But the voice was a visual in itself: cockney yet refined, a voice that had had much work done
upon it missing key consonants and adding others where they were never meant to be, and all
delivered through the nose with only the slightest help from the mouth.
"Fine mornin', Mrs. B." fine mornin'. Somefing to fankthe Lord for."
Hortense seemed terribly nervous about the imminent likelihood that he should raise his head
and spot the girl standing by the stove. She kept beckoning Me forward and then shooing her back,
uncertain whether they should meet at all.
"Oh yes, Mr. Topps, it is, an' I am ready as ready can be. My hat give me a little trouble, you
know, but I just got a pin an '
"But the Lord ain't interested in the vanities of the flesh, now, is he Mrs. B.?" said Ryan, slowly
and painfully enunciating each word while crouching awkwardly and removing his left boot.
"Jehovah is in need of your soul."
"Oh yes, surely dat is de holy troot," said Hortense anxiously, fingering her plasticated
carnations. "But at de same time, surely
a Witness lady don' wan' look like a, well, a buguyaga in de house of de Lord."
Ryan frowned. "My point is, you must avoid interpretin' scripture by yourself, Mrs. Bowden. In
future, discuss it wiv myself and my colleagues. Ask us: is pleasant clothing a concern of the Lord's?
And myself and my colleagues amongst the Anointed, will look up the necessary chapter and verse ..."
Ryan's sentence faded into a general Erhummmm, a sound he was prone to making. It began in
his arched nostrils and reverberated through his slight, elongated, misshapen limbs like the final
shiver of a hanged man.
"I don' know why I do it, Mr. Topps," said Hortense shaking her head. "Sometime I tink I could
be one of dem dat teach, you know? Even though I am a woman ... I feel like the Lord talk to me in
a special way ... It jus' a bad habit.. . but so much in de church change recently, sometimes me kyan
keep up wid all de rules and regulations."
Ryan looked out through the double glazing. His face was pained. "Nuffin' changes about the
word of God, Mrs. B. Only people are mistaken. The best thing you can do for the Truth, is just
pray that the Brooklyn Hall will soon deliver us with the final date. Erhummmm."
"Oh yes, Mr. Topps. I do it day and night."
Ryan clapped his hands together in a pale imitation of enthusiasm. "Now, did I 'ear you say
plantain for breakfast, Mrs. B.?"
"Oh yes, Mr. Topps, and dem tomatoes if you will be kind enough to ban' dem over to de chef."
As Hortense had hoped, the passing of the tomatoes coincided with the spotting of Irie.
"Now, dis is my grand darter Me Ambrosia Jones. And dis is Mr. Ryan Topps. Say hello, Irie, dear."
Irie did so, stepping forward nervously and reaching out her hand to shake his. But there was no
response from Ryan Topps, and the inequality was only increased when on the sudden he
Me 1990, 1907
seemed to recognize her; there was a pulse of familiarity as his eyes moved over her, whereas
Me saw nothing, not even a type, not even a genre of face in his; the monstrosity of him was quite
unique, redder than any red-head, more freckled than the freckled, more blue-veined than a lobster.
"She's she's Clara's darter said Hortense tentatively. "Mr. Topps knew your mudder, long time.
But it all right, Mr. Topps, she come to live wid us now."
"Only for a little time Me corrected hurriedly, noting the look of vague horror on Mr. Topps's
face. "Just for a few months maybe, through the winter while I study. I've got exams in June/
Mr. Topps did not move. Moreover nothing on him moved. Like one of China's terra cotta army,
he seemed poised for battle yet unable to move.
"Clara's darter repeated Hortense in a tearful whisper. "She might have been yours."
Nothing surprised Me about this final, whispered aside; she just added it to the list: Ambrosia
Bowden gave birth in an earthquake .. . Captain Charlie Durham was a no-good djam fool bwoy.. .
false teeth in a glass .. . she might have been yours .. .
Half-heartedly, with no expectation of an answer, Me asked, "What?"
"Oh, nuttin', Me, dear. Nuttin', nuttin'. Let me start fryin'. I can hear bellies rumblin'. You
remember Clara, don't you Mr. Topps? You and she were quite good .. . friends. Mr. Topps?"
For two minutes now Ryan had been fixing Me with an unwavering stare, his body held
absolutely straight, his mouth slightly open. At the question, he seemed to compose himself, closed
his mouth and took his seat at the un laid table.
"Clara's daughter, is it? Erhummmm .. ." He removed what looked like a small policeman's pad
from his breast pocket and poised a pen upon it as if this would kick start his memory.
"You see, many of the episodes, people and events from my earlier life have been, as it were,
severed from myself by the
almighty sword that cut me from my past when the Lord Jehovah saw fit to enlighten me with
the Truth, and as he has chosen me for a new role I must, as Paul so wisely recommended in his
epistle to the Corinfians, put away childish things, allowing earlier incarnations of myself to be
enveloped into a great smog in which said Ryan Topps, taking only the smallest breath and his
cutlery from Hortense, 'it appears that your mother, and any memory I might 'ave of her, 'ave
disappeared. Erhummmm."
