films, or my strange boss, or the painting, or Gerry the Bastard, dead parents. Stuff that bound us together as a duo, that didn’t make me a representative of a whole island that I hadn’t seen for five years. When Lawrie didn’t ask me about Trinidad, I felt more of an individual again.
‘Odelle?’
‘Let me tell you about London,’ I said.
‘OK.’
‘When I first got here,’ I went on, ‘I could not believe the cold.’ Lawrie laughed. ‘I’m serious, Lawrie. It was like the Arctic. Cynth and I arrived in January.’
‘Of all the months.’
‘I know. When I was a little girl, I was Autumn in a school play about the seasons. I didn’t even know what autumn was, let alone winter.’
I was quiet for a minute, remembering my smaller self, in her little boater and English pinafore, telling her mother she needed ‘russet leaves’ pinned to a leotard – and my mother, who had no idea either what frost on the tips of grass might look like, what a conker was, how it felt to inhale London’s November air and feel a sliver of ice in your lung – doing her darnedest to make this English costume in the humid Caribbean.
‘I remember,’ I went on, warming to this reminiscence, feeling that I could do this with Lawrie, that I was safe – ‘an early day I was here – a feller saying to me in the shoe shop, “Your English is very good.” My English! I told him, “English is a West Indian language, sir.” ’
‘And what did he say?’ Lawrie asked, laughing. I realized that never in Lawrie’s life would anyone say to him what that man had said to me.
‘He thought I was simple. I nearly lost my job. Cynth was furious. It’s true though – I’d be quite at home with Queen Elizabeth and that tall Greek husband of hers, drinking a cup of tea and petting those funny midget dogs she loves so much. Quite at home. “Your English is not as good as mine,” I should have said. “It does not have the length and the breadth, the meat and the smoke. Come at me with my Creole, with its Congo and its Spanish and its Hindi, French and Ibo, English and Bhojpuri, Yoruba and Manding.”’
Lawrie laughed again. ‘Oh, to see his face,’ I carried on, draining my cider glass. ‘With his Anglesaxon—’
‘Angle what?’
‘Two-up, two-down, a window with a view people never truly look at, because they think they know every shrub and flower, the bark of every tree and the mood of every cloud. But we made room for their patois too—’
‘Odelle,’ Lawrie said. ‘I would be happy with you for the rest of my life.’
‘Eh?’
‘You have this light, and when it switches on I don’t think you even realize what it does.’
‘What light? I was talking about—’
‘I love you, Odelle.’ His face was hopeful. ‘You inspire me.’
We sat in silence. ‘You tell it to all the girls,’ I said desperately, unsure what to say.
‘What?’
‘You’re not serious.’
He stared at me. ‘I am serious. I feel like time’s tricked me, as if I’ve known you from before. Like we passed each other in our prams. Like it’s been a waiting game to meet with you again. I love you.’
I said nothing, unable to respond. He looked down at the carpet.
No one had ever told me they loved me before. Why did he have to ruin our evening with talk of love and . . . prams? I felt panicked. Quick’s warnings flashed again through my mind – and I cursed her inside. Why should I be careful – and yet why could I not bear to hear Lawrie’s words?
I got off the sofa and walked to the windows. ‘You probably want me to go,’ I said.
He sat, motionless, looking at me with incredulity. ‘Why would I want you to go, after what I’ve just said?’
‘I don’t know! I – look, I’m not—’
‘It’s fine,’ he said. ‘I’m sorry. It’s fine. I shouldn’t have—’
‘No – it’s just, I was – and then you—’
‘Forget I said anything. I – please, forget it. If that’s what you want, then I’ll drive you home.’
So Lawrie drove us back in silence up the deserted A3. I clasped my handbag tight to my body, feeling utterly miserable, my fingers clenched around the pamphlet I had stolen, and the pills Pamela had handed me only hours before. How could I explain to Lawrie that this was terrifying for me, and that I couldn’t exactly say