On Beauty (48 page)

Kiki collapsed into the couch and started to weep.

‘Comparing mass murder to my infidelity seems a tad . . .' said Howard, quietly, but the storm was over, and there was no point. Kiki cried into a pillow.

‘Why do you love me?' he asked.

Kiki kept on crying and did not answer. A few minutes later he asked her again.

‘Is that some kind of trick question?'

‘It's a genuine question. A
real
question.'

Kiki said nothing.

‘I'll help you out,' said Howard. ‘I'll put it in the past tense. Why
did
you love me?'

Kiki sniffed loudly. ‘I don't want to play this game – it's stupid and aggressive. I'm tired.'

‘Keeks, you've been holding me at arm's length for so long, and I can't remember if you even
like
me – forget love,
like
.'

‘I have
always
loved you,' said Kiki, but in such a furious way that words and sentiment disconnected. ‘
Always
. I didn't change. Let's remember who changed.'

‘I am honestly,
honestly
not picking a fight with you,' said Howard wearily and pressed his eyes with his fingers. ‘I am asking you why you loved me.'

They sat and said nothing for a while. In the silence, something thawed. Their breathing slowed.

‘I don't know how to answer that – I mean, we both know all of the good stuff and it doesn't help,' said Kiki.

‘You say you want to talk,' said Howard. ‘But you don't. You stonewall me.'

‘
All
I know is that loving you is what I did with my life. And I'm terrified by what's happened to us. This wasn't meant to happen to us. We're not like other people. You're my best friend –'

‘Best friend, yes,' said Howard wretchedly. ‘That's always been the case.'

‘And we're co-parents.'

‘And we're
co-parents
,' repeated Howard, chafing against an Americanism he despised.

‘You don't have to say that sarcastically, Howard – that's part of what we are now.'

‘I wasn't being . . .' Howard sighed. ‘And we were in love,' he said.

Kiki let her head flop back on the couch.

‘Well, Howie, that was your past tense, not mine.'

They were silent again.

‘
And
,' said Howard, ‘of course we were always very good at the Hawaiian.'

It was now Kiki's turn to sigh.
Hawaiian
, for reasons private and old, was a euphemism for sex in the Belsey household.

‘Actually, we
excelled
at the Hawaiian,' added Howard – he was out on a limb and he knew it. He put a hand to his wife's coiled hair. ‘You can't deny it.'

‘I never did. You did. When you did what you did.'

This sentence – with its overabundance of ‘dids' – was problematically comic. Howard struggled to rein in a smile. Kiki smiled first.

‘Fuck you,' she said.

Howard took both his hands and put them under his wife's cataclysmic breasts.

‘Fuck
you
,' she repeated.

He brought his hands round to their summits, and massaged the handful he could manage. He touched his lips to her neck and kissed her there. And again on her ears, which were wet from tears. She turned her face to his. They kissed. It was a burly, substantial,
tongue-filled kiss. It was a kiss from the past. Howard held his wife's lovely face in both of his hands. And now the same journey of so many nights over so many years: the kiss trail down her throat's chubby rings of flesh, down to her chest. He undid the buttons of her shirt, as she attended to the hardy clip of her bra. The silver-dollar-sized nipples, from which occasional hairs sprouted, were the familiar deep brown with only a hint of pink. They protruded like no other nipples he had ever seen. They fitted perfectly and properly into his mouth.