"She never mentioned you either," said Me.
"Well, it was all a long time ago now," said Hortense with forced joviality. "But you did try
your best wider Mr. Topps. She was my miracle child, Clara. I was forty-eight! I taut she was God's
child. But Clara was bound for evil .. . she never was a godly girl an' in de end dere was nuttin' to
be done."
"He will send down His vengeance, Mrs. B.," said Ryan, with more cheerful animation than Me
had yet seen him display. "He will send terrible torture to those who 'ave earned it. Three plantain
for me, if you please."
Hortense set all three plates down and Me, realizing she hadn't eaten since the previous
morning, scraped a mountain of plantain on to her plate.
"Ah! It's hot!"
"Better hot clan lukewarm," said Hortense grimly, with a meaningful shudder. "Ever so, ha men
"Amen," echoed Ryan, braving the red-hot plantain. "Amen. So. What exactly is it that you are
study inT he asked, looking so intently past Me that it took a moment before she realized he was
addressing her.
"Chemistry, biology and religious studies." Me blew on a hot piece of plantain. "I want to be a
dentist."
Ryan perked up. "Religious studies? And do they acquaint you with the only true church?"
Me shifted in her seat. "Er .. . I guess it's more the big three. Jews, Christians, Muslims. We did
a month on Catholicism."
Ryan grimaced. "And do you have any uwer inter-rests?"
Irie considered. "Music. I like music. Concerts, clubs, that kind of thing."
"Yes, erhummmm. I used to go in for all that myself at one time. Until the Good News was
delivered unto me. Large gatherings of yoof, of the kind that frequent popular conceits, are
commonly breeding grounds for devil worship. A girl of your physical .. . assets might find herself
lured into the lascivious arms of a sexualist," said Ryan, standing up from the table and looking at
his watch. "Now that I fink about it, in a certain light you look a lot like your mother. Similar .. .
cheekbones."
Ryan wiped a pearly line of sweat from his forehead. There was a silence in which Hortense
stood motionless, clinging nervously to a dishcloth, and Irie had to physically cross the room for a
glass of water to remove herself from Mr. Topps's stare.
"Well. That's twenty minutes and counting, Mrs. B. I'll get the gear, shall I?"
"Oh yes, Mr. Topps," said Hortense beaming. But the moment Ryan left the room the beam
turned to a scowl.
"Why must you go an' say tings like dat, hmm? You wan' 'im to tink you some devilish heathen
gal? Why kyan you say stamp-collecting or some ting? Come on, I gat to clean deez plates finish up."
Irie looked at the pile of food left on her plate and guiltily tapped her stomach.
"Cho! Just as I sus peck Your eyes see more clan your belly can hoi'! Give it 'ere."
Hortense leant against the sink and began popping bits of plantain into her mouth. "Now, you
don' back chat Mr. Topps while you here. You gat study to do an' he gat study too," said Hortense,
lowering her voice. "He's in consultation with the Brooklyn gentlemen at de moment .. . fixing de
final date; no mistakes dis time. You jus' 'ave to look at de trouble goin' on in de world to know we
That far from de appointed day."
Chalfenism versus Bovcdenism
"I won't be any trouble," said Me, approaching the washing-up as a gesture of goodwill. "He
just seems a little .. . weird."
"De ones who are chosen by the Lord always seem peculiar to de heathen. Mr. Topps is jus'
misunderstood. "Im mean a lot to me. Me never have nobody before. Your mudder don' like to tell
you since she got all hitey-titey, but de Bowden family have had it hard long time. I was barn
during an cart-quake. Almost kill fore I was barn. An' den when me a fully grown woman, my own
darter run from me. Me never see my only grandpickney. I only have de Lord, all dem years. Mr.
Topps de first human man who look pon me and take pity an' care. Your mudder was a fool to letim
go, true sir!"
Irie gave it one last try. "What? What does that mean?"
"Oh, nuttin, nuttin, dear Lord... I and I talking all over de place dis marnin .. . Oh Mr. Topps,
dere you are. We not going to be late now, are we?"
Mr. Topps, who had just re-entered the room, was fully adorned in leather from head to toe, a
huge motorcycle helmet on his head, a small red light attached to his left ankle and a small white
light strapped to his right. He flipped up the visor.
"No, we're all right, by the grace of God. Where's your helmet, Mrs. B.?"
"Oh, I've started keepin' it in the oven. Keeps it warm and toasty on de col' marnins. Irie
Ambrosia, fetch it for me please."
Sure enough, on the middle shelf preheated to gas mark 2 sat Hortense's helmet. Irie scooped it
out and carefully fitted it over her grandmother's plasticated carnations.
"You ride a motorbike," said Irie, by way of conversation.
