me tightly so’s I don’ fall flat on my face an’

I want to crawl down the hall to the door but when

I struggle from her arms I tumble down an’ she says,

‘Don’t cry, Lara. There, there, let me kiss it better.’

I like my big brother Quentin best ’cos he pulls

funny faces and does silly dances and tickles

me until I giggle an’ giggle an’ dribble all over.

When my daddy comes home from work I want

him to pick me up an’ hold me tight but he jus’ pats

my head and goes downstairs to cook his dinner.

I cry when he tells me off ’cos his voice is angry.

‘Lara! You bad, bad girl! You bad-bad-bad-bad girl!’

All the people make words so fast I have to run

and run in my head an try to catch them.

I got a new baby brother now so my mammy is busy.

I cuddle my teddy when I go sleep at night.

A FIZZY-EYED beauty with creamy skin, Juliana,

our eldest, instantly stitched the seeping wound diseasing

my parents and Nana, who, on seeing this caramel delight

was mollified, fell uncontrollably in love with her.

No thick-lipped Negroid child was this but a paler hybrid

and Nana, who’d expected a Taiwo replica, worshipped her.

Not so Dora and Jacob, who chose the invisible life

postwar, in a salubrious set-back in upmarket Snaresbrook,

where they raised two sons who were middle-classed –

Ellen’s letters, cards and photographs went unanswered.

Ginevra followed a year later, Quentin fast behind.

After me came Fabian, Laetitia, Ladipo and young Kenelm.

Eight embryos ballooned into children in ten busy years,

my mother’s soul-saving business was rapidly expanding.

I was born at 286 Westmount Road, Eltham, the deposit

a belated gift from Nana, though her olive wand,

spiked with the thorns of rose bushes, was conditional:

no lodgers should supplement their income, so Daddy

shelved his studies in order to greet the mortgage.

Then, when we were spilling out of every room

like stuffed toys crammed into a tiny box, we moved

to Woolwich, and room for a growing tribe.

Woolwich, London, 1963 –

LARA

NO 173 Eglinton Road, ‘Atlantico’, sits like a fat Victorian

dolls’ house on its own high land behind Nightingale Vale

which rolls towards the wasteland of Woolwich Common.

Bland houses, shops, parks and imposing army façades

fan up and out from the River Thames which sulks

like a dirty industrial puddle down by the old Arsenal.

Atlantico was part of Notre Dame Convent next door,

though all links were severed many decades before.

Four staircases climb the basement to attic bedrooms

via splintery wooden stairs and sweeping walnut banisters.

The garden slopes like an untended terraced field citizened

by two of apple, pear, sweet and sour cherry trees.

A wood lurks at the bottom, home to foxes and owls.

Next door slow nuns stoop, black bats in midsummer sun,

gathering fruit into baskets, offering us wild strawberries