Reading the Ceiling (13 page)

The door swings open again to let us in. We move into the strobes and the promise of a good time. We sweep right up to the dance floor, and the song rhythms into my toes. I spot Yuan leaning on an elbow against the bar, a beer in one hand. I wave as I take my space in the mass of bobbing heads and bodies. I slip into the pulse and shake some wildness out.

We dance until a slow song plays. There is a general exchange of bodies as the freestyle dancers like us move off towards the bar and another batch of bodies, previously in clutches around the disco, disentangles itself only to re-entangle on the dance floor.

‘What would you like to drink?' bellows Yuan.

‘A Coke please, with a bit of rum,' I holler back. Remi asks for a Cinzano.

I watch as a tiny bird of a girl, on sturdy platform sandals, is swept up by a pair of greedy hands that move down to touch her bum as if they owned it. I turn my eyes away and instead fix them on a line of high-legged flamingo stools next to the bar.

There are a few girl-only groups dotted around, clumped in the pods that come off the circular space in the middle of the disco. One girl bends forward to say something into the ear of her friend. The friend's eyes swivel across to us, taking in Yuan's black jeans, his thick belt with a chunky brass buckle. They notice the stretch of muscle underneath the T-shirt as he leans over to pay the barman. Then they stop at me, assessing my ability to compete. First the cursory check: body shape, boob size, evenness of face; then the detailed look: not bad hair, good makeup, hmm dress, shoes will do.

I recognise Amina in the centre of a tight-dress-with-heels group; Moira is on the fringes, in a floral dress and sensible shoes. I shout into Yuan's ear, ‘Saying. Hello. Amina. Stay. Here. Coming. Back.'

‘Hello,' Amina says as I come close. ‘You're looking good.'

I grin back my thanks, smooth my velvet trousers over my thigh and feel my courage building up. I am confident enough to rearrange my list – remove two names and leave two others on – Yuan Chen and Frederick Adams. It should be possible to make the choice and stick to my plan – somehow.

We dance some more and move around, holding onto elbows of friends, shouting bland intimacies into people's ears. Remi's boyfriend Kojo has arrived and the two of them are dancing together, laughing into each other's face. The darkness will make things seem easier. I find Yuan and ask him to dance with me. I allow the bold me to elbow the shyness away. I say, ‘I want to talk to you,' then lead him away by the hand.

It's still early, partywise. Most people are eyeing each other up inside so there are only a few stragglers outside. It is easy to walk out with Yuan, steer him towards a bunch of rocks under a baobab tree by the cliff edge and say ‘hey, listen,' before turning to practise my first real kiss.

Once he understands what I am after, he asks, ‘Are you sure?' He smiles at me and brushes my cheek with the back of his hand.

‘Of course,' I say.

‘Did you have somewhere in mind?' he says.

I shrug, not sure I can show I did plan ahead.

‘How about my house?' he says. ‘My parents will still be at the restaurant, clearing up.'

I nod. We head for the car park. The lights on the pathway seem brighter than before, the music behind us incredibly loud. My toes kick up a spray of gravel. The breeze is bringing wet air ashore. I rub my arms up and down as Yuan unlocks the car door on my side. I let myself in and wait for him to go round to the driver's seat.

I notice a question in his look. Before he can frame it in words, I lean over to kiss him again, so he knows. I am sure. I really am going to do this.

The road is busy with cars following each other nose to tail. I let Yuan concentrate on his driving. The doors close us in, we've left the windows wound up; the air in the car is thick with the thoughts of things we cannot tell or ask of each other. It's not far. As he predicted, his parents' car isn't there. The house is wrapped in its own quiet. A lone bulb shines on the verandah, dangling from an unshaded socket, with a thick strand of wire feeding into the ceiling. A gecko flicks away from the keyhole in the metal-framed door, its creamy body letting some light soak into its skin.

The key clicks. Yuan reaches round the door to turn on a light, then invites me to ‘Come on in.'

He locks the door behind him and holds my hand, leading me towards a corridor that starts at the right-hand corner of the room. I've been in here before, but the light-coloured Chinese carpet seems swirlier than I remember, and the scroll-like paintings of mountain scenes and bamboo on the wall seem doubly alien.

