Street savvy. That’s what the police report called fifteen-year-old Amina. But there’s another implication in that word that I missed before. They think that black women have been knocked about by history for so long that we’ve developed a resilience to injury. Hit us, kick us, mash us up, beat us down, experiment on us, we won’t feel a thing.
And for years I’ve been using the drug that turned Hope, Amina and Sheryl into things, objects to be used. People don’t even remember their names. I’m sobbing so hard it robs me of my breath. Bends me in two. I feel so low, so terribly low.
I finally understood what they did to me in the children’s home. That they were trying to take my body away from me too. Now I understand that my curls marked me out as different. My skin colour as abnormal. Hacking off my curls was their way of trying to amputate my blackness. And they won for such a long time. Sure, I’m a proud head-held-high woman of colour now, but where are my curls? Their visibility on my head is too traumatic. Always straight, never curly.
Something shifts beside me. Someone has joined me. It’s Little Eva. I hear the scuff of her shoes, the weariness on her breath.
For the first time I claim Little Eva with an affirming whisper. ‘She’s me. And I am her.’
I pull up, on to my feet again. Straighten my spine. Make unwavering eye contact with the wrongs of this world. For the first time in my adult existence, it’s not just me walking, it’s Little Eva as well. And we’re gunning for justice. Gunning for my father, Danny Greene.
CHAPTER 42
Worry kicks in when I see Commander John Dixon leaving Sugar’s house. If his grave expression is anything to go by, he’s just delivered Sugar some bad news. Dixon nods in my direction, nothing more, before getting in his car. Pensive, I watch him drive off, wondering what he could have said to Sugar. My hand fumbles with the key in the door.
I hear crashing from somewhere inside the house. I rush inside. The door to Sugar’s room is wide open. More crashes, as though someone is tearing the room apart. The image of the intruder steals into my mind and the chaos they left behind. I find an umbrella leaning on the bottom of the coat rack. Holding it with the precision of a sword I move towards the room.
I can’t believe what I’m seeing. It’s Sugar in a rage wrecking his most sacred room. The whiteboard is on the floor. The desk tipped over. Papers on top of papers thick on the floor like a newly laid modernist carpet. I hear his snarls as he claws photos, memos, everything off the walls. I think even the brickwork isn’t safe. I can’t see his face; I wish I could. I’m stunned. I have never seen my adoptive dad like this before.
‘Sugar!’ I snap.
He doesn’t stop. However, it’s the shape of his back that chokes me the most; his spine seems bent, wonky. All wrong. He was the man that taught me how your spine helps you to walk and to look at the world with pride.
I gasp as he reaches for his old police uniform. It’s still standing to attention ready for action.
‘Don’t,’ I scream. I know he’ll regret damaging it.
His voice wobbles. ‘I couldn’t tell you why I resigned when you asked me after the intruder broke into the house because, even after all these years, it still feels so raw. I still carry the young idealistic man I was here.’ His knuckles double-beat against his heart. ‘He was prepared to work inside an organisation he knew sometimes didn’t want him, spat on him, in order to fight for justice. The justice my beautiful mother never got.’
I rush in and fold my arms around my beloved father’s waist. He leans into me. And sobs. The security and warmth of my arms surround him. He’s trembling. I’m convinced the loss of Cherry is catching up with him. Finally, Sugar is grieving.
We sit with our backs against the wall in the trashed room. I hope one day soon we can clear this room out and turn it into something altogether more welcoming. Sugar’s head leans heavily against the wall. Every single one of his fifty-nine years on earth are mapped on his face.
‘I keep telling you to butt out of this, that it’s too dangerous.’ He’s struggling to control his voice. ‘But it’s not only that, there’s something else as well.’ He holds his work-worn hands out to me. ‘Do you know what this is? Obsession. I knew that if you become involved you’d become as obsessed as I am.’
I already am. I don’t tell him about the sleepless nights, the fingertips I reach out to touch – my mother’s – in the dark, the four names I chant first thing in the morning and last thing at night, writing across every Poppy Munro poster I deliberately seek out.