote back. All I is that she said it wasn’t the right thing to do. She’d started working in Trinidad. Her dad was sick and she wasn’t going to leave him. I didn’t know what on God’s green earth I could do in Trinidad if I moved there. Which wasn’t something she suggested anyway. But wait …’ ‘What?’ ‘Yeah, okay, yeah. That was then.’ ‘What? What was then?’ ‘The thing you mentioned. The thing that happened that made me propose to your mother.’ ‘What was it?’

‘I’m thinking it’s when me old man died.’ ‘Were you close to him?’ ‘No, I hated the fuckin geezer. The one and only time my dad ever did something totally unselfish, and by that I mean, something for someone, not us … his family or anyone he knew, but a total stranger that he wasn’t going to get any reward from … the one and only time, it fuckin killed him.’ ‘What?’ ‘Yeah, imagine that. Well, for my part, I think he was blind drunk. He must’ve been. He wasn’t the type to just jump into a lake and save someone he didn’t know. But that’s what he did. One Sunday afternoon at the church picnic, for the Day of Ascension or Annunciation or something or the other, there he was, getting wasted in full view of the priest and all the God-fearing families. Next thing we knew, some poor bugger, probably plastered too, was out in the middle of the lake, shouting for help. Anyway, the long and short of it is that a couple of people had to swim out and get both of them after it was clear me dad was making the situation worse. They both died in hospital a day or two later.’ ‘Shit. Could he swim?’ ‘Was a great swimmer. Look, I won’t lie. Except for the money, we didn’t miss him that much. Maybe my mother did, in her own way. But he was a fucking nightmare, a real ugly drunk. So, I couldn’t figure out why I was crying so much at his funeral and why his death had given me this feeling that my life was shite and that I needed to grab hold of the only decent thing I had ever done. That was you and your mother.’ ‘So, you proposed. Look, we’ve strayed off topic bad.’ ‘What do you mean?’ ‘Going back to how this conversation started. Why didn’t you keep in touch?’ ‘Your mother didn’t just decline my proposal to marry, she practically cut off communication, hardly ever kept in touch –’ ‘Oh my God, please say you not going to give me the tired excuse about you

being cut out of the picture.’ ‘Yeah, you right. I won’t try to make excuses. I could’ve definitely tried harder. Me and Abigail’s lives moved on quickly. I met Niamh. Got married. Your mom, I guess she just got on with her stuff too.’ ‘Sounds like an excuse.’ ‘No, it’s just how it was. But no excuses. No one, more than me, is more surprised to see you sitting here. To help me. Sitting here. In Brixton. Just outside the library where I first wrote you.’ When had the smells around them moved from breakfast to lunch? The birds, too, were quieter now, as though listening to Joel trying to squeeze thirty plus years into one morning.

***

‘I’m sorry, what?’ ‘It’s what we call double equipoise.’ Dr Kleinhans lifted the cover off a cream and gold rectangular box and pushed it to the middle of the table. ‘Chocolate? It’s all vegan. No? Okay. So, double equipoise is basically what we use to measure the risk of the surgery, to determine if the risk is worth it, meaning, if we can ethically defend the procedure. So, naturally a procedure of this nature has risks for both you and your father, both the donor and the recipient. We need to balance these risks. Of course, the optimal situation would be a procedure where the benefits for your dad are high and the risks to you, low.’ Equipoise? How could something with such a delicate name, something that conjured up visions of a ballet dancer or the lotus position of a Buddha be actually closer in meaning to the slicing up of organs? Without knowing why, he’d insisted to Joel that he and meet the surgeon on his own. Now he was happy he had. This was all a lot to chew on. He needed to do it alone. ‘So how do you determine this equipoise?’

‘Ahem, you will still have a chance to ask all these technical questions when you and your dad sit with Mr Kleinhans tomorrow or the next day.’ The small, redhaired woman who, up until that point had been periodically parting her lips, apparently in an effort to plug the gush of medical talk, pushed up her bigrimmed glasses and looked across at the doctor. ‘This meeting, with me as your donor advocate, is to help you navigate any problems or concerns you may have that are not directly related to the technical part of the surgery.’ ‘Well, many of your concerns may be related to or alleviated by clarity around the medical process,’ Dr Kleinhans said quietly, before pushing his chair back. ‘But please, Ché, by all means, spend all the time you need to with Stephanie. She really is here to put your mind at ease. I’ll give you two some time.’ Ché looked at her and he sensed, with his questioning, he’d wandered into the middle of an old argument, an equipoise of its own, in a way. Sure, maybe the biggest worry came down to dying on the table. Hell, what didn’t come down to a simple matter of life or death. Or life over death. That was obvious. But the pieces of the puzzle he kept moving around in his head had little to do with the biology, with the stuff between the pages of The Complete Atlas of Organ Transplantation, the biggest book on the shelf behind the doctor’s desk. There were other issues feeding, strangling, dancing with the main worry of death. Dr Kleinhans tapped and squeezed Ché’s shoulder on his way out the door. The box of chocolates remained on the table. Stephanie moved her chair closer to him as the office door closed. ‘So, I’m interested in you. Your story. Your relationship with your dad. Can I call you Ché? I saw from your file that you also work in healthcare back in Trinidad? Sorry, just by the way, it’s Trinidad and Tobago, right?’ ‘Right.’ ‘Two islands?’ ‘Well, two separate islands, one government.’ ‘Oh, okay. The only time I ever really see your island’s name is during the Olympics and –’ ‘The Miss Universe pageant.’

Stephanie laughed. The gold tooth on the side, the flash of ghetto against an otherwise coiffed exterior, was a bit of a surprise. ‘So, tell me about yourself.’ He found himself adding narrative above, below and around all the answers he’d provided in his forms. It had been a grand total of about four sentences on each topic – his mom and extended family, his work, his relationship with Mandisa, his hobbies and interests, his overall health. ‘And why did you decide to become a donor?’ He related the saga to that point and was surprised how concise it all sounded. There was not much relationship between him and Joel to speak about and the decisions, in so far as what actions followed what, had been fairly straightforward. But he knew he had not answered her question. The motivations that had moved things along and gotten him to the point where he now sat, on the ninth floor of this hospital, hadn’t made their way into the conversation. ‘Can I ask you something? Is it okay to not know why you want to be a donor?’ ‘Well, does it feel wrong? Do you feel forced?’ He thought for a moment and realised that, although those were two different questions, he had the same answer for both. ‘No.’ ‘Does it feel right?’ ‘It doesn’t feel wrong.’ ‘That’s not the same thing.’ ‘Well, can this ever feel completely right? Especially, without having all the information, I mean, the full picture, like all the stuff Dr Kleinhans was talking about. I mean, people might agree to the surgery but I can’t imagine anyone’s really excited about it.’ ‘We weren’t talking about excited, we were talking about it feeling right. And

yes, even without knowing all the surgical stuff, I’ve met donors who know for sure they’re doing the right thing. And then others who aren’t sure.’ ‘And that’s fine too?’ ‘Yes, of course it is. I’m here as your independent advocate, to make sure your rights and decisions, including your right to change your mind, are respected. Is this donation something you want to do?’ There was another silence he figured was too long not to raise Stephanie’s suspicions. ‘Yes, but is it okay to not know exactly why?’ She patted her bottom lip with her manicured index finger in a way that, for the situation, seemed inappropriately adorable. ‘Well, what are some of the reasons you think you might be doing this?’ After a few seconds of listening to heels clacking on the corridor outside the office, doors opening and closing, greetings among people and cell phones beeping, he said, ‘I think it’s the right thing to do.’ ‘Is it the right thing for you?’ ‘I can deal with the consequences if it’s not.’ ‘Really?’ She seemed truly surprised. ‘Well, I mean, not every consequence, obviously. But, I can afford to do this. I’m young and healthy and I can help. Those who can help, should.’ ‘Who said that?’ ‘Dunno. But sounds like something a wise person would say.’ ‘Well, do you feel any obligation to help? Any pressure?’ He thought about the ridiculous promises of money between Niamh and his mother. ‘No. It’s my decision alone. Whatever is helping me in my decision, is, well … how can I put this? It’s all inside me. There’s nothing outside of me influencing me.’

‘What do you mean it’s all inside you?’ He glanced around the room, hoping to see a glass and a jug of water. ‘I’ll it there are certain motivations that all came together to help me decide. But it’s all stuff inside my head, things I’m telling myself.’ ‘Like what?’ ‘Like, this is a good opportunity to help someone. Like, I can make a difference for once in my life. Like, it’s what a good person does.’ ‘So, is that why you’re doing this? To be a good person?’ ‘Is that okay?’ ‘Defining what is okay is like defining what is normal. I’m not really comfortable with that. It’s about if all of this sits well with you.’ ‘Yeah, but it’s also your job to say if a donor is, you know, not okay in the head or not the best person for the job. So, it’s more than just what I think. If I have to go solely on what I think, we might be here all day.’ ‘You’ve been having second thoughts?’ ‘I’m having all sorts of thoughts but I’m not sure if I should give them any time at all. I can’t imagine it’s not normal to have doubts. But, deep down, my sense is that I’m doing the right thing. I can’t say why. I can’t say why, exactly why, I should do this. But I believe I should do it. Is that enough? I mean it. Really. Is that okay? And I’m not asking this because I want to know if this meets your criteria and ticks the boxes.’ He didn’t want to add that he wanted her to say that he was okay, he was fine, not mad. And that he was the good guy. But from her expression and smile, he saw that she’d figured that out. ‘You’re asking me if it’s okay that you just want to help your dad?’ ‘Yes.’ ‘Without knowing exactly why? Meaning not having a clear, articulated

reasoning for your decision.’ ‘Yes.’ She leaned back in the chair for the first time since they’d been alone. ‘Absolutely. You’re saving a life, Ché. That’s the truth. Your dad is a very lucky man.’

Carl

He hadn’t done anything with Alvaro. He needed to make this clear to Trevor. Hadn’t done anything with or to Alvaro – Trevor would get specific like that. Not doing anything with a guy wasn’t the same as not allowing anything to be done to you. He hadn’t allowed Alvaro to do anything to him but even as he thought about it he saw the danger. Hadn’t allowed. Hadn’t allowed who? Alvaro? Or himself? That bit stood wafting in an area as grey as the skies outside his office window. He should try social media to find Zainabu. Trevor must be staying with her. But what the hell was her surname? And if he found her, them, so what? That alone wouldn’t make Trevor want to talk to him. He tried calling again but, for the hundredth time, got the voicemail. No redemption in sight. No opportunity to explain, except to a computerised voice that only cared that he keep to the twenty-second time limit. ‘Please call me. Just let me know that you’re not in a ditch somewhere. It’s the least you could do. No, sorry, that came out … I mean, I didn’t mean to say it like that. I meant, after everything, you could just let me know if you’re okay. I’m sorry about the park. I need to explain that. Nothing –’ The short beep surprised then infuriated him. But not as much as the saccharine voice that followed. To re-record your message, press 1. He pressed 1. ‘Uh, this isn’t all my fault, you know. You know that, right? And I can see you saying now that I should explain that comment. Okay, I will. Things have been … well, fucking strange between us. Nothing happened with that guy. He’s just someone I’ve been chatting to, very irregularly, by the way. And I don’t think that thing, meaning, that thing that happened, you seeing me in the park, that shouldn’t distract us from the real –’ Beep. To re-record your message, press 1. He pressed the button until he saw the tip of his thumb turn red, until the beep was just an annoying sound and not a bloodcurdling scream in his head.

He pressed 1. ‘Trevor. Call me. I just want to know you’re okay.’ He hung up but stared at the phone for a few long seconds, willing the miles of optic fibres to transmit and respond to his urgency with the immediate sound of an incoming message. A message that would say: yes, it’s time to talk. A message to which he would in turn say that this thing, big shit or mini-rupture, however either of them saw it, was there to shake loose all the crap that had been building around them. Things that had been stifling them like a clogged artery. A message to which he would say, finally, let’s talk. Let’s talk about Rosenhof. Just then, Laurelie knocked on the door. ‘Joel Sheedy and his son are here to see you.’ He needed five seconds, wanted ten, to shake off the imaginary conversation he’d been having. But the two men were already fiddling with their jackets, then pulling chairs out from in front of his desk. He shook their hands. ‘How is everyone this morning?’ Now, seeing them together for the first time, they were as different as two seasons – one pale, hunched, with thinning hair and an expression on his lined face that suggested he was on the tail end of tasting something sour. The other, with a beautifully sculptured face the colour of dated gold, sat with a straight back, rubbing one hand into the palm of the other, making the muscles in all the parts of his arm move slightly beneath his turtleneck. But, in the same way two seasons in London could share a maddening resemblance, these guys were also similar. Discomfort swirled around them like a bee around a flower, tying them together in a string of uneasy dots. Whether they liked each other was one thing and maybe something he should record in a roundabout way in his file. But whether they liked themselves, well, that was a horse of a different colour. ‘So, you’ve both chatted with me individually and it’s good now for us to talk, see if we’re on the same page, and for you to ask me anything, anything you need, in order to put your minds at ease.’ His phone beeped. ‘Sorry, let me just turn the volume down a bit. I can’t unfortunately have it off completely as sometimes there’s an emergency.’ Pressing the button on the side of the phone, he saw the message from Trevor –

