Love Me (7 page)

‘It's your car.'

‘Thanks.' She lights one up and sticks it in the corner of her mouth as the sirens speed past and fade. ‘Are you pissed off at me?'

I blink. The blood beat does a little two-step. ‘Why would I be?'

‘You know.' She doesn't look at me. ‘About me and Zed?' And because I don't answer right away, she keeps talking and sucking her cigarette in nervy little puffs. ‘Because I know he's like family to you, know what I mean? I would have told you about us before, but I s'pose I was waiting 'til there was actually something to tell.'

‘Nah it's alright. I don't care,' I say.
I don't
.
I don't
.
I don't.

‘You sure? 'Cause it seemed like you might've been having a bit of a row earlier.'

‘Yeah. No. Not really,' I tell her, ‘more of a disagreement.'

‘Disagreement?'

‘Stupid stuff, nothing major.' I laugh. ‘You know. Like brother and sister.'

‘Right . . . Phew!' She grins a glance at me, makes a show
of wiping her dry forehead. ‘Just had to check on that one, you know. You're my mate and I wouldn't wanna take the mick. You know that, don't you?'

‘Yeah,' I say, feeling muddy and slightly crazed. My mate? We have nothing in common at all, really. I met both her and Dwayne at work. And I'm pretty sure it would depress the hell out of Dwayne to know the only one I had any type of crush on was Max – of the platonic variety of course. She was one of the most extreme-looking people I've ever met, and the Clicker likes that sort of thing.

I was in late for work one day, and my row was already fully populated by the Undead when I arrived. One of the only free seats was next to this living cartoon, this ice-cream blonde who even
sat
mischievously. If beauty had a caricature, it would be Max. Improbably large, blue eyes at an improbable distance from each other in her triangular face. A high forehead and narrow, full mouth, cheekbones like razors, white-blonde hair down to her ass. Skinny as a no-fat latte, rocking a shapeless vintage mini-dress over a shrunken jumper. She was shocking to look at. She made the rest of the room look khaki drab. So I took the seat on her left, mainly to see this freakishly pretty thing up close. And then, when I was logging onto my terminal (‘terminal' as in ‘illness'), she kind of double-taked between phone calls and said:

‘Hiya!'

‘Hey.'

‘Are you new?'

‘I wish.'

‘Don't we all?' She laughed. I sank a bit in the middle, she was
so
beautiful. I wondered what it must be like.

‘I like your dress,' I said.

‘Thanks! It was only a tenner!' she replied and went shuffling around in her bag, one of those flimsy jobs you
sometimes get free with women's magazines. She had a super-easy manner about her, like she'd never had to worry, ever. She wore leopard-print wedges with ankle straps and purple tights. I stole a photo.

‘Are you a photographer or summink?'

‘Yeah I . . . well. Sort of. I take pictures.'

‘That's bloody brilliant! I'm a model,' she said without self-consciousness. With a promising rustle, she pulled out a packet of Jaffa Cakes and shoved them at me. ‘Go on! Be a devil!'

I had one, we introduced ourselves and so began our little mutual appreciation society. I took some pictures of her for free over the next couple of weeks, some of my best. Her portfolio got a boost, and so did my tired routine as I began trailing her around Shoreditch on drinking expeditions.

Well. It was fun while it lasted.

‘How did you hook up with him anyway?' I ask now, fighting to be casual.

‘Pretty random, really. I bumped into him on Oxford Street a couple of weeks ago and we started talking.'

‘You hate Oxford Street.'

‘I had a casting.'

‘That big one you told me about?'

‘Yeah, exactly! For
Gloss
magazine.' Spiteful bastard. I remember that day. Right after what happened with me, he bumped into my friend and gave her his number. ‘You've got a bloody good memory. Must be your little puritanical lifestyle.'

‘What do you mean, puritanical? I'm a drunk, if you haven't noticed.'

We drive in silence for a while, Max bobbing up and down to the commercial gangsta rap on the radio, singing along.

‘You like this shit?' I ask her.

‘Not particularly. Just catchy innit?'

‘True.'

‘I didn't get it, by the way.'

‘What?'

‘That job in
Gloss
magazine. Bloody bastards. They took this really skinny bitch instead. Properly fucking skinny. Looked like her last meal was breast milk.'

