A Bit of Difference (32 page)

She wonders if she can live with a man who is this quiet, a man who was forthcoming only when the prospect of sex was imminent.

“You think my brother was right that men are incapable of monogamy?”

“You want an honest answer?”

“Yes.”

“Don't ask me, then.”

She pokes her tongue at him. She is not as anxious as she was in her twenties and is less vulnerable to being hurt.

Lanre once called her a manhater, but she genuinely liked men. Her friction with Lanre began when he sensed she no longer looked up to him, but it wasn't personal. It was only a part of Lanre's boyishness she stopped admiring. She never favored girls. She just gave the impression she did. It was clear when she reached puberty that she had to choose what team she was on, his or hers. It wasn't that her team always played fair, but the older she got, the less tolerant she was of his team's unfair tactics. Was it simply their way? Or did the rules condone them? She didn't know, but she had to develop her own method of defense fast, especially as her team seemed less unified and prepared.

“Most men can't decide,” Wale says, unexpectedly. “You have to decide to be with one woman, that's all.”

“It's the same for women,” she says. “We just learn earlier on that there are consequences.”

“Hm.”

“I believe that love, trust and faith begin with a choice.”

“Is that why you're still single?” he asks.

“Why? Something must be wrong with me?”

“That's not what I said.”

“I should be asking you the same question, since you have more choices.”

“Actually,” he says, “it's not that great to have more choices. You meet a woman and you want to get to know her, and already she's planning a wedding. Even your family is planning a wedding. No one thinks you should be single as a man because you have more choices.”

“Aw,” she says, unsympathetically.

“It's true. And it's worse when you're a widower. Six months after I lost my wife and my family was trying to get me married. My mother suggested I get married just to have someone to take care of Moyo. I was the one changing her nappies and feeding her, but I wasn't supposed to. To this day, I can't be with someone without people saying how relieved they are that she will have a mother.”

She rethinks the idea that his dating life as a single man is better than hers.

He says Moyo wants to go toboarding school in England next year because her cousin is going. The school she attends in Abuja is a Jesuit school. Students perform well on foreign examinations like O and A levels, SATs and the Baccalaureate. They end up going to universities abroad. He went to International School Ibadan and University of Ibadan before Columbia University, but education in Nigeria is not as it used to be.

“Boarding school in England,” she says, uncertainly.

She remembers arriving at Heathrow Airport and being questioned over the validity of her student visa, walking through Nothing to Declare and hoping that customs officers wouldn't search her luggage. She was always nervous about having enough taxi fare and it was disconcerting to see so many black people in London sporting dreadlocks and walking fast. Back home, walking fast and dreadlocks were signs of madness.

“Things have changed,” he says. “It's not like before. There are so many Nigerian kids in school there now. They have cell phones and they can text and call home whenever they want.”

“It's a new millennium,” she says.

Nigerian students in England are definitely more integrated now. Whenever she sees them in one group or another, they look like Benetton adverts. She watches them with admiration.

“She's excited,” he says. “It will prepare her for universities overseas. Universities here are a mess. I hire graduates who can't construct a basic letter. I spend half my time training them and the worst part is, you finish training them and they leave. We're always recruiting new staff. It's never ending.”

“That's one area I could go into,” she says.

“Recruiting?”

“No, training. I have been around enough businesses and organizations to know how they should work.”

“Good idea,” he says. “You will have competition, but in this place, even trainers need training.”

He tells her about his staff's incompetence and lack of professionalism. She is convinced he is exaggerating to amuse her. Recently, he had to sack a waiter for pestering his guests for tips, and he once caught a housekeeper sleeping in the room she was meant to be cleaning.

Deola feels more relaxed with him, but later, as he walks her to her car, she gets self-conscious again. She makes a move to hug him and their ears collide.

“Listen,” he says, stepping back. “I'm glad about this. At first I was a bit… but I'm glad now.”

“Glad?” she asks.

“Aren't you?”

“Glad isn't the word,” she says.

“Can you think of another?”

She searches the sky, which has since cleared, as if it might collapse on them.

“Terrified,” she says.

“Of what?”

“Can I do it on my own? How will I cope?”

She doesn't know where she stands with him, other than being the accidental mother of his child.

“You're not on your own,” he says.

“I know married couples,” she says. “They're not compatible.”

“Don't worry. We will be fine.”

He holds her face as if he is tired of talking and she chooses to believe him.

For Good

T
he rainy season is almost over. She calls Wale before she leaves, to say goodbye. He flies back to Abuja on the day of her return flight. As usual, she is eager to leave Lagos at the end of her stay, but the moment she arrives in London, she begins to miss Lagos.

It is autumn and her flat is cold. She wraps herself up in her duvet, contemplating the coming months. At least she won't have to answer intimate questions. At least her mother will be spared the embarrassment of having to tell family friends she is pregnant. At least she will be able to turn her attention to becoming a mother. It is a voluntary exile, after which she will return to Lagos. She will not miss London, but she will miss her flat.

As her sitting room heats up she calls Tessa and Bandele. She expects Tessa's reaction when she tells Tessa how she managed to deflect calls for a family meeting.

“Gosh, why don't they all just sod off?” Tessa asks.

“It's family,” Deola says. “What can one do?”

“I suppose.”

Tessa has given up control over her wedding plans. She says Peter has asked his father to be his best man.

“All I need now is for him to say his dad's organizing his buck's night,” she says.

“With strippers,” Deola says.

“I can't believe you're going back to Nigeria.”

“I'm going home!”

“But you've been here so long.”

