Housegirl Page 15

  With her thumb now restraining a Habitat towel’s label from flicking up again, Belinda remembered that day: trying to get comfortable on their unkind mattress, clutching her belly. Mother sat closer to her than she often did, close enough for Belinda to smell the remnants of cigarette smoke stronger and richer than the usual. Belinda remembered the clump, crunch and crash of the water pump outside, occasionally waking her. She remembered the white enamel cup speckled with black marks, filled with something hot, green and bitter that Mother pushed at Belinda’s lips. And the coolness of the cloths Mother laid on her cheeks. And Mother putting one of their four cassettes into the Fisher Price player. Akosombo Nkanea. Maybe because Mother assumed Belinda had dipped into sleep again, or perhaps because of boredom, Mother had let herself sing along, wiggling to the old tune. She clicked her dry fingers and nodded like she and the singer shared the same wisdom. Belinda had been awake. Wide awake, watching it all. Mother had never seemed so young.

  Belinda dealt with the last towel, putting them all in the rectangular wicker basket as Nana did. Lifting the load to the highest shelf, she turned to see the fox still out there; red hanging from its mouth. This time Belinda tapped her fist on the glass, not bothered about the noise. Condensation flaring from her lips, she showed the animal all of her teeth and bit towards it. The fox looked up and fled into the bushes.

  20

  In the dining room, Amma sat at the head and Belinda at the foot of the long table, with flouncy candelabras, uncapped biros and fat highlighters spread between them. Amma played with her pencil case, picking at the elaborate squiggles and hieroglyphs Tipp-Exed onto its plastic. Then she stopped and flipped down the iBook’s tangerine lid. Her sigh became a loud yawn, disturbing Belinda from her serious, squinted reading of Macbeth. Amma mouthed ‘Sorry, ma petite’ at Belinda’s sternness. How funny to think of that girl, a fortnight before, working her thang to Missy Elliott in synchronised sass. Belinda underlined something very firmly and scribbled on her notepad with an air of industry that implied she would not be receptive to Amma’s attempts to talk about their now famous performance. Instead Amma put her feet up on the scarred oak. A pattern of grinning pineapples danced across her socks. She peeled them off and flung them aside.

  ‘Weeeeeeee!’ she said, as they flopped to the floorboards.

  ‘Amma!’

  ‘Whatever. Sorry. I’ll stop. Sorry. Fuck.’

  Belinda sighed. ‘To give a bit of encouragement to do more work for some more moments I can heat up the leftover okra thing as a snack for late lunch? Yes? In fifteen minutes? We eat then?’

  ‘Yeah, thanks … you sick feeder, you.’ Amma took another salty tatale from the saucer nearby. Belinda frowned and returned to her text.

  Even though Amma had been pretty pissed when she’d said that thing about admiring ‘trying’ at Lavender’s, it was still on point. So, in the dining room, with Mum rattling around upstairs, sorting out some campaign at the charity shop or whatever, Amma had spent most of the bleak Sunday afternoon, now dragging itself out, doing her best to mimic Belinda’s diligence. As Belinda concentrated opposite, Amma grimaced and grunted at the iBook; her task was no meek adversary, nor could the battle with it run on and on. The bloody UCAS Personal Statement had to be finished that weekend ‘or else’, Titch had threatened. But each time Amma tore herself away from the delicious and distracting tatales, what she wrote sounded sometimes a bit Miss Jean Brodie, sometimes a bit business-speaky – and mostly awful. Amma flipped open the laptop and pressed some buttons to change the screen’s brightness.

  Maybe the difficulty in writing about ‘herself’ came from the blandness of the ‘herself’ to be put on the page. The most interesting thing that had happened to her wasn’t appropriate for the box on the form allocated for luring offers from History of Art professors at Leeds, Sussex, Manchester, York … Amma felt a bit sick and scrunched her toes, not only responding to the draught or the flashing memory of Roisin’s pubes damp with sweat, but also because it was embarrassing and inaccurate to consider ‘that’ ‘interesting’. Amma let her head loll. The word ‘interesting’ and its friend ‘fascinating’ were problematic. Like when jolly-hockey-sticks primary schoolteachers had asked about her ‘ancestry’ for colourful displays on family trees. If Amma remembered boring details like how a distant relative on Dad’s side had been an adviser to some chief or that she could bring in offcuts of Kente for her wall poster, teachers intoned the words ‘fascinating’ or ‘interesting’ with irritating reverence. For Amma, being interesting was the ability to recite all of The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, speaking … Yoruba and Finnish and Cantonese – singular and cool and amazing stuff like that. The blackness of her face or that she’d eaten out a girl and wanted to do it again didn’t confer specialness and certainly wasn’t important. Amma took a biro from the middle of the table, snapped off the messier bits of its destroyed end and chewed. Tasting bitterness, realising she had sucked ink, she spat.

