Banana

I’m taking a risk with this banana. It’s greenish but feels like it might be soft enough to open. Should I or shouldn’t I? The stakes are pretty low. I break the stalk and peel it back. And now I know.

You can tell from the way it peels, and this one is smooth, pliant. The unripe ones resist opening; the skin sticks to the flesh with a crunchy, ripping sound, as if screaming: leave me be, peel me not! But this one is perfect. I break a piece off and spread it with peanut butter. What a great time to be alive. 

I put the peel in the bin. What was it again? What was I going to do? I look inside my mind palace — more shanty than palace — a vast sprawl of mismatched roofs and rickety makeshift buildings, of half-eaten ideas and lost words. Here I find a maelstrom of flying debris, a washing machine of flotsam and noise, of things to do and things to be angry about, things to remember and things to forget, things to wake up in a cold sweat about, places to be, bills to pay, emails to send. It’s like that dome at the end of the Crystal Maze with all the flying bits of paper. I try to catch them, separate them. We’re going on holiday soon and I don’t have a swimming costume. I bought one online and it’s the worst but I won’t have time to get another one now. I knew a skirted one was a mistake but I did it anyway. Is it parents' evening tonight? I think it is. I check my emails. No, it’s tomorrow. And what about that John Lewis ad? The one where the boy runs about with impunity, trashing the house and being a twat while his sister sits and draws in the corner like something out of Little Women. Tagline: because boys will be boys. Might as well be, anyway. 

I think about the young women being drugged in clubs. I think of their skin, skin that houses a whole person with a beating heart and a beating mind. These women, girls, who dared to go out, who wanted to dance. I think of the men, the boys, who sat at a kitchen table or on a sofa, filling syringes with Rohypnol. The ones who decided to stick a metal spike into the backs, arms, legs, of a stranger, injecting them with poison while they stood at a bar, while they moved their bodies to music, while they minded their own business. But I can’t think about the patriarchy now. I don’t need any extra rage.

A fresh shiver. When I said that thing - why did I say it? Maybe they were offended. I ask my husband. No, he says, it’s fine. If it’s fine then why do I wake up at 1am in a panic, heart rattling, face hot, a sheen of sweat on my skin? My instincts tell me I’m right but I’m not sure I trust them anymore. They’re broken, faulty, lacerated by shards of anxiety. Is this madness? Maybe. Of a kind. Maybe I should stop socialising, stop speaking to people altogether. Imagine the relief. No replaying every word, every look, every gesture, no fear that you did or said the wrong thing. Another paper flies my way.

That boy who lived near me. The one that people called ‘Mr Motivator’,  because he was black. The one whose younger brother dropped dead on a football pitch one day while he was at school. I used to see him around, riding his bike or walking with his brother, holding his hand. After his brother died, he seemed unreal to me, mythical almost. What did he do when he went home after school to the house where his brother once lived? I think about him sometimes and wonder where he is now. I never spoke to him, not once. But there he was, cycling past my house, just beyond my reach. A person in my thoughts. Then, and now, 28 years later. 

The rain comes, something to look at. It whips against the ground, insistent, merciless. I spread my fingers over the cool stone of the kitchen counter, too small to be an island - an islet, maybe. I close my eyes for a moment and I’m in Tehran, in my maternal grandparents’ house. My grandmother sits cross-legged on the terracotta floor, a giant silver tray with a scalloped edge in front of her piled with oranges and limoo shirin (sweet lemons). She cuts them and squeezes each half, before discarding the empty skins onto a second tray. This image comes back to me again and again, month after month, year after year. The rhythmic timing of her movements; her strong fingers clasping each sunny semicircle; the firm wringing action as she twists the fruit against the juicer. And the smell: sweet and citrusy. I think of her fingers now, cold and still. No flesh to grip flesh, nothing more than bones.

And now we’re here on this beach. The sea hurls itself against the shore, swelling and collapsing, never tiring. Children scream with joy. The joy of being tossed about, of submitting, of being entirely weightless for a moment. My toes are a half-finished fresco of sand, coffee next to me half drunk. I look at the sky. It’s blue, of course. The kind of blue that dares you to feel anything other than contentment. I’d like to paint it black.