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  Etta stabbed another piece of meat she could not stomach.

  ‘Maybe,’ she said. ‘But they say, “having a Chinese” too.’

  ‘This is true. But not having a Greek. Never having a Swiss. QED.’

  Etta clamped her lips tight; the sigh escaped, despite her. He knew full well that ‘having an Indian’ or indeed a cuppa or a fag, did not automatically suggest violent conquest or hark back to the Empire (if you left aside all those tea and tobacco plantations). Moreover, Ola knew she knew this. Like a man in a stuck lift, he was jabbing at all her buttons in the hope that one might work, but she was not up for it, not tonight. ‘To have’ was just a bloody handy verb.

  ‘Pass me those poppadoms, my sweetness, I am taking this vindaloo down.’

  Would he not stop? Desperation had an overpowering smell, something between them was dying; you could detect the rot high above the scent of cumin, turmeric and coriander. Her deception stank. Her man, an optimist, sensed they were a touch out of whack, so for the rest of the evening he would be sure to throw out pseudo-political notions and Nigerian wisdoms, quibble and pump himself up larger than life, arse around and only hack her off more. Almost tolerable, if you played along.

  ‘Vindaloo? Ah, yes,’ she said. No other option. ‘Your basic 1980s masculinity crisis on a plate.’

  ‘Yeah, but with chutneys to die for.’ He paused, expecting a laugh that did not come. ‘Anyhow, it’ll clear up this damn cold in the absence of any pepper soup.’

  ‘I told you, Ola, I would happily have made you pepper soup.’ Nothing to pay for, no menu, no fuss.

  ‘Heh? I know.’ He leaned forward. ‘But it’s our anniversary!’

  A wince that Etta could not hide. Ola misread it.

  ‘I know. Sorry sorry o. Last year it was that place. Ah! Where was it now?’

  ‘Le Mijoté.’

  ‘Yes! All Frenchy-Frenchy, Michelin star and whatnot … But you love Indian, right?’

  ‘Of course.’ She meant to stop there, but the stringy meat had lodged between her molars and with one bite it had all become too much. ‘And you love my pepper soup!’

  ‘OK,’ Ola put his fork down. ‘What is going on?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘You’re in a funny mood this evening, Teetee. Everything OK?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I know you didn’t fancy coming out, but we are here now. Relax.’

  She had always reared back from his command to relax; whenever he used it, at the most critical of times, it was never a word designed for her.

  ‘I am relaxed.’

  Etta gave up on the lamb, swilled with water and forked up as much pilau rice as a relaxed person might opt to ingest. She was not up for it, no. It was not their anniversary, because they were not married. She had made that same point for the past two years on each fourteenth of bloody April, yet Ola still seemed keen to disregard it. Boyfriend–girlfriend ‘anniversary’ meals when you were thirty-four and thirty-five did not constitute a great night out. Because one of you might want a little more from life before her ovaries dried up and the other one of you was a selfish bastard.

  Etta felt black laughter bubbling up. She choked it back with a gulp of bhindi bhaji. A bitter aftertaste: for a second, she had forgotten that now she was the bastard.

  Only she knew that the crash was coming.

  ‘See, smiling now, that’s better!’ said Ola, organising the metal dishes around their table; he was now a man wholly in charge of his dinner destiny. ‘Come, chop! Please, my sweetness, pass me the mango chutney.’

  Etta chewed her way towards the end of the enforced celebration, growing sick with nerves. Would dinner be done if she accepted that last morsel of naan, a swipe of vindaloo? No, because then he ordered kulfi – ‘Two spoons, please. It’s our anniversary!’ – and when had they ever had pudding after a curry, let alone one at £9.50 a pop? Following that, coffees; the chocolate mints on the saucer, foiled in gold but still failing to dazzle, and then, only then, could the bill come.

  The Indian finally had, Ola waved his card at the waiter.

  ‘Thanks very much. Deh. Li. Shoss!’

  He inhaled deep to demonstrate a newfound olfactory clarity.

  ‘Pleasure, sir.’

  Etta’s chest felt as if it were bound tightly by constricting facts; venomous, snaking truths which might slither from between her ribs at any second.

