One evening, as syringes fed silences into waiting veins Mrs Harris sat by my bed casually flicking my old Nigerian, copper kobo coin. To my horror, I saw myself emerge from it, near the wheel of the bed being spun by a cold, unidentifiable hand. Shock ran through my body. I looked to see if Mrs Harris had noticed the fear on my face rendering me mute but she was counting the coloured buttons she’d bought, holding them up to her eye one at a time and looking through their holes as if collecting new perspectives.
After she left, I began thinking about the difference between chance and luck. I wondered whether it was chance or bad luck that had landed me in the hospital. I thought about a Harmattan wind hurtling Mrs Harris into my life, and that same wind blowing my mother’s life out. My name is Joy. But my story doesn’t start with me, my mother, or even with the brass head my mother left me in her will. It really begins a long time ago, in a place where centuries after they were gone you could still hear the wishes and whispers of warriors, queens and kings.
Fish Out Of Water
19th century Benin
At dawn on the day the news of the competition reached the Omoregbe family, Adesua, with a bitter taste in her mouth, had risen to the gentle sound of her mother’s footsteps. From her position on the floor, the unrelenting glare of the sun flooding the small but sturdy compound provided further an illuminating reminder of the tasks to be done for the day.
The news that the king was looking for a new bride had quickly spread all over Esan land and people had been buzzing for weeks about the competition. The special event was to be held at the palace, where all suitable young women were to bring a dish they had prepared, and the king would make his choice of a new bride from the maker of the best dish.
Mothers running around like headless chickens, each eager to outdo the other, constantly visited the market stalls keeping their ears open for any piece of information they could glean to give their daughter an advantage. Fathers resorted to bribery, bombarding the King with gifts. The palace was laden with necklaces, cloths, masks, sweet wine from the palm trees, goat, cow and bush meat. The rumour began that the palace stocked enough to feed all of Esan and the surrounding areas for two seasons, though this came from Ehimare, the land’s most famous gossip, who was deaf in one ear and whose mouth appeared to be in perpetual motion.
Adesua was Mama Uwamusi’s only child who arrived in the world kicking and screaming into broken rays of light. Uwamusi had almost died giving birth, and further attempts at having other children had resulted in five dead babies. This day as they swept their small compound in preparation for their guests she handed over the broom to her daughter, looking at her as if for the first time.
She must have known she had done well; Adesua was beautiful with a wide mouth and an angular face. She had the height of her father and his stubborn temperament but her heart was good and this pleased Uwamusi more than any physical attribute. Adesua was a young woman now, yet she wondered if the girl realised it, so quick was she to climb a tree or insist on going hunting with Papa Anahero at any opportunity
Later, they were expecting the company of Azemoya and Onohe, two of Papa’s friends from a neighbouring village. She did not enjoy the extra work that came with attending to their every whim, for both men could each eat enough for two or three people and never failed to outstay their welcome. Azemoya had six wives and many children, and so was quick to invite himself to other people’s homes to ensure a reasonably large meal every so often. Onohe was a very lazy man; it was a curse that had afflicted male members of his bloodline for generations. Instead of working hard to provide for his family, he was full of excuses. Either there was some bodily ailment (real or imagined) troubling him, or the weather was not agreeable or the Gods had not shown him favour no matter how many sacrifices he made to them. Onohe was at his happiest whenever his stomach was full, yet it was widely known that his wives and children could sometimes be seen begging neighbours for food.
Adesua shook her head at the thought of it, so that is what it meant to be someone’s wife? Unable to understand how the men felt no shame at treating their women so badly, she set her mind to brighter things, longing for the day to be over, so she could have time to herself again and challenge some of the boys she knew to a hunting competition.
“You must send her to the ceremony, the King is looking for a new wife and Adesua has as good a chance as anybody else.” Azemoya’s loud voice could be heard over the crackling of wood in the fire.
“She is my only child, I think I will wait another season before I think of such matters”, Anahero replied.
“She cannot belong to you forever, it is time to start planning for tomorrow”, Onohe’s tone was filled with amusement. “She is a woman now. I too will send my eldest daughter to the ceremony; if I have good fortune on my side she may be chosen.”
“I have not seen such a smile on your wife’s face for many seasons,” Onohe added, biting heartily into a kola nut. “But I do not understand you Anahero. Why do you not have more wives? People have been laughing behind your back for a long time. You would have had many children by now. It is a foolish man that does not see what is right before his eyes.”
“Let them laugh, Uwamusi has served me well.”
“She did not bear you a son, and you know people talk, it is custom to have a son to carry your name”, Azemoya said smiling, exposing various gaps in his brown teeth.
Anahero’s voice rose defensively, “I have Adesua.” He had always ached for more children and he knew his face revealed that need even when he attempted to persuade himself otherwise.
“My spirit troubles me about sending Adesua to the king’s palace.” Anahero spoke this concern lightly gauging the reactions, as his sense of foreboding for his only daughter was deeply troubling to him.
“You must consult with the oracle for guidance. It is time. She cannot continue hunting and climbing trees with village boys!” Onohe patted him reassuringly on the back with one hand while eagerly reaching for another piece of yam with the other.
After their guests left, Anehero and Uwamusi made sacrifices. They swam in the river with painted faces. And when the gods summoned those faces underwater, their heads broke through the rippling surface in acceptance.
Five days passed. On the sixth day an angry wind came from the north, hissing and spitting out defiant trees on arrival, whirling loudly and destroying whatever crossed its path.
