Genie and Paul (2 page)

Genie was five and Paul ten when Mam took them to live in London. They had never travelled on a plane before. They flew for hours over an empty grey desert. When Genie asked if this was London, Paul laughed.

You idiot. That’s the wing of the plane.

Some hours later, the captain announced their imminent landing.

That’s
London, said Paul, sounding almost awestruck, forgetting for a moment how angry he was to be leaving Mauritius. His cheek was pressed to Genie’s at the window as the plane banked steeply. He pointed out the sticky webs of light below. Looks like God’s been gobbing.

Mam would normally have snapped at him for that
malpropte
, but she seemed not to be aware of anything around her. When the plane began to buck and shudder in anticipation of its landing, Mam seemed equally apprehensive, leaning further back into her seat, hands gripping the armrests, as though trying to resist the inevitable descent.

They were going to live with Mam’s family – Grandpère and Grandmère and Tonton Daniel. Genie and Paul had never met them before. They were leaving behind Genie’s dad, and Genie’s half-brother Jean-Marie, neither of whom had ever been to London. They were leaving behind Mauritius, the only place Genie and Paul had ever known.

Everything they brought with them had fitted in Mam’s suitcase. She kept it on top of the wardrobe in her new room.
Mam’s was a gloomy room with only a narrow window, the curtains always half-drawn. It had been Grandpère’s until they arrived and it was still cluttered with his things: the back issues of
Titbits
magazine; the Teasmaid on the bedside table which Grandmère and Tonton Daniel had bought him for his birthday but which, to their knowledge, he had never used (No wonder, Paul had said, earning himself a slap around the ear, he only drinks rum and he never has to get up for work); the boxes and bottles of old medicines which crowded the ugly putty-coloured mantelpiece; and a stack of old books. Paul would spend hours absorbed in
Titbits
, but if he was feeling restless he would flick through Grandpère’s
Teach
Yourself English
, reading aloud.

Hello, Mrs Baker. Is Susan there? (Paul’s voice posh and mincing, with a heavy Mauritian accent.) Yes, Roger. Please come in. Susan! Roger is here to see you! Would you like a cup of tea, Roger? Yes, please, Mrs Baker, you old bag. You have a very nice home. But you stink of shit.

Or, if he was in a good mood and wanted to please Genie, he would adopt the voices of characters from the TV programme
Bagpuss
, which she loved. But again, some trace of Creole inflected his imitations of Professor Yaffle or the mouse organ mice, rendering his impressions satirical despite his sincere intentions. In return, to console Paul who seemed to miss Mauritius so much, Genie would ‘read’ aloud to him from Mam’s old copy of
Paul et Virginie
, making up stories around the beautiful engravings. And, since it was the book for which the two of them had been named, Genie would cast them both in the title roles. I can’t swim, said Genie, so you are carrying me across the river. We are running away from home. And my hair is very lovely.

There was Mam’s dressing table, too, crowded with things that Genie liked to look at, particularly the framed photo of Mam with Genie’s dad Serge outside their old house in
Mauritius. Genie would marvel at the difference in their looks: Mam’s more various, the Indian skin, the Chinese bones, the Creole eyes and mouth, while Papa – Serge – was so
dark-skinned
that you could barely make out his features. Papa was hard to see in the photo in the way that he was getting harder and harder for Genie to see in her head. There were so many new things – new people – around her. Genie looked like Papa and Paul like Mam but also different – his hair and his skin and his eyes that same colour, but with maybe more of a glow. Like honey, Mam would say, almost proudly.

Once Genie asked where the photo of Paul’s dad was.

You can’t take photos of a ghost, Paul said.

Is he dead, then? Genie was impressed.

He is to me.

They lived in three rooms on the ground floor and basement of 40 St George’s Avenue, a narrow Victorian terraced house in Tufnell Park. The flat was not self-contained: to walk from one room to another involved stepping out into the corridor used by the other residents. Genie was shy of these strangers in their home, but Paul would try to engage them all in conversation – the young
angle
in the squirrel-coloured duffel coat who lived right at the top, or the old Chinese man (
bonom sinwa
, Grandmère called him). But these men seemed as timid as Genie was.

