Fat Bottomed Girls

you don't look like a posh girl

October, 1971.

— These teens are getting completely mad, Susan. Can you imagine that Olivia Carlson, from the tenth year, had courage enough to tell me that I need more sex? — My dad said. It was seven a.m o'clock, and he was already angry. Actually, he stays like that twenty four-hours, seven days in a week.

— Well, she's probably right, actually. — I said, in a mumble. Luckily, my dad didn't listen to my comment. His stress had the incredible power of make him deaf, which is a good thing, sometimes. I mean, thanks to it, I have licence to speak sarcastic sentences and still alive.

My mother still with her eyes in the fryer, where a couple of eggs were snapping in the oil. Sometimes looks like she never listens to the rubbish things of my dad, even when he is screaming, such as now.

— Susan, what do you think about it? These people will be our bloody rulings in some years, Susan! — Daddy yelled again. He was so pissed that I couldn't contain my laugh, and well, this made my father five times more pissed. — Why you're smiling, Evangeline? I told you some joke?

— No, dad. I'm Sorry. But... I just can't understand why you're so... — I took a deep breath, trying to kill my desire to say something "inappropriate". — Why you are so angry. I mean, this girl and all the other school children, they're dumb and all, but they're just kids, and...

For a second, I felt the eyes of my parents dropping fire in myself. I waited for the worst, but, instead, they just shut up and eaten their breakfast. I did the same for the next minutes, until my mum take her keys and said, politely:

— Eve, Richard, hurry up! We need to go now.

Then, we all took our bags and cross the black and old door of that suburban house of London, my home, or even, it would be. I mean, I was born and created amid these brown walls, watching the kids playing football in the streets in summer, and the old ladies taking the snow of their rungs in winter, but i never felt like I had a strong relationship with Brixton, or with London. Or with England. Or with the world. Basically, even when I eat a banquet, I still feel starving.

When I was younger I used to blame my parents about this fact. I convinced myself that If I was feeling like a stranger in my own house it's because my family don't treat me like someone they knew, meanwhile, nowadays, I'm not sure about this theory. Like, I know, they are kinda distant, but it's not fair to fault them, only. My father was the first of a family of caribbean immigrants to be born in England. He was the first to get a degree, in 1949. He saw the Great War, and despite he was too young to be called by the army, he loses five friends in a Blitzkrieg. He never talks about it, but he hates planes and engine noise, and I guess it has a connection with these horrible days in his life. I can't blame him.

My mother, on the other hand, had a very calm life, in a small village of Yorkshire. She has studied in a school for girls only. She moved to London in 1950, when she was eighteen, to study more and became a teacher. She met my dad in the train going to Vauxhall. They fell in love, she gets pregnant and, one year later I was born. It could be a beautiful love story, if it wasn't horrible. Imagine yourself, at prime of your youth with a newborn. I can't blame her.

We drove by the dirty streets of south London, until we arrive to Hammersmith, where's my school is localized. Don't get me wrong, actually I don't have money enough to study in a place like that, but my parents are teachers, which teach in Sacred Heart High School, so do I study at that. Everybody from my old school said I'm lucky, but I don't feel this way most time. If I feel like a stranger in Brixton, in this rich school, full of posh girls, I feel like an alien. The other side of Thames is very scary sometimes.

— Evangeline, we have some stuff to do after your class. Lots of exams to grad. Do you mind to back by yourself to home? — My mum said. Her brilliant black hair moved slightly when she turned her face to look at me, in the back seat.