— Questions? Problems?
A pen breaks noisily. Plastic shards, a blue tongue. Adina George looks over and glares but Leah is not responsible for the Albanians. She has a mouth full of pen but she is not responsible for the Albanians nor their misappropriation of funds meant for a Hackney women’s refuge. That was on Claire Morgan’s watch. Although Leah has a blue tongue and a fancy degree and a hot husband and no offense, but for the women in our community, in the Afro-Caribbean community, no offense, but when we see one of our lot with someone like you it’s a real issue. It’s just a real issue that you should be aware of. No offense. (Brighton weekend, team-building exercise, hotel bar, 2004.) What kind of issue exactly was never made clear. Sweet Love sang Anita Baker, and Adina fell over a chair trying to get to the dance floor. Blockage.
Leah spits plastic shards into her hands. No questions or problems. Adina sighs, leaves. The folder-shutting and bag-packing begin with an eagerness no different from when they were all six years old and the bell rang. Maybe that was the real life? Leah plants her feet on the ground and pushes back in her chair. Lifts and coasts to the filing cabinet and this is the most enjoyable thing that has happened today. Bump.
— Oi! Fuckssake, Leah. Careful!
The great swell of it. Leah is nose to Tori’s belly-button and observes how this innermost thing now thrusts out, marking a physical limit. Beyond this point we can’t continue and be human.
— Just be careful. You coming or what? Last day drinks. You got the e-mail?
Piled up in a corner of the Internet with the bank statements, student loan reminders, memos from management, maternal epics, in that place where not to be opened is not to exist. She knew perfectly well there was an e-mail and what it was about, but she is on the run from people in Tori’s condition. She is on the run from herself.
— Me, Claire, Kelly, Beverley, Shweta. You’re next!
Tori counts the names off on swollen fingers. She’s in the final stages. Her face has a leonine cast, the cheeks puffed up, newly prominent. A big cat’s smile. Predacious. Leah stares at the thumb meant to represent her.
— Trying. It’s not so easy.
— Trying’s half the fun.
A room full of women laughing. Some shared knowledge of their sex to which Leah is not party. She puts her hands either side of the bump, and smiles, hoping that this is the sort of thing that normal women do, women for whom trying is half the fun and “you’re next” does not sound like the cry of a guard in a dark place. Then they get going, a traditional round in which no voice is separated from the other and Leah lays her head on the desk and closes her eyes and lets them take the piss:
Specially when he looks like yours. And he’s so lovely.
He’s so lovely your Meeshell. Lovely way about him.
Bev, d’you remember when we was round Leah’s that time and my car window weren’t working and Meeshell got on his knees with a wire coat hanger? After I’d been telling Leon about it for a MONTH.
He’s proper sensitive. Proper family orientated.
Whenever I’m thinking: where did all the good brothers get to? I think, breathe: at least there’s Meeshell.
Yeah but they’re all already taken!
HAHAHAHAHAHAHA By the white girls!
Nah, don’t be like that. Leah she’s only messing with you.
Don’t mess with Leah! Not her fault Leon’s a useless bastard.
Leon’s all right.
(Bloody useless. “Leon, what you doing tonight? “Chillin with my man dem.” He’s always bloody “chillin.”)
Leon’s all right. Seriously tho, you’re lucky.
She gets a blow dry thrown in!
A man who can do your hair. That’s paradise right there. He can do cain row, he can do extensions…
Kelly, what she need cain row for? She’s not Bo Derek.
HA! (Nah, Leah, no offense — sorry that’s funny tho.)
I’m talking about he’s a professional. I’m talking about he can do any kind of hair.
And he’s straight. Innit!
Innit! Hahaha Innit, yeah. (He best be!)
That’s what kills me! Best of both worlds! You have though. You don’t know you’re born.
She doesn’t, she doesn’t know she’s born.
You don’t know you’re born.
You don’t. You don’t know you’re born.
Finally, five o’clock. Leah looks up. Kelly slaps the top of her desk.
— Quittin’ time!
