The Boy Who Lived With Ghosts: A Memoir (17 page)

Auntie Dee sings God’s praises all the time because an idle mind makes work for the Devil. And she keeps her grandson Danny with her constantly because he is only five years old and he is special because he was sodomized
in the back bedroom by a boy called Arnold when they were only supposed to be playing snakes and ladders. And even though it has made Danny special to be sodomized, he now lives with Auntie Dee because he does not want to be sodomized again.

Nana said I should not ask when I wanted to know exactly what it means to be sodomized and I don’t know why they told me that he was sodomized if I can’t even ask what it means. All I know is that there is a place in the Bible called Sodom and God burned it down with fire and brimstone.

Auntie Dee said she had a holiday surprise for everyone and if we were good and loved Jesus, she would tell us all about it.

45

W
e are going on the Salvation Army summer daytrip to Littlehampton. It will be sun, sea, sand, and salvation because our souls will be saved by the righteous songs that we will sing on the bus. And Danny is going with us because he has been sodomized and he is special. Also, Jesus wants him for a sunbeam.

For one thing, God knows it would have been better if we had had tickets. There were nearly two hundred bloody people trying to get on our double-decker bus outside Clapham Junction tube station. And those riff-raff, who have never been to church or even opened a Bible, didn’t listen to a word when Auntie Dee told them that God’s son died for them on Calvary so that they might be saved from mortal sin and eternal damnation. And if you want my opinion, it was very disrespectful when that man stole her brand new tambourine.

Rattle, rattle, rattle.

And another thing. It would have helped if there were more Salvation Army people there to control that crowd of riff-raff and not just our Auntie Dee and a small old man with a whistle who said he was the captain. It was lucky for him that someone snatched his whistle away from him before that other man pushed it down his bloody throat.

That’s when a fight broke out.

“We’ve got as much right as you to be on this bus!” squealed a woman, dragging a dirty, wild-eyed boy behind her.

“When did you last go to fucking church?” another shouted.

“May God strike you down for that language!”

“You ain’t set foot inside a church since your ol’ man died! And that was in 1945!”

“Don’t you bring my dear, departed Harold into this, you fucking old cow!”

And once they broke the fight up, it wasn’t much fun driving to the seaside because it should only have taken two hours but we kept having to stop so that the dirty wild-eyed boy could be sick and he was sick seven times including once on the bus. I held my breath and moved to the other side. And his mum slapped him every time he was sick, which made him scream, and Nana said no one should blooming well have to listen to that screaming on a Salvation Army bus to Littlehampton.

Also, we had to stop every time we came to some bushes because the grown-up ladies said they could
not
just stick their bums out the back of the bus to pee like some of the men suggested.

So, it took over four hours to get to the seaside and not two and as soon as we got there nearly all the grown-ups went into a pub called the Marine Hotel and Nana said she didn’t know why they came all the way to the seaside just to go into a pub when there were plenty of pubs back in Clapham. Not to mention the ten crates of beer that had already been drunk on the journey.

We did not sing any righteous songs on the way to the seaside because Auntie Dee was too angry about her missing tambourine. She was also very unhappy that an old man called Cecil kept taking out his teeth to show her that he could pop the caps off of beer bottles with them because no one thought to bring a bottle opener.

“If you stare out to sea,” the captain said, “you will be able to experience the eternity of the Holy Spirit.”

Auntie Dee agreed that she felt closer to God than she did in Clapham.

I tried not to look while Auntie Dee was getting undressed with a towel around her. That towel was nowhere near big enough. That’s why she ended up sitting down to do it and asked Danny to help shield her but all he could
do was point at things that no one should be seeing. It was completely mesmerizing. But the captain just stared out to sea.

And we were not at all happy when the captain told us to get dried and dressed after only an hour.

“It is my responsibility to get all of you back to Clapham before dark. We should have arrived here hours ago! This has not been the experience that it should have been.”

