‘Doing what?’ I asked, making a face, and we both burst into laughter.
‘Might as well ask you for the date while she’s at it, so you can go, “Year of our Lord Two Thousand and Fourteen”,’ Ceri added, and we laughed even harder.
There was a large clock on the wall, a watch on her wrist, a laptop on her desk, but Anna insisted on approaching me multiple times a day to ask for the time. When she wasn’t asking the time, she said, ‘What are you up to?’ A seemingly innocuous question loaded with innuendo. Each time, I parroted off a list, creating more tasks as I spoke because I didn’t want to appear idle.
‘She wants you to know she’s always there, watching,’ Ceri had explained to me once. ‘Maybe she sees potential in you and doesn’t want you to waste it,’ she’d added with a wink.
I’d smiled and nodded, though I disagreed. It was no coincidence that I was the only person at the firm she did this to, and the only person that looked like me. Anna needed me to feel anxious, uncomfortable and out of place so that I would remove myself from where I wasn’t wanted.
After five years at the firm, I knew I would never get used to the passive aggressiveness of the professional English setting. If there was one thing I missed about Nigeria, it was the blunt directness.
‘Plans for the weekend?’ Ceri asked, reminding me that it was a Friday. The days tended to merge into one another nowadays.
‘Not sure yet, catch up on shows, then maybe a bit of work. You?’ I replied in the semi-British accent I’d acquired at Oxford.
Ceri shrugged. ‘Iain’s birthday’s in a couple of weeks so I have to find a way to sneak out the house and shop for some presents. Want to come?’
Ceri and I were not friends in the truest sense of the word – we shared no earth-shattering secrets – but we were as friendly as co-workers could be and, if I was honest with myself, she was the closest thing to a friend I had in the city.
‘Sure, I’d love to,’ I said, mentally cancelling my plans to watch television.
It was destiny that Ceri and I joined the firm on the same day, both young and eager, and over the years came to share binding memories: the time after our first dressing down by a junior partner, we hid in a bathroom stall, wiping away tears and assuring each other we were cut out for this brutal profession. I was at her garden-themed wedding to Iain, a bubbly Scottish man with a boisterous laugh; I’d silently screamed with her in the office kitchen as she showed off the engagement ring he’d hidden in a slice of cake. On St David’s Day every year, she baked traditional Welsh cakes with cinnamon and dried raisins – a special box for me – and I said, ‘Dydd Gŵyl Dewi Hapus’. On Nigeria’s Independence Day, I fried plantain, soft, sweet and slightly burnt, for us to share over lunch.
In the Uber home after work – I hated to use the Tube at night – I pondered what to eat while scrolling Twitter. I’d never bothered to try to get a driver’s licence; the moment I landed in the UK, I’d concluded I would never get accustomed to driving on the wrong side of the road.
I was hungry. Staring down at the belly of my form-fitting suit, I considered the Lebanese restaurant not too far from my flat with its jovial owner and rich Mediterranean menu of mezzas, mashawi and platters. Sometimes his mother was around, and she went from table to table, asking diners if they were comfortable, assuring them they could ask for anything. She reminded me of my own mother with her maternal concern and persistent dishing out of unsolicited life advice.
I stopped off at the Chinese restaurant across the street instead, its owners a first-generation immigrant couple from Sichuan, punctilious in their politeness.
‘What would you like, ma’am?’ the wife asked as soon as I walked through the door, the red lanterns dancing above her. Her English was stilting and unsure, as though worried she might be required to speak beyond the words she’d committed to memory. When, in fact, this happened, she called on their son, a newly minted university student.
‘How can I help you today?’ he said with the estuary accent of one who’d grown up in the UK, but when he turned to his mother, his rapid-fire Sichuanese Mandarin affirmed his connection to his parents’ roots. I watched, enthralled, as her face transformed with understanding, and left, minutes later, food in hand, full of rapturous admiration for this family I barely knew. My country’s colonial past ensured that I understood the language, yet daily life in London felt like putting on a shoe that didn’t fit, that pinched at the edges in discomfort.
I walked home, eyes glued to my phone screen, accustomed to the path I’d trodden several times over. On Twitter, I moved through the carefully curated timeline that reflected my interests: news, sports, jokes, Nigeria. Every now and then, I branched out to others’ timelines, going by an alias – @NaijaUKLawGirl – so my colleagues could never find me. Twitter came with its own madness but at least it was mostly devoid of the pretentiousness and boasting of other social media. I was no longer subjected to endless pictures of weddings and naming ceremonies and mindless epistles (though the latter would eventually rear its head in the form of threads). But most of all, the nonstop scrolling and constant barrage of needless information served as a distraction, relieving stress, and during late-night work hours, keeping my eyes open.
Occasionally, I volunteered legal advice, but mostly I tweeted about current events and Nigerian politics, desperate as I was to feel connected to life back home. I’m Nigerian, I proclaimed, even though I could no longer remember what harmattan felt like. I ignored news from the UK, swiping past without stopping. The country had become increasingly anti-immigrant: visa categories cancelled, new laws enacted, a hostile bill passed. The message was clear, reinforced via daily microaggressions that left me anxious.
My Twitter following had only just begun to grow when I took to sharing my experiences in the workplace:
My notifications were flooded with recollections of similar experiences.
Sometimes I made up scenarios, seeking to confuse any colleagues who might stumble upon my tweets, but there was always someone who replied, ‘That happened to me too!’
I unlocked the door to my apartment and turned on the lights haltingly, listening for the click of the echo of the switches, acknowledging the emotion at the pith of my insides. Chilli oil and spices wafted from the takeaway and attacked my nostrils.
‘Please make it spicy,’ I’d said to the woman at the end of my order, reminding her I wasn’t one of her paler customers.
‘Spicy,’ she’d repeated with a thumbs up and a familiar smile.
But now I was wondering where my appetite had gone. I felt it again, that gnawing feeling, malignant and rife: loneliness.
It wasn’t the usual sort of loneliness, the type you grew accustomed to when living in a city like London, intimidated into inconsequentiality by overpopulation, the monumental structures and infinite bustle. It was a different kind; the kind that steadily worked a path through your consciousness, obliterating your peace and stability. It was devastating, humbling. I had no solution to it.
‘You should get a boyfriend,’ Zina had said the last time we’d spoken on the phone, her tone reprimanding like my mother’s. We’d been discussing a new movie role of hers. ‘You spend all your time working, before you know it, you’ll be 40, then 50. Don’t waste your best years o.’
‘I’m not wasting my best years, Zina,’ I’d said with a laugh.
‘You’re laughing? I’m serious. You’ve been there for almost ten years and I’ve never heard you mention a boyfriend, even a foreigner.’
‘That’s a lie!’ I protested.
‘Well, if you’ve mentioned anyone before, I can’t remember, so it means you didn’t date him for very long. You’re tall, you’re fine. Tell me, what’s your excuse?’
I rolled my eyes. ‘You’re sounding like my mother.’
‘Oho! So I’m not the only one that has noticed. Thank God. For Aunty Uju to say it, it means your case is critical.’
I laughed again, not the polite haha I used at the office, but an actual laugh that ricocheted off the walls, a Nigerian laugh.
‘Get out! My case is not critical. Look who’s talking! Are you married? Are we not the same age? Madam big-time actress. When is your next movie coming out? Make sure to mail me the DVD. When will Nigerian films come to Netflix sef?’
‘Don’t change the subject, at least I’m trying, I’m not like you please. Heaven helps those who help themselves,’ she said. I could see her, stretched out on a sofa, shaking her head vigorously like she did when she disagreed with something that was said.
