| General Fiction posted September 28, 2016 |
  |
A story of racism and wanting to belong.
Shadwell Blues
by Heather Knight
Ever since I can remember, the colour of my skin has been an issue. When I was six or so, Brad Kelly, who's been a bully from the moment he left his push-chair and started walking around, called me Zebra. The first time, I cried because of the meanness in his voice and ran to Mum to tell her. She hugged me as she always did and does, even now, though I find it embarrassing and invasive, but don't say anything because I don't want to hurt her feelings. She told me not to listen to him. She said bullies are not worth our attention. She kissed my cheek and pushed me back out of the house.
That night, while she was reading Winnie The Pooh to me, I asked her if zebras were bad. She told me zebras were beautiful and special. Plain horses are boring, zebras are more exciting because they have white bits and black bits. They have the best of both worlds.
I didn't understand her very well but I was young and tired and just the sound of her voice lulled me to sleep.
Then it was the other children in the neighbourhood who started using the Z-word whenever they had to call my name. Except for Mary and Lucy. To them I've always been Audrey. Why did people have to use that awful nickname when I had an English name I was proud of? One that sounded, even to my young ears, elegant and sweet all in one.
I lived like that for a few months, or maybe it was a couple of years... the way children do. Being happy most of the time and sulking in between.
And then one day I couldn't take it any more. We had been playing in the court near the market and I was left out when Norma went home for dinner and the number of players in the teams became uneven.
'Nobody wants a zebra,' Brad shouted.
It was like a war chant. At first I sat in a corner, my back against the wire fence. After five minutes, I decided to go home. I opened the door and climbed the narrow stairs to my room. I thought nobody had heard me because Mum and Dad were dicing vegetables in the kitchen and listening to the radio.
After a while, however, there was a knock on my door. I didn't bother to answer, but Dad opened it wide enough for me to see his face and smiled at me.
'Why is my warrior-princess looking so defeated?' he asked as he sat on the edge of my bed.
I thought I was not going to tell him, but I did. Dad has this kind of aura about him. This sympathetic quality that makes you feel whatever you say he'll understand.
'How come I'm not as black as you and Mum?'
By then I had thought about it enough to realize that was the real problem. I wasn't as black as I was supposed to be. I was somehow lacking... in colour.
'Do I have some kind of weird disease?'
He looked at me, pain liquid in his eyes. For the first time ever, he was speechless. It took him a while to answer. Those few seconds floated uneasily between us.
'People come in different colours, Audrey. You're beautiful the way you are. Mum and I wouldn't want you to be any different. Why don't you come down for dinner? We've made your favourite today.'
'Okay.'
My okay was languid, like a silk thread that has been stretched too far. Somehow I felt Daddy had failed me and I wasn't sure why.
Downstairs, the table was ready in our small living room. Mum and Dad were already sitting. They looked at me expectantly when I walked in. There was spicy chicken on a plate and rice in a bowl.
I sat down and put my hands together in front of my mouth and closed my eyes as I did every day. Then I waited for Dad to say grace.
'Audrey, Mum and I want to talk to you.'
My eyes opened at lightning speed. My whole body tensed.
'Have I done something wrong?'
My parents are loving but strict and no hanky-panky is allowed in my home. Besides, Mum says I've always been too sensitive. Too European, she calls it sometimes when she's mad at me.
'Remember how Dad and I have always told you we met because we both grew up in Enugu and our families had homes in the same neighbourhood?'
Her voice sounded weird, not strong and confident as usual. I could sense fear in her words.
'Yees. So?'
I wasn't going to make it easy for her. I didn't know why, but I had the feeling something bad was about to happen.
'Well, it's true. But then I came to England as soon as I finished my degree hoping to find a good job like Auntie Iffy and I didn't see Dad again for five years...I didn't have enough money to pay for the flight, you know.'
'I also came out here, when my business back home went bust. But I didn't like London, so at first I went to live in Cheltenham.'
