What Came Before He Shot Her il-14 Read online

  He sounded compassionate, but compassion was the last thing Kendra wanted. To get him to leave—which was what she did want— she nodded. He departed soon after, although not before choosing a piece of Bakelite jewellery to take home to his partner. Cordie went for Kendra’s cigarettes, having long finished her own. She lit up two of them, handing one to her friend. She said, “Okay. I got to say it.” She inhaled as if for courage and went on in a rush.

  “Maybe, Ken, jus’ maybe you in over your head wiv dis sort of t’ing.”

  “What sort of thing?”

  “Mothering sort of t’ing.” Cordie went on hastily. “Look, you ain’t never . . . I mean, how c’n you ’spect to know wha’ to do wiv this lot when you never done it before? Anyways, did you ever even wan’ to? I mean, maybe puttin dem some place else . . . I know you don’ wan’ to do dat, but could be real families could be found . . .”

  Kendra stared at her. She wondered at the fact that her friend knew her so little, but she was honest enough with herself to accept her own responsibility for Cordie’s ignorance. What else could Cordie assume when she herself had never told her the truth? And she didn’t know why she’d never told her except that it seemed so much more modern and liberated and I-am-woman to allow her friend to believe she’d actually had a choice in the matter. She said simply, “Those kids’re staying, Cordie, least till Glory sends for them.”

  Not that Glory Campbell had ever had any intention of doing so, a supposition of Kendra’s that became fact just a few days later when she picked up the post to find the first letter that Glory had sent from Jamaica in the months since she’d been gone. There was nothing surprising in its contents: She’d had a serious think about the situation, Kendra, and she’d come to realise that she couldn’t remove the grandkids from England. Taking them so far from dear Carole would probably put the final nail in the coffin of the woman’s precarious sanity, what was left of it. Glory didn’t want to be responsible for that. But she would send for Joel and Nessa for a little visit sometime in the future when she had the money put together for their tickets. There was, unsurprisingly, no mention of Toby.

  So that was that. Kendra had known it would come. But she couldn’t spend time dwelling on the matter. There was Ness to contend with and the future hanging over her if she did not agree to go to school. As far as consequences were concerned, nothing worked because to Ness, there was simply nothing worthwhile to lose. And what she was after, she couldn’t find anyway, not in school and certainly not in her aunt’s tiny house in Edenham Estate. For her part, Kendra lectured Ness. She shouted at her. She drove her to the school and walked her to the first class on her schedule, as Nathan Burke had suggested. She tried gating her, which, naturally, was impossible without either Ness’s agreement to be gated or chains and locks to make sure she stayed put. But nothing worked. Ness’s response was unchanging. She wasn’t wearing those “disgustin rags,” she wasn’t sitting in “some stupid-ass classroom,” and she wasn’t about to waste her time “workin fuckin sums and such” when she could be out and about with her mates.

  “You need a break,” Cordie told Kendra the afternoon Nathan Burke phoned the charity shop to inform Kendra that Ness had been assigned a social worker as a last resort before the magistrate became involved. “We ain’t had our girls’ night in however long. Le’s take one, Ken. You need it. So do I.”

  That was how Kendra found herself in No Sorrow on a Friday night.

  KENDRA PREPARED FOR her girls’ night out by informing Ness that she would be left in charge of Toby and Joel for the evening, which meant that she would remain at home despite what her other plans might be. The instructions were to keep the boys happy and occupied, which meant that Ness was to interact with them in some way to make sure they were both distracted and safe. As this wasn’t something Ness was likely to do even when ordered, Kendra honeyed her directives and ensured compliance by adding that there would be money in it for Ness if she cooperated.

  Joel protested, saying that he didn’t need minding. He wasn’t a baby. He could cope on his own.

  But Kendra wasn’t to be talked out of the arrangement. For God only knew what might happen if someone streetwise wasn’t in charge of refusing to open the front door to a knock after dark. And despite all the trouble she was causing, it could not be denied that Ness was streetwise. So: There’s money in it for you, Nessa, she repeated to her niece. What’s your decision? Can you be trusted to stay home with the boys?

