From Pasta to Pigfoot (6 page)

Faye hesitated for a moment, almost afraid to give voice to her own suspicions. ‘Yes, there is. I
am
worried about Michael; this isn't another silly argument, he's finally let me meet his friends and I know he's going to be furious at me for getting drunk and showing him up. But I can't shake off the feeling that something else was going on last night. One of his friends really seemed to have it in for me from the start. We were talking about culture and I started explaining about Ghana – I'm not sure what happened, but it all seemed to go downhill from there.'

‘What were you saying about Ghana?' Lottie leaned forward with interest.

‘I was trying to show them that I knew something about
my
culture which, as it turned out, wasn't the smartest
idea. Because then they all piled in and started asking me questions that I couldn't answer. And this one guy, Wesley, for some reason was practically interrogating me the whole evening. Then, as if I didn't already feel like a prize idiot, he starts having a go at me and basically accusing me of being clueless about black culture. The funny thing was, he's white and
he
had the nerve to start lecturing me about not keeping in touch with my black identity!' As she thought back to Wesley's condescending remarks, she felt her temper starting to rise.

‘Well, maybe he's right,' Lottie said mildly.

‘What do you mean, maybe he's right? Lottie!' Faye stared at her in disbelief, completely outraged by this unexpected betrayal.

Unperturbed, Lottie took another sip of her coffee and grimaced again before putting the cup down firmly and pushing it away.

‘Calm down, Faye', she said evenly. ‘Look, what I mean is that maybe he has a point. You
have
lived in England almost all your life. You know more about English history than African, you barely speak any of your Ghanaian language and you've not been in Ghana since you were a wee lass.
Not
that I agree with him being rude, I can assure you – although, what else can you expect from a man, for pity's sake! – but from his point of view, you probably are cut off from your African identity.'

Faye leaned back in the chair and closed her eyes, casting her mind back to what she recalled of her country of birth. Although the details of life in Ghana were now mostly a distant blur with occasional windows of clarity,
her memories remained rich in texture: the noise of raised voices speaking in different languages, the pungent smells of spicy food, the intense heat of the afternoon sun, the dust so thick that it would swirl around and coat every surface, exhilarating music throbbing with rhythm, and colours made even more vivid by the blazing sun were all the things that came to mind whenever she tried to remember her time in Ghana. If she pushed it – which she rarely did – she could remember laughing with her brother as they played outside in the sun and even feel again the warmth of their mother's soft embrace. When she forced herself to do so, she could still remember how her mother had seemed to just disappear and how she had cried for days after overhearing her father's older brother saying, ‘Poor, poor Annie! Dying so young and leaving those children alone.'

She could also remember the early days after their arrival in England and how she and William had clung together, seeing each other as allies in a world that had suddenly changed into a literally cold and very alien place, at least until Lottie had come into their lives.

Faye remembered how Lottie had forced them to go for picnics on Hampstead Heath and encouraged them to run and play and shout again as they used to back in Ghana. She smiled, remembering how Lottie had dragged home a young Kenyan nanny she had met in the park and begged her to show her how to braid Faye's unruly curls properly. It was also Lottie who had comforted her when she sobbed because the white girls at her exclusive Hampstead primary school wouldn't play with her and called her dark skin ‘dirty'.

While William had commanded respect at his private school, at first with his fists and later with his outstanding brainpower, Faye, with far fewer academic talents, had just desperately wanted to be accepted. When she moved on to secondary school, it was to yet another institution for the elite of Hampstead. Despite Lottie's pleas to let Faye go to a more culturally mixed school, Dr Bonsu had refused to listen.

‘I'm sorry, Lottie,' he'd said firmly. ‘But I cannot sacrifice a good education for my daughter on the grounds of what, quite frankly, I consider to be quite spurious ethnic considerations.'

At her new school, Faye was one of only a handful of black pupils in her year. Wanting to fit in with everyone around them, the dark-skinned girls had not formed a group. Instead, they had sought out friends among the white students and were soon accepted by the others girls as being ‘just like us'.

It was at school that Faye had met her best friend, Caroline Duffy, a cheery redhead whose Irish father, a working class builder, had made a fortune during the property boom. Brendan Duffy was determined that his children would have the best of everything life and his wealth could offer and, although he was initially taken aback by his daughter's choice of best friend, he and his wife had quickly grown fond of Faye, who over the years spent almost as much time in Caroline's house as in her own.

It was when she was fifteen that Faye first began to realise that her assimilation had, in some ways, been a little too successful. It was a rainy Saturday afternoon and
she and Caroline were listening to music in her friend's huge bedroom. Mrs Duffy's sister, Eileen, who had been visiting from Australia where she'd emigrated with her husband, had walked into the room as Faye was teaching Caroline a new dance move that she had picked up from a music video.

