of your grandchildren, through all your disapproval.

You weakened, I cradled, knowing you were passing,

my mother, my constant, I cuddled you with a love

that will not weaken with time. Ice morning this.

Bracken coated, stark out the window. Your face grey.

Slate grey. Stone grey. Rock grey. Empty. Earth grey.

You were gone, and I cannot, I cannot, stop crying.

Snow turns to sludge. Spring will come.

CHAPTER 16

DRIZZLE. Reluctant Wednesday. Smoker’s sky.

Assortment of cars pull in. The da Costas emerge

for the funeral of Mrs Peggy Brinkworth, née 1905.

Cenotaph brothers, square-jawed, square-shouldered,

as if scanned off the pages of Ebony magazine,

four sisters lower their hats to conceal puffy eyes.

Lara watches two shadows arrive; ‘faces of the unlived,’

she observes – Dora and Jacob grip Ellen’s hand

in a long lost gesture and Ellen forgives with a smile.

Dora proffers Lara a limp hand, ‘Lovely to meet you.’

Lara stretches her lips over teeth, wants to say,

‘You’re behaving like the Queen Mother doing the rounds

with the disadvantaged.’ Taiwo plasters on a wide

Black and White minstrels’ beam, then rips it off when

they move inside. Dora’s offspring confide to Ellen

that it was because of the war, the Jewish factor,

their parents wanted to fit into suburbia like red bricks,

crazy-paving relations would have made them stand out.

Inside the loveless Chapel of Death, Lara mouths hymns,

afraid of the choke that will sound if she sings.

LARA

WHEN NANA DIED the sea began to surge,

rushed into my ears at night, a conch shell,

played in different octaves, music, vague lyrics,

words formed by waves and wind, whooshing.

Iyabo was born a year later, to Juliana.

‘Mother Returns’, named by my father, identikit

of Nana, who would surely have idolised her

hazel eyes, thin nose, blonde hair, ivory skin.

The sea would not leave me, though, its warm

waters enveloped me; I felt buoyant, floating.

One morning I awoke, not sure if I’d slept at all,

the sun was a Tibetan monk-orange falling onto

the cascade of red-tiled houses down Camden Road –

sunrise at sea. Someone materialised in my room,

like photographic paper in developer, an image formed,

a woman, I thought, dark-skinned, tall, then

she faded out into nothingness, only air and atmosphere,

but the music, the wind, the tune encircled me.

‘Bring him home,’ it sang, ‘Bring him home’

CHAPTER 17

Lagos, Nigeria, 1993

LARA descended fearfully over desert into Lagos,

her garrulous co-passenger full steam: ‘She vomited

sticks, snakes and turtles. Yes! One lady was pregnant

five years, her baby born with long hair and teeth.

Be careful. We have X-ray eyes here.’

The customs officer eyed the da Costa trio greedily.

‘Welcome!’ He examined their bags. ‘You have a gift for me?’

Yellow taxis queued patiently in the soupy heat

but their owners charged the arrivants like players

in a rugby scrum, ‘Taxi! Taxi! Come with me – O!’