Housegirl Page 3

  ‘Aane.’

  Mary stopped to fish ice cubes out of her Coke, then looked up. ‘You? You, you’re RUBBISH, hearing me?’ Mary stood and pointed. ‘You so … RUBBISH! And you right, I don’t need you. Not only because I’m adult. But because I’m better than you.’

  ‘Mary –’

  ‘So go take your stupid self to London. You go do it, I don’t care. I’m not even crying one tear.’

  The white man came over. ‘Is everything cool here?’ He fingered wooden beads at his neck.

  ‘Perfect and fine. Please, good day.’

  ‘I was only…’ He shuffled back to his muttering friends.

  ‘I am not clever enough for London, or something, eh? My letters and number not so excellent like yours. Eh? Not pretty enough? My hair is too rough for London?’ Mary grabbed the baubles on her head, tossed them, loosened the two bunches. ‘I am sorry Aunty and Uncle did not pay for me to go to hairdresser to get nice plaits like you to show off at Nana and the husband. I am sorry no one is giving me shiny dress to wear!’

  Belinda reached towards her.

  ‘You don’t come near.’

  ‘We –’

  ‘I said YOU DON’T EVER COME NEAR ME.’

  The white people were gathering their backpacks. The radio had stopped.

  ‘You been lying, isn’t it? All of this, when we together, like we doing this all together, that’s how I thought. Only now I see you just a smelling liar. You been thinking I am most rubbish girl, ino be so? Been laughing with Nana. Been counting days until something like this is happening, yes?’

  Mary’s nodding frightened Belinda; it was as if the electricity that sometimes pulsed through her own body had been passed on.

  ‘You don’t care what is happening to me at all, do you? You have nice flight to London, they get you husband and a palace. And me? They will send me back.’ Mary paced. ‘You bloody –’

  ‘Swearing! Who is teaching you swearing?’

  ‘FUCKING. FUCKING. No one is FUCKING ever coming to see me from my home village. No Papa. No Grandma. And now, you telling me Uncle and Aunty will drive me back there, push me out of the door and leave me? That is what going to be happening, Belinda. Because they don’t want only me. We came as two. Two.’ She flopped to the floor like a cheap doll.

  Belinda crouched down.

  ‘I –’

  ‘FUCKING. And also, SHIT. You. Your dress is ugly and I hate your idiot shoes!’ Mary lashed out, pushed an unsteady Belinda and ran through the coloured strips of plastic in the doorway. Splayed on the linoleum, Belinda wanted to shout after her friend. But nothing came out.

  * * *

  Encumbered by the bags, Belinda found Mary sitting on one of the security guard’s stools at the zoo’s exit.

  ‘If you misbehave, they may beat you,’ Belinda panted. Gravel crackled under her feet. ‘For your own benefit and peace, I say this to you.’

  Belinda stopped, caught her breath and squared herself for Mary’s next insult. But Mary only hopped down from the stool, ran up to the bars of the main gate and stroked them. She tried to fit her head through one of the loops in its rusting pattern. Belinda knew she would be unsuccessful but thought it best to let her try.

  ‘Mary, you don’t –’

  Mary returned to the stool, pulled herself up, kicked her legs backwards and forwards. Neither of them were skilled at fights like this. Mary started well but continuing was difficult. It was true what she had suggested: Mary wasn’t clever enough. She was incapable of creating some plan to keep everything safe and the same.

  ‘You don’t have to carry my things. They are mine. I will carry.’ Belinda watched Mary hop off the stool again and come forward to struggle with the shopping herself. ‘We should go.’

  Mary walked on, leaning down towards the fuller bag, limping with the weight. ‘When we are late and Aunty wants to coming finding a person to be blaming, don’t push me up. I am doing hurry hurry and you want to be waiting and playing. Not time for one of your daydreaming now.’

  Led by a tall woman with a clipboard, a snaking line of loud schoolchildren marched past, two by two, pristine in their blue and white and straw sun hats – not the usual brown and yellow most wore to school, and that Belinda had been so proud to wear in Adurubaa. Blue and white meant somewhere expensive. Their scrubbed faces and clean feet in matching blue sandals, agreed with her guess. Belinda watched Mary hobble to one side to make way for them. Then a hunched Mary turned her thinking face to the sky, to the showy swallows dipping and dipping there.

