by Gina Yashere
That two weeks dragged on interminably, but the day finally arrived for my first day of training at Topshop. I was up and dressed early. My mum was up also, as were Dele and Sheyi, as she was dragging them to the market to do the weekly shopping. I arrived at work thirty minutes early and wandered for a few minutes around different departments, wondering which one I would be working in, before making myself known to the floor supervisor. I was Gina, the new girl, here to begin my training. She looked confused. She brought out a roster and, skimming it, informed me that my name wasn’t on it. No problem, I thought. Maybe Robert had me down for another department, maybe women’s shoes or lingerie. I had no interest in selling knickers, but hey, it was still Topshop.
The supervisor lady led me to a chair outside Robert’s office, where I was left sitting for the next forty-five minutes. I was slightly perturbed, worrying that I’d wasted one of my few outfits on today, when I was probably about to be told they’d mixed up the dates and I’d be starting tomorrow instead. Annoying but still workable. I was looking forward to a chatty reunion with Robert, a laugh about their mess-up, then returning the next day to begin my fashion work.
Robert finally arrived looking flustered and seeming hesitant when he approached me.
“Hi, Robert! There seems to be a bit of a mess-up with the roster. I definitely have the date correct, as I wrote it in my Filofax.”
“Please come into the office, Gina.”
Uh-oh, I thought.
When we got into his office, Robert sat down slowly and heavily behind his desk. A feeling of dread started to settle in my chest, but I was still hopeful. Okay, maybe I’d be starting work in three weeks. Shit, but still doable. Maybe they hadn’t been that impressed with my cobbled-together outfit and I’d need a makeover before I started work. Still doable. Maybe Robert had had a family emergency and had forgotten to add me to the roster. His screw-up, so I still had a job, right? All these thoughts whizzed through my head, but none of them came close to what actually came out of his mouth.
“We called your house last week, to see if you could start early. Your father told us that you had stolen his money and run away, and that he didn’t know where you were.”
My body temperature seemed to drop 20 degrees in a split second, and suddenly I could feel my heart pumping in my ears. Whatever Robert said next, I didn’t hear, as I felt like I was underwater, and all I could hear was my blood coursing through my veins. Over the rushing noise of my increasing blood pressure, I stammered: “But, but, I don’t have a father. I mean, I do, but he’s . . . That guy who answered, he’s not my dad, he’s my stepdad, and he’s lying! It’s not true. I’m here. I can start now!”
Robert looked at me with a mixture of pity and mild disgust. “I’m sorry, Gina. We gave your position to somebody else.”
I couldn’t believe what I was hearing and began hyperventilating. All my hopes and fantasies of the last few weeks began shredding before my eyes. “But it’s not true!” I shouted.
Robert flinched, and I saw the fear in his eyes. That made me clench my nails into my palms to calm myself down. He’d actually been, for a split second, frightened that I was going to attack him. And if he thought this young Black girl was violent enough to hit him, a mere stranger, then how much of a stretch would it be to steal from her own dad?
I struggled to steady my voice. “My stepdad is a malicious liar. He made that up. None of that is true. I just came from home. Is there another position available? I’ll work in any department. Please. I’m a fast learner.”
Robert retorted, “Afraid not. You could maybe reapply in six months.”
With the terseness of his response, I knew at that moment I was never going to work in Topshop. I was marked as a potential thief. No matter what I said, I was tainted. I wanted to cry, scream, and throw things around, but I didn’t want to be dragged screaming from the store, past a line of cool girls shaking their heads and tutting, “She’ll always be Regina Vagina. Why does she keep trying to be one of us?”
I thanked Robert for his time and walked slowly out of Topshop with my head held high, past the supervisor lady, who looked like she was trying not to smirk at the silly criminal who thought she could gain entry into this hallowed space, and past all the other young workers, who seemed to be deliberately busying themselves and avoiding my eye as I passed them. I tried to appear nonchalant, though my stiff gait probably revealed I was anything but. My back was ramrod straight, and I had to concentrate to bend my knees and put one foot in front of the other.
