A Life Elsewhere Read online

  Part of the problem, Stella says, is that I’m not patient enough. I don’t give things a chance. She thinks I should find something I love and pour all my energy into it. It’s finding that one true thing that’s the problem, though. She says when I get back to London we should both sit down and draw up a list of alternatives, even if it takes a month. She says this from the comfort of a law degree she’s two terms into. ‘And, you know, you could be in the same situation if you wanted.’ She’s always saying things like that.

  I’m happy enough with her – she’s beautiful to me, but I can see where it’s going. In no time she’ll want things I can’t provide, like a house or a holiday or a car for the weekends. She’s always thinking about the long term, but the long term is another country and I say learn to live in your own before you emigrate.

  I make up some change and leave it on the kitchen counter for Bryant. I could leave it on his dresser, but I’d rather not stumble across something in his room I’m not supposed to see. Like whips or dildos or whatnot. I throw my new clothes on the floor in the living room, switch on the air-conditioning and settle on the sofa for a nap.

  Next day by the pool, Mrs Drexel arrives before me. She’s reading and the tips of her strawberry-blonde hair are wet. She pours tea into the plastic beaker of her flask.

  ‘Mornin’!’ she calls.

  ‘Morning,’ I call back. I’m annoyed I have to clean in front of a resident even though she’s seen me before.

  I sweep the net through the water; I’m amazed at how dirty it gets after only one day. I’m appalled that Mrs Drexel has been swimming in it.

  ‘You didn’t say yesterday – are you here on vacation?’ she calls. She’s put down her magazine and pushed her sunglasses onto her forehead.

  I was going to give the pool a second sweep, but I change my mind and retrieve the net. ‘Sort of,’ I say. ‘I’m staying with my brother. Bryant. On the other side.’

  She looks to where I jerk my head as if she can see through the building. ‘Bryant?’ she says in recognition. ‘And he’s got you working? On vacation? Some brother.’

  ‘Well . . . it’s an arrangement, that’s all. He’s my half-brother – we have the same father.’

  ‘Ah – that explains it. The accent, I mean.’ She shoos a fly from her face. Her eyes continue to follow me.

  I’m giving the concrete a hasty brush and, rather than leave little piles of dirt, I sweep it up as I go along.

  ‘ “Father” – I like,’ she continues.

  ‘Pardon?’

  ‘They say “dad”, Marlow and Grace. My children. It’d be nice if they said “father”. More dignified. But, you know, their father’s a pig. It wouldn’t work with him. Listen to me. God! Gabbling.’

  There’s a noise, like the sea lions at SeaWorld, and when I glance up it’s Mrs Drexel, her mouth wide, guffawing. I look at her on the lounger. There are ways to describe her: huge, enormous, overweight, obese. But her laugh is so strange and infectious it’s possible to overlook her size.

  In the evening Bryant’s fidgety. It doesn’t help we’re in a one-bedroom apartment and I’m always in the living room or the kitchen. I sit out on the balcony with the headphones on, listening to CDs, watching the cars on the highway. It’s so humid I just want to go in and lie down. Bryant taps the glass of the sliding doors and when I look round he’s wearing a blue and orange floral short-sleeved shirt, tan trousers and leather sandals. The sandals are a mistake, but to say so would only infuriate him. He’s simply going out. Neither of us mentions the words ‘internet’ or ‘date’ as these excursions always end in disaster. He slides open the door a crack so the cold air won’t leak out.

  ‘Use the change from today to get some dinner,’ he says. Neither of us knows what to do with a cooker, so it’s usually microwave meals or takeaways. ‘I’ll be back late, so don’t wait up. Oh, and remember, we’re going in tomorrow, so get your things ready for the morning.’ He slides the door as far as it will shut without locking.

  When I hear the front door close, I get up and re-enter the air-conditioning. I turn it down so it’s not so cold and dial Stella’s number in London.

  ‘What are you doing?’ she asks.

  ‘Nothing.’

  ‘Is Bryant there?’

  ‘No, he’s gone out on a date, or maybe he’s trying to find a date. I don’t know. I’m bored already and it’s so hot.’

  ‘When are you coming back?’ she asks.

  I sigh because no one knows the answer to this question, least of all me, and neither of us says anything.

