by Gina Yashere
The experience of school varied from day to day, depending on whether I had my friend group or not. Most of the time I spent hoping to get picked for team events, and usually I got picked after the popular girls and just before the fat kids and the nerds, even though I was a better athlete than most of the people doing the picking. But such was my social standing as an African girl named after female genitalia. What I looked forward to was my GCE O-level exams, which I would pass, and then get the fuck out of that school.
In England at the time, students from age eleven to sixteen studied for Certificates of Secondary Education, CSEs, or General Certificates of Education, known as GCEs, O levels (ordinary levels) in each subject. The CSE was introduced to provide a set of qualifications available to a broader range of schoolchildren and distinct from the GCE O level, which was aimed at the academically more able pupils, mostly those at independent schools. Basically, your education was based on your class in society.
Private school kids studied for GCE O-level exams, which were more likely to lead to GCE A-level (advanced-level) exams, which in turn would lead to access to university, a degree, and therefore the “better” jobs. Many government-funded high schools operated as either grammar schools, basically free schools for more academically gifted children who couldn’t afford private school, or secondary schools, for everyone else.
Every child in the UK who lived in an area where grammar schools operated was tested at age eleven, and those who passed were funneled into the better schools. Unfortunately, those schools tended to be full of middle-class kids. Their parents, even if they were unable to afford private school, were able to manage the extra tuition needed for their kids to pass the eleven-plus exam. This gave their children an advantage over poorer children, and so curtailed the opportunity of the vaunted “upward mobility” grammar schools, which should have been equally as available to more gifted working-class kids, since places at these schools were limited.
Kids who didn’t pass the eleven-plus exam, already burdened with the weight of failure at such a young age, went to the much less prestigious secondary schools, which received less government funding and struggled to retain the best teachers. Students there had access only to CSE qualifications, which tended to cover more vocational subjects, like car maintenance and cookery, as the assumption was that these kids would be the bus drivers, gardeners, and manual laborers of the future.
The high school I went to was a comprehensive school—entry was not reliant on academic performance, seemingly leveling the playing field by providing access to study for both GCE O levels and CSEs. The only problem was that kids were still being streamed into different groups according to how their teachers perceived their abilities, and whether or not a kid would be allowed to take O levels or the less academically taxing CSEs was being decided by age fourteen.
My mum had drummed it into my head: it was O levels or nothing. CSEs were for dummies. From age eleven to sixteen, my life was consumed with studying for those hallowed O levels, and making sure Mum had no excuse to call me a dummy.
I also needed to pass O levels in as many subjects as possible because I now had a bet to win. The step-bastard was unconvinced of my potential and found my mother’s boasting about my impending medical career unbearable, especially as he had never realized his own dream of a career in law. “None of your children are going to be anything,” he’d often announce. One day in a fit of pique, he shouted, “She will get no more than three O levels, and I’ll put money on it!” Never one to back down from a challenge, or a chance of free money, I said, “How much?” and a wager was made. He would pay me five pounds for every O level I passed. I was studying ten subjects. A pass in all of them would be quite the windfall, and it would be sweet to take his money and shut his hateful mouth.
After O levels, a kid could leave school and get a job at sixteen, or take an apprenticeship, which was a job but with training and paid vocational study. Another option was to continue their studies to A level, which is another two years of study (similar to junior and senior years in the US high school system). A child’s A-level results predicted what universities or colleges they could attend.
Obviously, I had only the one option. I was to get a bunch of O levels, then do A levels, go to university to get a degree, then go to medical school for seven years to become a doctor. Though I had no choice as to whether or not I wanted to do A levels, I believed I had a choice as to where I would study for them. I figured my mum wouldn’t mind if I went to another school.
Actually, I was biding my time at D&K’s until I could restart my life somewhere else. At a new school, I would reinvent myself. A new girl arrived at D&K in my third year there, and I’d found out that her full name was also Regina, but she had had much more foresight than I did and had avoided the years of ridicule I had suffered by changing the pronunciation and shortening her name to Gina. She was now one of the cool girls. My envy of her was so strong that I hated her a little. Why hadn’t I done that? Stupid! Oh well. I counted down the two years I had left before I’d be able to start my life anew, and also shorten my name.
When the time finally came to begin taking my exams, I broached the subject with Mum of changing schools after my results, and her response was a resounding no. I was to stay on at St. David and St. Katherine’s to study for my A levels, then go to university from there. No discussion. No reason. I was furious but powerless. She was putting all this pressure on me to succeed but giving me no leeway or choices in how I was to do that. I resigned myself to being Regina Vagina for another two years.
If you sell eggs at the market, you should never be the one who starts a fight.
