Housegirl Read online

  Belinda clutched her knees. ‘A homosexual lesbian! On top of all the rest!’ She laughed a scratchy laugh. ‘You have to admit, Amma, is a bit funny. Funny, funny funny. Someone should even have joking tears upon their cheeks. Ha. Ha. What? What? Why you seeming as concern as this? Won sere?’

  Belinda began walking away and Amma followed.

  ‘Be. Be –’

  ‘You have to walk behind me,’ Belinda said, staring ahead.

  ‘Walk behind?’

  ‘Exactly. And many, many paces. I mean many, many paces.’

  * * *

  Belinda opened the door to 19 Spenser Road. The hush in the hallway and the lights of the alarm system meant that Nana had gone to sleep. That was good. Belinda nodded and left the door ajar for Amma, who she could hear crying. Belinda undid each of the toggles on her coat and hung it to rest on a hook. Suspended like that, Belinda gave it a little pat to congratulate it for serving her well. Perhaps the crying had lessened, she could not tell, because she was busy unbuttoning the gilet, peeling off the jumpers, making them into a pile at the bottom of the stairs she would take to her room when ready for bed. But before bed: work. Belinda went down the hallway to the small toilet at the end before the stairs to the kitchen. She locked herself in. On her knees, she scrabbled into the corners of that tight space to find the cleaning brush. She was pleased at the muck in its bristles. She got to her feet and turned the hot tap on. With ungloved hands, under the stream of scalding water, she plucked the dirt from those spines until they were as white as she could manage. She watched brown dots disappear into the plug hole. Then she picked up a bottle from another corner and squirted its contents under the toilet’s rim. Blue dripped down, into the water, in long, long tears. Bent, Belinda peered into the bowl. She scrubbed at its edges harshly, even when her wrist ached and ached.

  25

  The muscles around that wrist hurt throughout the long week of complete silence between Belinda and Amma. One of those days, at Abacus, Belinda rotated her wrist joint. On the front row Robert complained loudly about his latest low grade. She twisted more. The sharp twinge forced her to bite down. Belinda flattened her palm on the desk, played with her pencil.

  Was Amma in pain? Maybe. No. No: because Belinda would never stop remembering Amma’s explanation of it. They were ‘in love’. Even if Belinda knew the fire awaiting Amma, Amma saw none of that. Only romance and red roses and soft pinks. She couldn’t help imagining it again: the girls, this Roisin, them moaning and moaning on top of each other. Such a frightening and rude noise. There weren’t that many reasons to think about down there, apart from during the monthly when it behaved badly. But now Belinda had to wonder more, worry more. What did it feel like for another girl to touch the private place? She mostly thought it foolish to worry that a girl’s hand there would sting or leave a stain like a birthmark. Mostly. She wriggled. And how disgusting: disgusting to picture the girls’ four breasts as they brushed and rubbed, their mouths pushing into each other for angry licking. Their sex acts would be done more dramatically and more horribly than normal people, because the girls wanted to show off as much as they could, to shout that they were different. To Belinda, the whole thing seemed to be about that: wanting to be different. She scored along her palm’s deep, dark lines with the pencil’s point. Worse than Mother and any just-paid man. At least there was something natural about that.

  Robert thumped his folder. Miss kept ignoring the protest, organising colourful handouts for a new task instead. There were sixteen sheets in each set, and each set was placed into a shallow purple tray. Mrs Al-Kawthari’s careful handling of the sheets – all the greens together, all the yellows together and all the blues together – soothed Belinda. She liked the easy rhythm of it. She wanted to get up and join in; helping might help her. But then she would have to explain or come up with an excuse for the big, relieved smile it would cause. So Belinda found herself stuck on her chair as Mrs Al-Kawthari reached into the trays and neatened each pile like a newsreader at the end of the show.

  ‘I am always Macbeth, I do the best voice for Macbeth – you all claim so yourselfs. Until what is fair and right occurs, until my essay is remarked, I am on strike. What you mean to give me a C?’ Robert’s shouting was bad for Belinda. Like when Amma had told her secret, Belinda wanted to cover her ears. Robert’s outburst was bad for his clothes too. The seam on the back of his blazer started to split. First it seemed like a straightforward repair job: five minutes of squinting and care. As Robert continued it lengthened. Some fabric from within showed through. The unzipped seam gave the dark oval a frayed outline, hundreds of tiny teeth. Belinda heard her name, announced in that familiar, instructive tone, so she picked up her pencil again because that was active and good and normal.

