The girl’s name was Brenda Clarke, and she was Adira’s niece (through her late husband). After his death, she hadn’t made contact with her in-laws at all. She created a world for herself where she could mourn the loss of her husband alone for eternity. Brenda Clarke was not dissimilar to Remel. The two were in fact very close when they were younger. Brenda’s father had also died when she was young from cancer. Adira was like a second mother to Brenda until her own husband died and she needed time to care for herself. She wondered if Brenda’s condition was a result of her own selfishness. She walked away as quickly as possible before Brenda could recognise her. She made her way to the park area near the Big Ben and took a seat as someone came to her first aid.
Adira’s gratitude for the anonymous bassist who had saved Brenda’s life fuelled the guilt she felt of not being there for her niece. She didn’t for a second surmise that her niece’s depression and homelessness was a direct result of her own selfishness, but she was fully aware that she could’ve cared for Brenda and given her a home. Adira pondered what had happened to Brenda for her to be in such a dreadful condition. As far as she was aware, Athena Clarke, Brenda’s mother, was in perfect health, and she was financially secure enough to provide her daughter with everything she needed. Dermot, Athena’s boyfriend, was also a loving and working man so there was no logical reason for Brenda to be unhappy at home (or so she ignorantly believed). The more she thought about the dismal nature of what had just happened, the more she felt the weight of the responsibility she had forsaken over the years. She looked across the street to see if Brenda would still be there, but it was just wishful thinking on her behalf.
Brenda Clarke and Remel Brathwaite were the closest of cousins. They were practically siblings. Every weekend, before Adira was a widow, Brenda would come over to the Brathwaite household. On Saturdays, they would go to the park to have picnics, and on Sundays, they would go to church and come home to a spontaneously appearing lunch that was fit for a royal family. Brenda and Remel were aware that Remel’s parents had woken up early each Sunday to cook lunch before they went to church, but they loved to pretend that it was a persistently occurring culinary miracle. Athena and her husband would come over for dinner to enjoy an even bigger feast before taking Brenda home with them until the next weekend. When her father died, Brenda came over more than weekends. Sometimes she stayed at the Brathwaite household for weeks. Brenda and Remel went to the same primary school so it wasn’t a problem. Adira became Athena’s sister in the way she helped her and took care of her in every way possible. Remel’s father and Athena were already related by blood, but Brenda and Remel had brought them closer together somehow. The death of Athena’s husband had caused a lot of emotional stress for the Clarke’s and the Brathwaite’s, but they all had each other to cope. Athena’s husband’s death was like an earthquake in the land of the Brathwaite’s and the Clarke’s with a magnitude that exceeded the measurements of the Richter scale. The collective families were like a building in the aftermath with each member playing their part to stay standing. The kids were fragile, but the adults, especially the women, were the strength of the structure. As long as Dermot and Remel Sr., Remel’s father, acted as loving father figures to their children, cooked whenever possible, taught them life skills that they wouldn’t have learnt in school and Athena and Adira worked hard, earned as much as they legally could and made sure their children had the best grades at school, the structure could never crumble. The community at Remel Sr.’s church provided external support for the families. Women from the church would cook food for the family and send them flowers with ‘thinking of you cards’ for moral support. When Remel Sr. died, the structure lost its cornerstone, and the families fell apart as a result. Remel Jr. had lost his superhero.
Adira wondered how he would cope, and she worried so much that she even asked him after school one day how he managed to stay so strong. She didn’t expect him to understand the question in his childhood state, but he smiled at her and told her simply that Leroy Kaylan was a great friend so everything was alright. She was more than surprised. She wasn’t sure whether she was grateful that Leroy was a great friend to Remel or if she was jealous that someone else had taken her job of therapist and moral supporter of her son. The next day, she went to Remel’s class teacher and asked if she could speak to Leroy Kaylan. The teacher didn’t know any student who went by that name. She then went to collect Remel, whom she had found in tears. He was crying because Leroy had disappeared, and he didn’t know if he would have ever come back. Adira called her friend, Asa immediately and booked Remel for a session in his centre. It broke her heart to refer her son to such an institution, but she saw it as the only choice she could make.
Sitting in one place doing nothing was not a skill Adira was blessed with. In spite of the pain in her ankle (and the guilt burning through her chest), she took a walk around the area. During her stroll, she caught her chance at redemption. Dermot, Athena’s boyfriend, was a few yards away. Adira rushed as fast as her body permitted her towards Dermot. She was sure that Dermot would be willing to help and that both families would be in their prime condition as they were before after she helped to sort everything out. The more she approached Dermot however, the more she could feel that things were not to be as positive she hoped. Dermot was drunk. It was obvious from his sluggish movements and yellow skin. Adira ignored the signs. She was too optimistic in that moment to have her bubble burst by the truth.
“Dermot! Have you seen Brenda?” Adira asked as she came near him.