But Mr. Topps seemed defensive. "A G S Vespa. Nuffink fancy. I did fink about givin' it away at
one point. It represented a life I'd raaver forget, if you get my meaning. A motorbike is a sexual
magnet, an' God forgive me, but I misused it in that fashion. I was all set on getting' rid of it. But
then Mrs. B. convinced me that what wiv all my public speaking, I need somefing quick to get
Me 1990, 1907
around on. An' Mrs. B. don't want to be messin' about with buses and trains at her age, do you
Mrs. B.?"
"No, indeed. He got me dis little buggy '
"Sidecar," corrected Ryan tetchily. "It's called a sidecar. Minetto Motorcycle-combination, 1973
model."
"Yes, of course, a sidecar, an' it is comfortable as a bed. We go everywhere in it, Mr. Topps an'
I."
Hortense took down her overcoat from a hook on the door, and reached in the pockets for two
Velcro reflector bands which she strapped round each arm.
"Now, Me, I've got a great deal of biz ness to be getting' on with today, so you're going to have
to cook for yourself, because I kyan tell what time we'll be home. But don' worry. Me soon come."
"No problem."
Hortense sucked her teeth. "No problem. Dat's what her name mean in patois: Irie, no problem.
Now, what kind of a name is dat to .. . ?"
Mr. Topps didn't answer. He was already out on the pavement, revving up the Vespa.
"First I have to keep her from those Chalfens," growls Clara over the phone, her voice a
resonant tremolando of anger and fear. "And now you people again."
On the other end, her mother takes the washing out of the machine and listens silently through
the cordless that is tucked between ear and weary shoulder, biding her time.
"Hortense, I don't want you filling her head with a whole load of nonsense. You hear me? Your
mother was fool to it, and then you were fool to it, but the buck stopped with me and it ain't going
no further. If Irie comes home spouting any of that claptrap, you can forget about the Second
Comin' 'cos you'll be dead by the time it arrives."
Big words. But how fragile is Clara's atheism! Like one of those tiny glass doves Hortense
keeps in the lounge cabinet a breath would knock it over. Talking of which, Clara still holds hers
when passing churches the same way adolescent vegetarians scurry by butchers; she avoids Kilburn
on a Saturday for fear of streetside preachers on their upturned apple crates. Hortense senses Clara's
terror. Coolly cramming in another load of whites and measuring out the liquid with a thrifty
woman's eye, she is short and decided: "Don' you worry about Me Ambrosia. She in a good place
now. She'll tell you herself As if she had ascended with the heavenly host rather than entombed
herself below ground in the borough of Lambeth with Ryan Topps.
Clara hears her daughter getting on the extension; an initial crackle and then a voice as clear as
a carillon. "Look, I'm not coming home, all right, so don't bother. I'll be back when I'm back, just
don't worry about me." And there should be nothing to worry about and there is nothing to worry
about, except maybe that outside in the streets it is cold packed on cold, even the dogshit has
crystallized, there is the first suggestion of ice on the windscreens and Clara has been in that house
through the winters. She knows what it means. Oh, wonderfully bright at 6 a.m., yes, wonderfully
clear for an hour. But the shorter the days, the longer the nights, the darker the house, the easier it is,
the easier it is, the easier it is, to mistake a shadow for the writing on the wall, the sound of
overland footsteps for the distant crack of thunder, and the midnight chime of a New Year clock for
the bell that tolls the end of the world.
But Clara needn't have feared. Irie's atheism was robust. It was Chalfenist in its confidence, and
she approached her stay with Hortense with detached amusement. She was intrigued by the
Bowden household. It was a place of end games and after times full stops and finales; where to
count on the arrival of tomorrow
was an indulgence, and every service in the house, from the milkman to the electricity, was paid
for on a strictly daily basis so as not to spend money on utilities or goods that would be wasted
should God turn up in all his holy vengeance the very next day. Bowdenism gave a whole new
meaning to the phrase 'hand-to-mouth'. This was living in the eternal instant, ceaselessly teetering
on the precipice of total annihilation; there are people who take a great deal of drugs simply to
experience something comparable to 84-year-old Hortense Bowden's day-to-day existence. So
you've seen dwarfs rip open their bellies and show you their insides, you've been a television
switched off without warning, you've experienced the whole world as one Krishna consciousness,
free of individual ego, floating through the infinite cosmos of the soul? Big fucking deal. That's all
bullshit next to St. John's trip when Christ laid the twenty-two chapters of Revelation on him. It
must have been a hell of a shock for the apostle (after that thorough spin-job, the New Testament,
all those sweet words and sublime sentiments) to discover Old Testament vengeance lurking round
the corner after all. As many as I love, I rebuke and chasten. That must have been some eye-opener.