  ‘You should make a decision,’ she continues. ‘You could catch the next flight back and start again. We’ll sit down and talk about it. Don’t you miss me? I miss you.’

  ‘We’re talking now.’

  ‘But it’s not the same,’ she says.

  Stella thinks that when I get back I should go to college, take the exams I need to progress further in life. Or I could learn a trade, she says. Bricklaying or plumbing or even work for the council. High hopes. But she means well.

  ‘What are you wearing?’ I whisper.

  ‘Oh, please,’ she says. ‘I thought you said this was a conversation.’

  ‘I’m missing you every minute,’ I say. ‘Are you alone? Are you wearing any knickers?’

  She hangs up and I lie back, listening to the faint rush of traffic and the constant exhale of the air-conditioning.

  *

  There is a boy and a girl the next day. They might have been watching from their balcony and decided to come down. Maybe they think I was getting fresh with their mother. The boy looks about seven or eight, the girl slightly older. Limbs like chicken wings.

  ‘Marlow, get away from the side of the pool,’ Mrs Drexel calls. ‘Can’t you see he’s cleaning there, honey?’

  The boy looks up at me suspiciously while I drag the net through the water, then he moves very slowly along the edge. I’m wearing my new clothes for the interview later today and the pool receives only a cursory clean.

  The girl walks up to me and says, ‘Leon, my mom says to ignore Marlow. He’s just showing off. I’m Grace.’

  ‘Hello, Grace. Who’s Marlow?’ I ask.

  ‘That’s him, right there in the water.’ She points at her brother.

  ‘I don’t see anyone,’ I say, peering at the space he inhabits.

  ‘He’s right there!’ she almost screams.

  Marlow looks troubled at first, then grins and pushes backwards into the middle of the pool and floats on his back for a moment before sinking.

  ‘Can he swim?’ I ask.

  She nods wearily. ‘He’s just showing off. I told you. It’s so boring.’

  ‘Are they bothering you, Leon?’ Mrs Drexel sits up. ‘Grace, Marlow – stop bothering him. Show me some laps.’

  Marlow turns on his back and swims messily towards the shallow end. His sister walks to the ladder and eases in slowly, then begins a cool slicing motion through the water, catching up with her brother, overtaking him. It’s hard to believe these waifs belong to Mrs Drexel.

  ‘Aren’t you the sharp dresser today,’ their mother says.

  I tell her about the interview later this morning.

  ‘But you’re supposed to be on vacation, and Bryant’s got you working round the clock. What kind of brother is he?’

  I shrug. ‘Half-brother. And it’s not really a holiday. I told you, it’s an arrangement.’

  ‘An arrangement?’ She opens her mouth and there it is again, the sea-lion laugh. Honking. ‘You don’t have to tell me, honey. But my sister, she makes an “arrangement” like that – she wouldn’t be my sister for much longer. Cleaning pools, working all the day long. Good grief!’

  I don’t tell her it’s hardly all day, but it seems pointless not saying anything further about it. ‘My father, he thought it would be a good idea if I came over,’ I say. ‘There was some trouble. He wanted me . . . to go away for a bit. So he asked Bryant if I could stay, and he said y
es. I hardly know him.’

  ‘Your father?’

  ‘No, Bryant.’

  She removes her sunglasses. ‘What kind of trouble?’ She glances at the children in the pool. Marlow thrashing as if he’s drowning.

  ‘Oh, this and that. You don’t want to know.’

  ‘Don’t want to know what?’ she says.

  So, I tell her about the credit cards and the shop lifting along Oxford Street and some of the other occasions. Something makes me go on once I’ve started. I even tell her about the clothes I’m wearing for the interview and how it doesn’t mean anything to me, any of it.

  She doesn’t flinch, Mrs Drexel. Not once. I like that about her.

  ‘Boy!’ she says. ‘Hence the arrangement.’

  ‘That’s right.’

  Marlow staggers out of the deep end towards us. ‘Two laps, Mom. Did you see? I didn’t stop once.’

  ‘I saw it, honey. You’re getting better every day. And faster, too.’

  ‘How fast?’ he says. ‘Did you time me?’

  ‘I didn’t time, sweetie. You should have said. I would’ve checked the watch.’ She folds him in his towel and ruffles his auburn hair.

