Chapter 8

CHAPTER 8

D AY 1

We arrived at Malindi after fourteen hours of traveling, and the air was thick with the kind of heat that held your body up. A man handed us keys to a car and told us to text when we wanted to return it. There was no paperwork, and the tank was empty.

He had decided that the holiday would be a good time to quit smoking, and so, driving to Watamu, he swore at the hidden speed bumps and the donkeys and the bicycles and the mkokoteni. I had suggested a taxi, but he said he preferred to be in control.

I lowered the dusty window and watched the world unfold and fall behind the car. It was like reading a book I hadn’t read in years only to find that it wasn’t exactly as I remembered. The colors were duller. There were more buildings. And the potholes were making me feel sick. Dad used to drive over them at speed and I would giggle while Mum held her stomach, the way that I was now, and accuse him of aiming for them to spite her. But there was an occasional smell of something in the breeze, I didn’t know what of, but something so familiar that I had to pinch my arm to stop from crying.

He put on the radio and scanned past the static.

The road became smoother the farther we drove from the airport, but the sickness in my stomach remained. When we reached Gede, we turned toward the ocean and drove through Timboni. The buildings were bright colors, and there were stalls selling vegetables, plastic toys, mitumba clothes, shiny party dresses, and kitchenware. Everything was busier than I remembered. The town looked twice the size. I told him that, and he said, withering, that it had been nearly two decades. The final stretch was quiet until we arrived.

Okay, this should be it, he said, turning in. You have the instructions for the keys, yeah?

W E OPENED THE DOOR to the beach house, and it was instantly familiar, but then it changed and became unfamiliar the way that a word does when you focus on it. It looked like a sketch artist’s impression of the house that we used to stay in.

He charged ahead but I remained in the doorway, still gripping the handle. There were little red half moons on my arm from where I had been pinching myself in the car.

Enola, you coming?

Yes, sorry!

I pulled my suitcase over the rugs on the sandy wood floors, past a lamp with frayed tassels and a collection of ornate dogs in a cabinet. There were three bedrooms, and the sofas in the living room had mosquito netting too. The house was meant for a family.

He was standing in front of the window in the master bedroom with his arms outstretched. The house was dark, and I squinted in the early afternoon light. Everything was bleached and endless, vast and endless, endless.

Right. I’m getting in the shower, then spending the day in that fucking sea, he said, pointing to it as if there was another one.

The way he made a space his own. Like everything belonged to him.

Did you see the weird dogs?

I laughed. I did.

He went into the adjoining bathroom, and I stared out the window as he sung cod opera. The waves broke over the sand and in the ocean over the reef, a marine park of fish, turtles, long black urchins with blue lights in the center and small orange dots, and smaller gray urchins with white-tipped spikes, like hedgehogs. I had trodden on one once, and Dad had pulled the spikes out with tweezers. Near the horizon, white fishing boats had flags showing their catches.

I left my suitcase by the side of the bed he hadn’t claimed and walked through the living room to the outside. The humid air was full of warm, gentle noise. There was a small circular pool and a stout white wall with a wooden gate that led to a path to the beach. Everything was almost familiar. Memories hung like undeveloped photographs, and I closed my eyes to see them properly:

M UM IS CROSS BECAUSE I haven’t put my jellies on. The sand will be hot , she shouts. But I want to catch Dad, so I run to the gate, to his outstretched hand, and he pulls me down the path to the beach. The sand becomes hotter and hotter, and my feet are burning, and just when I think I’m going to cry from the pain, we make it to the darker, cooler sand and run crashing into the waves.

F UCK , I’ M THIRSTY .

I went to the kitchen, but there was no water in the cupboards, and I couldn’t remember if the tap water was drinkable. My shoulder bag was by the door still, and there was a small amount of water left in my bottle. I drank the warm dregs and sat on the sofa arm with my head between my legs. Everything was happening so fast. I wanted to press pause, to be alone somewhere dark and timeless.

Bloody hell, it’s humid.

I looked up to see him holding a blue towel with an orange fish. He was wearing black shorts and sunglasses that I could see my reflection in.

Come on, honey. Let’s get you in one of those slutty bikinis I saw you pack. We’ll go to the shops and get beers. But…

He charged at me and lifted me like I weighed nothing. He carried me to the bedroom and dropped me on the bed.

Wait, I smell like plane!

I don’t care, he said, pushing my arms aside my head.

No, no, I can’t.

Why?

Because I feel like I will burst into tears if you touch me. Just my stomach, I said, from the drive.

It was only a half lie, but I hated saying no to him. He said it was okay because he didn’t want me to shit myself. Then he went to the bathroom and I lay on the bed and tried to regulate my breathing. There were cracks in the yellow ceiling and a picture of a goat in a gold frame above a chest of drawers. I hadn’t unpacked, but his belongings already covered the room. Covered our room. Clothes and shoes. Wallet, keys, and notepad. Inhaler for his hay fever. Three books. The air smelled like his aftershave.

The toilet flushed, and he shouted that it was time to go. I put on my black bikini, white T-shirt, denim shorts, and a wide-brimmed hat that I found in a cupboard next to some playing cards. He said that I looked like someone from a television show I hadn’t seen.

I’m just going to brush my teeth.

Okay but hurry up, yeah, I didn’t come all this way to stay indoors!

The mirror was steamed up from his shower. How could he have a hot shower? I could smell cigarette smoke in the steam. I brushed my teeth and remembered my mum’s face behind my own in a mirror. It wasn’t a specific memory but a feeling in the bottom of my stomach.

W HEN WE GOT BACK from the shops, I told him that I wanted to shower before the beach but what I really wanted was to call Ruth. I wasn’t sure if it was the stress of hiding my feelings or the feelings themselves, but the morning had felt endless.

I turned on the water and then crouched between the wall and the sink so that my voice wouldn’t carry. I’m working, Ruth answered in a whisper. Are you okay? My hands went to my face, and my eyes filled with tears. She told me to hang on. There were muffled voices, then footsteps, and then she spoke louder. She was in the break room. I could picture the lockers and the clock on the wall.

Roo, I’m so sorry for calling you.

Don’t be. Is everything okay?