  ‘Amma! I can’t study at all. So much moving moving as if ants are in your pants. And I find conclusions very difficult to do indeed. So please.’

  Amma wiped her mouth and watched, through the window behind Belinda, the grey outside whipping away, getting wetter, the sky as blank as the screen in front of her. The funniest thing about Roisin’s red pubes was when Amma brushed her teeth at Brunswick and found one of them, prone on the enamel. Stranded saffron.

  The time with Roisin had involved a good deal of careful studying, of getting to know: understanding which particular absurdities amused Roisin most. Hyperbolic impersonations were often the thing, so Roisin loved Amma’s screechy versions of Mum. There was also watching how Roisin used cutlery to attack meals, then seeing how her mouth closed as precisely around the forkful as it did round Amma’s nipples. And learning Roisin’s belief that talking around rather than towards solutions was best. The question of whether Roisin was as preoccupied with the same observation of Amma and her responses was beside the point. Amma recorded the moments until she was full with them. There had been so much noise in her head. Now, there were only gentle sounds like Belinda’s reedy humming of old church hymns from the village, so much less startling than Roisin’s operatic sneezes, her guttural burps. Now, there was no certainty that what Amma had slavishly learnt about Roisin remained pertinent. If they met tomorrow, on the off-chance, what anecdotes might Amma have to lightly colour to keep Roisin’s brittle stare focused? What had it all been for? Amma adjusted the screen’s angle, wondered uselessly if it would have hurt less and if the hurt would have disappeared more permanently, if the loss had been of a boy’s … love rather than a girl’s. She shook her head.

  ‘Amma –’

  The dumb cursor kept on going: Blinking. Stuck. Repeating. Blinking. Stuck. Repeating. Amma breathed, tried to remember the point: University. Forward. Forward. She forced herself to type.

  ‘The study of any society’s progression – and the costs of such advancement – is most effectively conducted by an assessment of the images and artefacts that society chose – or chooses – to represent itself with.’

  Amma pressed the delete key and watched the cursor kill her words.

  ‘You have been greedy-oh! Let me have the last one so I can take the plate away for the dishwasher.’ Belinda scored the corner of her text with a thumbnail.

  ‘Oh. Those.’ Amma pushed the saucer of tatales forward for Belinda to stretch to. ‘Sure, yeah. Take. With my blessing.’

  ‘Such a big and sad voice.’

  ‘Sorry.’

  ‘It must be the weather. Or maybe the sickness has yet to pass?’

  ‘Yep. Yep, that’s the one.’

  21

  On the top deck of the 133 on Monday afternoon, Amma’s responses to Belinda’s questions were short or didn’t come at all. Like they had been for most of the weekend. Like everything had slipped backwards. No opportunity to celebrate Amma’s completion of the difficult UCAS form, and no thoughts about the day at school; only
pauses and shuffling.

  On the seat next to Belinda, Amma quietly blew and popped spit-bubbles bigger and nastier than Mary’s. Then Amma breathed on the window through wet lips, drew a grid and played noughts and crosses by herself, sometimes stopping to give the world below a passing look. A speeding 250 scarily overtook their bus. Amma laughed, wrote in her spoiled Mickey Mouse notebook and put it back in her rucksack. Belinda started to ask what had been written but the hardness of Amma’s shoulders stopped her and she hated that she could do nothing. Belinda’s mouth tasted bitter. She wanted to get home and roll Omotuo. There would be Doctor’s soft praise for the smoothness of her Light Soup – the meal she knew was his very favourite. Then scouring the bath’s waxy ring of scum as the rest of the house snored, before the hope of gentle, empty sleep.