But it's fine in the end. My fingers discover his skin, his fingers mine. Our breaths mingle. My ears feel hot. Us two lying on his bed, squashed, with me squeezing his hand. I repeat in my head over and over, ‘I've done it.' It's strangely wonderful.

We hear a car door slam.

‘Quick, bathroom. Parents back early.' He hops back into his jeans, grabbing my dress off the back of the chair by his desk. He shoves a pack of tissues into my hands, pushes me into the corridor, points to the next door and repeats, ‘Bathroom.'

I hear the exchange of two male voices, and Yuan mentioning my name.

Yuan's voice is addressed to me, in English. ‘It's my dad. Are you almost done?'

‘Almost ready. My stuff fell out of my bag. I'll be out in a moment.'

I hear the front door open again and the metal frames clang. His father's footsteps are short and quick. A car engine starts.

When I emerge, I find Yuan in the sitting room with his legs stretched out in front of him, head back, hands linked together on his forehead, palms outward. He stands up to explain.

‘Sorry about that. The watchman at the restaurant saw a light on in the house, went to tell my dad and he came to investigate.' He smiles. ‘You OK?'

‘My heart will stop hammering soon,' I say. ‘How did you explain me being here?'

‘I told him we have two parties to go to and we were en route to the second when you thought you might like to redo your makeup. So I brought you here.'

‘He won't mind, will he?'

‘Much less so than my mum. When my dad and I had our ‘you're now a man' chat, he did say that as there were no Chinese girls my age around, I could “get some experience with the girls at school”. Not, of course, that I have done this before, I mean, at home, you know.' His voice trails off.

Nothing's changed in my body. Yet at the same time everything must have changed. As I walk towards the road in the morning, intending to take a taxi to Banjul, I can feel the wind at my elbows, the sun playing with my cheeks. I consider ways in which today is different from yesterday. It's happened, what next? Do I quietly enjoy it? Noisily celebrate it?

The taxi drops me off in front of the post office and I walk to the open-air section with the post-boxes. The numbers 111 on our box, painted in white on a green background, remind me of stretching myself out alongside Yuan, being straight, almost touching but not quite, unsure. Was it mere accident that our bodies eventually found out what to do with each other?

When I open the postbox, I find a postcard from one of Kainde's many penfriends, this one from Calgary, Canada. There is a slight brown envelope under it, addressed to me, with a 31-butut stamp and a smudged date: 3 July. I slip my little finger under the fold at the side and roughly tear it open, leaving ragged flaps on one side and matching indentations on the other. The letter is on stiff paper with the crest of the British High Commission.

*

Dear Miss Roberts,
it begins,
RE: YOUR APPLICATION TO THE WALPOLE FOUNDATION.

 My mouth dries and my tummy whines with tension. I unfold the bottom part of the letter.

I am pleased to inform you that
. . ., it continues, and the typescript starts to swim. I lean against the grid of postboxes for support.

. . . you have been granted a scholarship to a British university of your choice to follow a course of study that will further the economic development of your country.

 Life seems to be rushing at me, handing out bars of chocolate with layers of marshmallow inside. A car door slams far away. A woman comes past me, her quick footsteps tapping staccato on the hard concrete floor. She walks to the opposite end of the line of postboxes. The letter is still in my hand when she comes past, back to her car. It's Aunt Kiki. Her head wrap has slipped and her hairline is showing. She dabs at her face with a handkerchief edged with blue flowers.

‘Ayodele, my dear, I didn't see you. Good news?' she asks.

I nod a yes, unable to make much of a sound. She quickly reads through the letter I hold out to her.

‘Well done.' She holds out her arms and squashes me into a halo of Yardley's Lily of the Valley powder. ‘I'll make sure I phone your mother later to offer her my congratulations. Must rush now, need to get to the market before the morning's fish is sold out.'

I manage to squeak out ‘Bye.'

I walk to the groundnut seller to buy a scoopful of roasted nuts wrapped in a cone of white paper and then walk slowly to the Amet shop to buy a cold drink. I sit on the rough wobbly bench outside the shop, holding the bottle between my knees as I rub the skin off the nuts and pop them into my mouth. A part of my life will soon draw to a close and a new one has started.

