Forest Gate (20 page)

I slid off my jacket, lowered myself and rested my back against the edge of my father's headstone. I glanced around – some of the weeds were overgrown, obscuring some of the older headstones. I looked up at the sky and for a moment I was still. Then I shook my head, rocked back and forth and read my brother's letter.

James,

I have begun this letter five times and torn it up five times. I keep seeing your face, the face of our father and the faces of our brothers. This will be the last time you hear from me.

I'm sorry for what I have to do but this ain't no way for us to live. Marcus Garvey described us as a mighty race . . . I sure don't feel like I'm a part of it. I hate doing what I do. I hate myself. I've spent a long time trying to please no one but myself. I have no idea who I really am but I know I'm not a poisoner of black kids. I see too much blood when I look in the mirror, black blood everywhere. I can escape the mirror, James, but I can't escape myself.

I have never had the chance to tell you about my son, Ricardo. His mother is Carla. She lives in Piauí, north-east Brazil. I met Carla years ago at that Sunday-night club on the Lea Bridge road. She was one of those girls who wore expensive shit. You know the type, getting mashed on Moet and half an E and dancing all night. Turns out she was only in London two weeks. I liked her from the off. We started chatting, swapped numbers and ended up getting close. I even took her to the airport when she left. Somehow we stayed in touch – she sent letters but she never told me she got pregnant, not until he was born. I didn't give a shit at first but it was always in the back of my mind, like. I wondered sometimes about that little boy I had somewhere in Brazil. I met up with her on the last business trip I took. I spent two weeks with them. That was real life, James. It's been ages since I have seen my boy. They mean everything in the world to me but I don't see them because I'm a disaster.

Your girl Meina sort of reminds me of my Carla. You're onto a winner there. She looks like she might be able to boil an egg and read bedtime stories to your kids (not like some of these ghetto chicks). Don't be a screw-up like me. (Your dick is the devil – don't listen.) Hold on to her. Make yourself a good family, protect them, be the best that you can be. Don't be stupid.

Always remember me, remember your brothers. You're on your own now. This is not the time to be weak, be strong. Don't let life turn you into a victim.

When you leave for Brazil, be sure to take clothes for my boy (he will be four) and cigarettes for her (Marlboro). Keep an eye on Ricardo; he is the only thing about me that is pure. Their address is:

House Teresina

Rua das barrocas

Santa Rosa, Piauí

Brazil

It's not going to be easy. I don't envy you, James. But you've always been straight as a hard-on. You are black. You are under eighteen. I don't see a place for you, not in the age we live in. I don't even know what to say to you. Still, don't make me catch you down in hell. I have racked my brain to offer you some words of wisdom. I could only come up with this: don't be afraid. This is your home, don't be driven from it. You have to survive.

Remember your brothers: Dahrren, Jerome, Loryn and Kieran.

And me,

Nathan

I read the letter a few times before pulling out my wallet and searching for Trevor Carrick's business card.
Trevor Carrick, Psychotherapist
.

My father's headstone was black marble. I wondered who had chosen the uninspired words:
Gone but not forgotten, ever loved husband and father, at rest
. Probably Nathan.

I looked around at some of the other graves with freshly laid flowers: lilies, tulips, irises. They looked doomed. The sun was soft, shots of light beamed on the marble headstones. I dialled Trevor Carrick's mobile number.

It was answered on the fourth ring.

'Hello, Mr Carrick. This is James Morrison. I'm hoping you remember who I am. We met –'

'James, I know who you are.'

Silence.

'I'm sorry to trouble you. But you said I could call if I needed help. Well . . . my brothers . . . well . . . what did you give me your card for, Mr Carrick?'

'James, I heard about what happened and I'm sorry.'

'That's all right. But, Mr Carrick, I need some help.'

'Anything.'

'I don't know what to do.'

Silence.

'Are you there? I said I don't know what to do.'

'Well,' he said, 'well . . . you could . . . Look, I'm glad you called. It shows . . .'

I didn't understand Carrick's dithering. I felt like I was being mocked.

'James? . . . James, I'm sorry,' said Carrick, 'I just don't know what to say.'

