Alright, I try it. I tell a story. But he demands more. He wants to know who did what, specifically, and to whom. How did it feel? (Give him visceral physicality.) Who is to blame? (A single, flawed individual. Not a system or society or the complicity of an undistinguished majority in maintaining the status quo…) And what does it teach us? How will our heroine transcend her victimhood? Tell him more, he encourages. He says he’s listening. He wants to know.
What else could I say – how much detail is enough? Enough to unlock thoughts or understanding or even something basic, human, empathetic within him. It’s just not there. Or, I can’t speak to it. My only tool of expression is the language of this place. Its bias and assumptions permeate all reason I could construct from it.
These words, symbols arranged on the page (itself a pure, unblemished vehicle for objective elucidation of thought), these basic units of civilization – how could they harbour ill intent?
Fig 5.
white
having no hue due to the reflection of all or almost all incident light
black
without light; completely dark
without hope or alleviation; gloomy
very dirty or soiled
bloodless or pale, as from pain, emotion, etc
benevolent or without malicious intent
angry or resentful
colourless or transparent
dealing with the unpleasant
realities of life, esp in a pessimistic
or macabre manner
capped with or accompanied by snow
counterrevolutionary, very conservative, or royalist
causing, resulting from, or showing great misfortune
blank, as an unprinted area of a page
wicked or harmful
honourable or generous
causing or deserving dishonour or censure
morally unblemished
(of the face) purple, as from suffocation
(of times, seasons, etc) auspicious; favourable
bleed white
whiter than white
How can I use such a language to examine the society it reinforces? The society that conceived it; spoke it into existence and fostered it to maturity as its people scribbled cursive enlightenment anywhere I might call home?
The white hand printed on the white van brandishes silvery cuffs against a black backdrop, beside large stamp-effect typeface searing the playground-familiar taunt into taxpayer-funded legitimacy: GO HOME or face arrest.
Fig 6.
@hmtreasury:
Here’s today’s surprising #FridayFact. Millions of you helped end the slave trade through your taxes.
(Her Majesty’s Treasury’s Twitter account accompanies this cutesy misrepresentation of history with an illustration depicting people, enslaved – including a mother, baby strapped to her back and chain heavy around her neck. The caption boasts of Britain’s generosity in buying freedom for all slaves in the empire. Compensating slave-owners for property lost. Did you know?)
Is it true that his family’s wealth today was funded in part by that bought freedom; the loan my taxes paid off? Yes. And he is an individual and I am an individual and neither of us were there, were responsible for the actions of our historical selves? Yes. Yet, he lives off the capital returns, while I work to pay off the interest? Yes. But, here I am now, walking through the fruits of it; land he owns, history he cherishes; the familiar grounding, soil, bricks and trees stretching metres high; the sense of belonging, of safety, of being home. He has that here, always, to return to? Yes. Sleeping this morning, did he look renewed? Yes. Yes, of course. He is home.
I didn’t show him the flat right away. I’d been reluctant to share this part of me that, while external, felt so personal.
‘Is it that one? No, not that one?’ he’d teased, pointing at the ugliest buildings we passed as I walked him to it, a few days after completion. He paced around the front garden, while I searched the bunch for a key to the outer door. He rushed up both flights of stairs with lunging, two-step leaps. Inside, the rooms were stripped – only curtains, carpets and a sour musk remained from the previous inhabitants. He ran his hand along the cracked magnolia paint, then crouched to inspect the sealed fireplace. At the far end of the room, he yanked back the curtains and peered out through the big bay windows, rattling in their rotting-wood frames.
‘It’s rather nice, isn’t it?’ he said into the glass.
Between my clasped palms, the keys pressed unfamiliar.
‘Now,’ he said. ‘You just need art!’
But first, renovation. The original features are carefully restored. We browse for furniture and decorations. The selected piece arrives via courier in a smart box, along with a crisp white envelope bearing a document titled: Certificate of Authenticity. Also in the box is a folded leaflet printed with supplemental information about this lithograph.
When alone for an evening, in this tasteful home I’ve fashioned, I strip off the day’s clothes. Layers, fabric, peel from skin until there’s nothing left beneath. Still, nothing more is revealed; no hidden self, no nakedness. No exotic, exposed other.
Nothing.
I sink into it.
Pull at it, take these strands, gather them up and spool them around you; reconstruct yourself from the scraps. Say: I love you. I love working here. I loved speaking today. No, no it was nothing. I am fine, I am; I’m excited, yes, for the future – say whatever they tell you to say or not say, just survive it; march on into the inevitable. As our mothers, and fathers, did. Our grandparents before them. Survive.
I’m not sure I understood that I could stop, before this. That there was any alternative to survivable. But in my metastasis, I find possibility. I must engage the question seriously: why live? Why subject myself further to their reductive gaze? To this crushing objecthood. Why endure my own dehumanization? I have the flat, savings and some investments, pensions, plus a substantial life-insurance policy. I have amassed a new opportunity, something to pass on. Forwards. To my sister. A fighting chance. Though, she would not want this. Yes, I am leaving her here alone.
But to carry on, now that I have a choice, is to choose complicity.
Surviving makes me a participant in their narrative. Succeed or fail, my existence only reinforces this construct. I reject it. I reject these options. I reject this life. Yes, I understand the pain. The pain is transformational – transcendent – the undoing of construction. A return, mercifully, to dust.
I’ve walked quite far, I realize.
