Zadie Smith: NW

— Proud of yourself? Thief. I want my money.

Shar cringes and slips through the traffic. She is running toward two men, tall and hooded, with hidden faces, standing in a doorway. Shar enfolds herself in the taller. Leah hurries on home. At her back she can hear the ricochet of incomprehensible abuse, aimed at her, a patois like a machine gun.

Lying in bed next to a girl she loved, years ago, discussing the number 37. Dylan singing. The girl had a theory that 37 has a magic about it, we’re compelled toward it. Websites are dedicated to the phenomenon. The imagined houses found in cinema, fiction, painting and poetry — almost always 37. Asked to choose a number at random: usually 37. Watch for 37, the girl said, in our lotteries, our game-shows, our dreams and jokes, and Leah did, and Leah still does. Remember me to one who lives there. She once was a true love of mine. Now that girl is married, too.

Number 37 Ridley Avenue is being squat. Squatted? The front door is boarded up. A window is broken. Human noise from behind torn gray nets. Leah moves from the shadow of a hedge to the forecourt. Nobody spots her. Nothing happens. She stands with one foot hovering off the ground. What would she do with 37 lives! She has one life: she is en route to her mother’s, they are going shopping for a sofa. If she stands here staring much longer she will be late. In the front bay window: Mickey, Donald, Bart, a nameless bear, an elephant with its trunk ripped off. Fabric faces against dirty glass.

— You took your time. Feeling OK? You look a bit peaky. We’ll take the Jubilee, will we?

Pauline steps out of her front door backward pulling a tartan shopping bag on wheels. Always a little older than expected. Smaller, too. From the street it must look like human perfectibility: each generation improves upon the last. Fitter, healthier, more productive. From the owl rises the phoenix. Or rise only to descend again? Longer and longer until it’s shorter.

— Worried about you. You seem all through yourself.

— I’m fine.

— And if you weren’t you wouldn’t tell.

What’s to tell? On the look-out for her, still, almost a month later. Expecting her out of this shop, from behind this corner, by that phone box. The girl is more real to Leah in her absence than the barely signifying bump that is with her all the time, albeit hidden by a sweatshirt.

— I’ve only this blouse on and I’m sweating like a pig already. It’s not natural.

The Hindu Temple has the colours of a block of Neapolitan ice cream and is essentially the same shape. A block of Neapolitan ice cream with two upturned cones at either end. Old Hindus stream down the front steps, unconvinced by the warm spell. They wear their saris with jumpers and cardigans and thick woolly socks. They look like they have walked to Willesden from Delhi, adding layers of knitwear as they progress northwards. Now they move as one to the nearest bus stop, a crowd that takes in Leah and her mother, carrying them along.

— That’s lucky. We’ll hop on. Save time.

— Anyone over the age of thirty catching a bus can consider himself a failure.

— Sugar, I’ve left my pass! What’s that, love?

— Thatcher. Back in the day.

— One for Kilburn tube, please. Two pounds! She was a terrible cow. You can’t remember, I remember. Today this is Brent. Tomorrow it could be Britain!

— Mum, sit there. I’ll sit here. There’s no space.

— Front of The Mail . Today this is Brent. Tomorrow it could be Britain! The cheek of some people. The rudeness of them.

Sat opposite, Leah stares at a red bindi until it begins to blur, becomes enormous, taking up all of her vision until she feels she has entered the dot, passing through it, emerging into a more gentle universe, parallel to our own, where people are fully and intimately known to each other and there is no time or death or fear or sofas or

— and may have had our differences, but he loves you. And you love him. You should get on with it. Council’s set you up very nicely really, you’ve a little car, you’ve both got jobs. It’s the next thing.

You’re next. It’s the next thing. Next stop Kilburn Station. The doors fold inwards, urban insect closing its wings. A covered girl on her mobile phone steps on as they step off and disturbs the narrative by laughing and dropping her aitches and wearing makeup but Pauline is anyway compelled to say what she always says, with elegant variation, depending on the news cycle.

— Just two people kissing, this is Dubai — facing twelve years each. It’s just not permitted, you see. It’s ever so sad.

But this sadness is quickly outstripped by another, more local, sadness. A dirty gypsy girl and a tall fella doing the herky-jerky dance by the self-service machines. Pauline breathes on Leah’s ear.

— I’m grateful no child of mine ever did any of that.

A quick parade of past delights flicks through Leah’s mind, the memory of which is almost intolerably pleasurable: white and brown, natural and chemical, pills and powder.

— I don’t see that there’s anything funny about it. Ach, I can’t believe I left it at home. I always have it in this pocket.

— Wasn’t laughing at that.

Travelcardtravelcardtravelcard.

— What’s she saying, poor love?

— Selling their travelcards, I think.

Very sad, but also an opportunity for a saving. Pauline reaches up to tap the fella on his shoulder.

— How many zones? How much do you want for it?

— One day travelcard. Six zones. Two pound.

— Two pounds! How do I know it’s not some fake?

— Mum. It’s got the date on it, Jesus!

— I’ll give a pound, no more.

— All right, Mrs. Hanwell.

Look up. A jolting form of time travel, moving in two directions: imposing the child on this man, this man on the child. One familiar, one unknown. The afro of the man is uneven and has a tiny gray feather in it. The clothes are ragged. One big toe thrusts through the crumby rubber of an ancient red stripe Nike Air. The face is far older that it should be, even given the nasty way time has with human materials. He has an odd patch of white skin on his neck. Yet the line of beauty has not been entirely broken.

— Nathan?

— All right Mrs. Hanwell.

Good to see Pauline flustered, the sweaty tips of her hair curling up her face.

— Well how are you, Nathan?

— Surviving.

The shakes. Been sliced, deeply, on his cheek, not long ago. It’s an open, frank face, still. Not pretending anything. Which makes it all much harder.

— How’s your mother, your sisters? You remember Leah. She’s married now.

— Is it. That’s good, yeah.

He smiles shyly at Leah. Aged ten he had a smile! Nathan Bogle: the very definition of desire for girls who had previously only felt that way about certain fragrant erasers. A smile to destroy the resolve of even the strictest teachers, other people’s parents. At ten she would have done anything, anything! Now she sees ten-year-olds and cannot believe they have inside them what she had inside her at the same age.

— Long time.

— Yes.

Longer for him. About once a year she sees him on the high road. She ducks into a shop, or crosses, or gets on a bus. Now missing a tooth here and there and there. Devastated eyes. What should be white is yellow. Red veins breaking out all over.

— Here’s that pound. You take care of yourself now. Remember me to your mother.

Quickly through the barrier, bumping into each other in their haste, and then quickly up the stairs.

— That was horrible.

— His poor mother! I should stop in on her one of these days. So sad. I’d heard, but I hadn’t seen it with my own eyes.