'Why aren't we saying grace? Why are you telling me this?' I was still a child and I didn't like changes. I needed my routine. I wanted my home life to be just so.
'Audrey, we should have told you when you were little, but we never found the right time. Dad and I didn't see each other again till you were two.'
'Then, I moved to London. I realized I'd have a better chance here. One Sunday I went to Saint George's for the first time and I saw your Mum sitting at the front pew. At first, I thought I must be mistaken, it couldn't be her. But it was...There was this beautiful little girl, this toddler sitting by her. She was playing with a big yellow giraffe...'
'Like me? Like my Molly?'
I have this plush toy that I used to sleep with when I was little. Mum says it's a miracle it's still in one piece as I dragged her everywhere all the time. Even now, if I'm really upset I sneak her into my bed and cry into her head.
'It was you, it was your Molly...'
'But then...'
'Your Dad was a white man I used to work for, Audrey. That's why your skin is lighter than ours. But he ... he left. And then I married Daddy and we're very happy and he adopted you and we are a family and that's all that matters.' Mum was speaking quickly now, as if she needed to tell the whole story in one go and get it over with.
Then, Dad, sensing her anguish, started saying grace and when he was done, Mum asked for my plate and stacked it with food.
My mind was whirling. So Dad was not my Dad, so that meant ... Then suddenly, in the incongruous way an eight-year-old mind works sometimes, I realized I was truly British. Not only because I had been born here. Not because I had lived in Shadwell all my life, but because I had a father somewhere who was English. White and English. I had grandparents, and great-grandparents with English accents like mine, not like the staccato Nigerian English Mum and Dad spoke when we were at home. This country belonged to me, I belonged here. That would teach that Brad guy a lesson... It would teach them all a lesson. I felt somehow elated. I was too young to understand all the implications.
Mum and Dad looked at each other. I bet they had expected me to cry, to storm out of the room, to ask questions, but never to just sit there eating my chicken and daydreaming, a foolish smile on my face.
Life went on. A year later, Hope and Frances were born. I had always longed for a sister and now I had two. I loved helping Mum change their nappies. I would feed Hope while she fed Frances or the other way around.
As Mum had given up her job to look after them, Daddy had to work longer hours. He drove a bus in the mornings and helped at the market when his shift was over.
I love the twins, don't get me wrong. But as they grew into perfect little replicas of Mum, their skin darker than chocolate, I started to resent them. I was jealous. I watched Dad like a hawk, looking for signs. I wanted to prove that he loved them more than me. When he hugged them, when he cradled them to sleep... Aha! I got you, you don't hug me like that, you don't love me that much.
Deep down I knew it was not true. Dad was always his loving self. He still told me Nigerian stories whenever he had the time. He took me and only me to the park on Sundays and we played ball or he pushed me on the swing. He held my hand and even if he was tired he always had time to go over my homework at night. One day, he even gave me his copy of Things Fall Apart, his most beloved book.
But that evil little voice inside my head kept on whirring all the same. Slowly, one insidious thought at a time. Undermining my self-confidence and destroying the cheerful little girl I had once been.
The twins had it easy. Nobody called their names. They were the right colour. Black was okay here in Shadwell. Me, however... I was nobody, I was weird.
By the time I was thirteen, I had become moody and withdrawn. I hid in my books and still got great marks. I read for hours, lying on my bed, the door closed to muffle the happy sounds coming from my sisters' room.
One Sunday morning, as I was coming down the stairs, I heard my parents talking in the kitchen. Dad sounded angrier than I have ever heard him. That made me stop midway. What was going on?
'We have to tell her, Amaka. She's old enough to understand. She's got the right to know.'
'But I can't. I can't do that to her. What will she think of me? How will she feel?'
'Maybe better than she does now. She's all confused inside. She tortures herself constantly. She's never asked any questions. Not a single one. Remember how baffled we were that night...'
How had Dad noticed? Nothing ever escaped him. He always knew what was going on inside my head. That wizardly empathy of his never failed.