Dermot shrugged his shoulders as if he had never known Adira. His response showed that he didn’t care for her or her question, and he was too drunk to search for words. He walked around in circles aimlessly, polluting the air with the odour of beer and urine. Adira grabbed onto the shoulder of Dermot’s shirt, which looked as if it hadn’t been washed in days and shouted at him so that he could come to reality.
“Dermot! Brenda just tried to commit suicide. She looks like she’s been sleeping rough. Is everything okay at home? Is Athena all right?”
Adira waited for reality to hit Dermot. She waited for him to showcase a look of dismal shock and emotional pain. She waited for him to be the father that Brenda didn’t have. Instead Dermot gave her nothing. He didn’t care for her or her news.
“That girl and her mother are good for nothing. They can both kill themselves for all I care. The little pest is lucky to have escaped. They don’t give me no respect,” replied Dermot drunkenly.
Adira could only gasp at Dermot’s attitude. He was a family man as far as she knew. He came into the Clarke family and accepted Athena and her daughter the way they were. He joined their lives and offered them as much love as he could. He was a blessing to the Clarke’s, and he never attempted to fill the void left by Athena’s husband’s death: he accepted it. Dermot’s drunken state was sickening. It was impossible for Adira to believe that the man she once knew had undergone such a detestable metamorphosis. Dermot was never close with Adira, but she felt as if he had betrayed her personally. The guilt for not staying in contact with the Clarke’s was a knife in Adira’s spirit. Dermot’s state had twisted this metaphorical knife that caused her pain over the years.
“How could you turn into such a piece of filth?” hissed Adira.
Dermot spat on the floor, narrowly missing Adira’s shoe.
“Get away from me, woman,” he whispered.
Adira walked away with her head down to avoid the attention of the passers-by who were staring at her. She was like a camel with her head in the sand.
In her optimism, she found an alternative path of redemption. She took her phone and dialled 999.
“I need an ambulance right now! My name is Athena Clarke. I’m at home, and I’m seriously injured. My boyfriend just beat me up and ran away. I think he’s coming back soon… I don’t have time for your questions! I’m bleeding all over the place! I don’t know if I’ll make it… My address?”
Adira stoppe
d her theatrics for a second and searched for Athena’s address in her phone. She read the address to the person on the other end. As soon as she was sure that the receiver of the call had gotten the address, she hung up and put her phone on aeroplane mode. The fact that she had lied didn’t bother Adira one bit. Even if it wasn’t the truth, it was literally visible that Dermot had transformed into an abusive drunk. She tried hard not to imagine what state Athena was really in. Adira was put at ease slightly when she imagined the ambulance rushing into the Clarke household and taking Athena out of the prison that was her home.
Chapter 23
Remel has been led upstairs to be seated for the first part of the event. The show starts in five minutes, and the venue is slowly reaching maximum seating capacity.
Those who played roles in the event were seated on the stage. Remel’s heart was beating at 1000mph from the sight of the hundreds of people flowing into the church and even into the balcony area. He had felt uncomfortable from a young age in spaces with large amounts of people. The church setting multiplied his discomfort. He hadn’t been in a church ever since his childhood, and he thought he could keep it that way. All of them reminded him of nostalgic memories of his father that reminded him of the harsh truth he had learnt from his youth that his hero would never return. He caught sight of his mum sliding into the last available seat. She crept in with a limp and a change of shoes.
Two musicians named Femi and James came onto the stage without orders and started playing music ten minutes before the event started. Remel spotted their names on the order of plan. James, a saxophonist, played soothing arrangements of classic songs and pieces of music by artists ranging from Amy Winehouse to Sadé and even Alice Coltrane, whilst Femi, a drummer armed with timpani mallets and bristle brushes, played softly to give the ultimate feeling of relaxing lounge music. Remel’s heartbeat had a gradual rallentando as his heartbeat yearned to match the slow and steady rhythm of the music. Adira caught sight of her son and smiled at him with her thumbs up. At that moment, Remel’s fear had disappeared. After five minutes of the calming medley, the duo faded out so perfectly it was hard to realise the music had disappeared, to some. Remel, however, had realised. The music had worked just as effectively as ‘Death awaits the lonely rebel’. As soon as the music ended, so did Remel’s pseudo-peaceful mood. He looked around and realised that the hundreds of people in attendance at that moment were all going to have their eyes fixated on him as he spoke. He was destined for failure. As Remel contemplated his inevitable embarrassment, a rather large, dark-skinned South African man in a grey suit and a clerical collar made his way to the podium. The site of him unearthed a troubled feeling in Remel: his negative experience as a child gave him an odd phobia of preachers. Everyone became silent and took their seats, including Esther and Regina, who took their seats behind the podium and in front of the section where Remel sat.
“Good morning, Change Makers!” began the preacher with a sincere smile that warmed the heart of the audience.
