Luzinda sits curled in his favourite spot on the windowsill in his bedroom. The window overlooks Trafford Road, a park with green railings and the village beyond. This morning, the road, the gardens and the village are wet. But it is cosy where Luzinda sits. His room is warm, and he loves being in pyjamas. Yet he is agonising. Lip-biting, teeth-grinding agonising. Yesterday he turned thirteen.
He looks down three storeys below into the road. Strange cars have started appearing. Has the Premier League already started? It’s not yet ten in the morning but all the parking spaces on his street have been taken. That means Man U will be playing at home today. The noise if they win. If he knew the number for the traffic wardens, those fans would come back to clamped cars.
Further down the road, an old couple, the idiots, are feeding the pigeons. They tear up slices of bread and throw, tear up and throw. The pigeons are frenzied. For the past six months, pigeons have made a nest on the balcony of the flat below. They fight and flap and stink when they come to roost. Their droppings are all over the balcony.
A memory intrudes and Luzinda’s heart jumps. His birthday is in August, which means Christmas is coming. The demon in his house breaks loose on Christmas Day. At parties too.
His eyes wander back to the road. A cat sashays past the pigeons as if it’s a vegetarian. It crosses the road and despite its chunky size slips through the narrow railings into the park. It stops. The tail, just the tail, makes slow wave-like motions above the ground but the rest of its body is dead still. Then it launches – puff-puff, snarling, yowling – into the bush and a fox yelps and scrums out. Luzinda scrambles up and stands on his toes to see the chase through the upper pane of the sash window but is too short. Cat and fox run out of view. He holds his mouth in disbelief. A whole fox? Chased yelping and scurrying by a cat? So wrong. Like a husband walloped by his wife. A moment later, the cat saunters back into view. Its coat and tail are still puffed. It stops for a moment and its body spasms. It looks back as if saying Let me see you come back to my park again, and struts past the pigeons and out of view.
‘Ktdo.’ Luzinda clicks his tongue because that’s how upside down this country is. A cat walks past pigeons and chases a fox five times its size.
His door bursts open.
‘Did you call?’ Bakka, his seven-year-old brother, is breathless. Before he answers, Bakka steps in. ‘You know you shouldn’t sit on that windowsill; it totally creeps—’
Luzinda throws a styrofoam cup but Bakka jumps back just in time. The cup hits the door and falls to the floor. Bakka steps in again, happy to have elicited a reaction from his brother.
‘That’s why you’re not growing tall,’ he says. ‘Curled up on that windowsill all the time.’
Luzinda ignores him.
‘That’s how stalkers start’ – Bakka pretends to shudder – ‘by spying on people.’
Luzinda rises from the windowsill in a now you’ve gone too far way.
‘Don’t let Mum catch you sitting there, not after yesterday.’
Both Luzinda’s legs are on the floor now, his eyes narrowed.
Bakka bangs the door and runs downstairs giggling. He has banged the door so hard the picture of Christ on Luzinda’s wall is askew. Luzinda sucks his teeth and starts to make his way to the understairs cupboard. He stumbles on something and looks down. It is the pile of his birthday presents from yesterday. He kicks them out of the way.
Outside his room, the house is silent. He runs down the stairs, fetches the stepladder and brings it to his bedroom. He stands on the top step and adjusts the picture so that Christ’s hands are stretched towards his bed.
As he takes the stepladder back downstairs, yesterday returns so forcefully he can no longer block it from his mind. It awakens a snake of guilt, then fear. The first thing he realised was how close Christmas was. The other was that life hurts hardest at thirteen. He is more aware now; even thoughts hurt.
Best to go home. In Uganda God was hands-on. He watched and recorded every wicked deed, word and thought in his black book. Then he sent his angels to stockpile firewood in hell to burn you when you died. That’s why grown-ups back home behaved – no messing about. But here in Manchester, where God gave up a long time ago, grown-ups are out of control. Children have no power to keep them in line. But how do you tell your parents, who keep telling you that they only came to give you a bright future, that the family needs to return home?
A month ago, Luzinda had told his mother that he did not want a birthday party this year. She had dismissed him with ‘Nonsense; what child does not want a birthday party?’ He had appealed to his dad, but he was useless. Talk to your mother is all he ever says.
