‘Hmm,’ Hassana murmured and adjusted her scarf. Saratu looked uncomfortable and I was certain I’d performed a misstep.
Mrs Aluko chuckled. ‘Well, you have a point,’ she said, suddenly interested in the conversation. ‘Speaking of the young man that replaced her, from what I’ve heard, he’s not very experienced or qualified. Many of these young politicians have not proven to be any different or better than their older counterparts. I even think quite a few of them are worse. They’re just noisemakers. I’m quite tired of the whole thing being one big boys’ club.’
Saratu leaned forward and dropped her tone to a whisper. ‘Do you plan to run for a seat next time around, ma?’
Mrs Aluko laughed, sounding genuinely amused by the mere thought. ‘Of course not, dear. I prefer to remain where I am, thank you very much.’ The woman behind the power, not the power itself.
And I thought, what if I wanted the power itself?
My phone vibrated as Soye’s text delivered: ‘How is it going? Did you meet Mrs Aluko?’ And it occurred to me that he’d orchestrated our being seated together.
‘Yes. I think she likes me,’ I replied.
‘She doesn’t like people easily. Keep up the good work,’ he sent, a heart emoji attached at the end, and I thought he must have picked up the use of emojis from Adelola.
I excused myself from the table. In the bathroom, orange lights gleaming against porcelain sinks and modern fittings, I washed my hands until they turned ghostly; the handwash smelled like cough syrup. Then I pulled out my phone and called Ego. I listened to the ringback tone, hopeful that at some point her voice would replace the sound and felt a stab of pain as it disconnected. I tried two more times; the same happened, just like the several times before. She would not forgive me and I did not deserve to be forgiven. I opened the message app and wrote: ‘Congratulations on your marriage. Wishing you and Emeka all the best. Love, Eri.’
In secondary school, our skirts had been identical – all three of us – sharp pleated skirts that rose just above our knees and made us feel grown and speak of the future with sprightly enthusiasm. It was a time when Zina crafted scripts and invented personas, pitching project after project to imaginary directors whose places we took, shaking her hand in congratulations, and Ego took part in every debate club activity to prepare, she told us, for the courtroom. Zina and I would stand at the back of the room and clap the loudest when she spoke until others threatened to kick us out. Life had been different then – simpler. It had never occurred to me that a time would come when we would not be on speaking terms. I stared at the picture that now occupied my home screen – one of us in pleated green and white, taken on the last day of secondary school. ‘Three of you stand together, let me take a picture,’ my mother had said, holding up her Polaroid. And we’d thrown our arms around each other and screamed, ‘Cheese!’ And now, I’d been smoothly carved out. I swallowed the tears constricting my throat and walked out of the bathroom, distracting myself with the sound of my clicking heels.
‘I hear you’re thinking of starting a pet project. Do you already have something in mind?’ Mrs Aluko said when I returned, confirming my suspicions that Soye had contrived our meeting.
‘Yes, ma,’ I murmured, not trusting the sound of my voice. ‘I have a few projects I’m looking at.’
‘Good. I’m happy you intend to participate more.’ She pulled out a card and scribbled an address on it. ‘Come see me sometime this week. I know just the people to connect you with,’ she said, handing me the card. ‘You know I told Soye the other day that he’s too eager. All that gra gra is good at the early stages, but as you go higher, you need a level of calm. I told him to look at his wife.’
Mrs Aluko’s offices were located within the mini-estate situated in Banana Island that housed her family home. The unabashed opulence brought Ego’s father to mind, and his alabaster winged angel that occupied the central spot in his monument to himself; even that paled in comparison to the grandeur of Mrs Aluko’s home.
A security detail escorted me to the waiting area. Thirty minutes later, a skinny-legged secretary led me into a space that looked more like a penthouse than an office.
Mrs Aluko relaxed on a sofa in leggings and a robe dress, a tray with packs of juice and crystal tumblers arranged in front of her. ‘Sit down, my dear, we don’t have much time, there’s so much to do,’ she said.
The internet had said she was fifty-five but the smoothness of her skin leaned more towards the late thirties, closer to my age. ‘Money is good,’ my mother used to say. She was right.