When I was a safe distance away, I found a nearby McDonald’s, sat in a bathroom stall, and prepared to cry my eyes out. But I couldn’t. The urge to cry had dissipated on the short walk to that bathroom stall. It had been replaced by a white-hot fury. I was consumed with anger and hatred towards that man, the step-bastard. He had truly lived up to the name. Fairy tales were full of stories of evil stepmothers, as if only women were capable of such nasty, vindictive things, but this man had taken conniving and cowardice to a new level. Not only had he ruined this opportunity for me but he also had gleefully watched over the last two weeks as I had prepared for this job and discussed with my brothers the cool stuff they’d be able to afford with my staff discount. I had no doubt he had listened in on my phone conversations with my friends, who were all excited and jealous at my good fortune. I had not realized how low this man was willing to stoop. That morning he had watched me dress. He’d watched my mother wish me good luck in my new job. He’d watched me skip out of the house to a job he already knew I no longer had. That fucking snake. Ever since I’d passed my exams, therefore winning the bet, he’d been waiting for an opportunity to punish me. I was going to kill him. As I’d grown older, taller, and more confident, the step-bastard had become more fearful of me. I was more outspoken and had begun to question his authority. He still tried to assert it by trying to goad me into anger, so he could report my disrespect to my mum, knowing that she would not tolerate any disrespect towards him no matter how unreasonable he was. I knew what he had been trying to do, and I had spent a lot of time trying to contain my fury.
One Friday evening while I was cooking the weekly stew for the family, he entered the kitchen on some pretense and began to try to pick a fight with me. Although he had never cooked the stew, he stood at my shoulder, shouting that I was doing it wrong, that I was not seasoning the meat correctly, and that I was useless. As much as I wanted to batter him around the head with the wooden spoon I was holding, or at least tell him to fuck off, my Nigerian upbringing to respect my elders repressed my natural inclinations. I refused to engage, which infuriated him even more. He screamed at me to get out of the kitchen, and I gladly left. Both he and I knew my mum would be furious if she came home and the food wasn’t cooked, and the step-bastard also knew that if it wasn’t done tonight, I would have to spend my Saturday cooking. He could no longer physically beat me, because he could see in my eyes that I would be the child to grab something and kill him with it, but he could inconvenience me at every opportunity. I wouldn’t stand for it. I returned to my room, wrote out a meticulous list of ingredients and instructions, and persuaded Dele to sneak down to the kitchen and finish the cooking. My brothers and I, in times of crisis, had one another’s backs. When Mum came home two hours later, she was surprised and somewhat amused to find her son in the kitchen, putting the finishing touches on the simmering pots of chicken, oxtails, and jollof rice.
The step-bastard’s behavior had become increasingly unreasonable over the years. As Mum’s business had become more successful, she was less reliant on him financially. She had gone from selling stuff out of the spare bedroom in our house to having a network of people in England and Nigeria selling stuff for her. She was making her own money, and the step-bastard could feel his power eroding. They were fighting more, and I’m unsure at what point he became physically abusive towards her—or if he had been all along—since my mother hid it well. She never appeared cowed by him, and she refused to let
him shout her down, even though she would have known what was coming. We kids were usually sent to our rooms at the top of the house, but we would hear the bumps and crashes as they fought.
I remember when I was around age ten walking into the front room and seeing my mother bent over with her arm held behind her back by Oncle. They both stopped dead, like statues, when I entered the room. “Dapo, go upstairs. We are just playing,” my mum said, and I did as I was told, convincing myself they must have been playing a game of Twister, although we had never had that game in the house.
