The rest of you, p.11
The Rest of You, page 11
‘I saw them fighting and it was very fast and it was dark so I did not know Bobo was out there until Sister Aretha came and by then it was too late.’
She exhaled, her words a fast train to an unknown destination.
‘But you did not see what they were fighting about?’
‘No, Uncle, I did not see it.’
She wondered if she had lied, if what she held back was written on her face, because both Aretha and Gloria were watching her keenly, their eyes searching and curious. Uncle Clinton seemed also to sense something else was at play.
‘And Whitney, she was OK?’
Maame Serwaa hesitated again, thinking it through, her fears at the front of her mind but her face trying to remain in one place, in one expression. Because suspicion at this moment in time would not help. And anyway, what could be worse than murder?
‘She – she was crying and I think… perhaps she came outside looking for her daddy and slipped? I don’t know, Uncle, I don’t know.’
She dropped her head to the ground then as she remembered the moment. Looking up again suddenly felt impossible. And then there was a hand on her shoulder from Gloria.
‘Maame, come. Let the men talk.’
Aretha also pulled her chair out and followed the other two women out of the room, into the afternoon air and then back into the kitchen. Maame Serwaa felt herself being guided by the two of them, aware that something else was coming, something big.
She had a sense of these things.
Chapter 13
London, Present
Whitney
You remained in your childhood home for the rest of the afternoon. Ma Gloria made you both steaming cups of Milo – the hot chocolate malt drink you only ever enjoyed with her – and you relaxed into opposite ends of the sofa, waiting for lunch to settle in your stomach. You had decided not to prod with more questions of your past for now, even if it felt like you only got the chance to do it once a year, on your birthday. Ma Gloria became chatty again.
‘So, how is work? Do you still need to practise or are you now an expert?’
You couldn’t help but smile at her words, knowing what she was getting at but deciding she should ask you outright for a massage – she could at least give you that.
‘I’m basically an expert, yeah.’
She kissed her teeth but allowed the tiniest smirk to find her lips. ‘Aynh, so when will you bring the expert money, then?’
‘Soon come, Ma. It’s about more than that.’
‘More than making a living?’
Eight years prior, you had spent twenty-four months as a masseuse, and you imagined you’d seen every type of body. You had recently left the spa in Kensal Rise, could no longer stomach the over-manicured, privileged masses who passed through its halls on a weekly basis. The women tipped well, but it came with an air of self-congratulation hidden in whatever written message was left with cash at the front desk or spoken casually into the lavender-scented air in the treatment room itself. Many of the white women had similar complaints about their slightly absent but wealthy husbands, the inconvenience of the children they had chosen to have, the general lack of awareness from the ‘less fortunate’ about how difficult it was for these women to maintain their privilege. They were realising that it wasn’t hip to brag about anymore, and even employing ‘people from other places’ didn’t carry the same cultural capital. One regular client made a point of always bringing up her Ghanaian nanny with you – somehow learning about your heritage through super sleuthing and probably slipping the newer receptionist a ten-pound note to reveal it – wanting reasons behind some of the things the nanny did that she found bothersome. Like taking time off to attend a funeral in Ghana.
‘Is that all you people do? I swear she’s been to about five since I hired her. Don’t get me wrong, we should all be allowed to mourn and whatnot, but my father-in-law passed not long ago and we just couldn’t make it there, so we sent flowers. Maybe it’s a cultural thing? The cleaner at Penny’s school, Koh-Joe, said that it’s a part of the social calendar for you people! He’s a funny one. Always has words of wisdom on the days I’m volunteering there. Did I tell you I volunteer – ah, yes, there they are, those magic hands. Whitney, honestly, you’re the only thing I look forward to each week.’