When I arrive home, my mother's acknowledgement is sharp, high.

‘Ayodele!'

‘Yes, Ma.'

Bo, where's your respect?' She emerges from the kitchen cradling a calabash full of wet rice. Smells of stewing tomatoes follow her into the corridor. ‘Why do I have to hear news like this from outside?'

It does not take long for the rest of the story to emerge.

‘Uncle Wole just came by to offer congratulations, having heard from Kiki that you got a scholarship. And there I was, mouth open like a fool, not knowing my daughter's news.'

I take out the letter from my bag and try to explain. ‘I met Aunt K at the post office.'

‘It doesn't matter where you met her. There are certain things that have to be said first within your family before you go mouthing them everywhere else.'

‘I was holding the letter in my hand. I'd just opened it.'

‘Even so! To be told my own news in this way. You might as well have broadcast it to the whole world.'

I stand and stare beyond my mother's face to the curtains breathing in the breeze beyond her, blowing away from the window to let a slab of sunlight paint the lino tiles on the kitchen floor. I watch as a gust of wind makes the curtains billow out, rounded, full, expectant. Then my eyes come back to my mother's face. I mutter, ‘Here it is,' as I push the letter into her hands. ‘I'm still getting used to it, Ma.'

‘And so am I,' she replies, talking to my back as I walk towards my room. ‘You have to remember I am your
mother
.' Her parting shot is all I need for the edge of my tears to come spilling past my cheeks onto my T-shirt.

*

That evening, Yuan calls. ‘Hey, I hear some letters are coming out and that you've got one.'

‘Yes,' and even as I say it I know my voice is drained dry of joy. ‘What's up?'

‘Can't talk about it now, really.'

‘Want to come out?'

We find some tree trunks to sit on at Pa Tembo's restaurant. The coconut fronds shout at the wind and jiggle in anger. The wind growls back. I explain my misery: ‘Certainly not because of yesterday.'

We end up back at his parents. And I stretch myself out, flat, straight, next to him and wash myself in his comfort. It's a warm kind of dark, with the lights outside throwing slanted lines which wrinkle across us and onto the floor.

‘I'll be pleased to go away,' I say.

‘But what about me?'

‘You're a new thing. You hardly matter.'

‘Ouch.'

‘Well, you know what I mean.'

‘I was thinking that. . . perhaps I could also come to London, if you don't mind, that is.'

‘Us as boyfriend/girlfriend?' I ask in the wooziness of an evening that wraps itself around me, like a cloak. ‘I don't want to be like Remi and Kojo – all over each other all the time. I can't do that.'

‘That's OK. I can stay a friendly face if you want.'

When I arrive home much later that night, our watchman Osman shines his torch at the front door, so I can see the keyhole.

‘Your friend was here earlier.'

‘Who?'

‘Remi. She was with her father.'

‘Thank you. I'll talk to her in the morning.'

The door needs persuading even after the lock is undone. I press down the handle and shove the door upwards in its frame. I force it free of the sag in its loose hinge. Wood drags on wood. I let myself in, trying to deaden the sound as I manoeuvre it closed.

As we prepare to leave for university, I start meeting classmates of mine whose plans are also coming together.

At the taxi park, a bright blue Peugeot 504 estate with a we- know-Africa spring in its rear chassis waits to fill up with passengers. Amina is in the front seat, next to the driver. A large lady behind her, in a pink lacy grand boubou and matching headscarf, converses with a friend who leans in at the window.

I stop next to Amina, ‘I'm going to Banjul too. Come and sit in the back with me.'

‘Ooooo yes. I'm hearing things about you around town,' she says, gathering up a bag that is lying at her feet and opening the door.

We both clamber into the third row with its smaller, elevated seats sheltered by sloping panes of clear glass. In the open boot is a sack of rice in a brown sack stamped with Chinese lettering. A woven basket with a mix of vegetables – pale-skinned onions, earthy potatoes and a smattering of red chillies – is next to it. A chicken lies there with its wings outstretched and its legs tied. It flaps its wings, resigned to its fate.