New Daughters of Africa

by Margaret Busby

  The forest is gone now, cut for timber. Fragments of track are still in place; fragments of a journey to Kumasi to visit an aunt, who insisted on living in the “Garden City”, while her husband, my uncle, pined for her in Accra.

  Aunt Ruby met me at Kumasi Station, and swept me along, her arm in mine, to show me her city. First stop, her seamstress.

  “Take a good look at her,” Ruby said. “I want you to choose a style that flatters her. And you shall make the garment out of this.” She picked out a bail of cotton cloth and flung it across a work table: a profusion of pink hibiscus against a turquoise sky.

  Ruby spun me around and looked me over. I was shy, angular, unwilling to straighten my back to display my budding breasts. “My dear niece,” she said, “after a week with me, you will feel the magic in your blood.”

  That evening, Ruby put on a record in the sitting-room of her bungalow, a home she’d built for herself after her first marriage failed. The gramophone needle squeaked, then a burst of highlife music shook the room. Ruby danced, rolling her hips at a song dedicated to her.

  Ruby—priceless gem among women!

  Whenever I see your face,

  My heart leaps and I can’t help but laugh.

  She jiggled her body, dragged me to my feet, and we danced to her song a second time. Her buttocks and hips rippled, as if she held the secret of joy between her thighs. And the secret was hers; hers alone.

  My uncle was Ruby’s third husband.

  I remember Ruby dancing, and that gift she gave me. The turquoise and pink cloth, sewn into bou-bou, whirling about me as I turned, admiring myself in a mirror.

  “You see,” Ruby smiled. “You have it too. We all do. Magic.”

  Seven years later, Ruby left my uncle.

  I can’t help wondering, as I listen to the old woman on the radio, if Ruby would have stayed married to him if she’d been able to travel by night between Kumasi and Accra. My uncle and aunt are dead now, but I still have the bou-bou and the memory of trees that towered over railway tracks.

  “Do you mean to tell me, young man,” says the old woman, “that you’ve never travelled by train? Hmm! You young people of today know nothing about magic.

  Yvonne Bailey-Smith

  Born in Jamaica, she came to the UK at the age of 15. A qualified social worker and family and systemic psychotherapist, she has worked with children and families for more than 40 years in various statutory and voluntary sector settings. She has been writing poetry and short stories for as long as she can remember. Her first short story was published in the late Dorothy Kuya’s magazine New Impact as were some of her poems. She contributed a chapter to the publication: Helping Families in Family Centres: Working at Therapeutic Practice and is the co-author of the publication and accompanying video Baby & Me, aimed at supporting and helping women who suffer from postnatal depression to develop a good bonding experience with their infants. Now retired from full-time employment, she works part-time as a psychotherapist and also undertakes freelance parental consultancy for the Young Minds charity. The following piece is an extract from her novel-in-progress, The Day I Fell Off My Island. It tells the story of a young girl who becomes a reluctant immigrant following the death of her grandmother.

  Meeting Mother

  The next time I saw my mother I was fourteen years old.

  The giant aircraft had landed with a jolt at London’s Heathrow Airport and raced down the tarmac as though it had no intention of stopping. I had taken the deepest of breaths and offered up a silent prayer, overwhelmed with relief that, for the second time on the long journey, I and my fellow travellers had made it back to earth alive in a machine that was seemingly only held up in the sky by great puffs of white cloud. I had barely stirred on the entire journey. We had made our first stop somewhere in America for refuelling. Only then had I stood up, rather shakily, to make a trip to the bathroom; while the aircraft was in the sky, I had feared that any extra movement would be enough to bring it tumbling to the ground. I couldn’t relax while so many people were moving aimlessly up and down the aisle like yoyos, possibly risking the safety of us all. The hostesses had fussed and constantly asked passengers if they were OK. Of course no one was OK! We were all trapped! I had refused all offers of food and took only tiny sips of water to avoid any further toilet visits. When we finally landed in London, my hamstrings were so tight I was unable to stand up straight for some hours.

