Stubborn Archivist Read online

  They lay in his big bed, both naked and in that effusing enthusiastic, revelatory mood. The grey walls were dark grey in the twilight.

  Propped on an elbow—

  Well did you ever see me around school?

  Yeah I had noticed you

  Really?

  Yeah! You know you’re loud. Hard to miss. You held a door open for me once I think

  Which one?

  Um the one near the reception

  I can’t believe you remember!

  You don’t?

  No!

  Well I guess I was younger than you

  What did you think of me, what did you notice?

  Um

  Did you think I was fit?

  I don’t know

  Propped on an elbow

  And what about me?

  You

  Yes.

  Well I’d seen you around, but—you know—you were a bit young for me.

  Not anymore

  No.

  But when we first met?

  I was still with Stephanie then

  I remember

  But remember when I asked you what your name was

  Yes

  I did know it already

  Oh yeah?

  Yeah I’d heard of you, half-Brazilian

  How did you know that?

  Just did. I had a thing for Brazilian girls

  Yeah?

  Used to love Brazilian porn

  Oh my god!

  He turned his head and closed his eyes, and then looked at her.

  Is that bad he said, touching her

  Happy Birthday

  At her eighteenth birthday party, in front of all those people, her parents and her friends from school, he had held her very close

  There had been lots of music and some real champagne and beers that her parents had bought and fairy lights all down the concrete steps into the garden out of the house.

  He had held her very close—

  In a sort of a slow dance

  She was drunk and he was drunk and everywhere the lights were low and the music was slow.

  She couldn’t really dance, not really

  He whispered in her ear

  Step step step

  She could not remember

  His laugh

  His breath

  His elbows

  His bottom teeth

  The look of him asleep

  Her laugh in his house

  The smell of his breath on her breath

  And what about his quietest laugh

  The paper skin below his elbows

  How had he held her name in his wet and whispering mouth

  I never see you anymore

  Jade, JadeJadeJade just come round to the flat—

  Leo can go to the shop, we can get something to eat

  And then?

  I don’t know

  I don’t know.

  Even if she tried she could not remember

  Any meal that they had eaten together

  his breath

  or his bottom teeth

  A jumper she had bought him which he’d worn with nothing underneath warm from the bath in winter

  his elbows

  his bottom lip

  his elbows

  (one time, she dreamt he had a broken arm)

  Approximately—

  how many nights she had fallen asleep with her nose against the underside of his chin?

  What he said he had wanted—

  To see her in her pyjamas

  Those little shorts

  To wake her up, her cheeks swollen from sleep

  again

  and again

  and again again

  He was only a little bit older—that honestly wasn’t the problem she was very mature for her age, everyone said so, she had read all the Jane Austen books at least twice and just like her mum (and just like her tia) she could sit exams with her eyes closed, or her eyes wide open as well as her mouth, laughing

  He was only a little bit older. With his newly grown up body that grew from the ground all stretch white skin, his legs large from football, his broad shoulders his thin fingers, his chest that was still sprouting hair, his collar bones his neck, his long white narrow white finger bones that fanned like lizard gills covering his face

  But what about the good times?

  There were good times.

  (yes)

  There were good times

  2014

  The IBS got her in the morning. She was stuck on the toilet like she often was before work. She brushed her teeth sitting down. It was probably the caffeine, or the dairy. Maybe it wasn’t even IBS. She’d heard a radio programme about bowel cancer the other day, but you had to have blood in your shit for that and she didn’t have blood in her shit. Just water.

  She stood up. Her parents had already left the house for work. She touched her belly over her blouse and felt its bubbling. She put on the blazer with the wide sleeves. She went down the stairs and put her shoes on to leave. The thing about dressing like this and having a face like this is that no one thinks you are the source of the gas on the tube.

  Twenty-five minutes later, at the end of the West End street she walked through big glass doors and swiped her swipe card. Standing in the lift she would remember to feel grateful.

  It was unusual to get a good job like this straight out of uni.

  In the lift, she thought to herself—It is unusual, and I am very lucky.

  Or, as her dad had insisted—But they are very lucky to have a young kid like you with your languages and your cultural know-how.

  Sometimes she got gas in work meetings but so far it had been manageable.

  She was a researcher for a new documentary about plastic surgery in Brazil. All the women in Rio were getting plastic surgery—in their butts and tits and noses and out of their stomachs. Her job was to find potential participants, to make sure they were the best ones and then get them to agree to appear on the show. They had given her her own thick plastic landline telephone with the curly wire that called Rio directly and a desk and an email address and a chair she could swing her feet under. We want ordinary women, the producer Fiona had said in the kick-off meeting. Women who have been saving for months and months, who are going into debt, you know?

  Mmhm.

