My name is Nikki Alexander. I was born in Africa. It was hot and free, and friendly in Africa. Everyone in our neighbourhood knew each other and even if they didn't, they still acknowledged you – spoke to you.
I loved it there.
My mother was African – my father English and I was particularly close to my mum. They both doted on me - at first, but then they had less and less time for me. They employed Martha to look after me instead and I saw more of her than them after that. I loved Martha. I taught her how to read and her son, Albert, taught me how to ride a bike.
But one night Martha told me she had to leave and she left the next day. I never understood why, until I was grown up.
Albert had gone missing – I knew that at the time. Martha and I spent many evenings talking about it, despite my young age. Apparently, one day she had begged my father for help – money, to find Albert. He refused and she stole off him. She said she knew she'd done wrong, but she was so desperate to find her son. I can understand that – even if my father couldn't. I think I might have taken the money myself, if I'd known. Albert was my friend too – Martha never found him. Anyway, when she took his money, my father told Martha she had to leave – one of the many ways he let me down.
Martha was everything to me. And how dare he get on his high horse, considering what he did after that.
My parents' used to hold parties. I was never allowed to go to them. I learnt later, that they were 'poker parties' – something that would later come back to bite my father on the backside. Apparently, he was brilliant at losing. I crept down once after Martha had put me to bed. My father went ballistic when he saw me and now I understand why. I've got a feeling they were smoking Opium or something at the parties. I felt so sick and strange when I was chased back upstairs. Everything seemed hazy – almost 'dream-like' and I didn't feel like myself. I don't know what my mum did during the parties – just sat there looking pretty, I suppose, but I can still see her say there, with a vacant look on her face.
It wasn't my mother – and my dad was unusually angry that night, when he sent me back upstairs.
Maybe it would have been nice to spend more time alone with my parents, but at the time – before Martha left, that was my life and I loved it.
Little did I know, everything I knew was going to change.
When my father disappeared, mum and I were devastated. We filed a missing person's report and everything. I never realised how much I loved my dad, until he wasn't there. He reappeared again eventually and it turned out that he had 'chosen' to leave us and disappear, because he was bankrupt and owed some dangerous people money.
I don't know why he came back.
My father won my mother over with some sort of grand gesture and she forgave him, but I was angry. We had to leave Africa after that – we had to leave the life I loved and come to England. It was cold and rainy, and lonely in England. I didn't like it, though it did eventually grow on me. I was 11 and about to start secondary school. Public school was miles different from my sheltered private school in Africa and I was more than a little resentful towards my father for making us leave. Kids can be cruel. I was in a school with local kids and I had an African accent. I stuck out like a sore thumb, so I did my best to change my accent – and I succeeded. I sound like a Londoner now.
I just wanted to fit in.
I threw myself into my school work, a habit I've continued in my adult life – and whatever crusade I could find. Save the Whales...Go Green...anything to take my mind off what was going on at home. I knew my father was involved in dodgy deals even then.
But no one ever listens to a young girl.