‘No, I work for a charity.’
‘In Brent.’
‘Wembley, actually.’
He sighs. ‘Why Wembley?’
‘What’s wrong with Wembley?’
‘It’s zone four!’
‘It’s an easy commute for me.’
‘I’m just saying. With your qualifications, you ought to be working right here in the city for … for Rothschild or something.’
‘Rothschild is not an accountancy firm.’
‘Saatchi and Saatchi, then.’
‘Saatchi and Saatchi is not an accountancy firm. And who says they would employ me?’
‘Come on. You’re selling yourself short. You’re always selling yourself short. Stop selling yourself short. Of course they would employ you. Of course they would. With your background?’
‘What background?’ Deola says, stepping on her accelerator, instead of admitting she is aware of how mediocre her career is. She is heading in the direction of Trafalgar Square.
‘Calm down,’ he says. ‘I’m just saying. You ought to aim higher. You’re too self-effacing. You go for a job like that and you’ll end up leaving. It’s the same way you found yourself working with a bunch of yobs wherever.’
‘Holborn. A consultancy firm in Holborn.’
‘With NHS clients in Wolverhampton.’
She slaps his hand down. She can’t tell him anything.
‘Sorry,’ he says. ‘I didn’t mean for it to come out that way.’
‘Hm.’
‘May I smoke?’
‘No.’
‘Out of your window, I mean.’
‘I said no.’
He rubs his forehead. ‘God, you’re such an old fanny. So what is it then, you struggle with the world of commerce and industry or the world of commerce and industry struggles with you?’ His American accent is dodgy.
‘Who are you quoting now?’ she asks.
‘Baldwin.’
‘What did Baldwin have to say about that?’
‘He didn’t ask you the question.’
He is also a James Baldwin enthusiast, but he considers Baldwin’s experiences American, unlike his, which he might describe as aristocratic English because his grandfather was knighted by the Queen. His snobbishness is exasperating. Everyone is a yob to him. He won’t accept that racism exists in England. ‘It’s just an excuse for the West Indian immies not to work,’ he once said. ‘Class is everything over here.’
‘My job is not bad,’ she says. ‘I get to travel. I’ve just come back from the States. Before that I was in India.’
‘India?’
‘Yes, and I’m going home in a week.’
From the little she saw of Delhi, it was cleaner and better organized than Lagos, but there were similarities, like the crowded markets and the occasional spectacle of someone defecating in public.
‘Where is home?’ Bandele asks.
‘Where else?’
He rubs his chin. ‘Nigeria is not my home.’
‘It’s home for me.’
‘Good luck to you. I haven’t been back in so long I’d probably catch dengue fever the moment I set foot in that country.’
‘More like malaria.’
‘Nigerians, ye savages.’
‘Your head is not correct,’ she says.
This slips out and for a while her remorse shuts her up. Bandele has been hospitalized for depression once before, but even at his lowest he was never incoherent. He also appeared physically fit, yet his depression was often so crippling he couldn’t get out of bed. Now, he says it is manageable. He calls psychiatric patients ‘schizoids’. If she protests, he says, ‘What?’
His flat is in a state when they get there – not abnormally so. There is dirty laundry in his living room, a clutter of plates in his sink and a saucer with cigarette butts. He works in longhand and writes it up on a computer, but he has never learned to type properly. He has paper all over the floor, sometimes crumpled up in balls. He writes everywhere as if he is addicted, in notebooks he carries, on paper napkins in restaurants and on cinema stubs in the dark. He goes to Pimlico Library to borrow books and to his local Sainsbury’s to buy frozen meals. He heats them in his oven because he doesn’t have a microwave. His flat smells of lasagna and cigarette fumes.
‘Does the writing help?’ she asks.
‘Help what?’ he says, throwing his keys on a chair.
Her hands are in her pockets. ‘I mean in expressing yourself.’
‘It’s not about expressing myself.’
‘What is it about, then?’
‘I just don’t want to feel so worthless any more.’
‘You’re not worthless, Bandele.’
‘I am.’
‘Don’t say that.’
‘But I am.’
‘No, you’re not. You’re working and it’s not like having a job you absolutely loathe.’
He searches the floor. ‘I absolutely loathe writing.’
‘You do?’
‘Of course I do and I loathe publishing even more.’
‘Still?’
‘Mm, I have an intimate knowledge of its ugly side.’
Again, the dodgy American accent. He can’t imitate, but he has an astonishing ability to recall quotes. For her, quoting is like picking flowers instead of admiring them.
‘Baldwin again?’ she asks.
‘You’ve got that right, sister. Have you read any of his books?’
‘Go Tell It on the Mountain, and the Beale Street one. The one with the pregnant woman.’
‘What did you think of them?’
‘I liked them.’
He staggers backward. ‘Liked?’
‘You and Baldwin today.’
He raises his hands. ‘I’m having a séance with him.’
‘I thought you didn’t believe in all that.’
He was an existentialist when last she asked. She cannot tell if he is erratic or just working himself up into a creative mood. She wants to find out if he is under stress from writing again and if he has a new girlfriend. She would like to ask about his medication and his social worker. But more than that she’d rather just excuse herself and leave because she can’t cope with what he might tell her.
‘It’s a mess here, isn’t it?’ he asks, looking at the floor.
‘It’s fine,’ she says.
‘No, really, it’s a mess.’
‘It’s fine.’
‘Just say it is and I’ll clean up.’
‘I’ll help.’
As they tidy up, she tells