The captain said he would leave without the grown-ups because they wouldn’t come out of the pub. I thought it was a very good idea when the captain got the driver to start the engine and he revved it up and even moved forward a bit and that nearly started another fight when everyone came running out of the pub, still holding their drinks, screaming for us to stop.

“And another thing,” the captain shouted, “We will not be stopping this bus forty-two times on the way back to Clapham. If you need to go, you will just have to do it in a bottle. Or out the back of the bus. And that’s final!”

“I’m not sticking my arse out the back of no bus just for you fucking men to have a good look!”

It was the woman with the wild-eyed child. Then she slapped the boy to show us she meant it. I don’t think she’s right. It would be dangerous for a woman to try to pee out of the back of a bus. But for the men to have a good look at her bum, they would have to swing out of the back deck to do it. Anyway, I think the men are too busy drinking all the crates of beer they brought with them from the pub. And this time, they’ve got a bottle opener so Cecil doesn’t have to use his false teeth.

We were only as far as the turn at the end of the esplanade when Auntie Dee smiled at me and started to sing a righteous song, even though her tambourine was still missing.

It’s an open secret that Jesus is mine,
It’s an open secret this gladness divine,
It’s an open secret I want you to know,
It’s an open secret,
I love my Savior so…

But the grown-ups joined in with their own song.

When I went home on Monday night as drunk as drunk can be,
I saw a horse outside the door where my old horse should be…
Ah, you’re drunk,
You’re drunk, you silly old fool,
Still you cannot see,
That’s a lovely sow that me mother sent to me…

You can seek Him, find Him, share this secret too…

Ah, you’re drunk,
You’re drunk, you silly old fool,
Still you cannot see…

Jesus said unto her, I am the resurrection, and the life:

He that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live…

And as I went home on Saturday night as drunk as drunk could be,
I saw two hands upon her breasts where my old hands should be…

“Stop the fucking bus or I will piss myself, do you hear!” shouted the same woman who said she would not stick her bare arse out the back of the bus to piss just to have a bunch of drunken old men peering at her drawers.

“Really! I am reciting from the Scriptures,” said the captain. “Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life…”

“And I’m saying I will piss right here in this seat if you don’t stop this fucking bus!”

“Watch and pray that ye enter not into temptation. The spirit indeed is willing but the flesh is weak…”

“And another thing! The driver says he needs to stop. He’s thirsty, and he needs a fucking beer!”

This is the best time ever. I never want to go home to our haunted house again. I want to stay here forever.

46

W
hen we got back home, we were still scratching so Mum put some white powder in our clothes. I asked about it and she said it was for humans but the container had a picture of a dog on it.

And I got a gold star for my essay.

Two more black people came to our house today as we are now welcoming another troubled soul to the refuge-for-troubled-children. I looked closely at them but I don’t think they have leprosy. I think this is on account of them coming from a completely different tribe.

“Where are you from?” Mum asked.

“We are from the Igbo tribe! Igbo! Yes, we escaped our country a year ago,” the black man replied.

“What did you escape?” Mum asked, leaning forward and lighting a cigarette.

“Oh, it’s complicated,” he replied.

“Go on. Go on,” Mum said.

“Well. There was a lot of political unrest,” he began, “and then, earlier this year, my tribe seized power in Nigeria. There were riots. Almost thirty thousand of my tribe were killed.”

“Thirty thousand? Good God!”

“Yes. My brother and auntie were killed, God rest their souls. You see, Nigeria is a country that was created by you!”

“Me?” Mum replied.

“Well, not you personally. The British. Nigeria wasn’t a country before the days of the Empire. We got our independence from Great Britain in 1960. That’s when the real trouble began.”

Mum took a long drag on her cigarette. “Really?” she said, moving in even closer.

“There was no recognition of the terrible tribal differences between my tribe and the Yoruba and Hausa-Fulani. Or the fighting that would start over the rights to Nigeria’s oil supplies.”

This was a bloody sight more interesting than the last two black people. All they did was cry but these people actually came from a warring tribe. Death, destruction and terror. I really wish I hadn’t taken my robot apart.

