I nodded. I had almost forgotten all about church.
Prodigal Sons
MISHA
The pavement outside Gran’s church in Brixton was packed and the crowd heaved with greetings, laughter and the click of high heels on tarmac. The pavement was covered with immaculately turned-out African-Caribbean men and women – no one spared any effort in getting dressed for church. It was one of those occasions women still wore hats. They shimmered in gorgeous maxi-dresses, pencil skirts and smart trouser-suits.
I mentally assigned points for the different outfits, something I always did at the Brixton church. Our church in Dulwich was a more sedate affair – most of the people there were white, so everything was much more toned down.
As a little girl, I could remember standing outside the church building and being fascinated by the women’s gorgeous skin tones: deepest ebony, walnut brown and amber – and their hair – the smooth, synthetic weaves, bouncing braids and sleek up-dos. The church ladies were always styled to perfection, their make-up flawless.
This Sunday, I couldn’t help noticing that several of the younger members of the congregation wore tank tops, skinny jeans and the latest style gladiator platform heels. Hadn’t Pastor James spoken about that just last weekend?
Grandma took my arm and walked painfully towards the entrance. She kissed her teeth and muttered, “These young people have no shame – coming to the house of God dressed for the dance hall.”
I helped Gran climb the steps and settle herself in one of the front rows. I was so pleased to see her, I just sat next to her, my hand in hers, stroking the sleeve of her turquoise silk suit jacket. It had been three weeks since Mum had last agreed to attend church in Brixton and Gran wouldn’t come to the church in our area. I had missed her. And I had missed the church that I’d grown up in too.
Pastor James, his bald patch shining under the neon lights, was on fire that day. He gave a sermon based on the story of the prodigal son, from Luke, Chapter 15. His deep voice rumbled through the hall as he retold the story of the son who asked for his inheritance early, only to waste it on fast living, ending up humiliated and abased, feeding pigs while wishing for their food.
Then the pastor’s voice lightened, his words rippling and flowing over our raised heads, like water over pebbles in a stream, as he spoke of the father’s joy at seeing his prodigal son return home and the feast he prepared in his honour.
“But, my brothers and sisters,” he continued, his eyes bright, “the man’s elder son was not pleased, not at all! And he questioned his father. He said, ‘Look, these many years I have served you, and I never disobeyed your command, yet you never gave me so much as a young goat that I might celebrate with my friends.’ Imagine his bitterness, brothers and sisters! And he continued, saying, ‘But when this son of yours came, he who has devoured your property with prostitutes, you killed the fattened calf for him!’ And what did the father say, brothers and sisters? What did he say? That father said, ‘Son, you are always with me, and all that is mine is yours. It was fitting to celebrate and be glad, for this your brother was dead, and is alive; he was lost, and is found.’ What did the father say, my brothers and sisters? He was lost and is now found, Amen!”
It was an emotional moment and I felt my heart beating along with the cries of Amen and Hallelujah! that came from the congregation. The choir broke into a hymn, one of Grandma’s favourites, and people rose to their feet, swaying to the music, clapping their hands. When the refrain had been sung for the third time, Pastor James lifted up his hands and everyone settled back into their seats.
The pastor’s face was serious now and he scanned the crowd before crying out, “Now, where are all our prodigal sons?”
Silence settled in the church and Pastor James cried out once more, his voice echoing through the hall, driving right through me. “Brothers and sisters, I ask you again: where are all our prodigal sons?”
Pastor walked down from the podium, his microphone in hand. “I’ll tell you where our prodigal sons are: they are out on the streets! They’re out there, robbing, stealing, doing drugs, selling drugs, fornicating! Shooting innocent people! They are languishing in jails! They are rotting in crack houses! They are in every evil place, doing every evil thing! They are living a life of wickedness, just like in the parable!”
He stopped for a moment to mop the sweat that dotted his forehead, breathing hard, looking around him, his eyes blazing. As usual, during a sermon, I searched my heart to see if, somehow, the message applied to me. No, thank God, I was no prodigal daughter. Mum didn’t have to worry about me, not at all. But a small voice inside my head taunted me: ‘What about last night?’
