People Person, page 11
The others nodded in agreement.
Dimple faced the camera again, pressed record.
“And Dimple, be a bit more nice,” Prynce said.
“What do you mean, ‘be a bit more nice’?” Dimple said, stopping the recording and turning back around.
“Like, ask how they are? I know they’re all watching you, but it shouldn’t be a one-way street.”
Dimple rolled her eyes at her half brother and faced the camera again.
“Nobody say anything now, please. I just want to get this done.”
“You know we’ve all taken time out of our days to help you with this, right?” Lizzie asked. “Just checking you know that. If you’re going to be snapping at us.”
“She knows,” Danny said. “She’s just tense. You got this. One take, let’s go.”
Dimple went to press record when Prynce’s phone started to buzz. She turned round to stare at him as he answered.
“What’s going on, Tajaana?… I was just about to call you, you know. What you on tonight?”
“Prynce,” Lizzie said firmly. “I want to get out of here, I have things to do.”
Prynce waved a hand at Lizzie.
“… that was just my sister, Lizzie. Tajaana, come on. I don’t even have time to chat to anyone but you… I promise! Why would I lie, babes? Look, we’re in the middle of something so I’m gonna shout you later, yeah? Yeah. You too.”
Prynce ended the call and put his phone in his pocket.
“At my last count that’s three,” Dimple said.
“What can I say? I have a lot of love to give,” Prynce told her.
Dimple began again.
“Hey, everyone. Hope you’re all good. I—”
Prynce jumped in.
“Sorry, last thing. I think you should turn your light down, make it a bit more dull. The way it is now is a bit too, like, bright and exciting. You know what I mean?”
“Prynce, I really don’t,” Dimple said flatly.
“Mmm, he’s not wrong,” Lizzie said.
“Sorry, did you two do the same cinematography course?” Dimple asked.
“Just try what he’s saying,” Nikisha told Dimple.
Dimple dimmed the ring light.
“Are we all happy?” she asked. “And are we all out of shot?”
“Got a bit of a temper when you’re ready, haven’t you?” Danny laughed.
“Yes! I do!” Dimple snapped.
“Are you hungry?” Danny asked. “I’ve got some chocolate in the car, I could grab it for you.”
“I don’t want any chocolate, I just want this to be over!”
“All right.” Danny crossed his arms. “Was just trying to help.”
Dimple pressed record.
“Hey, everyone, happy Monday. I hope you’re all good. I’m so sorry I’ve been quiet, but I’ve been thinking about you all. And thank you so, so much to anyone who messaged me. I’ve just been lying low in my room and getting my head together. But… I need you to do something for me.”
Nikisha nodded to herself from the bed.
“I spoke to Kyron’s mum, Lynette, yesterday and…” Dimple paused. “She told me that he hasn’t been seen for a while. I don’t know how long for, but it sounds pretty serious. Obviously, he and I ended things on good terms, but even if we hadn’t, I would give anything, everything to know he’s okay. So, if you’ve seen him, or you know anything, please, please comment below. And, Kyron, if you see this, please come home. We miss you.”
Dimple looked down at the floor and exhaled slowly before stopping the recording.
“Did you study acting?” Prynce asked.
“You did say your favorite subject was drama, didn’t you!” Danny said.
“I think you overdid it a bit, you know,” Lizzie said.
“Which bit?” Dimple asked, spinning round in her chair.
“Don’t tell her, she’ll just be annoyed,” Prynce said.
“No, it’s good for me to know this stuff.” Dimple crossed her arms defensively. “For the future.”
“No, I’ve seen a couple of your videos. You’re good in general, even though not a lot of people are watching. Even so, you’re very much an influencer in spirit, you’ve got that down,” Lizzie explained as Prynce stifled a laugh. “But the thing about ‘ending things on good terms.’ Did you need to say that, do you think?”
“It’s fine,” Prynce said. “People will just chalk it up to her being emotional and centering herself. She always does that in her videos, so it’s not like it’s out of character.”
Dimple jerked her head back.