  The pretty yellow-haired hostess had been patient and kind, trying in vain to reassure me. “Think how lovely it will be to see your mum and dad again,” she offered.

  To which I responded crossly: “I don’t want to see her and my father don’t live in England.” Each time she gently mopped the tears that came like rainfall, another torrent would cascade down my anguished face.

  The room where I waited for the immigration lady to complete the pages of different-coloured forms for my entry into the UK was dank and cold. My blue and white cotton dress offered little protection against the bitter winter chill. My knees shook and my teeth chattered as my skinny body struggled to cope with the cold that invaded every inch of it. I tilted my head as far back as I could in a determined effort to stem further tears but came they did, accompanied by loud uncontrollable sobbing. I felt as though I had fallen off my island with no way of ever getting back. When she eventually returned my British Overseas Airway Corporation ticket I focused on the word “minor”, wondering over and over again what I had done to find myself in such a terribly bleak and daunting place.

  “Ready to go, Erna? Your father is waiting for you.”

  Oh, dear God, I thought, please don’t let it be the ugly Satan Devil man.

  “Where is my mother?” I demanded.

  “It’s your father who has come to collect you, dear. Maybe your mother stayed behind to prepare a nice welcome for you.”

  I screamed soundlessly. I was thousands of miles from everything I knew. I was now in this cold foreboding place full of strange people who all looked and talked funny. I didn’t want to be here in this England place. Something in the faces of the strangers told me that they didn’t want me here either. I felt like the girl in the middle of the “ring of roses”, only the circle was made of thorns. To complete my misery, my mother had sent the person I disliked most in the entire world to collect me.

  Unhappiness took hold of my body, coming in rapid waves of feverish heat. I didn’t look at him as I climbed into the back seat of the clapped-out Ford Cortina, ignoring his suggestion that I sit in the front. As the car trundled noisily along, I peered into the darkness where I made out row upon row of grey houses squashed together, all with little front yards. Dense black smoke billowed from the chimneys. We travelled in silence along roads made of asphalt just like the ones on my island. Not a hint of gold anywhere!

  The jalopy came to a halt outside a house that looked exactly like all the others we had passed. The front yard sloped down to what I first thought was some kind of gully but turned out to lead to rooms in a lower area that I later learnt was called a “basement”. Why would anyone want to live underground? Surely that was a place for the dead! Above the enormous black front door stood another three storeys of heartless red bricks. The ugly Satan Devil man turned a key. The door swung open into a hallway that felt even colder than outside. My nostrils were suddenly filled with all kinds of unfamiliar smells, not all of which were pleasant.

  He ushered me into the large living-room, every square inch of which was taken up with ornaments and plants. An aviary of plastic birds had prime position on a low glass table, while a huge rubber plant, a money plant and an oversized Busy Lizzie in full bloom took pride of place in a corner. Small china animals were spread across every surface that could accommodate them. Every creature on the planet seemed to be represented in this one room. The wallpaper, carpet, curtains, rugs and sofas all boasted different clashing patterns in shades of orange, red and brown. Finally, I sat down and stared at the flickering little black-and-white screen of
the television set.

  “Your mother gone to Brixton to get food shopping,” the ugly Satan Devil man volunteered. “She should be back in the next half or so. I suppose you can’t wait to see her,” he muttered.

  I didn’t respond. I sat and waited.

  Suddenly the front door slammed shut. I had not heard it being opened. I immediately sprang to my feet. My mother walked past the open living-room door, pushing a huge Silver Cross pram. Inside, seated facing each other, were two very fat baby girls, dressed identically and obviously twins. Walking sluggishly behind her were three more children, a girl and two boys. They were all slimmer than I remembered. Patsy still had very short hair but apart from that she looked different, her face no longer like a child’s, but resembling that of a much older person to whom life had already been unkind. The boys no longer had their sticking-out bellies; now some of their bones stuck out in places that should have been covered by more flesh. My mother parked the pram at the far end of the corridor, leaving the twins strapped in. I could hear them babbling away to each other.