They moved on to the floor. Both thought of the children and the possibility that one of them would come home, but neither dared go to the door to lock it. Any movement away from this spot would be the end. Howard lay on top of his wife. He looked at her. His wife looked at him. He felt known. Murdoch, in disgust, left the room. Kiki reached up to kiss her husband. Howard pulled off his wife's long skirt and her substantial, realistic underwear. He put his hands under her lovely fat ass and squeezed. She let out a soft hum of contentment. She sat up and began to unwind that long plait of hers. Howard lifted his hands up to help her. Coils of long afro hair came free and sprang wide and short until the halo from the old days surrounded her face. She undid his zip and took him into her hands. Slowly, steadily, sensuously, expertly, she manipulated him. She began whispering in his ear. Her accent grew thick and Southern and filthy. For reasons private and old she was now in character as a Hawaiian fishwife called Wakiki. The fatal thing about Wakiki was her sense of humour – she'd bring you to the edge of abandon and then say something so funny that everything fell apart. Not funny to anyone else. Funny to Howard. Funny to Kiki. Laughing hard now, Howard lay back and pulled Kiki on top of him. She had a way of hovering closely there without putting all her weight on him. Kiki's legs had always been strong as hell. She kissed him again, straightened up and crouched over him. He reached out like a child for her breasts and she placed them in his hands. She lifted her belly with her own hand and then pushed her husband inside herself. Home! But this happened sooner than Howard had expected, and he was partly saddened, for he knew
like she knew that he was out of practice and therefore doomed. He could survive on top, or behind, or spooning, or any of the many other marital familiars. He was a stayer in those positions. He was a champion. They used to spend hours spooned next to each other, moving gently back and forth, speaking of the day, of funny things that had happened, of some foible of Murdoch's, even of the children. But if she crouched above him, the giant breasts bouncing and developing their coating of sweat, her beautiful face working intently on what she wanted, the strange genius of her muscles clasping and unclasping him – well, then he had three and a half minutes, tops. For ten or so years, this was a cause of enormous sexual frustration between them. Here was her favourite position; here was his inability to withstand the pleasure of it. But life is long, and so is marriage. There came a breakthrough one year when Kiki found herself able to work with his excitement so as to somehow stimulate new muscles, and these sped her along in time with him. She once tried to explain to him how she did this, but the anatomical difference between our genders is too great. The metaphors won't work. And who cares, anyway, for technicalities when that starburst of pleasure and love and beauty is taking you over? The Belseys got so good at it that they grew almost blasé, more proud than excited. They wanted to demonstrate the technique to the neighbours. But Howard did not feel blasé just now. He lifted his head and shoulders off the floor, grappled with her backside and pulled her tighter on to him; he apologized to her as his release came early, but in fact she joined him seconds later as the last ripples of the thing went through them both. The back of Howard's head connected with the carpet, and he lay there breathing frantically, saying nothing. Kiki moved off him slowly and sat cross-legged like a big Buddha beside him. He reached out his hand, the open flat palm awaiting hers, the way they used to. She did not take it.

‘Oh,
God
,' she said instead. She picked up a cushion and buried her face in it.

Howard didn't hesitate. He said: ‘No, Keeks – this is a good thing. It's been hell –' Kiki pushed her face further into the cushion.
‘I know it has. But I don't want to be without . . .
us
. You're the person I – you're my life, Keeks. You have been and you will be and you are. I don't know how you want me to say it. You're for me – you
are
me. We've always known that – and there's no way out now anyway. I love you. You're for me,' repeated Howard.

Kiki had not raised her face from the cushion and now she spoke into it. ‘I'm not sure you're the person for me any more.'

‘I can't hear you – what?'

Kiki looked up. ‘Howard, I love you. But I'm just not
interested
in watching this
second adolescence
. I had my adolescence. I can't go through yours again.'

‘But –'

‘I haven't had my period in
three months
– did you even
know
that? I'm acting crazy and emotional all the time. My body's telling me the show's over. That's real. And I'm not going to be getting any
thinner
or any
younger
, my ass is gonna hit the ground, if it hasn't already – and I want to be with somebody who can
still see me in here
. I'm still
in
here. And I don't want to be
resented
or
despised
for changing . . . I'd rather be alone. I don't want someone to have
contempt
for who I've become. I've watched
you
become too. And I feel like I've done my best to honour the past, and what you were and what you are now – but you want something more than that, something new. I can't
be
new. Baby, we had a good run.' Weeping, she lifted his palm and kissed it in the centre. ‘Thirty years – almost all of them
really happy
. That's a lifetime, it's incredible. Most people don't get that. But maybe this is just over, you know? Maybe it's over . . .'

