Growing Yams in London (20 page)

‘Ohmigod, she’s at it again!’ I whispered.

‘I know! Haven’t you noticed that all three buses have been but she hasn’t boarded one?’ said Bharti.

‘Yeah, but neither have we.’

‘Good point.’

‘Do you want to come to my place?’ I asked.

I watched as her face flickered with some kind of unpleasant memory. I was really scared she’d say no – after all, we still hadn’t sorted things out.

‘Yeah, OK.’

We walked in silence for a bit, dodging the passers by with huge shopping bags bursting with Christmas stuff.

‘Makeeda?’ Bharti said. ‘How did it go with your essay?’

‘I got an A,’ I muttered.

‘Really? That’s brilliant!’ Bharti said, genuinely pleased for me.

‘Thanks.’

I thought it would be as good a time as any to say sorry. I knew that I hadn’t had much luck with apologies in the past, but I hoped it wouldn’t be such a problem now.

‘Bharti?’

‘Makeeda, I’m really sorry!’ she blurted out suddenly.

‘Oh!’ I said, shocked.

‘Listen, I know that I’ve been really mean to you, especially when you apologised and . . .’

‘Um . . . hold up!’ I said but she ignored me.

‘I just want to say that, when I said that you were obsessed with Nelson, I didn’t mean it. I was overreacting.’

‘OK, and I didn’t mean to call you jealous. Especially as I was absolutely no help with Hitesh.’

‘Mates?’

‘Yeah,’ I replied, hugging her.

‘At last!’ Mel said.

She was standing at my front door in a bright blue puffa jacket, pale blue scarf and dark red cord trousers. And she was jumping up and down.

‘What’s with the jumping?’ I asked.

‘Joke, right? I’m cold, Makeeda! I’ve been standing here for nearly an hour!’ Mel said.

Bharti and I exchanged surprised looks. We knew she couldn’t have been there for more than twenty minutes tops.

‘Delphy’s in,’ I said, unlocking the door.

‘Whaaat?’ Mel screamed in my ear. ‘I knocked!’

‘Oh yeah, she’s not allowed to answer the door unless someone else is in,’ I explained.

We walked in to find Delphina piling more decorations on to the Christmas tree. It looked like it was going to topple over with the additional weight, but I didn’t say anything to her. She
was doing it to annoy Mum and Dad.

‘Hey, did you hear about the kid at Delphy’s school who was outselling the tuck shop?’ Mel asked, as I handed around biscuits and drinks.

‘Yeah, my little cousin said it looks like the money they made will go to charity, probably Oxfam,’ Bharti added.

Ohmigod, people know? I’d better warn Mum.

‘Didn’t you know about it?’ Mel asked.

‘Um . . . well, yeah, I heard about it,’ I replied.

‘You know, when I heard, I thought it was something Delphy would do. Mad, huh?’ Bharti said, laughing.

‘Yeah, me too,’ said Mel, joining in.

I gave a hollow laugh and took a sip of my drink.

Luckily Mum and Aunt Grace walked in with bags of food, so they both dropped the subject. When Mum asked us to fry some plantain, I expected Bharti and Mel to come up with an excuse, but they
didn’t. We were relegated to the kitchen, while Mum and Aunt Grace caught up on the latest Ghanaian film.

As I carefully finished pouring the oil into the frying pan, Mel had almost finished slicing the plantains. Bharti had finished her peeling duties and was busy wrapping the skins in a newspaper
for recycling.

‘Can I put them in?’ Mel asked.

‘Yeah,’ I said, giving her some room. I watched as pieces of plantain fell into the hot oil and immediately began sizzling.

‘I’m not turning them over though,’ Mel said, standing back.

‘Chicken!’ I replied.

‘This is a new top,’ she said, looking down at a sweater I’d seen more than ten times this month alone.

‘Yeah, whatever!’ I said, checking the plantain.

‘You know, my star sign said I was going to have a major disagreement twice,’ said Bharti.

‘Yeah?’ I said.

‘Uh huh. It said something about this huge disagreement paving the way for a new and better existence. Weird thing is yours said something similar. We were fated to argue,
Makeeda.’

Mel and I exchanged looks.

‘Was it written in the stars then?’ Mel asked, sniggering.

‘Yeah. I reckon it was,’ Bharti said seriously, making Mel and I burst into laughter.

