Roomies

‘I’m never ordering Deliveroo again, Stella, not after yesterday. The driver practically threw the Panang curry in my face as he was running off. Zero fucks given.’

‘Time is money, Eim, you know that. You’ve got to respect his hustle.’

When she has finished seeing the funny side of it, Eimear insists that I move in with her. She has her own place. She’s hardly ever there because she’s always travelling for work. Sean is committed to North London in a way she struggles to understand and she is not ready to move north of the river. I can water her plants while she’s away. And she will cook for me, a tempting prospect now that Eimear has replaced vegetarianism with omnivorism. This will cause Deliveroo much chagrin, but it is time, and she is ready. Eimear is back from a trip to Venezuela. Her auburn hair is highlighted with hints of gold and the sun has brought out the freckles on her face.

‘You look sunkissed, Eim.’

‘Washed out, you mean. International travel isn’t as glamorous as it looks. I’m knackered.’

 

Home is a spacious open plan flat with two double rooms and spotlights in competition with generous streams of natural light. It is a relief to unpack my belongings and settle into our Herne Hill abode. And a weird type of rebirth to walk through Brockwell Park from this direction and along these streets. To be so close, and yet so far, from the place we lived as a family of four. Suffocating in oppression and ignorant of freedom. The juxtaposition between wealth and poverty no better reflected than on Coldharbour Lane, where our Sunday strolls often take us. To the right, the brutalist Southwyck House Estate. I can only think that it was designed by someone with an aversion to natural light. Why else its tiny, prison-like windows? What opportunities for the eight-year-old child raised in a building described as ‘the Barrier Block’? Social mobility, an unimaginable concept. Opposite: the Brixton Square housing development. A call to middle-class graduate migrants: gentrified, wealthy and young professionals. Half a million pounds for the same square footage, an entire world apart. I struggle to reconcile the two in theory or reality.

 

When she is not travelling, Eimear loves to cook. A time to zone out, switch off and create magic. She enjoys weekend trips to the farmers’ market and hours in the kitchen. The place where both wine and words flow. Eimear and I agree that Irish and Ghanaian people have much in common. Big families. Religion: christenings, first holy communions, weddings and funerals. Food: I see your potatoes, and I raise you with cassava. Language. Names that English people can’t pronounce or won’t learn how to. History. Political revolution. English rule. Oppression. Independence. Superstition. People: industrious, resourceful, friendly, proud. Supermalt meets Guinness. A good party!

Eimear puts on an endearing accent for effect. It is Galway meets Boston, where she spent her primary school years, returning to Connemara, Galway, every summer, to enjoy country life with her cousins. Playing in rocky fields, running across bogs, collecting limpets.

‘What’s a limpet, Eimear?’

Helping to move cows between fields, climbing hills, picking blackberries.

‘Blackberries, do they grow on trees?’

‘You can take the girl out of South London but you should probably just leave her there.’

Eimear’s voice is permanently hoarse, her laugh mischievous. I try to remember what I spent my childhood doing. My memory is pixelated. I leave it be.

Eimear cooks with love. Meals that require time and effort and the weighing of ingredients by sight. A perfect Sunday roast: chicken, lamb or pork belly with garden-grown herbs and greens. Lasagne, freshly made béchamel sauce. Red wine bolognese, half the bottle, ‘for taste’. Carbonara, rich and creamy. For a Ghanaian girl, I am a disappointment in the kitchen. My mum could spend her entire Saturday cooking. I never took much interest but I love to eat. My favourite Ghanaian meal? Omo tuo and groundnut soup. You have to eat it with your hands, Eimear.

‘Yeah, I can do that.’

 

Over dinners, so many of them, we exchange stories of Ireland and Ghana. Eimear tells me of Oliver Cromwell’s conquest. The confiscation of Irish land. The treatment of the Catholics. The laws passed against them. The bubonic plague. The potato famine. The suffering. I am ignorant. I had no idea how much Irish people had suffered under English rule.

‘Who hasn’t suffered under English rule?’

Fair point. Why don’t we learn this as part of the curriculum? It’s our history after all. My education feels improperly biased and lacking. She talks of Michael Collins, the Irish politician and revolutionary. That he was sent to London to negotiate a peace treaty to establish Ireland as a free state. That it was based on an Oath of Allegiance to the Crown. The controversy caused. And the ‘freedom to achieve freedom’. She explains that the pain is still very raw for many Irish people.

In return, I speak of Kwame Nkrumah, the Ghanaian political revolutionary. An advocate of Pan-Africanism and developer of infrastructure in Ghana. I explain that Ghana played a leading role in African international relations during decolonisation, as if by my own effort and hand. That we were the first of Britain’s African colonies to gain independence on 6 March 1957, Sol’s birthday. Before independence, Ghana was called the Gold Coast. On independence, the Gold Coast flag was replaced. With its colours of red, green and yellow, Ghana’s flag symbolises bloodshed, agriculture and mineral wealth. Its black star: African freedom.

When Kemi and Farah come over, the laughter levels border on uncontrollable. Eimear shares her concern that there is not enough ‘penis traffic’ passing through my bedroom. She is concerned that cobwebs are growing in light-deprived orifices. The situation is desperate, she concludes, and needs to be addressed as a matter of urgency. She puts the case so eloquently that I can offer little resistance to the surrender of my phone. The evening is lost to the installation of a dating app.

‘ “MasterBlaster” is looking for “a sexy sweetheart”. “No drama. No baggage. No Geminis!!! White or Asian girls only!!!” What should I do now?’

‘Swipe left, Stella! For God’s sake, swipe left!’

 

Eimear’s Pisces is a perfect match to my Taurus. Living with her is easy and joy filled. It feels good; it feels like peace. When Sean proposes, and Eimear moves out of our Herne Hill home to be one half of their whole, I am scared to be alone. Because my wings don’t work.

 

‘You’ll have to come to Connemara one day, Stella!’

‘I’d love to.’