'Good morning!' I said as I finally walked into the kitchen, an over-bright smile plastered on my face.
Mum started crying. And as she spoke, my whole universe exploded and bust into smithereens. I could see the colorful pieces of life floating in front of my eyes.
She told me she used to work as a receptionist at a law firm when she first came to England. It was somewhere in Whitechapel. Her boss was in his thirties and was kind to her... at the beginning. The pay was good and the hours not too long. But then he started being too friendly. That's the way Mum put it. Always modest. Always Nigerian.
'One evening, when I was about to leave for home, he ... he ... forced himself on me...'
By then, she was sobbing so loud, she could not speak any more. Dad hugged her and I stood opposite them, still as a statue.
Mum never reported the rape. She washed herself furiously when she got home to the flat she shared with her two cousins and kept on living her life. She had to. She never went back to the law firm. She found herself a new job in a corner shop. She brought me up and loved me. She tried to make me happy even though she felt dirty and filled by a void that had taken the place of her soul. Till that day when I was almost two and Dad came to say hello after the Mass, at first hesitantly because he thought she was married. That day, Mum learnt to be happy again.
I'm sixteen now and I think I'm over the worst. I dream of my future and want to study English like Mum did back in Nigeria. I want to know it all about books and write my own story one day.
Sometimes, when Hope and Frances are playing with their dolls, I wonder what it must be like to have a life with no secrets. To have a Dad who's really your Dad.
White ancestors are not that great, after all. Not if they are tainted like mine. Barry still calls me Zebra from time to time. But I'm past caring.
Ever since I can remember, the colour of my skin has been an issue. When I was six or so, Brad Kelly, who's been a bully from the moment he left his push-chair and started walking around, called me Zebra. The first time, I cried because of the meanness in his voice and ran to Mum to tell her. She hugged me as she always did and does, even now, though I find it embarrassing and invasive, but don't say anything because I don't want to hurt her feelings. She told me not to listen to him. She said bullies are not worth our attention. She kissed my cheek and pushed me back out of the house.
That night, while she was reading Winnie The Pooh to me, I asked her if zebras were bad. She told me zebras were beautiful and special. Plain horses are boring, zebras are more exciting because they have white bits and black bits. They have the best of both worlds.
I didn't understand her very well but I was young and tired and just the sound of her voice lulled me to sleep.
Then it was the other children in the neighbourhood who started using the Z-word whenever they had to call my name. Except for Mary and Lucy. To them I've always been Audrey. Why did people have to use that awful nickname when I had an English name I was proud of? One that sounded, even to my young ears, elegant and sweet all in one.
I lived like that for a few months, or maybe it was a couple of years... the way children do. Being happy most of the time and sulking in between.
And then one day I couldn't take it any more. We had been playing in the court near the market and I was left out when Norma went home for dinner and the number of players in the teams became uneven.
'Nobody wants a zebra,' Brad shouted.
It was like a war chant. At first I sat in a corner, my back against the wire fence. After five minutes, I decided to go home. I opened the door and climbed the narrow stairs to my room. I thought nobody had heard me because Mum and Dad were dicing vegetables in the kitchen and listening to the radio.
After a while, however, there was a knock on my door. I didn't bother to answer, but Dad opened it wide enough for me to see his face and smiled at me.
'Why is my warrior-princess looking so defeated?' he asked as he sat on the edge of my bed.
I thought I was not going to tell him, but I did. Dad has this kind of aura about him. This sympathetic quality that makes you feel whatever you say he'll understand.
'How come I'm not as black as you and Mum?'
By then I had thought about it enough to realize that was the real problem. I wasn't as black as I was supposed to be. I was somehow lacking... in colour.
'Do I have some kind of weird disease?'
He looked at me, pain liquid in his eyes. For the first time ever, he was speechless. It took him a while to answer. Those few seconds floated uneasily between us.