  She imagined the oval getting blacker. She imagined there was none of the classroom: only the blackness. Blacker than her, blacker than the ink on Western Union slips. Blacker than behind-the-oven dirt. Blacker than the smoke of a burning tie. Different, very different from temporary, powercut dark; that darkness held promises and was a mischievous spirit hiding shoes, pens, watches for a time, giving them back to you at dawn. Belinda imagined this black mightn’t pass. There mightn’t be anything else. She imagined the darkness spreading, pouring from the tear like the skunk’s bad smell in the cartoons Mary found hilarious. And somewhere in the corner of all that black, she imagined a huddled person, a tiny version of herself, as alone and as friendless as Mother had been. Because in Adurubaa, when had a woman knocked on their door to lend Mother a few cedis and wisdom and an ear to make all the difference? And now, what person had a few minutes and the right words for Belinda? The little girl at the end of the phone who lived in playtime? Or the one whose homosexual lesbian problem was far too much for Belinda to deal with? Or that one’s mother, the woman who Belinda had let down, the woman who might even send Belinda back home to – In the imagined gloom, the smaller version of Belinda rolled into a ball, head tucked in. She heard whispering.

  ‘Line! Your line?!’

  ‘This ruining the performance! Get your skates on, girl, and read, ya unnerstan?’ That was Robert.

  ‘Belinda!’ Sylvia pressed.

  ‘Sorry.’ Flustered, she searched for the right page, not sure what she’d do when she found it.

  * * *

  The route her feet chose after class was long; through back streets between Streatham and Brixton Hills. She did not want to go home. Calling it that was silly. She bounced her rucksack on her back, screwed hands into fists in linty pockets and turned into Lyham Road now. Its early-evening emptiness was peaceful rather than eerie. Clever cats dipped their backs to get beneath parked cars. Behind hedges, through windows much smaller than the Otuos’, TVs lit the faces of watchers. Little, blue-haired old ladies. Quiet mums. Serious dads. She wondered how many of those families had homosexual lesbians in them. She guessed none, explaining why their front rooms seemed calm, still. She wanted to knock on a door, any door and ask if she could stay. They would close it on her. That would be right.

  She waited at a crossing, alongside three schoolboys whose hair was shaped into wet peaks. The boys burst into sudden laughter. Her shock set them off cackling even more.

  26

  Though Amma’s over-annotated copy of No Logo might have protested, Starbucks on Northcote Road was the place chosen for them to meet: an easy 295 from the florist in Parsons Green where Roisin was working and far enough from Brixton to avoid bumping into Mum, Belinda or anyone else. As Amma queued for coffee, she again found crediting Belinda’s nastiness difficult. The image of Belinda’s turned back after the fireworks was the most inhumane part of it all; a tense, humped thing seen through hot tears. How could they speak after that?

  Fixing on the now, Amma flourished a twenty, requested and paid for her second soya latte. She concentrated on things like cutting the wooden stirrer through froth and opening the sugar packet. And then the difficulties of the present came again: that this meeting
had been repeatedly postponed by a series of Roisin’s laconic texts. And even on this, the date they had firmlyfirmlyfirmly agreed on, a good week and a half after first contact, Roisin was late and Amma had been waiting, like a twat, for twenty-five minutes. What was she expecting to come of their little rendezvous? What could she expect? The mood was not eased by the two Brazilian or Portuguese baristas behind the counter who kept singing that Moloko song, making up the lyrics they couldn’t quite remember.

  Sinking into a leather sofa, Amma smiled at a nearby woman in a primrose twinset who assessed her too intently. Had all the careful amendments to her school uniform been excessive? Was the kohl on the eyes artlessly smudged? Were the rips in her tights too salacious?

  ‘Fidgety knickers. Like a Pina Bausch.’ Roisin’s voice came from the corner of the café, accompanied by a snatch of busy, outside sounds: sighing buses, pleading homeless. Roisin’s face was flushed and her irises still that wet shade of slate. There was a force in those eyes, or perhaps a new maturity. Amma rested the mug against her teeth and breathed not only through steam but also through the sensation that the situation was already far beyond her control.

