Pretending that she had not been staring, Aunty squealed at Theo’s sudden dancing, then cackled from the back of her throat. Belinda poked her bloating stomach while two black beetles on the side table fought for a grain of dropped rice. They kept getting close to the edge and nearly toppling over, but before a full fall they managed to quickly drag themselves back up to flick their legs at one another. In the process of all this, they often lost the grain and so stumbled endlessly, trying to find out where it had been left.
* * *
Later they moved to the veranda where huge moths threw themselves against the wall lights, mosquito coils sent up scribbles of smoke and the generator moaned away. Uncle made a big fuss of dragging out an extra rocking chair from his study so Belinda could join them and ‘be comfortable’. Once settled, Uncle began to browse through a book with a picture of a furious horse on its front cover. Every few minutes Uncle sat up, pointed at a page and shared a fact – about the size of the Zulus’ assegai or the diet of Lord Chelmsford’s men.
Aunty mostly ignored these outbursts of information. She was busy taking the jokers out of a worn deck of cards, organising everything for Belinda and her to play Spar, a game the limping Mrs Aberese had introduced to the local womenfolk a few weeks ago. Carefully, Aunty went through the rules, her powdery fingers sensibly lining up several cards in several rows on a stool. The fingers’ movements were slow. Belinda liked that. Belinda nodded as if she understood each instruction.
Dealing out the remaining cards equally between the two of them, Aunty quietly told Belinda about the first place she and Uncle rented when they arrived in London; a damp room above a newsagent’s on the Loughborough Road, not far from Spenser Road. It was a place where any peace she and Uncle managed to find was soon interrupted by the scratch of a rat’s claws on floorboards or the Irish couple next-door’s arguments. Aunty said all of this shaking her head. It made Uncle peer over the top of his little reading glasses and mutter ‘Ampa, ampa, ampa – we have come so far you will not believe’ to the calla lilies in the garden. He poured the three of them more Akpeteshie. When Belinda refused the top-up, Uncle pouted, so she took what was offered. To drink it, you had to wince first and then soften your face and throat to let its bitterness slide down and away.
The sharp palm wine smudged the world. As did Aunty’s singsong storytelling of that past in distant Camberwell – first jobs, first evening class at Borough Poly. Aunty went on, discarding a few jacks, a king of spades, sketching out their wedding day in 1971. Much of this Belinda already knew, so her attention wavered like the breeze slipping by with its faint smell of someone’s burning rubbish.
Adjusting the positions of the diamonds and clubs she clutched, Belinda wondered how much Mary’s passing made these two old people think about the closeness of their own deaths. She assumed they could not avoid that thought; it must be with them often.
If Uncle stopped turning down a page’s corner and Aunty stopped reshuffling the deck to tell Belinda how scared they were of disappearing, Belinda would probably ignore their tearful mouths and instead, after sipping Akepeteshie, fix her loose headscarf. Then she’d tidy up the monkey nut shells on the balustrade in front of them or go inside to find matches to relight the sputtering coil. She would do nothing, just like when Amma had opened up and spoken about herself, because more than nothing would be too much to cope with, alongside everything else. As Uncle frowned at the stool, Belinda’s tiredness became a hand moving up from her neck, crawling across her scalp and resting its mean weight on her forehead. It was not only tiredness after the travelling and the drink: she was tired of herself.
Belinda swung forward on her rocking chair and reached out to add the queen of diamonds and the seven of hearts to one of the rows. Quickly Aunty beamed and whooped louder than when Mary managed a one-handed catch. Aunty raised her palm, preparing to strike the rows viciously.
‘Me yere! Gyae! The girl has done a beginner’s error. Won’t you do a rematch? Is a first go, me sroe?’ Uncle pouted again, added more to their glasses. Aunty’s smile fell into a tight line.
‘No. Is OK. Is totally OK.’ Belinda snatched at Aunty’s winning hand, started laying down cards for a new round. ‘Like, fair is fair is fair. I can learn from this one. I will do differently next time. You watch and see.’
35
Well-wishers came over during the next three days. Hundreds of them tramped to the reception room, rubbed with pomade and wearing their best purple, charcoal or red robes. The husbands usually started by talking about sympathy and fate. They discussed the lack of good driving in Kumasi. Help of all kinds was promised by the wives. Gathering God’s lambs and Belinda writing and giving a eulogy were mentioned. Then the visitors tried to find a way to be normal, asking Belinda about the snow, and white people. The children also asked about London and then pleaded with her to use more of a Queen’s English voice. Belinda shook her head; the children’s begging faces were so much duller and more stupid than Mary’s. Belinda offered malt and minerals, only to be refused. She excused herself and returned with felt-tips for the kids, Marks and Spencers’ belts for the husband, leather purses for the wife: Nana had stocked her up well. Aunty thanked the air for its generosity and everyone was happy with the gifts. They all held clammy hands to pray and Belinda ‘hallelujah-ed’ in the ragged way her mother had taught her when they prayed together in their tiny room, just the two of them because Pastor would not let them into the church.
