When Glory reached Peckham she knew she wasn’t ready to go back home. It was the beginning of March and the promise of warmer weather was in the air. The streets were beginning to fill with Friday afternoon traffic and Glory wasn’t conscious of where she was heading until she saw the black signage of Pharaoh’s. She could see Julian in the doorway, leaning against the frame in conversation with a couple of men who were just outside. As he saw her approach, he excused himself and walked up to meet her, a smug smile crawling across his face.
“Fancy seein” you ’ere!” he said in an exaggerated Cockney accent. He ran his tongue across his teeth trying to hold in a laugh.
Glory could only force a smile that felt like a grimace, aware of all the eyes on them.
“What’s up?”
“Nothing,” Glory said, trying and failing at a convincing smile. “Are you busy?”
“Come, let’s go for a walk.”
He began walking in the direction of Burgess Park.
“Can we go somewhere private?” Glory asked after a few steps, and Julian stopped, digging his hands into his pockets and looking back to his barbershop.
“My yard ain’t far,” he said with a casual shrug.
“Who’s there?”
“No one.”
“Good.”
Julian led the way.
“So let me guess,” Julian said, trying to keep things light. “You’ve come to tell me how much you enjoyed last night and want to return the favor by cooking for me.”
“Unfortunately not,” Glory replied, deadpan.
“Ah, you’re breaking my heart, Fredo,” Julian said in a raspy voice.
“What?”
“Never mind.”
“Are you quoting The Godfather?”
“Yeah, sorry.”
“It’s OK,” Glory said, easing up. “I like The Godfather.”
“Swear down?” Julian said, a little surprised. “Well, I guess everyone likes The Godfather.”
“I like them kinds of films though,” Glory said, bothered by Julian’s comment. “Them Mafia ones.”
“Really?” Julian sounded unconvinced. “Goodfellas? Casino? Carlito’s Way?”
“Yes, yes, and Carlito’s Way isn’t a Mafia film, it just stars Al Pacino.”
Julian considered this. “Fair enough.”
He stopped in front of a small paved walkway leading up to a squat, three-story tower of flats. It was one of the newer buildings that had sprung up when the old North Peckham Estate, with two-story maisonettes like Glory’s family home, had been torn down. The newer buildings were smaller and more compact than the old estate had been, the luxury of two floors replaced by boxy rooms that clustered around one central corridor. Julian juggled through a large set of keys until he found one and then he continued up the path.
“Here we are,” he said as he turned the silver key in the entry door to the building. “As the Mafia says, mi casa es su casa!”
“That’s Spanish.”
“I know,” Julian said with a sigh. “I was just tryna make you laugh.”
Glory didn’t say anything else until they had gone up a flight of stairs and were inside the flat.
“You live here by yourself?” she asked as she looked at the pristine shoe boxes that lined the length of the hallway, like the storeroom of a Foot Locker.
“Yeah, you remember my sister, right? She got married and lives in Milton Keynes now. My mum went back home a couple summers ago.”
A few family pictures remained on the walls of the hallway. Glory looked closely at one of Julian and his sister as teenagers, posing at their mother’s graduation. She remembered his sister quite clearly as one of the older, bossy girls who could intimidate a younger girl with a judgmental look or icy glare. Left under Julian’s care, the rest of the flat was in a determined state of transition, from family home to the quintessential bachelor pad. In the front room an enormous flat screen TV and shiny black sound system dominated, while on the coffee table lived an array of remotes and consoles.
Glory got comfortable on the sofa as Julian went around the room tidying away abandoned glasses and clothes flung across furniture.
“You smoke?” Glory gestured to an ashtray and a few discarded sheets of rolling paper.
Julian looked at her, trying to gauge what the correct answer would be.
“Sometimes. You?”
“Nope.”
He collected the ashtray and errant Rizlas and took them through to the kitchen, before calling through the open doorway to offer Glory a drink.
“Do you have any herbal tea?”
