Niyati Keni - Esperanza Street

‘At least,’ said Eveline. ‘Why, there are several storeys all along the river.’

‘You can’t just break up a community that’s been there for generations and expect there to be no consequences,’ said Pastor Levi.

‘There’s no place in business for sentimentality,’ said Eddie.

‘You can’t dismiss it as sentiment,’ Mulrooney said angrily. ‘These are real lives.’

‘We’ve considered a number of alternatives.’

‘What will be your sacrifice?’ Benny said suddenly. ‘You said everyone would stand to lose something. What will you lose?’ The room fell silent. Aunt Mary put her fork down carefully. ‘Boys,’ she started.

‘Am I answering to teenagers now?’ Eddie smiled. ‘Antonio wouldn’t dream of interrogating his elders.’

‘Nevertheless, it’s an interesting question,’ said Pastor Levi.

‘I’d certainly like to hear the answer,’ said Mulrooney.

‘I grew up in Greenhills,’ said Eddie quietly to Benny. ‘There’s no point clinging to a history. We can move with the times or be left behind. It’s a choice.’

‘Not for everyone,’ said Aunt Mary firmly. ‘Not everyone has a choice.’ She looked at Benny, a fleeting pride in her face.

‘This should be a discussion for adults,’ said Eddie, catching her expression, ‘For those who will actually be footing the bill.’

‘It depends on what you mean by footing the bill,’ said Eveline hotly. Pastor Levi reached out and squeezed her hand. I saw Mulrooney look at their hands on the table. I wondered if he ever thought about getting married himself. I imagined Jaynie next to him, their hands side by side, almost touching, looks exchanged as they leaned together during the conversation.

‘Let’s not ruin such magnificent food with an ideological debate,’ laughed Eddie.

‘It’s a worthy discussion for a good meal,’ said Mulrooney.

‘It’s not as if I’m on my own,’ said Eddie, ‘as if I’m the only interested party. The scheme will go ahead with or without me. I’m simply making the best of an opportunity.’ I’d never imagined Eddie as a small fish and I wasn’t quite ready to believe it, but the table fell silent again after he said it.

‘Wasn’t it your idea?’ said Aunt Mary, eventually.

‘Well, ideas can’t be owned,’ said Eddie, sitting back, his hands spread out, like a picture of Jesus at the last supper. ‘They take on a life of their own in no time.’

‘Nothing can really be owned,’ I said softly.

Startled, Eddie looked round at me and then started laughing. Lola Lovely straightened up in her chair and said, ‘Perhaps you’re needed in the kitchen, Joseph.’

‘What a household you have, Mary,’ Eddie said. ‘Full of youthful romanticism.’ He stared at Dub. Dub met his eye but looked away again quickly and then, suddenly, pushed himself back from the table and stalked out of the room. Immediately, Aunt Mary excused herself; as she followed him I moved forward to start clearing the empty platters away, my body blocking the view of the hallway. When I came out with the plates, I heard her say, ‘Don’t you dare leave. I want to talk to you.’

‘Sure,’ said Dub unhappily.

She gave him a long look. ‘This evening is important to me,’ she said. ‘If you can’t behave graciously, you may have your dessert in the kitchen, if America has room for you.’

Dub didn’t return to the table but slipped up to his room and closed the door. He didn’t answer when I took a plate of America’s sponge up to him and I brought it down with me again. A little later, I heard the front door close and the sound of a motorbike engine, but the voices in the dining room continued without pause and Aunt Mary didn’t emerge.

I was kept busy in the kitchen, brewing coffee and clearing up with America. Every now and then America and I paused in our work and glanced at each other when we heard the voices rise to a crescendo, but we couldn’t make out what was being said.

Eddie Casama and Connie left early. I read the disappointment in Aunt Mary’s face and understood that nothing had been resolved. She walked upstairs to Dub’s room and pushed the door open and when she came downstairs her mouth was a thin line. ‘Did he say where he might be heading?’ she asked me. I shook my head. And then she asked me what I knew, whether her son was seeing a woman, whether there was some connection with Edgar Casama. And, for the first time, I lied to her and knew that she saw it. She looked at me, through me, and then without another word she left the kitchen and retired to her study.

Two days after Eddie Casama ate at our table, Dub came to see me in my room. He stooped a little as he stepped through the door. He’d never set foot in it before and I saw his surprise as he looked about him. ‘Not much of a window,’ he said. ‘I’d go crazy. It’s like a … ’ He glanced at me, reddened.

‘I don’t spend so much time in here,’ I lied.

He threw a book onto the bed next to me. ‘She said you had to read this one.’ I glanced at the upside-down cover, recognised a detail from Picasso’s Guernica , a painting that Benny had marked in one of his mother’s art books. I touched the book lightly. If Dub hadn’t been there, I might have raised it to my face, sniffed it. The Age of Reason. It looked like a serious book and I was flattered. I’d read everything she’d sent me, even rehearsed opinions on them in case she ever asked, though of course she never did.

Dub moved further into the room and I was conscious of an urge to shrink back against the wall to accommodate him. He sat down against the wall, in the same spot Benny had occupied, and stretched his legs out, pushing his feet into my bedding. I’d been reading when he came in and he smiled at the book already in my hand. Dub had little interest in books. He was too alive, too connected to the world to need to evade it. ‘Good?’ he asked, looking away again before I answered.

‘Sure,’ I shrugged, though I was only a few pages into it and, my thoughts still in thrall to the last book I’d read, I was disinclined to enter a new world just yet. I thought how if he’d been Benny I’d have said as much.

‘One of hers?’ Dub’s voice softened. I’d noticed before that he never referred to BabyLu by name when he spoke about her with me; she was our only common ground.

‘One of your mom’s actually.’ He frowned up at the doorway at the mention of his mother. He didn’t say anything for a while. I listened for any sounds coming down the passageway. I’d left America in the kitchen but I couldn’t swear she was asleep; it was too quiet.

‘You want to go for a spin?’ Dub said suddenly.

‘Now?’

‘Sure, why not. America’s sleeping out there. Mom’s in her study.’

‘I don’t know.’

‘What don’t you know? How to have fun?’

I stared at him, surprised. Then I stood up.

America opened her eyes as we came out of the passageway and watched us, silently, as we crossed the kitchen, her eyes slitted like a cat’s. I pretended not to notice. She’d looked fed up all evening, banishing me to my room a little earlier than usual, but I wondered now if she’d wait up just so she could grill me when I got back. I didn’t care; I’d never been on a motorbike before.

Dub wheeled the bike out onto Esperanza before starting the engine. I locked the gate behind us. He held out a helmet, the same one he’d given to BabyLu. It still smelled of her. It was tight as I pulled it on and I struggled for a while with the straps, as she had done. Dub, already astride the bike, glanced back at me, his foot tapping lightly against the gear lever. I gave up and climbed on behind him, the straps hanging loose under my chin.