What Came Before He Shot Her

            “They going to accept me? Dat course started in September, innit. How’d I catch up wiv the rest of the girls if I missed the opening? They give the same courses in the winter term? Cos they ain’t lettin me join up if I missed the first part, are they?”

            Fabia drew her eyebrows together. It took her a moment to unravel what Ness was talking about. Then she realised. They were going at two slightly different subjects. She said, “Oh. No, no. Not the certifi-cate  course, Ness. Wouldn’t it be lovely if I’d managed to find full funding for that? But alas, I haven’t. What I do have is one hundred pounds for a single course. I’ve had a look at the college catalogue and there are single courses available.”

            “Jus’ one . . . ? Oh. Yeah. Well. Figgers.” Ness didn’t attempt to hide her disappointment.

            Fabia was used to this sort of reaction. She said, “Hang on, Ness. You can only take one course at a time anyway. You’ve got your work to do here, and I can assure you that the magistrate has bent as far as he’s going to bend when it comes to you. He isn’t going to rescind the requirement for community service. That’s something we can’t even think about, my dear.”

            Ness said in less than gracious fashion, “So wha’ course is it, den?”

            “There are three actually, so you have your choice. But there’s one small problem, although it’s hardly insurmountable. None of the courses—and this includes the entire certification programme, by the way—are offered here at the Wornington Road college site.”

            “Then where the hell’re they offered?”

            “At a place called the Hortensia Centre. Near Fulham Broadway.”

            “Fulham Broadway?” It might as well have been the moon. “How’m I s’posd to get down to Fulham Broadway, wivvout money for transport? Like you say, I got to do community service here. I can’t do dat an’ get a job ’s well to pay for transport—if there was any jobs, which there ain’t. And anyways, what’s one bloody course at some Hortensia Centre going to do f’r me? Nuffink, far ’s I c’n see.”

            “I did think your aunt might be able to—”

            “She works in a charity  shop, Fabia. Wha’ d’you t’ink she makes for doin dat? I ain’t askin her for money. Forget dat shit.”

            Majidah had come to the kitchen door, having heard the agitation in Ness’s voice, not to mention the volume, her grammar, and her choice of language. She said, “What is this, Vanessa? Have you forgotten there are small and impressionable children in the very next room? They are ears and sponges. Have I not told you this more than once? Profanity is an unacceptable form of expression in this building. If you cannot find another means of sharing your displeasure, then you must leave.”

            Ness said nothing in reply. She merely slammed the biscuit containers back into the cupboards. She took the trays through to the playroom as a means of ending her conversation with Fabia Bender, which gave Majidah time to learn what it was that had caused her agitation. By the time Ness was back in the kitchen, the Asian woman knew it all. Particularly, she’d concluded that Ness’s interest in millinery had been the result of her visit to Sayf al Din’s studio in Covent Garden. Majidah was secretly thrilled by this. Ness was openly embarrassed. Ness hated the thought of fulfilling anyone’s expectations of her, and while she could not know what Majidah’s expectations were, the fact that Ness’s interest in millinery had arisen from her visit to the Soho studio was enough to suggest that Majidah was somehow responsible. In Ness’s mind, that gave the Asian woman power, and power was the last thing Ness wanted her to have.

            “So,” Majidah said when Ness set the trays down on the work top.

            “This is how you react to a small setback, is it? Miss Bender brings you news—which any other human being of reasonable intellect would be forced to consider good, is this not the case?—and because it is not pre-cisely  the news you wish to hear, you throw the apples out with the bathwater, do you not?”

            “What’re you on about?” Ness asked irritably.

            “You know very well what I’m ‘on’ about. Girls like you, they are all the same. They want what they want in an instant. They want it tomorrow. They want it yesterday. They want the end without being capable of sustaining the effort to get to the end. They want to be . . . I do not know . . . some skinny, sickly, catwalk model, an astronaut, the archbishop of Canterbury. What does it matter? They always approach it the same way, do they not? And this is to say they have no plan. But even if they did  have a plan, what would it matter since they cannot attain what they wish to attain by dinnertime? This is the problem with you girls. And boys as well. Everything must happen to you at once. You have an idea. You want the result. Now, now, now. What nonsense this is.”

            Ness said, “You finished? Cos I don’t got to stand here and listen to you rave, Majidah.”

            “Oh but that is exactly what you do  have to do, Miss Vanessa Campbell. Fabia Bender has found you an opportunity, and you bloody well will take it. And if  you do not, then I shall have to ask her to find you another community-service placement, for I cannot be expected to put up with an adolescent girl without any brains, which is what you will be indicating you seriously lack if you do not accept the money to take the millinery course.”

            Ness was struck dumb by Majidah’s use of the word bloody. So she made no immediate reply.

            For her part, Fabia Bender was less unrelenting than the Asian woman. She told Ness to think about her offer. One hundred pounds was the best she could do. There might be more money available in the spring and summer, setting students up for the autumn term. But as for now, it was a take it or leave it proposition. Ness could think it over, but since the enrollment period was fast coming upon them, perhaps she didn’t want to think it over for too long a period . . . ?

            She would not need to think it over at all, Majidah said, if she  had anything to say about it. She would accept, she would be grateful, she would attend, she would work hard.

            Well and good, Fabia told the Asian woman kindly, but Ness would have to be the one to answer.

            MAJIDAH WAS DETERMINED as to what Ness’s answer would be, so the very next day she ordered her over to her flat for late-afternoon tea once the child drop-in centre was locked tight as a drum, with its security lights switched on for the night. She made her usual stops in Golborne Road, purchasing courgettes from E. Price & Son, haddock from the corner fishmonger, and a loaf of bread and carton of milk from the grocery. Then she marched her charge onto Wornington Green Estate and up to her flat where she put on the kettle. She instructed Ness to get the tea things ready, telling her that a third cup, saucer, and spoon would be required but not telling her who the additional tea drinker would be.

            That became apparent soon enough. As if the boiling water were a herald, the sound of a key sliding into the door of the flat announced the arrival of Sayf al Din. He did not immediately enter, though. Rather, he cracked open the door and called out, “Ma? Are you decent?”

            “What else would I be, you foolish boy?”

            “Lovemaking with a rugby player? Dancing in the nude like an Isadora Duncan?”

            “And who might that be? Some nasty English girl you’ve met? A replacement for that dentist of yours? And why might she need a replacement, I ask you? Has she at last run off with the orthodontist? This is what comes of marrying a woman who looks into other people’s mouths, Sayf al Din. It should not surprise you. I told you from the first it would happen.”

            Sayf al Din came into the kitchen as his mother was speaking. He leaned against the doorjamb and tolerantly listened to her expound on her favourite topic. He was carrying a covered dish, which he extended to her when she had concluded her remarks.

            “May has sent you lamb rogan josh, ” he said. “Apparently, she had time to spend in the kitchen between her trysts with the orthodontist.”

            “Am I not able to cook my own meals, Sayf al Din? What does she think? That her mother-in-law has lost her wits?”

            “I think she’s trying to win you over, although I don’t know why. All things being equal, you’re an utter monster, and she shouldn’t bother.” He came to her side and kissed her soundly, setting the covered dish on the work top.

            “Hmmph,” was his mother’s response. She looked pleased, however, and she peeked beneath the foil