“Some of you don’t know where your sons were last night. Some of you don’t know where your sons are right now! You don’t even ask any more! Why? Because we have come to fear our own children, brothers and sisters. We have come to fear our own flesh and blood!”
I heard the sound of sobbing a few rows behind me and I turned to see an older Ghanaian woman, her wrapped head bowed, crying into her handkerchief. There were others too. The pastor’s words had touched a raw nerve.
I looked over at Mum to gauge her reaction and saw that she was looking straight ahead, her face betraying no emotion. But her hand was holding on to mine so tightly that it hurt.
Pastor continued. “I would like to say to all those prodigal sons: come back, my children! Come back to the house of your Father! Come back to the body of the Church! Leave your evil ways and be welcome! This is what we must tell our wayward children, brothers and sisters: that they are always welcome in God’s house.”
Ms Braithwaite, the piano player, played the first bars of the hymn and Sylvia stood up. Her pure, sweet voice rang out into the rafters of the building and I honestly felt like crying, it was so beautiful. As she sang of forgiveness and being washed clean of sin, we all rose to join in and sing the hymn together. I soon found tears running down my cheeks. And I knew that it wasn’t due to Sylvia’s singing alone.
When the service was over, Pastor James congratulated Sylvia on her singing, asked Grandma about her arthritis, and then went to speak to the woman who had been crying. It turned out that her son had been badly beaten by a gang of thugs late on Friday night. He had been knifed in the leg and was in hospital. He was twelve. I was shocked. Twelve? My step-brother, Mark, was twelve! Why would anyone stab a twelve-year-old?
“How could this happen?” The Ghanaian woman wailed, clutching her hands together in front of her chest. “I tried so hard... so hard...” She wept into the pastor’s shoulder. “I didn’t even know he had gone out. When I checked his bed, I saw that he had stuffed it with his clothes to make it look like he was still asleep... I didn’t even know he had left the house.”
The pastor shook his head as he patted her back. “Indeed, this is a trial, sister,” he crooned. “We must all pray for these sons of ours... there is no doubt that they are in need of strong prayer.”
“We should go,” said Mum.
“Come on, Gran.” I took my grandmother’s arm. “Let me help you...”
In the car on the way home, Mum said, “You know what? Every day I thank God Misha was born a girl. I don’t know what I would do if I had a son to worry about. Especially with the way things are these days.”
“Yes, it’s true,” Gran agreed. “In my day, you worried about the girls more. Now, it seems the boys are getting into worse trouble. Lawd a’mercy, what a time we are living in.”
“And I thank Him that I was able to move us out of this terrible place – Brixton!” Mum pretty much spat out the word. “Can you believe that? A child from a good, church-going family, sneaking out and getting into fights – at twelve years of age? I tell you, this area is toxic for our children.”
I shifted awkwardly in my seat when I saw Gran press her lips together. ‘Not now, Mum,’ I thought, ‘please don’t go on one of your anti-Brixton rants...’
But Mum acted like she didn’t feel the fros
ty vibe that Gran was giving off. “Mummy,” she began after a pause, “have you given any more thought to what we spoke about last month? About you moving in with us?”
Gran huffed impatiently and kissed her teeth. “I’ve told you before, Dina, I’m quite happy where I am now, in the house where you children grew up! Your father would have wanted me to look after it, to keep it in the family.”
“But, Mum, that house backs on to that gigantic estate – and terrible things are happening there now. It’s even worse than it was when we lived there! You hear all sorts of horror stories: gangs, drugs, delinquent kids. It’s just not safe any more.”
“I feel perfectly safe,” replied Gran indignantly. “Besides, everybody knows me here. We’re a community. I go to the Caribbean Centre to meet my friends from the old days; I can walk down the road to get my akee and saltfish, my hard dough bread. Where you live? No, darlin’, it’s not for me.”
“Oh, Mummy,” Mum sighed in exasperation. “It’s really not that bad! It’s a very diverse area, really.”