Howard, crying himself now, got up from where he lay and sat behind his wife. He stretched his arms around her solid nakedness. In a whisper he began begging for – and, as the sun set, received – the concession people always beg for: a little more time.

Spring break arrived, budding pink and violet in the apple trees, streaking orange through the wet sky. It was still as cold as ever, but now Wellingtonians permitted themselves hope. Jerome came home. Not for him Cancún, or Florida, or Europe. He wanted to see his family. Kiki, tremendously touched by this, took his hand in hers and led him into their chilly garden to witness the changes there. But she had other motives besides the simply horticultural.

‘I want you to know,' she said, bending down to pluck a weed from the rose bed, ‘that we will support you in each and every choice that you will ever make.'

‘Well,' said Jerome mordantly, ‘I think that's beautifully and euphemistically put.'

Kiki stood up and looked helplessly at her son and his gold cross. What else could she say? How could she follow him where he was going?

‘I'm joking,' Jerome assured her. ‘I appreciate it, I do. And vice versa,' he said, and gave his mother the same look she'd given him.

They sat on the bench under the apple tree. The snow had peeled the paint and warped the wood, making it unsteady. They spread their weight to settle it. Kiki offered Jerome a portion of her giant shawl, but he declined.

‘So there's something I wanted to talk to you about,' said Kiki, cautiously.

‘Mom . . . I
know
what happens when a man puts his thing in a woman's – '

Kiki pinched him in his side. Kicked him on his ankle.

‘It's
Levi
. You know that when you're not around he's got no one . . . Zora won't spend any time with him, and Howard treats him like some piece of – I don't know what –
moon rock
. I worry about him. Anyway, he's got in with these
people
– it's fine, I've
seen them around – it's a big group of Haitian and African boys, they sell things on the street – I guess they're traders.'

‘Is it legal?'

Kiki pursed her lips. She had always been sweet on Levi, and nothing he ever did could be completely wrong.

‘Oh, boy,' said Jerome.

‘I don't know that it's especially
illegal
.'

‘Mom, it either is or it –'

‘No, but that's not . . . it's more that he seems so
involved
with all of them. Suddenly he has no other friends. I mean, in a lot of ways it's been interesting – he's a lot more politically aware, for example. He's in the square pretty much every weekend with leaflets helping this Haitian support-group campaign – he's there now.'

‘Campaign?'

‘Higher wages, unfair detention – a lot of issues. Howard's very proud
of course
– proud without actually thinking about what any of it might
mean
.'

Jerome stretched his legs out across the grass and crossed one foot over the other. ‘I'm with Dad,' he had to admit. ‘I don't see the problem, really.'

‘Well, OK, it's not a
problem
, but . . .'

‘But what?'

‘Don't you find it a little strange that he's so interested in
Haitian
things? I mean,
we're
not Haitian, he's never been to Haiti – six months ago he couldn't have pointed to Haiti on a map. I just think it seems a little . . .
random
.'

‘Levi
is
random, Mom,' said Jerome, standing up and moving around to get warm. ‘Come on, let's go in, it's cold.'

They walked quickly back across the grass, through squelchy mounds of blossom forced off the trees by the previous night's rainstorm.

‘Will you just hang out with him a little, though? Promise? Because he tends to go
all in
for one thing – you know how he is. I worry that all the crap that's been going on in this house has been . . . throwing him off balance somehow. And it's an important school year.'

‘How . . . how
is
all the crap?' asked Jerome.

Kiki put her arm round Jerome's waist. ‘Truthfully? It's
damn
hard work. It's the hardest work I've ever done. But Howard's really trying. You have to give him that. He is.' Kiki noted Jerome's doubtful face. ‘Oh, I know he can be an almighty pain, but . . . I do
like
Howie, you know. I may not always show it, but –'

‘I know you do, Mom.'

‘But will you promise that, about Levi? Spend some time with him – find out what's up with him?'

Jerome made the typical maternal promise casually, imagining that it might be casually attended to, but, as they stepped back into the house, his mother revealed her true face. ‘Yes, he's down there right now, in the square,' she said, as if Jerome had asked her. ‘And poor Murdoch needs a walk . . .'

