The White Family

by Maggie Gee

  We didn’t have children. He was sure we would. It fell slowly upon us, the heaviest sorrow. If I had his children, he would still be with me. I did conceive. Twice. Two boys. One lost at ten weeks, one at twelve. In the first years of marriage. Afterwards, nothing.

  I knew nothing about Africa when I met him, I thought all black people were Africans. My dad hated black people, of course, and he called them ‘coloured’, so I did too, though whatever Dad hated I was ready to like, and I never knew ‘coloured’ was insulting till I went with Kojo and he told me not to say it. I asked him the difference between ‘coloured’ and ‘black’ and he said, ‘Right now you are blushing, Shirley. When you’re upset, you turn every kind of colour. Don’t you think white skins colour more than ours?’ It was another world, with another way of thinking.

  Elroy’s family is Jamaican, though he was born in south London. That’s partly why Elroy is jealous of Kojo, because he was African, and so highly educated. West Indians don’t like Africans much and I always think it’s jealousy. Africans have their own names, after all. West Indians don’t. White people stole them. I felt so ashamed when Kojo told me West Indian names are all slave names. Slave owners stamping their names forever … and then there are the Africans who don’t like West Indians, ‘slave babies’. The worst insult.

  It isn’t easy, being Caribbean. What they feel about Africans isn’t simple. They think that Africans are backward and strange, as well as saying they’re perpetual students. Which some of the Africans over here are –

  But Kojo made it, he got his D Phil and became a lecturer, a Reader, in fact, which is next to Professor – A Reader in Comparative Literature. But his success makes Elroy feel small (because Elroy will never be as clever as Kojo). Though Elroy’s done very well, in fact, at least he has a steady job, unlike most black men of his generation.

  I used to feel so proud when I went to see Kojo. DR KOJO ASANTE on the door of his office. I loved being married to a doctor. I did, I admit it, I was sinfully proud, and perhaps that’s why God took him away from me – No, nonsense, God isn’t vengeful.

  Today I got up at half-seven with Elroy. He always leaves at eight a.m. When you’re up at half-seven, the mornings are long. I’d made the bed and washed the breakfast things and polished the table and watered the house-plants and done the dusting and a load of washing and ironed another by quarter past ten.

  And looked out of the window. The garden I made. The garden I made to enjoy with Kojo. Long green tails of bulbs flicking up. The apple-tree where we used to picnic. And it’s still raining, always raining …

  Elroy’s lighter than Kojo. He had one white grandmother. Kojo was black, dark, dark, beautiful black, a black with the sheen of coal or grapes, I loved his skin, I licked his skin. His blue-black shining West African skin. The skin of princes, emperors. Giving back light. Black full of light. I loved him so much I wanted to eat him.

  When the cancer came, it did seem to eat him. At first he was slimmer. Then much too thin. And his skin lost its shine. It had a greyish tinge. It was me who insisted he went to the doctor, although I was as afraid as him, and he found so many reasons for delaying. Until he couldn’t delay any longer. In constant pain, always coughing.

  And then there were things he had to do. Practical things, legal things, things which took time he did not have, but he sat with the lawyer, coughing, gasping, as words like ‘domicile’ and ‘future intention’ and ‘nationality’ droned through the air, and I brought them black coffee, but they hardly looked up. Kojo had been given a great deal of wealth by his mother’s brother, an international diplomat, descended, as Kojo was, from paramount chiefs and ultimately from Ashanti kings. We’d never had to worry about money … (So hard to get used to, being married, being rich, being loved by someone I loved in return. So hard to get used to, so hard to lose.) The Ashanti tribe believes all wealth must stay within the family, handed down through the female line, so Kojo knew that on his death they would expect his possessions to come back. He had given and given, all the time we were together, to his sisters and his sisters’ children, his cousins and his cousins’ children, but it wasn’t enough, they would expect his estate. They weren’t greedy, it was simply the custom. I knew that most of them had never accepted that I was his wife, though it was nothing personal, indeed they were warm and friendly to me, they were simply waiting for Kojo to come home and take his legitimate, Ashanti wife – I didn’t mind if they had his money.