I told her that I was at the beach house, and it was amazing, but that I felt sick or claustrophobic or something. I keep having these half memories. And it’s stupid because I only came to this beach, what? Four times in total? And it was nineteen years ago!

Ruth told me that it wasn’t stupid. She asked if I had told him how I was feeling. I said that I was afraid of ruining the holiday, because this was his first holiday with a girlfriend. She sighed and sounded, for a second, like Catherine. Enola, if explaining your pain ruins the holiday, then something is wrong.

Ruth already didn’t like him, so I told her that I was probably being paranoid.

She paused before replying: Okay, so, talk to him. You don’t have to tell him everything. You just need to let him know that being back there is hard—

I didn’t say it was hard.

Fine, not hard hard, just…

Strange.

Strange, then, she agreed. And, Enola, please, please know that telling him this isn’t ruining anything. It should make you both feel better.

Ruth said that she had to go back to work but to please text her with updates. Is the weather at least glorious?

Already thirty degrees. What’s it like there?

It’s sleeting.

We laughed and then said that we loved each other.

I turned off the shower and looked in the mirror. Nineteen years. That was the length of a whole person. When I was nineteen, I drove and had sex and knew to walk on the road instead of the pavement when navigating Oxford Circus. Every cell in my body had been replaced twice. I thought of my old therapist: You are not your pain; you are not your sadness.

I came out of the bathroom, and he was waiting to come in. He started past, but I stopped him. My heart was pounding. Listen, there’s something I wanted to talk to you about.

Okay… he said slowly.

I picked at a bump on my arm.

Just say it, Enola.

It’s just that when I was little, we left here very suddenly. And I guess I didn’t think I’d find it this strange being back…

Right, he said, clasping his hands. He had the same expression on his face as when I asked him to touch me in bed. Like he was waiting for a catch.

But it is. Strange, I mean.

He shifted his weight and asked what I meant by “strange.” I told him that everything looked different, and it was discombobulating. I wasn’t sure why I had chosen that word. His face changed, and he laughed. He said that he was relieved that I hadn’t said something worse and that I would feel “bobulated” after some time in the sun.

Just don’t focus on it. Leave for the beach in ten?

T HE BEACH WAS QUIET . Seaweed that had been pushed up by the tide crisped and curled in the sun. I could see Turtle Rock in the ocean and, farther away, Whale Rock. There was another rock on the sand that we used to walk to after breakfast sometimes.

He said that the turtle looked more like a walkie-talkie and the whale looked more like a cat. I asked what he thought the one on the sand looked like, and he said: A scrotum.

All right, honey. Let’s get in the water!

I had a blue-and-green-striped kikoi tied to my bikini straps that I was nervous to take off. He had only seen me naked in the half light, and in the bleached day, he would see every dimple and stretch mark and scar. It’s not like he could leave if he didn’t like what he saw—we were here for the week—but, still, I didn’t want him to really see me. We left our towels on the sand, and I let him walk in front of me to the water. We waded in until we could float. I gasped as the water kissed my stomach, but the sensation didn’t faze him. He pulled me to him, and I wrapped my legs around his waist. He asked me if there were jellyfish. I told him that there were Portuguese men-of-war, and his whole body tightened.

Not this time of year, though…

I pressed my mouth to his shoulder; his skin tasted like sun cream. There were new bars and hotels on the shoreline. Turtle Bay must have been less developed in the nineties. Or maybe that was just how I remembered it; the way that those four years existed in my mind a private, unedited paradise.

Just don’t focus on it.

I asked if he fancied that local restaurant that Louise had suggested in her email. I wanted him to try maharagwe and mchicha. And apparently the coastal lot all eat this boiled soupy fish with sima? He made a face and said it sounded vile. I bit his neck, and he laughed.

He told me that I didn’t seem like someone who had grown up abroad. I asked what someone who had grown up abroad should seem like, and he said: Ruth?

Ruth’s different. She’s a proper international kid.

Army?

The opposite! Her parents are artists. Her dad’s a photographer and her mum’s a painter. Ruth spent the first ten years of her life in different countries. Her dad is Norwegian—

Ruth’s Norwegian?

I nodded. Colombian heritage—her dad was adopted. But Ruth was born in Norway. Her mum is half Scottish, so they lived in Glasgow for a while. And Canada for a year when her dad was doing a feature on indigenous communities.

Jesus.

Yeah. She’s been everywhere, but Kenya always felt like home to me.

How very colonial of you.

Talking about Ruth made me feel better. I could breathe easier with her name on my tongue. Then he asked about my dad’s work, but I didn’t know much about it. He asked what our life was like. I told him we were in Muthaiga and that we had a security man on the gate and a driver.

Did you have, like, a cook and staff?

We had an mpishi and yaya. That’s a cook and a nanny. And a house girl.

He made a noise like he wanted to continue the conversation, but it felt as if he was asking questions as research for a book and I didn’t want to think of my life like that. I dropped back and skimmed my arms over the water like I was making a snow angel. I just needed to connect… to find my breath… to be present. But he unhooked my legs, plunging me backward. The salt burned my nose. Stripped my throat.

You just waterboarded me!

I dived and yanked his trunks. He splashed me. I splashed him. And I was, to anyone watching from the new, unfamiliar buildings on the coastline, happy.

All right, I want a beer.

After swimming until our feet were pale and bloated, we heaved onto the sand as if coming off a moving walkway. As we walked to our towels, beads of water glistened on his calves. He had a triangle of hair on his lower back, and his shoulder blades were already tinged pink. I thought back to our first meeting; I never could have predicted who we would be to each other.

Oi, I said. Watch those trunks…

He turned to look over his shoulder, glanced left and right like a child crossing the street, and pulled down his trunks. I screamed, but he swung his hips so that his penis slapped against his thighs.

This may have been the place where I had my last family holiday, but it was also the place where we were having our first. Amy said that a holiday was a great test for a couple. I would take the trip how I took the relationship, moment by moment, fight by flight. It was only day one; it would get easier. Like having an old dream, unsettling at first, but then you realize that all it is, all it was, was a dream.