The men were different. Many were quiet, in and out without a fuss. Still, you held your breath a little longer with them, made sure to leave the door ajar, just in case. You looked them in the eye when they entered the room, trying to take a mental photo of their face, what they were or were not wearing. Their scents began to mix together, even the regular clients. You could differentiate them by voice, but they all had that same aura about them, the same tepid humming of testosterone bubbling and alive. Your job was to keep it at bay. You became a snake charmer. When they were elongated on your table, their full length apparent and measurable, you were in control. Their muscles and nerves were calmed, loosened, soothed under your hands; you pummelled, kneaded and struck them into submission before they even considered protesting. They left transformed under your gaze; you were no longer just another transactional object to them – you were powerful. They couldn’t take from you by force what they really wanted, and now you both knew it.
That first client, Harry, had never returned. Perhaps he knew you wouldn’t be fooled a second time, that you stopped being new as soon as he left your treatment room. And that might have been the main problem for you – the work stopped being about connection and more about what you could wield over whomever you deemed unruly.
You handed in your two weeks’ notice soon after that light bulb moment, and Ma Gloria suggested you join the physio team at her hospital after a vacancy had become available. She had already talked you up to colleagues – something you were keen to witness firsthand but knew better than to ask for – and you started quickly, passing your three-month probation with flying colours. You felt purposeful again, challenged but enthusiastic. You didn’t have that tinny taste in your mouth when someone new walked through the door; you weren’t sizing people up like warriors anymore. People were just people. It also didn’t hurt that you were only seeing women. You’d been placed with a physio, Nina, whose focus was women’s health. And it was Nina who taught you about trauma in action.
You had read about it during your module on chakras – how a childhood response to trauma that begins as a defence mechanism can become a physical and mental pain in adulthood, that repression can become chronic. The night before your exam on the seven main energy points and where you fit into it all, you dreamt of hands. They grew from a body with no face, sprouting from the hips, the neck, the bottom of the feet, the base of the spine. A disembodied voice barked questions at you that you couldn’t answer, and then you held a shovel in your own hands, damp soil thick under your fingernails. You dug until the hole was big enough for you, and then you lay down inside the makeshift grave, your palms behind your back, digging into the ground underneath. You woke up in a sweat, in the same position as in the dream. You aced the test but refused to ever learn another thing about it; it wasn’t for you.
But Nina disagreed. She thought you had a knack for picking up on people’s energies, drawing out the sticky sadness of their traumas, big or small. You didn’t understand it – you were just connecting with people again, unpeeling those unspoken things that exist between the invisible layers of human-to-human interaction. You said none of this to Nina, though. You just nodded along, shrugging shyly, unsure if she was giving you praise or delivering bad news.
‘You have a way with people, Whitney. I’ve had quite a few patients disclose… well, some difficult things after seeing you. But it’s so helpful for their treatment. You know we take a holistic approach here? You’re doing some good work, is all I’m saying… What’s wrong?’
You imagined your face must have been revealing what you felt on the inside as she spoke – not the pleasing, calming expression you were hoping you had displayed. Terror was hitting you, and you couldn’t explain it. The weight of it, the responsibility of the reveal was a bit too much. You were not the trauma-whisperer. Or if you were, that needed to change quick-sharp. You had only just begun to love your job again.
You requested a team transfer, to a new physio. Nina was disappointed but understood your explanation, that you wanted experience in a different department to widen your scope of work and clients. She gave you a glowing reference, and you moved into elder care. It was slower paced and required less energy. Less of you. It worked for a while, until there was no more room for progression, and you decided to take another leap, to step out on your own and finally just work for yourself.
‘Is this where you tell me I should aim for wealth because we’re royal?’
You considered using air quotes as you responded to Ma Gloria’s question about why you weren’t earning a higher salary yet, but then you remembered that you valued your life. This was an ongoing conversation. When you were younger, she would reprimand you with the threat of higher responsibility based on your family lineage.
‘You must be royal in your thinking, in your doing, even in who you choose to be around, Bobo, eh? Because we’re a kingly family, I’ve told you. Don’t ever forget it, in everything.’
