A Cupboard Full of Coats Read online

  When the contents of the bowl had been polished off, I offered up the three words that best expressed my feelings.

  ‘I want more,’ I said.

  He looked at me and smiled. It was the first time he had smiled since his arrival. I had forgotten how charming it was, how attractive it made him. He had one of those smiles that engaged every feature on his face, his wide mouth, his lean cheeks, his eyes, the creased skin at their corners. When he smiled at you it was as if you had his fullest attention; no one else existed for him anywhere. It was irresistible. I felt myself smiling back as he rose and left to bring me seconds.

  I felt different. In the centre of my feelings, like the eye of a tornado, the anger held its ground, but around the edges I could feel it giving way to something softer that made me feel uncomfortable. Vulnerable. I wished I had the capacity to just enjoy the moment, to embrace the pleasure of having things done for me, but it was not in me. Instead, I found myself wondering what was in it for him, why he was doing this, and just how bad the sting would be that brought me back down to earth.

  When he returned I was happy to see the bowl was almost as full as it had been last time. Carefully he settled on the floor beside the settee, moving slowly, careful not to spill a drop. I reached out and took the bowl from him, turning to lie on my side so I could feed myself.

  ‘You sure you can manage?’ he asked.

  ‘Yes. Why are you doing this?’

  ‘Got nothing else to do.’

  ‘That’s not a good enough answer.’

  ‘It’s the best answer you gonna get.’

  ‘I don’t want the “best answer”, I want the truth.’ I waited, but he didn’t reply. ‘You visited him, didn’t you, in prison? That’s why he came to see you.’

  He shook his head. ‘Me and Berris go back a ways. We had unfinished business, things that needed to be said.’

  ‘About my mother?’

  He shrugged. ‘And other things.’

  ‘Like?’

  ‘You asking me to number and reel them off? Most stories are like that bowl of soup you eating now, a whole heap of ingredients put together at the proper time. You can’t pick up one thing on its own, piece of dasheen say, and study it then walk and tell people you gotta understanding of soup. You have to start with the things that need to go in the pot first. You want the truth, I gotta start at the beginning.’

  ‘So start at the beginning then,’ I said, wondering where the beginning of my own confession lay. Not the night of the engagement party, ting ting ting. By then things were already in full swing. The beginning was back further. Months back.

  ‘Now?’ he asked.

  ‘Yes now.’

  ‘I need a drink.’

  ‘So? Get one.’

  He was slow to stand, unsure but going along with it. He rubbed his hands together, psyching himself up.

  ‘You want one as well?’

  ‘Sure,’ I answered. ‘Why not?’

  *

  ‘We growed up together, me and Berris both. In Cudjoe Head. North Montserrat. People say his father never want to know him from when he born. Don’t know if it’s true but it don’t matter anyhow, ’cos Berris believe it to be so.

  ‘His mother put him to board with Mistress Jolly when she went to Curaçao. Visited a few times but never come back to get him or send ticket for him to come. Wasn’t no work in Montserrat then. Yeah, there was the odd cleaning job in one of the hotel or rich people house, but you couldn’t live off what you earn there. Folks had to go to the other islands. At that time was mostly Curaçao they went. Had sugar and coffee and oil there. Was work to be had, and money.

  ‘They went off. Send back whatever they could to keep the kids. Pretty sure his mum done that, same as everybody else, but Berris say if she did, he never see a cent. Mistress Jolly tell him his mother never send a bean. Type of person she was, can’t see she woulda keep him for nothing. But that’s what she say and that’s what the man believe.

  ‘We was raggedy. All the kids was raggedy then. Had but the two pair of trouser, one for church and one for school. You never wear you church trouser to school ’less you want you arse cut, and you school pants you take off soon as you reach home in case you wear those out before time and have to go school with you arse outta door. Must be only a handful had shoes and them what did was lucky if they fit. I remember Orlando Weekes, schoolteacher son. Boy used to bawl fire because the shoes be biting him all day and his mother make him keep them on. Boy used to limp like a dog with a crab on him paw. Girl, we were raggedy then. Raggedy. Times was rough and all of us together was poor.