Watching the leggy teenager move gracefully around the room, Auntie Eileen remarked admiringly, ‘My word, Faye, you dance well. Mind you, they do say you people all have marvellous rhythm!'

Faye came to an abrupt stop, embarrassed by the woman's careless remark. Even more confusing, however, was Caroline's response. ‘Which people?' she asked her aunt curiously. ‘What, you mean the girls from my school?'

Later that evening, after telling Lottie about the incident, Faye had struggled to explain her feelings.

‘I
know I'm black, Lottie,' she said. ‘But, it's like Caroline and the other girls see me as white because we've all been friends for so long. You know, it's like it's a compliment that they don't see me as any different from them, but why can't they just like me
and
see me as black?'

It was a question that neither Lottie nor anyone else had ever been able to answer for her over the years.

Now, at almost twenty-six, despite having found herself a black boyfriend, she stood accused of being racially rootless and, to add insult to injury, she thought indignantly, by a man even paler than Caroline.

‘And where was Michael in all this? Didn't he stand up for you?' Lottie's expression showed that she already knew the answer.

Faye sighed. ‘You must be kidding. He just kept rolling his eyes and glaring at me like
I
was the problem.'

‘So, if he won't stand up for you, Faye, when are you going to stand up for yourself?' Although her tone was mild, her flushed face showed that Lottie was trying hard to keep her emotions in check.

Faye looked at her curiously. ‘What do you mean?'

Lottie sighed. ‘Faye, you are twenty-five and sometimes you act like you are still a teenager. You let Michael get away with murder and I don't know when you are going to realise that you don't have to put up with him. I know you've had a sheltered life—' She raised her hand to stop Faye's protest. ‘No, hear me out. You weren't brought up on the streets of Glasgow like I was – you've gone from a private school in Hampstead to working in the same quiet little company for years. You've had your father, William and me looking out for you and coming to your rescue all your life. Look, I understand better than anyone that you've not had to deal with the real world in many respects, but Faye, it's time for you to grow up!'

Faye's eyes reflected her shock and hurt at Lottie's words. ‘But it's not
my
fault that I don't have a clue about their culture,' she burst out. ‘You should have heard him, Lottie! “It is our responsibility to stay close to home – you don' do that, you jus' a slave to the white man!”' She tried – and failed – to mimic the strong lilt of Wesley's accent.

She sucked her teeth in complete exasperation with a loud and authentically ethnic ‘tchhh', and stood up, smoothing back her hair.

‘Anyway, I still think he was rude,' she said huffily. ‘I
mean, what the hell am I supposed to do, for goodness sake. Just get up and go to Ghana?'

Once again, Lottie's reply was unexpected.

‘Well, why not?'

3

Working Cultures

Faye stared moodily out of her office window at the grey October weather. It had been raining for three days in a row and, with no word from Michael since Saturday evening, she was getting steadily more depressed. She had tried his mobile a hundred times and was ready to scream if she heard his voicemail message again.

Knowing Michael's talent for sulking, she was convinced that he was deliberately refusing to take her calls, making her even more frantic in her attempts to get through to him. Surreptitiously checking to see if her boss, the junior Mr Fiske, was anywhere around, she pressed the redial button on her office phone. Once again, after the sixth ring, it went to his voicemail. Deciding against leaving yet another message, she hung up the phone and turned back with a sigh to the legal agreement she was supposed to have prepared for her boss's meeting that morning.

Resisting the impulse to check Facebook, both to relieve her boredom and to see if she could find any clues about what Michael was up to, she forced herself to
continue with her work. She had just finished the last page and saved the document when her mobile buzzed. Praying it was Michael she grabbed the phone, fighting back her intense disappointment when Caroline's name flashed up.

‘Faye?'

Swallowing hard, Faye forced herself to try and sound normal. ‘Hi, Caroline. How are you?'

Her best friend knew her too well to be taken in by the perky sales tone.

‘Well, I'm fine, but you certainly don't sound it,' she replied bluntly. ‘Have you still not heard from him?'

Faye gave up any pretence at indifference and dropping the cheery tone, she let her voice sink in misery.

‘No. I've tried his phone a million times and he's not answering. I know he can be a bit sulky, but it's been four days now!' She tapped moodily on her keyboard and resisted the urge to bite her nails, a childhood habit she had broken until she met Michael.

Caroline, whose opinion of Faye's boyfriend was far closer to Lottie's point of view than to Faye's, swallowed her misgivings and concentrated on trying to soothe her distraught friend.

‘Don't worry, he'll call soon,' she said gently. ‘He's probably just trying to make you feel really bad before he decides to forgive you.'

She changed the subject quickly before Faye could make any further comment. ‘Anyway, the reason I called is that Dermot's band is playing again tonight at that Irish pub in Kilburn and Marcus and I have promised to go and watch them. Why don't you come with us and forget about
Michael for a few hours?'

