Vanessa sat in the grass at the top of Brockwell Park, looking down towards Herne Hill Station. It had been two weeks since she’d seen Tayo, but memories of the dinner, the waiting at the station and his offer of a kiss still lingered in her mind. She tried picturing him back in Nigeria, in his office, or at home, but found herself always returning to his room in Oxford, or the offices at Chiekh Anta Diop, which was her only model for a West African campus. She wondered what he would think of where she now lived and the life she’d created for herself.
Herne Hill used to be nothing fancy, just another nondescript borough of south east London with rows of Victorian terraced homes, a local pub, bank, newsagent, and post office, but things were changing. It started in 1990 with two new art shops — first the one under the station bridge and then Artemidorus on Half Moon Lane. Next came the French bistros and an ultra-pricey Indian fusion restaurant. Now, clustered around the station, were expensive shops and eating-places, marking Herne Hill as part of the new south London — trendy, but not gentrified. There remained enough of the old Herne Hill to prevent it from becoming a second Dulwich. The bakery, for example, hadn’t changed. It still sold greasy sausage rolls and stodgy buns drizzled with confectioner’s sugar, topped with glacé cherries. It had some new competition from the Jamaican pattie shop across the street, tastier fare, but still not upmarket. Then there was the Nigerian man with his clothes shop that was also a tailoring business and also offered secretarial services. It was hard to tell which of its operations was core, especially as it was almost never open, in contrast to its neighbour, the 24-hour taxi rank. Station’s Taxis was a seedy shack of a place that reeked of tobacco, even more than the pub across the street. Many of the drivers were Nigerian which meant she could never pass it without thinking of Tayo.
She stretched her legs, enjoying the tickle of grass beneath her calves. Down at the bottom of the hill, men and women were cleaning the park. They wore plastic sleeves and used long stick devices to pick up discarded beer cans, paper plates and plastic knives and forks. Yesterday, the annual Brockwell Park Fair had taken place and hundreds of Londoners had trampled across the grass, eating, drinking, and dropping their litter. She had come by herself. It wasn’t the sort of thing Edward enjoyed. Too raucous, he complained. Her son, Suleiman, had come, but not with her. He went with friends, to flirt with the girls and no doubt smoke some hash. And so with Edward at home and Suleiman out of sight, she had wandered from stall to stall, sampling West African cuisine and buying things to support local artists. As usual, when the African vendors learnt that she’d lived on their continent, she was greeted with added enthusiasm. Suleiman laughed at her whenever she said she felt more at home with Africans than with the English, but it was true. There was a saying that once you’d tasted the waters of Africa, you would always thirst for more, and she was ready to return.
She’d left Dakar in 1975 when her mother was very ill. Had it not been for this, and the subsequent need to help Father adjust to living alone, she might never have come back to live in England. Her years in Africa, most of them at least, were the happiest of her life. The sun always shone and she’d felt fulfilled in her work. In Dakar she had never worried about how to raise her son and she was never alone, but here, even though she had Edward to help, mothering was a lonely job. Suleiman in his early twenties was a very different child from Suleiman as a boy. The charming, chatty toddler was gone, replaced by a silent, troubled young man. Other mothers empathised, blaming it on his relative youth, but she knew what they really thought: that’s the problem with having a black child.
Vanessa brought her knees to her chest and hugged them. The park cleaners had gone and, down by the station, stick-like figures scurried in and out. Rush hour had begun and some of those returning from work would leave the station and walk back to Brixton, or up to Herne Hill and Dulwich. She and Edward lived on Herne Hill Road, not far from St. Paul’s church.
‘Goodness,’ she gasped, suddenly remembering. Today was their anniversary. She’d never been good at remembering these dates, but it was strange that Edward had also forgotten. Eighteen years of marriage, she contemplated, and not to Tayo or another African as she had once envisaged, but to Edward. Edward Maximillian Barker.
After things had ended with Tayo, Vanessa had deliberately stayed away from all of Tayo’s old friends, including the Barkers, but one day in the autumn of 1968, she’d bumped into Edward in London and they’d had lunch together. Edward had seen how miserable she was and encouraged her to return to Dakar. The problem with returning, however, was that she had no job to go to. When she first went to Senegal, she’d gone on a whim and stayed with one of Uncle Tony’s friends in Saint-Louis. There was no thought of finding a job; it was just an escape from England and from her family, with the desire to be somehow closer to Tayo, despite her anger. Then, when she couldn’t escape her despair in Senegal, she’d returned to England thinking she’d throw herself back into her studies, but she hadn’t been able to do that either. Instead, she’d drifted for a year doing casual jobs in London until the day she met Edward. He had given her names and addresses of friends at Chiekh Anta Diop and, thanks to him, she’d left her job and returned to Senegal to start a new life. In Dakar, nobody knew about her sadness and only Salamatou was aware of Tayo, and she only knew a little. And then she, too, was gone, killed in a car accident on a treacherous stretch of road between Dakar and Saint-Louis.