Luzinda had always suspected that his birthday parties were as much for his parents as they were for him. And yesterday, when his mother ignored his wishes, confirmed this. How do you explain the amount of beer and wine she bought? And you know how on the way back from a party, your parents start digging into their so-called friends – So-and-so is getting deported…so-and-so has bought a Mercedes yet lives like a rat…they are on benefits…so-and-so married for the visa…so-and-so’s children have turned into British brats…that daughter of theirs must be a lezibian; did you see her haircut…so-and-so are same clan, same totem but cohabiting, spit, spit. Luzinda had been certain that after his party, on their way home, guests would sink their talons into his parents. So, yesterday when the guests started to arrive, he locked himself in the bathroom. Asking where the birthday boy was, uncle after uncle, then aunty after aunty stood outside the bathroom door, cajoling him to come out and open his presents, but Luzinda remained mute. Then that Nnalongo sighed, ‘Children brought up in Bungeleza: they’re impossible.’ And Aunty Poonah was quick to justify herself: ‘That’s why I left mine back home, hm-hm, I couldn’t manage.’ As if children brought up in Africa were perfect, as if grown-ups who grew up in Uganda weren’t liars and—
‘Still,’ Nnalongo had whispered, ‘something is wrong somewhere in this house.’
That made Luzinda sit up; he should have locked himself in the store. Too late; the guests were going to tear into his parents’ backs anyway.
After a while his mum came to the door and he heard Aunt Nnambassa, Mulungi’s mum, say to her, ‘But this son of yours, Sikola! Something psychological is going on.’
‘Yes, he’s too quiet, too watchful for his age.’
‘Talk to a psychiatrist and see,’ Aunty Nnam suggested.
Mum did not respond. Instead she knocked on the door with renewed vigour. ‘Luzinda, Luzinda? Come out, sweetie. Come tell Mummy what’s wrong.’
At the sound of his mother’s voice Luzinda had squeezed into the tiny space between the toilet bowl and the bathtub, put his chin on his knees, covered his ears and squeezed his eyes shut until she stopped. But Dad did not try to lure him out of the bathroom; not once. In the end, the grown-ups sucked their teeth at the door and gave up.
They left early. Normally, when Ugandans come around, they talk and drink, talk and drink way past midnight. But by eight o’clock they were all gone. They had drunk too much but there was no spare toilet. After the last guest had gone, Bakka came to the bathroom door and whispered, ‘Luz, Luz, they’ve gone. Dad’s gone to see them off!’
Luzinda opened the door a bit and listened. Silence. He opened it further and sniffed the air. Nothing. He stepped outside but did not let go of the door. He listened again. Finally, he walked a few steps into the sitting room and peered and sniffed. Then he turned to his brother. At the question in his eyes, Bakka shrugged: I don’t know why it didn’t happen. Luzinda had put his arm around his brother’s shoulder, pulled him in and kissed his ear. Then he walked to his bedroom and got into bed.
At around nine, Dad came to his bedroom to check that he was properly tucked in. He said, ‘Look, Luzinda, I’ve brought your presents.’
Luzinda pretended to be asleep. He heard Dad put the packages down on the floor. After he put the books away and turned the computer off, Dad turned out the lights and began to leave. But then he paused at the door as if thinking. He came back and Luzinda felt him sit on his bed. He felt Dad’s breath on his cheeks before the feather of a kiss, then a warm hand on his shoulder, but Luzinda remained silent. He fell asleep before his father left the room.
The door opens again. Luzinda prepares to chase Bakka, but it’s Mum. He looks away. Then steals a glance. Is she getting thinner? Her face is puffed as though liquids have collected beneath the skin. She has seen the unopened presents on the floor. Though her eyes are red and swollen, Luzinda has seen the hurt in them.
‘Come and get something to eat, Luzinda.’ Her voice is hoarse. She does not rebuke him for sitting on the windowsill; she does not mention yesterday; she does not comment on the unopened presents. Luzinda gets up and stomps past her. She sighs and closes the door.
At the end of September, Luzinda shoves his still-unopened birthday presents under the bed.
Christmas is two months away now, but Luzinda has done nothing about it except worry. But what is worrying going to achieve: grab Christmas’s legs and tie them together so it won’t come? Sundays are the hardest, especially when he doesn’t have a book to read. He sits on the windowsill and conjures all kinds of Yuletide horrors. Now, determined that his family will return to Uganda before the dreaded day, he gets off the windowsill and kneels below the picture of Christ. He asks him to send the family back home. If he does, Luzinda will go to church every Sunday and get Saved. He will abandon his archaeologist dream and become a pastor when he grows up.
He gets off his knees and walks to his parents’ bedroom. He knocks. No reply. Knocks again. He’s sure his mother is in; she does not work on weekends and he heard her come home last night. Talking to Dad would be a waste of time. He would only say Ask your mother. He knocks insistently. A faint voice comes.
‘Come in.’
He pushes the door and a warm wet stench wipes his face. He holds his breath. The room is so dark he can’t see his mother.
‘Morning, Mum.’ He gulps the stench. ‘Should I open the curtains?’
‘No, darling, I’ve got a headache: what do you want so early in the morning?’