  ‘You’re what, eighteen, nineteen?’ she asks me.

  ‘I’m eighteen in a month.’ I puff up a little, indignant.

  ‘You have so much of life ahead. You don’t want to screw it up now. I expect you’ve heard that already.’ She gives a wide yawn. She does not try to suppress it. That too I like.

  ‘You’re very dextrose,’ I say to Marlow.

  ‘What does that mean?’ He looks up at his mother, then at me.

  ‘It means . . . you’re very fast in the water.’

  The interview isn’t really an interview. Bryant leaves me with his boss, Mr Ferreira, who walks me round the nursing home, showing me what needs to be cleaned and emptied, where I mustn’t venture. One of the residents interrupts and says, ‘A young man! Mr Ferreira, we haven’t been introduced.’

  ‘Brenda, this is Leon. Brenda’s been with us nearly a year now. Isn’t that right, Brenda?’

  ‘Whatever you say, Mr Ferreira. I’m not counting.’

  ‘Leon is going to work for us, starting tomorrow. From London, England, aren’t you?’

  I nod.

  ‘That so?’ she says. She’s bald-headed beneath the candy floss strands on her scalp. She swings her head towards Mr Ferreira whenever he speaks. Her eyes are stretched wide as if she’s permanently surprised.

  Mr Ferreira continues the tour. ‘We like it spotless twenty-four-seven,’ he says. ‘People come to visit all times of the day. It creates a very bad impression if it’s not spic and span. Comprende?’

  Most days it’s easy to nod and smile and say ‘thank you’ and ‘please’, all that social guff. Today is not one of those days.

  ‘Understood,’ I say. ‘What time do I start?’ And when he tells me, I turn around and leave. I do not say goodbye to Bryant. I forget about our lunch.

  I want to be moving fast, to feel the wind counter this humidity. There need not be a destination. I walk across the lazy Hillsborough River towards the bus stop. I continue past the stop until I find what I’m looking for. It’s white and small and Japanese, and there’s a radio and CD player inside. The keys are dangling in the ignition and I know the owner is close, loading or unloading, but I don’t let that bother me. There’s a dog on the back seat, again white and small, curly-haired, but I don’t know the pedigree. I slide in quickly and no one on the pavement lunges or shouts. The dog starts to bark – little yaps, more annoying than deterring, and when the car moves the creature is silent for a moment before the barking begins again. I turn at the next block, open the passenger door, push the seat forward and let the dog out. It’s harmless. I’m tempted to take it back to where I found the car, but I don’t want to risk getting caught, losing the vehicle. In the mirror as I drive away, it’s still barking, turning circles on the pavement, wondering what happened.

  I turn up the radio – a group is singing in Spanish. I listen to it anyway. I drive in a direction I’ve never been before, the window wound down, the air roaring, competing with the music.

  ‘Gotas de lluvia no es el rocío,’ they sing. ‘Lagrimas que vienen del corazón.’

  I could drive to Tallahassee or Miami, even to another state. Maybe end up in New Orleans. But after half an hour I turn around and drive back to Tampa, park the car a block from the apartment. When Bryant returns in the evening he fails to mention the missed lunch.

  ‘Mr Ferreira said you left in a hurry.’

  I shrug and fidget with the chopsticks he’s brought with the takeaway.

  ‘You know, you don’t have to do it,’ Bryant says. ‘We can find something else. You just have to say. I just thought you could do something – I don’t know – useful during the day. I have to tell Dad what you’re doing, don’t I?’

  ‘It’s okay. I’ll do the job,’ I say. ‘It’s cool. These spring rolls are effervescent.’

  ‘What?’ Bryant says.

  ‘You know – they taste really good.’

  ‘You don’t even know what that means.’

  I shrug.

  When Bryant’s asleep, I go out to check the car’s still where I parked it. I walk three blocks to a local bar. The barman squints at me and says, ‘No ID, no dice,’ so I walk back to the apartment remembering the leftover takeaway. When I open the fridge, it’s gone. This is all I need, Bryant telling my father I absconded in the middle of the night. I make some peanut butter crackers, sit out on the balcony and watch the traffic speed by.

