Love Me Read online

  ‘So,’ I say, lips tight, voice shaking, ‘am I missing something here, kids?’

  Zed looks at me quizzically, blows air out between his lips, raises his eyebrows at the ground. Max has the sheer blind complacency to giggle and grab his good hand.

  ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ she says conspiratorially. Winking at me. I close my eyes and everything spins for a minute.

  wait—

  Brooklyn, 23 May

  Cherry Pepper,

  Had a dream last night you were stuck at the bottom of a well trying to burrow your way out with your fingernails like a little rodent instead of climbing like you should have. Trying to scratch your way through cement! So I thought to myself, putting my hand on my hip just so, I thought, this little creature is my niece? My little warrior woman who belted out a sound like opera when she was born (and that look you gave us, so indignant! As if you were snatched from the unseen right in the middle of an important conversation)? I shouted out. I said, Love, where you going? You gonna get nowhere but dead with them tactics! You didn’t answer. I don’t know if that’s because you couldn’t hear me or because you were pretending, but whatever the blockage was in your earholes my voice was dust and you kept on tunnelling. You’ve always had a head harder than calabash.

  Anyway, I woke up from the dream thirsty, with a pen in one hand and a sheet of paper in the other and your mother at my shoulder telling me to tell you to relax. As I write this, she’s leaning over and blowing the ink dry. (I’m always telling her how that makes me vexed!) She says you need to let in a breeze, girl. Crack the blinds, throw open the windows, let fresh air sing through the house and smash all the junk on the mantel. The head should always remain cool, you hear me? Cool.

  Tell me all about your young life, Cherry Pepper. Write me page upon page. I wonder about you often, whether you’re still taking your pictures, whether you’re married or have children. Did your father ever drag you into that woman-hating, happy-clappy church of his?

  And you know what? In that dream, I should have told you to stand up in that well because if you did I bet you would have been able to see over the side of the damn thing!

  Return to us in Brooklyn one day, my dear. Come for J’Ouvert?

  Soon,

  Aunt K.

  kick.

  WHEN I REOPEN my hazel-brights my tormentors are so fresh, so clean, while I stand here unravelling. I am a peasant. I do a last-minute check in my compact mirror and my face looks like one of those ‘kick me’ signs you get stuck on your back in school. Plus my eyeshadow is clearly a mistake. If you should pass me in the street, just give me a box of Kleenex, cab money and tell me to go home right now and stop this. You can even throw in that kick if you like, but it might be useless since I seem to be in love with pain.

  ‘Cease with the bimbo act, bitch!’ I say.

  And Max just thinks I’m kidding, so she laughs.

  ‘Dave!’ Zed bellows and shakes his head in relief. ‘Where you been, kid?’

  I look behind me and there’s an irritated little guy with a nose-ring, lugging a bag of equipment. The mics.

  ‘Drama,’ Dave says simply. Zed mumbles at the bouncer and Dave scuttles into the club.

  ‘Let’s go in,’ says Zed.

  ‘Yeah, let’s,’ I say, wearing a smile faker than a six-pound note.

  money.

  CAN’T BELIEVE IT was only three weeks ago that grown-up Zed and I were hanging almost daily. I’d appointed myself his guide and that was my excuse, but the truth is that within a week of being in the LDN he was already leading me down streets I’d never heard of. I went quickly from being a guide to a spy. I wanted to unpick the mystery of him, how he’d become as powerful and crisp as money.

  ‘Those are hideous,’ I said, watching him handle a pair of black and gold Nikes.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Those,’ I said louder, all gnarled up and couldn’t help it, ‘are so gaudy it’s ridiculous. You’d wear those?’

  One of the last places we hung out before he became so hard to reach was a trainer shop in the West End, bright-lit and teeming with youngsters. He was trying on a pair of the freshest available and the hem of his carefully cared-for jeans draped over the clean leather was an eyeful. My digital camera tickled me from inside my jacket pocket, whirring silently. My blue metal pet, my most expensive possession. I bought it as a little consolation prize for myself a year ago, a prize for non-achievement. But it doesn’t know that. It’s always full of joie de vivre, winking and blushing, and it has a thing for Zed almost as bad as I do. I could have sworn it shivered as I finally freed it from its case and snapped pics of his fingers, his feet and the perfect line-up at the nape of his neck.

