Читать книгу Hold: An Observer New Face of Fiction 2018 - Michael Donkor - Страница 19

Earlier that day, in Belinda’s new bedroom, Nana picked through Belinda’s belongings. Belinda looked on, tightly wrapping her fingers around her thumbs. Nana inspected each item, making disappointed noises in response to every T-shirt or pair of shorts. Nana started moaning about how she never got to have a girly, girly shopping time any more. Nana talked about Belinda exploring her new ends; she thought they should do it quickly, before the sticky weather broke. Nana promised they would have too much fun together.

So they headed out for Marks and Spencer. Belinda walked just behind Nana as they made their way along noisy Brixton High Road. Flat, late summer heat hung from Belinda’s shoulders. The sky was bored, the traffic was angry. Everything around them beeped or screamed. People on bikes turned around to swear at people in cars. Three striped white vans with swirling blue lights moaned. Buses bent round corners looking like sick caterpillars. Both Nana and Belinda were careful to avoid stubby black bins that choked on packets and bottles, and that made Nana hiss ‘Lambeth Council’ like those words were bad kenkey on her tongue. A tall man with wheels on his shoes sailed through it all peacefully. He overtook them until he became a thin, upright line between all the bodies in the distance. There was no space; the road was too full, the pavement too narrow to hold all the people pushing along it. Nana marched on, pointing forward with two certain fingers, swinging her yellow handbag with the little LVs on it. Belinda tried to match the pace but she kept nearly bumping into everyone because the surroundings pulled at her attention so much.

On her left, outside a huge shop – Iceland – a group of children played silver drums that were like the buckets she had used when fetching water from the stream when the village pump wasn’t working. The children’s music was a wobbling sound that shimmered on the air. Two women with flopping hats stopped to dance in front of the band, wiggling their bottoms and holding their breasts. Near an even bigger store – Morleys – muscled men wearing small vests had arranged themselves in a circle. They casually held big guns made from coloured plastic. A joke of an army. They pressed their pretend weapons into the ground as though steadying themselves. A larger circle of girls formed around the men. The girls picked at the small jewels growing out of their belly buttons, touched the drawings on their arms, talked to the little dogs at their heels that bit at nothing. Every few seconds one of the men pulled a trigger and water sprayed. The girls shouted like they were surprised, the dogs became furious and the men all shook hands. Nana muttered. Belinda wished she could make out the words but Nana seemed to be trying hard to speak very quietly.

Opposite Superdrug, Belinda tripped and landed on her knees. A girl in a red cap with a wad of leaflets in her hands helped Belinda back up. Through a giggle, the girl asked Belinda if she was OK. It took Belinda time to get to her feet and to understand what had been said because she was distracted by the picture on the leaflet: a black baby with squeezed eyes and tears moistening dusty cheeks. The girl asked Nana to do something about saving children for only £5 a month. Nana was not interested.

Belinda knew what crowds were like. She had battled through New Tafo. She had been in packs of brave pedestrians who ran across the crazy junction near Kwadwo Kannin Street. But it was different when so many of the rushing faces of the crowd were white.

Obviously she had seen oburoni before: Leonardo DiCaprio and Julia Roberts in the magazines Aunty left on the bathroom floor, the big men on the news, the silly young man in the zoo, the families at Heathrow. Belinda was familiar with the idea that their hair was weird, their voices weirder, like the sound ignored the mouth and came out through the nose. But here they were even stranger. They seemed so determined. Or focused. Yes, their pale stares were very focused on something important. And they themselves were important too, with their heads up and shoulders square and faces on the edge of anger. They were certainly too important to notice her. But if, for a second, they did let their gazes drop on her, would they dislike what they saw? Would the sight of her bring more red to their faces? Stepping aside for a child who was held back by a stretchy leash surely meant for one of the yapping dogs, Belinda wondered if Nana had ever felt the same foolish fear of whites. She wondered how Nana had quieted it. Because how could you live here with that prickling fear? How could you breathe, think, do anything?

Finally, they got to Marks and Spencer. As they passed through sliding doors, Belinda tried to find the source of the whining background music. Nana moved them on, drawn by various red signs. Belinda squinted in the hard light. Rails of dresses divided the space, blocks of shifting pattern. Alongside those were tables of blouses: some folded, others slumping messily towards the floor. Women grabbed things from hangers, checked tags trailing from cuffs before tossing the things back. Younger girls – the daughters of these women? – found everything funny and so kept laughing and showing tiny teeth held together by metal wires. Nana swung round and pressed a green top with only one sleeve against Belinda’s chest, smoothing it down with firm strokes. Belinda held her breath as Nana screwed up her nose, dropped the top then tried out a blue version. Nana didn’t like that one either.

They went on like that for a while; with Nana thrusting spotty, frilly, velvety things at Belinda. After what felt like ten minutes, with dampness collecting at the back of Belinda’s knees, Belinda’s eyes found the Childrenswear section ahead. It was marked out by a poster that hung down from the ceiling. In the poster, a mixed-race girl wore the stupidest of smiles. Many of the adverts here had mixed-race girls in them, Belinda realised. After Nana ushered Belinda into a changing room, Belinda snorted because she knew exactly what Mary would want to do. Mary would want to tear the picture down, stamp on it and tell ‘someone in charge’ that they should replace it with something much, much better: a nice photo of her. Belinda snorted again. The white cubicle around her was neat and tight, her reflection in the mirror was still. The shoppers’ chatter had reduced to just a swishing in the background. There was nothing but that silly thought of Mary and coolness around her ankles. But then a hand poked through the curtain. It clutched three denim shirts.