Same joke every day. A joke you can make if you are not Leah, if you are not the only white girl on the Fund Distribution Team. In the corridor the women spill out of every room, into the heat, cocoa buttered, ready for a warm night out on the Edgware Road. From St. Kitts, Trinidad, Barbados, Grenada, Jamaica, India, Pakistan, in their forties, fifties, sixties, and yet busts and butts and shiny legs and arms still open to the sexiness of an early summer in a manner that the women of Leah’s family can never be. For them the sun is fatal. So red, so pale. Leah is wearing long white linen everything. Looks like a minor saint. She falls in step. Passes the scene of the crime, a wastepaper bin filled with vomit and tucked behind a pot-plant in the break room because the bathroom was too far.
9
From A to B:
A. Yates Lane, London NW8, UK
B. Bartlett Avenue, London NW6, UK
Walking directions to Bartlett Avenue, London NW6, UK
Suggested routes
A5
47 mins
2.4 miles
A5 and Salusbury Rd
50 mins
2.5 miles
A404/Harrow Rd
58 mins
2.8 miles
Turn left on Yates Lane
40 feet
Head southwest toward Edgware Rd
315 feet
Turn right at A5/ Edgware Rd
1.6 miles
Continue to follow A5
Turn left at A4003/Willesden Ln
0.7 mile
Turn left at Bartlett Avenue
0.1 mile
Destination will be on the left
Bartlett Avenue, London NW6, UK
These directions are for planning purposes only. You may find that construction projects, traffic, weather, or other events may cause conditions to differ from the map results, and you should plan your route accordingly. You must obey all signs or notices regarding your route.
10
From A to B redux:
Sweet stink of the hookah, couscous, kebab, exhaust fumes of a bus deadlock. 98, 16, 32, standing room only — quicker to walk! Escapees from St. Mary’s, Paddington: expectant father smoking, old lady wheeling herself in a wheelchair smoking, die-hard holding urine sack, blood sack, smoking. Everybody loves fags. Everybody. Polish paper, Turkish paper, Arabic, Irish, French, Russian, Spanish, News of the World. Unlock your (stolen) phone, buy a battery pack, a lighter pack, a perfume pack, sunglasses, three for a fiver, a life-size porcelain tiger, gold taps. Casino! Everybody believes in destiny. Everybody. It was meant to be. It was just not meant to be. Deal or no deal? TV screens in the TV shop. TV cable, computer cable, audiovisual cables, I give you good price, good price. Leaflets, call abroad 4 less, learn English, eyebrow wax, Falun Gong, have you accepted Jesus as your personal call plan? Everybody loves fried chicken. Everybody. Bank of Iraq, Bank of Egypt, Bank of Libya. Empty cabs on account of the sunshine. Boom-boxes just because. Lone Italian, loafers, lost, looking for Mayfair. A hundred and one ways to take cover: the complete black tent, the facial grid, back of the head, Louis Vuitton — stamped, Gucci-stamped, yellow lace, attached to sunglasses, hardly on at all, striped, candy pink; paired with tracksuits, skin-tight jeans, summer dresses, blouses, vests, gypsy skirts, flares. Bearing no relation to the debates in the papers, in parliament. Everybody loves sandals. Everybody. Birdsong! Lowdown dirty shopping arcade to mansion flats to an Englishman’s home is his castle. Open top, soft-top, drive-by, hip hop. Watch the money pile up. Holla! Security lights, security gates, security walls, security trees, Tudor, Modernist, postwar, prewar, stone pineapples, stone lions, stone eagles. Face east and dream of Regent’s Park, of St. John’s Wood. The Arabs, the Israelis, the Russians, the Americans: here united by the furnished penthouse, the private clinic. If we pay enough, if we squint, Kilburn need not exist. Free meals. English as a second language. Here is the school where they stabbed the headmaster. Here is the Islamic Center of England opposite the Queen’s Arms. Walk down the middle of this, you referee, you! Everybody loves the Grand National. Everybody. Is it really only April? And they’re off!