Housegirl Page 13

  ‘How –’

  ‘Can you believe such a thing: first, my daughter comes to offer me this – this – adjei!’ Nana directed Belinda’s eyes towards a framed drawing, the size of a postcard: fat flowers with orange petals, loud against a blue background, with Amma’s signature in the corner. ‘Then she asks me of a party. And she wants permission. And she wants permission to take you also. Belinda, I’m not exaggerating, my eyes nearly literally fell from my head. She has never asked in months.’ Nana clutched the drawing. ‘And, and when ever given me something as a gift? Maybe you are the one with juju for such things to happen, eh?’

  ‘I. I have done nothing. I have only been around and there. Like you asked of me.’

  ‘And we thank you for it. Truly. Now, is not, is not like we should be getting head of ourselves, not as if everything is completely smooth but –’ Nana lifted the drawing, spoke to the air around it. ‘Is a start, you know?’

  ‘Madam, I told her, and I was very strong on this one, if we go to this Lavender’s occasion, we definitely have to come and get your full blessing to go. And we must return home at a reasonable hour.’

  ‘I agree. Yes. I have called and checked the parents. They seem acceptable and fair. One even works for the BBC Newsnight.’ Nana placed the drawing back but kept fussing with its position. ‘I know the kids they will try to break the law and get some spirits, but having faces small like theirs will be the problem, so we are safe for that. And I will be arranging an Addie Lee to collect you at midnight precise, so that is fine also.’

  ‘Midnight?’

  It was one thing to set fire to a tie. One thing to put a cake on your cheeks. But an endless – midnight?

  Nana’s bony fingers snapped open her glasses’ case. ‘We, we even had a joke about how I’m not meant to call it a party. It’s a – it’s a – gathering, apparently. I find their words so silly sometimes.’

  ‘Yes, madam. I know what you mean.’

  ‘And one other little matter, Belinda.’ Nana coughed, closed the case’s lid. ‘This my house been seeming remarkably cleaner and more neat since you arrive. I can eat Kontomire off of the floor if I am minded to do such a thing.’ Nana laughed to herself, ‘so I don’t know how and when you doing it, but I know you doing it – cleaning anything and everything, me boa?’

  Belinda focused on the frozen lion, on the shape of its poised claw. Her face started heating up.

  ‘You understanding we not expecting this from you? Eh? My, my husband he worries that you thinking we want you to do this cleaning scrubbing on your hands and knees? No way, girl! No, absolute no. We, we want you to leave off from this, eh? Didn’t we say only study and Amma, those should be your concerns, eh?’ Nana sighed. ‘I’m not coming to you to be hard-hearted. Don’t think of me as a meanie for saying these things. We thankful for the efforts. Truly. How can we not be – my kitchen surfaces have never sparkled like this before. Like stars and bling bling. Really. Is lovely. But is not necessary. Wa te? Because am I an invalid? Can I not maintain my own laundries and sweeping? Am I incapable?’

  ‘Madam –’

  ‘Eh hennn. So you going to agree you will end this one, wa te? Wa. Te?’

  Despite knowing that it would be impossible for her to keep such a promise, Belinda raised her head and limply nodded. She watched Nana’s satisfied smile, watched Nana slap the table four times to show that everything was settled, watched the agitated paperweights vibrating against one another.

  * * *

  Lavender’s home was long, bone-coloured walls holding paintings framed in ancient gold. Dripping chandeliers – almost as big as Aunty and Uncle’s – swayed. And there was so much talk. Talk that rose and bubbled, loud and everywhere. So being calm was not easy for Belinda. Sometimes the talk broke and long whoops of laughter came instead. Beneath those noises, the moody music thudded, wobbling the floorboards. In the corner of a large space similar to the front room at Spenser, Belinda stood very upright with her back pressed against drawn curtains. She wondered if the vibrations were strong enough to bring up vomit from her stomach. In the room ahead, through heavy smoke, forty boys and girls shuffled on an exotic rug no one had thought to move for the evening. The laziness made her hold her cup of peppermint tea more firmly. She had said no to the ‘vod and cran’ offered as soon as she and Amma entered through the grand door and asked for peppermint tea because Mrs Al-Kawthari drank that from her sensible safety cup. Belinda was curious about its taste and, also, wanted to try something as different as the many-pocketed, baggy trousers Amma forced her to wear to the party. Belinda stared at the nasty colour in the mug.