Gran made a clucking noise and frowned. “Is that what you call it? Diverse? How come me can walk to the shop three times a day for a week and not see another black person? No, darlin’, your place is not for me.” And she clamped her mouth shut and looked straight out of the window, clutching the handbag on her lap.
I looked outside. We had reached Coldharbour Lane. The market was already buzzing with life. Fruit’n’veg sellers shouted out their special deals of the day, “Four for a pound!” Loud reggae music vibrated under the walkway and everywhere I could see the rich mix of Brixton.
There were the Rastas with their bulging knitted hats; the African women, still dressed up for church in stiff wax-print head-wraps and two-piece skirt suits, carefully coordinated with bags and shoes; the black Muslim men in their white robes and thick beards, standing behind stalls selling incense and giving out pamphlets. It occurred to me that I hadn’t seen anyone from the Nation of Islam around for a long time. They had always been easy to spot with their upright bearing and smart suits and bow-ties.
Dotted here and there, weaving in and out of the market stalls, I could see the new kids on the block: the scruffy-looking white people who flocked to experience the Brixton vibe. I chuckled to myself. Only a few years before, few white people would have dared set foot in Brixton. But now the vintage clothing shops and the impossibly trendy bars and organic restaurants along Coldharbour Lane catered specifically for them.
I felt a surge of homesickness. This was where I had spent the first eleven years of my life. My old primary school was round the corner. My best friend from primary school, Rachel, lived on the Saints Town estate.
‘I wonder if she is still there...’ I mused, thinking of the gulf that would be so obvious between us now. I spoke differently, of course, I knew that. You don’t go to private school and keep your Eliza Doolittle accent, that’s for sure. My old friends would definitely tease me for ‘talking posh’. But there were other things too: the way I dressed, the labels I chose, the way I styled my hair, the jewellery I wore, the books I read, the films I watched. I was studying Latin at school, for Goodness’ sake.
What would Rachel and I have to talk about? Where was she now? Was she at school? Still playing football? Or had she dropped out to have a baby? Or maybe she was one of those girls who hung around with gangs of boys, looking hard and unreachable.
The thought of Rachel leaning against a car, surrounded by boys in hoodies and bandannas, made me think of the conversation I’d had with my schoolfriend, Aalia.
“Dwayne sounds like a really nice guy, Misha,” Aalia had said. “But I think you should find out more about those gangs on his estate. It’s highly likely that he’s either a member of one or affiliated to one. All the boys are these days.”
“How would you know, Aalia?”
Aalia was the quintessential quiet Muslim girl who, although she didn’t wear a scarf, always wore a pair of straight trousers instead of the pleated skirts that most of us wore. Her hair was pulled back in a neat ponytail and the only hint of exoticism was her tiny gold nose stud, something a lot of Pakistani girls had.
“I live in South-East London, Misha,” Aalia replied. “I pass those estates every day. Plus... my brother’s been getting into some trouble lately. Gang trouble.”
“What do you mean ‘gang trouble’?”
Aalia’s voice was pained. “Some of those gangs are really bad, Misha. They sell drugs, they rob and stab people and destroy property. Haven’t you seen some of the shops in the really rough areas? They’re all boarded up to stop the thugs from smashing the windows and robbing the store.
“All I’m saying is you want to be sure that Dwayne’s not involved in that stuff. I’d hate to see you sucked into that life. I know you live in leafy Dulwich and all that, but you need to open your eyes more. Not everything is as green and serene as it is on this side of the school gates.”
As I sat in the back of the car, watching the buildings flash past, my stomach began tying itself in knots. I thought once again about the pastor’s sermon and whether it was relevant to my own life. And I closed my eyes and recalled an image of a tall black boy, with the same hooded top as Dwayne – looking exactly like Dwayne – crossing a busy street in Camberwell, surrounded by a group of rough-looking black boys in hoodies, bandannas around their foreheads. I had to rub my arms hard to get rid of the goose-bumps.