Rather than go to couples counseling, the Nigerian custom for a married couple having issues was for them to sit down with an elder couple from the Nigerian community who would act as intermediaries. Mum and the step-bastard tried this once. Dele, Sheyi, and I were sent upstairs while, for some reason, Asi was allowed to stay with her father during this intervention. We hid by the staircase on the next floor, trying to listen to what was happening. The couple were invited in, and they all entered the front room to talk. Within ten minutes, the step-bastard’s voice rose as he shouted over my mum. Suddenly there was a series of the familiar bumping and crashing sounds, accompanied by four-year-old Asi screaming, “No, Daddy, no!” and the couple shouting, “No! You cannot do that!” The step-bastard, incensed by something Mum had uttered, had lost control and beaten her up in front of the mediators.
After that, they began to lead increasingly separate lives in the same house, only coming together for trips to the market to buy food for the house, and only if he felt in the mood to drive her. If not, Dele, Sheyi, and I had to get several busses with her to the market to help her carry all the shopping home. The more separate their lives became, the more erratic his behavior. And the angrier, more conniving, and vindictive he became. On a few occasions we’d come home to find the house locked and bolted from the inside, so we couldn’t get in. He and Asi were in the house, while Mum and the rest of her kids had to walk around the neighborhood for several hours until he decided to let us back in. Mum refused to leave the house, as she had put up most of the money for it. His name was on the mortgage, as he had had a job with a paycheck, which had been required for the loan, but Mum insisted she was not letting him take this house from her and her children, so we stayed.
Things grew stranger and stranger. One evening, when I was around fourteen, Step-Bastard insisted that everyone leave the house with him on some errand. When we returned, he opened the door gingerly and announced that we had been burgled. Mum pushed past him, saw the house had been ransacked, and immediately collapsed, screaming. On further inspection, all of Mum’s expensive gold had been stolen, some of which she had been trading and selling. A lot of her shop inventory had also gone. Although Mum had had her jewelry in a secure hiding spot that only family members knew about, the burglars had found it and had had time to sift through it, taking only the real gold and leaving the costume jewelry. Almost as if they’d known exactly where the good stuff was and how long the house’s occupants would be gone. Strangely enough, Step-Bastard had had only a few minor things taken, and all of Asi’s expensive toys were untouched, including her gleaming, never-ridden bike, still standing in the hallway.
Luckily the house contents were covered by insurance, and a claim was made. Several months later, frustrated at still not having received recompense, Mum called the insurance company, only to be informed that they’d already sent a check for £3,000, which was a lot of money in the ’80s, and that it had been cashed. Mum was furious but decided not to confront Step-Bastard directly. Instead, she sent Sheyi downstairs to ask him for her share of the insurance payout.
Step-Bastard still exploded. “You are sending the boy to ask for the money? Why don’t you ask me yourself?” he bellowed up at my mum, who stood on the landing above him.
“Okay, then. Where is my money? They sent the check, and you cashed it months ago!”
“Who told you this, and what are you trying to say? Say it!”
The shouting brought Dele and me out of our rooms. We stood next to Mum on one side while Sheyi stood next to her on the other as they continued to argue. “Where is my money, oyie?”
At that Edo word, Step-Bastard roared and began bounding up the stairs towards my mum. “Who are you calling ‘thief’?”
Dele and I both jumped in front of Mum and ran down the stairs to meet him halfway and block his advance. Sheyi put himself in front of Mum, as the last line of defense, in case he got through Dele and me. Step-Bastard screamed and frothed at the mouth as he tried to bulldoze past Dele and me as we clung to the wall and the banister. Some of the spindles of the banister snapped as Step-Bastard tried to push through the human-child barrier to get to Mum, but we held strong.
After several minutes, he was spent and gave up. He stood, calmly rearranged himself, and spoke directly to Dele, Sheyi, and me. “She’s lucky you are here. I would have killed her. Tell her I will give her a thousand pounds of the money when I see fit. The rest is mine.” He then disappeared back into his man cave. Mum never saw a penny of that money.
