A Life Elsewhere

by Segun Afolabi

  ‘I’m going to the pictures,’ she says. ‘You won’t go anywhere, will you now?’ She lets out a brittle laugh.

  ‘To the pictures? When will you be back?’ You are be-wildered. Is this part of things? You are careful not to show impertinence.

  ‘I don’t know. Might stop off for something to eat. Be a good boy now, and we’ll see.’

  The front door slams. You swear never to return to this place, but at the back of your mind you know you will. The days will drag, the weeks may turn into months, but you will run back here, pleading for your correction.

  You rest your neck against the lunette, but in a while it begins to bite. Already your knees are beginning to ache. You would like to scratch your face, blow your runny nose. She should not have tied your hands together. You think of all the things you could be doing: visiting your father, watching television, sleeping with Edna, sleeping. But really, nothing compares.

  You remember when you were eight. This was parents’ night. Your mother was discussing your work with one of the teachers. Your father was staring straight ahead; there was a boy – you cannot remember his name now – but he was walking, limping, mimicking you. Finding it amusing in front of his friends. Your father watched him a moment longer, strode across the room, walloped him, hard. And he walked back and sat down again, the other boy wailing now, his parents outraged. You felt glee and pride and fear all at once. Now your father hardly recognizes you and you wonder – what has happened to all his memories?

  What would he think of you kneeling here in the rubber diaper, the black boots, the guillotine, the clamps eating your nipples? Would he know who you are? Would he think anything of it? You pull up your knees into a squatting position and this takes some of the pressure off your thighs, your lower back. Perhaps she will not return until morning. You push the thoughts out of your mind and think of things you could prepare with … with mangetout. There is soup – you have never thought of that before – and omelette, and juice, and mangetout cake. These are all possibilities. There are hands pushing gently against your bladder, rubbing in circles, insistently. You could eat it with anything as an accompaniment, as a side salad. You are not sure how to incorporate it, but it would make, perhaps, an interesting ice cream. And there is bread and stir-fry and mangetout curry and pizza and, oh … the sweet release, the hot flow of liquid swirling around the crotch, seeping out of the rubber, soaking your thighs, your encased feet. For a moment you forget the pain.

  You hear the front door slam, the click of heels across the hall. You know you could not have endured much longer. Your legs are shaking. Your back howls. If your neck is marked or bleeding you do not feel it. You are beyond pain now. Only willpower can keep you from breaking, from shouting for help.

  ‘Oh, look,’ she says. ‘We haven’t been so good, have we? I was sure you were going to behave. Who’s going to clean this up, eh? Not me.’ She unties you, raises the lunette from your neck. ‘Lousy picture in the end; we treated ourselves afterwards. Dinner, drinks. You would have liked it. You should have come.’

  You can smell the alcohol, the aroma of the bar: cigarettes, perfume, perspiration.

  When she unlocks the manacle, you can only fall to the floor, into the cold pool of piss. The release from your limbs, your back, is indescribable. She reaches down, touches your face, a small tenderness. ‘What do we say now?’ she whispers.

  ‘Thank you.’

  Edna says, ‘Mangetout? I’m not so sure about this.’ Takes a drag on her cigarette.

  ‘Go ahead,’ you say. ‘Just one bite. Look at Victor.’

  And there is Victor who will eat anything, his mouth full, reaching for more. Crumbs on his bleached goatee.

  She prods the cake, sniffs it, nibbles. ‘That’s nice,’ she says. ‘You can’t taste the vegetable.’ She smiles, the smoke undulating between the two of you.

  ‘What’s that on your neck?’ Victor asks.

  ‘Oh that.’ You touch your neck self-consciously. ‘Bought a new shirt the other day. An allergic reaction, I guess.’

  He is sitting in the same position in an easy chair with faux-leather covering. He looks alone and sad and crumpled there gazing out through the doors, not seeing anything.

  ‘I brought you something, Papa.’

  He looks up – apprehensive, smiling, apprehensive again. Does he know who you are?

  You fetch another chair, making sure he can see your limp. Surely he must have some idea?

