My Name Is Why. Lemn Sissay

too, was described in graphic detail by Mrs. Greenwood. I suspected that she was anxious in any case about my visit and focus on the family’s current misadventures was a way of deflecting more direct discussion of Norman and their role.

      I was nine. All the information in the reports was first curated by my foster mother and then presented to the social worker. In the report Sarah, my sister, is in the bath with me. But she wasn’t. We did bath together but not this time. Not in my memory. So why would they say she was?

      I was alone with the electrocution. Little misinformations in the report make invisible people appear to prove that it didn’t happen just to me. The black eye also mentioned in the report was another little misdirection. The black eye was from being beaten up by racists. My quick mouth could outplay any racists but not my fists. And it was simply a matter of numbers.

      CHAPTER 9

      Look what was sown by the stars

      At night across the fields

      I am not defined by scars

      But by the incredible ability to heal

      Mum was a state registered nurse. She took a professional interest in our pain. At the hint of a scratch, a graze, a bruise, a bump, a cut or an itch she’d sit me down at the kitchen table and draw the medical kit from the top of the kitchen cabinet. Out came the witch hazel, the bandages, the scissors the plasters, the Savlon, the gauze, the medical tape and the smelling salts. I loved it. I am not sure I ever felt as close to her than when she’d say, ‘This is going to hurt,’ before dabbing my grazed knee with a pinch of cotton wool soaked in witch hazel.

      It’s because she was a nurse that she had the comb. Each morning before school I’d stand by the heater in the kitchen. The comb was a strip of metal with barely visible slits. I stood facing away from her and she stood behind. Mum dragged the comb through the roots until my skull felt like it had been dipped in acid and was pouring with blood.

      ‘You have hair sore,’ she’d say. Apparently ‘hair sore’ was a medical ‘condition’ that made the hair sore when it was ripped through with a thin comb. It felt as if the skin was being ripped from my skull. Tell a child you’re his parent for ever and he will believe you. Tell a child he has hair sore and he will believe you. I believed her. I had ‘hair sore’.

      Then, on a spring day, Mum got me up in my best shirt and trousers. I was going to meet a pop star. Errol Brown was the lead singer of Hot Chocolate. They had a massive hit with ‘You Sexy Thing’. Mum took me to an apartment in Winstanley. I remember there were bowls of nuts and crisps and it wasn’t even Christmas. Errol Brown chatted to me about school and stuff. He was black like me. I was very subdued, slightly nervous and intrigued all at the same time. And then, he left the room and came back with a present for me. I stared at the strange and elegant genius of design and style: an Afro comb. ‘Your very first Afro comb,’ said Errol Brown.