From then on, he slowly grew crazier and crazier, and it became more impossible to remain in the house with him. On one trip to the market, as Mum was stepping out of the car, he drove off at speed, with one of her legs still partially in the vehicle. She managed to get her foot out just in time to avoid being dragged to her death. Later, he made a sly observation about men getting away with killing their wives. Mum never got in his car again and began making plans to leave.
Besides my mum, I seemed to be the main focus of his wrath, so I had resolved to be out of the house as much as possible. A part-time job after school and on Saturdays was the perfect solution, which is another reason why I had ended up interviewing for that position in Topshop.
If you fail to take away a strong man’s sword when he is on the ground, will you do it when he gets up?
The entire Tube ride from Topshop Oxford Circus back to Finsbury Park was a blur. I barely remember the twenty-minute walk from the station, just the repetitive clenching and unclenching of my fists. I was going to hurt the step-bastard so bad, damn the consequences. All I could imagine was the satisfaction I would feel as I pummeled the years of pent-up fury into his face. My hands shook as I struggled to get my front-door key into the lock. As soon as the lock turned, I threw open the front door so hard it smashed into the wall behind it. I stepped in just in time to see the step-bastard scurry behind the door of his man cave, slam it shut, and engage the door’s bolt. I rushed to the door, screaming at the top of my lungs. “I’m going to fucking kill you!” I kicked, pummeled, and threw myself against that door. I screamed some more, I called him every name that I’d ever called him in my head. “Where’s your Hold the Bottle now, you fucking coward! I’m going to wrap it around your fucking skull! Come out! Come out and see if you can still beat me, you fucking weasel!” He didn’t. He stayed in that room while I paced up and down outside for several hours until my mum and brothers returned home.
“Dapo, what is going on here? What are you doing?” my mother asked when she got home.
“I’m going to kill your husband!” I declared, with all the years of my pent-up fury finally unleashed. I somehow managed to explain what he’d done, and my mother began speaking to him through the door in her mother tongue, Edo. I didn’t understand what she was saying, but I could tell—from the fact that her voice had lowered a couple of octaves and each sentence sounded like it ended in daggers—that she was cursing him out, and somehow that calmed me. She was on my side. She was not going to force me to apologize to him and show him respect he did not deserve. Mum stood with her daughter against this tyrant, and the fury drained out of me in that instant.
The police turned up five minutes later. Of course he’d called them. Piece of shit. He’d told them that a young woman had broken into his house and was trying to kill him. No mention of the fact that this was his stepdaughter whom he had terrorized for over ten years. When they entered the house, he the
n shuffled out of his hiding place, looking sheepish and weak.
My mum explained the situation to them, that this was nothing more than a domestic dispute. They left, but not before lecturing the step-bastard about wasting police time. My mum, myself, and the boys then walked upstairs to our rooms, followed by Asi, who unbeknownst to me had sat at the top of the first landing and witnessed the entire confrontation with her father from start to finish.
The next few weeks in the house passed without incident. Mainly because untethered from our binding contract to show the step-bastard respect, my brothers and I were free to ignore him completely while going about our business. No longer were we forced to say “Good morning, Oncle,” “Good afternoon, Oncle,” “Good night, Oncle.” My mum knew better than to insist on this anymore. And best of all, he knew. The whole house had witnessed how he’d cowered when confronted by me, and so the fear he had used to run the household was gone. Kaput. Finito. Over. We saw him for the child-bullying, woman-beating coward that he was. He spent all his time scurrying between work and his cave, with fewer and fewer visits from Asi as she gravitated closer to us.
A month after the Topshop incident, Mum called us all into her suite of rooms and told us that we needed to pack up all our things, as we would be leaving in two days. She had organized temporary accommodations for us, and she would fight for her share of the house from afar. She asked ten-year-old Asi what she wanted to do. Asi had a choice to stay behind with her father or leave with us. Although spoiled by her father at home, she had not made any friendships at school with other children, and so despite her disdain for us, and my and my brothers’ ambivalence towards her, she chose to come with us, and was sworn to secrecy.