Girl, Woman, Other. Bernardine Evaristo

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      sparkling eyes, Nenet said

      translucent skin, Yazz said

      milkmaid breasts, Waris added

      Waris, who’d never left Wolverhampton before travelling for university open days, admitted she’d never stepped on a farm in her life

      me neither, Yazz said, my soul is urbanista not ruralite

      Nenet informed them that her parents have a farm in the Cotswolds which breeds llamas and a wine estate in the Franschhoek Valley in South Africa

      Waris said it was all right for some, to which Nenet replied it’s not my fault, Waris said fair-dos

      Yazz said that while she liked the idea of fresh milk, the idea of cocks crowing when you want to sleep in put her off, similarly she liked the idea of fresh milk but not milking cows to get it, or killing them for your beef burgers

      Waris said she liked the idea of going on daily bracing walks across the meadows, whereupon Courtney told her she hates walking and there are no meadows anywhere near her farm

      as she ate her breakfast of eggs, bacon and baked beans, Courtney made the mistake of asking Waris why she wore a headscarf

      Yazz looked up from her muesli expecting to see Waris kick off, instead, she dug her spoon in her thick porridge and said in a surprisingly mild voice that it’s Number One – cultural, Number Two – political, and then, just as Yazz expected her to say Number Three – none of your damned business, she didn’t

      Waris simply said her mother told her she didn’t need to explain herself to anyone

      Nenet, on to her second espresso and nibbling on a boiled egg, was ready to step in – not necessary, Courtney apologized, although she sounded more petulant than sorry, I was only asking because I didn’t know

      cool, well now you do

      Yazz decided that although Courtney was quite ignorant of other cultures, she’d shown strength of character and chutzpah, a precondition for joining the Unfuckwithables where they all tended to speak their minds and you had to fight back and not run off crying to the toilet like a wimp

      she liked Courtney

      and if she liked her

      she was in the squad

      one Monday morning a few months later, Yazz informed her, as they queued for the toilet after the Race, Class and Gender class, that she was in effect now an honorary sistah with an h, a term that originated with black women which was now being appropriated (typical!) by those who weren’t

      however, Courtney could never be a fully-fledged sistah, only honorarily so

      she explained that being a sistah was a response to how we’re seen as much as who we are, which actually defies simplistic reductionism, and that who we are is partly a response to how we’re seen, babe

      Yazz found herself calling people she liked ‘babe’ these days, it wasn’t forced or pretentious, it just happened naturally

      it’s a conundrum, Yazz continued the conversation over lunch of bean soup for her (protein for the brain) and meat, mash and mushy peas for Courtney

      people won’t see you as just another woman any more, but as a white woman who hangs with brownies, and you’ll lose a bit of your privilege, you should still check it, though, have you heard the expression, check your privilege, babe?

      Courtney replied that seeing as Yazz is the daughter of a professor and a very well-known theatre director, she’s hardly underprivileged herself, whereas she, Courtney, comes from a really poor community where it’s normal to be working in a factory at sixteen and have your first child as a single mother at seventeen, and that her father’s farm is effectively owned by the bank

      yes but I’m black, Courts, which makes me more oppressed than anyone who isn’t, except Waris who is the most oppressed of all of them (although don’t tell her that)

      in five categories: black, Muslim, female, poor, hijabbed

      she’s the only one Yazz can’t tell to check her privilege

      Courtney replied that Roxane Gay warned against the idea of playing ‘privilege Olympics’ and wrote in Bad Feminist that privilege is relative and contextual, and I agree, Yazz, I mean, where does it all end? is Obama less privileged than a white hillbilly growing up in a trailer park with a junkie single mother and a jailbird father? is a severely disabled person more privileged than a Syrian asylum-seeker who’s been tortured? Roxane argues that we have to find a new discourse for discussing inequality

      Yazz doesn’t know what to say, when did Court read Roxane Gay – who’s amaaaazing?

      was this a student outwitting the master moment?

      #whitegirltrumpsblackgirl

      Courtney added that as she only fancies black men and is likely going to have mixed-race children, her ‘white privilege’ is in any case going to be seriously dented, like at least 50% of it, and it’s incredible in this day and age that she’d never met any black people in the flesh before she came to university from Dartingford which is entirely white except for three Asians

      Yazz informed her that’s a non sequitur, conversation-wise

      Courtney replied that she herself is a big fan of the non sequitur which really only means that a conversation is free-flowing and intuitive, as opposed to following a predictable trajectory, so to speak

      Yazz excused herself to go to the toilet.

      4

      Yazz invited Courtney to stay at hers at the end of their first year

      she warned her that at least one of Mum’s harem was likely to be walking about the house half-naked in the morning and trust me, that’s not a pleasant sight with the oldies

      Courtney’d only been to London once before, a day trip involving a bus tour to Buckingham Palace, Trafalgar Square, Big Ben, St Paul’s Cathedral and the Tower of London, before getting the train straight back to Dartingford

      they shared Yazz’s double bed and chatted before they went to sleep that first night with the lights off and the moon shining straight on to the bed, which made the night feel special to Yazz, especially when the nights were warm and the window was open

      as they lay there, Yazz asked Courtney why she hadn’t visited the capital more often, you don’t know what you’ve been missing, babe

      it’s because my parents don’t like London, Courtney replied, they think it’s a hellhole full of coloureds, suicide bombers, left-wingers, luvvies, gays and Polish immigrants, who deprive the hardworking men and women of this country of the chance to earn a good living; Dad gets all his political thoughts from the newspapers, quotes from them verbatim, although funnily enough he’s friends with Raj, the mechanic in the village, they drink together down the pub

      when I call him a hypocrite, he says, it’s Raj, Courtney, he’s different

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