by Gina Yashere
She stared down at me and asked, “Are you okay?”
“Yes.”
“Good.”
Then she followed up with the question she really wanted to ask: “When is your biology exam?”
Fortunately, I’d tried to kill myself on a Thursday. My biology exam was the following Tuesday. Plenty of time to recover and still be on track to become a doctor.
* * *
The suicide attempt did not foster a new era in Nigerian mum-daughter relations. After I came home from the hospital, my mum refused to talk about what happened, except to tell me how stupid I’d been and how I had nearly ruined my future, which was pretty obvious, as dead people tend to not have those. There was no processing of what had led me to take an overdose, no family meeting to discuss our feelings and how we all might have been affected, and absolutely no talk of me, God forbid, seeing a therapist. “So you want me to waste money for you to be telling our family business to a stranger? You have really gone mad!” My mum was too busy working hard to make sure all her children succeeded. She had no time for a child for whom she’d sacrificed so much giving up because of stress. This word just didn’t exist in my mum’s vocabulary. It was in the fairy-tale word realm with “art” and “yoga.” “So you want to give up on all this opportunity because you are stressed? Keep talking this nonsense and I will give you real stress. Idiot.”
So my mother did what she does best: suppressed her feelings, put her head down, and set about finding me another school, while my job was to shut the fuck up, finish my O levels, and get the grades that would allow me access to another good school. And that’s what I did.
I took my exams for each subject in June. To be accepted to study for A levels, I had to pass at least six subjects at O level with A, B, or C grades. Any grade below that was pretty much a fail. I would then sweat till my results were mailed to me in mid-August, and my results would tell me what I’d be doing come September.
My mum found me a school: Camden School for Girls in North London. I had been in mixed schools my entire school life, but Mum had obviously decided that crunching a girl’s shoulder was a stepping stone to prison, pregnancy, and crack addiction, in no particular order, so a girls school it would be, and as usual, I had no say in the matter. Camden Girls is a highly rated school. Started in 1871 by Frances Mary Buss, a known campaigner for women’s voting rights and the first woman in history to use the title “headmistress,” the school was set up to provide affordable education for girls. To this day, it is one of the highest performing schools in the country and produces the best exam results in the area outside the private-school sector. Although Camden is a government-funded school, it has high standards for the students allowed to attend, and so my place there in September was dependent on my exam results. A point my mother had no qualms about repeating on a daily basis. You do know it was precisely this kind of pressure that had me gobbling aspirins like a Nigerian Pac-Man just a few weeks ago, right?
I didn’t care what school I ended up in, as long as it was far enough away from D&K’s for me to complete my reinvention and not come across anybody from my previous life. Camden fit the bill, and I hoped I’d get in for both my and my mum’s peace of mind.
One morning about six weeks after I had completed my exams, my mum excitedly called me into her bedroom. As I entered, she grabbed me by the shoulders and kissed me on the cheek. I recoiled in shock. My mother had never hugged or kissed me in my life. Physical affection was not practiced in our family.
Once, after a steady diet of American kids shows, with their abundance of hugs and kisses, I made the mistake of asking: “Mummy, do you love us?” To which she responded, “I like all of my children!” She couldn’t even bring herself to say the word. I’d never seen any kind of physical affection between her and the step-bastard, though there must have been something she’d initially liked about him besides the car. And they did have a daughter. Even when we were watching TV and a couple began kissing, she would make noises of disgust: “Pleh, pleh, why so much kissing and cuddling! Ugggh!” And turn the TV off. So kissing was not a thing in our family, which is why I nearly fainted when she face-planted me.
“What happened?” I asked.