D AY 2

I woke not knowing where I was, and then I heard the waves. The breeze driving them blew through the window, and we inhaled seawater from our bed. He was sprawled, one leg under and one leg over the sheet. His face was crumpled, lips crushed on the cotton. I slipped through the netting so as not to wake him, and went through to the living room where the glass table still had on it our wineglasses and Scrabble board from after the restaurant. Already the holiday was starting to feel like it belonged to us and not to the past. I put the kettle on and walked onto the patio. I fished some insects from the pool and watched the boats on the horizon. My stomach felt full from last night’s spinach and grains, but it was settling, I was settling.

Why didn’t you wake me?

I turned and he was by the house, stretching his arms above his head. He had my lime-green kikoi around his waist, and I could see the mound of his penis.

I’ve only been up for a few minutes.

He came to me, and I ran my hands through his soft, ruffled hair. He told me he was hungover. I told him he would survive. We have nothing to do today, I said, moving my hands down to the lines on either side of his hips. For the first time I felt the impact of that statement: no pressure to write and no guilt when I didn’t and no shifts at the café with bankers asking me if I was “doing this to put myself through university.”

After a breakfast of papaya scored like a chessboard and peanut butter on toast (he told me that he loved the Kenyan peanut butter, which made me happy, because it felt like he was saying something that he loved about me), I showered, singing because the acoustics were excellent. When I came out, he was standing with his fingers in his ears. At least you’re good at other things, he said.

The mischief in his green eyes and how my skin hummed from the sun made me get down on my knees. Something I bet your ex never did.

I should insult you more often, he said as I took him in my mouth.

Go on, then…

You’re a shit cook.

Don’t stop…

You’re probably a terrible barista.

Oh yeah, that’s the stuff…

You’ll never be a writer.

W E DECIDED TO SWIM to the little island before lunch. He took a drag on his inhaler. We shared a madafu; then walked down the path to the beach and looked out at the blue.

Are you sure you’re a strong enough swimmer?

He frowned. Are you , Enola?

I explained that Dad and I had swum to this island when I was little. Plus, I swim once a month at the pool in Hackney.

He whistled. Well, watch out… erm…

I folded my arms provocatively. You can’t think of a single professional swimmer?

Gary Neville?

We laughed as we waded, then, as the water deepened, began to swim. We swam next to each other at first, but then we stopped talking, and the distance between us grew.

Good job you did all that training, honey! he shouted back.

My arms and legs were out of sync, and I kept swallowing seawater. The island wasn’t getting any closer, and I thought of that man who pushed the boulder up the hill in hell. How on earth did I manage this when I was a child? It felt dangerous. A boat sent a wave toward us, and I dived under, but when I came back up, he was even farther away. Oh god. What if I couldn’t do this? Worse than the notion of drowning was what he would think of me if I drowned.

I switched to a front crawl and concentrated on my movements until I found my stride, so much so that I began to catch him or he began to slow down.

All right, Gary Neville, I called.

He looked over his shoulder, and I thought he might slow to meet me, but he sped up. I felt a spark and kicked harder. He was barely a meter away. I reached to grab his foot, but then I stopped myself. My instincts told me to stay behind him. I would rather him tease me for being a bad swimmer than put him in a mood because he felt like he was one. I switched back to breaststroke and let him get to the island first.

When he neared the bank, I shouted to him not to put his feet down.

What?

Your feet.

Huh?

Sea urchins.

I was so focused on communicating to him not to put his feet down that I forgot about my own. He helped me out of the water, and I collapsed onto my knotted back. My ears were ringing, and there were stars where the clouds should be. He told me I was a mess and wiped the hair from my face. He was just as breathless, but I told him he was a good swimmer, and he said, proudly, that he used to go wild swimming. I felt a sting on the side of my foot. Three gray splinters with white tips.

Fuck! The word hooked in my chest, and I coughed.

He laughed, his eyes turquoise in the sun. Okay, honey. Come on. Placing my foot onto his thigh, he pressed his mouth to the skin and sucked. There, he said, presenting the tiny spikes to me. Now, what are you not going to do on the way back?

Put my feet down…

He leaned back against a tree, and I slotted between his shins, smoothing the hair into neat lines. A breeze skimmed the ocean, and the sun dried the water on our skin to salt. The moment was perfect. I would have cut my own arm so that he could heal the wound.

D AY 3

We had perfected the morning routine. I put breakfast together while he showered, and then he did the washing up while I showered. We had the same things: papaya, peanut butter on toast, coffee, and mango juice. That morning we took one of the yellow boats to the marine park and went snorkeling. He was stroppy because we didn’t see any turtles, and we teased each other about how we looked in goggles. After lunch we went to the market and bought a kikoi each. His had blue stripes and mine had pink. I made a joke about gender stereotypes. We found pétanque in the cupboard and played on the sand once the sun had lowered. Now it was sunset, and we were sat on the white wall with Tusker beers. My dad used to say: You must always take time for a sundowner. We watched the sun cast pink light, then turn red, shrivel, and sink into the ocean. When the world was lilac, we went inside, lit a citronella candle, and read our books on separate sofas, a bottle of red wine and a bowl of fried coconut on the glass table.

He was in a white T-shirt; his skin had a red-brown tinge, and his reading glasses had slipped down his nose. He gasped and then hummed as if something in his book had surprised him. A murder, perhaps, or a shocking twist. I had read the same paragraph multiple times because I couldn’t stop looking at him. I wanted to sink into his body as if it were a favorite chair. Earlier Ruth had messaged asking if things were better, and I had replied:

Soooo much better. Total transformation. I never want to leave.

I couldn’t imagine going back to seeing him once or twice a week. I loved knowing that he was with me when I went to bed and here when I woke up. I loved our morning routine and our silly little discussions about which activity we were going to do that day. I loved how confident I now felt in a bikini, without makeup, myself.

You want more wine?

I smiled and stretched.

I’ll take that as a yes?

He topped up our glasses until the bottle was empty. He asked what we should do tomorrow, and I suggested lunch at Ocean Sports. He said that he wanted to finish his book before lunch. A silly little discussion. We drank and listened to more music, and, when the world was black, he looked at me, dizzying, and told me I was beautiful.

Yes, Ruth, he tells me that I’m beautiful all the time!

