Girl, Woman, Other. Bernardine Evaristo

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СКАЧАТЬ can tell your dad from me that the British economy would collapse without immigrants to set higher working standards, Mum says give me a Polish plumber or electrician over homegrown workers any day

      it makes no difference to him, he says they’re all the same, love, meaning all the people he hates

      I can’t wait to see his face when I bring home a mixed-race baby

      Yazz showed Courtney Peckham, Stockwell, Brixton, Streatham

      as they walked down Brixton High Street, Courtney said she was going to faint at all the beefsteak on show, couldn’t help staring at the juicy buns on the boys whose jeans were so low they exposed almost their entire underpants

      Yazz noticed that those ‘buns’ reciprocated Courtney’s attention, her creamy softness pouring ostentatiously over the top of her denim blouse

      they stared at Courtney, not at Yazz, who wasn’t the one getting checked out as usual, and she usually got checked out a lot

      not that she’s interested in the kind of male who belts their trousers underneath their bum

      today it’s all about Courtney, who’s not even particularly hot and it’s like Yazz is invisible and her friend is an irresistible goddess

      a white girl walking with a black girl is always seen as blackman-friendly

      Yazz has been here before with other white mates

      it makes her feel so

      jaded

      they arranged to meet up with Nenet at her family house behind Queensway

      Nenet texted the directions, ‘around the corner from Hyde Park LOL’

      they arrived at a large house behind a security gate and had to ring the bell to be let into a drive made of crunchy gravel

      a maid wearing a black uniform with white pinafore let them into a hallway of marble floors, fountain, colonnades and a winding Hollywood staircase that went all the way up to a domed roof

      Nenet came bounding down the stairs to greet them holding a tiny ball of fluffy white fur in her arms, her shih-tzu, Lady Maisie

      here, she said, thrusting it at them, have a cuddle

      Courtney was happy to oblige, even let it snuggle up to her face, cooing about how cute it was, being used to far worse with farm animals, Yazz imagined, like pigs and sticking her hands up cows’ anuses to release their constipated stools

      she herself declined to touch it, not liking to get too close to things that licked their own bottoms clean

      Nenet gave them a quick tour of the house, which Yazz thought was sick, as in obscenely rich sick not sick as in wonderful

      Nenet apologized for her mother’s ostentatious taste in home decor, not for her wealth

      please be careful what you touch, squaddies!

      Yazz noticed Courtney acting as if she was honoured to have been allowed into Nenet’s life now that she’d seen how she lived

      Nenet was now ‘Nenet who lives in a huge house near Hyde Park’, something Yazz couldn’t mentally undo or un-factor into her opinion of her friend

      she realized that knowing someone comes from money isn’t the same as witnessing the extent of it in close proximity

      they went for a walk in Hyde Park, strolled along the Serpentine in the sunshine

      Yazz looked out at the blue lake and people enjoying themselves in pedalos and rowing boats

      the path around it seemed to be a cruising strip for rich Arabs, the car park rammed with cars with doors that opened upwards and golden wheel hubs that could save the National Health Service Nenet, who usually wore designer sportswear at uni, was clad in a tight top, short skirt, high heels, and looped over her shoulder was a Chanel bag with a gold chain

      her body language changed whenever a group of young men approached to admiringly check her over, which they did without fail, what with her cascading black hair, gleaming brown skin and toned legs

      this was her milieu, she was walking like a princess, a bit up herself

      Nenet always insisted she was Mediterranean, much to Yazz’s amusement and Waris’s annoyance when she tried to convince them she wasn’t black or even African as her family were from Alexandria on the Egyptian coast

      you’re African, Nenet, Waris lambasted her, go on, admit it, you’re an African woman, and she’d jump on Nenet and pretend to beat her up, the pair of them squealing like six-year-olds

      the Serpentine cruisers ignored Yazz who was way too dark for them (yeh and they can piss off)

      they boldly slow-stripped Courtney with their eyes as if she was a chambermaid

      Courtney got off on it, loving the attention

      Yazz didn’t want to break the news to her

      the three of them discussed university in a way they didn’t when they were on campus, but somehow today felt different, their first year had passed, the long summer stretched ahead

      Yazz and Courtney were going to spend it prepping for their second year by getting on top of their reading lists, that and summer jobs would keep them busy

      Waris had already started an internship at a Wolverhampton charity for ex-offenders

      Courtney was about to start work in a lifestyle farm shop in Suffolk that sold cookers for ten thousand pounds

      Yazz was waitressing in a hip West End restaurant frequented by oligarchs, celebrities and Premier League footballers with their trophy wives, mistresses and escorts

      she made notes on her phone for her future memoir

      and took surreptitious photos with her iPhone

      Nenet, who was getting off on being in her natural habitat and the centre of attention, confided that she wasn’t planning on doing any reading for her Art History course because – guess what?

      she blurted out that she didn’t need to

      and this is confidential so pleeeeaaase don’t tell a soul, especially not Waris, the truth is that I commission my essays from a retired academic

      she turned to face them, expecting admiration, approval

      Yazz was stunned, replied quietly, you’re supposed to work for your degree like everyone else, I didn’t know you were one of the cheats

      it’s not cheating when everyone else is doing it

      that doesn’t make it right and not everyone is at it

      wake up, Yazz, people aren’t going to tell you, are they? Kadim’s MBA is costing him a fortune

      Yazz wondered if their СКАЧАТЬ