“Before I introduce myself or why I am here, I would like to thank Femi Koleoso and James Mollison: Our brilliant and fantastic musicians. Just the two of them filled the room with beautiful sounds that brought us all joy. Femi and James: thank you.”
The audience clapped for Femi and James before the minister continued.
"I also need to say a big thank you to our previous prime minister for being the one to initiate Tuesday bank holidays. I think all of us here can agree that this may have been the best ideas to ever come out of British politics.
“Now I have noticed from analysing the expression of some of our attendees that there is a little bit of unease. Some of which I assume has been caused by the fact that I am in a clerical collar. I will assure all of you atheists, non-theists, agnostics and members of other faith groups that this event is not an attempt at ambush-style indoctrination. The ‘Change Makers’ are a charity that does not support any religious group or belief but rather accepts all types of charitable groups regardless of their ideology. Yes, I am a Methodist minister, but my purpose here today is to just be a host and a guide for the day.”
The audience clapped, as most audiences did in England, for no apparent reason.
“I do not want to keep you waiting for too long. All of you have orders of today’s event under your chairs which you may ignore if you wish to get lost. We have ushers allocated at various points within the building in case you cannot find your way. The next part of today’s plan is the workshops. You can make your way to whichever workshop won’t bore you. But before we can let you escape, Juliana Connor from the Success through Music Foundation will perform the safety announcement.”
Nobody from the audience was quite sure that they had heard him correctly so they sat and waited for clarity. A string-based grime instrumental began to play in the background. His attention was on a young woman, who looked as if she was his age, approaching the centre of the stage with a polite smile on her face. She wore a flowery top, white high-wasted fluid trousers and white trainers. Remel assumed that she was of South American descent from her complexion. Two braids reached from Juliana’s forehead into a ponytail. Although he tried not to, Remel could only think of how pretty Juliana looked. She had timed herself perfectly and picked up her microphone just before the drop. The word pretty had lost its purpose as soon as Juliana began rapping fiery lyrics delivered with a level of clarity that could only be rivalled by artists like Skepta or Mike Skinner. ‘Pack it up, pack it in/There’s bottles at the back/H2O is within’ she began whilst pointing to the back of the auditorium. She carried on her comedic rhymes by explaining the route of each fire exit. Before declaring the fact that she herself ‘spits fire’. The auditorium laughed at her sense of humour. By the time Juliana had finished her safety announcement rap, the attendees of the event couldn’t help but clap almost without end. The applause faded into music being played by Femi and James. They began to play covers of songs that they composed as Ezra Collective—the larger group that they belonged to. Everyone picked up their order of events and made their way to their sessions.
Remel realised he had a message on his phone from his mum saying she was going to the mental health awareness workshop and that he should make sure to actually go to a workshop as opposed to loitering around as he normally would. It would’ve been easier for her to say it directly, but he just assumed that she had rushed to get seats at the front.
Whilst reading his messages, Remel bumped into a lady next to him. He was about to apologise to her before he realised it was Juliana. They were both of a similar age, and Remel was in a confident mood due to the calming music by the dynamic duo: Femi and James. He smiled at Juliana.
“Sorry I was too busy paying attention to my phone.”
She nodded and paid no more attention to him.
“Where can I buy your CD?” he joked.
Juliana looked around, confused, wondering who Remel was talking to. She realised that he was referring to her rapping skills and laughed.
“Seriously though, you’re good. Can you give me lessons?” Remel joked.
She replied: “£25 an hour. If you can afford it.”
Juliana was not joking, and Remel could indeed not afford it. He didn’t however let her know this so he chuckled and said:
“£25 is nothing to me,” stated Remel, smelling of immature arrogance.
Juliana burst out laughing. People around glanced at her as she failed to contain herself. She hadn’t taken Remel’s claim seriously.
“You’re a joker,” she answered once she was able to catch her breath.
Remel chuckled awkwardly. He felt awkward continuing his effort considering the fact that Juliana couldn’t take him seriously so from then onwards, she had taken control of the conversation. Once she had asked Remel’s name and realised that he was the guest speaker, she began to show more interest in him.
“You kids coming or not?” asked the woman who was leading the session in the adjacent room to R
emel and Juliana’s conversation.
Remel read the sign which read: ‘Lady Power by Brianna Adiche’ and shook his head. Juliana was making her way in until she took a sharp 180-degree turn and grabbed Remel’s hand. She scribbled something on it.
“Call me when you finish your session so we can finish our chat,” she winked at him and then she walked into the room.
Remel looked at the phone number on his hand, delighted, but it should’ve been for him to get Juliana’s number as opposed to the other way around.
Talk about role reversal, he thought to himself and made his way to the closest session that would interest him. A room with a sign saying: ‘Ending gang culture by the metropolitan police’ grabbed his attention.
The Escape Page 9