A Bit of Difference (28 page)

“I hated Harrow! What are you talking about?”

“But you act as though going to a school like that gives you a leg up in life, and I'm not sure it does.”

“Well, I'm sure. I'll have you know I've been stopped by the police before.”

She imagines him in Soho or somewhere, the police mistaking him for a rent boy.

“Not that,” he says. “I went for a walk in Belgravia. I'd not been there in a while. I just wanted to see the house. A policeman stopped me before I got there and questioned me. I said ‘I live here.' He didn't believe me. I called home. My parents were around. I was so sure they would deny I was their son, but they didn't.”

Would his parents disown him if they knew he was gay or would they just pretend not to know?

He stretches. She wants to tell him he is brave and their friendship has not changed, but he will only accuse her of being trite.

“Are you tired?” she asks.

“A bit.”

He is crankier when he is tired. She walks to the back of his chair, puts her arm around him and holds her breath against his cigarette fumes. His stubble scratches her.

“You know, I quite liked the idea of having a grumpy writer friend, but I think having a gay grumpy writer friend is much cooler.”

“We won't be friends for much longer if you make fatuous pronouncements like that.”

She laughs. He is too mean-spirited to be attractive, but he was always there as a last resort, someone to flirt with.

“I'll leave you be,” she says.

He pats her hand. “You treat me like an invalid. I just hope having this baby will cure you of your need to mother me.”

“Misanthrope.”

“Can you blame me?”

“No. I have been pissed off with people for years.”

“You? What for?”

She takes a moment to think. It is not a confession she is proud of.

“I can't live up to their expectations. Why should they live up to mine?”

z

Kate is more taken aback than Graham when she tells them she is leaving. They meet in Graham's office this time. She and Kate are seated opposite Graham and his desk separates him from them. This was exactly how they conducted her interview before they offered her the job. During the interview, Graham asked why she wanted the job. Deola said she was looking for a job that meant something to her, which was true, but she never expected them to hire her after an answer like that. Graham was impressed she went to boarding school. She lied that she was on a sports scholarship. He asked what sport and she said, “Um, the javelin.” She would have added another sport, but she was not sure if it was the “shot put” or “short put.”

Graham's office is full of souvenirs like clay bowls and carvings. She couldn't stop looking at them during the interview and she was not sure if they calmed her down or put her off. Even back then, she knew Graham would prefer the most European of African countries, like South Africa and Kenya. She knew she would stand a better chance with him if she presented herself as an African in need. She also knew she did not want the job. Her hesitation over the “shot put” clarified that. She'd spoken English all her life and she was still confused about basic words. What was the point of speaking English? What was the point of working for an organization that hired Africans like herself, who, in the process of being refined, could no longer think for themselves?

As an auditor, she can cope with her clients' habits. She doesn't have to be with them for long. It is not the same with the people she has to see every day at work. She never thought she would grow fond of Kate and Graham, and now that she has told them she is leaving, she realizes she is. She tells them how much her trip to Nigeria woke her up to the fact that she misses home and she ought to go back for good instead of contributing to the brain drain. Even to her own ears she sounds fake and she is tired of rounding her vowels. Rounding her vowels hurts her mouth. She wonders what would happen if Nigerians refused to speak phonetics for one day. Would their worlds fall apart? Would they realize that it would be just as absurd for them, as Nigerians, to speak in Chinese accents to keep up with the direction in which the world was going?

“Is there anything we can do to make you change your mind?” Kate asks.

“Thanks,” Deola says, “I've thought long and hard about this and I'm so sorry to let you down, with the Africa Beat launch coming up and the business with Dára.”

Graham intends to drop Dára as a spokesperson. He predicts the charges against Dára will also be dropped and Kate is sure Dára's popularity will increase. To Deola, he's just another African who has been singled out for recognition and blown out of proportion. He may look as if he is being favored, but he is being used. So long as he continues to make money for the people who discovered him, they will worship him.