Revelation is where all crazy people end up. It's the last stop on the nut so express. And
Bowdenism, which was the Witnesses plus Revelation and then some, was as left field as they
come. Par exemple: Hortense Bowden interpreted Revelation 3:15 - / know thy works, that thou an
neither cold nor hot: I would thou wert cold or hot. So then because thou an lukewarm, and neither
cold nor hot, I will spue thee out of my mouth as a literal mandate. She understood 'lukewarm' to be
an evil property in and of itself. She kept a microwave on hand at all times (her sole concession to
modern technology for a long time it was a toss-up between pleasing the Lord and laying oneself
open to the United States mind-ray control programme as operated through high-frequency radio
waves in order to heat every meal to an impossible temperature; she kept whole buckets of ice to
chill every glass of water 'colder than cold'. She wore two pairs of knickers at all times like a wary
potential traffic-victim; when Me asked why, she sheepishly revealed that upon hearing the first
signs of the Lord (approaching thunder, bellowing voice, Wagner's Ring Cycle), she intended to
whip off the one closest to her and replace it with the outer pair, so that Jesus would find her fresh
and odour less and ready for heaven. She kept a tub of black paint in the hallway so when the time
came she might daub the neighbours' doors with the sign of the Beast, saving the Lord all that
trouble of weeding out the baddies, separating sheep from goats. And you couldn't form any
sentence in that house which included the words 'end', 'finished', 'done', etc." for these were like so
many triggers setting off both Hortense and Ryan with the usual ghoulish relish:
Irie: I finished the washing-up.
Ryan Topps (shaking his head solemnly at the truth of it): As one day we all shall be finished,
Irie, my dear; be zealous therefore, and repent. Or
Irie: It was a such a good film. The end was great! Hortense Bowden (tearfully): And dem dat
ex peck such an end to dis world will be sorely disappointed, for He will come trailin' terror and Lo
de generation dat witness de events of 1914 shall now witness de turd part of de trees burn, and the
turd part of de sea become as blood, and de turd part of de .. .
And then there was Hortense's horror of weather reports. Whoever it was, however benign,
honey-voiced and inoffensively dressed, she cursed them bitterly for the five minutes they stood
there, and then, out of what appeared to be sheer perversity, proceeded to take the opposite of
whatever advice had been proffered (light jacket and no umbrella for rain, full cagoule a
rain hat for sun). It was several weeks before Me understood that weathermen were the secular
antithesis of Hortense's life work, which was, essentially, a kind of supercosrnic attempt to second
guess the Lord with one almighty biblical exegesis of a weather report. Next to that weathermen
were nothing but upstarts .. . And tomorrow, coming in from the east, we can expect a great furnace
to rise up and envelop the area with flames that give no light, but rather darkness visible .. . while
I'm afraid the northern regions are advised to wrap up warm against thick-ribbed ice, and there's a
fair likelihood that the coast will be beaten with perpetual storms of whirlwind and dire hail which
on firm land thaws not... Michael Fish and his ilk were stabbers-in-the-dark, trusting to the
tomfoolery of the Met Office, making a mockery of that precise science, eschatology, that Hortense
had spent over fifty years in the study of.
"Any news, Mr. Topps?" (This question almost invariably asked over breakfast; and girlishly,
breathlessly, like a child asking after Santa.)
"No, Mrs. B. We are still completing our studies. You must let my colleagues and myself
deliberate thoroughly. In this life there are them that are teachers and then there are them that are
pupils. There are eight million Witnesses of Jehovah waiting for our decision, waiting for the
Judgement Day. But you must learn to leave such tings to them that 'ave the direct line, Mrs. B." the
direct line."
After bunking for a few weeks, Me returned to school. But it seemed so distant; even the
journey from South to North each morning felt like an almighty polar trek, and worse, one that
stopped short of its goal and ended up instead in the tepid regions, a non-event compared with the
boiling maelstrom of the Bowden home. So then because thou art lukewarm, and neither cold nor
hot, I will spue thee out of my mouth. You become so used to extremity, suddenly nothing else will
do.
She saw Millat regularly, but their conversations were brief. He was green-tied now and
otherwise engaged. She still did Marcus's filing twice a week, but avoided the rest of the family.
She saw Josh fleetingly. He seemed to be avoiding the Chalfens as assiduously as she. Her parents
she saw on weekends, icy occasions when everybody called everybody by their first names (Irie,
can you pass the salt to Archie? Clara, Archie wants to know where the scissors are), and all parties
felt deserted. She sensed that she was being whispered about in the way North Londoners will
when they suspect someone of coming down with religion, that nasty disease. So she hurried back
to No. 28 Lindaker Road, Lambeth, relieved to be back in the darkness, for it was like hibernating
or being cocooned, and she was as curious as everyone else to see what kind of Irie would emerge.