  ‘I’ve been watching you from the other side of the road for about three minutes. Shuffling away and all neurotic with your precious little hands.’

  ‘Are they little?’

  ‘They’re smaller than mine. See.’ Amma let Roisin’s warm palm press against her damper one. She was immediately regretful about the giggled, giddy sound she produced. The larger white hand withdrew and Amma watched the redhead chew her lips and deliberate.

  ‘What?’

  ‘I’m not sure, Amma. I’m not.’

  ‘Of what? What?’

  ‘I can’t tell what you’re feeling, thinking any more.’

  ‘Forgive me, like, if I speak out of turn, but that may be a fucking consequence –’

  ‘So we can’t begin more lightly? Like, I was going to start with how much I’m loving this gap-yearing-working shit. We had this nightmare lady come into the florist, in furs and making demands all over the place, and I got her to buy the most expensive, beautiful peonies. Fat, rough-looking things – sort of like bloated drunk old men, but also totally pretty –’

  ‘Roisin – I was really sad to not, not have you around any more. For you to just disappear like that. So sad, fucking sad, Roisin. And, and, like, what could I do?’

  ‘I needed … not distance, that’s too trite, let’s try … a chance … to puzzle through it all, without, without –’

  ‘Me?’

  ‘Because that’s exactly how it seemed; in my head, a jigsaw. All these fragmented bits that were obviously interconnected but with a logic entirely escaping me. So I needed to figure out how to get them, get them all together. Or something. Oh, fuck this.’

  ‘OK. And, you’ve done that now, have you? Puzzled through?’

  ‘Like, let me load myself up, and then I’ll be back, mm? You’re all right for drinks, yes?’

  ‘Yeah. Thanks.’

  ‘And I can’t tempt you to a little pastry deliciousness? Their friands are often actually quite home-madey and tasty.’ Roisin took off her coat, revealed a green apron stamped with a cheery sunflower.

  ‘No, but. Come back quickly.’ Amma reached for that hand again and clutched it. Roisin smiled a small smile. The twinset lady, however, winced.

  Roisin turned away, counted coins, pointed at something puffed and crowned with walnuts. Moments like these struck Amma the hardest: how to behave with someone who you’d loved, had sex with, when you were back in the world? That had happened every night at Brunswick: Roisin’s honest pressure against the shyest part of Amma. Then the shift, when all of Roisin’s actions softened – flick of wrist, circling of thumb, adjustment of tongue. It seemed so full of planning, but also invented on the spot. Now how could their discussion be so ordinary? Friands, peonies … the weather, what was on each other’s fucking Christmas lists, useless chit-chat amongst all the yummy mummies and freelancers. They could do much more than that.

  With a dead grin, one of the baristas wiped the table and collected empties. Amma lifted her mug. She wanted to remind the girl walking back towards her how her black body shivered and sweated and changed each time they had said goodnight that week, before they curled into their separate beds. But she also knew that was redundant now. That nightly separation was to be turned into a longer, more final one. Everything was unjust.

  ‘It’s good to see you.’ Roisin sat, patted her piled gloves and ursine hat.

  ‘And you. You too.’

  ‘I should give you the explanation you deserve.’ Roisin used her own wooden stirrer to slice a layer of cream from her mocha then dropped the mess onto a white serviette to ooze. ‘I got quite panicked. You, really panicked me.’

  ‘How? I never meant to. I’d never mean for you to feel anything like that, Roisin.’

  ‘It paralysed me. Like, you wanting to see me all the time?’

  ‘But,’ Amma needed to go slowly, ‘but weren’t we both, like, phew! At least we live in the same city so, like, we could almost keep going, keep … being how we’d been? You were fucking crying when we left Brunswick. Cry-ing, Roisin. And you had that silly line: London is a tiny place and we will make it even smaller.’

  ‘I did, didn’t I?’

  ‘Yes, Roisin.’

  ‘I think it’s different now, though. Isn’t it? You see that too.’

  Amma’s jaw was heavy. She was supposed to be clever. Yet there she sat, eyeing the grim remnants of an overpriced drink, tripped up by her own longing.

