Where Women are Kings (17 page)

Elijah followed her to the bus stop, where she took a packet of chewing gum out of her bag and gave him one. He’d never had chewing gum before.

‘Don’t tell Mum I gave you gum,’ she said. Elijah shook his head and chewed really fast. The gum tasted like toothpaste. Aunty Chanel always called Nikki ‘Mum’. It sounded strange inside Elijah’s head. She was sort of his mama, but she wasn’t Mama.

Jasmin ran out of the gate. ‘Yippee! School’s finished! How was your meeting?’

‘Good,’ said Elijah.

‘We’re going to get Elijah’s hair cut,’ said Aunty Chanel. ‘A cool haircut.’

‘Great!’ said Jasmin. And she slipped her hand into Elijah’s.

‘I don’t think I’m allowed to have my hair cut,’ Elijah said, imagining Nikki’s face, her telling Aunty Chanel off. Nikki loved his soft, tight curls; she’d said so. They had grown so suddenly in the time that Elijah had been living with Nikki and Obi, like they’d been hiding inside his head. He’d never had much hair before; it was always shaved close. He touched his hair.

‘Listen, little man – when you’re with me, you’re allowed to do anything I say, OK?’ Aunty Chanel’s face was close
to Elijah’s and he could smell the chemicals that Nikki had said came from Aunty Chanel’s fake tan, which was why she looked orange. At first he thought the smell was horrible, but now he was used to the smell of Aunty Chanel’s skin and he liked it. He knew Jasmin didn’t, though; she turned her nose into a smaller nose every time her mum got too close, by pinching it really hard.

‘Come on, this is our bus.’ Aunty Chanel pulled Elijah towards her and the three of them ran across the road. They got on to the bus and sat at the front. Aunty Chanel sat on the seat that had a sign which had a picture of two people holding sticks, but Aunty Chanel didn’t get up when an old man got on the bus; she just looked out of the window at the streets flashing past. Jasmin’s seat didn’t have a sign and she looked straight out of the window with her face pressed to the glass. The old man had crooked legs that looked like they might hurt a bit. Elijah stood up and pointed to his seat with his head. But the old man didn’t sit down in Elijah’s seat. He pretended he couldn’t see him. Elijah wondered if he was invisible, but the wizard wasn’t moving inside him any more. The wizard seemed to be gone completely. And when a lady got off the bus, the old man sat down in her seat instead. Maybe he liked the look of her seat more. Elijah didn’t care. The wizard was gone! He couldn’t wait until Mama was better so he could tell her.

Elijah stayed standing up, anyway, until Aunty Chanel and Jasmin got up and they climbed off the bus on to a busy street filled with people. Some had the same colour skin as Elijah and others had white skin like Nikki, but nobody had orange skin like Aunty Chanel, so Elijah put his hand in hers. He didn’t want her to feel lonely.

She looked down at him really quickly. ‘I feel like
Beyonce,’ she said. Jasmin rolled her eyes so far her head rolled too.

‘Here we are, at last! After this, we need to sort out your clothes. I mean, trainers: essential – and not those hideous ones my sister has you in! She doesn’t get you at all, little man. Good job for your Aunty Chanel!’

Jasmin stood behind a lamppost.

‘But this will be a start, anyway. Your first proper haircut!’ Aunty Chanel pointed to the shop in front of them where lots of boys and men were sitting in chairs. They all looked bald. Elijah touched his hair, curly, exactly how Nikki liked it. As they walked closer to the window, Elijah’s mouth dropped open and his hand squeezed Aunty Chanel’s. ‘A barber shop. This is where you need to come; you need a black-boy’s hairdresser to sort that mop out!’

A boy glanced out of the window at Elijah. He looked about his age and very smart. The boy had skin the same colour as Elijah, and dark brown eyes. He was wearing a shirt and jeans and big boots with the laces undone. He looked like a pop star.

Aunty Chanel went into the shop and, as they followed her, Jasmin whispered, ‘You’re going to look so cool; I wish I was having my hair cut.’ So far, Aunty Chanel had taken him to a funfair and given him candyfloss, and she’d even taken him to a pub where she’d given him and Jasmin two Cokes and two bags of crisps each. He liked everywhere Aunty Chanel had taken him to.

In the shop, a big man came towards them. ‘Hello, cheeky,’ he said. ‘What you looking for?’

He wanted to be as smart as the boy in the window, but he was too scared to talk – the man was bigger than Obi.

Aunty Chanel was too busy talking. ‘He needs it buzzed
then I’d like a design on one side – I was thinking of the Nike symbol. Something cool. You know, something that will suit him.’

