Reading the Ceiling (15 page)

The doorbell rings and we kiss and hug. He says at the door, ‘See you in a couple of months. I'll phone as soon as I get there.' And he's gone.

Life does not necessarily warn you, so you can't take precautions. You don't try to delay the moment, you simply let him go. And later, when he phones, practically every day, you go on about other stuff. The girl at the National Audit Office with brass hair and green lips. The supervisor at the temping firm who insists you can only type at 30 words per minute, when you know jolly well you rattle along much faster than that. And you ask about the stickiness of Boston in the summer, and laugh about how houses have central air conditioning. And then it comes – the silence. Three days without a phone call. He'd said not to bother to call him, as calls were so cheap from the States. ‘But just in case you get lost or something on your way over, I've written my cousin's number in the little address book by the door.'

When I ring, I start with, ‘Hello, Chang. This is Ayodele, phoning from London. Yuan gave me your number when he left, but as he hasn't called for a few days, I just wondered how he is. Can I speak to him, please?'

‘This isn't Chang. He is at the hospital.'

‘Then can I speak to Yuan please?'

‘Chang is with him at the hospital.'

‘I hope it's nothing serious. When do you think Yuan will be back?'

‘Well it's serious enough that his parents are flying over tonight.'

‘What do you think is a good time for me to ring back? When am I likely to find him in?'

‘Try again in about three hours.'

I ring back and again ask for Yuan. This time Chang answers. ‘My brother told me you called earlier. You're Ayodele, right?' ‘Yes, but I thought you were in hospital, are you all right now?' Silence can have many layers, and it traps air bubbles between them. Chang's silence sears the moment in my memory. I get a spasm in my gut, where they used to imagine the centre of a person was. My lips are leaden, unable to form any more ques-tions. My fingers, gripping the phone, seem greasy. I clutch harder on the handset, holding on to the silence, the last few seconds between my chattering and my knowing.

‘I left the hospital only when Yuan's parents arrived. They are there now.'

I've been saving money while I work, so paying for my ticket over is easy. I take a single piece of hand luggage. I convert some pounds into a handful of green notes. On the plane I squeeze the ends of my lips upwards to offers of food or drink: ‘No, thanks, I don't need anything.' I get off the flight with dread in my ears and a twitch under my right eye. My shoulders are frozen into a position that helps me carry myself out of the airport, get into a taxi, ask for the Mount Auburn Hospital. Roads soar over other roads and a bridge crosses a slate-coloured river. There are boats and rowers on the water. There are people riding bicycles. The world is careless with my pain. I cannot respond to the taxi driver asking me where I am from. I hear him OK, but my brain is reluctant to string words together. I reject several combinations and after a lengthy pause, can only mutter ‘England.' The truth would require many more syllables and would doubtless prompt a stream of other questions. He interprets my one-word answer for what it is – a reluctance to talk, possibly an inability to communicate. When he drops me off, I tell him to keep the change.

This is what the hospital record says:

July 3. Male, early twenties, head injury. Result of motorcycle accident. Brought in by ambulance 19.20. Broken ribs. Lung punctured. Cardiac failure in emergency room. Resuscitated. Put on life support.

Much later, when I've left the weeks to creak by, after I've wondered about life's flick at a dice, about chance and how hope can be whisked away in the slice of a single day, I ask Chang to describe to me what happened.

This is what he says:

We were both on my KTM, and Yuan was my passenger. It was a Sunday so the roads were relatively quiet. We were roaring up to an intersection. A delivery truck was backing up to park. The driver did not see me. I crashed into the truck, but held on as the motorcycle skidded. My leg got trapped under the front wheel. Yuan spun off with the impact. He would have been fine if there hadn't been another car coming up fast on the other side of the road. I... He... It...

Chang cannot finish his story, four weeks after the accident, and three weeks after the life support machine was turned off.

Grief gets itself stamped on faces. Puffed-up faces, blanked-out faces, underlined eyes. I watch Yuan's parents and it's as if I am watching myself. Chang's apartment becomes a place of refuge, for Chinese tea, and for sitting around talking in half-whispers. Yuan's uncle flies over from San Francisco to sort out the funeral arrangements. Yuan's parents decide on cremation and plan to take him home and bury his ashes in their garden.