Not dead yet. Give it time. He was a doctor. He knew hearts didn’t just drop into stomachs. But his was definitely falling. He was falling. Not away from anything physical but away from sound. A muted denseness encircled him while, at the same time, his head, his supposed locus of sensory nerves, felt weightless. He figured if light could have just a bit more density, if it was something he could touch and feel, his head would be that. No feeling, no particularities. Nothingness. That’s what he was. ‘Can I get you gentlemen some water?’ Joel shook his head and looked at Ché, who said, ‘Ah, sure, thanks.’ Carl went over to the bar fridge. There was nothing in there except a rancid smell thankful to get out. Fucking thing wasn’t even on. Since when? Fuck, Trevor. For God’s sake, fuck. One summer on a beach in Port Edward, while he tried to make a sandcastle with the one small bucket and spade his father had bought him from a roadside vendor, he saw a woman walking quickly along the water’s edge. A crying child ran behind her, reaching out his little hand to grab the frill of the woman’s flowered swimsuit. Her quick pace, and him being a tiny thing in a sagging diaper, meant the woman was always just out of reach. Even when she reached the rocks and the river, where Carl thought she was trying to get to, the woman kept walking and never looked back. There was no beach in front of him now but he felt like walking. ‘How about we go downstairs to the cafeteria for this meeting? I’ll buy you guys a cup of coffee.’ He stood and gathered up the papers in front of him. ‘Or tea, juice, water, your choice.’ Amid shuffles, quiet grunts and sighs that could have been subtle signs of protest, he opened the door and allowed them to go out first. ‘Oh, we can use the lift around this corner.’ ‘You’ve been doing this a long time?’ Ché asked. ‘What, riding lifts? All my life. Used to be a lot more fun when I was younger

though.’ Mercifully, Ché gave a little laugh. ‘Oh, you mean surgery? For about seven years and before that, a bit of everything really. I was interested in work with non-profits. So I worked in India, Sri Lanka and West Africa. Togo especially.’ ‘A sort of doctors-without-borders thing.’ ‘Yeah, kinda.’ The lift doors opened. ‘But without the glamour of getting referenced in books and movies all the time. I mean, it sounds even more romantic in French – Médecins Sans Frontières.’ He put all he knew about the French accent into saying the name. Although Trevor, if his popularity in the shorelined Brittany pubs the year before was anything to go by, had been better at it. ‘Actually, that’s not really fair. What those guys do is nothing short of heroic.’ As they approached the cafeteria he could see and hear the busyness of it spilling through the doors every time they swung open. He wanted to make his legs stop moving. He wanted to make his body turn towards the door and push it open or hold it open for someone coming out. But he couldn’t. He walked right past the cafeteria. Walking backwards and facing the two men, he said, ‘It’s too busy in there. Let’s go to Elvira’s?’ ‘Where?’ Ché asked, walking to the front door and reaching for his gloves, seemingly in answer to the low humming of cold air that rushed to meet them. ‘Elvira’s. Just across the street. You see? Wedged in between the Londis and that costume shop with mannequins out front?’ ‘Someone’s really called Elvira?’ ‘Hey, don’t knock Elvira,’ Joel said. ‘She was quite a lass back in the day. Big mop of yellow hair on her head, pink stuff all over her eyes that just made them bigger and bluer. Nice red lips. Best bubble-and-squeak this side of the river, and apparently, so say the punters, could sing like a nightingale.’

Ché gave Joel a sideways glance but the old man didn’t notice. ‘So, this is something you doctors do now?’ Joel asked. He picked up the scarf that had fallen out of Ché’s hand, looking for a second as though he wanted to wrap it around his son’s neck but instead, simply handed it over. ‘Take patients out for tea?’ ‘A little unorthodox maybe. But it’s good to break with tradition from time to time. A little fresh air is good for everyone, patients and all.’ Actually, it was a lot unorthodox and he figured the second he stopped with the charade, he should message Laurelie to tell her where he was and with whom. It was all he needed to have Joel’s heart give out once he saw the ageing Elvira or Ché hit by a car he didn’t expect to be driving on the left side of the street. Do you guys drive on the right or left-hand side of the road in Trinidad, he wanted to shout to Ché over the sound of an approaching ambulance but decided to drop it. As he watched the father and son walking, he ed walking with his own father in the Wicksburg city centre, usually on a Saturday morning to the hardware or bicycle shop. His father always kept a calloused palm on the back of Carl’s neck. It was strong and protective but there lay a longing on Carl’s skin for the touch to be just a little softer. And not at the expense of the security it provided but just as an opening for something else, something warmer, to between them. They got to the restaurant and took a corner booth. Clearly Elvira lived, or lived on. Three of the four waitresses had orange and silver-streaked hairdos. Every so often Carl would catch an unexpected glint from one of them, no doubt from a piercing at the top of the ear or the tip of the tongue during a garrulous moment. ‘Hi,’ said their waitress, a skinny young woman in something that looked like yoga pants. ‘How are you?’ Carl asked. ‘Good.’ ‘Yes, us too,’ he said under his breath. She was clearly more talkative on her arm than in real life, he mused, trying to get a quick read of her tattoos as she placed the menus in front of them.

They all ordered some version of tea and he watched with interest as both Ché and Joel looked for sweetener amid the brown and white packets of sugar, and left their teabags steeping while they drank. With diagrams spread out on the table, he explained the surgery to Ché. ‘You being a nurse, you might understand a lot of this, right?’ ‘Well, I was looking on the internet –’ ‘Gosh, you don’t want to do that. Everything, and I mean everything, leads to cancer and death, right?’ ‘Well, everything does lead to death.’ ‘Blimey. Old, sick, dying man at the table, let’s not forget,’ Joel chimed in. Ché smiled. ‘Sorry. Dr Kleinhans, we’ve, my dad … Joel and I have been talking … well, he told me about this caudate lobe thing. I was reading something in one of those online medical journals that said any surgery using the caudate lobe is very risky.’ ‘Anything is risky if you’re not sure about what you’re doing. But yes, it’s not performed very often and it’s a very technical procedure. But you don’t need to worry.’ ‘Have you done one of these operations before?’ ‘You don’t need to worry, really. But no, I haven’t done one of these before. We’ve never had cause to and there were no surgeons in the past few years who wanted to attempt it.’ This was not entirely true. But he wasn’t going to go into the hospital’s decision to suspend caudate lobe transplants on of the technical mastery it required and there being, in the last few years, no surgeon brave or stupid enough to challenge that position. ‘And why do you have cause now?’ Ché asked. ‘It was my idea,’ Joel piped up. ‘What?’

‘It’s less risky in the long run, right, doc?’ ‘Yes. Using the left lobe reduces the risk on you, Ché. But in order to offset the smaller graft we would get from the left lobe, which then places greater risk on your dad of developing SFSS … ahhh … small-for-size-syndrome, we use some of the caudate.’ ‘Which is a greater risk on everyone because it’s a tricky procedure.’ ‘You’re just going to have to trust me. It boils down to trust, really. Maybe it’s not sufficient comfort to you right now, but that’s the bottom line. I’m sorry if that sounds harsh. I’m going to do everything I can to make sure nothing adverse happens to you and that your dad gets a decent size liver that can regenerate and give him a few more years. That’s my commitment, my promise to you. To both of you.’ They sat in silence, long enough for Carl to hum a full verse of ‘Wishing On A Star’ that came through the speakers, shutting his mouth when some rapper piped in, adding eight lines which, from what he could hear, meant and added nothing to the original song. Then Joel said to him, ‘Do you believe in God?’ ‘Sorry?’ ‘God. Do you believe in God?’ One of the waitresses stood just outside the front door and inhaled so deeply on her cigarette he swore it became half a stick of ash in four seconds. When had God gotten here? He knew there was only one right answer to a question like that, particularly from a patient soon to go into surgery. But not today. Today, as Nurse Gladys said whenever she felt stressed, which was just about every day, today is a different day. ‘No.’ ‘No?’ son and father said in unison. ‘No.’

They both stared at him. ‘So … no?’ Ché said. ‘No.’ ‘Like, nothing. No God, no Jesus.’ ‘No.’ ‘No Yahweh or Jehovah.’ ‘No Buddha, no Allah, no, let’s see, Lord Krishna?’ Joel said. ‘Oh, I know,’ Ché said, like a kid in class who’d just stumbled on the correct answer. ‘No Shiva. No sun god?’ ‘No Wicca.’ ‘No Sai Baba?’ ‘No Jah Rastafari?’ It was the closest to laughter he’d seen from either of them, individually and together. ‘Look, guys, I know what I feel. This isn’t multiple choice. I don’t need a list to choose from. Or in this case, not choose from.’ ‘I don’t know, doc,’ Joel said, suddenly looking serious, with a shake of his head that could only mean he was about to climb aboard a religious high horse. ‘Personally, I would prefer the man cutting me open to believe in some kind of god.’ ‘Why?’ ‘What do you mean why?’ ‘I mean, why? What’s God got to do with venous outflow? Or the anatomy of the left hepatic duct? Or hemi-portocaval shunts? All the things and more that I know about and I need to look out for or do to make sure this surgery is successful. And if I don’t know it, praying to some god isn’t going to suddenly make it appear in my mind. It’s not going to steady my hands if they’re shaking.

You need me in that room, not a pastor or a priest. If they’re in the room then … well, you know, it’s more than likely to ister something and it won’t be the anaesthetic. Everything that needs to happen to keep you both alive, I’ve spent half my life studying and the other half in hospitals and clinics putting into practice. And some of the things I’ve seen in this life, well, God must have been on a day off that day; one of his regular ones, apparently. Look, you think I give a shit about heaven and hell when I’m in surgery? No, I don’t want to think they even exist because I don’t want any of my patients going there. It’s not a reality because it can’t be. I’m in the operating room to save lives.’ While they both looked at him with expressions that convinced him his clever avalanche of medical terminology had exhausted them, he realised he had been way out of line. He could lose his job. Swearing and blinding about, of all things, God, to men who were simply scared that the last thing they would see and smell in this world would be the shy expression and slightly offish breath of Dr Martins as she counted back from ten. ‘Look, all the tests have been done and we’re good to go. Ché, you’ve had your meetings with the advocate. There’s nothing more she can tell you that she hasn’t already. Let’s do this. That’s really my professional opinion. I’ll do my very best. Trust me, please.’ ‘So, you’ve never lost a patient?’ Joel asked. ‘Not on my table. Sure, some patients develop complications after the surgery. That’s not uncommon.’ He signalled to the waitress for the bill. ‘But when I wash my hands before surgery and put my mask over my face, the things running through my mind, the things that I’m trying to get right in my head and picture as I take the scalpel, aren’t the sequence of the Our Father, or Psalm one hundred and whatever. I can promise you that.’ Joel looked over at Ché, who looked straight ahead. ‘Son?’ Joel said. Ché looked at his father with an expression Carl didn’t know how to read, somewhere between incredulity and a puffed-up glare. Ché nodded. ‘Right. I think we should schedule it for tomorrow morning,’ Carl said.

‘Tomorrow?’ Ché’s head snapped away from Joel to look at Carl. ‘Why tomorrow?’ ‘Why not? We’re good to go. Nil by mouth from 10pm tonight, okay?’ Carl slid out from the booth and stood up. He dug his hands in his pockets, pulled some notes out and placed them over the bill. He crouched down a bit to look through the window and up at the sky. ‘You guys should enjoy the rest of the day. The rain looks as though it’s going to stay away.’

***

That evening, the minute he walked into his flat, he finally understood what, almost three years ago, Trevor had meant. ‘It’s cold,’ Trevor had said as the estate agent walked them into the stark, greycarpeted front room. ‘The fireplace works. I have the certificate.’ ‘No, it’s cold. Cold. Love died in here or something?’ The older woman waited for Trevor to walk past before mouthing ‘died’ to Carl in questioning confusion. At the time Carl wanted to argue that the first floor renovated Victorian flat with its built-in library shelves and more-than-likely genuine parquet flooring beneath the worn carpet, was hardly something to scoff at. Trevor eventually agreed to the lease – as though he intended to pay for some of it – but not before going on about how the previous tenants had probably murdered each other and uttered fuck you with their last dying breaths. It was up to them, Trevor had said on the day they moved in, before undressing Carl and insisting they move from room to room, to rid the flat of the coldness which had seeped into the walls. It had been the good ole days when Trevor’s flair for the dramatic had been first humorous and then sensuous. But now, as Carl turned on the water in the double shower they’d requested

permission to install, he wondered if the coldness had ever really left? After his shower he did a few push-ups. There would probably be a few spectators at the surgery tomorrow. He never worried about the interns, but there had been talk of two surgeons from the Kingsley Jewish Hospital requesting permission from the chief to watch. It was only as he removed the whistling kettle from the hob some minutes later that he heard the front door bell. Trevor? He tried to say the name a few times over in his mind in rhythm with his heartbeat. But both the name and the heartbeat were threatening to run away from him. And why wouldn’t Trevor have his key? He peeped through the keyhole and had to squint to make sure he was seeing correctly. He stepped back from the door and held his breath. The bell rang again. This time a little more determined, giving slightly less of a shit about being polite. He opened the door. ‘Hola.’

Promise

‘“The dog, in a rage, being awakened from its slumber, stood up and barked at the ox, and whenever it came near attempted to bite it. At last, the ox had to give up the hope of getting at the straw and went away muttering …”’ Miss Fourie closed her book but kept her fingers on the page like a thick bookmark. ‘Who can tell me what the ox said?’ Promise looked around. There were three hands in the air. Edgar was waving like a crazy person. ‘Miss? Me, Ma’am. I can.’ He didn’t know. Everyone knew he didn’t know. But how she wished Miss Fourie would give him a chance. It was hot. Second break was over. They all really needed Edgar now. But Miss Fourie wasn’t even looking at that side of the class. ‘Yes, Oratile?’ ‘The ox said the dog was a bully.’ ‘No, Oratile. What about you, Jason?’ ‘I just want to go to the toilet, Ma’am.’ Promise didn’t like when she could see the white in Miss Fourie’s eyes, like now, as she swiped her hand in front of her face. Jason ran out, his hand between his legs. ‘Anyone else?’ ‘Ma’am. I have the answer. Me. Me. I know.’ There were no more hands and Miss Fourie couldn’t pretend that she wasn’t seeing or hearing Edgar.

‘Yes, Edgar?’ Miss Fourie breathed out air, long and loud. ‘Let’s hear it. What did the ox say?’ ‘Okay, so …’ Edgar always held out his hands as though he was about to clap them but didn’t get around to it. ‘The ox turned to the dog and was, like, “Dude, I’m tired, okay? I’ve been working my butt off all day in the field.”’ Everyone laughed. Well, everyone except Miss Fourie, of course. ‘Ma’am, what kind of work do oxes do?’ That could only’ve come from the super-annoying Brenda-Lee. Promise hoped her stare told Brenda-Lee that, for sure, she would get hit and pinched later on if she didn’t shut it and let Edgar speak. ‘Oxen, not oxes,’ said Miss Fourie. ‘And then …’ Edgar was standing up now. ‘The dog said, “Yo this place is lit. Why don’t you go get me something to eat? Like chicken or something; we can share it and then you can have your corner and I’ll chill in my corner.”’ ‘Okay, Edgar, that’s enough.’ Edgar did a little bow and everyone laughed. ‘And oxes are herbivores, aren’t they, Ma’am?’ asked Brenda-Lee. ‘They don’t eat meat. That was in our test last week.’ Miss Fourie opened the book again. ‘Quiet down. The ox said: “Ah, people often grudge others what they cannot enjoy themselves.”’ She looked up at the class. ‘So, what does that mean? Edgar, remain quiet for the rest of the lesson. That means, even though the dog was not going to enjoy the hay, he refused to let the ox enjoy it. Very selfish of the dog, don’t you think?’ Promise didn’t say ‘Yes, Ma’am,’ like the rest of the class. She put up her hand. ‘Yes, Promise?’ ‘But I thought the dog did enjoy the hay. He was having a nice nap. You read that part in the beginning. And then he woke up when the ox came in. So why did you say he wasn’t enjoying it?’