  Her hands were shaking, straining to pull at the reins of the evening before it galloped away from them altogether.

  Not possible. This problem was no nest of vipers, or runaway horse. Though wild and intractable, it was a simple maths problem. But she would have to ride it.

  Ola was punching the right numbers into the machine, humming a snatch of his signature melody, the one that signified contentment. He never knew when he was doing it.

  ‘No, I swear: amazing curry, that one. We will come again.’

  ‘Thank you, sir.’

  ‘Sah?’ He laughed. ‘No need, and anyway it’s doctor, not sah.’

  The waiter blinked; it could have been a wink.

  ‘What’s your name?’

  ‘Me? I’m Krish.’

  ‘Aha!’ Ola all but winked at Etta.

  She dug a thumbnail into a flap of tablecloth. The waiter had a lazy eye that could not blink or, it would seem, look away from her.

  Still Ola went on. ‘Just to check, Krish – do you get the tip?’

  ‘I’m sorry—’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Your card has been declined.’ The whole time giving Etta that one-eyed stare.

  ‘What? No. Really? Let me—’

  ‘We should try again. This machine can misbehave, sir.’

  ‘OK then …’ Ola punched in the numbers once more, no longer emitting the jaunty tune.

  The waiter waited; his dry smile turned upside down. ‘Declined, I’m sorry.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I’m sorry, one moment, sir.’

  He went off to seek the advice of a colleague. Ola glared down at his folded hands, as if they were at fault. The couple to their right had given up on speaking; the couple to the left had paused their ping-pong game of flirtation and recrimination. Both pairings, still on mains, were eating with unconvincing concentration, studying their plates as if they might be great artworks of protein and sauce.

  Etta lifted her own bowed head: she had to speak.

  ‘Ola, I wanted to … I just—’

  ‘What? Ah now, here he comes.’

  The waiter was swerving through the tables with his new machine, and his deference, and his watchful eye.

  ‘Here we go, sir.’

  Right,’ said Ola.

  He pressed his PIN into the keypad, dead slow, as if administering the last rites to his manhood.

  ‘Actually, Krish, it could have been blocked because, you know, we’re new to this place. It’s not stolen, ha!’

  The waiter gave him a lopsided look. A gentle understanding suffused his features. The neck-tattoo man smirked at his neck-tattoo girlfriend. All of it, intolerable. Etta felt the blood rising and coughed to divert attention from her flushed cheeks.

  An interminable pause. The seconds unfolded and draped over them, as ruined as their napkins.

  ‘Ah.’ Their waiter bowed his head, the shame all his. ‘Declined, sir.’

  Ola puffed up his chest, taking on oxygen for the fight … then he exhaled and fixed – there – that larger-than-life smile on his face:

  ‘Any good at washing up, Etts?’ Volume up, a more anglicised accent. ‘Your Olly’s got no lolly!’

  ‘Wait, Ola, I must have a—’

  ‘No, do not trouble yourself, I have other cards. But, heh? It is strange, we have money in our account. Never mind. Here, take this.’

  Ola pulled out a credit card, took the machine as if he had been kept waiting and jabbed at the keys once more. He did not ask again about the tip.

  Etta looked on. She counted the smattering of
flecks in the skin which cloaked the wide contours of her lover’s face. It called to mind a natural resource, processed by man: a polished, flawed African hardwood.

  At last, the machine whirred and stuck out a tongue of receipt.

  ‘All fine, sir.’

  ‘Heh.’ Ola sucked his teeth. ‘Good-good, all done now. Actually, I’ll take the voided one too.’

  Temper still heated his stare as he took his own sweet time, folding the receipts in quarters, putting them into his wallet.

  The waiter’s good eye spotted some urgent business on the far side of the room; he hurried away.

  Etta parted her lips, inhaled.

  He got there first:

  ‘I know, Etta, and I’m sorry. Wetin happen? That has to be a sacking offence!’

  There, again, a sunburst lighting up his voice, so the next tables could not fail to appreciate the joyful Nollywood denouement:

  ‘I am a rational, organised human being, heh? A doc-tor,’ he visibly relaxed, having reiterated this to their fellow diners. ‘But I have had so many more work drinks and things lately. This olodo has been too busy to check the balance!’