Jerome left his packed bags in the hallway and obliged his mother. He clipped a lead to Murdoch, and together they enjoyed the pretty walk through the old neighbourhood. It was a surprise to Jerome how happy he was to be back. Three years ago he had thought he hated Wellington: an unreal protectorate; high income, morally complacent; full of spiritually inert hypocrites. But now his adolescent zeal faded. Wellington became a comforting dreamscape he felt grateful and fortunate to call home. It was certainly true that this was an unreal place where nothing ever changed. But Jerome – on the brink of his final college year and he knew not what – had begun to appreciate exactly this quality. As long as Wellington stayed Wellington, he could risk all manner of change himself.

He walked into a lively late-afternoon square. A saxophonist playing over a tinny backing track alarmed Murdoch. Jerome picked the dog up. A small food market had been set up on the east side, and this competed with the usual chaos of the taxi rank, students at a table protesting the war, others campaigning against animal testing and some guys selling handbags. Near the T-stop, Jerome saw the table his mother had described. It was covered with a yellow cloth embroidered with the words HAITIAN SUPPORT GROUP. But no Levi. Jerome stopped at the newspaper concession outside
the station and bought the latest
Wellington Herald
. Zora had sent three e-mails urging him to buy a copy. He stayed in the relative warmth of the newsstand and flicked through the paper, looking for a tell-tale Z. He found his sister's name on page 14, heading the weekly campus column ‘Speaker's Corner'. The mere name of this column aggravated Jerome: it smacked of that wearisome Wellingtonian reverence for all things British. The British flavour spread to the contents of the column itself, which, no matter the student who happened to be writing it, always retained a superior, Victorian tone. Words and phrases that the student had never before had cause to use (‘indubitably', ‘
I
cannot possibly fathom') came from their pen. Zora, who had been in Speaker's Corner four times (a record for a sophomore), did not waver from the house style. The arguments of these columns were always presented as if they were motions being put before the Oxford Union. Today's title, ‘This Speaker Believes that Wellington Should Put Its Money Where Its Academic Mouth Is', by Zora Belsey. Just below this, a large photo of Claire Malcolm
in medias res
, animated, at a round table of students, in the foreground of which photo was a handsome face Jerome faintly recognized. Jerome paid a dollar twenty to the guy in the newspaper booth and walked back into the square.
Whither
real
affirmative action?
read Jerome.
That is the question I put before all fair-minded Wellingtonians this day. Are we truly steadfast in our commitment to the equality of opportunity or no? Do we presume to speak of progress when within these very walls our own policy remains so shamefully diffident? Are we satisfied that the African-American youth of this fair city
 . . .

Jerome gave up and tucked the paper under his arm. He resumed his search for Levi, spotting him at last in the doorway of Wellington Savings Bank, eating a burger. As Kiki had predicted, he had friends with him. Tall, skinny black guys in baseball caps, evidently not Americans, also intent on their burgers. From ten yards off, Jerome hollered at Levi and held up his hand, hoping that his brother would save him from an awkward set of introductions. But Levi waved him in.

‘Jay! Hey, this is my brother, man. My
brother
, brother.'

Jerome now learned the grunted names of seven inarticulate guys who seemed little interested in learning his.

‘This is my crew – and
this
is Choo, he's my main man, he's cool. He's got my back. This is Jay. He's all . . .' said Levi, tapping both of Jerome's temples, ‘he's a deep thinker, always analysing shit, like you.'

Jerome, uneasy in this company, shook the hand of Choo. It drove Jerome nuts that Levi always assumed that everyone felt as comfortable as Levi did himself in any given situation. Now Levi left Choo and Jerome to stare blankly at each other as he crouched down and gathered up Murdoch in his arms.

‘And
this
is my little foot soldier. He's my lieutenant. Murdoch
always
got my back.' Levi let the dog lick his face. ‘So, how are you, man?'

‘Good,' said Jerome. ‘I'm good. Glad to be home.'

‘Seen everybody?'