Luzinda resists the urge to say that it’s past ten o’clock. He stands close to the chest of drawers to keep the door open.
‘Mum, can we go home for Christmas?’
His eyes begin to adjust. Mum’s head is up. She pats the pillow as if to fluff it before collapsing onto it. She lifts her head again.
‘Darling, do you know the cost of flying four people to Uganda during the Christmas season?’
Luzinda keeps quiet. He would like to open the window and let in some fresh air. Mum attempts to sit up – she pants and grunts as if shifting a boulder – and fails.
‘How about me and Bakka only?’
‘I can’t send you back on your own. We should eat Christmas together, as a family.’
Luzinda pauses. He pauses too long. As if there is something else to say, but then he steps back and out of the room. He closes the door and goes back to the windowsill. He curls up so tightly he can smell the fabric conditioner on his shirt. He does not see the fat cat cross the road and slip between the park railings. It would have cheered him up; he has respect for that cat now. He decides it’s time to seek outside intervention.
A few days later, when he’s alone with Bakka in the house – Dad’s working the night shift and Mum’s not yet back home – Luzinda picks up the phone and dials 999. A woman asks, ‘Which service do you require?’ Luzinda hesitates. ‘Do you need the police, fire brigade or an ambulance?’
Stupid that those are the only options: what about Immigrations? What about Social Services? ‘Police,’ he says. It’s the closest to Immigrations. But when he explains that his family are illegal immigrants, the woman tells him to put the phone down.
‘This is for emergencies only.’
How dumb! Apparently he could be arrested for wasting their time. He rang to tell the police that he and his brother were home alone. He had heard Ugandans say that in Britain fourteen years old is the youngest that children can be left alone in the house. He changed his mind at the last minute: his parents would guess that one of them had rung the police.
Finally, towards the end of November, Children’s Services arrive. Mum is out but unfortunately Dad is in. Luzinda had forgotten that he had rung the council a month earlier. At the time, he had given them all the family details, but they had not sounded convinced enough to come. In primary school, a teacher had told his class that it was child abuse for parents to smack their children and had made them write down the number for the NSPCC helpline. Luzinda had looked it up on the computer and found the number for the Manchester office.
Children’s Services explain to Dad that they have come to check on the children, that they will talk to each child separately and without him. One woman talks to Bakka first. She takes him to the sitting room. One stays with Luzinda in his bedroom and another with Dad. But Luzinda can hear Dad pacing in the corridor. His voice is a whisper because he is close to tears. ‘How can anyone say that I abuse my children? I live for my children, they’re my world.’
Then it is Luzinda’s turn. When the woman asks him whether his parents have ever beaten him or his brother, he thinks Which Africans don’t smack their children? Arrest them and deport us, but the agony in his father’s voice in the other room makes him shake his head. Did his father hit his mother? Luzinda barely masks his disdain. They don’t ask whether his mum hit his dad. Had his father ever touched him sexually? What?! These people! You mention the word ‘abuse’ and the first thing they say is ‘kiddy-diddler’. And see how they are so quick to suspect the dad! Why not the mum? The pain of Dad’s footsteps pacing up and down in the corridor, the guilt of hearing him say to the woman, ‘But what did they say we do to our children?’ Good thing the social workers are all black. If they were white, Dad would ask So black people don’t know how to bring up their own children?
When the interview ends, one of the women smiles at Dad. ‘Sorry to put you through this, Mr Kisitu, but we have a call on our records’ – she steals a glance at Luzinda – ‘that stated children at this address were being neglected—’
‘How?’ Dad, now vindicated, interrupts. And when Dad is angry his Ugandan accent returns: ‘Hawoo, hawoo, tell me ekizakitly haw my children are nejilekited.’
‘We take such calls seriously. You agree that when it happens we should investigate.’
Dad nodded, tears wetting his eyes.
‘You have beautiful children, Mr Kisitu’ – the woman had touched Luzinda’s arm sympathetically – ‘and you’re doing a good job of bringing them up.’
After they left, Dad clapped and shook his head Ugandanly. ‘This is too much! Ugandans want Social Services to take away my children? Kdto!’
Bakka keeps glancing at Luzinda but says nothing.
If Luzinda thought that being thirteen was painful, this new guilt is in its own league. He gives up on outside intervention.
December is two weeks old. Luzinda has run out of options and Jesus does not care. Meanwhile, the days keep coming and falling away, coming and falling away. Christmas Day is heading straight for his house. On TV, the Coca-Cola advert enthuses that the holidays are coming, that holidays are coming, everywhere there are images of happy children and their wish lists, and the Coca-Cola advert, like a soundtrack, sings that the holidays are coming, Manchester city council has put up its decorations, the weatherman speculates that it will be a white Christmas, yet outside Luzinda’s window the world is soulless. The wet street, the hunched lamp posts, cars parked half on the pavement half on the road, the drizzle only visible beneath the street light and the park now a shadow. What happened to the pigeons?
