Page 54 of Exquisite Things
“Your turn, boy.” Lily emerges from the steaming bathroom. Robe wrapped around her. Towel over her head. Her face looks dewy. Her whole being emanates a floral paradise.
I head to the bathroom quietly. It’s too soon to tell her of my dreams for us. I’ll call her Mommie Dearest as a joke for now. But soon it won’t be a joke. She’ll feel what I feel. Come to the same conclusion I have. That she is the mother I need. And I—please let this be true—the child she wants.
Bram. London. January to March. 1980.
We live in temporary and inconsistent cohabitation for a few months. Lily tells me often that she can’t very well have me sleep on her couch forever. She asks me to leave. So I do. Then she sees me at the Blitz. Or wandering Covent Garden. And she takes me in again. She hates to see me dirty. She makes me new clothes. Washes my grubby ones for me. I find some kids to tutor in time. I try to give the majority of what I make to her. She refuses to take a cent. Says I’m just a kid. So I hide the money for her in envelopes all over her apartment on the nights I’m lucky enough to sleep there. I hide one under her pillow. One in her jar of oats. One in an Audre Lorde book. I think that’s a nice touch.
I refuse to take the money she tries to return. I say she can just spend it on me if it makes her feel better. That’s what she does. Buys me new shoes. A beautiful leather journal. She forces me to write in it every day. Says getting your thoughts out of your body is crucial to staying grounded. She invests in a new pillow for meto sleep on when she notices me massaging my neck too often. We watch every movie she owns on VHS countless times. She takes me to the store to select new ones. Each videotape will be a new shared memory. A new set of inside jokes and scenes we’ll re-create together.
Her friends often join us for movie screenings. Lily is the only one with a television and a VHS machine. Archie lives in a squat in Brixton. Azalea and Poppy live together a little farther up Lambeth. We love to imitate the voices of the movie stars. We speak in screwball voices. Or like we’re in a film noir. We sing and dance like we’re in a musical.
We watchMahoganyso many times that I learn it by heart. It’s Lily’s favorite. Poppy’s too. Poppy loves Diana Ross the way Lily loves Donna. When Lily tries to kick me out of her apartment, I use the same quote from the movie to change her mind. “Success is nothing without someone you love to share it with.”
“But I hate you. You’re a nuisance!”
And yet she lets me stay.
And stay.
And stay.
Cordelia Biddlecombe pays us a visit on the afternoon of Valentine’s Day. It’s the first time she’s been to the apartment since I started staying there. Lily is at the sewing machine working on lilac bridesmaids dresses. Asks me to open the door. What I find is a bony blond woman in dazzling Paco Rabanne. Gold. Pleated. Expensive. “Who are you? Where’s Lily?”
“I’m here, Lady Cordelia!” Lily doesn’t stop working.
Cordelia lets herself in. It is her apartment after all. “Lily, I dowish you’d call me Biddie. We are friends, aren’t we?” Cordelia stares at the couch with her thin eyes. Turns to me. “Are you living here?” Turns to Lily. “Is helivinghere? Who is he?”
Lily stops sewing. Rises to face Cordelia. “His name is Bram. He is not living here.”
“It appears he is from the looks of it.” Cordelia places her hand on the corner of a wall. “The paint is chipped.”
Lily takes Cordelia’s hands in hers. “You seem worried about something. Is everything all right?”
“I’m not worried.” Cordelia’s voice trembles.
“The dresses will be ready in time, if that’s what you’re—”
“I told you I wasn’t worried.” Cordelia pulls her hands away. Anxiously flattens her hair. “It would be nice to have a couch to sit on, but the couch is occupied by your friend who isnotmy tenant.”
“Biddie, you look beautiful today.” Lily smiles. I can tell she used Cordelia’s nickname to change the mood.
Cordelia smiles. Finally relaxes. “I have a date with a duke. He’s taking me to seeBeatlemaniain the West End. Listen...” Cordelia looks at me. Back at Lily. “Is it all right if we speak alone?”
Lily cocks her head toward the bedroom. I scram. Close the door. Lily puts on a record. Nina Simone sings about a wild wind. I hold my ear to the door. I can’t hear every word. But I can hear enough. Lady Cordelia’s father is selling the apartment. Covent Garden has become so seedy. He wants no part of it. It’s out of Cordelia’s hands. She’ll keep employing Lily, of course. They can discuss new terms when Biddie is in more comfortable clothes. It really is out of her bony hands.
Lily calls a meeting to decide what to do. Azalea and Poppy arrive first. Then Archie. I clean the kitchen as they talk. I insist she letsme clean. She wants their advice on where to live. Archie suggests she join his squat.
Lily quickly shuts that down. “I’m not living with a bunch of men.”
Azalea says that she and Poppy already live in a cramped one bedroom. Lily is welcome to their couch. But they have no room for her fabrics or a sewing machine.
Archie tries again to convince her to join the squat. “Everyone in the house is a queen. I promise you’ll love them.”
“I would like to be back in Brixton.” Lily’s voice is contemplative. “But I can’t be living in no squat. Not at my age. And besides, there’s two of us now.”
“Oh, you mean...” Everyone’s eyes turn to me. I don’t dare look at them. I scrub the sink clean.
“I was thinking that Bram should live with me permanently.”
