devious, but she told herself that there were things to discuss and she needed a quiet place in which to do it. The gym certainly wasn’t that. The Falcon—or at least the bedsit above it—was.
Dix wasn’t there. One of his two flatmates was, though. He directed Kendra to the Rainbow Cafe. Dix was working there, helping out his mum. Had been for the last three weeks, she was told. Had to give the bodybuilding a rest.
Kendra thought in terms of Dix’s doing damage to himself from which he had to recover. But when she got to the Rainbow Cafe, she discovered that this was not the case. His dad had suffered a heart attack on the premises, one serious enough to frighten his wife and his children into insisting that he follow doctor’s orders: five months of rest and no messing about with those instructions, Mr. D’Court. The man—only fifty-two years old—was himself frightened enough to obey. But that meant someone had to step up to the cooktop and take his place.
The Rainbow Cafe comprised an L of tables that ran across the front window and along the wall, as well as a counter with old swivel stools in front of it. When Kendra entered, she went to that counter. It wasn’t a mealtime, so behind the counter Dix was engaged in cleaning the cooking surface with a metal scraper while his mother put paper napkins into dispensers, which she had removed from the tables. She had the salt and pepper cellars ranked in front of her on a tray as well.
The only customer present at the time was an elderly woman with grey hairs sprouting from her chin. Despite the warmth of the cafe, she hadn’t removed her tweed coat. Her stockings bunched around her ankles and she wore thick-soled brogues on her feet. She was nodding over a cup of tea and a plate of beans on toast. To Kendra, she seemed the complete embodiment of the What Could Be’s, a chilling enough sight.
When Dix’s mother saw Kendra, she remembered her, despite having met her only once. She assessed the situation as any shrewd mother might have done in similar circumstances, and what she saw she didn’t like.
She said, “Dix,” and when he looked up, she nodded in the direction of Kendra. Dix thought he was meant to take an order from someone, and he turned to do that but let out a breath when he saw who’d come calling.
The estrangement from Kendra hadn’t been easy for him. She was in his blood. He hated this, but he’d come to accept it. He didn’t know what to call it: love, lust, or something in between. She was just there.
As for Kendra, Dix still looked good. She’d known that she missed him but not how much.
Dix wasn’t a man to lie. He said, “Still lookin good, Ken.”
“You,” Kendra said, returning the compliment. She glanced at his mother and nodded hello. The woman nodded back. Her acknowledgement was pro forma. A tightening of the rest of Mariama D’Court’s face spoke much more.
Dix looked to his mother and they communicated wordlessly. She disappeared into a storeroom, taking the tray of salt and pepper cellars with her, leaving the napkin dispensers behind.
When Kendra asked when Dix had started working at the cafe, he brought her into the picture about his dad. When she asked what about his weight training, he said some things had to wait. He got in two hours a day just now. That had to be enough until his dad was well. Kendra wanted to know how was he coping, what with competitions coming and not having enough time to prepare for them. He said there were more important things than competitions. Besides, his sister came around to help out every day as well.
Kendra felt a rush of embarrassment. She hadn’t even known Dix D’Court had a sister. She was too awkward in that moment to ask a single thing about her: older, younger, married, single, etc. She just nodded and waited for him to ask in turn about life on Edenham Estate.
He did, and just the way she’d hoped because that was his goodhearted nature. He wanted to know about the kids. How were they doing? he asked her. He turned to continue cleaning the stove. He seemed to give his complete attention to the task.
She said good, the kids were good. Ness was doing her community service without complaint and Toby was still topping up his education at the learning centre. She’d decided no further testing was going to be necessary for Toby, by the way, she added. He was doing that well.
And Joel? Dix asked.
Kendra didn’t answer until Dix turned back to her. She asked him if he minded if she smoked, adding that she remembered how he didn’t like it much.
He told her to suit herself, so she did. She lit a cigarette and said, “Missing you.”
“Joel?”
She smiled. “S’pose. But I’m talking about me. I see you here and it all goes away, you know?”
“Wha’s ’at?”
“Whatever made us split apart. I can’t remember what it was, just what we had. Who’re you seein now?”
Dix breathed out a laugh. “You t’ink I got time to see anyone?”
“What about wanting to see someone? You know what I mean.”
“Don’t work like dat for me, Ken.”
“You’re a good man.”
“Dat’s right.”
“Okay. So I say it straight out: I was wrong and I want you back. I need you back. I don’t like life without you.”
“T’ings’re different now.”
“Cos you’re working here? Cos of your dad? What? You said there’s no one—”
“You di’n’t answer me ’bout Joel.”
And she wasn’t about to. Not just yet. She said, “We’re the same, you and me. We got dreams and we fight to keep the dreams alive. People c’n fight better together than alone. There’s that and everything we feel for each other. Or am I wrong? You not feeling wiv me what I’m feeling wiv you? You not wanting to leave this caff straightaway and be wiv me the way we c’n be together?”
“I di’n’t say dat, Ken.”
“Then let’s talk about it. Let’s see. Let’s try. I was in the wrong about everything, Dix.”
“Yeah. Well. I can’t give you what you want.”
“You gave me what I wanted before.”
“Now,” he said. “I can’t give you what you want now. I ain’t a security service, Kendra. I know what you want, and I can’t give it.”
“What I . . . ?”
“You ain’t mentionin Joel. The cops. The barge burning. You t’ink I don’t know wha’s going on in your life? Wha’ I’m saying’s t’ings no different’n the last time we talked except you got more reason to be worried now you got two kids under the eye of the cops instead of just one. An’ I can’t make a diff ’rence in all dat. I can’t make it go away the way you want. I can’t make the
Kendra wanted to tell herself that he was being deliberately cruel to her instead of merely honest. She also wanted to lie to him, telling him that her request had nothing to do with Joel and everything to do with love and the future they might have together. But she was, at the moment, too stricken by his knowledge of her that was far supe rior to her knowledge of him. She was additionally stricken by the fact that his mother had heard their conversation, as the satisfi ed expression on her face indicated when she emerged from the storage room with her salt and pepper cellars filled and ready to be replaced on the tables.
Kendra said to Dix, “I was thinking family. What we could be.”
“More to family ’n dat,” was his reply.
20 Kendra told herself that things weren’t as bad as they seemed. Since there were parts of Joel’s story that she knew were true and supported by the statement of one Ubayy Mochi, there was also a slim chance that the burning of the barge was a one-off situation having nothing to do with the boys who’d been tormenting both Joel and Toby. In order to believe this, however, there were other parts of the tale that she had to ignore—such as