“No tea, what else you want?”
“What else you got?”
His drinks selection was poor; fizzy drinks she didn’t like and spirits she would not accept. In the end she settled for a bottle of chilled water and he did the same, sitting next to her on the sofa with a respectable distance between them.
“So tell me what’s going on.”
“Faith just pisses me off!” Glory said, twisting the top off her bottle roughly.
“What did she do?”
“Nothing! That’s the point.”
Julian let silence linger for a few seconds before saying, “I don’t follow.”
Glory sighed and took out the photographs, laying them out on the coffee table.
“I found these pictures this morning hidden in my mum’s wardrobe. I’ve never seen them before so I took them to Faith to see what she might know.”
Julian leaned forward and examined the photographs. “Is that you?” he asked, pointing at the picture of Hope.
“No, that’s my sister. Hope.”
“Oh shit!” he said. “You really are twins. Who are these two?”
“Well, apparently, we used to live with them for a while! Some random white people that I’ve never seen before or heard mentioned, but apparently us three lived with them for like a whole year!”
Julian looked confused. “I don’t get it.”
“Neither do I to be honest,” Glory said, slumping back onto the sofa. “But Faith said I’m not allowed to ask my mum about it.”
“Faith said that? You know you’re a big woman. You can ask your mum whatever you want.”
“In theory . . .” Glory chewed on a finger. “You know how Nigerian mums are, ask them something they don’t like and they’ll be acting like you spat at them and tore their wig off. Too much Nollywood.”
Julian chuckled, leaning forward again to look at the photographs, picking up the picture of the three sisters with Joan and Edward.
“So this is you, yeah?” he asked, pointing at the tiny scowling Glory. “And that’s your sister?”
Glory nodded.
“I knew it! Even mini Glory has attitude.”
Glory nudged him with her thigh and he pushed her knee back, letting his hand rest on her leg longer than necessary, before turning back to the photographs.
“What primary school did you lot go?” Julian asked, holding the picture of Hope by herself close to his face.
“Grove End.”
“Their uniform is green right?”
“Yeah.”
“So what uniform is your sister wearing?”
Julian handed the picture back to Glory and she peered into the photograph.
“I don’t know.” On a more careful glance, what Glory had assumed was the dark green of her uniform actually looked more navy. She tried to make out the gold stitching of the school emblem on the little girl’s cardigan. The text below the crest was long, definitely longer than “Grove End Primary School,” and the first two letters looked like they might be “St.”
Instinctively she took out her phone to call Faith, then remembered their earlier conversation. She’d give Faith a chance to get over herself and then she’d approach the topic from another angle.
The room fell into silence again, the only sound the quiet hum of electronics on standby.
“What are you thinking about?” Glory asked Julian, who had sat back against the sofa, resting both hands behind his head.
Julian grinned sheepishly, avoiding eye contact. He looked younger all of a sudden.
“There’s this thing that’s been playing on my mind bare . . .”
“Go on.”
“You done me dirty, y’know? Last night, after Maijhun.”
“What are you talking about?”
“You know,” Julian said with a smile.
Glory’s pulse quickened.
“I don’t know.”
“When we were walking to that park and I pulled you in . . .”
“Oh yeah, we were hugging, right?”
“And then you ran away.”
“I didn’t run away,” Glory said, trying to stifle the smile that was breaking across her face.
“Well, I want another one—a proper one.”
“Another hug? No problem.”
Glory unfolded herself and leaned over to Julian, who wasted no time as his lips met hers. They were soft, as was his grip around her waist, and Glory feared that if she let herself go completely, she would melt into him. His fingers began to slip underneath her top and slowly up her back. Her skin was hot and tingling and she pressed herself into him as they kissed. She felt his hands slide around to her front, his fingers dancing across the skin of her stomach when she pulled away abruptly.
“You all right?”
“I’m fine. I’m just, erm.” She shifted awkwardly. “I’m on my, erm, y’know.”
