The Colour Red

I was fortified to have Christian by my side in Ghana. To hear him assure my mum that we shall soon follow in the footsteps of Sol and Sienna and return to Ghana for our very own East meets West Africa Knocking Ceremony. And that he cannot wait to marry into the Sai family. I am fortified to know that we are back home, continuing our life together without the distraction of my dad’s stroke. I didn’t not mention it on purpose. I thought I did say he was sick. Can we please not talk about it any more? I try to empty my mind of the image of my dad in his wheelchair, which repeats in my mind at will. And surrender to the love of the one I lie with.

Our children will be beautiful: his eyes, his lips, my smile. He will be an amazing dad. Hands on. A teacher of practical things. A fount of knowledge. A patient helper of homework. A maker of wholesome meals. I go to bed thinking of the names we will call our children. I don’t want a big wedding, not at thirty. A registry office would be perfect.

 

Saturday evening. I am the designated onion chopper. Christian is doing something more complicated. A béchamel sauce for moussaka.

‘Christian, why didn’t you live with your mum when you were younger?’

I need to know why he stopped me from eating a strawberry yesterday. Why he held my right hand with his left, so tightly. To remove the strawberry from my hand before it reached my mouth. Even though I had bought them for us. Even though there were plenty left. I need to know why he got so angry when I said, ‘It’s one strawberry, Chrissy.’ And why he told me that I had ruined the pavlova he was going to make – just like I ruin everything. Before he stormed out of the kitchen and ignored me for the rest of the evening. His eyes rage filled. His breathing, red. I need to know that no one ever strapped him to a chair and sent flashes of electricity through his three-year-old body. I need to know more about the person he was before I met him.

‘What?’

‘It’s something you’ve never really talked about.’

‘We’ve just come back from Ghana and that is what you want to talk about?’

‘I just want you to know that you can talk to me if you want to. You do know that, don’t you?’

‘I’m not going to talk about that and you’re not going to make me.’

‘I don’t want to “make” you do anything, Christian. I want you to share things with me because you want to.’

‘That’s a bit hypocritical, isn’t it? You’ve made it pretty clear that you don’t want to talk about your dad but you want me to talk about my family. What is it, one rule for you, another rule for everyone else?’

He doesn’t wait for an answer.

‘That’s how it starts. Then there will be another question and another question after that and then you’ll ruin the whole evening by saying something fucking stupid – why don’t we just fast forward and get it over with? Because Stella always has something to say, doesn’t she? Go on, what are you waiting for?’

 

His response scares me. The defensiveness and secrecy of it. It makes me need to know the answer even more. So I don’t have to fill in the gaps. I am undignified and undone by suspicion and my imagination.

 

I am not the only one with a wall.

Christian has one too.

An impenetrable wall.

His temper surrounds it.

I am blinking hard and fast.

When the shaking starts.

He is starting to roar.

The colour red.

 

Christian rages and combusts. I have to leave him alone. I want to tell him that it doesn’t matter. We don’t have to talk about it if he doesn’t want to. It doesn’t have to turn into another argument. But when Christian is roaring, he goes to another place. Something changes in his eyes. They glaze over, glacier like. And his voice bellows from somewhere deep inside. I cannot reach him when he goes there. There is nothing I can say or do to bring him back. In his own time, he can return. But if I say or do the wrong thing. He will detonate.

I almost always say The Wrong Thing.

‘Fuck off and get out of my fucking face!’

 

He stands over me and shouts words that a person who loves you should never say to you. I cannot hear properly because he is standing over me and he is six foot four. The volume is too loud. I didn’t think the butterflies would return but they are back. From that faraway land to which they fled. They are beating their wings loudly in my chest. The ants have returned too. They are full of glucose and sucrose and crawling wildly inside my head. Christian grabs my things. And throws them down the stairs.

It is time for me to go.

‘Get out!’

I forgot about the beast inside me. It has been asleep for such a long time, but it is stirring. Because. The last time anyone stood over me. And shouted. I had hot water and palm oil and spinach in my hair.

I am standing next to one of his plants. When the shaking starts to spread. From the bottom of my feet upwards. Vesuvius rising. This time, I know that I am shaking on the inside and the outside. There is a glass of water on the table. I pick it up and throw it. Over the soft black curls that grow from his low-cut hair. The curls I love so much. The beast inside me throws it. A plant is within reach of my leg. I kick it. The beast does. Soil scatters across the wooden floor along with my hopes and dreams. The plant lies on its side, suffocating. My eyes meet his for less than a second. Before he hurls a glass of red wine over me. It splatters on the wall. And the stairs. And my hair.

When Christian stands over me. I am standing next to the stairs. He is roaring at me and charging. Like a tiger that has escaped from the zoo. His roar is the colour red. I look at him. Because I need to know if he is going to come back from that place. Or if he is going to stay there. I need to know if I can reach him. If he will come back to me. Because I am looking at him. I am not looking at me. I miss my footing. At the top of the stairs. And slow fast slow. I fall. Down seven hard wooden steps. As I fall, I see in my peripheral vision that he is trying to catch me. His hands outstretched. His expression, one of horror. But I am falling. And he cannot reach me. He cannot stop me. He cannot save me. Or us. It is too late.

 

I am eight years old when I sit at the bottom of the stairs in Barnsbury, Islington, with red wine in my hair. Or, I am my mum, I don’t know which. Powerful and powerless, both. He cannot come near me because I will not let him. He is no longer bellowing; I am. He is crying. He is horrified. He is desperate to know that I am okay. Please can he help me up. Please can he make sure that I am not hurt. Please can I come and sit down. Please can he make me a cup of tea. Please don’t cry.

Mai is cowering under the table in the living room. I am cowering at the bottom of the stairs. When I can, I stand up and assemble my things, half strewn across the stairs. I get my dog. I pack my car and I sit in it. Christian tries to help me into the car and with my bags.

‘Don’t touch me!’

When I try to speak, it comes out like a scream.

‘Don’t touch my things!’

They are on the floor because he threw them there. He tries to convince me to come back inside. He does not think I should drive in this state. He is tearful. He is Christian again. Me? I don’t know who I am. You should not try to comfort someone you do not love and cannot honour. I switch the engine on and drive back to South London. I am cold. I am shaking.

 

I don’t tell The Girls about the stairs. They will not be okay with that. The thought of him standing over me in anger. They will not be okay with the fact that he shouts at me. Or that he threw my belongings down the stairs. If they know he slams the door in my face when he is angry. They will be distracted if I tell them those things. They will not hear me when I tell them that he takes the bones out of chicken wings for me or that he makes our curries mild so I can eat them. That he always buys yogurt in case I need to cool mine down. They will not know how my garden would look without him. That I would have no outdoor seating or that my climbing rose wouldn’t have flowered. The foods I would never have tried if he hadn’t introduced them to me. They will not think about how beautiful our children will be. Or how safe he can make me feel in his arms.

 

When we speak his voice is soft and sad. He has never argued like that with anyone before in his life. His greatest fear is that I think he pushed me down the stairs because he would never do anything like that. Would he? I try to explain that if he had not been standing over me the way he was, it is less likely that I would have fallen. He struggles to accept that premise because if I hadn’t pushed and pushed and pushed him to talk about something he didn’t want to talk about – if I had not followed him when he needed space, we would have avoided confrontation altogether.

 

I am sorry for pushing him to the point of anger. I am sorry I didn’t give him space.

 

I am sorry.