My mum waved an envelope in my face. My exam results. They’d come. And although they were addressed to me, she’d opened them. I wasn’t surprised or upset. Just relieved. I’d passed nine O levels. The only subject I hadn’t passed was chemistry, for which I’d gotten an E. I had been terrible at chemistry from the beginning, so I had skipped studying for it and concentrated on the other nine. That had paid off big time. Mum was ecstatic and proud, and I was rich. I’d be starting my new, better life in another school, after enjoying the rest of my summer with forty-five pounds of the step-bastard’s money in my pocket. He had bet that he would be paying me no more than fifteen pounds. He was about to eat some humble pie laced with shit. Mum marched me straight to him, brandishing that letter like a flag, and watched him reluctantly count the money out and put it in my hand, while she chuckled.
A few days after that, my mum received a phone call from the principal of St. David and St. Katharine’s. Apparently the school wanted to congratulate me on my excellent exam results, and let me know that they had had second thoughts about my expulsion and would be more than happy to welcome me back to the sixth form to continue my A level studies. Second thoughts my ass. They simply hadn’t expected me to do so well, and now they needed to add me back into their system to bolster performance statistics. Mum took great pleasure in turning them down.
8
If You Sleep with an Itching Anus, You Will Definitely Wake Up with Your Hand Smelling
Before I learned to use my humor to defuse stressful situations, I decided that at school people would leave me alone if I was the craziest and scrappiest, and so if someone tried to humiliate me, I would launch myself at them, no matter their size, age, sex. I soon got a reputation, and most of the teasing became whispers behind my back, as no one actually wanted their ass kicked.
I had to develop a reputation as a tough girl to protect myself from the teasing, but the first and only time in my life I actually threatened the life of another person was when I was sixteen years old, after coming home from what was supposed to have been my first day at my dream weekend job at Topshop.
Part-time work was a coming-of-age thing in the ’80s. Every fifteen- and sixteen-year-old yearned for a Saturday job to supplement their pocket money, or allowance. In my case, a job meant independence and an escape from my mum’s overprotectiveness. A job meant money, which meant better clothes, which meant acceptance, which meant a better teenage life. Money was also a step closer to buying a car, which—most important of all—meant freedom. Mum wouldn’t be able to open up her scrapbook of death and threaten me with the dangers of all the rapists and murderers lurking on the night bus when I could drive myself home to safety.
I had taken my O levels in June, and school was finished for me until September, when I would start studying for my A levels at Camden Girls, instead of finding an orphanage for teenagers, as if I had failed my O levels, I suspect my mum would have gladly surrendered me to one. This meant I had over two months off. I was sixteen now, so too old to be stuck in the house, begging my mum to let me go to the park every once in a while. I was old enough to work.
The dream place to get a part-time job as a teenager in London is the West End, a district where the majority of London’s main tourist attractions, theaters, entertainment venues, nightclubs, and shops are located. Our version of Midtown Manhattan, Causeway Bay in Hong Kong, or the 8th arrondissement in Paris. It’s the UK’s shopping Mecca.
When I was younger, and not allowed to move more than seven feet from the house on weekends, I’d often hear kids at school on Monday talking about spending their Saturdays in “the West End.” It sounded amazing, and I was desperate to go. I had romanticized notions of this magical, forbidden area of London, where kids roamed free, then came back with
cool clothes and stories, and I couldn’t wait until I was old enough to sneak there. I finally made it when I was in my last months at D&K’s. I had two free periods between lessons, which gave me a two-hour window to visit the mysterious land and return to school with no one any the wiser. I jumped on the London Underground to Oxford Circus, which brings you out snap bang in the middle of the West End. I was excited.
I ran up the steps of the station, expecting to exit into a shopping version of Narnia. I was sorely disappointed to find myself on a regular London street. A slightly busier London street, but still a London street. With shops. This is it? I thought. This is the West End? Just bigger shops? After years of hearing about this place, and having it be forbidden to me for so long, I had been expecting . . . something! Brighter lights, different signs, better-looking people. Different-colored buses. Anything not so ordinary.
I walked around for about twenty-five minutes, peeking into shops, with exactly three pounds in my pocket, then returned to school. I came to appreciate the West End later, as the best area to get a Saturday job, because prestige pays, but I never forgot that initial anticlimax.