‘So tell me, what do you have in mind? It would do good to focus on your areas of strength,’ she said when I was seated, adjusting cat-eye framed glasses on the bridge of her nose. The realisation hit me then that this was the life Soye desired: to reside in a mini-estate such as this, in the most expensive parts of the country guarded by sophisticated security details, to run its politics from a windowed penthouse office, to be untouchable. I tried to imagine myself in a dress robe, seated in an office like this.
I pulled out the dossier I’d prepared from my handbag and arranged the pages on the centre table. ‘A foundation supporting maternal health and family planning,’ I announced, feeling proud of myself. I’d only chosen my profession following my mother’s death, ticking through the form we’d planned to fill out together with tear-blurred vision, Zina and Ego huddled beside me with their own forms, leaning in to ask if I was alright. I could not think of a better extension of my mother’s legacy. I was desperate for her to be proud of the woman I was, and haunted by the feeling that she would have despised me.
‘I’ve been reading up on the situation in the country and it’s quite dire,’ I said.
‘Everything in the country is dire, my dear,’ Mrs Aluko murmured as she shuffled through the pages I’d laid out.
‘Our maternal mortality rate is one of the highest in the world,’ I said.
‘I’m glad you’ve done your research, dear, and as I can see here that there are several local and international organisations already working to tackle the issue.’
‘Yes, I’m hoping to partner with some to identify the areas I can provide support.’
Mrs Aluko pulled the glasses from her eyes and pushed them into her hair. ‘You’re not planning to run this yourself, are you, my dear?’
My mind blurred. ‘Well, yes.’
She grinned like a Cheshire cat, and I thought it was the most authentic smile I’d ever seen her wear. ‘Who do you think you are, Jesus Christ?’ She laughed. ‘That’s what money is for. You hire the experts, they run it, you check in every now and again and show up when it’s time to take pictures. Don’t get me wrong, I think this is brilliant and I appreciate your enthusiasm but running a private clinic in Lagos isn’t the same as any of this.’ She pulled out her phone. ‘Let’s see, I have some top contacts within the NGO space that can provide assistance.’
The weeks that followed were spent holding meetings, setting up office and signing documents. Adelola returned in the midst of the foray, alight with the nonchalance of youth, a life lacking strain. ‘You’re always busy, let’s go to the beach. Let’s go for a party. There’s a new movie out.’
‘Go and disturb your father, some of us are busy,’ I told her. Soon, she stopped asking and arranged meet-ups with her friends, teenagers whose parents owned speedboats, yachts and beach houses; teenagers who, like her, had never known what it was to live in the real Nigeria.
The skies in Ilorin were foggy, heavy with forthcoming rainfall, and when we landed, I could hear the murmur of thankful prayers coming from the economy cabin.
‘A bit of a turbulent flight aye?’ the foreigner seated beside me commented.
‘Yes, very turbulent,’ I said, wondering what business had brought him to the ancient city.
The consultants had recommended travel to properly conduct a landscape assessment, to see for ourselves the issues we planned to tackle head on. ‘We can handle it,’ the lead consultant said when I volunteered to go to Ilorin; it was clear she had never had a client volunteer to participate in field work before. In the end, we’d settled on another consultant meeting up with me in Ilorin.
Grass, rangy and unattended, grew up the sides of buildings in the ministry complex. Goats wandered unbounded, stopping every now and then to chew on some of the grass.
‘I said take me to the State Ministry of Health,’ I told the driver, believing he’d misheard my instructions.
‘Na the ministry be this,’ he said and pointed at the fading paint letters on a wall. I reached for the door handle. ‘Dem never come by this time.’ It was eight in the morning.
The state consultant who was to assist me was yet to arrive as well. I called her.
‘Ah, ma, you should have told me before going, nobody resumes this early.’
By 9.30am, they milled in, bearing black leather bags and paper files. The state consultant had arrived fifteen minutes earlier. Before we left Lagos, we’d held a virtual brief with the entire team on how the process worked. We were to submit letters at certain offices and wait for a response, in the meantime, we would reach out to contacts directly in charge of the issues and begin conversations.
‘The commissioner has not resumed but you can drop your letter,’ the civil servant at the desk informed us. In front of her was a large tray of melon seeds she was carefully dehusking.
