Something to hide a lynl.., p.5
Something to Hide: A Lynley Novel, page 5
part #21 of Inspector Lynley Series
“Don’t you dare,” Deborah said.
RIDLEY ROAD MARKET
DALSTON
NORTH-EAST LONDON
It was midday when Monifa turned into Ridley Road. She could feel the pavement through the soles of her sandals, so blazingly hot it was. There’d been former potholes filled with tarmac along her route from Mayville Estate, and in the searing sun the tarmac was going soft. There was no breeze and, in the sky, not a cloud to be seen. In the market, a few electric fans were whirring, extensions on their flexes running into nearby shops. But they provided relief only to those who stood directly before them, having sweated through their clothing.
As if impervious to the temperature, the stalls and barrows were colourful as always: the peppers red, the plantains green, the bananas yellow. There were pyramids of ripe tomatoes, Puma yams lined up like removed appendages, aubergines so shiny that they looked artificial, strawberries, blueberries, and leafy greens. The air was awash with battling scents: turmeric and garlic, clove and parsley, incense and offal. Here was palm oil, there was boxed fufu: flour, plantain, cassava, and cocoyam. Meat was on offer from butcher shops like Abeo’s and from stalls: every kind of meat someone would ever want. Cows’ legs? Right. Goat’s head? Yes. Tripe, heart, liver, kidney? They were available. Just point out what you want and someone will wrap it for you for tonight’s dinner.
There were also takeaway food stalls selling crab claws, rice, and chicken. All with chips and each one for a fiver.
And then the music. It blared at such a volume that anyone wishing to have a conversation had to shout or duck inside one of the shops and close the door. These lined the street on both sides, directly behind the stalls: Ghana Food Store, Boboto from the Congo, Into Africa Groceries Etc., Rose Ebeneezer Afro Hairstylist. There were establishments where one could have eyebrow threading done, places for waxing any part of the body one might wish to wax, shops selling fashions, bakeries selling naan, both shops and stalls selling meats and fish.
Simisola’s destination was normally Cake Decorating by Masha, a bakery that extended the length and breadth of the upper storey of The Party Shop. She earned money there to contribute to the family pot: setting up for classes and cleaning everything afterwards. But a stop there had told Monifa that there were no cake decorating classes today, so she headed to Talatu’s Fashions for the Head, which was situated dead in the middle of the market. Simi also earned money from Talatu, supplying her with ready-made head wraps in various styles, and Monifa had learned that her everyday turbans had been popular for the entire season. Indeed, several customers had placed specific requests, Talatu informed her: two more ready-made turbans using the lion pattern and three more of the material featuring lilies.
Simi had been there, Talatu told her. She’d collected her money and headed off in the direction of the hair salons. “Wants a braided bob, was what she tol’ me,” Talatu said. “Saving up her money for extensions, she says. Try Xhosa’s Beauty. I seen her there las’ week.”
So that was where Monifa took herself next, and that was where she found Simisola. She also found two stylists. One of them was a gum-popping mixed-race woman with long plaits that flowed from cornrows and were held away from her face in a ponytail. She wore a bright red pencil skirt and a blouse with a neckline showing far too much cleavage. The other stylist—also a woman and for that, at least, Monifa could be thankful—was African head to toe in a complicated bright orange head wrap and a loose-fitting dashiki print tunic. Beneath this, she wore dashiki trousers in a contrasting print, and she’d decorated herself with wooden bracelets that clacked together as she moved, and four beaded necklaces. She was much more acceptable to Monifa than the other woman, save for being heavily made up, to include false eyelashes and deep red lipstick. As she worked, she drank from a glass that appeared to be holding champagne.
Everywhere there was clutter and smell. The clutter existed at the two workstations, inside a glass display case, on the counter with the till, on the windows where handbills were posted on virtually every inch of glass, and in the dozens of photographed hair styles, each one more complicated than the last. The smell came not only from the products being used but also from the fish in a stall not far from the door to Xhosa’s Beauty. The fishmonger was pouring more ice onto the seafood, but he was fast losing his battle with the heat.