  But Kojo minded. He wanted it for me, since he couldn’t stay alive and protect me. In the end nearly all of it came to me, but I still send money to all his dependants. It makes me feel better, doing that. It somehow proves I was his wife, I am his widow, and part of his family, part of Kojo, Mrs Shirley Asante …

  Now he is dead, I believe they accept me. His sister Abena brings her children over from Ghana to stay. To begin with, we were shy with each other. The little girls stared at me, deep into my eyes, touched my hair, tried to plait it, sat on my lap and stroked my face. At first my whiteness hypnotized them. Their mother seemed frightened or hostile on arrival, but she was grudgingly impressed when I cooked them dinner, jolof rice with chicken and corned beef and plantain on the side, great steaming platefuls, palm soup and peanut soup, so many choices. ‘Not bad for an obroni,’ she said. ‘But you need more ginger. Didn’t Kojo tell you?’

  I said to her, firmly, ‘He loved my food.’ I had prepared a feast, enough for ten people, to show them they were welcome, to show them I could do it, I so much wanted to be part of their family.

  But she still hadn’t got over the dispute about the will. She smiled at me, but her eyes didn’t smile. She said, ‘No obroni could cook fufu, or banku.’

  I put them on the table: fufu, banku. The consistency exactly right. Stodgy, starchy, but not too heavy.

  By the time we had finished the meal we were friends. When she went up to bed she came and hugged me, close to her chest. ‘Oh Shirley – I love you, Shirley.’ So African! So very un-English! Over the next few days she wept with me, wept and laughed, held my hand. We swopped our memories of Kojo –

  But only memories. I am a widow.

  Such a bleak poor word. Widow, widow, wailing and sad, on two dull notes. All I wanted to be was wife and mother, Kojo’s wife for the rest of my life, mother of his healthy children.

  Despite the sorrows (my family, number one, and the morons who said cruel things on the street) – against all the odds, we were blissfully happy. And yet there were sorrows and differences. Ashanti men may not enter the kitchen! I told him that modern British men all did, but I happily cooked for him, cared for him, loved him, and he cared for me, he cared for me … And then there was his cousin who came and made trouble. She stayed with us; I made her welcome. On the second day, when Kojo went out, she asked me why I hadn’t given him a baby. I couldn’t speak; the hurt stole my breath. Then she laughed, and said he already had children, didn’t I know? So it didn’t matter. Soon he would leave me, and go back to Ghana. ‘We are waiting for him, we know he will come.’ When Kojo came home he could see I’d been crying. I said ‘You’re not going to leave me, Kojo?’ and he stormed next door and shouted at his cousin. It was all in Tri. There was a long argument. She left, with her cases, hardly speaking to me. He came back into the house looking almost frightened. ‘I shall never ask you, Kojo,’ I said. And whatever the truth, he stayed with me.

  We left our families to be together, we had to be all in all to each other. Beneath us, the Everlasting Arms. We thought there would be so many years.

  Stupid tears. They never run dry.

  Stop. Wipe. I have to go out.

  Purse, make-up, cheque-book, coat.

  How many times have I walked to this bus stop?

  Oxford Street is a vision of hell. The bus goes nosing down like a barge, crushing the struggling souls beneath. From the top deck, waves of them seem to disappear, sucked slowly under the metal prow, going under the wheels, silently under.

&nbs
p; But I’m sitting pretty on the very front seat, which I took when two screaming kids got off, how can I like them when I’ve none of my own? (Elroy would like to have kids with me, Elroy is sure we shall be lucky. He says if we marry God will surely bless us, that it’s to God’s glory if we bear much fruit, for He is the Vine, and we are the branches. Elroy already has a child, seven or eight years old, a boy, Dwayne. He never sees the mother; he claims she hates him. He wants to start again, with me.)