  “Hello, my dear, I am glad you arrived safely.”

  My mother looked much as I remembered from her visit to our village. Her head was covered in a flowery scarf, secured under her chin. I could see that the wisps of hair that escaped from underneath were not her own, but a wig. She was wearing a thick brown coat and big black wellington boots.

  I didn’t respond to her greeting, afraid of giving the impression that I was actually happy to be there.

  “Cat got your tongue, child? You know it’s rude not to answer when an adult is talking to you!”

  I smiled weakly in her direction, but no words would come out.

  “You must be tired,” she said. “The plane journey is a long something.” She smiled broadly, appearing genuinely happy to see me. She patted me on the head and disappeared into a room further along the corridor.

  I had imagined that when my siblings and I saw each other again we would all be overjoyed. The scene that had played out in my head was of the four of us rushing into each other’s arms, laughing loudly, with lots of rapid-fire talk as we tried to catch up on all our lives. Instead we just stood in the corridor and stared at one another.

  My mother soon reappeared and, without warning, she offered a prayer.

  “I thank you, my God Jehovah, for delivering this child safe into our hands. Amen.”

  Her prayer did nothing to help create conversation. Instead I found myself thinking of my island . . . waking up to the crowing of cockerels, the many bird songs, the orange glow of the sun as it lifted gently above the horizon, the morning dew, the lushness, the vibrancy of the colours, the early morning banter of the adults and children in my village.

  In the living-room I sat near the glowing gas fire, which turned out to be the main source of heating in the entire house. The children plonked themselves on the other side of the room, from where they continued to stare at me out of three pairs of sad-looking eyes. From time to time I would look away and concentrate instead on studying one of the half-dozen framed pictures of Jesus that represented the only art in the house. I wondered how it was that Jesus was always white, even on my island where the population was mainly black. Surely he should at least be a “Mulatto” . . .

  “Your food is ready.” My mother’s voice broke into my reverie.

  My siblings were out of their seats at lightning speed. I followed them into the bathroom. The pitted walls were painted a glossy pink with a hint of purple. A thin layer of multi-coloured lino covered the floor. Frozen icicle stalagmites hung from the top of the window frame. We took turns washing our hands, the ice-cold water causing me to wince and jump back from the cracked sink.

  In the dining-room I tried hard to ignore the cat-litter tray that sat in a corner with its display of recently excreted faeces. I gingerly sipped some sweet tea. The food on the table looked familiar but tasted unfamiliar. When I realised that I was screwing up my face with every mouthful, I said in my most convincing voice:

  “De people dem give mi plenty food on de plane.” It was the first time I had spoken since leaving Heathrow.

  Suddenly there was hysterical laughter around the table.

  “She sounds really funny. They must speak really funny in your country,” Patsy said. The boys giggled their agreement.

  They must speak really funny in your country. I repeated the comment in my head. They had apparently already forgotten that it was their country too. How could they not know that it was they who sounded funny with their new way of speaking?

  It was the middle of November and the cold was piercing. On my first morning in England I woke at 7 a.m. to a grey day, which remained resolutely cold and grey until I curled up in the ice-cold bed in the freezing room at 8 p.m. that evening. Day and night morphed into one.

  The pattern remained the same for many months, and I still had not figured out how to address the two adult strangers I was being forced to live with. I noticed that even the children who had lived with our mother and their father for the past four years did not appear to have a name for either of them. To attract our mother’s attention they would touch her somewhere on her body. None of them spoke spontaneously to their father.

  I decided to adopt the same tactics. I would simply ignore my mother’s husband. I was on my own now and was going to have to sort things out for myself. Grandma Melba was no longer around to protect me.