I told him to stop, but he looked emboldened. He said that I was funny and cute and he loved the freckles on my nose. I told him that he was drunk, and he said: Abso-fucking-lutely. He stood from the sofa. My heart started pounding. He walked over and sat next to me. The smell of him . He lifted my glass, and put it to my lips. Catch up. He pressed his thumb to my lips, catching the drops of wine before they stained my kikoi. And you’re fucking sexy, he said. I had never felt sexy before, but I believed him because, at this point, I was what he told me.

D AY 4

The moon was full, and the ocean moved like a Newton’s cradle. Crabs scuttled sideways as we lay on the grassy bank. I pointed out the constellations I knew. There’s the Big Dipper. And there’s the Plow. He told me that they were the same constellation.

One’s American. It’s like chips and crisps.

Dad and I used to sit on the car and watch the stars on safari. But we had different routines on the beach: walking to the rock after breakfast, staying in the shade over lunch, playing a card game after dinner. When I thought about the last time that I was here, there was a sepia grade over the memory. I had cried at the Malindi airport, as if I knew what was going to happen a few months later. I couldn’t have known, but that was what retrospect did to memory: warped it and turned it sepia.

He started speaking as though narrating a nature program: There is the one that looks like a cock. And over there is the other one that looks like a cock. And, finally, there’s one more that looks like—you guessed it—a cock. I asked him why the Milky Way looked so far away if we were a part of it. He told me to stop pretending to be stupid. It is mad that they’re dead, though, he said. Properly mad. Just then a shooting star darted across the sky.

That one’s not, I said.

He chuckled into his beer, then sighed contemplatively. I asked what he was thinking, and he said we needed more beers. Why do you always ask what I’m thinking? I shrugged. We were silent and then in a mock cute tone he said: Why, what are you thinking about?

We hadn’t spoken about this since the first day, but I felt healthier now, so I answered honestly: I was thinking about how the last time I was here was the last holiday I had with my parents. He didn’t seem to register the comment, he just replied that the last holiday he had with his parents was watching them scream over karaoke about his dad’s secret girlfriend, Karen, who moved in a week later.

Keen for more clues for my murder board, I asked when his parents got divorced.

When I was twel—

Do you want kids?

I hadn’t meant to interrupt and so my question was given unintended emphasis and he looked at me like I had asked him to impregnate me. But before he could speak, there was a motorcycle whine past my ear. I asked for the mosquito spray, and he gave me a look. Honey, you already smell like a meth lab. I told him that I was allergic to mosquitoes.

Honey, everyone is allergic. That’s literally what a bite is.

He swigged a mouthful of beer and said that he couldn’t believe we were going home in a few days. I hated hearing that. He was telling me something that I already knew, but it felt like he was saying that we would be over in a few days. Our relationship felt bound to this holiday somehow.

You know, we could always come back here next year. Go camping?

He gave me a withering look and reminded me that he wasn’t keen on the whole safari thing. Although, he added, I have always wanted to see a zebra.

And that was all I needed to hear. It wasn’t enough now just to be his girlfriend. I wanted more. I wanted the house in Stoke Newington. I wanted the matching publishing deals and our cover art framed side by side on walls that we painted ourselves. I wanted the hen do where I joked about his favorite sexual position in front of his elderly relatives. I wanted everything. He wasn’t saying it in words, but he was saying it in something like them: he wanted that too.

What about a flebra? I asked.

There was a pregnant pause, and then, monotone, he said: Enola, would that be a cross between a flamingo and a zebra by any chance?

I stifled a giggle. Why, yes. What’s the problem?

He took a sip of his drink. No problem, he said calmly. I just thought they were called zamingos.

No, that’s an Italian in Clapham.

He gave in and laughed first—a symphony of water gurgling from a tap. Our happiness was such a giddy drunk that I almost forgot what was happening tomorrow.

D AY 5

I didn’t want to go, but I couldn’t come all this way, ask her recommendations for restaurants, live in her friend’s house, without meeting Louise for coffee. I wasn’t sure what to wear. The last dress she had seen me in was a black one. There was only one outfit that I hadn’t worn yet: a vintage sage slip that Ruth made me buy. He would like me in it. He would rub my hip bones, and I would feel delicate and lovable.

I came outside, and he was by the pool having a smoke. He didn’t notice my dress. Don’t, he said, referring to his cigarette. He was looking at me as if I was the one who asked him to quit, and it felt like I had inherited one of his ex-girlfriend’s arguments. I told him that I wasn’t going to say anything, and he asked me why I was moody. I told him that we needed to leave in twenty (a statement that answered his question but that he thought was a subject change). He stubbed out his cigarette in his coffee mug and asked where we were going.

Aunt Louise. Remember?

And you want me to go to that?

I just assumed you were?

I can if you want, he said, not even trying to match his face to his words. He was already in his trunks. I told him not to worry, but between that, the cigarette comment, and the fact that he hadn’t noticed my dress, I was annoyed.

He sighed. What? Why do you look like that?

I just… I really don’t want to go.

Look, he said. I think you’re making too much of this. Just get it over with, thank her for the great house, and come back. I told him that it wasn’t that simple. I hadn’t seen Louise since I was a child, and my mum didn’t know that we were here. He looked at me like I was being dramatic. Who cares if your mum and your aunt don’t get on? I feel like you might be making a bigger deal out of this. It’s just lunch. You’ll be fine.

You don’t want to come with me?

Not really.

He lit another cigarette.

Just like that?

Enola, be reasonable. I don’t really see the point in meeting some random aunt that I’ll never see again and that you have described more than once as mad.

No, it’s my mum that describes her as mad, which probably means she’s lovely.

I was disappointed, because I wanted him next to me. I wanted to feel his hand on my knee under the table and to see his eyes smiling. But he wasn’t “that kind of boyfriend,” as he pointed out when I asked for a photo in the golden hour and he went into a tirade about social media. Perhaps it was for the best. I didn’t know what Louise was going to bring up.

Fine, I said, more upset about the memory of the sunset photo.

This is my holiday too, Enola, he said, sharp.

Shit . I moved to him and told him that I was sorry. I pressed my face into his tank top; it was the same one he slept in and it smelled like our bed. He rested his arms on my shoulders and exhaled cigarette smoke over my head. He told me to just get it over with. And don’t stress, honey. We only have a couple days left. I really want us to have fun, yeah? I smiled and told him that I wanted that too, and his hands moved down to my hip bones.