I can't go back to England. I can't go home. When awake, I get flashes of Yuan saying something, doing something. When I sleep, I imagine how the crash was, I imagine him saying to himself, ‘This looks pretty bad.' And then the impact with the second car plays with decided slowness – pausing so I can hear his ribs crack, his mouth open in a scream. Then I see the ambulances rush in, and the stretcher, and a course ploughed through black-tarred streets by screeching, urgent lights.

I phone my sister Kainde, now a student in Newcastle, to talk about everyday things like flats that need to be cleared – refrigerators that need to be emptied of milk, rental documents that need to be found, spare keys to be picked up from the property agent, Yuan's books, my things.

‘I can't go back to England,' I blurt out.

‘I know,' she says.

‘I need you to help me.'

‘I'm going to London the day after tomorrow. I'll get the keys, sort out the flat and hand everything over to the agent.'

‘Thanks.'

‘And what about you, how are you coping?' she asks.

I allow the silence to fall, and let it speak for me:
I'm not
. 

‘I can come over to the States if you want. I asked Ma to ring Aunt Yadi and ask if we can stay with her in Connecticut. She says we can, as long as we need to.'

Little by little, I let other people make plans for me and help me glue my life together. Kainde finds her way from the airport to the cheap hotel I've been staying at. With one look at me, she starts to cry.

‘Oh Ayodele, I am so sorry.' We hug but I can't cry. I am relieved she's here.

‘Thanks for coming.'

I am packed and ready to leave with her. We take a taxi to the train station where she buys us our tickets and we wait.

The grief comes in tiny little ways. This morning I woke up smiling from a memory of Yuan, but as soon as my eyes flickered open to morning, my insides got knotted. The emptiness flooded in and I knew, yet again, that he is gone.

Kainde buys us both coffee and croissants. She picks up a
Boston Globe
. I add in three spoonfuls of sugar and sip carefully, glad to have something to do with my hands. A man walks fast along the forecourt of the station towards a gate, moving towards a train that is about to leave. I get shivery all over as I watch the back of his head, which is about Yuan's height, with hair and a neckline just like his. My eyes tell me what my mind knows cannot be true. I follow him along seeking the one thing that would confirm him as someone else. The man turns his head slightly to talk to a train official. I can see his nose in profile. My eyes sting.

Our aunt is waiting to meet us at the station. Once again I get the condolences.

‘Ayodele, I'm so so sorry.' I also get a hug.

Kainde hands me a pile of letters she brought from the London flat. I look at them with distaste. I know already that they will force me to deal with things I do not want to acknowledge.

‘Leave them for a while, you don't need to look at them now.' She gives me the excuse I need.

A week later, she says, ‘Shall I open them for you? I might be able to help.'

I decline. If I look at them now, I will end up having to know. I will need to decide.

Another week passes before she insists, ‘Look, there might be some really important stuff in there. You've got to open them.'

I say, ‘I'll go and sit outside and try.'

It's a sunny day. I sit under the canvas shade protruding over the deck and watch some birds hop and twitter a few feet away from me. I have the letters on my lap and a glass of iced tea on the side table next to my seat. I rifle through the letters, trying to guess the contents of each. I pick up mail from
Reader's Digest
, the Reliable Patio Company, and ornamental conservatory builders. There are offers for garden furniture and book clubs. There are our bank statements.

A postcard has a smiling Rajastani woman in a red and yellow outfit. A brightly coloured scarf sprinkles her forehead with tiny silver balls. It's from Richard, a friend who's gone off to spend his summer in India.

Hello you two. Hot and sweaty here most days but loving every minute. Am in Jaipur with two other travellers I met in Delhi. We try to avoid the standard tourist locations, so are holding off on the Taj. In my adventures, I have found little temples on river banks, spice markets, fantastic dhosas and many friendly people. Don't want to come home . . .

I turn to two envelopes. The one addressed to me is a slim beige letter. It's a confirmation of acceptance for a two-year master's degree in international development and includes a form for me to sign. Yuan's envelope is massive, brochure-sized and white. The business school is sending all the information he needs for his MBA. Life could have moved on just as we'd planned.