It wasn't any kind of prison. That house was an adventure. In cupboards and neglected drawers and
in grimy frames were the secrets that had been hoarded for so long, as if secrets were going out of
fashion. She found pictures of her great-grandmother Ambrosia, a bony, beautiful thing, with huge
almond eyes, and one of Charlie "Whitey' Durham standing in a pile of rubble with a sepia-print
sea behind him. She found a bible with one line torn from it. She found photo-booth snaps of Clara
in school uniform, grinning maniacally, the true horror of the teeth revealed. She read alternately
from Dental Anatomy by Gerald M. Cathey and The Good News Bible, and raced voraciously
through Hortense's small and eclectic library, blowing the red dust of a Jamaican schoolhouse off
the covers and often using a pen knife to cut never-before-read pages. February's list was as
follows:
An Account of a West Indian Sanatorium, by Geo. J. H. Sutton Moxly. London: Sampson, Low,
Marston & Co." 1886. (There was an inverse correlation between the length of the author's name
and the poor quality of his book.)
Tom Cringle's Log, by Michael Scott. Edinburgh: 1875.
In Sugar Cane Land, by Eden Phillpotts. London: McClure &
Co." 1893. Dominica: Hints and Notes to Intending Settlers, by His Honour
H. Hesketh Bell, CMC. London: A. & C. Black, 1906.
The more she read, the more that picture of dashing Capt. Durham aroused her natural curiosity:
handsome and melancholy, surveying the bricks of half a church, looking worldly-wise despite his
youth, looking every inch the Englishman, looking like he could tell someone or another a thing or
two about something. Maybe Me herself. Just in case, she kept him under her pillow. And in the
mornings it wasn't Italian ate vineyards out there any more, it was sugar, sugar, sugar, and next door
was nothing but tobacco and she presumptuously fancied that the smell of plantain sent her back to
somewhere, somewhere quite fictional, for she'd never been there. Somewhere Columbus called St.
Jago but the arawaks stubbornly re-named Xaymaca, the name lasting longer than they did.
Well-wooded and Watered. Not that Me had heard of those little sweet-tempered potbellied victims
of their own sweet-tempers. Those were some other Jamaicans, fallen short of the attention-span of
history. She laid claim to the past her version of the past aggressively, as if retrieving misdirected
mail. So this was where she came from. This all belonged to her, her birthright, like a pair of pearl
earrings or a post office bond. X marks the spot, and Me put an X on everything she found,
collecting bits and bobs (birth certificates, maps, army reports, news articles) and storing them
under the sofa, so that as if by osmosis the richness of them would pass through the fabric while she
was sleeping and seep right into her.
As the buds came with the spring, so like any anchoress she was visited. First, by voices.
Coming crackling over Hortense's neolithic radio, Joyce Chalfen on Gardeners' Question Time:
Foreman: Another question from the audience, I think. Mrs. Sally Whitaker from Bournemouth
has a question for the panel, I believe. Mrs.
Whitaker?
Mrs. Whitaker: Thank you, Brian. Well, I'm a new gardener and this is my first frost and in two
short months my garden's gone from being a real colour explosion to a very bare thing indeed .. .
Friends have advised flowers with a compact habit but that leaves me with lots of tiny auricula and
double daisies, which look silly because the garden's really quite large. Now, I'd really like to plant
something a little more striking, around the height of a delphinium, but then the wind gets it and
people look over their fences thinking: Dear oh dear (sympathetic laughter from the studio
audience). So, my question to the panel is, how do you keep up appearances in the bleak
midwinter?
Foreman: Thank you, Mrs. Whitaker. Well, it's a common problem .. . and it doesn't necessarily
get any easier for the seasoned gardener. Personally, I never get it quite right. Well, let's hand the
question over to the panel, shall we? Joyce Chalfen, any answers or suggestions for the bleak
midwinter?
Joyce Chalfen: Well, first I must say your neighbours sound very nosy. I'd tell them to mind
their own beeswax if I were you (laughter from audience). But to be serious, I think this whole
trend for round-the-clock bloom is actually very unhealthy for the garden and the gardener and
particularly the soil, I really do ... I think the winter should be a time of rest, subdued colours, you
know and then when the late spring does finally arrive the neighbours get a hell of a shock! Boom!
There it is, this wonderful explosion of growth. I think the deep winter is really a time for nurturing
the soil, turning it over, allowing it a rest and plotting its future all the better to surprise the nosy
people next door. I always think of a
garden's soil like a woman's body moving in cycles, you know, fertile at some times and not
others, and that's really quite natural. But if you really are determined, then Lenten roses
Helleborus corsicus do remarkably well in cold, calcareous soil, even if they're quite in the
Irie switched Joyce off. It was quite therapeutic switching Joyce off. This was not entirely
personal. It just seemed tiring and unnecessary all of a sudden, that struggle to force something out
of the recalcitrant English soil. Why bother when there was now this other place? (For Jamaica
appeared to Irie as if it were newly made. Like Columbus himself, just by discovering it she had
brought it into existence.) This well-wooded and watered place. Where things sprang from the soil
riotously and without supervision, and a young white captain could meet a young black girl with no
complications, both of them fresh and untainted and without past or dictated future a place where
things simply were. No fictions, no myths, no lies, no tangled webs this is how Irie imagined her
homeland. Because homeland is one of the magical fantasy words like unicorn and soul and infinity
that have now passed into the language. And the particular magic of homeland, its particular spell
over Irie, was that it sounded like a beginning. The beginning est of beginnings. Like the first
morning of Eden and the day after apocalypse. A blank page.
