From Pasta to Pigfoot

by Frances Mensah Williams

  Rocky crossed his legs and looked straight back at her. His face was inscrutable and his eyes gave nothing away as he mocked the incredulity in her voice. ‘Well, maybe it’s time for me to mend my ways – aren’t you the one who’s always saying there’s more to life than work?’

  Amma rolled her eyes. ‘Okay, now you’re just being weird.’ She looked so sceptical that Rocky burst into laughter, his even teeth a dazzling white against his copper-brown complexion.

  Conscious that she was staring at him, Faye dropped her gaze and studied the pattern on the Persian rug intently.

  ‘So, Faye,’ Rocky’s voice interrupted her reverie. ‘How are you finding Ghana?’

  Slightly startled, Faye paused for several moments before answering.

  ‘Well, apart from the fact that no one seems to sleep past dawn,’ she grimaced, ‘I’m having a good time. It was great helping at the shop this morning and we drove around town for a while afterwards.’

  She smiled at Amma and continued. ‘But I’m sure my fabulous tour manager will be taking me to a few more places while I’m here.’

  Rocky nodded. His brow furrowed in thought for a moment, and then he smiled. ‘Well, things are pretty busy for me this week but I would be glad to take you out over the weekend,’ he said.

  Another jolt of happiness coursed through her and she forced herself to be calm and to focus on what he was saying. ‘There’s a very nice jazz club that I often go to. Maybe on Friday evening we can—’

  He broke off as Martha came into the living room, wiping her hands on the apron tied around her waist.

  ‘Oh, Miss Faye, forgive me.’ Martha looked extremely guilty.

  ‘Why?’ said Faye, looking at the older woman in bewilderment. ‘What’s wrong, Martha?’

  ‘I forgot to tell you earlier that you had a phone call while you were out with Amma. I wrote the message down but I put it in my apron pocket and I didn’t remember until just now.’

  Rocky smiled lazily, amused at the housekeeper’s embarrassment. ‘Don’t look so worried, Martha. It’s not the end of the world,’ he said. ‘Who phoned – her father?’

  Martha looked at the note in her hand and frowned as she tried to make out what she had written.

  ‘No, it was someone called Sonny – he said to remind you about your date on Friday.’ Apologising once again, she bustled out of the room.

  For a moment no one spoke. Amma glanced quickly at Rocky, a hint of anxiety in her eyes, and then turned to Faye. ‘Oh, you have a date with Sonny? You didn’t mention it – when did that happen?’

  Faye shrugged, wondering why she suddenly felt guilty. ‘I wouldn’t exactly call it a date. He mentioned something when we were leaving the beach about maybe meeting up later this week. I’d actually forgotten all about it.’

  She looked at Rocky as she spoke, waiting for him to finish what he had been about to say before Martha’s interruption, but the lazy smile that had been on his face earlier had disappeared. Puzzled at the sudden change in his demeanour, she looked helplessly at Amma who smiled brightly, although her cheerfulness seemed a little forced.

  ‘Well, I suppose you can trust Sonny not to waste any time when he sees an attractive woman,’ she said. ‘But if Friday doesn’t work, maybe…?’

  Faye looked back at Rocky but he made no attempt to pick up on his sister’s cue. Instead, taking a quick look at his watch, he rose to his feet and picked his jacket up from the sofa.

  ‘Rocky, you were—’ Faye started to speak and then stopped abruptly, put off by the expression of chilled politeness on his face. She looked at him in dismay. What just happened?

  ‘Please excuse me, I need to make a couple of calls before dinner,’ he said. His voice was expressionless, although his face looked bleak as he turned and walked out of the room.

  10

  Cultural Relationships

  The fly in the ointment of a perfect Thursday afternoon was literally buzzing around Faye’s head as she tried to take a short nap out on the cool veranda. After a heavy lunch, Amma had disappeared to her room leaving Faye to stretch out undisturbed on the chintz covered wicker lounger. Undisturbed, that is, except for a persistently friendly fly. Finally convinced that a conspiracy had been hatched by the animal and insect kingdoms to deprive her of sleep, Faye sat up in exasperation, ready for battle. Reaching for her magazine, she rolled it into a tight wad and swiped ferociously at the hapless fly as it came back to visit.