Honey, he said. You’ve lost weight.

I HADN ’ T SEEN L OUISE — A UNTY Lulu—since I was a child. She would kiss me on the mouth and wipe the lipstick with her thumb. I scanned the bar, and a voice reverberated: Oh, my goodness gracious! My sweet girl! I turned to see a woman with curly gray hair, red hoop earrings, and lips to match.

Aunty Louise?

Lulu, darling. Lulu.

She was wearing cargo shorts and a Tusker T-shirt. When she hugged me, her fingers dug between my ribs, and she smelled overwhelmingly of vanilla. Let me look at you! Gosh, you are the spitting image of your dad. I saw you and thought, that’s Kit’s and that’s Kit’s and that’s Kit’s too. She pointed to parts of my body with a long, ring-covered finger.

Kit. I hadn’t heard his name in so long. Everyone just referred to him—if they ever did—as “ your dad.” Like he belonged only to me.

I am?

She nodded, clutching my hands so tight that my finger bones hurt. You are, my sweet girl. But not your hair, my darling, your hair is mine. Look how curly it is!

I told her it was only because of the sun and the salt, and she looked at me like I was hiding something. She asked me how old I was now. I answered that I was twenty-eight, and she said she thought I was older. It’s because you’re such a slip of a thing. Sophisticated. It makes you seem older. Small bones.

She sat, gesturing to the empty chair. Come and sit. She clicked at the waiter, then pointed to me. I smiled in apology and asked for a latte. Louise asked for the same as before and the waiter looked confused. I realized that he was probably a different man, so I asked what she was drinking so that he could hear the answer.

English breakfast, my angel.

As the drinks arrived, I watched her sip. The liquid rattled into her mouth. Her skin was covered in brown patches and deep lines cut her forehead. Her eyes, curved slightly, gave her an expression of sadness. When she smiled, her teeth were yellow and her lips pushed up to show her gums. She dabbed her brow with a handkerchief.

So, my lovely girl, tell me about yourself.

I opened my mouth to respond, but she continued: I was so pleased to hear from you, sweet girl. When I think about how long it’s been… But I know that will have been your mother’s doing. I know that. Don’t you worry about that. There are no hard feelings about that. Anyway, I only have this one morning with you—Sam, that’s my new man, is fishing, and I told him that we had to take a detour to meet my sophisticated niece. He asked me how old you were, and I almost said: She’s six years old. My goodness, you must think I’m an old lady now!

I think you look wonderful, Louise—I mean, Lulu.

Oh, aren’t you sweet? It’s yoga. I’m doing yoga. So anyway, I have a little place in Kilifi, but my friend Kim, whose house you’re staying in—

Yes, thank you so much for—

—rents it on the Airbnb and gets a fortune . You two have a very good deal this week. A very good deal. I’m thinking about doing that myself. Ours isn’t a beachfront, but still, you and your gorgeous man can stay whenever you want. Now, darling girl. Who is he?

I put down my coffee and told her his name. That was all I said, but she gushed that he sounded lovely and then proceeded to say that her psychic had told her that she would meet someone from her past.

Now, tell me. You miss Kenya, don’t you, darling?

I told her that I didn’t really think of it much anymore. I’ve been in England for… gosh, nearly twenty years now, I said, looking to the ceiling as if the dates were printed on it.

Nineteen years and four months. I had just turned nine when Mum and I arrived at my grandparents’ house in the Midlands lit up in Christmas lights.

Louise put her tea down. Your mother really did hate him, didn’t she? I shifted in my chair and said that everyone had a different impression of things, but Louise snapped that there was only one impression of things.

Well— I started, but Louise interrupted.

Your mother —she said this like it was alleged—hated him. She was unhappy, you know, depressed. And I had to come out every few months to take care of you! She just wasn’t made to be a mother. I’m sorry but that’s true. She missed being an actress, not that she was very good at it. My brother used to tell me that and we’d laugh—I’d help him to laugh at that. And, of course, she took it all out on him. And he would tell me that he could handle it. Lulu, I can handle her, he would say. But I’m not sure that he could, not really, not in the end.

I couldn’t deal with this. I felt myself detaching and watching the scene like a stranger from across the room. Once, when I was eleven, a girl had said something about my dad in hockey practice and I had hit her with my stick. I hadn’t remembered doing it. Dissociation, the therapist had called it, but I think I had just been really fucking angry.

But as Louise continued her assassination, I felt an alien desire to come to my mother’s defense or perhaps just to stop Louise from talking. But, Lulu, I said, England was home. Dad’s work was demanding and, I mean, maybe Mum was just homesick?

Louise shook her head, red earrings swinging, and said that was neither here nor there. England was his home too! He didn’t get to feel homesick? His feelings didn’t count? And his job. The pressure he was under. No. She can give all the excuses she likes but she was cruel to him. Cruel . He was my family. He was my brother . You know our parents died young? Well, he never recovered from that. You never do, not really. And your mother never understood him. And that’s a hard thing. It’s a hard thing not to be understood. You do know that I speak to him? Well, I do. And he is still angry with her.

Had Louise been drinking? Her perfume was strong, and her eyes were red. She was talking in hyperbole, asking the same from me as from her psychic: affirmation.

She dabbed her eyes with her handkerchief and added a sachet to her tea. But I promised that I wouldn’t put this on you. Tell me about you , my sweet girl. My goodness, that dress is lovely.

Relieved for the subject change, I told her that I worked in a hedge fund café with Ruth. Do you remember her?

My goodness! That beautiful Kenyan girl?

I nodded and immediately shook my head. No, Louise, Ruth isn’t Kenyan—

But Louise continued: Gosh, she was a spitfire. The pair of you tearing around the garden. How lovely. And a hedge fund? Is that how you met your gentleman—is he in finance? I nodded because it seemed easier, and Louise talked about her ex-boyfriend who was a millionaire.

I stared into my coffee and wished that he was here. I wondered what he was doing: having a nap or reading, or maybe he’d gone to the shop.

Anyway, I’ve got Sam now, Louise continued, before making me promise to come back to Kenya. When I asked her if she would ever return to England, she said that part of her life was over. I can’t believe that your mother isn’t even there after all that. She’s living in France with a man, you say?

Did I tell her that?