Genie and Paul’s play was shaped by the movements of the other members of their household: while Daniel was at poly or Grandmère was in the kitchen they would play in the front room, where the four of them slept; if Mam was at work they played in hers. And sometimes, if Grandpère was out, they would go down to the kitchen to watch television, or out into the garden. But Grandpère rarely went out. He sat at home all day in his chair in the kitchen, where he also slept, watching the horse-racing or the news and drinking
rum. Grandpère, they thought, was gradually flaking away. His skin was grey-brown, dusty with a light white scurf like the bloom on old chocolate. Seeing him sober made him as foreign to Genie and Paul as hearing him speak in English. When he stood up he had the grand proportions of a monument, but when he walked he staggered like a man caught in a gale. The unpredictability of his movements frightened them.

So they spent a lot of time in that draughty hallway where once they had played in a garden in Mauritius. They would crunch into dust the dead leaves that had drifted in through the door, or play post office with the pile of mail for ex-tenants who had left no forwarding address. The hallway smelt of damp newspapers, the muddied doormat and the cold air from outside, spiked with the smell of Grandmère’s cooking drifting up from the kitchen.

Every morning, when the sun rose to a point where it set the orange walls on fire, Genie would leave the sofabed she shared with Grandmère and Paul and cross the prickly carpet to climb in with Daniel. They would lie there staring up at the ceiling as though contemplating the night sky and her heart would rise like a balloon. They had long, aimless conversations: she would ask him how thunderstorms happened, or why a chair was called a chair or what colour Paul’s dad was. Daniel would try to answer but Paul would shout, from the other side of the room, Because it
looks
like a chair.

Or, Don’t you talk about my dad.

Genie was sure for a long time that Daniel was Jesus with his long hair, his odd beauty (a different configuration from Mam’s: Chinese bones, Creole skin, Indian eyes – green eyes) and the righteous anger never directed at her but often used to protect her. In that way, Paul was like Daniel. As she and
Daniel lay there, she stroked his smooth brown skin and tugged lightly at the hairs in his armpits, which were tough and silky like the fibres from the corn cobs Grandmère would strip and boil for them. She asked him if he would ever get married.

Oh, I don’t think so, he said. Maybe when I’m ninety.

She would have preferred him to say Never, but ninety seemed quite far away.

How old are you now? she asked.

Twenty-two. It takes a long time to count from
twenty-two
to ninety.

And then Genie offered to marry Daniel and he cordially accepted. Paul laughed nastily. He chucked aside his pillow and ran across the room, now barred with sunlight. He kicked Daniel’s bed and called Daniel a pervert. That was how it usually ended: with Paul getting angry and calling Daniel names. And then Daniel would say something like, Shut up, you little shit. And then Paul would go running to Mam’s room next door saying, Mam! Daniel said shut up you little shit. Then they would hear Mam sigh and rise heavily out of bed and come into the room and tell Genie to go down and ask Grandmère to make the porridge.

But Daniel had lied to Genie. Three months after they came to stay, he told them he was getting married.

It was his day off from the poly. He was taking them to the park.

Let’s go
popom
, Daniel said, rubbing his hands, Paul screwing up his face at this babyish expression. But still he raced to pull on his shoes. They walked past the knuckly, pollarded elms along St George’s Avenue, the pavement wet from recent rain but still crusted here and there with stubborn lumps of dog-shit. Swinging from Daniel’s hand, Genie pointed these out to him.

How helpful, he said. Thank you, Genie. You have a special doo-dar.

What are you on about? asked Paul.

A dog-do radar: a ‘doo-dar’. And then Daniel made a sound like a police siren –
doo-dar! doo-dar!
– which Genie repeated on pointing out further trouble-spots. Paul pulled up the hood of his anorak and, head down, hands deep in pockets, dropped back a few paces, even though he had no friends here to witness his shame.

It was on their way back from the park, after they had stopped off at the sweet shop, that Daniel broke the news. He was to marry a fellow student, Fanchette, in the spring. Strangely, it was Paul who was most upset. It was Paul – barely able to spit out the words around his jawbreaker – who accused Daniel of having lied to them.