  Loud ringtones sang from passengers’ phones and Belinda looked around, her left eyelid twitching. To the left, with their heads bent in towards one another like lovers, two white boys shared a set of earphones, pecked the air and did the same mean faces. The seats at the back were taken up by five Indian boys slapping each other with their striped ties. Some squealed. Others laughed. The whips got more violent, the screams too. Before Telford Avenue, one rocked forward with pain. His glasses fell off, slid down the centre aisle, past Belinda’s sparkly Primark ballet pumps, straight towards the stairs. The bus soon stopped, releasing its trapped wind, and the glasses flew back towards their owner who muttered about what his dad would have done to him if they’d smashed. His friends whooped. Belinda pretended that noise caused the heating of her cheekbones.

  Two schoolgirls thumped up the stairs, obviously Jamaican because of their crucifixes and the piercings. Sometimes the difference between Nigerians and them was hard to tell, but these were definitely Jamaicans. Their tights were like fishermen’s nets, their shirts unbuttoned so the darker of the two displayed some red bra.

  ‘Nah, man, nah. I don’t watch dat! Fucking reeks up here, cha.’ The darker girl waved her lollipop. ‘Come, Monique, I beg we get on some next bus, it’s too nasty up in here.’

  ‘I’ll be late for my aunty’s, you know say they neva come on time in these ends.’

  Something passed between the two girls that Belinda didn’t catch.

  Monique’s apologetic voice changed. ‘But. What. Is. Dat? Whatdafuckisdat? Proper like someone’s got doo-doo on their shoe! Eugh! You people need to fix up and check your shoe, yeah, coz some nastiness is going on in here. Some people are so nasty.’

  Monique, the lighter girl, held her hips and talked to the whole deck. Her hair was fancy, fanned out like a peacock.

  ‘Excuse me, yeah, whichever one of you bumbeclarts has come up in here and made it all rank and dat, bes’ remember: public transport. We all gotta use it. Save that dundusness for your own home. Nasty, man, proper nasty to do that. Putting me right off my dinner.’ She pointed to her lollipop and cackled.

  ‘I’m sittin’. Come.’

  Belinda’s spine went up and her chin forward like she was lining up for Morning Assembly again. She coughed. ‘Please. Excuse me. Hello. I say, hello, young ladies, please. What smells? I been here and I can’t smell anything.’

  ‘Be, don’t –’ Amma whispered.

  ‘What? I’m confused, they aren’t making sense, so I’m asking.’

  ‘Is dat one talking to me?’ Monique said. ‘I beg dat one ain’t talking to me. Coz no one chats to me like dat, yunnerstan?’

  ‘Fuckin’ ’ell man, my girl’s about to blow! You bes’ check yourself.’

  ‘Check what? Me, I’m asking straightforward questions. Seems like you’ve come up here to be noisy for no reason. Everything was calm before this. Why can’t people be calm, eh?’

  ‘What the – who even arsked you, bitch?’

  ‘Who asked, I say, asked you to shout your big mouth like this? No manners as though from the bush. Nonsense.’ Belinda hadn’t realised that she was on her feet and wagging her finger, or that Amma yanked at her pocket.

  ‘Allow correcting me! Fucking Africa Bambara’s telling me and whatnot. You must be mad, Boss.’

  ‘Monique, yeah, cool it. Don’t make the driver hol’ up like last time.’

  ‘Nah this bitch is stepping to me so she must know what she’s about to be fucking stepping to me. Coz she have to know I don’t even care about merkin’ mans, ya get me?’

  Monique’s fingers became little guns pointed at Belinda. One of the white boys popped out an earphone and tried, ‘Girls, leave it, yeah?’

  ‘And who was chatting to you, you butters freak? Don’t watch me! Put your fucking Dido back on and suck your thumb.’

  ‘She’s clearly an idiot, Be.’ Amma pulled Belinda by her belt loops. ‘She’s just called you an African Bambatta – or whatever. Which is clearly racist and bloody ludicrous. Sit, I said sit.’

  ‘What’s your likkle friend going on about?’

  ‘Sensible things. Not like you, who are naughty. You calling me African what? For what? I am an African, but what? You calling that bad? You foolin’ with your own history? Have you only rocks in your skull – too much nonsense.’

  ‘Don’t test me! Nah! I wasn’t even trying to fight this term.’

  ‘I wouldn’t dream to test,’ Belinda laughed. ‘You will fail, without a single doubt!’

  The darker girl inhaled and began thumping her knees. ‘Ohmygoshohmygoshohmygosh, that is a liberty! Fresh off the boat and cussing so bad.’