Exam season gave me a little more freedom than I’d experienced up to that point in my life. We were not required to come into school every day, as we were given time off for studying, and so we were only required to come to school for the exams themselves or for consultations with our teachers. On top of that, we were allowed to come to school out of uniform to take our exams. This became a fashion parade, with sixteen-year-olds showing off their latest Sergio Tacchini tracksuits and Adidas shell toes, which were all the rage at the time. I didn’t have all that name-brand stuff, but I was a color-coordination master and put together some cheap but cool-looking outfits with my limited budget and wardrobe.
One such day, after I had completed my English O level, confident that I had easily passed the exam, I strolled happily through the playground of the school on my way home. It was not recess time, so all the students were currently in class. I was dressed head to toe in red. I had a red jacket on, similar in style to the very fashionable Members Only jackets but a cheaper non-brand version that my mum had bought at a market. (She sometimes accidentally bought fashionable stuff, and this had been one of those rare but delightful purchases.) I was also wearing matching red cotton trousers and red shoes, and I had fashioned a red belt into a headband tied around my curled tresses. I’d received a curling iron for my sixteenth birthday, and I’d been burning my hair into various bouffant shapes for weeks. It was a lot of red. I looked like a walking British mailbox, but I was happy with my outfit, and I strutted with my head held high.
“Oi! You African bubu!”
I stopped dead in my tracks and looked up to where the insult had come from. Angela, a heavyset, mouthy Caribbean girl from the year below me, leaned out of her classroom window. Angela was one of those girls who had friends only because people would rather be with her than at the receiving end of her cussing. She was a fifteen-year-old harridan who, despite my seniority, had insulted me on many occasions throughout the years.
“Who you think you’re talking to?” I shouted.
“I can only see one African bubu, so it must be you, Regina Vagina!” I could see the faces of other students at windows in the room looking down and laughing at me. I had been in such a positive headspace, minding my own business, and this girl, who was in class—oh, and where the fuck was the teacher, by the way—was so affronted b
y my happiness that she had to make a fool of me in my wonderful outfit. Surely she knew what a ferocious fighter I was. Why was she challenging me like this? Let me give her a chance to back out.
“Call me that again and see what happens!”
“What you gonna do, stinking bubu? You think you look so nice, but you’re still an African!”
Okay, then.
I entered the school building and stomped up to her classroom. Angela was in the middle of a mathematics class with Mr. Mohammed, a slight, mild-mannered man from Algeria—a good teacher but one who struggled to control unruly students. He was no match for Angela. Or me. I strode into the classroom and grabbed Angela, pushed her up against the wall, and began pummeling her. She didn’t stand a chance as I unleashed five years of pent-up embarrassment and fury on her. I doubt she got so much as a slap on me. Poor Angela must have thought that being in a classroom with a responsible adult would have saved her from a beating, and that the teacher would have intervened before I could get to her, but Mr. Mohammed did nothing. He stood back with the other students and watched. After I’d hit her with a few good flurries, Mr. Mohammed tapped me on the shoulder as if to say, “Okay, you’ve made your point. You can leave now.” And I did. As I left, I swore I saw a small cryptic smile on his face. I mean, he was from Algeria. He was an African too. Maybe he had secretly enjoyed me defending our continent, or maybe he’d just been fed up with Angela’s insolence and let me do what he knew he’d lose his career and freedom for doing himself.
He still reported me, though. The next day I was called into the principal’s office.
The no-nonsense headmistress cut to the chase. “You dislocated Angela’s shoulder, and her parents want to have you arrested.”
Oh. Fuck. I imagined my future draining down a massive plughole, and that image then cut to my mother’s furious face. I was in deep shit. I was in the middle of taking the O levels that I’d spent the last five years preparing for, and if I wasn’t allowed to complete them, I would be screwed. Leaving school with no qualifications and labeled a criminal was not an option. I might as well have walked out of that school and in front of a train.
“Luckily for you,” she continued, “I talked them out of ruining your future, but you will not be allowed to return to this school to continue your A-level studies in the sixth form.”
“But I’ll still be allowed to do my O levels, right?”
“Yes, but after that you will not be allowed to step foot on school property.”
Phew. I didn’t give a flying monkey poop about not going to D&K’s for my A levels. I’d been wanting out of there since that first biology lesson at eleven years old. Compared to what could have happened, I thought I’d gotten off pretty easy. All I’d have to contend with was my mother’s anger, but if I could get to her before and maybe soften the blow—
“I’ve called your mother and informed her of my decision.” Shit.
My mum screamed at me for hours. I was sixteen now and too old to beat, but my mum could beat me just as hard with her tongue. She screamed at me for acting like a homeless ruffian, for embarrassing her, for nearly ruining our future doctor opportunities, for making her now face finding me a new school at such short notice, all the while refusing to listen to my side of the story or acknowledge the years of abuse I’d suffered that had led up to that point and the immense pressure I was under.
