'I very much agree. Much too short. Clotilde!'

'Sorry?'

'Not you, dear. Clotilde!'

The girl who had answered the door to Kiki came into the room.

'Clotilde, may we have some tea brought in please, and Mrs Belsey has a pie you can cut up. None for me, please -' Kiki protested, but Carlene shook her head. 'No, I can't digest a thing before three in the afternoon these days. I'll try a piece later, but you go on ahead. Now. It's so good to see you again. How are you?'

'Me? Fine. I'm fine. And you?'

'As it happens I've been in bed for quite a few days. I watched the television. A long documentary -a series of programmes about Lincoln. Conspiracy theories regarding his death and so on.'

'Oh, I'm so sorry you're feeling bad: said Kiki, looking away with shame at the thought of her own conspiracy theories.

'Don't be. It was a very good documentary. I find it's not true what they say about American television -not all ofit, anyway.'

'Why, what do they say about it?' asked Kiki, smiling rigidly. She knew what was coming and she was annoyed by it, but also annoyed at herself for being annoyed.

Carlene shrugged in a fragile way, not quite in control of the movement. 'Well, in England we tend to think of it as awful nonsense, I suppose.'

'Right. We hear that a lot. I guess our TV's not so great.'

'Actually I think it's much of a muchness. I don't really follow any of it any more, it's too fast ... cut, cut cut, everything so hysterical and loud... but Monry says that even Channel Four can't compete with the kind of liberal programming you find on PBS. He can't bear PBS. He sees through it terribly -the way they promote all the usual liberal ideas and pretend it's progress for minorities. He hates all that. Did you know most of the donors live in Boston? Monty says that tells you all you need to know. And yet this Lincoln documentary was really very good.' 'And ... that was on ... PBS?' said Kiki despondently. She had lost her grip on her clip-on smile. Carlene pressed her fingers to her brow. 'Yes. Didn't I say that? Yes. It was very good.'

They were not getting very far, and whatever had moved so felicitously between them three weeks ago appeared to have vanished. Kiki wondered how soon she could make her excuses without seeming rude. As if in response to this silent speculation, Carlene leaned back in her chair and lowered her hand from her forehead to place it over her eyes. A pained murmur, lower than her speaking voice, came from her.

'Carlene? Honey, are you OK?'

Kiki moved to stand, but with her other hand Carlene waved her off 'It's a lirtle thing. It'll pass.' Kiki stayed on the edge ofher piano stool, in mid action, looking from Carlene to the door and back.

'Are you sure I can't get you any -'

'It's interesting to me: said Carlene slowly, removing her hand. 'You were worried too, about their meeting again. Jerome and my Vee.'

'Worried? No: said Kiki, laughing casually. 'No, not really.'

'But you were. I was too. I was very glad to hear Jerome avoided her at your party. It's a silly thing, but I knew I didn't want them to meet again. Why was that?'

'Well: said Kiki and looked down, preparing to say something evasive. Glancing up into the woman's serious eyes, she once more found herself speaking the truth. 'For me, I guess I worry about Jerome taking things hard, you know? He's inexperienced -very. And Vee -she's so incredibly lovely -I'd never say it to him, but she was a lirtle out of his league. A lot. She's what my youngest son would call bootylicious.' Kiki laughed, but, seeing that Carlene was following her words as if they were vital, she stopped. 'Jerome always tends to aim a little high... You know what the bottom line is? It just looked like broken-heart territory to me. I mean, the kind of broken heart that keeps on getting broke. And this is an important college year for Jay. I mean... you just have to look at . her to see she's a fire sign,' said Kiki, resorting to a system ofvalues that never seemed to let her down. 'And Jerome -Jerome's a water sign. He's a Scorpio, like me. And that's pretty much his character.' Kiki asked Carlene her daughter's sign and was pleased to find her guess was correct. Carlene Kipps looked perplexed at the astrological tum to the conversation.

'She might bum him up,' she considered, trying to decode what Kiki had just told her. 'And he would put out her fire ... He'd hold her back -yes, yes, I believe that's right.'