But every time Irie felt herself closer to it, to the perfect blankness of the past, something of the
present would ring the Bowden doorbell and intrude. Mothering Sunday brought a surprise visit
from Joshua, angry on the doorstep, at least a stone and a half lighter, and much scruffier than usual.
Before Irie had a chance to express either concern or shock, he had flounced into the lounge and
slammed the door. Tm sick of it! Sick to the back fucking teeth with it!"
The vibration of the door knocked Capt. Durham from his perch on Irie's windowsill, and she
carefully re-erected him.
"Yeah, nice to see you too, man. Why don't you sit down and slow down. Sick of what?"
"Them. They sicken me. They go on about rights and freedoms, and then they eat fifty chickens
every fucking week! Hypocrites!"
Me couldn't immediately see the connection. She took out a fag in preparation for a long story.
To her surprise Joshua took one too, and they went to kneel on the window seat, blowing smoke
through the grate up into the street.
"Do you know how battery chickens live?"
Me didn't. Joshua explained. Cooped up for most of their poor chicken lives in total chicken
darkness, packed together like chicken sardines in their chicken shit and fed the worst type of
chicken grain. And this, according to Joshua, was apparently nothing on how pigs and cows and
sheep spent their time. "It's a fucking crime. But try telling Marcus that. Try getting him to give up
his Sunday hog-fest. He's so fucking ill informed. Have you ever noticed that? He knows this
enormous amount about one thing, but there's this whole other world that.. . Oh, before I forget you
should take a leaflet."
Me never thought she would see the day when Joshua Chalfen handed her a leaflet. But here it
was in her palm. It was called: Meat is Murder: The Facts and the Fiction, a publication from the
FATE organization.
"It stands for Fighting Animal Torture and Exploitation. They're like the hardcore end of
Greenpeace or whatever. Read it they're not just hippy freaks, they're coming from a solid scientific
and academic background and they're working from an anarchist perspective. I feel like I've really
found my niche, you know? It's a really incredible group. Dedicated to direct action. The deputy's
an ex-Oxford fellow."
"Mmmm. How's Millat?"
Joshua shook off the question. "Oh, I don't know. Barmy. Going barmy. And Joyce is still
pandering to his every whim. Just
don't ask me. They all sicken me. Everything's changed." Josh ran his fingers anxiously through
his hair, which just reached his shoulders now in what Willesdeners affectionately call a Jew-fro
Mullet. "I just can't tell you how everything's changed. I'm having these real.. . moments of clarity."
Irie nodded. She was sympathetic to moments of clarity. Her seventeenth year was proving
chock-a-block with them. And she wasn't surprised by Joshua's metamorphosis. Four months in the
life of a seventeen-year-old is the stuff of swings and roundabouts; Stones fans into Beatles fans,
Tories into Liberal Democrats and back again, vinyl junkies to C D freaks. Never again in your life
do you possess the capacity for such total personality overhaul.
"I knew you'd understand. I wish I'd talked to you before, but I just can't bear to be in the house
these days and when I do see you Millat always seems to be in the way. It's really good to see you."
"You too. You look different."
Josh gestured dismissively at his clothes, which were distinctly less nerdy than they had been.
"I guess you can't wear your father's old corduroy for ever."
"I guess not."
Joshua clapped his hands together. "Well, I've booked my ticket for Glastonbury and I might not
come back. I met these people from FATE and I'm going with them."
"It's March. Not till the summer, surely."
"Joely and Crispin that's these people I met say we might go up there early. You know, camp out
for a bit."
"And school?"
"If you can bunk, I can bunk .. . it's not as if I'm going to fall behind. I've still got a Chalfen
head on my shoulders, I'll just come back for the exams and then fuck off again. Irie, you've just got
to meet these people. They're just.. . incredible. He's a Dadaist. And she's an anarchist. A real one.
Not like Marcus. I
told her about Marcus and his bloody Future Mouse She thinks he's a dangerous individual.
Quite possibly psychopathic."
Me thought about this. "Mmm. I'd be surprised."
Without stubbing out his fag, he threw it up on to the pavement. "And I'm giving up all meat.
I'm a pescatarian at the moment, but that's just half measures. I'm becoming a fucking vegetarian."
Me shrugged, not certain what the right response should be.
"There's a lot to be said for the old motto, you know?"
"Old motto?"
"Fight fire with fire. It's only by really fucking extreme behaviour that you can get through to
somebody like Marcus. He doesn't even know how out there he is. There's no point being
reasonable with him because he thinks he owns reasonableness. How do you deal with people like
that? Oh, and I'm giving up leather wearing it and all other animal by-products. Gelatin and stuff."
