Jackie Kay and the good lie

I've read several accounts over the years of British poet Jackie Kay's first meeting with her Nigerian biological father, and it never fails to move. Reading her poetry collection Life Mask (inspired by the birth father), I was astonished by the warmth and generosity shown to a man who told Kay she was his 'past sin' - to be kept a secret from his Nigerian family, mindless of how that might hurt his long abandoned child. A pastor of some sort who saw nothing wrong in a continued life of lies, secrets and hypocrisy. I've also seen Kay read poems from Life Mask at least twice, once at the South Bank Centre in London and again last year at the Farafina Trust literary evening in Lagos. From the audience at last year's reading, I put my long-held question to the poet: how could you be so forgiving of such a man? She answered with the same lack of judgement I'd gleaned from her poems.

The father himself, known only as Jonathan, has become a major theme in Jackie Kay's work. And so in today's Observer is an excerpt from her memoir, recalling again that first meeting. Jonathan is insensitive, sure - and riddled with contradictions - but he's painted as neither good nor bad, just deeply flawed. And immensely fascinating, a Nigerian man of the cloth who readily accepts his daughter's lesbianism (it's the homosexuals God's got issue with, he tells her!) - though he can't help wondering how the thing works ('which one of you is the man?' he wants to know).

There is mention of Kay's former long-term partner, the poet Carol Ann (Duffy). Duffy's 'Rapture' - a beautiful, red, hardcover little book complete with a red ribbon page marker - is a favourite of mine. Achingly beautiful poems on the pages attest to why Duffy is so revered in the UK. My several hundred books are still waiting to be cargoed or shipped from England, but when I was relocating I had about 20 books that travelled down with me in my suitcase. 'Rapture' is one of them. I read it regularly and carry many of the lines in my head, like the beginning of 'Text' -

I tend the mobile now
like an injured bird...

The fact that Jackie Kay has made something of herself as a writer clearly did nothing to sway the father from his decision to keep her a secret. It is a bit touching when at the end he urges her to make their meeting "a happy thing." And that, she's certainly done.

Excerpt
And now we're in the room. I'm about to have a conversation with my birth father for the first time. "Ask me anything," Jonathan says, staring at me, "I will try and answer it." "First," I say, "I'll give you a gift." I get his present out of the hotel safe. He opens the wrapping paper, slowly, with some enjoyment, and peeps in the box. "This is very generous of you. This is very kind," he says looking at the silver watch. He tries it on. It is too big. His wrist is thinner than I'd calculated back in Arthur Kay's jeweller's in Manchester. I'm sad it is not exactly right. Jonathan says, "No, it fits perfectly! It is a very nice watch. How much did it cost?" I try to shrug this question off politely, but he pushes. "How much, tell me. I'm curious to know what a watch like this would cost." He is still staring at the solid silver bangle, loose on his arm. "A hundred pounds," I say, giving in. "A hundred pounds!" he whistles.

Then he says, "Now I have a question for you. Would you mind very much if I gave this watch to my wife?" I'm stunned. "Yes, I would mind," I say. "I bought the watch for you. It is a gift for you. I like to think of you wearing it and that you might sometimes think of me when you look at the time." "I don't need to wear your watch to think about you," he says. "That's nice," I say touched, "but I'd still prefer you kept the watch." "It's only that I have a watch already and my wife doesn't have a watch," he says. "Well, why don't you give her the watch you have and keep the watch I've given you?" "This is a good solution," he says. "I didn't think about that. This is what I'll do. But now you must make up a lie for me to explain the watch. How would I get it? How would I have come across such a watch?"

I feel oddly flattered by this. He has told lies to come and meet me and now needs more lies to return home with the unexplained Seiko watch ticking on his arm. Perhaps all lies are fixed to some timing device that will eventually explode. "Who did you say you were going to meet in Abuja? Religious people? Students? Whoever it was, tell her that somebody who admires your work had been given this watch from a friend in England as a present and they wanted you to have it." He nods sagely and says, "This is a good lie."

• Jackie Kay: How I met my real father

New Reads

A new short story by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, On Monday Last Week, is in the new issue of Granta. Kamara has come to join her husband in the US and she babysits Josh while waiting for her Green Card. Josh's mother is an artist who never comes out of her basement studio. Three months pass, and Tracy the artist comes upstairs suddenly.

