The next night, in the small hours, Belinda stopped in front of the kitchen’s longest window and the moody moon it showed. She dragged the mop again. It drooled over the tiles as it had for the last twenty minutes. She returned it to the bucket and swiped her forehead with knuckles like a labourer. The dishwasher ticked, a red timer winked a change in minutes, and a tear came from her eye. It might have been best to stop then as it rolled out, but it was the loveliest of feelings as the second tear rose: a rushing, like Mary sprinting for leftover meat bones. She didn’t want to think about Mary. She shivered, sniffed the third and fourth ones back. The mop slid in the bucket to an angle it found natural.
She shuffled up the stairs, the usual radio-murmur from Amma’s door guiding her. Amma sat cross-legged on her bed with a book. In her pink pyjamas, with hair pouring down a shoulder she had an innocence that calmed Belinda. The gesture Belinda wanted to make to her seemed possible, if it were to a girl as gentle as that.
‘You?’ Amma tucked the book beneath her pillow.
‘We need to start somewhere. To get back on the track. I suggest this.’
‘Be.’
‘Justcome. Justcome. And now.’ Belinda’s neck did not show the weakness of turning to check if instruction had been carried out. Amma followed, whispering her confusion as they picked down the flights. ‘Shh – I only tell you that I want you to help.’ Belinda hissed into darkness near the living room as they crept on. ‘Is not big. Is not much.’
‘I’ll – I’ll do what I can.’
‘I think I need to not be by myself, OK? Is that clear? That’s all.’
‘Are you all right, Be?’ Amma clicked the kitchen’s light switch. Black, white, silver. ‘Oooh, it’s chilly.’
‘Now the central heater won’t wake up until six. I want you to wipe the front of the fridge. You need take the alphabet magnets off first, of course. I will take care of the surfaces and some other things.’
‘It’s, like, way way after midnight and I’ve got – we’ve got. What?’
‘This helps me. I do it often. And it may you, also.’
‘Be, this is like some fucking slave labour shit. It’s out-rage-ous. Has Mum got you doing this? Or, or was it Dad? Did Dad make you? Is this you, like, paying your way? Like the level of exploitation is un–’
‘I choose to do it. I say I choose. It helps me and may do good for you too.’
Amma sniffed. ‘I doubt domestic chores will work, love.’
‘Have you tried?’ Belinda waited as Amma picked the skin between finger and thumb. ‘And, also, I am not your love. I don’t ask for you to, like, call me words of that kind, please.’
‘So this is how it’s going to be now. Fucking fabulous.’
‘Take the magnets off. Careful on the floor as I will be attending on it again, so it will become slippy.’
Amma plucked lower case letters. The circling of the sponge on the granite tired Belinda.
‘You think cleaning will magic it away, Mum thinks it’s therapy that’ll do the trick. To deal with my … what did she call it … my rages and madness and strong emotions. Therapy! What marvellous ideas you all have.’
‘I’m sorry?’ Belinda pressed into the sponge.
‘What did she call it this morning … the most ridic phrase … yeah, “getting a white help”. As if.’
‘What is that?’
‘Professional help, dearest. Medical. Head Doctor. Like, I’m totally interested in the workings of the mind, all of that, and like, gushing to paid ears is probably excellent, if you’re properly damaged or whatever … and there was this girl from JAGs and it helped her to stop cutting herself, but I’m not like that. Oh, and plus they love shoving tablets down your throat, and like tablets are a definite no-no. They use those things to control black women.’
‘Maybe I like it better when we are silent.’
‘Ha.’
Though there was no real need, Belinda abandoned the sponge and searched for another cloth. ‘You should perhaps also throw out the rotten courgette in the bottom drawer of the fridge. There are one or two to get rid of. Sorry for the smell.’
But Belinda had more, made Amma jump. ‘Was it nice, yesterday? Did you like what you did and what you caused?’
‘That’s all rather convenient, isn’t it? Palm it off onto me and then you needn’t think about it, or your own shit, any more. Blissful blissful blissful pretendy.’
‘And your meaning is what?’
‘My meaning is … my meaning is. Fuck it. Pass me some of that fucking spray … please.’
For a time, nothing but the squeak of chamois and the hiss of Cif. Belinda liked the gentle strain stretching and disappearing along her arms as she worked.
‘I only feel you need to watch your behaviour, Amma. I’m a good friend to suggest it.’
Amma pinned Belinda with a bloodshot stare and pointed with a shaking finger. ‘My behaviour isn’t your real worry though, is it? Your worry is what I’m like, Be. It’s, it’s what I like.’
‘However you want to put it is however. Look, listen, with, with this your … sad problem …’
‘Christ.’
‘You have a great power to leave your own mum the most unhappy person I can imagine. And all for the sake that you want to say your foolish words about girls. Why? If it was my daughter I might even collapse. Would you like that?’
‘You’re nearly funny.’
‘There are no jokes. We can joke no longer. Because of you.’
‘Your whole perspective –’
‘Keep your voice down.’
‘Your whole perspective about this is, like, blame-centric. Unbelievably blame-centric. I haven’t actually done anything. I’m trying to figure –’
‘I don’t need to be arguing. I try to help by telling what is true: whatever this you have done or want to do with a girl is no natural thing. Is not. Is wrong. End of the line. If you have any common sense in the head, you better come to learn how to sit on it and shut it down, not go to make a show of everyone and yourself.’ Belinda snapped the cloth and sighed. ‘Is part of the adult life, Amma – why cannot anyone else see? You don’t always get to be the thing that you want or think you deserve, or whatever. You don’t, and you have to live with it and move on.’
Amma stepped forward in her piglet slippers; their softness was the only thing reassuring Belinda that Amma would not hit her. ‘I probably loved her. She is an absolute twat and she’s gone and I loved her. Love. Do you understand what love is? Stupid fucking question. Stupid. Fucking. Question.’
Belinda straightened her back and walked to the sink to wring the dirty rag in the basin. Grey dribbled into the plug hole.
‘Be? Sorry. That was harsh,’ Amma puffed. ‘Be?’
Belinda thought of the boys in Adurubaa, the ones who messed around on the steeper dirt road. Up high, they played with brittle trucks pieced together from sardine tins and bits of tyre. When an unwise push sent one of those battered trucks too far and too fast, there was no immediate panic. They let the toy whizz down, bouncing all the long way until it reached the dip at the bottom and crashed or rolled into stillness there. Then they scurried to check the damage and remake. They never stopped it in the middle of its run.