Hibah was saying, “But it i’n’t as easy as you think,” when Joel came upon them from the rear. “Mum keeps me pract’cally locked up ’n tha’ place. ’S not like your situation, innit. I make a wrong move and I’m gated f’rever.”
Joel said, “Neal, c’n I have a word?”
Neal whirled around. Hibah jumped to her feet. Joel said quickly, “S’okay. I don’t mean no harm. I ain’t rampin you.”
Neal stood, but unlike Hibah, he did it slowly. He made the movement very much like a 1930s film gangster, which was indeed where he got most of his moves: from ancient Hollywood character actors with beaten-up faces. He said, “Piss off.”
“I got to talk to you.”
“You deaf or summick? I say piss off ’fore I take care of you good.”
“Down to you if we fight, bred,” Joel said calmly, although he didn’t feel calm. What he felt like was grabbing on to the flick knife as a form of security. “All’s I want is a word, but you c’n have more off me, dat how you want it.”
“Neal,” Hibah said. “You can talk to him, innit.” And to Joel with a smile, “How’s it goin, Joel? Where you been at lunchtimes, cos I look for you by the guard shack a bunch.”
Neal scowled at this. He said to Joel, “I ain’t your bred. Go suck yuh muddah’s pussy.”
It was a deliberate provocation, a begging of Joel to fling himself at the other boy. But he didn’t do it. He didn’t even need to reply. Hibah did it for him.
“Tha’s just the most disgustin thing I ever heard,” she said to Neal. “He’s asking to talk to you, nuffink else. Wha’s the matter wiv you? I swear, Neal, sometimes I wonder ’f your head’s on right. You talk to him or I’m out ’f here. Why’d I want to take a risk like this—meetin out here which is expressly what my mum tol’ me I wasn’t to do—for someone wiv no brains to speak of?”
“Take five minutes,” Joel said, “maybe less, if we get down to it.”
“I ain’t gettin down to nuffink wiv you,” Neal said. “’F you t’ink I’m about—”
“Neal.” Hibah spoke again. But it sounded like a warning this time. For a moment Joel thought the Muslim girl had lost her mind and was going to take his side in the matter even more overtly—such as with a threat—but then he saw she was looking over at the bridge. Two uniformed constables stood there, and they were looking down at the gardens, mostly looking at the three adolescents themselves. One of the constables spoke into the radio fixed to his shoulder. The other merely waited.
It didn’t take a long leap to know what they were doing. Two mixed-race boys in conversation with a Muslim girl. They were waiting for trouble.
Neal said, “Fuck it.”
Hibah said, “I got to go. ’F they come down here…’F they ask our names…Las’ thing I c’n cope wiv is havin my mum get a call from the cops.”
“Jus’ sit and be cool,” Joel told her. “They won’t do nuffink ’f we don’t give ’em reason.”
Neal gave Hibah a look. “Be cool,” he told her.
Joel took this as a form of agreement with what he’d said. He thought it might presage further agreement, so he spoke openly as Hibah sat back on the bench. “I been thinkin,” he said to Neal. “Why we vexin each other? ‘S not getting us anywheres ’cept—”
“You ain’t vexin me,” Neal cut in as he joined Hibah on the bench. “You basic’ly an arse wipe needin tossed in the bin. Dat’s all I’m tryin to do wiv you. Put you where you need to be put.”
Joel wouldn’t let this remark boil inside him. He could see how Neal was going to take advantage of the presence of the police. Sitting, he’d made himself a target. If Joel launched himself at him with the cops as witnesses, Joel would take the fall for it. He said, “I don’t want to fight wiv you. Dis shit going on, it’s been happenin too long. We keep it up, summick bad’s comin down. You want dat? I don’t.”
Neal smirked. “Dat’s cos you ain’t got the bottle for a war ’tween you and me. But you know it’s comin. You c’n feel it, eh? Dat’s good. Keep you on your toes.”
“Damn it, Neal Wyatt,” Hibah said.
“Shut up!” Neal turned to her. “Shut your mouf for once, Hibah. You don’t know what you’re talkin about so jus’ stop talkin, y’unnerstan?”
