Reading the Ceiling by Dayo Forster Read Free Book Online

he left an unconfirmed number of women with child.
    Eventually he settled down. He’d chosen a good Krio girl from a solid family, from home. Aunt Abi was petite, with her long hair relaxed and pulled back into a chignon to accompany her tidy dress sense. Settling down, on the surface, also meant for him a well-paying job with an international agency, three healthy children, and the large house. Success was stamped all over his life.
    It’s an utterly random happening when a new friend from my hall of residence, Rifat, says, We’re going to see a good film tonight, would you like to come? Not wishing to turn down a social event, I say yes. We go to a crowded pub in Soho, picking our way through tight streets and shops with entrances coloured with green, or blue, or red light. Light that covers the faces of the people who want to welcome their customers in. A lady calls out to Rifat, who is striding away in front, Want to see what we’ve got, little boy? A couple of the lads snigger.
    In the bar, cloudy with smoke and hot with the pressure of beer breaths and bodies, Rifat is carried away from me towards a plasticky-looking girl with tight patent boots and lots of big hair. I find a waist-high table to lean against, grasping my beer in one hand while others in our group are clustered close by. I listen in on a shouted conversation about the results of the football match of the season. Some guy who briefly introduced himself earlier is commanding the debate about team performances.
    A man with eyebrows that sprinkle hairs towards each other approaches. His smile lifts his eyes slightly at the corners.
    â€˜Hello, all,’ he says. ‘Where’s Rifat?’
    I nod over in Rifat’s direction.
    â€˜I see. He’s busy then.’
    I nod again, smiling back this time. ‘And you are?’
    â€˜Kamal Bensouda. And you?’
    â€˜Ayodele Roberts. Are you coming with us?’
    â€˜Aren’t you?’
    â€˜Of course. I’m here to watch the film.’
    With this ridiculous bit of non-conversation over, we stop, stare at each other, look away.
    He smiles then, and his teeth are even, rectangular, ivory. ‘Conversations are so polite over here, aren’t they?’
    â€˜Well I’m not actually from here. West Africa.’
    â€˜My great-aunt and uncle used to live in Sierra Leone.’
    â€˜When did they leave?’
    â€˜A few years after President Siaka Stevens was killed. They lost everything when the fighting broke out near the mines.’
    â€˜Really? Where are they now?’
    â€˜They run a Lebanese restaurant in London and still speak mostly Krio at home, between themselves.’
    â€˜Do you speak any?’
    â€˜I understand a bit. Not difficult is it, once you tune your ear in.
    â€˜ Ow you do? ’
    â€˜Fine, thanks, and how about you?’
    We get round to talking about what we do.
    Student. What subject? Development Studies.
    Teacher. What do you teach? Econometrics.
    Where? Same university.
    The coincidences are no longer surprising. But of course. Rifat knows everyone.
    We sit next to each other during the film. We find each other after the trip to the bathroom and before the final trek to another smoky and air-heavy pub.
    My eyes ring with the indignation of the illegal occupation of Lebanon. My heart sings that he knows and feels injustice.
    He says, ‘You know how the Irish feel about the British, too close across a tiny strip of water – well, we feel the Israelis are too close over a strip of desert.’
    I watch his hands as he flings them about. I ask questions. He answers. Always with passion.
    And that, essentially, is how I fall in love. Unexpectant. Side-swiped.
    We drive up to Oxford. We stroll through the Pitt Rivers museum and gawp at shrunken heads. We find a pub by a tree that weeps into the river. We hire a punt at a ridiculous price and wobble onto it. The sun isn’t out but our happiness, my happiness,