“Remind me, how long’s she staying this time?” I ask. Labi’s face is expressionless, then the corner of his mouth twitches into a half-smile. “I’m serious. Last year you said ten days and she was here most of August.” I press my fingertips on to his damp arm. My feet are hot in my flip-flops and sweat trickles down the centre of my back.
Labi’s mum finally reaches us, the security guard in tow.
“Hello, Mum.” Labi pulls her towards him and almost lifts her off the ground. He hugs everyone he sees but reserves his best hugs for me and his mum.
“This man,” she shouts. “He is taking me!” She turns to the security guard. “My passport is valid and my son is my sponsor. He is a lawyer, you know!”
“Hello, Mum,” I say. She stops waving her arms around for a few seconds. It is always difficult for her to see me. I try to understand how hard that must be, for her only son to marry someone so outside their culture.
“Eeeeeeee!” she shouts, grabbing my arm. She smells of nutmeg and something else I can never place. “Eeeeeeee. My daughter. They think I am illegal. Illegal! Checking my passbook as if I have no sponsor, no visa. All those people looking at me.”
“They were probably simply checking it,” I whisper, but my voice is too quiet in the airport noise.
“They will send me to that place,” she continues. “Brother Kayode saw it on CNN. Detention. They treat you like rats. Rats!” She sweeps her eyes back to the security guard, who is now talking quietly with Labi. Eventually the security guard shakes his head, bends slightly and shrugs before walking away.
“No courage! Now my son is here. Look at his courage fading like the colour in cheap fabric.” She looks up at Labi and squeezes his cheek between her thumb and forefinger. “My son is a big man.”
I laugh. I’d forgotten how easily she makes me laugh. “How are you, Mum – apart from your airport security ordeal?” I step forwards but she narrows her eyes.
“You see this?” she shouts, pointing to the shops. “So many shops.” She looks at me and narrows her eyes even more. Soon they will be completely closed. “As if women have time to shop all day!”
Labi pulls my hand towards him. His skin is warm-wet, and softer than ever.
“What is this?” she continues, pointing at the toilets. “Is that the facilities!”
Labi’s mum has been to England many times. Every year, at some point over the summer, she comes to visit, to see us and the children. And every year the airport routine is the same.
“Look at the shortness of that woman’s skirt. Look how it sticks to the side.” I follow Labi’s mum’s eyes to the female toilet sign.
“I will not be pissing in there,” she says.
When we arrive home, our ten-year-old twins, Tife and Toni, are splashing around in the giant paddling pool that my friend Kat, who has been watching them, has inflated and filled. She has added some washing-up liquid, a trick I remember my mum doing, and the garden is patchy with foam. Labi’s mum runs immediately over to them and gets in the paddling pool. She is still wearing her thick winter coat. They squeal with laughter. “Nanny! Nanny!”
“Don’t wet my hair,” she shouts. She lifts her legs up on to the edge, and half the water slides out. She is covered in foam and the girls stick to her too, despite being nearly as tall as she is.
“Two girls,” she says. “Twin girls. May God bless you with a son. Pray to Jesus. You are blessed.” She begins to sing, loudly.
I pour some wine into a glass, add ice, say goodbye to Kat. Labi disappears into his office. I can’t taste the wine, my mouth feels numb. Outside, I can hear an ice-cream van in the distance and smell a barbecue. I try to ignore our retired neighbour, who is pretending to paint his fence and keeps looking at Labi’s mum. I think of last summer and how she knocked on his door one day while I was at work and went into his house, sat down on his sofa and spent hours talking about Jesus.
That night I serve fried chicken for dinner, and Labi’s mum covers hers in ketchup and salt.
“Can we have tomato sauce, please, Mum, please? Like Grandma?” Tife looks up at me with her moon-eyes and Toni flicks her head between us.
I smile, open the bottle and squirt a tiny amount on each plate. “Sure.”
“Aunty Bunmi has a new business,” Labi’s mum tells us. “Making bricks. She makes so many bricks the labourers can’t build fast enough. She is building faster than they are! Ha! If she wasn’t so fat she’d be better off building the houses herself.”