But Kiki bridled at this. 'I don't know about that... actually, I know all mothers say this, but my baby's very brilliant -if anything, it's always a question of keeping up with him, intellectually speaking. He's a live wire -I know Howie would say that Jerome's probably the brightest of the three of them -I mean Zora works hard, God knows, butJerome -'

'You mistake what I'm saying. I saw when he was with us. He was so focused on my daughter, he almost couldn't let her live. I suppose you call it obsession. When he has an idea, your son, he holds it very tight. My husband is like that -I recognize it. Jerome's a very absolute young man.'

Kiki smiled. This was what she had liked about the woman. She put things well: insightfully, honestly.

'Yeah, I know what you mean. All or nothing. All ofmy children are a little like that, to tell you the truth. They set their mind to something, and my God, they don't let go. That's their father's influence. Pig-headed as hell.'

'And men become very absolute about pretty girls, don't they?' continued Carlene, inching along her own thread now, which was obscure to Kiki. 'And if they can't possess them, they get angry and bitter instead. It occupies them too much. I was never one of those women. I'm glad I wasn't. I used to mind, but now I see how it left Monty free for other interests.'

What could one say to this? Kiki felt in her purse for her lip-balm.

'That's a strange way to think about it: she said. 'Is it? I've always felt that. I'm sure that's wrong. I've never been a feminist. You would put it more cleverly.'

'No, no -I just -surely, it's about what both people wantto do: said Kiki, applying a layer of colourless gIoop to her mouth. 'And how they each might... I guess enable their partners, no?'

'Enable? I don't know.'

'I mean, your husband, Monty, for example: said Kiki, boldly. 'He writes a lot about -I mean, I've read his arricles -about what a perfect mother you are, and he ... you know, often uses you as an example of the ideal-I guess, the ideal 'stay-at-home' Christian Mom -which is amazing of course -but there must also be things you... maybe things you wanted to do that ... maybe you wish ...'

Carlene smiled. Her teeth were the only non-regal thing about her, raggedy and uneven with large childish gaps. '[ wanted to love and to be loved.'

'Yes: said Kiki, because she could not think ofanything else. She listened out hopefully for the footsteps of Clotilde, some sign of imminent interruption, but nothing.

'And Kiki -when you were young? I imagine you did a million things.'

'Oh, God... I wanted to. I don't know about doing them. For the longest time I wanted to be Malcolm X's private assistant. That didn't work out. I wanted to be a writer. Wanted to sing at one point. My mamma wanted me to be a doctor. Black woman doctor. Those were her three favourite words.'

'And were you very good-looking?'

'Wow... what a question! Where'd that come from?'

Carlene lifted her bony shoulders once again. 'I always wonder what people were like before I knew them.'

'Was [ good-looking ... Acrually, I was! ' It was a strange thing to say out loud. 'Carlene, berween you and me, I was hot. Not for very long. About six years maybe. But I was.'

'You can always tell. You still have a good deal ofbeauty, I think: said Carlene.

Kiki laughed raucously. 'You are a shameless flatterer. You know ... I see Zora worrying all the time about her looks, and I want to say to her, honey, any woman who counts on her face is afool. She doesn't want to hear that from me. It's how it is, though. We all end up in the same place in the end. That's the truth.'

Kiki laughed again, more sadly this time. Now it was Carlene's turn to smile politely. 'Did I tell you?' said Carlene, to end the brief silence, 'My son Michael is engaged. We heard only last week.'

'Oh, that's great: said Kiki, no longer so easily wrong-footed by the disconnected turns of Carlene's conversation. 'Who is she? American girl?'

'English. Her parents are Jamaican. A very plain, sweet, quiet girl -a girl from our church. Amelia. She couldn't throw anybody offbalance -she'll be a companion. And that's a good thing, I think. Michael's just not strong enough for anything else...' She broke off here and turned to look through the window at the backyard. 'They're going to have the wedding here, in Wellington. They'll come at Christmas to look for the right place. You'll excuse me for a moment. I must check on your lovely pie.'