Surprise stopped her. But something in his words also caused a dawn to break over her. She said, slowly and thoughtfully, with a growing awareness, “Hey, this right here…This stuff going on between you an’ Joel…Hey, this ain’t even about you, is it? Cos—”
“I said shut up!” Neal glanced to the bridge. The cops were gone. He gave Hibah a shove to indicate his desire that she leave them then.
“Your mum’s wantin you at home,” he told her. “You can’t keep it plugged, you go back and do wha’ever she tell you. Say your prayers or wha’ever.”
“You can’t tell me—”
“You do like I say. Or you want summick help you make up your mind?”
Her eyes widened. He’d said enough. She looked at Joel. “You keep clear,” she said. “Y’unnerstan?” But that was all she said before she rose from the bench and headed out of the gardens, leaving Joel alone with Neal.
“You listen good, yellow,” Neal said to Joel when Hibah was out of earshot. “You in my face, and dat’s exackly where I don’t want to see you, y’unnerstan? Piss off and be glad wha’s comin ain’t come yet. Maybe you still suckin on your muddah’s tit, but I ain’t. Got it?”
Joel felt the full weight of the flick knife then. Bring it out, press the button, thrust it at the other boy, and who’s sucking on whose tit where? But he did nothing.
He tried a final time, for Toby’s sake. “Dis ain’t the way to solve nuffink. You got to know dat. We got to put t’ings to rest between us cos there ain’t no point in it otherwise.”
Neal stood in a rush. Joel took a step backwards.
“I tell you what gets put at rest,” Neal said. “Don’t work th’other way round no way. I mark you and you stay marked. ’F you t’ink any different, you end up—”
“Joel! Joel Joel!” The cry came from the direction of the bridge, from beneath where Toby had emerged from his hiding place. He was clutching his crotch, his knees pressed together. He could not have been more specific about his needs had he sent a telegram. Nonetheless, with the disturbing honesty that was typical of him, he called out, “I got to use the toilet. Ain’t no headhunters round anymore, is there?”
Joel felt something akin to a stab entering his heart. He heard Neal’s short, abrasive laugh. “Stupid shit,” he said in a voice that sounded like wonder. “Wha’s wrong wiv dat dumb cunt?” He looked at Joel, who’d turned back to him. “Headhunters, innit? Got yourself a spot to bolt for, eh? Mon, you got one stupid fuck of a—”
“Leave him alone.” Joel heard himself give the directive in a voice that was not quite his own. “You touch my brother again an’ I swear you die an’ die bloody. You got dat, mon? You got a problem wiv me, you leave it wiv me. Leave Toby out of it.”
He walked away, knowing the risk of turning his back on Neal but reckoning that if a brawl should start, he still had the knife. He was, at this point, more than itching to use it.
But Neal didn’t attack. Instead he said, “Next time, mon. We take care of business, you an’ me. Meantime, you keep an eye on dat brother twenty-four seven. Cos you ain’t first on the list no more, Jo-oell. No more an’ no way, y’unnerstan?”
KENDRA FELT INCREASINGLY miserable as the weeks went by. While she had more time for building her business and even enough time to take a class in Thai massage for modest clients wishing to remain loosely clothed when she worked upon them, she was acutely aware of the hole in her life.
She tried to fill it at first with a new concentration on the Campbells. But the problem with her approach to giving the children attention was that she failed to see on the horizon a different sort of danger from the dangers she’d seen before. Most of those had involved Ness, who was—for reasons remaining mysterious to Ken
dra—suddenly doing what she was supposed to do, which was community service, seeing her probation officer, and attempting to get herself sorted out with regard to school by taking a course at the college. Kendra’s worries about Toby she put on the back burner, along with the paperwork that she was meant to fill out to allow someone—and she didn’t want to know who that someone was—to engage in studies of the little boy. That, she swore, was not going to happen. And Joel, from what she could see on the surface, seemed to have dealt with his problems with the neighbourhood louts by himself. Thus, there seemed nothing for her to do for the children aside from offering them food, shelter, and the occasional outing that did not require paying an admission charge.