‘But dogs don’t eat hay. I’m sure you know that.’ ‘Dogs are carnivores because they eat meat,’ Brenda-Lee said loudly. ‘Oh shut –’ Promise looked at Miss Fourie, whose eyebrows almost touched the brown fringe on her forehead. ‘Please stop interrupting, Brenda. And dogs are omnivores anyway. But Ma’am, the dog didn’t go to the place with the hay … the …’ ‘The manger.’ ‘Yeah. He didn’t go to the manger to eat hay, he went there for a nap. You read that part.’ ‘Yes. And?’ She was trying not to get confused. ‘So, the dog was enjoying the hay when he was sleeping on it. He was never going there to eat it. So why is the dog selfish?’ ‘Because he wouldn’t let the ox eat.’ ‘Yeah, but … but the ox wouldn’t let the dog sleep either.’ She looked at Zandi for help. But Zandi was just biting on her thumb. Biting and smelling. Biting and smelling. ‘And what if the dog was tired too. What if he was working all day too, just like the ox?’ What if that was Jack? What if he’d been working as a sheep dog, running around trying to keep all the sheep together in a field for the boy in that other Aesop story, The Boy Who Cried Wolf. And why did Mr Aesop always have to tell such sad stories? What if Jack came into the manger, limping, all tired from working too hard, and just wanted to lie on the hay? Who could say no to a dog like that? ‘Oh, so now the dog’s got a job,’ Edgar was on his feet again. ‘Everybody’s got a job.’ She glared at him. This time she didn’t laugh with the rest of the class. She was thinking of Jack and feeling to cry. Someone had phoned. Someone with a high voice and so many pleases and thank yous that it irritated her. The woman said Jack was hers.

Miss Fourie closed the book and let it fall hard on her desk. ‘Edgar, sit down.’ She showed the whites of her eyes again. ‘Don’t get so complicated, Promise. In this story, we are talking about enjoying the hay by eating it. Nothing else. Yes, there are different ways to enjoy something but this is about eating the hay. That’s all. Okay? these Aesop fables were written hundreds of years ago. They are more about getting a message across. And in this case, the message is: if you’re not going to use something, then let others get a chance at it.’ ‘But the dog was using the hay.’ It could be a mistake though. Two people had phoned last week and Jack hadn’t been theirs. ‘Promise, that’s enough, give it a rest now.’ ‘Yeah, give it a rest,’ Edgar said in a whiney voice. ‘Go find some hay to lie on, like the dog you love so much.’ Promise snatched up her pencil case and flung it across the room at Edgar, sending, like big, colourful raindrops, pencils, pencil shavings, erasers, crayons and Kokis onto the heads of Zandi, Oratile and a frightened-looking Brenda-Lee. ‘Ya ma se poes!’ The minute the words came out of her mouth, she looked at Zandi, who was staring back at her, the smelly finger in front of her open mouth. Crap. They’d agreed to find out what it meant before saying it on the playground. That had been the plan. Shit. It was all Trevor’s brother’s fault. He’d said it to his friend, the tall one with the different coloured shoelaces, when they walked back to their car. That day. That day when the three of them came to the house, when something scary was around all of them but she couldn’t figure out what it was. That was the same day Anneke began telling Gogo to keep the iron gates on all the doors locked, even during the day. When Trevor’s brother said that thing, the tall friend got real angry and they were pushing each other onto the big gate. There was a lot of poes poes there too.

Now Miss Fourie’s entire face looked as though everything on it was being squeezed together. Half the class had their hands covering their mouths. They, at least, knew what the stupid words meant. The rest were just looking around at the mess on the floor and at the short, red pencil sitting on top of Oratile’s head, not falling down even though she kept looking left and right. ‘Settle down everyone.’ Miss Fourie walked back to her desk. ‘Start packing up your things. I don’t want to hear any talking whatsoever. When you’re finished, stand in single file outside the door. Promise, you remain in the classroom.’ She knew what they were all thinking: something had gone very, very bad. And very quickly too. Somebody – Promise – was in deep trouble and going to the principal’s office. The punishment was going to be horrible. Everybody would be talking about it in waiting class and aftercare. Kids would run up to their parents and before they could even shut their car doors, people would hear them saying, ‘Mummy, you won’t believe what happened today.’ She knew they were all happy. It was a big, juicy way to end off a hot afternoon. The bell rang.

***

‘Let me hold your bag for you.’ Gogo took the straps off Promise’s shoulders. ‘My God, why this many books? Remind me to tell that principal of yours that you children are not in university yet.’ ‘No, it’s fine, Gogo.’ Promise shrugged and with that, took the straps back and curled her fingers around the top of them. She tugged downwards at the bits hanging down her sides to tighten the straps even more. And so what? It wasn’t like the letter could just jump out the bag. Still, better to not take any chances. She could just see the small white envelope moving around and in between her homework books and reader, causing all kinds of trouble in there. Or maybe it wasn’t moving around at all. Maybe it was sitting there like a big stone, all serious. Just like the principal was when he

heard the story. Well, only Miss Fourie’s side, by the way. He opened his drawer and pulled out the most scary thing in the school – a break time detention slip. ‘Promise, we simply cannot have this behaviour,’ Mr Alleyne had said as he wrote on the detention slip. She tried to read upside down. Friday. 10am. She couldn’t read the rest of Mr Alleyne’s cursive but maybe he wrote something about unruly behaviour. That was what Edgar’s slips always said. ‘Is there anything you want to say?’ Mr Alleyne hadn’t been looking at her when he asked that. He’d been making his long scrawly signature. She looked at Miss Fourie, who was picking at her pink fingernails. It was going to be hard to explain everything. ‘No, sir. I’m sorry, sir.’ She watched Mr Alleyne putting the letter in an envelope before licking it. It looked sealed real good. That wasn’t a problem. She could sign the slip and do the detention on Friday. But she would have to practise a good signature. She felt tired. It was just all too much to think about as she and Gogo and Zandi walked under the big jacaranda trees that liked raining purple flowers whenever the wind got too strong. ‘Promise? Promise! You really must be daydreaming if you don’t hear me asking if you want ice cream.’ The man next to them was already opening the top of the white box, letting out the steam. Ice cream? It wasn’t Friday and it wasn’t the end of the month. Something wasn’t right. ‘Are those people coming to take Jack today?’ ‘They’re just coming to check if he’s really the dog they lost,’ Gogo said, taking out money from her bra with one hand and slapping Zandi lightly with the other. No matter how much anyone told Zandi that dry ice could burn, she always, always wanted to touch it before choosing her ice cream. ‘Promise, what flavour do you want?’ ‘And what if he’s their dog?’

‘Well …’ Gogo rubbed the top of Promise’s head gently. She didn’t know why, when she felt Gogo’s rough fingers on her head and then the back of her neck, it made her feel like crying. ‘Come,’ Gogo said. ‘Pick an ice cream.’ Part of her wasn’t really feeling for it. But she was not so stupid as to say no. Gogo would know something was wrong. Plus, maybe an ice cream with chocolate on the bottom and orange and red at the top was going to make her feel better.

***

It was supposed to be the kitchen. But for a second it looked like Gotham City or Disneyland. As Promise walked in to make one more plea to keep Jack, having rehearsed in the study what she would say, she saw Anneke and Gogo, and with them was Batman. Mickey Mouse. And a duck. She’d seen that duck on Nick Jr once but hadn’t bothered to watch it. That channel was for babies. Batman, Mickey Mouse and the duck. It looked like a concert or a play was going on in the kitchen that no one told her about. But Batman, Mickey Mouse and the duck were big, not little kids. When she stopped looking at the masks, she saw their tros hanging down on their hips and bunching up around their shoes. Shoes with colourful laces. ‘Hi,’ she said. ‘Wow. I like the masks.’ Gogo grabbed her into her apron which smelled so much of onion she wanted to vomit. ‘Hush.’ She wondered if the men felt bad about scaring everyone the last time they were here. Maybe that’s why they were back, putting on some kind of party, or doing

something special to try and make everyone laugh. Not that she cared for Batman because that was a boy thing. And Mickey Mouse was from the olden days even though Anneke bought her a pair of Mickey Mouse slippers for Christmas last year. And the duck, well, she didn’t know what to think about him either way. Even Iron Man or Captain America would’ve been better. And then, as though he could see what she was thinking, the duck turned his back, pulled off his mask and put on another. Hulk. Well, that was a bit better at least. ‘What the fuck are you doing?’ Batman said. ‘Who the fuck wants to be Donald Duck? He’s like a hundred years old.’ Yeah, that was it. Donald Duck. ‘He’s the same age as Mickey Mouse, you dickhead. And Mickey’s not complaining.’ ‘Actually –’ Mickey said. ‘Shut up, both of you.’ Batman stepped forward and that’s when she saw it. The gun. Did Batman carry a gun? She tried to think of all the Batman movies or TV shows she’d ever seen. Batman waved the gun. ‘C’mon. All of you, into the living room. Stay calm. No fucking screaming or anything like that.’ She felt herself being pushed along, with Gogo’s stomach behind her and Anneke’s hands on her shoulders. This was just like her first sleepover at Zandi’s house. Waking up that morning it had taken her a few minutes to realise where she was. After yawning, stretching and looking down at the sheets and around the blue walls, she’d felt lost, like she was on another planet. Nothing made sense. She had to work hard to put together everything she was seeing, like moving big pieces of a puzzle into place. Then, as if the cloud in her brain started to move away and clear up, she figured it all out. They were being robbed.

She wanted to wave at them and remind them it was Anneke’s house. Maybe they didn’t know, or didn’t . Maybe they were just driving along the street, said, ‘Eeny, meeny, miny, moe,’ and chose this gate. When Mickey Mouse and Hulk walked past she saw one had a knife and the other one was holding a screwdriver. Maybe they knew exactly where they were. But, even as her stomach began to hurt and she felt like going to the toilet, something just looked … well … stupid. The way Mickey Mouse held the knife just wasn’t right. He held it like she used to when Anneke first started to teach her how to cut her chicken at Sunday lunch. It was upside down. No, back to front. No, the wrong way round. Oh, whatever. He was just holding it wrong. And that old rusty screwdriver. Had Hulk found that in the old box in the garage? Anneke said it never removed any nail, anywhere. What was Hulk going to do with it? But Gogo was crying so all this was bound to be real. ‘Who else is in the house?’ Batman asked. ‘No one,’ said Anneke. She sounded calm. Promise couldn’t believe it. Anneke got really angry one time when she found out Promise had used her hair dye on a doll. But here were three men, robbing them, and Anneke didn’t seem angry with them at all. ‘You expecting anyone?’ ‘No.’ ‘Sit down. C’mon, Ma, don’t cry so much. Everything will be fine if everyone just does what we say. Put your hands on the table. Bend your heads and close your eyes.’ Promise did what they said, not knowing if she was supposed to pray or not. But she figured it would be a good idea. But she got the Our Father all mixed up with the school song because both of them asked God to protect everyone. Oh well, she bet God wouldn’t mind that much. ‘Hey, Dex, we still gonna try that pawn shop in Boksburg?’

‘Can you one, stop saying my fucking name. And two, stop telling the whole fucking world where we might be going next.’ ‘Oh yeah, sorry. I just wonder how far it is from here.’ ‘What the fuck does it matter?’ ‘I’m just fucking hungry, man. I wanna know how far it is. Let me find it on Google Maps.’ For some seconds everything was quiet except for the sounds Batman was making in the bedroom. It sounded as though he was pulling everything from the cupboards and drawers. The only other sounds, besides Gogo sniffing, was the small radio Anneke had always set to Power FM. ‘Shit. No airtime. Hey, Heem, let me use your phone for a sec.’ ‘You fucking crazy.’ Mickey Mouse … she thought it was Mickey Mouse … just kept grumbling about no data. ‘Just get the wi-fi . Hey, what’s your wi-fi ? Hey, hey, ladies. Yeah, you can open your eyes. What’s your wi-fi ?’ Promise looked at Gogo, whose eyes were still wet, and to Anneke, who pointed towards the bookshelf. Promise got up. ‘Hey, hey, where you going?’ Mickey Mouse was pointing the knife but he still grabbed onto the handle as though he was going to stab the middle of the table, the way she’d seen some of the pirates do it in that last Pirates of the Caribbean movie. The way he was walking around with the knife she figured he might slice his own leg if he wasn’t careful. ‘I have to show you the .’ ‘You just sit right there, girlie,’ Hulk said. ‘You can tell us from there.’

She sat back down. ‘Turn over the modem.’ She pointed to the bookcase. ‘The what?’ Hulk walked to the bookcase and stood next to a pile of old magazines that Anneke refused to dump even though some went back way before any of them were even born. ‘That white box.’ ‘Yeah?’ ‘If you turn it over, you’ll see the .’ ‘There’s lot of numbers here.’ ‘It’s the numbers and letters next to … .’ He looked at her for a few seconds, then turned back to the modem. ‘Fuck, I can’t see shit.’ He lifted his mask so that it rested on his forehead and stuck out like the really long peak of a cap. ‘Y, 2, 9, L –’ ‘Shit, what you doing?’ Batman came in with Anneke’s jewellery box in his hand. It was the first time since this whole thing happened that Anneke’s face looked crumpled and like she was about to cry. She covered one hand with the other. ‘I can’t read the numbers with this bloody thing on my face. Plus, I can’t fucking breathe.’ ‘Oh yeah, you know where else you not gonna be able to fucking breathe?’ Batman growled. ‘In your fucking cell in fucking Pollsmoor when they catch us because you showed your ugly face to everyone.’ Hulk read out the to Mickey Mouse. When they were finished he gave the order again – hands on table and eyes closed. It seemed like they sat there forever, listening to the happy presenter on the radio. Promise knew when it was quarter to six because that’s when listeners had a chance to win two thousand rands if they knew the answer to a question. ‘Right, so, time for Quiz Wiz,’ the presenter said. ‘This should be easy if you were a reader back in the day.’ ‘No hope for you then.’