'People come in different colours, Audrey. You're beautiful the way you are. Mum and I wouldn't want you to be any different. Why don't you come down for dinner? We've made your favourite today.'
'Okay.'
My okay was languid, like a silk thread that has been stretched too far. Somehow I felt Daddy had failed me and I wasn't sure why.
Downstairs, the table was ready in our small living room. Mum and Dad were already sitting. They looked at me expectantly when I walked in. There was spicy chicken on a plate and rice in a bowl.
I sat down and put my hands together in front of my mouth and closed my eyes as I did every day. Then I waited for Dad to say grace.
'Audrey, Mum and I want to talk to you.'
My eyes opened at lightning speed. My whole body tensed.
'Have I done something wrong?'
My parents are loving but strict and no hanky-panky is allowed in my home. Besides, Mum says I've always been too sensitive. Too European, she calls it sometimes when she's mad at me.
'Remember how Dad and I have always told you we met because we both grew up in Enugu and our families had homes in the same neighbourhood?'
Her voice sounded weird, not strong and confident as usual. I could sense fear in her words.
'Yees. So?'
I wasn't going to make it easy for her. I didn't know why, but I had the feeling something bad was about to happen.
'Well, it's true. But then I came to England as soon as I finished my degree hoping to find a good job like Auntie Iffy and I didn't see Dad again for five years...I didn't have enough money to pay for the flight, you know.'
'I also came out here, when my business back home went bust. But I didn't like London, so at first I went to live in Cheltenham.'
'Why aren't we saying grace? Why are you telling me this?' I was still a child and I didn't like changes. I needed my routine. I wanted my home life to be just so.
'Audrey, we should have told you when you were little, but we never found the right time. Dad and I didn't see each other again till you were two.'
'Then, I moved to London. I realized I'd have a better chance here. One Sunday I went to Saint George's for the first time and I saw your Mum sitting at the front pew. At first, I thought I must be mistaken, it couldn't be her. But it was...There was this beautiful little girl, this toddler sitting by her. She was playing with a big yellow giraffe...'
'Like me? Like my Molly?'
I have this plush toy that I used to sleep with when I was little. Mum says it's a miracle it's still in one piece as I dragged her everywhere all the time. Even now, if I'm really upset I sneak her into my bed and cry into her head.
'It was you, it was your Molly...'
'But then...'
'Your Dad was a white man I used to work for, Audrey. That's why your skin is lighter than ours. But he ... he left. And then I married Daddy and we're very happy and he adopted you and we are a family and that's all that matters.' Mum was speaking quickly now, as if she needed to tell the whole story in one go and get it over with.
Then, Dad, sensing her anguish, started saying grace and when he was done, Mum asked for my plate and stacked it with food.
My mind was whirling. So Dad was not my Dad, so that meant ... Then suddenly, in the incongruous way an eight-year-old mind works sometimes, I realized I was truly British. Not only because I had been born here. Not because I had lived in Shadwell all my life, but because I had a father somewhere who was English. White and English. I had grandparents, and great-grandparents with English accents like mine, not like the staccato Nigerian English Mum and Dad spoke when we were at home. This country belonged to me, I belonged here. That would teach that Brad guy a lesson... It would teach them all a lesson. I felt somehow elated. I was too young to understand all the implications.
Mum and Dad looked at each other. I bet they had expected me to cry, to storm out of the room, to ask questions, but never to just sit there eating my chicken and daydreaming, a foolish smile on my face.
Life went on. A year later, Hope and Frances were born. I had always longed for a sister and now I had two. I loved helping Mum change their nappies. I would feed Hope while she fed Frances or the other way around.
As Mum had given up her job to look after them, Daddy had to work longer hours. He drove a bus in the mornings and helped at the market when his shift was over.
I love the twins, don't get me wrong. But as they grew into perfect little replicas of Mum, their skin darker than chocolate, I started to resent them. I was jealous. I watched Dad like a hawk, looking for signs. I wanted to prove that he loved them more than me. When he hugged them, when he cradled them to sleep... Aha! I got you, you don't hug me like that, you don't love me that much.