A car breaks the darkness. Its headlights flash past. Luzinda looks at his watch. It’s nine o’clock; he thought it was seven. The car stops outside his block. It is a taxi. The driver – same as usual – gets out, comes around and opens the rear door. Mum tumbles out. The driver goes to the boot, grabs Mum’s shopping bags and takes them to the doorstep. When he reappears, he closes the car boot, waves to Mum, gets into the car and drives away. Mum disappears under the canopy. Luzinda starts to count: ‘One, two, three, four, five, si—’
The door bursts open and Bakka pushes Dad into the room. ‘Get off that windowsill, Luz.’ He throws orders like he pays the mortgage. He pushes Dad further into the room and kicks the door shut. Dad wears this smile as though he’s only indulging in Bakka’s game. Luzinda starts to get off the windowsill.
‘Hurry up, Luz,’ Bakka hisses. ‘Get your homework book.’
Luzinda picks up his maths homework book and sits at his study desk.
‘Dad, help Luz with his homework.’
Once Dad has sat down with Luzinda, Bakka steps back, looks around the room to make certain that everything is in order. Then he steps out of the room and closes the door.
Dad shakes his head in a let’s humour Bakka way but says nothing. Luzinda opens his homework book and places it on the desk between him and his dad. He has done the homework. As his dad checks the answers, Luzinda wonders whether sometimes his father regrets not having a no TV before you do your homework kind of son. Being rebellious would bring excitement to the house. The door opens.
Mum stands at the door. She’s so tired she holds the door frame to lean in.
Luzinda smiles and says, ‘Hi Mum,’ a little too cheerfully.
Before she replies Dad says, ‘Welcome back, Sikola,’ and they both go back to homework. Mum tries to reply, but her voice is strangled. She stands there not moving, she stands, stands.
Bakka appears. He holds a book as if he has been reading for hours. ‘Hi Mum.’ His smile is cherubic as he walks towards Luzinda’s study desk. ‘Dad, could you please help me with my homework when you’ve finished with Luz’s?’
Dad caresses his hand. ‘I’ll be with you in a minute.’
Bakka turns with the smile of a homework enthusiast and as he walks past he says, ‘Hi Mum,’ again and Luzinda wants to scream You greeted her already, idiot.
Mum stares at Bakka as he walks past, until he closes his bedroom door. Then she turns and stares at Luzinda and her husband. There is amused suspicion on her face today, as if she suspects the three of them are up to no good but she’s not sure why.
Under her scrutiny Dad focuses on one answer and frowns: ‘Luzinda, how did you come to this figure?’
Luzinda looks at his calculation, reaches for the calculator and starts to punch figures in. His mother sighs, turns and shuffles towards their bedroom. She does not close the door. Luzinda carries on until he comes to the same answer. He shows the screen to his dad.
Dad speaks loudly enough for Mum to hear: ‘You know that showing how you arrived at this figure step by step—’
‘Is as important as the answer itself?’
Dad stands up. ‘Get into your pyjamas.’
Luzinda slips his homework book back into his rucksack and gets dressed.
Dad tucks him in and says goodnight. At the door he asks, ‘Light on or off?’
‘Off.’
Luzinda hears his father walk towards Bakka’s bedroom.
The Christmas tree arrived yesterday morning. Dad and Bakka dragged out old decorations for the tree, a large red candle that has never been lit, old Christmas cards with stale messages and tired Christmas CDs with Jurassic-era music by Philly Lutaaya, Boney M and Jim Reeves. They decorated the house. Luzinda did not join in. Last night when he went to the fridge for drinking water, the Christmas tree sat in a corner of the sitting room blinking in the dark like a witch.
Everyone is downstairs when Mum announces that they’ve been invited to a Christmas dinner. No surprise there. The whole Ugandan community will be there. Luzinda states that he’ll not be going.
‘Of course you will,’ his mother says. ‘Who eats Christmas on their own in this cold?’ She talks about Christmas as if it’s served on a plate.
Luzinda glares at her. Is she really that oblivious? Maybe her tiredness is starting to affect her mind as well. Recently, because she’s on leave, Luzinda has taken to watching her face. He’s worried about the swelling.
‘And you need to stop following me around, Luzinda.’
He hadn’t realised. He leans towards the cupboard where the microwave and the kitchen radio sit. She goes to the fridge and retrieves a bottle of Evian water. She drinks half of it in one go and sighs. Would the liquid burst out from underneath her skin like a blister if he pricked it? She walks past him. She takes the stairs, he takes them.
