Reading the Ceiling (21 page)

Out of the corner of my eye, I see him smiling. Moira's face is a picture of attentive disagreement. But I plough on.

‘Right because the memory of someone lingers after they die. Not only do I remember how my mother's face looked, I also remember little habits. How she always sat on the tipping edge of the floral-pattern chair, first rearranging the supporting cushions to take her back just so. There are physical things – her old pink gown, green flipflops, toothbrush, a comb with her hair in it – cluttered around. It hardly feels that she has left.'

‘Yes, but we don't have to celebrate a pagan ritual that is completely unchristian,' says Moira.

‘Of course, Moira has a right to her views,' says Foday.

I am pleased about his answer.

‘Think of it as a celebration of a finished life, Moira. Lots of food, lots of people who knew her, eating together.'

‘Anyway,' I continue, ‘we celebrated this tradition before the Bible arrived. The missionaries who brought it here scrubbed it clean of Palestinian life. This Christianity you talk about is lifeless without culture.'

‘But no one seriously believes her spirit needs to come and sit at a table and eat food,' Moira says, her mouth set, her body tense.

‘Yes, but many do believe that a saviour can die with cruel wounds and rise three days later. And that is entirely consistent,' I say.

‘These beliefs are not the same. You cannot look at both of these events in the same way, it's blasphemy to talk about them in the same breath.'

The conversation ends with all of us secure in the way we see and understand the world.

We hold Ma's
charity
the day she is buried. More people come than any of us had expected. We run out to the supermarket to buy more drinks, and phone Mama Cobola to fry emergency doughnuts and deliver them to the house by taxi. My head swings between a sense of loss and cynicism – in the end, we all die. Ma's gone, and her brand of self has disappeared forever.

The day starts crisp, the crispest kind of morning you get this close to the equator. The sky is baby blue, freshly gelled with combed- through clouds spreading thinned lines of vapour against it. Inside I stay calm, but I know bad stuff can still happen, even when there's only three hours left. There is no need to spell it out to myself: Stuff happens.

I slip into my outfit made from white lace in twelve-inch strips. The fabric has been transformed into a two-piece. My top's scalloped edges face each other in a trail across my tummy. My breasts are cupped in a ruched spread of more scallop, joined in their shadow. A great deal of skin is exposed from breastline to neckline. The sleeves puff out to strips of lace that extend down from my shoulder blades. My back is solidly covered, with a long zip to enfold me into its shape. The skirt falls simply to my ankles, in horizontal strips stitched on top of a greyish poplin that peeks through the holes in the lace. Two side slits allow me to walk.

My shoes were handmade by Sierra Leonean refugees. They are tapestried in silver-streaked wool into an intricate floral design. The wool design slashes across each foot, and my heels are raised at least an inch by sturdy stumps of shaped wood.

After a series of quick taps on the hollowed wood of my door, Kainde bursts in. ‘Come
on
, how much thinking time do you need as you get ready? The car is downstairs, and I've got to check you're put together properly.'

‘See,' I reply, ‘my make-up is where it should be. The eyeliner is mostly around my eyes, and look, the lipstick line is on my lips.' I turn my face from side to side. ‘Powder. No shine. I told you I could get ready by myself.'

‘Well never mind that. Stand up and turn around. Slowly. Let me have a good look.'

I do as I'm told. Her critical eyes make her unbelieving hands touch my head wrap to check it will not unwind, touch the hair slides that secure it in hidden places. My chin is tipped upwards to verify that there is no visible foundation line. Her hands adjust imaginary seams and straying threads, and, finally, she pronounces me ready.

I choose to walk into a church and meet a Foday Sillah arrayed in a white embroidered
agbada
 with long-sleeved shirt,
chaya
underneath, and white leather slippers with slightly upturned tips. I agree to marry him in sight of an assortment of friends and family in a little building atop a cliff. As we move deeper into the ceremony, little dribbles of happiness trickle inside me. By the time we have made it through the reception, the trickles have joined to form a rivulet of joy that finds and fills tiny crevices everywhere in me. I touch my cheeks against those of well-wishers and have my hand pumped for luck. I dance unencumbered by heels and shift clouds of dust onto my skirt's hem.