Deep down I knew it was not true. Dad was always his loving self. He still told me Nigerian stories whenever he had the time. He took me and only me to the park on Sundays and we played ball or he pushed me on the swing. He held my hand and even if he was tired he always had time to go over my homework at night. One day, he even gave me his copy of Things Fall Apart, his most beloved book.
But that evil little voice inside my head kept on whirring all the same. Slowly, one insidious thought at a time. Undermining my self-confidence and destroying the cheerful little girl I had once been.
The twins had it easy. Nobody called their names. They were the right colour. Black was okay here in Shadwell. Me, however... I was nobody, I was weird.
By the time I was thirteen, I had become moody and withdrawn. I hid in my books and still got great marks. I read for hours, lying on my bed, the door closed to muffle the happy sounds coming from my sisters' room.
One Sunday morning, as I was coming down the stairs, I heard my parents talking in the kitchen. Dad sounded angrier than I have ever heard him. That made me stop midway. What was going on?
'We have to tell her, Amaka. She's old enough to understand. She's got the right to know.'
'But I can't. I can't do that to her. What will she think of me? How will she feel?'
'Maybe better than she does now. She's all confused inside. She tortures herself constantly. She's never asked any questions. Not a single one. Remember how baffled we were that night...'
How had Dad noticed? Nothing ever escaped him. He always knew what was going on inside my head. That wizardly empathy of his never failed.
'Good morning!' I said as I finally walked into the kitchen, an over-bright smile plastered on my face.
Mum started crying. And as she spoke, my whole universe exploded and bust into smithereens. I could see the colorful pieces of life floating in front of my eyes.
She told me she used to work as a receptionist at a law firm when she first came to England. It was somewhere in Whitechapel. Her boss was in his thirties and was kind to her... at the beginning. The pay was good and the hours not too long. But then he started being too friendly. That's the way Mum put it. Always modest. Always Nigerian.
'One evening, when I was about to leave for home, he ... he ... forced himself on me...'
By then, she was sobbing so loud, she could not speak any more. Dad hugged her and I stood opposite them, still as a statue.
Mum never reported the rape. She washed herself furiously when she got home to the flat she shared with her two cousins and kept on living her life. She had to. She never went back to the law firm. She found herself a new job in a corner shop. She brought me up and loved me. She tried to make me happy even though she felt dirty and filled by a void that had taken the place of her soul. Till that day when I was almost two and Dad came to say hello after the Mass, at first hesitantly because he thought she was married. That day, Mum learnt to be happy again.
I'm sixteen now and I think I'm over the worst. I dream of my future and want to study English like Mum did back in Nigeria. I want to know it all about books and write my own story one day.
Sometimes, when Hope and Frances are playing with their dolls, I wonder what it must be like to have a life with no secrets. To have a Dad who's really your Dad.
White ancestors are not that great, after all. Not if they are tainted like mine. Barry still calls me Zebra from time to time. But I'm past caring.
That night, while she was reading Winnie The Pooh to me, I asked her if zebras were bad. She told me zebras were beautiful and special. Plain horses are boring, zebras are more exciting because they have white bits and black bits. They have the best of both worlds.
I didn't understand her very well but I was young and tired and just the sound of her voice lulled me to sleep.
Then it was the other children in the neighbourhood who started using the Z-word whenever they had to call my name. Except for Mary and Lucy. To them I've always been Audrey. Why did people have to use that awful nickname when I had an English name I was proud of? One that sounded, even to my young ears, elegant and sweet all in one.
I lived like that for a few months, or maybe it was a couple of years... the way children do. Being happy most of the time and sulking in between.
And then one day I couldn't take it any more. We had been playing in the court near the market and I was left out when Norma went home for dinner and the number of players in the teams became uneven.
'Nobody wants a zebra,' Brad shouted.