I looked at the red button on Mr Bloom's phone and cut the call. I lay at my father's grave, surrounded by trees, with my eyes closed, for a long time. My mind was blank. There was no one else about except for a couple walking hand in hand following a path far ahead. I lay there, waiting for time to start up again.

I sat with my father for over an hour. I had my brother's letter on my lap. I stared up at the grey slowly spreading over the sky and the pigeon shit on the red rooftops on the red-brick houses across the street. There was just stillness. When I walked out of the cemetery Larry Bloom was sitting in the car waiting patiently listening to Sarah Vaughan with the windows down.

'Where's Meina?' I asked.

'I wasn't sure how long you were going to need. I thought it best to take her home.'

'Good. I need to ask you a favour,' I said.

I
HAD BEEN TO
Brazil a few times but never to our destination, Piauí State in the north-east. After a few phone calls to an old friend, Horatio Roberto de Souza, a retired army colonel and security chief, everything was arranged. James hardly spoke a word to me or to Meina during the entire flight. He had been acting as though what had happened was beyond him; pretending that there was nothing wrong. It disturbed me because I had seen this response before in Ashvin and Armeina.

For most of the flight he kept his arms folded across his chest under his blanket, only rousing once when Meina insisted he eat. I wouldn't have agreed to take him given his suicide attempt, but the therapist thought it was a good way of monitoring his behaviour for now. At one point I caught James's eyes open and I made an attempt at a conversation.

'Did you watch the movie?' I asked.

He gave a deep sigh, looked genuinely pissed off. There was a flash of life in his eyes for a second but his voice was barely a whisper. 'No.'

'How are you?' I asked.

'T'riffic,' he said and then he shut his eyes. I looked at Meina and she just nodded as if to say let him be.

He only spoke once after that, during our descent when he complained to Meina of a sharp pain in his ears.

'It's normal, just swallow,' I said.

I hired a Hyundai from a pretty mulatta at the desk. She wore a black cotton frock that was very tight at the top, which her arse stretched at the seams. She had shoulder-length plaits that bobbed when she spoke.

'Most police officers require you to have a notarised colour photocopy of your driver's licence with all the details translated into Portuguese,' she said before I showed her my old Met Police badge and slipped her my email address.

'What type of girl do you take me for?' she demanded. She leaned her hefty chest across her desk and gave me one of those big Brazilian smiles. I made sure she saw me look down at her thick legs.

'That's what I hope to find out,' I said.

When she squealed out her laugh, Meina walked away and James laughed as he followed her. If you could call it a laugh, it was more like a cough or a chuckle. It took a while to get used to Meina reaching out every now and then to touch James. It seemed she was no longer the naive little girl I always thought she was. Her withdrawal from me had hit me hard, harder than I expected. My wishful thinking was over, done with, but this made her no less beautiful. I tried to ignore their displays of affection but it was difficult. Perhaps I should have made my play sooner. In the end I started to like him; I decided James coming along when he did was for the best. There is something charming about him, an unmistakable intelligence, but he was far from friendly: he was colder towards me than a beach pebble in winter, but always polite. Seeing them together, waiting for me by the car, I couldn't help thinking they made a good couple. I think they understood each other.

'Jeesh, she reminded me of someone I knew when I was in the Met,' I said when we got in the car.

'Why did you leave the police?' asked James.

'I didn't leave exactly. My employment was terminated.' I turned and waved to the girl behind the desk who was looking at us through the glass window.

'Are you sure you could manage a woman like that, Mr Bloom?' James said as we drove out of the car park.

'I'd stake my reputation on it,' I said.

Our journey would take six hours. The air conditioning was weak and when I opened the window I could hear the sea being thrashed by the wind; the cool rushing air felt good against the side of my face. The hot sun made everything seem lavishly bright and full, and made me think of Somalia. Then I thought of Meina's father – he was a good man, a beautiful man, unwavering in his beliefs with stubborn pride for himself and his country. Despite the heat I shivered. You don't realise how fragile you are until you lose someone, it's the same for all of us.

