Filled with warm humour, John Hunt’s novel serves up a double shot of pathos as it moves from playful satire to true tragedy whilst examining the inner workings of power.
“No one can remember who first called me Cappuccino, or why.
Was it just my muted brown pigmentation? Asani says I’m a little too pale, ‘more steamed milk than espresso’. To prove his point he once dusted the back of my hand with cinnamon. ‘Look,’ he said, ‘it’s the same colour. You’re really just a topping.’
Cappuccino is not the sort of word that would naturally be used by those gathered at my birth. It feels as if some outside influence had to be involved, but who or what that was, no one can tell me.
And, with four syllables, I could be endlessly trimmed and played with.
What’s more interesting is that I, Cappuccino, ended up being a barista. I didn’t even know what that meant until I became one. It’s an Italian word. If you are a woman you are a bariste. Three years ago a man from ‘Uplift!’ won the contract to up-skill us all. I still have his card. It has a drawing of a young boy standing on his toes reaching for the stars. Underneath is written ‘Be all you can be!’
Everyone gathered on the big patio next to the pool. The man said the future was waiting. He asked if we were ready. I don’t think any of us knew for sure. We didn’t want to be impolite so everyone just shrugged. ‘Opportunity is knocking!’ he shouted at us. Then he pointed to me and asked my name. That made him pause for a moment before he smiled and said, ‘It’s time you espresso-ed yourself!’”
*****
“Given what was happening all around me, I admit, it’s a strange time to talk of illumination. The exact moment of ‘ah-ha’ had happened
hours earlier. Then again, no one chooses when the burning bush will appear or when the apple will fall on your head. I did not
cry ‘Eureka!’ No brilliant invention stirred my brain, no equation to explain the riddle of the universe filled my consciousness. There
was just an ordering of my mind that didn’t exist before. An aligning of thoughts, a pattern that had been invisible up until now. Less of an epiphany and more a set of lights going on in perfect sequence.
It started with Naomi and the acknowledgement that you fall in love. You plummet, plunge, dive and tumble into love. It’s head-over heels stuff. You don’t stroll into love or glide there. If you’ve ambled, sauntered or trudged, then it’s not love. You can’t be marched there either. You could say I collapsed into love with Naomi. Now I understand for the first time that true love doesn’t have to be reciprocated.
It’s inconvenient. It’s not how Americans make their movies. But it doesn’t make that love any less real.
Now I’m at peace knowing Naomi will always like me to the edge of love, and no more. I’m also content that, even before the most recent incident, I should find a more appropriate place for her in my imagination. My love for her is as strong as it’s ever been, in the full understanding that it creates no debt on her side. Whatever is between us, no accountancy is involved. There are no books that have to be balanced. It’s difficult to explain how liberating this is.
Love has ensnared and set me free.
…
The light that spread through my brain was simply this: we are all imprisoned by what we don’t do. It’s the non-action when your conscience is calling that defines you. It’s not a switch you can turn on or off. Click, click. It’s bugles and trumpets, drums and pipes, impossible not to hear. Being small, insignificant or powerless is not an act of birth. It’s a choice. If you choose to go deaf, the shadows will lengthen, you will become invisible. I had so much camouflage, my uniform, the chef ’s hat, the coffee station, the President’s shoes, my woe-is-me past, it’s surprising I existed at all.”
Extracted from You Never Really Know by John Hunt, out now.
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