This mistaken idea of there being nothing left for Kendra to do took her thoughts ineluctably to Dix D’Court: It had been exactly as Dix had said it would be, she decided. Joel and Neal Wyatt, left to their own devices, had come to an agreement allowing both of them to live in peace.
Thus, having no idea what was really going on, Kendra possessed ample time to look at her life and find it wanting. She spoke to Cordie about this, taking the opportunity on a lunch hour to catch her girlfriend in the midst of painting a set of talonlike nails on the hands of a middle-aged overweight white lady with fuchsia hair and sunglasses that she didn’t remove despite being inside the shop. She was called Isis, Cordie informed Kendra, without a hint that she might be conscious that the name—attached to this particular female—was in no small way ironic.
Kendra nodded to Isis and spent approximately one minute watching the work being done on her nails. Cordie was something of a legend in the Harrow Road, possessing a talent for decorating artificial fingernails in such a way as to leave absolutely no doubt that they were entirely false from cuticle to tip. In this case and in keeping with the time of year, she was going for an autumn motif on top of the acrylic. The base colour was purple and she was painting golden corncobs and sheaves of wheat on top of it.
Kendra said to Cordie, “Nice, that.” And to Isis, “Colour’s real good with your skin.” This was not actually true, but anything directing attention away from Isis’s hair was an improvement.
Isis said frankly, “She’s a fucking genius,” with a nod at Cordie. “I been telling her no way’s she going on leave of absence this time round and making me find someone else to do my nails.”
Kendra drew her eyebrows together and looked at her friend. She said, “Leave of absence?”
Cordie shrugged, nail enamel brush in hand. She looked embarrassed.
Her embarrassment told the tale. “Cordie! You pregnant? What happened?”
Isis said to Kendra, “You look damn well old enough to know the fac’s of life, luv.”
Kendra waved her off. “Cordie?”
Cordie drew her mouth to one side, her way of screwing up her courage to speak. She said, “First off, he found the pills. F’r a week he rant ’bout betrayal. I c‘n handle dat, but den he talk ’bout leaving us. An’ I c’n tell he mean it.”
“That’s blackmail.”
“Di’n’t I tell her,” Isis intoned.
“It c’n be whatever it want to be,” Cordie said. “Fac is, I don’t want dat mon leavin or looking nowhere else. I love the blood. He good to me and he good to our girls. He the bes’ dad I know and all’s he asking is one more chance at a son. So I give it him. Dis here’s the result.” She as yet had no bump—wouldn’t have for months—but she gestured to her stomach. “All’s I c’n say’s I hope dis time it’s got a dick. Cos nuffink else will satisfy Gerald, lemme tell you.”
In that way in which misery loves company, Cordie’s pregnancy suggested to Kendra that she should in some way give in to her desire to have Dix back in her life. It also gave her permission to speak of this desire, which she did in short order. Cordie listened—as did Isis, unashamedly—and at the end of Kendra’s story of her last encounter with Dix and how she’d filled the time since then, the other two women weighed in with identical advice, albeit voiced differently.
Cordie said, “You, girl, jus’ need to get laid and dat’ll put an end to the matter.”
Isis said, somewhat more colourfully, “Someone needs to see to your plumbing straightaway.”
“Le’s have a girls’ night out,” Cordie said. “We ain’t done that in months, and we’re both due. Now I’ve done wha’ Gerald want, he be happy to mind the girls for an evening. You name the day, we put our dancin shoes on. We find you some nice fresh man flesh, Ken. Dat take your mind off Dix D’Court.”
So that was what they did. They chose the gastropub on Great Western Road, sitting along the side of the canal. This was a cut above their usual choice for an outing, and they had their dinner on an Indian summer night, on the patio next to the water. During their meal, they were entertained by a classical guitarist whom Cordie earmarked as up for the job that needed doing. But to Kendra he looked like a student, and she declared herself 100 percent through with younger men.