She would mention it most often when you were a teenager being pulled too close to the streets of London for her liking. She would use it to snap you back to her reality – away from the ‘roadmen’ someone in her Women’s Group had told her horror stories about – and closer to the tentative ties your family had to the Asante Empire and to the muddy and bloody history of surviving colonialism that ended in rebellion, ensuring the survival of your bloodline.
At school you wanted to look into it more, to dig deep and find something at the roots of who you might be, but it would have had to begin with Ma Gloria, with her willingness to trace the lines out loud, from you, to her, to family in Ghana. Asking her felt like a violence you were committing on her character and memory because of the strong ways she reacted to your curiosity. Now it was as if the violence were visiting you. Which is perhaps why you remained by her side, under the guise of a birthday visit, hoping for something to slip from her. But she was never easy, never as open with you as you knew she could be. Today she just shrugged, like your words about royalty weren’t inflammatory, even though her nostrils flared and she closed her eyes a second too long, as if gathering her calm.
‘Wealth is not always what is in your bank account, OK? But am I not allowed to hope that you are healthy and can afford to one day buy your own place? Then at least I can feel good. I will know you have a second home here.’
By then you knew the words were coming and you couldn’t stop them, even though there was only the slightest slither of light through this door. But it was something.
‘What about the family home in Kumasi? Pastor P mentioned something about it the other day…’
You knew you were playing a dangerous game as you watched how Ma Gloria’s jaw jut out slightly behind clenched teeth. You also knew that by mentioning Pastor P, you had evenly distributed her anger between the two of you, taking some of the heat off you if this backfired.
He and Ma Gloria had been childhood friends, and he had been around for as long as you could remember. He came to London before you and Ma Gloria, to grow the church that had originated in Kumasi, and as soon as you were both settled in north London, Ma Gloria made herself available to help him. You recalled trekking from school hall to school hall on cold and wet Sundays during your childhood – first to Croydon, then Deptford, then Hackney, before the church finally found a permanent home in Bounds Green. Ma Gloria hosted fundraisers for Pastor P, fed him many a dinner when he barely had a permanent place to stay and helped grow the congregation whenever she met a Ghanaian parent or fellow nurse at work. When you were a preteen, their relationship had been mysterious to you – how they were always together but never really together. You assumed that perhaps he had taken some kind of religious vow that meant there were certain desires he couldn’t pursue, and she respected that. But he was also the only significant male presence in her life as far as you knew, so the whole thing frustrated you. You wanted more for her.
He was kind to you as a child, albeit from a distance. He would always arrive at the house with a gift for you – a key ring from an airport he’d passed through on his travels to Ghana and the US, visiting different branches of his home church. A snow globe from a museum in Minnesota. An Ebony magazine from Chicago that you couldn’t get in London. And most famed was a wooden giraffe he’d bought in Makola Market in Accra, with your name etched into the bottom of it. That one still took pride of place on your bedroom windowsill because it had been your favourite animal as a child. Outside a church setting, though, the two of you interacted very little. He would throw you the courtesy ‘Wo ho te sɛn?’ after taking a seat in the living room; Ma Gloria was already in the kitchen preparing tea. You would reply with your minimal-Twi ‘Me ho yɛ, medase’. Then you would leave the room, passing Ma Gloria as she reentered it, and they would continue a conversation they had likely begun during his last visit. You didn’t know what they spoke about in the interim. There was a time after you had moved out that you returned home for a surprise visit – and to collect food – and found him relaxing in the living room with his shoes off. Ma Gloria emerged from the bathroom, and you saw shock cross her face for seconds before she asked you in a high-pitched voice what you were doing there.
