Say Her Name
Dreda Say Mitchell & Ryan Carter
CHAPTER 1
I stare down into the cold, cold grave. Scalding tears burn my face. Grief heavy in my heart. I’m still in a state of shock. Still can’t believe it. Mummy is dead and today we’re laying her to rest. There’s a terrible chill inside me that leaves me frozen. It has nothing to do with the icy wind dancing through the graveyard. What shivers inside me is guilt. Guilt that while I’m burying Mummy I can’t stop thinking about my other mother.
I feel a hard pride that so many people have turned out to celebrate Mummy Cherry’s life through her death. Then again, this is how things are done in London’s Caribbean community. People turn out to pay their respects when you’re living, pay their respects when you’re dead. The crowd of mourners is so dense they resemble a black scarf wound tight around me as if offering shelter so that I can bear my sorrow.
The atmosphere changes, their voices pressing in on me as they start to serenade my beloved mother on her way with song. Their voices are beautiful, uplifting, bringing fresh tears. I close my eyes for a time, letting their swaying voices soothe my pain. In the midst of the singing some members of Mummy Cherry’s church shout out, giving thanks and praise. Religion isn’t my thing, but these lyrics of hope, these shouts of redemption carried on the breeze, give me comfort. They are the balm I need to start the process of coping with my loss.
Either side of me are the emotional rocks in my life: Joe, my husband, and Sugar, the only father I’ve ever known. Carlton ‘Sugar’ McNeil stands out among the crowd of mourners, but then he would in any gathering. Even in mourning he is a magnificent man to behold. He is over six feet tall, with a well-toned physique and timeless brown skin despite the fact that his next birthday is the big six-zero. I take his strong hand, pulling the rough flesh of his palm close to mine. For a second or two he sinks into the warmth of my support, then he gently tugs his hand away, leaving mine exposed, defenceless in the cold. I’m not offended or surprised by his action. Sugar’s a man who uses his own feet to stand. No one else’s backbone but his own to bear his burdens.
Joe clasps my other hand and squeezes. My husband is the opposite of my dad, he blends easily into a crowd. When I first met Joe he admitted, with a saucy smile, ‘I’m just an ordinary white guy from comfortable suburbia. I’m not different, I’m not special. I’m not like you.’ But when you’ve had a hellish early childhood like mine, you appreciate the attractions of a man who’ll never bring trouble to your door. Joe, having never been to a Caribbean funeral before, appears uncomfortable in the midst of this open spiritual display of emotions.
He whispers, ‘Are you OK?’
I nod, but the truth is I’m not. Now my second mother is laid to rest, my first is closer than ever.
This woman has haunted my life. Sometimes I sense her, feel her, and become aware of a different scent in the air, the special scent of my wedding day or the moment I qualified as a doctor. Other times I feel a scary gulf of emptiness where she’s too far away for me to reach her, which is the case now. Sometimes . . . Sometimes I freeze in public, thinking I’ve caught a fleeting glimpse of her, a shadow with no face on a crowded street or in a lonely place. Sometimes I wake in the hush of the night, one hand tangled in my hair, my other outstretched. She’s there. I feel that we, mother and daughter, are only inches away from touching fingertips in the darkness.
I can’t go on like this any more. As Mummy Cherry’s coffin is lowered into her grave, as the voices that were filled with song now shatter the air with uncontrollable sobs, I make a life-changing decision. It’s time for me to find my first mother.
I sag against the closed door of Sugar’s upstairs bathroom. Finally, a moment of peace away from the mourners who have come back to Sugar’s home. It’s a semi-detached house in the North London suburbs not far from where Joe and I live. I don’t need the mirror above the sink to tell me what a wreck I must look. The richness of my brown skin faded, bleached by cold. My eyes sunken and bloodshot from days of heaving with grief. And my hair. Always straight, never curly. Even after all these years sometimes I can barely touch it.
Quickly, I wash my face. Touch-up my lipstick. I want to do Mummy Cherry proud. I won’t ever forget what she and Sugar did for me. They saved young me. ‘I was like a brand plucked from the burning’ is no doubt how members of Mummy Cherry’s church would put it. If they hadn’t rescued that broken and shattered child, I’d probably be six feet under in another grave in the cemetery where Mummy Cherry is now laid to rest.