“I'm not getting anywhere, Tess.”

“But you never said.”

“Because you wouldn't understand.”

“Why wouldn't I understand?”

“You just wouldn't.”

“But you never gave me a chance to.”

“It's not about you, Tessa.”

“I didn't say it was.”

“Just admit you wouldn't understand.”

“There are good and bad people everywhere!”

“There's also ‘your people' and ‘my people,' and if you choose to ignore that, there's no point in us getting into an argument.”

“Fine. I give up, then.”

“Thanks. That's all I ask.”

“I tell you what,” Tessa says. “If you do end up marrying this man, think very carefully before you commit yourself to a wedding. It's rubbish, the white dress and everything. It's completely commercialized now. You should see how much the flowers are costing us. What a nightmare. I can't believe people do this in Nigeria as well.”

Deola can't believe anyone would want to be married after the acrimony she has witnessed, but she wouldn't mind a civil ceremony. Her lack of imagination is inexplicable, coming from a country where she has seen so many ways of cohabiting, a country where she could have been handed over to a man at the age of twelve, under the guise of respectability.

She describes the traditional engagement ceremony Jaiye went through a week before her church wedding. Funsho's family wore red
aso ebi
and hers were in blue. They sat on opposite sides of the garden under canopies. Funsho arrived with his relatives and they were given the usual snub and made to wait outside the gate for almost an hour. When her father consented, Funsho and his entourage were finally allowed in. Funsho prostrated on the grass in his white lace
agbada
and everyone cheered. Jaiye was indoors for most of the ceremony, which alternated between prayers and sexual innuendo, then Jaiye came outside, led by her own entourage. She knelt before Funsho, chose the Bible over the bag of money and everyone cheered again.

The ceremony went on for over four hours. Their house was packed with guests. Relatives Deola had never seen in her life wandered into her bedroom to ask for safety pins and extra plates. Jaiye changed outfits for the night party. She must have worn about ten outfits that week. After her church wedding and reception, there was another night party at home, then she was taken to Funsho's house, where Funsho's people removed her shoes and poured water from a calabash on her feet. That was followed by more prayers and yet another night party that went on until after midnight.

“I'd hang myself if I had to go through that,” Tessa says.

Tessa's father will walk her down the aisle. He will not remember her wedding and is beginning to forget who she is. He might eventually have to go to a home, but her mother is refusing to consider that option.

“It's getting harder on her,” Tessa says. “And there's only so much I can do. It's awful, Alzheimer's. It's everywhere, and it will only get worse as people live longer and longer. There's no support here. I'm sure you have a lot more support in Nigeria, with extended families.”

Deola isn't sure. She is loath to idealize Nigerian culture. Her family is not typical, but is hardly unique. She imagines that if people are incapacitated in their old age, and they have the means, they are treated better. If they don't have the means, they are likely to be seen as burdens. But she can't think of many Nigerians her age who have both parents alive and she can't name one Nigerian her age who has a grandparent alive.

“People don't live that long back home,” she says. “Our lifespan is getting shorter and shorter.”

“We can't win,” Tessa says, “either way.”

z

Bandele has never been interested in her womanly problems. He grunts as she tells him about her trip to Lagos and when she is through asks, “Hey, you know when you got tested, how long was it before you found out the result?”

“The same day.”

“Yeah?”

“Yes. Why?”

“I'm thinking of having one. I haven't had one in ages—what with everything else I've had to deal with. But it's been bothering me ever since you said it. I should do something about it, shouldn't I?”

She is more protective of him. She wants to tell him off for being irresponsible, but she imagines what it is like to have to be tactical about the most ordinary conversations. Perhaps he has even lost friends. It still bothers her that he deceived her, but perhaps she knew all along that he was keeping a secret. She was aware of his manner of steering the focus away from himself. His charades of being prickly were marvelously timed.

“Anytime you're ready,” she says. “I'll take you there.”

“Thanks. I couldn't handle it otherwise. You know how you can be close to someone, but they don't understand why things are different for you because you're Nigerian.”

“I know,” she says.

She can't promise he will be fine. She couldn't even predict the outcome of his literary competition. She won't mention prayer. He might take offense. He thinks only thick people pray.

“We'll go to Paris,” she says. “After it's over.”

Paris, she thinks. How ridiculous, but he doesn't have a retort.

“How's Ola?” he asks.

“His name is not Ola.”

“You haven't said much about him.”

“I've mentioned his name.”

“When?”

“Think!”

“It's confusing! You keep going on about all these inconsequential people! Ola, Bola, Fola!”

“What is his name, Bandele?”

“I'm just saying.”

“I knew you weren't listening.”

He laughs. “I can always tell when you've been to Nigeria.”

“How?”

“The hostility quotient goes right up.”

All she remembers is that she was loved there and surrounded by people she knew, Olas, Bolas and Folas.

She reads him the telephone number of the clinic and after she hangs up begins to research business training on the Internet.

An e-mail comes from Kate, who has seen her report on the malaria NGO. Kate considers her criticism of LINK's vetting policies “a gross betrayal,” to Deola's surprise. She says it makes her and Graham look bad. Deola never thought Kate was capable of being confrontational. She skims the rest of the e-mail, her eyes resting on phrases like “I fought for those programs,” “Graham was reluctant to offer you the position” and “We were both concerned that you were so eager to accept a salary that was clearly not commensurate with your experience.”

To Deola, the e-mail reads like, “Deliveries are through the side entrance.”

She types:
You stupid cow.

She hits delete.

She types:
Evidently, I did not know you as well as I thought I did.

She hits delete.