She was different when he was around too. You saw the way she got lighter on her feet. You always knew he was coming when she was preparing kontomire stew and yam – you couldn’t eat it because you had a seafood allergy, but you had seen him wipe his plate clean when it was served to him dozens of times. At church, when the spirit caught her, you watched her dance somehow in his direction, though they never made eye contact, but their rhythm was the same, even as he stayed by the pulpit. You witnessed something you couldn’t name. She even laughed differently with him. It wasn’t false; it was just another laugh, one that belonged to her and him.
You had been waiting for her to say something about the Kumasi house, give some confirmation that it existed and that the world wouldn’t end if you knew about it. But no.
‘Will you rub me later? The thing in my back has been playing up.’
You were not surprised that she didn’t answer your question, only that she didn’t even try. She was choosing complete ignorance. You had to get on board or stay mad about it and make your exit. You shook your head, vaguely annoyed.
‘I keep telling you to stop trekking with all those “Ghana must go” bags on the bus, Ma.’
‘Yes, yes, I know. Will you rub or no?’
You gathered your now empty cups, gave her a mm-hmm and headed to the kitchen to wash your hands.
Chapter 14
Kumasi, 1995
Gloria
It had not even been seven days since Bobby’s death, and already the negative chatter about the Sarpongs seemed to be hitting Gloria’s ears from every direction. Distant aunties and uncles were calling with concerns about who might get caught in the cross fire next and who could even associate with such a family, such a burden? Meanwhile, there was little care given to how everyone in the house might be feeling. Bobo especially. She had been asking for Bobby all week, and at every question Gloria could only pick her up and hold her until she quietened down. Gloria never did this, always encouraging Bobo to walk with her. She worried that somehow the child, as small as she was, would know that this meant something bad.
Bobby no longer appeared around corners. There was no smoke in the courtyard from some fish he had caught himself – skills he had acquired since childhood, fishing in the cold water of Sluseholmen. He no longer stomped in with his boots untied, already unfurling any unnecessary clothes so that he could sit in his vest and dress pants after work and cool down listening to Bobo babble into his ears about her day filled with nursery rhymes, ‘cooking’ with Maame Serwaa and tea with Teddy Milo.
There would never be any more of this, and Gloria could only barely stand to be in the house now. Everything had changed. Even Maame Serwaa, dependable and steadfast, was different. Gloria recalled how distant she had been after Daddy carried out his interrogation of the house staff. Maame Serwaa said very little afterward, but a few days later she whispered to Gloria the thing that she had been holding inside, that had been keeping her up at night and causing dark circles to sit under her eyes. Outwardly, she was trying to keep things as they always were, but Gloria had already caught her twice, wiping away sloppy tears in the storeroom, searching for spices and getting caught in a wave of emotion. Both times, Gloria did not make herself known. Everyone should have their time. It had not even been a full week.
Even Daddy remained at home, the longest he had stayed in the house at one time in almost a year. That was not to say he spent any time with them, so that they might grieve together, plan for Bobo’s new future, even. No, he remained in his office for most of the day behind a closed door; passersby could only hear muffled phone conversations and the ticking of the grandfather clock that sat behind his leather chair. Gloria desperately wanted to know what had become of Viktor, as did everyone else. But Daddy remained tight-lipped about it, even though she was the oldest and she should be told these things first. So, she only imagined what would happen – that Viktor would be sent away for a long time to pay for his crime, perhaps even happen upon a fight in prison, lose his life the same way Bobby had lost his. And then she prayed for forgiveness for having such a thought. But somewhere it hung inside her like a pendulum. It swung back and forth in intensity, and that dark hope never actually dropped. She wouldn’t speak these things out loud like Aretha, either. She had been on a tirade for days, bothering Daddy daily with questions about his plans, with irritations about not being able to bury Bobby in Kumasi or celebrate his life in the proper way, with an event. She was told that it was not what we did, that Bobby had not lived a long enough life for there to be a celebration after his death. And that he was his mother’s only child, so if she wanted to say goodbye to him in Denmark, then she should be allowed to do that. They should all just focus on the lives that were still here, like Bobo’s.