The twins laugh. “Do you have a job, Nanny?” Toni asks.
“I have fourteen jobs.”
Labi looks at me. A stare with one eyebrow lifted.
“Fourteen?” Tife puts her fork down. “That’s a lot.”
“Exactly. I do the Sunday school, the choir costumes, the snacks for the congregation, organize the floor sweepers, test the microphone, go to market, buy the fish, make the pepper soup – so many, many jobs. And I’ve joined a theatre group. We go to the villages to teach those village girls about cutting.”
Labi looks up. “Er, Mum, let’s not go into too many details about all of your jobs. OK?”
I find my head spinning. What is she teaching those girls?
She looks at Labi, then the girls. She is drinking shots of peach-flavoured schnapps, a shot between each mouthful of food. Half a bottle is gone already. Tife’s eyes are wide.
“They should know. Plenty of girls their age know first-hand.”
I stop chewing. My fork cracks against my teeth. More thoughts enter my head, one particularly nasty, but I push it away and swallow.
“Hmph. We have to work hard in Nigeria but it is a much better country. This country,” she says, adding more sauce and gravy and so much salt I can see a layer of it on top of her food. “England. No taste to the food.”
“About that,” I say, and Labi flashes me a look. “I know you mean well, but please don’t put extra pepper and seasoning in the cooking this year. Last summer the twins had a layer of skin come off their tongues.” I laugh. “They’re not used to spicy food. Especially Scotch bonnet peppers.”
“Send them to me in Nigeria. They would get used to it. They could come for the school holidays.”
“I couldn’t be without them,” I say quickly, and I laugh again, quietly, then there are a few moments of silence before she stands suddenly.
“I’m going for a rest,” she says. The schnapps bottle rolls to the edge of the table. No one tries to stop it falling off.
“I hope I didn’t offend you? I didn’t mean to – it’s just…”
“No, no,” says Labi’s mum. “I’m tired, that’s all.”
Labi says nothing.
I can feel my stomach churning. I look at the girls.
Their mouths are so far open I can see the gums where their teeth end. Toni begins to eat, quickly, focusing on her food, eyes down.
“Mum,” I say, “I did not mean to upset you. Of course I’d love the girls to visit Nigeria. I’ll bring them one day. We will.” I look up at Labi. I can’t even talk to him about my fears. Girls are cut in Nigeria. His mum told me herself. Many girls, too many. Would she let that happen to our girls? Would she condone it? I will never, ever let them visit without me there.
“Upset?” she repeats, sitting down again. “Upset? You give me this flavourless food on my arrival day and you disrespect me?” Toni stops eating, and moves closer to her arm. Tife puts her thin hand on her shoulder. Both girls look at me as if I’m a monster.
I look to Labi. “Do something,” I say. But he just sits, eyes down, shoulders rounded.
“And you never visit!” she screams. “I never see these, my granddaughters – you do not want to see my face! No wonder they do not like spice. Their tongues would be strong if you brought them to Nigeria! They have weak English tongues. My own grandchildren. English-tongued grandchildren.”
In bed later, I punch Labi’s arm. “What the hell were you thinking? Your mum has some kind of episode and yo
u say nothing? I didn’t mean to offend her but now she’s upset. It’s hard work when she stays, Labi. Hard work. She nearly set the kitchen on fire last year! And the year before she flooded the entire house trying to wash all her shoes in the washing machine. You need to be with her. Take some time off.”
“You know I can’t take two entire weeks off right now. You know that, Tan.”
I watch the tiny scar on the back of his arm.
Eventually he turns over and sighs, looking at the ceiling, pulling me towards him. He kisses the top of my head. “Try to understand her,” he whispers.
I push him away and sit up. “You want me to say nothing when she does these things? Nothing?”
He shakes his head. “Of course not. It’s hard for me too, you know.”
Suddenly a knocking on our bedroom door. I pull the covers over me.