Louise was staring like it was my turn to speak, so I swallowed and said: I guess it was hard for Mum too?

Her features tightened, and she sunk back in her chair. You know, you have her eyes, she said.

I WALKED BACK ALONG the beach thinking about anything I could to distract myself from Louise. His laugh. The twinkle in his eye. The way he moans when I run my fingers through his hair.

I found him in the pool with his book. How was the mad aunt? he asked without looking up. Ignoring an urge to run over and beg him to never leave me, I said that she was fine, because he didn’t want to know and I didn’t want to tell him.

Shall we eat out tonight?

Sounds good.

He suggested it so effortlessly, and I responded the same way, like normal people in a normal relationship. I wanted to capture the moment: him in the pool with my severed heart in a thought bubble above his head.

Enola, why are you staring at me?

Because I love you and because being with you is like carrying something fragile.

You just look handsome, I said.

Okay, well, stop it, it’s annoying.

Because no one could leave the woman who wanted to have sex all the time, I peeled off the straps of my dress. He watched it fall like water and then placed his book on the side. I stepped out of my underwear. He removed his reading glasses. I lowered myself into the water and removed him from his shorts. His fingers pressed between my ribs as if he might tear the flesh from the bone. I looked up and closed my eyes. Pink and white flowers opened behind my eyelids, and I imagined fireworks. Or not fireworks. A meteor shower. Stars were burning the earth. An ache behind my left eye grew and grew until—

Family is who you choose.

A FTERWARD , HE WENT INSIDE , and I remained in the pool, watching the moon appear, first like crepe paper, then settling white. In the silence, it was impossible not to think about it: the past. And it was worse now because it wasn’t just in my head. It was sitting across a table with red swinging earrings and an ambivalent stare.

Your mother never understood him.

I hated my mum for what she did to Dad. None of what Louise said had been new information—when I was eleven, she had called my grandparents’ house and we talked for a few weeks until Mum put a stop to it. Louise wanted answers and I did too once, but I had learned to stop asking questions. I picked at my arm and noticed then how many little red marks were darkening brown from the sun.

Honey, come inside. You’ll be bitten to shit!

I turned to see him standing with his hands on his hips. Then I noticed the mosquitoes around the pool lights. Fuck! I climbed out and sprinted past him into the house. I could hear him laughing behind me. I stopped in the bedroom like I had forgotten where to go, and he appeared with my sage dress and underwear.

Come on now, honey. A towel was wrapped around me. Let’s get you dry. I couldn’t remember the last time that someone wrapped a towel around me and, at his gentleness, the pressure released, and I started sobbing. He lurched away, and I grabbed the towel before it fell. Are you okay?

Yeeess, he answered, adding a diphthong where it didn’t belong. I’m just getting the spray. His body was as rigid as when I told him there were Portuguese men-of-war in the ocean. He handed me the bottle, and I quickly wiped my eyes and smiled like my tears had been as normal a thing as a sneeze.

Thank you for looking after me.

He said that it was just insect repellent; then he clapped his hands above his head. Gotcha! He showed me a dot of blood on his palm and said: This one already got you.

He went to leave and I asked if he still wanted to go for dinner. He paused at the door.

Why, don’t you?

Yes. I was just checking because it’s later than we planned.

He frowned as if I had made everything complicated.

I noticed then a small rip in the mosquito net over the bed, a tiny wound that would get bigger and bigger if I wasn’t careful.

D AY 6

I woke up covered in bites, which swelled and hardened as the day went on. Now it was night, and the itching was making me feverish. I couldn’t control my thoughts. I wanted to scratch my back raw.

All I could find under the sink was this?

He held up a bottle of calamine lotion with the label rubbed off.

Nothing with antihistamine?

If I had found something with antihistamine, I would have brought something with antihistamine.

I asked if he could do it for me, and he sighed.

Don’t worry, then, I’ll do it.

I didn’t say I wouldn’t do it!

I sat on the bed in my pajama shorts and bra, and he dabbed the lotion on my back with tissue. I could hear his smile creaking behind me as he counted. That makes twenty-seven. You’re not allergic, but you are really attractive to them.

It’s not funny. They’re really burning.

You’re taking malaria tablets. You’ll be fine.

Ouch! I said as he pressed too hard.

Right. That’s it, he said, and he put the lotion away. He hadn’t finished; he was just annoyed. All day I had been too much or too little, but I didn’t know how to get back to the person I was at the start of the holiday.

I asked how it was possible that he hadn’t been bitten. He pointed to a tiny bump on his ankle and when I didn’t laugh, he snorted. Come on, let’s get a drink. I told him I didn’t want a drink but to go without me. He sighed again. No, it’s okay. Let’s just go to bed. We lay down in the dark, but there was static in the silence.

I was genuinely happy for you to go without me.

Yes, thank you. I don’t need permission.

I asked him what was wrong. He said that there was nothing wrong but he was lying. I hated that he was angry, that I was making him angry. But I couldn’t stop. The more frustrated he grew, the more frustrating I became. The heat wasn’t helping.

Why is it so fucking hot?

It’s the same as it’s been all week, honey.

That , I thought. I loved when he called me “honey,” but today the word sounded different, like it wasn’t being used to show affection but merely as a replacement for my name. Or worse, to show his annoyance. I wondered then when he had stopped calling me “Gay.”

I told him to please just go to the bar, but he said that he didn’t want to go. I said that he clearly did, and I didn’t want him to be unhappy because of me. I reached for my water glass, but it was empty.

Fuck! I’m so fucking thirsty!

He told me to calm down. I told him that I was calm. He told me that I had been a nightmare all day. I didn’t realize that when you said you were allergic to mosquito bites that meant you turned into a fucking psycho! I told him not to be angry, and his face contorted.

Don’t put this on me, Enola. You’re the one who’s having a fucking meltdown. I told you I’ve never been someone who tolerates this stuff.

What stuff? I shouted as he jumped out of bed and left the room. What stuff?

I tried to digest what had just happened, but it was as if someone had shuffled my insides like a deck of cards. I took off my shorts and bra and lay like a starfish. When the gate creaked, I knew that he had gone to the bar. I got my phone to call him and there was a message waiting from Ruth:

How was the meeting with Louise? Let me know if you need to talk x

Ruth wasn’t here, but she could still read my thoughts.