‘Oh, shut up. At least I went to school. Not like you. Learning to count by picking up the beer bottles in your dad’s smokkie.’ ‘I went to the University of the Cape Flats, man. I –’ ‘Hush, man, let me hear the question. Could be my lucky day to win two thousand.’ ‘Who can tell me how many children were in Enid Blyton’s The Famous Five books? Call us on 0861 0861 11.’ ‘Shit, that’s easy, man.’ Promise opened her eyes a little. Mickey Mouse put the knife down on the table. ‘Five kids of course. C’mon, let’s call in.’ ‘Shit, I need a smoke.’ ‘C’mon, man. I’m gonna call. That’s too easy. Easy money. Easier than this.’ They both laughed. She couldn’t take it anymore. She had to say something. Not two stupid grownups in one day. First Miss Fourie. Now Mickey Mouse. She lifted up her head and looked at him. ‘Four.’ Gogo and Anneke’s heads snapped up when she spoke. ‘Four kids. It was four kids and a dog.’ She’d never read The Famous Five, but Zandi’s mother never stopped pushing Enid Blyton books in their face every time they went to the library. Mickey Mouse and Hulk were looking at her. Then each other. Then her again. ‘That’s correct, Marcus,’ the presenter said. ‘Four kids and a dog. Marcus from Bedfordview wins –’ ‘Turn that shit off.’

Mickey Mouse couldn’t find the volume button and they all heard Marcus from Bedfordview give a big shout before saying he was going to take his family to Sun City with the money. Eventually Hulk just pulled the plug out of the wall. The room got quiet. Even the scrambling around in the bedroom seemed less than before. The quiet meant either Batman was finding what he was looking for. Or maybe it meant he wasn’t. ‘You so clever, hey?’ Hulk was leaning over the table in her direction. Even though Hulk was talking to her, she preferred to look at Mickey Mouse. At least his mask had a big smile, even though she knew he wasn’t smiling behind it. The cut-out eyes weren’t as big as the real Mickey Mouse but it still showed the man inside it had light brown eyes. Hulk just looked angry. ‘No. I just go to the library sometimes.’ ‘The library? Well, I think you clever. Yeah, yeah, you clever.’ He pointed the screwdriver at her and Gogo began crying again. And this time Anneke too. Jack’s bark outside the sliding door made them all jump. She’d forgotten about Jack. ‘Can I let him in?’ Mickey Mouse picked up the knife and threw his hand towards the direction of the door. She walked over, opened the door and picked Jack up. She figured if she could leave the door open just a little, maybe she’d get the chance to run over to the house where Ma Thuli worked. Or maybe if anyone ended up screaming, someone would hear. But when she turned around, Hulk was in front of her. He pushed the sliding door hard until she heard the click and followed her back to the dining room table. She could feel Jack was excited. He wagged his tail and gave small barks. ‘Shut that dog up. Make sure he doesn’t make any noise.’ She put Jack on her lap and gave him her palm to lick. ‘So, Promise, you were telling me you spoke to Trevor the other day.’ She didn’t look up right away, not sure if she was hearing Anneke correctly. She

had already let out the secret and told Anneke about the call she and Zandi had made. Anneke had been kinda shocked but at least not angry. Especially when she heard Promise had done it because she was worried about her. ‘How did he sound? Is he okay? Enjoying London?’ ‘What?’ Mickey Mouse said in a quiet voice. ‘Just be quiet … please.’ He went back to using the knife to get something out from under his fingernail. She wasn’t sure exactly how it happened but in a matter of seconds, blood was pouring from Mickey Mouse’s finger. ‘Fuck, fuck, fuck.’ Anneke put her hand on Promise’s arm. ‘How did Trevor sound, Promise? Go on, tell us.’ ‘He … he sounded really nice. It was really busy where he was. It was loud, like he was on the street.’ She tried to keep the words from going all over the place as she stared at the blood. ‘He sounded, he sounded … like, not an English person but like he still lived in South Africa. He was nice to me on the phone.’ Mickey Mouse kept saying shut up, softer and softer every time. He said shut up even while he was going around in circles looking for something to soak up the blood coming out of his finger. ‘Well, what the fuck’s going on here?’ Batman’s loud voice was in the doorway. She didn’t know how long he’d been there. ‘You on your phone. You bleeding to death. No one bending over. No one with their eyes closed. Even the fucking dog is looking relaxed. What is this? A fucking tea party?’ ‘Hey, c’mon –’ Hulk started to say. ‘No, no, it’s cool. Tea is nice. Why don’t you pour me a cup. Two sugars. Better yet, let me go out and get some fucking koesisters.’ ‘Listen, Dex –’ ‘Stop saying my fucking name!’

There was something like a knock at the door. No one said a word. Even Jack stopped licking. Everyone stayed quiet as if they wanted to be sure they’d heard what they thought they’d heard. Yes. A knock. And then a polite voice asking if anyone was at home. ‘I thought you said no one was coming,’ Batman said, waving the gun around before putting it to his mouth like a big finger warning everyone to be quiet. ‘We’re not expecting anyone.’ ‘The people with the dog,’ Gogo said softly to Anneke. Gogo was starting to sound a little like her old self. ‘What dog people? What?’ Batman asked. He was looking down the corridor one second and through the sliding door the next. ‘People who think this dog is theirs,’ Anneke said. Batman started walking backwards. ‘Not a fucking word. I don’t want to shoot anyone. No one needs to get hurt. Just stay quiet. And you two, do your fucking jobs.’ Mickey Mouse was still bleeding. He didn’t look at Anneke at all. Not even at Gogo as she took off her doek and gave it to him to put around his finger. There was a sound from the kitchen, like someone tried to cry or shout and it got cut short. A few seconds later a blonde woman in a long colourful dress and a tall man with no hair came shuffling down the corridor, Batman behind them. The woman was making soft sounds like hiccups. When she saw Jack she began to cry. Maybe happy and sad tears together. It was hard to say. ‘Oh my God, Amadeus. It’s you.’ She stretched out her arms to pick him up. ‘It’s really you.’ Amadeus? Oh, c’mon!

Trevor

‘Hey!’ The voice cut through his distant thoughts like a knife. Like a light switched on in a dark room. Instant. Sharp. And if light had a frequency – well, maybe it did, what did he know – loud. ‘This the place?’ Trevor snapped his head to the window, squinted at the house in front of him, then nodded. Zainabu had kicked him out. ‘Not because I don’t love you or because you don’t entertain me, literally, every minute of the day,’ she’d said, handing him a plastic bag of his dirty laundry with one hand, and punching on her cell phone with the another. ‘But I need to get this place sorted before my sister and her boyfriend get here. Their plane’s landing in, what’s the time now? So, they’ll be here in about two hours. And, as you well know, you need to sort this shit out with Carl.’ ‘Can I come back if I don’t sort the shit out?’ he asked in a voice that was deliberately mock pleading only because he really meant it. ‘No. Uber’ll be here in three. Did you check the bathroom to see if you’ve left anything there?’ ‘I don’t care.’ ‘You care. Just stop being such a big-headed ignoramus. You were cheating first.’ Cheating first. The first cheater. It didn’t make it better, he thought now, as he walked up the path to his front door. But at least it didn’t make it worse. So they were all on equal footing here; no one person could lay claim to be experiencing cooler air up there on the moral high ground. He watched the Uber drive away. Even though he knew he didn’t have the patience to go digging for his key, he stopped outside the door, not yet having the courage to press the doorbell. He looking at the pot of variegated elephant

ears, bent towards the earth as though prostrating in exchange for a drop of water. Every bloody thing in this house was sad. Zainabu was right; this entire thing had gotten out of control. He and Carl just needed to sort this shit out. And from Carl’s messages it seemed Alvaro had, inexplicably, not revealed the entire truth. But why? Well, he couldn’t worry about that now. It just meant maybe there was room still to fix things. They needed to fix things. The world was bad enough, he thought, taking in a deep breath of the cold air before exhaling and flinching at his own breath. There was enough hate in the world … Voices? Was he hearing voices in there? Did Carl have someone in their fucking house? Was it Alvaro and had he already confessed it wasn’t his first time there? Shit. He looked up to check the voices weren’t coming out of open windows on the third floor. No. Definitely his flat. And not from the television either. ‘Fuck me,’ he said out loud. He let the bags fall to the ground, feeling he needed both hands to press the doorbell. When he lifted his finger off the doorbell for a second he heard a slight commotion. It was maddeningly close but at the same time muffled and out of reach. Silence. He had an insane desire to bulge his eyes, open his mouth wide and stick out his tongue, maybe shake it around and give a few growls at the very moment he figured Carl was looking through the peephole. Silence. He banged on the door. ‘Open the fucking door, Carl.’ A dog began to bark. The door opened. Carl, in a pair of dark blue tros and a mismatched-to-helland-back light brown long-sleeved shirt with yellow snowflakes, stared at him. Trevor knew that look. That, yes-something-is-wrong-but-all-you-gonna-get-ismy-ive-aggressive-go-fuckyourself-actually look. ‘Hey.’ ‘Hey? Hey? What the fuck? I heard voices. Who’s in here?’ ‘Look, Trevor –’ ‘Don’t look Trevor me. Why … why you in my way?’

‘Hold up.’ Carl took hold of both Trevor’s elbows. The front door was still open and the wind brought with it a foreign, desolate air. From the messages Carl had been leaving him, Trevor had half expected a warmish, if slightly surprised welcome, followed by make-up sex; gestures he’d made up his mind to grudgingly go through with. But now, all the stuff of the last few weeks, the anxiety, the lies, were around them like an autumn crispness about to catapult itself into winter. It itched into their skin like the brown straw Welcome mat they both stood on. ‘Just look at me, please.’ He locked eyes with Carl, willing himself not to flinch should his peripheral vision catch a shadow moving in the background. The fucker in there was certainly a quiet one. ‘Yeah?’ ‘Do you trust me?’ ‘C’mon, Carl. Please, just move.’ ‘Wait. Do you trust me?’ The contradiction, the ludicrousness of the question was too much. ‘Don’t ask me that right now.’ He freed his arms and walked into the front room. And there was Alvaro. Not standing in the middle of the front room shifting awkwardly from one leg to the other. Not sitting nervously on the edge of a chair, his frame forward as though he could get up at any moment and walk out. Not rattled. Not catapulting. No, the guy was on the couch, their thick brightly coloured Mexican throw bought from Camden Market the year before cushioning his reclining, supremely relaxed frame. Alvaro’s head reached the top of the couch and his arms were practically extended the length of it on either side. His right ankle lay on his left knee and he bounced the right knee in space. ‘Are you fucking kidding me?’ Trevor shouted. He was aware he wasn’t clear who he was saying it to. Who should he be seen to be saying it to? He heard the front door shut and a second later felt Carl come up behind him. ‘Listen, Trevor –’ ‘Has he been coming here?’ ‘No. He just got here now. And no, he –’

‘Now? Really.’ ‘Yes.’ ‘Why? What for?’ He looked at Alvaro. ‘What the fuck for?’ Alvaro got up and extended his hand. ‘Alvaro. You must be Trevor. I’ve heard a lot about you.’ Trevor charged into Alvaro’s chest with what he figured was every bit of that anger-fuelled strength superheroes were known for and women cornered by danger often testify to. But he was shocked when he ran into Carl’s chest instead. ‘Hey, hey, stop,’ Carl said, pressing his left arm back to keep Alvaro a safe distance behind him. ‘Why? Why the fuck are you stopping me?’ He was breathing heavily. ‘Why you defending him?’ ‘I’m not defending him.’ ‘Protecting him then.’ ‘I just don’t think this is the way to solve things.’ Carl pushed Trevor back lightly until they were both next to the fireplace. ‘I mean, come on, how did it get to this? Look at me, Trev. How did it get like this?’ He looked at Carl again. This time, he really saw him. ‘Listen, Carl. Why is he here?’ ‘You know, Trev, if we have to be honest, he’s not even the problem. He could’ve been anyone. He’s just a symptom, a symptom of –’ ‘Hey, I’m not a fever, you know,’ Alvaro said with a laugh that made Trevor want to grab the lamp off the side table, swing it, and watch the mosaic shade shatter its colours on the first thing it hit. ‘Can this asshole just leave? Seriously, Carl, what’s he even doing here?’ Carl turned to face Alvaro. Trevor shifted to where he could see both their

profiles clearly, a position he realised with frustration didn’t give him a full view of exactly how the two men were looking at each other. He could only gauge what one eye was looking at, what one eye was taking in. And that was the same as saying what one half of the face was doing, or what one half of the heart was feeling. To know the real truth between those two he needed to somehow get in closer. But was that the answer? Could he ever know and did he really want to? All the minutes and moments, whether insignificant, nuanced, profound, random, that had already ed between those two, how could he hope to know? It was better just to throw Alvaro the fuck out and come clean with Carl. Well, not a two-hour gentle cycle, rinse and spin clean, as Zainabu said one time. Just a bit more honest than he’d been up to then. ‘True, Alvaro,’ Carl said. ‘What are you really doing here?’ Alvaro plopped back down on the couch and crossed his legs. ‘Listen, I was just, you know, in the neighbourhood –’ ‘Oh my God, you were in the neighbourhood?’ ‘Sí.’ ‘How did you know Carl would be home?’ ‘Well, I didn’t, I just –’ ‘Have you been stalking him or something?’ ‘Okay, let’s stop this,’ Carl interjected. ‘It’s getting … creepy and a bit outrageous. But, Alvaro, really. How did you know where I live?’ ‘You told me.’ ‘I didn’t.’ ‘Well, how else would I know?’ Carl’s face contorted just for a second and Trevor thought he could see in Carl’s eyes two small, left-pointing rewind arrows going at a crazy pace, trying to find

