Zadie Smith - NW

112. Sir Thomas More, Lincoln’s Inn, 1496

“Someone give this girl the bumps! She’s getting married. Ah, the good die young. What’s his name again? Francesco. An eye-tie? I move for a mistrial. Half-Trini, actually. IT’S POLITICAL CORRECTNESS GONE MAD. Seriously, though, Nat. Best of luck. We all wish you the best of luck. I don’t believe in luck. Where’s my invite? Yeah, where’s my invite? Watch that glass! No one’s invited, not even family. We want to be alone. Ooh, exclusive! Someone lift her up. Pol says he’s loaded, too. Durham and Macaulay. Quickie in Islington town hall. Honeymoon in Positano. Business class. Oh, we know all about it. Oh yes, we know. Blake’s no fool. Ouch! No hitting. Point is, you’re joining the other side. Enemy camp. We will be forced to continue the hunt for love in your absence. This Francesco fellow: he approve of sex after marriage? Italians tend to. Catholic, we presume. Oh, yes, we presume. Frank. Everyone just calls him Frank. He’s only half-Italian. Jake, get her right leg. Ezra, get the left. Ameeta get the arse. Put me down! You’re on arse duty, Ameeta, love. Objection! How come Ameeta gets the best bit? Because I do. Objection overruled. Why can’t a gentleman refer to the posterior of a lady anymore these days? I TELL YOU IT’S POLITICAL CORRECTNESS GONE — oh, fuck it. One two three LIFT.”

The trainee barristers carried Natalie Blake across the road, whooping. Her nose came level with the arch of 16th-century doorways. So far from home!

“SHE’S GETTING MARRIED IN THE MORNING.”

“Morning after. Who’s that statue, up there?”

“My Latin’s rusty — I have no fucking clue… Which way we heading? North? West! Which line do you need, Nat? The Jubilee?”

113. Miele di Luna (two weeks)

Sun.

Prosecco.

Sky, bleached.

Swallows. Arc. Dip.

Pebbles blue.

Pebbles red.

Elevator to the beach.

Empty beach. Sun rise. Sun set.

“You know how rare this is, in Italy? This is what you pay for — the silence!”

Oh.

He swims. Every day.

“The water is perfect!”

Wave.

English newspapers. Two beers. Arancini.

“Is it all right if we put it on this card? We’re in room 512. I have my passport.”

“Of course, Madam, you are the newlywed suite. You mind I ask something? Where you from?”

Wave.

The waiters wear white gloves. Obituaries. Reviews. Cover to cover.

Rum and coke. Cheesecake.

“Can I put it straight on the room? The other guy said it was OK. 512.”

“For sure, Madam. How do you call this, in English?”

“Binoculars. My husband likes birds. Weird saying that word.”

“Binoculars?”

“Husband.”

The public beach is at the tip of the peninsula. Four miles hence. Whoops. Screams. Laughter. Music from loud speakers. More bodies than sand.

Wish you were here?

Empty.

Exclusive.

“This is really like paradise!”

oh

wave

Lone family. Red umbrella. Mother, father, son. Louis.

LOOO-weee! Pink shorts. WAVE

Nowhere and nothing.

LOOO-WEEE!

Vodka cocktail.

“Have you got a pen? Do you know where they’re from?”

“Paris, signora. She is American model. He is computer. French.”

Louis stung by a jellyfish.

Dramatic event!

Rum Cocktail. Prawns. Chocolate cake.

“512, please.”

“Madam, I promise you this is not possible. There are no jellyfish here. We are a luxury resort. You don’t swim because of this?”

“I don’t swim because I can’t swim.”

Linguine con vongole, gin and tonic, rum cocktail.

“Signora, where you from? American?”

“512.”

“This is your boyfriend swimming?”

“Husband.”

“He speak very good Italian.”

“He is Italian.”

“And you, signora? Dove sei? ”

114. L’isola che non c’è

“You should at least stand in the water one time,” said Frank De Angelis, and Natalie Blake looked up at her husband’s beautiful brown torso dripping with saltwater and returned to her reading. “You’ve been dragging those papers around since the plane.” He looked over her shoulder. “What’s so interesting?” She showed him the wrinkled, water-damaged page of personal advertisements. He sighed and put on his sunglasses. “‘Soulmates.’ Che schifo! I don’t know why you love reading those things. They depress me. So many lonely people.”

115. The Old Bailey

Ian Cross put his head round the pupils’ door. A room full of pupils looked up hopefully. Cross looked at Natalie Blake.

“Want to see a grown jury weep? Bridgestone need a random pupil to make up the numbers. Court One, Bailey. With Johnnie Hampton-Arse. Don’t worry, you won’t have to do anything, just look pretty. Grab your wig.”

She was excited to be chosen. It proved the efficacy of her strategy as compared to, say, Polly’s. Don’t get romantically involved with the star tenants of criminal sets. Do good work. Wait for your good work to be noticed. This innocence and pride was preserved right up until the moment she took her seat and spotted the victim’s family in the gallery, unmistakeably Jamaican, the men in shiny gray double-breasted suits, the women in their wide-brimmed hats topped with sprays of synthetic flowers.

“Watch and learn,” whispered Johnnie, rising for opening remarks.

116. Voyeurism

The defense was constituted along the same basic lines as transubstantiation. Someone else had used the vicar’s flat to chop up Viv. Someone else had deposited her body in a series of bin bags by Camden Lock, twenty yards from his own back door. He claimed the key was freely passed among his parishioners; many people had a copy. That his sperm was found inside her was only evidence of further coincidence. (The papers had dug up a series of suspiciously similar-looking local prostitutes, all claiming to have known the vicar in the biblical sense.) “But this is not a trial about race,” said Johnnie, directing the jury’s attention to Natalie Blake with a slight move of his arm, “and to allow it to become one is to submit the evidential burden — your first concern, as jurors in a British court — to the guilty-cos-we-say-so principles of our lamentable gutter press.” The distressed huddle of Viv’s family kept clinging to each other in the gallery, but Natalie did not look at them again.

The prosecution offered a PowerPoint presentation. Grubby-looking Camden interiors. Natalie Blake sat forward in her chair. The point was the flecks of blood, but it was everything else that interested her. Four modish 60s-era white chairs, unexpected for a man of the cloth. The too-big piano in the too-small room. Mismatched sofa and ottoman, a top-of-the-range TV. Out-dated fitted kitchen with a cork floor, unfortunate, the blood soaks in. Natalie felt a nudge from the junior advocate and began taking down the pretend notes she’d been instructed to scribble.

117. In the robing room

As Natalie Blake turned to shuck off her gown, Johnnie Hampton-Rowe appeared behind her, put his hand on her shirt, pulling it aside with her bra. She had a delayed reaction: he was pinching her nipple before she managed to ask him what the fuck he thought he was doing. With the same sleight of hand she’d just seen in court, he turned the fact of her shouting into the crime. Backed off at once, sighing: “All right, all right, my mistake.” Out of the door before she’d turned round. By the time she had collected herself and come out of the room he was at the far end of the hallway bantering with the rest of the team, discussing the next day’s strategy. The junior advocate pointed at Natalie with a pen. “Pub. Seven Stars. You coming?”