From Pasta to Pigfoot

by Frances Mensah Williams

  ‘What do you want to be doing changing bedpans and catching diseases from all those poofs and bloody foreigners?’ Jim had grumbled, finally starting to wonder if his wife didn’t have a point about too much education.

  Charlotte was halfway through her final year at St Luke’s when she met and fell in love with Olu, a handsome Nigerian doctor who had joined the hospital on a six-month contract. Soon the romance was public knowledge and when Olu proposed four months to the day after their first date, the other student nurses in her hostel clubbed together to throw a party for them.

  Olu insisted that they had to visit Lagos for Charlotte to meet his parents and to see his country before they got married.

  ‘You will love Nigeria, Charlotte,’ he would say constantly, his dark brown eyes gazing deep into hers. ‘And my family will love you very much.’

  Deliriously happy, Charlotte swallowed her apprehension about Jim’s likely reaction and finally found the courage to tell her father her good news.

  ’You want to marry an African? Are you off your head, girl?’ he had asked in incredulous disbelief, too shocked to tell anyone except his wife.

  ‘She should have stuck with working in the local factory like her sisters, Jim. I told you so!’ was the furious response he got from her. Even though she had finally been proved right, her mother was too upset to tell any of Charlotte’s sisters. After all, there was no sense in putting any ideas in their heads either.

  Charlotte, however, was determined not to let anything destroy her happiness. Ignoring her father’s pleas to come to her senses and see things from his point of view, she refused to feel any guilt for what he now saw as his complete lack of credibility down the pub if any of this ever came out. She was even more determined to put aside Jim’s pleas because, as she made the travel arrangements for their trip to Nigeria, she hid a secret but very strong feeling that she was pregnant.

  The afternoon before they were due to leave for the airport, Olu failed to show up for his final shift. No one at the hospital had any idea where he was and after yet another phone call from the hospital administrator, Charlotte was starting to panic when he rang the bell at the flat in the hostel that she still shared with two other student nurses. Her initial relief on seeing he was safe faded quickly as she took in his haggard appearance, rumpled clothes and a strong smell of stale beer, so completely at odds with his usual impeccable appearance. Filled with dread, as he pushed past her and made for her room, she remained standing.

  Olu, who clearly couldn’t, sat down heavily on the small bed, waiting until she finally walked into the room. Keeping his red-rimmed eyes fixed to a spot on the floor between his feet, he remained silent while she stared at him, too afraid to even ask what was wrong.

  ‘Charlotte, please forgive me,’ he said eventually. His voice was muffled and his speech slightly slurred but the shame in his voice was unmistakable.

  ‘We cannot go to Nigeria,’ he said slowly. ‘I already have a wife, Charlotte. She lives with my parents in Lagos.’

  Charlotte looked down at him, numb with shock and unable to say a word. After a brief glance up at her, he lowered his head again and continued haltingly.

  ‘You know, I have wanted to tell you so many times and, God forgive me, I couldn’t do so. But you must believe me… I had planned to leave her and to marry you – I swear to you!’ His voice became more animated as he went on. ‘I phoned my parents today to tell them about you but they told me that my wife is pregnant with our first child. Apparently, she’s been waiting for my return to surprise me with the news. Charlotte, my beloved, please try to understand…’

  His voice tailed off into silence at the icy contempt blazing at him from her eyes. She stared stonily down at the hunched figure sitting on the bed as though he were a complete stranger and, without uttering a word, walked out of the room.

  When Olu eventually left the house, Charlotte took refuge in her bed and stayed there, unable to speak to anyone. Refusing to see Olu, or answer his frantic phone calls, or even talk to her anxious friends, she lay staring silently at the ceiling, only getting out of bed to use the bathroom or to go to the kitchen to make yet another cup of peppermint tea to relieve the nausea that constantly threatened to overwhelm her. This continued for several days until one of her flatmates, coming home from her shift, found her lying in a heap on the kitchen floor and frantically called an ambulance. By the time they reached St Luke’s, it was too late to save her baby. Following an overheard phone call with his wife, who was anxious to find out why his return had been delayed, Olu’s guilty secret was soon public knowledge. Unable to stand the undisguised contempt of the hospital staff, he abruptly terminated his contract and returned home to his unsuspecting wife.

