لخّصلي

At a certain point I ventured into the kitchen to get two beakers of Ribena. Instead of seeing my mother bent over her books, earplugs in, oblivious to me, I found her gazing 5 out of the window, her face wet with tears. When she saw me she jumped a little in her skin, as if 1 were a ghost.
They're here,' she said, almost to herself. I looked over to where she was looking and saw my father crossing the estate with two young white people trailing behind him, a boy of about twenty and a girl who looked to be fifteen or sixteen.
10 Who's here?'
'Some people your father wants you to meet.' [..]
They were a sight. Seen up close the boy had shaggy blond hair and a beard, he wore dirty, ugly, old-looking clothes, his jeans were patched and he had lots of rock-band badges pinned to his frayed canvas rucksack: he seemed to be shamelessly advertising 15 his poverty. The girl was equally peculiar but neater, truly 'white as snow', as in a fairy tale, with a severe black bob cut straight across her forehead and diagonally high at her ears. She was dressed all in black, with a big black pair of Dr Martens on her feet, and she was petite, with delicate features - excepting a large, indecent bosom which she seemed to be trying to obscure with all this black. [...]
20 The white teenagers sloped into our small living room. My father asked them to sit, but only the girl did. I was alarmed to see my mother, whom ordinarily I knew to be a completely non-neurotic person, dithering anxiously, stumbling over her words. The boy - his name was lohn - would not sit down. When my mother tried to encourage him to sit down he wouldn't look at or reply to her, and then my father said something uncharac-25 teristically sharp, and we all watched as John marched back out of the flat.
I ran to the balcony, and saw him down there on the communal grass, not going anywhere - he had to wait for the girl - stamping around in a small circle, crunching the hoar frost underfoot.
This left the girl. Her name was Emma. When I came back in my mother told me to sit 3 next to her. 'This is your sister, said my father and went to make a cup of tea.
My mother stood by the Christmas tree, pretending to do something useful with the lights. The girl turned to me, and we stared frankly at each other. As far as I could see we had no features in common at all, the whole thing was ridiculous, and I could see that this Emma person thought exactly the same of me. Apart from the comicallv obvious 35 fact that I was black and she was white, I was big-boned and she was narrow, I was tall for mv age and she was short for hers, my eyes were big and brown and hers were narrow and green. But then, at the same moment, I felt we both saw it; the downturned mouth, the sad eyes. I don't remember thinking logically, I didnt ask myself, for example, who o father. My head wouldn't go that far round. Lonly thought.
the mother of this Emma was or how and when she could possibly have known my