Seven Point Eight (15 page)
Worse still, her parents refused to leave her money in their will, but the silence truly hurt her the most. They never spoke to her after the wedding, or even during it. How can you ignore your own daughter, just because she chose to marry somebody who didn’t have white skin? I think her sister, Hannah, tried to keep contact but her brother, Donald’s treatment of her was quite disgusting though. He always referred to my father as ‘that sand nigger’, a term I heard too much of during my childhood.
Anyway, my father continued to teach and mother stayed at home. I think the fusion of two religions has been quite a challenge, although maybe Islam provided the stronger influence, due to father being the head of the household and in those days, men were responsible for all the decisions regarding the family.
My arrival into the world occurred two years later. Due to my difficult birth, my mother couldn’t have any more children. This really upset my father because he wanted a son eventually, and to extend his family. I don’t think having a daughter as his only child satisfied him. My mother felt afraid that he’d leave her, take me away, and find a new wife. His family scorned her for her now lack of child bearing capabilities, so they gave her a hard time for something that wasn’t her fault, something that was surely the will of Allah? However, my father really stuck by her, like a good husband should.
I spent the first seven years of my childhood in
London
, a place where it was generally tolerated if you had an alternative ethnic background. Therefore, at first, the children played with me and I enjoyed growing up in that neighbourhood.
In those days, you played with someone of your own social class, so some children were ‘too good’ to play with and some were regarded as ‘beneath you’. Gender roles were very clear: boys played war games and football, built go-karts, and enjoyed train sets and being general scallywags while girls played hopscotch, skipping games, and trundled their dolls prams around the streets. Even at a young age, I questioned these roles.
“Why can’t I play football with the boys?” I asked my parents, quite frequently.
“Because it’s a boys’ game,” my mother told me. “It’s too rough for girls.”
“I don’t mind rough,” I replied.
My father completely condoned this view, but I still challenged it in my own way. Suffice to say, I took no notice of their opinions and I joined in with the boys on another street so my parents couldn’t see what I was doing. When I returned home with my dress torn and grazes on my knee, I explained that I’d been playing a chasing game and fallen over, enduring the sting of the medicinal iodine as I lied too convincingly.
I enjoyed playing handstands and cartwheels in the front garden with the girls too, and we delighted in letting the boys receive a flash of our navy blue knickers. However, the few times father caught me, he dragged me indoors and scolded me severely with a slipper for my immodest behaviour. It was painful to sit down for the rest of the day. It didn’t stop me though, and father became so exasperated that he finally locked me in my room. I screamed and kicked at the door, hating the feeling of being trapped inside my room but no one let me out. Therefore, I climbed out of the window, secretly played with my friends and then returned to my room in time for supper, before anyone realised I was missing.
“What am I going to do with you, Tahra?” father often said. “You don’t listen to us and can’t follow rules. You want to climb trees and play football with the boys, and cannot restrain yourself as a girl should.”
Mother tried to teach me dressmaking and home economics, as she repaired my clothes on a regular basis and hoped I’d be enticed into cooking by baking some delicious cakes. However, I had other plans.
“I want to do something really special with my life,” I told her.
“What do you mean?” she said, with a frown.
“Well, housework is so dull. I want to do something outstanding, something magical, I don’t know yet but there’s more to life than being a mummy and a wife.”
She looked quite offended.
“But being a mother is magical, darling.”
She failed to convince me though.
“I’m capable of great things,” I protested. “In my previous lives, I was talented and successful, and this one shouldn’t be any different.”
“There’s no such thing as previous lives,” mother retorted, perhaps upset by my opinions.
I was aware at a young age that I’d lived before, even though I couldn’t recall any specific facts, or details about who I’d been. This disregard for my dreams and ambitions in this life, and the resentment at the limitations of my gender helped lay the foundations for the path my life would take.
Unfortunately, my destiny took a different turn when we moved out of the city and into an area dominated by white middle class families. Because of the colour of my father’s skin, people spoke to him differently and were naturally wary of him. The children didn’t know what to think of me either, and in my new school, I soon realised how cruel they could be. Due to my father’s religion, we never celebrated Christmas which was never an issue for me previously, as you don’t miss what you don’t have, but the other children on the street began to create strife.
“Too poor for presents?” they taunted, flashing their new go-karts, scooters or doll prams on the streets, while I had nothing to show.
I tried to explain our religion but they continued their heckling anyway, so one day, I got angry and threw a rock at one of them. That provoked my first beating at the hands of other children. Two boys and a girl pinned me down on the ground and punched me in the stomach several times. That day, I realised I didn’t have the physical strength to fight back, even though I tried. I was too ashamed to tell my parents and too defiant to cry, refusing to let anyone witness my humiliation.
From that point onwards, my life comprised of bullying, taunts, and a strong awareness of being different to everyone else.
“Go back to your own country,” some children said, spitting at me.
“But I’m British,” I protested, although it fell on deaf ears.