  Ness did some quick calculations in her head, only some of which had to do with money and what she could do with it once she got it. She decided that, having nothing on for the night but the usual, which was hanging with Six and Natasha over at Mozart Estate, she’d opt for the money. She said Whatever to her aunt, which Kendra mistakenly embraced as an acquiescence that would not be dislodged by any tempting vagaries of the coming evening.

  It had been Cordie’s turn to choose their outing, and she’d selected clubbing. They began their night with dinner, and they prefaced the dinner with drinks. They went for Portuguese in Golborne Road, and they washed down their starters with a Bombay Sapphire martini each and their main courses with several glasses of wine. Neither of the women drank much on a regular basis, so they were more than a little inebriated when they staggered back across Portobello Bridge where, beyond Trellick Tower, No Sorrow was coming to life for the evening.

  They’d pull a couple of men, Cordie said. She needed an extramarital snogging diversion, and as for Kendra: It was high time for Kendra to get a length.

  No Sorrow announced itself in neon script across translucent front windows, just those two green words done in a classy Art Deco style. The club was a complete anomaly in the neighbourhood, with owners who were banking on this part of North Kensington lurching towards gentrification. Five years earlier, no one in his right mind would have invested ten pounds in the property. But that was the nature of London in a nutshell: One might call a neighbourhood or even an entire borough down for the count at any time, but only a fool would ever label it out.

  The club was the last of a strip of disreputable-looking shops: from launderette to library to locksmith. Its door was angled away from these establishments, as if it couldn’t bear to see the company it was forced to keep. Beyond that door, No Sorrow existed on two floors of the building. The ground level offered a crescent-shaped bar, tables for chatting at, dim lighting, and walls and ceiling made grubby by the cigarette smoke that perpetually thickened the air. The first floor offered music and drinks, a DJ spinning disks at head-splitting volume, and strobe lights making the entire environment look like something out of a bad acid trip.

  Kendra and Cordie started out on the ground floor. This would constitute their reconnaissance of the place. They secured drinks and took a few minutes to “scope out the man flesh,” as Cordie put it. To Kendra, it looked like a case of the odds being good but the goods being odd: Men—most of whom were advanced middle-aged and showing it—outnumbered women on the ground floor, but when she looked them over, Kendra told herself that not a single one of them interested her. This was the safest conclusion for her to draw since it was fairly obvious that she interested none of them either. The handful of young women in the place had captured all the attention. Kendra felt every one of her forty years.

  She would have insisted upon leaving had Cordie not already determined that Kendra needed some fun. To her suggestion that they depart, Cordie said, “In a bit, but le’s go above first,” and she headed in the direction of the stairs. To her way of thinking, if there were no men available up there, at least she and Kendra could get in a few dances, by themselves or with each other.

  On the first floor, they found that the noise was deafening, and the light came from only three sources—a small anglepoise lamp shining on the DJ’s equipment, two dim bulbs above the bar, and the strobe. Because of this, at the top of the stairs, Kendra and Cordie paused to get used to the murk. They also had to get used to the temperature, which wa
s very nearly tropical. London in early spring meant no one would dare think to open a window, even to be rid of some of the cigarette smoke which—lit by the strobe—made the room look like a tableau demonstrating the perils of yellow fog.

  There were no tables up here, just a chest-high shelf running round the room, on which a dancer could place a glass for safekeeping while experiencing the joys of the music. This was currently rap, all lyrics, all beat and no tune, but no one was finding that a problem. It seemed as if two hundred people were mashed together in the dancing area. It seemed as if another hundred or so were vying for the attention of the three bartenders, who were mixing drinks and pouring pints as fast as they could.

  With a whoop, Cordie plunged directly into the action, handing over her drink to Kendra and shimmying between two young men who appeared happy to have her company. Watching them, Kendra began to feel worse than she’d felt below—her age and more—which illustrated how different life was for her now. Prior to the Campbells’ arrival, she’d been living primarily with the knowledge—fueled by both of her brothers’ deaths— that life was fleeting. She’d been experiencing things rather than reacting to them. She made things; they did not make her. But in the months since her mother had foisted an unexpected form of parenthood upon her, she’d managed to do very little that even resembled her old life. It seemed to her that she’d ceased being who she was, in fact, and what was worse, she’d ceased being who she’d long ago intended to be.