I cannot ring the university to tell them about Yuan. I don't feel either Kainde or Aunt Yadi is eligible for the task. I call Chang, saying, ‘I'm not even related. They're going to want to know who I am. I won't be able to tell them.'

‘That's fine. I'll ring them.'

That's how it begins, my way of keeping a link to Yuan through his family. Later, once I've made up my mind, I ring Chang to tell him I intend to take up my place at university.

Kainde and Aunt Yadi try to talk me out of it. Kainde has gained a gaunt look in this past month of looking after me. Aunt Yadi has been quietly taking time off work so she can be around. Aunt Yadi says, ‘Perhaps it might be wise to wait a while, Dele, and only go back to university when you are feeling much better.'

But I insist. ‘I have to do this. I need to stay here because I can't go back to the memories in London. Here at least I'll be closer to where we'd thought we'd both be at this time. It will help me keep some part of him alive.'

I leave the safety and comfort of my aunt's house and head for a tiny room on campus. My new comfort is in being invisible in the common student uniform of jeans, sweater and sneakers. I need not attend any social events or orientation evenings. I find the lectures I need. I note where the classes take place. I buy the books and know how to cocoon myself in the library. I work on my essays and hand them in on time. I read everything I am supposed to. I nearly make it through to the end of the semester.

I start to feel brave enough to sit in cafes on Sundays and watch the world go by. I choose places that are not very close to the university. I relish the sense of feeling warm in a steamed-up room full of people I don't know, who chatter but don't need to be talked to. Then a couple walk in. They look nothing like me and Yuan. He is well built, broad-shouldered with a deep brown mahogany tone to his skin. He has on a woollen hat pulled low over his forehead, almost reaching his eyes. He is holding the hand of a petite Indian girl with a single long braid down her back and a red dot on her forehead, under the shadow of a soft- brimmed velvet hat. He ushers her to a table and after they settle down with coats and bags, he walks towards the display case and the cashier. He checks his step and goes back to whisper in her ear. She puts her head back and laughs, a clear single note which encircles the room. Several heads at nearby tables lift to look, but not stare.

The laugh stays in my head, it enlarges in my eardrum and starts to boom. I can see her mouth is shut. I can see him make his way back to the cashier. Suddenly I cannot bear to be in the same room as them. My fingers are shaky as I push the table forward, making my little jug of milk spill. Such is my urgency that I cannot do up my coat, can only hug its edges together with my hands shoved deep in my pockets, my shoulders hunched. The wind adds to the cacophony of sound as I step out. It bites at my ears and pokes shards of ice into my bare head. I start to shuffle- run in my sturdy heavy boots. I hit the elbow of a black-coated man who drops his briefcase and utters a curse:

‘Fuck! Why the hell don't you watch where you are going?'

He grabs at me, but lets go when he sees my face streaked with tears.

‘Hey, just be careful, right?'

I nod and walk on. When I get back to my room, the laughter is still there, not as loud as I remember it, but the consistency of an echo. My head is empty, my face is only a sheet masking a huge hole. I stay in my coat, with my boots on, sprawled on my bed. I doze in and out of sleep that night, and each time I wake up I hear the laughter. It changes shape, sometimes it comes towards me like ocean waves, hurling itself at me; at other times, it swirls around like a tornado. Once in the night, it felt like sleet, driving sleet, each thud of icy chill holding a beat of the laughter.

In the morning, I find it easy to get ready. All I need to do is find my hat and gloves somewhere in my coat pockets before I make my way to Student Services. I am referred to the Talk Unit. In a hushed, carpeted room, I meet a green-jacketed lady seated on a three-person sofa.

‘My name is Dora. How can I help you?'

‘My boyfriend is dead. I am here. And she's laughing.'

Somehow, I explain some of myself to her. Someone gives me a glass of water and some tablets to drink. I wake up to find my boots off and my feet resting on the sofa with a cushion under my head. Everything hurts. My eyes ache. My toes throb. There are sharp stabbing pains in my chest, my tummy, my guts. I am alone.