This left the young man for Cordie, who had no compunction whatsoever about reeling him in. When he took his break, she bought him a drink. Walking her fingers up his arm was enough to telegraph the message about her interests, which were not musical. As Kendra watched from the outdoor table at which she was having the last of the bottle of wine they’d ordered—when it came to her habits and her lifestyle, it must be said that Cordie had never been overly concerned about altering either when she was pregnant—Cordie and the guitarist sauntered out the front door of the pub and round the corner. This street led to Paddington Arts and Paddington Hospital. Cordie, obviously, was intent upon neither. Just a dark spot for a little snog.
Left alone, Kendra looked around to see if there were any pickings. As luck or fate would have it, at that same moment a middle-aged white man—later revealing his name as “just Geoff”—was checking out the pickings himself. He was of the ilk who harboured what he liked to call secret fantasies about sex with black women, having the notion that they were inherently more sexual—not to mention more sexually active and consequently more willing to bed a perfect stranger—than their white counterparts. He’d been encouraged in this fantasy by certain pornographic Web sites dedicated to men with such notions, and on this evening he’d spent a few hours entertaining himself with these sites in the basement of his home before finally deciding the time was right to make his dreams a reality.
Going for a woman on the job would have made sense at this point, but just Geoff was not a man who would ever consider paying. He had looks, he had money, he had the moves, he had conversation. He believed in mutual pleasure for both parties. He was married, but that was a minor detail. The wife traveled for her architectural work. They were a modern couple. They had an understanding.
He revealed most of this to Kendra—with a few variations here and there—when he came out of the pub to join her on the patio. They’d locked eyes. Neither had broken the gaze. She’d picked up her wineglass and touched her tongue to its rim. Message received. He wasted no time.
He said nothing out of the norm for the situation: She was a beautiful woman, so what was she doing here alone? (This, naturally, was a question requiring him to overlook the second wineglass out of which Cordie had been drinking before she bunked off with her guitarist.) Was she a regular here? He’d been watching her for a while and he’d finally thought, What the hell? when he’d caught her eye. It wasn’t, she was to understand, the kind of thing he generally did. But his wife was out of town and he’d been at loose ends for the evening and…Did she want to go some place quiet for a drink?
This last was all form. Both of them knew it since the patio of the gastropub was perfectly quiet, romantically lit, and licenced to serve alcoholic beverages. But she agreed. She liked the look of him, all squeaky clean with nice teeth, well-cut hair, and fingernails looking as if they’d been buffed. He wore a signet ring and a white shirt and tie. He had slip-on shoes with tassels, and his socks did not droop. She knew he wouldn’t be able to hold a match to
Dix in the breathtaking body department, but she needed a man. He would do.
Outside she made the suggestion that both of them knew she would make. She lived close by and it was quiet, she said. She had kids there, but they’d be in bed.
She didn’t know this about Ness, but she hoped for the best. Even if Ness were still up, there was no need to see her as they climbed the stairs to the second floor. They could pass the doorway to the sitting room and keep climbing. There would be no problem.
The idea of kids gave just Geoff pause. Kendra could see his dilemma: what he thought and what he clearly did not want. She said, “They’re not mine and I’m not on the game. This, tonight. It’s just what I want. It’s not what I do regularly.”
Just Geoff allowed this to be sufficient reassurance. He had only one rationale for doing this: She was a gorgeous woman with a gorgeous body. He didn’t want her, but he wanted it. He put his hand on the small of her back and said, “Then let’s go,” with a smile.
The walk was a short one, but just Geoff knew the importance of build-up, so it took them a while to cross Meanwhile Gardens. He was very good at the business of making women ready for him, so by the time they reached her front door, a walk of five minutes that took twenty-five, Kendra was throbbing in all the right places and thanking her stars she’d chosen him.
She was glad she’d worn a clingy dress that evening, held in place with a simple sash tied at the side. Aside from wisps of underwear and a pair of strappy high heels, she had nothing else on. And she had nothing on at all by the time they reached the top of the stairs.
She worked on just Geoff’s clothes while he worked on her body, all hands and tongue and mouth. She got him naked in a trail of clothes leading from the stairs to her bed, whereupon they fell upon it and coupled ferociously. Just Geoff did the job he’d set out to do on her before he positioned her legs over his shoulders, which was the way he liked to have his women in his own final moments. He then carried his fantasy to its logical conclusion. He withdrew at once and collapsed next to her.