There was a hierarchy of part-time jobs. Bakeries, supermarkets, and grocery stores were at the bottom. The money varied, depending on the company and its size, but bakeries and fast-food joints paid the least. Perks came in the form of how many free burgers you could stuff down your gullet during your lunch break, and at bakeries you could take home some of the more perishable pastries at the end of the day.
The first and only bakery I worked at was called Coombs, and I was paid £1.25 per hour. I gained about ten pounds in the two months I worked there. Luckily for my arteries, I was fired from that job. The shop typically opened at 7 a.m., when the cakes were fresh out of the oven, which meant I had to be at work at 6:30 a.m. Which meant I had to be out of bed by 5 a.m., which meant, as a non-morning person, I was never going to last in that job. I was late. A lot. In fact, if I remember correctly, the only time I was on time was for the job interview. Bakeries and early mornings had to come off my job list.
Supermarkets were the next step up. The hours were more to my liking—a 12 to 8 p.m. shift I could do. The pay at the big ones like Sainsbury’s and Tesco was average, around that time £2.50 per hour, for either stacking shelves or working on the register. The register jobs were the most coveted, as you got to sit down, and you had a good view of the whole store, so you could watch the boys you liked. Plus all the store gossip came through the cash registers. Who kissed who in the back of the storeroom last week, who got caught stealing and was sacked, who was seen in the pharmacy section picking up discounted herpes ointments. Handling money also always felt more responsible. A perk with food retailers was that you got to take home the nearly out-of-date stuff at a huge staff discount. And that included baked goods. Fuck you, Coombs!
I worked at Sainsbury’s later, when I was seventeen, and I even went out with a little Irish boy then for a few months, because that was what girls were supposed to be doing, and though I’d had crushes on girls and female teachers at school, I hadn’t actually realized what that meant. I hadn’t yet consciously thought about my sexuality. Besides, I still liked boys too. Just not as much.
My little Irish boy, John, lived nearby, so he would take me home and we’d eat lunch with his parents there, and I remember them being very sweet and welcoming. His dad worked at Sainsbury’s as well. John was nineteen years old, but we never had sex. We used to just make out, which I remember enjoying immensely. Later, for my eighteenth birthday, John took me to the first nightclub I had ever been to. Up until that point, as you well know, I wasn’t allowed to go anywhere. That day I packed my nightclub outfit in a bag and changed into it after work so I could sneak off with my boyfriend. But when I got to the club and realized that no amount of supermarket overtime was going to explain my getting home at 5 a.m., I was terrified. I went to a phone box and called my mum, just blurting into the phone, “I’m eighteen now! I’m calling from a nightclub!”
“Okay. Good night.” And she hung up.
I was flabbergasted. It was like she had known this moment would come and had been prepared for it. I couldn’t believe it—I was free!
That was the beginning of the end, as every weekend from then on I went out clubbing. Every. Weekend. From eighteen till I left home at twenty-four.
But I digress . . . back to my threatening the life of another person . . .
At the very top of the part-time-work hierarchy were the department stores and fashion retailers. The top department store chain was Marks & Spencer, an international retailer established in the 1880s. They were known for carrying the best quality British-sourced groceries as well as British-made clothing. Their clothing wasn’t that fashionable, but they were world-renowned, and their customer service was unmatched. As long as you had proof of purchase, you could return any item, no matter how long you’d had it. No matter how long you’d had it. You could wear a sweater for ten years and return it, faded, sweat marked, food stained, run over by a car, in six different pieces, for a full refund, no questions asked. People would travel from as far away as Saudi Arabia to shop there. Most important for me, they paid £3.20 per hour. The big bucks. They were great employers, and they knew it, so it was notoriously competitive to get into, and those who did never left, so you had to have your ear to the ground or have friends who worked there so you would get the heads-up when the company was recruiting.