the exact point where this alleged disclosure of the address took place. ‘Oh, please.’ Trevor started to pace. ‘Acting so innocent. You should’ve never let him in, Carl. You have no idea what he’s capable of.’ The second it came out of his mouth he saw the danger. ‘What people like him are capable of.’ ‘So, Alvaro, what did you want to talk to me about?’ Carl asked, his voice steady. ‘Just this and that.’ ‘Look, why don’t you just leave? No one wants you here. Carl and I need to talk to each other. I don’t care that you saw an opening –’ ‘Opening?’ Alvaro laughed. ‘Oh my.’ ‘I swear, keep talking –’ ‘All right. Enough,’ Carl said. ‘Alvaro, it’s true. You need to leave. I’m sorry, this is fucked up on my part but really, you need to go. I don’t want things to escalate. This situation is crazy, everything from the start has just been crazy. But I wanna take the first step to try to put things right.’ Carl turned to the door and extended his right arm. Alvaro uncrossed his right leg, ed his fingers through his hair and then crossed his left leg over. ‘No, I don’t think so.’ ‘Excuse me?’ ‘I came here to have a talk and I think that’s what we should do. We should all three of us have a chat. Let’s just put everything, how you people say it, out on the table?’ ‘Fuck no. Get out.’ Trevor grabbed Alvaro’s coat off the coat rack and threw it at him. Alvaro looked at the coat that had just landed next to him. He hadn’t so much as flinched. ‘Look, I’m not going, okay.’ Carl was staring out the window, a worried look on his face. Trevor stole those

few unguarded seconds to glare at Alvaro and mouth the words What the fuck? But Alvaro’s eyes only gave the barest suggestion of a squint and then his face returned to normal. ‘I have to be at the hospital early tomorrow morning,’ Carl said, turning to them and pushing his hands deep into his pockets. ‘I need to have a quiet evening. I honestly can’t entertain this bullshit right now.’ Trevor went over to him. ‘Are you doing that surgery tomorrow?’ ‘Yeah,’ Carl said quietly, looking at Trevor with all the pain of the guilty party. Shit. It was really fucked up to keep Carl feeling like he was the only one who’d done wrong. So what if Alvaro spilled the beans? Maybe that’s exactly what needed to happen. If he just came clean, simply removed the object of ransom, Alvaro would have nothing on him. Didn’t he see that in a movie once? A man walks into a room to find intruders holding guns and knives to the heads and throats of his family, threatening all hell if the man doesn’t give up something or the other? Only, to the horror of the gunmen, for the man to calmly take out his own gun and kill his wife and two kids. It was a bloody scene forming in his head but it caused a wave of clarity to surge through his body as though he’d just thrown back a glass of Andrews Liver Salts. ‘You know what? If you won’t go, I’m calling the police. Because right now, you’re an intruder.’ He glanced over at Carl for any last-second intervention which, deep down, he hoped would come. But Carl was biting the nail on his right thumb, his posture, the tilt of his head as he looked out the window showing that he wasn’t really listening. Trevor was reaching for his phone in his pocket when he heard Alvaro say in an angry voice, ‘Okay, fine, fine. I just wanted to get your attention. I was pissed off, okay? Shit, who wants to be treated like that? Getting ignored. And, well, to get back at you I just –’ Trevor heard the words ‘I’m sorry’ fill the space. They were his own but they

seemed to reverberate like the quiver of a guitar string, reproducing themselves as each millisecond ed. And why was there an echo? He realised the words had come from Carl. Alvaro muttered, ‘You used me.’ Carl sat on the other end of the couch. ‘Alvaro, look, I’m really, really sorry –’ ‘I was talking to him,’ Alvaro said, kicking his chin out at Trevor. Trevor looked down at his trainers. Then closed his eyes. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Well, okay then. It was bound to come to this. Okay. He looked up at Carl. Yeah, there it was, a perfect expression of disbelief, disappointment. Mouth hanging open just a little. Eyes shocked, hurt, unblinking. He knew that look. It was the same one his mother had when she found out Bones had stolen something from the house, or when the police came to the door looking for him or when she realised Bones had lied after swearing ten fingers on the Bible that he hadn’t. It was a broken look, a window into the shattering on the inside. ‘Trev?’ A neighbour could be heard opening his or her front door. There were a few seconds of silence before the door closed again. ‘Trevor?’ Trevor sat down slowly in the armchair close to the window; the big armchair Carl loved to attach to the mismatched ottoman, stretch out and fall asleep on while reading something uneventful like Tove Jansson’s Summer or a forty-yearold issue of National Geographic he’d got off a pavement table at the Red Cross charity shop. Other times, especially on very cold nights, they would squeeze into it together and watch the logs burn. Now, it felt as though ten men could fit in it and there would still be space. He looked at Carl again and to his surprise and horror, felt tears threatening to push themselves out the corners of his eyes. ‘Yes. I know him. I, I …’ Carl got up and started to pace. ‘Oh my God, oh my God, oh my God.’ He buried his face in his hands. ‘Oh my God.’

Carl coming apart was frightening. It really was. He’d always counted on Carl to be rational, grown-up, comionate and, above all, forgiving. But, as Zainabu said one time, it only ever takes one thing. One second. One proverbial straw on the camel’s back to make someone decide that something was unforgivable, forever unforgivable, a deal breaker that smashed … no, splintered … everything into too many tiny pieces. ‘Please, Carl, stop saying that.’ ‘Oh my God. You two? With him? And all this time … Did you bring him here? Oh my God. Is that why he knew where we lived? Oh my fucking God.’ ‘Carl, Carl, it wasn’t anything. Well, it wasn’t a relationship or anything like that. It was just … a thing. But –’ ‘Oh my God, please, please tell me now isn’t that moment when you say it was a one-time thing, or it meant nothing, or it was over. Tell me you’re not going to say those things?’ He stayed silent, wanting to say those exact things. ‘Trevor? Trevor!’ What was it about hurt and anger, separate emotions with their own distinct definitions, causes and manifestations, that at the same time felt so tightly knitted together? Maybe it was as simple as someone who hadn’t got the right response to their hurt feelings becoming angry instead. Or perhaps angry people were just masking deep hurt inside. Whatever it was, he was feeling the braiding and twisting of both emotions all around him. He found he could barely breathe. ‘What? What do you want me to say, Carl? Should I be contrite and say it was shitty of me to do that? Yeah, of course it was. But I’m angry too, you know. Things were pretty shitty and, well, the only word I can think of is loveless. Shitty and loveless. That was us. For a long time. Am I allowed to say that? Do I have enough collateral here to say that? Or does it just come down to who was more right, less wrong, who did the least shitty thing to the other person? Because, yeah, I may be a shitty, selfish, fucked-up person who cheated on his boyfriend and maybe there’s no justification for that –’ ‘Maybe?’ ‘Okay, fine. I’ll give you that. There was no justification for that. I was wrong,

hundred per cent wrong to have cheated. But let’s get real. For the last few months, you’ve been walking around here like a ghost. It’s like you here but God knows where else. I had no idea what was going on with you, what is going on in your head. You gonna it that? Or it’s easier not to put anything into context, to just point the finger at me. What about you? You hooked up with him too, didn’t you?’ ‘I didn’t fuck him.’ ‘Well, you win then. Congrats.’ Something in him, a wounded, petulant side wanted to clap loudly. ‘Because, of course, the fact that you went to him because of some kind of stalemate in our relationship, because you were looking for something emotional you weren’t getting from me, all that is irrelevant, right? When you do it, it’s not wrong. Why? Oh, yeah, because you didn’t fuck.’ ‘Ahh, perdóname –’ ‘Shut up,’ he and Carl said in unison. ‘We haven’t, you know, opened up to each other in how long, Carl?’ Trevor hoped he wasn’t wrong in thinking that, despite Alvaro’s presence, it was safe to start closing the distance between them. ‘I knew you were up to something. I knew it. I could feel it.’ ‘You avoiding the question.’ ‘Did you even use a fucking condom?’ ‘Yes.’ ‘Don’t lie.’ ‘I did.’ Why did people even go there? Why did the sexual details always matter? Condom, no condom. Everyone would have to be tested anyway. Why, in movies, did people always want to know how many times and which part of the counter top and was it in the bed, on the couch or in the shower? As if these things mattered. Okay, the condom bit did matter. But why all the other stuff? So people can get themselves angry and keep themselves angry, Zainabu told him once. ‘Just in case I’m ever thinking about forgiving the asshole, I can just

all the disgusting details and well … not. It’s a super-unhealthy, selfpreservation, ive-aggressive thing. And everyone does it,’ she’d said. No one ever wanted to ask the hard questions. Like, do you love the person you’re cheating with? Or what does it say about the relationship that this thing happened? ‘I did use a condom. And since this whole thing is hell-bent on getting even more pathetic, you can ask him.’ He looked over at Alvaro, who shrugged his shoulders. ‘You see?’ ‘He didn’t say yes.’ ‘Well, he didn’t say I’m lying which, let’s face it, is the closest he’ll come to agreeing with me right now.’ ‘You know,’ Carl said, placing his elbows on the mantelpiece over the fireplace and pressing the heels of his hands into his temples. ‘You haven’t even said you’re sorry.’ Trevor weighed this in his mind, feeling irritation threatening to seep in. What did sorry even matter now? Why couldn’t they talk about why they’d gotten to this point in the first place? And shouldn’t they both be saying sorry? But Carl was looking at him sideways, then from head to toe, as though he expected the apology to materialise into an actual thing next to them. ‘I’m sorry, Carl. I love you. You’re the love of my life. And what I did was wrong. And I’m sorry.’ The fridge was humming. It had taken up this random act one spring evening while Carl and Trevor were watching Britain’s Got Talent, as though it, too, was protesting the failure of the blind flautist to make it to the next round. They had to open the freezer door and slam it shut for the humming to stop. He was itching to do that now. Carl stared at the wall ahead of him for what seemed like a full minute. ‘Okay.’ Okay? Okay? Christ. Why did people do this to themselves? Demand an apology and then not know what the fuck to do with it when they got it. Wasn’t it just good manners for the apologee to make the apologiser feel good about his

contrition? I’m sorry. No, I’m sorry. It’s my fault. No, no, it was mine, really. Let he who is without sin … and all that. And why did apologisers put themselves through this shit? Apologise, not for the sake of being granted absolution but to check if the other person is going to act as, or even more, remorseful. Offering an apology was like offering to pick up the cheque for dinner with friends. It didn’t feel good unless there was a faux tussle about who should really do it and an eventual recognition of the magnanimity of the payer. That was the whole point of apologies between lovers – a balancing of the scales so that no one was left feeling like shit. He would have to tell Carl that an apology from him was in order too. But later. Right now, they needed to get Alvaro out. ‘Listen, Alvaro, I’m still not sure what made you come here. But I’m going to go with my mother’s everything-happens-for-a-reason thing. So maybe something good’s gonna come out of it. For Carl and me, I mean. Look, I’m sorry –’ ‘For what? For dumping me like sack of shit?’ ‘Oh, c’mon, grow up. This is the real world.’ The fridge seemed to be humming even louder now. Trevor went to the kitchen and opened the freezer door. He slammed it shut with such force that the small vase of semi-precious stones on the top of the fridge tipped over, raining colours across the floor. ‘Alvaro, for the last time. Get out.’ Thankfully, Alvaro stood up. ‘Real world, huh?’ ‘Yeah. Our world.’ Trevor could feel his heartbeat talking to him in a mad, unintelligible rush. ‘Mine and Carl’s. So, adios.’ ‘Yeah, so this is your world?’ Alvaro threw his arms around. ‘Lies.’ Trevor walked to the door, figuring the seventeenth ‘Shut the fuck up, Alvaro’ was going to have little effect. ‘Yeah, yeah. Out.’ ‘Secrets.’ Alvaro picked up his coat.

‘Save it,’ he said as he opened the door. ‘Affairs.’ Alvaro pushed his right arm into his aviator jacket, then his left. ‘Bye.’ He closed the door on Alvaro and the chill outside. But not before he heard ‘Rosenhof.’

Carl

Trevor closed the door quietly. ‘You think he’s gone for good?’ Carl asked. But Trevor just brushed past him, their shoulders meeting for a brief, resentful second, like prize boxers whose eyes lock momentarily before they go off to their respective corners. ‘Hey.’ He followed Trevor into the living room. ‘Does Alvaro have something to do with Rosenhof?’ Trevor asked. ‘What? Are you crazy?’ ‘No, no, don’t do that. Don’t make me feel like I’m crazy.’ Trevor went to the kitchen and came back with an opened bottle of Chardonnay and a wine glass half filled. ‘He just said the word Rosenhof as I closed the door.’ He watched Trevor’s Adam’s apple move, the top of his glass touching the bridge of his nose. ‘Thanks for offering me a glass. No, I didn’t tell … No. No, I didn’t tell him, so to speak.’ ‘Carl.’ ‘I didn’t tell him. It was just something that came up. It wasn’t like I sat him down in this big revelatory moment. It was just in conversation. I said a place called Rosenhof is … is … significant for me. That’s all. I didn’t get into it.’ ‘So why did he just say it to me now? How did he know to lump it together with secrets and lies?’ ‘Because I told him. I mean, I told him Rosenhof was something I had been keeping from you. That it was something I needed to come clean about with you.’

‘But you told him more than you told me. I didn’t even know Rosenhof was a place.’ ‘It just slipped out –’ ‘A fact slips out. A name, a place, a date slips out. Not a full story that you’ve not been wanting to talk to me about for months!’ ‘Stop shouting. And I’ve said how many times already that it wasn’t a full story. Look, is that guy going to come back?’ Trevor’s voice quietened. ‘I don’t know. I really don’t think so. And even if he does, let’s just make sure he doesn’t find anything he can use or take advantage of. He can’t come between us if we don’t let him, Carl.’ Carl sighed, rubbing his palms against his cheeks. ‘I promise you, I never told Alvaro the full story about Rosenhof.’ Trevor left the room again and came back with another glass. ‘So tell it to me then.’

