Page 84 of Exquisite Things
Maud lets out a sad grunt. Almost a laugh. “Sure. Yes. Of course I knew that. What pisses me off the most is that they’re takingmyhumanity from me.”
“Don’t let them do that,” Lily urges. “Then they’ve won.”
“But theyhavewon.” Maud’s words sizzle. “Look around. They’ve colonized the world. Put us in prison because they feel like it. Built their empires with our slave labor. Test their medicines on us, and then make sure we don’t have access to them when they’re approved. I’m so angry that I can’t even grieve those poor people in Dublin. Forty-eight young souls dead and instead of mourning them like I want to, I’m just so angry. Thirteen dead and nothing said.”
“What happened?” I ask. Then stupidly, I add, “Is everything okay? Where’s Bram?”
Maud’s nostrils flare. “Everything is certainly not okay, Oliver. And it’s not about Bram. I’m sure wherever he is, he’s just fine. There was a fire in Dublin. Just like there was a fire in New Cross. Remember?”
“Yes, of course I—Maud, of course I remember the New Cross fire.” I feel a surge of unexpected guilt enter my body, like a dark and ominous string section. The world goes from major to minor. My romantic visions for the day feel suddenly inaccessible, replaced by nightmares of that fire almost a month ago, in our city, that ended thirteen young Black lives. It’s all Maud’s talked about since. That fire seemed to light something in her. A dormant spark that blazes wildly now. She’s not the only one. The neighborhood has changed since the fire. The same song blaring from every home. Johnny Osbourne.
Thirteen dead and nothing said. Oh, what this world is coming to?
Maud flings her words at me. Filling me in on what I missed by sleeping in. “Thatcher and the queen have written letters of condolence to the victims of the Stardust fire. And they’reIrish, for fuck’s sake. Mother England hates the Irish, but apparently, they hate us more. Where areourcondolences? Where’sourinvestigation?”
Azalea shakes her head. “They don’t want no investigation. If they find out it was some racist firebomb, which we all know it probably was—”
Maud looks at me with fire in her eyes. “It wasn’t the firebomb that was racist, was it?”
I smile. She remembers the day we met as vividly as I do. The summoning of this memory allows me to breathe again. Of course Maud isn’t angry with me. I didn’t light the fire. I don’t put Black kids in jail. I release my guilt and offer Maud a smile. “No, it was the asshole who put it there,” I say.
Maud gifts me a tiny nod of acknowledgment.
“Which is exactly why they won’t investigate,” Lily says. “Thatcher loves the National Front. They’re doing her dirty work for her.”
“What do we do?” Maud asks. Then she quietly whispers the lyrics to Johnny’s song. “Oh, what we gonna do?”
“We will do what we’ve always done,” Archie says. “We’ll keep living. Not merely existing, as Wilde accused the masses of. Butliving. It’s our life they want after all, is it not? We won’t let the National Front or Thatcher or the queen stop us from experiencing joy. This is our time.”
I flinch when Archie speaks those words.This is our time.Four words I believed in with all my heart. Four words that suddenly feelperilous and confusing.Our.Who is included in when we speak of what isours? Andtime. What is time anyway? A single year on Neptune amounts to one hundred and sixty-five years on Earth.
Perhaps Bram and I would be Neptune in the galaxy that is our new family. We’re out of sync with the way the rest of them experience time.
Maud clears her throat. “Easy for you to say,Archiekins.” She pronounces his nickname with disdain. “Ifyouburned in a fire, someone would investigate. Your mother is probably friends with half the nitwit inbred members of the royal family—”
“Maud, that’s enough of that,” Lily says curtly. “Archie is not the enemy, and you have no idea what he’s been through because of his mother.”
“I know that,” Maud says with resigned weariness. “I’m sorry, Archie.”
“No need to apologize, my dear,” Archie says calmly. “We’re all others here. All refugees from the same empire.”
“Really? How are you a refugee exactly?” Maud asks Archie. “With your handsome white face and your posh accent. Your parents probably live not far from here.”
“Unfortunately, they do,” Archie says sadly. “But there may as well be an ocean between us. Perhaps more than an ocean. A solar system.”
Venus. That’s who I want to be. Not the planet. The goddess of love. This was meant to be my day to let my love shine. To not let Bram make all the decisions for us.
“Archie, don’t be a fool now,” Lily chastises without cruelty. “You know that comparison is the enemy of peace, and we need peace in here when there’s war raging outside.”
I know Lily is right. I also know that I was just doing the verysame thing Archie did. Comparing what’s happening now in Brixton to what happened in Boston in 1920. It’s a version of the same thing, isn’t it? The powerful trying to keep the powerless in their place. One big swirling galaxy of injustice?
Lily continues, “Your experience, my beloved Archie, isn’t comparable to Maud’s or mine or to any Black person forced to make a life in countries that still see them as slaves and subjects.”
“Thank you!” Maud says. “Finally, you’re making sense!”
“Child, I always make sense,” Lily says. “Sometimes it’s your listening skills that need work.”
“I’m sorry if that’s how it came out,” Archie says to Maud.