It was like a war chant. At first I sat in a corner, my back against the wire fence. After five minutes, I decided to go home. I opened the door and climbed the narrow stairs to my room. I thought nobody had heard me because Mum and Dad were dicing vegetables in the kitchen and listening to the radio.
After a while, however, there was a knock on my door. I didn't bother to answer, but Dad opened it wide enough for me to see his face and smiled at me.
'Why is my warrior-princess looking so defeated?' he asked as he sat on the edge of my bed.
I thought I was not going to tell him, but I did. Dad has this kind of aura about him. This sympathetic quality that makes you feel whatever you say he'll understand.
'How come I'm not as black as you and Mum?'
By then I had thought about it enough to realize that was the real problem. I wasn't as black as I was supposed to be. I was somehow lacking... in colour.
'Do I have some kind of weird disease?'
He looked at me, pain liquid in his eyes. For the first time ever, he was speechless. It took him a while to answer. Those few seconds floated uneasily between us.
'People come in different colours, Audrey. You're beautiful the way you are. Mum and I wouldn't want you to be any different. Why don't you come down for dinner? We've made your favourite today.'
'Okay.'
My okay was languid, like a silk thread that has been stretched too far. Somehow I felt Daddy had failed me and I wasn't sure why.
Downstairs, the table was ready in our small living room. Mum and Dad were already sitting. They looked at me expectantly when I walked in. There was spicy chicken on a plate and rice in a bowl.
I sat down and put my hands together in front of my mouth and closed my eyes as I did every day. Then I waited for Dad to say grace.
'Audrey, Mum and I want to talk to you.'
My eyes opened at lightning speed. My whole body tensed.
'Have I done something wrong?'
My parents are loving but strict and no hanky-panky is allowed in my home. Besides, Mum says I've always been too sensitive. Too European, she calls it sometimes when she's mad at me.
'Remember how Dad and I have always told you we met because we both grew up in Enugu and our families had homes in the same neighbourhood?'
Her voice sounded weird, not strong and confident as usual. I could sense fear in her words.
'Yees. So?'
I wasn't going to make it easy for her. I didn't know why, but I had the feeling something bad was about to happen.
'Well, it's true. But then I came to England as soon as I finished my degree hoping to find a good job like Auntie Iffy and I didn't see Dad again for five years...I didn't have enough money to pay for the flight, you know.'
'I also came out here, when my business back home went bust. But I didn't like London, so at first I went to live in Cheltenham.'
'Why aren't we saying grace? Why are you telling me this?' I was still a child and I didn't like changes. I needed my routine. I wanted my home life to be just so.
'Audrey, we should have told you when you were little, but we never found the right time. Dad and I didn't see each other again till you were two.'
'Then, I moved to London. I realized I'd have a better chance here. One Sunday I went to Saint George's for the first time and I saw your Mum sitting at the front pew. At first, I thought I must be mistaken, it couldn't be her. But it was...There was this beautiful little girl, this toddler sitting by her. She was playing with a big yellow giraffe...'
'Like me? Like my Molly?'
I have this plush toy that I used to sleep with when I was little. Mum says it's a miracle it's still in one piece as I dragged her everywhere all the time. Even now, if I'm really upset I sneak her into my bed and cry into her head.
'It was you, it was your Molly...'
'But then...'
'Your Dad was a white man I used to work for, Audrey. That's why your skin is lighter than ours. But he ... he left. And then I married Daddy and we're very happy and he adopted you and we are a family and that's all that matters.' Mum was speaking quickly now, as if she needed to tell the whole story in one go and get it over with.
Then, Dad, sensing her anguish, started saying grace and when he was done, Mum asked for my plate and stacked it with food.
My mind was whirling. So Dad was not my Dad, so that meant ... Then suddenly, in the incongruous way an eight-year-old mind works sometimes, I realized I was truly British. Not only because I had been born here. Not because I had lived in Shadwell all my life, but because I had a father somewhere who was English. White and English. I had grandparents, and great-grandparents with English accents like mine, not like the staccato Nigerian English Mum and Dad spoke when we were at home. This country belonged to me, I belonged here. That would teach that Brad guy a lesson... It would teach them all a lesson. I felt somehow elated. I was too young to understand all the implications.