“Your period?” he asked in a low tone, as if someone might overhear him. She nodded. He wiped the edges of his mouth with a thumb and a finger.
“Oh, calm,” he said. He put his arm around her shoulders and they settled into a comfortable position side by side, both staring at the blank rectangle of the TV.
“Let’s watch a film,” Glory said, the familial tension of the day forgotten.
“What you wanna watch?”
“Anything.”
Julian opened one of the cupboards below the television and began rifling through Playstation games, albums and DVDs.
“You should really organize that, you’d be able to find stuff quicker.”
Julian looked at Glory over his shoulder. “Listen to me very carefully. There are three ways of doing things around here: the right way, the wrong way, and the way that I do it. Y’understand?”
“All right,” Glory said, a little put out, “I was just trying to be helpful.”
“No, Glory,” Julian said, turning to her. “That’s from Casino—remember?”
Glory shook her head.
“OK, we’re watching Casino! Actually, scrap that. We’re watching Goodfellas.”
Around half an hour into the film, as Ray Liotta was leading Lorraine Bracco through the back entrance of the club, handing out twenty-dollar bills and shaking hands like a corrupt politician, Julian’s phone started ringing. He picked it up, looked at the screen and sighed, turning it facedown on the coffee table and sitting back. But when it wouldn’t stop ringing he paused the film, apologized to Glory and answered the call.
“Now? . . . Today?”
He stood and left the room. Glory waited, adjusting her clothing self-consciously, the question that had been buzzing in her head that morning resurfacing. There was no time to play it cool, because if she hadn’t gotten her period this morning, the sensual kiss they had just shared would probably have gone a lot further.
“Everything all right?” she asked Julian when he finally returned.
“Yeah, someone wanted a favor but I managed to long them off ’til tomorrow. You still wanna watch Goodfellas?”
“Yeah, but . . .” Glory hesitated, mentally egging herself onward. “I want to ask you something.”
Julian dropped down on the sofa beside her.
“Yeah, what’s up?”
“Well . . . what are we . . . doing here?” She managed to say, feeling somehow weaker for needing to ask the question.
“Doing here?”
“I mean, like, are we dating or what?” Glory said, her face burning with embarrassment. “Last night was a date right?”
A satisfied smile now appeared on Julian’s face and he relaxed back into position.
“Yeah, wasn’t it obvious?”
“Just checking—I don’t know how things . . . work . . . here.”
“Sorry, I forgot you were used to the American way of doing things,” Julian said wryly.
“No, not tha— Look . . .” Glory shifted in her seat to face him, now holding his gaze earnestly. “I just want to make sure that we’re both on the same page because I’ve made this mistake before.”
Julian nodded, sitting up slightly, ready to reciprocate Glory’s forthrightness.
“I hear that, well I like you, innit—if that wasn’t clear enough before, then let me lay all my cards out. I like you and I wanna see where this goes.”
“Are you seeing anyone else?”
“No,” Julian said quickly. “Are you?”
Glory shook her head.
“All right then.”
“So we’re exclusive?” Glory said pedantically.
“Yes,” Julian said with a laugh. “Unless you don’t want to be? I dunno, do you want an open relationship? Is that what people do out in LA?”
“No, I just wanted to be absolutely sure.”
“OK then!” Julian said. “Do we need to shake on it, is there any paperwork to sign or can we get back to watching Goodfellas?”
Glory kissed her teeth and swatted at him, before turning to face the TV.
“You know I learned how to chop garlic from Goodfellas,” Glory said as she got more comfortable, lifting Julian’s arm to wrap it around her shoulders. “The guy cutting garlic with a razor in the prison scene really left an impression on me, and it works, it actually makes the garlic dissolve into the oil in the pan.”
Julian looked at her for a moment.
“You’re really different, y’know?”
“You’ll get used to it,” Glory said, bringing her legs onto the sofa and resting her head against his chest.