they are over six hundred feet away from the concrete slabs and green trees of ground level
and closer than they should be to the planes in the flight path of City Airport
Mama
wears a house-wrappa with faded orange blooms knotted above her breasts
her arms are bare, hair free to stick up at crazy angles
her spine is straight because she was taught to sit upright and cross-legged on the floor, as she tells her daughter when she slouches, sit up straight and speak properly, why do you talk like the tearaway children of the street
Mama
whose feet are strong and scarred from walking barefoot over forested ground
Mama
scoops up pounded yam with her hands, dipping it into the stew, speaking in between mouthfuls
let us wonder, Carole, at the genius of hyperbolic geometry, where the sum of the angles adds up to less than 180 degrees
let us wonder at how the ancient Egyptians worked out how to measure an irregularly-shaped field
let us wonder at how X was just a rare letter until algebra came along and made it something special that can be unravelled to reveal its inner value
you see, maths is a process of discovery, Carole, it is like the exploration of space, the planets were always there, it just took us a long time to find them
clever Mama, who taught her to send X and Y off into complicated calculations and to trust them to present her with the right conclusions
how she loved memorizing the quadratic equation, when her classmates didn’t even know what it was
how she loved being the best at something, standing out
as she did for sure the next day at LaTisha’s, having convinced Mama (who was dozy about everything except maths) that she was at a sleepover
when she was at a party heaving with teenagers crowding the corridor, curtains closed, furniture pushed to the sides in the living room, two side-table lamps covered with red dishcloths creating a nightclub vibe
while the girls stood in groups dancing self-consciously in the centre of the room and the guys loitered against the walls and Busta Rhymes was played low enough not to bring the neighbours knocking
and LaTisha yelled at people not to get waved or misbehave and no one was allowed into the bedrooms upon pain of death and definitely no smoking and at the first whiff of whacky-backy she was gonna evict the perpetrators because on my life, this ain’t no joke
except Carole was drinking for the first time in her life, and quickly got totally waved on vodka and lime so sweet she barely noticed the 40% alcohol in it, drained several glasses through a fluorescent squiggle straw like it was lemonade on a hot summer’s afternoon
when Trey, Alicia’s older brother, who was studying Sports Science at university, and his crew arrived
here at last were real mandem, pure buff-ness, who swaggered into the living room, much better than the boys Carole’s age who were still pulling girls’ hair in the playground and running away giggling
she began amping it up in front of them
glad that LaTisha had forced her to dress up and get your head out of those useless books and grow up, Carole
hoping the lipstick she was wearing for the first time hadn’t rubbed off as she bunched her lips into a sexy pout
as she flicked the glossy Cleopatra wig that hung down to her shoulders
as she twerked her hips like the girls in the music videos, wearing the PVC hot pants she’d borrowed from Chloe, the heels she’d borrowed from Lauren that made her legs look really long and shapely all of a sudden
when she noticed he was staring at her, like she was The One, even though he’d never noticed her before when he walked down the high street
no one had ever looked at her the way Trey was looking at her tonight, at the tiny halter top that showed off her assets that had grown from nothing to something mega-major in the past year
where did they come from?
she and LaTisha agreed human biology was so weird and random, man
with such an audience she found herself spinning around and around in the middle of the living room, arms out, just for the hell of it, spinning around and around because the drink made her feel so free, and her emotions so bubbly, and she was simply so attractive as she spun around to Busta’s growls with the vibrations coming out of the speakers charging around her body until the spinning went from her feet to her head and she keeled over and almost regurgitated the chips she’d had earlier and heard laughter and serves her right for showing off
only to be rescued from total embarrassment by Trey, who dived into the crowd, helped her up, said he’d look after her and you’re so hot you should be arrested, Lady
he put his arms around her, she’d not been hugged by anyone since she was ten and began to escape Mum’s claustrophobic squeezes
Mum was warm and squashy, Trey’s chest was hard but when she peered up at him, his grey eyes were soft as he stared deep into her soul
love, was this love? even though they’d just met and she still felt a bit sick?
Trey – she tried it out in her mouth, Carole & Trey, or was it T-R-A-Y? oh no, that wouldn’t work, she couldn’t be married to a kitchen accessory, lol, marriage? whoa, where did that come from? OMG, hubz, was this her future hubz?
his hand stroked the back of her head, she wished he wouldn’t, the wig might come off
he told her she needed fresh air, you’re so delicate I got to protect you, Lady
she couldn’t wait to tell LaTisha, who’d be soooo jealous yet pleased for her too, you’ve grown up, Carole
he led her through the crush of the hallway, ushered her out the front door, it was dark outside except for the lights from the street lamps and chilly
once outside, he bundled her up under his arm as if her head was a package he was carrying and when she tried to lift it, she couldn’t and it was going round and round and she felt overpowered by his cologne or was it deodorant? actually, it smelt like air freshener
would they stop and kiss? her first kiss, not with tongues, which was revolting, but gently on the lips like in the old black and white films Mum liked to watch
except she couldn’t move her head out of his armpit as he walked her out of the estate
it was as if she was being lifted off her feet, floating on the wings of love, was that a song? they went towards the short alley that led to Roxleigh Park where she and LaTisha had spent their childhood on the swings talking about the meaning of life and pondering the imminent new millennium that was going to be like totally-epic and weirdly-sci-fi as they kicked their legs in the air and felt the wind blow through the furrows of their cornrows
he took her over the little bridge that crossed the stream and through the gate that used to be shut until the council gave up replacing the padlock
they were not alone
she heard other voices
she tried to look up again, it was like her head was in a vice and she wasn’t walking no more, she was being frogmarched
then she was flat on her back on the ground, damp grass against her bare back, legs and arms, she wanted to sleep, just five blissful minutes, felt her eyes close, when she opened them, she couldn’t see, she’d been blindfolded, her arms were pinned above her head
how had her clothes come off?
then
her
body
wasn’t
her
own
no
more
it
belonged
to
them
and she, who loved numbers, became innumerate
couldn’t count, didn’t want to
feeling alien body parts on and in parts of her body that were so private, so gross, she hadn’t even felt them herself
it was hurtinghurtinghurting
onandonandonandon into infinity, which was something without end like 0.333333 or 0.999999, except that it would end, because the purpose of life was to journey towards its conclusion, otherwise it wasn’t life, the two went together, as Mum once told her, looking sadly at her old wedding photos