For this week’s showing of Vertigo, Amy Eleni is wearing a smooth grey pencil suit and heels, entertaining me with the reminder that, apart from the fact that they’re both blonde, she looks nothing like Madeleine Elster, the doomed woman in the film. Madeleine Elster is sleek and taut, like one long nerve at red alert, and Amy Eleni is short and of far softer stuff, all whirls and coils and curves, her hair, her body, the gradations of colour in her irises. Madeleine Elster looks a little more like Amy Eleni’s mother. Amy Eleni goes to make us some Horlicks, calling from the kitchen that she’s adding soymilk to mine because it’s supposed to be good for developing bones and teeth and stuff.
‘I would’ve thought that would be cow’s milk,’ I say, watching the opening scenes of the film: Scottie’s fall; his resulting trauma; the way it seems he can’t even look down at his own feet without seeing swirls.
‘I teach English. .’ Amy Eleni reminds me.
‘Give me cow’s milk, woman.’
In the voice she reserves for creepy coincidences, Amy Eleni says, ‘Imagine if that baby wasn’t a baby at all, and that this is one of those strange pregnancies you read about in the Fortean Times? What if all you’ve got in your stomach is this limp piece of dough and it just keeps expanding until — boom?’
She’s joking, but I don’t like it. I feel cold.
‘Don’t say that!’
‘What?’ Amy Eleni comes back in and hands me my Horlicks.
‘What?’ she says again, when I take it without saying anything. I sniff at the mug, as if my nose can tell me the difference between soymilk and cow’s milk, as if my nose can tell me which is better.
In the evening, I use a hand mirror to supervise my earrings. I boil tonight down to flip-switch decisions: hoops or dangly earrings; long skirt or black dress; to sing well or to sing badly; to tell Aaron now that I’m going to Cuba next month, or to put it off until I can sound sane when I say it. I’ve missed band rehearsals and Michael is pissed off at me, so I have to be early tonight. Aaron is in the kitchen cooking up a batch of jollof rice; I hear him hissing as the onions sizzle. He isn’t fully aware of his kitchen soundtrack, his tendency to imitate food sounds.
‘You shouldn’t cook — you’re tired,’ I tell him, watching the clock. ‘I could have made you something.’
He comes out of the kitchen expressly to point his spatula at me. ‘But I want jollof rice, and you can’t cook it. Anyway, you should eat some of this,’ he says, ‘it’ll be good for our boy.’
I suck my breath in, find lightness to speak with. ‘Who says it’ll be a boy?’
‘I knew you’d say that,’ Aaron sings. I am supposed to want a girl child; he is supposed to want a boy child.
The phone rings. It’s Amy Eleni, and I’m immediately stricken with guilt for not having called her first. She says, ‘Oh, hi Maja. Is Aaron around?’
She doesn’t sound cold or angry at me, just busy. I think. Or maybe she is angry. I pass the phone to Aaron and wander around looking for my shoes, thrown off course by the call, trying unsuccessfully to listen in.
Aaron comes back into the sitting room, hangs up the phone and sighs. ‘There goes my free Sunday afternoon — I was going to try and sleep right through it,’ he says.
‘Did Amy Eleni sound angry with me?’ I ask. I’ve just realised I’m already wearing one of my shoes — the battle is half won.
‘No?’ Aaron tries. He doesn’t want to be involved. He tries to tiptoe past me.
‘Then what? Why would she ask to speak to you before me? Are you seeing her tomorrow?’
‘Calm down. I’m her friend too,’ he says. He bends and hands me my other stiletto. ‘Maybe you should start wearing flatter shoes now. Her school’s running some mentor scheme, and she managed to get some guy from Shell — can you imagine, a Shell Oil man?! A more ethical mentor doesn’t exist, I’m sure. She got this Shell guy to agree to mentor three boys in her form and take them out tomorrow for a first meeting, but the guy pulled out, so. .’
I pretend to be confused: ‘So why did she call you?’
‘Yeah, shut up,’ he says. ‘I’m a good role model. Excellent, in fact. If I survive this year I’ll be well on my way to becoming a psychiatrist, so shog off. Anyways, these boys are Ghanaian, so she thought I’d be perfect.’
I scrutinise him, but I can’t tell what percentage of what he just said is a joke. He must know that if he mentors these boys, he is not showing them what a Ghanaian can do with his life, but what a white guy can do who chooses or refuses Ghana at any given moment. I change the subject. What I want to say is, You are no more Ghanaian than I am Cuban. So what if you can number your memories and group them in years one to eighteen? That country will not claim you when you are broken, when you have forgotten the trick of breathing easily — and you will have to learn how to resuscitate yourself.
But if I say this, he will take offence. Because if I do say it I will mean it to offend.
‘Did you get to talk to Miss Lassiter about the leak?’ I ask instead.
He shakes his head. He leans his forehead against mine.
‘If I were to ask you to marry me,’ he murmurs, ‘what would you say?’
I baulk, but I think I manage to not let him feel it.
‘OK, first of all, I have to go and sing in a minute and you’re trying this? Secondly, I’d say, querido, I can’t marry you yet.’
I can’t be a wife yet, not even Aaron’s. I need to sit down and have a good long talk with my personal hysteric before I become a wife.
‘Why?’ he asks, very seriously.
‘Z.’
He doesn’t want to smile, but he smiles because he has to be grown up about it.
Tonight there is no choice between singing badly and singing well. I cannot sing at all.
Onstage, in the smoky dark, I shut my eyes, place my fingers around the microphone as if in prayer, and I cannot remember anything — not just my Cuba, but even the words to the song and my place in the music. The band realises what is happening. They change temperature; they ease down from standard swing and into a mellow instrumental, and Sophie begins a gentle, improvised solo. I scramble offstage as quickly as I can. I do not cry until I’m outside, and even then I fumble for the tears, as if this crying is just something I’m doing in a blackout while I’m waiting for the light to come back.
Aaron follows me into the bedroom when I get back. He fiddles with my things. He slaps my hand when, in retaliation, I reach for one of his chewing sticks. I catch sight of myself in the mirror. I am concerned. I look as haggard as I feel.
‘I am very ugly these days, aren’t I?’ I say.
Aaron looks at me; he makes a good job of his surprised expression. ‘Ah, you don’t know how you look to me.’
I stay out of his reach, smiling tiredly. ‘Is that a direct quote from a Drifters song?’
Aaron groans. I peel off my jumper, turning away a little so he can’t see my stomach. I step out of the skirt I reserve for fat days; it drops to the floor like a flattened pom-pom. Aaron hasn’t gone away.
‘This isn’t a striptease,’ I say.
He is still waiting. ‘What?’
‘This is the first day off I’ve had in ages where I’m not half-dead,’ he says.
I don’t look at him. I do not want to talk. I want to rest first of all, and then I want to try to sing again, try to find a tone that my vocal cords and my aching throat will let me stay with. Or maybe I want Amy Eleni with me under a tent made of blankets, chin in hand, talking to me with her clear eyes narrowed. I don’t want Aaron — he doesn’t know.
‘You don’t want to spend any time together?’