Zadie Smith: NW

Noting such differences, Leah was in some sense disappointed in herself that they did not cause real conflict between them. It was hard to get used to the fact that the pleasure her body found in his, and vice versa, should so easily overrule the many other objections she had, or should have had, or thought she should have had.

— Her mum could be dead. She could be dealing with that and just forgot. She might have put it through the door and it gets caught up with the junk and Ned throws it out. Maybe she just can’t put her hands on that sort of money at the moment.

— Yes, Leah.

— Don’t do that.

— What do you want me to say? The world is what it is.

— Then why’re we even trying?

To be very objective about it, it is the woman’s fault that they never discussed children. For some reason it had never occurred to her that all this wondrous screwing was heading toward a certain, perfectly obvious destination. She fears the destination. Be objective! What is the fear? It is something to do with death and time and age. Simply: I am eighteen in my mind I am eighteen and if I do nothing if I stand still nothing will change I will be eighteen always. For always. Time will stop. I’ll never die. Very banal, this fear. Everybody has it these days. What else? She is happy enough in the moment they are in. She feels she deserves exactly what she has, no more, no less. Any change risks fatally upsetting this balance. Why must the moment change? Sometimes the woman’s husband cuts a red pepper down the middle and pushes the seeds out into a plastic bowl and passes her a courgette for cubing and says:

Dog.

Car.

Flat.

Cooking together, like this.

Seven years ago: you were on the dole. I was washing hair.

Things change! We’re getting there, no?

The woman does not know where there is. She did not know they had set off, nor in which direction the wind is blowing. She does not want to arrive. The truth is she had believed they would be naked in these sheets forever and nothing would come to them ever, nothing but satisfaction. Why must love “move forward”? Which way is forward? No one can say she has not been warned. No one can say that. A thirty-five-year-old woman married to a man she loves has most certainly been warned, should be paying attention, should be listening, and not be at all surprised when her husband says

— many days in which the woman is fertile. Only, I think, three. So it’s no good to just say “oh, it’ll happen when it will happen.” We’re not so young. So we have to be a bit more, I mean, military about it, like plan.

Objectively speaking, he is correct.

We are the village green preservation society. God save little shops, china cups and virginity! Saturday morning. ALL KINKS ALL DAY. Girl. You really got me going. You got me so I don’t know what I’m doing. On Saturday mornings Michel helps the ladies and gentlemen of NW look right for their Saturday nights, look fresh and correct, and there, in the salon, he is free to blast his treacly R&B, his oh baby oh shorty till six in the mawnin till the break a’ dawn. On Saturday mornings she is free! God save Tudor houses, antique tables and billiards! Preserving the old ways from being abused. Protecting the new ways for me and for you. What more can we do? Stomping around in pajama bottoms, singing tunelessly. Ned is in the garden. Ned approves of loud music of white origin. He sings along. Well I tried to settle down in Fulham Broadway. And I tried to make my home in Golders Green. In this weekend abandon there is always something manic and melancholy: the internal countdown to the working week already begun. In the mirror she is her own dance partner, nose to nose with the reflection. The physical person is smiling and singing. Oh how I miss the folks back home in Willesden Green! Meanwhile something inside reels at the mirror’s news: the gray streak coming out of the crown, the puffy creases round the eyes, the soft belly. She dances like a girl. She is not a girl anymore. YOU REALLY GOT ME. YOU REALLY GOT ME. YOU REALLY GOT ME. Where did the time go? She only realizes the doorbell has gone when Olive begins barking madly.

— My mum had a heart — a heart attack? Five… pounds.

This girl has hair burned flat by a curling iron. Either fat or pregnant. She looks down dully, puzzled by frantic Olive weaving between her legs. She looks up at Leah and laughs. HA! Too far gone to remember her lines. She turns clumsily on her heel, a dancer executing a move too late. Heads back down the path to the street, swaying and laughing.

Apple tree, apple tree.

Thing that has apples on it. Apple blossom.

So symbolic. Network of branches, roots. Tunneling under.

The fuller, the more fruitful.

The more the worms. The more the rats.

Apple tree, apple tree. Apple. Tree. Which way is forward? Tick, tock.

Three flats. One apple tree. Freehold, leasehold. Heavy with seed.

In the tree-top. When the bough breaks, the baby will

Dead man’s ashes. Round the roots, in the roots?

Hundred-year-old apple tree.

Sitting on your laurens. Under an apple tree. Have a little boy?

New branches. New blossom. New apples. Same tree?

Born and bred. Same streets.

Same girl? Next step.

Appletreeapple

Trunk, bark.

Alice, dreaming.

Eve, eating.

Under which nice girls make mistakes.

Michel is a good man, full of hope. Sometimes hope is exhausting.

— which I’ve always believed. Look: you know what is the true difference between these people and me? They don’t want to move forward, they don’t want to have nothing better than this. But I’m always moving forward, thinking of the next thing. People back home, they don’t get me at all. I’m too advanced for them. So when they try to contact me, I don’t let this — I don’t let drama in my life like that. No way! I’ve worked too hard. I love you too much, this life. You are what you do. This is how it is. I’m always thinking: is this me? What I’m doing? Is this really me? If I sit and do nothing I know that makes me nothing. From the first day I was stepping into this country I have my head on correctly; I was very clear: I am going up the ladder, one rung at least. In France, you’re African, you’re Algerian, who wants to know? There’s no opportunity, you can’t move! Here, you can move. You still have to work! You have to work very hard to separate yourself from this drama below! This is my point: I don’t like to let it in. But this is what you do, perfect example, this girl, you let her in — I don’t even know what is in your mind — but I don’t allow this drama in. I know this country has opportunities if you want to grab them, you can do it. Don’t eat that one — worm hole, right there, see? Look at your mother — we are not such great friends, but please look at what she did: she got you out of that nightmare over there, into a proper place, proper flat, mortgage… Of course, your skin is white, it’s different, it’s more easy, you’ve had opportunities I didn’t have. The redder ones don’t taste so good. We’re all just trying to take that next, that next, next, step . Climbing that ladder. Brent Housing Partnership. I don’t want to have this written on the front of a place where I am living. I walk past it I feel like oof— it’s humiliating to me. If we ever have a little boy I want him to live somewhere — to live proud— somewhere we have the freehold. Right! This grass it’s not my grass! This tree is not my tree! We scattered your father round this tree we don’t own even. Poor Mr. Hanwell. It breaks my heart. This was your father! This is why I’m on the laptop every night, I’m trying to do this — because it’s pure market on there, nothing about skin, about is your English perfect, do you have the right piece of university paper or some bullshit like this. I can trade like anyone. There’s money to be got out there, you know? Market is so crazy right now. That’s what nobody tell you. I keep thinking what Frank said at the dinner: the smart guys get right back in the game . It’s crazy not to try to get some of it. I’m not like these Jamaicans — this new girl, Gloria, whatever is her name, up there, she still has no curtains. Two babies, no husband, taking benefits. I’m married, where’s my benefit? When I have children, I knew, I said it to myself: I’m going to stay by this woman that I love, that I really love so much, I’m going to always be with her. Come here. The bottom line is like this: I was never just OK to sit on my laurens and take charity, I never was interested in that. I am an African. I have a destiny. I love you, and I love where we are going together! I’m always moving toward my destiny, thinking of the next achievement, the next thing, taking it higher, so we, so both of us , can make that next–