Simi was watching the red-skirted woman with complete absorption, so she did not see her mother in the doorway until Monifa said her name and added, “Talatu told me where I might find you. What are you doing here?”
Simi spun to the doorway. She said brightly, “Mummy!”
“What are you doing in this place, Simi?” Monifa asked once again. “If Masha has no work for you, you’re meant to come home straightaway.”
“Oh, I like to watch. I’m saving up for extensions, Mum. Tiombe’s going to do a bob for me. Here, let me show you the colours. They’re ever so pretty.”
Tiombe, it seemed, was the ponytailed, mixed-race woman. She gave Monifa a nod and gave the other stylist a glance in which they exchanged some message that Monifa could not interpret and did not want to. For her part, Simi grasped a sample of hair extensions with colours woven into them and held up one that was shot through with pink.
“See? Mum, isn’t it pretty?”
“You must speak to your father about this,” Monifa said. When Simi’s face altered, Monifa tried to change her tone, attempting to sound encouraging despite knowing there was little hope of Abeo’s ever agreeing to his daughter’s plans. “Come with me now, Simi,” she added. “I must speak to you.”
“But sometimes Tiombe lets me help, Mum.”
“Today that will not be the case. Come.”
Simi cast a look at Tiombe, who inclined her head in the direction of the door. The other stylist nodded at Monifa and said, “Nice to make your—”
But Monifa had stepped away and Simi followed her. They strode from the market, passing Talatu, then Abeo’s butcher shop with the fishmonger’s stall out front, then Cake Decorating by Masha, then they were at last in the High Street. Once there, however, Monifa paused. She hadn’t thought through where to take Simi for the talk they needed to have. She’d only been intent upon finding her.
She looked left and right, rejecting the shopping mall and ultimately settling on McDonald’s. It wasn’t an establishment she would ever frequent, but the day was so hot that any place with air-conditioning was a haven. She led her daughter there and directed her to a table inside, far from the noise of diners, of ordering, of numbers being announced, and of the tills. At all of this, Simi’s face showed her surprise. She knew that her mum would never have brought her here unless she absolutely had to. It wasn’t a place the family stopped in, at least on the few occasions when they were out as a family. Out and about with Tani in times past, Simi doubtless had been the purchaser of more than one baked apple pie.
Monifa asked her daughter what she would like. Simi blinked. She sucked in on her lip in that way she had, which ended up with her two front teeth showing. She said that if she could have a cheeseburger . . . ? When Monifa said of course she could, Simi added French fries and a Coke.
Monifa went to order, returning to the table with a handful of paper napkins. She took from her bag a small bottle of spray sanitiser and used it liberally on the surface of the table. She wiped this off with the napkins, fished out a packet of sanitising wipes, and used these on the chairs. She used another one on her hands and gave one to Simi for the same purpose. When she was satisfied, she nodded at the chairs and both of them sat.
Monifa folded her hands. She considered the best way to begin. She wondered if she should wait for the food. She decided that, as there was much to say, she ought to make a start. She began in a voice she kept quite low, saying, “You are approaching nine years old. What do you know of becoming a woman, Simi?”
Simi frowned. Clearly, she hadn’t been expecting this. She slid her gaze to the street and then back to Monifa. She said, “Lim’s mum told her about babies and Lim told me.”
Monifa felt alarm race along her spine. Four years Simi’s senior, Lim had been Simi’s only Nigerian friend in Mayville Estate, but for weeks they hadn’t spoken of her. “What did Lim say?”
“That a girl can’t have babies till she’s a woman and a man puts his thingy inside her somewhere. We couldn’t work out where, me an’ Lim, except Lim said babies come out of a woman’s stomach, so I said maybe the man puts his thingy in her mouth cause that’s where food goes to get into her stomach as well.”
“Did Lim not tell you she’d become a woman?”
Simi shook her head, but she looked intrigued, which was very good. “Is that why she’s gone to her gran’s for summer hols?” she asked Monifa. “She will come home, won’t she?”