I look out of the window.

‘So what,' she says, pushing her hair back and adjusting the mirror, ‘is going on with you and Dwayne?'

‘Dwayne? What the hell does he have to do with anything?'

‘I think he likes you.'

‘Well, I don't like him,' I say, then, ‘I do . . . but not like that.'

‘He's a good bloke, Eden.'

‘So? There's a lot of good guys I'm not interested in.'

‘Well, you are too pretty for 'im, anyway.'

‘Damn right.'

Max taps absently on the steering wheel. ‘Well, I like Zed quite a lot,' she says, disjointedly. ‘He's got something about him. Mysterious like . . . You know what I mean? Plus, it doesn't hurt that he's so fucking
buff
!' she laughs. ‘Bloody 'ell. I told 'im he should try and book some modelling jobs.'

‘Yeah,' I say, trying to do something acceptable with my face. Hating her: hating him: hating myself. ‘You guys look really happy together.'

Max slides to a halt before a red light, eyes forward.

‘We are, I think,' she confirms, and glances over as the light blinks from yellow to green. ‘You're so gorgeous with that figure and those lovely eyes . . . You'll find somebody.'

I try to keep the weak curve of my lips intact. ‘I'm not looking, actually.'

When we get to Clapton Pond, I ask Max to drop me
off at a corner shop in her beat-up Mini. She says it's no problem, she can wait and then take me home.

‘No, it's fine. I don't live far from here . . .'
Parole officer
, I don't say.

‘Well, OK.' Max leans over and kisses me on the cheek. ‘Be safe, yeah?'

‘Thanks for the lift, Max,' I reply, fake-smiling.

‘I'll call you later!'

I wait 'til she's out of sight to wipe the bubble-gum-coloured gloss off my face. Walk really fast.

‘You alright, princess?' says the Turkish guy in the off-licence, with a wink.

‘Give me a bottle of Jack and we'll see,' I tell him, just as a local nut-job walks in for his twentieth can of Special Brew. I leave quickly, before he has a chance to harass me. Take a left into Kenninghall Road where tower blocks dominate the landscape.

My manor isn't as leafy and clean as Zed's upscale, Highgate neighbourhood. It's squashed up, noisy, and full of happenings. The people all seem to be either silent or screaming, barrelling into you or standing in your way. It's all about bald, demoralised patches of grass, stunted trees and a dirty white van parked halfway onto the kerb. It's all about dogshit left to harden. It's all about sweet-faced, hooded boys and running toddlers and silly tarts wearing clubwear at two in the afternoon.

I've not even had a holiday in ten years. This is all it's been for the longest: scummy London with its scarred pavements and faded sky. Oily puddles. Brazen lunatics walking endlessly, repelling gazes like the wrong end of a magnet. And they are the only ones that speak what they're feeling because wherever you are in London, there's no space for big emotions. Swallow it, stifle it, shut up. It's branded into us all at birth or on arrival.

When I look around here sometimes, I kind of understand why my mother felt that she had to leave. But if she'd made do, if she'd learned to be resigned, all our lives would be different.

I rub my arms and walk quickly towards home, avoiding men's gazes.

A cloud's gone over the sun and I feel cold in this dress.

‘BRAKES, EDEN!' JULIET
yells, a single eyebrow shooting up. She stops tidying her stall and gives me the look of death.

‘What?'

‘Repeat, please.'

I sigh. The season is shockingly loyal to us this year. London summers are usually skittish and commitment-phobic. But this year it doesn't budge. The heat hangs over all of us, relentless and heavy as a love affair in the throes of the first fizz. And Juliet is wearing a hoodie.

‘Aren't you hot?'

‘Nope,' she says. As usual, her tiny frame is kitted out tomboyishly in the brightest of clashing primary colours. ‘Natural fibres. Ask me if I'm fresh, funky and fly. That, my dear, will be an affirmative.' A girl with short dreads and a poncho saunters up and looks over the merchandise. ‘Now stop trying to change the subject. Didn't I just ask you a question?'

Quietly I say: ‘What part didn't you understand?'

‘It's just I thought I heard something really outlandish,' she says loudly. ‘Did you say you chucked your job in over
boy
trouble?'