  Her first task had been to use online directories to make a spreadsheet of all the beauty salons and surgeons and pageants and modelling agencies in Rio. Today she would begin calling the salons. She scrolled up and down the spreadsheet. She dialled the number of the first salon. Typed it in, typed it wrong, typed it in again. Beep

  She waited. She heard a click and an older woman’s olá bom dia voice on the other end. She took a breath—

  Bom dia. Eu sou uma jornalista inglesa—

  She looked around the office. Her feet under the chair. She could have been saying anything.

  Bom dia. Eu sou uma jornalista inglesa—

  The woman on the other end was the owner of the beauty salon. She did not hang up the phone.

  So, that afternoon, having spent twenty years spelling out her foreign name to English people, she spelt out her foreign name over the phone to the woman in the beauty salon.

  She said—I’m sorry it’s quite long and it’s got an English bit in it. Sorry—

  Her email address was a nightmare. She braced herself before announcing its interminable phonemes, steeling herself for the relief of the @.

  And she was always careful to reassure the participants that they would come off well.

  That morning she had come in late (there’s no point you being in before people are up in Brazil, the producer had said) and so that evening she left the office late when it was fully dark.

  On these days, when she came home late after calling Brazil on the plastic landline telephone, she always got a seat on the tube. She played tetris. Sometimes she played candy crush. She had one audiobook on her phone which she listened to on repeat.

/>   Elephant and

  Kennington

  This station is Oval (no it’s not)

  Clapham

  Clapham

  Clapham

  Clapham

  At home at the house, she found the bowl of spaghetti with tomatoes and cheese covered in clingfilm that her parents had left out on the stove for her. She unwrapped it and touched it with her finger. She held it under her nose. It smelt wholesome with the taste of bay leaves from the garden.

  She put the bowl of spaghetti in the microwave. Her parents had not heard her arrive. They were still watching the news on the sofa. She leant on the kitchen counter with her eyes closed. She heard the ping. She went up the stairs quietly.

  In her room, she took off her skirt and her tights. She ate the warmed up dinner under the covers in her childhood bed. She opened her laptop and turned on a TV series that she had seen before. She closed the curtains. When she finished eating, she left the bowl on her bedside table and opened tetris on a second window on her computer. When she couldn’t focus her eyes anymore she turned the volume low so that the TV voices became speaking sounds with no words or phrases.

  And in the night images of the pink and yellow shapes slotted and reslotted in her mind and when she went to sleep they covered the faces of all the people in her dreams.

  So things were kicking off, really.

  She worked in TV. She was on twitter. She had a thing and that thing was Brazil.

  She had been invited to write for a big political blogger’s site. This had happened on a watery day in February that wasn’t as cold as it should have been because of global warming. Nathan who was also a researcher had introduced them over drinks after work. I have a friend you should meet, Nathan had said.

  They had stood under the wet awning between hanging flower baskets outside one of the pubs near the office. She was quiet and knew she should be speaking.

  Nathan said—This is Alex.

  She looked at Alex.

  Hi. Alex shook her hand. Hi.

  Hi Alex.

  What’s your name?

  She told him, and he repeated the syl-la-bles.

  He looked at her.

  What a lovely name. Where is it from?

  Brazil.

  And are you—?

  Yes.

  But you sound so—

  Well yes I was born here

  Right

  In London, in South London actually.

  Alex was a bit older than her with Harry Potter glasses.

  My dad’s English.

  So you’re half and half?

  Yes.

  But you were brought up—

  Bilingual.

  Bilingual? So you speak it just like you speak—he waved his hands—I mean gosh that is just—

  Well no, not exactly the same.

  Right.

  But we go back a lot. Usually for Christmas. I was there this Christmas just now actually.

  He looked over at her through his glasses.

  She took another drink of her drink.

  Nathan looked at her then back at Alex.

  Alex said—Oh-kay. Interesting.

  The next day Alex emailed her while she was at work asking her to write about Brazil from the Brazilian perspective. But like, for English readers? You know, there’s a lot of buzz about Brazil this year. We want you to tackle the difficult subjects, the gritty stuff, you know?

  But

  When they published her first piece she got the shits. And when they published her second piece she got the shits. She lay on the cold floor of the bathroom. Her mum asked through the door—Are you okay baby? Loo-confined and sweating. She couldn’t open her laptop or look at her phone. She took a shower. Sat in her dressing gown.

  Lay in her childhood bed.

  Back when she’d met the Brazil-end producer of the plastic surgery programme the woman had said—Olha só your eyes are so striking. Light against your dark hair. My husband is English, my children are half and half like you.

  In her bed she lay down in the darkness listening to the tetris shapes.

  Once a uni friend had asked her why she said she went back at Christmas—

  Why is it back? Her friend had said.