Kiki watched Carlene leave the room, unsteadily, leaning on things as she went. Alone, Kiki put her hands between her knees and pressed in on them. The news that some girl was about to start out on the road she herself had walked thirty years earlier gave her a vertiginous feeling. A clearing opened in her mind, and in it she tried to restage one ofher earliest memories ofHoward -the night they first met and first slept together. But it could not be conjured so easily; for at least the past ten years the memory had presented itself to her like a stiff tin toy left out in the rain -so rusty, a museum piece, not her toy at all any more. Even the kids knew it too well. Upon the Indian rug on the floor of Kiki's Brooklyn walk-up, with all the windows open, with Howard's big grey feet halfway out the door resting on the fire escape. A hundred and two degrees in the New York smog. 'Halleluiah' by Leonard Cohen playing on her dime-store record player, that song Howard liked to call'a hymn deconstructing a hymn'. Long ago Kiki had submitted to this musical part of the memory. But it was surely not true 'Hallelujah' had been another time, years later. But it was hard to resist the poetry of the possibility, and so she had allowed 'Halleluiah' to fan into family myth. Thinking back, this had been a mistake. A tiny one, to be sure, but symptomatic of profound flaws. Why did she always concede what was left of the past to Howard's edited versions of it? For example, she should probably say something when, at dinner parries, Howard claimed to despise all prose fiction. She should stop him when he argued that American cinema was just so much idealized trash. But, she should say, but! Christmas 1976 he gave me Gatsby, a first edition. We saw Taxi Driver in a filthy dive in Times Square -he loved it. She did not say those things. She let Howard reinvent, retouch. When, on their twentyfifth wedding anniversary, Jerome had played his parents an ethereal, far more beautiful version of 'Halleluiah' by a kid called Buckley, Kiki had thought yes, that's right, our memories are getting more beautiful and less real every day. And then the kid drowned in the Mississippi, recalled Kiki now, looking up from her knees to the colourful painting that hung behind Carlene's empty chair.

Jerome had wept: the tears you cry for someone whom you never met who made something beautiful that you loved. Seventeen years earlier, when Lennon died, Kiki had dragged Howard to Central Park and wept while the crowd sang 'All You Need is Love' and Howard ranted bitterly about Milgram and mass psychosis.

'Do you like herr Carlene shakily passed Kiki a cup of tea, while Clotilde placed a piece of pie on a fussy china plate next to her on the piano seat. Before Clotilde could be thanked, she was backing out ofthe room, closing the door behind her.

'Like... ?' 'Maitresse Erzulie: said Cariene, pointing to the painting. 'You were admiring her, I thought.'

'She's fabulous: replied Kiki, only now taking the time to look at her properly. In the centre ofthe frame there was a tall, naked black woman wearing only a red bandanna and standing in a fantastical white space, surrounded all about by tropical branches and kaleidoscopic fruit and flowers. Four pink birds, one green parrot. Three hUmming birds. Many brown butterflies. It was painted in a primitive, childlike style, everything flat on the canvas. No perspective, no depth.

'It's a Hyppolite. It's worth a great deal, I believe, but that's not why I love it. I got it in Haiti itself on my very first visit, before I met my husband.'

'It's lovely. I just love portraits. We don't have any paintings in our house. At least, none ofhuman beings.'

'Oh, that's terrible,' said Carlene and looked stricken. 'But you must come here whenever you want and look at mine. I have many. They're my company -they're the greater part of my joy. I realized that quite recently. But she's my favourite. She's a great Voodoo goddess, Erzulie. She's called the Black Virgin -also, the Violent Venus. Poor Clotilde won't look at her, can't even be in the same room as her -did you notice? A superstition.'

'Really. So she's a symbol?'

'Oh, yes. She represents love, beauty, purity, the ideal female and the moon ... and she's the mystere of jealousy, vengeance and discord, and, on the other hand, of love, perpetual help, goodwill, health, beauty and fortune.'

'Phew. That's a lot of symbolizing.'

'Yes, isn't it? It's rather like all the Catholic saints rolled into one being.'

'That's interesting...' began Kiki shyly, giving herself a moment to remember a thesis of Howard's, which she now wished to reproduce as her own for Carlene. 'Because ... we're so binary, of course, in the way we think. We tend to think in opposites, in the Christian world. We're structured like that -Howard always says that's the trouble.'

'That's a clever way to put it. I like her parrots.'

Kiki smiled, relieved she did not need to go any further down this uncertain path.

'Good parrots. So, does she avenge herself on men?'

'Yes, I believe so.'

'I need to get me some of that,' said Kiki, half under her breath, not really meaning for it to be heard.