  A stab of regret somewhere under her ribs. Good with money, though, Ola? Rubbish; another one of those cute nonsenses that oiled their wheels. If he were, he would realise that he had not overspent. If he had any talent in the finance department, he would never have taken out that five grand, four years before, straight after their early days’ amorousness broke the bed and his car collapsed of exhaustion. There would have been a buffer, or bumper: some give. He would already have hit his precious £30,000 mark which, he had decreed, would allow them to ‘move on to marriage’, that most romantic of relocations.

  Tonight’s failings though, were down to her. Etta lowered her gaze from the grin that was fast collapsing opposite her and sipped the grit from her cup. Finally, it was done.

  ‘Not your fault, Ola, you’ve been busy with your research. Come on, can we go now?’

  They walked out. Rain was still coming down hard; he jogged ahead, planning to drive his car up to the door for her. Upset by this chivalry, distracted, she stepped in a waterlogged pothole; as the car pulled up, she lurched forward, leaving the left foot of her heels standing empty in the silt. She thrust her toes back into the sodden shoe.

  Ola leaned across to push open the passenger door. ‘Come on, quick, get in.’

  They moved off, Ola blasting the windscreen with the fan. Beside him, Etta shifted, the snakes troubling her chest. Theft was theft. A lie of omission was still a lie. And surely it could be nothing less than a sin to let the man you loved wander blind into an ambush.

  The short journey home was slow, wet torture.

  As they dripped into the hallway, Etta shrugged off her coat and moved towards the stairs. Ola placed one hand on her shoulder, used the other to stroke a cluster of curls above her neck, then bent to kiss the fine hairs at her nape.

  ‘Ah, woman. What a night!’

  ‘Rainy,’ said Etta.

  ‘Horrendous. Let’s go up.’

  ‘OK,’ she said, aching for the top step. ‘I just have to check on something first, an email. I’ll see you in bed.’

  Etta moved upstairs and turned not left but right, into the spare room. She shut the door and drew the curtains. Her laptop was off but open, on the desk; Ola’s was next to it, closed. He was rarely in there in the evenings these days, although his pages of research often spread themselves out across their desk. The mess didn’t matter: no one had stayed in there for months, not even her mother. Not even them: she had once suggested making love in the redundant bed, just for a change, and Ola had laughed loud and hard, thinking she was joking. She had laughed along and never raised it again. The spare room/study’s remit was dual but narrow: it knew its place.

  She tried to power up her computer, but no industrious click and buzz came: she had somehow let the battery drain dead. She plugged it in and waited.

  ‘Etta!’ An urgent cry.

  She rushed to their bedroom. Ola, in boxers, was holding his phone high.

  ‘I thought I had not spent that much! Did you take the £120 from the joint account last week? Here on my app: £120 on 3rd April. And £80. Look, there’s even £100 missing. No wonder I could not pay at the restaurant! Ah, this must be bloody thieves! Are we being defrauded?’

  Etta fixed her stare past his shoulder, to her side of the bed. There was a smear of lipstick on her pillow. Messy woman.

  ‘We did not take out all this money,’ he went on. ‘What is that, £300 that they just—’

  ‘Actually, Ola,’ she began. As he looked her in the eye, her voice died.

  ‘Yes. What, Etta?’

  It had to be now.

  ‘It was me. I needed to get cash out a few times but forgot to tell you.’

  ‘Eh? What did you spend all that on? What about the budget?’

  ‘I know, Ola. But I went to the food market to get some things, you know, the stuff we can’t get at the supermarket, the okra, the plantain. Garri. I stocked up a bit.’

  ‘Yes, but—’

  ‘Then there was my hair. I had a conditioning treatment, ready for our … anniversary. Not that you noticed.’

  That felt bad: not just the fabrication, but blaming him for this imaginary neglect. It also felt better than it should.

  ‘So: hair and food. That’s it?’

  Etta clenched a hand at her side; and crossed her fingers within the folds of her skirt, a child protecting them from her lies.

  ‘Oh! I know, now. I forgot: Dana at work wanted me to lend her some money for petrol so …’

  ‘So, what, you’re the cashpoint for all your friends now?’