  Confessing to her flatmates that she felt alone and couldn’t bear to go home to face the inevitable “I told you so’s” from her parents, Charlotte decided to escape the hospital and its memories of Olu. She scoured the newspapers and the cards on the windows of the local newsagents, desperate to find a job that would give her the chance for a new start, until finally she spotted a small advertisement in the daily paper for a housekeeper. The job involved looking after a widower who had recently come to England with his two young children and, intrigued by the sound of the vacancy, she phoned the recruitment agency.

  At her interview, Dr Bonsu, who was already impressed by Charlotte’s obvious intelligence and nursing background, was won over when he saw Faye’s reaction to the tall young woman with sad eyes. His daughter had suffered the double trauma of losing her mother and changing countries, and was still extremely wary and shy around people. For Charlotte, the tiny five-year-old with huge eyes and stubby plaits covered in multicoloured ribbons could have been an older version of the baby she had pictured in her mind so often during her short-lived pregnancy. To her father’s astonishment, and as though somehow sensing their mutual need for comfort, Faye had immediately taken to the angular dark-haired woman with shiny brown eyes, and spontaneously reached up to hug her.

  Dr Bonsu explained to Lottie that, as an international medical consultant in a very specialised field, his job required him to travel constantly.

  ‘When my children and I first arrived here,’ he explained, ‘we were accompanied by my cousin who was supposed to live with us and look after the children. Unfortunately, Sophia missed her friends and the active social life she had enjoyed in Ghana too much.’

  Sophia, the doctor admitted, had complained incessantly about the cold weather – it was mid-July – and had eventually packed her bags and taken the next flight back home.

  Shortly after her interview, Charlotte was offered the job and moved immediately into the large house in Hampstead with the Bonsu family, where she was soon known simply as Lottie. Although she never mentioned his name, Charlotte’s experience with Olu had left her extremely bitter and cynical about the intentions of every member of the male sex. Making it clear to anyone who approached her that she had absolutely no time for men in her life, she instead concentrated her efforts on making sure that her adopted family was well cared for.

  Now, shaking her head as she took in Faye’s misery, Lottie dumped the clothes she had retrieved from the floor into a nearby chair and turned back to face her.

  ‘I don’t know what is going on in this house. How do both you and William end up with hangovers this morning when neither one of you hardly ever drinks?’ she asked in exasperation. Although her tone was stern, her soft brown eyes showed her concern.

  ‘Michael was here about an hour ago to return your car, by the way,’ she added. ‘Your father answered the door before I could get to it. You, needless to say, were out for the count!’ She removed the car keys from the pocket of her well-worn brown skirt and dropped them on the pine dressing table with a loud clatter.

  ‘Don’t, Lottie!’ Faye clasped her head between her hands, cringing as the noise sent vibrations reverberating through her head. When the noise in her head had died down slightly, she peeked u
p through her fingers at the older woman.

  ‘Did Michael say anything about last night?’

  Lottie sniffed. As far as she was concerned Michael was a complete waste of her breath.

  ‘He made some comment about you overdoing it with rum,’ she said abruptly. ‘I expect he was responsible for letting you drink, although you should have known better since you were driving, Faye!’

  This time Lottie couldn’t hide her anger. Ten years earlier, her sister had been hit by a car while on her way back from work. The driver, a young salesman on his way home after a long session at the pub, had escaped with a fine while Moira had been sentenced to life in a wheelchair. Lottie’s views on people who drank when driving were, if possible, even more venomous than her views on men.

