Searching for Sodye

By A. M. Mensah

A. M. Mensah has written a semi-autobiographical novel, depicting the care homes in the 1950's and 1960's England. The novel is from the perspective of mixed raced children of African and Irish heritage. The book tells a child's story of loss and abandonment as well as their struggles of self preservation alone without parental support. At the time of flourishing 1960's pop culture, found two young girls being brought up by strict Roman Catholic nuns. In order to escape their traumatic upbringing they travel to Franco's Spain where the USA military were based during the Vietnam War. This is a search of two children ultimately seeking their own self identity and self determination and the dramatic outcomes of their separate lives.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Legend Press
• Release date: Feb 12, 2013
• ISBN: 9781785077333

Book preview

Chapter I

They could never pronounce my sister’s name correctly. I concluded this truth to myself after being informed by the voice at the other end of the telephone that Sue had died. African names were not that familiar when we were born in the 1950’s.

She fell down the stairs this morning and broke her neck, said the woman, after I had come out of the kitchen, to answer the telephone. I was tempted to let the telephone ring but has the ring tone did not stop, I guessed the caller was determined to speak to me.

At the time I was not sure if I heard the fatal message correctly. The words seemed to take on a life of their own. They seem to echo back on themselves and persistently rebounded about in my mind. Each word just floated around in my head. There was no coherent meaning at all. Only words, unremittingly ricocheted around in my head. When the words finally made sense, I was shocked and deeply saddened by the death of my younger sister. All through Sue’s life no one could pronounce her name correctly; not even Sue.

I felt annoyed because I had desperately wanted to tell Sue how her name should have been pronounced.

It was important to me because I had only recently discovered the correct pronunciation myself. The name Sodye I was told is pronounced So – dy – ee. This gave the name a mellifluous ring to its pronunciation. I had so wanted to tell my sister how beautiful her Ghanaian name sounded. Now Sue was dead, the opportunity to have cleared away the lifetime ambiguity concerning her name was lost forever. I detested missed opportunities. Now, there was a missed opportunity that was lost forever. I had stood staring into the telephone as I felt the stone cold quiver of death in its finality engulfed me. I wished I was anywhere but where I was, standing up against my living room wall. Several memories began to formulate in my mind as I began to recall the continuous mis-pronouncement of Sue’s name. This meant her name inevitably became shortened to Sue. Perhaps the permanent mis-pronounced name had resulted in Sue having no knowledge of her own cultural heritage. As a consequence, Sue had abhorred anyone who tried to call her by her African name. My sister, ultimately possessed no sense of who she was, what she was or where she had come from. I struggled in that moment to cope with the pain of losing my younger sister so suddenly and so cruelly. I simply did not or could not accept the brevity of the message the words finally conveyed.

Hello, hello, are you still there? I thought I heard the voice say from a faraway place. I was thirty five, two years older than my sister. I could not be sure whether I had heard the voice or not, anymore, since a great part of me had disengaged, and closed down. Nausea and disbelief wasted no time in wrapping themselves around me in a mummified fashion.

Yes, yes, I am still here, I responded, a small sad voice inside me replied. This voice would have thrown me at any other time because it had been such a long time since I had identified with this disconsolate voice. Invariably, it now sought to vocalize my feelings. How I wished she were anywhere but where I was at that précised moment, but where else could I be? There was no place to hide from the reality of my sister’s unexpected death. I was forced to accept the bitter truth. For a split second, which seemed to encapsulate infinity, I pretended that what I heard did not fit into my everyday reality. For a few seconds longer, therefore could not possibly be true.

The police broke into her flat after I telephoned, informing them that Sue had not popped around for her dinner yesterday.

I’ll be right over, I found myself saying in my I can always cope voice.

I pulled myself away from the wall after I put the handset back on the beige telephone I had recently bought. Somehow my numb legs escorted me to the nearest chair where my tears released themselves freely. Time refused to tell me how long I sat there as I cried into the well of my own despair and betrayal of life’s expectations. When I finally looked at the clock on the wall, as much as I tried to will the hands of the clock to turn backwards to yesterday, they declined. After all Sue had been through, I admitted to myself; it had finally come to this. I was stunned; never in my wildest dreams did I think Sue’s life would end so unexpectedly. Death was swift and ruthless in its embrace. There had been no time to say goodbye, only time for remembrance and the one thing I did not want to do was to remember but in not wanting to forget Sue, I allowed myself the process of remembering Sue’ s and my shared childhood.