  3

  That evening, back at Aunty and Uncle’s, Belinda twisted the kitchen tap firmly and was amazed again by the water’s purity, so different from the gritty coughings of the communal pump back in the village. She picked up her terracotta asanka, its complicated decoration of interlocking diamonds matching the design of the kitchen’s smart grey tiles, and placed the bowl beneath the tap’s steady flow, tilting it so shallow waves skimmed its grooved inside.

  In the tro tro on the way home from the zoo, Belinda had done her best to enjoy Mary’s sulking silence. Mary’s quietness as they went through Bekwai and Melcom should have given them both a moment to calm; time for Belinda to realise the threat had passed. She had told Mary that she was leaving and so the worst was over. But Mary’s silence had not been calming at all. Mary’s eyes were narrowed, her jaw set, her mouth mean.

  Mary seemed slightly less distant when they arrived back in Daban and they returned to the familiarity of their routine. In their room Mary unpacked the bags, arranging everything they had bought in rows in the small cabinet by her side of the bed. Belinda listed the tasks that needed doing in preparation for the evening meal and Mary listened to and acknowledged each clear order. They both slipped out of their clothes and then put on their matching uniforms at the same time.

  Belinda’s swilling of water round the asanka, the rhythm of Mary scouring saucepans at the kitchen’s island and the drain’s glugging were disrupted by a shout. Another shout came and Belinda glanced through the window’s louvres. Near the pool, lit up by the sunset, Uncle was thrusting tilapia at Aunty. Aunty was screaming and clutching her breast. Shaking and stroking his bald head, Uncle threw the fish onto the barbecue, then waved towards Aunty until she fiddled with something in her hands. Belinda recognised the voice that soon came from speakers as Sarah Vaughan’s because Aunty and Uncle played this CD so often. The woman’s voice spread and slid and spread.

  ‘Aba! They always causing a complete racket when we try and concentrate,’ Mary pounded her fist. ‘Don’t they know that we like to have a peace when we make them eto?’

  Since Belinda arrived in Daban, Uncle often told Belinda he planned to make the most of his retirement, laughing his roundest laugh as he said it. ‘Making the most’ seemed to mean eating, listening to the trumpet man Miles Davis or the lady Sarah Vaughan, sleeping in the day, drinking, and playing pranks like that one with the fish. Mary kept on scouring, Uncle bullied a reluctant Aunty into dancing with him and yet again Belinda found it difficult to imagine that man handling all the big monies they said he dealt with in London. He must have changed himself a lot between there and here. Pulling the tough green skin from four plantains, she wondered if she could change so much in her own lifetime. Tossing the peelings in the rubbish, something made her flip the louvres down. She laid the pale plantains side by side on the chopping board, like tired infants ready for sleep, then sliced them fast.

  ‘And so please start the boiling, me pa wo kyew.’

  ‘I shall do that one, Belinda.’

  Belinda turned her attention to the Scotch bonnets, using the knife to scrape out some but not all of the peppers’ seeds, allowing the meal to keep its fire as Aunty and Uncle liked. Belinda heard pleasing grunts of effort as Mary carried the heavy pan to the stove; heard the click of the kettle, the clattering as the little girl rested the pan on the hob, the crackle as she lit the match, the whispering of poured hot water and salt, the plop
as she let the eggs go.

  ‘Now, Belinda, pass me plantain, please.’

  With a nod, Belinda did as she was told, watching Mary drop the plantain pieces into the water too.

  ‘You know the story of this one?’ Belinda asked, pulling the roots off two onions.

  ‘Wo se sɛn?’

  ‘What eto is for.’

  ‘You tell me.’

  ‘Is the egg, really. That’s the important part of it all.’

  ‘How is that?’ Mary stood on the tips of her toes to reach the shelf with the seasoning and tall bottles on. She grabbed the deep red palm oil and set it on the side.