  ‘But it come like Berris was worse off. Don’t know if it was the hair or what. We used to go down by Mas’ Cook. Mas’ Cook was a handicap. Had short legs but might as wella had no legs and done ’cos they never work. Used to pull hisself ’long on him backside with the hands. Come like after a while you hardly even notice ’cos he move so fast. He’s the one person I know them times make a good living. Man used to make mat and basket from reed and they was always by the gate for people to see and buy. And he used to cut hair. He cut all our hair. Would chap you in the head if you move once he start cut. Most times you get a skiffle you hadda lump on you head you never start out with.

  ‘But Berris never have his hair cut. Or even plait. Used to look nasty. Kids being kids they take the piss outta him bad. Must be that why he learn to fight so hard. Got so no one tease him any more ’cos when he fight you, it’s like say he wanna kill you, even the girls…’specially the girls. Always had to be someone there to stop him, ’cos from when we was boys till we come men, I never once seen him stop hisself.

  ‘All of us was living with family, the grandparents, or an auntie or some such. I live with my father’s sister then, and girl let me tell you that woman was a devil. But she was nothing next to Mistress Jolly. Berris’ mum family never want no truck with her bastard pickney, so she had to leave him with Mistress Jolly, never had no choice the way I see it, though to hear Berris talk you’d swear she had ’nough. Mistress Jolly take in a whole heapa kids, ’nough jingbang, collect a whole heapa money, but she keep near ’nough every dollar for sheself.

  ‘That woman was always vex for something. You might as well say “switch live in her hand”, ’cos it was there from sunrise till sunfall. Only time she put it by was Sunday morning when she go church and odd time the parents come. Barring that, them kids get some licks you see. ’Nough licks, man, ’nough licks.

  ‘None of us had much food then. Was mostly vegetarian but not from choice. If there was piece a meat in you house and you lucky, you peas might catch little the flavour, but the only time you had a solid chance of meat on you plate was Christmas Day and Easter, and even then was no guarantee.

  ‘Mistress Jolly was always walking and talking ’bout how the orphans was eating her out of house and home, but they must have been some serious slow eaters, ’cos the house was always being fix: new roof, extension, big old comfy chair. And that woman was fat! She was fat till fat roll when she walk. To look at her you would never say she was someone who live far from the kitchen.

  ‘But Berris was small. All Mistress Jolly pickney was small. We never have much but I still save a dumpling for Berris from my soup, or little dasheen, small piece of yam. Up to now don’t know why. ’Cept I seen him cry. Something pitiful. When he thought was no one there to see, I saw. See him put down some piece of bawling, never seen nothing like it in my life. Guess I felt sorry for him or something. Anyways I did it, give him a little food regular like. According to him was that little something save his life. Think that’s how we growed up to be so close.’

  He paused for a moment and lit a cigarette. With a grimace, he swallowed a mouthful from his glass, then took a deep drag and exhaled.

  ‘He call me a fool when I marry Mavis.’ His voice was quieter now, tired. ‘Think that was the only time we nearly come to blows. Said she was easy, I wasn’t the first to fuck her, that she take me and make jacket
to give her bastard a name. She never forget that. Never forgived him neither. After we come to England I still use to see him, we was still tight, but he couldn’t visit my yard. Was his fault for true and probably serve him right, but he still hate her for it. Hate her bad.

  ‘Course Mavis tell me all was lie, Berris jealous, the kinda thing she had to say, if you think on it, and I listen to what she have to say, but I study my son when he born, study him hard to see what he have for me. Like you, he favour his mum bad. Never could see me in him ’t’all. Think that was the reason I never send for him, even when we get settle here and we coulda.

  ‘Deep down in my heart, all that time, I never knowed, never knowed for sure…was he mine?’

  ‘Are you telling me all those years you never had a relationship with your son was ’cos of what Berris said?’ I asked.