  ‘Maybe,’ he said, ignoring the clicker, ‘you should be focusing on your own footwear, sweetie.’

  ‘My kicks are old, that’s all. Those ones are grotesque right out the box.’

  ‘Old? The Chucks you got on must have been rescued from the Flood!’ He paused, looked at the Nikes. ‘But maybe you right about these. Damn.’

  Eventually he picked out a pair of all-grey sneaks that I had to admit were perfect. Click, click. The girl at the till flirted with him as she rang up his purchase, trying to entice him – unsuccessfully – with matching socks and leather protector. He gave her a credit card and I wondered idly if I’d ever qualify to even physically handle a credit card application without gloves on.

  Finally we walked back out into the muggy blueish day, the Saturday crush of Oxford Street. I had to struggle through all the tourists and budget fashionistas. For him, they moved. I asked if he was Moses and he laughed, oblivious to the women and men who cut eyes at me, coveting him. I suppose they weren’t to know that I didn’t have him either.

  We stopped and walked into the Plaza mall opposite Wardour Street, up to the top floor for eats. I got some fried chicken and chips, he got a sandwich, and we sat at one of those white tables that are probably identical in food courts all over the world.

  ‘I can’t believe you spent that much,’ I said when we sat down. ‘You could probably have got about four pairs of brand-new Chucks for that price.’

  ‘I could have,’ he replied, ‘but that’s your style, not mine.’

  ‘What? Not high-end enough for you?’

  ‘I didn’t say all o’ that. When you get so insecure?’

  ‘Insecure?’ I sucked my teeth, felt like I’d been slapped. ‘You’re the one trying to look like a rap video and I’m the one who’s insecure? Please.’

  I ate some chicken.

  ‘Yeah, well I know that compared to you I make a lot of effort. But that’s probably true of most people.’

  ‘Asshole!’

  ‘You brought it on yourself.’

  I gave him the look of death but my hand went to my thick, knotty hair before I could stop it, to the stretched neck of my second-favourite T-shirt.

  ‘What’s wrong with the way I dress?’ I asked, trying to sound like I didn’t care about the answer. Eating more chicken.

  ‘Come on. Look at you . . .’ he said, brushing his neat fingers over the jagged holes in my jeans. ‘Are you kidding? Why are you so afraid to be pretty? If you ever wore a wedding dress you’d probably have to go jump in a puddle. You couldn’t help yourself.’

  ‘At least I’m not some clichéd brand-worshipping B.E.T. lookin’ caricature of myself like you! What’s the big deal, anyway? Are you saying you’ve never seen ripped jeans before?’

  ‘Those are not ripped jeans, mama.’ He laughed. ‘They just given up on life. If denim abuse was a crime you’d be locked up right now.’

  ‘Well you know what? Maybe I don’t wanna look like the rest of these hoes!’ I told him, and he laughed harder, right into my eyes. ‘You can tell me what to wear when you’re the one buying it, OK? You can’t tell me shit unless you’re the one who has to—’

  ‘Fine. I will.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Let’s go.’ He wiped
his face and hands decisively with a napkin. ‘I’ll buy you one outfit. If you don’t love it, keep the receipt, return it and take the money.’

  ‘Are you serious?’ I smirked. ‘You’re buying me clothes now?’

  ‘No. I’m buying you one outfit.’

  I watched him carefully for motives. Went into fight/flight mode thinking about it.

  ‘Why?’

  ‘It’ll be fun.’

  ‘Why, Zed?’

  ‘Because you look like hell.’

  ‘Fuck off!’

  ‘But you got potential.’

  ‘For what?’

  ‘Look. Is it a deal or not?’

  Slowly I nodded. I wanted to know what would make him like me.

  Zed smiled and waggled his eyebrows.

  An unfamiliar voice called my name from outside the little half-door. ‘Your friend has asked me to ask you if you’re gonna be ready soon. He wants to see!’

  I stared in the mirror at my big legs and voluminous bosoms, my sudden waist. I couldn’t go outside like that. I could barely even stay in the changing room like that. I felt more naked in the tight blue dress he’d given me to try on than I had in my bra and pants. A paradox emerged in my head. Naked, that’s how they want you, but flawless. How can they expect both?

