"Uncle Eugene."
"How did you find me?"
I analyse his demeanour and see that he is raring to go: either to attack me with his words or to speed off into the car and disappear. He was animalistic like that: fight or flight. When he and my mother clashed he'd do the same: spike his voice in fury or quite literally escape into the wild. He was a hunter of epic proportions, reflexive and responsive as they come. Something he claims is instinctual when you're born in a tiny village in West Africa.
I called bullshit: him being aggressive had nothing to do with where he was from and everything to do with who he was. And he was a brute - nothing more, nothing less.
"I- "
I could reveal some extensive searching on Facebook, cross checking with LinkedIn and a failed goose chase in the town centre had done the trick in tracking him down but I don't.
"Explain!" He cuts off my thoughts with a mighty tone.
"It doesn't matter."
My affront is disrespectful to him.
Bad enough I was speaking like this to an elder like this, but my own blood relation was worse. 'Back home' I'd supposedly be bowed over in a curtsy with my head lowered calling him Sir. It's only because we were on Western soil in front of a white woman that I could say what I was saying and behave so defiantly.
On his terms, in the area of birthplace, I'd have been taken to a back room and berated by a female relative about dishonour, subservience and tolerance. I would have been told not to stand up for myself, give him the information he was requesting and give penance.
"Did your mother hire a private investigator?"
He is scared now, fear crackling his voice and I'm not sure how to take it.
He was probably up to something illegal.
"Can't say," I play with his emotions.
"What do you want from me?"
He sounds like me now.
It's like I'm watching my encounter with Damon from a fly-on-a-wall perspective except the roles are reversed: I am in charge.
"I just want to talk."
He looks at me suspiciously and then turns back to Miss Vellum in the car. Her hands are on the steering wheel and the engine is on so it won't take long for her to split if my uncle does decide to hop into the car. Fear of an escape propels me to the car and I open the door before diving in the passenger seat with Reece alongside.
I can see by my uncle's expression, he is surprised at my bold move but he doesn't react: instead he calmly joins us in front seat and we all sit stationary in the car.
"We need to pick the kids up from afterschool club," Miss Vellum breaks the silence and puts the car into gear.
"That's fine, I have a plan," my uncle responds.
Everyone seems surprised at my uncle's measured tone except for me: between my mum and him, he was the level headed sibling. Decisive: like I said fight or flight. He always had something cooking in his mind whether you knew it or not so his proportion didn't irk me... it terrified me.
He was probably plotting.
Miss Vellum quickly takes us on a detour back to the roundabout where we came from in the cab. Minutes later we have reached the local primary school and I look for the faces of my cousins amongst the crowd. It may have been long since I last saw them but that Facebook picture refreshed my memory.
YOU ARE READING
Fully English
浪漫My mother named me Karma. She said I was living proof that what goes around truly did come back around: that I symbolised all that was right in a world of wrong. But in this last year I've grown to hate my name. Not because of my mother but because...