Bakka grabs his hand and pulls him back, hissing, ‘She said don’t follow her!’
Luzinda shakes him off. ‘My bedroom’s upstairs, idiot!’
‘Then wait for her to go first!’
‘Why?’
Bakka has no answer. Luzinda walks up the stairs defiantly. Bakka remains at the landing looking up, anxious, until Luzinda opens the door to his bedroom and bangs it shut.
Luzinda considers setting the house on fire – houses in Britain burn like paper. But British detectives will catch you no matter how clever you are. A few years ago, this dumb couple with a lot of children set their house on fire to frame someone else but six of their children died. Then they cried and cried on TV but the police sussed them out.
It’s Christmas Eve and the sun, the sly one that appears in winter to taunt Africans, has come out. You’ve just arrived from home and discovered that Britain is inside a fridge. The novelty of snow wears off and you beg the sun to come out. Who told you to leave Africa? it sneers. And then one morning it appears. You bolt outside to get some sunshine and whack, the winter cold wallops you. Luzinda is not interested in baking with Mum downstairs even though she has not been tired for three days. He stays on his windowsill looking out. Dad has locked himself in their bedroom wrapping presents as if he’s a proper father. These days he looks at Luzinda worriedly. The other day, as they drove home from the West Indian Saturday School, he asked, ‘You’re righ’?’ and laughed at his own Mancunian accent. When Luzinda did not respond Dad became more concerned. ‘Is everything alright at school?’
Fancy him blaming school when the problem sleeps in his bedroom.
‘Cos as I said before, if any bully picks on you, give him a proper thumping. You’ll get in trouble, the teachers will call me in – This is unacceptable, Mr Kisitu. In this country, we don’t encourage violence, blah, blah, blah – and I’ll be suitably angry with you, but between you and the bully there’ll be a new understanding.’
Luzinda shook his head. Somehow God picked the two most messed-up people in the world and made them his parents.
‘How many people would I beat up, Dad? Yesterday a Caribbean boy beat a white boy for calling him African. Then there was this boy from Year Seven who apologised to me for calling me African. I said, “Dude, I am African.”’ Luzinda looked at his father with a what do you do with that? expression. When his dad did not respond he added, ‘And by the way, when we first arrived, Lisa said right to my face, “I may not be white but at least I’m not African.”’
‘But Lisa is your best friend!’
‘Exactly; now tell me who I should bea—’
‘Dad.’ Bakka has a talent for interrupting. ‘I’ve promised to thump anyone who does clicks at me. You call me Spear Thrower, I thump you, no messing about.’
Luzinda did not know whether to slap or hug his brother, because he had been about to say Sorry, Dad, you can’t blame Britain for this one.
Christmas Day arrives nice and early. It’s a crisp morning: frosty on the ground, sunny in the sky. Smells of bacon, eggs and sausage waft into Luzinda’s bedroom and, despite his apprehension, set him off stretching and yawning. In spite of his hunger, Luzinda stays on the windowsill. This must be how you feel on your execution morning.
At nine Dad opens the door looking all cheery, Father Christmas’s red cap on his head, arms stretched out: ‘Merry Christmas, my big man Luz.’ He hugs and pulls Luzinda down from the windowsill and out of his bedroom to downstairs. He leads him to the Christmas tree and hands him his presents. He stands over him to make sure he opens them. Mum has bought him a pair of pyjamas, winter socks and underwear. Luzinda performs excitement. Dad has got him a PSP – the Vita console! He hurls himself at his father.
From that point on, Luzinda is lost in checking the features on his console. He does not see what he eats for breakfast. He does not see midday arrive. All the way in the car – dinner is in Moston – he’s on the PSP.
But when they arrive, Mum confiscates it. ‘It’s rude to play games on your own when we’ve come all this way to be with other people. Give it to me.’
Luzinda hesitates.
His mother anticipates his reaction and warns, ‘And don’t you try that British brat behaviour, kicking things because you can’t have your way – we don’t behave like that.’
Luzinda drops the console on top of the handbrake and looks at his feet. He’s sitting right behind his mother, who is in the passenger seat. Her words echo in his head. We don’t behave like that, the superiority of it. We don’t behave like that, the hypocrisy. He lifts his feet and puts them on the back of his mother’s seat. His knees are so bent they almost touch his chin. As he contemplates kicking the seat into the dashboard, Bakka holds his breath. Luzinda looks at his brother. You didn’t really think I was gonna do it! he smiles. He puts his feet down. They’ve arrived.
