at your hands, dry as the Sahara. Of course, your mother

doesn’t know any better.’ Her voice mellowed, she took

a long, slow puff. ‘Lara, lovey, so long as you’re of Negroid

stock, diluted or not, you’re black. Ask me how I know?’

‘How d’ya know, Miss Africa?’ / ‘The P word, prejudice.

So it’s about time you learnt some African ways, eh.

I know the difference between yam and cassava. Do you?

Now, I’ll leave it at that. Pop round the corner and get

me some ciggies, and some crisps for yourself. God knows

you can do with some meat on that carcass of yours. And get

a quart of whiskey while you’re at it. I’m spitting feathers here.

I might just take you and Laetitia to the flicks tomorrow.

Not that you deserve it. You show no respect whatsoever.

Now, off you go.’ As Lara opened the door she mimicked

Beatrice, ‘Oh, by the way, you shouldn’t smoke, you know.

It gives you bad breath and brown teeth. Ask me how I know?’

‘You flippin cheeky little whatsit!’ Beatrice flung her empty

cigarette packet at the door, as Lara bounded the stairs whooping.

CHAPTER 14

1976 –

LAUDATE DOMINUM, Mozart’s quavers were brown

cherubims streaming out of the radio in water bubbles,

popping softly against her heart, a soprano’s vibrating

breath rose, dipped, haunting. Ellen felt exquisitely sad;

tears seeped quietly, beautifully. The damp kitchen walls

bled, formed rivulets, plaster cracked into maps.

Panes steamed in aged parchment frames, boiling towels

spat and hissed. Two decades of marriage trailed her

like an autumnal country lane, strewn with the withered

debris of summer. Murky puddles were tears of discovery

at births, exasperation at Taiwo’s intractability, of loss

as her babies grew, the ecstasy of their love-making –

for in their tenth year they had discovered her orgasm.

Babies? My little ones are nearly adults, my field fallow.

The eldest are leaving soon, in their hearts first, I feel it.

They grow upwards, I grow sidewards. I never lost

the excess padding from when they and I were one.

The kettle shrilled, clouds whistled, she rose, languid,

made tea, three sugars today, two next week. Promise.

Deranged Wagner blasted the radio, tenors gargled,

violins sawed, cymbals dustbin-lidded. She turned it off.

Silence or beauty. To have such a choice.

Upstairs her babies watched Top of the Pops. Safe.

I STAND for hours, still Madonna lachrymose,

by the religious windows of our chill Front Room,

waiting for one of my children to appear in view;

worry is a damp handkerchief clutched to my breast,

like a fat diva in a tragic opera, I am unconsoled.

My mother worries herself to sainthood most nights,

awaiting one of us to return when we are late, errant

or tempted to run off into adulthood. She fears the briars

of our city’s urban jungle, missing persons, Bill Sykes.