  *

  There’s someone else at the pool the next day – one of the

  ‘fighters’, the husband from the poolside apartment. He’s standing in the shallow end doing some kind of exercise, one foot resting on the side of his knee, the leg forming a triangle.

  ‘Did you get the job?’ Mrs Drexel asks.

  ‘I suppose so,’ I nod. ‘It’s just more cleaning.’

  ‘Well . . . it’ll mean more money, right? Can’t be a bad thing. You could take a trip – to St Pete’s or Clearwater.’

  ‘I’ve been already,’ I say.

  ‘You have? When?’

  So, I tell her about the first week, the car I broke into – the mud-red Chrysler. How I travelled from town to town in the leather comfort of it, not getting out of the air-conditioning, even at the beach. Then I tell her about the Toyota from yesterday, about the shoes I’m wearing and all the other things I’ve accumulated.

  ‘Oh my good-giddy-gosh!’ she says. ‘Why on Earth did you do that?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘You don’t know? What does that mean, “I don’t know”? You have to know why. You took my car, I’d be mad as all hell.’

  ‘Well . . . ,’ I shrug. ‘I . . . I have to clean the pool. There are some old people counting on me and I can’t let them down.’

  ‘Yeah, right,’ she says. She walks to the ladder at the shallow end and submerges herself, inch by inch, except for her head.

  I sweep around the sun loungers and empty the rubbish bins.

  ‘Hey, Leon!’ It’s Grace and her brother.

  ‘You’re late,’ I say.

  ‘It’s the weekend, you know,’ Grace replies.

  Marlow stands next to his sister, mute and sheepish.

  ‘Morning, Marlow.’

  ‘Morning,’ he manages. Then he becomes mute again, watching me.

  ‘Last one in’s a crummy poop,’ Grace calls, flinging her wiry body into the pool. She speeds towards her mother in the mistaken belief her brother is following her.

  ‘What’s up, Marlow?’ I say.

  ‘Um, nothing.’ He looks up at me, then turns away. ‘My mom and dad had a fight.’

  ‘Oh . . . oh, well, that happens. You wait, this time next week it will be like it never happened.’

  ‘You think so?’

  ‘Oh, yes. That’s the way it is.’

  ‘Leon?’


  ‘Yes, Marlow?’

  ‘My mom says your mom died. Bryant told her. She says that’s why you’re so mad.’

  Grace has reached her mother and is waving at us, but I can’t hear what she’s saying. Mrs Drexel swims on.

  I shrug and say, ‘Watch this.’ I slip off my new shoes, walk to the edge of the pool and dive in, swim underwater to the other end. I pass Mrs Drexel’s humongous thighs ploughing through the water, her daughter’s legs making little jabs, and the man still doing callisthenics. He says, ‘Big lungs,’ when I surface in the shallow end, but I don’t say anything. I climb out of the pool, my clothes sucking my skin, retrieve my shoes, head back to the apartment.

  *

  Bryant’s on a half day at the nursing home, so he’s still asleep before the afternoon shift begins. I change and walk to the Toyota for the journey downtown.

  ‘Good work,’ Mr Ferreira says, as he checks on my cleaning. ‘Don’t forget to remove the cones from the lobby when it’s dry.’

  Brenda shuffles up with two smiling residents. ‘This is the young man I was telling you about,’ she screeches. ‘From London, England, aren’t you? Here to take care of us, aren’t you?’

  I smile. ‘Hello, Brenda.’

  She’s doing the swinging head movement, from the old man and woman to me and back again. She looks as if she’s expecting a speech.

  ‘Are these your friends?’ I say, in order to break the awkwardness.

  ‘Who? These bozos? Who said we were friends?’ She walks off, still rambling.

  ‘Was it something I said?’ I ask her still smiling companions.

  ‘Oh, no,’ the man says. ‘That’s just Brenda. You wait. She’ll be back. Brenda’s busy, busy, busy.’

  I see the old people move from one place to another, a few still in their beds through choice or necessity. The weekend day manager is talking to Mr Ferreira. She looks up at me and smiles when I remove the cones from the lobby, but she doesn’t say anything.

  When I’m done at the nursing home I fill up the car and drive east, just following the signs: Lakeland, Kissimmee, Cocoa Beach. I don’t know what I’ll do when I reach the coast. I don’t know what’s going to happen.