she was flattered that this handsome, preppy and genuinely plummy man was interested in her when the room was full of stunning debutante types eyeing him up
she said yes to the Curzon Soho cinema date to see a Venezuelan film on a Sunday afternoon
yes to the leisurely walk through the backstreets of the West End to Hyde Park
yes to dinner in a Lebanese restaurant on Edgware Road and thereafter late-night drinks at his father’s club in Pall Mall
yes to his knockout humour and genuine interest in her life and opinions
yes to his intelligence, conversational skills and easy-going personality
yes to his romantic hand-holding and all-round good manners
yes to his obvious infatuation with her
he told her he was raised in a villa in Richmond with a lawn that swept down to the Thames with its own jetty where a motorboat was moored for excursions
he was enthralled by her own childhood on a Peckham housing estate, impressed that she’d made it against so many obstacles
he said he had merely stepped rather casually into the grooves of a pre-ordained track laid down by his family, beginning with an eccentric boarding school in Wiltshire attended by almost every male in his family since 1880, a school that taught Latin and Ancient Greek for twenty-one out of the thirty-one classes a week when his father was there
thankfully cut back to only seven classes in Freddy’s time
after a whirlwind world tour during his gap year, he flew to a private New England liberal arts college, most generously endowed by his alumnus father the year his Straight C son applied
the son who graduated four years later with an embarrassingly low Grade Point Average on account of being side-tracked by about thirty other teenage boys left to their own devices for the first time in a frat house where he partied most nights and ingested various mind-altering substances which often left him out of it for days
barely able to speak, let alone write
not that it mattered
in his final semester he was offered a well-remunerated starter position in the City as a result of his mother calling in a favour from a school friend who’d been one of her bridesmaids
she said Freddy could start the day he landed back in Old England from New England
no interview necessary, he’ll just need to do a bit of boring old form-filling, darling
ever since, he’s found the corporate lifestyle so stultifying and soul-destroying, he dreams of living in a wigwam in a field and growing his own food
Carole moved directly from her mother’s flat where she stayed rent free for a couple of years after graduation to save for a mortgage
into Freddy’s house in Fulham where the relationship moved into the engagement phase
I’ll be the househusband in the relationship, he promised, hang prettily off your arm when required, mow the lawn, make jam, supervise the housekeeper and raise our lovely tawny offspring
she loved that he was prepared to be subservient to her ambition
she knew she’d go further faster with him at her side
he said his parents wanted him to marry someone whose lineage, like theirs, could be traced back to William the Conqueror
you should have seen their faces when I told them.
Bummi
1
Bummi
did not foresee the long-term negative impact of her daughter going to the famous university for rich people
especially when she returned home after her first term wailing that she could not go back because she did not belong there
whereupon Bummi applied a tissue or two to her daughter’s eyes and cheeks and asked her outright and forthrightly, Carole, have I raised a fighter or a quitter? you must return to the university and get your degree by hook or by crook or I cannot vouch for the consequences of my actions
Bummi did not subsequently expect Carole to return home after her second term speaking out of her nose like there was a sneeze trapped up it instead of using the powerful vibrations of her Nigerian vocal power, all the while looking haughtily around their cosy little flat as if it was now a fleapit
did she think her mama did not notice the external manifestation of her internal mind? eh! eh!, you do not raise a child without becoming an expert in the non-verbal signals they think you are too stupid to see
that first summer holiday Carole worked in Marks & Spencer in Lewisham, not to start paying off her student debt like a responsible adult, but to buy clothes from those expensive fashion shops called Oasis and Zara, instead of getting bargains at New Look and Peacock
in her second year she barely came home at all and by her final year she was spending weekends and holidays at her friend Rosie’s family manor in the countryside, which had more rooms than a housing estate, she said, it’s simply divine, Mother, simply divine
(Mother – was she being ironical?)
when Bummi watched her daughter collect her degree at graduation, tears streamed down her face so heavily it was like rain lashing a car window
without the windscreen wipers
she wished Augustine was there to witness their little girl making it, she also wished Carole had come home to continue celebrations with the pot of bush stew Bummi had cooked specially, hoping that now her daughter had graduated, she would return to her real culture and even eat with her hands again instead of side-glancing her mama for doing so, as if she was a savage from the jungle
before she got on the train back to London, Bummi impressed upon Carole for the umpteenth time that now she had to acquire a high-flying job and then a respectable Nigerian husband in order to give her grandchildren
Carole had introduced no boyfriends to her mother thus far, which meant they were of little importance to her daughter
nearly a week later, Carole returned to the flat red-eyed and ‘exhausted’ because she had been out ‘partying’, Mother
what is this partying? Bummi asked, you are too old for such things, are you sleeping around? is that it?
no, I’m a virgin (was she being ironical again?)
Bummi gave her the benefit of the doubt, and you must stay that way, remember you are Nigerian and not one of these tarty English girls, I will now defrost the bush meat stew for you and we can have it for dinner tonight
I’m not hungry, don’t bother, Carole replied before going into her room, shutting the door and only reappearing the next morning
when Carole quickly found a good job at an investment bank, Bummi was happy that she decided to stay at home to save for a mortgage
where Bummi tried to coax and cajole her into going to church to meet the three young Nigerian men she had picked out for her, all with good degrees and varying degrees of handsomeness (she did not want ugly grandchildren)
I’m really not interested at the moment, Carole replied
do not leave it too long, Bummi warned her, by the time you are thirty you are past it
and so everything was going along quite nicely for a couple of years, although Carole worked very late and stayed with friends most nights, she said, who lived nearer to the City
then one morning at breakfast (a cup of sugarless coffee for Carole) while Bummi tucked into the delicious yam porridge her daughter loved before she went to the university, and then began to say it was as inedible as warm cement
Carole said, I have something to share (typical English, all this sharing preamble instead of just speaking directly about the matter at hand)
I’ve got engaged to be married, Mother
her daughter spoke to the faded lino on the kitchen floor as if she had never seen it before, except it had been there since before she was born