‘What? It’s true!’ Bharti said.

‘Hey, Laura told me what happened with Nelson,’ Mel said suddenly.

It completely killed my vibe. I tried to ignore her and started flipping the plantain over gently.

‘What happened?’ Bharti asked.

Mel told her everything Laura had said about the café, and surprisingly it didn’t have the usual overtones of ‘I hate Makeeda’ all over it. I heard Bharti gasp in shock,
and knew they were waiting for me to speak.

‘Makeeda?’ Bharti said.

‘Hold on, I’m taking the plantain out,’ I said, carefully spooning the slices into a sieve.

I really didn’t want to talk about Nelson. I’d spent nearly a week not thinking about him, or at least attempting it. I had to face facts. He wasn’t interested in me any more
and was going to make it official any day now. When I told Mel and Bharti, they had puzzled looks on their faces. Mel said, if I was right, she would have heard about it from one of his friends.
She meant Jordan. The only problem with that was that I knew that Stephen and Hakeem were closer to Nelson than Jordan. Bharti then asked if we’d had an argument, or if Nelson had any reason
to be upset with me, but I told her no, as I hadn’t told him about being forbidden to see him or that my parents never knew about him. That was when Mel pulled her uh-oh face.

‘You didn’t!’ I said.

‘You said you’d tell him,’ she said defensively.

‘What’s going on?’ Bharti asked.

Before we could explain, Mum walked in and swiped the plate of plantain.

‘I hope you girls aren’t sitting here eating it all,’ Mum said.

‘We haven’t even sampled our handiwork yet, Auntie,’ Mel said, attempting to grab a slice, but Mum ducked out of the way.

‘A likely story, Melanie,’ Mum replied.

I saw Mel wince at her full name being used.

‘Oh, I nearly forgot, Makeeda, we’re going to your Auntie Anita’s place on the twenty-sixth for dinner,’ Mum informed me, reaching for some forks and side plates.

Another family gathering – whoopee do dah!

‘So?’ Bharti asked, as soon as Mum was out of earshot.

‘Mel told Nelson I was forbidden to see him.’

‘Ohmigod!’ Bharti said.

‘It wasn’t like that!’ Mel protested. ‘I just said how great it was that Makeeda’s parents changed their mind. How could I know that he didn’t know? The boy
even smiled at me!’

‘Weird,’ Bharti said.

‘I’m so glad Laura told me what happened,’ Mel said.

‘Hold on, why didn’t he just ask you what was going on?’ Bharti said to me.

‘Exactly. Instead he just humiliated me twice!’ I said angrily.

I saw Mel and Bharti exchange worried glances. I didn’t want their sympathy I just wanted to throttle Nelson for being so horrible to me. Even if he knew about me keeping him a secret, it
didn’t excuse his behaviour.

I started piling more plantain into the frying pan. My mobile rang and Bharti answered it. I heard the surprise in her voice.

‘Makeeda, you’re not going to believe it.’

I looked at her like she was crazy. Then I saw the name on my phone. Nelson.

‘Calm down,’ said Mel, taking the spoon from my hand.

‘OK,’ I said to Mel. ‘Yeah?’ I said into my phone.

I decided to walk into the corner. I stared out on to the garden and saw Delphy’s football in the distance covered in silver-tipped grass leaves. Our garden never seemed to fully thaw in
winter.

‘Makeeda? Makeeda?’

‘Yeah.’

‘I . . . I . . . wanted to apologise for standing you up,’ he said. His voice didn’t seem as confident as it usually was.

‘Why are you telling me this now? It happened ages ago and I’ve seen you since. Remember?’ I said angrily.

I saw Bharti and Mel exchange looks of shock at my outburst.

‘Makeeda, I’m calling to . . .’

‘Listen, if you’re calling to dump me because I’m obviously never going to be “your best kiss ever”, then fine. Take the easy route and do it over the phone,
because if I see you . . .’

‘Hold on a minute!’ Nelson interrupted. ‘I never said I was going to dump you! That’s not why I’m calling.’

‘It’s not?’ I said, shocked.

‘No. I’m calling because I want to sort this out! Another thing: don’t play the victim. You never told me that your parents didn’t know I was your boyfriend, or the real
reason you were grounded, Mel did!’ he said angrily.

