Conversations in the kitchen on Sunday mornings

*******

Leroy over heard the conversations in the kitchen on Sunday mornings. The kitchen cabinet met. He could not work out if they were describing a recipe or talking about Africans and Africa through the sweet aroma of sizzling plantain. He heard strange sounding words interwoven into a story that he often times heard on the NEWS and Panorama: a world affairs programme. He heard the live version as to what was really happening and how it was affecting Africans.

“Lumumba, who was arrested by Army Chief of Staff Colonel Mobutu,” said Mr Appiah.

“But by then he was in the pay of the CIA”, said Leroy’s father Mr Marriott.

“Ahhhh heee but Mobutu handed him over to Tshombe in Katangaaaa  where heeeee was murdered,” chanted Mr Appiah.

“Yes and now they have arrested The African National Congress leader Nelson Mandela.” They all agreed that this was a terrible thing.

“Him nah come out of jail, him finished,” said his father Mr Marriot.

“Eii, Hie,   they are going to kill him in there that’s what they were making for, for so long”, replied Mrs Wilson another lodger and bus conductress.

“Everybody is happy now. Nelson Mandela is as good as dead” the kitchen committee had all agreed and shook their heads while stacking up the fried eggs.

The silenced aggrieved voices gave space for the sizzle of the frying.  Leroy loved the foreign sounding names and words he would memorise them and recite them in his lonely hours and in the playground at school. They went on and on most animatedly as the sausages sizzled, in the frying pan. Propaganda, Killings the chopping up into little pieces was a new language with new phrases.

On exit from the kitchen a plume of smoke belched through the open door. The blue cloud was of the smell of burnt plantains. Mr Aappiah the first out seeing Leroy on bended knees with his toy soldiers would reach into his pocket to produce a Kola nut. The kindly Mr. Appiah would often slip Leroy a couple of Kola nuts. He mimed a bite and then he chewed one as he passed a whole Kola nut to Leroy. Leroy watched the ritual and followed his actions.  The Kola Nut was very awkward as they were not completely round and could not be used as marbles. So Leroy did what he did and chewed them.  Leroy chewed as the bitter taste caused his face to contort in a deep grimace. Once Mr Appiah was out of sight Leroy then spat the bitter substance out and attempted to cleanse his tongue.

 Mr. Appiah scurried to his room and his library of books. He had always maintained the voice of reason as he was studying law by night as he worked on the underground and collected train tickets by day.

CHAPTER 2

Leroy held on to the memory of the daffodil bulb he was given at infant school. He had to grow the daffodil from a bulb, not on the land of his fore parents like yam in Jamaica, but on the tiny windowsill of their London room. Leroy had the responsibility of tending to a tiny flowerpot in a dish in which to meet the challenge of the bulb’s growth.  He covered the bulb in the pot with a few pebbles at the base and peat he was assisted by his father, they labelled the pot “Leroy Marriott.”

Leroy recalled the story of Jack and the Beanstalk and waited patiently for his opportunity to escape, just as Jack had succeeded to do. He looked out of the window every day for the stalk climbing to the clouds, but it never happened, he watered the bulb so frequently it became a soggy mess, since he was left alone frequently while his father worked on the busses and Aunt Mo. worked as a nurse.  His parents were more concerned about Leroy’s behaviour and conformity to Standard English and somehow becoming white, than his past living ‘wild’ in the Jamaican countryside.

Running away Leroy walked in the whiteness of the snow away from his home. He lifted one foot then plunged it into the snow. Then the next and so the journey continued leaving distinct footprints in the virgin snow. Through the park he progressed into the woodland area towards the railway track. He followed the wire mesh fence parallel to the rail line. This was his new found escape because he was a wild child. He did these what amounted to therapeutic walks as frequently as he could and as frequently the police brought him back.

As an inducement and prize for getting his haircut his father bought him a complete cowboy outfit complete with double holster and spurs.  Instead of showing excitement or pleasure Leroy cried an involuntary deep pain felt cry. The sort that starts off with a deep breath but instead of exhaling it becomes a sniff that becomes another sniff to then become a hick up and the shoulders heave and there is no control. The tears flowed leaving a white track down his black cheeks.

Leroy had always identified himself in the “game” of cowboys and Indians as the Indian a warrior brave who would one day defend his nation and become chief of the Cheyenne’s, Apache and Comanche.  Leroy was an Indian Brave not a singing cowboy, drunken cowboy or bank robber cowboy. This was yet another indication to his parents that Leroy was indeed backward and wild.

 “Most boys want to be cowboys” said Aunt Mo. Coming in to appease the situation. With a sense of humour Ivan did an Indian dance around the room with two fingers as feathers and the other hand patting his mouth to represent the sound “OOOHHH, OOOHHH,” as he war danced, He thought Leroy is not righted he always wants to be the underdog.

