Chapter Thirty-Eight
It hasn’t exactly been a productive day, but, earlier that evening, Anika was surprised to feel almost no guilt as she waved Cam off to meet up with his boys after a day spent mainly in bed.
They’ve given ‘working from home’ a new meaning, that’s for sure.
It hardly matters now, given her new job is less than a week away.
She’s excited to finally be moving into a role that she’s excited about.
The last time that was the case was back at the record shop, but …
Settling back under her bedcovers, Anika switches off her light and drifts off into memory.
Eight years earlier
The picture was the first thing to really give Anika pause, though she hardly even registered it at the time.
As they began to gather themselves to leave that coffee shop where they’d finally met up, Kwesi had handed a passing waitress his phone and asked if she could take a picture of ‘me and my sister’.
The woman was Black – that felt relevant to Anika only in retrospect.
The waitress glanced between the two of them, perhaps trying to register the familial similarities as she snapped the photograph.
Anika noticed herself tagged on Facebook later that evening, with the same epigraph, Me he’d been a literal child when Dilla died.
Why should he know that this wasn’t a new album?
And yet her anger assailed every forgiving thought in her mind.
‘I thought you were a hip-hop head?’ she said.
‘More like rapping along to “Started From the Bottom” in the rugby changing rooms at that fancy school of yours, eh?’ Even she could hear that her voice didn’t sound teasing.
The hurt on Kwesi’s face said it all. The shameful thing was, she wanted him to hurt.
Anika wanted her brother to hurt like she did.
Fifteen thousand . . . ‘I mean, makes sense,’ she added sarcastically.
‘Don’t worry about it.’ Daggers, thrusting into him for no reason but her own damaged feelings.
‘What—’
‘Your mum rang me this morning.’ Anika cut to the chase. ‘I suppose she just found out we’ve been in touch. Did you even tell her you were coming here today?’
Kwesi scanned her face, his eyes large. ‘I told her I was going record shopping. I’ve just saved up for some Technics decks, so …’
‘Saved up for Technics?’ Anika shook her head.
‘Saved up what? Your pocket money, yeah?’ She emitted a breathy, mocking laugh.
‘My dad gave me some ancient record player he was getting rid of when I was a kid.’ Her voice was low, far away.
‘Our dad.’ She met her brother’s eyes again.
‘But I got his records, right? The ones you wanted so much?’ She could feel herself begin to quake, from her fingertips, up her arms and right into her chest, her heart.
‘Well, don’t worry about it, Kwesi. You got everything else. ’
His confusion began to mingle with what looked like concern and Anika realised her tears had started to fall.
‘Anika, I … I don’t get it. What’s happened? What did my mum say?’
Anika shook her head rapidly, holding up a hand and trying to find her voice, embarrassed and full of fury at the world.
‘Kwesi, I think for now it’s better if we just leave it.
’ She forced the words out. ‘Sorry.’ She turned, pretending she needed to shelve some vinyl to avoid the crushed devastation on her brother’s face, and to hide the tidal wave of tears that had now begun to spill in earnest from her eyes.
‘Please, Anika, I just wanted to—’
‘Sorry.’
‘But … it’s not my fault!’
It was that. Those words. They’d sounded spoilt, entitled, to Anika’s ears.
She whirled around. ‘Oh, please. Just get lost, OK?’ She spat this in a haze of anger – the anger that, if she’d been honest with herself, was always balled-up deep inside.
She’d been unable to hold it back at exactly the wrong moment, flinging it at exactly the wrong person.
Anika regretted it immediately, turning her back on Kwesi as she gasped for air.
She could hear him behind her breathing hard too, the shock of it all winding him like it had her.
But by the time she turned around again, the bell over the door was chiming and he had gone.
Eight years later, even in the haze of sleep, Anika knows that it’s on her to fix what happened with Kwesi – and that only in her dreams could she admit that for all her waking bravado, it was fear that kept her from doing so.