Butterfly Fish (10 page)

It was inevitable that Filo, the Oba's fifth wife would develop an unusual interest in Adesua. The novelty of becoming the king's fifth wife had long gone; the shine dulled by the harsh reality of life as just another piece in the Oba's collection of wives. Filo liked new things; when things were new for a brief moment in time they possessed an air of invincibility, of endless possibilities. This was how she saw Adesua, like soft new skin before it started to leather and toughen. Filo studied her discreetly, as though she were a rare butterfly and saw the way Adesua hummed to herself with innocent abandon. How she practiced unusual hunter-like stances she must have imitated from her father or the other men from her village, crouching down low on her haunches as if ready to pounce on any living, breathing thing should there be a need to.

She watched Adesua walking through the palace with an expression of barely concealed boredom. It was clear that becoming a king's wife was not the exciting life this unusual young woman had envisioned for herself. Filo admired her for her gumption, which she allowed to bubble through to the surface. She knew how it was to feel out of place. She understood. She too was walking around
with a big hole inside her. She knew the others could see it because they winced when she stood before them, as if it wasn't only her words that caused offence but her very presence. The other wives were uncomfortable near her, their silences told her this loudly.

These were the thoughts swimming in her mind when Filo sneaked into Adesua's chamber, drawn mainly by the sweet energy of the king's new wife and the fact that she seemed as out of place as Filo herself felt. She had not really intended to take anything, but once inside her eyes alighted on the brass head and it seemed to call to her. Once she had seen it, she could not un-see it. She picked it up and touched it tentatively at first before boldly rubbing her hands on it. It seemed to know her sorrow, to offer itself as her saviour. It was difficult to keep thinking of ways to fill a hole that was too big for your chest. She decided then that if she were caught she would tell the truth.

In another corner of the palace, a gift lay in wait for Oba Odion. He had discovered white oval seeds with cracked edges and a soft centre that throbbed strewn over the floor of his private room. People were questioned but the Oba never found the guilty party. He did not throw the seeds away either, instead, he called for some of the most experienced farmers in Benin to study them. Nobody knew what sort of seeds they were, where they had come from or what they would grow into. Intrigued, the Oba offered a reasonable reward to the farmer who was willing to grow them. Several accepted but nothing happened. It was as though the seeds they buried were dead. Finally Oba Odion instructed that they be planted in the palace garden. Soon, the soil began to rumble. Small blue bulbs popped their eager heads out, simmering while they gulped on leftover dew and tiny embers of dissent.

Queenie, London 1970

At Victoria station the train screeched to a halt, jerking Queenie back in her seat. She paused momentarily to catch her breath, then stood, wide-eyed and excited. She'd just turned twenty and had promised herself on her eighteenth birthday that by the age of twenty she'd be in London. She wanted to reach back in time and pinch her eighteen-year-old self. Instead, she pressed her face closer to the slightly dusty, finger-printed window on her right, swallowing the sights of people milling about.
Aah ah!

She'd never seen so many white people. They dispersed like rats into every direction wearing long winter coats, dark colours and guarded expressions. Their eyes looked like pieces of pale sky and their even paler skin seemed thin and fragile. Of course she'd seen white people back home in Lagos. There were the white businessmen her father had entertained in their beautiful, old house. And most of the nuns at Our Lady of Lourdes secondary school were white. Sister Wilhelmina who had a perpetually grey tinge to her skin had a fondness for telling her, “Queenie, you have the disposition of a cockroach! Why are you always where you're not supposed to be?” And she'd smile back as though she'd been paid a compliment. “Thank you Sister, cockroaches are great survivors.” And Sister Wilhelmina would reply, “Not if you have the correct insecticide.”
But secretly, despite her severe nun's outfit, she was charmed. She'd shake her head at Queenie and smile.

Queenie grabbed her medium-sized black suitcase and two outsized red checked bags, and waited behind a small group of people. She followed them out of the carriage, marvelling at the smoothness and ease of her journey so far. Even eating on the train had been an experience. They didn't have transport like this back home. Uniformed stewards pushing trolleys containing sandwiches, chocolates, bottled water and doughnuts amongst other things approached and asked if you wanted a drink. Queenie had longed to try the Queen of England's tea! She'd ordered a cup and drank it daintily, imagining her girlfriends from home gathered around her,
ooohing
and
aaahing
at the sophisticated way she sipped, saying very loudly, “Nah wah oh! You have truly come a looong way!”

Queenie dragged her bags along, imagining British angels filling her pockets with pound sterling! She was so lost in her reverie she nearly bumped into another one of those uniformed station guards. This one had a whistle in his mouth and held his hand up to signal her to stop.

“Watch your step dear,” he said, eyeing her as though she was an imbecile. “The way out is through the barriers and then down to your right.”

“Thank you,” she said, intrigued by the man's accent, which wasn't like the Queen of England accents she'd heard on TV. It was rougher. She grabbed her bags tighter, encouraged by the mass of people heading every which way. There was no ambling along or lazy steps, the cold didn't allow for it. Instead she noticed they all moved with a sense of urgency. People weren't talking in a leisurely manner either; she caught bits of conversations that were functional, efficient.

“Zip that coat Tommy, I won't tell you again!” a woman ordered.

“Mum!”

“I mean it, if you get ill; don't expect me to waste my time sitting at the GP.”

The mother tugged at the lapels of her woolly, black coat where a red, lizard-shaped brooch was pinned and marched ahead, her son, a boy of about seven in an ill-fitting navy jacket running fast to catch her.