  Faye’s lips trembled perilously; Lottie was hardly ever angry with her. After the trials of the previous night and in her present weakened state, she felt completely unable to cope with any more guilt.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she pleaded miserably. ‘Please don’t be angry with me, Lottie.’ The drummers that had taken up residence in her head were almost forgotten in the face of Lottie’s rare display of anger.

  The housekeeper’s face softened. ‘Okay, Faye, but you know how I feel about alcohol when it comes to driving.’

  She sat down on the bed and eyed the younger girl curiously. ‘So what did happen? Were you not meeting some friends of Michael’s last night?’

  Faye nodded and immediately regretted it as a wave of nausea washed over her. ‘He took me round to some friends that he used to live with. It was fine until I screwed it all up.’

  ‘How do you mean?’

  ‘They seemed like nice people – well, except for one of them who was really winding me up,’ Faye sighed. ‘I don’t know, Lottie, I felt a bit out of my depth, to be honest. They were all really intellectual and do a hundred different things and are really into black culture and music and stuff. And I suppose me knocking back neat rum on an empty stomach didn’t help.’

  Lottie raised an eyebrow in disbelief. ‘Rum! Seriously, Faye, what were you thinking? Why on earth didn’t you just ask for some wine if you wanted a drink?’

  Faye shrugged. ‘You should have seen their faces when I asked for Coke to go with it – Michael looked like he was going to have a heart attack!’

  She groaned again as she remembered Michael’s exasperated glare and the concerned look on Philomena’s face as he had bundled her into the car to drive her home. ‘Oh no, Michael…! He’s going to be furious with me. I really thought we were moving on to the next level – he’s never taken me out to see his friends before. I can’t believe I’ve messed it up!’

  Lottie repressed a shudder at the idea of what the next level with Michael might involve. ‘Well, it sounds like he could have been a bit more supportive – and you could certainly have been a bit more assertive. I know you wanted to make a good impression on them, but you don’t have to force yourself to drink strong liquor to be accepted, Faye.’

  Before Faye could answer, there was an abrupt knock at the door. Lottie took one look at the alarmed expression on Faye’s face and walked swiftly over to the door, opening it slightly and blocking the entrance with her tall narrow frame.

  ‘Oh, Doctor, it’s you!’ she said smoothly, stepping outside the room and closing the door gently behind her. For several minutes all Faye could hear was the murmur of voices in the corridor and when Lottie came back into the room, her face was grim.

  ‘Well, you’ve got some explaining to do to your father as well, young Faye. He’s waiting for you downstairs. Well, I had better get on – I’ve got plenty to do. We’ll talk properly later, okay?’ With that, she hastily left the room.

  It took a few minutes of waiting for the room to steady itself before Faye managed to heave herself off her bed and stagger to the bathroom. After a long, almost boiling hot shower she dressed slowly in a pair of skinny jeans and a plain black sweatshirt that she had rescued from the local charity shop.

  She stared miserably at her reflection in the mirror, dreading the inevitable lecture coming up from her father. Thank God it’s Sunday today – there’s no way I could have faced a day at Fiske, Fiske & Partners, she thought. She sighed as she headed slowly out of her room.

  Eating breakfast together on Sunday was one of her father’s commandments and as the drumming in her head had now subsided to a leaden pain behind her eyes, she reluctantly started downstairs, walking into the large airy dining room where her father had long finished his breakfast. Hearing her enter the room, he put down the news supplement he had been reading and frowned at her through thick tortoiseshell glasses.

  ‘Morning, Dad,’ Faye mumbled, taking her place at the polished dining table and wincing as bright shafts of morning sun shone through the French windows almost directly into her eyes. She shifted her chair slightly before cautiously pouring herself a cup of black coffee, clutching the pot tightly to prevent her shaky hands from trembling.

  ‘Good morning’ was the short response from her father, who had removed his glasses and was rubbing the bridge of his broad nose while watching her steadily.