  She looked up. A white boy with dreadlocks like that Cal-i-ban-man on the way to Ghanafoɔ hooked his fingers into the belt loops of a girl’s jeans. He pulled her towards him. The girl didn’t mind, even though she stumbled because the rug bunched under her. Now the girl was even standing on tiptoes to be tall enough to kiss the boy. They both started attacking with tongues and lips. They had never eaten: they knew true hunger. The boy worked and worked her breasts, checking mangoes for ripeness. The girl’s hands roamed over his body too. Everyone else – all the whites in denim, in leather, in the same soldiers’ trousers as Belinda’s own – paid no attention, carried on with their smoking and their cans. Belinda sipped again and winced. She checked that Amma was not doing the same nearly-sex-nonsense. If any filthy white boy touched Amma, Belinda would have to smash her cooling mug into the back of his head. Thankfully, Amma was breaking off a conversation with one girl to start talking to another.

  Belinda would never allow her first kiss to be so public. It would be like a special ceremony when it finally happened. Quiet and holy and only the two of them. She imagined removing her clothes in front of a man. He didn’t have to be the most handsome but he needed to be cleaner than the Rastafarian now stroking the girl’s shoulders. After Belinda was naked for her man, then he would follow by removing his clothes. Next, their faces would come together and their different breaths would mix. Nothing else. Until one of them fell asleep. She wondered if Mother had ever had it as gently as that. Belinda doubted it.

  As she swirled the tea around, a fat boy with sore red blemishes bumped into her. He whined like a goat knowing slaughter is near and didn’t apologise before he went off. None of them had any respect for space. Belinda turned her head. Even those not doing the nearly-sex-nonsense were too close to one another. It was strange and probably unhygienic: how happy they all seemed to stand so near. She hoped that they had all used talc, flossed and gargled with TCP as part of their preparations for the night. Belinda started playing Space Impact on her Nokia. Then stuffed the phone back in one of her pockets. From metres away, Amma beckoned for Belinda to come over, and Belinda felt something open softly inside her chest. The girl next to Amma had those freckles Mary would envy and Belinda was pleased at the opportunity to inspect them closely, but the lights flickered, the music fell silent and many male voices swore. The same male voices soon decided they knew what to do. Belinda sipped the tea again, then fumbled to rest the mug on the windowsill.

  The power had been out for the whole evening when she had last seen Mother. The old kerosene lamps did little to brighten their room. Mother was quiet as Belinda checked the covered soup bowls and glasses on the table. The silence helped her concentrate on chasing the tablecloth’s wrinkles.

  ‘What you have prepare –’ Mother had begun as she tugged a ball of fufu from the mound and skimmed it across the soup, then held the dripping portion. One eye squinting, she inspected it, tilted it. Red shivered down the white grainy starch, shivered down Mother’s fingernails. Belinda watched the mouth snap open to show its darkness. Mother gulped. ‘What you have prepare is good.’

  ‘Thank you, Ma. I. I wondered that maybe we should have eaten roasted corns. Since you like it as your favourite. Since it is our final. So. I only wondered. Here we have what we have. And you like. So.’

  ‘They will appreciate this, this your new Kumasi fam
ily … this kindness you have for other people. Ɛfɛ paaa.’

  ‘Thank you, Ma.’

  ‘Amen.’ Belinda had jumped with surprise as the sockets sizzled again, even though that sound pulsed every seven minutes when the power failed. Mother’s expression became pained.

  ‘I feel like … I feel like I done it as best I can. The best I could. Raised you as much as was in me for to do this thing well. What I say isn’t a new.’ Belinda nodded. ‘It has tired me. More than I can tell you. I’m feeling … I’m feeling in this body like I never even slept in these years since they take you out from my inside, eh? Me, I’m always lying on this bed, worrying, worrying, worrying for you, if I do good for you. Is not even possible to count eye bags.’

  ‘Ma, I be rejoicing daily for each of the sacrifice –’

  ‘And when you speak righteous to me, and I come and on my table there is some dinner that you have done, it must be true that I have achieve well at this.’

  ‘Amen.’

  ‘And there has always been food. Name one days when you got hungry?’ Belinda smiled at the water glass. ‘So now there, there is little left. For me to do.’

  ‘True. I am grown.’

  ‘And so you must create your own way. Ino be so?’

