Being Lara

by Lola Jaye

  A few days later, Lara stayed at work long after Sandi, Jean, and most of the others in the building had left, which was hardly a rarity. What was new, however, was this lack of motivation to actually do any work as thoughts of Yomi invaded her head.

  What was she really doing here in England?

  Why now?

  She’d had plenty of chances over the years to seek Lara out. Mum had left their address with the children’s home and they’d never moved. And what about the time after that infamous birthday party no show, when Dad had gone to all the trouble of trying to track a person down who didn’t want to be found? The mere fact Yomi had found her meant she could have done so five, ten, twenty years ago.

  Luckily, Lara was no longer that trusting ten-year-old girl in a black-and-white polka-dot dress waiting for a stranger to arrive, sobbing herself to sleep as the weight of abandonment pushed her deeper into the mattress. She was a thirty-year-old businesswoman equipped with the strength and confidence to know she didn’t want or need Yomi in her life anymore.

  And as for Yomi, she was after something. And the only thing it could be was money.

  That had to be it.

  Although hardly dressed in rags, she must have been brought up in a poor family, or why else would she have resorted to abandoning Lara all those years ago?

  That had to be it. Money.

  Lara had finally nailed the real reason for Yomi’s visit, and it felt strangely bittersweet.

  Through her huge office window, the colorful swish of a red bus moved swiftly along the road. It was a familiar London sight adorned on numerous postcards and shoddy souvenirs and one of the very things foreigners equated London with. Lara wondered if she’d have been one of those people dreaming of a far-flung land paved with gold, and cucumber sandwiches eaten on every corner? Would she have been dreaming of a “better life” in England as she sat in some nameless village in Africa, carrying pails of water on her head, never knowing when the next meal would arrive? Would she have become one of those kids on the advertisements asking for regular donations? Adopt a child. Please help. Had her life been headed in the same direction as those poor children before the hands of fate literally grabbed her from the jaws of destitution in a hot country to place her in affluence and opportunity in a freezing one?

  She swallowed hard, picturing just how impressed Yomi had appeared with the flat and the car. The kid she’d given away had done all right for herself, and perhaps she wanted a little piece of this steak and kidney pie. Yomi was definitely after money—Lara was now fully convinced of this. There was nothing else it could be, and it perhaps wasn’t a strange coincidence that her trip to London coincided with a time when Lara’s career was on the verge of reaching new heights.

  She happily put the finishing touches to a report, shut down the computer, and envisaged a takeaway for dinner. Then the perfect stranger walked into her office.

  “Hello, Omolara. Mrs. Reid gave me this address.”

  It felt weird to hear Yomi mention Mum’s name in such a formal tone, but then saying “Trish gave me the number” would have been equally wrong. Yomi stared at the two picture frames sitting on Lara’s desk—one was of Mum, Dad, and Lara in the garden taken around ten years ago; the second snap was of Lara and Sandi larking about in Brighton.

  “So you are the boss here?” asked Yomi, pumping air into an already inflated theory about her true intentions.

  “Yes, you could say that.”

  “This is a good thing. It is well,” Yomi said, nodding her head.

  “So … how can I help you? Why are you here? I thought we were going to wait until the next meeting?”

  “It has been days and I have not heard from you.”

  “Why have you come to England?” And then it was out there.

  “Because you are my dotter.”

  Lara looked her square in the face, and Yomi turned away. And to Lara, this felt like a rejection all over again.

  She can’t even look me in the eye.

  Am I really that bad?

  “There are many things you do not know, Omolara, and if you give me the chance—”

  “To what?”

  “If you give me the chance to explain.”

  “I have parents. The best parents anyone could ever have asked for!”

  Within the silence that followed, Lara recalled the time she once fantasized about Claire Huxtable being her birth mum. Now she’d settle for Michelle Obama: forced to give up her baby as a young teenager, only to go on and run a nation with her husband. Now that would be a good explanation. Anything less—just too inadequate.

  “I am glad, Omolara.”