“Hello, hello, you young people always fighting like children.” She walks in wearing a pair of Labi’s pyjamas and my new sequined flip-flops.
“Mum, can you give us a minute, we’re talking.” Labi smiles too widely.
“We are all talking, abi. I am head of the family in Daddy’s absence. I will help to solve you both. All us family talking together.” She sits down on the bed on my side, on top of my foot. I cry out.
The girls run in seconds later. They are not used to talking, knocking, in the night. Soon there are five of us in the bed. I hold them close, Tife and Toni, their skin warm and smelling of sleep.
Labi’s mum farts, loudly. “Sorry,” she says. “I have terrible gas from the bad food. In Nigeria I never produce a fart like this.” The girls laugh so hard I worry they may never be able to stop. They roll about until Toni falls off the bed, then Tife joins her in a giggling heap on the carpet. They behave much younger when Labi’s mum is here. They become children once more.
Labi’s mum looks at me. “We can learn from children,” she says. “They don’t keep anger for long.”
I smile at her despite myself and feel Labi gently stroking my arm. Before she returns to bed she gives me a hug so tight I can’t breathe.
“Let us not fight any more, my daughter.”
She leaves and ushers the girls back to bed. She is not holding me but I can still feel her. I move towards Labi, rest my head on his chest.
Before leaving for work the next morning, I give Labi’s mum strict instructions not to cook anything, visit the neighbours or touch the washing machine, but still I am nervous when I approach the house at lunchtime, walking along the street to the sound of lawnmowers. It was only a few hours, and an unmissable meeting, but still I felt sick leaving her. And then I see it. All my underwear in perfect women shapes laid out on the front lawn. A couple walks past and points and laughs. I feel the redness in my face and neck and for a few moments I want to run away, back to the office, with my tidy desk and order and routine and normality.
There are seven invisible women. Seven sets of my finest underwear. I see the curtains opposite my house move suddenly. The redness reaches my ears.
Labi’s mum is in the front garden cutting all the heads off the roses. “You have to cut these back or you will attract wasps.”
I want to scream. Instead I scoop up every piece of bone-dry, stiff underwear and try not to imagine what she has washed it in.
“Taneeeeya, are you well? You have a look of illness. Shall I make you pepper soup? I could add lemon to reduce the heat for you.”
I stomp into the house, up the stairs and into our bedroom before dialling Labi’s work number. My hand is shaking.
“I’m going to kill her.”
Labi sighs down the phone.
“She’s put all my underwear out at the front of the house. All our neighbours have seen it. God knows how long it’s been out there!” I am crying now. Big, fat, child-like tears. “And she’s cut all the roses off.”
Labi sighs again. “Hang in there. Don’t lose it.”
“How can I not?”
“Look, we don’t want a repeat performance of last night. Please don’t upset her.”
“Upset her?”
“I know it’s hard, but it’s good of her to look after the kids while we’re at work. Go out for the afternoon. It’s lovely out. Please, Tan. I’ll talk to her tonight, I promise.”
The girls burst into the room and hug me either side. I push my tears back. “OK, we’ll go out. I’ll see you later.”
“We’re going out? Can we go to the park? Cinema? Please, Mum, please. Can Nanny come?” Labi is right: they really do love their grandma.
“Of course.” I scoop them up onto the bed and kiss their heads, ignore the underwear in a heap next to us. “Let’s have some fun.”
Liverpool Street Market is exactly the same as last year. Labi’s mum wants to look at every stall, buy the same material she can get in Lagos. She chats to the stallholders, asks of their family and regularly holds up material or clothing, or a new wig, and shouts, “Taneeeeya, Taneeeeya, is this worth ten pounds? Am I too fat for such a colour? Is this woman stealing from me? Is this market full of thieves?”
I smile and nod and focus on the market sounds. The fruit seller: “Pound a tub o’ strawberries!”
Labi’s mum insists on buying me a traditional Nigerian costume with matching shoes. The shoes are far too shiny and have Gucchi written across the front in diamanté lettering. The girls laugh so hard they pretend to fall over. I stand in the shop watching them curled around each other shaking with laughter, tears shining their cheeks.