  ‘I … I will try.’ Belinda heard girls stumble and giggle outside.

  ‘When they fetch you tomorrow for Daban and I’m waving at you goodbye – dazzit.’ Mother swiped at the air. ‘It finish. Then after that pretend our Adurubaa is wash away in flood of God, or volcano fire, or earthquake come to shake our ground and all does collapse. Force yourself believing that here is no longer here any more. Here have disappear. Me! I rhyme!’ Mother covered her mouth shyly. ‘You have it, eh? Eh? A person splitting themselves in two for two places will find no doctor’s medicine to stitch. Is how the elders have it.’

  ‘Ma, then it is.’

  ‘Close your eyes.’

  ‘Yes, Ma.’

  ‘Tight. Shut. Shut.’

  ‘Yes, Ma.’

  ‘Imagine me, pretend me, you have seen on that flood, and some big wave came to wipe me off. Can you picture? Big blue monster come to down me, and bam! Maybe for some moment you clocking my hand sticking from water. Then in few second my hand is going going under. Now. Is only water.’

  ‘Yes, Ma.’

  ‘You have picture?’

  ‘Yes, Ma.’

  ‘And even if you thinking, oh, I will wait until water have drain to come for collecting what is left, you coming to get your nyama nyama books or whatever, you will be find nothing and nobody, because here have disappear.’

  The crickets had thrummed like the blood in Belinda’s ears.

  ‘Thank you, Ma.’

  ‘Is wickedness, and will go spoil your chances if I’m dragging you back to my own – troubles. I do this all as a goodness for you, wa te?’

  ‘Ma. My eyes. May I be able to open?’

  ‘Ma. My eyes. May I be able to open?’ Belinda repeated the words again to herself, to no one, to the busy figures shifting around in a darkness broken up by the tiny flares of lighters, to Amma ahead whose face didn’t understand.

  ‘Why are you still there on your lonesome, bella Be? Come the fuck on,’ Amma shouted, the girl with those pretty freckles laughed, and as Belinda approached them the lights came back on, as did the music. A damp cheer, and then everyone returned to their chatter chatter chatter.

  ‘I hate this one,’ the girl announced before Belinda could introduce herself. The girl walked away.

  ‘How can she hate me? I haven’t –’

  ‘Helena means the song, she’s gone to change it.’

  ‘Oh. Oh.’

  ‘I’m sorry you’re not having a good time, Be. I suppose –’

  ‘I am having a lovely time, thank you very much. I’m … learning a lot of different things.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘The place is the same as a classroom to me. Or at least, that is how I am taking it.’

  ‘How very cryptic of you, dearest.’

  ‘What is cryp-tic?’

  ‘Like, like mysterious?’

  ‘Sorry sorry then. Being cry-ptic is something I think I should try to never be and avoid at all costs.’

  As Amma had rightly predicted, the song changed. Out of the speakers, a man was talking in maybe an Asian language. That was funny: there were no Indians in the room. The only brown people were her and Amma.

  ‘Missy Misdemeanor! I fucking love it. Yes! My little guilty plesh.’

  ‘What? What is it?’

  Amma drank three gulps, crushed her can underfoot and ran to the speakers.

  ‘Watch,’ Belinda heard Amma demand to someone. The freckled girl clapped and encouraged a growing group of blonde girls to join in. Copying the music word for word, Amma started rapping about new shit and about getting a freak on; pushing herself around, narrowing her eyes, clicking in a way Belinda thought sulky, sometimes turning her attention to the boy behind her who fiddled with buttons on the hi-fi. Amma nodded at him, first suggesting she agreed with the volume and then at other times as though she wanted a fight. Amma pressed her knees together and wiggled, drilling into the floorboards.

  Belinda played with the soft tuft at her forehead. She saw the outline of Amma’s nipples through her black vest top, but was distracted by Helena’s clapping – she missed the beat so often. And now, still rapping, still barking out and tossing aside bossy lines, Amma lunged at the blonde girls with her breasts, challenging them to react. Belinda knew she should whisper ‘stop’ in Amma’s ear and then escort her home and afterwards sweep the front steps. But some larger force stuck Belinda in the middle of the small crowd, correcting the freckled one’s beat with her own sharper clap. Amma winked at Belinda.