  The soup was finished. I replaced the spoon in the bowl as he took it, nodding. ‘Yep.’

  ‘So he said one thing and your wife said something completely different and, of the two, you believed him?’

  ‘You wanted the truth, that’s what you getting.’

  ‘Just so I’m clear, you messed up but it was Berris’s fault?’

  ‘I’m not making excuses…’

  ‘Yes you are! So what that he said it? So what?’

  ‘I did what I did. Can’t turn back the clock. All I’m trying to do is tell it like it was,’ he said.

  He raised his brows, his hands, his shoulders in a shrug, and all at once he looked old. How many lives had Berris trashed in his lifetime, I wondered? How many? And yet Lemon still stood by him, still visited, still had him round for talks on old times. Even though I felt like a bully, like I was beating someone up who was making no effort to defend himself, I couldn’t stop.

  ‘She was your wife.’ To my surprise, my voice was choked. ‘Why couldn’t you just believe her?’

  ‘You think I didn’t want to believe her? You think I never try? Girl, you can’t even begin to imagine my misery, the ways I let her down. What I told you ain’t nothing.’

  ‘What, there’s more?’

  ‘Always more. But I need to get a refill first. You want one?’

  I shook my head. I had been concentrating on eating. The glass of wine he’d brought me was still full.

  ‘Think I better have some soup first; line me stomach a bit.’

  ‘Okay,’ I said, and he went.

  There was a time when I would have been overjoyed to know just how dissipated Lemon’s family life was. Clearly, since then, I had grown up. Now I just felt angry with Lemon, angry he had given Berris free reign to manipulate his thoughts, then done little else other than sit back and accept the resulting unhappiness, like a willing victim patiently poised, awaiting a fatal stab in the back.

  I asked him why he had come to see me and he had started from the beginning, with his childhood, and Berris was there. Berris was at my own beginning too. Everything had begun with him, literally begun from the first moment I laid eyes on him here in this very house. Up until then, my childhood had been spectacularly humdrum. It had chugged along with the monotony of a fairy tale; the odd discomfort here and there swiftly resolved and resulting in a happy-ever-after. It had been solid, unwavering and predictable. Like my friendship with Sam, my best friend from the day I started secondary school and found myself in the formroom sitting beside her. Samantha Adebayo. She was also at the beginning. My life changed on a day that started with Sam, the day we counted virgins and netball practice got cancelled.

  Considering it was the moment that signalled the beginning of the end of my childhood, you might have thought something dramatic had marked it out; a blazing comet crossing the sky or thunder pounding like a roll of drums. Instead it was a usual day, completely normal, a day so ordinary that I hadn’t suspected a thing.

  4

  I waited for Sam on the corner of Amhurst Road and Dalston Lane, outside Easton Chemist’s, at the bottom of Pembury Estate where she lived with her family, the whole of the Adebayo posse; her mum and dad, herself and three younger brothers.

  Her family was the complete opposite of mine, where it was just me and my mum and everything was quiet and in its place. Her dad was kind of okay but Mrs Adebayo could be a bit weird. Because of her, I didn’t visit them much, but on the occasions I had, Sam’s house was as noisy and crazy and manic as the school dining hall at lunchtime. Compared to hers, my house was like a morgue.

  From where I stood I could see through the courtyard, almost to the middle of the estate. The Adebayos lived in the block right at the top, overlooking the park, and there were several exits between that end and where I stood, but I knew Sam would come out this way because she always did. This was where I met her every morning; a short walk down from where I lived and across the road from Hackney Downs Station where we caught the 48 bus to take us to school.

  I was digi because it was a Monday and on Mondays after school we had netball practice. About half the time, Sam forgot her kit. She was pretty scatty, forever leaving something behind or just forgetting things completely. I was digi because I didn’t want to end up at practice on my own. But the minute I saw her, I relaxed.

  She was running from the moment she came into view, racing through the estate in the disgusting maroon uniform we hated so much, satchel flapping, blazer and cardigan undone, the carrier bag with her kit in it held between her teeth, her hands busy pulling her auburn hair into a ponytail; late as usual and still not finished dressing.