  At five feet nine inches, although not a tall man, Kwame Bonsu radiated an air of authority. Widely acknowledged as one of the leaders in his field of medical research, he had graduated at the top of his class at university in his native Ghana before winning a full scholarship to Harvard Medical School, where he specialised in paediatrics. Credited with groundbreaking research into childhood diseases, he was a sought-after expert who spent a good part of his time travelling around the world lecturing and publishing his ongoing research. Her father’s high profile role had earned him the title of ‘the Nelson Mandela of medicine’ from his daughter. Despite her good-natured teasing, Faye was fiercely proud of her father and his achievements – although, she had to admit, she was totally disgusted at the unfairness of William being the one to inherit their father’s impressive mind.

  Inevitably, the doctor’s frequent travelling meant that Lottie had often been left to be both mother and father to his children. It was at times such as this morning that he felt particularly guilty about the effect these absences might have had. Although he had little to worry about with William, who was an ambitious and extremely disciplined man, Dr Bonsu had become increasingly worried about what he saw as Faye’s lack of drive or direction. Convinced that she was capable of doing more with her life, and frustrated that she didn’t seem to realise it, he had tried several times to pin her down to at least identifying a career she would enjoy. Each attempt was no more successful than the last, he thought, casting his mind back to their last conversation on the subject.

  ‘Faye, you shouldn’t be discouraged – there are plenty of careers you can make a go of,’ he had said kindly. ‘You’re not unintelligent. You’re just… a little less academically motivated than William, that’s all.’

  ‘Is that a diplomatic way of explaining away why I couldn’t get any further than A levels and a computing course?’ she had quipped, giggling at his earnest expression. ‘Dad, let’s face it, William is the brains in this family, not me.’ She had quickly changed the subject, reading out a joke her friend had texted her, which soon had him roaring with laughter.

  This morning, however, as he took in her wan appearance, he was in no mood for jokes. Replacing his glasses, he looked directly into her eyes.

  ‘Are you not feeling well?’ He stared pointedly at her trembling hand as she raised the coffee cup to her lips.

  Faye, only too aware of her father’s feelings about alcohol abuse, cast around furiously for something to say. She was saved by William’s entrance. Happily oblivious to the tension in the air, he greeted both of them cheerily and sat down across the table from Faye.

  ‘What’s wrong with you? You look awful!’ he peered closely at her while taking a bite of his father’s leftover toast.

  ‘Thanks.’ Faye muttered, trying without success to kick his ankle under the dining table. The
physical effort immediately set off the throbbing in her head again and she glared angrily at him.

  Dr Bonsu took his glasses off again and turned to his son.

  ‘I was just asking her the same question. And, since you are also here, William,’ he added mildly, ‘perhaps you can both explain to me why we have missed breakfast and church today.’

  As a devout Catholic, Dr Bonsu was uncompromising about church attendance. Although both his children were fully grown adults, he still expected them to attend mass with him every Sunday morning whenever he was home, whatever their own views on the subject. Dr Bonsu was a firm believer in the Ghanaian tradition whereby children respected and obeyed their parents’ wishes so long as they remained under their roof. This morning when neither William nor Faye had shown up ready for their usual nine o’clock mass, he had been alarmed and then irritated – a feeling that was not helped by the unexpected and unwanted arrival of Michael with Faye’s car keys in hand.

  William swallowed the rest of the toast and looked affectionately at his father.

  ‘Sorry, Dad. I was feeling pretty tired last night and overslept,’ he said smoothly. ‘We’ll go to the six o’clock mass this evening. That is’, he added, grinning at his chastened sister, ‘if she’s able to walk.’

  ‘Very funny, William!’ Scowling furiously at her brother, Faye quietly apologised in turn. Her father was a great believer in discipline and was constantly complaining about what he saw as the total disrespect shown by British children towards their parents. ‘I will never tolerate such displays of unacceptable European liberalism,’ he was quick to remind them if he thought he saw any symptoms of this particular disease.