‘Juliet . . .'

‘How much for these earrings?' the girl asks with a snicker, holding out a pair in the shape of ice-cream cones.

‘Fiver.'

‘I'll have 'em please.'

Juliet makes the sale in her quick, bird-like way. ‘We have the matching medallion . . .'

‘Nah thanks.'

She turns to me again. ‘You were saying?'

‘Come on. Don't start acting stupid now. It's not like market research was my
raison d'être
or some such. It was just pocket-money labour.'

‘Your pockets don't need money?'

‘Money's not the bloody issue at the moment, J. My heart needs fixing.'

‘Your heart!' she grunts. ‘Are you light-headed?'

‘What?' I fan myself with one of her product flyers. ‘No.'

‘You have a pain in your chest or in your arm?' she says, eyeing the Portobello market crowds. ‘Any shortness of breath?'

‘No!'

‘Then your heart's fine, bella. You're a strong girl! Look at everything you've been through, everything you've survived!' Sympathy, respect and sadness all fight to dominate her face. ‘Lots of people wouldn't have made it. Don't you think you deserve more?'

‘I don't know . . .'

‘What are you going to do about your income, or lack thereof?'

‘I've got my overdraft.'

‘Eden!' She shakes her small head and runs an irritated hand over her ever-present cornrows. ‘We're supposed to be paying that off, remember? No debts by the end of the year! You may not want to hear this right now, but you need to learn to respect money. It's how you can finally become independent. Plus cold, hard cash will never leave you for a blonde! And if you look after your money . . .'

‘. . . then my money will look after me. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Are you even listening to me, or are you watching a repeat of
Oprah
in your head again? You watch it too much as it is!'

‘And you don't watch it enough.'

‘Look, I had to leave and that's just how it is. I'll get something else. Most people can't avoid it and I'm pretty sure neither can I. But in the meantime, what's the point of rushing to work just so I can wish my time away and comfort myself buying things I don't need? I'm on strike.'

‘Fortunate your dad's not on strike as well or else you'd both be living in a cardboard box!'

I grunt.

‘Seriously though,' says Juliet, her sharp little dark-brown face contorted with annoyance. ‘You need to pick it up and patch it up, miss. I bet you just park your derriere in bed 'til one o'clock in the afternoon, watching mindrot and farting and crying and spending our hard-earned taxes on E. Coli fried chicken! I bet you don't even bother brushing your teeth! Next thing you'll forgo showers and exercise and you'll stop combing your hair and it will turn into one big loc—'

‘Come on, J!' I cry out, laughing for the first time in days.

‘. . . and you'll weigh five hundred pounds and the remote control will get stuck in your massive crack and they'll have to lower you out of your bedroom window with a crane and—'

‘Damn, Juliet! Give your jaw a rest, mate!'

She laughs her throaty laugh and crosses her arms. ‘All I'm saying is you need to put Common Sense on the guest list and stop letting Idiocy smash up the party, ya gets?'

‘Fair enough.'

‘You're my best mate and I love you, Eden.' She pats my shoulder. ‘I just don't want to see you hurt.'

‘I know.'

‘You should go and see her.'

‘Who?'

‘Your aunt. Maybe she can help you with everything, you know what I mean? And you could go and see your mum. Bring flowers . . .'

I don't say anything.

‘Right, it's four o'clock. Let's duck an' sprint, yeah?'

We pack up, load her stuff into the car and she drops me off at the station.

Brooklyn, 3 July

 

Yes that's me, you can tell him! I am the daughter of night and the mother of destruction. Why not? Your father is always saying that ‘people' say this and ‘people' say that, when it's him that say it! How can it be suspicious that a woman of almost ninety years old should die? He tells everyone that I'm the one that killed my mother with obeah and my Rasta ways and drugs and wickedness, but I was a robot before she died. He doesn't even know me, the ignorant fool! She would have deserved it, anyway. Just because she dead now, don't mean she wasn't a wicked woman. So wicked probably she still wicked right now where she lives. Just ash, stuffed in an empty rum bottle on the bookshelf next to the Bible. She always said she wanted to go home to Saint Lucia when the time came but I'm not sure if she even deserves it or if I deserve that painful journey back after all these years.