The Spider King's Daughter (4 page)

I didn’t become a hawker straight away. Six months after my father died, we moved to Mile 12 and Uncle Kayode, one of his friends, found me a place at a local school. He could not afford my private school fees nor could he find me a job if I had no SSCE results. The place at the government school was a compromise. ‘Manage it for two years,’ he said. ‘After you graduate, we’ll see what we can do.’

It was an all-boys school, old, prestigious, some famous Nigerians had been there in its glory days. During assembly I could not take my eyes off the crumbling buildings. In my first lesson, I used my lap for a desk and spent the whole hour straining to hear the teacher. Her voice was too quiet for the one hundred and twenty of us stuffed into that room.

I lasted three months. By that time, I was beginning to see that the largesse of my father’s friends would run out. It was one of my classmates that steered me to my current profession. He was bragging of a friend who made ‘good money’ from selling sweets on the road. He clammed up once I tried to find out more.

None of my classmates liked me. I was curt, I sneered at their grammar, I faked an American twang, anything to show I was different. At break time, instead of joining their football matches, I would wander to the edge of the playing fields and remember my old school where only twenty of us sat in a class with unbroken tables and chairs.

I blamed my father bitterly on those afternoons. He was too weak to tell his glamorous wife that he could not afford the gold she was so fond of and the annual trips abroad. I imagined him borrowing to feed her cravings for luxury, our cravings for luxury. There was a time Jọkẹ and I would only eat restaurant food. And then there were his relatives who were always at our house asking for money. Sometimes the same man would come three times in a week and each time he would leave with a brown envelope.

‘He’s my cousin,’ I heard him say to my mother once.

‘Is that why you had to give him all the money in the house?’

‘He needed it for his school fees.’

‘He’s been in that university for eight years now. What kind of degree is that?’

‘Darling, I’ve told you before. In my whole family, I am the most successful so I must give back the most.’

He must have been heavily in debt when he died. This was why it all fell apart so easily.

Since my classmate wouldn’t tell me how to become a hawker, I decided to find out for myself. Every morning I would drop Jọkẹ at school, pick a road at random and start a conversation with a hawker to find out where he got the goods. At first they mistrusted me. My pidgin was faltering; I spoke too loudly, enunciated too slowly. Some said I should go to the expensive Stop and Buy. ‘Everything we get,’ one said, ‘they also get am for there.’ I smiled at that. Even I was not so naive.

Eventually Wednesday, a Mile 12 hawker, told me the truth. They got the sweets from large wholesalers and took home only fifteen per cent of what they sold. When I first heard how paltry the commission was, I laughed and offended him. Surely, he had to be a little mad to work ten hours a day, seven days a week for a sum my mother used to spend on a packet of Kellogg’s Cornflakes.

I chose my road carefully. It wasn’t too small, it wasn’t too dirty, it had an adequate amount of traffic. What I failed to note was the type of traffic my seemingly perfect location had. It was a
danfo
route and not many people who had spare cash to buy sweets entered these cramped yellow and black buses.

My first mistake was forgivable. I was new to the job. I could change location. My second was more serious. I wouldn’t hawk. I could not overcome the indignity of shouting ‘Buy Mentos!’ to a road full of people. On the rare occasion someone beckoned, I would saunter over with a slight irritation in my face and I never, ever, ran. I would rather lose a customer than chase after him.

It was a woman in one of these
danfos
who pointed me in the right direction. She was sitting at the window seat with her head drooping out. When she saw me looking she smiled. Usually, when people wanted my attention they hissed. I shambled to her side.

‘Which sweet do you want?’

‘You should try. When I see you frowning under this sun I feel sorry for you.’

‘Pardon?’

‘Hawking like this won’t help you. Smile sometimes, come and stand on the road more often and try.’

She smiled again, this time a smaller, more natural smile, then traffic relented and her head was gone.

Later that day a man crooked his finger at me. Before I could reach him, the bus started moving. I turned to walk back to my place on the side of the road. I had tried. Then I turned back. The
danfo
was fifty metres ahead of me and it was gathering speed.

I ran.

Hurtling on to the highway with a clear stretch ahead of it, no traffic to slow it down, moving ten metres to my one step. I ran. Futile, pointless, impossible, you didn’t have to tell me any of this; the fact I could just see the number plate was enough. And then I ran some more. I ran after that bus like someone inside was going to buy my entire rack. I ran after the bus until I couldn’t see it any more.