‘Just saw Mom.'

‘Cool, cool.'

They were both nodding a lot. Sadness swept over Jerome. They had nothing to say to each other. A five-year age gap between siblings is like a garden that needs constant attention. Even three months apart allows the weeds to grow up between you.

‘So,' said Jerome, trying weakly to fulfil his mother's brief, ‘what's going on with you? Mom said you got lots going on.'

‘Just . . . you know . . . hanging with my boys – getting things done.'

As usual, Jerome tried to sieve Levi's elliptical language for any specks of truth concealed within.

‘You all involved in the . . . ?' said Jerome, motioning to the little table across the way. Behind it two young black men with glasses were handing out leaflets and newspapers. A banner was propped up behind them: FAIR PAY FOR WELLINGTON'S HAITIAN WORKERS.

‘Me and Choo, yeah – trying to get the voice heard. Representing.'

Jerome, who was finding this conversation increasingly irritating, stepped around the other side of Levi so as to get out of earshot of the silent burger-eating men beside him.

‘What did you put in his coffee?' Jerome joked stiffly to Choo. ‘I couldn't even get him to vote in his school elections.'

Choo clasped his friend around his shoulders and had the gesture returned. ‘Your brother,' he said affectionately, ‘thinks of all his brothers. That's why we love him – he's our little American mascot. He fights shoulder to shoulder with us for justice.'

‘I see.'

‘Take one,' said Levi, and pulled a double-sided piece of paper printed like a newspaper from his voluminous back pocket.

‘You take this, then,' said Jerome, handing him the
Herald
in return. ‘It's Zora. Page 14. I'll get another one.'

Levi took the newspaper and forced it into his pocket. He tucked the last lump of burger into his mouth. ‘Cool – I'll read it later . . .' Which meant, Jerome knew, that it would be found torn and screwed up with the rest of the trash in his room a few days from now. Levi handed the dog over to Jerome.

‘Jay, actually – I got something I gotta do just now – but I'll see you later . . . you coming to the Bus Stop tonight?'

‘Bus Stop? No . . . no, um, supposedly Zora's taking me to some frat party or other, down in –'

‘Bus Stop tonight!' said Choo over him and whistled. ‘It will be incredible! You see all those guys?' He pointed to their silent companions. ‘When they get on stage, they tear up
everything
.'

‘It's deep,' confided Levi. ‘Political. Serious lyrics. About struggle. About – '

‘Getting back what is
ours
,' said Choo impatiently. ‘Taking back what has been stolen from our people.'

Jerome winced at the collective term.

‘It's profounding,' explained Levi. ‘Deep lyrics. You'd really be into it.'

Jerome, who doubted this very much, smiled politely.

‘Anyway,' said Levi, ‘I'm out.'

He touched fists with Choo and each of the men in the doorway.
Last was Jerome, who received not a touched fist, nor the hug of Levi's younger days, but rather an ironic chuck on the chin.

Levi crossed the square. He went through Wellington's main gate, across the quad, out the other side, into the Humanities Faculty site, into the building, along the halls, into the English Department, out the other side, down another hallway, and arrived finally at the door of the Black Studies Department. It had never struck him before how
easy
it was to walk these hallowed halls. No locks, no codes, no ID cards. Basically, if you looked even vaguely like a student, nobody stopped you at all. Levi shouldered open the Black Studies door and smiled at the cute Latino girl on the desk. He walked through the department, idly mouthing the names on each door. The department had that last-Friday-before-a-vacation feeling – people hurrying to finish off their odds and ends. All these industrious black folk – like a mini-university within a university! It was crazy. Levi wondered whether Choo realized that Wellington had this little black enclave. Maybe he would speak more kindly of it if he knew. A familiar name now arrested Levi's stroll. Prof. M. Kipps. The door was closed, but to the left a half-pane of glass revealed the office inside. Monty was not in. Levi lingered here, none the less, taking in the luxurious details to relay to Choo later. Nice chair. Nice table. Nice painting. Thick carpet. He felt a hand on his shoulder. Levi jumped.