Chapter Twenty-One
Back in her flat a few hours after leaving Shamz’s office for post-work drinks, Anika sighs with relief as she sinks the needle over the vinyl special edition of Miles Davis’s Ascenseur pour l’échafaud.
Miles’s high, goosebump-inducing horn emits from her living-room speakers, setting a film-noirish, smoky calm as the rest of the jazz ensemble joins him.
It wasn’t even especially loud in the bar, but her ears feel like they’ve been ringing ever since the encounter with Cam in the lobby and all the memories it’s lifted up.
On the train home she felt a growing queasiness, a sensation that she was trying to stave off with the pint of water now gripped in her hand.
At least she has the weekend to prepare for whatever’s to come with Cam now he’s realised who she is.
Actually . . . Checking the wall clock, Anika sees that she still has forty minutes before ‘tomorrow’ begins.
She’s going to use it wisely. She doesn’t have to let fate control how things go now and she has some more immediate hurdles to deal with: she’s agreed to meet up with Wendy tomorrow.
Finishing her water, Anika picks up the diary from where it lies on the coffee table, examines the list of affirmations already on the next page and then adds a couple more before writing up her manifestation.
Today I ate what made me smile.
Today I said what I thought.
Today I didn’t let anything derail my forward motion.
Today I danced my arse off. Figuratively.
I’m starting to get into my social-butterfly era.
I went for a brisk morning walk like some kind of LA socialite (substitute south-east London for Southern California), before treating myself to some proper relaxation – had to gather up my strength ahead of going to the club with Wendy and her gal pals tonight.
But there was no cause for concern, because that was all good, too.
It was so great to see Wendy, it had been too long.
I made sure she and I were solidly on the right page, and the other ladies were fine.
Nothing caused any degree of cringe, even if there were various attempts to test my limits, and the music was top tier.
I wore the hell out of the playsuit I finally decided to wear, too, and I didn’t let any fuckboys invade my space or ruin my night.
I claimed each space I inhabited as my own, no matter what …
Saturday 28th July
Anika waits for her drink at the coffee shop the next morning, standing on her tiptoes to stretch out her calves.
She’s feeling smug about having already finished her walk as dictated in the diary, and it’s only during a pause between tracks in the Hiatus Kaiyote album she’s blasting through her earbuds that she hears the barista calling her name.
‘Anika? Is there an Anika? Large Americano with a shot of vanilla?’ The exasperation in his tone suggests he’s been calling out for a while.
‘Oh, sorry, yes.’ Anika takes the coffee from the barista’s hands swiftly, but then scans the pastries in the display case in front of her and remembers her line in the diary about eating food that will make her smile.
‘And, er, can I get one of those pecan muffins as well, please?’ She has just done an hour-long power walk, after all – she deserves it.
The server sighs slightly as he goes to grab some tongs and just then Anika hears her name again, this time coming from behind her.
‘Anika? Gosh. It is you.’
Anika turns around. It’s as though an ice-cold bucket of water is being thrown over her as she realises who’s speaking.
The reluctant face of Eloise Lunn-Lapo confronts her – dark hair greying slightly now, her face more lined, pale skin sagging a bit more around her bright green eyes, but she’s still undeniably beautiful.
The woman who did marry her father. Wildly, Anika’s mind goes straight back to the diary.
How could she still be blindsided by anything after all that has happened to her?
‘That’s three seventy-five for the muffin, then, please.’ She’s given a second to compose herself as the barista interrupts.
Anika turns to him. He’s leaning to the side, looking past her to monitor the queue forming behind them. She remembers the debit card in her hand and proffers it, painfully aware of the pending small talk. Picking up the bag with her pastry, Anika turns to Eloise more fully. ‘Hi.’
Eloise stretches her smile awkwardly, searching Anika’s face as if to gauge whether she might lash out. Anika hardly blames her, given how things went the last time they spoke. That was something like eight years ago now …
‘Who’s next please?’ the barista calls impatiently.
‘Oh, er, two flat whites, please,’ Eloise calls over Anika’s shoulder in her soft, clipped voice before turning back. ‘Gosh,’ the older woman repeats, stepping aside to allow the queue to move up. ‘How are you?’
‘I’m …’ Anika pauses. Fine is the word everyone expects but honesty takes over, though what makes her even vaguely interested in drawing this out she’s not sure.
Maybe it’s spite – wanting to elicit some form of guilt from Eloise, even if she isn’t sure what form that’s supposed to take after all this time and all the apologies.
Anika tries ineffectively to release the tension in her shoulders.
‘I’m all right. I mean, I was in hospital a few weeks ago.
I had to have a bowel obstruction removed.
It was kind of a bit touch and go for a minute there, actually.
’ She looks at Eloise, whose eyes widen in surprise.
‘Goodness …’
‘Yeah. It was a lot. But I’m good now.’
Maybe what Anika really wants this woman to know is that the trauma of everything that happened with her dad – and how Eloise exacerbated it – hasn’t taken her down; that she’s a fully formed, powerful woman despite it all. And yet the moment the last words leave Anika’s lips, her head swims.
‘I’m so sorry to hear that.’ Eloise sounds sincere. ‘I’ve thought about you so much over the years,’ she adds softly. ‘I’m so sorry about how—’
‘Thanks,’ Anika says quickly. She can’t think backwards right now. I won’t let anything derail my forward motion. ‘What are you, er … I didn’t know you were local?’