Monifa answered the only way she could. “I do not know and her mother has not said. But I do know that Lim had begun her bleeding and you will also, not so very far into the future. It’s the bleeding that says your womanhood has arrived.”
“Bleeding?” Simi asked. “Mum, Lim was bleeding? But how . . . ?”
A number was called. Monifa went for Simi’s food. For herself, she’d purchased nothing. She had no appetite for this sort of thing. She set the tray on the table, removing each item and placing it in front of her daughter on three paper napkins that she opened to serve as protection against the table she’d already cleaned. She nodded at Simi to eat. Her daughter took a French fry and nibbled on it.
Monifa spoke quietly, bending towards Simi so that no one could overhear. Home would have been a better place to talk about this, but the truth was that she couldn’t risk it. “When a girl bleeds between her legs—which she does monthly when she reaches womanhood—her body is speaking to her, saying that she’s ready.”
“For babies?”
“Yes. But until there are babies, she prepares herself to grow them, and she also prepares herself for the man who will plant them in her.”
Simi had picked up her cheeseburger but she didn’t take a bite. Instead, she said, “Mummy, I don’t want babies. Not now. Really, Mummy. I don’t.”
“Of course not. Not yet,” Monifa told her. “That comes much later for a girl, after she is able to declare herself both pure and chaste. In Nigeria, this usually happens in her village. But for us—for our family—it is more complicated.”
Simi finally took a bite, but first she said, “Complicated? Why, Mummy?”
“Living apart from our tribal village means that we must declare ourselves Yoruba. And this happens through an initiation. A ceremony must be performed to take you into the Yoruba tribe. Then, after the ceremony, you will be able to meet your aunts and uncles and cousins.”
Simi’s small brow furrowed as she took this in. She thought about it and finally said, “Oh. You mean I have to be really and truly Yoruba, so that I can meet them.”
“This is exactly what I mean.”
“Mummy, is that why we never see our family in Peckham? Because I’m not part of the tribe yet? But you’re part, aren’t you? And Papa? And Tani?”
“We are part because we were born there, all three of us. Being born there makes things different. As to Peckham, we will go for a visit once you’re made pure. Would you like that, Simi? You would be so welcomed by your cousins.”
“I would ever!”
“Then that shall happen when you are ready.” Monifa tucked an errant bit of hair into the scarf Simi was wearing like a headband. “There will be a grand celebration. You will be the guest of honor, and people will come to celebrate your womanhood and to bring you presents and money. Only when you are ready, though.”
“I am!” she cried. “Mummy, I am!”
“Then we shall make it happen. But you and I, Simi . . . ? We must keep the initiation a secret between us until everything is arranged and the clothing is purchased and the cake is ordered, and the food is chosen. Then it will be a surprise for your father and for Tani and for everyone who has not yet met you. Can you keep all of this a secret?”
“I can! I can!”
27 JULY
MAYVILLE ESTATE
DALSTON
NORTH-EAST LONDON
Tani had learned about Simi’s “initiation” from Simi herself, the very night of the day when Monifa had revealed it to her. He didn’t know what the hell she was talking about, so he barely attended to her chatter until the next evening when she was fairly bursting with more exciting information. She first swore him to secrecy, saying, “Cos I’m really not s’posed to tell anyone.” But everything was to happen soon, she said, now that she was—in her words—“almost becoming a woman.” She wasn’t altogether sure when the initiation would occur and she couldn’t ’member everything Mum said, but there would be an initiation—“It’s a ceremony, Tani!”—and then lots of people would come for a celebration. There would be gifts for her, and food and drink for everyone and even music and prob’ly dancing. Mummy was taking her to Ridley Road Market to find some suitable clothes for the celebration, Simi had informed him. And Mummy said she—Simi—could choose everything all by herself.
“She tol’ me you didn’t get initiated,” Simi said, which was the moment when he started to listen to her even more closely. “She said when someone’s born there like you, they’re automatic’ly Yoruba. Which is sad cos I expect you didn’t get to have a party, did you.”