'I think .. : murmured Carlene and smiled tenderly at her guest, 'I think that would be a shame: Kiki closed her eyes. 'Wow. I hate this town sometimes. Everybody knows everybody's business. Too small by a long way.' 'Oh, but I'm so glad to see that your spirits haven't been destroyed by it: 'Oh!' said Kiki, and felt moved by the unsolicited concern. 'We'll get by. I've been married an awful long time, Carlene. Takes a giant to hurt me: Carlene leant back in her chair. Her eyes were pink round their rims and wet.

'But why shouldn't you be hurt by it, dear? It's very hurtful: 'Yes ... of course it is -but ... I guess I mean that's not all my life is about. Right now I'm trying to understand what my life's been for -I feel I'm at that point -and what it will be for. And ... that's just a lot more essential for me right now. And Howard's got to ask those questions for himself. I don't know ... we break up, we don't break up -it's the same: 'I don't ask myself what did I live for: said Carlene strongly. 'That is a man's question. I ask whom did I live for: 'Oh, I don't believe you believe that: But, looking into her grave eyes, Kiki saw clearly that this is exactly what the woman opposite her did believe, and she felt suddenly vexed by the waste and stupidity of it. 'I have to say, Carlene, you know ... I'm afraid I just don't believe that. I know I didn't live for anybody -and it just seems to me it's like taking us all, all women, certainly all black women, three hundred years backwards ifyou really -'

'Oh, dear, we're arguing: said Carlene, distressed at the prospect. 'You mistake me again. I don't mean to argue a case. It's just a feeling I have, especially now. I see vety clearly recently that in fact I didn't live for an idea or even for God -I lived because I loved this person. I am very selfish, really. I lived for love. I never really interested myself in the world -my family, yes, but not the world. I can't make a case for my life, but it is true: Kiki regretted raising her voice. The lady was old, the lady was ill. It didn't matter what the lady believed.

'You must have a wonderful marriage: she said in conciliation.

'That's amazing. But for us ... you know... you get to a point where you have an understanding -'

Carlene shushed her and came forward further in her chair. 'Yes, yes. But you staked your life. You gave somebody your life. You've been disappointed: 'Oh, I don't know about disappointed , .. it's not really a surprise.

Stuff happens. And I did marry a man: Carlene looked at her curiously. 'Is there another option?'

Kiki looked straight back at her hostess and decided to be brazen.

'For me, there was, I think ... yes. At one point: Carlene looked uncomprehendingly at her guest. Kiki wondered at herself. She was misfiring recently, and now she was misfiring in Carlene Kipps's library. But she did not stop; she felt an old Kikian urge -once upon a time regularly exercised -to shock and, at the same time, to tell the truth. It was the identical feeling she felt (but rarely acted upon) in churches and upscale stores and courtrooms.

Places she sensed the truth was rarely told.

'I guess I mean, there was a revolution going on, everybody was looking at different lifestyles, alternative lifestyles ... so whether women could live with women, for example: 'With women: repeated Carlene.

'Instead of men: confirmed Kiki. 'Sure ... I thought for a while that might be the road I was going to go down. I mean, I went down it some way: 'Ah: said Carlene and brought her wobbling right hand under the control of her left. 'Yes, I see: she said thoughtfully, blushing only very slightly. 'Maybe that would be easier -that's what you think? I've often wondered .. , it must be easier to know the other person -I imagine that'S true. They are as you are. My aunt was that way. It's not uncommon in the Caribbean. Of course Monty's always been very harsh on the subject -until James: 'James?' repeated Kiki sharply. She was irked to find her own revelation passed over so swiftly. 'The ReverendJames Delafield. He's a very old friend of Monty -Princeton gentleman. A Baptist -he delivered the benediction at President Reagan's inauguration, I believe.' 'Now, didn't he rum out to be... ?' said Kiki, vaguely recalling a New Yorker profile.

Carlene clapped her hands and -of all things -giggled. 'Yes! It made Monty think again, yes, it did. And Monty hates to think again. But the choice was between his friend and ... well, I don't know. The Good News, I suppose. But I knew Monty likes James's conversation -not to mention his cigars -a little too much. I said to him: my dear, life must come first over the Book. Otherwise, what is the Bookfor? Monty was outraged! Scandalized! It is for us to conform to the Book, as he said. He told me J'd got it all wrong -no doubt I have. But I see they still like to spend an evening together with a cigar. You know, between you and me: she whispered, and Kiki wondered what had happened to not making fun of one's own husband, 'they're very good friends.'

