Genie and Paul Read Online Free PDF Page A

potager two days later and found all her precious plants ripped up as though a vandal had decided to destroy all that was beautiful and good in her garden. Her apple tree torn up from the ground. Nature had destroyed Nature. That was cannibalism, surely, or suicide. And she was crushed.
     
    They were living in a council flat on the eighth floor of a tower block in Hackney. The corridor they lived on made Genie think of a submarine: long and narrow and dimly lit, with an eerie aquatic echo. Grandmère too had moved. They visited her on Sunday afternoons in her new flat to eat hunks of dry cake like mouthfuls of sand. Genie and Paul would twitch with boredom while Mam and Grandmère muttered together, their conversation syncopated by the heavy clock on the mantelpiece.
    It was on one such visit, the week after the storm, that Grandmère told Mam she would be buying then selling her council flat under that Government scheme. Her plan was to go back to Mauritius. Her sister, Ma Tante Rose, did not have long left to live. This time, when Grandmère patted her knees and said, Anfen! as she usually did to signal the end ofthe visit, Paul told Genie and Mam he would catch up with them. He wanted to talk to Grandmère alone.
    When he came home he told them Grandmère had agreed to his request for a loan to fund a month-long computer course. Mam was delighted, Genie impressed.
    The course was in Cambridge. It was residential. But, some days after Paul had left London, Mam and Genie received a letter. The handwriting was familiar, the stamp – in tropical colours – immediately foreign. It was from Mauritius. Genie had never received a letter before. She tore it open.
    Dearest Mam and Genie,
    I’m not in Cambridge. There was no computer course. I’m in Mauritius.
    I never wanted to leave in the first place. Ever since we came to London, I’ve been yearning to come back. Yes, I know, a funny word. But I can’t think of any other way to describe this feeling of something pulling at me – of something missing. London’s never been me. You always wondered why I didn’t bother with anything, Mam. Why school was such a bunch of arse. Well I’ve never learnt anything that means as much to me as the names of the streets I’d pretty much forgotten round here in Pointe aux Sables. I’m living in the old place with Jean-Marie. He is showing me my country. We’ve been everywhere. Me and him and his friends, driving round the island. Yesterday he took me down to Gris Gris on his bike, all the way down south.
    I feel more myself here than I’ve done since I was a kid. I’ve missed the place. People speaking Creole around me. The fruit on the trees and the dogs in the street. All those mixed-up faces that make so much sense. Don’t be angry with me. I’m happy. I’m home.
    Home, thought Genie. How could he be, away from me? How could he? But she was too shocked to think of this as a question really – to even consider an answer – and so the words hung over her all evening while she tried to finish her homework, while she warmed up her tea in the microwave, while she sat eating in front of the telly, while she carefully washed up her plate and cutlery. When Mam rang, still at work, Genie did not mention the letter. She chatted normally. Finished her homework. Packed her schoolbag. Got into her pyjamas and into bed. Switched off the light. Several hours later, Genie woke to find that she was standing in Paul’s room. The bed was made. Without hesitation, she climbed in.
     
    During the long months of Paul’s absence, Mam and Genie lived in a state of strange, jaundiced calm. Neither spoke much. Mam’s face became pinched from frequent migraines. And it was physically that Genie felt Paul’s absence too – a pain in her throat as though she was on the verge of choking, something hard and round stuck in her throat. Genie found it hard to breathe or speak. The heart is a muscle , she thought, as she registered the constriction in