  She inhaled as Roisin started up. ‘Don’t do that.’

  ‘Not doing anything.’

  ‘You’re being all sweet, and perfect, and lovely.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  ‘It’s a problem, not a compliment.’

  ‘Right.’

  Amma wondered how an exit might be conducted with dignity; mightn’t come across as melodramatic flouncing. She stroked the mug’s iconic logo like it were a talisman. She could only produce childish words, ‘This is a horrid, horrid way to be dumped.’

  ‘I don’t like to think of myself as dumping, as a dumper. “Dumper” suggests powerful, implies a power. I lack that. I’m … stumbling around and hoping for the best.’

  ‘Best for who?’

  ‘Yes. Best for me. All right, for me. Because I’m young, I’m eighteen. So. So, I had an amazing time at Brunswick with you. That is true. Totally.’ Roisin scratched her head too much: a bad soap actor playing mad. ‘You’re too beautiful. And so special. But really, truly, I think I liked it because it was only this … only meant to be this short and fiery and ephemeral thing. A supernova sort of moment. Blinding.’

  ‘Blinding?’

  ‘Maybe I didn’t see straight for a while.’ Roisin giggled. ‘If you’ll excuse the terrible pun.’

  ‘But we planned so much. A trip to go and see those curtains at the Geffrye Museum you said were too gorgeous to believe. And going to your parents’ flat in Pigalle. And that pub on the river with the burlesquey men. All of that. Look, I had no clue what it was either, but I was certainly under the impression that we were at the beginning of something. That was so exciting and we couldn’t have been closer, Roisin.’

  ‘I can’t force myself to mirror your heart. I’m sorry for that.’

  ‘But you said.’

  ‘I say a lot. So do you. That’s the problem with being pretentious.’

  ‘Not pretend for me. And now I sort of feel stuck. Because I’m really into this?’ Amma wished she could be less honest. ‘Fuck!’

  ‘Amma, listen. I want to do everything. All of it. Life is full of thrills for us. Surely we only limit our bigger selves by fixating on a silly Sapphic … holiday romance.’

  ‘And you were worried about being trite before?’ The air around Amma seemed hot and hostile. The primrose twinset lady did not know where to put her eyes.

  ‘It was an experience.
A totally amazing experience.’

  ‘Why did you even bother to get in touch with me? It had been months: why not maintain the silence? Would’ve been easier, surely?’

  ‘I realised that wasn’t fair. I realised that.’

  ‘Wait.’ In a frenzy, Amma rummaged in her rucksack. ‘This is fucking ridiculous – where is it?’

  After wrestling with folders and crumpled papers, she pulled out a bracelet. Jangling from it: a pair of little charms, ‘A’ and ‘R’ tiles from the Scrabble game they had played the second day they had known each other, when Roisin had saluted the board and wolf-whistled Amma’s match-winning ‘Faqir’.

  ‘I did this for you. Doesn’t look like it, but it was really fiddly. And I spent ages choosing the right shade for the thread because I wanted to get something that went with your hair and your eyes as well. And a colour I was sure you’d like. So.’ Amma dropped it on the table. ‘But it’s nothing that you need to keep. I just thought I’d show it to you before I threw it away or whatever.’

  Amma pressed the empty mug. She let Roisin’s precise features crunch through a series of useless emotions, none of which ever made the girl’s face ugly.

  WINTER

  27

  ‘Adjei! How these people carry on! They’ve, they’ve not even let November properly finish before putting on this holly and this ivy everywhere. Don’t you think is too much? Amma? Eh?’

  Belinda did her best to show interest in Nana’s question about Waitrose’s glittery Christmas decorations because Amma was examining her shredded cuffs. Belinda’s attempt was insufficient: Nana kissed her teeth.

  ‘In a normal sense I would give you one shopping list with all the items on it and you can both do it together. But since you’re still pretending each other are strangers, I can’t even bring myself to be bothered.’ Nana tore the sheet of paper she held in two. ‘So you have that, and you that.’ Belinda took, then watched Amma ignore her slip. ‘I recognise the lady working Till 23. That is where we will meet. She is a very good Akuapem girl and it will be nice to greet her. Since no one else is talking to me around here. I see you in fifteen minutes.’