Despite her misery, Faye couldn't help but smile. Caroline's nineteen-year-old brother had a huge crush on Faye and could always be counted on to boost her spirits when she felt low. Sabotaging his father's dream for him to go to university and become a lawyer, Dermot had instead formed a rock band with three Irish boys he had met in a pub after leaving his expensive public school the year before. To his father's disbelief and intense annoyance, the group – Guns in Clover – had found almost instant success on the small club circuit and were being snapped up to play by club owners around the country. Although his mop of mad, curly red hair made Dermot look more like a comedian than a musician, his cheeky smile and undeniable talent made him an irresistible front man. The band's fan base was growing daily and Dermot was proving particularly popular with the young girls that queued up for hours to get into their gigs.

Faye sighed with regret. ‘No, Caro, much as I love Dermot, I don't think I would be very good company at the moment. Besides, I'm sure Marcus wouldn't mind an evening out alone with you for a change,' she giggled. ‘Actually, just getting you out of the house at all will be excitement enough! You two are such a boring couple and you've only been living together for a year.'

‘That's not true!' Caroline said indignantly. ‘We go out loads of times.'

Faye was silent for a few moments waiting for her friend's honesty to get the better of her. Caroline was legendary for her total dedication to the cause of lounging.
She loathed any kind of physical exertion with a passion and had even been known to pretend not to hear the fire alarm at her office because she couldn't bear the thought of climbing down four flights of stairs. She loved watching television as much as she hated physical effort and was guaranteed to be found on the sofa, TV remote in hand, within minutes of getting home from work.

‘Okay,' she admitted reluctantly. ‘So I can be just a
teeny
bit addicted to watching telly.'

Faye snorted with laughter. ‘A
teeny
bit?' Speaking with a fake whine in her voice, she went on. ‘“I'm sooo sorry, Faye, Corrie's on tonight and I'm already recording two other TV shows, so can we go to that exclusive concert that you've only got once-in-a-lifetime tickets for another day…?”'

‘Okay, okay, point taken,' Caroline laughed. ‘Mind you, now that Marcus and I are together, we don't need to go out looking any more. So why bother?' She sighed blissfully, her voice dripping with smugness.

Faye rolled her eyes but had to admit that Caroline had a point. Marcus O'Neill was a successful stockbroker who met all of Caroline's father's marital aspirations for his daughter. Marcus was both Irish and very wealthy, having co-founded a successful hedge fund in his early thirties and Mr Duffy had fallen in love with him at first sight. Fortunately, Caroline had also followed suit and, after two years of dating, she had moved into his spacious bachelor pad, having first insisted that he order a bouncy new sofa and the full Sky TV package.

Dr Bonsu, who was fond of Caroline, had shaken his head in sorrow when Faye had excitedly broken the news
to him. Like many Africans of his generation, the thought of his daughter living with a man without the benefit of marriage went against both his Catholic upbringing and the norms of his society. Although William and Lucinda had been seeing each other for over three years, William continued to live at home, although only in deference to his father's wishes. Any suggestion of moving out to live with Lucinda inevitably led to the ‘road to moral decadence' speech from the doctor. As far as their unrelenting father was concerned, both Faye and William would live with their future partners only after marriage.

Just then Faye spotted her boss approaching her desk with more speed than his heavy frame usually allowed.

‘Caro, I've got to go!' she whispered urgently. ‘I'll call you later!' Sliding her phone under the papers on her desk, she smiled guiltily up at her boss.

‘I'll just print the agreement out now and bring it through to you, Mr Fiske,' she said brightly, trying to sound efficient.

Peering at her anxiously through his round rimless glasses, her boss made no move to return to his office and continued to hover at her desk. The meeting with his client was scheduled to start in ten minutes and the signing of this agreement was the main reason for the appointment. Faye glanced across at him and felt a pang of guilt as she saw him look at his watch yet again. There was now very little time for him to read through the final document and his agitation was increasing visibly.

Referred to among the staff simply as Junior, the younger Mr Fiske was an extremely large man and prone
to anxiety attacks whenever he felt under the slightest pressure. Faye had worked for him for five years as, despite her heavy hints to HR about the possibility of working for a more dynamic boss, he was actually the only partner at Fiske, Fiske & Partners who was prepared to put up with her constant daydreaming and ‘creative' typing skills. Junior, despite the occasional panic attacks brought on by her lack of concentration, was fond of Faye, and found her extremely soothing and comforting to be around, as well as always ready to listen to the detailed descriptions of his numerous health problems. Although the senior Mr Fiske, the son of the firm's original founder, had technically retired almost five years earlier, he had prudently retained his hold on the company. His only son was, therefore, still only one of the several ‘& Partners' on the company's letterhead – a key reason for the firm's continued success.

