‘I take it it didn’t go well,’ Zino remarked, staring at me studiously.
Dapo screamed before I could respond; he had only one volume. Zino squeezed my hand; we would talk later. ‘My hand has been up for how many minutes! Why is customer service so bad in this country?’ Dapo said.
‘Oh my God, tell me about it,’ Simi said. ‘At the dress shop yesterday I literally had to scream. They act like they’re doing you a favour.’
A waiter appeared then with a menu and Dapo asked for a strawberry daiquiri. I flipped the menu open even though I’d already placed my order. New prices were taped over where the old ones had been. ‘The prices have changed?’ I asked, my tone incredulous.
‘I know, right?’ Dera had been quiet until now. She ran a boutique PR agency and did not pretend to have any airs.
‘This country is going to the dogs,’ Zino said flippantly. ‘The government is borrowing us to the ground, fuel price has doubled within two years, inflation is on the rise. How is the average citizen expected to survive? What will the poor eat?’
‘The country isn’t that poor,’ Zutere said. ‘There’s a lot of opportunity for growth and the economy will pick up again. It’s just a matter of time. I mean look at the sort of high-class jobs coming to the city. We have to stop being pessimistic and be innovative instead.’ He was a certain kind of Nigerian – the kind who saw the rest of the country through the eyes of Lagos.
‘It’s very easy for you to say the country isn’t poor because you’re sitting in Lagos. Lagos isn’t Nigeria. We cannot innovate our way out of poor governance,’ I countered.
‘We just need to let go of capitalism,’ Simi said. ‘Capitalism is the root of all our problems. I mean it’s not just in Nigeria; there are disparities in the US – it’s what everyone talks about on social media.’ She loved to Americanise conversations.
‘Our system isn’t a capitalist one either,’ Zino said, sounding like he’d had enough of Simi’s nonsense. ‘If our country was even close to a capitalist country, there would actually be a free market across the board and the central bank wouldn’t be wasting funds manipulating the country’s currency. And to be quite sincere, most of the online discourse around capitalism and communism sounds like something out of the ’70s before the end of the Cold War, not a lick of modern economics knowledge between either side.’
There was a stiff silence after that, a tension that crackled as Simi sulked at her phone screen and no one seemed sure of what to say. It was a shift in dynamics; Simi always led the conversations, the others tagging along, and Zino looked on in bored tolerance. I was the wildcard, choosing when and how to participate.
‘We should try not to be too drawn into this extreme Western division of left and right,’ Ego had said at our last gathering, then she giggled. ‘That reminds me, when I was at Oxford, a lecturer in one of these courses about humans asked us to mention strong leaders, so I thought since we’re in the UK, I might as well mention Margaret Thatcher. You know in Nigeria, everyone refers to the Iron Lady when we want to describe someone as tough, but I had no idea about her policies or anything like that because it’s not the sort of thing we talk about. Oh my God! The class went silent and her face turned really red, and she went, “Oh, well Margaret is a bit like marmalade”. I was so confused. It was later that my friend Njoki made me realise my error – I’d mentioned Margaret Thatcher to a lecturer from Liverpool! I was so sure I was going to fail the course after that.’
Ego had narrated the story because she’d found the events funny and I saw that she expected them to share the humour, because they were Nigerian and they were supposed to understand, but they’d stared at her in snide condescension. ‘People died, that’s not something to laugh about,’ Simi said on their behalf, her self-righteousness polished and shining.
Well, except Zino, he’d laughed and laughed until Ego and I nervously joined in.
‘We’re venturing into film production and have several projects in the works and are interested in bringing in a few actresses on a sort of layered deal to star in our movies and represent some of the brands under our umbrella,’ the investor had said in his office. ‘I’m Charles, by the way.’ And I’d nodded in enthusiasm and listened to his plans for the projects, until his hand crept up my knee then continued its journey up my skirt, nearing my crotch.
‘You’ll come around in time,’ he said when I lurched to my feet to leave.