As sisters’ our childhood came flooding back to me, like a huge tidal wave washing over me as the torrent of memories welled up inside like an overflowing fountain. I felt I had no choice but to concede to them. One of my first vivid memories of Sue was when we were jumping up and down on own parents’ dilapidated large double bed that dominated the bedsitting room. We lived with our parents, in tiny bedsitter’s which were common in 1950’s Britain. We frequently moved from on bedsit to another because of rent arrears or because of the intolerance exhibited to ‘coloured’ or Irish families. The bed represented comfort and security for Sue and me. It was where we both slept with our parents each night. Besides, during the day there was not much else to do apart from playing and fighting together in the small dreary room.

Bouncing up and down on the mattress gave us tremendous pleasure. We held hands and giggled and laughed as we jumped up and down on the bed. We laughed so much sometimes that we rolled on the bed afterwards because we were exhausted from having such fun. Opposite the bed, an old 1940’s single gentleman’s wardrobe with a dressing table beside it. Both pieces of furniture were made of veneered mahogany with metal handles. Some of the metal handles were pieces from the dressing table drawers. Two Formica chairs had been placed beside the dressing table. A small dining table was folder up against the wall where the door to the bedsit was located. I felt that as sisters’ we lived in a solitary protective space carved out of life’s mundane routine by our mother. We perceived our mother to be our primary guardian. There were times when I observed my sister longing once again to sit on our mother’s lap as she had done so as a baby. At two and a half years old she still felt her mother’s attention should belong to her exclusively. Deep down inside her she may have known the chance to be cuddled at leisure again had escaped her prematurely.

Mummy, mummy, I want to sit on your lap now, demanded my little sister, as she quickly climbed on to her mother’s lap whenever her mother had dozed off for five minutes between her chores.

Not now Sue, her mother always replied when jostling herself from sleep. I’ve got the washing to do and the dinner to make for your father. Sue’s mother struggled to get her small daughter off her lap. Sue invariable cried inconsolably and would go and sit in a corner of the room.

Don’t cry Sue, I must wash the clothes and put them on the washing line before it rains, said her mother sadly. When we were babies our mother told me years later that she sought consolation for her plight, by knowing her babies’ nappies were some of the whitest and cleanest nappies on the outside communal washing line and, within the entire neighbourhood this gave her much pride.

Sue’s crying often woke up her father who usually slept during the day because of his nightly shift work at the local hospital where he was a domestic assistant. When my father was not at work, he organised late evening social gatherings. On the many occasions, my father was woken up by my sisters crying, he would immediately identify the cause of his interrupted sleep, he would proceed to smack Sue without hesitation. His actions made her cry even more. My father found the noise and the demands of his young children tiresome and usually projected his anger and frustrations at the world onto his family. It was the constant discrimination he faced when trying to find a more satisfactory job. The constant rejection in a hostile world, which was not the world he was familiar wore him down. Britain was not the place of his birth but rather, a world he was forced to endure despite his indignations of the harsh reality of his circumstances.

To both of us, the shabby bedsitter was marginally warm and cosy despite the constant bitter chill that permeated the room during the winter months. The chill entered the room form the cracks in the walls by the window frames of the terrace house. The paraffin heater’s attempts to warm up the cold wintry room had been designated by our mother as a rather poor one. The heater’s challenging task to be the hub of warmth failed miserably due to the cold air consistently seeping through the old window frames. The cold draft victoriously managed to squash the thin warmth of the heater back onto itself. The room remained unbearably cold. To counter the cold draft we would huddled closer to the paraffin heater. Our bodies undoubtedly blocking out the mediocre heat to the rest of the room.

How many times have I told you children not to sit so close to the heater?

Our mother scolded us frequently for this action.

If you are not careful it will burn you one day, anyway move away from the heater this very minute, so that I can put these clothes on it now that it is raining. We duly did what we were told.

