Desdemona

Samuel's girlfriend Desdemona, or Des
‘Oh!’ laughed Nimite. ‘Desdemona, that right! Now there was a woman. She used to shack up with that fella O’Henry. You remember? She lash him up with a cutlass then ran away to the refuge on St George Street. What a fine figure she had. You know what happen to her?’
Samuel shrugged again. ‘Me naw no.’
‘I remember it so well, Samuel,’ Nimite ever tugging on the driver’s shoulder. ‘One of the last days.  Days before de change you know. And O’Henry comin to look for her… Oh I remember, I hear it from the nuns at the refuge, he and his men were there, comin to take her out and do God only knew. And then? I don’t know what happened after that, because then the refuge was gone and all de nuns in it and we had the clansmen instead. Do you know what happened to her, Samuel?’
‘I’ve no idea,’ replied Samuel, although he knew very well. Desdemona was in his own flat, lying on his sofa watching TV and eating metemgee bought from a street vendor.
her home:
Samuel had never been in, men were not allowed in the building, but Des had told him it was a hell-hole, damp, crowded and infested with cockroaches. There was no hot water, and the electricity was intermittent
her family:
‘Me sister, me mother, me cousins, we all closed up. Me family all hiding down in the Arches.'
(Chapter 9): ‘Hey, you were in Bricktown?’ she asked Darren. ‘One of me cousins be in there.’
When not at Samuel's flat she is in a woman's hostel:
‘I can’t stand the hostel any longer,’ she griped. ‘They sent round a Purity Unit three times in the last week. They looking for Amalekites and the Dagon Worshipers. Any woman on her monthly liable to be taken up. Anyone with a fassy batty get taken up. They always poking at us, poking at our bits and our battys. You hear me? I can’t be having me bits poked at all the time!’
When Des bound up:
‘How should I know,’ she growled, ‘Some Canaanite, some Zion, some whore of Babylon, me no know, some Onanite stoned to death for spilling he seed on the ground. How should I know?’ 
Category:Paradise
Category:Paradise Characters