Jasmin made a noise in the background like a small mouse.

Aunty Chanel talked and talked and didn’t notice the man raise his eyebrows to the ceiling. Elijah wasn’t sure why he was raising his eyebrows. He didn’t know what she meant by ‘the Nike symbol’ but he kept quiet. He thought of Nikki. Would she be cross when his hair was gone? Nikki was cross with Obi sometimes. Especially if Obi told her off when he got home from work because the house was a tip. Then Nikki’s face would change and she would say, ‘Stop! Please.’

‘Come on, here.’ The man put Elijah into a chair next to the boy, and reached over for a buzzing machine that started moving over Elijah’s head.

‘He’s going to look great!’ said Aunty Chanel, then she leant towards Elijah’s ear. ‘She’s just jealous!’ Aunty Chanel and Jasmin stood in front of the mirror next to each other but they didn’t touch arms. Aunty Chanel looked at herself for a long time. ‘I need mine doing. It’s getting too much rootage.’ She pulled her earmuffs off, then parted her hair to show a line of black through the middle.

Jasmin looked up at the ceiling. She’d stuck a small star-shaped sticker with sellotape on the front of her school tie. A teacher had given her the sticker a long time ago and, even though it had lost its stick, Jasmin still wanted to wear it.

‘What shall we have for dinner?’ Aunty Chanel laughed. ‘I should cook you up some jerk chicken. I’m in the mood for that. Or maybe some soul food: crab callaloo.’

Elijah didn’t know what soul food was, but it sounded nice.

Jasmin flicked her ponytail. ‘You never cook anything except fish fingers,’ she said.

*

That night, Obi woke him up by gently shaking Elijah’s arm. He sat up suddenly. Obi put his finger to his lips. Maybe he was going to tell Elijah off about his haircut?

‘Your Aunty Chanel,’ he laughed. ‘Don’t look so worried,’ he said. ‘It’s OK. We’re going on an adventure.’ He flashed a torch in front of Elijah’s face.

‘Where are we going?’ Elijah rubbed his eyes and swung his legs out of bed. Obi had laid out some clothes – jeans, jumper, coat, scarf, socks and boots – and he helped Elijah to get dressed. Elijah didn’t know what time it was but the chink of light underneath his curtain wasn’t there at all. It must have been the middle of the night.

‘I know you have school tomorrow, so it will be a quick adventure, but I wanted to show you something. Hurry, now; we might miss it.’

They sneaked out of the house so quietly that Elijah could hear his own heart beating. He panicked. Maybe Obi was going to send him away? Even though the wizard was gone, maybe they wanted another child to adopt. A baby. Everyone wanted a baby. It was probably Elijah’s hair, with the large tick at the side of his head, that had made them change their minds.

After they’d come home, Nikki had answered the door and gasped. Then she’d held Elijah for a long time before sending him out to the garden. Then she’d gone over to Aunty Chanel’s flat to speak to her, which meant they had a secret. Could it be that she wanted him to live in another place? When Nikki came back, she gave Elijah another hug but he was still worried. Her favourite thing was his old curly hair.
She said it reminded her of a newborn baby’s hair. Nikki must have told Obi that she couldn’t love him any more without his hair, and told Obi to take him away.

Obi pulled Elijah’s arm and they were running towards the park. The air smelt wet, though it hadn’t been raining. In the moonlight, everything looked the darkest blue, and the bushes at the side of the park rustled and moved. Elijah began to cry. He didn’t want to leave.

Obi stopped suddenly. ‘What is it? What’s wrong?’

‘Where are we going?’ he whispered, sniffing. He hated being a leaking boy. ‘I’m sorry about my hair.’

Obi laughed. ‘Well, I know Nikki doesn’t like it. And I know Aunty Chanel has very unusual ideas. But I’ll tell you a secret.’ He put his hand on Elijah’s shoulder. ‘I think it looks pretty cool.’

‘Really?’ Elijah reached up and touched the tick at the side of his head.

‘Of course! Now, don’t be frightened,’ he said. ‘We’re looking for creatures. I had a really long day at work today and, as I was walking home through the park, I saw something you’d love. That’s all. No need to worry.’ He lifted Elijah high up and put him on top of his shoulders and held his legs with his giant hands. Elijah put his hands on top of Obi’s and held on really tightly.

They walked through the cold night and Elijah watched the shadows and the emptiness of the park, the quiet of the world. The moon was a slice.