“Do you have something lined up in Nigeria?” Kate asks.

“Not right now.”

“If there's anything we can do to support you, let us know. Graham? We may not be working with Dára anymore, but we have worked with Deola and we still can. Yeth?”

Graham blushes. “Well, let's not make commitments we can't keep. I'm sure Delia has the ways and means where she's going.”

He is suspicious, as he was when she said the javelin was her sport. Does he sense that she is not to be trusted? Does he sense that she can sit comfortably with him, laugh with him, but what she has is an astounding indifference to his opinion that began when she first set eyes on him and heard the shutters of his mind click?

“I'd appreciate any help you can give,” she says.

She is within her six-month probation period, so she submits a letter of resignation giving two weeks' notice. Back in her office, she makes an appointment to see her GP and decides on her order of phone calls. She will call Ivie first, then Wale, then Aunty Bisi, who is the only one qualified to break the news to her mother. It crosses her mind that she could lie that she was artificially inseminated, which would be easier to explain. She would rather her mother doesn't think she is capable of having premarital sex, let alone around her father's memorial. She also has a superstitious moment when she blames Kate and Anne for jinxing her by talking about pregnancy, but that passes. She gets back to the practical considerations. What will Lanre and Jaiye think? She hopes Jaiye won't regard her as careless about sex and Lanre once said girls who got pregnant had the same dumb look about them. That was a while back and he may have just been trying to scare her, but as usual, his opinion stuck. It will be hard to tell Lanre and Jaiye. She is used to letting her mother down, but not her brother and sister.

Sidestep

S
he takes an afternoon flight from Gatwick Airport that arrives in Lagos in the evening. The time difference with London is only an hour, yet she has morning sickness after the plane lands. Murtala Mohammed International Airport is not a place to be with erratic hormones. The heat is followed by an obstacle race for Passport Control, by which time there is a delay at the luggage carousel.

The line at Customs is shorter and faster than the departure line at Gatwick Airport, but Deola approaches the only female customs officer and asks if she can move to the front. The officer continues to keep an eye on other passengers.

“It doesn't mean,” she says. “It doesn't mean because you are pregnant, madam. You know dat if you are in de UK, you cannot behave like dis. You see all dis people waiting? Ehen! So you must obey de rules in your own country. People don't obey de rules. Dat's what's spoiling Nigeria.
Oya
, pass.”

She ushers Deola through as a man protests. Deola ignores him and almost wheels her luggage over his shoes when he steps out of the line. The customs officer explains that she is pregnant.

“And so?” he says. “Even if she is Mother Mary, what is my concern?”

Ivie is waiting on the other side of the doors. She is dressed in a
boubou
and towers above the crowd.

“Coz, coz,” she says.

Deola hugs her. “I feel sick.”

“Don't worry, I'll get you out of here.”

Ivie navigates her through the crowd. It is dark outside. The usual touts approach them. Deola has never understood why they are called touts: they are unlicensed cab drivers. One reaches for her suitcase and Ivie calmly says, “Get away from there. Who asked you to touch that?”

The tout retreats, smiling and scratching his head. His face is shiny and the heels of his shoes are worn down.

Ivie came to the airport in one of Omorege's cars. In the dark, all Deola notices about the car is that it is spacious and the air conditioner works. She settles in the backseat and unbuttons her trousers to relieve her nausea as Ivie gives the driver instructions. She is glad to be back home where she knows people, but her plans are more convoluted as a result. Her mother and Aunty Bisi think she is arriving tomorrow. Ivie will take her home in the morning, but tonight, will drop her at Wale's hotel, so she can speak to him beforehand.

When she called to tell him she was pregnant, he said, “Wow,” in the same way he might say “Hell.” He asked, “Are you sure?” and she said, “Why would I call if I wasn't?” He offered to meet her at the airport and she told him it wasn't necessary. She called Aunty Bisi afterward. Aunty Bisi said, “Don't worry, I will handle your mother. I won't tell her until the day before you arrive, otherwise she will get upset and start harassing you and you don't want that. Leave her to me. She will have to accept what has happened. There is nothing we can do about it anyway, and she has been very worried about you. I think it is a blessing, but you know your mother, she likes her niceties.”