  ‘So on the wedding day they will give the eto to the bride. In the morning, perhaps; I don’t know. And they will give it to her as we will to Uncle and Aunty. I mean that after it has been prepared – we’ve mixed together the mashed plantain, fried onion, nuts and things – they will place a boiled egg on the dish. Then all the elders and everyone will watch the bride. Because she has to eat the whole egg in one go. Without biting or chewing anything at all. Swallow in one.’

  ‘Adɛn?’

  ‘The elders’ rule is that if you consume it all in one then you will have many, many children. But if you bite even one small bite into the thing then is like you are eating into your unborn child and you will never have any children ever and after. Is their word.’

  ‘Sa?’

  ‘Aane. Is what they have always said. Now collect the roasting groundnuts, I beg.’

  Mary bent down to the oven, waved away heat and pulled out the tray, nuts crackling against the foil. Belinda busied herself with chopping the onions, the heels of her hands wiping back hot tears.

  ‘Miss Belinda, I have some feelings about this one you have told.’

  ‘Of course you do. I will be pleased to hear them.’

  ‘Thank you kindly. So I don’t believe the story is a truth. Boiled egg to tell of later babies? No, I don’t agree with this one. And, also, sound to me like a horrible thing to do to a lady on her wedding day when you are already full of nerves and fears. Adjei! Why ask a girl to stand in front of the publics to watch her choke and become ashame? And, also, what if she choke so much on the egg it comes up from her mouth onto her princess dress? Can you imagine? Where have I placed the salt?’

  ‘Your mind is a sieve. Is over there. There, by the pan.’

  ‘You are correct. There it is. Is always the same: Belinda always right; Belinda never fail.’

  The sharpness of Mary’s comment hung in the air. Belinda worked the pestle in the asanka, using her weight against the ingredients, grinding together the slippery onion and pepper. She stopped.

  ‘Yes, it sounds funny to me also. I don’t think I would ever be able to do it myself. My mouth is too small and not well equipped for such a thing. Look.’

  Belinda turned round and opened her mouth as wide as she could, her lips and neck strained and stinging, embarrassment fierce across her cheeks. Mary laughed. Belinda liked that and began to cool.

  ‘You’re a nonsense, Belinda.’

  ‘Only sometimes.’

  ‘Yes. Only sometimes.’

  Mary interrupted Belinda’s grinding to add a pinch of salt to the spicy paste forming. Dusting off her fingers, the little girl coughed like Uncle did before giving an instruction and let her shoulders fall. ‘I have to do an apology. I suppose.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘For what? I don’t mind. Truly.’ Belinda moved to the teak cupboards to find the frying pan. She placed it on the hob next to the boiling water.

  ‘You do, Belinda. You do. I think you hate things like a big shouting like I was doing in the zoo. You not use to it. So I have to say sorry. Because I know you hate that one.’

  ‘I don’t hate anything, Mary. Hating is very, very evil. That’s why it hurt me so badly when you used that word about me. Saying how you hate me. Adɛn?’

  ‘But it was my true feelings in that minute. Now: not so. Then: it was my God’s honest. You, you prefer me to lie as Pinocchio? Pretend I was really the happiest?’

  ‘No, but –’

  ‘You will want me, like me better if I didn’t speak anything at all? But I find that a difficult one.’

  Belinda smiled to herself, placing a flat palm just above the frying pan to check its readiness. She tipped in the palm oil then tested the texture of the boiling plantain and the eggs, to find they both needed longer. ‘You seem to do a very good job of not speaking on the tro tro, me boa?’

  ‘Not really.’

  ‘Wo se sɛn?’

  ‘In my head I had very long talk with you. Very long.’

  ‘Sa?’ Belinda scooped the contents of the asanka into the frying pan and took a big step back while the oil hissed.

  ‘The conversation did not go good at all. You, you kept on trying as if to make me feel better. So annoying to me. So I got bored and I took some ice water from off your bag and spill it all over the top of your head. Sorry about that one, also.’

  Mary did a small bow and Belinda went at her with a tea towel. The little girl pretended to have been wounded by one of the swipes. She pouted, winked, then returned to the high shelves to find plates, water glasses, place mats.

  Belinda took the frying pan from the flames and poured the freshly fried ingredients into the asanka where they would wait for the plantain. Before seeking out her pestle again, Belinda checked on Mary, who was inspecting the crockery like Aunty had showed them to do on the first morning they had arrived.