I took home seventy-five naira that day. After chasing ten cars and selling five hundred naira’s worth of sweets, I could not even buy a loaf of bread. That night I worked out that I had to sell two thousand naira’s worth of product everyday to make hawking worth my while. I changed to a road with traffic lights to get a wider variety of customers. I added ten naira to the price if the customer was in a new Toyota; twenty if they were in a Mercedes. Still, even with sales more than trebled, I never took home more than four hundred naira.

I was about to tell Abikẹ about Aunty Precious and how she helped me when the driver returned with a mechanic. This mechanic charged her 1500 naira for a spanner twist and a few drops of engine oil. She didn’t bother to haggle though it was clear he was asking for at least triple the normal price. Is she really so naïve or was she just trying to impress me? I don’t like either answer.

Three weeks ago, I wouldn’t have believed I’d soon be sitting on a roadside talking to a hawker like an old friend. Yet here I was returning home after spending an hour with this boy, wishing my driver had stayed away longer. As we drove up to the entrance, Hassan became nervous. He is afraid of the two armed guards that stand in front of my gate, which is impenetrable to certain types of missile.

‘Please no let them point their gun at me.’

‘They wouldn’t dare with me here.’

The first guard swaggered to the car and flashed his torch at my driver’s face. Hassan shrank under the glare, his head almost touching the steering wheel.

‘Good evening, sah.’

How dare they bully my driver when they knew I was in the car? My window slid down.

‘Turn off that torch. What do you want?’

‘Why are you just coming back from school?’

‘Open the gate.’

His partner called from where he was standing. ‘You no go give us answer?’

‘Open this gate now.’

‘Your father said we should ask why you come late.’

‘You have asked me.’

The guard by my car spoke into his walkie-talkie and the gate rolled open.

He was asking about me because it was Wednesday. Wednesday is the only day my father will see petitioners. It is also by silent agreement the day we meet for sparring. It was clumsy of me to forget. I should have planned the breakdown for tomorrow.

‘Hassan, drop me in his study.’

Standing two storeys high, with a rooftop swimming pool, my father’s ‘study’ is not the expected room filled with books. He comes here to meet guests secretly. I am the only one of his children allowed inside. When I came to his actual study, Mr Dosunmu was standing outside the door.

‘Good evening, Abikẹ.’

I cannot pinpoint what Mr Dosunmu is to my father. Right-hand man would suggest
dependence. Maybe stooge. He looks like a stooge. Short and pot-bellied with a silent manner that makes him seem smaller.

‘He is in a meeting.’

Without knocking, I pushed the door open. My father bared his teeth when he saw me, the birthmark on his temple stretching with his lips.

‘This is my daughter Abikẹ.’

The man opposite him turned. When he nodded at me, I nodded back, holding his gaze. I have no respect for people who choose to play games with my father.

‘So we have finished our discussion for the day?’

‘But, Mr Johnson, what about—’

‘We have finished our discussion for the day. Leave anything extra with Dosunmu.’

My father stood and extended his hand.

‘I must say that—’

‘This has been a most pleasant meeting,’ my father completed. ‘You need say no more. Really.’

The man jerked upright. There was something in the ‘really’ that forbade discussion. They shook hands, my father’s hand doing all the gripping, the other hand barely participating. When he dragged his feet out, my father and I were left alone. I remained standing.

‘So, Abikẹ, where have you been?’

He knew.

‘That’s all you know about her? After an hour?’

‘Mr T, it might seem small to you but it’s quite important. She has a nice laugh so she must be a happy person and she’s seventeen so . . .’ I trailed off. ‘What kind of guy talks about himself for an hour? I wonder what she thinks of me. Next time—’

‘
If
there is a next time. She might be tired of you.’ He sounded almost annoyed.

‘Don’t worry. There will be a next time. How can she resist all my second-hand glory?’

‘Boy, you buy your clothes from Yaba. Third-hand is closer to the truth.’

‘I have to go. Aunty Precious will be waiting.’

I patted the cardboard by his hand and walked to the road that led to
Aunty Precious
BLESSED FOOD STORES
.

I entered the shop just under a year ago looking for a better deal. At first I tried to buy from my wholesaler to sell on at a profit but I was told my quantities were too small. So with ten months of savings, I left the warehouse and started my search for a shop owner who would split fifty per cent of their cost price and give me sixty per cent of the profit. After all, I would be the one running in the sun.

No one was interested. You had to be desperate to even consider such terms. For three weeks, I tramped through the streets of Lagos, starting with the largest retailers – where I was not even allowed to see the manager – and working my way down to the smallest shops that were little more than kiosks. None were desperate enough.

I wandered into
Aunty Precious
BLESSED FOOD STORES
by chance. It was a wonder I even noticed the squat building that had faded into the colour of the dust strip that encircled it. It had two storeys and, as was often the case, only the ground floor was a shop. Above, tenants aired themselves and their faded clothing on their balconies.