  “Could you please stop calling me that?”

  “But it is your name—the name I gave you…”

  “Why are you here?” she asked again, this time with less anger—more a resolute whine.

  An unfamiliar voice echoed from outside the office.

  “What is going on in there? I will come in!”

  The door opened and in, very slowly, walked a rather round and elderly woman dressed in traditional African attire—a green tie-dyed wrap and matching blouse decorated with purple butterflies and leaves, with an identical head tie. She seemed to be hobbling and squinted her eyes until she spied a chair and immediately sat down with a huge sigh.

  “This chair is just as uncomfortable as the last one. Ah ah, these English chairs are so robbish! Why?” She spoke in a very thick dialect.

  “Who are you?” asked Lara.

  “She is—” began Yomi as the older woman “shushed” her.

  “I will introduce myself in due time.”

  Yomi cleared her throat. “As I was trying to say, I will be here in England for a few weeks, Omolara, by which time I hope your hostility to me will be mild. There are many things I wish to explain, but most of all, I wish to get to know you. That is all.”

  Lara was more concerned with the older woman who seemed to be chewing on something while staring at her intently. Eyes bored into her unwelcomingly.

  “Yes, I can see it,” said the older lady.

  “See what?” asked Lara.

  “The resemblance to your aunty Morenike. And Kunle. You have his lips.”

  “Who’s Kunle?”

  “Your uncle. You are lucky; yours are not as dry as his!”

  “What?”

  “His lips. Dry like the skin of yams.”

  Lara rolled her eyes, not quite sure what was happening in her office, which up until a few minutes ago was a place of calm, work, normality. She wasn’t sure either whether she could cope with all this. But five minutes later, she was still standing upright, walking them to the lifts.

  The old lady turned to Yomi, muttering hurriedly in their language, before turning to Lara and gripping her tightly, pressing a not-so-frail body against her. Lara could not believe a woman of such years could possess such strength.

  And then she let go.

  “As skinny as a piece of sugarcane, but it is definitely you. Very good,” mumbled the older lady as she slowly stepped into the lift.

  “What was that all about?” hissed Lara in Yomi’s direction, quiet enough for the older woman not to hear as the lift comically closed and opened as Lara kept her foot within the sensors.

  “She is happy. That is all,” replied Yomi as the older woman seemed to withdraw into her own world, now smiling widely, humming to herself, shoulders swaying happily to the tune.

  “Why would squeezing me half to death make her happy?”

  “Because for the very first time, she has held her firstborn granddotter.”

  Lara’s mouth dropped open and remained that way as Yomi slid into the lift and the doors slowly closed, taking with it the image of two women who had entered Lara’s world and rocked it to its very core.

  Chapter 19

  Then

  Being Sandy’s best friend had its advantages. Unlike in primary school, no one seemed moved to mess with Lara or call her anything other than
her name; more important, any questions about her family were permanently confined to a polite “I hear your mum used to be a pop star.” Some of the older girls would even allow her to listen in on school gossip: who had beaten up whom and who had snogged whom from the neighboring boys’ school. But most intimate was the sharing of music, an avenue that opened Lara up to a land of magical possibilities a world away from what she’d grown up with.

  “You can borrow some if you like,” said Makeda from the fourth year—she was possibly six feet tall and with the neatest pleats in her uniform skirt, hair in a permanent high bunch, and large square fake gold earrings a lot of the older girls seemed to be wearing. Since it was already a privilege to even be allowed to sit with the older girls on the back wall behind the school, to be asked if she’d like to borrow music was simply more than Lara could have hoped for—so of course, she wasn’t about to refuse,

  That night after a dinner of bubble and squeak (a mix of fried leftover greens and potato), Lara lay on her bed, orange sponge headphones pressed against each ear, gray lamp lit up beside her.