  I was sitting behind them. Sisters, I think. Nine or ten years old, I’m not a good judge. Arms round each other, giggling and screaming …

  (I wish I could make friends with Elroy’s sisters. If I had a baby, I think it would help. Elroy’s brother Winston is sweet to me, because he is sweet to everybody, the younger brother, the pride of the family, a student at London University. He has big soft eyes like a baby deer, and he’s always smiling, or laughing, as if he knows some secret joke about life. And he’s clever; so clever I could listen forever, though I wouldn’t want to make Elroy jealous. The two of us are going to a film on Saturday about the life of James Baldwin, the writer. Winston suddenly invited the family to come but none of the others was interested, and Elroy said, ‘Wasn’t he a battyboy, Winston? We did him at school. Waste of a Saturday. Why don’t you come down the club with me?’ But I said, ‘My mother’s got one of his novels. I’ll go with you, Winston, if you want me to.’ The sisters are different – one shy, one prickly. I feel so awkward with Delorice and Viola. Delorice who always has the baby in her arms and only ever talks to her, and Viola, so lean and muscular and pretty, the older sister, the driving one, managing a boutique in Kilburn and planning on partnership and then expansion. Such a fast talker, so glamorous, working out in the gym every day. With her I feel meek and flabby and stupid. I’d like her to like me, but I don’t think she does. I’d like to be part of their family.)

  If Elroy and I had a family, I often think it would all be easy.

  Warm and dry in the revolving door, sweeping me into sweet-smelling heaven.

  The department stores: my second home. Mum says they never shopped like us, in her day. The big stores weren’t for people like her. I think it frightens her, my shopping, even though I tell her I have plenty of money, even though it doesn’t do any harm. ‘We only shopped when we had to, dear. Too much to do, and we didn’t have the money.’I do have the money. Kojo’s money.

  They make me welcome. I feel I fit in. I don’t feel lonely or sad, when I’m shopping.

  Besides, a lot of shops know me, by now. The Hosiery department, in DH Evans. Ladies’ Fashion in Selfridges. I like to specialize, you see. That way, they start to take an interest. In the Perfume department in John Lewis, they know my face, they know my taste. They look at me and think Givenchy. Imagine that. A family of scents. A beautiful family, a Parisian family, worn on smooth skin all over the world, worn with lace, worn with pearls –

  They look at me, and think ‘Paris, Europe,’ not Shirley White as I used to be, one of the family from Hillesden Junction, who’ve lived in Hillesden since life began. And with that thought, they set me free.

  All my life till I was twenty-eight and married Kojo, I was Shirley White. Alfred and May’s unmarried daughter. The one who somehow messed up her life. In the mean streets of Hillesden they thought they knew me.

  Kojo saved me. Kojo re-named me. Kojo saw what I could become.

  And then he bloody went and left me. Then he died, and let me down. Then he got ill from the wretched fags, the bloody awful lethal fags, the hateful stinking sticks of poison, drawers full of cartons from the duty-free.

  Then he died and abandoned me. And I was dragged back to my family.

  What if Dad starts shrinking like Kojo did? Before my eyes, inch by inch. I tempted him with all his favourite dishes, palm soup with fufu, spinach and okra stew, but he ate less and less, though he wanted to please me. I begged him to eat, one steamy hot day, and he lost his temper, Kojo never lost his temper but he shouted at the wall, the window, the garden, the little garden so unlike Ghana, ‘Nothing tastes right … How can I eat it?’ Then he muttered something angry about obroni.

  I think he meant he was missing Ghana, perhaps he wanted to die in Ghana. After he shouted, I began to cry. I started to clear the plates away. And he said, very quietly, himself again, ‘But I love you, my Obroni Yaa.’ It meant, ‘White Person Born on Thursday’. I went and hugged him. He was skin and bone. ‘I don’t want to leave you.’ ‘You’re not going to leave me.’ Thursday’s child has far to go … I would have followed him anywhere, but I couldn’t die, though I lay beside his body and begged Jesus to take me.

  But Dad won’t die. Of course he won’t. People get better from strokes all the time. I should worry about Mum. She’ll wait on him even more than usual, hand and foot –

  I don’t think I shall be able to help her. I’ll do my best, but I don’t think I can bear it. I don’t want to look after his body, however old it’s become, and weak.

  Because when he was strong, he frightened us.

  The boys worse than me, but he hit me too. When I was too little to protect myself. I took it for granted for years and years, and then I realized he had no right. That I had a right to mind, to be angry. And I was angry. I am angry. More for the fear, I think, than the bruises. No bruises to speak of. Only the fear.

  I like the café I’m going to. One of the nicest of the big store cafés. I look good in the mirrors: blond, confident, surging upwards on the escalator. Past Children’s Clothes, which I never look at, searching for the pale pink sign for heaven: Café Claire. Waitress Service.

