Maame(10)

Shu moved out of her parents’ place as soon as she turned eighteen, literally. Shu was born at 3:57 P.M. and at that exact time on July twenty-fifth, she stood up in her room, grabbed her bags, said, “Fuck this place” and walked out. Shu can be a little dramatic, but she left for good reason. When she came out to her parents, they said they loved and accepted her, but things weren’t the same between them again. That’s as much as Shu would tell me. Now her tenancy’s coming up at her flat in Hornsey and she doesn’t want to renew. She can afford a place on her own but she’d rather save for a mortgage deposit and last I checked, Lydia wasn’t ready to take the co-resident plunge.

“I’ve got two more tonight.”

“What about the Camden flat you liked?” I ask.

“I had to turn it down. The girl I’d be sharing with was too pretty.”

A man with a worryingly lifelike parrot on his shoulder edges past me, but it’s central London on the weekend, so I don’t bat an eyelid. “You’ll have to walk me through that reasoning, Shu.”

“She won’t admit it, but Lydia’s got a … what’s the British way to say it? My gran would say ‘sticky eye.’”

“Wandering eye?”

“Yeah, maybe. Anyway, I don’t want to feel insecure in my own home when my girlfriend’s round,” she says. “If only you were ready to move out, then we could find a nice two-bed place and have a good time from the start. You know to take your shoes off when you come in and I already know why your hair’s a hundred times shorter after you wash it.”

I stop in the street. “Are you saying I’m not threateningly pretty?”

“When you make an effort, yeah, but I got nothing to worry about ’cos you’re so innocent. When Lyd was looking at your chest, you told her where you got your jumper from.”

“I thought she liked the button design.”

“She did not.”

“Maybe she did.”

Shu sighs, which means she’s rolling her eyes. “Are you ready to move out or what?”

I pause outside the church building. A warm, jealous pang hits my chest as I briefly think about what it would be like being responsible for only myself, for spending my time however I want. I immediately feel guilty and shake my head; it’s not Dad’s fault he needs me.

“I like being at home. I don’t think that’ll change any time soon,” I say.

Shu knows Dad has Parkinson’s, but she’s unaware of how serious it is. She regularly asks how Dad is and I always respond “Fine” and she hears the silent “… you know, considering,” but she doesn’t ask for specifics. Not because she doesn’t care, but because she’s just as private as I am—maybe more so. I think she asks herself, if the roles were reversed, would she want someone asking all the time? The answer is no.

Shu sighs again. “Fine, fair. Enjoy church.”

“Thanks. Love you.”

She laughs and it’s a burst of energy. “You always gotta say it,” she says. “Why can’t you end a conversation without saying it?”

“Just say you love me too and hang up.”

“Yeah, you too.”



* * *



When Mum’s here, I join her at a small Pentecostal church in Croydon. There the pastor can easily make eye contact with any person from the pulpit and everyone knows too much about each other. When Mum’s in Ghana, I go to a church in central London. I found out about it because Shu goes here, not weekly, but “when I can, innit.”

I liked that they called themselves a contemporary Christian church and that hundreds attend each sermon, guaranteeing anonymity. I attended one Sunday, alone because I preferred mornings whilst Shu preferred the evenings, and liked it enough to keep returning. The sermons are taught by different preachers, so you never know who you’re going to get, and they’re all relatively young. They speak about Christianity in the era of social media and increasing peer pressure; they speak about being the love in a world often shown to be full of hate; they find ways to make the Bible relatable and I don’t leave feeling like I’m not enough of a Christian to call myself one. Each session is ninety minutes long and they encourage you to stick around after and meet people—if you like. I prefer to get home to Dad.

I take a seat on the ground floor at the end of a row and settle in.



* * *



I can hear Dad talking as I let myself in from church and I think maybe Dawoud has come even though he’s not due, but when I step into the living room, there’s no one but Dad there.

His eyes are wide, and he’s speaking in Twi. I can’t grasp what he’s saying because it’s too broken. I hope he’s speaking to me, but, no, he’s staring into the corner, a blank patch on our living room wall, and talking to someone who is not there.

“Dad?”

He doesn’t stop talking and staring.

“Dad? Who are you talking to?”

The corners of his mouth pull down. He blinks and slowly extends his arm, as far as he can, to point at the empty space. “My … my sis … ter,” he says.

“Auntie Mabel? Is she here?”

“No. No. Re … Rebecca.”

I swallow. My aunt Rebecca died in Ghana when I was three years old.