Aunty Bisi uses incorrect words that are somehow appropriate. By niceties, she means a civil marriage and children born within wedlock. She was a child of the sixties and they got divorced whenever they pleased. Polygamy worked in their favor. Whatever permissiveness they were up to, they could easily say, “But we're African. One man, one wife is colonial.” Aunty Bisi once admitted she never got married because she didn't want a husband always around and irritating her. She doesn't live with Hakeem's father. She has her house and he and his wives have their compound. She calls him “Sir” and refers to him as “Daddy.” She is perfectly respectable. Still, she would expect Deola to go straight to her mother's house and arrange a family meeting involving Wale's family, but Deola is not ready for that.

“How now?” Ivie asks, patting her thigh.

Ivie's reaction was the funniest. “Are you sure you didn't trap him?” she'd asked.

“Much better,” Deola says.

She focuses on the headrest in front of her. She cannot yet look out of the window, but she is aware of the shadows and lights they pass, the silhouettes of buildings and palm trees. Engines roar and horns go off. She can smell exhaust fumes and each bump on the way ends up in her temples.

“Did you hear about Jaiye?” she asks.

“I heard,” Ivie says.

Jaiye has gone to Jamaica with a couple of her girl friends, according to Aunty Bisi, and has left Lulu and Prof with her mother. Funsho is in Johannesburg again. He is threatening to move out when he returns. Jaiye is refusing to accept any phone calls meanwhile. She wants a separation without family interference. Deola was sad to hear the news, but she is pleased Jaiye is taking charge. Lanre would want her to do the same. “You have to be tough,” Lanre used to say. “You have to know how to defend yourself.” He meant physically.

“Have you heard from her?” Deola asks.

“I haven't,” Ivie says, “but I think everyone should leave her alone. One has to draw the line with family. That's what I did and I advise you to do the same. Look at me. My mother was pressuring me to go overseas for infertility treatments. Before I knew it, everyone in the family was saying to me, ‘Go overseas for infertility treatments.' I thought, these infertility treatments, are they free overseas? Do they think I can afford them? Or do they think Omorege, who has triplets—and you know how the triplets came about—wants to hear anything about infertility treatments?”

Deola raises her hand reluctantly to slap Ivie's. Ivie and her mother are alike once they get going.

“I've told my mother,” Ivie says, “anyone who wants me to born
pikin
should volunteer her womb. None of them is paying my salary.”

“I have never been out of work for more than a month,” Deola says. “I don't know what I'm going to do.”

“Don't worry,” Ivie says. “You'll find something. This is Lagos.”

The driver slows down as they approach a traffic jam. The change in motion reminds Deola of the dreams she has had of late, where her car brakes fail or she misses trains at stations or she stumbles. She is able to look out of the window once the car is stationary. They are near Oshodi Market. Street hawkers are selling their wares by kerosene light. Some walk between cars, tooting horns. Bus conductors shout out destinations as people scramble to climb in. Taxi drivers stop to pick up and drop off passengers. It is past eight o'clock and thousands of commuters are still trying to get home. It could be daytime in Lagos, but for the indigo sky.

z

They get to the hotel and Ivie, who says she will tell Wale off when she meets him can't open her mouth to talk when he appears at the reception. Her ability to exonerate men and elders is incredible. To show solidarity, she looks around as if she expects to see rats scurrying from corner to corner and gives Wale a limp handshake. He wears an
adire
tunic and trousers and has recently had a haircut. Despite her nausea, Deola still finds him attractive.

“Is the room ready?” he asks the receptionist, who confirms it is.

The receptionist seems to be aware that Deola is not a regular guest. Wale calls someone else to take her suitcase to her room.