Girl, Woman, Other. Bernardine Evaristo

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СКАЧАТЬ now establishment with a capital E, he said, you’re a turncoat

      she stood up, gathered up her African print patchwork bag and left the premises

      a little further down the high street she looked back and saw him leaning against the wall of the Ritzy rolling up a cigarette

      still rolling up

      you stay there, Sylvie.

      4

      Amma walked to her house in the dark, still grateful she’d become a homeowner so late in life, at a time when she was practically homeless

      first of all Jack Staniforth died and his son Jonathan, who’d been chomping at the bit for years at his father’s simply scandalous decision not to financially capitalize on the King’s Cross regeneration scheme that would one day run trains direct from London to Paris

      gave the Citizens of Freedomia three months’ notice

      devastated, Amma nonetheless had to admit she’d had a spectacularly good run as she’d never paid a single copper penny in rent in what had become one of the most expensive cities on the planet

      she cried when she left her former office with its jogging sized dimensions and windows overlooking the trains that rolled into the station from the north of England

      she couldn’t afford commercial rents and wasn’t eligible for subsidized housing

      Amma sofa surfed until she was offered someone’s spare room

      she’d come full circle

      then her mother died, devoured from the inside by the ruthless, ravenous, carnivorous disease that started off with one organ before moving on to destroy the others

      Amma saw it as symptomatic and symbolic of her mother’s oppression

      Mum never found herself, she told friends, she accepted her subservient position in the marriage and rotted from the inside

      she could barely look at her father at the funeral

      not long after, he too died of heart failure in his sleep; Amma believed he’d willed it upon himself because he couldn’t live without her mother, who’d propped him up since his early days in England

      she surprised herself at the strength of her grief

      she then regretted never telling him she loved him, he was her father, a good man, of course she loved him, she knew that now he was gone, he was a patriarch but her mother was right when she said, he’s of his time and culture, Amma

      my father was devastated at having to flee Ghana so abruptly, she eulogized at his memorial, attended by his elderly socialist comrades

      it must have been so traumatic, to lose his home, his family, his friends, his culture, his first language, and to come to a country that didn’t want him

      once he had children, he wanted us educated in England and that was it

      my father believed in the higher purpose of left-wing politics and actively worked to make the world a better place

      she didn’t tell them she’d taken her father for granted and carried her blinkered, self-righteous perspective of him from childhood through to his death, when in fact he’d done nothing wrong except fail to live up to her feminist expectations of him

      she had been a selfish, stupid brat, now it was too late

      he’d told her he loved her, every year on her birthday when her mother was alive, when he signed the card she bought and sent for him

      her successful older brothers kindly gave her the greatest share of the family home in Peckham

      which paid for a substantial deposit on a small terraced house with a box garden in Railton Road, Brixton

      a place to call her own.

      5

      Yazz

      was born nineteen years ago in a birthing pool in Amma’s candlelit living room

      surrounded by incense, the music of lapping waves, a doula and midwife, Shirley and Roland – her great friend, who’d agreed to father her child when the death of her parents triggered an unprecedented and all-consuming broodiness

      luckily for her, Roland, five years into his partnership with Kenny, had also been thinking about fatherhood

      he took Yazz every other weekend, as agreed, which Amma regretted when she found herself missing her newborn instead of feeling deliriously free from Friday afternoons to Sunday evenings

      Yazz was the miracle she never thought she wanted, and having a child really did complete her, something she rarely confided because it somehow seemed anti-feminist

      Yazz was going to be her countercultural experiment

      she breastfed her wherever she happened to be, and didn’t care who was offended at a mother’s need to feed her child

      she took her everywhere, strapped to her back or across her front in a sling, deposited her in the corner of rehearsal rooms, or on the table at meetings

      she took her on tour on trains and planes in a travel cot that looked more like a carry-all, once almost sending her through the airport scanner, begging them not to arrest her over it

      she created the position of seven godmothers and two godfathers

      to ensure there’d be a supply of babysitters for when her child was no longer quite so compliant and portable

      Yazz was allowed to wear exactly what she liked so long as she wasn’t endangering herself or her health

      she wanted her to be self-expressed before they tried to crush her child’s free spirit through the oppressive regimentation of the education system

      she has a photo of her daughter walking down the street wearing a plastic Roman army breastplate over an orange tutu, white fairy wings, a pair of yellow shorts over red and white stripy leggings, a different shoe on each foot (a sandal and a welly), lipstick smudged on her lips, cheeks and forehead (a phase), and her hair tied into an assortment of bunches with miniature dolls hanging off the ends

      Amma ignored the pitying or judgemental looks from passers-by and small-minded mothers at the playground or nursery

      Yazz was never told off for speaking her mind, although she was told off for swearing because she needed to develop her vocabulary

      (Yazz, say you find Marissa unpleasant or unlikeable rather than describing her as a shit-faced smelly bottom)

      and although she didn’t always get what she wanted, if she argued her case strongly enough, she was in with a chance

      Amma wanted her daughter to be free, feminist and powerful

      later СКАЧАТЬ