  ‘Ola …’

  ‘I don’t know why you suddenly think we’re rich—’

  ‘I don’t, Ola, honestly.’

  ‘Spending like water. Why, Etta?’

  ‘I know; I should’ve held back, or at least remembered to speak to you about it. Sorry o.’

  ‘Yes. Well. We will not have any more spending money for little things this month … but mystery solved, heh?’

  ‘I really am sorry, Ola.’ In that moment, she meant it.

  ‘Hnh.’

  Ola wandered past her, into the bathroom. He came straight out again and walked over to wrap her in a firm hug. Then he returned to the bathroom.

  Absolved, Etta slipped back to the spare room.

  She shut the door behind her, eyes closed; here again. When she opened her eyes three drops of blood were sinking into the carpet. They must have fallen from her. Nosebleed. She tugged a handkerchief from her handbag, raised the cloth to her nose and rested her head on all she had: the off-white gloss of a rented door.

  This was a warning: she could never again use their joint account. She would have to find alternative sources of funds although, with any luck, she would not need them.

  When the flow appeared to have stopped, she turned to the desk. Her laptop was charging, waiting for her. She huffed out the stale taint of the air stagnating in her lungs and tried to breathe in hope. She released the bands from her hair; pulled, pouffed and patted until it resumed the normal dimensions of her black curly afro. Then, she powered up.

  On Sunday evening, she took a long shower, washing from her mind the sticky residue of that day’s wins and losses. Also, the grit of irritation: her mum’s habitual loving pressure, applied via phone after lunch. In her widowed years, her mum was exhibiting a Darwinistic drive to push Etta over the line, to married woman. When a Jamaican mother had her heart set on grandkids, she usually buck up on dem sooner or later.

  Etta opened her mouth under the stream and let the hot water ease her body, though her mind felt tight, ready to crack. She shampooed and thrust her crown under the stream; tension was pummelled from her soaked skull.

  Perhaps she should get knocked up. Lord knows fatherhood might put a rocket up Ola’s arse. He had, in their earliest days, made a big deal about wanting ‘four-plus’ child
ren, like he was angling to hook her in for good. He was no babyfather, see? No player. Four-plus. It had long been their in-joke, their motto, their kid-filled castle in the air, although Ola had not mentioned it in quite a while. Thank heavens – Joyce had told her, with some relish, what a baby could do to a body. Two would probably do her, max.

  The water worked its magic, smoothing out the knots of both muscles and mind. No, she should not gripe, mums were so often right—

  ‘Damn.’

  She had forgotten to chase Joyce’s email. Since going to her friend’s house and watching her stress right out as they cursed the government – fit to bust, all but spitting plantain chips – she had been meaning to follow up on the email she had written on behalf of Cynthia Jackson. It had now been almost two weeks. There had been an automated acknowledgement, but no reply had come back.

  ‘You not heard nuttin?’ Joyce had asked.

  ‘No, sorry. I’ll get on to them. Has to be a backlog of cases. Or my email could have been destroyed as spam.’

  ‘I’ll give them goddamn spam, my mum’s a wreck!’

  The water coursed down Etta’s back, good and steaming. The original email must have been too weak, lacking firepower. She would call somebody, tomorrow.

  She stepped out from the shower and towelled herself hard. She scurried a finger across the mirror; stared with respect at her cheek and its half-inch scar, in the form of almost a full V or broad tick, below her left eye.

  Based on years of feedback, she could not pretend that her face was anything less than appealing. Her scar tissue was an aesthetic anomaly, caused by an infantile fall from a stool. It was only remarkable – a vivid slash across the smooth dun expanse of her childhood – because her earliest years had been nice: safe and warm and bright.

  She scrubbed the rough towel across her cheek. Granny would say to her:

  ‘Scar unlucky. That skin lucky.’

  She did not buy that her lighter skin presaged a radiant destiny. Not like her mum’s schoolfriend, Auntie Agnes, who had wrecked her face with bleaching creams. Etta shivered in the cooling steam. All these women, treating their skin like dirt; scouring their faces, whitewashing an eroded sense of self. She hated it, all of it; wished every last inch of skin-bias and racism dead.