  I wondered again why he’d done this and felt a sudden jolt of anger.

  ‘Eden?’

  Jesus. Didn’t she have shelves to stock or something?

  ‘I’ll be two seconds.’ I breathed deep and tugged at the flimsy hem of the dress. When I got outside his demeanour went from cocky to spontaneous-combustion-level shocked. I don’t think he even really knew what nasty tricks a measure of lycra could pull off on my body.

  ‘What?’ I said aggressively, like an unprovoked act of violence in the school playground.

  His look swept from the picky ends of my hair to the tips of my bare, unpedicured toes. ‘Wow . . . Eden! You like it?’

  ‘I suppose.’ My face was hot. My hands itched to cover every inch of exposed or over-emphasised flesh. I took an extremely tentative twirl. ‘What do you think?’

  ‘Is that a trick question?’ he said, cockiness returning. ‘Damn, girl!’

  ‘Thanks, I . . . erm. Thanks.’

  ‘You gonna . . .?’

  ‘Yeah, I’ll take it, definitely.’

  I returned swiftly to the changing room to get back into my big, mostly shapeless clothes, but the deal was done and a few moments later my new dress was stuffed in a bag and paid for. The Middle Eastern man who took the money winked at us and made heavily accented jokes about Zed buying an outfit for his woman. Zed didn’t even correct him.

  I was inspired, walking back up toward Oxford Circus. Wearing something so different made me wonder who else I could be. Tentatively I went into a couple of the big chains and dented my already quite negligible paycheck buying some bangles, earrings and a pair of very skinny jeans. I fantasised about how I was going to feel in my sexed-up wardrobe, with Zed on my arm. I could finally do something about my hair. People would think I was pretty. They’d be envious of us.

  ‘Now all you need is a little facial surgery and you’ll be supermodel material.’

  I stopped, letting my bags fall on the ground.

  ‘What?’ he said. ‘I was kidding.’

  I said nothing.

  ‘Damn, it was a joke.’

  salt.

  I FOLLOW ZED and Max sheep-like into the club, a high-concept affair in blinding white with low ceilings and lighted floors, and booths designed to look like bedrooms. Everywhere there are throw cushions, canopies, fur and feathers. It’s not any cooler inside than it was outside in the filthy summer streets and I’m sweat-slicked without taking a single dance step. My Afro is shrinking at a rate that’s likely to make my skull implode sometime around three a.m.

  All I want to do is run home and sleep deep into Sunday with a duvet pulled over my head, because absolutely no good can come from this night. But that would be an admission of defeat.

  Max asks me if I want a drink and I say, like a robot, ‘Rum and Coke thanks.’

  I don’t look at Zed as he introduces me to Lisa, a black girl draped in a nine-foot hair-weave. Shocking. At her scalp you can see the places where kink meets fakery.

  ‘Hey,’ she says, cutting me a look. Maybe I’m just sensitive right now, but I could swear it’s the same look my mum used to direct at my head Sunday nights before she’d had a chance to attack it with the pressing comb. ‘How ya doing?’

  ‘Cool,’ I lie. ‘Your hair,’ I tell her, ‘is truly unbelievable.’

  When the drink comes, I swallow it so fast it should make my head spin, but it doesn’t. I’m introduced to a couple more people but instantly forget their names. When a girl with an enthusiastic ponytail offers to buy drinks, I have a rum and Coke. And when Nine-Foot Weave offers to buy drinks, I have yet another. The world starts to swim, lengthen and stretch. All the edges stand out: my hand resting on my bare thigh, Max’s red mouth and white face, my empty glass dizzy with flashing lights.

  My body floats up and my head is a lump of brick.

  ‘Hey Eden, you ready for another one?’

  ‘Yes, please. Whisky and Coke.’

  Blondie matches me drink for drink, but she’s on vodka.

  When it’s time for Zed to go on stage I have to muscle my way to the front of the room just to get to him, through a forest of carelessly waving limbs. The DJ fades out the record, and a tiny woman in red introduces the entertainment. She says his name. I grip my drink. There he is, looking even bigger than usual. Shiny. I take down a sip, grateful for the burn.