  ‘Jay, you gotta stop letting your mum do your hair, man,’ she said as she reached me, slowing down to a walk, which I picked up alongside her. My mum had washed my hair the day before and spent the evening cornrowing it into fine plaits that ran from my forehead to the nape of my neck, like Leroy’s from Fame.

  ‘I’ll take them out for you at first break,’ she said.

  Up until then, I’d quite liked the style, but if Sam thought it was dry, it would have to go.

  ‘Okay.’

  ‘You done your biology?’ she asked.

  I nodded.

  ‘Man, I can’t do shit at home. You don’t know how lucky you are. Once I’ve finished my O levels I’m out of there. My family’s seriously fucked.’

  We were five months away from our O levels and the end of our school days for ever. It was kind of strange knowing that, like the end of school was supposed to mark the beginning of being grown up, but I didn’t feel grown up at all. I didn’t have the first idea about what I wanted to do with my life. The only thing I was good at was writing stories, but that wasn’t much use when you were trying to work out what kind of career you could end up with. That was another difference between me and Sam. She always knew exactly what she wanted to do and no matter what, she went ahead and did it. Her mother was English and her father Ghanaian and she was totally against mixed relationships. She was sick of her parents arguing all the time, sick of being in a twobedroomed flat and not having her own bedroom, sick of being the only girl in her family and having to slave behind her brothers, and sick of being told what to do. As soon as our exams were over, she was leaving home.

  ‘You should’ve come over the garages on Friday,’ she said.

  She was talking about the car park underneath the tower blocks on Nightingale Estate. There were always loads of guys hanging out from the estate down there, renters mostly, trying to get the girls who passed through into the empty garages on a one-to-one. I didn’t like the scene as much as she did and it wasn’t just because the boys all seemed so immature, or even because the second they laid eyes on Sam it was like I’d suddenly become invisible. I had a deeper personal problem: French kissing. I’d never done it. You couldn’t count the hours spent practising on oranges; cutting them in half and gouging out the fruit using only my tongue. Good French-kissers left the pith clean, but I was nowhere near that level of proficiency. Usually, I just ended up with an exhausted tongue, and sore bits at the corners of my mouth so that when the juice touched them it stu
ng like hell. I was terrified my inexperience would make me look ridiculous, and over the garages, that fear made me mute.

  ‘Was it good?’

  ‘It was wicked. I got asked out again.’

  ‘Who by?’

  ‘Donovan, innit! Jay, if I tell you something, you gotta promise me you’ll never tell anyone as long as you live.’

  She was so dramatic. ‘Like I’d tell anyone,’ I said, rolling my eyes.

  ‘You have to promise me. Swear on your mother’s life.’

  ‘I swear, okay?’

  ‘I saw his wood.’

  ‘Liar!’ I shrieked.

  ‘I swear.’

  ‘I don’t believe you.‘

  ‘You think I’d lie about something like that?’

  ‘How did you see it?’

  ‘He took it out. He wannid me to touch it –’

  ‘Ergh! Gross.’

  ‘But I said “no”, of course,’ she added, but it sounded kind of lame, like maybe she had only added that last bit because of how I’d reacted, and I wondered whether she really had touched it.

  Donovan was in the sixth form at Homerton House. He had been asking her out for months, and the way she told, it was like he was some renter and she just wasn’t interested. But I knew she had some interest, because I caught them kissing once, one evening when all the kids were playing out on my road and we decided to play Knock Down Ginger with the old fogies who lived on the first floor in Bodney Mansions. But when we took the corner into the dark stairwell, Donovan and Sam were already there, doing some serious kissing and grinding up. She looked well shamed when she saw me, and they both tried to play it like nothing had been going on. But it was blatant. I’d caught them cold.

  ‘So what did it look like?’ I asked.

  ‘Like a saveloy when the skin’s peeled back.’

  ‘Ugh! I am never gonna eat saveloy ever again,’ I said.