I’d explained the concept of council estates and tried to prepare him for Grimaldi Court—or at least the version of it I remembered from more than a decade ago.I’d been back to visit over the years, but I hadn’t reallylooked.
The differences were subtle to the untrained eye, but to an eye well-trained by necessity, experience, and the critical gaze of the artistically narcissistic, the place had been reborn.For an early September heatwave, the smell of trash not-quite-making it to the bins was minimal, the little patches of bottle forests had grown sparse, and the teen idlers were giving us no more than a cursory scowl.
I led Lucas up the brutalist stairwell, already smiling at the sounds (babies laughing and daytime TV) and smells (locust beans and pepper soup) drifting down the hallway.The door opened, and Auntie pulled me in for a hug while berating me for not coming to visit more often.Auntie Abeni was beautiful as ever, even if there was distressingly more silver peeking from under her gele than when I’d last seen her.She took one look at Lucas, another at me, and seemed to know the score.I’d made the right decision.She’d give Lucas a good story.
Calm settled over me.This was a warm, welcoming little home, full of food and people and happiness.The neighbors present all remembered me as a precocious little boy,good grades, but he was always scribbling on anything, chai, when he wasn’t dancing like a little demon!No wonder he got into art college.Such a clever boy.They’d known me back when I was alive.All it took was a quick glance, and everyone knew to cut their memories of me off at seventeen.
I steeled myself.“Auntie, this is Lucas Barclay from America.”Auntie and the others were going to make me look good, but they were also most definitely going to take the piss.
“Nice to meet you, ma’am.”Lucas shook her hand and ducked his head respectfully.
“You found a cowboy, didn’t you?”Auntie grinned, her nose wrinkling.“When Armand was a tyke, all he wanted to watch was Butch and Sundance, or what was it, John Wayne, or Red River—”
“Lucas wants to interview you,” I cut her off, ears pulsing with heat.I avoided Lucas’s eyes at all costs.“About what I was like back then.”
“Yes—” Lucas held up his camera “—and would it be okay if I took some pictures?”
Auntie Abeni complained that I hadn’t given her advance notice (I had, and the place was spotless) but ushered us farther into the tiny flat.The overtaxed air conditioner rattled in the window, and neighbors and babies shuffled out of the way so we could sink onto the low sofa.Lucas asked if he could record, and away he went.
“What was Armand Demetrio like as a kid?”
“Oh, he was a good boy who got good grades, but if you left out any paper he’d scribble all over it!Once I found him drawing on the window, naughty boy—”
When asked about my father, she waved him off as a busy man, and explained how good and helpful I was when I came by every day after school.How I’d dance in the courtyard with the other children.So talented, so creative, always so friendly and full of life.
“And did you notice when Armand started coming up withSurrogate Goose?”
“The thing with the penguin?Oh no, that strangeness started after he went off to art college.Want to see some pictures?”She picked up her tablet.“Armand was such a pretty little boy; all the other kids fancied him.”
“Auntie, no,” I groaned.
Lucas laughed.“Auntie,yes!”
It was a brutal if necessary bloodletting.
As we drove back to Croydon in the purple evening, Lucas squeezed my hand.“Thank you for that.I can really imagine you running around that place as a little kid.And it’s going to make great content.”
I swallowed a horrible ball of guilt, anxiety, and a strange delicious ache.“Time is moving ...really fast, isn’t it?”I managed.
I didn’t dare look away from the road, but out of the corner of my eye, I saw Lucas nod and fiddle with his camera bag.“You mean the anniversary is coming up.”
“Aye.”I knew he’d scheduled his return flight for mid-October and that it was technically still a long way off, but I could feel us rushing toward it.“I was worried—” I took a deep breath “—I’mstillworried that we’ve been moving too fast, but it doesn’t feel like we are.”I glanced at him.“Does it?”
Lucas smiled.“Not to me.”He carefully settled a hand on my thigh.And after a few minutes of sweet quiet and sunset light, he asked, “Could you eat?”as if he didn’t already know the answer.
I could always eat.Even after being fed out of my wits by a Nigerian Auntie.“Shall I stop—” I was going to suggest a Tesco sandwich, but Lucas was already excitedly scrolling.
“There’s a vegan sushi place nearby.You down?”He turned his phone toward me, and from the lighting in the photos, I could feel the dosh seeping out of my pockets.
“Er, looks a bit posh—”
“My treat, obviously.”Lucas waved me off.“The map says to stay on the A210.”
So, I stayed on the toll road and tried not to think about the contrast between a North London council estate and a niche little eatery in Blackfriars.About ghostly Porsches on every corner.
About patterns repeating.
Voice Memo Interlude 2