“Do I?”
“Yeah.” Danny nodded. “But that’s just your thing, isn’t it?”
“Sorry, are you all just in your houses watching my videos and talking about how and where I could improve?” Dimple cocked her head as she waited for an answer that she hoped was no.
“No!” everyone exclaimed in unison. She didn’t believe them.
“One thing I will say—” Prynce said.
“One thing?” Dimple asked. “To add to all the other things, you mean?”
“Don’t you think it’s a bit mad? The thing you said about commenting below if anyone sees Kyron?”
“How you mean?” Dimple was so annoyed at this point.
“Like, it’s a human life, init?” Prynce said. “Isn’t it so mad to be, like, ‘comment below’ when you’re talking about a human life? It’s like you’re reducing a person to Internet matter. Like, comment below if you’re feeling my outfit or something. It’s just wild.”
Dimple blinked at her half brother and wondered if she murdered him right there as he stood, would the rest of their siblings help her hide his dead body also.
“You got any food in the house?” Danny asked Dimple. “I’m starving and chocolate isn’t going to do anything for me.”
“Yes,” Dimple told him. “There’s some curry chicken in the fridge—and some vegetable curry for you, Lizzie. I might center myself in everything, but I remembered you’re vegan.” Dimple waited for someone to challenge this but they didn’t. “Could someone make the rice while I upload this video, please?”
“You don’t know how to make rice?” Prynce asked.
“Thank you for offering, Prynce.” Dimple smiled as she tried to regulate her temper. “You’ll be able to find everything in the kitchen.”
Danny, Nikisha, Lizzie, and Prynce left the room, in that order, and Dimple got to work while she listened to them clatter around her kitchen. She wondered if this new and sudden insecurity was coming from the fact that she’d tried to hide a body and the guilt of that was playing tricks with the rest of her mind, or that suddenly she had four people in her life who had no issue with picking her apart every time she opened her mouth.
Dimple chopped and cut the video and added a picture of Kyron to the end of it. Then she thought it might be better to use one of both of them so it looked like she really, really missed him. And then she wondered if she did miss him or not. She missed things about him. But then she realized that she missed the things he showed her in the beginning, and how those things, like buying her gifts, and the attention, and the passion—which she’d realized was aggression—faded away fairly quickly. His representative had stopped showing up about three months in, and the following two years and seven months had been an emotional assault course, but she’d already announced the relationship on her socials so couldn’t break up with him at that point in case she looked fickle to whoever had seen it. Dimple looked at the picture of both of them for a while before uploading the video, recalling the moment it had been taken. A few minutes before, he’d told her that she should stop eating chocolate because the fat was going to the wrong places.
“Who are you?” Janet’s voice rang up from the kitchen and jolted Dimple out of her thoughts.
“Shit.” She ran down the stairs and into the kitchen, where she saw her mum staring at Prynce, who was gently placing a lid on the rice pan, Danny, who was trying to figure out the microwave, and Lizzie, who was explaining it to him. Nikisha getting herself a drink from the fridge looked like it was about to be Janet’s breaking point.
“Mum! I didn’t think you’d be home till much later!” Dimple said, hugging her mum quickly.
“So you are here.” Janet looked at her daughter, confusion lining her face. “And here I was thinking these strangers had broken into my kitchen to cook themselves dinner!”
“Oh,” Dimple said. “They aren’t strangers.”
“Well, you could have given me some notice before you had so many friends round. But anyway, they’re here now.”
“We aren’t her friends.” Nikisha placed her drink down on the side as she turned to Janet, who narrowed her eyes as she focused on the four people in front of her.
“Mum, this is Nikisha.”
Nikisha smiled.
“This is Danny.”
Danny waved, walked over to Janet, and pulled her into a hug she definitely didn’t want.
“Lizzie.”
Lizzie nodded and crossed her arms.
“And Prynce! The youngest. Obviously.”
Prynce beamed at Janet, his teeth lighting up the kitchen.
“How you doing?”
