Being Me (4 page)

‘It’s not me having the identity crisis here, Dad. Marcus is not a black boy. Marcus is a boy. And I happen to like him. Anyway, your own mum was black.’

Dad looks at me finally. ‘What gives you that idea?’ he says.

‘You showed me her photo, remember? I said she looked dark, and you laughed and said that’s because she was part-Egyptian.’

Dad laughs again. ‘Ethiopian. She did say her father was Ethiopian, but I don’t know. She didn’t talk about it much.’

‘Doesn’t that make you and me black?’ I ask him.

Dad laughs. ‘It makes you and me Italian!’

I’m fed up with Dad again. He twists everything. I concentrate on playing the game on my phone.

‘Got out the wrong side of the bed, did you?’ Dad says after a bit.

‘My bed’s against a wall. I get out the same side every morning.’

‘Metaphorically.’

‘Shut up, Dad.’ I make out I’m texting so Dad can’t talk to me anymore. For once, the school gates can’t arrive fast enough.

There are thirteen reasons why I don’t like school. They are (in no particular order):

I walk into the school grounds, my head still throbbing from arguing with my dad.

Sometimes Art is good and sometimes it’s feeding time at the zoo. Today it’s OK. After a boring lesson about pointillism, Miss Dolphin allows us to paint flowers using little sponges. Stuff soon starts getting flicked across the room. By the time Miss puts dolphin music on, half of us are on our phones. I have a pic of Marcus on mine as my wallpaper. Mikaela sees it.

‘Who’s that?’ she asks. I can hear the jealousy in her voice. I sigh loudly to let her know that I know she’s gaming me.

‘He’s fit,’ she says. ‘You got the pic off Facebook. Your imaginary boyfriend is it? Give it here.’

She grabs my phone off me. ‘Nice,’ she shouts, ‘a black boyfriend to go with your black gran.’ She starts waving my phone at the whole class. ‘Look! Adele Vialli is surrounded by imaginary black folk!’

Afterwards everyone asked me why. Answer:
she shouldn’t have dissed my gran.

I grab her hair and she grabs mine. Then she’s wailing and thrashing on the floor. I cling to her.

‘Adele, look what you’ve done, you’ve ruined her hair!’

Miss Dolphin is standing over us.

It’s only as I push myself up from the floor that I see the clump of Mikaela’s braids in my hand. I can’t believe I’ve torn out so much of her hair.

‘Off! Now! To Remedial! Immediately!’ says Miss Dolphin, followed by, ‘Mikaela, you poor thing!’

Mikaela is still on the floor, bawling and clutching her head.

I pick up my bag and start walking out of the class as instructed.

‘Get back here!’

I turn to go back to my place.

As I turn, Mikaela rushes past me, still clutching her head.

‘Not you, I meant Mikaela,’ says Miss Dolphin to me. ‘You, Remedial!’

I turn again and make the walk to Remedial. Why am I always the one to get the blame? I’ve had it up to here with Mikaela Robinson. Is it my fault she hasn’t got a boyfriend? She is a sad, sulky, jealous bitch.

I really don’t mind Remedial. They let you doze here, so long as you’ve got headphones on and you’re listening to some Educational CD about something like the Fall of The Roman Empire. Everyone just whacks the volume down to zero and snoozes.

I wonder about Mikaela again, what’s eating her. It’s like my mum and dad when they argue. What they’re arguing about is never what they appear to be arguing about. I decide she’s trying to get the school to ban me from playing so she has more chance of getting noticed. She’s sly like that.

The bell goes for home-time. I bundle everything into my bag and join the crowds fleeing for the bus stops. When I get home nobody’s in, not even Mum. I imagine her staggering around outside an off-licence somewhere.

In the bathroom, I look in the mirror. There’s a pink bruise above my right cheek and my lip is cut in one corner.

I fall asleep. I wake up in a panic, thinking,
I forgot to look for Mum.
I find her. She’s back home, in bed, snoring.