I put the phone down.

The other night I was beautiful and special, and now I was a nightmare. Why was I ruining this? And why, when he left a room, did it still feel like I might never see him again? My eyes were burning; I squeezed them shut and—

M UM IS GATHERING UP everything that belongs to Dad. Books. Glasses. Blue cord slippers. Louise is chasing her, grabbing things that fall from her arms. Go to your room, Enola , she shouts.

Come on, Louise says. Come with me, darling girl.

Don’t you dare talk to her, don’t you dare say anything to her—

O H MY GOD . I couldn’t breathe. My fingers were tingling, and my head felt light. I stumbled to the bathroom, turned on the shower, and crouched under the cool water. I counted and breathed and pinched my arm until the room stopped dappling, then I went back to bed and waited for him.

I must have drifted off, because the next thing felt like a dream. He was leaning in the doorframe, tall and perfect. I told him that I had a panic attack, and he told me not to be silly. He walked to the bed, climbed inside the netting, and folded me into his arms. He handed me an ice-cold bottle of water. I told him that I was so sorry for being a psycho. Are you angry? Do you forgive me?

No, Enola, I’m not angry.

Do you hate me?

I asked him to please say the words. No, Enola, he said with a sigh. I don’t hate you. I told him that I didn’t know why, but that the bites had made me crazy, but he said that he didn’t want to rehash everything. His eyes drifted as he realized I was naked.

Honey…

He kissed me, and his tongue was rum. I didn’t want this. I wanted him to hold me and tell me that everything was going to be okay, but he lowered himself between my thighs. I tried to relax, because he rarely went down on me, but he was drunk and his movements were unpredictable. Eventually he ran out of energy and moved back up my body, flaccid.

You’re really not into this, are you?

I… I am, I just—

Yeah, don’t worry about it.

He zipped up his shorts and slept on the sofa to give me the space that I didn’t want.

D AY 7

He had been distant at breakfast. I had asked if he was all right, and he’d said he was fine in a tone that warned me not to ask again. The day continued like that: me determined to make our last day special and him determined not to make it “a thing.” We read our books separately, and when he wanted lunch, he went inside and made his own. He laughed at a text message, and I asked him what was funny, and he said: Nothing. When the sun started to go down, he got himself a beer ( Oh, did you want one? ) and sat on the white wall to watch the sunset alone.

I still felt unsettled from my meeting with Louise, and my bites were still vexatious, but I had a stronger objective than my own sanity: to prove that I was still beautiful and funny and cute and sexy. I put on my raciest underwear, an uncomfortable pink-and-orange set from Victoria’s Secret, and some lip gloss to match, then went into the kitchen, cracked a beer, and draped myself against the cabinet of dog ornaments like a mermaid. Then I shouted for him. He didn’t answer, so I shouted again. He called back, What?

Do you want another beer?

There was a pause during which, I imagined, he finished his current beer. Then he shouted back: Yeah!

Come and get it, then!

What?

I have it here.

Can you just bring it?

I hadn’t thought this through. If you offered someone something, normally you would bring it to them. And now he would be pissed off because he’d finished his beer. I held my ground until I heard his feet, and my pulse increased. He appeared from the patio and—

I had watched this scene many times, the woman in lingerie holding a pie or a drink or a feather duster as the man returns from work; his eyes then ping like a cartoon dog’s and he carries her to the bedroom. But this didn’t happen.

He looked at me, bemused, or worse than that, amused, like he was mentally drafting the scene as a chapter in his book or preparing the anecdote for Steph so that she could tell him, once again, how crap his taste in women was.

I held out his beer and said: Beer? I was going for half sexy and half self-aware, thinking that if he didn’t find it sexy, he would at least appreciate the joke.

But he spoke in the same tone as when the waiter in the restaurant had put down his bowl of soupy fish: That looks great, honey. But I’m tired from the sun. Stay in that if you want, but I just want to chill before the bar.

Stay in that if you want? Embarrassment burned my body red and every mortifying thing I had ever done rushed back to me, but I pretended it was fine because I needed it to be.

Sure. When do you want to leave?

Normal time, he said like it was a stupid. Fucking. Question.

Then he took the beer and returned outside to have his sundowner without me.

W HEN THE SUN HAD descended for the last time, I put on my black dress and we went to a bar on the beach with a chemical smell and a bartender singing along to a Lana Del Rey song. I sipped my rum and coke slowly because I hadn’t been able to eat much. His pupils dilated after his first whiskey, and after his third, he was drunk. He asked me how my drink was, but I didn’t hear him and so he repeated “drink” like I had committed a larger crime. I asked him again if everything was okay, and he told me again to stop asking. Are you okay, Enola?

I told him that I was a little sad to be leaving tomorrow. Perhaps we could do a mini break in the summer?

He put his drink down. A mini break to Kenya ?

I said that Amy and David had gone to a winery in England last year and he looked offended. He told me that he needed to write and earn money when we got back. Doesn’t David work in the city? We can’t go to a winery . He turned to the bar and continued drinking. I felt like he was telling me that it was my fault we were spending money and not writing. I looked at my phone and there was a new message from Ruth:

Enola, just let me know that ur okay please?

She would know that something was wrong, so I replied:

Hey, Roo, everything’s great! Having the best last day. See you when I’m back xx

Am I boring you?

I looked up and he was staring at me. I told him that he had been on his phone all day. He said that if I was pissed off about him being on his phone then I should’ve said so. I told him that I wasn’t, and he huffed. He was still annoyed with me about yesterday.

Look, I’m really sorry again about last night—

He slammed his drink down. For fuck’s sake!

And I’m really sorry if I’ve been weird today. And I’m sorry for suggesting a mini break. We really don’t have to do that. We don’t have to do anything. We can literally live off toast and cereal for the next few months.

He breathed in and held the breath before releasing it. I thought he might say something kind. We , he said with a slanted smile. You do realize that we have only been dating for a few months?

I felt a pinching sensation in my chest, remembering what he had said about losing interest after five dates. Just stay fun.

I smiled brightly, and told him that I wasn’t trying to rush anything. We’ve just had such a great time here and I thought it would be nice to have something to look forward to.