  By the time she heard Mum calling up to “get into bed, NOW!” Lara realized she’d listened to Public Enemy once, perhaps a little unsure about the lyrics in a few of the tracks, but with the Arrested Development tape, she had become totally immersed in joy as an unfamiliar fusion of African beats and contemporary sounds danced within her eardrums. Lara’s first taste of African type music allowed her to feel as if she’d just been kissed for the very first time—whatever that felt like. It was like being reborn, awakened. Like she’d just discovered pure gold that had been buried beneath the soil of a road she’d walked on every day. It was fresh, exciting, beautiful even, and she wanted more and more of it.

  She shook her hips, bopped her head in time to the hypnotic beats, and twirled her body downward to as low as she could—in front of her mirror, on top of her bed, her heart racing with exertion and excitement. A new discovery. A new connection.

  That night, spent and dressed in a pair of blue-and-pink-striped pajamas, orange headphones resting against each ear, Lara fell asleep comfortably to the lyrics of “Tennessee”: “Take me to another place. Take me to another land…”

  By the end of the month, Lara had saved up enough money to buy both albums. Because Makeda was a fourth-year student, they could never be close friends, but Lara was happy to catch any tidbits of information she could impart on the subject of Africa, or anything really. Not even sure where Makeda was from, Lara was just happy to learn something—a fact, a nugget of knowledge, however minute—that she could relate to being African. And when Lara played the albums, as she did each and every night on her Walkman as Mum and Dad chatted downstairs, she began to feel a sense of independence. But this was something so much more than a textbook preadolescent “finding her place in the world” moment in time. Arrested Development and Public Enemy cassette tapes had given Lara something she hadn’t even been aware she needed or wanted and was a world away from anything she had ever known. This was something Mum and Dad just couldn’t have ever told her about—even if they’d wanted to—and for that, she felt so so so guilty, as if in some way she was betraying her parents.

  And she couldn’t hurt them, would never hurt them, she told herself, while at the same time knowing that now this particular door had opened, she’d no intention of shutting it.

  Instead, she stuffed the tapes down the side of her bed where no one would ever, ever find them.

  Chapter 20

  Now

  The second she googled “Nigeria” Lara unearthed a wealth of information, seemingly supposed to mean something to her. It might not have been the first time she’d ever done so over the course of her life, but the appearance of the two women had reignited the search with a passion never felt before.

  She tapped away, and from inside a striking green-and-white flag, words flew out at her like missiles. Most popular tribes: Hausa, Igbo, and Yoruba.

  Which one was Lara from?

  Number of languages spoken: 521.

  Which language had Lara spoken and understood up to the age of three?

  She tapped and read until her eyes began to blur, pausing only to pick up her phone when the neon light demanded her attention.

  “How you doing?” asked Tyler.

  “I’m fine … good,” she replied absently, one eye on her computer screen.

  “You’re fine. Even though your grandmother’s just turned up!”

  Another surreal phrase to add to the list of words recently entering her life that still just didn’t sound right: birth mother, grandmother, Yomi, Nigeria.

  She opened her mouth in renewed surprise and exhaled.

  “A grandmother, Tyler…” she said, turning from the computer.

  “Must be such a nice surprise.”

  “I suppose it is… I’ve never been anyone’s real granddaughter before!” she said, trying to ignore the slight fizz of excitement in her voice.

  “That’s amazing! Where can I find you, baby? I want to see you.

  This is too amazing.”

  “I’m at the office,” she replied, minimizing the website.

  She glanced at her random “notes”—Nollywood, palm oil, buba. “But can I see you tomorrow, Tyler? I’m in the middle of something. Is that okay?”

  “You’re still at work?”

  “Yes, sort of. I’ve been—” A twinge of embarrassment snuck in. Lara was not ready to reveal her cultural failings to Tyler of all people. He knew more about Nigeria than she ever would—and he was an American!

  “I’ve been … looking up stuff … on Nigeria … you know…”

  Much to her hurt, she could hear a brief chuckle from Tyler’s end of the phone.

  “And that’s funny because?”

  “I’m not laughing at you; I just think it’s sweet that you’re wanting to try.”

