Genie and Paul by Natasha Soobramanien Page A

on the back seat, which formed a map of a world, great oceans lapping at the edges of continents.
    Then, as they passed along a road she suddenly recognised, she stopped the driver.
    I’m from right here.
    The house had been repainted since they had lived there as kids, and there were thick, expensive-looking curtains pulled across the windows. The garden had been cleared of shrubs and was now covered in designer gravel, but the old black and white path remained the same, though it was more worn than she remembered it. There in the corner, by the bay window, was where she had seen the daffodils. It was beginning to rain. Soon the rain was flattening the streets in ranks like an invading army. Genie ran until she reached Sol’s place, raindrops sliding down her hair, dripping into her face. She rang the bell several times but there was no answer. She had just given up and was walking away when the door opened behind her.
    Sol called out, rubbing his eyes.
    Genie? What are you doing here? It’s late.
    She was surprised then to find tears mixing in with the raindrops. As they slid, hot and oily, down her face sheremembered how she would always confuse the two verbs in French. I rain. It cries .
    He looked more closely at her. Christ, you’re fucked. It’s pouring. Come in. I’ll call you a cab.
    She’d been looking for Paul, she told him, as he led her down to the kitchen.
    As she followed Sol through the hallway and down the stairs, Genie felt uneasy. The shape of the house was at once familiar and not. And now, looking around the kitchen, she realised: this was the mirror image of 40 St George’s Avenue. Everything here was on the wrong side. She took in her surroundings: the slick blond floor, the shiny surfaces. She told him that their kitchen had been nothing like this. She told him about the heavy furniture, the grease-stained walls, the divan in the corner where Grandpère had slept. Genie told Sol about the time she’d been left with him, when Mam and Paul had gone to the launderette. Grandpère had switched off the television. The room had fallen quiet. Outside she could see the yard darken. Moss glowed on the dripping walls. Grandpère took up his drumsticks and tapped out a rhythm on the table. Mu-mee da-dee, mu-mee da-dee .
    I felt really shy. I always did when he spoke to me in English. Then he played again. He handed me his sticks. They were the right size for him – they called him a longay (long, high) – but I was a five-year-old kid. I bashed the table. The sticks slipped out of my fingers. Grandpère snatched the sticks up from the floor and shouted at me. He played again. Mu-mee da-dee, mu-mee da-dee . He held the sticks so loosely that when he played they looked rubbery in his hands, but when he gave them to me I just held them rigid. Every time he shouted at me I held them tighter. He kept saying, To pa pe ekut mwa, ta! You’re not listening to me. When Grandpère died, Grandmère said, Li pa em ena dan li po twi limem. He didn’t even have the courage to kill himself.
    Sol was watching Genie drink her tea, like a doctor watching a patient taking medicine. She drank it quickly, so that it burnt then numbed her mouth.
    Genie, what are you doing here?
    She put down her cup. She took Sol’s face in her hands and kissed him. He kissed her back at first in a slightly puzzled way, as though she were saying something he didn’t quite understand, then pulled away.
    I don’t think –
    She kissed him again.
    Your mouth is hot, he said, whispering into it. And he kissed her back, as if, now, he understood.
     
    She lay looking at him. He opened his eyes and smiled.
    You look very white in the moonlight, she said.
    Yeah. Horrible. Not like you.
    She got off on him being different from her, she said. Angled where she was curved, hard where she was soft. Pale to her dark. She could never have slept with a brown man. It would be like…
    She laughed. He stroked her hair.
    I think you’re right, she said.