  ‘Damn!’ She cursed as the fly shot away in panic, finally accepting that it was not on friendly terrain. Unrolling the magazine, she lay back on the lounger and skimmed carelessly through the pages. Tips on how to keep your skin supple in winter and where to shop for the best bargains in boots held little attraction on a warm afternoon in the tropics. Lounging in only a pair of cotton shorts and a thin strappy top, she tried and failed to imagine the cold weather she had left behind.

  It’s hard to believe I’ve only been here for five days, she mused. She thought back over the events since her arrival in Ghana on Saturday evening, and for what must have been the hundredth time, mentally thanked Wesley for being the catalyst that had finally brought her here.

  I must get William to come out to Ghana, she thought drowsily. She dropped the magazine on the side table and lay back on the lounger, closing her eyes as the cool breeze wafted over her. I’m sure he and Rocky would get on like a house on fire.

  The thought of Rocky had the same effect on her nap as the earlier unsolicited visits by the fly. Jolted out of her semi-somnolent state, she pondered over her inexplicable reactions to him. Since Sonny’s phone call, Rocky had been pleasant but distant whenever their paths happened to cross. The offer to take her out had not been repeated and it appeared that the brief glimpse she had seen of the relaxed charming host had been closed off, leaving only a polite stranger in view.

  Where someone like Lucinda would have taken the initiative in this situation, two years with Michael, not to mention the memory of his predecessors, had left Faye sorely lacking in confidence when it came to the opposite sex. It didn’t help that while she couldn’t deny the electric effect Rocky had on her, she was not at all sure what, if anything, to do about it. It was abundantly clear that Rocky was an extremely eligible bachelor who could have his pick of the most beautiful girls in town. In the short time she had been in Accra, she had seen enough leggy beauties around to realise that even with Clarissa out of the way, there was no shortage of women available to console the handsome young banker.

  She giggled as she remembered Baaba’s visit to the house the previous evening, ostensibly to return a magazine Amma had lent her. After asking where Rocky was in what she thought was a casual tone, Baaba had stayed for hours, obviously hoping to bump into him. It was only after Amma had nodded off on the sofa that she had finally taken the hint that it was time to leave. Reluctantly wishing them a good night, she had swayed out of the house in tight black skinny jeans that defied all the laws of science in their ability to accommodate her hips. A scowling Togo, who had been taking a nap outside the gate, had stomped off grumbling under his breath at being forced to wake up and find her a taxi. Still muttering angrily on his return, he barely allowed the vehicle to drive out through the gates before slamming them shut. Rocky had appeared ten minutes later; but aside from a brief hello, he had little to say to anyone and went up to his room shortly afterwards.

  But if Rocky was proving to be Mr Elusive, Sonny, on the other hand, was in serious contention for a medal in the field of persistence. He had phoned every day since the beach trip and made no secret of his attraction to her. While she dismissed his increasingly passionate claims to have fallen madly in love with her, she had to admit that his sense of humour and charming good looks were a pretty potent combination. After Michael’s serious approach to everything in life, it was fun to talk to Sonny, who took nothing seriously and whose idea of literature was the cartoon strip in the national daily.

  As Rocky had said nothing more ab
out the jazz club, she had finally agreed to go out with Sonny on Friday, although she had insisted on lunch rather than dinner.

  ‘That’s fine with me,’ was his reaction. ‘I’ll take you to a proper Ghanaian chop bar – they’re our local restaurants – so you can eat real Ghanaian food. Not like those expensive bourgeois restaurants Amma always goes to!’

  JB had also phoned several times since the afternoon on the beach. Although he always called Amma’s mobile, he would then insist on speaking to Faye. Each time they spoke, his accent seemed even more incomprehensible and she was forced to ask him to repeat almost everything. Peppering every sentence with ‘You know what I’m sayin’?’ when she truly didn’t, made phone conversations with him almost as undesirable as having him nose to nose in front of her.