Belinda spent much of those visits from mourners picturing Mother in that reception room, paying her respects: Mother recalling lines from First Corinthians because it was the only part of the Bible she knew to recite. Or Mother nicely complimenting the plans for the funeral and the guest list and all the rest, even though the scale of the thing confused and angered her. Mother brushing dust from her good black dress, her desperate fingers itchy for one of the cigarettes in the black clutch given to her by a customer.
36
On the fourth day, fed up with the prospect of doing the same performance again, when the Otengs and the Afriyies arrived at nine in the morning, Belinda did not leave her room to greet them. Uncle knocked and knocked on her door. Called her name. Shouted. Through it all, Belinda sat up in bed and held herself very still.
‘Me yare,’ Belinda snapped, eventually.
‘Wo yare?’ Uncle asked.
‘Aane.’
‘Oh dear, dear, dear, dear. Aba! Then please allow us to –’
‘I only need to rest. Like, a break? That’s all. Good morning to you. Good morning and good day.’
Belinda heard Aunty. Uncle coughed. Another, louder conversation with many different voices bubbled up from somewhere. Finally, silence; they had given up. Later on, there might be some cost or consequence for Belinda. But, for now, she had won herself some space. It was enough. She turned towards the window and the band of light there in which specks of dust floated. She did not care that she had allowed that floating dirt to gather. She did not care she had not reached for a mop, broom or sponge in weeks. Belinda raised her hands in the air and, as she moved, the capped sleeves of her nightdress shuffled down to her shoulders. Warmth slid over her skin. After melting out of that pose, she punched her pillows until they were plumper; beating so much that two freed feathers dived down to the floor.
Belinda rummaged in her suitcases, clawing away layers of sensible underwear Nana had packed until she pulled out grammar questions and Amma’s Collected Works of Katherine Mansfield. In the conversation they had had on the doorstep before Belinda headed to Heathrow, Amma had handed over the book roughly, saying that the stories were ‘strange and unshakeable’. Belinda would do the reading before the boring chore of task-sheets and homework: yet again going over how to use apostrophes and then the differences between there, their and they’re. Later, she would attempt to start on the eulogy; one thing at a time.
Sat with her back against the headboard, she held the book carefully, smiling at how far and wide Amma�
�s interests were: the girl who enjoyed things by the gloomy author on the back cover here also loved decorating her own tights, Missy Elliot’s noise, the TV show where people had to cook disgusting, ungenerous meals very quickly, and Audre Lorde with her funny, flattened afro.
Belinda met the stare of the pale author in the photo and flipped to the contents page. There, right up against the spine and folded tightly, a tiny piece of yellow paper nestled. As though doing something forbidden Belinda checked around her before opening the wedge. The handwritten paragraph revealed on the creased sheet had neither a date nor an underlined title:
He manages like somebody carrying a box
that is too heavy, first with his arms
underneath. When their strength gives out,
he moves the hands forward, hooking them
on the corners, pulling the weight against
his chest. He moves his thumbs slightly
when the fingers begin to tire, and it makes
different muscles take over. Afterward,
he carries it on his shoulder, until the blood
drains out of the arm that is stretched up
to steady the box and the arm goes numb. But now
the man can hold underneath again, so that
he can go on without ever putting the box down.
* * *
Below it was the name ‘Jack Gilbert’. Near that, in Amma’s big capitals spreading up over several lines, the word ‘COURAGE’. Belinda traced the shape of Amma’s precise letters on the page.
Mrs Al-Kawthari had taught them all about symbolism. Belinda understood that the man fought and kept going, no matter how tough his challenge became. In giving her this poem, Belinda understood that Amma wanted her to make her mind and body a wall. Sometimes. Belinda might have to be clever and change the way she strengthened herself; try out different methods, techniques. Yes. The message was appropriate, beautiful, true. Even more than that, Amma’s giving it clearly showed how much Amma cared.
But Belinda also found symbols very difficult. They could mean many things at the same time and could make you feel different emotions and ideas all at once. The image of a wrestling man with his parcel did show bravery. But it also looked ridiculous. His terrible twisting and frowning was foolish, like a frustrated, idiot stray dog in Adum chasing his own tail. Belinda was not ungrateful for Amma’s writing, not ungrateful at all: the idea of being COURAGEous appealed. It was different from anything else the world offered her now; sorrow, silence. The problem came from the clash between the final word pressed into the bottom of the page and the image of the sad, fighting clown Belinda couldn’t escape from. Partly, the man and his on-and-on struggle with the box seemed like something silly from ChuckleVision. He might trip over at any minute and a whole audience would not be able to contain themselves. Because all of his nonsense effort like he might burst a blood vessel – and for what? With the big toe of her left foot, she idly chased the feathers loosened from the pillows, moving them this way and then that across the tiles. The fluffy little things looked so helpless. She kicked them into a dark corner and lifted her head. There had to be more courageous things to do than just fighting and gritting teeth. There had to be.