The modern road from the airport took us along the Poti River, then Frei Serafim with its luxury apartment buildings, banana palms with scorched fronds. The air was sour from the burning turf and the heat brought out the veins in my hands and arms. It must have been up in the nineties. I scanned everything, taking in the details of the surroundings: the flowers, intense red, yellow and purple, in bloom dotted on the sides of the road; a few crumpled old slackers dozing in the shade; gold and ebony faces spewing out of cars and side streets; the scorched stuccoed buildings and their jagged facades; the trees and the hills seemed greener, more vibrant; the sky, flecked with shapely clouds and swooping birds, was a circus of early-summer delights. The whole earth was simmering in front of me and my eyes hurt as I drove. We went past waterfalls and the many lakes surrounding Ilhabela where we stopped to see the colonial church Nossa Senhora d'Ajuda, built in 1803 from rocks, shells and whale oil. Then we continued our way along the coast through stunning views of the shoreline.

I thought I was lost after an hour's drive when we took the first exit off at a lush, green roundabout and then all signs of the twenty-first century seemed to run out. Suddenly, I felt like I was driving behind the scenes of the set of an old Western: I saw lots of men in hammocks and I saw a sorry looking
faro
band playing in the shade. I tried to imagine the place we were going as we drove on along small dirt roads. We passed farmers, blacks and Indians mostly, planting by hand. By now I had a permanent sheet of sweat on my face and opened the window, almost suffocating at the rush of musky smelling dirt and sand from the disturbed roads as gusts of wind brushed up clouds of dust from passing cars. Now and then I thought I could see flashes of light reflecting over the dark slated roofs of the rows of small dwellings slumped across the sandy plains. Occasionally, when they thought I wasn't paying any attention, I saw Meina and James kiss in the back seat. I watched his hands through the rear-view but he didn't do anything untoward. It had been some time since I had seen a couple kiss as though they meant it. Perhaps I hadn't been looking.

We ate dinner at an outdoor restaurant. James hardly spoke during the meal but at least he ate it. Then, without warning, he was crying silently. Meina tried to hold him but he even shrugged her off.

They are a strange breed, black men. Some arrogant and insensitive, some lawless, some too humble and some downright mean. Most seem to think that their harsh circumstances make them different from everybody else. During my time in the Metropolitan Police I had a lot of dealings with young black boys, always certain in their minds that they had done nothing wrong. I know I had seeds of repugnance inside me then, dark and hateful because there was something about them that I couldn't ever know. Watching them didn't tell me anything; talking to them helped but it was never enough. There was something else. I couldn't put my finger on it but it was there, always putting something out of tune between me and them.

I always thought that essentially people were the same, the past is the past, we all share the same level of existence with an equal chance to get through the bog of life and its pitfalls. Of course my views changed after my time in Somalia, after I met Ashvin and Armeina. For them things were different. I knew they wouldn't survive if I left them there and it was the same feeling I got looking at James. Mohamed was a simple man, fiercely loyal to old ideals, he had a good standing in his community but in the end he had nothing whatsoever to show for his years of hard work. He told me once: 'If you grow up with the stench of something foul, it takes a lot of scrubbing to rid yourself of the smell. It takes a lot of willpower to distinguish yourself from the stink, to remember the stink is not you.' James had never reached the level of security with his family that existed with other, normal, families. Violence and drugs had seen to that. I wondered what would become of him: a job he would become dependent upon? A house of his own? A decent wife if he was lucky, and kids he probably couldn't afford.

James dropped his fork and looked up from his plate. 'Why are you staring at me like that?' he said. 'You're always looking at me funny. Do you know that?'

I apologised.

It was almost midnight when we finally reached Esperantina, one of the harshest, most deserted villages in the north-east between Fortaleza and São Luís. Our hotel, an old colonial building that used to house the state's first public prison, was down a long one-way road of naked rock, coffee bushes, carnauba palms and hummingbirds. After ringing the reception bell for over ten minutes we introduced ourselves to the couple who owned the house, a homely-looking white woman who may have been pretty once named Maria and her black husband Romao. He moved his arm from his wife's plump waist when he saw me and after our quick handshakes he planted a cigar in the breast pocket of my shirt.

'My small gift to big white man,' Romao said smiling.

'You are a crazy,' said his wife and he laughed and planted a kiss on her mouth. They were in their mid-seventies and they smiled with something like pride at their grandson, Ignacio, an ungainly but handsome sixteen-year-old. He waddled as he took slow steps up a staircase that was like a sturdy ladder and showed us to our rooms. I kissed Meina goodnight.