Dad steps out of the car and goes round to the boot. Someone has come out of the house. Grown-ups start making Ugandan noises at each other. Dad lifts the food out of the boot and carries it to the house. Luzinda storms out of the car and bangs the door. Without his PSP, apprehension has returned, especially as he realises that this is Tushabe’s home. Tushabe goes to the same Saturday school.
Loud Ugandan music greets them. Chameleone is wale-waleing, imploring each of the African leaders – Kaguta, Kikwete, Kenyatta, Kabila, Kagame – as if they dance to his music. The house is packed. Smells of Ugandan food. As people see them, the greetings continue:
– Bwana Kisitu, my Ffumbe brother; we’re lost to each other.
– It’s work, work, work; this British pound’s going to kill us.
– The boys have grown, Sikola.
– Especially the younger one: he’s already as tall as his older brother.
– Do these children of yours speak any Luganda?
– Do you know what we do in my house? As soon as we close the door we lock English outside.
– Very true, you take your children back home and they can’t even talk to your parents.
– Leave them behind; wait until they are grounded in who they are first.
– Customs tried to confiscate my grasshoppers at the airport. I said, ‘Border Control my foot; you won’t control me.’ I sat down and started eating—
– You ate grasshoppers in Customs?
– You should have seen the disgust on the officers’ faces but I said, ‘you eat prawns and mussels’.
Mum and Dad join the older men in the lounge, more greeting, then catching up on what is happening back home:
– This man will steal the votes again.
– Not this time; it will be too shameful after Nigeria, Kenya and Tanzania have had peaceful transitions.
‘Cameron is onto immigration again.’ Dad, who believes that there are government spies in the Ugandan community, steers the conversation away from Ugandan to British politics. ‘Every time he gets in trouble with his policies, he ups his ante on immigration.’
– Police caught me walking on the motorway. The M60. How was I supposed to know you don’t walk on the motorway? They put me in their car and I thought, I am finished. Instead, they drove me all the way to my house. They asked, where are you from originally, I said, not originally from; I am Ugandan. Does that mean you’re going back? I said, of course. They were so polite; I couldn’t believe it!
– Motorists in Britain are very polite, eh!
– Limes Nursing Home pays double time on Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, Boxing Day and New Year’s.
– They call me Poonah Overtime at the airport, I always volunteer to work on these days, but this time I said, ah ah! Even the rich die.
– I’ve just come back from home but customer services in Uganda – yii? Especially in banks!
As a small child, Luzinda had loved to sit and listen to their conversation. Not any more. Grown-ups imagine themselves intelligent and children essentially dumb. But by eleven he had started to see holes in things they said. By twelve he had decided that most grown-ups were dumb, especially his parents. It led to premature pubescent ire – temper flare-ups, followed by prolonged silences. Then came this obsessive need to look after his parents.
Now he gives his parents a once-over and decides that it’s safe to leave them for the time being. He takes the stairs to Tushabe’s bedroom, where all the teenagers are congregating. When he comes back downstairs to check on them – you can’t leave parents too long to their own devices – Dad is in the kitchen helping the women with the food the family brought while Mum sits in the lounge. Everything is alright: he goes back upstairs.
Next time he checks on them, his parents have started drinking. Dad holds a can of Stella, Mum a Carling. Sweat breaks out all over his head. But he has worried too soon: in half an hour dinner is served and the grown-ups stop drinking. He even enjoys dinner. Tushabe is making fun of her dad’s accent. Recently, her dad threatened to send her back to Uganda because she hangs out with the wrong crowd, talks back, has started smoking and her skirts are the width of a belt.
‘I’ll pac you on a plen and fly you back to Uganda and then you shall see.’
The teenagers laugh.
‘They don’t jok over there! They’ll bit all that madness out of your hed and then we shall see.’
Luzinda laughs too; Ugandan parents are the same everywhere.
With the eating over, the women clean up and join the men in the lounge to talk. Like the men, Mum never helps. Younger men and women, university students and all the unmarried remain standing in the dining area and kitchen. This time they are marvelling how they survived all that beating in high school. Teenagers bring down their plates, drop them on the table and return to Tush’s bedroom without a care, without a care! How can a child with parents be without a care? Now even Mum has got hold of Stella.
An hour later, when he comes down to check on them, the signs have begun to manifest. First, her eyes become lazy. Then her lower lip droops. Luzinda runs back upstairs agitated. When he comes down again, there’s a suspicious film of perspiration on Mum’s face. There is nothing he can do but keep an eye on her. When he comes down for a drink, she’s animated and laughing extravagantly.
By six o’clock, Luzinda cannot stay long upstairs. Mum’s body has started to lose harmony. Her head drops fast and heavy. She’s gone quiet. Luzinda’s heart knots up. He glances at Dad: surely he has seen the signs. He wills his father to go to his wife and say That’s it, Sikola, you’ve had enough, or It’s time to go home, but Dad is talking to an uncle.