  There had been so many things to take in during that morning when Aunty, queen-like, had patted her headwrap as she showed them the house and its grounds, walking through echoing white corridors and grand arches and perfect gardens; past chaise longues and chandeliers and flashing glass-topped tables. So many rooms that Mother would have been jealous of but that left Belinda’s stomach feeling like it would fall through her feet. Throughout the tour, Belinda remembered, Mary had stared at the faint marks her flip-flops left on the squeaky floor, and Belinda had nodded while memorising Aunty’s endless notes about brands of bleach and meal times so she could recite them to Mary later, in the comfort of their new bedroom, when she hoped the girl might be less frightened. Now, as Mary polished silverware, Belinda wanted to offer her praise and kindness. She could work well. That was important and deserved to be recognised. So, smiling, Belinda opened her mouth, but then Mary dropped a fork. Mary did not flinch. Instead, staring ahead at the cupboards with their spotless, bronzed handles, Mary began to speak.

  ‘Once, in my hometown, a boy called Akwesi from a compound nearby to ours he won some test at Sunday School. Test or competition. Something like this. So he had been handed a reward. That day, I learn the foolish word for the prize he was getting. They call it a hula hoop. So much hu hu hu. Funny to me. Anyway, the boy was a selfish. He never said yes if any neighbour children we did ask to play with the thing. He only knew to refuse us.’ Mary picked up the fork, started wiping it. ‘It was pretty, Belinda. They made the hula with all rainbow colours and they even tied ribbon to some parts. But I didn’t mind too much that I couldn’t play on the thing because I got to watch Akwesi using it. He use to stand, in the middle of the yard, with all us children clapping and clapping. And he will spin so quick with all the colours flying up and all over. And when he was spinning like that my heart it went running and running and my smile was really smiling. Because how beautiful. Wa te? And I thought I could never feel anything nicer or happier than watching Akwesi in that way. Then. Then I met you. So.’

  Mary took out a slotted spoon, dipped it into the water and transferred the two eggs into her hands. She yelped at the heat of the things bouncing in her palms. She blew on them and hopped. Struggling, her fingers tried picking off the eggs’ shells by jabbing. Defeated, she rolled the eggs onto the black worktop and whimpered. Outside, Sarah Vaughan held a low note for a long time then melted into nothing.

  Belinda straightened her spine, hunched her back t
hen straightened it again. In a scrunch of kitchen towel, she gathered up the two eggs carefully and pressed them against the worktop until cracks appeared across them. She picked at the first one with patient fingernails until she could uncurl the whole shell with a few swift pulls. Then she repeated it on the next.

  Hoping it would be enough because it was all she had and all she could do, Belinda stepped forward and held Mary’s wrists gently, feeling the slight bones there, as well as the little girl’s latest insect bites. Turning the hands over, it was good to see no scalding, only one or two pinker patches in places.

  ‘You brave to grab those eggs so fast, Mary.’

  ‘No, stupid.’

  Still clutching her wrists, the boiling pot rumbling away, Belinda walked Mary to the tap and ran her fingers under the cold, just to be safe. At the sink, their four eyes fixed on the shut louvres behind which the evening sky now glowed. Droplets dripped down the tiled splashback, and Mary’s obedient palms cupped water. The two girls remained like that for much longer than they needed to.

  SUMMER

  4

  London – August 2002

  A gentle voice came down in a different language. Then another. And then another.

  A loud child was silenced with a sweet that crackled out of its wrapper.

  Strip lighting overhead, black arrows on yellow, corridors with moving floors.

  A scared man reached into his pocket for an L-shaped plastic tube, sucked hard and brought colour into his cheeks.

  Queuing.

  Strip lighting overhead, black arrows on yellow, corridors with moving floors.

  A demanding woman – probably a Nigerian with all that around her neck, in her ears, in her nose – had lost the passport, oh! Lost the passport, oh! Yey, has lost dis here the paaaaassport, oh-ho!

  Being watched by a white lady with a man’s tie, then watched by a black eye on a stick.

  Holding back blinks. Stamp.

  Strip lighting overhead, queuing, corridors with moving floors.