A week before the wedding, Genie spotted a clutch of daffodils in a corner of the gloomy front garden, near the bins. It was the first time she had ever seen daffodils. She was shocked by their waxy brightness and pointed them out to Paul. Later that afternoon, while she was being fitted for the bridesmaid’s dress Grandmère was making, Genie heard the front door click. She looked out to see Paul in the garden, scavenging for the daffodils. She tried to run after him but Grandmère had her pinned in place.

Res trankil, ta
.

She watched as Paul tugged them up, returning with an armful. He went into Mam’s room. She heard Mam tell him off.

You should leave beautiful things where you find them, Mam screamed at him. They’re all going to die now.

On the day of the wedding, Genie was given a book to carry along with her posy of pink and white silk flowers. It was a
small prayer-book bound in white leather with silver-edged pages. Genie thought it as precious and mysterious as a
spell-book
. She asked Paul to read to her from it.

I am the Resurrection and the Life saith the Lord: he that praiseth my farts, though he were stinky, yet shall I kick him in the arse
.

Grandpère did not make it to the ceremony, but was waiting for them at the hall when they arrived for the reception. He swung Genie around and she smelt the chemical smell of the special cream he applied to his flaking skin, which made her think of the kitchen. This was the first time that Genie and Paul had seen him outside it. He had appointed himself barman and was serving drinks at the trestle table in the hall. They took their seats at the top table without him. The tablecloths were decorated with marguerites and asparagus ferns. Mam fussed over them to make sure they were not wilting and, when Genie asked how the flowers had appeared there, Mam told her she had taken them from the garden and sewn them on herself.

Paul tugged at Mam’s sleeve.

But Mam, you said you should leave beautiful things where they were, or they would die.

What are you talking about? Mam snapped.

The daffodils! he cried, turning on his heels and running into the crowd of guests.

Shortly afterwards, when Mam was spooning biryani onto Genie’s plate at the buffet table, they heard a commotion at the other end of the hall. They saw Paul running away. He had bitten off the head of the bride figurine on the wedding cake. Genie was sent after him. She found him out in the corridor, by the kitchen, where she could hear shouting. Paul was peering through the glass of the kitchen door, and when Genie joined him she saw Grandpère slumped in a chair, long legs splayed out, with Daniel astride him, shouting into his
face and gripping Grandpère’s wrists to restrain his wildly flailing arms: Grandpère was trying to hit Daniel. Paul turned on his heel and ran to the fire exit, where he pushed down the bar of the door, and left, slamming it shut behind him.

Back at the table, Genie noticed that champagne had been spilt on her little prayer book. The leather cover was buckled and stained and some of the silver had run from the edges of the pages. It was ruined. She put her head into Mam’s lap and sobbed. Mam gently pushed her aside, anxious for the silk of her new dress.

From that night on, everything was different. Daniel and Fanchette went to stay in a bedsit they had rented in Islington. Grandpère slept in Daniel’s bed. Paul and Genie were supposed to be asleep when Daniel and Fanchette’s brother brought him in. They staggered under the dead weight of him, a limp crucifix, and laid him on the bed. There was a businesslike tone to Daniel’s voice that Genie had not heard before.

Met li lor so kote, tansyon li vomi liswar
. Put him on his side, in case he’s sick in the night.

After they left the room, Genie began to cry quietly.

You’d better get used to it, Paul said. She’d had no idea he was still awake. Something in his voice crackled like static. Daniel’s going to Canada with her.

Later that night, through Grandpère’s snores, Genie heard Paul cry. She slipped her hand into his. He did not push it away.

Some months after the wedding, they went to see Daniel and Fanchette off at the airport. At the Departures gate, Paul barely acknowledged Daniel, turning his back shortly after their goodbye hug. Back home, when Genie asked if he was upset that Daniel had gone, Paul was scornful.

He’s
the one who should be sad. He’s leaving
us
. And then he said, I hate airports.

The next day, Grandpère came into the front room. He almost never came into the front room.
Ale vini! Nu pe al promne!
Come on, you lot! We’re going out!