Butterfly Fish (16 page)

The days became darker.

I played drunken bingo with Mrs Harris, mulled over what to do with my inheritance money and ignored Mervyn's phone messages. Anon persisted, she dangled off cobwebs in my throat with one finger and inserted her gap-toothed smile in the mouths of people I shot. I functioned, the way a person carrying broken things inside them does, until they start bleeding from a big wound on their face that has seemingly arrived overnight.

One evening I lay on my blue sofa, my mother's throw covering my feet, watching a rerun of Deal or No Deal on More4, playing with the key from the fish. I rubbed it as though it could grant wishes, Anon sat in a single wooden chair on the side. Noel Edmonds wore a ridiculously loud shirt, the clothing equivalent of a box of Smarties. In between the boxes opening on screen, with revelations of blue or red cash values inside, I listened for heartbeats Anon may have borrowed from someone else. I was resigned to us living an unsettling co-existence.

The heating was on full blast; subconsciously I thought I could make her sweat until she evaporated. The smell of weed lingered, what was left of the slim roll burned in a glass ashtray on the floor, its tiny specks of orange light with smoke curling into the amber iris of a third eye. I drained half a glass of Baileys and set it on the floor, next to it I laid two flattened cereal boxes, Cornflakes and Rice Krispies. I'd planned to use them to make robots but got distracted by my vices of weed, alcohol and television. From the kitchen, the bottle tops stuck to my notice board of weird collages rattled, releasing whispers.

Anon unfolded her limbs and walked to the kitchen. I slipped the key into my trouser pocket. In my mental fog I could straddle two planes. I was aware of her movements, a series of scratches wearing skin, rummaging through the cutlery drawer. She appeared by my side wielding my sharpest knife, the one I used for cutting stubborn pieces of meat. I saw a green vein reflected through the blade, from tip to handle. It throbbed; I couldn't tell if it was hers or mine. A purple haze floated into a parachute, hovered above us. I felt a slick of sweat on my neck, heard the scurry of unidentifiable things in holes. Anon held me and it was like holding myself, the gleam of a blade sat between us. She pressed the knife to the left side of my head, made an incision just above my ear. She placed her mouth on it and spoke into the cut.

I found myself on a dusty, lengthy road, warm against my bare feet. Broken stones dug into them. The dark fell in swoops then broke off into marauding limbs. My blue living room curtains billowed against an anaemic moon, swirling dust tainted part of it red. Static from the TV ceased, swallowed by my eardrums and Noel Edmonds voice waned in the distance. The silence around me spun like a colourless kaleidoscope. A river situated to my right rippled gently washing over rocks that could have been heads barely bobbing above water. I saw a cluster of large terracotta buildings situated in sprawling grounds surrounded by tall black gates. The gates were flanked by guards in traditional clothing, their eye-catching material of a golden leafed design and the leaves curled up as if they intended to crackle into life. I heard a faint murmur of chatter between the guards. Angular pieces of stained glass window fell from my mouth onto a path of coloured glass. I walked tentatively on the glass path, even though I had a feeling that if I ran it wouldn't have broken.

The guards held wooden spears with sharp, brass tips. As I drew closer, one signalled to the others. They'd been sucking on oranges, sharing anecdotes and swatting fat, hungry flies. Another guard spat orange pips into his hand. I stared, expecting an orange tree to bloom from his palm. My throat constricted, a nervous habit. I stopped myself from chanting aloud, just. For one, I didn't want to appear crazy and two; it wasn't a good idea to jar men holding weapons. I drew my shoulders up, prepared to spin a lie from the small bank of wool that resided in the scars on my wrists. Wearing respectful expressions, the guards opened the gates.

“Good evening,” they each said in turn.

I nodded, walked through. My pulse hummed, I stayed quiet. I didn't want to talk and give myself away. But these men seemed to have mistaken me for someone else. One foot stepped in front of the other, guided by an invisible hand. Voices filtered from the surrounding smaller apartments. Noise slipped out as if the rooftops were lids that weren't closed properly. I wandered into a square courtyard where footsteps were still visible. Vines crawled up tall
pillars and whispered to the drawings of battles won, etched in a golden undulating ceiling. I wanted to go down and talk to the footsteps, to see if they'd move. For some reason, I felt I knew who they belonged to, that the lines were telling me. I grabbed a handful of earth and it ran through my fingers, warm and real. Sweat coated my body. I knew this place. I sensed the new and familiar all at once.

I knew that the short copper-toned flight of steps outside the main building led to a room I'd visited before. Brass artefacts were mounted on walls near the stairwell; they shifted under the sly night light. I'd been thrown into something incongruous, like a piece of time landing in a glass bowl. I walked up the steps to the first floor. A guard sat snoozing outside a room tucked behind a golden arched doorway. One eye flew open as my gentle steps approached. He stood groggily to attention. Tightened the knot of the green cloth he wore at the waist and wiped some crusted drool off his chin.

“When I last checked, he was still awake.” He edged the door open slowly.

I entered the large bedroom, closed the door. A dishevelled, raised wooden bed dominated the room. Two brown mats lay on either side. Carved wooden masks hung on the walls, watching with the expressions of Gods. In the thick of the heat I gathered my breaths and smelled palm wine in the air. On a dark stool with a low gaze, a kerosene lamp rested. Its flame flickered, bending in a glass bubble. I heard a rapping noise, a fist knocking inside my head. A small river in my left foot threatened to leak out. The tingly sensation of pins and needles pricked my skin.