“I see.” Coldness dripped from Janet’s voice as realization set in. “They’re your half brothers and sisters.”
Dimple could see her mum’s mind going very fast.
“I don’t think we need to say ‘half.’ ” Nikisha smiled. “Blood is blood.”
Dimple’s stomach turned as she pictured Kyron’s blood on the kitchen floor. So much was happening in her head.
“When did… this happen?” Janet asked, motioning her hands around the kitchen.
“I saw Dimple in Croydon a few weeks ago, and we said how much of a shame it was that we were all adults and we didn’t know each other. So here we are. Getting to know each other,” Nikisha said, lying.
“Mmm,” Janet said. “Well, continue making yourselves at home, won’t you? Dimp, can I chat to you for a sec?”
Janet pulled Dimple out of the room the way she would when she was young and in trouble; a very small and specific pinch on the arm that nobody could quite see the severity of.
When she’d ushered her daughter into the very small utility cupboard and closed the door behind them, Janet looked at Dimple very sternly for a long time.
“They’re gonna think something is weird now,” Dimple said. “Why are we talking in the utility cupboard, Mum?”
“Because I don’t want them to hear us!” Janet hissed.
“Yeah, no, I definitely got that. But what d’you need to say to me now that you couldn’t say when they were gone? They haven’t moved in.”
“Why are Cyril’s kids in my house, Dimple?” Janet said, louder than the first time.
“They’re not ‘Cyril’s kids,’ they’re my siblings!”
“Half-siblings,” Janet said, correcting her daughter. “Don’t forget it. And why is it you haven’t seen them for how many years and now here they are in my kitchen, eating my food?”
“Mum. What?” This was the first time Dimple had seen her mum like this. She didn’t like who she was seeing either.
“Well, you have to ask yourself, don’t you? Why haven’t you had them in your life up until now? They’ve obviously seen you on the Internet and they think you’re doing well, and that you’ve got money, and they want some!”
Dimple wanted to laugh at how far from the truth her mother’s understanding was.
“No, Mum,” Dimple said. “I got in touch with Nikisha a few days after me and Kyron broke up. I think I needed a big sister.”
She knew how much this would hurt her mum. Which was and wasn’t the desired effect.
“You sat in your room for all that time and didn’t talk to me, but you got in touch with a stranger?” Janet couldn’t believe the betrayal.
“A stranger?” Dimple said in disbelief. “Anyway, excuse me. I need to get back to them. Don’t worry, we’ll all eat and I’ll have them out of your precious house soon.”
Dimple squeezed past Janet and made her way back into the kitchen. Prynce was spooning rice out onto plates and Danny was struggling with the warmed-up container of curry chicken.
“I got a plate out for your mum,” Prynce told Dimple. “She hungry?”
“No, she’s going to have a bath,” Dimple said. “She’s had a long day.”
“Actually, I think I’ll eat with all of you first,” Janet said as she entered the kitchen. “Let’s sit down. We can sit around the table in the conservatory.”
As decreed by Janet, they all sat around the large wooden table in the conservatory, uncomfortably. Janet sat at the head of the table, with her daughter to her left. Lizzie sat next to Dimple, and next to Lizzie and opposite Janet sat Danny. Prynce propped himself on the table by his elbows to the left of Danny, and Nikisha was next to him.
“So,” Janet said. “What do all of you do? Let’s go round the table.”
She picked up her fork, speared a piece of chicken, and looked to her right.
“Nikisha?”
“I do this and that,” Nikisha answered her. “But I’ve got two children who keep my hands pretty full.”
“Ah, and how old are they?” Janet asked.
“Nicky is nine, and Amara is two.” Nikisha smiled. “They’re really special kids.”
“What a gap!” Janet smiled back at Nikisha. “Same dad?”
“Oh yes.” She nodded.
“I see.” Janet’s smile tightened.
“It’s like history repeating itself, I guess.” She smiled back at Janet. It was like passive-aggressive smiling tennis.
“And you, Prynce?”
“I don’t have any kids,” he answered.
“No.” Janet looked at him quizzically. “Your job.”
