‘And you can’t do that to Bob.’
I hovered for a moment, enjoying the easy warmth that accompanied an amicable conclusion. Still bewildered about how a random taxi driver had suddenly become one of the most important people in my new life.
‘Tuesday morning?’
‘Perfect. I won’t have had the costume list from Cheris and Carolyn yet, but I could help you look for a new home carer?’
‘Perfect. We’ll pick you up about nine. Gramps wakes up with the sun, and I’m guessing Bob isn’t one for lie-ins. Now, get some sleep while it’s all quiet.’
‘You, too.’
Perfect.
Up until becoming friends with Kieran and Shay, I’d thought about clothes far less than the average thirteen-year-old. My parents considered focusing on outward appearance to be a shallow, selfish waste of money. I grew up wearing whatever they could grab in the local charity shop, with no one to help me appreciate that the way we presented ourselves to the world could matter – both to how we felt about ourselves, and how people saw us. My parents’ couldn’t-care-less dowdiness sent as strong a message as the person with a five-figure handbag.
I started year nine with a shapeless pair of jeans, saggy leggings, a few scruffy tops and two hand-knitted jumpers that my mum had bought from a fair-trade stall, both of which were lopsided, unfashionable whatever the decade, and downright ugly. Even if I was vaguely aware how for some kids, clothes were a form of self-expression, denoting what ‘pack’ they belonged to, it had never crossed my mind that this was something I might have any control over when it came to my own wardrobe. My pocket money was paltry, earned tramping the streets delivering Dad’s campaign flyers or putting together care packages for the women’s refuge. Once I’d bought a bar of chocolate or paid for the bus into town, there was nothing left to spend on clothes, even if I could be bothered or knew what I wanted to buy.
Shay was simply stunned by this revelation.
‘Mary, being skint is even more reason to look good! It’s about self-respect, int it?’
Um, was it?
My friends had the same philosophy about having fun. Whereas my ‘educated’ upbringing had drummed into me that spare time was for bettering either oneself, or others, the viewpoint of the kind of ‘youths’ that my parents funded programmes for was that they worked hard enough on surviving. They were going to make the damn most of whatever entertainment they could find. Like a big two fingers to all the crappiness they had to deal with the rest of the time.
‘Yeah, we have no money,’ Kieran drawled one Saturday afternoon when I went to hang out at the burnt-out skate park near their block of flats. ‘People dismiss us like we’re nowt. Teachers have no idea how hard it is to figure out maths problems when all you’ve eaten is dry cereal and your uniform’s damp because the flat’s freezing and there’s nowhere to dry it. Who cares about rich blokes’ ancient battles when you’ve been kept awake all night listening to non-stop fighting through the walls? I’ve had six detentions this year because when the lift’s broken, Mum can’t do the stairs, and taking Angel to school makes me late.’
‘But don’t you dare feel sorry for us,’ Shay added, with a sidelong glance. ‘We won’t moan about our problems or reveal our weaknesses. We have to work harder, dream bigger, fight stronger, so we will. The greater our challenges, the smarter, fiercer, braver, more determined we get.’
These were not the helpless, hopeless victims my parents talked about. They were warriors. More importantly, they knew it.
Their entrepreneurialism, their capacity for finding joy in the smallest things, the certainty in who they were and all they were going to be and do, were irresistible.
Their wild, fabulous, unashamed declaration of all this to the world via clothing and accessories, accompanied by the way they strutted and sashayed through the estate they were so proud to have come from, was downright magnificent.
Guided by Shay, I chopped my unflattering jeans into cut-off shorts, which I wore over tights or the least-terrible of my leggings. Kieran used his growing textile skills to crop my sweaters, and they rifled through the years of hoarded tat in my bedroom to find ribbons, badges, scraps and other random things to give basic tops an emo twist. They tucked, hemmed, mixed, matched and loaned, and overall performed wonders until my sorry collection of outfits felt like something the person I was starting to dare to be might wear.