‘Yeah, but that didn’t give you the right to treat me the way you did!’

‘No, but how do you think I felt, Makeeda? I went to your house and met your mum. The woman must have been in shock when I turned up!’

I laughed. It was weird, but I could imagine the look on Mum’s face.

‘It’s not funny!’ Nelson said, but he couldn’t help himself either and started laughing too. ‘Listen, Makeeda, can’t we sort this out?’ he said
softly.

‘Yeah, OK.’ I said.

‘Can we meet up today?’

‘No. I won’t be free till the twenty-seventh.’

‘The twenty-seventh? OK. How about two o’clock, Brent Cross Shopping Centre?

‘Fine,’ I said, and he hung up.

‘Well?’ Mel said.

‘He apologised and we’re meeting up on the twenty-seventh.’

‘What?’ Bharti said astonished.

‘Oh, sorry, I forgot about going shopping,’ I confessed. Bharti and I usually met up on the twenty-seventh to go sales shopping with our Christmas money.

‘I’ll go with you,’ Mel volunteered.

‘No thanks. If I wanted to spend hours looking at sports gear, I’d sit in the local gym,’ Bharti said to Mel.

‘Ouch!’ Mel said, shocked.

I laughed. Mel had a habit of being mesmerised by the latest gadgets and products in a sports shop, even when we were looking for decent heels (or flats in my case). She once spent the money her
mum gave her for a dress on a special tracksuit that had fabric that used your sweat to help cool your body down. Bharti and I couldn’t see the point in it but then Mel was the one who woke
up at six a.m. to go running and did Taekwondo twice a week.

‘Do you want to swap rooms? We’re about to sort out dinner,’ Mum said, smiling.

‘OK,’ I said, taking a huge plate of plantain with us to the living room. ‘That’s the last batch in there,’ I said, pointing to the frying pan full of plantain.

‘OK,’ Mum said.

‘Eh, you girls are growing so fast!’ Aunt Grace said, smiling as she walked past us.

We flopped down on to the sofa and turned a music channel on. The front door bell rang and I heard Mum saying hello to Nick.

A few minutes later, Nick walked in with a plate of hot plantain, biscuits and a drink.

‘All right?’ he said, sitting down. ‘I left your present under the tree,’ he said to me.

‘Cheers, did you find yours?’

‘Yeah.’

Every year we just left each other’s presents under the tree.

I exchanged brief looks with Bharti and Mel. We were all thinking the same thing.

‘Need any help with that?’ Bharti asked Nick, as she eyed his food.

‘Yeah, it looks too much for one,’ I added, before all three of us began attacking him for the hot plantain and biscuits.

‘Hey!’ he said, trying to save his food. In the end he coughed on the plantain and we all backed off.

‘That’s nasty, man!’ Mel said.

‘You’d know.’

‘Don’t start, you two!’ Bharti said.

We sat there watching the music videos for half an hour before it suddenly dawned on me that I hadn’t bought a present for Nelson.

‘You’ve only got a few hours left,’ said Bharti.

‘Why didn’t you buy it earlier?’ Nick asked.

Bharti told him about my conversation with Nelson, and I saw Nick visibly flinch but tried to ignore his reaction. Mel caught a look of annoyance he gave me.

‘Not jealous again, are we?’ she said quietly.

‘Shut up, Mel!’ Nick told her. His face had gone red.

‘Ohmigod, can you two leave me out of it?’ I pleaded.

‘He’s a jerk!’ Mel said, grabbing her coat.

‘Yeah and you’re a cow,’ Nick said angrily.

‘Great, like MSN messaging wasn’t bad enough,’ Bharti commented, buttoning up her coat.

Within minutes of us leaving my house, Bharti managed to solve the source of the Nick/Mel feud: Nick’s failure to turn up at Mel’s birthday party. We stood in my street as she told
Mel to get over herself and Nick that he should have told Mel himself that he couldn’t go to her party, and she made them apologise to each other. But I saw a look in Nick’s eyes that
meant he wasn’t going to forgive Mel that quickly. And I had a weird feeling that he didn’t approve of me buying Nelson a Christmas present. He didn’t come with us as he had to
see his grandmother but, as I watched him running for his bus, it suddenly hit me: whatever I did, I seemed to upset somebody.

At least Nelson and I were a few steps closer to sorting things out. But how long would that last?