Promise

She was sure it was midnight. Bad and strange things always happened at midnight. Batman put a big plastic bottle of milk to his mouth. Bits of it falling on his chin and making his small beard white. He burped for a long time and it was really loud. Then he said something about whisky. He wiped his chin and walked back to the kitchen. She hoped he wasn’t putting the empty carton back in the fridge. Well, at least, the next time Gogo went into the fridge and tipped over the milk carton and only four or five drops came out, she couldn’t suck her teeth at Promise. ‘Listen,’ the big white man said. He was standing up, with his hands up as though he was going to push away an imaginary person in front of him. ‘No one needs to get badly hurt here. Or even hurt at all.’ ‘No, you listen,’ Batman said, returning. But before he could even talk any more, the white man knocked Batman in his face with his elbow and grabbed the gun. When Mickey Mouse tried to rush at him with the knife, the big man shot him in the leg. Batman was on the floor and his nose was bleeding and the big man had his really big foot on Batman’s neck. Someone screamed. Not one scream but lots of screams, one on top of another. High, low, with crying, with lots of oh-my-gods, with Afrikaans, with isiXhosa. Hulk tried to run to the sliding door but the big man said ‘Stop!’ with lots of effs. Plus, it was Hulk who had locked the sliding door after Jack came inside anyway. So where was he running to? ‘Somebody call 10111. Ma’am, you linked to any security company?’ The white man took his foot off Batman’s neck and shoved him in his stomach with the front of his shoe. ‘Get up, you. Go and sit over there with your idiot partner in crime.’ It was weird to see Batman following orders like that. The white woman wasn’t frightened anymore. She was holding Jack, well,

Amadeus, and singing about how brave his daddy was. ‘Did he have to shoot him?’ Anneke asked the white lady. Her voice was still shaky. It was shaky when she talked to the person on 10111. ‘Couldn’t he have just grabbed him or punched him or something?’ ‘Well, at least he’s alive,’ the woman said, sounding mad. ‘You’re welcome, by the way.’ Mickey Mouse was crying. Actually, he’d thrown his Mickey Mouse mask under the table after he got shot. Everyone’s mask was off and they were all just back to being humans. Mickey Mouse was crying. Like really crying. Like those Grade One kids on the first day of school. The other two men sat on the dining room chairs looking angry. The white lady wanted her husband to tie them up but the big man said, no, they would never try anything now. Seemed like he was right. They were both sitting there quiet, not looking anything like superheroes anymore. The big man still kept the gun in his hand though. It seemed stuck to his palm, hanging off it. ‘Isn’t he bleeding too much?’ Anneke asked, pointing to the line of blood that was moving closer and closer to the glass sliding door. ‘Well … yeah,’ the big man said. ‘Get a cloth and apply pressure to the wound.’ ‘Who?’ ‘Your maid. Let her get a cloth from the kitchen.’ ‘No, I mean, who’s going to apply the pressure?’ ‘Well, I can’t. I’ve got to keep an eye on these two.’ ‘And I’ve got to hold Amadeus,’ the woman said. ‘He’s so traumatised. I can feel his little heart pounding.’ Anneke looked over at Gogo, who had already gone for her Bible and was reading it. Gogo’s face had that look, the look that said no one, not even Jesus, could get her to kneel next to a bleeding man and press down on blood.

Promise ran into the kitchen, grabbed a towel from the hook on the side of the fridge and went back to the dining room. She was careful to step over the blood. ‘Promise, no,’ Anneke said. ‘It’s okay, I can do it. Just press hard?’ ‘Fold up the cloth,’ the big man said. ‘That’s right. Now place it over the wound. I know there’s a lot of blood but look carefully and you’ll see where the hole is –’ ‘This is fucked up,’ Batman said. ‘He’s gonna die. And it’ll be your fault.’ ‘You guys are in enough kak, so just keep quiet. Everything, and I mean everything here, is your fault. This was self-defence.’ He pointed to the floor. ‘But let’s try and keep your criminal friend from dying.’ ‘Well, let one of us do it,’ Batman said, standing up. ‘Sit down.’ The big man got up and pointed the gun at the both of them. ‘Okay, little girl, now, go on your knees, straighten both your arms, put one palm on top the other. Yes, just like that. And press hard. Good. Now, just stay there for as long as you can. Babe, can you call the police again and find out where the hell they are? And the ambulance too.’ The white lady put Amadeus down to get her phone. He went straight to the blood and started licking it. The white lady screamed, way louder and longer than when Mickey Mouse got shot. She grabbed Amadeus up again. There was so much blood. It was gooey, and hot and colder in some parts, and icky and gross and exciting. Promise wanted to tell everyone that maybe she should have a mask now too because she was a superhero too. A real one. She was helping to save someone’s life. But when she looked at the man that used to be Mickey Mouse, his right cheek was on the floor and she could see half his face was wet with tears and snot. It didn’t look as though he even knew she was there. He wasn’t moving his leg about, or moaning if she pressed down a little more than before. He just kept staring ahead of him, as if what was hurting him or making him sad wasn’t his leg but something else. She was almost sure she heard him say Mummy. It would be Trevor’s mummy too. She didn’t know anything about their mummy except that she had got some money from Trevor

from London. That was all. But a mummy was a mummy. And when anyone got hurt, no matter how old they were, they wanted their mummy. She didn’t know exactly, exactly how that felt, but she could imagine. Sometimes she wanted her mummy who had already died a long time ago. But when she wished for that, it was more like a fantasy she knew was never going to happen, not really something she was waiting for. ‘You’ll see your mummy soon,’ she whispered to him. She thought it would make him feel better, but he just started to cry even more. When the ambulance came, just before they told her to stand up and turned him over on his back, he grabbed one of her fingers. There were so many police officers. Some took the men away. Everyone was talking to everyone except her. Some of their neighbours came into the kitchen too, but the police shooed them away. One policeman handed pieces of white paper to Anneke, Gogo and the white couple to write down what had happened. Everyone got paper, except her! ‘Promise, my dear. I need my spectacles. Please check for them in the drawer in my nightstand.’ She went to Anneke’s room and opened the drawer. Two small spiders ran out. Their legs were so thin she could hardly see them. Everything in the drawer looked like rubbish. Maybe the mummy spider, with more hairy legs, was still in there. She poked around with one finger, moving bits of paper here and there, small prayer books, pieces of paper with photos of old people on the front that said something about sunrise and sunset. She knew the spectacles weren’t in here but maybe Anneke kept something more exciting in here. She saw a small brown diary in the corner. She reached for it but as she lifted it up she saw that it was stuck to something. An old mint or toffee, still in the wrapper, stuck the diary to an old piece of newspaper. A very old newspaper. The date on the top 8 September 1994. She didn’t know anything about years that started with nineteen anything. She separated the diary and the newspaper carefully, looking at the sweet for a few seconds. Someone told her once that sweets never go bad. Ever. She began to open it but stopped. It did look really gross with all those tiny bits of dirt and

dust stuck to the wrapper. She threw it away in the bin next to the bed. She held the old paper with two fingers, turning it over every two seconds so that it made a little breeze on her face. She tried to read all the headlines. Tropical storm Alberta rages across US, killing 32. Sale on Toughees at the BATA store on Glenvista Avenue. She wondered if it was the same Glenvista Avenue she always saw coming home from school. Cape Town urged to conserve water ahead of dry winter. Someone asking for extra blankets for the Ebenezer Children’s Home, with a baby looking cold and sad and a phone number next to it. A white hand with long nails and a ring that still sparkled even though the paper was very grey – Brown’s, the most beautiful diamonds in the world. Park gets facelift. She stared at the picture. It looked exactly like the park close to her school. There were more jungle gyms now but this picture had the same big tree in the middle and the statue of two tall men with guns. What newspaper was this and why had Anneke kept it for so long? She was about to put it back in the drawer when she turned it over again and saw at the corner, Teen victim of a hit and run. The photo of the boy next to it was very light and old but she could tell he was black or maybe coloured and if she squinted her eyes, kinda cute too. She didn’t know what a hit and run was. She couldn’t read what was on there and didn’t want to either, even though at that moment she could hear Miss Fourie’s voice telling the class they should try to read everything they could get their hands on. Then she saw something about Portman Street, which was only a few streets away from their house. Did something happen in Portman Street? In the photo the boy was wearing his school jersey over a blue school shirt. He was smiling. A real smile. Not a fake one. She looked at the words underneath the photo, looking for big words she didn’t know. Then she saw it. Rosenhof Primary. The boy was a student of Rosenhof Primary. Rosenhof? Where had she heard that name? I still don’t know what he was doing in that area. We don’t know anyone there, the boy’s mother said to the police. Suddenly Anneke was at the bedroom door. ‘What’s taking so long?’ Anneke looked at the paper in Promise’s hand. ‘What do you have there?’ ‘Nothing.’ Promise placed the newspaper back in the drawer, but not before reading the last words of the article: no arrests made, investigations are

continuing. ‘I didn’t see the spectacles.’ ‘Come, help me find them.’ Anneke closed the door behind them. ‘Then we need to call Carl. And Trevor, oh my God.’ They found Anneke’s glasses next to the bread bin in the kitchen. ‘Anneke?’ ‘Yes?’ ‘You know the lady with the dog?’ Promise pointed to the woman writing quickly on the kitchen counter with Jack on her shoulder like a baby. ‘She said Jack might have babies soon. Do you think I can get one?’ She was thinking that all heroes on television always got the things they wanted. She should tell Anneke that. But then Anneke gave her a big hug. Best to stay quiet.

Trevor

For a long time the only sounds in the room were the logs disintegrating. Once smooth and strong but now succumbing to the power of the fire, they crumbled bit by bit, with a fizz that, in an instant, changed the configuration of the log pyramid he’d so painstakingly curated. Trevor sipped his second glass of wine. He took Carl’s left hand in his right, rubbing his thumb over Carl’s knuckles. Carl exhaled. His own glass, untouched, sat on the small table next to the couch. ‘It was 1994. July holidays, I think. I was only about fourteen. At the time there were all these inauguration events around the country, even though the actual inauguration had already happened. So, there was one at the public school not far from our house, Rosenhof Primary. They’ve changed the name now. There were some speeches by local politicians, councillors, I guess. Anyway, I went with my parents and Dorothy. My father, well, you know what he thought about this new black government and all. All throughout the event, I kept praying he wouldn’t make even a little scene. Then, during the speeches, I have to it, I got bored. I sat outside one of the classrooms when a guy came up to me. Black guy. Looked like my age or maybe a bit younger. He said, “Is that policeman over there your father?” There were about four other boys with him. I got a bit scared but because my father was close by and there were people around, I didn’t worry too much. But at the same time, the guy looked mean, tough. So, I told him yes. And to calm myself a bit and maybe him too, I asked him if he was a student at the school. He said he was but that he didn’t know how much longer he would be able to go. His mother couldn’t afford to send him because his father was dead and things were hard. “Your father shot my father.” That’s what he said to me. Just like that. Plain, without feeling. Like a fact. I felt like there was a ball lodged in my throat. I told you about the time my father shot those two men who came to rob the house?’ ‘Yeah, yeah of course.’ ‘Well, it was that, coming back to haunt us. I mean, I couldn’t speak, I couldn’t swallow. I couldn’t say sorry, or that his father was a thief, which would’ve

sounded like me saying my father was justified in killing his father. I just sat there, with him looking down at me. With his friends, his boys or whatever, looking at me.’ ‘How was he looking at you?’ ‘I don’t know how to explain it. A look that said it wasn’t over. It wasn’t a look that said he was going to get revenge on us or something. I mean, I don’t know if that was his plan. It could’ve been, I guess. The incident happened years earlier but it had received some attention and my father was a known policeman. But it was a look that said we were connected, that we had something to do with each other’s lives, each other’s past, but also, from that day forward as well. Then my father came over, shooed the boy away and told me my mother wasn’t feeling well so we were going to go home. I told Dorothy about it the next day and she said I shouldn’t go anywhere near the school ever again.’ ‘I can’t imagine you listened to her.’ ‘You know I didn’t. When the new term started, those first few times, I ditched school early and just hid behind a tree, watching all the kids coming out of Rosenhof. I would see him with those boys. But sometimes he was with two girls, one tall and one fat. And one time he was by himself. I walked up behind him, I don’t know why. Or what I was expecting, and I don’t know if it was because it was two o’clock in the afternoon and the guy was in school uniform but he didn’t look that scary. I told him about the night his dad was shot. I told him I was sorry. I don’t know if it was because we were young and innocent and didn’t trip over our words or didn’t know how to be diplomatic or how to selfcensor or how to negotiate the truth out of everything. But I just told him. It just came out. Clear. True. Honest. He seemed to believe me.’ ‘Why?’ ‘I don’t know.’ ‘Because you’re white?’ ‘What you want me to say? Maybe. Maybe, he thought why else would this white boy be walking around that community saying all that stuff if he’s not telling the truth.’

‘So, what happened after that?’ ‘We would meet in the afternoons, not every afternoon, of course, but often on Wednesdays when both our schools finished early. And walk to where his street took him to his house or mine to my house.’ ‘What did you guys talk about? I mean, what did you have in common?’ ‘Don’t look so shocked. He didn’t have an extra eye growing in the middle of his forehead. We talked about things boys our age talked about. Sports, even though he talked more about soccer and me about rugby. Donkey Kong. Sonic the Hedgehog. Back in the day you could play them at the supermarkets. You that? We talked about what we hated about our schools, stuff we saw on TV, music. He liked rap music. Then … one day … I don’t know why I did it but …’ ‘What?’ ‘I tried to kiss him.’ ‘Oh shit. Really? Why?’ ‘Because I was a fucking fourteen year old with hormones shooting out from every pore in my body.’ ‘A gay fourteen year old. South Africa. 1994. Shit, you were brave.’ ‘Has nothing to do with being brave. Was just spontaneous. And I swear that he kissed me back before pushing me away. Anyway, you’d think I would’ve had the good sense to stay away. But the next time I was hanging around the school, his friends jumped me. They beat me pretty good.’ ‘Oh my God. What? Carl, I’m so sorry.’ He rubbed Carl’s cheek with the back of his fingers. ‘But … one day, I was coming from a friend’s house in the street next to mine and I saw him.’ ‘The boy?’