In the corner, a man's shadow rose above him while he hunched low. He washed his hands in a metallic bowl, feverishly muttering to himself. This continued for a few moments as he muttered “Iz not clean, never clean again.”

I walked into his shadow, touched his shoulder gently, driven by instinct and adrenalin. He uncurled slowly, his native wear covered in sweat marks. His protruding gut revealed a man with a very healthy appetite, wild eyes blinked at me.

My voice seemed to come from somewhere else. “What happened?” I asked

The whites of his eyes grew bigger. A red ant clung to a hair on my arm. An army of ants scurried into cracks on the floor and in our speech. He curled his hands into fists, knuckles straining.

“Nothing can be done.” He held up his palms, red from vigorous washing. “My enemies are no longer of this world. Are you one of them?” He pointed a finger accusingly. There was madness in his eyes.

“Nnnno, of course not!” I stammered.

“Why are you dressed in those clothes? Are you trying to mock me?” His voice bellowed.

“I found them in my room; I don't know where they came from.” I managed a sincere expression, tugged at my baggy boyfriend jeans and loose Ren and Stimpy t-shirt.

“I will have whoever is responsible for this flogged! They may lose three fingers.”

“No need, it's just a bad joke done in poor taste; I put them on out of curiosity.” I placed both hands on his rising shoulders to steady them. The sound of something dripping caught my attention. He drew me closer, wrapped one trembling arm around me and pointed to the ceiling. A ring of red appeared in the centre. The ceiling talked in a language of blood. It dripped onto our heads. Fat drops fell into my right eye as I looked up. I rubbed urgently, alarmed by the sight.

“What have you done?” I asked.

He threw his back and laughed dementedly, crawled into the unmade bed and assumed the foetal position.

I left the palace with my vision partially blurred. The guards lay slumped back into sleep. At the palace gates I remembered the key in my pocket, an invisible hand guided me again. Relief surged in my chest as I inserted it into the lock and turned. It opened. I thanked the dead fish that brought it to me and shrouded it in luck. Now the road felt cooler on my bare feet. The singing crickets had half whistles inside them; their sound grazed the night. An even paler
moon morphed into a broken plate and its red dust disappeared back into the ground. Hovering in the air behind me was the sprawling red palace, somehow uprooted by my visit. Beside me the riverbanks arched, water rippled.

In the distance the sound of static beckoned me. I walked till my feet ached and the sound became a wall close enough to touch, twitching like the instances we change our minds. I couldn't tell when I was swallowed into the other side.

In the morning, I rolled off the sofa and landed with a thump on the floor. Red ants crawled out of my pockets and made a trail. Anon sat opposite me laughing, more ants spilled from her mouth. I traced the cut on the side of my head, a morning alarm. I stood still for minutes, covered in a cold blanket, rubbing an optical illusion that had landed in my hands. Turn it one way and you had a lady with a cut on her head that would change location. Turn it the opposite way and a woman with blood becoming a small, red country in her eye appeared.

Part 2

Modern London,
Lagos 1950s
&
19
^th
Century Benin

Tales of Kin

Tandem

Three months after I picked up the diary from Mervyn, I woke up one morning needing to know more. I fished the leather bound journal from my handbag. Inside the front cover the name Peter Lowon was scrawled on the page. The diary was teeming with paragraphs. A grey margin line became a needle sowing a stitch into my side. I saw ink arrows morphing into real arrows, hurling themselves at words, the wounded words would escape with letters lost from injuries, limping off the papers, leaving a trail of blue black ink to drip onto my palms. I could hear the chants of kids playing easing through my letterbox and the screech of impatient car tires. My phone began to ring, but I licked my finger and turned the first page of the journal into another life. I glimpsed a sketch on the back cover. It was a drawing of the brass head with words orbiting around it. I didn't run my finger over it, in case it came to life.

Crying Fins

Adesua did not report Filo to the Oba. Instead the wall of anger she'd erected against her, crumbled on seeing the lost, vulnerable woman clinging to the brass head as though it held the answer to her problems. Adesua grabbed her arms and gently shook her. “Filo,
ah ah
, what has happened? Tell me, has somebody done something?” She'd pried Filo's fingers off the warm brass.

But Filo would not speak. Adesua crouched down further till there was only the space between teeth separating them. She snaked an arm around Filo's back in support, held Filo's body while she slowly stopped shaking and the sniffling subsided. Outside in the distance the laughter of the palace inhabitants was heard. Adesua didn't know it but the birds that had been repeatedly circling above Filo's chamber, listened too. They heard Adesua's anger, noted the confusion in her voice and still they did not move.

Finally when her concern burst through the roof and touched their heavy wings, they huddled their heads together, and waited. One bird fluttering down to the doorway would have seen the two women sitting with their knees raised to their chins, holding hands as if they were little girls on a farm rather than young women in a palace, their bottoms against the soft, weather-beaten earth, providing a temporary ceiling for the bugs and worms that scurried and slid layers beneath.

Meanwhile Adesua and Filo clung together listening to the sounds of the palace, bearing the weight of a silent thing, cloaked in a comfortable peace. Somehow within that chaos the two women had found a temporary relief. The silence crooned its intent, and unspoken words were exchanged through the small space between their raised knees and entangled fingers. They ignored the comings and goings outside the fragile bubble they were in, the noise from the rest of the palace that at times threatened to burst it. Adesua listening to Filo's breathing even out again continued to hold her hand and waited. Not because she thought Filo would confide in her, but because she knew she wouldn't.