  It is so warm the glass doors have been rolled back. Your father sits in his shirtsleeves, the top button undone. He is freshly shaved, wearing the pink poplin shirt you bought him for his birthday two years ago. It makes him seem younger now, more alert, more able to think.

  Grumpy Les is in the garden, arm in arm with the woman with twists in her hair. Two short steps, then a rest before he begins again. She turns to you and your father and waves, and moves off after a pause. The ash tree soughs, the leaves shiver, then lean one way, but gently, as if caught in a baby’s breath.

  ‘Everything’s so fast,’ you say to your father. ‘And in here it’s all so slow. The people, the cars, the lives everyone leads. It’s no surprise there are so many accidents. I’ll never be short of work. Here, this is for you, Papa.’ You hand him a plastic tub containing the rest of the cake. ‘I’ll go and make the tea, okay?’

  When you return with the plates and the cups of tea, you notice he has not opened the container. You set down the plates on the table and cut the cake, place a fork near your father, and begin to talk. It makes you feel like a mother, like you are your mother. You speak the nonsense words all the while. You do not like to pause between the sentences, but you have little to say in a one-way conversation.

  ‘She was maybe mid-forties, early fifties, but she looked good, considering.’ Considering what? That she was smashed up against the fence, that she was dead, that she had lost half a leg? You do not want to talk about it, but there is nothing else to say. ‘Victor says it’s like a freak show when they come to watch. Voyeurs, he calls them. But I don’t think so. I’ve been thinking – it’s perfectly understandable. A person is alive and minutes later they’re not. People want to see, to understand what it’s like, what happens in that time. Where the person goes. They’re afraid, I think, or anxious or curious. But not indifferent. Indifference would be freakish.’

  Your father chews slowly and glances at you, your hands. Mostly he regards Grumpy Les in the garden.

  ‘Remember this?’ You take out the photograph of the time you went to the beach when you were four or five: you, your mother, your father. In the background is the Bight of Benin.

  He peers at the image. The chewing slows. He looks at you uncertainly, then returns his gaze to the garden where nothing has changed. Why do you bother to come here? Why did you even listen to Edna? You could return to the house of correction tonight. There may not be an opening, but it is something to consider, to anticipate. Perhaps tomorrow. You were not prepared for the guillotine, but then, it is not for you to decide.

  Your father starts to talk, but he is speaking in the other language. He says her name, once, in among all the words, the only word that makes sense to you – Aina. And then he goes on, but it no longer matters to you. He has spoken your mother’s name. He is remembering something. You sit there, the two of you, looking out at Grumpy Les. You do not understand him, your father, and he does not know who you are. Sometimes you wonder where he has gone, his essence, when everything else is declining, but still functioning. He is leaving you and there is nothing for it.

  He finishes the cake – all of it, though he is not a good eater. He says, ‘Every day the sun shines, there – in the garden.’ He points as if you might not know where he means, then reaches out and touches your neck very lightly, for a moment.

  JUMBO AND JACINTA

  JACINTA LET THE second hand rotate one more time before turning over and swatting Jumbo. She wasn’t going to allow him to lie in and waste their holiday. Not af
ter they had saved up so much to get here in the first place. She thought about what they could have been doing – queuing up at the tills in the shopping centre, or for the coach that would take them across the city, perhaps to New York, or even, and she saved this for last, queuing up to see the magnificent waterfall they were planning to visit later that day. Whatever it was they could have been doing, they would have to wait because it was only five forty-five in the morning. But Jacinta did not care. She was annoyed and excited at the same time. Annoyed at her husband for ruining their holiday by oversleeping, for resting dammit, and excited because today they were going to visit the falls.

  She swung her legs out of bed, rubbing them gently for circulation, and counted to ten before standing up. Once she had woken abruptly in a bladderful haze, and rushed out of the bedroom not fully conscious. She had walked into their sitting room, not sure where she was headed, then slumped slowly to the floor, her deflated body propped against the wall. She had picked herself up, retraced her steps to the bathroom and then returned to bed. It was only later the following day, when she caught herself dreaming about salted fish stew, that she remembered what had happened in the night. She could not remember feeling any pain in the fall and the thought of it frightened her. Why, one day she might wake up, walk out into the street and get knocked down by one of those speeding jalopies the youths were so keen on these days. And that would be that. She had shivered at the thought.