‘Yeah.’ ‘Looking to give you another beating?’ Carl tilted his head and gave him a knowing look. ‘Or maybe you two couldn’t help yourselves.’ Carl gave a small laugh. It was the first Trevor had heard from Carl in ages and it gave him the same feeling of hearing carols on Christmas morning. ‘You know how in movies the homophobic bully always eventually comes out the closet? Well, yeah.’ ‘So you guys got together?’ ‘When you’re young you don’t think about consequences.’ Carl brought the glass to his lips. ‘You don’t think the world is really as bad as it is. Yeah, you see stuff on TV, and it’s always other people telling bad things about other people. But you don’t think it’s going to happen to you. But yeah, that day, he’d come looking for me. We talked and then walked through, well, there was a park close to my house with a big statue in the middle. We sat on the grass for a while, leaning against the statue, talking. It was nice.’ Trevor could almost see the last three words dropping to Carl’s chest in slow motion and disappearing into some deeply lodged memory. ‘And?’ ‘And then it was getting late so we got up, started walking towards the park exit and you know …’ Carl looked up to the ceiling as though the words would drop into his mouth at any minute. ‘Ahh, you know those fences, more like railings, that you have at the edge of a park? But they’re short, made out of logs? I forget what they’re called. Well, I was walking on that low fence, pretending I was, I don’t know, walking on a tightrope or something. I was falling down and getting back up. It was fun. And then he took my hand and walked me across one of the logs. I jumped down.’ Carl drained the glass and said, ‘We didn’t even look around, started kissing, hard, deep, long, right there. And then …’ He tapped the base of the empty glass on the arm of the couch a few times. ‘A car horn.’ He leaned back on the couch and closed his eyes. ‘I knew that horn.’

Carl’s head bowed slowly as though being pulled down by a weight affixed to his forehead. Before Trevor knew it, Carl’s wet face was on his lap. ‘It’s okay, my love. Just let it go. I’m here. Just let it go.’ His index and middle fingers made small circles on Carl’s scalp. ‘Who revs up a car like that? Who sees something they don’t like and presses on the gas? I jumped out the way but I couldn’t … didn’t … pull him away quickly enough. I mean, why? How? Am I that pathetic? That weak? How hard is it to push someone out of the way of an oncoming car?’ Trevor took Carl’s cheeks in his palms. ‘That wasn’t your fault. My sweetheart, you’ve got to know that wasn’t your fault.’ Carl’s cries got harder and quieter at the same time. ‘I know, I know. Intellectually I know that. My dad ordered me in the car and drove off. He just drove off! No, we drove off. Years later, when my father was in hospital, I asked … why. He looked guilty for all of two seconds and then said, “Well, you didn’t pull him out the way either.” Can you believe that? It was like a knife in my chest. That fucking guy had about ten good breaths left in him and he used half of them to be vindictive.’ Carl wiped his face using his left sleeve and Trevor made a move to get up. Carl stopped him. ‘It’s okay, I don’t need a tissue. Don’t go. Don’t give me any time or space to think about what to say. I don’t trust myself.’ He sniffed and rubbed the tip of his nose with the back of his right hand. ‘At my dad’s funeral, all I could think about was telling him “You forced me to live with your shit. I carried it like it was my shit but it wasn’t. I wasn’t you. I wasn’t anything like you.”’ ‘You’re nothing like him, Carl.’ ‘Ha. Are you sure? Look at all the drama that happened here tonight.’ ‘That was all on me.’ Carl took Trevor’s hands and kissed the palms over and over. ‘No, it wasn’t.’ A cell phone buzzed and they both jumped.

Promise

‘Carl? Sorry to call so late, love. Yes, it’s past midnight here. I’m sorry, are you guys asleep?’ Promise wished she had magic powers to go through the phone and see what was happening on the other side. Or, more easier than that would be for Anneke to just put the phone on speaker. They were all sleeping in Anneke’s bed because they were all scared the men would come back. But she had hardly slept at all because Gogo kept moving about and having to go to the toilet. And now, here was Anneke, talking loudly. The door wasn’t closed all the way and the light from the corridor was going straight in Promise’s eyes. Plus, Gogo was snoring. She got up, put on her slippers and sat by the bedroom door to listen better. ‘It happened again, Carl. I can’t shout. It … it happened again. Just without your dad this time. Some … some guys got in the house. We’re okay. Carl, calm down. Calm down. We’re okay. I’ll tell you but first … are you hearing me? You know, this September gone was … twenty-what years? I’ve lost count. Did you ? Oh, right now? Really? I can’t believe this is the first time you’re telling him anything about it. I know it’s difficult. Believe me, I know. I’ve been wondering if I should, I don’t know, go and see if his mother is still alive or something. The truth, I guess. No, Carl, I know that. But I do bear some … no, I do. I knew what your father did. And what did I do about it? All these years, and what did I do? But you, you’ve got to stop carrying this, my angel. You didn’t know what your father was going to do. It wasn’t your fault. It’s okay. I’m still here. It’s okay.’ It was strange that Anneke was telling Carl it’s okay over and over but she couldn’t stop crying.

Anneke sniffed a lot for a long time. Then she said, ‘Carl, listen to me, love. Go call Trevor. No, it’s not about that. But … please … put Trevor on.’

Joel

‘Get up. Get up, you bloody sod. Get up!’ ‘What the –?’ ‘Get up. Get up. You know what time it is?’ He opened his eyes to Niamh raining her filthy pink slippers on his head. Left, right, left, right with hardly a second in between. Every time he felt he was an inch away from getting up on one elbow to grab hold of some sense of the situation, a slipper would land on him. Once or twice his tongue tasted fur and hair. He had to shift his head left to right so the big diamanté in the middle of the worn fluff wouldn’t take one of his eyes out. ‘What in God’s name is wrong with you?’ ‘Up, up up,’ she kept shouting. ‘Are you fucking crazy?’ This stopped her. ‘That’s what you think, isn’t it?’ The knot on her dressing gown advanced and retreated with every heavy breath she took. ‘I know that’s what you think.’ ‘Well, you’re plenty fucking crazy right now.’ ‘You not going, are ya?’ ‘What?’ ‘To the hospital. For the operation. By now you were supposed to have been up, washed, had your breakfast and should’ve been going out the door right now. But you’re not going, are ya?’ ‘No breakfast. Doctor’s orders.’

She brought a slipper down on his cheek before he could stop her. He grabbed her wrist. The pain of his grip brought a flush to her face. It did nothing to dispel her angry, disappointed look. ‘Stop.’ His voice sounded like a roar. ‘So, are you going then? Look me in my eye and tell me you’re going.’ He grabbed the slippers from her now limp hands and threw them across the room. They landed on a grubby heap of clothes in the corner. ‘Right. I’ll just get me high heels then.’ ‘Niamh!’ She looked back at him. ‘What are you doing, Joel?’ ‘Me? What about you? You try to knock me senseless with your slippers and then ask me what’s going on? I’m the sick one, by the way.’ ‘Exactly. You’re sick and you’re supposed to be doing something about it. But …’ She seemed to have suddenly calmed herself down. She ed her hand over the bed sheets that he’d kicked into quite a rumple. ‘You’re just going to disappoint. Me. Ché. That’s one thing you never fail to do, disappoint at being disappointing.’ ‘What? How the fuck can you say such a thing? I’ve come this far. I’ve kept the doctor’s appointments. I’ve been meeting Ché. I’ve been going to those bloody AA meetings and baring my feckin soul.’ She looked at him like a patient, all-knowing mother waiting for her child to finish his hapless explanation of a misdemeanour. ‘Yes. And with all of that, you’re still in bed. I know you, Joel Sheedy. You’re not going, are you? Tell me I’m wrong.’ ‘What do you care? This has to do with you and the Nigerian. I know you cooked up some crazy scheme with a Nigerian to get money; money you’ll give to Abigail if Ché does the surgery. Yeah, he told me.’

‘Oh, please. I know there’s no money. I’m not crazy and I’m not stupid, even if you’ve spent the whole of your life thinking that. I know there’s no money.’ He stared at her, funnelling his gaze into her pale blue eyes to see if clarity, sanity, really lay behind them. She was right, of course. He’d always suspected, here and there at least, she was sixpence short of a pound. Maybe she was just a little out there, but there was hardly any harm in that. And for sure, he’d been no picnic to live with either. For the most part, they’d just let each other be. ‘Yeah, okay, you’re right. I’m not going.’ He turned on his side and drew the duvet up to his shoulders. ‘Selfish,’ she muttered. He looked up and she was over at the pile of clothes in the corner, sniffing them. ‘Why do you say that? This is actually helping the boy. He’s putting his life at risk, even if he doesn’t really understand how much yet. This is helping him, trust me.’ ‘He’s a grown man. He looks like a clever lad. Obviously, he’s thought about what he’s doing. He’s wanting to help you. He’s come all this way to help you. And now you not even gonna give him the chance to help you. You gonna throw his help back in his face. Me mum always used to say it’s generous to let someone else help you if they want to.’ She was crying into a chequered shirt that looked and, he was sure, smelled as though it would walk itself into the washing machine if it could. ‘And you don’t care that you’re turning your back on the one thing that could help you. That could give you a few more years. You don’t care about that. Which means you don’t care about me. About giving me a few more years with you. Giving us more time.’ He sat up on his elbows. ‘Niamh.’ He kept calling her name until she turned her reddened, puffy face to him. ‘Niamh. Let’s be honest, I haven’t been a great husband. Not even a good one. Maybe, an all-round piece of shite. I haven’t been decent to no one, least of all you, in a long time. So why do you put up with it? I can’t say I’m worth it. I

can’t lie here and say all of this is a good idea for Ché, for you. I don’t know that it is. Maybe this is your way out.’ ‘I don’t want out. God, that’s such a selfish thing to say.’ ‘No. It’s not. It’s unselfish.’ ‘No, you’re being a coward and you know it. You’re afraid. You don’t want to change and you’re giving it some virtue by calling it unselfish.’ ‘I’m a shit.’ ‘Yeah, maybe. Maybe this is it. Our lot. And we’ve got this one chance to make it a wee bit better.’ With his shoulders starting to hurt, he dropped himself down flat on the bed and spoke to the ceiling. ‘So more of the same then? Get a few more years, for more of the same.’ She stood over him, her face doing that thing she did. The hurt and fragile expression dropped away like a mask, to be replaced by a hard, fed-up glare. ‘Except now you’ve got someone else in your life to think about. So, no time for self-pity. Why don’t you hurry and wash and get to the hospital?’ He turned onto his left side, closing his eyes as he felt her hand on his shoulder. ‘Joe, what happened yesterday? After you went to the hospital? Did you and Ché have a fight?’ He wasn’t sure how to tell her that yesterday held one of the most spectacular moments of his life. And no one besides him truly saw it. After their meeting with Dr Kleinhans, he and Ché had walked for a while, the noisy congestion filling the streets and alleyways and mocking the silence between them. He knew instinctively that the time for more talking was over. The next day would come and it would bring with it whatever it felt like bringing with it. It was just going to be a matter of waking up – that in itself was an assumption – and seeing if one got one’s shoes on the right feet and if they were making their way, one in front of the other. They slowed down behind a small crowd gathered outside Sainsbury’s Local on

Brixton Road. A young black man stood in the centre of the group, holding up a few red and black playing cards. Before Joel had time to shift his view from behind a man who’d picked up his small son to hoist him on his shoulders, the crowd was laughing. Joel moved to where he could see a young woman pulling a four of diamonds out of her enormous cleavage. The crowd clapped. Next, the magician asked loudly for a fifty pence coin. People began digging in their pockets and bags when suddenly, Ché threw his hand up. ‘Here, I have one.’ How well did Ché even know British coins? The musician came over, clapped his hands and whipped up enthusiasm and gratitude from the crowd as though some great deed had already been performed. Joel was surprised how good it felt to see Ché smiling. ‘I’m full of hot air,’ the magician laughed. ‘Did you know that? We magicians are full of hot air.’ He blew on the fifty pence coin. ‘Did you know metal changes its properties when it gets hot? Well, I’m so full of hot air that I’m going to change this coin right before your eyes.’ The magician held the coin close to Ché’s face. ‘Here, you blow on it a bit first.’ Ché blew but the magician just shook his head. ‘He’s a good guy, people. Not full of hot air at all. I can tell you’re a good guy.’ Ché’s face squirmed slightly for a couple of seconds as though he wasn’t entirely in agreement with this beneficent judgement. Joel’s eyes caught Ché’s, between blinks, before going back to the magician, who’d reclaimed his position at the centre of the amused crowd. The magician held up the coin, shaped his mouth into a big O and exhaled in spurts, as though he was warming his hands in the middle of a harsh winter. When the magician took the coin between his teeth and began biting, showing his row of white teeth against dark skin and straining like a kid pulling at a tough caramel toffee square, a woman standing in front of Joel squealed softly and started to mumble, ‘No, no.’ There were gasps, shrieks, laughter and exclamations of disbelief as the magician held up one jagged half of the fifty pence coin. The magician walked up to Ché and blew hard on the coin again for a second. The crowd roared, expanding out and changing its configuration at different points. The shiny, whole coin had reappeared between the magician’s

thumb and middle finger. Joel felt a pang in the stomach watching Ché’s bemused expression, a physical reminder that he’d never seen Ché’s face, Ché’s eyes, on a Christmas or birthday morning, on receiving a good school report card, on getting a new bike or video game or storybook. In fact, he had no idea which, if any, of those things a young Ché would have been most excited about. But that day, as the long-awaited sun warmed the Brixton crowd and sprinkled gold bits onto Ché’s short hair, Joel felt he was peering through a window into the past, long closed but for some comionate reason, forced ajar by life and its penchant for piling crazy circumstances one on top of another. As he looked down intermittently at the coin in his hand, Ché’s eyes were bright, his handsome face a mix of childish glee and intrigue, his laugh infectious and alluring. Two attractive women standing next to Ché hadn’t moved their gaze from him, despite the magician now kneeling in front of a woman in a wheelchair, getting ready for his next trick. After that, their walk to Best Friend Rescue had been full of friendly arguments over the secrets of the trick. ‘You don’t understand,’ he mumbled to Niamh, before pulling the duvet over his head and welcoming the instant darkness. ‘You can’t possibly understand.’