Come on, Enola. This is you having a great time?

He took a clumsy sip of his drink. I asked him what he meant by that. Have you had a terrible time?

His eyes narrowed. Don’t do that.

Do what?

Twist my words.

I felt an itch on my back and scratched without thinking. The skin split. Fuck. I told him that I wasn’t trying to twist his words, my voice coming out more frustrated because my back was burning.

He slammed his drink again. Right, I’m—

Stop doing that, I said, referring to the drink.

I’m getting annoyed now. Enola, this is my only holiday—

I know that, it’s mine too. I—

All I wanted was a fun, relaxing holiday.

That’s all I wanted too!

Fuck, can you stop interrupting me? Christ.

The bartender stopped singing.

I asked him to stop shouting. He said this wasn’t him shouting. You don’t want to hear me shouting, Enola.

This wasn’t working. I was losing control. I would have to tell him what was on my mind. I had never told him the real reason why we left Kenya when we did. Perhaps, if he knew, he would understand. Perhaps he would wrap a warm towel around my shoulders again.

Look, I began, finding the words. I know that I’ve been a little up and down. The other day with Louise… I told you that it was hard being back and I’m just feeling very…

My words scattered. I tried again.

There is a lot about my childhood that I don’t like to think about, and being back here has just, I guess, brought some of that back up.

He frowned, and the pinching sensation spread to my arms and legs. He asked me why we came if it was going to upset me. I said that I didn’t know that it was. He told me that he understood but that it was selfish of me to have made this his problem. I’m not your therapist, Enola. Do you understand that when I get back, I’m going to have to pick up shifts in my cousin’s bar? I’ve not done bar work since my twenties. I’ve been so stressed with writing and… This is why I don’t go away with partners.

I’m really sorry, I said, unable to stop my voice from shaking.

Oh, just stop that, Enola. It’s manipulative.

I reached for his arm, but he shook me off. Look, this clearly hasn’t been our day. Why don’t you just go back?

Are you serious? But it’s our last night!

Precisely.

He drained his drink and signaled for another. I didn’t want to leave, but everything I had done to try to fix things had made them worse. Okay, I said. I’ll see you back at the house? I finished my drink and walked down the dark beach.

B ACK AT THE BEACH house, on the bed that we didn’t have sex on, I waited once again for him to come back. The rum that I had drank on an empty stomach went to my head and I pinched my skin as hard as I could to stop the room spinning.

We had argued before but never like that. He wasn’t just annoyed; he was angry. I realized then the tightrope I was walking; it felt as if any moment that wasn’t fun for him could make him angry. And yet I couldn’t feel anything but disappointment that I had let him down. I needed to see that spark in his eye. I needed him to smile at me like we had robbed a bank. I didn’t want us to get on the plane without fixing this. I couldn’t lose him. I couldn’t lose another thing that I loved. Not here, not in this place.

I heaved up from the bed, ready to return to the bar and make him listen to my apology, but when I got outside, he was standing by the gate. The ocean moon made him a silhouette, and the song from the bar spun in my head as if on a record player.

It’s you, it’s you, it’s all for you.

We stared at each other, and then he walked toward me like the soft pad of a synth. I couldn’t see his face.

Everything I do. I tell you all the time.

He pulled me to him, and I was relieved to find that his eyes were twinkling. He didn’t say it, but he was sorry. I started to cry.

Shit . I’m sorry for crying. I’m so sorry.

But this time he was kind, and he wiped a tear from my cheek. His breath smelled like whiskey. I gripped his black T-shirt. He said my name: Enola—

The sentence remained unformed. Something pivotal was happening; I could feel it. He’s going to tell me that he loves me. But he didn’t finish his thought. Or perhaps he did, but he chose not to share it. He just pulled me closer and broke my body into pieces that floated up to join the Milky Way.

D AY 8

We woke as we had done all holiday to the hush of the waves. I nestled into his curve and reached back. He moaned, awake, pushing into my hand. I smelled his breath, foul for a moment: his unedited morning.

I want you…

He dropped foreplay like a cigarette, and as he fucked me, I said I love you too over and over in my head. I didn’t think about my pleasure because it wasn’t my pleasure I was addicted to.

A T brEAKFAST WE USED up what was in the fridge, and I asked if he had meant what he said about the holiday being crap. He said that he was just angry and that there had been some really lovely bits. I asked him which bits, and he told me not to push. We packed, and I wondered if I would ever be back here. He said that he was ready to go home. I said that I was ready to go home but I wasn’t ready to leave. He said that didn’t make sense.

O N THE DRIVE , I started getting a headache. We didn’t have any painkillers, and he didn’t want to stop. He told me to drink more water. I watched from the window again as he swore at the roads, and I realized that the experience now had erased the experience then. I couldn’t remember what the roads and buildings used to look like.

I N THE CAR PARK , I struggled to lift my suitcase from the boot, and he made a joke about feminism. On the corner of the building a mirror was mounted like a satellite. I remembered seeing a giant spider there when I was eight. He told me to see if it reappeared while he met the man with the keys. I sat on my suitcase as the dust turned dark between my toes and waited for the world’s oldest spider.

I N THE TERMINAL , I wanted him to talk to me, but he put on his headphones and moved seats to stretch out. My head was really hurting now. I thought about our long layover in Nairobi and furled and unfurled my hands. He removed his headphones. Why do you keep doing that?

Sorry, I said. I’m just going to go to the toilet.

The bathroom was hot and small. Insects buzzed on the wrong side of the window, and the mirror wasn’t real glass. I examined the marks on my arm and put a hair band around my wrist. I snapped it, and the sting helped a little. I’d get an elastic band when I got home.

I stayed for a moment, trying to remember the version of myself that he liked, then came back out.

Do you fancy a drink at Wilton’s tomorrow?

He said that he was going to his dad’s for a bit.

You are? You didn’t tell me?

He asked me why that mattered. I told him that it didn’t and that I was happy for him. He frowned and said that he couldn’t wait to see the newest member of Karen’s china doll collection.

Our flight was announced on time, but he swore like it was hours behind schedule. He flung his bag over his shoulder and said: Finally, time to go home.

I paused. What did you say?

H-O-M-E, he repeated, mouth curled around the letters like a snake around a mouse.