  ‘Shutup.’

  ‘Belinda, shh.’

  ‘You have only behaviour like this? Is it nice? To be being this way? It’s afternoon. Only 4 p.m., aren’t you ashamed? Your family aren’t ashamed?’

  ‘Be, don’t bring families into this. That’s how it alwa–’

  ‘Shutchamouf. Who said you could talk about my family?’

  ‘Oh God. Dear Lord,’ Amma sighed. ‘She really is an utter retard.’

  The lighter one ran forward and before Belinda could shield her she’d grabbed a fistful of Amma’s braids at the roots. Two of the Indian boys at the back screamed in a pitch even higher than before.

  ‘Think coz you’re talking posh I can’t understand?’

  ‘Let go of me. Sorry.’

  ‘You and you girlfriend need to apologise.’

  ‘Are you deaf? Sorrysorrysorry!’

  ‘It’s not good enough. My feelings got fucking hurt by dat.’

  An Indian boy started ringing the bell over and over.

  ‘It really hurts, Be!’

  ‘She has asked you to remove, and you haven’t. Adɛn?’ Belinda slipped off a ballet pump and held it high.

  ‘And what you gonna do with dat?’ Monique pulled Amma again. ‘You’re lucky I don’t cut you and your rasclart girlfriend right here right now.’

  Belinda swung her bag at Monique. Monique’s releasing of the braids and stumbling back into the stairs seemed to happen all together.

  ‘Be? What the fu– Fucking hell!’

  Monique hauled herself up, hanging on to her friend and the green rail Belinda had moved forward to peer over.

  ‘I can even push you down more if want. You think I care? I will kick you out of this place with my bare hands. So gerroff. Now. Gerroff and … bloody hell!’

  ‘You don’t even know what you fucking done, you ugly, fucking bitch, I’ll kill you.’

  ‘Gerroff from here. How can you frighten me? Eh? Ha! You cannot even speak a word properly.’ Belinda whipped the bag through the air again and the girls ducked.

  ‘That one goes to Streatham, I know. You, you lot bes’ watch. I ain’t joking: one of you is dead before da en of nex week, trus.’

  Belinda sank into her seat.

  They got off the bus, like normal, by the Town Hall. They stood in the cold breeze. The Ritzy’s neon sign opposite stretched in Belinda’s vision. On the pavement, balls of someone’s old weave circled her feet like dried grasses in the harmattan. Amma took Belinda’s wrists and smiled away the frowns of passers-by. The ea
se with which those strangers walked off and did not care was comforting.

  ‘Let’s wait here, yeah? For your shaking to stop? You’re fucking mental, Be. And, also, brilliant. What even happened to you back there?’

  Belinda liked the kindness of Amma’s speaking again, but a tight grip and a few minutes of calm would not be enough. The dizziness, the thing inside was not neat or little. This bad behaviour, badness, sickness, strangeness in the blood, handed down from mother to daughter. Belinda slipped herself from Amma’s hold and smoothed the sleeves of her duffle, pulling the sleeves even though they would not go further. It would be sad if she broke the coat’s stitches but Belinda wanted the sleeves to cover more.

  ‘Be? Come on.’

  The thing in Belinda’s racing blood was in charge, came and went and slipped out when and how it liked; it cared about nothing. How funny to think about the nasty Monique-girl’s shock. That was the good. Less of a joke was the sound of the satchel against her forehead and the small, baby sounds as the girl got to her feet, struggling against something she had not seen coming.

  ‘Let’s start – yeah? OK, so. Breathing.’

  Belinda dropped her head. Three sequins had flaked off her ballet pump. ‘I remember first wondering of it when I was young. Because of during thunder and lightning. In the rainy season our storms are so much bigger than whatever small ones you have here. They come for whole hours and hours at a time back home. And when the storms begin, with the lightning and the lizards running to hide, everyone would get so excited. The village women would together prepare, going to get off their clothes from the line and then the others getting buckets to catch the water when the rains come proper proper. But whenever my mother ran to help anyone, they slid away. They waved her off. They will pretend, like, as though they have seen nothing, rather than go near or have her touching their coal pot or picking up their child to put them inside, away from the downpouring. I tried thinking they act as this because we are the poorest in Adurubaa. A good explanation and I believed in it for a while but –’