The rest of the house was similarly as cold and remote during the winter months. The Victorian house was large and foreboding with its high ceilings. I often wondered if I would ever be able to reach the ceiling when I grew up. I never liked to venture outside the bedsitting room because of in the cold hallway. It seem to go through my thin clothes too many times for my liking. Even my shoes seemed not to tolerate the cold because as a little girl, stepping out in them, onto the cold worn lino floor, there was no reprieve from the harsh chill. It was the daily ritual of all the occupants in the house to use the communal toilet situated outside the house. The toilet was about a metre away from the communal kitchen back door. Sue similarly to everyone else in the house, had to make her way down the hallway. She would either come with me or be accompanied by our mother. They walked through and out of the kitchen back door. Most times Our mother accompanied both of us.

The toilet was even colder than the house in those winter months. The door did not reach the top or bottom of the cubicle. This meant the cold wind curled itself around my socks, and then wound its way up through my thin clothes and through my body. Both Sue and I braced ourselves when going to the toilet and more often than not Sue wet herself before she ever got there. It was not that her daughter wet herself, which added to my mother’s frustrations. It seemed my mother was used to that. It was rather the nightly bedwetting, which greeted everyone each morning with its particularly odious smell and the wet patch that left a stain on the family mattress. Someone, the next morning, was discovered lying on the wet patch. Sue nonetheless had managed successfully during the night to negotiate herself towards a drier spot in the bed.

Despite the hardship brought on by the cold and damp and the little money, which was stretched deftly around by our mother, to buy food, pay bills and sometimes cover other bare necessities, the children felt unassumingly secure. At other times as children, we both felt bewildered. Our bewilderment was because when seeking alternative accommodation with our mother, we experienced hostility from the private landlords. As a family we were left homeless on a number of occasions due to rent arrears. It was not unusual for private landlords in the 1950’s to increase their rents because of the lack of rent regulations.

I remember at the time glancing up at my mother’s face and seeing the anguish look in her eyes. I would follow her eyes to the notices in the front bay windows. The cardboard notices read; "No coloureds, no Irish and no dogs welcomed here." Every so often, my mother knocked on one of the doors of the houses which did not have a noticeboard displayed in its front window. As children, Sue and I watched as the landlord, or in some cases landlady opened their door. They then proceeded to peer at our mother and then at us, before closing the door in their mother’s face. Our c mother would turn away from the closed doors in despair, and continue to look for less expensive rented accommodation. As little girls we especially resented walking the streets in winter. The bitter cold wind all too frequently pierced our thin coats, like a million miniature daggers piercing our flesh.

Why do we have to walk the streets? I moaned more than once, can’t we just go inside one of the houses and be warm?

There are only certain houses that will take us and if we don’t keep up the rent payments we will be evicted again just like the last time, my mother responded unemotionally.

The summer months brought some relief for us. The warmer weather appeared to suit us better, what with the deepening of our pale brown complexions. To, a richer deeper brown. Neither one of us as a child, understood why grown-ups, discarded their dull heavy winter clothe, for lighter ones in the unpredictable summer days. We observed that women changed into thin flowery dresses and their children were dressed in similar fashion. By contrast we were always determined to keep our cardigans on for as long as possible. We were convinced that the majority of summer days were often just as cold as the winter ones. Our childhood chronic anxieties about feeling cold depressed us enormously. We were obsessed by the cold weather. We were therefore reluctant to remove our cardigans unless it was absolutely necessary. We always copied each other’s behaviour. As youngsters, we treated the cooler summer breezes with suspicion. We were convinced autumnal weather lurked immediately around the corner at every possible moment. Even, on the hottest summer days. We were only finally convinced summer was truly hanging around for longer than a few days when our bedsitting room became humid. Sharing the sleeping arrangements with our parents became overbearingly suffocating. On these occasions, Sue particularly, did not mind our mother, leaving the window slightly open. After a few days of humid temperatures, in the low eighties, we became brave enough to expose our bare arms to the elements. As much as we adored the continuously long hot summer days, it seemed no time at all when the rich myriad of blossoms, with their textured array of summer green leaves, that had busied themselves, enticingly displaying their glorious splendour to us, promptly curtseyed away to make way for the more intense colours of copper browns. Acute reds and exquisite gold leaves similarly introduced the autumn season. The hot rich summer days were replaced by the cooler, colder weather. The autumn weather made us weary. As, sisters, we contemplated the fallen leaves sweeping around the edges of our hot summer world that eventually took us back once again to our cold, bitter one.