Tani had never heard the word initiated used in reference to anything Nigerian. He asked her what the bloody hell she meant and she reported additional details of what their mother had told her. There was a lot of it and most of it was rubbish: not being Yoruba unless you were born on Nigerian soil, becoming a woman, becoming a pure and chaste woman, never having seen their family in Peckham in all these years because one had to be pure and initiated into the tribe in order to meet them. A ceremony would make all this happen, followed by a party, and new clothing. And course, there would not be babies till one was ready to have babies . . . Tani’s head felt stuffed with explosive cottonwool by the time his sister had finished her recitation.
He decided, however, not to confront their mother at once. He decided to wait in order to see how—or even if—this whatever-the-bloody-hell-it-was progressed. As things turned out, that did not take long.
The afternoon after that conversation with Simisola, while he was working at Into Africa, Tani saw his mother and sister browsing in Ridley Road Market. He wasn’t affected by the sight of them. Monifa came to the market often for the African food—especially greens and spices—that she couldn’t get in the local supermarket, and Simi frequently dropped by with a delivery of ready-made head wraps and turbans for Talatu’s stall. But during that evening, he began to see their trip to the market in a different light when Simi—bouncing with excitement on her bed—announced that she and Mum were “getting things ready.”
“Let me show you, let me show you, let me show you,” she sang.
He was on his bed, earphones on, listening to Idris Elba read A Prayer Before Dying, when Simi finally secured his attention. It was towards the end of the novel and Simi’s interruption wasn’t welcome, so he was irritated when he said, “Hey! Squeak, I’m listening. You c’n see that, can’t you?”
Her face altered. He felt immediately guilty. She did that to him. He said, “Okay. Sorry,” and removed the earphones. “What d’you need?”
“I want to tell you and show you,” she said. “It’s really good, Tani. You won’t be sorry.”
He put the earphones on his bedside table next to his iPad and said, “Tell and show away. I’m all yours.”
She brought two shopping bags from her part of their shared clothes cupboard. She emptied the contents onto her bed in a jumble of colour as she chatted away, saying, “Part’s a big secret. Mum made me promise. But I c’n show you this. You must look, Tani. See what Mum bought me. It’s all so pretty!”
He roused himself from the supine position he’d been in, swinging his legs to the floor and joining his sister at her bed. She was sorting through items, and he saw among them two head wraps, three colourful wrapper skirts, four bright shirts, and a tangle of African jewellery: necklaces of wood and beads, earrings fashioned from seeds and pods, bracelets, two brooches of bone. His first thought was, What is this shit? His second thought was, Why’s she got all this crap meant for grown women?
It got worse when she dumped onto the bed a variety of makeup and the brushes to apply it. Christ, did she even have false eyelashes? Lipstick as well? What the hell?
She was chattering and he’d failed to attend. He tuned in when she was saying, “. . . all decorated with Congratulations, Simi! on it. Plus we ordered balloons, Tani. Helium balloons! And best of all—the very extra special best—I’ll have the money and Mum says I can spend it however I want. I’m having extensions braided in a bob. I want dark extensions with pink in them. Tiombe is going to do them. At Xhosa’s Beauty. I have to pay, an’ it’s a lot but . . . A bob, Tani.” She sighed. “Just think!”
Tani felt a sinister rush flooding his body. He looked at everything, picked up a necklace, rubbed his fingers on the tatty fabric of one of the skirts. He said, “This is crap, this is. Why’d you want to wear it? Girls your age don’t go about in shit like this, Squeak. It’s for grown ladies, not for little girls.”
She was silent for a moment. He knew he’d hurt her feelings, but hurting her feelings was beside the point. The point was the clothing, the jewellery, the makeup, and what the hell was going on.
“I won’t be a little girl any longer,” she said in a confidential tone. “I’ll be a woman. That’s what Mum says.”
“Except you’re not ready to be a woman. No eight-year-old can be a woman. Being eight years old is the opposite of being a woman, Squeak.”
