‘Christine, you’re going to do fine. You’ll do fine in all of those things, you’ve always done well.’
‘But that’s the point, Tayo.’ She glanced at him. ‘I’ve always done well, which means that everyone now expects me to continue doing well, but what if I don’t?’
‘You will.’
‘But I won’t,’ she said, shaking her head. ‘It’s just luck, Tayo, and everyone else is so much brighter than I am. It’s only because I study so hard.’
‘Please don’t cry, Christine.’ He moved his chair back so he could reach and hold her arms. ‘And just look at these tears—they’re soaking up my shirt!’ he said, trying to make light of it. She lifted her head and because he didn’t know what else to say, he started wiping the tears awkwardly with his thumbs. She smiled a little as he pulled her face to his and, without intending to, he started to kiss her. It seemed the only thing, the best thing, to do under the circumstances.
Chapter 6
It was a perfect day for walking. The paths were a rustling carpet of golden leaves, and the air hung heavy with the smell of dry brush and bonfires. Vanessa and Tayo were walking in the direction of the meadows, discussing Malcolm X’s visit to Oxford. Vanessa was eager to hear the story of how a member of the West Africa Society had been instrumental in organising X’s visit, while Tayo wanted to know from Vanessa what most English people (not just those at the university) thought about Malcolm X. Vanessa found Tayo’s question challenging and felt torn between reality and her own idealism.
‘I wish that England was less racist than America,’ she said, ‘but then, when you have politicians like Enoch Powell saying the things he does, it doesn’t really inspire hope.’
‘It is discouraging,’ Tayo acknowledged, ‘but people do change, especially the younger generation, and I have hope in the British.’
Vanessa raised her eyebrows, wondering if he was just being polite, but he seemed not to have noticed her skepticism. Instead, he spoke about some of the encouraging interactions he’d experienced with school children and church groups.
‘Besides,’ he added, ‘in Yoruba the meaning of my name is someone who brings joy, so I’ve got no choice but to be optimistic!’
She smiled, thinking that the name suited him.
As they continued on their walk, Vanessa noticed that Tayo had a habit of picking up twigs that he would play with for some minutes before sending them twirling away into the bushes. She liked the way he carried himself — so at ease in his body. It was obvious that he was clever and accomplished and yet in his manner he was humble, never once flaunting his knowledge in the way that she’d grown to dislike in men like Charlie and Mehul. Tayo also seemed to be more serious and less flirtatious than when she’d first met him, which prompted her to share something that had been bothering her. Oxford was a small place and she preferred that Tayo should find out about her family from her and not from others.
‘I have a small confession for you, Tayo. A small confession.’ She laughed, tapping him playfully on the shoulder when he stopped dead in his tracks. ‘I just wanted to say …Well, do you remember when you asked me about my interest in Africa? I felt a bit embarrassed, in light of the debate that evening, to admit that I actually do have connections to Africa.’
‘But why so embarrassed?’ he asked.
‘Because,’ she hesitated, ‘well, because my father and grandfather were in the colonial service.’ They had stopped on a bridge and were leaning against a wooden railing, peering at the water flowing gently downstream. Two ducks paddled close to the riverbank, leaving room for a punter to glide silently past. And there, as they stood side-by-side, she told him about her father’s colonial tours in West Africa. She chose her words carefully, hoping he wouldn’t form a bad impression of her family and, as a result, found herself saying more positive things than intended. It wasn’t true that her father had been won over to the idea of African independence, so that when Tayo told her she ought to be more proud of her father, she felt guilty.
‘My father also worked in the British Administration,’ Tayo said, as a way, Vanessa thought, of reassuring her. His father, he added, had been a court messenger in the 1950s and an interpreter in the Native Administration before becoming a policeman. His father had made many British friends including some district officers. Tayo wondered whether their fathers might have met.