I used the money my grandparents gave me for my fourteenth birthday to buy hair-dye, eyeliner and a bag and boots from the local army surplus store. Shay and Kieran made me a set of leather bracelets.
For the first time, when out with my self-assured family on that spring’s campaign trail, I no longer felt invisible. To my parents’ chagrin. They were both irritated and beyond irritating about my ‘little rebellious phase’, but, with the general election coming up, were too distracted to do much about it.
I didn’t care. I was spending as much time as possible at Shay’s flat, jam-packed with brothers and sisters, wizened great-nannan, an uncle battling alcoholism and parents who laughed loud and loved each other with a rambunctious enthusiasm that was dazzling, compared to my own mum and dad’s cordial partnership.
Heavy work schedules, parliamentary commitments and a serious snoring issue meant my parents rarely slept in the same room. Shay’s dad would order all the kids out of the house, grab her mum’s backside and declare ‘afternoon-nap time’ as he chased her into the bedroom, accompanied by giggles and squeals.
It was chaotic, cramped, noisy and never failed to offer me a warm welcome. I learned that Kieran and his little sister spent at least as much time there as they did in their one-bedroom flat on the thirty-third floor. A mum with myriad health problems, one dad who’d left when Kieran was a toddler, and another who remained anonymous, meant there was never enough, of anything. Let alone the capacity to properly care for two children.
Two or three times a year, Kieran would decamp to London to stay with his dad’s new family, where at least he was fed and could have a hot shower. He never spoke about these weeks, though. Kieran talked to Shay about everything, but the rare times she asked about his London trips, his face would shut down and he’d change the subject. It always took a few days of Obasi affection to become himself again. As the years passed, the visits reduced to once a year, then the odd weekend or day trip. It helped me feel better about hanging around Shay’s home, knowing that Kieran needed it even more than I did.
Seeing the near-miracle of my style transformation, other girls at school started asking Shay and Kieran to customise items for them. As we reached the summer holiday, the three of us no longer had time for balmy evenings on the rundown park or weekends window shopping; instead, we became obsessed with scouring the market and junk sales for trinkets or clothing items to modify or chop up for something else. One of Shay’s aunties gave her an old sewing machine, and the three of us spent hours at my largely unused dining room table practising different techniques and learning what worked and what didn’t via trial and error. As summer rolled into the start of our GCSE years, we settled into our different skill sets. Shay was constantly sketching, hunting through magazines and on the family’s battered computer for new inspiration. Kieran made the designs come to life, and I handled everything else: pricing, packaging, running to Poundland for more buttons, arguing with customers about whether they could pay in instalments (no chance, unless they wanted to wait until the last payment to get the goods).
My parents were initially happy for us to hang out doing ‘something constructive’ at their house. They even stopped dragging me around with them, now I’d apparently found my own worthy cause, and were providing my friends with the opportunity to spend time in an ‘aspirational environment’.
They were less pleased when they suspected I was putting more effort into sourcing velvet than I was on schoolwork. When my woeful exam results came in, they preferred to blame my grievously misspent use of time, rather than any chance I’d failed to inherit the family’s brainy genes.
Either way, I felt in no way a failure when by that summer, aged sixteen, we had tenaciously built up a thriving little business, gradually homing in on bags, hats and other accessories. Kieran had been able to pay his flat’s heating bill for the whole of the previous winter and buy his mum and sister warm coats and boots. Shay bought a brand-new Singer sewing machine, and we cleared out the empty bedroom opposite mine and set up an official workshop.
I used what little family brains I had to compose a pitch asking Mum and Dad for a start-up grant to open a market stall. Once they’d got over their dismay that instead of resitting my exams and continuing on the treadmill to university, I was selling out to the evils of capitalism, they accepted that, like my short-lived stint as an emo, this was yet another phase, and they might as well help me get something out of it, while simultaneously supporting my two disadvantaged friends. The caveat was that we also studied part-time at college. I focused on business, and Kieran and Shay enrolled on a textiles and fashion course.
