Today I thought I would share my conversation with my taxi driver from work. Because of the mental torture, I went through since he started taking me to and from, I would turn it into a book.
May 2024: Monday Evening - The Journey Back
The late spring sun hung low in the sky as I wheeled myself to the waiting taxi. Hunter leaned against the car, scrolling on his phone, his face bathed in the amber glow of sunset. He looked up when he heard the faint hum of my wheels against the pavement, straightening with a nod of acknowledgment.
“Good day?” he asked as he opened the boot and reached for my wheelchair.
“Busy,” I replied, easing myself into the passenger seat. “Yours?”
“Not bad,” he said, folding the chair with practiced ease. “School runs, airport runs, you know how it is.”
I nodded, settling into the seat and closing the door. For a moment, there was only the sound of the engine as we pulled away from the curb. The hum of traffic outside mingled with the faint tinny sound of a radio playing in the background—a voice discussing the latest football results.
“You into football?” Hunter asked, glancing at me as we stopped at a red light.
“Not really,” I admitted. “But I hear enough about it at work.”
“Ah, shame,” he said, shaking his head. “I’m a big fan. West Ham. Always have been.”
He launched into a passionate recap of their weekend match, his words spilling over each other in excitement. I listened politely, nodding occasionally, until he shifted the conversation into a familiar territory.
“Of course, it’s not the same game it used to be,” he said, his tone suddenly sharper. “Too much money now. All these foreign players coming in, ruining the league. Whatever happened to giving young British lads a chance, you know?”
I resisted the urge to sigh. It was the same argument I’d heard a dozen times before, thinly veiled beneath a veneer of nostalgia.
“Some of those ‘foreign players’ are the best in the league,” I said lightly, choosing my words carefully.
“Yeah, but at what cost?” he countered. “You look at the England team now, and half of them don’t even feel English. I mean, some of them don’t even sing the national anthem!”
I turned my gaze to the window, watching the city blur past. His words lingered in the air, heavy with unspoken implications.
I thought of the countless times I’d been asked, “But where are you really from?” as if my skin and my accent couldn’t coexist. I thought of my mother, proudly British but still fielding questions about her heritage after decades in this country. And I thought of the players Hunter was talking about—men who had worked twice as hard to prove their worth, only to have their loyalty questioned because their skin wasn’t the right shade.
There was a certain irony in the way Hunter spoke, his words dripping with pride for a nation built on the labour of people like me and my family. He didn’t see the contradiction, didn’t see how his casual dismissal of “foreigners” mirrored the same dismissiveness I’d faced in boardrooms, in hospitals, in every corner of my life.
Hunter must have noticed my silence because he changed tack.
“Still,” he said, “you’ve got to admire them for their skill. That Rashford lad, for instance. Good player. And I’ll give him credit for feeding the kids during lockdown, but don’t you think he should stick to football? All this political stuff—it’s not what we pay him for.”
I turned to him, startled by the abruptness of his words. “You don’t think athletes have a responsibility to use their platform for good?”
“Maybe,” he said with a shrug. “But they’re not politicians. They should leave that to the experts. People don’t want to hear about politics when they’re watching a match. They want to escape all that.”
His words hung in the air, and I felt the weight of their implications pressing against my chest. I wanted to tell him that for people like me, there was no escaping it—that politics wasn’t something we could turn off like a football match. It was woven into the fabric of our lives, shaping the way we moved through the world.
But I didn’t. Instead, I said, “I think it’s brave. Using his voice to speak for those who can’t.”
Hunter nodded slowly, as if considering my words, but I could see the skepticism lingering in his eyes.
When we pulled up outside my flat, Hunter jumped out to retrieve my wheelchair. He unfolded it with the same ease as before, holding it steady as I transferred over.
“See you Wednesday,” he said, flashing me a quick smile.
I nodded, thanking him before wheeling myself toward the building. As the door closed behind me, I let out a long breath I hadn’t realized I’d been holding.
from a book I am writing called : The taxi diaries: A Black woman's ride through bigotry
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