The bullying continued no matter. I got stones thrown at me, my clothes scattered around in the PE changing rooms, girls pulled my hair and told me I was ugly because I wasn’t white, boys kicked their footballs into my face…the list goes on. This aspect of my life pushed me into discovering where my strengths lay.
Thankfully, I had a special friend called Annie, who made those years bearable. We always played games together, such as skipping elastics with a thick tree trunk as the third person, or Knock-a-Door-Run after school, and we were rarely caught out. I vividly recall the day a boy called Edward threw a stone at me, which caught me on the side of my eye and it began to bleed immediately. Without thinking, Annie picked up the stone and hurled it back at him, which made his lip bleed and in response, he pushed her to the ground and she hit her head. I felt so angry, not only because he’d hurt my friend, but I also remembered every act of unkindness that I’d suffered while at this new school. In my mind, I wanted to hurt Edward so bad that he’d cry, and I pushed him hard at the wall, channelling all my emotions into that one act of bravado.
Then the strangest thing happened. He looked into my eyes, which were by now full of rage, and his face crumpled. We locked eyes and something connected, bursting out of me…a surge of emotion, a feeling of complete power… I’d never experienced this before. Edward began to cry uncontrollably, not due to any physical pain as I’d only pushed him against the wall. No, it had to be the energy, the power that I communicated with my whole being. I could affect the emotions of others.
This made me realise I could make people do things, especially actions that would get them into trouble. In class, if children threw things at me, I made them feel extremely angry and say swear words out loud, or insult the teacher and they had to stand in the corner. Sometimes they got the cane, which was even more satisfying. I began to feel less afraid, but I noticed the other children started to fear me because bad things happened to them when they upset me.
Therefore, my childhood became very lonely, and it’s hard to explain how being ostracised over a long period of time makes you feel. Sometimes the sense of powerlessness drives you a little crazy, to the extent that you grab any opportunity to regain that feeling of control. I hated myself for the dark thoughts I had and the impulses to hurt people in retaliation, and this only served to alienate me more. I think this affected my personality but I had one thing that other bullying victims didn’t have…the hidden power to exact some kind of revenge that was undetectable and untraceable.
In those days, teachers didn’t deal with bullying and I felt too humiliated to tell my parents, although they must have sensed I felt unhappy. Fortunately, I had ways of handling it and without that power, I‘d never have developed any self confidence. This inner darkness excited and disgusted me at the same time. Secretly it scared me though, because once the feeling of revenge took over, it controlled me and gave me pleasure.
As I got older, I felt my power intensify. I began to wonder what would happen if one day, I got so angry and carried out an incredibly destructive act that I could never forgive myself for. Hopefully that day would never arrive.
I had a more compassionate side too. If people felt afraid and required courage, or felt despair and needed hope, I had the ability to send positive emotions to heal them. Only those special to me or who deserved my help received this gift. I chose to punish those who hurt me. This light within gave me hope I may not turn out to be evil. So this became my ethos, and I felt comfortable with the status quo again.
Focusing on enjoying life once more renewed my confidence. Very early in June 1953, Queen Elizabeth was crowned officially and we gathered around our new television, a fine piece of technology in a wooden cabinet. It took a few minutes for it to warm up, so the picture didn’t come on straightaway and sometimes father had to move the aerial around the parlour to get a good signal. It was the first time anyone had seen royalty being crowned, so we were entranced.
A wonderful street party followed, and father helped the neighbours take out their tables and place them end to end in the road. Bunting hung everywhere, we all wore party hats, and ate sandwiches, cakes, and crisps. I helped my mother tip the crisps into a large bowl and we twisted open the little packets of salt, sprinkling it all over to flavour them. That day formed happy memories for me.
Annie and I had a penchant for ‘Journey into Space’ too, a wireless programme which scared children because of its creepy sound effects and spooky music. It was set in the future of 1965 and related a tale about man’s conquest of the moon. We were enthralled by this half hour programme, which always ended with a cliff-hanger. The thought of exploring made me feel wistful and adventurous.
“One day, I want to go into space,” I declared.
No one ever took me seriously.
My happiness didn’t last forever though. Annie and her family moved house, they went to live in a town much further west, far away from me. I could still write to her but it wasn’t the same, and I became overcome with loneliness and emptiness in my heart.
At that low point in my life, I found a new ability. One night, I found myself staring back at my own body on the bed, from the other side of the room. I realised I could move around my bedroom, completely free of my body and even watch my parents sleep in the next room. Maybe the desire to escape my sad and lonely life gave me some sort of incentive to master this skill as easy as learning to breathe, yet it seemed so natural and automatic. Then it occurred to me I could see my friend again.
I missed Annie so much that one afternoon, I suddenly found myself standing in front of her. She didn’t see me but I knew I was really there. Annie looked a little older, and she wore her hair short and wavy now. Dolls and teddy bears filled her small bedroom, and when I peered through the window, I saw rows and rows of houses, with children playing hopscotch or skipping games outside. After a while, I came back home because I felt tired.