  In reality, the whole experience of being pursued by men was something of a novelty. The seven years she had spent at a Hampstead girls’ school for the elite had offered precious few opportunities to meet men of her ethnic background, and working at an old-fashioned family firm like Fiske, Fiske & Partners made it even less likely that she would come into contact with African or Caribbean men. While the few black men she had come across were more than happy to date white girls, the type of middle and upper class white men she usually ended up meeting were rarely in the market for a black girlfriend. With them, she was usually treated more as one of the boys or the channel to approach one of her girlfriends rather than as a potential mate. The few exceptions she had come across to this rule had been looking for what she had once described to Caroline as ‘an exotic rebellion’ and only asked her out because she was black. Finding Michael had been like stumbling across an oasis when she had given up hope of seeing anything more than miles of endless desert.

  Having Michael as a boyfriend had been the proof that she so badly needed that she was indeed attractive – which made it particularly ironic that his constant criticisms of her clothes, her hair or what he termed as her cultural inadequacies, had ultimately only deepened her lack of self-esteem.

  Now back in her cultural home and with two suitors within five days – even if, she conceded, one did sound like a strangled canary – she was beginning to feel more confident about herself than she had for years.

  She pushed the puzzle of Rocky’s attitude to the back of her mind and wandered off to the kitchen in search of a cold drink. Martha was sitting at the table chopping the fresh spinach leaves she had bought from the market that morning, and looked up as Faye bounded in.

  ‘Can I get something for you, Miss Faye?’ she asked. Although normally soft spoken, Faye knew from the exchanges she had overheard between Martha and Togo from her bedroom window that Martha’s voice could be extremely loud when she chose. Today her soft curves were encased in a straight dark blue polyester dress with a frilled white collar. The warmth in her dark eyes diluted the severity of the hospital matron look.

  ‘Martha, please can I get some cold water?’ Faye pleaded, flapping the hem of her tiny top to cool herself down. She flopped down at the table directly under the whirring ceiling fan while Martha wiped her hands on a clean cloth and placed a glass and a large bottle of iced water on the table, chuckling as Faye speedily gulped down three full glasses of water.

  ‘You remind me of my son.’ Martha shook her head in amusement. ‘He also drinks water like a tortoise that has sat in the sun for too long.’

  Faye almost choked on her last gulp, never having been compared to a sun-drenched tortoise before. Wiping her mouth unceremoniously with the back of her hand, she looked at Martha curiously.

  ‘I didn’t realise you had a son, Martha. Where is he?’

  The older woman picked up the glass and the almost empty bottle and carried them over to the sink.

  ‘Oh, he lives in my village with my mother and his three sisters,’ Martha replied as she washed the used glass. The humour left her voice and a note of sadness crept in to take its place.

  ‘You must miss them very much,’ Faye said sympathetically. ‘What about your husband – where is he?’

  Martha gave no reply and for a moment Faye was afraid that she had offended her. Martha turned round with a sigh and came back to the table. She pulled out her chair and sat down, her face sombre and without her usual smile.

  ‘He’s dead, Miss Faye,’ she said quietly. ‘It will be fifteen years at Christmas time since he was killed in a road accident.’

  She shook her head as Faye tried to apologise for raising the subject. ‘No, no, Miss Faye, it all happened a long time ago. These things are the will of God and we must accept them,’ she said with a resigned shrug.

  After a brief silence, Faye spoke again. ‘So how old is your water-swigging son?’

  Martha chuckled. ‘He is now twenty-four – at the time his father passed away he was only nine years old. He is my oldest, but I also have three daughters. When Paa Kwesi died, the girls were seven, five and two years old.’

  Faye was horrified. ‘No!’ she exclaimed. ‘How awful for you! How on earth did you cope all alone with four children?’

  Martha shrugged her plump shoulders philosophically. ‘Sometimes I wonder myself. But with help of my family and some good friends, I was able to survive.’

  Faye continued to eye her curiously and Martha laughed good-humouredly.