  She sauntered to the balcony and drew open the curtains. The travel agent had been correct; they did have a good view. She could see the waterfall in the distance and as she slid apart the slick sliding doors and stepped outside, she was sure she could hear the roar of something that might have been water, but could just as easily have been her husband’s laboured breathing. She squinted at him through the spotless glass door, trying not to notice the ponderous rise and fall of his stomach.

  She stood with her back to the glass, not daring to approach the railing. It might just be waiting to collapse. One touch from her and the whole thing could go crashing the ten floors to the ground. These things happened. She had read about them. She could not remember where.

  She peered at the streets below, at the few people walking to work, walking their dogs, running. She wondered whether they could see her up here, a little brown woman in a long salmon-pink nightie. Her skin warmed in the morning sun. She was not a little woman, she reminded herself. It was only Jumbo who made her feel small with his constant asides about her size, her tiny, nagging voice.

  ‘Don’t get lost now,’ he would joke if she went to freshen up during a meal at a restaurant or if they had to separate while shopping. Next to Jumbo, anyone would feel small, she thought. She quickly checked herself for being wicked. He only teased her because she was always begging him to lose weight.

  ‘It’s not healthy,’ she would say, reaching out for leaflets which were often sinisterly close to hand, and she would read the more gruesome ones aloud. ‘Hypertension and stroke are twice as likely to occur in obesity,’ she would start. ‘Other common conditions are coronary artery disease and diabetes mellitus.’

  She liked to pronounce these words and she would enunciate extra clearly, rolling them in her mouth like gum balls, looking sweetly at her husband so he would realise she had a command of the terms without looking at the brochures. I could have been a doctor, she sometimes thought wistfully. Perhaps if I had been born in America I might have studied and would now be saving lives, delivering babies, massaging tired hearts. This was a secret drink of a fantasy she sipped occasionally, rarely getting drunk.

  When Mrs Morris from her bridge group had suffered recurrent abdominal pains, Jacinta swiftly diagnosed a femoral hernia and advised a daily abdominal rub and a radically altered diet with plenty of liquids and rest. The other women had stared blankly at Jacinta. Only Mrs Kuramu, known for her fiery temper, dared to eye her up and down.

  ‘Jacinta, sweetie,’ she said, trying to suppress something closely related to rage, ‘why don’t you stick to your lima beans and your fish jambalaya and leave the diagnostics for the doctors, my dear.’ Lacine Kuramu knew nothing about medicine and the fact that Jacinta had garbled anything remotely analeptic, plunged her into a slow simmering stew.

  Jacinta was not bothered. She tossed these terms so liberally about in her dreams she no longer cared whether she prescribed a gastroenterostomy for simple diarrhoea or a gargle of analgesic drugs for a bout of appendicitis. These were gardens that thrived in her mind and she had only made the mistake this time of allowing anyone apart from Jumbo to tend them.

  A few cars had stopped at a set of traffic lights in the grid of streets below. Jacinta liked the orderliness of things here. Even though the streets were deserted, these few cars would not move until the lights turned green. She leaned in closer to see if there were any policemen in the area. As far as she could tell, there were not. If this had been St Lucia the cars would not have stopped. It would not have made sense. Even she would not have stopped. If she had been driving. If she had had a car. If Jumbo had not forbidden her to drive. She found herself getting annoyed again so she checked herself with a quick tsk. She wondered whether the people in the cars could see her. She narrowed her eyes to see better, and then she shivered and flushed at the same time when she realised what she was doing; standing in her nightie in a cool dawn breeze on a hotel balcony for the whole city to see. She scampered back inside, alarmed at herself. This is what a holiday had done to her. She had relaxed and thrown her inhibitions into a pot of seafood gumbo. She had become a wanton woman. This would not do.