  “Right,” she replied sarcastically.

  “Listen, honey, this may seem strange coming from a man who earns his living off the Internet, but take it from me, it’s better to just go and immerse yourself in the culture. You’re not going to achieve much by sitting at a desk, logging on. You need to really feel the culture, the people, sounds, smells, strengths, weaknesses, and a whole lot more. One summer I traveled to Tanzania, Kenya, and Namibia—I learned so much about the people, the food, the practices.”

  “Are you suggesting I travel to Nigeria?”

  “I know that’s not practical right now. But maybe there’s another way. Think about it, okay?”

  As soon as he hung up, Lara clicked back to the website that promised to educate her on all aspects of the Nigerian Igbo culture.

  An hour later, she knew what fufu was and that Victoria Island in Nigeria boasted beautiful beaches, but still, she was unable to feel the essence of her birthplace. And soon, she began to realize what Tyler had been trying to tell her.

  Knowing she still had so much to learn and with Tyler’s suggestion echoing in her head, and much to Jean’s surprise, Lara took the whole day off. She stepped out at the Warren Street tube station, smiling self-consciously. She was going to find Nigeria—away from her mouse and keyboard and within London.

  The British Museum existed under a vast white bubble, boasting a large atrium that let in a bright midmorning sun. The assistant sitting behind a large information desk directed her to Room 25—the Sainsbury Wing—which she almost ran to, in childish haste, excited at the prospect of what existed behind that glass door.

  Groups of tourists with earphones and rucksacks stood in her way as she moved toward the entrance, pushing open the door, nothing preparing her for the first exhibits behind tall transparent expanses. Two large, rather frightening but very impressive costumelike objects stared back at her first. “Masquerade outfit” began the description on a small white card. The objects were apparently made from vegetable fiber, textile, and wood, originating from Malawi. Lara began to imagine the outfits coming to life at any moment, devouring her who
le. She shivered, recalling the dreams she used to have as a child, her young mind attempting to ascertain the essence of Africa and basically coming up with fragments of what she’d seen represented on television.

  She moved on to weapons of armor—bows, arrows, spears made from wood—and animal remains. Farther down, she viewed materials and cloths from North, West, South, and East Africa. One particular cloth stood out for Lara—apparently from Cameroon, green with yellow and red oblong shapes. A feeling of familiarity washed over her unexpectedly.

  She moved on to a rather large painting in which the artist had used animals to depict the Last Supper, then walked up to a beautifully carved wooden door from southern Nigeria, which she felt compelled to touch. Lara felt a mixture of elation and wonderment—a desire to learn and sadness at having never known.

  Lara examined statues from Senegal, hats from Gambia. Africa, with so many rich cultures and customs, was clearly a large continent—not to mention the vastness of Nigeria itself. Artifacts, like the statues from Ife and ceremonial costumes, seemed to be split into different regions of the country. Where was Ife? Had she ever been there as a child? She knew Yomi had lived in Lagos, so did that make her a Lagosian or Yoruba, or what?

  “Is there something in particular you are looking for, madam?” asked the woman in the blue T-shirt emblazoned with the museum logo. Lara noticed no one else was being asked. Not even the annoying tourists with the headsets, because even they knew where they were headed, unlike Lara.

  “No, I’m good, thanks.”

  “If you need any help…”

  Lara had never wanted to shout at someone for being helpful before.

  “Thank you. I said I’m good. Thanks.”

  Slightly dejected, Lara sat down in front of a model made out of numerous squares depicting scenes of “life”: combat, birth, hunting, cooking; life in all its forms. Of course the plaque beside the display contained a snippet of information on what it was supposed to represent, but to Lara it represented nothing more than pretty pieces of steel bonded together. In fact, she was surrounded by many pretty things she unfortunately just couldn’t make sense of and felt no connection to. And perhaps they’d only begin to mean anything if she understood them fully, not just as specimens in a museum, but by experience. Again, she thought of what Tyler had said.