Luzinda turns away. The teenagers crowding Tush’s bedroom are oblivious to his distress. Some are listening to music, trying out the latest dance moves in music videos. African music is all the rage now. Some are sharing songs on their phones; others are on Facebook and Instagram. Luzinda stares at them, at the way they laugh at mundane things, unaware that he’s choking on fear. Where is Jesus?
He runs downstairs and out of the house, but winter is waiting. It clobbers him, whack, and he runs back into the house and upstairs. Don’t go back downstairs: stop watching her. He even attempts to join the carefree teenagers, enthuses at Nigerian music. Stay up here. Calm down. He walks over to Mulungi, an intense girl, who rarely comes with her mother. Luzinda has heard his parents describe Mulungi’s father as a rich, spoilt, Afghan brat with hair to below his backside. Apparently he could spend five hundred pounds on a book, or he could travel to France and check into a luxury hotel just to borrow a rare book from a nearby library. Mulungi is ‘messed up’. Her mother tried to impose a Ugandan identity on her, but she rejected it. When she’s fallen out with her mother she is Tajik and her name is Mulls. She’s British when she hates her father. Today she is wearing a headscarf. Luzinda asks what her mother has done. She starts to explain that somewhere in Europe someone banned the niqab. After a while, Luzinda half-listens: his heart has run to the lounge. Soon he excuses himself.
Mum’s face is so swollen her nose leans somewhat to one side. It would be hard for an outsider to notice but when she’s really drunk her face swells more and her nose leans. And when it leans, you brace yourself: the monster is about to break loose. Luzinda’s skin starts to itch like he’s wearing low-grade cashmere. He claws at his arms and at his back.
He runs upstairs but stops on the landing, out of breath. There is a small window here but the glass is frosted. Three large vanilla candles stand on the windowsill. Any minute now. The staircase becomes claustrophobic. He is hot. He opens the window. He breathes in out, in out, until he cools down. Then the draught gets too cold and he closes the window. He plops onto the steps and holds his head. Don’t go back downstairs. Stay right here.
Raised voices.
First, Luzinda runs to check on Bakka. Bumps into Tush going down the stairs. ‘What’s with you, Luz?’ He stops, smiles. ‘Nothing. I’m sorry,’ but Tush does not wait long enough to listen. Thankfully, his brother has not heard: he’s playing. This time Luzinda walks carefully downstairs. He’s in time to hear his mother insult Aunty Katula; something about a sham marriage:
‘Bring that husband you claim to have; let’s see him.’
‘That woman again; she’s started!’
‘I’m tired of her spoiling our parties.’
‘She does it on purpose.’
‘I know we’re in Britain and we have our women’s rights, but some women take it too far.’
‘Equality or not, there’s something ugly about a drunken woman.’
Luzinda hovers, prays.
Dad sits with his right hand propping his chin, defeated. It makes him look like a helpless wife.
‘Leave her, don’t argue with her,’ Nnalongo says. ‘She’ll only get worse.’
‘Why do you invite me? Stop inviting me, then.’
‘Sikola, that’s rude,’ Dad pleads.
‘Oh, you shut up.’
Mum looks up and sees Luzinda hovering. ‘Heeeeeey.’ She holds out her hands. ‘There he is – my beautiful, beautiful boy.’ Her hands invite him into a hug. Luzinda does not budge. ‘This boy’s so clever, have you seen the size of the books he reads? Come to Mummy, come, Luzinda, come to Mummy.’ After a while, her hands fall at the rejection. She whispers to the guests, ‘He doesn’t approve of Mummy drinking – even a little like this.’ She indicates a pinch. ‘He’s just finished Long Walk to Freedom. He’s a real man now.’
‘Go back upstairs, Luzinda,’ Dad says, but Luzinda does not budge.
‘All the Harry Potters’ – Mum licks a finger – ‘soup to him.’
‘Leave him alone.’
Mum glares at Dad. Now she’s really miffed. ‘Leave him alone, leave him?’ She grabs a cushion and whacks Dad with it. ‘Isn’t he my son?’
Dad takes the cushion off her as if she’s being playful. Now Luzinda doesn’t care for any other humiliation: he’ll soon be the son of a battered husband. While Mum has lost her sense of judgement, she’s still strong. If she’s forced to go home, her frustration could turn Dad into a drum. And Dad never stops her. Unless, before she starts, Bakka acts fast and pushes Dad into Luzinda’s bedroom, where the boys would protect him. Otherwise she would pace up and down the house, shouting, hitting him, while the boys cowered in their bedrooms. Now it’s best to stay here and let her drink until she drowns. Luzinda hopes his dad’s using his head.