  She trotted over to Jumbo and whacked him on the buttocks. ‘Wake up, Jumbo!’ she hissed. ‘There’s sightseeing to be done.’

  He woke up in a grunt. ‘But it’s only six o’clock!’ he cried. ‘Please Jaci, we’re on holiday. Let me sleep.’

  She flounced into the bathroom and slammed the door behind her. Jumbo lay in bed for a moment, guilt working in him like a restorative. He groaned, then peeled away the layer of blankets covering him. He started for the bathroom, but stopped when he realised he would have to wait for his wife.

  ‘Be careful, Jaci,’ he called. ‘Don’t go losing yourself down the plughole now.’ Then tittered. He waited for the sound of her tsk before sinking back into bed for a few treasured minutes.

  There were people already eating breakfast when they arrived in the dining room.

  ‘Oh, look, someone’s taken our table,’ Jacinta complained. ‘We’re latecomers. You know, we’ll have to get up extra early tomorrow.’

  Jumbo had already started moving towards another table. Jacinta sighed. He had probably not heard her.

  She studied her husband from behind. He filled his T-shirt, pouring so much of himself inside it it seemed like an ‘O’ with horns for arms rather than the simple ‘T’ it should have been. As he moved, the reckless heap of him danced behind in a procession, in a kind of hula. Sometimes children snickered and called out to him if they were together in groups. This never happened when they were on their own. Jacinta noticed these things.

  She noticed how people were looking at him now. She knew what they were thinking and it embarrassed and angered her at the same time. A couple was staring at him this very second. She wanted to give them good, hearty slaps, slip cayenne chillies into their breakfasts, a dash of curdled goat’s piss into their tea.

  The couple smiled at her husband. Jacinta was confused. Jumbo stopped to exchange words with them and she hid behind him because she thought her venom might be apparent. She listened. They were talking about sights they had seen or had yet to see. Jacinta could not pinpoint the accent. It was languorous and unusual, although the English was good. She strained to feel the kinks in the conversation, the kneading of words that might provide clues to their nationality.

  ‘This is my wife, Jacinta,’ Jumbo said.

  She was so startled she almost looked behind herself to see who her husband was referring to.

  ‘Oh, g
ood morning,’ she nodded, not knowing why, trying to regain her composure.

  The man stood to shake her hand.

  ‘Please, sit,’ Jacinta waved him down. She had become coy, almost girlish. The man’s napkin had fallen to the floor, she noticed. ‘I must not pick it up.’ She fought with the impulses in her head. ‘The wife will think I am too fresh.’

  They were from Denmark, the woman said. She had short brown hair and freckles, a cluster of which danced about her nose. Jacinta raised her eyebrows. She had assumed all Scandinavians were blond with pale, papery skin.

  ‘Today is our last day in Canada,’ the woman was explaining. ‘Tomorrow we go south of the border.’ She smiled at her husband when she said this.

  Jacinta thought the woman’s hair was too deep a brown for her age and decided she probably doused herself in hair dye as often as Jacinta did. She liked this couple and as they approached their own table she carried a warm feeling inside her.

  After breakfast they strolled around the hotel lobby as it was still too early to go out. Jumbo gathered leaflets at the reception desk and they mulled over the various available tours. They chose one that departed from the hotel, swept through the major sights of the city, even providing lunch in a restaurant at the top of a tower.

  ‘It says here, the restaurant revolves as we eat,’ Jumbo said. ‘We’ll wait and see.’

  A woman in a pink leotard burst out of one of the lifts and jogged down a passageway to one side of the lobby. Jacinta frowned.

  ‘I wonder where she’s going?’ Jumbo said.

  ‘They should have laws for people dressing down like that,’ Jacinta muttered. ‘The shame of it.’

  ‘Come, let’s see where she’s going.’ Jumbo pulled his wife by the arm as she grumbled and cursed under her breath.

  They lost track of the woman, but to the left of the corridor they could hear the earnest rolling and clacking of machines.

  ‘Oh! Look it’s a gym!’ Jacinta exclaimed as they approached the triangular windows where the noise was coming from.