Zadie Smith - NW

Upstairs she was introduced to a sleigh bed, of the kind that was fashionable about five years earlier. The shoe cupboard was open. Red soled from floor to ceiling. Above the bed they had that too-familiar tube map with the stops replaced by icons of the last millenium, gathered in cliques and movements. Natalie looked for Kilburn: Pele. On the bed an iPad played pornography, threesomes, and this was the first time Natalie had ever seen that particular piece of technology. Two girls ate each other out while a man sat on a desk with his dick in his hand. They were all German.

The beautiful African woman kept talking. Where are you from? Are you in college? What do you want to be? Don’t ever give up. It’s all about dreaming big. Having aspirations. Working hard. Not accepting no for an answer. Being whoever you want to be.

The more Natalie Blake stood there, fully dressed and unresponsive, the more nervous they got, the more they talked. Finally Natalie asked to go to the bathroom. En-suite. She climbed into a reclaimed Victorian bath clad in brass and porcelain from The Water Monopoly. She knew she was finished here. She lay back. Acqua di Parma. Chanel. Molton Brown. Marc Jacobs. Tommy Hilfiger. Prada. Gucci.

181. Easter Holidays

Anna had gone to Poland for a few days to see her family but now the volcano meant she could not return. Natalie googled. She stared at the great cloud of ash.

“You’re more flexible than I am,” argued Frank, and left the house. The basement was back on track. Builders were everywhere. Frank had worked hard to put things back on track. They both had. They deserved everything that was coming to them.

Got any more tea, love? Better keep these kids out of the way, they’re liable to get hurt. Don’t spose there’s a biscuit going begging?

By ten a.m. she found herself trapped in a white painted box with two mysterious black-eyed others who seemed to want something from her that she had no way of either comprehending or providing. Men in orange tabards went back and forth. This milk is off, love. Got any jam? She gathered the children in her arms and left this building site, her kitchen. She took them to her mother’s flat. To the park. To the zoo. To Kilburn market. To the African minimart. To Cricklewood Toys R Us. Home.

Naomi related this odyssey in far greater detail to her father when he came home.

“You’re amazing,” said Frank, and kissed Natalie Blake’s cheek. “I would have just sat around wasting my time, playing with them all day.”

182. Love in the ruins

They were nice young men, and clearly astounded that anyone had replied to their premise. Natalie felt certain they must have posted when they were pissed. Cousins? Brothers? A 1950’s semi, in Wembley, facing the North Circular, double-glazed to within an inch of its life. It was a family house with the family missing. What Brayton kids used to call a “Cornershop Villa.” Natalie Blake could not explain why she knew they weren’t going to kill her. She had to recognize in herself a perfectly irrational belief that whether or not a person has murderous intent toward you is one of those things “you can just tell” about people. Certainly it helped that when they opened the door they looked more scared than she did. Oh my days. I told you, Dinesh. I told you. I told you it ain’t no bloke. Come in, love. Come in, Keisha. Oh my days. You’re fit and all. What you saying that for! Why not? She knows and we know. She knows and we know. No surprises. Oh my days! Go that way, lovely. We ain’t gonna hurt you innit we’re nice boys. Oh my word, no one is gonna believe this, man. I don’t even believe this. Go in there. We gonna take turns or what? What? I don’t want to see you naked, bruv! That’s some gay madness. Yeah but she wants to double team innit! That ain’t one then another! That’s two simulty-simultany-simu — at the same time. Don’t you know what double team means bruv? Double team. You don’t know what you’re even chatting about. Double team! Shut up you joker. Natalie listened to them arguing in the hall. She sat waiting in the kitchen. A large puddle of water surrounded the freezer. All the doors said FIRE DOOR. They came back in. Shyly they suggested that everybody adjourn to a bedroom. It was peculiar how shy they were, given the circumstance. Constantly bickering. In here. Are you mental? I ain’t doing it in there. Bibi sleeps in there! In there, man. Chief. Follow me, Keisha, make yourself comfortable, yeah? Dinesh man there ain’t even no sheet! Go get a sheet! Stop using my name! No names. We’re gonna get a sheet, wait right here don’t move.

Natalie Blake lay back on the mattress. On top of the wardrobe there was a lot of boxed-up stuff. Stuff that no-one was coming back for. Surplus to requirements. There was something terribly sad about the whole place. She wished she could take the boxes down and sift through them and save whatever needed to be saved.

The door opened and the young men re-emerged in only their Calvin Kleins, one black pair, one white, like two featherweights in a boxing ring. No older than 20. They got out a laptop. The idea appeared to be like roulette. You click and a human being appears, in real time. Click again. Click again. Eighty percent of the time they got a penis. The rest were quiet girls playing with their hair, groups of students who wanted to talk, shaven-headed thugs standing in front of their national flags. On the rare occasions it was a girl they would at once started typing: GET YOUR TITS OUT. Natalie asked them: boys, why are we doing this? You’ve got the real thing right here. But they kept on with the Internet. It seemed to Natalie that they were stalling for time. Or maybe they couldn’t do anything without the Net somewhere in the mix. You try it, Keisha, you try it, see who you get. Natalie sat at the laptop. She got a lonely boy in Israel who typed YOU NICE and took out his penis. You like being watched Keisha? Do you like it? We’ll leave it there, on the dresser. How d’you want it Keisha? Just tell us and we’ll do it. Anything. And still Natalie Blake knew she was in no danger. Just do what you want, said Natalie Blake.

But neither of them could really manage it at all, and soon they blamed each other. It’s him! It’s cos I’m looking at him, man. He’s messing with my groove. Don’t listen to him he ain’t got no groove.

They were satisfied to play about like teenagers. Natalie became very impatient. She was not a teenager anymore. She knew what she was doing. She did not feel she had to wait around hoping to be penetrated. She could envelop. She could hold. She could release.

She sat the boy in the black Calvins on the edge of bed, rolled his foreskin down, got on him, advised him not to touch her or otherwise move unless she said so. A narrow cock but not ugly. He said: you’re quite strong-minded innit Keisha. Know what you want and that. They say that about sistas don’t they? And to this, Natalie Blake replied: I really couldn’t give a fuck what they say. She could see the boy had no useful rhythm — it was better for both of them if he simply stayed still. She ground down on to him. Rocked. Finished very quickly, though not as quickly as his circumcised friend on the other side of the bed who gave a little groan, spurted dribblingly into his own hand and disappeared into the bathroom. Dinesh you little chief. Come back in here. Um. This is a bit weird. Where’s he gone? Just you and me. You come already, yeah? Fair enough. You know what I don’t think I’m gonna get there right at the moment Keisha. I feel a bit hot and bothered right now if I’m honest.

She released him. The boy flopped out of her, much reduced. She tucked it back in his pants. She started putting her clothes back on. The other one re-emerged from the loo looking sheepish. She had a spliff left over from Camden, and together they smoked it. She tried to get them to tell her something, anything, about the people who lived in this house but they wouldn’t be distracted from what they called their “chirpsing.” We should worship this girl man. Sista, are you ready to be worshipped? You’re a goddess in my eyes. All night long baby. Till you’re gonna be begging me to stop. Till six in the morning. Dinesh, man, I gotta be at work at eight.