nobody talked loudly about being gang-banged at thirteen and a half
when she heard another student refer to her in passing as ‘so ghetto’, she wanted to spin on her heels and shout after her, excuse me? ex-cuuuuuse me? say that to my face, byatch!
(people were killed for less where she came from)
or had she misheard it? were they actually saying get to – the library? supermarket?
she couldn’t even make eye contact when she walked along the narrow corridors built for the smaller men of long ago, centuries before women were permitted entry, as she’d been told at the first induction where everyone seemed to be making instant friends and she spoke to no one
people walked around her or looked through her, or was she imagining it? did she exist or was she an illusion? if I strip off and streak across the quadrangle will anyone notice me other than the porters who will no doubt call the fedz, an excuse they’ve been waiting for ever since they first set eyes on her
when a student sidled up after a lecture to ask for some ecstasy, Carole almost texted her mother to say she was on the next train home
at the end of her first term she returned to Peckham informing her mother she didn’t want to return to university because although she liked her studies and was managing to stay on top of most of it, she didn’t belong there and wasn’t going back
I’m done, Mama, I’m done
eh! eh! which kain nonsense be this? Bummi shouted, am I hearing you correctly or you wan make I clean my ear with matches?
listen to me good, Carole Williams
firstly – do you think Oprah Winfrey (VIP) would have become the Queen of Television worldwide if she had not risen above the setbacks of her early life?
secondly – do you think Diane Abbott (VIP) would have become Britain’s first black woman MP if she did not believe it was her right to enter politics and represent her community?
thirdly – do you think Valerie Amos (VIP) would have become the first black woman baroness in this country if she had burst into tears when she walked into the House of Lords and seen it was full of elderly white gentlemen?
lastly, did me and Papa come to this country for a better life only to see our daughter giving up on her opportunities and end up distributing paper hand towels for tips in nightclub toilets or concert venues, as is the fate of too many of our countrywomen?
you must go back to this university in January and stop thinking everybody hates you without giving them a chance, did you even ask them? did you go up to them and say, excuse me, do you hate me?
you must find the people who will want to be your friends even if they are all white people
there is someone for everyone in this world
you must go back and fight the battles that are your British birthright, Carole, as a true Nigerian
Carole returned to her college resolved to conquer the place where she would spend the next two and half years of her life
she would fit in, she decided, she would find her people, as her mother had advised
not with the misfits who skulked about the place with scowls on their faces, their hair gelled up into purple Mohicans
or those with multi-coloured dreadlock extensions, people who were going nowhere fast, as far as Carole was concerned, as she watched them walk through town with placards and loudspeakers, people who would horrify her mother if she brought them home
to have come this far? did your Papa sacrifice his health so that you could become a punky Rasta person who smells?
nor was she interested in the boring ordinaries, as Carole began to think of them, students who were so bland they disappeared, even to her
certainly not the cliques of the elite, now that she knew they existed, who were unreachable, who went to public schools renowned for producing prime ministers, Nobel laureates, CEOs, Arctic explorers, famous theatre directors and notorious spies
who clearly belonged more than anyone when they had to sit fully-gowned in the dining hall every evening overlooked by the faculty who lived in, who’d probably never left since they were undergraduates there themselves, who passed on rituals the students found ridiculous such as ‘donning your sub-fusc and walking backwards around the Fellows’ Quad with a glass of port in your hand at two a.m. to stabilize the space-time continuum at the changing of the clock back to Greenwich Mean Time’
faculty who probably found the idea of not eating dinner while facing a room full of future prime ministers and Nobel laureates rather discombobulating
Carole’s school was renowned for producing teenage mothers and early career criminals
she preferred the pot noodles in her room route
she studied the inmates to find the best match for her, approached those with the most friendly demeanours, was surprised when people responded warmly
once she actually started talking to them
by the end of her second term she had made friends and even got herself a boyfriend, Marcus, a white Kenyan whose family owned a cattle ranch there, who unashamedly had a thing for black girls, which she didn’t mind because she was delighted to be desired and he treated her considerately
she knew she could never tell her mother about him, who’d made it clear she had to marry a Nigerian, not that Carol was even thinking of marrying Marcus, they were only nineteen, her mother would then ask her why she was courting someone who did not respect her enough to marry her
it would be lose-lose
before Marcus, Carole had been scared of men, throughout the rest of her school years she didn’t want to be anywhere near them
she imagined herself never finding anyone she could trust, who wouldn’t violate her when she least expected it; she was surprised when her friendship with Marcus turned into something romantic after they began to study together in the library and go for walks afterwards
soon she was sneaking him in for the night
Marcus made her more socially acceptable than she could ever achieve on her own
he was proud to show her off, linking arms or holding hands when out in public
he hired a private room in a restaurant for her nineteenth birthday meal
he was the first person to make love to her with her permission
Carole listened and learned from her new social circle
what would you like? instead of whatdyawant?
to whom were you speaking? instead of who was you talking to?
I’m just popping to the loo instead of I’m gonna go piss
she watched what they ate, and followed suit
learnt that Spanish omelette with eggs and stuff was much classier than English omelette (with eggs and stuff)
twenty-for-a-pound frozen bread rolls were no match for spongy, delicate, tearable fresh brioche
polenta chips dipped in olive oil and herbs were much preferred to greasy potato ones dipped in the cheapest heart-attack-trans-fat
and who knew that rice flour could be used to make bread, that bread could be stuffed with olives, that olives could be stuffed with bits of dried tomatoes, that baked tomatoes could be stuffed with cheese and that cheese could be made with bits of apricot and almonds, and almonds used to make milk
she was introduced to sushi (preferably homemade with a sushi kit given as a Christmas present) and guacamole (pronounced gwacamolay)
she discovered something called asparagus that made your pee smell funny, learnt that anything green was good to eat so long as it was served cold, lightly steamed and/or crisp
Carole amended herself to become not quite them, just a little more like them
she scraped off the concrete foundation plastered on to her face, removed the giraffe-esque eyelashes that weighed down her eyelids, ripped off the glued-on talons that made most daily activities difficult