Malorie Blackman. Noughts & crosses

Malorie Blackman’s parents came to London from Barbados and never wanted to talk about their slave ancestors. The racism she experienced as a child in south London where she was born in 1962 was painful. She considers her generation of African-Carribeans undervalued here. Her approach to the problems of racism, terrorism, the class system and the artificial divides is so thoughtful and sensitive that it is impossible not to recommend if not her series {Noughts & Crosses, 2001; Knife Edge, 2004; Checkmate, 2005; Double Cross, 2008), at least the first novel. All of the novels and two accompanying novellas Callum, An Eye for an Eye (2003) were acclaimed but the first stayed favourite.

In her interviews Malorie Blackman pointed out that when she sat down to write the story she was not thinking about Romeo and Juliet - at least consciously. While reading it is interesting to follow her unconscious: it is enjoyable to perceive quite obvious parallels like the balcony scene or the letter that does not reach its intended recipient on time and hence the decline to the most dramatic and ‘the fearful passage of this death-mark’d love’.

As in Romeo and Juliet, the story begins with a Prologue -nothing like Shakespeare’s sonnet. ‘Two households’ not ‘alike in dignity’ are introduced. These are the Hadley family (they belong to Crosses - the ruling society) and the McGregor family (noughts - with a small letter - the underclass: ‘Even the word was negative. Nothing. Nil. Zero. Nonentities.’ - p. 79).

Crosses are black. Noughts are inferior white beings. They are called ‘blankers’ and there is no word more offensive:

Blank, white faces with not a hint of colour in them. Blank minds which can’t hold a single original thought. Blank, blank, blank... ’ (p. 85).

For noughts even praying is problematic:

I know... I know noughts aren’t really supposed to believe in you or pray to you because you’re really the God of the Crosses... ’ (p. 96).

Not surprising that ‘Christmas’ sounds like ‘Crossmas’ here. The caricature is obvious:

The Crosses were meant to be closer to God. The Good Book said so. The son of God was dark-skinned like them, had eyes like them, had hair like them. The Good Book said so (78-79).

Mothers of the families - Jasmine and Margaret (Meggie) - were close once when Meggie was Jasmine’s helper and the nanny of the Hadley’s daughters (Minerva and Persephone/Sephy). Names are important. Malorie Blackman has always loved myths and legends from different cultures. The story of Demeter and Persephone is one of her favourites. Persephone was abducted by Hades. Sephy would not escape the abduction either.

Meggie and Ryan had three children - Jude, Lynette and Callum. Callum and Sephy - Romeo and Juliet of the story - are 16 and 14. Callum remembered those times when he was a toddler and Sephy was a baby - he even helped to bathe her and change her nappy. He remembered the way their mothers watched them playing, chatted and laughed.

When Margaret did not guess to provide an alibi for Jasmine (her husband Kamal, a wealthy powerful politician, confronted her with suspicions of infidelity), she was fired. Notwithstanding the ‘new mutiny’ in the family ‘grudge’, Callum and Sephy stayed close. They had their own world, their secret place on the secluded beach and saw each other at least every other day. The story alternates first-person narration between them. They face the unnatural order of things when a dear to you friend should be alienated. All the others are unanimous in their demand. Being an adolescent you begin to doubt who is right - you or they. ‘The fatal loins’ of each clan were not easily loveable. All of them were paranoid about colour. Only Mrs Paxton, one of the teachers, was a relief to Callum: «She treated me like a real person. She didn’t see me as just a colour - first, last and always» (p. 134). All the rest as if were infected. Even Callum envied one of his father’s companions who had the kind of tan that must’ve been paid for. He looked almost mixed race - lucky beggar. How I wished I could afford the treatment to make my skin permanently darker (p. 173).

One of the most tragic figures was Callum’s sister Lynette. She and her Cross boyfriend were attacked by three or four nought men. They almost beat the Cross boy to death and beat her so badly that she stayed in hospital for some weeks. The trauma turned into a mental illness - Lynette could not bear to think of herself as a nought any more: ‘Look at my skin <...> Such a beautiful colour. So dark and rich and wonderful. I’m so lucky. I’m a Cross - closer to God... ’ (p. 51).

When her sanity returned, she committed suicide being unable to cope with the reality. In her final note to Callum she expressed her belief that her brother would be stronger and have more luck with Sephy.

Callum moved on quickly - from tea boy to grant, then to private up to the rank of sergeant. It was as if he stopped being Callum (this strong Celtic/Gaelic name means ‘dove’ with its connotations of peace, bringing of good news/things). He turned to ‘ice-cold inside’ (p. 378) and could think only of revenge. For him it was ‘a poor trade, but an inevitable one’ (p. 337):

Sephy, like her mother, hiding away in a wine bottle was near to becoming an alcoholic. She managed to give herself a new start - left home, went to a boarding school and chose not military but more civilized ways of fighting for changes in the system. It seemed to Callum and Sephy they tried to stop thinking about each other. As Sephy wrote, ‘stopped yearning for the impossible’: Maybe in another lifetime or in a parallel universe somewhere Callum and I could be together the way we should be. But not there. Not now (p. 336).

She was dreaming of a different world where there were no noughts and Crosses - just she and Callum together, and the rest of the world smiling kindly at them.

The novel was adapted and directed for the Royal Shakespeare company by Dominic Cooke. Retitled Black and White it garnered positive reviews and touching letters.