Such was the prestige of working there that kids who got in had to let everyone know they were one of the chosen few by wearing their M&S uniforms all the time. I knew a dude who wore his uniform out on the weekends, just so girls knew he was balling. And that shit worked. Older guys swiveled their BMW keys around their index fingers. Teenagers wore their department-store uniforms.
Working at Marks was the holy grail, and I eventually ended up getting a job there when I was eighteen, but a good fashion store was almost as prestigious, and that is where I wanted to work at sixteen. Those stores didn’t pay as well, but the clothes were more fashionable, you received discounts, and there was no uniform. You got to wear the product, plus you were in the middle of cool-kid central on the weekends, as everyone flocked to these shops to buy their weekend clubbing garb.
Topshop was at the top of the fashion-store list. A huge, multilevel place, the main store housed all the newest designer clothing, accessories, and sneakers. It was and still is located on the corner of Oxford and Regent streets, the first store you see after exiting Oxford Circus station. This store was the first port of call for every teenager and twenty-something who passed through the West End looking for something cool to wear. It was a combination of T.J. Maxx, Manhattan’s Century 21, and a day party all rolled into one. There were cool, good-looking sales staff of different classes and ethnicities (take note Abercrombie & Fitch), loud up-to-date music playing throughout the store, and a general vibe of too-cool-for-school-ness.
Every open position advertised for this store promptly received applications from every young person within a two-hundred-mile radius. So when I applied for a Saturday job there a couple of months after my sixteenth birthday, I was not hopeful, but I still filled out the application like I was applying to be an astronaut. I listed all the subjects at school for which I expected to get good exam grades, I listed hobbies I didn’t have, I feigned a love of fashion, and I even made up a few extracurricular activities, like skiing and volunteering in orphanages. I was overjoyed when I was called in for an interview, and though my wardrobe was limited, as my mum had no interest in buying me the latest fashions (“You can buy all the clothes you want when you become a doctor!”), I had enough pieces to cobble together a decent outfit.
I removed the breast-pocket school insignia from my old navy-blue school blazer and rolled up the sleeves, Duran Duran style. Underneath, I wore a cream satin shirt with a chained brooch—those were all the rage then, and luckily cheap to buy in costume-jewelry stores. I matched that with acid-washed
jeans and a pair of leather boots I’d gotten for my fifteenth birthday—the only fashionable boots my mum had bought me, after two years of begging. I was lucky they were still fashionable. I’d worn them so much that the soles had holes in them, and I put plastic bags inside the boots so my feet wouldn’t get wet when it rained. My unruly hair was curled into a high bouffant and finished with a matching headband fashioned out of the belt that had come with the shirt. The hair alone took me an hour. I looked the shit. I was half Janet Jackson, half Spandau Ballet. I was the epitome of cool and fashionable; I deserved to be working in the trendiest shop on London’s Oxford Street.
I arrived forty minutes early for my interview, so I watched as other immaculately dressed teenagers traipsed in and out. When it was my turn, I was led into a small office where I sat opposite a balding white man in his forties. He introduced himself as Robert and proceeded to ask me questions about myself, what I was doing at school, and why I wanted to work at Topshop. I went on the charm offensive. I told him that I wanted to work in the fashion industry when I left school, and Topshop was the perfect training ground with their support of the new wave of fashion designers, from Mary Quaint in the 1960s to brands like French Connection. I’d gone to the library and researched all this, as these were pre-Google times. Robert was extremely impressed, and after a friendly twenty-minute chat, he offered me a job on the spot. I was to start work in two weeks. I’d be working Friday evenings and all day on Saturdays, with an option to work full-time during the summer holidays.
I thanked Robert profusely and floated out of the store. After years of being Regina Vagina at school, I had finally entered the cool phase of my life. I would be starting work at the coolest shop in the West End as Gina. I was going to get a staff discount on all these cool designer clothes. I was going to get an equally cool boyfriend, and we’d go to all the cool nightclubs. Life was about to get infinitely better. I went home and phoned everyone I knew to tell them the good news, then spent the next two weeks methodically arranging outfits for my first week at work.
