HOWZAT

The racist remarks made by the black Crosses about white Noughts have been made in real life about black people in her hearing. All she has done is invert it, and play with the language: Crosses are called “daggers” as an insult; Noughts, “blankers”. She laughs at the embarrassment of a friend who talked about “playing the white man”, but underneath the laughter about finding a recipe for a pudding called “negerboll” — the name of a Swedish chocolate — there is sadness and anxiety.

“You’d think by the 21st century, we’d have got over all this. I hate the prejudice about asylum-seekers, how they’re vilified without understanding that for every one person who takes something off the state there are so many more who are genuinely persecuted.”

She is sensitive to the duty that writers owe the truth, and her anxiety at the way we accept the printed word as “veritas” has resulted in one of the most original features of Knife Edge: facsimile newspaper reports including photographs of black policemen and elite Crosses. Her world is one where people ascribe criminal traits and stupidity to white people and where some blacks are patronising and racist. Noughts & Crosses was ambiguous as to the colour of each race until halfway through, and Blackman got letters from readers confused at seeing people referred to as a “white bastard”.

“I’m a Star Trek girl, really. I grew up seeing a black actress playing Uhura on the bridge and all nationalities working together. The best science fiction is always about what’s going on in the present. American science fiction of a particular era was a direct attack on McCarthyism. What I want to show is that once you start hating people for being different, that hate never stops. Noughts & Crosses was a novel about love, Knife Edge is about hate, and the third novel is going to be about hope.”

When Blackman became a teenager she grew angry at the way she was treated, “until by 14 or 15 I was not going to walk down the street without an attitude. I refused to be bumped off the road and spat on. I’d only buy black papers and music. But there was one song I loved by Bobby Caldwell, called What You Won’t Do For Love. I loved it so much I bought the LP. And I thought, ‘My God, he’s white’. So then I thought, ‘Are you going to stop playing this record you love just because he’s white?’ It made me realise how ridiculous I was getting.”

Blackman’s passionate honesty goes hand-in-hand with a steely determination not to give ground on her artistic vision. Neither Noughts & Crosses nor Knife Edge has found a US publisher because, though there was considerable interest, 9/11 killed off the possibility of publishing any book describing how to become a terrorist. The film rights have been sold, but to a small independent company, “because the big studios wanted to make the Noughts Asian, not white ”.

As we talk about the positive changes in Hollywood’s portrayal of black people I notice that in all the time we have been sitting together in the hotel restaurant she has been ignored by the waiters. It’s as if Blackman, despite her vitality, elegance and intelligence, doesn’t exist.

But she does; and she will change the way our children see this world like nobody else.

Knife Edge by Malorie Blackman (Doubleday, £12.99; offer £10.39, plus £2.25 p&p)

‘The girl’s rhyme kept ringing in my ears . . .’

On our way to the cinema, we passed a small park with a children’s playground. Cara smiled as she watched the kids run around, screaming with laughter. There were brightly painted climbing frames on one side of the playground. One was a huge star shape made up of thick ropes attached to a steel framework, another was a blue and yellow helicopter shape, another was a red rocket shape. There were three swings, a roundabout and a see-saw. Four children were picking sides for an obstacle race around the climbing frames. One was a Nought, the other three were Crosses. And they were choosing who would be paired with who for the race. But they couldn’t decide.

“I know,” said the Nought girl. “Eenie, meenie, minie, mo. Catch a blanker by the toe. If he squeals, let him go. Eeenie, meenie, minie, mo. You’re on my side, Michael. Ready, steady, go!” And the girl and Michael held hands and raced off together, as did the other two. I watched as they all tried to negotiate their way up to the top of the star and back down again, each team still holding hands. And the girl’s rhyme kept ringing in my ears. How did she feel saying that rhyme? Did she even know what she was saying? I glanced at Cara. She was looking at the children, a strange expression on her face. She turned to me and gave a tentative smile. I didn’t smile back.

Extract from Knife Edge.

© Oneta Malorie Blackman 2004. Reprinted by permission of Random House Group Ltd

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