Just as the last page of the agreement curled out of the printer, Faye's office phone rang. Snatching the receiver, she muttered impatiently, ‘Faye Bonsu speaking.'

‘Faye, it's me, Michael.' His voice was cool and he sounded less than friendly.

Pushing the sheaf of papers impatiently into Mr Fiske's outstretched hand, Faye turned her back on him and hissed into the receiver.

‘Michael! I've been trying to get you for days. Why haven't you called? I've left loads of messages on your phone!'

There was a brief pause before he spoke.

‘I've been up in Manchester covering an arts festival,' was his frosty response. ‘Besides, I needed some time to
think some things through. Your behaviour on Saturday was appalling.' His self-righteous tone wiped away any lingering guilt about her part in the Brixton fiasco and she felt her blood starting to boil again.

Struck by the difference in his accent now that Wesley and Jiggy weren't around, Faye listened without interruption, chewing on her nails and trying to hold her temper in check.

‘You've been on at me for ages about wanting to know my friends,' he said, his voice thick with reproach. ‘And when I take you to meet some of the most intelligent,
conscious
black people – that frankly it wouldn't hurt you to spend more time with – what do you do?'

Not pausing for an answer, he carried on while she listened mutinously until a soft cough from Junior sounded behind her. She turned back to her long-suffering boss who was now pointing frantically at several errors on the agreement that he had marked with a red pen. Faye seized the pages and nodded at him with vigour.

‘Michael, hold on just a minute.' Cutting into her boyfriend's interminable tirade, she tucked the handset under her chin and looked up at her boss whose forehead was now covered with a light film of moisture as he glanced anxiously and repeatedly at his watch.

‘I'll just make the corrections and bring this right into you, Mr Fiske,' she said, in what she hoped was a soothing tone.

‘Please do so, Faye,' he said heavily, the light film turning into distinct drops of moisture as he spoke. ‘I'm sure Mr Carmichael will be here for the appointment momentarily.'

Wiping his wide forehead with a large white handkerchief, Junior lumbered back towards his office.

Her eyes on his retreating figure, Faye spoke back into the phone. ‘Michael, I've got to finish a document for my boss. Can I call you back in five minutes?'

His voice was glacial. ‘Well, I'm very sorry to interrupt your busy schedule.'

Faye sighed loudly, scrolling up and down the document on her screen as she searched for the pages where she needed to make the changes. Finally sensing her growing impatience, his tone now sounded slightly more conciliatory.

‘Anyway, I was calling to see if you wanted to come with me on Friday. I'm reviewing a new Caribbean restaurant for the paper and I've asked Luther and the other guys along. I know they'll love the food and...' he paused and added, ‘I think it will give you a good opportunity to apologise.'

The sight of Junior's client, Mr Carmichael, stepping out of the lift and heading towards her desk cut off Faye's instinctive response to that suggestion. Opting for the path of least resistance, she quickly agreed to Michael's invitation before slamming down the phone and hastily printing out the corrected document.

Later that afternoon, she slipped into the small staff room, replaying the phone conversation over and over in her mind as she made herself a strong cup of coffee. While she felt less than happy at the thought of another close encounter of the Wesley kind, it was a relief that Michael had finally called and that they were back on speaking terms. Maybe it was time to be gracious and try again with Wesley, if only to keep the peace with her disgruntled boyfriend.

Clutching her mug, she looked around the poky room, optimistically described as the ‘Staff Sitting Room' by the Partners, and wondered for the umpteenth time what she was doing in this place. Unlike William, who had always known that he wanted to be a lawyer, Faye had left school with absolutely no idea of where her future career lay. Trying to please her father, she had looked up multiple possible training courses to take at college and ended up even more confused than before she had started.

Finally deciding that even she could handle office work, she had signed up at a local college and to her own surprise, and the secret astonishment of her father, actually completed the one year IT and secretarial course. The real challenge came after she had registered with a few agencies hoping to find an entry level job. Some of the other girls on her course, well connected to the right social networks, quickly found themselves jobs in advertising, media and PR firms, with the others almost effortlessly finding PA roles at investment banks in the City. Faye's job applications, on the other hand, seemed to come to more dead ends than she could have believed possible. Despite the fact that he lacked the type of contacts she needed for an admin job, Faye's father was totally against nepotism of any kind and resolutely refused to get involved in her job search. Trying desperately not to care about the number of jobs that she had been ‘perfect' for during telephone conversations but which were subsequently ‘not really very suitable' once the recruitment consultant had actually laid eyes on her, Faye had nevertheless persevered.

She still winced whenever she thought about her first
real interview. The job was for a PA in a fast-growing advertising agency and she had stayed up half the night researching the latest issues in the industry and Googling information about the founders of the agency, absolutely determined to impress the recruiters and show that she was up to date with the sector.