A Traitor to Memory

He said, “Where's that one I got you for Mothering Sunday?”


“Where's what one?” his mother asked.

“You know what one. That new dressing gown.”

“Too nice to sit round in, Jewel,” she said. And before he could protest that dressing gowns weren't intended to be saved just in case one was invited to tea with the Queen so why wasn't she using the one he'd paid two weeks' wages to buy her at Liberty's, she said, “Where you going this hour?”

“Thought I'd go round to see what's up with the super,” he told her. “Case got resolved—th' inspector nabbed the bloke who made the hits—but the super's still out and …” He shrugged. “I don't know. Seemed like it's the right thing to do.”

“At this hour?” Alice Nkata asked, casting a look at the tiny Wedgwood clock on the table beside her, a gift presented by her son at Christmas. “Don't know of any hospital round here that likes having visitors in the middle of the night.”

“Not the middle of the night, Mum.”

“You know what I mean.”

“Can't sleep anyway. Too wired up. If I c'n give a hand to the family … Like I said, it seems the right thing to do.”

She eyed him. “Dressed nice enough to be going to his wedding,” she noted acerbically.

Or his funeral, for that matter, Nkata thought. But he didn't like even getting close to that idea with regard to Webberly, so he made himself think of something else: like the reasons he'd set his sights on Katja Wolff as the killer of Eugenie Davies as well as the driver who'd injured the superintendent so grievously, like what it actually meant that Katja Wolff was not guilty of either offence.

He said, “Nice to show respect where respect's due, Mum. You brought up a boy knows what's called for.”

His mother said, “Hmph,” but he could tell she was pleased. She said, “Mind how you go, then. You see any no-hair white boys in army boots hanging 'bout on the corner, you give them a wide berth. You walk th' other way. I mean what I say.”

“Right, Mum.”

“No ‘Right, Mum’ like I don't know what I'm talking about.”

“Don't worry,” he said. “I know that you do.”

He kissed her on the top of the head and left the flat. He felt a twinge of guilt at having fibbed—he hadn't done that since adolescence—but he told himself it was all in a good cause. It was late; there would have been too much explaining to do; he needed to be on his way.

Outside, the rain was making its usual mess of the estate where the Nkatas lived. Pools of water had collected along the outdoor passages between the flats, deposited on the unprotected uppermost level by the wind and seeping down to the other levels through cracks between the floor of the passages and the building itself that had long existed and not been repaired. The staircase was consequently slick and dangerous, also as usual, because the rubber treads on the individual steps had been worn away—or sometimes had been cut away by kids with too much time on their hands and too little to do to fill it—leaving bare the concrete that comprised them. And down below at what went for the garden, the grass and flower beds of ancient times were now an expanse of mud across which lager cans, take-away food wrappers, disposable nappies, and other assorted human detritus made an eloquent statement about the level of frustration and despair that people sank to when they believed—or their experience taught them—that their options were limited by the colour of their skin.

Nkata had suggested to his parents more than once that they move house, indeed that he would help them move house. But they had refused his every offer. If people set about digging up their roots first chance they had, Alice Nkata explained to her son, the whole plant could die. Besides, by staying right where they were and by having one son who'd managed to escape what could indeed have ruined him forever, they were setting an example for everyone else. No need to think their own lives had limits when among them lived someone who showed them that it wasn't so.

“Besides,” Alice Nkata said, “we got Brixton Station close. And Loughborough Junction as well. That suits me fine, Jewel. Suits your dad as well.”

So they stayed, his parents. And he stayed with them. Living on his own was as yet too expensive, and even if it weren't, he wanted to remain in his parents' flat. He afforded them a source of pride that they needed, and he himself needed to give that to them.

His car was gleaming under a streetlamp, washed clean by the rain. He climbed inside and belted himself in.