with her back to the apple tree unfolding the three-page image of Elizabeth Taylorâs arrival in Rome as Cleopatrafrom the
Encyclopaedia of Epic Films
. Beside her, Kodwo was describing Shelobâs lair in
The Return of the King
, with close attention to the grimmer details of how the giant spider ingested its prey. Taller, smarter and two years older than me, Kodwo was the familyâs presiding genius. At ten, he had long, tapering fingers and an imperious manner that left me feeling like a melted candle beside him. Instead of joining their conversation I practised handstands on the dried-out lawn.
Balanced upside-down, my mind turned to a school trip the previous month to the Museum of London. My class had gone to see an exhibition on the Great Fire of London. For days beforehand, I lay awake picturing the scenes of spectacular destruction it promised. Yet as we crossed the overpass leading into the museum I stood frozen in place while the class streamed past me.
Silently, as it appeared from behind the glass of the overpass, I saw my fatherâs midnight-blue Volvo estate pass by underneath. Through the windscreen I had a clear view of the curve of his forehead. The sun glinted from his glasses. Mr Johnson, his chauffeur, sat beside him in a grey suit, his hands wrapped in brown leather gloves working the wheel. My father leaned towards him and mouthed an instruction. Clouds rippled on the carâs metal skin. It swept beneath the bridge towards St Paulâs.
When he asked me about the school trip that evening I didnât tell my dad about the overpass. Spotting him had felt like gazing down into the secret workings of the adultworld. I didnât want anything to damage that impression, not even his consciousness of it.
Every morning Mr Johnson collected my father for work in the Volvo, the car drawing up in front of the house powerful as a dray horse. Fixed to its grille was a diplomatic plate, meaning that, as sovereign Ghanaian territory, the Volvo could speed through red lights, park on double yellow lines or race down the corridors of Buckingham Palace with total impunity, or at worst the risk of a mild international incident.
After he came home in the evening, my father would shave standing at the bathroom mirror, then come downstairs, the natural force of him, his solemnity, the volume of his breathing, filling the living room. When I was very young I used to climb over him while he watched television, as if he were a mountain range. Iâd haul myself up the rock face of his legs, then sprawl on the plateau of his stomach, its churnings seismic in their mystery below me.
In those days I could imagine my father only from the outside. What Iâve learned since of his vulnerability and his sadness have tempered that impression. But nothing can erase the memory of looking up at him as a child to find him staring back, as if he were peering down through the clouds.
On the Saturday of the party, my dad slid open the patio doors and dragged the wooden speaker boxes of his quadraphonic stereo on to the lawn. From the attic he hauled down the boxes of Chivas Regal and Johnny Walker BlackLabel that heâd buy duty-free on the return leg of a diplomatic mission. In the kitchen, chicken legs spattered in the frying pan. My mother set a huge saucepan of jollof rice on the cooker to simmer. Loaves of kenkey wrapped in banana leaves sat in a pile, stinking of entropy.
As the doorbell chimed and the guests began arriving I watched two worlds coalesce. The adults came dressed in Kente cloth robes flung over bare shoulders. On their feet they wore
mpagoa
, leather sandals in emerald and gold. The women had jewelled fingers and elaborately constructed headscarves. They had grown up in the same sprawling households back in Ghana and called each other brother and sister. There were Mr Campbell Rhodes, a friend of my fatherâs, an enormous man always dressed in a tight-fitting sky-blue safari suit
Encyclopaedia of Epic Films
. Beside her, Kodwo was describing Shelobâs lair in
The Return of the King
, with close attention to the grimmer details of how the giant spider ingested its prey. Taller, smarter and two years older than me, Kodwo was the familyâs presiding genius. At ten, he had long, tapering fingers and an imperious manner that left me feeling like a melted candle beside him. Instead of joining their conversation I practised handstands on the dried-out lawn.
Balanced upside-down, my mind turned to a school trip the previous month to the Museum of London. My class had gone to see an exhibition on the Great Fire of London. For days beforehand, I lay awake picturing the scenes of spectacular destruction it promised. Yet as we crossed the overpass leading into the museum I stood frozen in place while the class streamed past me.
Silently, as it appeared from behind the glass of the overpass, I saw my fatherâs midnight-blue Volvo estate pass by underneath. Through the windscreen I had a clear view of the curve of his forehead. The sun glinted from his glasses. Mr Johnson, his chauffeur, sat beside him in a grey suit, his hands wrapped in brown leather gloves working the wheel. My father leaned towards him and mouthed an instruction. Clouds rippled on the carâs metal skin. It swept beneath the bridge towards St Paulâs.
When he asked me about the school trip that evening I didnât tell my dad about the overpass. Spotting him had felt like gazing down into the secret workings of the adultworld. I didnât want anything to damage that impression, not even his consciousness of it.
Every morning Mr Johnson collected my father for work in the Volvo, the car drawing up in front of the house powerful as a dray horse. Fixed to its grille was a diplomatic plate, meaning that, as sovereign Ghanaian territory, the Volvo could speed through red lights, park on double yellow lines or race down the corridors of Buckingham Palace with total impunity, or at worst the risk of a mild international incident.
After he came home in the evening, my father would shave standing at the bathroom mirror, then come downstairs, the natural force of him, his solemnity, the volume of his breathing, filling the living room. When I was very young I used to climb over him while he watched television, as if he were a mountain range. Iâd haul myself up the rock face of his legs, then sprawl on the plateau of his stomach, its churnings seismic in their mystery below me.
In those days I could imagine my father only from the outside. What Iâve learned since of his vulnerability and his sadness have tempered that impression. But nothing can erase the memory of looking up at him as a child to find him staring back, as if he were peering down through the clouds.
On the Saturday of the party, my dad slid open the patio doors and dragged the wooden speaker boxes of his quadraphonic stereo on to the lawn. From the attic he hauled down the boxes of Chivas Regal and Johnny Walker BlackLabel that heâd buy duty-free on the return leg of a diplomatic mission. In the kitchen, chicken legs spattered in the frying pan. My mother set a huge saucepan of jollof rice on the cooker to simmer. Loaves of kenkey wrapped in banana leaves sat in a pile, stinking of entropy.
As the doorbell chimed and the guests began arriving I watched two worlds coalesce. The adults came dressed in Kente cloth robes flung over bare shoulders. On their feet they wore
mpagoa
, leather sandals in emerald and gold. The women had jewelled fingers and elaborately constructed headscarves. They had grown up in the same sprawling households back in Ghana and called each other brother and sister. There were Mr Campbell Rhodes, a friend of my fatherâs, an enormous man always dressed in a tight-fitting sky-blue safari suit
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