Free Reading the Ceiling by Dayo Forster Page A

discomfort with Statistics (any luck with the chi-squareds and ANOVAs?), the size of the helping (rather hearty, don’t you think?), the lack of snow (miserable these parts, for the real thing you need to head for the lochs), the wine (not bad, not bad, well rounded), did I see the review of an anthropological guide to West Africa in the Economist  (rather interesting take on your neck of the woods), thoughts on my future (have you considered journalism?), how are my personal difficulties (breezed through yet? got to keep an eye).
    Sometimes you have to let the comfort of care sweep over you; he reminds me of why I would have quite liked a father.
    In my last class of the day, Prof Block creates a different kind of magic in differential equations and multiple dimensions. His arms swoop, his hands swirl geometry in the empty air as he explains the shapes of forms we can only glimpse through fantastic formulae. Block sketches me into a world he’s spinning with his fingers, enclosing me into the dreamiest of shapes, beyond time, past space. He dissects the reality of:
    +f( x n )  = f( x 1 ) + f( x 2 ) + lots of squiggles + ∆ x n -1
    Waves and waves of knowledge whip through his excited arms. His body jerks with the energy of it all. Would it be that we could create our own worlds in our heads, world that are so full of wonder that they keep us alive in this other more unsatisfying, less predictable world that we do live in.
    *
    Akim does find me. And I have planned nothing. My evening is consumed in default.
    On Saturday afternoon, Meena and I wander off to the Heath with our kites. The crisp, keen cold sharpens my skin.
    â€˜Meena,’ I say, ‘maybe I should look for an older man. Someone divorced or widowed. Kind, no trouble, grateful for my companionship. Leaves me alone when I want to be left alone. What do you think?’
    â€˜What’s brought this on?’ she wants to know.
    â€˜Well, yesterday, having a chat with Prof McIntyre about life and what I want to do and stuff, I just thought about how much easier older men are.’
    â€˜Uh, uh. Ayodele, I would have thought you’d had enough of professors.’
    â€˜Not him in the particular. I meant, what I should be looking for.’
    â€˜Sticking with older men won’t necessarily protect you from hurt.’
    â€˜That way, any pain would be administered with feathers, not thorns.’
    We fly our kites and then fly ourselves down the hill, our legs not quite managing to keep pace with the slope. It ends with us in untidy heaps by the footpath, kite strings miraculously untangled in our hands, giggling madly, completely winded, and laughing until we cry.
    I default all through summer. Some Sundays, I visit my aunt and uncle. I let life carry me along, without wishing of it anything more. Meena starts to refer to Akim as my boyfriend. And I never have a rejoinder – as one would generally define a boyfriend, he appears to be mine.
    It is summer, and I have nothing better to do. I let him be a pause, a comma in my life before I decide how to shift direction. He is fun to be with, and we go places in his open-topped BMW. He lavishes consideration on me. His mother comes to visit. He wants me to meet her. I make up an excuse about needing to visit Uncle Sola, and there being an important family gathering that I have to attend. Two entire weekends in a row. I start to see I’ll need to do something about Akim soon.
    Rifat is in a blaze of black, Doc Marten boots sticking out scruffily on our front doormat. The sun makes a poor attempt to put a halo around his head as the last of the day’s light gives up quietly to a greedy dusk.
    â€˜Hello, petal. I hope you are pleased, I’m only ten minutes late this time.’
    â€˜Phah, go on up.’
    As he comes in, he complains, ‘Why do you need me to arrive on time? It only leads to your getting disappointed.’
    He goes up the stairs in front of me in