'Goodnight, James,' I said, turning to open the door to his room. If he was upset with me for putting them in separate rooms he didn't show it.

He nodded. 'G'night, Mr Bloom.'

My room was nothing special. It was clean but lacked a woman's touch: no flowers, no sweet fragrance. It was spacious, the walls were bold blue and it had a grand four-poster. I sat down at a dusty writing table, stretched out my legs and lit the cigar Romao had given me. I flicked through the thick leather-bound Bible and then phoned down and asked for a large cup of whatever coffee I could smell brewing. At first I heard James's footsteps, but then they stopped.

I opened my window and stared out at the deserted street.

'What do you expect me to do now? Where do I go from here?'

It took me a while to work out that it was James I heard shouting. I figured he was having a bad dream. I heard water from the shower running in his room, the toilet flushed and then his footsteps went downstairs. It was just after two in the morning. I went downstairs too and found James sitting at the dining table in a dark living room, drinking from a bottle of Coke. The lights were low.

'That stuff isn't good for you,' I said.

He grimaced. 'Leave me alone.'

He spoke so softly I barely heard him. His eyes were bloodshot and full of tears. I stood beside him and watched the tears fall against his brown skin, his hair like bramble; he had a musky smell, there was sweat on his temples; he sniffed his nose in a battle with gravity and his dignity. I was about to leave him there alone when I suddenly thought of Ashvin. He had never really taken to me the way Armeina did. I could never reach him, I never really tried.

'Your eyes are red. You must get some sleep.'

'Let me be,' he said.

'Look, you've been saying that for two days now. I heard you up there pacing the boards, up and down, just now. Armeina's a good kid, she's like . . . she's my daughter. For whatever reason she's taken to you. If you screw that up it will be one of the many mistakes in your life you'll regret. If you're serious about Armeina then I am going to be a part of your life, so why don't you tell me what's going through your mind?'

He raised an eyebrow. 'Your daughter? You're a white man. And like every white man I have ever run across you define me in terms of my relationship to you. Why do you people do that? You think you're doing me a favour by just standing there. Well, you ain't. Maybe
I'm
doing you a favour.'

James was much more worldly-wise than he looked. The last thing I wanted was an argument with a bereaved seventeen-year-old.

'I'm sick of you looking down at me. Don't laugh at me.' He looked directly into my eyes, indignant.

Maybe he was right. Maybe I had always felt a sense of superiority towards black men. I liked the power I could have over them. As a policeman I could send them down to where they didn't want to be.

James was a stranger to me but in many ways I felt like I had been trying to know him for ever. For an instant I thought I had turned into one of those phoney middle-class lefties, the sort I had hated most of my life, but I reassured myself. What I felt was a normal human emotion; after all, James was just a boy. Perhaps I was confused, I don't know. I held his gaze, wondering if this was what hope felt like.

'I want you to be able to trust me. If I've learned anything over the years it is to have no fear, not even of the worst,' I said.

I had never in my life had such a strong desire to reach someone. I gripped his shoulder momentarily as though
I
were the fragile child. He looked at my hand. I removed it and then I placed it back and I held him. He glanced up at me and he said, 'Nathan was lonely, and I know what it feels like, to step outside real life. I've been doing it for so long.' He started to cry. 'I want to feel alive again. I don't know what I'm doing here. I don't know what I'll say. I'm afraid.'

'Don't worry,' I said, 'it will be fine.'

In the morning, during a fine peal of bells announcing High Mass, Romao joined us for breakfast. He wore a smart shirt with a gold watch dangling from his white trousers and had a transistor radio propped lovingly on his lap.

Ignacio wore old trainers and cut-off shorts to breakfast, exposing his chubby knees. We ate thin slices of ham and fresh hammock, warm home-baked bread, and fruit smoothies Ignacio called
vitamina
made from guava, passion fruit and peach. I had three cups of
cafezinho
that was served in tiny demitasse cups with sugar-dipped orange peel. James was wearing jeans, his skin golden against his white shirt, but he looked grumpy. He yawned and yawned again and hunched his shoulders over the table in a show of exaggerated boredom. After a short conversation, Meina turned to Romao and said, 'James wants to know about the monument with the big head.' She laughed at James, her eyes lit up.