The Girl That Could Not Be Caged

He doesn’t see me.

He walks in and sits with his newspaper. It’s the Evening Standard. He’s always told me that it is a waste of money to pay for the news. He’s reading it with a glass of palm wine and an overripe banana, a daily ritual that never gets broken. Only on a few occasions. Like when he had to travel to pick up Grandmother from the airport. Or when the police came over.

She doesn’t see me.

She’s sitting with another novel from one of the Bronte sisters. It’s Wuthering Heights. She’s always told me that reading is the cheapest way to travel. She’s reading it with some tea she bought last week from Chinatown, a daily ritual that never gets broken. Only on a few occasions. Like the day her sister graduated. Or the first time he ever hit her.

I watch them from the first floor. One minute I’m standing on the balcony, the next I’m standing in front of him with the letter. I thought about hiding it, but I know that if I tried to, it would be much worse.

They both look up at the same time. They see me. Mother’s eyes quickly fleet to Father. Her eyes are only for Father. His eyes are only for what’s in my hand. I hand it over without a word and wait silently for what seems like an eternity, whilst he reads through its contents. Within eternity, my mind finds the time to drift to when I first realized he hated me.

When I was 12 years old, about a year after he hit her for the first time and about two years before he started hitting me, I found myself more and more interested in the arts, and so I told him on our way home from school that I wanted to be an actress when I grew up. I remember that he said nothing. I remember how loud the engine of the car became. I remember his words as he shouted at Mother that night.

“Speak to your daughter. I have accepted that you cannot produce me another child but this girl, but I am beginning to think that no child is better than this one.”

Mother came to me that night. She held my shoulders and looked me straight in my eyes. I didn’t even let her speak. I told her that I will become a doctor instead. It didn’t matter that I felt like vomiting whenever I saw blood and that they both knew this. My words seemed to appease her and Father, when I told him the same the next morning. He looked at me, smiled and nodded without saying a word.

My memories are interrupted by his coughing. He speaks.

“Bolanle. I am looking at this letter, but I am confused. Next to English it says B but next to Physics, Biology and Chemistry I am seeing C’s. Whose results are these?”

“They are mi…”

I am not able to finish my words. I should be used to his hits, but they still hurt. Everything about this hurts. My Mother’s silence hurts.

I too stay silent.

For a moment, I indulge in nostalgic regret. I remember how it used to be. How he would tear out the cartoon pages from the newspapers he read, so that I could read them next to him. Or how he would bite off half of the meat from his plates and feed me the rest, because I have always preferred beef to chicken. The times when he treated me less like a mistake and more like something worthy of love.

I don’t show him the second letter. The email that shows that a university has already accepted me. I don’t show him, because to do so would be to confess that I applied to study English and Creative Writing behind his back. It would be proof that he didn’t win. He did not break me. I found the key to escape his prison doors, and in a few weeks, I will be walking out of them. So instead I smile. It makes him hit me harder, but I begin to laugh. Because I have just thought of the last line of my novel.

“…and no cage could hold her.”