“Oh.” Prynce laughed. “I do this and that, too, I guess. But mainly make money from doing delivery driving. Well, biking. Like, food and that.”
“Right.” Janet looked pointedly at her daughter. “By food do you mean drugs?”
“Ha, no.” Prynce laughed again. “By food, I mean food that people eat.”
“And you two have the same mum?” she asked. “Obviously I lost touch with your dad many years ago, but I did hear something like that.”
“Yes,” Nikisha said. “Obviously our mum was someone Cyril couldn’t forget.”
“Indeed.” Janet pursed her lips. “And you, Daniel?”
“It’s Danny,” Danny said, correcting her. “Danny isn’t short for Daniel or anything. It’s Danny on my birth certificate, passport, driving license, everything.”
“I see!” Janet said. “How unusual.”
“Is it? But yeah, I’m a plumber,” Danny told her.
“And you were in prison before that?” Janet asked.
“Mum!” Dimple sat up in her chair. “Why would you ask that?”
Danny nodded.
“I was, you know.”
“I do know.” Janet took a sip of her wine. “I heard of your case a few years back. You know I’m a barrister, don’t you?”
Danny nodded once more.
“And I’d recognize that surname anywhere.”
“But it was what it was,” Danny said. “I was younger then. Reckless. But I don’t regret it.”
“You don’t regret doing what you did?” Janet asked. “Surely you must.”
“No, I mean, I regret what I did, yeah, but I don’t think it makes me a bad person, if that makes sense. And I’m not embarrassed about my past. Like… I don’t regret that I did something in my past. ’Cause I’ve grown from it. And we all make mistakes, don’t we?”
“But that was a very big mistake, wasn’t it?” Janet smiled again.
Danny didn’t answer.
Janet pressed on. “And you, Lizzie?”
“Elizabeth to people I’m not close to, thanks,” Lizzie said. “I’m training to be a doctor.”
“Oh!” Janet exclaimed. “So at least one out of all of you has a proper job!”
“Mum!” Dimple yelped again. “I’m so sorry.”
“No, I’m including you in that, Dimple.” Janet took another sip of wine. “You know I don’t see sitting in front of a camera three times a week and showcasing things that get sent in the post that clog up my hallway a proper job.”
“Well, I’m not a doctor yet,” Lizzie said. “And I don’t see my job, or see myself, as more important than Prynce delivering food or Danny fixing a boiler that provides an entire block of flats with hot water.”
“I see your mother raised you well!” Another sip of wine.
“She did,” Lizzie said. “And being a single mother wasn’t easy for her.”
“Well, I know what that’s like.” Janet laughed, but the laugh was fooling nobody. “That Cyril Pennington. He was really something. How often do you all see him? I know Dimp hasn’t seen him since she was—how old were you, Dimp? Weren’t you around twenty?”
Dimple, who was fuming, didn’t want to speak to her mum, let alone about her dad.
The rest of them said variations of “I haven’t seen him in years” almost in unison.
“I see.” Janet nodded slowly. It was a hard thing for her to realize that she’d had a child with a man who had effectively abandoned all of his children. “Well, at least Dimple has had me as both of her parents. And I am fiercely, fiercely protective of my girl. And if anything at all were to happen to her, if any harm were to come to her, I would do everything in my power to ruin the persons responsible in every single way a person could be ruined.”
“Well,” Nikisha said. “It’s a good thing we all have that in common, isn’t it?”
Nikisha and Janet stared at each other like two fierce neighborhood cats, both of which were ready to strike at any second.
“I think it’s time for us to go.” Lizzie broke the silence and stood up.
“But I haven’t finished,” Danny said, heartbroken at the idea of leaving a plate with even one grain of rice left on it.
“You have,” Lizzie told him. “And we’ll wash up before we go.”
“No, you don’t have to do that.” Dimple jumped up and started gathering the plates. When they were all teetering in a dangerous pile, she walked her half-siblings out as Janet waved a goodbye that was way too petty for a woman of fifty-two.