Next morning as I walk through the main doors, I’m stopped by a Teaching Assistant who takes me to the Counselling Room. He tells me to sit with my legs together, keeping my hands visible at all times. He obviously moonlights at prisons. The Counselling Room is also the Sick Bay. I’m guessing Friday morning is Year 7’s PE time because there’s three Year 7 fakers in here, all holding their noses or clutching their stomachs, while grinning at one another.

I think about the war in the Middle East. I think about genetically modified foods and their effect on the food chain. I think about whether Beyoncé will ever split from Jay Z. I don’t think about why I’ve been told to wait here because I know.

Miss Duras strides in. She runs Counselling, Sick Bay and Careers. A woman of many talents. She’s got Mikaela tucked behind her. My mouth drops for a moment. Mikaela’s hair is one huge Afro. I can’t help giggling.

‘Don’t laugh, bitch. I’m gonna stab you!’ says Mikaela, safe behind Miss Duras.

‘That’s enough. Sit down. Mikaela. Sit.’

Miss Duras orders all the ‘ill’ kids out into the corridor so it’s just us three, though I can see a Year 7 eye pressed up against the keyhole of the door.

‘I thought you two were best friends. Adele, what’s going on?’ asks Mrs Duras.

‘She keeps saying my grandmother’s not black.’

‘Is that true?’

‘Her grandmother isn’t black,’ Mikaela sneers. ‘She’s white as Snow White.’

‘Mikaela, if Adele says her grandmother is black then her grandmother is black. We believe in self-definition at this school.’

‘It’s just not expressed much in my genes,’ I add for Miss Duras’s sake.

‘Well, there you go. So that’s the end of it. Are we done?’

Mikaela speaks up. ‘She says I’m not street. She says my dad drops me off in a Bentley and I live in a mansion not a council estate.’

And is it true? Does your father drop you off in a Bentley?’

‘No.’

I’m amazed. Mikaela’s just told an outright lie.

‘Adele, you should not say things that are untrue,’ says Miss Duras. ‘Nobody needs to be anything or anyone other than who they are. This school is a Harmony school. We have Asians, Chinese, Africans, Somalis, Greeks, Muslims, Polish and Roma here. We are more diverse than the United Nations. Everyone has to be proud of who they are and be happy with that. Understood?’

She says it like a threat. We both nod because otherwise Miss Duras will keep going with her speech. Unfortunately, she keeps going anyway.

‘In this school, for some bizarre reason, black is seen as the height of cool. We can all speak Urban,
you get me?
But that doesn’t make you black. Black is the traffic lights inventor, black is Mary Seacole, the Victorian nurse, black is the first astronomers, black is the Arabic maths, black is the Egyptian kyrogriphics.’

It’s hieroglyphics not kyroglyphics,
I think. But who am I to interrupt Miss Duras, mid-flow?

‘...So you might both want to be black but if you want to be truly black you need to check out what black actually is. Black actually is going to your lessons and studying hard.’

Are you gay, Miss?’ says Mikaela. She has been looking at Miss Duras’ thick eyebrows, lip-stick free lips and sports bra straps.

‘I don’t have to answer that question,’ says Miss Duras without missing a beat.

‘Miss is gay!’ says Mikaela, astonished, then, ‘That’s OK, Miss. We’ll keep your secret.’

Miss Duras gets back on her theme. ‘So that was what you were fighting in class about yesterday?’

‘That, and she says I don’t have a boyfriend, when she knows I do,’ I reply, ‘She’s just gaming me cos of the England team thing.’

Miss Duras is looking at her (quite manly) watch. The bell rings. She’s out of time.

‘Mikaela, whether Adele has a boyfriend or does not have a boyfriend is no concern of yours. Girls, we cannot have fights at school. Whatever the England thing is, be nice to each other. You will be in serious trouble if it happens again. Adele, look what Mikaela has had to do to her hair because you pulled her braids out.’

‘I’m proud of my new hair, Miss,’ says Mikaela, ‘it’s natural.’

‘I wish I had an Afro,’ I say, ‘it’s brill.’

‘That’s better, girls. Support each other. Now shake hands and let that be the end of it. Promise?’

Another threat. We both nod and shake hands.

‘Go to your next lesson together, nicely, or I’ll make your lives not worth living. Understood?’

