does one shake off desire? To give it a voice is to sow a seed, knowing that somehow, someway, it will grow. It is to admit and submit to something which is on the outer limits of your understanding.
But even if this seed grows, even if the body lives, breathes, flourishes, there is no guarantee of reciprocation. Or that you’ll ever see them again. Hence, the campaign for summer crushes. Even if you leave each other on an unending night, even if you find your paths splitting ways, even if you find yourself falling asleep alone with but the memory of intimacy, it will be a shaft of summer creeping through the gap in your curtains. It will be a tomorrow in which the day will be long and the night equally so. It will be another sweatbox, or a barbecue with little food and more to drink. It will be another stranger grinning at you in the darkness, or looking at you across the garden. Touching your arm as you both laugh too hard at a drunken joke. Breathlessly falling through the door, gripping onto folds of flesh, or silently trying to locate the toilet in a home which isn’t your own. In the winter, more times, you don’t make it out of the house.
Besides, sometimes, to resolve desire, it’s better to let the thing bloom. To feel this thing, to let it catch you unaware, to hold onto the ache. What is better than believing you are heading towards love?
3
You lost your grandma during the summer you were sure you could lose no more. You knew before you knew. It wasn’t thunder’s distant rumbling like a hungry stomach. It wasn’t the sky so grey you were worried the light would not shine again. It wasn’t the strain in your mother’s voice, asking you not to leave home before she got there. You just knew.
You return to a memory of a different time. Sitting behind the compound in Ghana, where embers of heat so late in the day make you sweat. As your grandma sits on a rickety wooden stool, chopping ingredients for a meal to be prepared, you’ll tell her that you met a stranger in a bar, and you knew before you knew. She will smile, and laugh to herself, keeping her amusement contained, encouraging you to go on. You’ll tell her how this woman was slight, but tall, carried herself well, not in a way as to intentionally intimidate or placate, but in a way that implied sureness. She had kindness on her features and didn’t mind when you hugged her.
What else? your grandma will ask.
Hmm. You’ll tell her that when you and the stranger introduced yourselves, you both played down the things you did, the things you loved. Your grandma will pause at this detail. Why? she’ll ask. You don’t know. Perhaps it was because you had both lost that year, and though you kept telling yourself you couldn’t lose any more, it continued to happen.
So? There’s no solace in the shade, your grandma will say.
I know, I know. I think both of us kinda negate that whole encounter. It was too brief. There was too much going on. It wasn’t the right time.
Your grandma will put down the knife, and say, It’s never the right time.
You’ll sigh and gaze towards a sky which shows no signs of darkening, and say, I guess there was something in the room that night, which I didn’t feel until I met her. Something which, looking back, I couldn’t ignore.
When you sow a seed, it will grow. Somehow, someway, it will grow.
Mmm. I agree. I just . . . I met this woman and she wasn’t a stranger. I knew we had met before. I knew we would meet again.
How did you know?
I just knew.
And in this place, a memory from a different time, you would like to believe your grandma will be satisfied with this. That she will give the same wry, contained smile and laugh to herself again.
4
You and the woman meet in a bar, two days before 2017 comes to a close. You suggested the location, but you are late. Only by a minute or two, but late. You apologize; she doesn’t seem to mind much. You embrace, and the conversation flows freely as you climb a set of stairs, travel up an escalator. You’re a little breathless, a little sweaty, but if she notices, she doesn’t say anything, not with her mouth nor roving eyes.
When you settle down, it’s on a green felt sofa, made of two halves. You dance through topics like two old friends, finding comfort in a language which is instantly familiar. You create a small world for yourselves, and for you both only, sitting on this sofa, looking out at the world which has a tendency to engulf even the most alive.
‘Last time we met, you said you were a photographer,’ she says.
‘No, someone told you I was a photographer, and I squirmed at the idea,’ you say.
‘Why?’
‘You did the same when your dancing was brought up?’
‘You didn’t answer my question.’
‘I dunno,’ you say. ‘But yeah, I take photographs.’ On the other side of the window, Piccadilly bustles. A man swells his bagpipes, the sound drifting up towards you. Friday evening and the city is bordering on frenzy, unsure of what to do with itself.
‘I guess,’ you start up. ‘I guess, it’s like knowing that you are something and wanting to protect that? I know I’m a photographer, but if someone else says I’m that, it changes things because what they think about me isn’t what I think about me. Sorry, I’m rambling.’
‘I get what you’re saying. But why does what someone else thinks about you change what you think about you?’
‘It shouldn’t.’
‘You’re very good at not answering questions.’
‘Am I? I don’t mean to be.’
‘I’m playing with you,’ she says, and indeed the smile in your direction is light and teasing.
‘It’s –’ You pause, frowning to yourself as you reach for the right expression. ‘You can’t live in a vacuum. And when you let people in and you make yourself vulnerable, they’re able to have an effect on you. If that makes sense.’
‘It does.’
‘What about you? The dancing thing?’
‘Mmm. Maybe later. We keep digressing.’
‘We do.’
‘What do you think? About my idea? I want to document people, Black people. Archiving is important, I think. But as I said, I don’t know the first thing about photography, and it would be cool to have you involved. Could be cool to do together.’
‘Erm,’ you say, letting the silence stretch and hold. ‘I, yeah, no. No, I don’t think I want to do it.’
‘Huh?’ Less of a question, more an involuntary noise. She sinks into the sofa, covering her whole self with her coat, and you watch it rise and fall like a duvet over a sleeping body.
‘Hey,’ you say. A forehead appears, followed by a strong set of eyebrows and a pair of eyes, wary and watchful. You watch her struggle with her discomfort.
‘I’m joking. I’ll do it. I wanna do it.’
The struggle continues and, when her face changes, it is because of reluctant appreciation. A jester meeting her match.
‘I hate you. So much. So so much.’ She checks the time. You’ve been sitting here for almost two hours.
‘Should we have a drink? To celebrate this new . . . partnership? I need a drink.’
You’re glad she asked.
You move from the mezzanine to the ground floor of the bar. The night is trailing after you, unable to keep up. A pair of low-bowled glasses sits half full on the table in front of you. They aren’t your first, or second, or third drink. You are a little dizzy, trying to grasp what is happening. Much of your joy is lost in the need to hold it, intact, so you try to dull that voice which needs clarity, taking another sip. This is fine, you think, this feels right. She returns from the toilet,