  Zed raps with his chin tilted up, generous lips curled in a faint snarl. His flow is seamless. He doesn’t dance. One hand is in its sling and the other lightly cradles the mic. He drops one sharply delivered punch line after another, battle rhymes and boasts, women and money. He’s agile in the lips and tongue and brain. There’s barely any space to breathe in between lines and no story to speak of and no glimpse of flesh through the cleverness. This is hip-hop for ADD sufferers. But he is a master. Look at all the faces, all the bobbing bodies. They love it and I hate them for putting their greasy gaze all over his talent. Especially Max. By the end of the twenty-minute set she’s wearing this proprietary grin like this show was for her personal amusement.

  After fierce applause all the vultures turn to each other and begin their appraisals before he’s even completely melted from view. That was alright innit? – Yeah, not bad! – He sounds a bit like Rakim . . .? – You reckon? – Yeah definitely! – Nah, not at all, mate! Are you deaf? Sounds more like . . .! A guy in a tilted newsboy cap waves his beer around and spills half of it on my Chucks.

  ‘Sorry!’

  ‘Fuck off.’

  Max goes to the bar. I threaten, cajole and lie my way to the tiny backstage area with beer-wet feet and when I get there, Zed’s sitting on a wooden chair with his head cradled by one hand, body shirtless and slick. He’s spotlighted by a single bare lightbulb hanging from the ceiling.

  ‘Zed.’ I have to say it twice before he lifts his face, his red eyes. He doesn’t look surprised to see me. I reach into my knapsack for my digital and snap him a few times, so I remember.

  ‘Stop it, Eden. You ever stop doing that?’

  I put it away. His irritation excites me. He’s so cool usually. Laughing . . . closed. I instantly soften. I haven’t the heart for banter.

  ‘That was really,’ I tell him eventually, trying not to sway, ‘really good.’

  ‘Yeah? Well that’s odd coming from you.’

  ‘It’s not.’ I speak quietly and slowly without quite knowing why, like I’m talking him down from the ledge. ‘Nobody could dispute your talent. Everyone had fun and they were . . . They were impressed. I watched their faces.’

  He nods and smiles opaquely, throwing a white towel around his neck.

  ‘Didn’t you like it?’ I ask.

  ‘It was OK,’ he says at lengt
h, scratching his head. ‘But not good enough.’

  ‘What do you mean? They loved you out there.’

  He wipes his face with the towel and says: ‘Trust me. The only thing they really love is fashion, and fashion’s a painted whore who sleeps around with everyone and loves nobody but her damned self.’

  I don’t know what to say so I just stand there blurry-eyed with alcohol and hormones. I thought he was a fan of fashion. He looks so sincere. Maybe all is not lost after all.

  ‘Zed . . .’

  But before I can begin the speech I planned in my bedroom mirror, he says he needs a minute and will catch me outside. And then Dave the technician guy comes in.

  So I go back out into the club where the music batters my senses and sit back down in the booth with my whisky and Coke. I watch when he emerges with a closed smile and not a single visible trace of his angst. People keep coming up to him, patting his back and slipping him pieces of paper. On comes the mask again and I can’t bear it, how flash he is in every line of his body. Women thrust their tits up at him and flick their hair in his face until Max sidles up and that’s when I give my drink more attention. She touches him like he’s discovered country. They’ve done it. They’ve definitely done it.

  Suddenly, it reaches me that the hand on my thigh is no longer my own. Instead it belongs to this fool who’s been trying to chat me up since I got in here.

  ‘It’s Adrian, right?’

  ‘Yeah, babes.’

  And Zed is dancing. Every movement is packed with irony. He does characters that are never himself. His mouth is open with laughter I can’t hear over the music. His face and body say, look at me (but not too close)!

  ‘You alright, love?’ says Adrian.

  ‘Yeah.’

  Zed won’t even dance without masks! He jokes around with the Ponytail and the Nine-Foot Weave, doing The Bump. They adore him.

  Is that all he wants – to be adored? Does he prefer that to being a real person? What happened to the backstage Zed? And what about his bad arm – doesn’t it hurt too much for him to dance? Maybe it’s wrong to think this but I prefer him when the pain shows.