Leroy could not help but sniffle himself to silence and then to a smile. Leroy submitted to be scalped with his father’s brand new clippers. Kindness and understanding shown by Aunt Mo. evaporated.  She announces: “What a way him look like Bud Pinckney.”

The heaven gates opened and Noah had prepared for the flood. Not Leroy involuntarily the tears washed his face. He stood in his full cowboy outfit. As his face was a washed by tears. He felt the breeze he had not experienced for some time the coldness of a bald head. Aunt Mo’s words sunk in like an arrow he had made and shot at a tiny bird whilst in the bush as a child. He stared at the Bud Pinckney still pink with clear wriggly lines for veins. The rear end covered in a downy feather and he Leroy had lit a fire and set up a spit and roasted the creature and ate it in the ashes of his fire. He placed himself in the place of the ill fated hatchling, with the scrawny neck. Leroy felt openly vulnerable of everything. He had no cover. He had been truly scalped.

Ivan out of frustration shouted: “Shut up Shut up bwai,” he shuffled around to find a strap; Leroy exited to the garden without another word and stood under the tree in Dead Wood City. As he watched the back of the house, waiting. He plucked a long stem of grass and chewed the stork emitting a white sap. The psychological pain was too much for Leroy he was “a- mean- looking -bald- headed, bud Pinckney, Indian dressed as a cowboy.”

I iSangoma looked on the pathetic site from above.

They came back late one night laughing and happy. Leroy screwed up his eyes and pretended to be asleep. Overcome by a presence standing over him in the bed Leroy peeped to see his father dressed in his silk lapelled jacket and his frilly shirt complete with black bow tie. Ivan shook his head from side to side. 

“Boy, you asleep?”

“Yes.” Leroy could hear snippets of conversation “about “King Kong.” Leroy felt betrayed they had gone to Africa to see the “King Kong” and had not taken him.  They were guilty. Leroy felt betrayed they had gone to Africa to see the “King Kong” and had not taken him.  They were guilty. The greatest   representative of all of Africa and he was black and in the United Kingdom. Thousands of people were going to see him but they excluded Leroy. There was the Royal family headed by the Queen. And Africans had “King Kong”.

Eventually “King Kong” did appear on television in all his glory. Somehow caged like a gorilla and brought to the United States of America. That’s no way to treat a King Leroy thought. The world became more curios, but: “Wary is the head that wears the crown.” Leroy had often heard his father sigh. The television presentation of an African King represented just that. Very soon Leroy was to learn of other Guerrillas fighting in the African Bush one’s that refused to be captured. 

The crowd shrieked and screamed in anticipation of an offence they were unaware of, as though filled with the pain and suffering of those carried away by slave ships head bowed. The screaming penetrated my mind, breaking the stillness of the hazy afternoon sun. I close my eyes, green and blue-floating spots played on my retina. My fingers out-stretched rested on pieces of broken glass. I iSangoma hovered above to glimpse the charged particles of my body. I ceased the annunciations and swayed with his people. Connection was made. I narrated my life: “Everywhere I went, others around were angry. Anger welled up inside like a blowtorch alive and hissing with a hollow escape of ignited gas. I glowed with the anger of others. A movement of the chin was a code of discontent. A flick of the lip was a sneer of unreasoned anger, and nonconformity to peace.”I shouted. A man in the front row bit his lower lip and sucked while he stared beyond his nose - this gave an impression of a meditative state. He broke out of his reverie as he stood involuntarily as he would at a Christian revivalist meeting. “That is like me, I needed help, but I did not know where to turn. I viewed all white people that so frequented the media, films, the news, walking down the street as the enemy. I could not look at a white person in the eye. I tried different jobs but could not get a promotion or even recognition for my efforts by whites; I too was filled with hate...” The man said. I iSangoma held up my arms just like the Messiah, just as the white missionaries had done before him. Just as the holographic image of Aunt Mo’s front room, with the legend ‘Christ is the Unseen Guest at every meal the silent contributor to every conversation’. With wide open arms, he followed you with his eyes as you moved around the room and it looked as he was moving with you.

I shouted as thunder would roll. “You are the authority in your own home. Racism will end today, and Africa is liberated." I bellowed to the open air. The man sat down as though cured of a terminal illness. Harsh voices played within me that day.

It was in this calm............

**********

It was in this calm and peaceful place that Leroy became “I” iSangoma. One day he would physically do that required visit to his homeland. To verify and hone his body worthy to be united with the “I” and so that he fully understood what he was told, he would be beaten with clothes hangers, pots, pans, shoe heels and broomsticks any thing that came to hand until they broke. Leroy's will never break as “I” iSangoma was there to protect him.