Dad leaves the sitting room to pack the dishes and pans they brought. The party is dead. Most of the younger men and women have left. The few remaining are talking quietly; something about a celebrity sex tape back home. Uncle Mikka is calling his children, his face disdainful, his tolerance unwilling to extend to exposing his children to such drunkenness. Guiltily, Luzinda watches them leave. In the sitting room, only Mum yells. She tells the guests that she’s not a labourer like them. Her husband was a paediatrician back home.
Luzinda realises too late that everyone is staring at him instead of her. He unclenches his fist and attempts to smile. The grown-ups look away but not the children – the children stare hard. He did not see them come downstairs; he did not see them break into little groups. Bakka is pushing the younger ones back upstairs. Somehow, he’s got hold of Luzinda’s console and he’s offering it to anyone willing to go upstairs and play. But the children are not having it; they prefer to stay and stare.
Now Dad makes his way to her. He whispers that it’s time to go home. Mum taunts him – ‘Good for nothing,’ she feeds him: ‘Calls himself a man?’ But Dad insists. Finally, she stands up. Is there a telltale wetness on her jeans?
‘Why don’t you man up and feed your family?’
She lunges at Dad. Dad does something he’s never done before: he steps out of the way. Mum falls like a log. She remains motionless on the floor.
As Mum is being picked up, Bakka springs into action. He runs to the middle of the lounge, pulls down his trousers and whips out his willy as if to pee right there on the carpet, in front of everyone.
Uproar.
‘Stop that boy!’
‘Oh my goat, someone hold him.’
‘What is this?’
‘We’re dead!’
Some hold their mouths, some clap, some go ‘This is a calamity!’
When he sees Mum being led away, Bakka tucks his willy back into his trousers, a triumphant grin on his face. Luzinda grabs him and pretends to slap his butt – ‘What’s wrong with you?’ – but hits the jacket.
‘I didn’t do it.’ Bakka laughs. ‘Just joking.’
Mum must have fallen on her drink because when she was picked up off the floor, her jeans were wet.
The children whisper. They steal glances at Luzinda and Bakka and whisper. They don’t laugh but whisper. Luzinda is mad that they are whispering. Why don’t they laugh, the cowards? He turns and follows his mother being carried – feet dragging – through the dining room. One of her shoes slips off. Luzinda picks it up. Then the other: he picks it up, too. Mum has the softest, palest feet. See the folds? This house has the longest hallway in the whole world.
Outside, winter has stopped to stare. Bakka runs ahead and opens the rear door. Mum is thrown into the seat but Luzinda does not get in. He stands at the door. His mother is sprawled all over the back seat and Bakka has taken the passenger seat. Disgust twitches his nose. Dad, seeing him standing outside, comes around the car. He moves his wife into a sitting position. A huge bump has formed on her forehead where she fell.
When he has made space, Dad says, ‘There, get in.’
The car stinks. Why does alcohol smell so foul on the breath? Wait until she goes to the toilet; then you’ll know what stinking is. And if you go to their bedroom, that wet, warm stench of stale alcohol breath will wrap itself around you. God knows how Dad sleeps through it.
As Dad reverses the car, Mum tips and her head slips onto Luzinda’s right shoulder. The disgustingness of it! As if a huge bluebottle fly has landed on his shoulders. He tries to shake her head off – he can’t bear to touch her – but the head keeps coming. He shifts his shoulder, fidgets, but her head gets heavier. He tries to move away but she falls towards him. He looks up.
Dad is watching in the rear-view mirror. ‘Luzinda, please! Your mother’s tired.’ That’s Dad’s favourite phrase: your mother’s tired, Mum’s tired. Luzinda is tired of pretending. ‘Hold her head, Luzinda. Her neck will hurt if her head hangs like that.’ But Luzinda will not touch her. She’s drunk, not tired! Several times, he lifts his shoulder to shove his mother’s head back onto her neck, but it keeps collapsing back on him. When they stop at a red light, Dad turns. ‘Mum loves you, Luzinda. You cannot forget that.’
‘Then let’s go back to Uganda. Mum didn’t drink in Uganda.’
The traffic lights turn amber. He does not tell his father that the lights have turned green.
‘Alcoholism is a disease. It can come anywhere.’
‘A disease? You walk into a pub and pay for a disease? She even hits you, Dad!’
The cars behind have started honking. Bakka is silent.
‘She doesn’t mean to. We’ll get help.’ Dad turns to drive.
As he pulls away, an impatient driver tries to overtake them. Dad drives faster. He races the man until he is level with him. He turns to the man and shouts, ‘You want to kill my children, eh? You want to kill my family on Christmas Day?’ Then he races forward.
Mum snores.