A Bit of Difference (34 page)

“He sounded gay.”

“He sounded English.”

“Is he Nigerian?”

“Why? Are you interested?”

He smiles. “Sorry.”

“It's all right,” she says, shaking her head. “When did you arrive?”

“This morning.”

“Where are you staying?”

“A hotel.”

“A hotel where?”

“In Bayswater.”

She never thought she would have to humble herself.

“You could have stayed with us.”

“Us?” he asks.

Again, that quick inspection of her flat. Where does he think these men are hiding? On her ceiling? His puzzlement turns to remorse when he realizes what she means. He reaches for her, but she lifts her hand as if his might burn her.

“What?” he says. “I can't hold your hand?” “No.”

“Why not?”

“Because it belongs to me.”

“African woman,” he says, “your trouble is too much.”

He presses his hand to her belly. She has forgotten how sensual he is and she doesn't stop him. He traces the dark line from her navel down. Her desire for him overwhelms her. Now he holds her and she abandons her misgivings for his warmth.

“Is there a pharmacy around?” he asks.

“Why?”

“I don't have anything on me.” “No more pharmacies.”

“After all you've been through?”

“You're as paranoid as I am. I can safely say that.”

He ruffles her hair. In her bedroom, she turns on her CD player. She still owns one and Bandele may not appreciate her
Ballads
CD, but she is sure Wale will. It has other songs, like Womack and Womack's “Baby, I'm Scared of You,” Patti Labelle and Grover Washington, Jr.'s “The Best Is Yet to Come,” Brenda Russell's “It's Something” and Luther Vandross's version of “If Only for One Night.”

Wale sits on her bed and he tries to disguise his impatience as she makes him sit opposite her, but she has no remorse. Where did it get her when he led? He shifts closer, looking unsure about this maneuver until he is inside her. His hands stray to her thighs and she pats his stomach.

“You have no meat on you.”

“People keep telling me I need a wife to make me fatter.”

“You need someone. Your crotch is going gray.”

“From experience.”

“I have questions for you.”

“What questions?”

“Has anyone ever told you you look Hausa?”

“I am Hausa.”

“What!”

“My grandfather was. My mother's maiden name is Sanusi. Why?”

“Oh God, don't tell me you're a bloody mullah.”

“Please, don't ruin this.”

She claps. “I should have known. A Muslim terrorist. I want immediate answers.”

“Using torture tactics?”

“If necessary.”

He winces. “Go on then, ask.”

z

He is not ideal. She has to coax him to talk, and he snores in the early hours, but the next morning, he follows her to the bathroom when she throws up and watches her wash her face and brush her teeth. As she pees, he hurries out, covering his nose. She laughs, though her pee hurts. He makes her toast and burns it. She has to go back to bed after eating the toast. He leaves the flat to buy newspapers and shaving paraphernalia. She falls asleep and wakes up when she hears her radio. She doesn't listen to the radio and she can't believe the number of newspapers he has bought. After he takes a shower, he lies on her couch in his boxer shorts and reads them. She sits on the carpet beside him wrapped in her dressing gown.

His mother is a Muslim. He was raised as a Christian because his father was. He went to church and to the mosque, celebrated Muslim and Christian holidays, as she did. He
speaks Yoruba and Hausa. He thinks her mother was lenient. His mother was strict: Nigerian strict. Nigerian strict meant that you didn't dare misbehave in the first place. He never resented his mother's strictness, but he is thankful for it now. He was eight when a boy called him a bastard. The boy didn't mean it literally but he beat the boy up. He took a trip with his father only once, when he was about eleven. They traveled from Lagos to Sokoto and he began to see how small Nigeria really is. He wants a son. He will be a present father, not like his. Moyo will testify what a pain he is. She is the only reason he was (he changes “am” to “was”) afraid to die.

She says if they have a son, she will call him Babajide, to honor his father and hers. He agrees that Jide is a solid traditional name.

On the front cover of the newspaper he is reading is a headline about soldiers who were killed in Iraq by friendly fire. Deola has not thought about the war in a while and all she wants is to see Wale's face again. Her skin smells of his sandalwood. There isn't a part of her body his hands and tongue have not touched. She tasted herself on his lips and fell asleep with him inside her. He told her she is beautiful. No man has ever described her as beautiful. They might say she is attractive.

“You don't read books?” she asks, still looking at the newspaper headline.

“Hardly ever.”

“How come?”

“I just don't.”

“I can't be with someone who doesn't read books.”

“Do manuals count?”

“No.”

“I can't be with an Apple-user, then,” he says.