“Look at your nose how it broad, lord have mercy what we going to do about your nose. Then she would crush his nose between thumb and fore finger until Leroy yelped "If it grows any broader you will surely become an African. Its only African people have nose pronounced like that.” She pinched his nose between forefinger and thumb and pulled it attempting to extend it look like Pinocchio’s.

Aunt Mo's considered verdict was punctuated with a barrage of blows as they rained down on the

body of eight years. Leroy stood in a zinc bathtub. Tepid water rippled around his ankles he shivered uncontrollably, the tub rattled across the lino floor, his soft black limbs danced the shimmy as his teeth chattered his eyes swivelled blankly searching for a place to which they could fix onto.

“Stop the trembling! Stop the trembling!” Aunt Mo. Shouted.

Leroy tensed his body in an attempt to stop only to “tremble” even more.

“Are you afraid of me?”Thwack, thwack as the wet wash cloth made contact with his skin. No mama” Leroy said in self-defence.

“Well stop the trembling,” Thwack, she says hitting him with the cold washrag again. It was during one such incident of beating that iSangoma left they left the body of Leroy Marriot to monitor the situation from a safe distance. Watching I could see the madness of his guardian mother Aunt Mo possessed with a maddening anger. The pain Leroy suffered was often disproportionate to his bawling and screams. It was his outstanding game plan in a vain attempt to alleviate the blows. I iSangoma watched over the forlorn couple entwined in pain and misunderstanding.

Aunt Mo. was not to realise she was flogging a substance less body. She wielded the belt as it swung by the weight of the buckle.

“I (lick) tell, (lick) yu, (lick) nu, (lick) fi, (lick) come, (lick) home, (lick) late, why? (Lick). Yu, (lick) hard (lick) a (lick) hear (lick) in?”

Time had stood still for the body of Leroy, only the background noise of TV theme song to ‘Panorama’ registered in his mind as a marker to his pain as I the spirit danced to Peter and the Wolf by Prokefiev. The pain suffered by the child of eight years was impossible to endure it was safer viewing the incident from the ceiling. I shared the secret of our ability to separate with something deep down in the body’s empty shell. We had warning signals when the effort would be anticipated. The licks were concluded with a cursory "Who cyan hear must feel” and then pushed in to the corner left crying.

Total silence and a blank stare would indicate it’s time to break, (Out-of-here). She was trying to beat the African from herself, to dislodge and destroy her own ancestral memories.

The Queen of England was the original ruler to impose worship and devotion and love in our house; she was spoken of with reverence and often mentioned in the same breath as God. Whenever the National Anthem was played silence was maintained. Until the Test card came on with a continuous tone and only then would the TV be switched off. Our patriotic English life was a contradiction in terms to our seeking for freedom from the imperialists. Leroy lived in a Royalist house of Aunt Mo. and his father Ivan Marriott. Aunt Mo’s face became as large as the television set as it bore down on Leroy. She was not real, but another powerful image from the outside world, imposing itself onto Leroy’s reality. Suddenly the face and her body became smaller and smaller until it appeared distant in the far corner of the living room. Leroy became dislocated from his own presence in the room.

He found himself to be staring at Aunt Mo as she appeared to expand and retract. As he floated from the ground, yet was weighted by his experience. Leroy tried to escape his own gaze but yet he was transfixed to the spot. He felt light, then heavy, light then heavy and so it went on for what was an eternity. Somehow Aunt Mo. was not as amiable and as kind as the lovely warm white ladies at school or the beautiful white ladies that entered the living room and spoke in modulated feminine voices from the television screen. She was a woman, but yet in a different class Aunt Mo was in a class of her own. Her smile was not welcoming and kind it was a battering sneering parting of trembling troubled lips, a woman in torment with herself. Anger was anger something to enjoy and give full vent. Never holding back, not something to conceal and play with. As Leroy had learned to internalise his anger and suffer in eternal silence a living death. Anger and violence were to be enjoyed and savoured by aunt Mo.

The pain, the squirm the pleading were all part of the ritual... Leroy was an unruly child, his pain and screams were theatrical. Aunt Mo beat Leroy the louder he howled. What kind of man was this pathetic creature growing up to become Aunt Mo often wondered? A kind of man that would commit suicide at the first opportunity she concluded in her thoughts. On occasion, she told him just that. The beating and torture seemed to have had a converse effect rather than rejecting Africa, blackness and all his bad-ways, Leroy Marriott became more welded to the images of his ancestors and the life he had left and was still longing for somewhere in his past life. Here, the twist began, as a child Leroy became purposeful in his intent to become an African neither was he perturbed about his behaviour. The beatings reinforced and encouraged Leroy even more.