Queenie's stomach rumbled. She noticed a few shops lined the edges around the station. They had brightly coloured signs that read Manny's Pie & Mash Shop, Beggar's Feast and Longjohn's Café where thick-crusted sandwiches heavy with slices of cold meats were arranged in small pyramids in the window. A smoky, meaty smell clung to the air. What she wouldn't do for some rice and stew with fried plantain!

It could have been the thought of eating such comfort food alone but suddenly she felt fear inside her. She knew nobody in England. She didn't even know where she would stay. What she'd done was either very stupid or very brave. She'd followed the lure of a man's laughter that every time she attempted to turn back had reclaimed her heart and mind. The sound of rushing traffic ricocheted around her. The air was crisp and when people spoke their breaths turned white as though they were blowing smoke out of their mouths. Queenie trembled, struggling to adapt to the cold. In the distance a siren wailed as though it was giving birth. She was fascinated by the enormous, red double decker buses rumbling through the streets bearing oddly named destinations; Oxford Circus! Peckham Rye! Southwark! They were completely unlike the yellow, dust-covered buses back home where the jumbled in bodies were sweaty coins in heat.

Her destination, St Michael's hostel in Borough, was a squat, nondescript building tucked beneath a short flight of concrete steps covered sparingly with moss. If you blinked you'd miss it. The door had a large, black lion knocker and a dirty white buzzer was positioned roughly at eye level to the left of the entrance. Queenie had circled the same street at least four times before finding it. She'd asked the Indian shopkeeper who ran the corner shop with a fading green sign that read
Ali's Market Place
and at the hairdresser's where
a white woman blankly looked her up and down.
This London nah wah oh!

She hadn't known what to expect but Queenie found the houses disappointing. They weren't like the sprawling, brightly coloured houses back home in places like Festac, Ikeja or Victoria Island where grasshoppers fed on invisible lines of heat and sweat formed on tall iron gates and the foreheads of lazy mayguards dressed in white vests with chewing sticks dangling from the corners of their mouths. Here, the houses all seemed to share the same glum expression, all squashed together and small. She wondered what the people did when they threw parties. Maybe they just had them spilling out into the streets, threading between lampposts and captured on car windscreens.

When Queenie pressed the dirty buzzer, the male voice that said, “Come in,” was distorted by static. He spoke again but she couldn't make out the words since it broke up and only a hissing sound filtered through. Instinctively she pushed at the wooden door. It opened. By now her earlier excitement had worn thin and tiredness had set in. She patted her right linen trouser pocket for the reassuring feel of her newly exchanged pound notes then began walking down another flight of stairs, admonishing the tiredness in her limbs. The building was an extension to St Michael's church, more modern than its Gothic host, but hints of likeness could be found in the high ceilings and the large stained glass windows.

Queenie arrived in an orange coloured hallway where a large grandfather clock stood and a water fountain littered with coins glistened.
In Nigeria that money would have been gone!
A vase filled with blue flowers sat on top of a dark wooden display cabinet filled with china. A large notice board on the wall had sheets of different coloured leaflets pinned on it. Dragging her bags she veered to the right where she met another flight of stairs at the bottom of which was a painting of a woman planting in her garden. The burnished orange light within it with hints of red permeating its glow reminded
her of the late afternoon sunlight back home and seemed to set her mind at ease.

Behind the reception desk, the guy wore a bored expression. His lank, greasy brown hair pulled into a ponytail. A scar marred his left brow and his black t-shirt was decorated with skulls. A tattoo on his neck looked like the roots of a tree. She regarded him curiously, imagining him watering those roots with beer. He was definitely not like the white businessmen she'd seen at home, in their pristine shirts with their sleeves rolled up. She paid for two nights up front, exactly £25. The crisp notes felt alien in her hands.

“So where are you from?” he asked in an attempt to make conversation. “You've come to find your fortune? An age old tale.”

She rubbed the copper room key. “I don't know about fortune mister but to come to England is a big thing.”

He laughed, threw a couple of peanuts from a bowl on the desk into his mouth. “Good luck, prepare yourself for miserable weather and a frosty welcome but you should know in advance not everybody will be like that.”

She shrugged, mind and body already in the bed that awaited her. “Thank you for the advice, oracle.”

His mouth twitched at her humour. “Hey, it's free. Come to Oracle Jay any time, always happy to lend a helping hand and other parts of my body to very attractive damsels in distress. Let me know if you have any problems with the room.”

Queenie nodded, lugged her bags ahead. Her mother's voice rang in her head.

I hope you know what you're doing; a pipe dream can be just that under the right angle of light
.

Random

Over the next few days, I thought about my mother dying suddenly in her living room, the TV blaring, the open basement door revealing its stale breath: no history of pre-existing medical conditions. Leaving behind on an island, one daughter who flaps her right arm like a broken wing. It had rained heavily, the echoes of something drowning bounced off the windowpanes. Spiders made of water crawled on my skin. I kept the key that became a finger in my bottom bedroom drawer, next to a copy of Yan Martel's
The Life of Pi
. I was worried it would morph into a whole body if it somehow accidentally caught its own reflection. I left the diary on top of the chest of drawers and the brass head in my rucksack, not quite comfortable with displaying it yet. I was superstitious about things you brought home and what they carried with them. I had no idea why my mother had left me these gifts. A brass head I'd never seen, the diary of a grandfather I'd never met. I didn't even know if he was alive or dead. Did she want me to find him? To give the diary back? Then there were the properties I never knew she'd owned. It was odd she didn't mention any of this to her only child. There had been her phone calls back home, muted conversations with my grandmother, her mouth curling anxiously. Maybe dead people left behind puzzles for their loved ones all the time.