‘Oh,’ Eloise shakes her head. ‘No, just visiting Kwesi. He’s at Camberwell School of the Arts now. Well, he’s actually about to go into his final year and his digs are just down the road, so …’
‘Oh, right.’ Anika nods and takes a too-hot swallow of coffee.
She tries to disguise her surprise that her brother – half-brother – is already nearly done with university, and so close by.
Anika’s immediate image of Kwesi is still as a little boy, even though she had later interactions with him.
She tries to avoid thinking that, but the memory hits her, nonetheless.
Eight years earlier, Anika was living in the Kentish Town flat with Wendy (well, the place Wendy’s mum owned) and working at what would have been her dream job, were it not for the abysmal pay, in a record shop in Soho.
One evening she opened Facebook on their sofa while the TV droned in the background and found herself confronted with a message from Kwesi, short and simple, alongside a ‘friend’ request. She wasn’t sure how to feel about it.
She was surprised and happy to hear from him, but she also felt guilty that he was the one mature enough to reach out.
And there was also that old, familiar resentment, knowing that Kwesi grew up with constant access to their father, that he was claimed and surrounded by whatever love Nelson Lapo wanted to give him.
Anika ignored Kwesi’s message for three days before curiosity got the better of her.
She responded, perhaps overcompensating, by asking if he’d like to meet up.
She hit send before even thinking about just how awkward that might be, but he pounced on the suggestion and they arranged to meet at a café around London Bridge.
Walking in, Anika craned her neck through the crowd of tourists sipping their drinks in the pinewood-decked space, trying to identify her sibling.
She had the uneasy feeling she was about to meet up with a total stranger.
But when her eyes locked with a boy whose striking features were lightened and remixed versions of her own – of their father’s – they simultaneously both broke into wide smiles.
‘Anika!’ Kwesi called, his voice already deep despite his lanky, fifteen-year-old frame.
She swallowed, embarrassed at the nerves that battered her insides, and sucked in a breath of the condensation-filled air, forcing her feet to make their way over to Kwesi.
He sprang up as she reached the table, rustling in his green Parka as he pulled Anika into a loose, anxious hug.
She patted a hand against the nylon of his back.
‘Wow. It’s, uh … I’m … Thanks for coming.’ He rubbed at the light sheen of sweat clinging to the thin wisps of hair on his upper lip.
‘Yeah,’ Anika said, trying not to stare at him. Up close he reminded her so much of her dad. ‘It’s really nice to see you.’
Anika let him buy her a coffee and then she wasn’t sure where to start other than to ask him about school. He spoke about the pressures of expectations for Oxbridge, and about his friends being on Easter holidays in Copenhagen, and Anika began to clock how different his teenagehood was from hers.
‘So like, what about you? Do you have a job and stuff?’ Kwesi eventually asked, his green eyes glinting eagerly at her. A knot of insecurity began to tangle with her resentment.
‘Yeah, I’m working on it. I’m aiming to get into radio. But for now,’ she bit her lip, ‘I’m working in a record shop, actually. Volume Records, in Soho.’ She startled when Kwesi made an incredulous noise.
‘What? Volume Records? As in VanBoozle’s record shop?’
He spoke the DJ’s name with such reverence that Anika couldn’t help but grin. ‘Yeah. He’s not in there much, he’s been touring a lot in the States the last few months.’
‘That is fucking amazing!’ Kwesi’s jacket remained firmly on and it rustled as he moved around in his chair, unable to contain himself.
‘Like, no one in my school really gets how much a DJ like that means to, like … the culture, you know?’ He glanced at her, as though testing the phrase out.
‘Could I come and see you there sometime? Like maybe even this weekend?’
Anika nodded. ‘Yeah, sure. I mean, obviously, whenever you want. I’m fairly sure I’ve got a shift this Saturday.’
Kwesi’s eyes glinted with excitement even as he tempered himself into a nonchalant nod. ‘Nice. Yeah, I’ll come down then.’
But what Anika didn’t realise was how a series of incidents leading up to Kwesi’s visit that weekend would prove fatal to their burgeoning relationship.
And now it’s eight years later and she’s standing in a coffee shop with his mother, trying to forget everything that happened.
Was it pride that kept Anika from reaching out to her brother all this time?
No. It was fear that Kwesi would reject her, having seen her lying fallen at the bottom of the pedestal that he put her on …
‘Two flat whites, madam,’ the barista shouts, and Eloise reaches for her coffees.
Kwesi is in Camberwell. Should she ask Eloise for his details?
I could try again. Anika knows she could control the situation better this time.
She’s different now. She has the power to write her future into being …
But the time doesn’t seem quite right. I need to finish getting myself together before I can sort anything else out.
‘Well, the coffee’s great here,’ she tells Eloise.
The older woman sets down the exact change onto the glass dome of the countertop to pay for her drinks.
‘Good. Great,’ she says distractedly, looking at Anika more closely.
Her mouth opens and closes as though she wants to add more but isn’t sure what.
‘Anika … I … I hope sometime that …’ She purses her lips slightly.
Anika’s jaw tenses. ‘I’m just glad to have seen you. I’m glad you seem to be doing so well.’
‘Thank you.’
As Anika walks out of the coffee shop, her eyes fall on the glint of the ruby ring on her left hand – the one that her mother gave her in the hospital.
That, in a roundabout way, her father gave her.
Maybe she’s spent too long dwelling on resentment, failing to see all that she has been given by Nelson Lapo. Love. Music. A sibling …
The ring, a bit like the diary, is meant to bring her luck.
And I have been lucky. I am, and I will be.
But Anika wants – needs – to test it. To make sure.