Maame(6)

I came upon this job through Access All Areas, a social enterprise dedicated to getting more underrepresented young people into London’s creative industries. They informed me the director of marketing at the Covent Garden Theatre was looking for a PA and admin assistant. I’d never considered working for a theater because I never went to the theater. You were either a cinema or theater person, and that depended largely on your budget and upbringing. However, I needed a job and met seventy percent of the experience required. I did as much research as I could and was excited to read they’d had a few changes in senior management in order to focus on “reflecting diversity” in both their shows and staff.

I’d gone for an interview and whilst the panel were all white, at least they were all women, and on my way in and out, I saw people like me. We were still the minority, but compared to my previous jobs, it was a sizable difference. Weeks in, I realized they were mainly front of house, serving staff. The departments I interacted with were stiflingly white, to the point where in every meeting I took minutes for, I was the only Black person in the room.

You have no idea (or maybe you do?) how this can make you feel. It’s mentally exhausting trying to figure out if I’m taking that comment on my hair or lunch too seriously. It’s isolating when no one I know here is reading the Black authors I am or watching the same TV shows. (You should have seen their blank faces when we were talking nineties/noughties TV, specifically Friends and Frasier, and I happened to mention My Wife & Kids.)

When you’re in a job you don’t love but need, it must help to have someone close by to share light moments with. I do have Avi (you’ll meet her later on … prepare yourself) who works on the floor below me, but honestly, we don’t have that much in common and I only see her for about thirty minutes every week. So for the remaining thirty-seven hours my silence is punctuated only by work requests and conversations I’m not invited to.

I’d wanted to leave the CGT before my probation period was up seven months ago, which spat in the face of my parents’ and grandparents’ work ethic. My mum said it was a privilege I had the opportunity to jump from job to, albeit low-paying, job. I knew I had my degree in English literature to thank for that, but it’s the least being forty thousand pounds in debt could do.

“Why are you never happy, Maddie?” Mum said. “I wanted you to be a lawyer, doctor, or a vet, any of which would be more exciting, but you chose this. And all you have to do is sit in front of a computer all day, no? You’re hardly on your feet. Your generation just don’t know.”

I get where she’s coming from because she doesn’t see jobs as something to be enjoyed but rather endured in order to pay bills—the completion of which should spark some semblance of joy. For Mum, work-related happiness is directly proportional to how much you earn. Still, that doesn’t change the fact that although I didn’t think I’d be rich, I expected to be happy and the failure to do so has left me gasping for air most of the day.

Maybe the reason Mum struggles to understand me is because she preaches her experience; no one told her she could do anything she wanted. My parents were Black immigrants in eighties London; they didn’t have time for hobbies or the ability to seek job-fulfillment opportunities.

I should remember to view things through a similar lens, to remember my dad needs me to have a stable job that allows me to help out with bills and get home in time to feed him dinner and put him to bed four evenings a week.

If only logic and reason overruled emotion.



* * *



After lunch, I head downstairs to meet Avi. I always split my lunch hour in two: twenty minutes for food and forty minutes of daydream-fueled walking. Usually I’m by myself, but today Avi’s coming with since she’ll have to walk over the bridge to meet her boyfriend.

“How is Jake?” I ask as we set off. We pick my favorite route, which is a little longer but means we pass a road of flower shops, bakeries, and pubs before reaching the bridge.

“He’s fine,” she says. “He told me last night that he wanted to try anal, so we did.”

Avi Jeeto, ladies and gentlemen. Avi’s half English, half Indian, has a dark bob that curls at its ends and is a serial oversharer. She used to have my job before she moved departments and we became friends during the handover period. I think she’s great, but unfortunately for me, so do many others. She’s been working at CGT for five years and has managed to accumulate a mass of friends so our socializing is limited to these occasional lunchtime chats.

The sun is out so I have to shield my face with a hand when I look at her. And also because eye contact doesn’t feel appropriate for a conversation like this. “I don’t know how to process this information.”

She pulls out her sunglasses. “That’s what I said.”

“You just announced it so suddenly.”

“Again, what I said.”

“It’s a lot to take in.”

Avi tilts her head back and laughs.

I decide the best course of action is silence. It works and the next thing Avi says is, “Still can’t get over your hair, by the way.”

“You don’t like it?”

She shrugs and slides behind me to let a pair of joggers pass. “I’m used to you with braids in—it’s just different now.”