Love Me by Gemma Weekes Read Free Book Online Page B

says Zed. ‘First week in August.’
    â€˜That’s just a few weeks away.’ I sound destroyed, even to myself.
    â€˜So, you can count!’
    I push something like a laugh out of my throat. ‘So you were just gonna leave without telling me? Nice. Look, thanks for breakfast, OK? It was great.’
    He tries to say something but my ears might as well be sewn shut. I tune him out and check I’ve got my keys, wallet and Oyster card. Good to go. Sometimes I think he does this for fun. On purpose or by accident, he always knows what to do to make me hurt. He’s like that evil corner on a coffee table that’s fallen in love with your shin-bone.
    â€˜Are you going back to Hackney?’ says Max suddenly.
    â€˜What? Yeah I—’
    â€˜Why don’t you wait a minute and I’ll give you a lift?’
    I look at Zed’s face and its habitual blankness is disturbed.
    â€˜Really, it’s no trouble,’ babbles Max, ‘I’m going in that direction anyway. Going down my nan’s in Leyton.’
    â€˜OK.’
    When she rushes up the stairs to get dressed, Zed stops eating. ‘For the record,’ he says, ‘I’m sorry about what happened last time you came here, Eden. If I gave the wrong impression. No disrespect intended.’
    â€˜You’re a joker!’ I tell him. ‘Don’t worry. I’m fine. I’m always fine!’
    â€˜I mean it, Eden.’
    â€˜Just forget it, OK?’
    â€˜Why can’t you just—’
    â€˜Forget it.’
    I grab the remote control and turn the volume up loud over his voice and, with a snort of disgust, he begins clearing the table. It takes only a few minutes and a few times watching him wince with pain before I can’t watch anymore.
    â€˜Zed, let me do it, please.’ I don’t look at him. ‘You have a fucking broken arm!’
    â€˜It’s not broken . . .’
    â€˜Whatever it is! Just get out of the way.’

wait—
    Brooklyn, 3 June
    Â 
    You remember Soufriere, Eden? The volcanic springs, black mud, the air hot from above and from below? Well that’s where your mother and I were born, in the very place Saint Lucia itself began life. Imagine the power of a whole island being birthed! Big magic! Fire shooting out from the belly of the earth, bubbling, spreading, going cool on the water, exploding with greenery and creatures. We have magma in the blood, Cherry Pepper. It’s not easy. We live in the shadow of the Pitons. We are the earthquake. We are the shaded soil.
    Your mother and I are so happy you wrote back with questions about your pre-history. These days the past feels very present, and maybe it is. What do any of us know on that score, anyway? Marie says it’s not as we think. And she says roots are exactly what you need to settle you, otherwise a good wind could strip you, knock you over and roll you down to the bottom of the hill. And she says you’re wrong, Eden. She loved you very, very much.
    So. Our childhood . . . Well, I was the first, as you know, and my birth was also considered a miracle, although not a happy one. If I squint, hold my breath and cast my mind back, I can remember Mama’s face when she looked at me for the first time. What a look it was! So disappointed and afraid, as if somebody must have done obeah on her and given her a devil baby. I was black, black, black at birth. Like cold volcano fire. I was black as her own father, with theknotty hair that beads at the neck, and she didn’t thank me for the memories.
    As I grew, the disappointment, revulsion and a strange kind of inside-out wonder would not leave her eyes. I was an accusation in pigtails. I was a blast from the past. She heard chains when she looked at me, she smelled coal-pot fires, pit toilets and heard barefoot workers in the field. For a while I thought my behaviour could make a difference, tried not to do anything wrong to make things worse.