Succession
DWAYNE
I was proper mash-up on Monday morning when I went to school. I couldn’t stop thinking about Trigger and Jukkie. That madness with the woman and her babies had been playing on my mind all weekend – and then there was Lightning. We’d all gone to see him in hospital on Sunday morning and he was proper bruck-up, his eyes swollen shut, one side of his face dark with bruises. His arm was in a sling and his leg was bandaged up. Dem man didn’t even care that he was just a little kid, a younger who didn’t know any better. They bruck him up, same way.
His mum went mad when she saw us at the hospital. We all went, even Tony. It wouldn’t have been right otherwise. Tony looked different, though, with less bling and a different look in his eyes. I could tell that his time with the ‘brothers’ at the mosque was having an effect on him.
“What are you doing here?” Lightning’s mum shouted, proper loud so that all the patients and nurses turned to look at us.
“I’m so sorry, Mrs Appiah,” Tony said, all humble. “I don’t know how this happened... you know we’ve always looked after little Kofi.” That was Lightning’s real name.
“Looked after him?” Her voice was hoarse. “You’re the reason my son is lying there now! You and all these boys let him hang around with you even though you knew I didn’t want him to!”
“We tried our best to protect him, Mrs Appiah,” repeated Tony, looking down at Lightning. “This should never have happened.” Then I saw him cut his eye at Trigger. Trigger shifted his eyes, quick-time. I didn’t understand what it was all about but I could see that Tony was vex’.
“Well, you didn’t try hard enough.” Mrs Appiah’s words came out like bullets from a gun, hitting all of us where it hurt most. Lightning was one of us, a Younger. He was our responsibility and we’d let him down, big time.
When we got outside the hospital, Tony turned on Trigger. “What the hell are you thinking, blud?” he yelled, pushing Trigger against the wall.
“What?” Trigger screwed up his face and tried to push Tony off but Tony pushed him further up the wall.
“You know what, blud! Don’t act stupid!” The spit from Tony’s mouth landed on Trigger’s face as we all watched, tense, wondering what was going to happen next. I was totally confused – what was Tony on about?
“You! You and your foolishness with the Larkside man is what caused this!”
Then I understood.
“I’m not the one who beat Lightning, so get off me!”
“You started this beef ting with Lockjaw and you knew that
dem man wasn’t gonna walk away! You knew they wouldn’t back down but you went for them anyway! What you tryin’ to prove?”
“Don’t try and boy me, yeah!” Trigger kicked out at Tony and his new trainer hit Tony in the knee. Tony staggered backwards and Trigger rushed at him, grabbed him by the collar and pushed him up against one of the parked cars. I looked round quickly and saw one of the security guards coming towards us.
“Allow this, man!” I said, pulling Jukkie by the arm. “We need to duck out of here.”
But Jukkie stood still, as if he was in a video game stuck on pause. He was just staring at Trigger and Tony as they struggled between the parked cars. A vein in his forehead throbbed and he was chewing his lip like crazy. I guess it must be hard to watch your elder brother being beaten up by your new mentor.
“All right, you lot, break it up!” Two security guards stepped up to Tony and Trigger and pulled them apart. They struggled and cussed but the two guards didn’t let go. “You boys better move along. If you carry on like this, we’ll have no choice but to call the police.”
That was enough to cool their blood. Both of them stopped struggling and stood there, breathing hard, wiping their mouths, eyeing each other up. The guards pushed them to get them moving and barked, “Clear off, the lot of you!”
We stumbled towards the two cars, Tony’s and Trigger’s, all of us a bit dazed by everything that had just happened.
When we got to where the two cars were parked, Tony turned to face Trigger, who pulled himself up and scowled at him. “Trig, I’m warning you, blud. Be careful with dem Larkside mans. You’ve got to take care of RDS now – protect what we’ve built – and that ain’t gonna happen if you get involved in a mad turf war with dem man.”
Trigger twisted his face and snarled, “I ain’t afraid of no one, y’get me. Anyway, you ain’t part of the RDS no more, innit? So what you worrying about? Go back to your mosque and leave man to take care of business, yeah?”
Black Sheep Page 4