  Angela Barry

  Bermudian by birth, she lived abroad for more than 20 years—in England, France, The Gambia, Senegal and the Seychelles—before returning to Bermuda, where she has primarily worked as a lecturer since the 1990s. She holds a PhD in Creative Writing from Lancaster University, for which she worked on cross-cultural projects, reflecting her connections with the African diaspora, and her work has been published in journals including The Massachusetts Review, The Bermudian magazine, The Caribbean Writer and BIM: Arts for the 21st Century. She is the author of Endangered Species and Other Stories (2002) and Gorée: Point of Departure (2010), which was nominated for the 2012 International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award and in 2013 won the Brian Burland Prize for Fiction. In 2017 she received a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Bermuda Arts Council.

  Without Prejudice

  Susan had a clear view of Claridge’s foyer. Its sweeping staircase, crystal chandelier, and ornate tubs of billowing white roses. Beneath the great doorway she saw a young black girl. She seemed angry. Bristling. She was looking straight at Susan, who touched her pearls and blinked her eyes. The roses faded. The livid face of the stranger was still staring at her. The girl strode towards her, high heels clicking on tile then muted by plush carpet as she wove between the buzzing tables.

  “Hello. I’m Esi.” The voice carried the South London vowels Susan hated. “And presumably you are . . .”

  By then, Susan had made her assessment. The distasteful accent was coupled with precise syntax. This girl was not quite what she’d expected. No ripped jeans. No visible tattoos or piercings. But . . . despite Susan’s discreet email warning her about appropriate attire, here she was, loud and conspicuous. At Claridge’s! Nothing refined about those primary colours, nothing subtle about that look on her face. But Susan was ready. With a studied smile, she got up and extended her hand to the first blood relative she’d ever met.

  “Susan.” Her hand was left floating untouched in the space between them.

  “And you are . . .” the girl repeated, eyes flashing, “my Aunt Abena. My mother’s sister. You know. The sister you treated like shit.”

  Susan sat down, stunned by the immediate attack. She’d hoped that the first half-hour would be spent talking about university entrance and such. But no. She tried to focus. On what? The skinny body, the blazing African scarf or the tight coils of hair standing about the face . . . She settled on the girl’s skin—black, gleaming and pulled tight across sharp cheekbones—the way hers had been thirty-odd years ago. She’d hated it then, and that thought steadied her.<
br />
  “Sit down, Esi. Please don’t make a scene.”

  For the first time, Esi’s armour seemed to slip. Her face was stamped with “Bugger off!” but her hands nervously pulled a large manila envelope from her bag. She continued to stand, immovable, while deft servers manoeuvred around her. Finally, she ripped open the envelope, causing a few tea drinkers to glance at them.

  “My mother wanted you to have these. That’s why I’m here.” Still standing, Esi took out the first document and in a quiet hiss said: “Her last will and testament.”

  She slammed it on the table. “Your birth certificate. Your real one. See? Republic of Ghana!” It too landed with a thump.

  Susan was certain she heard a disapproving murmur from the other patrons, and prayed that they didn’t include anyone from the College.

  “This is my personal favourite.” Esi waved the paper about. “Your letter. The one that made your sister give up. It was this, not the cancer that killed her!”

  “I . . . killed . . .” Susan’s mouth hung open.

  “There!” Esi said, satisfied. “I’ve kept the promise I made to . . . my . . . mum.” Esi dropped into the chair, breathing heavily, her face crumpled.

  “May I take your order, ladies?” The server smiled at them, oblivious.

  Susan pulled herself together. “We’ll have the traditional tea. With Assam and Darjeeling.” She looked at Esi, who seemed to be weeping. How to survive this impossible encounter? Susan decided to think about her twenty-first birthday, in this same room. She’d been wearing her new pearls, just like Emily’s. A mother-and-daughter occasion. The memory soothed her like a sweet balm.

  When the server returned, Esi sat, revived and fascinated, as he brought the sumptuous “traditional tea” of finger sandwiches, scones and cakes. Such artistry! Relieved, Susan gestured towards the table but Esi shook her head. “No cow’s milk. No processed flour. No white sugar.”