  ‘My husband, Paa Kwesi, and I came from neighbouring villages and our fathers knew each other well,’ she said. ‘I finished school when I was fifteen but Paa Kwesi continued until he completed his secondary education. His family was quite rich – at least compared to most of the people in our village – so he was lucky to be able to go to school for so long. Most of the time, children were not allowed to stay in school because they had to help their families on their farms. Many also ran away to the cities to find work.’

  Picking up her knife, she continued to chop the spinach into thin strips as she spoke. Faye listened intently, not interrupting once.

  ‘Paa Kwesi’s family liked me because I was humble and very hard working,’ she went on. ‘So when he finished his training to be a mechanic, his people came to ask my parents for me. Of course my family agreed and, at eighteen years old, we were finally married.

  ‘My mother was one of those women who wanted to make sure that all her daughters had some skills and so after I left school, she arranged for me to work with the village dressmaker and learn how to sew. My dream was to be able to buy a sewing machine and set up my own dressmaking business one day. After Paa Kwesi and I married, his family helped him to start on his own as a mechanic and he was soon doing well. As our tradition demanded, I moved into his family house and helped his mother and his sisters with the household chores. But I still carried on working at the local dressmaker’s shop, sewing for other people on her old machine. I knew that in time, if I worked hard, I would earn enough money to buy my own sewing machine.

  ‘Eh, Miss Faye, if I were to tell you how I worked, you wouldn’t believe me! Even when my children started coming, I didn’t stop sewing until the day I gave birth. As soon as I was strong enough after each child, I would start my sewing again. Because I had to add most of the little money I made to the chop money Paa Kwesi gave me, it took a good few years before I had enough money to make my dream come true.

  ‘At last the day came when I had saved enough money to buy my sewing machine. I was so excited that for the whole night before, I did not sleep! I remember the day when I went into town to buy the machine like it was yesterday. I brought it back to the house and, I tell you, almost everyone in the village came to admire it. It was so shiny and beautiful and new. I was so proud of that machine – no one was allowed to even touch it!

  ‘But it was after my machine came that our problems started. My mother-in-law began to complain to my husband that I was no longer respectful towards her and that now that I had my own machine, I had become too proud. At the time my husband’s business was not doing well and he had started spending more and more time at the village drinking spot. The mor
e his mother complained, the more he became angry with me. Soon every time he came home he would start abusing me for the smallest thing.’

  She stopped chopping for several moments and then shook her head with a small sigh and went on.

  ‘Ah well, it was not all his fault, Miss Faye. It’s true, I was very proud and I suppose it was not too comfortable for him to see me busy with my customers and my new machine when he was struggling to keep his business. His other brothers had left the village. One went to Agege – that is what we called Nigeria – and the others left to go and find work in the city. So Paa Kwesi was the only man left to take care of all of us. But I won’t lie to you – his mother was very difficult to live with. She would shout at him as though he were a child and not a grown man. Then she was always accusing him of neglecting her and his sisters and caring only for his wife and children. As for me, even though I was working night and day to make some money for the household, she just hated me more and more.

  ‘One morning as I was finishing a dress for one of my customers, one of Paa Kwesi’s friends came running to the house. He was weeping and as soon as I saw his face, I knew something terrible had happened! He told us that my husband had been killed by a timber driver, who had lost control of his overloaded truck and driven straight into him. Eh, Miss Faye, I tell you, the shock was so great I nearly collapsed! As for Paa Kwesi’s mother, she did not stop crying for ten solid days! His brothers returned home immediately to bury him and my family also came from our village for the funeral. In fact, the whole village came to mourn with us and for many weeks afterwards, in accordance with our custom, we had to provide refreshment and shelter for the visitors.

  ‘When my family eventually returned to our home town, Paa Kwesi’s mother and his sisters began to make my life hell. Soon they were even blaming me for his death, telling me that if I had not made him feel so angry because of my wicked pride, he would not have been drinking and would have been able to jump out of the way of the timber truck. No matter how I tried to calm them, the abuse just become worse.