One of Sue’s greatest joy was going shopping with her mother. I also felt very protective towards her. The year of Sue’s third birthday, we had been given a doll each as a Christmas gift. We were both pleasantly surprised at such expensive dolls. Our father, it seemed had managed to scrape together enough money to give his two daughters’ these wonderful gifts. Sue had marvelled at her doll’s blue eyes and blond curly hair that sprung out from its head as if from a colander. The doll’s scalp had tiny holes in it where the wiry hair was threaded. Moments later, she did not quite understand how she had broken the doll. My little sister had wanted to see inside the doll’s head to establish how its hair grew. Her curiosity had also been aroused because while her own hair was black, the doll’s hair was blond and she found this fascinating. Our father had become angry with Sue for breaking it and as a consequence had smacked his little daughter. Sue, in turn smacked the doll even though it now lay on the carpet with its head broken. She did this to see if despite being broken it would cry tears like our mother did whenever our father assaulted our mother. At the time our father had shouted to her, What do you think, that money grows on trees? At the time, I had imagined money growing on trees but then remembered, to my disappointment, that I had never seen any money growing on trees.

After that episode my sister’s curiosity had extended to my doll. The doll I had been given had also commanded huge fascination from both of us. We both discovered to our amazement that it could walk and talk whilst its head turned from right and left. Neither of us had ever seen such a mechanical toy before. Never mind having such a toy in our possession. We were both delighted and fearful of something which was, animated enough to be very much out of our control.

Sue’s curiosity got the better of her again and within a couple of hours my doll lay on the bedsitting room’s worn carpet. The carpet displayed small patches of beige but larges areas of a dirty grey colour dominated the carpet’s colour. The arms and legs of my doll were in pieces, laying against the bed. I had cried fierce tears at the loss of my father’s Christmas present. I had understood with my five year old wisdom that this novelty doll was irreplaceable. I had lamented to my mother that I had hardly had any time to enjoy playing with my new doll, before Sue had destroyed the evidence of having ever own such a beautiful toy. Even though, the doll looked more like my mother than of either my sister or of me.

Many evenings, fellow Ghanaians and several Nigerian friends came to our bedsitter to visit my father and his family. On these evenings, highlife music was played as loud as possible. My father also loved blues music and both Sue and I would sing most of the words to Harry Belafonte’s "Little Island in the Sun."

We were both captivated by the gramophone player and watched incessantly, as the dog on the record label spun around as the music played, while almost making us dizzy.

Both our parents were attractive in their difference. My father being small framed and had a certain finesse about him. His black skin was silky smooth and unblemished. He had arrived from Ghana a few years earlier. My mother had long black hair worn in a plait that hung down her back. Her pale alabaster skin and blue eyes were distinctively typical of her Irish appearance. At the time, I assumed that our parents’ skin tones were irrelevant as was mine.

We always accompanied our mother to the local shops to buy groceries. We never tired of leaving our home when the weather was conducive to such outings. Each time our mother went shopping, she struggled with the heavy shopping bags. The steep steps, to several of the houses did not make it any easier. Sue when following her mother up the steps could barely climb such steps, particularly if she was given the same responsibility as me which was to carry one of the shopping bags. On the whole, we viewed the shopping trips to the local corner shop as an adventurous outing. At such times we were eager in our desire for the few pennies’ worth of sweets our mother sometimes bought us. We did not always have the patience to observe the activities in the street they lived on. The corner shop held great interest to us mainly because of the sweets we were given by our mother. The role of the shopkeeper in our young minds, was only significant because of the numerous tins of products that were displayed on the countless shelves in his greengroceries. Not to mention the numerous jars of different coloured sweets on the remaining shelves. The shop keeper’s rudeness we could not comprehend the reason for such hostility.

Look madam, why do you have to bring your children with you into the shop? he repeated many times. I do not allow children into my shop.

Well, I cannot leave them at home on their own, I remember my mother’s hopeless reply.

But they are always touching things and are quite unruly, snapped the shopkeeper.

It seems like there is no pleasing you, is there? my mother responded. The, exasperation was clearly in her voice, they are simply lively children!

If you cannot control your youngsters, then don’t come here again, the shopkeeper had retorted, in an uncompromising tone.

They both knew that this was the nearest corner shop within walking distance.