After a while of watching the feet go by leathers, sneakers, heels Me said, "That'll show 'em."
On April Fool's Day, Samad turned up. He was all in white, on his way to the restaurant,
crumpled and creased like a disappointed saint. He looked to be on the brink of tears. Me let him in.
"Hello, Miss Jones," said Samad, bowing ever so slightly. "And how is your father?"
Me smiled with recognition. "You see him more than we do. How's God?"
"Perfectly fine, thank you. Have you seen my good-for-nothing son recently?"
Before Me had a chance to give her next line, Samad broke down in front of her and had to be
led into the living room, sat in Darcus's chair and brought a cup of tea before he could speak.
"Mr. Iqbal, what's wrong?"
"What is right?"
"Has something happened to Dad?"
"Oh no, no... Archibald is fine. He is like the washing-machine advert. He carries on and on as
ever."
Then what?"
"Millat. He has been missing these three weeks."
"God. Well, have you tried the Chalfens?"
"He is not with them. I know where he is. Out of the trying pan and into the fire. He is on some
retreat with these lunatic green-tie people. In a sports centre in Chester."
"Bloody hell."
Me sat down cross-legged and took out a fag. "I hadn't seen him in school, but I didn't realize
how long it had been. But if you know where he is .. ." "I didn't come here to find him, I came to
ask your advice, Me. What can I do? You know him how does one get through?"
Me bit her lip, her mother's old habit. "I mean, I don't know . we're not as close as we were .. .
but I've always thought that maybe it's the Magid thing .. . missing him ... I mean he'd never admit
it ... but Magid's his twin and maybe if he saw him
"No, no. No, no, no. I wish that were the solution. Allah knows how I pinned all my hopes on
Magid. And now he says he is coming back to study the English law paid for by these Chalfen
people. He wants to enforce the laws of man rather than the laws of God. He has learnt none of the
lessons of Muhammad peace be upon Him! Of course, his mother is delighted. But he is nothing
but a disappointment to me. More English than the English. Believe me, Magid will do Millat no
good and Millat will do Magid no good. They have both lost their way. Strayed so far from the life
I had intended for them. No doubt they will both marry white women called Sheila and put me in
an early grave. All I wanted was two good Muslim boys. Oh, Me ..." Samad took her free hand and
patted it with sad affection. "I just don't understand where I have gone wrong. You teach them but
they
do not listen because they have the "Public Enemy" music on at full blast. You show them the
road and they take the bloody path to the Inns of Court. You guide them and they run from your
grasp to a Chester sports centre. You try to plan everything and nothing happens in the way that you
expected .. ."
But if you could begin again, thought Irie, if you could take them back to the source of the river,
to the start of the story, to the homeland .. . But she didn't say that, because he felt it as she felt it
and both knew it was as useless as chasing your own shadow. Instead she took her hand from
underneath his and placed it on top, returning the stroke. "Oh, Mr. Iqbal. I don't know what to say
"There are no words. The one I send home comes out a pukka Englishman, white suited, silly
wig lawyer. The one I keep here is fully paid-up green bow-tie-wearing fundamentalist terrorist. I
sometimes wonder why I bother," said Samad bitterly, betraying the English inflections of twenty
years in the country, "I really do. These days, it feels to me like you make a devil's pact when you
walk into this country. You hand over your passport at the check-in, you get stamped, you want to
make a little money, get yourself started .. . but you mean to go back! Who would want to stay?
Cold, wet, miserable; terrible food, dreadful newspapers who would want to stay? In a place where
you are never welcomed, only tolerated. Just tolerated. Like you are an animal finally house-trained.
Who would want to stay? But you have made a devil's pact ... it drags you in and suddenly you are
unsuitable to return, your children are unrecognizable, you belong nowhere."
"Oh, that's not true, surely."
"And then you begin to give up the very idea of belonging. Suddenly this thing, this belonging,
it seems like some long, dirty lie ... and I begin to believe that birthplaces are accidents, that
everything is an accident. But if you believe that, where do you go? What do you do? What does
anything matter?"
As Samad described this dystopia with a look of horror, Me was ashamed to find that the land
of accidents sounded like paradise to her. Sounded like freedom.
"Do you understand, child? I know you understand."
And what he really meant was: do we speak the same language? Are we from the same place?
Are we the same?
Irie squeezed his hand and nodded vigorously, trying to ward off his tears. What else could she
tell him but what he wanted to hear?
"Yes," she said. "Yes, yes, yes."
When Hortense and Ryan came home that evening after a late-night prayer meeting, both were
in a state of high excitement. Tonight was the night. After giving Hortense a flurry of instructions as
to the typesetting and layout of his latest Watchtower article, Ryan went into the hallway to make
his telephone call to Brooklyn to get the news.
"But I thought he was in consultation with them."
"Yes, yes, he is ... but de final confirmation, you understand, must come from Mr. Charles
Wintry himself in Brooklyn," said Hortense breathlessly. "What a day dis is! What a day! Help me
wid liftin' dis typewriter now ... I need it on de table."