37
Aunty announced that there was last-minute funeral shopping to be done, so – before any excuses could be made – on Wednesday afternoon, Belinda was bustled into the Mercedes and sacks and bags were pressed into her lap. She tried to hide behind her fake Ray Bans.
Aunty’s driving was clunky. She did strange things like heading straight towards the busiest roads at Atamanso and going the wrong way around the roundabout at Yaw Ampofo Avenue. She blamed the stubbornness of the gear stick and steering wheel for her slow progress. Aunty chatted away – about how many of the staff had all left the house in the days immediately following Mary’s death: the nightwatchman first and then several others soon after; about how she wanted to experiment with what she grew in the garden, about how her catarrh seemed worse lately. As they passed the Golden Bean Hotel, the wooden elephants either side of its gates hailing the sun with their trunks, Belinda wondered if the flaps on Aunty’s neck and the lines round Aunty’s lips were as mean as Mother’s were these days. How much older did Mother look now? Perhaps too old for her crumbling rouges to do any good. But maybe some men liked touching, kissing, pressing the skin of someone broken by time and who clearly needed looking after. Belinda wanted the Akpeteshie from the first night. It would smear and soften her thoughts.
They found themselves at the end of a long, slow tailback near the GOIL station in Ahodwo. Aunty turned to face Belinda head on.
‘Belinda. This I have to say. So please let me. Is not easy. We – me, your Uncle – we both thought it very nice, very nice indeed, the whole way you cared for Mary. Like even as if you were kin. Your behaviour was a great honour and credit to you.’ Aunty clutched her knees. ‘I probably should wait for Kofi, for your Uncle to give the news but. Seem proper, now. It will only be correct to reward you. For all you did for her.’
‘Reward?’ Belinda slipped off the sunglasses, squeezed their arms as far as the screws allowed until they creaked, then stopped and squeezed them again. ‘I don’t deserve or need or. Like, I don’t want anything. Seriously. Thank you.’
Aunty inhaled and exhaled through her nose several times, before then pounding the air. ‘So we haven’t signed off on all the details. There are different possibilities. Your Uncle maybe perhaps wants to include you in our wills. Or we will get you some A levels. Or in time we set you up with a small shop or small business. In London or Kumasi. Something along the lines of these. We not sure which. So much in our minds, ino be so? We will find the best one in God’s time for you. And it will help to bring you happiness and a hope. It will be a great blessing. Because we have to find a positive in tragedy? Wa te?’
Belinda pulled at the frayed lip of the sack on her knees. Using two tensed fingernails, she extracted a long, thin piece of its hessian and rested the thread on her palm.
‘No. Aunty. No. I don’t think I want any of that. Please.’
‘But, Belinda –’
‘These thing you speak of? Like, they are nice for someone else. Me? I am not so sure.’
Just like Nana’s had in the Fiat, now Aunty’s mouth worked furiously. ‘So, Belinda, what? You want what? What should we do for you now, eh? Now children behaving and doing and acting as they want and wish?’ Spit sprayed from her. ‘Running where they know they should not run. Who know what world we living in now. An upside-down one. Me se an upside-down one, paaa.’ Aunty thumped her horn, pointlessly and madly, over and over again. Even though Aunty had never been angrier towards her, Belinda didn’t mind or care. Belinda rolled up the window, then rolled it down.
When they eventually arrived at Central Market, Belinda remained slack and flat. If any of the harassed customers at the huddled stalls had glanced up from weighing garden eggs to look at her, her expression would have frightened them. Her stillness came partly from concentration. Stepping round the homeless lying face down with cups at their heads for coins, she tried to bat away thoughts of the coming days. She walked behind Aunty, often stopping to dodge tired donkeys carrying huge bundles of piping.
The day’s heat pushed hard, bullying and prickling. Aunty’s black linen blouse sweatily glued itself to her shoulders and arms and she continuously wiped at herself, blotching her foundation. As if the conversation in the car hadn’t happened at all, Aunty listed the jobs still to be done, her hands flying everywhere as she spoke about the drivers, the undertakers, the performers, the caterers, the pastor needed final checking. The eulogies, the libations, the prayers all were yet to be confirmed. Recently received donations had to be accounted for. Recently presented invoices had to be paid. So much! Good-ness, good-ness gracious! Aunty stopped to inspect pawpaws sold by a tall man in a big pink dashiki.
They carried on, making their way through the market’s constant naming of its goods, the trilling
of bicycle bells, armies of cows blocking paths; past posters against skin bleaching and HIVAIDS, the Devil, Malaria. In the section with the snails and crabs the smell was too much, stronger than the hand Belinda clamped over her nose and mouth. The shouting and selling became faster.
‘For the tables? To cover the tables nicely? Yes?’
Now Aunty stomped towards the cooler, shadowier textiles area of the market. There, glass cases of metallic satins shone and flashed. They walked in, the ground here wetter underfoot. Women beckoned Aunty and Belinda from the stoops of shops, wafting fabrics in their direction. They hissed to get attention. Some urgently chirped ‘Hello, hello, hello’ just like Belinda used to do on the phone, trying to draw back Mary’s cracking, fading voice.
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