The Family Protector

My mum said to my dad that it would be good if we could buy a house because she doesn’t want to rent from the council for the rest of her life. My dad isn’t sure what money he is supposed to have after paying my school fees to use to buy a house. My mum has had enough of the mice. My dad puts traps behind the cooker, the fridge, the washing machine and the sofa in the living room but we still can’t catch all of them. They just keep coming no matter what we do. They make my skin prickle when they run from behind the cooker or the sofa like a horrible surprise. One day my dad catches four mice behind the living room cabinet where we keep the Encyclopaedia Britannica that my mum bought me and Sol. He kills them with his shoe. In the morning, even if I don’t see a mouse, I know it has been in the kitchen overnight because it leaves droppings all over the cooker and the kitchen counter. It makes me feel sick. My mum has to clean the mouse droppings up and spray the cooker and kitchen counter with bleach before she can start to cook. We can’t leave any food out overnight because that will make them come even more. One day, I look at a mouse inside the trap even though it’s so disgusting. I scream at it in my head to leave us alone and stop coming to our house. I can’t wait for my dad to throw it in the bin. I have had enough of the mice too. My mum asks the council to give us a bigger house so me and Sol can have our own rooms.

 

Our new house is on Nursery Road in Brixton. It’s a terraced house. We don’t have anyone above or below us any more and, best of all, we don’t have any mice. I love it so much even though we don’t have furniture in every room yet. My mum will have to buy most of the furniture herself because if she doesn’t, we will eat our dinner on the floor for the rest of our lives. And if we are going to do that, we might as well be in Africa. Another great thing about our new house is that we have a garden. My mum says when she has enough money, she will make it really nice for us, with a patio and flowers.

 

One day, when I come home from school in Year 7, my dad doesn’t live with us any more. It’s Easter and my mum says that she is finally free. She doesn’t know why she didn’t divorce my dad years ago because her marriage has been a sham from Day One. She has suffered like no woman should ever have to suffer. God have mercy on her. My dad has to move out as part of the divorce. He moves out the week before Easter. On Good Friday, the Ghanaian Choir wear black cloth and sing mournful songs at church, as if they are really at Jesus’s funeral. On Easter Sunday, they wear white to celebrate Jesus’s resurrection and sing joyful songs at the top of their voices. The songs are about kneeling before God and giving Him all the praise and glory. The ladies in the choir dance all the way down to the floor, swaying their knees from left to right. This year, I join in with them and sing the ‘Alleluia’ chorus with every part of my body. You don’t have to have a good voice to be in the Ghanaian Choir, you just have to be Ghanaian and you have to be able to sing really loudly. On Easter Sunday, my mum makes lamb with roast potatoes and Bisto gravy for our lunch. We are celebrating the resurrection of Jesus Christ and peace in our house now that my dad has gone. We have apple crumble and custard for dessert. There is enough for seconds.

My mum says she should have known to manage her expectations when my dad was late to pick her up from Heathrow airport when she arrived from Ghana. He was not what she expected he would look like or be like – not in the flesh. How could somebody whose father was the Director-General of Ghana Broadcasting Corporation, and enjoyed all the benefits of his esteemed position, not aspire to equal greatness? How could the son of the father, who went to such lengths to woo her on his behalf, not want to shower his wife with flowers and kindness, perfume and love? How could he be so quick to anger and strike, to humiliate and terrorise?

My dad has taken all his things from our house. I don’t know where he lives now. Sol is the only one who misses my dad. He stops making jokes and starts talking in a deep voice after my dad leaves. Whenever I try to speak to him, he just tells me to leave him alone. Sol has grown patches of black hair around his mouth that make him look like my dad. When my mum is on nights, he stays out really late after school. Sometimes, I wait at home alone until he gets back. When he comes home, he doesn’t say hello to me. He just goes straight to his room.

 

When I lived with my dad, I had to touch wood all the time because there were so many bad things that could happen to me or my mum. I had to protect my mum more than I had to protect myself, that was my job. Sol didn’t need protection. He doesn’t know about protection. He is not The Protector of our family, I am.

When my dad leaves our house, it feels like heaven. I don’t have to worry about all the things I could say or do that will make his blood boil. Or how much he hates my mum and how much I have to protect her. But that doesn’t mean I can stop touching wood. If I do, the worst thing that could happen is that me or my mum or Sol could die. Or, we could come home from church one day and find that there are a hundred mice in our living room. And they are eating baby Coral before we have had a chance to say hello to her or to see her beautiful face.

 

Sometimes, I have so much to remember and so many things to do that I can never have a moment of peace in my house.