  Time and experience—and especially two marriages—had taught Kendra that she had only herself to blame if she didn’t like the way her bed was made. If she was feeling her age and feeling burdened by responsibilities that she did not want, it was up to her to do something about it. It was for this reason and because at that precise moment the something appeared to be dancing in a crowd of perspiring twenty-yearolds that Kendra decided to join them. But fuelled by that chemical depressant—the alcohol she’d consumed that evening—she found that the activity did not uplift her. It did not bring about the desired secondary result, either, which was finding someone to shag at the end of the evening.

  Cordie was all apologies for this as they walked home later. She herself had managed a very nice fifteen minutes of snogging with a nineteen-year-old boy in the corridor leading to the toilets, and she couldn’t believe that Kendra—whom she declared to be “dead-on-anybloke’s-feet gorgeous, girl”—had not managed at least as much. Kendra tried to be philosophical about this. Her life was too complicated to accommodate a man, even temporarily, she said.

  “Jus’ don’ start t’inking you ain’t got it no more, Ken,” Cordie warned her. “’Sides, men being wha’ dey are, you c’n always get one, you lower your standards enough.”

  Kendra chuckled. It didn’t matter, she told her friend. Stepping out for the evening had been enough. In fact, they needed to do this more often, and she intended to turn over a new leaf in the matter, if Cordie was in agreement.

  Cordie said, “Jus’ tell me where t’sign up,” and Kendra was about to reply when they emerged from the gloom of the path that passed in front of Trellick Tower into Edenham Way. There she caught a glimpse of the front of her house. A car was parked to block her garage door, a car she couldn’t identify.

  She said, “Shit,” and quickened her pace, determined to see what Ness had got up to in the hours they’d been gone. She had her answer before she reached either the car or her front door. For it soon became apparent that the car was occupied, and one of the two people inside it was unmistakably her niece. Kendra could tell this from the shape of Ness’s head and the texture of her hair, from the curve of her neck as the man she was with lifted his head from the region of her breasts.

  He reached across her to open her door, much like a kerb crawler dismissing a common whore. When Ness didn’t remove herself, he gave her a little push, and when that didn’t work, he got out of the vehicle himself and walked around to her door. He pulled her out, and her head lolled back. She was either drugged or exceedingly drunk. Kendra needed no further invitation. She shouted, “You bloody well hang on right there!” and she charged forward to accost the man. “You take your hands off that girl!”

  He blinked at her. He was much younger than she’d thought, despite being entirely bald. He was black, bulky, and pleasant featured. He wore odd harem trousers like an exotic dancer, white trainers, and a black leather jacket zipped to his throat. He had Ness’s bag slung across his back and Ness herself under one arm.

  “You hear me? Let her go.”

  “I do that, she crack her head on the steps,” he said reasonably. “She bleedin drunk. I found her up in—”

  “You found her, you found her,” Kendra scoffed. “I don’ fucking care where you found her. Get your bloody hands off her, and do it now. You know how old she is? Fifteen, fifteen.”

  The man looked at Ness. “Lemme tell you, she don’ act—”

  “Give her here.” Kendra reached the car and grabbed Ness by the arm. The girl stumbled against her and raised her head. She looked like a ruin; she smelled like an illegal distillery. She said to the man, “You wan’ t’ stick it in me or wha? I tol’ you I ain’t doin no free shots, innit.”

  Kendra glared at him. “Get out of here,” she said. “Give me that bag and just get out. I get your number plates. I phone the cops.” And to Cordie, “You take down his number plates, girl.”

  He said in protest, “Hey. I jus’ bringin her home. She up at the pub. It clear she goin to get herself into a bad situation ’f she stays there, so I get her out of th’ place.”

  “Like Sir Bloody Lancelot, eh? Get those numbers, Cordie.”