‘Perhaps,’ Vanessa replied, knowing this was doubtful. Her father did not fall into the category of colonial officers who were loved by locals, and she regretted misleading Tayo into thinking so. She hoped he would never have occasion to see the less attractive side of her father. At least she could count on Father to put on a good act. For a few moments they walked in silence, in single file, along the narrowing path. She wanted to ask Tayo more about his family but didn’t want to seem rude, so they talked, instead, about college and the people they knew. She hadn’t realised how far they’d come until she saw they were nearly at The Trout, a country pub where she’d been several times before, but always by car, never on foot. Her feet hurt from her new boots and she was weary, but Tayo didn’t look tired at all, no doubt, she told him, because of all the sports he played.
‘Do you play any?’ he asked.
‘No, not at all.’
‘None?’
‘None,’ she said. ‘Is that bad?’
‘Terrible! come on, let’s run. I’ll chase you to The Trout.’
‘Oh no, I can’t run!’
‘Yes, you can.’ He tugged at her arm. ‘Last one buys the drinks!’
‘Then I’m buying.’ She laughed watching him crouch like a sprinter, waiting for her to start.
She was breathing heavily by the time they got to the pub and could only nod when Tayo offered to relieve her of her coat. He laughed, showing no sign of being short of breath.
‘My goodness, you are fit,’ she gasped.
‘I’m sorry, what did you say?’
‘You heard me!’ She laughed.
‘What can I get you, love?’ the bartender asked, interrupting their laughter.
Vanessa ordered a beer, and Tayo a pineapple juice. They were looking around for a place to sit when two men passed in front of them and bumped into Tayo, spilling the drinks.
‘Do you mind?’ Vanessa said crossly when no one apologised.
‘Maybe the bloody wog ought to look where he’s going!’
‘Maybe you two bloody idiots should learn some manners!’
‘Just leave them,’ Tayo whispered, placing a hand gently on Vanessa’s wrist. She started to protest, but he was restraining her so she just stood, staring in shock.
‘It’s fine,’ Tayo insisted, having put the drinks down so he could brush pineapple juice and beer off his cardigan. ‘Here, let me fetch you another.’ He reached for their half-empty glasses.
‘No. But thank you.’ She said, taking hers from him while she looked in the direction of the men. ‘Could we go outside?’
They passed close to where the men now sat at the bar, beers in hand, and Tayo stopped. Alarmed, Vanessa tugged at his sleeve, but Tayo stood still, staring at the men until they were forced to look away.
Outside, a smoky haze had fallen across the meadows and squirrels darted across paths and up into trees. It was mid-afternoon, but the sun had already begun its descent and a cold wind was lifting a pocketful of leaves and tossing them into the air.
‘Were you afraid?’ Tayo asked, softly.
‘No,’ she lied. ‘I felt like punching them.’
‘Ouch! Not such a gentle butterfly after all! I tell you what,’ he said, smiling at her. ‘How about I give you a new name?’
‘A what?’
‘Something to capture your fighting spirit. How about Moremi?’
‘What’s that?’
‘It means as tough as a nut. A little Miss Cassius Clay. Legend has it that Moremi saved the Yoruba kingdom.’
‘Well I’m not sure that Mora-’
‘Moremi.’
/> ‘Moremi. I’m not sure that’s me. But Omotayo is certainly you.’
‘Omotayo Oluwakayode,’ he added. ‘Oluwakayode is another of my joyful middle names.’
She looked up and found him smiling.
‘Do your names really mean what you say they do?’ She started laughing. ‘Or is this how you like to charm the girls?’
‘Now why would I possibly wish to lie to you, Miss Moremi? I’m sincere, really sincere.’
‘Okay.’ She laughed. ‘So, what is Mr. Sincere doing over the Christmas holidays?’
‘Nothing that can’t be changed,’ he said.
‘In that case then, come to my grandparents’ Christmas party.’
Chapter 7
Vanessa returned to London for the holidays. She slept through most of the journey but woke as the train drew into Paddington and passengers with luggage began bumping their way down the aisles. She waited for others to get off before retrieving her two cases — dragging them down the steps and over the gap onto the platform where her parents were waiting.
They looked older and shorter than Vanessa remembered, each wearing a tan raincoat, which was the first time Vanessa had known them to wear matching anything. Father’s was open at the front, Mother’s buttoned to the chin. Mother’s hands were clasped around her handbag as though grasping a horse’s reins — fingers curled tightly around leather, hands drawn back, close to the waist — while Father kept his arms folded over his chest in order to keep glancing at his watch, eager to get home.