We spend a week in St Louis, mostly in a second-floor room of a weathered house on the quayside. The yellow paint is crumbling on the room's door-sized wooden shutters; they shudder in salty sea breezes and open onto a tiny little balcony.

Then it's over. The commitment has been made. I move into Foday's house and settle into the skin of a stepmother, inheriting three teenage children who hardly know me. I also try to wriggle into the mould of a priest's wife.

On our return, Foday's first sermon is on ‘Joy, the undefinable feeling of wellbeing, that all is right with the world, despite an inner knowledge that people are sick, being tortured to the point of death, hungry and beggarly all over. And yet, we all need to learn how to slice moments of wellbeing from our daily lives, in the midst of humdrum everyday things, to claim for ourselves an existence of joy.'

He looks over at me.

At the end of the service, I cannot decide where to stand. Next to Foday at the door would mean shaking hands with everyone, in the spirit of preacher's wife. Staying seated in the church would be rude. Running out to the shade of the flat-topped flame tree outside would be verging on imbecilic. I stash away the thought and label it:
to be discussed further, and at length
. And skulk towards the organist to chat about music.

‘How do you choose what tune to play with each hymn? You played some unusual ones today.'

He turns towards me, his eyes watery through large, brownframed glasses that generously cover a third of his face. ‘I do that to keep everyone on their toes. But I always make sure I test it out with the choir first.'

Foday comes to rescue me when all the pews are empty and there are bubbles of conversation outside intermingled with doors slamming and car engines starting.

‘Come on out – why are you hiding?'

I let him lead me out, and we head slam bang into Mrs Acheampong, whose heels eagerly scrape the concreted floor in her hurry to reach us with an outstretched hand.

‘The new Mrs Sillah. How lovely to meet you at last.'

She tilts her face to clear space for her eyes to make contact with mine underneath the brim of her hat. There's a certain angle to her chin.

I mumble a hello.

‘We'll have to come over to have a chat. The Mothers' Union in this church is very active, you know. We would like you to get involved as soon as you've settled in.'

I smile and murmur, ‘We'll have to see. Thank you for thinking about me.'

There is a muffled bang as the fly door on the back verandah swings shut. A few thumps and shuffles follow, and low murmurings. I believe I hear someone say, ‘You go first.' A moment later Foday's eldest daughter, Sira, comes into the dining room, where I am sitting at the scrubbed Formica-topped table, with a rusting metal reading lamp perched on my makeshift desk.

‘Watch ou–' I start to say, but Sira walks straight into the loose arc of white wire linking the lamp with the old-fashioned plug. The lamp topples, and I try to grab at it. My fingers shriek at the heated metal shade and I immediately let go, twisting its trajectory. I watch it swipe at my washed marmalade jar filled with an assortment of pens and pencils plus eraser, sharpener and six-inch ruler. The split second before the noise is dead silent, as if Sira, me, the house, the sea in the background, have all stopped breathing, waiting for gravity to have its moment.

The metal curve of the lamp's base clangs against the polished red floor, and the bulb tinkles into shards of glass. They are joined by the splinters of heavy glass as the jar is smithereened, an arched firework burping out writing paraphernalia.

‘Oops,' she says, and edges forward, crunching glass under her German orthopaedic sandals.

‘Stay where you are,' I order, as two more pairs of shuffled feet come into the room.

‘Wazup?' says one.

‘You can see wazup,' I snap in answer. ‘Get us a dustpan and broom if you want to be helpful.'

Sira doesn't say sorry. I don't realise it now, but she will never say sorry. She may try to explain herself, or the circumstance, but that single word that was murmured to me throughout my childhood, and that I learnt in my turn to say to soothe the feelings of others, is something I will never hear her say.

‘I wanted to say hello,' she says, but her mouth curls up slightly at one corner. One braid, long and thick with extensions, has slunk out of her hairband and is lying across her eye. She is enjoying my bad behaviour, my snappiness, my lack of warmth towards my new stepchildren, on their first day back in their father's house after our wedding. They have been staying at an aunt's for a fortnight so that ‘the newlyweds can have some space'.

