Chapter 22
The University of Birmingham was everything Marcus had expected and nothing he had expected, simultaneously.
He had expected the academic weight of it the lectures, the seminars, the reading lists that stretched across pages, the sudden intoxicating freedom of a library that held more books than he could read in a lifetime. All of that was there. What he had not expected was the social architecture of university life, the way eighteen-year-olds from every conceivable background suddenly found themselves deposited into shared corridors and shared kitchens and expected to form communities out of nothing but proximity and circumstance.
His halls of residence were in a red-brick building near the edge of campus. His room was small and smelled of fresh paint. His corridor-mates were: a girl from Birmingham named Priya who spoke at a speed that suggested her thoughts were always two sentences ahead of her mouth; a quiet boy from Edinburgh named Ross who read philosophy and seemed to regard human interaction as a series of problems to be solved; a large, cheerful boy from Lagos named Tunde who cooked extraordinary food in the shared kitchen and was apparently incapable of eating alone; and three other students Marcus got to know more slowly.
The first week was overwhelming in the way that new things are overwhelming: too much information, too many faces, too many names, too many choices. Marcus navigated it with the same methods he had used at nine years old in Caldmore Primary observation, patience, listening more than speaking, looking for the genuine rather than the performative.
Tunde found him on the third evening, sitting in the common room reading, and sat down across from him with a plate of jollof rice.
'You look like someone who thinks too much,' Tunde said.
Marcus looked up. 'Everyone here thinks too much. It's a university.'
Tunde laughed a broad, physical laugh that seemed to involve his entire body. 'Fair point. I'm Tunde. That's food. You want some?'
'Marcus,' Marcus said. 'And yes.'
They ate together and talked for three hours. Tunde was from Lagos and had grown up in London from age eight, and he and Marcus found, without really looking for it, the common ground of two people who had navigated between worlds and had built themselves across the gap. They talked about what it was to be African-Caribbean in England, about the constant small negotiations of identity, about food as a form of homesickness translated into something shared.
'My mother would like you,' Marcus said.
'My mother would like you,' Tunde replied. 'She likes anyone who eats properly.'
They became friends that night and remained friends without drama, which is the best kind.