1 It's absurd that Megan's mother Julie treated her like it was the nineteenth century and not the nineteen-nineties into which she'd been born as Megan reflected with hindsight when she could articulate the unfairness of her problematic childhood to herself and analyse it once her eyes were opened by Bibi who came into her life to make it all right her mother was unthinkingly repeating patterns of oppression based on gender, one example was that Megan preferred wearing trousers as a child, which she found more comfortable than dresses, she liked the look of them, liked having pockets to put her hands and other things into, liked looking like her brother Mark who was three years older wearing trousers really shouldn't have been an issue for a girl born in her time, but her mother wanted her to look cuter than she already was like the cutest of the cutest cutie-pies she was determined to dress Megan up for the approval of society at large, usually other females who commented on her looks from as early as she can remember it was the defining aspect of Megan's early childhood, she didn't actually have to do or say anything except be cute – an end in itself which reflected well on Mum, who could bask in the glory of the compliments that poured forth as a validation of her love of an African man between them they'd produced such an admired kid and made the world a better place Megan should have been grateful and accepted her cute status, what girl doesn't want to be told how lovely she is, how special?
except it felt wrong, even at a young age, something in her realized that her prettiness was supposed to make her compliant, and when she wasn't, when she rebelled, she was letting down all those invested in her being adorable Mum being her primary cute investor who she let down a lot, one Sunday Megan threw herself on to the floor in hysterics when forced to wear another vile, pink, puffed-up dress and she kept it up until her mother was vanquished Megan was her otherwise liberal mother's blind spot there's something not quite right about Megan, she overheard her telling Aunty Sue one Sunday after lunch as they sat drinking tea in the tiny sitting room with just enough space for one small sofa, two armchairs and a telly she's such a beautiful child but there's not a feminine bone in her body I hope she grows out of it, I worry about her where will it all end? meanwhile Dad was in the garage with Uncle Roger, her two boy cousins, and brother Mark, tinkering with the prehistoric Cortina Dad still drove Dad came from Malawi where he boasted everything was repairable: watches, pens, furniture, clothes, lamps, broken crockery superglued together jigsaw-style, and yes, his daughter he was her mother's enforcer, and after the dress protest that day (victoriously, she got to wear red jeans), he'd ordered her upstairs to play with her Barbies the Barbies with their stick legs and rocket breasts were another problem Megan had to endure she was supposed to spend hours dressing up or playing house with them, including the darker ones she was supposed to find more relatable in a fit she'd once tried to commit Barbicide, defaced them with coloured marker pens, chopped off hair, extracted eyes with scissors and de-limbed a few it resulted in the punishment of bed without any tea
the Barbie invasion proliferated on birthdays and at Christmas, relatives talked about her incredible collection, as if she'd actually chosen to have them in her life on her bed, on shelves, sitting on the mantelpiece, on the windowsill, each one creepily staring her out wherever she was in the room, like in a horror film, mind-talking her with their perfectly-pouty mouths saying, yeh, we know you hate us but we're here to stay when she stuffed them under her bed at night, her mother took them out again the next morning and repositioned them in the room going on about how much they cost and what's wrong with you, Megan? GG, her great-grandma on Mum's side, was the only one who accepted Megan just as she was GG allowed her to roam the countryside around her farm with Mark for the five weeks they spent with her every summer they'd go riding down the back of the house to the lake, circumnavigate it, and gallop across the fields until the year she turned thirteen and her periods started, and Mum turned up for the last week, as usual, and said she was running too wild and would have problems later on in life you have to keep her where you can see her, Mum said to GG, we've got to nip her tomboy tendencies in the bud Megan was eavesdropping at the kitchen door (bad habit), heard GG tell Mum not to be so silly, Julie, I myself roamed wild as a child Mum still threatened to stop Megan's annual holidays on the farm Megan watched through the ancient kitchen window as Mark rode out of the yard on a pony for a day of freedom, knapsack on his back containing a flask of orange juice, sandwiches, fruit and a mobile phone he looked back and shrugged, there was nothing he could do GG spent the rest of the week teaching Megan how to make Victoria sponge, gateau of peaches, vanilla slices and orange cheesecake oh well, there's no harm in learning how to bake, she said when her mother was present when she wasn't, she said, let's play along with this for now, Megan, next summer you'll be free to play out again we've got to make sure Mark doesn't tell
which he didn't Mum was a nurse, Geordie born and bred a bit Ethiopian because GG's mum was half Ethiopian, and a bit African- American, because of her grandfather, Slim, who married GG she looks almost white in a family that's proudly got lighter with every generation until she went and ruined it by marrying Dad, an African, fellow nurse at the Royal Victoria Infirmary, who loved her until she loved him back so the story went every time they told it Mum said she was colour-blind, when she looked at Chimango she saw not the darkness of his skin but the lightness of his spirit shining through it put him streets ahead of all rivals, and trust me, Megan, I was spoilt for choice Megan wondered how Mum couldn't see Dad's colour when that was all most people saw, including many of Mum's own family who refused to smile in the wedding photograph stood there like a row of undertakers Megan was part Ethiopian, part African-American, part Malawian, and part English which felt weird when you broke it down like that because essentially she was just a complete human being most people assumed she was mixed-race, it was easier to let them think it the girls at school cooed over Megan's 'natural suntan', which they tried to emulate by spending their pocket money lying on sunbeds likewise with their curly perms trying to unsuccessfully reproduce her blonde corkscrew curls she had it made, really, according to her classmates, the boys liked her too then her body started to show womanly curves and it didn't feel right, it wasn't what she felt herself to be so much so that she hated catching herself in mirrors, hated the breasts that appeared without her permission two amphibian mounds taunted her with their nipple eyes
she thought she'd grow into her body, but it began to repulse her, at sixteen she shaved off her hair to see what it felt like, loved running her hands over her new, low-maintenance bristle she felt free, weightless, herself except it had the drastic effect of turning everyone against her, her classmates implored her to grow it back why would you even do this to yourself? are you crazeee? the girls she thought were friends dropped away, embarrassed to be seen with her, GG reassured her there was something wrong with a friendship based on having the right haircut hurt but resolute, Megan abandoned all pretence at conforming she wore men's shoes, black lace-ups, liked how comfortable they were, how powerful she felt when she walked in them, loved that men didn't eye her up any more which was liberating at the end of that school year when her class was voting on titles, she won two: the butchest girl in the class, and the ugliest – scrawled in chalk on the class blackboard and with a black marker pen on the white toilet walls it felt like the whole school was laughing at her Megan walked out of school that day for the last time, she left behind two thousand kids sitting at their desks working towards a future with at least a few qualifications she'd been headed for university where Mark was already making a success of his life she walked into a job in McDonald's, the first one she applied to devoured the free Chicken Legends, Quarter-pounders with Cheese, and Belgian Chocolate Honeycomb Iced Frappés in her breaks she pumped herself with additives until she looked ready to pop like an inflated balloon this was her life now McStupid McFuckedUp McStuck McForever.