I returned to my bedroom furious and at the end of my tether. Fuck Angela and her big mouth! Fuck the school, fuck these O levels, and fuck you, Mum! If you hadn’t given me this stupid name, and actually let me go places and have friends, maybe none of this would have happened. All you care about is how good you look to your Nigerian friends, as you boast about how well I’m doing, but you don’t actually care about me. I hate my life! I don’t want to live anymore! You believe in reincarnation. Maybe I’ll come back to a better family!
I rushed to the medicine cabinet in the bathroom and pulled out a tub of aspirins. I returned to my room and proceeded to swallow all the pills left inside. There were approximately thirty left. That should do it, I thought. I hope Mum finds my body and lives the rest of her life in regret. I decided to write a quick note before I fell into unconsciousness, detailing my anger, pain, and unwillingness to continue carrying this burden of expectation, then I left it pinned under the empty aspirin tub on my side table while I lay down on my bed and waited to die.
Fifteen minutes later I was still conscious. When does this shit kick in? I could go down and get more pills, but somebody’s bound to come looking for me shortly, as I never get more than twenty minutes alone in this house without being summoned to do something. I better just close my eyes and be unconscious until I am unconscious. I lay still, with my eyes closed, for another fifteen minutes, then I heard the bell on the landing outside my room ring. I ignored it and repositioned myself to look suitably unconscious. The bell rang a few more times, and then I heard footsteps on the stairs. I played dead.
Taiwo walked into the room. “Mum wants you now.” I played dead. “I know you heard me. Mum is calling you. Didn’t you hear the bell?” I played dead. I heard her walk over to the bed and stop. Then I heard the rustle as she picked up the note and read it. She then began shaking me. I played dead. Never one to miss an opportunity to bestow a little violence, she pinched me. Then she slapped my face. Hard. And then again. And again. My cheeks stung. I played dead. She ran out of the room.
I later learned she called an ambulance, then went to Sheyi to help her break the news to Mum. My youngest brother, who was thirteen at the time, for some reason was the calmest and wisest in the family, often finding himself counselor and confidant to the older family members. (He still holds that role to this day.) He rushed with Taiwo to tell Mum what was happening. As they approached my mum, Taiwo’s exact words to her were “Your precious daughter has taken an overdose.” So much for telling her gently. Faced with the potential death of her sister, Taiwo’s festering resentment still couldn’t help but seep out. My mum screamed and collapsed, writhing and wailing on the floor. The ambulance arrived, and after that, there was no time to get Mum calm enough to deal with the situation. There was a flurry of activity.
The whole time I was conscious, and annoyed that overdoses didn’t work like they did on TV. I had hoped that I would fall into a deep sleep, die peacefully, maybe float around for a bit to gloat over my mum’s misery at my passing and watch her berate herself for not being nicer to me, then dissipate to be reincarnated into a loving white American family like the Brady Bunch. Instead, I’d taken a bunch of bullshit pills and had to pretend to be dead.
The paramedics were not fooled. I heard one of them ask what I’d taken, and on hearing that it was aspirin, he noted, “Then she ain’t unconscious.” He then leaned close to my face and said, “Come on, love, stop playing. Let’s walk downstairs and get you to the hospital.”
But I was committed. I kept channeling a possum. Those poor guys had to carry me down four flights of stairs into the ambulance while my mum was still collapsed in her room, screaming in the background. Serves you right, I thought. I was still angry enough to want to die out of spite.
Taiwo rode with me to the hospital while Sheyi stayed behind to get Mum coherent enough to follow later.
I had not done proper research into suicide methods, otherwise I would have seriously considered jumping off a high-rise, walking in front of a bus, or battering my own skull in with a rolling pin had I known what was coming next. I was wheeled into an operating room. I’d feigned waking up at this point, just in time to hear the doctor say the words “gastric lavage.” Posh words for “stomach pump.”
I was held down while they forced my mouth open with some kind of metal torture instrument, then they fed a large, long tube into my mouth, down my throat, and into my stomach, and proceeded to siphon out my stomach contents. No anesthetic. The whole time I was awake, crying, gagging, and choking. Holy shit, I’d just tried to kill myself, and it felt like they were tr
ying to finish the job! It was like they had chosen the most barbaric deterrent for suicidal teenagers. “That’s right, we’ll vacuum your insides like a wet carpet. Now go tell your friends what happened here!”
After the procedure, they kept me in overnight to observe and make sure no further damage had been done to my system by the drugs. They moved me to a private room and asked me if I wanted to see my mother. I said no. Two minutes later she walked into the room, because when had what I wanted ever mattered?
Now, if you are a partaker of soppy American movies, you’d be forgiven for thinking that after a suicide attempt, a near death of your child, there might be hugs, tears, maybe a mutual apology. Nope. This was my Nigerian mum. She stood by my bed as cool as a cucumber, nothing even resembling the screaming mess she’d been earlier. She’d obviously been told that I was alive, and probably fine, and so had gathered herself and rebooted, returning to her normal stoic exterior.