“This is the start of a civil war. Many more will die. Perhaps millions by the time it is over.”

“Millions? Die?”

“Maybe.”

“So, let me see,” Mum asked. “You are at war with another tribe?”

“Yes. Back home in Nigeria.”

“Which one, did you say? Which tribe are you at war with?”

“The Yoruba. Mostly the Yoruba. They are an evil people. And very tall.”

“Very tall?” Mum asked.

“Yes. Very, very tall. I’m sure there will be genocide before this is done. But we will fight to the death. And I will send money home to our brave soldiers.”

“Genocide?”

“Yes. Genocide.”

Mum bounced Akanni on her knee.

“So please take care of our little girl, Ngozi. She cannot talk…” the black man said.

“And she still has to wear nappies!” the black woman added.

“Don’t worry,” Mum said. “We’ll have her chatting away in no time. And potty trained.”

I looked at Ngozi and snot was running down from her nose and she was licking it from her lip. Then she frowned and looked away.

She shit herself. I am glad she is a girl and will be sharing a bed with Emily in the refuge-for-troubled-children.

47

M
um has denied it but she is avoiding the truth, if you ask me. Even I know what has happened. We have fostered children from two warring tribes, one with a definite case of leprosy. It is a civil war in which thousands have already died, maybe millions. As the man of the house I have a right to know some things. I accept that I am never going to know what it means to be sodomized but this is under our own roof, for God’s sake. I need to know all about genocide.

“But what exactly is genocide, Mum?”

“Well, John, that’s really a grown-up question.”

“You always say that. But what is it? As the man of the house, I need to know!”

“Ha! It’s something that happens in wars when one group of people massacre another group because of who they are.”

“Because of who they are?”

“Yes. Like the Nazis in World War Two. They massacred five million Jews. Or it may have been six. That was genocide.”

“Oh.”

“We should learn more about their ways,” Mum said.

“The Nazis?”

“No! The Nigerians.”

To help her learn more about their ways, Mum has bought a book called
Teach Yourself Yoruba
. It had to be specially ordered from the bookstore but I do not understand why she would want to learn how to speak Yoruba when
those first two black people only come here every three months, and the other two are from a different tribe with a different dialect. And they are at war with the Yoruba so it may not be very nice if you spoke to them in Yoruba.

“
Ek’abo
!” Mum exclaimed.

“What?” Margueretta replied.

“
Bawo Iowa
?” Mum continued.

“You’ve lost your mind! I’m not listening.”

“
Ek’abo
means welcome!
Bawo Iowa
? How are you?”

“Who cares?” Margueretta laughed because she is now an actual teenager and teenagers hate their parents and their mothers in particular but also their younger brothers.

“You’ll be laughing on the other side of your face when I am speaking to Akanni’s parents in Yoruba when they come over!”

“They speak English, for God’s sake!”

I could see Margueretta’s point because even though we are now a refuge-for-troubled-children and we could foster more children from the Yoruba tribe, it is more than likely that their parents will speak English unless they have just arrived here from the war on a boat. But I hate Margueretta so I took my mum’s side.

“I want Mum to learn Yoruba!” I shouted.

“No one cares what you want!” Margueretta replied.

“Well, John is my helper,” Mum began, “And he is going to help me today, aren’t you John?”

“Yes!” I beamed.

“Yes. He is my helper!”

“I am!”

Mum smiled at me, and I smiled back.

“He’s going to take the nappies to the launderette for me. And he’s taking Akanni and Ngozi with him to give me a break, aren’t you?”

This is my own fault. I like to help my mum because she cries a lot and it’s very hard bringing up five children in this dreadful cold house
with the black floors and a child screaming in the attic and hardly enough money to keep us from bloody well starving to death or freezing solid in our own beds. And every time you turn around there’s another bloody mouth to feed and Akanni is getting bigger and that means he’s eating even more and he’s tall for his age because the Yoruba are a very, very tall people.