typewriter in the other room. âPoems, mainly. Iâd like to write a novel one day. Iâm still waiting for a good story.â
She smiled. âDonât wait too long.â I was quite relieved she gave me this instruction, because usually whenever I told Âpeople I wanted to write, they would tell me how their own lives would make the perfect subject. âI mean it,â said Quick. âYou mustnât hang around. You never know whatâs going to pounce on you.â
âI wonât,â I said, gratified by her insistence.
She sat back in her chair. âYou do remind me of someone I used to know.â
âI do?â I found this immensely flattering and waited for Quick to go on, but her face clouded, and she broke the spine of the cigarette sheâd left on the side of the ashtray.
âWhat do you make of London?â she asked. âYou came in â62. Do you like living here?â
I felt paralysed. She leaned forward. âMiss Bastien. This isnât a test. Iâm genuinely interested. Whatever you say, I wonât tell a soul. Cross my heart. Between us, I promise.â
Iâd never told anybody this out loud. It may have been the gin, it may have been her open face, and the fact she didnât laugh at my dream of writing. It may have been the confidence of youth, or that porter Harris, but it all came tumbling out. âIâve never seen so much soot,â I said.
She laughed. âThe place is filthy.â
âIn Trinidad, we were brought up being told that London was a magic land.â
âSo was I.â
âYouâre not from here?â
She shrugged. âIâve been here so long I can hardly remember anything else.â
âThey make you think London is full of order, and plenty, and honesty and green fields. The distance shrinks.â
âWhat distance do you mean, Miss Bastien?â
âWell, the Queen rules London and she rules your island, so London is part of you . â
âI see.â
I didnât think Quick did see, really, so I carried on. â You think theyâll know you here, because they also read Dickens and Brontë and Shakespeare. But I havenât met anyone who can name three of his plays. At school, they showed us films of English life â bowler hats and buses flickering on the whitewash â while outside all we could hear were tree frogs. Why did anyone show us such things?â My voice was rising. âI thought everyone was an HonourableâÂâ
I stopped, fearing Iâd said too much.
âGo on,â she said.
âI thought London would mean prosperity and welcome. A Renaissance place. Glory and success. Opportunity. I thought leaving for England was the same as stepping out of my house and onto the street, just a slightly colder street where a beti with a brain could live next door to Elizabeth the Queen.â
Quick smiled. âYouâve been thinking about this.â
âSometimes you canât think about anything else. Thereâs the cold, the wet, the rent, the lack. But â I do try to live.â
I felt I shouldnât say any more; I couldnât believe Iâd said so much. The bread roll was in shreds upon my lap. Quick, in contrast, appeared totally relaxed. She sat back in her chair, her eyes alight. âOdelle,â she said. âDonât panic. Itâs likely youâll be fine.â
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IV
C ynthia married Samuel at Wandsworth Register Office, in a small room that smelled of bureaucracy and cheap perfume, with dark-Âgreen walls and steel chairs. Shirley and Helen, two girls from the shoe shop, came along in their finery. Samâs friend from the buses, Patrick Minamore, was best man, and he brought with him his girlfriend Barbara, a fledgling actress and a talkative presence.
The registrar