‘Hello?’

I stood at the doorway, blocking the sunlight and peering into the dim room. There was nobody at the till. I glanced at the four aisles of goods and the small freezer humming in the background. The place wasn’t dusty, or dirty or untidy. In fact, everything was neatly arranged, the products lined up in barrack-straight rows. Still you could tell business was slow.

‘Hello?’ I said again, walking to the end of the shop. The shelves were stocked with tinned food, detergent, toothpaste, bread, cereal and, against the wall, a freezer crammed with ice cream. In the last aisle, I saw a woman sound asleep on a stool. Her body sagged round the stool seat, allowing her to balance without leaning on anything. The hem of her starched
boubou
swept the floor, the skin of her round face relaxed around her jaws. On the white scarf wrapped around her head were the words ‘women’s prayer conference 2006’ printed in bold. I cleared my throat loudly and she opened eyes that were large with sleep.

‘You must be Aunty Precious.’

‘Yes. And who are you?’

‘I’m a hawker,’ I said, reducing my volume to match hers.

‘You don’t look like one.’

‘Yes and this is because, today, I come as something more than a hawker. I come as—’

‘If you’re here to sell me something let me remind you that you are in a shop.’

‘I know. And this is why I’m here because—’

‘And if you’ve come to buy anything from me, I’ll give you some advice. It’s cheaper at a wholesaler’s. Wait, I’ll write an address for you.’

When she stood, I saw she would have been petite if not for the weight that gathered round her hips. She walked to the front desk and wrote on a piece of paper.

‘Thank you very much. This is not what I came for,’ I said, tucking the slip into my pocket.

‘Then why are you here?’

‘I have a business proposal.’

‘Why didn’t you say so?’

I was well rehearsed by now. I had made my proposal almost ten times that day and each time it sounded more natural. I delivered my pitch with my hands behind my back, making eye contact half of the time.

‘And so,’ I said, rounding up, ‘this is why I know it would be in your best interest to become my partner.’

‘Why do I need you? How do you know I’m not happy with my profit?’

‘You might be happy but you’d be happier if you made more. Also, your business needs to be taken to the next level.’

‘Why do I need to be taken to the next level?’

‘Because you are not – are not maximising your potential.’

‘And how do you know this?’

‘Because:

‘There are few gaps on the shelves.

‘The products are too neatly arranged for people to have shopped here recently.

‘The floor is clean. Customers would have brought dirt in.’

She laughed, a low, throaty laugh that bore no relation to her appearance. ‘I’m impressed. I’d be even more impressed if there wasn’t a flyer in the window announcing the store is closing in two months.’

I walked outside the store and looked at the window. There it was. A large red poster saying in black block letters:
CLOSING IN TWO MONTHS
.

‘You’re a good boy,’ she said when I came back in. ‘As you
now
know, my shop is closing down. Neither of us can stop that from happening but I will hire you for the eight weeks I have left.’

‘Thank you. You won’t regret this.’

‘Eight weeks only. Is there anything you want to ask?’

‘Since the shop is well-stocked, why don’t I start hawking some of the things you have now? We can split the profits sixty–forty. Of course you would be taking the sixty per cent.’

If she didn’t agree, it would be the end. No one was going to consider my offer. I knew that now. The wholesalers wouldn’t take me back. I would go home and spend my savings on Dettol, soap, cereal and bread. In fact I didn’t have to go home. I could spend them here.

‘How about you take fifty per cent since you’re the one running on the road.’

_{* * *}

I was thinking about this first meeting when I arrived at the store today. Eleven months later it’s still open. For this I must take some credit, though the office that opened down the road also has something to do with its solvency. I read the sign outside and as usual, it made me smile. On one side was written in pink, italic letters:
Aunty Precious
and on the other side in cramped block letters:
BLESSED FOOD STORES
. Coming from one direction, you could be walking past a beauty salon or, when it was night and the script blazed into the dark neighbourhood, a brothel. Coming the other way, it was a shop that sold olive oil and locust paste.

When I walked in, Aunty Precious was sobbing at the till and a strange ox of a man was on his knees. They both looked at me. Her face was tear-streaked, her eyes swollen into two red moons. The strange man looked like he was about to cry.

‘Emeka, you have to leave,’ Aunty Precious said to him.

‘But—’

‘Please leave me.’

‘Pre—’

‘I’m sorry, sir, but madam said you have to go.’

He looked at Aunty Precious. She turned her face. When he walked out with his eyes fixed to the floor, she put her head down on the till and continued sobbing.

‘Aunty Precious, what’s wrong?’