For weeks afterwards, nobody could console Vanessa, although Edward on his many visits tried his best and his presence did bring her comfort. For a time, Edward became like a father to Vanessa — a man far wiser, gentler and more self-possessed than the men of Vanessa’s own age. Above all, he listened. And yes, she knew that he was attracted to her in more than just a friendly way, but she chose to ignore it. He also wasn’t her type — too old and far too English in his way of speaking, his dress and his mannerisms. She had said no the first time he asked her to marry him. But several months later, when he proposed again she’d managed to convince herself that her initial reservations were foolish. He was, after all, her closest friend and it seemed only natural that they should marry.
July 15th, 1977. Eighteen years. She’d grown to love him, but those things that she hadn’t liked in the beginning never went away and the attraction of his older age soon disappeared. Now he was forgetful and prone to repeating stories. In his retirement he spent hours in his men’s clubs with his very English friends. He smoked and drank and talked incessantly of holiday homes in the south of France. He no longer thirsted for Africa. And then there was something else, so small and trivial that it bothered Vanessa that she even noticed it, yet it was worse than all the other irritations, and always there. His smell. It cloaked the house and seeped into everything they owned: clothes, curtains, the bedding — a horrible, acrid smell like old, musty books, only worse — the smell of old age and far too similar to that of her father.
‘Darling Vanessa,’ someone called.
‘Anthony!’ She smiled, turning around to find her friend from Sketchley’s standing before her. Something about Anthony reminded her of Abubakar. Both were charming and she knew they found her attractive but only in an exotic sort of way. In Abubakar’s case, she’d been the young English visitor to Senegal. In those days, she could be considered beautiful but, surely to Abubakar, the greatest attraction had been her naivety. She’d been too stupid to realise that he was already married.
There was no naivety with Anthony, at least not on her part, but she could see that he was taken by the idea of an older English woman with an interesting past life in Africa.
‘What’s up, beauty?’ Anthony dropped the plastic bag that he was carrying and sat next to her on the grass. ‘Were you here yesterday? I was looking for you, babe.’
‘I was here, for a while,’ she smiled.
‘And what you thinking today? What you gonna write?’
‘Right now, I’m working on a piece about recent immigrants to London. African immigrants.’
‘And what about their Jamaican brothers?’ Anthony joked. ‘We is the original diaspora y’know. Besides, you need to use my name in one of your articles. Do me some free advertising. Anthony’s Sketchley on Railton Road — best dry cleaners in London!’
She laughed and tugged at his Walkman, asking him what he was listening to as he removed his headphones and placed them around her head.
‘Hugh Masekela,’ she smiled, recognising the song.
‘Yeah man,’ he nodded, lying back in the grass and closing his eyes.
His shirt had risen above his stomach, revealing a ladder of taut muscles. His hands were linked across his chest and the long, dark fingers reminded Vanessa of Tayo’s, but Anthony was young, not much older than Suleiman. Therefore, however much this man might thrill her, she had to stop imagining things. She listened to Masekela’s song for Mandela, remembering the year it first came out and how she’d played it continuously on the day Mandela was released. She smiled and looked down the path to where a couple were walking slowly up the hill. The man pushed a pram and the woman hugged the man’s waist, leaning gently on his side — a black and white couple. Vanessa turned away so that she wouldn’t have to nod and smile as the couple walked by. Hearing her move, Anthony opened his eyes and sat up.
‘So you wanna get a drink?’ he offered.
When Vanessa got home, Edward was playing Rachmaninoff at a deafening volume.
‘Oh for God’s sake, you’re worse than Suleiman!’ Vanessa shouted above the music, before switching it off.
Edward wasn’t in the lounge, which meant he was upstairs having a bath. Sometimes he fell asleep there.
‘One day you’ll bloody drown,’ she muttered, stomping up the stairs.
‘Hello, darling.’ He met her on the landing.
‘Will you please not play your music so loudly, Edward!’
‘But I thought you rather liked Rachmaninoff, my love.’
‘Frankly, I’d much prefer Hugh Masekela, any day,’ she snapped.
‘Who’s that, my love?’
‘Never mind,’ she said, brushing past him. He was growing deaf as well.
‘Darling, let me give you a kiss. It’s our anniversary.’
‘I know,’ she said, flinging open the windows in their bedroom.
‘Are you hot, darling?’
‘No. It’s stuffy!’ She strode out of their room back to where he stood. He was slouched a little against the banister, and that was when she noticed the bruise on his head. ‘What happened?’ she asked, reaching to touch.
‘Oh, just a little bump. I couldn’t find my glasses and tripped on the carpet. But it’s nothing. Come, I’ve got something to show you.’ He held out his hand, and she followed him to the study. She slipped an arm round his waist, ashamed of herself for being so sharp with him. ‘I went to the bookshop while you were out and brought this for you.’
‘Oh darling!’ she exclaimed, seeing the photograph of Mandela on the book’s cover and knowing immediately what it was.
‘I thought you’d like it.’ He smiled.
‘Long Walk to Freedom,’ she read the title. The book had only just come out. Where had he managed to find a copy so quickly? She opened it, and read on the inside cover, the note that Edward had written: ‘To the woman I love, and with whom I have walked the best 18 years of my life.’
‘Oh Edward!’ She put the book down and wrapped her arms tightly around his waist.