Maame(18)

Have faith in yourself and your future



I place a damp hand on my forehead to cool it down.

A text message rolls down my phone screen from an unsaved number.

Hi Maddie. It’s Ben from the other night. How have you been?



Ben. Of course this is when he’d decide to text me. Then I remember the flat I’ve just paid the deposit and first month’s rent for. I can’t deal with all of this right now. I switch off my phone and take a deep breath.

“Fuck.” I exhale.

The man in a suit sitting two seats from me with grease on his tie looks up from his before-10:00 A.M. burger and says, “Same.”





Chapter Six


Let’s just pause here and take a second to look at my life as it currently stands.





The Life of Maddie


Unemployed

Contractually obligated to pay ?850 rent a month for new flat

Mum’s coming home tomorrow

Savings have taken a hit due to deposit, first month’s rent, and now no incoming paycheck

I’m single and Mum’s coming home tomorrow

I decide to start with the first and most pressing issue. I open my CV and type “PA jobs” into Google. But … do I have to be a PA? What else are you qualified for? I have a first in English literature, thank you very much—that’s got to do something for me. Maybe it’s time to give the publishing industry another try. I applied to so many editorial roles before CGT because … well, I like books, but got rejected from them all with no explanation as to why. Maybe with CGT experience under my belt, I’ll have more of a chance.

Google: Editorial assistant jobs

Search pages upon search pages reveal themselves to me and not just in editorial but roles in marketing, sales, and audio. There are so many to apply to. I can’t believe it. Maybe me getting fired was a blessing in disguise because it looks like hiring season in the publishing industry is— Twenty-three thousand pounds a year?! I thought I was supposed to be making more money as I got older. That was the deal, right?

The doorbell goes and I toss my laptop aside to answer it.

“Auntie Mabel!”

“Baaba, I didn’t think you would be home,” she says. “I expected Dawoud.”

Whoops. “I’ve got the day off work today,” I tell her, repeating what I told Dad. “Holiday day.”

“I see. Then how are you, Baaba? Is your father in?”

Auntie Mabel is the only member of the family to call James and me exclusively by our Ghanaian name days. I was born on a Thursday, so my middle name is Baaba, whilst James was born on a Monday, so his middle name is Jojo.

“I’m fine, thank you,” I answer, taking the heavy bag, currently releasing auspicious smells, from her shoulder. “And yes he is.”

When my auntie asks if Dad is in, what she really means is, is he awake?

I open the door wide so, with the help of her cane, she can slowly climb in. “How are you, Auntie?”

“Fine, by the grace of God,” she says. “You already know about my back and my foot. Living room?”

I nod, then say, “Yes” because when I was eight years old I learned the hard way how rude it is in our culture to address your elders nonverbally, even for the shortest of responses. I never saw that slap on my temple coming, but I’ve never forgotten it. Her name was—wait for it—Aunt Patience. She had short eyebrows and rough palms. I don’t think she was even family; she was married to one of mum’s “cousins” or something.

I love my auntie Mabel, however. She’s blunt and feisty but in a way that doesn’t offend me. She’s younger than Dad but looks just like him, which must be why I can see bits of me in her. We have the same full lips and strong jaw.

Today she has on her customary black cotton head wrap, tracksuit bottoms, trainers, and a jumper before her coat, and as always my attention is first drawn to the marks on her cheeks. “Not scars, Baaba. Tribal marks.”

She lives in North London and has her own list of health problems, not limited to sore joints, so she only comes by once or twice a month. But her monthly appearance serves us better than James’s. She brings Dad homemade pepper soup, which I put straight on the stove, and she sits with her brother for hours talking in Twi.

Dad understands more of his language than English (maybe because he’s been speaking it since he was old enough to) and, these days, even finds it easier to communicate in. I can understand what’s being said, even when interchanged between Twi and Fante, but I wish I could speak the language. My parents spoke it all the time at home, but James and I only got as far as understanding it, always responding in English. We’d be prompted to do otherwise, but we could never grasp it and I didn’t consider it important in my more adaptable, formative years; all my friends spoke English, and I still understood what my parents were saying regardless, so why bother? I never thought a day would come when I felt left out.

If I hadn’t made it clear before, let me do that now. Dad doesn’t get a lot of visitors. He never had many friends; used to be a bit of a recluse, a hermit. Mum often jokes he’s where I get my solitary nature from. She made it seem as if it’s one of Dad’s faults, that he lacks social graces. I, however, see it for what it really is: he’s an introvert.