25
Forgiveness
Forgiveness came easily because I’d learnt it from my father; he caused offence often and expected to be forgiven just as frequently. He wasn’t a bad man, just flawed. At his core, he loved. It was a love that pervaded and instilled its will, but it was love all the same. Love that wanted the best for its recipient.
Halil stood outside my front door, a bouquet of tulips blocking his face from view. ‘You’re not taking my calls,’ he stuttered through the petals. I let him in.
‘Will you listen to me now?’ he asked when the flowers were displayed in a vase on my dining table, adding a radiance to the living room. The lines underneath his eyes said he hadn’t slept properly in a while, and I thought he looked like a sad little boy.
I folded my arms and nodded for him to continue. ‘I’m so sorry, Zina,’ he said, then grabbed at my arms until they came free and pulled me to him; that was the problem with being just below average height, everyone assumed they could fling you about. ‘I didn’t mean any of it, I know I was wrong. We don’t even care about things like that.’ He kissed my neck, creating a trail to my ear and I felt my resolve weaken.
‘It won’t happen again?’ I said.
‘I swear on my life it won’t,’ he averred. We kissed and I thought his tongue tasted like lokum.
I stared at the flowers after he was gone, running my fingers over their delicate surface, careful not to disturb them. He wanted to meet up for lunch later in the day, spend the evening tasting the assortment of teas that had just arrived at his place. Guilt had coursed through me as I gazed at him; he was good and yet I seemed unable to give myself fully to him.
‘I think you purposely go for men you think nothing serious can happen with and if, by some random accident, it starts to get serious, you run,’ Ego had observed just the previous week. I’d taken the comment personally and she’d come to my room that night to offer an apology.
I’d always been the one with the problem. In the beginning, they pursued – a hot ardent chase – enchanted by the novelty of it. Then I gave in, and I became too much: too intense, too expressive, too determined to make things happen. And every time this happened, I wondered if I’d lost my appeal, that shine of newness. ‘Men love the chase, you have to keep them chasing regardless of status, that is the trick,’ Tari always said. But I did not know how to be any other way, my life was a spectrum of extremes. And now? Now, I’d learned not to care.
How long before Halil was just like the rest of them? Malvin who said he found me rather strange, Deziri who thought I didn’t have the right personality for a wife, Jachike who only kept white friends (in Lagos!) and assumed I shared his light-skinned aspirations to be considered Caucasian, Tade who loved video calls until I’d begun to reciprocate and he claimed that I was too forward.
Then there was Bayo. He’d come to see me at the hospital – by then it was too late. ‘I don’t want to see him,’ I told Ego, regretting the words as soon as I said them, but Ego delivered the message.
His letter, arriving at my house a week later, only just managed to escape my mother’s eye:
Dear Zina,
I don’t know how else to reach you and you won’t take my calls. I’m so sorry. I realised my mistake when it was too late, when it dawned on me just how close I’d come to losing you. I was selfish and immature in my response. I should have been a source of support and provided assurance. Of course, I wanted a baby with you. You’re smart, funny and beautiful. I was afraid of what my parents would think. It’s so stupid to think about it now, but that’s the truth. I’ve always made them proud, and I worried they would be disappointed in me. I was wrong, I was so wrong. I’ve never felt what I feel with you with anyone else. Please give me another chance to make this right, to fix this.
I never responded.
‘I leave to check out my place for a few hours and you have a boyfriend again,’ Ego joked as we lugged empty moving boxes to her room.
I rolled my eyes. ‘Ego, please don’t start.’
‘Start? I’m happy for you, at least you’ll stop spending your weekends watching soap operas.’
‘How’s the apartment? Is it ready now?’
‘Yes, it’s quite nice actually. It’s well furnished too. I literally just have to carry my luggage and boxes there and I’m good to go.’
I huffed, unimpressed. ‘It took them over a year; it’s the least they could do.’
‘You know I saw some of my neighbours in the parking lot and for a second I thought I was back in England – they’re all white. Apparently only expatriates live there, and the rent is about forty thousand dollars per annum. Thank God, the office is paying. How can they be collecting rent in foreign currency in Lagos?’