Obi’s shoulders were warm underneath him and he liked being high up. He could see everything, even in the darkness. Obi handed Elijah a torch and told him to flash it around. Suddenly, a small black shape flashed past them. Elijah heard a screeching sound, like a high echo in a big room. ‘There!’

‘What is it?’ The creature swooped again and then another and another. Much faster than a bird.

‘A bat!’ he said. ‘Bats! Have you ever seen one before?’

Elijah couldn’t answer. He was too busy shining the torch to catch a bat in the light, its wings almost see-through and so beautiful he couldn’t even speak.

*

The next morning, Elijah ate a giant breakfast: two bowls of cereal and then two slices of toast. Nikki smiled and looked at Obi, but he was reading the paper. He held it high in front of his face, like a wall between him and Nikki. Granddad watched Elijah eat and listened about the bats. ‘I like your hair!’ he said. ‘Except that side bit. The rest of it looks very smart. In Nigeria, we go to the barber’s much more than people do here. You wouldn’t see a scruffy boy in Nigeria. Aunty Chanel has unusual ideas about fashion sometimes, but this wasn’t one of them. I like it.’

Elijah couldn’t stop talking or eating. ‘There must have been a hundred bats,’ he said. ‘Or maybe five. And they fly so fast. And they use the echo sounds to help them find their way. I could hear them screeching.’

Nikki kept touching his hair. ‘That sister of mine!’ she said. But she laughed. ‘Sometimes,’ she said, her eyes sparkling. ‘Sometimes, children can hear bats but adults can’t.’ She walked to the sink.

Obi put down his paper and looked at her. ‘Maybe we can all go bat watching again at the weekend,’ he said.

And Elijah walked over towards Nikki, and threw his arms around her neck.

‘So, this is your second review meeting and you’re now fifteen weeks into placement.’ Paula, who they’d not met before but who had introduced herself as another social worker on the team, tapped her pen on the table and looked at Nikki.

Nikki nodded. She looked round the cramped kitchen table at Elijah, sandwiched between Obi and Ricardo as though they were his bodyguards, and Chioma, with another social worker, Meena – a petite woman with an uneven fringe, who kept smiling at Nikki reassuringly. Nikki looked at Ricardo. His face was always warm, yet he had a line between his eyebrows, as if he’d frowned too much. He smiled at her.

‘We are all pleased with how things are going,’ Ricardo said. ‘Of course, it’s early days and a few hiccups are only to be expected, but a pretty solid start of placement.’

Everything was different from what Nikki had expected. They’d been told so many times that Elijah would have significant needs, how damaged he was, and they’d been anxious, expecting trouble. Yet he was the most loving child. He’d settled at home, and even settled in at school. His teachers reported that he was catching up academically, and had impeccable behaviour. There had been the issue with taking him to Battersea, and she hadn’t been able to go back to work yet, but – Obi was right – Elijah was empathetic,
thoughtful and kind. At first, he’d seemed more comfortable with men, sitting on Obi’s or Daddy’s lap whenever he got the chance. But now he was really relaxed around Nikki too.

Meena smiled, and Paula wrote something down quickly in a large notebook, then looked at Elijah. ‘How are you, Elijah?’

‘I’m good, thanks.’ His voice was quiet. He was probably terrified. Nikki tried not to imagine how many meetings he’d had to go through in his short life. She’d put a colouring book on the table and a box full of crayons, but so far he seemed to want to sit and listen. He kept looking at her and she found herself nodding.

Paula turned to Nikki. ‘Now, is Elijah registered with a G.P.? Any health concerns?’

She asked question after question and ticked some sort of list in her giant notebook. Nikki tried to focus on Paula’s questions: what time does Elijah go to bed? Get up? Eat dinner?

Nikki answered most of the questions. Obi had gone back to work shortly after Elijah’s arrival and Nikki spent all of her time with him. She felt a little sad that Obi missed the small moments: Elijah helping her to cook, his delight in watering the garden, the warmth of his hand when it slipped into hers. She was looking forward to getting back to work but she knew how much she’d miss Elijah.

‘How is Elijah getting on with family members? Obi’s dad, your sister, Chanel? Your niece? Jasmin, isn’t it?’

Suddenly Elijah spoke and everyone stopped talking. ‘Jasmin is my friend,’ he said. ‘We’re cousins, but we’re best friends too.’

Nikki looked at Obi and smiled. Paula wrote in her notebook.

‘Well, look at you,’ said Chioma. ‘What a proud boy you are! That’s a very good feeling to have, Elijah.’ She beamed at Nikki. ‘From my point of view, the family therapy is working really well. Both Obi and Nikki are maximising any opportunity to promote attachment.’