They want to touch him

by Louisa Adjoa Parker (Weymouth)

She brings a husband with her when she comes back. They live near the brewery, where the smell of hops drifts across the harbour. At night they get woken by the boat-train trundling down the tracks to the boats.

After a while, they get used to children staring at him in the street. They want to touch his skin to see if the colour comes off onto their hands. One day a child looks at him and tells him he’s black, as though he hadn’t noticed this already.

They have children of their own: a girl and a boy with gold-brown skin, bitter-chocolate eyes, black curls on their heads. At school a girl tells their daughter ‘You’re black and need to be painted white.’

The school decides nothing can be done about name-calling. Perhaps their daughter is not very bright. The offer of a steel band to bring sound and colour to the school is not taken up. The head teacher says the other parents wouldn’t like it.

---

What Louisa Adjoa Parker says about They want to touch him:

Inspired by talking to Jacky, who moved back to Weymouth after living in London for ten years.