  I like to sit where I can see the view. Right across the roofs of London. I once tried counting all the windows you could see. Windows where people might be sitting and dreaming or getting better from illnesses. Windows where lovers might lie in bed. I stopped when I got near two hundred.

  I don’t want to think. Turn up the Muzak. Well-dressed women, mostly older than me, blond-streaked helmets, their heads held high. They have had husbands, sorrows, triumphs, they lift their chins, they put on a good show. (And children. Most of them must have had children.)

  Mum had three children. I have none.

  19 • May

  May butted on down the dark road in the rain. Every part of her felt uncomfortable. The fingers of her gloves were cold and soggy. There seemed to be nobody around to chat to, though there would be a queue in the post office.

  She liked the postmaster, Mr Varsani, a meticulous man who had come to England after the war and brought up his family in Hillesden Rise. They were the first in their street to modernize their house, the first with an extension, the first to concrete over the little front garden. They kept the plane-tree, which others had not. Two cars shone side by side on the concrete, cleaned and polished every weekend. He chatted to May when the counter wasn’t busy. She liked his smooth tan skin, his sharp intelligence, though Alfred picked it up and got jealous and accused him of cheating with the change. ‘See what they’re like. You can’t trust them.’ That was her husband. Men did get jealous.

  Now May was depending on Nimit Varsani to sort out her problem with the pension book. Thank heavens for the post office, she thought. Where would the old people be without that? She herself wasn’t old, but there were so many people who could hardly walk, and wouldn’t make it to Kilburn. And the young mothers, trailing crowds of kids. They didn’t all have cars. They didn’t all have husbands. The post office was the heart of Hillesden Rise.

  The young ones seemed to view it as a cash dispenser, going in to collect their weekly wage, though all they were doing to earn it was breeding – May caught herself back. She disapproved of envy. But she and Alfred had always worked for their money, and she had cleaned floors when the kids were little, taking them with her, which was miserable in houses where they weren’t allowed to make a noise. She didn’t wish hardship on other people. But she sometimes wondered how Nimit felt, handing out thousands of the government�
��s money, seeing the same faces year after year, when he, as he had once told her proudly, had ‘tried to take nothing from this country’ – he paid for the children to be born in private hospitals, sent them to expensive private schools. He put a lot in and took nothing out. Nimit served the community, didn’t he, as she had once pointed out to Alfred. ‘I know you don’t like him, but he’s just like you. Both of you serve the community, Alfred.’

  Which was why May was glad that for once today she was paying something in before she drew their money. They had a little giro account at Nimit’s, and she meant to pay in the thick wad of crisp notes that Darren had handed her last night. ‘Take it – don’t fuss. Picked it up at the airport. My God, you are my mother, after all. I’m not having you short of money.’ Susie was watching, which May didn’t like. It made them look poor, in front of strangers, which was what Susie was, though she was Darren’s wife. ‘I’m not short,’ May said. ‘It’s just – a technicality. To do with signatures. You know your father.’

  ‘It’s a Stone Age marriage. Dad signs everything,’ said Darren to Susie, with a superior smile.

  ‘Well at least it’s lasted,’ May flashed back, shoving the notes crossly into her bag. Unlike yours, Mr Bighead, she thought to herself.

  Later, much later, she counted them and marvelled. Could he hand out three hundred pounds just like that? Even if he could, she wasn’t going to spend it. Maybe when Alfred was better, they could take a little break … Nearing the red sign, she was suddenly uncertain, patting vaguely at her bag in the whipping rain. It didn’t feel fat enough to hold the money. Had she gone and forgotten it? Old, stupid.

  Ignoring the rain, which was dripping down her neck, she shoved her gloved hand inside the bag’s hard jaws. But her big metal comb hooked on to the wool, and she shook her hand, irritably, to get the damn thing off and suddenly everything was clattering downwards, all caught together in some ghastly muddle, purse, notebook, mirror, change – and finally, just too fast for her, the bundle of notes went spinning downwards, and as she gasped and reached out desperately to catch it, May herself went sprawling, foot turning and slipping on the greasy pavement, and as she fell, she dropped her whisky. The crash of the glass sounded very final.