  The blonde girls whispered behind multi-coloured fingernails as Amma shouted the song’s repeated list of instructions at the crowd. The girls and many tall boys with limp hair who were previously very bored or tired did as they were told, surging towards the speakers in a wave that dragged Belinda in too and she nearly lost her balance. A stranger’s grip helped, shifting her, pushing her onto Amma’s shoulder.

  ‘Yes, Be!’

  Belinda was straightened up and Amma started bumping her hips into Belinda’s. It hurt, but the glittery eyes behind whipping braids said that Amma wanted a response so Belinda pushed her hips out too, feeling wider in that part of her body. Belinda waved her arms at the same time. When Amma nodded and yelled ‘Bounce!’ Belinda nodded and yelled ‘Bounce!’ Amma screwed up her nose like she had smelled Kobe for the first time and continued rapping. Belinda couldn’t do the rapping but could match the expression: the faces of the village when she and Mother knocked to ask for evaporated milk because they had run out; the one she did at Mary for leaving streaks of brown in their toilet bowl. Rotating her waist and rolling her shoulders like she did not care about them, Belinda kept on going and the blonde girls pumped at the air and at her with little fists. Though some tiny part of her was unsure if they were doing that sign to truly support her dancing or make fun of her, once more she let Amma’s sweating smile rule. Under Belinda’s skin hundreds of bubbles rushed. The strangers who were shaking and pointing at the sky did that because they were following her. To check it, she flexed her head. They did it too. She bent her knees again and again. They did it too. It was good, how willingly they let her be in charge; they knew nothing about her.

  A breathless Amma slapped a hard high five into Belinda’s palm and led her to a table where Amma stopped, picked up an empty bowl cut with icy diamonds like Uncle’s whisky glasses.

  ‘Who’s had all the booze?’

  The room didn’t hear. The space where they had stood seconds ago was refilled by others, drifting, sliding, kissing.

  ‘Everyone’s so fucking greedy. I wanted to give you a little cheers. That was a-ma-zing.’

  ‘I don’t think we even need it, Amma. Any more drinks. No. I enjoyed my tea.’

  ‘It’s not
about need. It’s just fun, Be.’

  ‘I. I have never done anything like that before – dancing as that. I wasn’t even feeling embarrassed.’

  ‘You seemed to take to it very naturally, ma chérie – Lav?! Lav?! Is there any Pinot N. still knocking about? Lavender?!’

  ‘I need no more. Nothing else. I only want to enjoy this happiness, not add to it, because if you try to add to it, maybe you, maybe you will fail and then everything will be lost. I don’t need all. Let us, let us keep things small, eh? Please? Please, can we?’

  Amma went back to the empty bowl. She passed her finger over its rim and sucked the red stickiness.

  ‘I hope that you’re right, Be. About lots of it.’

  Amma moved closer to Belinda. The few footsteps seemed difficult for her. The whites of Amma’s eyes were a pink-yellow – they might have been irritated by the thickening smoke.

  ‘The things you offer to me, advice, whatever. I mean. I mean, usually, if, like, you come against someone and you feel their whole world view is basically completely different from your own, you, like, want them to be wrong? Like, spectacularly wrong. Fall from grace. But, but, I’m taking myself out of the equation. I don’t want you to be disappointed by anything. Do you get me? I want, I want so much of the stuff you believe to be as it is. So you aren’t hurt? And even though I wish we could, could both be right, I’d rather you won than me because, because I can take it.’ Belinda wanted to speak but Amma continued, her voice higher now. ‘Because I am taking it right now, and look how I’m shaking it all off. Easy peas. You wouldn’t be able to do that if like, it all came tumbling down. I wouldn’t want you to.’

  ‘How do you know of my beliefs, Amma? And my, my world view, Amma?’

  ‘Well, it’s like what you said before.’ With concentration, Amma drew her thumb and forefinger close together, and peered through the space she let remain between the two. ‘It’s small. Very small.’

  ‘You –’

  ‘It’s not insulting. It’s not patronising. I swear I’m trying to be nice Be, we’re – we’re different. Obviously. Fuck. And that’s actually OK, it’s excellent, in fact. You look at things more neatly than me. And sometimes you don’t and that is, also like, amazing and gorgeous too. But my mind is constantly changing: it’s, like, never neat, and’ – Amma’s hands whirled – ‘going and going and going. I tried being fixed, and focusing on one thing and being very, very rigid, and it proved to be a very, very bad thing for Amma. So.’ Amma played with her vest top’s strap.