An excerpt...
And now three months have passed. Three months of babysitting Josh. Three months of listening to Neil’s worries, of carrying out Neil’s anxiety-driven instructions, of growing a pitying affection for Neil. Three months of not seeing Tracy. At first Kamara was curious about this woman with dreadlocks and skin the colour of peanut butter who was barefoot in the wedding photo on the shelf in the den. Kamara wondered if and when Tracy left the basement. Sometimes she heard sounds down there, a door slamming shut or a brief burst of loud music. She wondered if Tracy ever saw her child. When she tried to get Josh to talk about his mother, he said, ‘Mummy’s very busy with her work. She’ll get mad if we bother her.’… Tracy’s existence became inconsequential, a background reality like the wheezing on the phone line when she called her mother in Nigeria. Until the Monday of last week.

-Read it in Granta 98

A very enjoyable edition this is. There's a photo essay of the Port Glasgow area of Scotland that's depressing to see, even before you read outgoing editor Ian Jack's accompanying piece about the region's history. Timely for the imminent smoking ban in the UK, there's a short story by Jackie Kay, "The Last of the Smokers" - in which two old friends mull over lost loves and consider whether to give up smoking. And above, a wonderfully honest personal sexual history by the 90-year-old Diana Athill, tracing her romantic companions from the beginning, to the last two men she consorted with. The very last, Sam, had served in the government of "the Redeemer" - Kwame Nkrumah.

Gay Afrique

As with the previous post, we're staying with The Guardian, this time the April 14th edition, which had a centrespread on 'The gay globe'. The feature used a colour code to show how gay people fare under the law in countries across the world. Countries with liberal legislation on homosexuality are tagged with pink balloons. Nigeria is one of the 'dark blues' where a gay person may expect a grim treatment under the law. According to the Guardian, the family of one Emmanuel Obahiaghbon reported him to the authorities last year and requested that he be sentenced to death by stoning. The piece did not indicate whether the poor man was reported in the 'Sharia' states of Northern Nigeria. But I'd be very surprised if anyone, whatever their orientation, can be stoned to death South of the River Niger.
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The Africa segment was illustrated with an image of Nigerian gay activist, Bisi Alimi, engrossed in a copy of the Gay Times, supposedly in Lagos. As it happens, an interview with Alimi is in the current issue of Farafina Magazine. The interview is available online.
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The current issue of Wasafiri (Issue 50) focuses on the 'Queer Postcolonial'. Among the contents is an essay, 'If You Like, Professor, I Will Come Home With You' - a re-reading of Wole Soyinka's The Road - by academic Chris Dunton.
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Sable Litmag also did a recent LGBTQ issue (issue 9) with a spotlight on Jackie Kay.

Galaxy Book Awards

The great British public voted for homegrown writers, and so Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie didn't make the first 3 in the Richard & Judy Best Read at Galaxy British Book Awards. Jackie Kay did however win the 'Writer of the Year' for her collection of short stories Wish You Were Here - something she noted would not harm the resurgence of the short story genre. Kay (born to a Nigerian father and raised by white adoptive parents), who recently wrote a piece in the Guardian about Scottish complicity in the Slave Trade, was happy to win the award in the year of the bicentenary. She received it "on behalf of all the women that came before me."

Funny thing, the Galaxy British Book awards, the last hour of which I caught by chance last Friday. It's like no other book awards ceremony I've ever watched - more like a book award modelled after the movie gongs - Baftas, Golden Globes, Oscars and what have you. It was mightilly glitzy and the guests were clearly invited to appeal to the MTV, Pop Idol and WAG generation. Therefore, Mica Paris, Jamelia, Ian Hislop and Kyle Maclachlan mingled with the likes of William Boyd. I mean, comedian Ricky Gervais won an award for heaven's sakes! And he got to talk to the ceremony, giving his winner's acceptance chit-chat live from the stage somewhere where he was doing a comedy gig.

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Still, this unusual composition allowed for probably the most touching moment of the night, for me. Author John Grisham won a Lifetime Achievement Award (very 'movie' kind of award, if you ask me). I've never read a Grisham but I've watched many a gripping film thriller adapted from his work. It was nice to see him on screen in the flesh. Receiving his award, he said, "When you write populist fiction you don't win many awards. In fact, this is the first one - ever." Something that made the crowd sound an almost apologetic "aww..." Yeah, I sort of felt sorry too. All those millions and millions of books and not one award! Oh well, I guess all the millions in the bank may give some compensation. Grisham thanked his wife (watching from the audience) who red-pens everything he writes.

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Say what you like about the book-calibre of many of the guests, one could not fault the presence of Sophie Dahl (top, to Kay's right), grand-daughter of late writer Roald Dahl who based some of his books on her. Once a size 14 'plus-sized' model turned waif-like mannequin with huge doe eyes for fashion labels like Monsoon, Sophie has recently branched out as a writer in her own right. Until recently, she wrote lovely short-short stories for the the Guardian's Weekend Magazine. I liked reading them, and I was sorry when they ended.