The next morning, they arrive in the kitchen in mellow mood, in t-shirts and pants, sloping into the wide expanse of a Saturday morning. Leah goes to check the post. She sees her first. Innocent, beloved little animal, cold, not yet stiff, far from her bed, under the table in the box room, on her side. Bloody foam at her mouth. Michel! Michel! It won’t come out loud enough. Or he is in the garden, admiring the tree. The doorbell goes. It is Pauline. Olive’s dead! She’s dead! Oh my God! She’s dead! Where? Says Pauline. Show me. It’s the nurse in her. And when Michel comes and sees and is no less hysterical than Leah, Leah is surprised how grateful she is for her mother’s practical way of being in the world. Leah wants to cry and only to cry. Michel wants to go over and over the order of events. He wants to establish a timeline, as if this would change anything. Pauline wants to make sure the area under the table is made antiseptic and that the shoebox is buried at least one foot under the communal grass. No point asking the others, says Pauline — meaning the other occupants — they’ll only say no. Hurry up now, she says, try and pull yourselves together. We need to get this done. Have some tea. Calm down. She asks: did it not occur to you she didn’t bark when you came in?
23
It could be said that one of Michel’s dreams has come true: they have gone up one rung, at least in the quality and elaboration of their fear. It is in Leah’s nature to blame Michel for this — their new wariness, the Chubb lock, the fact he now picks her up from the station, the way they cross the street to avoid “certain elements” and continually discuss moving out. Michel is longer at the computer, dreaming of a windfall that will transport them to another urban suburb more to his taste, which means more African, less Caribbean. To which Leah offers no comment. She is submerged, July is a lost month. She lets these little changes happen, up there, on the surface, while she walks on the bottom of the ocean. She is in terrible mourning. She is unfamiliar with the rules concerning the mourning of animals. For a cat: one week. For a dog, two will be tolerated, three is to begin to look absurd, especially in the office where — in the Caribbean spirit — all animals smaller than a donkey are considered vermin. She is mourning for her dog. She thinks the sadness will kill her. Spotting one of Olive’s many twins shuffling up the Edgware Road, suffering in the heat, she is overcome. At work, Adina squints at her puffy tear-stained face. Not still the dog. Still? And if it is indeed false consciousness, if the mourning is for something other than her dog, it can make no practical difference to the mourner: it is Olive that she knew, and Olive whom she misses. Leah has become the sort of crazy person who stops other dog owners in the street to tell them her tale of woe.
Walking back from a training day in Harlesden she finds herself lost in the back streets. She takes a series of random left turns to keep moving, to lose a surely innocent hooded stranger, and then here is that strange little church again, tolling six o’clock. She goes in. Half an hour later she comes out. She does not tell Michel or anybody. She begins to do this most days. In late July, Michel insists: they must go forward. Leah agrees. They are placed on the NHS waiting list. But every morning, she locks the bathroom door and takes her little contraceptive pill. Stolen boxes from Natalie’s bathroom cabinet, hidden in a drawer. She doesn’t want to “go forward.” For Leah, that way is not forward. She wants just him and her forever.
August comes.
August comes.
• • •
Carnival! Girls from work, boys from the salon, old school friends, Michel’s cousins from south London, all walk the streets with a million others. Seeking out the good sound systems, winding their bodies close to complete strangers and each other, eating jerk, ending up in Meanwhile Gardens, stoned in the grass. Usually. Not this year. This year they finally accept Frank’s annual invitation to a friend of a friend’s with “an amazing carnival pad.” An Italian. They turn up early on the Sunday morning, as advised, to get there before the street is closed off. They feel a bit stupid, wandering around the empty flat of people they do not know. No sign of Frank or Nat. Michel goes to help in the kitchen. Leah accepts a rum and Coke and sits in a corner chair, looking out the window, watching the police lining up along the barricades. In the corner of the room a television talks. It talks for a long time before Leah notices it, and then only because it names a local road, one street from her own.
— on Albert Road, in Kilburn, where yesterday evening hopes for a peaceful carnival weekend were marred by reports of a fatal stabbing, here, on the border of the carnival route through North West London, as people prepared for today’s festivities—
• • •
Albert Road! shouts Michel, from the kitchen. Leah shouts back:
— YEAH BUT IT’S GOT NOTHING TO DO WITH CARNIVAL–IT WAS LAST NIGHT. IT’S JUST—
Michel walks through the door.
— it’s just typical sensational reporting. They want there to be—
— Leah can I hear it please?
The television says:
— The young man, named locally as Felix Cooper, was 32 years old. He grew up in the notorious Garvey House project in Holloway, but had moved with his family to this relatively quiet corner of Kilburn, in search of a better life. Yet it was here, in Kilburn, that he was accosted by two youths early Saturday evening, moments from his own front door. It is not known if the victim knew—
— He was murdered! Why does it matter where he grew up?
I put music on now, says an Italian, and switches off the television. We need to move out, says Michel. I don’t want to move, it’s my home, says Leah. She accepts a kiss on her neck. No arguing, says Michel, OK? Let’s try and have a nice time. I’m not arguing, says Leah. OK, but you’re being naïve.
In ill temper they separate. Leah goes up one floor, to a terrace. Michel returns to the kitchen. Now the flat fills very quickly. The doorbell rings continuously. It would be easier just to leave the front door open but the host is anxious to see each guest on the videophone before they come in. People stream into the party like soldiers into triage. It’s hell out there! I thought we weren’t going to make it. Everyone takes turns to stand on the white stucco balconies, dancing, blowing whistles painted in Rastafarian colors at the carnival crowds, far below. Very soon Leah is drunk. She started too early. She can’t find Michel. She spots Frank, not difficult to find in this crowd. They stand in the hall. The music is so loud, both outside and in, that information can only be passed sparingly. Nat’s coming later. She’s with the kids on one of Marcia’s church floats. Sausage roll?
— So what’s the secret?
— What?
— OF YOUR HAPPINESS. FRANCESCO.
— I CAN’T HEAR YOU. ARE YOU DRUNK?
They move into the kitchen where the bass can’t find them. She repeats her query. We tell each other everything, he says. Punch?
The kitchen is packed. She needs water. She tries to make her way to the taps. Clean cup or glass or mug? Fags and food in the plughole. Time has not stood still during this procedure. Frank is lost. Michel is lost. Who are all these people? Why do they keep telling themselves what a good time they’re all having? No need to queue for the toilets, no accumulated street filth between the toes, no six pounds for a can of Red Stripe. See! I’ve been telling you all these years! Perfect spot. You can see everything from here. And suddenly there’s Nat, standing in the balcony alone, looking out. She turns. Frank is in the doorway. Leah is at a midpoint between them, unnoticed in the crowd. She sees the husband look at the wife, and the wife look at the husband. She sees no smile, no nod, no wave, no recognition, no communication, nothing at all. Bowls of disposable cameras in cheery colors are being distributed. The host encourages people to record the occasion. Everyone takes turns trying on the Rasta wig. Leah surprises herself: she has a great time.