Smallie adj. |smal·lie|
Definition: Caribbean (informal). Describing or relating a person from a small island; a small islander.
In 1961, nineteen-year-old Lucinda Brown travels to England in search of her son’s father, Clarence Braithwaite, who left Barbados to join the British army. But aboard the ship to Southampton she meets a man named Raldo who offers her a glimpse of a new life, a freer life. Bound by the memory of her son waiting at home, she chooses Clarence – realizing too late that war has made a stranger out of him.
Nearly fifty years later, Lucinda receives a letter from the Home Office that threatens to tear her world apart. Her children rally together to prove her legal arrival, and to do so they must track down an elusive man from her past, a man she wanted to love but instead lost, a man who now holds the key to her family’s future. Raldo . . . An exhilarating and expansive tale of a family thrown into collision with the Windrush scandal, Smallie shows just how easily the past can spill into our lives, even when – especially when – we think we’ve closed the door on it.
The author splits their timeline so in 2017 we see Lucinda’s children trying to make sense of the letter from the Home Office that states she has no leave to remain in the UK. Then we go back several decades to her early life in Barbados and her trip to the UK. This worked so well because we get to see the huge generation gap in her children’s incredulous response to the letter and Lucinda’s more mured response. They have lived in the UK all their lives and with their education and important jobs they’ve experienced racism but not in the same way their mother has. They don’t know that the system can fail. This is their first real sense of utter powerlessness. Whereas Lucinda has spent most of her life like a leaf in the wind. Her strict religious father would keep her at home with a life that revolved around church, chores and schoolwork. In fact it’s only her friend Sheila that manages to lure her out to a club, where she meets Clarence, a liaison that results in a hidden pregnancy and her son Reggie. Yet still her father calls the shots and when Clarence decides to emigrate to the UK she is only allowed to follow on the proviso that they marry, only then will her father release Reggie to join them. Then, on the voyage across she meets Raldo and their chemistry is immediate, he offers her a way out. When they reach the UK she can leave with him and his friend, avoiding Clarence. Will she make the decision to put herself or Reggie first? I couldn’t stop reading because in the 2017 timeline I was desperate to know whether her children would manage to find enough evidence for their mother to stay, but also I wanted to know who was the father of her children born in the UK? It’s cleverly plotted to keep you guessing, even when their father is present.
I loved the moments of freedom that Lucinda has with Sheila, nights of jazz, dancing, laughing where she comes alive. Either in clubs or at house parties they forget the one room they share, the lack of money, the family they clean for and the way British people treat them. Sheila is older and wiser. She explains to Lucinda why their employer’s treat them differently. Both girls work for a cleaning company run by a friend and Sheila points out how differently she is treated compared to Lucinda. They speak harshly to Sheila and expect her to steal, whereas Lucinda is treated more politely. She explains what ‘passing’ means, the family treat Lucinda better because of her paler skin. She could pass as a white girl. Even so, neither of them can have bank accounts and decide to use the ‘pardner’ system. Every week they all put their wages into a pot that’s kept by the most trustworthy friend, then once a month they take it in turns to have the lump sum. It’s the only way individuals could buy a house and set down roots here. Strong communities were built from these bonds of trust. The group decide that Lucinda should look after the money, but her trustworthiness is dependent on whether Clarence decides to beat her or not, till she hands it over. She is being brought down by this relationship, but she still clings to the idea of Reggie making his way here to be a family. Yet every so often she sees Raldo, conducting buses or at the same party and that spark is still there. He brings her alive.
It seems inconceivable that someone who has lived in this country for most of their lives could be detained and placed in an immigration facility. Lucinda is placed in Yarl’s Wood and her children are falling apart. She is the foundation that supports them all. While they struggle to come to terms with the situation, Lucinda quietly gets on with it. The Home Office need proof that she arrived on a certain date, with her boarding pass or similar, but then also prove that she didn’t leave for a period of time. They are applying 21st Century rules to a time when paper tickets were damaged or thrown out, where jobs were cash in hand and there was no paper trial. As they desperately look around for people who could corroborate her account, they unearth more of their mother’s story. There’s betrayal, anger and bitterness that’s lasted over fifty years. Will they find this man called Raldo who looked after her boarding pass? As the date for the hearing looms closer, Lucinda starts to wonder whether it’s time to make decisions that suit her, not everyone else leading to an ending I didn’t expect, but that was total perfection. I felt so much reading this book – everything from anger to joy and so much inbetween. Lucinda is a brilliant central character, so used to being pushed around she almost disappears in the cacophony of her children. We know theres so much depth and experience in this woman and I was willing her on to finally make a choice for herself. Beautifully written, this is an emotional account of one woman’s life caught up in the Windrush scandal and it kept me spellbound to the end.
Out Now From Penguin
Meet the Author
Eden McKenzie-Goddard is a UK-based writer and podcaster, with Barbadian-Jamaican roots. His work sheds light on the lives of the forgotten and bringing their stories to the forefront.
In 2018, Eden co-founded the top 30 music and culture podcast Don’t Alert The Stans – commended by Apple Podcasts, Complex, Beats By Dre and more.
With almost a decade working in publishing and a degree in English Literature and Creative Writing from University of Westminster, McKenzie-Goddard is a student of literary minds Silvia Plath, Hanya Yanagihara and James Baldwin.
The Lotus Readers 