Carole forces herself to think of her favourite number, 1729
the only number that can be the sum of two numbers to the 3rd degree in different ways
one to the power of one is one
two to the power of three is 1728
add them to get 1729
there’s also ten and nine, each to the power of three, which is then 1000+729
after minutes or hours or days or years or several lifetimes had passed, it stopped
you were gagging for it, and by the way, you were great
then they were gone
and
so
was
she.
3
Carole never told a soul
definitely not Mama who’d tell her off for lying
or LaTisha and the others because everyone said it was Sheryl’s fault for wearing slutty clothes when it happened to her in the same park in Year 8
was it Carole’s fault?
she suspected it was, shut herself in her bedroom, buried herself under her bedclothes, turned up late for school or bunked off because what was the point in learning when something like this had happened to her?
what was the point in learning about the relationship between the deforestation of the rainforest and climate change?
or the Russian, French, Chinese and American revolutions?
or why a forty-thousand-year-old baby mammoth discovered in Siberian mountains in 1997 did not decay?
or why frequency modulation is not used for commercial radio transmissions in the medium and long wave bands?
I mean, what – was – the – point?
until
one day
it was like she woke up from like a bad dream, and she looked down the concrete bunker corridors of her inner-city comp on the anniversary of it
observed her mates joshing about, as usual, getting ready to sit at the back and have a laugh in class
at LaTisha, who believed studying was for mugs, man, mugs
at Chloe, who had a side line at school as a supplier of ecstasy
at Lauren, who was only interested in the next shag
and Carole felt like she was seeing them on a screen in a documentary about a bad London comp, their skirts hitched up, ties undone and every school rule about hair, make-up and jewellery broken
she saw their futures and hers, as baby-mothers pushing prams, pushing fatherless timebombs
forever scrambling down the side of sofas for change to feed the meter, like Mum
shopping in Poundland, like Mum
scrambling around markets at closing time for scrag-ends, like Mum
not me, not me, not me, she told herself, I shall fly above and beyond
be gone
from tower blocks with lifts stinking of piss
be gone
from rotten low-paid jobs or the dead-end dole queue
be gone
from raising my children alone
be gone
from never being able to afford my own home, like Mum
or take my children on holiday or to the zoo, like Mum
or to the movies or the funfair or anywhere except church
she decided to prove the teachers who’d given up on her wrong, the teachers who usually
walked down the penitentiary-style corridors in a daze, their eyes glazed, insulated from the racket made by two thousand teenagers talking at once
especially Mrs Shirley King, the head of Green House, to which Carole belonged, who’d marked her out as very promising after her Year 7 and 8 exams showed she was one of the brightest kids we’ve ever had, Carole
who blanked her once she started bunking off
Mrs King
was an old bat, Fuck Face, the School Dragon, she wouldn’t let anyone get away with anything, who put them in detention for turning up only five minutes late to class, which was just plain evil, and then she’d dare say it was for their own good, to learn discipline, which was outrageous, they all agreed
but who else to ask for help now Carole knew she wanted to do better?
she took the plunge, approached the dragon and her head wasn’t bitten off, as expected, when she asked her for advice about which subjects she’d need to study for the best careers and which universities to apply to when the time came
was surprised to be obliged on all counts, on strict condition she never skipped another day, never turned up late, did her homework on time, sat at the front of class with the children who are here to learn and want to go places, Carole
and you must change your social circle (social circle, what the hell was that, even?)
Mrs King
who proceeded to hassle her for the rest of her time at school, filling her with dread every time her hawk eyes spotted Carole amid hundreds of kids doing something she didn’t approve of like laughing too loud, or walking too fast down the corridors (which isn’t the same as running), she picked her out and told her off, especially when she saw her with LaTisha, Chloe or Lauren, lecturing her on how those girls will hold you back, Carole
Mrs King
who harassed her for four years, even when she was back on track and didn’t need her
poking her nose in, and phoning her mother if her grades dropped even slightly
Mrs King
who unfairly took all the credit when Carole scored a starry set of alpha grades in all her GCSEs and was called to interview a year later to study maths at Oxford University
where the Admissions Tutor in her book-lined study marvelled at Carole’s class sizes of a surely unlawful three score and five, which makes your academic achievements all the more impressive, young lady
only for Mrs King to give a speech in assembly on the last day of Carole’s schooling that her protégé, after much dedicated and hard work on Mrs King’s part, was the first child in the school’s history to make it to such a prestigious university
robbing Carole of her moment of glory.
4
Carole arrived at the ancient university via bus, tube, train and a long walk from the station through crowds, dragging her suitcase on wheels, and moved herself in, climbed the winding, creaking wooden staircase to her room in the eaves that overlooked the quadrangle with sheets of ivy clinging to ancient masonry
on her own
her mother couldn’t get the day off work and anyway, it was just as well because she’d wear her most outlandish Nigerian outfit consisting of thousands of yards of bright material, and a headscarf ten storeys high, and she’d start bawling when she had to leave her only child for the first time
Carole would forever be known as the student with the mad African mother
that first week she counted on one hand the number of brown-skinned people in her college, and none as dark as her
in the baronial dining hall she could barely look up from her plate of revolting Stone Age food, let alone converse with anyone
she overheard loud reminiscences about the dorms and drugs of boarding school, Christmas holidays in Goa, the Bahamas, gap years spent climbing Machu Picchu, or building a school for the poor in Kenya, about haring down the M4 for weekends in London, house parties in the countryside, long weekenders in Paris, Copenhagen, Prague, Dublin or Vilnius (where was that, even?)
most students weren’t like that but the really posh ones were the loudest and the most confident and they were the only voices she heard
they made her feel crushed, worthless and a nobody
without saying a word to her
without even noticing her
nobody talked loudly about growing up in a council flat on a skyscraper estate with a single mother who worked as a cleaner
nobody talked loudly about never having gone on a single holiday, like ever
nobody talked loudly about never having been on a plane, seen a play or the sea, or eaten in a restaurant, with waiters
nobody talked loudly about feeling too uglystupidfatpoor or just plain out of place, out of sorts, out of their depth