I turn back to survey the view. Even up here, I feel it against my skin, the thumping nationalism of this place. I am the stretched-taut membrane of a drum, against which their identity beats. I cannot escape its rhythm. Everything awaits, Monday – New York, then back in the office. For the rest of my life these Mondays loom loud, thudding and crushing, crescendoing on to me, tearing through –
– but it’s quiet, now. I sit on the grass and look out over the family’s bustling estate. The tableau before me moves small and detached from sound, though well-composed. The house and the greenery set a splendid backdrop for the lively garden scene. Fruits and bottles, ripe, laid out, ready for uncorking and consumption; opening mouths. Four figures – dressed in black – erect stands formed of the tiniest strokes, then open up cases. The satisfying pop, after the click, the final creak are unheard – but I can almost smell the sweet resin as they, with maternal care, lift instrumental bodies from velvet lining.
There’s much here to delight an eagle-eyed viewer. Spot the animated figures: the caterer, clipboard in hand, at the corner smoothing a tablecloth. A loose edge of the marquee flapping harmlessly above – a tiny strand (imagined? hinted?) waving in the welcome breeze. The busy mother pausing to rearrange a table bouquet. The daughter, bouncing an infant, inspecting a bottle, turning to her husband.
Yes, I’m staring, but I do not diminish; I cannot snuff out such vibrancy with my dim view from afar. Still, I have looked – I’ve seen, and even
if I cannot express what it is I saw here, what I’ve come to understand, I know it’s enough.
I’ve seen enough.
I watch now with the benevolent patience my decision, my untethering from this life, affords. As the son, my boyfriend, walks out through the gate, and takes a shorter path up through these hills. Occasionally obscured by trees, he presses on until he’s too large for the scene, stepping out of it, into life. He advances.
‘There you are,’ he says when he gets to me. ‘Hiding out?’
I squint up at his face. He holds up an open bottle of champagne with a roguish grin.
‘Pinched some provisions!’
He crouches, then stretches out, until he’s lying awkwardly beside me. He sets the bottle down on the grass. His shirtsleeves and collar scrunch out from under his gilet. I think I hear the faint resonance of the band warming up, blending bittersweet into the chirping and rustling soundscape of this place.
‘Look. About that puppy business, before –’ He stops. I watch him roll on to his back.
‘I’ve been thinking,’ he says up to the sky, ‘about all this. You know, your – our brush with cancer.’ He stage-whispers the word. Imbues it with a perverse, buzzing electricity. ‘Coming so close to – well, death. It’s given me perspective. A reminder. Of what’s important, what truly matters.
‘Life, it’s…’ He smiles, and familiar lines crinkle from the corners of his eyes.
‘We’ve got to seize it!’
I can’t see London from here. Nothing scrapes or pierces the soft blue sky. And he’s better for it. Something about the city, its construction, the industry, the bustling globalization – erodes him. He turns to me, his eyes wide, and searching. He touches his hand to my arm.
‘My parents think you’re great.’ He smiles. We lie in silence, for a moment.
‘Fuck it,’ he says. ‘Let’s get married.’
He inches towards me, eyes soft-closed and lips squeezed into a kissy pout. He believes his words in this moment, I believe that. But his is the fleeting belief of a moment, and it will pass. As soon as new fancy strikes, the next adventure. I understand. It’s the impulse of a boy who himself understands, in his flesh and bones and blood and skin, that he was born to helm this great nation – upon which the sun has never set. Not yet. It’s bright, now. And the sky is impossibly blue. He’s himself again. Here. At home, and rendered in sharp contrast to me. But without this place, without that contrast –
What had you hoped to find here?
I should meet his kiss. Then we’ll clamber up, brush off, and walk back down to the house holding hands. Guests will be here soon, it’s almost time. Everything’s coming together. The champagne’s tilted over, its fizzy contents puddling on to dry soil and grass. His lips tremble with the strain of pursing; confident in the assumed yes, and yet, uncertain.
Suddenly, so uncertain.
Footnote
1. It is remarkable, even
in the ostensible privacy of my own thoughts
I feel
(still)
compelled
to restrict what I say.
Acknowledgments
Thank you to my editor, Hermione Thompson, and my agent, Emma Paterson, for the insight, support and guidance. Along with Jean Garnett and Monica MacSwan, I couldn’t have hoped to work with a better team.
I am grateful to Spread The Word for selecting me for a 2019 London Writers Award. Thank you Bobby, Eva, Ruth and team for the opportunity.
Thanks also to Jackee and Elise Brown, Amina Begum, Harald Carlens, Maja Waite, Han Smith, Niroshini S., Adam Zmith, Salma Ibrahim, Taranjit Mander, Vanessa Dreme, Chloe Davies, Sarah Day, Francisca Monteiro, Lisa Baker, Laura Otal, Anna Hall, Jacinta Read, Katy Darby, Rose Tomaszewska and Sam Copeland.
And to my family – thank you for everything. This book would not have been possible without your support.
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Notes
here Chapter 4 of Ecclesiastes, NIV translation.
here Lyndon B. Johnson, as quoted by Bill Moyers in a Washington Post article, 13 November 1988.
here See ‘Postmodern Blackness’ by bell hooks.
here Collins English Dictionary.
here HM Treasury account on Twitter, 9 February 2018, since deleted.
here See Citizen: An American Lyric by Claudia Rankine for more on the historical self.
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