On Friday we decide to go to the park for a picnic. We arrive at Valley Lake and spread out on top of two blankets. Labi’s mum is staring at a squirrel and hissing when it gets too close. “Vermin,” she says.
She is wearing her winter coat.
The girls weave patterns on the grass, kicking a ball between them. “Don’t go near the water,” I say, taking out my newspaper.
“Girls! Girls!” They run over and sit by her feet. “This lake,” she says, “reminds me of Miracle Lake.”
I put salad and couscous on two plates and push them at the girls. Mum produces two packets of Monster Munch crisps from her plastic bag and hands them one each.
“Miracle Lake in Nigeria cures everything,” she tells them. “Any disease.” She undoes her coat slightly to her neckline.
“Can it cure verrucas?”
“Of course!” She looks at Toni’s feet. “If you took off your socks and washed your feet in Miracle Lake the verruca would be gone.”
I focus on the line of sweat pooling on her top lip. “Go and play now, girls,” she says. “Off you go. Find a tree to climb. I need to take a small rest.”
I watch the girls running backwards and forwards on the grass, then open my newspaper, my eyes glancing up every now and then when their shrieks diminish. Labi’s mum asks me to read aloud to her. She always says she’s forgotten her glasses but I’ve never seen her wear any. I read an article about house prices in London; she tuts and tuts. “Come live in Nigeria. You would live like kings.”
The next headline is about female genital mutilation. I stop myself. My mouth closes over the words.
“Go on,” she says.
She is sitting up now and looking straight at the newspaper. “The next article is a bit sensitive,” I murmur.
“Ha!” she laughs. “Everything is sensitive to you English. Read it. My ears are tough as toenails.”
“It’s about cutting. Female genital cutting.” I close my eyes. My midwife friend told me all about it last summer. I told her to stop. Put my hands over my ears. But I could still hear odd words: genitals; barbaric; death…
“Read it then,” says Labi’s mum.
I open my eyes, read: “Teachers are being told to be vigilant as the school holidays approach, as concern is growing about the number of teenage girls undergoing female mutilation during the summer. It is estimated that female genital cutting is becoming more prevalent within the UK, with twenty thousand girls under the age of fifteen at ri
sk…”
I look up. Labi’s mum is shaking her head. I try to focus on our surroundings, anything but the thoughts in my head. The girls visiting Nigeria in summer. The park, the park, I think. The park is full of families in slow-motion, technicolour August sunshine. The trees are almost unnaturally green. The grass is soft and dry, a ladybird lands on my arm, walks slowly towards my hand, then flies off. A cat chases squirrels and the geese bellow and run in short bursts. I breathe.
Labi’s mum lies on her back. “It is better now in Nigeria. This thing is no good for women. Terrible for girls. Britain needs to catch up. Talk openly. Tell girls to shout. Like my theatre group. Progressive.”
I look at her face. It is pulled together tightly, and her eyes are wet. Whenever she’s spoken of it before she has seemed less emotional than this. Not for it, but not against, as if she had some kind of understanding that I never could.
I shouldn’t ask her. I’ve never asked before. It’s never occurred to me before. But the words leak out of my mouth. “Did it happen to you?”
She taps the grass between us. “It needs to stop happening. It is no good.”
Her face cracks as she talks. How could I imagine she’d expose our girls to such a thing? How could I have thought that of her? I feel the redness on my chest, rising up to my face, threatening to burn me with heat.
“These young girls in Britain. Suffering for what? Because people don’t like to talk? You English need to learn how to talk. Silence is dangerous.”
I look at her for a long time. She is totally against cutting. Of course she is. I am an idiot. A racist idiot.
“Can we have bubblegum ice cream, please, please, please.” The girls run towards us. I focus on Labi’s mum, her legs crossed in front of her near my feet, her toenails painted in blue and white stripes. She is right. It’s happening right here in England. In London. Thousands of girls at risk. Girls like my girls.
“Can we take off our socks and shoes?”
Here I Stand Page 15