Chapter 46

Foreign Shores

Alex

2032

"I have a daughter as well," said Lakeisha while sprawled beside Alex on the double bed that dominated the bedroom of his small apartment. "She's older than Iris, your daughter. Her name's Lisa."

"Does she live at home?" Alex wondered.

"You could say that," Lakeisha replied. "She lives with my mother, her grandmother, in Maseru. In Lesotho."

"Lesotho?"

"It's a small country in Southern Africa. That's where I come from, Alex."

"Oh," said Alex. They'd made love—several times now—but Alex had never thought to ask. He'd guessed from Lakeisha's accent that she probably hadn't been born in West London, but he'd not done much thinking beyond that. "She doesn't live in London?"

"I'm a student, Alex. A medical student. I live in a crappy dormitory to save money because the fees are so bloody exorbitant. There's no space for an eleven year old daughter."

"Eleven years old!"

"I was a teenager when my bastard of a husband made me pregnant. If it wasn't for him I'd have gone to medical school when I was a lot younger."

"How old are you?" asked Alex. He'd thought that because she was a student, Lakeisha would also probably be about the same age as Karen. Typical, though, for his love life to pass from one student to another. And now his separation was about to become a divorce. It was a good thing that his salary was more than enough for him to cover the expense.

"You don't ask a lady questions like that," said Lakeisha peevishly, but she squeezed Alex's limp penis in tapering black fingers tipped by viciously long purple fingernails.

"I just thought you were a lot younger."

"That's nice, Alex. And I am pretty young. A lot younger than you, that's for sure."

"Even though your daughter's eleven years old..."

"You had Iris late. I had Lisa early. That's all the difference there is."

Alex was already at the age when he could no longer make an accurate estimate of the relative age of women in their twenties. Mid-twenties. Late twenties. Early twenties. It was all much the same. Lakeisha was probably mid to late twenties, but in her case Alex's powers of discrimination were even further compromised. It was the first time in his life he'd ever had a black girlfriend. She was tall, slim and most undeniably black. Her hair was braided. There were stretch marks on her belly that were probably an outcome of pregnancy. And when she wasn't naked in bed she wore stylish frameless glasses.

The variety of lovers that Alex had known in his life was certainly ticking a lot of boxes, but more by chance than design. He was still rather nervous about mentioning, let alone introducing, his new girlfriend to friends and work colleagues. He knew there was nothing he should fear but he somehow felt that despite protestations to the contrary many of his male colleagues weren't as comfortable as they claimed to be about mixed-race relationships. Indeed, Alex wondered himself what people thought when they saw him in the park hand-in-hand with a black woman who was probably ten years younger than him. Did they think he was a lucky bastard? Or were they wondering how much he paid for her services? It wasn't so much Lakeisha's ethnicity that troubled Alex as the hostile assumptions of strangers.

Alex had met Lakeisha in the most natural and normal of circumstances. Unlike the other women he'd met since he separated from Isobel, there was no internet dating involved.

Alex's new washing machine had broken down and his supply of clean underwear and shirts had run out. It would be a day or so until the store could replace the washing machine which, as it was less than a year old, was most definitely still covered by warranty. So for the first time since he was a student, Alex had to find a launderette in which to wash his clothes. Such amenities were hard to find but he located one on his mobile phone's search facility that wasn't too far from his Hendon apartment, although he still had to drive there.

It was at the launderette that Alex met Lakeisha, but he'd not gone there with any expectation of meeting women. In fact, he actually tried to avoid attracting attention. Here he was, a man with a well-paid executive job and expensive clothes, dragging a black plastic bin-bag full of underwear, shirts, socks and jeans into a launderette where he was by far the most affluent person. The other people were of the sort Alex very rarely encountered. There were young women with their snotty noisy children. There was a middle-aged man dressed in baggy trousers with a baseball cap positioned at a peculiar angle on his head. There were two frighteningly obese women who were folding and unfolding sheets in a mysterious never-ending ritual that Alex couldn't hope to understand. And there was Lakeisha sitting by herself, legs crossed, a shoulder bag beside her while reading a thick dull-looking text book.

What puzzled Alex the most was the complexity of the washing machines. Where did he even begin? Fortunately most machines accepted debit cards so he didn't need to use coins, which was a worry that had tormented him from the time he'd parked his car and walked toward the launderette. Where would he find several pounds worth of change at this time in the evening? The instructions associated with the washing machines were confusing, even though they mostly employed diagrams rather than text. At home he normally just threw everything in the washing machine at the same temperature setting that was suggested by the men who'd installed it in the first place. Now the choices were frightening and intimidating.

"Can I help you?" asked Lakeisha when she saw how helpless Alex was.

"Errm..." said Alex who wasn't sure he wanted to admit his ignorance. "If you could..."