Oh stop whingeing, you two! my mother had told us at the time, turning her attention towards us. We had become bored with the opaque conversation the two adults had been having. Besides, we had not been given any sweets. This justified our unruly behaviour even more. I knew some of the conversation referred to Sue and me in some manner. Our need for entertainment and immediate self satisfaction that only sweets could give us was the only pre-occupation on our young minds at the time. The self-preservation of our mother saw our mother leave the shop as soon as she had paid for her shopping. She apologised to the shopkeeper for her young daughters’ behaviour on leaving the shop. We walked past post Second World War derelict buildings through thick fog from chimneys on the way home.

After we had been given a marsh mellow ice cream cone each, my little sister, habitually licked at the marsh mellow before popping chucks of marsh mellow into her small mouth. Licking at the pink marsh mellow was competitive childish game we played to keep ourselves entertained. The one who managed not to finish eating her marsh mellow cone before the other, was considered the winner. Invariably Sue always finished her marsh mellow cone first despite being younger than me. This usually made her very cross especially since I refused adamantly to give her a bit of my half-finished cone. No matter how much she begged or bribed me.

Sometimes, when on outings with our mother, it was not unusual for our mother to stop for a chat and a gossip with her neighbours and friends. Similar to the children’s background, the local neighbourhood in northwest London consisted of many immigrant families. These were mainly families from Africa, the Caribbean, Ireland and Southern Europe. We were two of the very few mixed race children in the neighbourhood. It was not unusual, to be considered to be of another nationality. Frequently Sue was mistaken to be from a Maltese background while it was assumed, I was from Caribbean one.

As children, we perceived their only true ally. Our mother represented stability, compassion and purposefulness. While to me, my father seemed a complex personality. There was an ambiguity about my father because of his argumentative and violent behaviour towards my mother. His behaviour not only frightened me but it also frightened my little sister. His behaviour left an indelible mark on me. Apart from the episodes of anger, frustration and violence towards our mother, our early lives as children was without incident until one night. The sound of shouting and screaming that woke Sue and I up made us so fearful that we both shook uncontrollable. The commotion we children heard was happening outside the bedsitter door. We sought solace from each other by putting our arms around each other and hugging one another. We could see our mother was not in the room with us. There was an empty void in the room because of our mother’s lack of presence. At some point during the confusion, I was able to distinguish our mother’s screams. By now both Sue and I had crouched down in one corner of the bed, still hugging each other as we tried to protect ourselves, from hearing our mother’s screams. Our eyes were full of panic as we desperately tried to cope with the confusion of that terrible night. These episodes were to become more frequent as time went on. That particular night, our father had come back into the room with our mother sobbing behind him.

I have told you time and time again that is not how you cook Ghanaian food. Do you expect me to eat that rubbish? he shouted raising his hand again.

No, no please, not in front of the children, think of the children Emanuel, think of the children, their mother said, struggling for breathe. After what seemed like an eternity, our father left the room. A few moments afterwards the front door slammed shut. I observed our mother who was in her mid-twenties, lay down her the bed still crying. Both Sue and I embraced our mother, kissing her face and hands in our attempts to console her.

As little girls, we played out by ourselves in the streets or in the local park. When we came home for lunch, usually I fed both of us, because sometimes our mother was not to be at home. There were times when the bruises on their mother’s face and arms were visible enough for either Sue or I to make a comment.

Mummy, what’s that red mark on your face? Sue asked.

Oh that’s where I bumped into a lamp post when I wasn’t looking properly, I must need glasses, was our mother’s reply.

My mother had been brought, up in the Roman Catholic Church, in Ireland. In north London, she continued attending then local Catholic Church where were we baptised as babies. Consequentially, we attended Sunday Mass with our mother, as well as attending, the Holy Saints days. I found attending Mass strange because I had to sit still and not say a word. Any kind of noise was not tolerated and playing around was certainly out of the question. . Sitting on the benches motionless proved impossible for both Sue and I. At three and five years old, we could neither sit still nor keep quiet. Instead, we would scramble up and down the pews chasing each other.

Can’t you control your darkies? I recollect I heard one man whisper harshly to our mother during Mass. When I heard this remark, I had a faint suspicion that the man was referring to me. I was not sure because, he had used the word ‘darkies.’ As this was not my name I was not sure who the man was referring to.

Now children, please keep quiet because you are making too much noise, my mother had told both Sue and I in a strained voice. The Mass seemed endless and the priest’s Latin dialogue as well as the congregational responses went over my young head. Our attention span became even more diminished as boredom gave way to more pranks. Outside the church afterwards,