Traffic was slow around Paddington, but then it was a quick run through Brixton and Herne Hill into leafy Dulwich.
‘It’s lovely to be back,’ Vanessa said, pretending, for Father’s sake, not to have noticed Mother’s nervous chatter or the smell of whisky on her breath.
Vanessa knelt to remove the day’s letters from the entrance so that Mother wouldn’t trip, remembering having crouched by front doors as a child in eager anticipation of Father’s letters. Usually he wrote on flimsy blue aerograms, but occasionally he remembered to send a white envelope with a row of colourful West African stamps that she then saved for her stamp collection.
Juma and Saratu sauntered in, greeting Vanessa as though she’d only been gone for a few hours. They stepped nonchalantly between her feet, tickling her calves with the tips of their tails and arching their backs to better rub against her ankles. Soon, the gentle patter of Mother’s slippered feet summoned them down the stairs to the kitchen, and Vanessa followed to where the two felines waited in expectation of milk or a tin of something fishy.
‘I’ve made your favourite — chicken pie!’ Mother said, standing by the oven, hands clasped in front of her tweed skirt.
‘Vanessa,’ Father called from the lounge upstairs. ‘I’ll take your suitcase to your room, darling.’
It was just the three of them in the large, three-storey Georgian house, but already it felt crowded to Vanessa — crowded and cold. She glanced at her mother standing by the oven, twirling her wedding band round and round, like an anxious schoolgirl. Above the thick gold band sat a slimmer ring pulled up to the knuckle to give room for the latter’s rotation. This was her engagement ring; a large opal encircled by sapphires. Vanessa remembered touching the stones as a child, turning the ring this way and that to catch the many shafts of colour and, though Mother used to complain that opals brought bad luck, Vanessa never remembered her taking it off except when making pastry.
‘These are nice,’ Vanessa noticed the roses on the kitchen table.
‘I’ve made you a cake.’ Mother pointed to a linen tea cloth covering her work. ‘Lemon pound,’ she added, turning away to fill the kettle. The sound of running water drowned Vanessa’s ‘thank you,’ as well as the whine of the cats.
‘Silly things!’ Vanessa muttered as she fetched the milk and dribbled it onto their saucers. She tried holding them back with a foot but some of the milk landed on their faces and they shook their tiny heads, scattering milk droplets across the linoleum. Vanessa smiled as she placed the empty bottle on the work surface and watched them for a moment before going to her room.
Her suitcase was waiting next to her bed where Piglet, Tigger and Paddington Bear sat propped up against the headboard, just as she’d left them. On her dressing table, Mother or the housekeeper had arranged pink carnations that smelt of nutmeg. Vanessa smiled and walked to the window overlooking Bellamy Boys’ School playing fields. Scattered across the fields, patches of frosty grass resembling clumps of silver tinsel remained untouched by winter’s sun. Home — the headmaster’s house in Dulwich. At least, home prior to Oxford, but there had been so many houses before this one. First, they had lived in Nigeria and then she and Mother had come back to England while Father remained abroad. It had been better, Vanessa mused, when it was just she and Mother in the days before Mother’s drinking. She turned from the garden and ran her fingers along the edges of the floral curtains. This was a young girl’s bedroom, and she missed the room in Oxford with its serious books, newspapers and ashtrays. But then she remembered Tayo’s Christmas present and took it out of her bag to play. Shulie-a-bop, shulie-a-bop, she sang, twirling to the music of Sarah Vaughan. She’d promised not to open his present before Christmas, but she couldn’t resist - and what a lovely gift! What could she give him in return? She remembered the photographer’s shop on Upper Street. She would get him a print of Louis Armstrong or Sonny Rollins or, failing that, she could always look for a first edition of The House at Pooh Corner. Tayo had introduced her to some of his favourite writers, so she would do the same, provided he didn’t think Pooh too childish. She was still thinking of presents when she heard her mother calling and hurried downstairs.
They were sitting at the dining table where Father was peering at his food and announcing that the pie was soggy in the middle.