Kiki lifted her left eyebrow in neat, devastating fashion: 'Monty Kipps's best friend is a gay man.' Carlene gave a little shriek of amusement. 'Goodness, he would never say that. Never! You see, he doesn't think ofit that way.'

'What other. way is there to think about it?'

Carlene wiped tears of mirth from her eyes.

Kiki whistled. 'You sure as hell never hear the brother mention that on Bill O'Reilly.' 'Oh, my dear, you're terrible. Terrible!' She was truly gleeful now, and Kiki marvelled at how this whitened her eyes and tightened her skin. She looked younger, healthier. They laughed together for a while, at quite different things, so Kiki imagined. After a while the glee subsided on both sides, and they fell into more normal conversation. These little mutual revelations reminded them of their common ground, and in this they walked around leisurely, steering clear of anything that might prove an obstacle to easy movement. Both mothers, both familiar with England, both lovers ofdogs and gardens, both slightly awed by the abilities of their children. Carlene spoke a great deal ofMichael, ofwhose practicality and money sense she seemed vety proud. Kiki in return offered up her own somewhat falsified family anecdotes, consciously smoothing over the rougher edges of Levi, sketching in a slender, mendacious picture of Zora's devotion to family life. Kiki mentioned the hospital several times, hoping to segue into an inquiry as to the nature of Carlene's iliness, but each time, at the brink, she hesitated. The time passed. They finished their tea. K.iki found she had eaten three pieces ofpie. At the door, Carlene kissed K.iki on both cheeks, at which point Kiki smelt her own workplace, clearly, acutely. She let go of where she held Carlene, under each brittle elbow. She walked the pretty garden path back to the street.

A mega-store demands a mega-building. When Levi's Saturday employers blew into Boston seven years ago, several grand nineteenth-century structures were considered. The winner was the old municipal library, built in the 1880s in brash red brick with glittering black windows and a high Ruskinian arch above the door. The building took up most of the block it stood upon. In this building Oscar Wilde once gave a lecture concerning the superiority of the lily over all other flowers. One opened the doors by twisting an iron hoop in both hands and awaiting the soft heavy click as metal released metal. Now those twelve-foot oak doors have been replaced by triple sets ofglass panels that silently part when people approach. Levi walked through these and touched fists with Marlon and Big James in security. He took the elevator to the basement storeroom to change into the branded T-shirt, the baseball cap and the cheap, skinny-legged, tapered-ankle, lint-ball-attracting black polyester pants they made him wear. He rode the elevator up to the fourth floor and made his way to his department, his eyes to the floor, follOWing the repeated brand logo in the synthetic carpet underfoot. He was pissed off. He felt he'd been let down. Along the corridor he traced the genealogy of the feeling. He had taken this Saturday job in good faith, having always admired the global brand behind these stores, the scope and ambition of their vision. He had been particularly impressed by this section ofthe application form: Out companies are part of a family rather than a hierarchy. They are empowered to run their own affairs, yet other companies help one another, and solutions to problems come from all kinds of sources. In a sense we are a community, with shared ideas, values, interests and goals.

The proof of our success is real and tangible. Be a part ofit.

He had wanted to be a part of it. Levi liked the way the mythical British guy who owned the brand was like a graffiti artist, tagging the world. Planes, trains, finance, soft drinks, music, cellphones, vacations, cars, wines, publishing, bridal wear -anything with a surface that would take his simple bold logo. That was the kind of thing Levi wanted to do one day. He'd figured that it wasn't such a bad idea to get a little sales assistant job with this enormous firm, ifonly to see how their operation worked from the inside. Watch, leam, supplant -Machiavelli style. Even when it turned out to be tough work for bad pay, he'd stuck with it. Because he believed that he was part of a family whose success was real and tangible, despite the $6.89 an hour he was being paid.

Then out of nowhere this morning he received a message on his pager from Tom, a nice kid who worked in the Folk Music section of the store. According to Tom, there was a rumour going around that the floor manager, Bailey, required all floor and counter staff to work Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. It then struck Levi that he had never seriously considered precisely what his employer, the impressive global brand, really meant by these shared ideas, values, interests and goals of which he and Tom and Candy and Gina and LaShonda and Gloria and Jamal and all the rest supposedly partook. Music for the people? Choice is paramount! All music all the time! .

