Hold: An Observer New Face of Fiction 2018. Michael Donkor

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СКАЧАТЬ Oware in a way same like our Connect 4 only different? Do we have an Oware at Aunty and Uncle’s that they may let us borrow? My father use to –’

      ‘Mary, you are nearly a grown-up now, aren’t you? Almost twelve years?’ Belinda began, with false brightness.

      ‘I can stand up to anyone who is even trying to come close to fighting me. I will even beat seventeen-year-old you if you try. If that’s what you talking about?’

      ‘Part of it. Part.’

      ‘What else are you meaning then?’

      Belinda flattened rice on the plate. ‘Being a grown-up is about needing less then less. As you get older, things get taken away. But you are OK with it. With losing the things, because you can sort of – you can make up for the lost thing yourself. You can be looking after yourself. The teddy bear goes. The mum and dad go. And is not problem.’

      ‘I don’t know if I really understand it, Belinda. And – from your face – I don’t think you do either.’ Mary wiped orange grease from the corner of her mouth. ‘Can’t we go back for one more ball?’

      ‘No we cannot. We cannot.’

      ‘But, Belinda –’

      ‘You won’t always get your own way. As adult, you won’t always get your own way. Wa te?’

      ‘The opposite. Adults have –’

      ‘You get strong by being disappointed sometimes. I know that is a truth.’

      ‘What?’

      ‘It is for best.’ Every part of Belinda’s body readied to run out of the canteen. She denied each one. ‘This Nana who has stayed in the house for some weeks now?’

      ‘What of her? I told you: out of ten, I think I would give her about five and a half. She’s OK and I really like all the nice dresses she wear and her nice lighter face, but she also a bit weird? I know she is a Ghanaian truly, but is as if all those years over in the Great Britain for working like Uncle and Aunty did something crazy-crazy to her mind. She keeps looking at me with a funny eye when I’m only offering her more Supermalt or something. Or maybe is even only because she is getting old and that is the reason she cannot hang on to all of her marbles.’

      ‘She and the husband have said for me to travel from the house. They will take me to their London, eh? You, you have it? Aunty and Uncle, they say yes. They know is a great thing. I will not come back. You. You will not see me. It is for the best.’ It was right that the words came out slowly.

      ‘Tomorrow? You leave tomorrow, eh?’

      ‘No. We wait for papers – they have to pay someone at the Embassy. Something like this.’

      ‘I. I knew that we would not be forever. I knew one day it will happen, but.’

      ‘Aane.’

      Mary stopped to fish ice cubes out of her Coke, then looked up. ‘You? You, you’re RUBBISH, hearing me?’ Mary stood and pointed. ‘You so … RUBBISH! And you right, I don’t need you. Not only because I’m adult. But because I’m better than you.’

      ‘Mary –’

      ‘So go take your stupid self to London. You go do it, I don’t care. I’m not even crying one tear.’

      The white man came over. ‘Is everything cool here?’ He fingered wooden beads at his neck.

      ‘Perfect and fine. Please, good day.’

      ‘I was only …’ He shuffled back to his muttering friends.

      ‘I am not clever enough for London, or something, eh? My letters and number not so excellent like yours. Eh? Not pretty enough? My hair is too rough for London?’ Mary grabbed the baubles on her head, tossed them, loosened the two bunches. ‘I am sorry Aunty and Uncle did not pay for me to go to hairdresser to get nice plaits like you to show off at Nana and the husband. I am sorry no one is giving me shiny dress to wear!’

      Belinda reached towards her.

      ‘You don’t come near.’

      ‘We –’

      ‘I said YOU DON’T EVER COME NEAR ME.’

      The white people were gathering their backpacks. The radio had stopped.

      ‘You been lying, isn’t it? All of this, when we together, like we doing this all together, that’s how I thought. Only now I see you just a smelling liar. You been thinking I am most rubbish girl, ino be so? Been laughing with Nana. Been counting days until something like this is happening, yes?’

      Mary’s nodding frightened Belinda; it was as if the electricity that sometimes pulsed through her own body had been passed on.

      ‘You don’t care what is happening to me at all, do you? You have nice flight to London, they get you husband and a palace. And me? They will send me back.’ Mary paced. ‘You bloody –’

      ‘Swearing! Who is teaching you swearing?’

      ‘FUCKING. FUCKING. No one is FUCKING ever coming to see me from my home village. No Papa. No Grandma. And now, you telling me Uncle and Aunty will drive me back there, push me out of the door and leave me? That is what going to be happening, Belinda. Because they don’t want only me. We came as two. Two.’ She flopped to the floor like a cheap doll.

      Belinda crouched down.

      ‘I –’

      ‘FUCKING. And also, SHIT. You. Your dress is ugly and I hate your idiot shoes!’ Mary lashed out, pushed an unsteady Belinda and ran through the coloured strips of plastic in the doorway. Splayed on the linoleum, Belinda wanted to shout after her friend. But nothing came out.

      Encumbered by the bags, Belinda found Mary sitting on one of the security guard’s stools at the zoo’s exit.

      ‘If you misbehave, they may beat you,’ Belinda panted. Gravel crackled under her feet. ‘For your own benefit and peace, I say this to you.’

      Belinda stopped, caught her breath and squared herself for Mary’s next insult. But Mary only hopped down from the stool, ran up to the bars of the main gate and stroked them. She tried to fit her head through one of the loops in its rusting pattern. Belinda knew she would be unsuccessful but thought it best to let her try.

      ‘Mary, you don’t –’

      Mary returned to the stool, pulled herself up, kicked her legs backwards and forwards. Neither of them were skilled at fights like this. Mary started well but continuing was difficult. It was true what she had suggested: Mary wasn’t clever enough. She was incapable of creating some plan to keep everything safe and the same.

      ‘You don’t have to carry my things. They are mine. I will carry.’ Belinda watched Mary hop off the stool again and come forward to struggle with the shopping herself. ‘We should go.’

      Mary walked on, leaning down towards the fuller bag, limping with the weight. ‘When we are late СКАЧАТЬ