‘Mum, it’s fine,’ Vanessa insisted, trying to stop her from scooping up the servings and running to the kitchen, but it was too late.
‘So, what does Oxford think of Harold Wilson?’ Father asked.
‘I don’t know,’ Vanessa shrugged. Father was stabbing peas with his fork and popping them into his mouth like a child and this irritated her. Had it been anyone else, she would have spoken eagerly of the new Prime Minister but she knew that he scorned Wilson and the Labour Party. Why couldn’t he think of other things to discuss?
‘There’s so much more than Wilson, Daddy. There’s racism in the Midlands, apartheid in South Africa, American civil rights — that’s what Oxford talks about.’
‘Is everything okay?’ mother reappeared carrying what now looked like burnt pie.
‘Yes Mum.’ Vanessa nodded, staring at Father, ready for him to object, but he didn’t say anything and Mother started talking about preparations for the Christmas party asking who Vanessa was inviting.
‘Better not be anti-apartheid people,’ Father grumbled.
‘Why?’ Vanessa asked.
‘Because I’ve invited my mining friends.’
‘You what?’ Vanessa looked to her mother for support.
‘Oh ‘Nessa,’ Mother pleaded.
‘But they’re horrible, those men! They own all the bloody mines in South Africa and make packets of money out of their black workers. How can you invite them? Do you know how many blacks die in the Kimberley mines every month?’
‘Vanessa, I think you’re being silly,’ Father snapped.
‘Silly?’
‘It’s not nearly as bad as the press are saying, so don’t be taken in just because you’re filled with the rush of Oxford. And if you look at the mess in the rest of Africa, South Africa is doing very well by comparison.’
‘Yes, thanks to all the blacks doing the work and being bloody exploited.’ Vanessa let her fork drop to the plate and pushed back her chair. ‘Look, I’m sorry Mum, I can’t take this.’ She ran upstairs and slammed her door shut before flinging the stuffed toys off her bed and jamming the pillow over her head. How dare he! She’d always known of Father’s
white South African friends, but how dare he invite them to a family party! What would Tayo and Gita think? Oh sorry, here are my father’s racist South African chums, you don’t mind, do you? She sat up, wiped the tears from her face and took a deep breath. She considered for a moment telling her friends not to come but realised this would be what her Father wanted and she wasn’t going to do that. It was Mother she most wanted to introduce to her friends, not Father. But then what if Mother got drunk? ‘Bloody hell!’ she moaned, banging her head against the pillow.
Chapter 8
A male servant welcomed Tayo to Aberleigh and ushered him into a brightly-lit room abuzz with the animated chatter of people mingling with drinks. Tayo looked for Vanessa but couldn’t see her. Everyone was dressed in fine clothes and seemed at ease in the grandiose setting; enormous chandeliers hung from the ceilings and festive swathes of holly and ivy decorated the large bay windows. Waitresses in frilly white caps and starched aprons wove through the room, balancing silver trays on their fingertips. One stopped to offer Tayo a canapé, which he accepted with a glass of wine and made as if to mingle, peering at flower arrangements or gazing at paintings until, to his relief, Vanessa appeared. She wore a midnight blue sequin dress that clung to her body all the way down to her ankles, where the material fanned out, hiding her shoes. She hugged him in greeting, which surprised him.
‘Come and meet my family!’
First, she introduced him to her grandfather who had difficulty hearing and started talking about India, before Vanessa was able to make him understand that Tayo came from Nigeria. Then the grandfather’s eyes lit up as he launched into a series of stories about Lord Lugard and their family ties. Vanessa kept muttering apologies for her grandfather’s unabashed support of the British, but Tayo didn’t judge the old man for his colonial fervour. He was simply a man of his times and it was clear to Tayo that he was generous at heart. Next was Vanessa’s mother, whom Tayo found charming and strikingly beautiful. She chatted to him about Nigeria, saying how much she missed the country and its people. She wanted to know how he was finding England. If the evening had ended there, it might have been a perfect party for Tayo, but meeting Vanessa’s father was less than enchanting. It didn’t help that one of his South African friends mistook Tayo for a servant.
In Dependence Page 4