  Late one weekday evening when it was dark her mother knocked on her bedroom door, holding a bowl of yoghurt and rice.

  Can I come in?

  Yes.

  Her mum lay on the bed next to her, over the duvet. There was a quiet. She knew that her mum was looking at her.

  She felt the duvet tension shift under her mother’s body.

  Her mum held out the bowl.

  She took it.

  She felt embarrassed.

  She felt grateful.

  What had happened was—she had left, but now she had come back. She had left saying brave and angry hopeful things like—

  I just want to leave London

  Tooting Tooting Tooting

  I’m finally grown up

  Look how big the world is

  Got her own loan and a laptop and a budget and a mini fridge and whatever else.

  So she had left, but now was back.

  Not taller or bigger breasted like she had imagined she would be at that age, but able to smell the smell of the house, the roasting vegetable humidity it had in the evenings, and the dusty dryness of it when no one was home.

  At least once or twice a week in her adult daytime life she would run into someone from the year below at school or someone’s mum or someone’s brother’s ex-girlfriend on their way to return a pair of shoes (because these are a six, and technically I’m a six-and-a-half, but Topshop actually doesn’t do half sizes so) or see the new Batman movie or a job interview or get their iphone fixed or whatever or whatever. Ideally she would see them first and walk in the opposite direction, or look down and squish away from them in the full up tube carriage. Second best was when they would talk about themselves (yeah I’m a manager now at the new pub on the high street, I don’t know if you know it, it’s a bit wanky but at least people know how to behave themselves there do you know what I mean)

  But sometimes it happened the worst way, a girl from two years above at school or someone’s cousin’s mate would sit with her on the tube, leaning forward at first and then removing an earphone like—

  Oh my god. Hi!

  Wow yeah hello

  And she would lean back and nod and raise a hand but they would hug her anyway

  So what have you been up to?

  Where did you go uni again?

  Are you still in South London?

  Yep.

  I haven’t moved either

  Still in Tooting

  You know I saw Miss Dawkins moved to Australia

  Really

  Yeah she got married and moved to Australia

  Oh

  And do you remember Eric in the year above he’s got a baby now

  Aw

  But you weren’t in my year were you

  No.

  You were in the same year as those twins that got expelled

  Yes

  I wonder what happened to them

  It was you and that girl, what was her name she was so tall

  Jade

  Yeah, Jade.

  And what about

  Yep

  What about

  Yep

  What was his name

  Yep

  Leo.

  Oh

  What about Leo

  Um

  What’s he up to? Is he alright these days?

  No we’re not in touch. We’re not in touch.

  I saw him the other day

  Yes.

  He had a broken arm

  Oh

  Poor guy his arm was broken

  Look I’m getting off here—

  Oh but it was good to see you

  Yes

  I’m glad you’re alright

  Yep

  Take care

  Yup

  Take care of
yourself

  Yes

  Take care

  Yep yes. You too

  She ran a bath.

  In the bath she put her face under the surface and shut her eyes.

  She held her breath until the hot water filled up her ears.

  But now she was back.

  What had happened was she had come back home. Had sunk back into this city that was warm too dark and always winter.

  On Friday nights she had stopped drinking drinks with double doses. The older people from her work went for pints in the evenings on Friday. They kept going in the booth that they always booked out and they never realised how pissed they were until they stood up. They kept going until it was time to get McDonald’s.

  When she went she did the thing where you get a soda water but ask them to put a lemon and a straw in it so it looks like a G and T. She never stayed late. The night bus traffic through Clapham made her feel too nauseous. I’m so sorry but I’ve just got to get the last tube home! South London, you know. She played tetris on the empty tube. English people drink too much anyway. Slot slot slot slot.

  On Saturdays she always meant to exercise or wake up at the same time and leave the bed and leave the house to see an exhibition or read a book or at least walk the dog with her dad or go shopping to Sainsbury’s with her mum.

  But on Saturdays somehow she always ended up losing her phone or her charger in the house under the sofa or under a pile of coats so she missed all her messages, although often there were no messages. She watched whole series in one go on her laptop and when the characters died she felt a real hollow sadness and when they committed moral transgressions she felt dirty and anxious and sweated into the sheets. And even though she hadn’t done anything, she couldn’t tell where the day had gone, she hadn’t showered or anything the whole day it got dark so quickly, she didn’t sleep and kept getting more fuzzy and more tired and didn’t end up falling asleep until late too late. Sometimes late late in the night when she was feeling fuzzy tired she would look at the photos online.

  (Do you remember what his flat looked like in winter all dark grey with the lights off?)

  In the afternoon her dad called her from downstairs. She could hear her dad calling her from downstairs. She was quiet.