  As Cordie began to go through her shoulder bag for something to write on, the young man said, “Fuck it, den.” He shook Ness’s bag from his shoulder and dropped it on the ground. He bent to look her in the face, and he told her to tell the truth.

  Ness said cooperatively, “You wanted me to suck is the truth, innit. You wanted it bad. ”

  He said, “Shit,” and slammed the passenger door. He went back to the driver’s side and said over the roof of the car to Kendra, “You better deal with her ’fore someone else does,” which resulted in Kendra taking note that the term seeing red was an accurate description of what happened to one’s vision when anger’s heat reached a certain degree. He drove off before she could reply: a stranger standing in judgement of her.

  She felt utterly exposed. She felt enraged. She felt used and foolish. So when Ness giggled and said, “Tell you, Ken, dat one got a prong like a fuckin mule,” Kendra slapped her so hard that her palm sent pain up the length of her arm.

  Ness toppled. She fell against the house. She dropped to her knees. Kendra surged forward to hit her again and drew her arm back. Cordie caught it. She said, “Hey, Ken. Don’t,” and that was enough. It was also enough to sober Ness up, at least partially. So when Kendra finally spoke to her, she was more than ready to make a reply.

  “You want the world to know you as a slag?” Kendra cried. “’S that what you want for yourself, Vanessa?”

  Ness struggled to her feet and backed away from her aunt. “Like I bloody fuckin care,” she said.

  SHE STUMBLED TOWARDS the path between the terraces of houses and from there into Meanwhile Gardens. Behind her, she heard Kendra call out her name, she heard her shout You get back home, and she felt a harsh bubble of laughter force its way up into her throat. For Ness, there was no home any longer. There was just a place where she shared a bed with her aunt while her little brothers slept on hastily purchased camp beds in the room next door. Under those beds, Joel and Toby had persisted in keeping their suitcases neatly packed for more than two months. No matter the time that had passed since her departure, the boys still believed what they wanted to believe about their grandmother and her promise of a life of eternal sunshine in the land of her birth.

  Ness hadn’t once tried to make them see the truth of the matter. She hadn’t once pointed out the significance of the fact that
they hadn’t heard a word from Glory Campbell since the day she’d left them on Kendra’s doorstep. As far as Ness was concerned, Glory Campbell’s disappearance from their lives was a case of good riddance. If Glory didn’t need or want her grandchildren, then her grandchildren certainly didn’t need or want her. But telling herself that week after week hadn’t done much to ease Ness’s feelings in the matter. When she left her aunt in front of number 84 Edenham Way, Ness gave no real thought to where she was going. She just knew that she didn’t want to be in her aunt’s presence a moment longer. She was sobering up more quickly than she would have thought possible, and with that sobriety came the nausea she otherwise would have felt the next morning. This propelled her towards water in which she might bathe her sweating face, depositing her on the footpath that ran along the canal at the top of the garden.

  Despite her condition, she knew the danger of falling into the canal, so she took some care. She lowered herself to the footpath and lay on her stomach. She bathed her face in the greasy water, felt its oiliness cling to her cheeks, caught the scent of it—not unlike that of a stagnant pool—and promptly vomited. Afterwards, she lay there weakly and listened to the sound of her aunt searching for her in Meanwhile Gardens. Kendra’s voice told Ness that her aunt was working her way past the child drop-in centre and into the heart of the gardens, a direction that would take her along the path winding between the hillocks and ultimately to the foot of the spiral staircase. She staggered to her feet, then, and knew the way she herself had to go: She headed for the duck pond at the east border of the gardens and then beyond it and through the wildlife garden with its boardwalk path that curved into a darkness that was at once sinister and welcoming. She was beyond the point of caring about danger, so she didn’t flinch at the sudden movement of a cat dodging across her path, nor was she bothered by the crack and crunch of twigs that suggested she was being followed. She just kept going, plunging into the darkness till she came upon the last of Meanwhile Gardens, which was the scent garden, and she registered the looming shape of its potting shed that marked the end of the path she’d taken.