Mum and Dad looked at each other. I bet they had expected me to cry, to storm out of the room, to ask questions, but never to just sit there eating my chicken and daydreaming, a foolish smile on my face.
Life went on. A year later, Hope and Frances were born. I had always longed for a sister and now I had two. I loved helping Mum change their nappies. I would feed Hope while she fed Frances or the other way around.
As Mum had given up her job to look after them, Daddy had to work longer hours. He drove a bus in the mornings and helped at the market when his shift was over.
I love the twins, don't get me wrong. But as they grew into perfect little replicas of Mum, their skin darker than chocolate, I started to resent them. I was jealous. I watched Dad like a hawk, looking for signs. I wanted to prove that he loved them more than me. When he hugged them, when he cradled them to sleep... Aha! I got you, you don't hug me like that, you don't love me that much.
Deep down I knew it was not true. Dad was always his loving self. He still told me Nigerian stories whenever he had the time. He took me and only me to the park on Sundays and we played ball or he pushed me on the swing. He held my hand and even if he was tired he always had time to go over my homework at night. One day, he even gave me his copy of Things Fall Apart, his most beloved book.
But that evil little voice inside my head kept on whirring all the same. Slowly, one insidious thought at a time. Undermining my self-confidence and destroying the cheerful little girl I had once been.
The twins had it easy. Nobody called their names. They were the right colour. Black was okay here in Shadwell. Me, however... I was nobody, I was weird.
By the time I was thirteen, I had become moody and withdrawn. I hid in my books and still got great marks. I read for hours, lying on my bed, the door closed to muffle the happy sounds coming from my sisters' room.
One Sunday morning, as I was coming down the stairs, I heard my parents talking in the kitchen. Dad sounded angrier than I have ever heard him. That made me stop midway. What was going on?
'We have to tell her, Amaka. She's old enough to understand. She's got the right to know.'
'But I can't. I can't do that to her. What will she think of me? How will she feel?'
'Maybe better than she does now. She's all confused inside. She tortures herself constantly. She's never asked any questions. Not a single one. Remember how baffled we were that night...'
How had Dad noticed? Nothing ever escaped him. He always knew what was going on inside my head. That wizardly empathy of his never failed.
'Good morning!' I said as I finally walked into the kitchen, an over-bright smile plastered on my face.
Mum started crying. And as she spoke, my whole universe exploded and bust into smithereens. I could see the colorful pieces of life floating in front of my eyes.
She told me she used to work as a receptionist at a law firm when she first came to England. It was somewhere in Whitechapel. Her boss was in his thirties and was kind to her... at the beginning. The pay was good and the hours not too long. But then he started being too friendly. That's the way Mum put it. Always modest. Always Nigerian.
'One evening, when I was about to leave for home, he ... he ... forced himself on me...'
By then, she was sobbing so loud, she could not speak any more. Dad hugged her and I stood opposite them, still as a statue.
Mum never reported the rape. She washed herself furiously when she got home to the flat she shared with her two cousins and kept on living her life. She had to. She never went back to the law firm. She found herself a new job in a corner shop. She brought me up and loved me. She tried to make me happy even though she felt dirty and filled by a void that had taken the place of her soul. Till that day when I was almost two and Dad came to say hello after the Mass, at first hesitantly because he thought she was married. That day, Mum learnt to be happy again.
I'm sixteen now and I think I'm over the worst. I dream of my future and want to study English like Mum did back in Nigeria. I want to know it all about books and write my own story one day.
Sometimes, when Hope and Frances are playing with their dolls, I wonder what it must be like to have a life with no secrets. To have a Dad who's really your Dad.
White ancestors are not that great, after all. Not if they are tainted like mine. Barry still calls me Zebra from time to time. But I'm past caring.
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