Queenie(71)

“Well, do it if you need to, innit. I don’t think I’m the best person to talk about all this feelings therapy fluff with.”

I carried on with Kyazike’s hair while she told me about a guy who kept taking her on dates and then promising her shoes or similar. I couldn’t keep track of what she was saying because I kept getting snatches of panic that would rise and fall in my chest and had to concentrate on quelling them while trying to pick up keywords from the story.

“Are you listening?”

“Sorry, yes! The shoes?” I said.

“Yeah, so eventually I was like, ‘Stop dropping hints, why do you wanna know my shoe size?’ He says he’s in Selfridges buying me shoes as a late Christmas present, so I rushed there in case he was gonna get me a pair that I don’t like, like the guy who bought me the nude Louboutins that were nude, but for a white girl.” Kyazike shook her head in disappointment. “Anyway, I get there, I’m trying on the shoes, I hand them to him, fine. Twotwo’s, we’re at the register and he’s trying to haggle with the store girl, then he tried to pay with four cards, none of which were in his name!” Kyazike turned to look at me. I looked back at her flatly. “Are you all right, fam? You usually love my stories,” she said, disappointment and worry etched across her face.

“I’m fine, just sleepy,” I said. “Sorry.”

“All right. Anyway, I’m locking it off, fam. He’s some wheeler-dealer! I’m not asking for much from my Mr. Right, you know, but believe, employment is essential. Plus, this guy’s phone only seems to be on when he wants to link me, and the dates are all spontaneous. Like he’ll call me and say, ‘Come out for dinner,’ like I’m constantly sitting at home ready with my eyebrows drawn on. Like makeup isn’t expensive.” She kissed her teeth. “Maybe I should try white guys like you. They’d treat me better.”

“You think?” I asked her, the last few months of gross mistreatment flashing before my eyes.

“Yeah. They wouldn’t like me, though.” Kyazike shrugged. “I’m too black for them. They don’t want a dark black girl.”

“Don’t be stupid. I’m proof that they don’t want us, whatever shade.” I sighed heavily. “Why can’t I just have a happy ending, Kyazike?”

“You joking, fam?” Kyazike laughed. “You think life is a film? Even if it was, fam, we’re black. ‘Whatever shade,’?” she said, mimicking my voice, “we’d be first to die.”



* * *



I finished Kyazike’s hair and she went to start cooking, brave enough to endure the cold kitchen flooring. I wrapped the blanket around me and felt myself drifting off, but didn’t try very hard to fight it.

I slept, but I could hear everything that was happening at Kyazike’s: I heard when she finished cooking, waking up just enough to say no when she offered me dinner; I heard when she ate and watched EastEnders; I heard the squeeze of dish soap and the clatter of dishes and splashing of water when she did the washing up. I heard her go on the balcony when the shoe guy called; I heard her tell him that she wasn’t leaving the flat because “your whole essence is too short-notice, and I can’t be going out with no fraud boy!”

I heard Kyazike’s mum come home; I heard the argument they had about having the fan heater on; I heard her mum get in the bath to get ready for her second shift of the day.

At midnight, Kyazike shook me gently and handed me a headscarf and nightie. I put them on and lay on the sofa. It was warmer now. “Here’s a quilt,” she said. “See you in the morning.”



* * *



When I woke up, Kyazike had already gone to work. When I got to the office, I had several e-mails from Gina asking me to see her in her office immediately. I knocked on the open door.

“Come in,” she barked. “Oh, Queenie, are you seriously wearing the same thing you wore yesterday? Close the door behind you.”

“Yes, sorry,” I said. “It’s only because I stayed at a friend’s house.” I shut the door and walked over to the chair that faced Gina.

“Now. I’ve got some bad news for you,” she told me.

“What?” I asked, my heart beginning to pound in my ears.

“You’re being suspended.”

“What?” I blinked. “What?”

“This extreme crush that you’ve had on Ted Noman, well . . . it’s not appropriate. He’s filed an official complaint with HR, and everyone thinks it’s best that you’re not in the office while it’s investigated.” Gina lowered her voice, embarrassed for me.

“An extreme crush?” I asked, bewildered. “On Ted?”

“He’s spoken about it to HR confidentially, and says that you’ve been paying him a lot of attention, saying suggestive and inappropriate things, following him around, and that it’s making him entirely uncomfortable and stressed in his place of work,” Gina explained.

What was going on? “Suspended for that? But he, no, he’s the one who—I have the e-mails, and the messages, he’s the one—” I stuttered, desperate for her to understand that I wasn’t the one at fault.

“We have to take that sort of complaint seriously.” She paused briefly. “Plus, you already had an official warning on your file.”