She tosses the newspaper and lies on top of him. He shouts as his glasses topple off and holds her differently, with less urgency. He pats her when he becomes uncomfortable. She gets up and moons him when he continues to read. She, too, is used to being alone. She goes to her bathroom and sees he has left her toilet seat up. She will let him off, just this once. She lowers her toilet seat and removes his shaving cream from her sink.

z

He will be in London for ten days. He doesn't want to go to Paris for a weekend. He prefers to go to Barcelona. She agrees to go. She has never been there. In the afternoon, when her nausea subsides, she drives to his
hotel, The Hilton in Hyde Park, which is nearer Queensway than Bayswater tube station. She parks in a Pay and Display on a street parallel to Bayswater and they walk there. She can't think of anywhere else in the world where a five-minute walk can lead her past Chinese, Japanese, Italian, Lebanese, Indian and Persian restaurants. There are people smoking hookahs, Russian shops, Thai and Swedish massage parlors, newsagents with Arabic newspapers. Why did she think she would not miss London?

They eat at a Chinese restaurant and through the window look like one of those annoying couples, leaning close to each other. He insists on keeping his room. He says he will overstay his welcome, sensing this about her, but he promises to come back tomorrow. She promises not to interrogate him again and drives back to her flat fighting her loneliness.

Passing Maida Vale, she decides to stop at Subu's place to tell her what has happened. She has not seen Subu in a while and she regrets their past frictions. When did that begin? Not when Subu gave her life to Christ, surely. She was happy that Subu could. So when exactly did that change? When her father died, she remembers. When the idea that her father deserved to be in Hell became repulsive to her. Her father never talked about holy books or prophets, but he was a believer. She is a believer and she has looked to traffic lights for assurance, paper floating on air and the endless possibilities of creation, billions of people on earth and no two are exactly alike or share the same experience.

In Maida Vale, the streets are wider and cleaner. The dry cleaners, real estate agents, hair salons, restaurants and bars are more up-market than Willesden Green's.

Subu's Audi is parked outside her block, which means she is back from church. Her flat is on the first floor of a two-story building with a basement. High steps lead up to the front door and an intercom system. The front yard is paved. Deola parks across the road near a telephone box and calls from her cell phone.

She is nervous. Subu will not judge her directly, but she might say everyone is a sinner.

“Shoe Boo.”

“Deola?”

“Are you at home?”

“Yes.”

“I'm outside. Can I come in?”

Subu pauses. “Okay.”

Deola wonders why there was a delay in Subu's response. Perhaps Subu has a new boyfriend in her church family. She gets out of her car and runs across the road. It is too cold to walk. She does not ring the bell and she hears Subu's footsteps on the staircase before Subu opens her door. Subu's hair weave is pulled back. She is in a black suit, which she must have worn to church.

“How now?” Deola asks. “When did you get back from Shanghai?”

“I've been back for a while,” Subu says.

Subu's flat smells of incense and candles. It is full of electronic gadgets Deola can't identify, except the surround sound system. Subu has nothing hanging on her walls because she doesn't want to damage them and devalue her property. She only reads Christian books and there is a wooden shelf of them, by Joel Osteen and T. D. Jakes. Her shelf, her tables and the steel surfaces of her gadgets are crammed with saint candles, novena cards, holy water bottles and incense sticks.

“Is it Lent?” Deola asks.

“Lent is next year. My mother is here.”

“Your mother is in town?”

“She came in last week. She's in the kitchen.”

They go there as Deola tries to recall if Subu mentioned her mother was coming to London. No, Subu's mother was meant to come at Christmastime. That was the last she heard.

Not until she sees Subu's mother standing at the kitchen sink does she remember that this is exactly the scene Subu described to her: her mother coming to pray for her. Deola's legs give way and it looks as if she is kneeling.

“Adeola,” Subu's mother says. “Is this you?”

Subu's mother is frail with copper-colored skin. Her hands are arthritic. She hugs Deola and asks about her family and work. She has been steaming
moin moin
. Subu begins to peel them out of wrapped foil paper.

“Come and eat,” Subu's mother says.

“Thank you, ma,” Deola says, though she is full.

“I was just asking Subu about you. If you are married and have any children.”

“No, ma.”

“You, too?”

Subu arranges the
moin moin
on a plate. Deola keeps glancing at her. Could Subu have been tested? Could Subu have tested positive?

“You young women,” Subu's mother is saying. “You work too hard.”

“You worked hard in your day,” Subu says.

“It was different,” her mother says. “Now, you are overseas on your own with no family to guide you. But God will guide you. You will have all you want, a good husband and children.”

“It is well,” Subu says.

Deola rubs her hands together as if she is washing them. She could be panicking unnecessarily. She can't even remember what she came for. The smell of the incense and candles is overpowering. The table hides her trembling. In time, she repeats to herself, in time, but it is unbearable to believe.

“What happened with your flat in Shanghai?” she asks.

Subu smiles. “Man proposes, God disposes.”

Deola has always thought the saying should be the other way around. She picks up the used foil wraps and empties them in the bin as she regains her sense of calm and shoos her fears away. She is familiar with breaking bread. She can always rely on that.

“How are you?” she asks Subu.

“We're fine,” Subu says. “We're here.”

Acknowledgments

Many thanks to my husband Gboyega Ransome-Kuti, our daughter Temi, my publisher Michel Moushabeck and my editors and proofreaders Hilary Plum, Pam Fontes-May, Markeda Wade, Miranda Dennis, Tade Ipadeola and Sarah Seewoester Cain.