Irie did as she was told, carrying the enormous old Remington to the kitchen and laying it down
in front of Hortense. Hortense passed Irie a bundle of white paper covered in Ryan's tiny script.
"Now you read dat to me, Irie Ambrosia, slowly now .. . an' I'll get it down in type."
Irie read for half an hour or so, wincing at Ryan's horrible corkscrew prose, passing the whiting
fluid when it was required, and gritting her teeth at the author's interruptions as every ten minutes
he popped back into the room to adjust his syntax or rephrase a paragraph.
"Mr. Topps, did you get trew yet?"
"Not yet, Mrs. B." not yet. Very busy, Mr. Charles Wintry. I'm going to try again now."
A sentence, Samad's sentence, was passing through Irie's tired brain. Sometimes I wonder why I
bother. And now that Ryan was out of the way, Irie saw her opportunity to ask it, though she framed
it carefully.
Hortense leant back in her chair and placed her hands on her lap. "I bin doin' dis a very long
time, Irie Ambrosia. I bin' waitin' ever since I was a pickney in long socks."
"But that's no reason '
"What d'you know fe reasons? Nuttin' at all. The Witness church is where my roots are. It bin
good to me when nobody else has. It was de good ting my mudder gave me, an' I That going to let
it go now we so close to de end."
"But Gran, it's not.. . you won't ever .. ."
"Lemme tell you so meting I'm not like dem Witnesses jus' scared of dyin'. Jus' scared. Dem
wan' everybody to die excep' dem. Dat's not a reason to dedicate your life to Jesus Christ. I gat very
different aims. I still hope to be one of de Anointed evan if I am a woman. I want it all my life. I
want to be dere wid de Lord making de laws and de decisions." Hortense sucked her teeth long and
loud. "I gat so tired wid de church always tellin' me I'm a woman or I'm That heducated enough.
Everybody always tryin' to heducate you; heducate you about dis, heducate you about dat .. . Dat's
always bin de problem wid de women in dis family. Somebody always tryin' to heducate them
about so meting pretendin' it all about learnin' when it all about a battle of de wills. But if I were
one of de hundred an' forty-four, no one gwan try to heducate me. Dat would be my job! I'd make
my own laws an' I wouldn't be wanting anybody else's opinions. My mudder was strong-willed
deep down, and I'm de same. Lord knows, your mudder was de same. And you de same."
"Tell me about Ambrosia," said Irie, spotting a chink in Hor tense's armour that one might
squeeze through. "Please."
But Hortense remained solid. "You know enough already. De past is done wid. Nobody learn
nuttin' from it. Top of page five please I tink dat's where we were."
At that moment Ryan returned to the room, face redder than ever.
"What, Mr. Topps? Is it? Do you know?"
"God help the heathen, Mrs. B." for the day is indeed at hand! It is as the Lord laid out clearly
in his book of Revelation. He never intended a third millennium. Now I'll need that article typed up,
and then another one that I'll dictate to you off the cuff you'll need to telephone all the Lambeth
members, and leaflet the-'
"Oh, yes, Mr. Topps but jus' let me tyake it in jus' a minute It couldn't be any udder date, could
it, Mr. Topps? I tol' you I felt it in my bones."
"I'm not sure as to how much your bones had to do wiv it, Mrs. B. Surely more credit is due to
the thorough scriptural study done by myself and my colleagues '
"And God, presumably," said Irie, cutting him a sharp glare, going over to hold Hortense, who
was shaking with sobs. Hortense kissed Irie on both cheeks and Irie smiled at the hot wetness.
"Oh, Irie Ambrosia. I'm so glad you're here to share dis. I live dis century I came into dis world
in an cart-quake at de very beginning and I shall see the hevil and sinful pollution be hera sed in a
mighty rumbling cart-quake once more. Praise de Lord! It is as he promised after all. I knew I'd
make it. I got jus' seven years to wait. Ninety-two!" Hortense sucked her teeth contemptuously.
"Cho! My grandmudder live to see one hundered-and-tree an de woman could skip rope till de day
she keel over and drop col'. Me gwan make it. I make it dis far. My mudder suffer to get me here
but she knew de true church and she make heffort to push me out in de mos' difficult circumstances
so I could live to see that glory day."
"Amen!"
"Oh, ha men Mr. Topps. Put on de complete suit of armour of God! Now, Irie Ambrosia,
witness me as I say it: I'm gwan be dere. An' I'm gwan to be in Jamaica to see it. I'm going home
that year of our Lord. An' you can come dere too if you learn from me and listen. You wan come
Jamaica in de year two thousand?"
Irie let out a little scream and rushed to give her grandmother another hug.
Hortense wiped her tears with her apron. "Lord Jesus, I live dis century! Well and truly I live
dis terrible century wid all its troubles and vexations. And tanks to you, Lord, I'm gwan a feel a
rumble at both ends."