'Get the money,' suggested Howard at brealrfast. 'No matter what. That's their motto.'

'I am not working Christmas Day,' said Levi.

'Nor should you,' agreed Howard.

'That's just not happening. That's bullshit.'

'Well, ifyou really feel like that, then you need to get your fellow employees together and implement some kind of direct action.' 'I don't even know what that is.' Over their toast and coffee, Levi's father explained the principles ofdirect action as it was practised between 1970 and 1980 by Howard and his friends. He spoke at lengrh about someone called Gramsci and some people called the Situationists. Levi nodded quickly and regularly, as he had learned to do when his father made speeches of this kind. He felt his eyelids tugging low and his spoon heavy in his hand.

'I don't think that's how things go down now,' Levi said at last, gently, not wanting to disappoint his father, but needing to catch the bus. It was a nice enough story, but it was making him late for work.

Now Levi arrived at his sector in the west wing of the fourth floor. He'd been recently promoted, although it was more of a conceptual promotion than a fiscal one. Instead of having to be wherever he was needed, he now worked exclusively in Hiphop, R & B and Urban; he had been encouraged to believe that this would involve him imparting his knowledge of these genres to knowledge-seeking customers, just as the librarians who once walked this floor had helped the readers who came to them. But that wasn't exactly how it had panned out. Where.are the toilets? Where is Jazz? Where is World Music? Where is the caft? Where is the sigJtittg? What he did most Saturdays wasn't all that different from standing on a street comer with an arrow Sign, directing people to an army surplus store. And, although the dusty light sifted delicately through the high windows, and the spirit ofstudious contemplation lingered on in the phoney Tudor-style panelling of the walls and the carved roses and tulips that decorated the many balconies, no one in here was genuinely seeking enlightenment. And that was a shame, for Levi loved rap music; its beauty, ingenuity and humanity were neither obscure nor unlikely to him, and he could argue a case for its equal greatness against any of the artistic products of the human species. Half an hour of a customer's time spent with Levi expressing this enthusiasm would be like listening to Harold Bloom wax lyrical about Falstaff -but the opportunity never arose. Instead he spent his days directing people to novelty rap records from hit movies. Consequently, Levi did not get paid enough or enjoy his time here sufficiently even to contemplate working the Christmas weekend. It just wasn't going down like that.

'Candy! Yo, Candy!'

Thirty feet away from Levi, and not sure, initially, who it was shouting at her, Candy turned from the customer she was dealing with and gave Levi a sigo to leave her alone. Levi waited for her customer to move on. Then he jogged up to Candy in the Alt. Rock Heavy Metal section and tapped her on the shoulder. She turned, already Sighing. She had a new piercing. A bolt that went through the skin on her chin, just beneath her bottom lip. That was the thing about working here: you met the kind of people you would never ever meet in any other circumstances.p> 'Candy -I need to talk to you.' 'Look ... I've been here since seven stocking and I'm going to lunch now so don't even ask.' 'No, man -I just got here, I'm taking my break at twelve. Did you hear about Christmas Day?'

Candy groaned and rubbed her eyes vigorously. Levi noted the grubbiness of her fingers, the tom cuticles, the little translucent wart on her thumb. When she'd finished her face was purple and blotchy and clashed with the pink-black stripes of her hair.

'Yeah, I heard about it.'

'They're tripping if they think they gonna see me on that weekend. I am not working Christmas, it ain't happening.' 'So, what -you going to quit or something?' 'Now, why would I do that? That's plain dumb.' 'Well, you can complain, but ...' Candy cracked her knuckles.

'Bailey really doesn't give a fuck.' That's why I'm not gonna complain to Bailey, I'm gonna do something, man -I'm gonna take some ... like some direct action.' Candy blinked slowly at him. 'Oh, right. Good luck with that.'

'Look: just meet me out back in two minutes, a'ight? Get the others -Tom and Gina and Gloria -everybody on our floor. I'll find LaShonda -she's on the counter.'

'Okay,' said Candy, managing to make this sound like an overused quotation. 'God... calm down with the Stalinism.' 'Two minutes.'

'Okay.'