Ché

You don’t miss the water till the well run dry. His mother was sure that verse could be found in the Bible. ‘Nobody ever bother look,’ she always said. She used it as a final, moral punch in just about any situation: the dog not being fed, the F on his History exam, his feigning sickness on a Sunday morning as she readied herself for church. Of course, what she meant was that whatever the gripe, one day she would not be there to nag, to be, along with the many mosquitoes that filled their sitting room after sunset, the conscience buzzing in his ear about the kind of man he should be. He looked at himself in the oval bathroom mirror, standing in an unfamiliar flat not nearly impervious enough to the early adhan from the nearby mosque. What if she might be the one missing the water? What if he was going to be the well that ran dry? You don’t miss the water till the well run dry. Truth was, the saying came to him not because of any existential crisis he was no doubt in the throes of. But because of the water gushing out of the tap for the past too many minutes. It was a careless, first-world action, he knew. Hadn’t he seen something on the television yesterday about a drought in South Africa where taps in airport and restaurant toilets were dry and people were reaching for hand sanitisers instead? ‘Ché?’ There was a little rap on the door. ‘You okay? You been in there a while now.’ He saw her trying the door knob. He turned the tap off. The waste of this precious resource seemed even more criminal now since the quiet time it had afforded him had done nothing to quell the subtle commotion in his stomach. ‘Hey,’ he said, closing the bathroom door behind him. Mandisa looked fresh in a white turtleneck and black jeans, a thick pair of socks reaching just over her calves. He knew she was relishing the opportunity to wear boots whenever she got the chance. ‘Shelley’s gone to work?’

She looked at her phone. ‘Shouldn’t you be dressed by now?’ He sat on the sofa bed and motioned for her to come over. When she did, she took his hand. It felt bone dry in hers and he wondered if it would be further reason for her to wonder what the hell he’d been doing in the bathroom all that time. ‘This life, eh. Time es so fast. One minute you’re a baby, depending on everyone for everything. Next minute, you’re the one saving a life.’ ‘Well, after one time is two. Ahh, can you get philosophical and dressed at the same time?’ ‘I … I don’t think I’ll make it.’ He didn’t need to lift his gaze off the blue carpet and a row of shoes sticking out from beneath the bed to know her eyes were wide. ‘Excuse me?’ ‘I don’t think I’ll make it.’ ‘You don’t think you’ll make it.’ She said the last bit very slowly, as though not wanting to misquote him. ‘It’s not a movie we trying to catch, Ché.’ He lay down on the bed and was reaching for the duvet when she pulled it off him. ‘Um, hello?’ ‘I’m tired, Mandisa.’ ‘Well, if you can get yourself to the hospital, there’s an anaesthesiologist waiting to count backwards and give you all the sleep you want.’ ‘That supposed to be a joke?’ ‘No. Ché, your father is probably at the hospital already. What’s going on? You really having second thoughts?’ ‘Can I have the duvet, please, it’s cold in here.’ He covered himself up to his shoulders, feeling like a child ready to be kissed goodnight. ‘You are doing something really important. If I said that once, I’ve said it a

thousand times.’ ‘I know.’ ‘So, why you having second thoughts? At this eleventh hour?’ He wanted to say stop with all the mathematical references but instead said, ‘Why you think it’s second thoughts? Maybe all I just ever had was one thought. Going little bit left and right of that one thought.’ ‘And what was that?’ ‘Do I have to do this? Like, have to, obligated to, have a responsibility to –’ ‘I O Level English, I understand what “have to” means. But how many times you said to me this is not really logical. You can have all the medical information in the world, know all the risks and all that, but in the end, is a heartical decision. Is something you feel inside, something that comes in a small moment, that you can’t explain, well, don’t have to explain to no one. I thought you found that. So, you saying all this time, you never got to that point? So, all skin teeth ain’t laugh, eh.’ He let her words, the nuanced poetry of them, fall on him. The TV was on and someone was speaking in that British accent that was meant to give a sense of order and propriety, superiority and truth. Outside, horns were beeping, cars revving. Life was happening in its usual haphazard, hope-for-the-best kind of way. ‘Just how you say that some things hard to explain, some things only make sense in the tiniest corners of the mind, in the cracks in between the thoughts? Well, that’s where I’m at right now. And my feeling, even if I can’t explain it that well to you, is that I don’t think I’m going to make it.’ ‘And you decide that now? On this very morning when your father is probably already in that hospital dressing gown with his ass-crack showing.’ They both laughed and he asked her why she was intent on making light of everything. ‘Because I know you.’ She took his cheeks in her warm hands. ‘I know you gonna do the right thing. This is just nerves and that’s fine, normal. Maybe I should’ve even expected it. But, I’m giving you five more minutes to get out of

bed and get into the bathroom. Maybe even get wet this time. Oh, yes, maybe I should even call the hospital and speak to your doctor to say you’ll be a bit late. We could always blame the train or something. That’s what your cousin said.’ She began to get off the bed but he held onto her forearm. ‘Mandisa, I’m serious.’ She stared at him, then glanced around the room. Was she expecting the words to come out the cupboards and drawers, pool around her feet and find their way to her mouth? ‘Did something happen yesterday? After you guys met with the doctor?’ He patted the bed and she sat back down. ‘Yeah, something happened. Small moment, as you said. We were at a pound, I don’t even know if that’s what they call it here. But anyway, lots of rescue dogs and all that. We saw that girl from the AA meeting.’ ‘Why did you all go there?’ ‘I think he just wanted to show me, I don’t know, his hangouts. You know, the places that important to him. He volunteers there from time to time.’ ‘Well, okay.’ He knew that tone. It meant if there was a point, he should get to it quickly. ‘I was taking my time walking along this long corridor with rooms on either side. Joel was ahead of me. Actually, he’d disappeared somewhere with that girl. Dogs in cages barking all over the place. It was starting to get on my nerves, for real, but then I got to the end of the corridor and it led out into a garden behind the building. There were a few dogs on the grass. One of them was jumping up to catch a toy, and all in all, it was a nice scene, for real. Then I look over and I see my … Joel, sitting on a chair and this little boy in front of him. The boy was just sitting down there by his feet, playing with a dog. I don’t know if he was adopting the dog or what. But anyway, just like that, Joel bend down and stroke the dog back. You know, he’s a big man, kinda rough looking, not refined or anything. Well, you know. But he just look so … so … gentle-like and awkward at the same time. It was weird, kinda … cringy.’ ‘Look,’ Mandisa started to say.

‘No, wait. Then, he stopped stroking the dog’s back and just stared at the boy. The boy was busy with the dog, looking down, so he didn’t notice. But there was Joel, just watching the boy, watching the dog. Then he put out his hand and just touch the boy on the top of the head, light at first. Then he start pushing his fingers through the boy’s hair.’ ‘Oh my God, like, paedophile-like?’ ‘No, man.’ He sucked his teeth and threw himself on his back. Times like this, when she didn’t understand him, he just wanted to keep quiet and forget the whole story. ‘Okay, okay, sorry. Continue. You think he knew the boy?’ ‘No. I think he wish he knew the boy. Like he wish he knew me. At first, it was as though the boy didn’t notice Joel stroking his hair. Then he looked up. The two of them just looked at each other for some seconds, until the dog barked and ran to someone else. And the boy got up and ran after him.’ ‘Okay?’ He sat up on his elbows. ‘It’s like … he doesn’t even know if I had a dog when I was small.’ ‘Did you?’ ‘That’s not the point.’ ‘Exactly.’ ‘Hear me out. He was watching that boy, trying to read his face, trying to come up with a story about the boy’s expressions. But he didn’t know how to read the boy’s expressions because he didn’t know him. Same with me. He don’t know my expressions. He even know what excites me? He know if the shock on my face is fear or surprise or happiness? He can’t read it. He don’t know me. He was studying that boy’s face and I know, I know, he was thinking about all the times like … when I did something he would like, like something he would be proud about, and he would look at me without me knowing he looking at me. Just like what he was doing with that boy. How many of those moments never happened? Never to come again, in my whole life, and his too.’

‘Well, you don’t know what he was thinking, really. There he was trying to get into the child’s expression and here you are, trying to get into his.’ ‘Right, so what does that say? That nobody knows anything, nobody really knows anyone.’ ‘Well, if we on the same page there, that doesn’t prove your point. You not making a point for your inaction, for the fact that, instead of walking into the hospital right now, you still in your pyjamas. Because if we all just fumbling around in the dark, trying to make sense of this life, however it come to us, then why you punishing him? He no better than you and you no better than him. So you have no reason not to go there today. No reason at all. I don’t see how this story illuminates anything. It just proves my point that we all human, all the same. And if I help you, you help someone else.’ ‘You don’t understand. There’s just so much space between him and me. Yes, we had a few nice moments, but that not enough. Not enough for me to go and lie down on that table and risk not having those kinds of moments with my own son, or my own child.’ ‘Oh, so now this is about your son? You never talk about that before.’ ‘It’s about death, Mandisa!’ ‘His will come quicker than yours.’ ‘You don’t know that. I’m not saying I’m turning my back on him. Maybe me and him must just try to get to know each other a bit better. Have more or even a few of those moments he had with that kid. I mean, I just don’t know the man.’ ‘But, Ché, this is not news to you, that you didn’t know him. You realise now, today, that you don’t know the man? You pick this morning to have an existential crisis?’ ‘You don’t get it.’ ‘Stop saying that. Stop trying to be all deep and complicated. Just say you don’t want to do it. Why you wasting time on this story about some boy. Just say you don’t want to go.’

‘I thought you understood me, for real.’ He turned his back on her. He didn’t know if it was because he’d pulled the duvet over his ears but when she spoke next, her voice sounded deeper and more solemn than he’d ever heard it before. ‘Ché, I understand. I understand everything you saying. I understand you better than you think. You not wrong. But we can’t make life perfect, we can’t make those little moments perfect, have them all full of meaning and sitting nicely in a row, making sense and connecting somehow to everything else, while the world cheers us on. You want all those conditions in place, all those conditions right, before you make a decision. And it’s never going to be like that. Sometimes you just have to take a risk.’ She opened the curtains and light flooded the room. ‘Now, you going into the shower?’ He squinted at the light that came in, imagining it warm on his face.

Carl

He thought about the evening, night and morning he’d had. His plan had been to put the hospital on the map, or at least on the first few pages of the British Journal of Organ Transplantation. Now, he had to force himself not to look down to check if his socks were matching or if he’d managed to get his shoes on the right feet. Trevor was at home, packing. The flight to Johannesburg would only leave Heathrow that night. He wanted to tell someone – Nurse Gladys, Laurelie, Dr Hiddleston, somebody – about the domino of each drama, how they only served to lead him and Trevor back to each other. His mother’s call had naturally derailed their heart-to-heart about Rosenhof and replaced it with one about Bones. Guilt had woven itself into that conversation, too, but their subtle, glorious momentum towards each other continued. The man in front of him cleared his throat. Just one of them was no use to him, or to medical science, for that matter. Still, there would be other opportunities to change the world. The men might reschedule. He didn’t know them well enough to tell. The big problem was, of course, they didn’t know each other. But they had time to mend things. Carl leaned back in his chair and looked out the window again. All of London had woken up to a new season but it was still one of those days when he couldn’t tell the meteorological mood. Perhaps the weather would sigh, relent and pull back the clouds to reveal a blanket of blue. Or maybe the clouds, for no other reason than petulant adherence to English unpredictability, would coalesce, lock their arms and maybe, if they felt like it, strain to keep a downpour at bay. Either way, despite a crazy night, what was left was slowly coagulating like

molten steel particles towards a sense of newness. A shared space was suddenly simplified, suddenly empty of anxiety and guilt. Calm and, dare he think it, hope, was possible.

Acknowledgements

I shudder to think what my manuscript would have looked like without the brilliant editorial pens of Joanne Richards and Richard Beynon from All About Writing. More than saving me from a propensity for verbosity, exposition and purple prose, they saved me from myself. Thank you Lorena Goldsmith of Daniel Goldsmith Associates literary consultancy in the UK who, after the manuscript had been through so many edits, was a breath of fresh air and a much-needed dose of encouragement. I thank the following medical professionals who were open to my amateur questioning about living donor liver transplants and made valiant attempts to condense years of medical schooling into digestible blurbs – Dr S Sudhindran of the Amrita Institute of Medical Sciences and Research Centre, Kochi, Kerala; my cousin and Atlanta-based gastroenterologist, Kenny Frontin; and Specialist Surgeon Anna Sparaco from the Netcare Rosebank Hospital in Johannesburg. To my friends who, for years on end, listened to me droning on about wanting to be a writer – thanks for never saying (even if you felt it) that I should throw in the towel. A special thanks to the current and past of my book club, Lolabooks, for your insightful reading and on the manuscript. To my family, including my two wonderful kids, Khaiya-Lee and Noah – all that I am and ever will be, is because of you. And of course, to the wonderful publishing team at Kwela Books, who saw a glint of something in a slush pile, reached for it and helped polish it to within an inch of perfection. I am forever grateful.

Summary

In London, surgeon Carl Kleinhans hopes for possible redemption through a pioneering but risky living donor liver transplant. His patient, an alcoholic, is relying on his estranged Trinidadian son to be the donor. But while saving others, Carl feels his personal life needs help, as his relationship deteriorates amidst buried memories and lies. Meanwhile, at Carl’s childhood home in South Africa, young Promise is aware of things being spoken of in hushed tones. If You Save Me is a sweeping story that asks what you would sacrifice to save another. And more importantly, what is expected when they save you?

About the author

Originally from Trinidad and Tobago, Lisa-Anne Julien lived in New York and London before making Johannesburg her home in 2002. Her short story ‘Pulling Seine and Catching Souls’ was awarded a Highly Commended prize in the 2009 Commonwealth Short Story competition. Her short stories have appeared in UK Writers Forum, Potbake Productions and Femrite. In 2020, the unedited manuscript of If You Save Me was longlisted in the Mslexia First Novel Competition. Lisa-Anne’s feature and travel writing have been widely published in commercial magazines.

Kwela Books, an imprint of NB Publishers, a division of Media24 Boeke (Pty) Ltd, 40 Heerengracht, Cape Town 8001 www.kwela.com

Copyright © 2021 Lisa-Anne Julien

All rights reserved.

No part of this electronic book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including photocopying and recording, or by any other information storage or retrieval system, without written permission from the publisher.

Cover design by Marthie Steenkamp Cover images by Shutterstock/Miranda_B; iStock/ranplett E-book design by Wouter Reinders

Available in print: First edition in 2021 ISBN: 978-0-7957-1020-9

Epub edition: First edition in 2021 ISBN: 978-0-7957-1021-6 (epub)

Table of Contents Title page Dedication Motto Carl Promise Ché Trevor Joel Trevor Carl Promise Ché Joel Trevor Ché Carl Promise Ché Trevor

Joel Ché Carl Promise Trevor Carl Promise Trevor Promise Joel Ché Carl Acknowledgements About the book Summary About the author Imprint page