I give a Year 7 a bashed head when I swing open the Counselling Room door. Serves the little sneak right.

‘Mummy, you really need to go to Parents’ Evening.’

‘Darling, I’m sure you’re doing wonderfully.’

‘But they want you to hear how wonderful I am.’

We’re in the kitchen. I’ve just got back from school. Mum is looking for a tin of macaroni cheese to serve with toast as my tea. Mia would have cooked steaming Italian pasta in a homemade tomato sauce. Nevertheless, I smile at Mum. She’s almost sober and she’s making an effort. ‘Thanks, Mum,’ I say when she serves me. I kiss her. ‘You’re the best.’

I don’t actually want my mum to go to Parents’ Evening. I binned the School Report they posted last week and faked an email from the school to Mum. It said:

“We have attached your daughter’s school report. Save trees by not printing this file.”

In my version of the Report, I am Exceptional in all subjects except Maths (no point in pushing it too far).

Mum gets through about forty reasons why she’s not going before I say, ‘OK, Mum, I’ve got to do my homework now.’ I leave her babbling something about orchids.

Later, Dad gets back and I hear him ask Mum why she accused the housekeeper of stealing her vodka and sacked her. The two of them then spin through their full set of other arguments.

The Complete Mum & Dad Arguments Playlist:

You Don’t Love Me. (Mum)

Love Is Not Found In The Bottom Of A Bottle (Dad)

I’ve Got A Weak Heart (Mum)

Anything Microwaved Is Not A Meal (Dad)

Don’t Fuck The Hired Help (Mum)

You Are Now Being Ridiculous (Dad)

I Can’t Take This Loneliness (Mum)

I Work All Hours & It’s Killing Me (Dad)

[Even If] You Were The Last Man On Earth (Mum)

Nail Me To A Cross, It’s Quicker. (Dad)

Dad then accuses Mum of internet dating. She says it’s not dating it’s a friendship site. Dad says why are all the people she has ‘liked’ on the site men, then? Mum says they’re not, it’s just those are the ones he noticed and anyway why can’t she have male friends? Then they start kissing. I go into the kitchen and this breaks them apart but ends (by the weird logic only known to my parents) with Dad saying
he
will go to Parents’ Evening and what’s more he will take me with him. Disaster.

They start ballroom dancing together in the kitchen.

In the car on the way to school next day, Dad says he had not realised all these years that there’s not one brilliant football player in the family, there’s two. And that from now on, he is going to support me totally and he’s ashamed he hadn’t noticed earlier. He then leans over and kisses me on the cheek.

This is so unlike Dad I don’t know what to say. I actually feel a drop of water escaping from my eye. I brush it away and mumble, ‘Dad, I think that’s the nicest thing you’ve ever said to me in my life. Ever.’

‘Nicer than “OK, I’ll buy you the dress”?’

‘Way nicer.’

‘I know Tony gets a lot of attention. But you’re my daughter, and I love you to bits. Don’t ever forget that.’

I’m having to dab my eyes again now. We’re stopped at traffic lights. ‘Are you feeling alright, Dad?’ I throw him a look that is somewhere between a smile and an accusation.

He laughs, gets the car moving again. ‘You’re an enigma, Adele,’ he says.

‘You’re not that good-looking yourself,’ I tell him.

That gets him. He loves it. And I think, why can’t me and Dad have good times like this more often?

‘What am I going to hear at Parents Evening?’ he asks, smiling mysteriously.

I sidestep the question. ‘Mum wants you to dance with her.’

‘What?’

‘I mean not in the kitchen. Take her out dancing. Like when you first met her. She says you and her went dancing in clubs together.’

Dad moves off from the traffic lights in the wrong gear. ‘I had some moves back then,’ he says. ‘We were good. It’s strange. You have to run to stay still.’

‘Taking Mum dancing.’ I nudge him, because he’s drifted off the subject.

‘I would dance with your mum every day if I had the time. One decimal point wrong and you can lose the company millions. I’ve got all the Young Turks coming at me, eyeing my desk.’

‘They’re hiring people from Turkey?’