I keep my head down; my irritation dampens into shame. I look up at Debba when she hands me a brush, and mutter, ‘Thank you. I was trying to sort out your father's accounts.'

‘And look where that's landed you,' Sira murmurs.

Embarrassment streaks my face. I am sure she can read me. I deal with it the only way I know how.

‘I guess we'd better make some tea. Would you mind putting the kettle on?' I say this to Ebrima, who is now leaning on the door jamb leading to the kitchen. ‘Clearing up this mess is a one- woman job. Perhaps you two can help him?'

The soles of Sira's shoes carry some remnants of glass and they scrape and crunch as she walks past me. Her bare legs lead up to hot pants, a strip of jean cradling the small of her back and stopping at the very top of her thighs.

At supper that evening, we sit together at the table that caused so much ruckus earlier.

‘I hope you'll be coming to the church service tomorrow,' starts Foday.

‘What for?' says Sira.

‘A show of support. A good family trait sometimes, no?'

‘I'll come, dad,' says Ebrima, ‘and I'll wake up the sisters too in good time.' He looks at his sisters. Sira's lips turn down, and lines lock her eyebrows together.

We chew on morsels of chicken
yassa
, which I seasoned in lemon and a sprinkling of chilli powder with a crumbled cube of Maggi stock.

‘Did you enjoy St Louis?' says Debba.

I look at her gratefully and nod. ‘Yes, it was absolutely fantastic. It's in a time warp and more leisurely, less hassly than Dakar.'

‘Did you go on a pirogue?' Debba asks.

‘I wanted to go out fishing but Dele wouldn't let me. No life jackets, wasn't it dear?' says Foday.

‘Have you seen those boats, they sink so low in the water, there's nothing between the boat's edge and the ocean. I told him to go paddling in the harbour instead.'

Both Ebrima and Debba laugh out loud at this.

‘I'm surprised you had any time to paddle outside your honeymoon bedroom,' says Sira.

She pushes back her chair against the floor and stands up. I watch her part her lips to let a
tchah
 escape them. She's sneering at me. Us. Our marriage. Foday's and my attempt to start living together as a family. All our breaths are caught into a transparent balloon of suspense floating above the centre of the table. She pushes at her chair harder, back, away from herself. The chair hits the floor with an angry thwack.

‘Now, look here, young lady,' says Foday, ‘pick that chair up and sit back down.'

Sira strides out. In the heaviness of her departure, the slam of her bedroom door declares a final exclamation mark to our paragraph of an evening.

‘Reverend! Reverend!' A loud, throaty voice vibrates the skin of silence over the house late on Sunday morning. The service is over, lunch is in the oven. Foday and I sit out in uncertain shade cast by a frangipani tree in a halo of pink scent. The kitchen door does not have a bell or anything obvious to attract attention with; most visitors shout to announce their arrival or need for attention.

Foday walks round the side of the house to the front, and there's a grumble of voices: the throaty one at the high end of the vocal scale, and Foday's – lower, steadier, deeper. The voices drift closer, with the wind blowing away most of what they are saying to each other. Little counter-gusts shower confetti fragments of their conversation: Sure / Surprised / Fried / Dare.

Foday and the visitor come closer. The owner of the throaty voice should have been obvious to me earlier, but my ears have been blurred by other noises: the sea, the chirps of unidentifiable brown birds hopping from frond to frond in the palm trees beyond the frangipani. Mrs Acheampong breathes heavily as she plants a heeled black patent shoe on the patio, its full shine clouded by dust. A volcano of emotion shakes under her heaving chest.

‘It's the collection. I popped out of the vestry to check on a loud bang.' She clasps a black patent bag underneath her bosom. She twists apart two knobs of gold-coloured metal to snap it open and extract an embroidered handkerchief. She wipes her forehead free of busy droplets of sweat.

Foday offers her a seat. ‘Do sit down. Can I pour you some tea, or would you prefer water?'

‘Some water. Cold please. The shock of it all!'

While Foday is inside, Mrs Acheampong divests more droplets of information. ‘It happened while I was counting. Just completely gone.'