Full Stops and Heartbeats
The human heart beats over 2.5 billion times during an average lifetime. My mother’s heart stopped beating on a warm Sunday evening in July. She was fifty-six years old. The other things I remember from that day are waking up with a craving for peanut butter and falling inside Jim Morrison’s voice singing Hello I love you. I was probably watching taped reruns of Only Fools and Horses when it happened, gobbling down Wotsits that crackled in my mouth and melted on my tongue, staining it and my fingers orange.
I had called my mother earlier that day and there was no answer. I called her again and again and she still didn’t pick up. By 11:30pm I was finally really worried. I grabbed the car keys, ran out of the house more irritated than concerned. In the car, I gunned the engine and reversed out of the yard, still wearing my white vest littered with florescent Wotsit crumbs and red checked pyjama bottoms with gaping holes at the crotch.
I sped down the A406, noticing only a few vehicles dotted here and there as houses, trees and bus stops flew past my window. Reaching the long stretch of Romford Road, I slowed down, ignoring the groan of my engine. I snatched my mobile from the front passenger seat and dialled again: still no answer. I steered the car to a halt as the traffic light turned red. The red light began to throb, like a pulse, and I thought I should have gone round to see her earlier.
I arrived to find the hall light was still on and laughter from the television was bleeding through the front door. The smell of cooking oil, heavy and thick, clung to the air. It was Sunday, that meant Tilapia stew for dinner.
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I swung the door open saying, “A mobile phone isn’t for decoration you know!”
She was lying on the sofa, dressing gown pooled around her, head angled inside the crook of her arm. She could have been asleep but she was so still… statue still. A cold, clammy caterpillar of fear slid down my spine propelling me forward apprehensively at first to touch her. She did not move, not even when I began shaking her body as hard as I could. I don’t recall phoning the ambulance, but I must have done.
When they came, I was clinging to her, holding on so tightly, it took two of the crew to pry me away. Mentally, I recorded every detail. The slight dent on the bridge of her nose I used to rub the pad of my finger against as a little girl. The pointy chin that jutted out defiantly, the faint lines fanned out at the corner of her eyes and above her full top lip, a few stray hairs I’d never noticed before. Those and the beauty spot on her neck, right where her toffee coloured skin became a little lighter. Her perfume competed with the more insistent aroma of old, cold food nonetheless it reached me, the thin, sweet scent of peach she’d worn my whole life. In primary school, when she picked me up, I’d leap into her arms as she raggedly hoisted me up, resting my head on her sweet-scented shoulder. Then I’d tuck my hand under her jaw and try to carry her small oval face gently, as if it were an egg.
Inside the ambulance the crew stayed silent as they attempted to resuscitate her. It was the law. I wanted to touch her face again. They let me hold her hand. Her skin felt cool. Why hadn’t they let me pack an overnight bag? She’d want to get out of those clothes in the morning. I made a note to myself to bring her some fresh underwear, her Shea butter cream, her comb and house slippers.
I said to her, “You know how much you hate hospitals.” The silence seemed to concur.
“We’ll be there soon,” I murmured, watching for any sign of movement. “I’ll make sure you’re put in a nice ward, I’ll speak to the doctor.”
“Is there anybody you want to call?” the female crewmember asked. “It may make things a little easier for you. It’s a lot to take in, finding her like that…”
“Why would I need to call anyone?” My voice rang out shrill in the small moving space.
Then the ambulance stopped and the back doors opened. A woman dressed in a nurse’s uniform rushed to us at the ambulance bay area.
The female crewmember (Ann I think her name was) came over and touched me gently on the arm. “I’m sorry Miss but you have to let go now.”
Sudden cardiac arrest. Gone. No explanations. There was nothing in her medical history to suggest that this could ever happen. The autopsy failed to reveal anything and I wondered angrily what the point of it was. All I knew was that when she really needed me, I wasn’t there.
My last meeting with her was etched deep in my memory. I’d felt human again because of it. It had been a rare day off for us, both from our jobs and our roles even, as mother and daughter. We were barefoot on the park grass, she, casually sipping from a box of Mr Juicy orange juice, while I chased the ice cream van, my hat falling off in the process. Later we took turns to push each other on the swings, even though she didn’t want to, kept on about being too grown for that and then once on the swing, she forcefully gripped the metal chain-link arms that anchored her to the weathered wooden seat and there had been something so childlike about the way she’d kicked her legs in the air as I pushed her as hard as I could so she could fly, her voice flailing high above, full of laughter and happy fear. Then, the rain came down like a curtain on a final act, and we walked arm in arm in quiet contentment while raindrops kissed our noses and the wet ground tickled our bare feet.
My hands are full and as I return to the hospital to be with her body, I hold this memory gingerly, frightened in case any part of it should fall and scatter over the ground. If it did, how could I rebuild the dripping ice cream, or her mouth widening in shock at the coolness of it against her teeth and us walking around with our shoes off as if we didn’t have a care in the world.
The bus finally arrived in Whitechapel. I pressed the stop button and hopped off, relieved at making it through a plethora of sweaty bodies. The streets were bursting, people swarming this way and that. I wondered who of them had lost their mothers, who’s chests were now holes filled with the fragments of memories. There are certain lies you tell yourself to stumble blindly through the bereavement. After the reality cracks you in two, you tell yourself that things will be okay. That time will erode the numbness away; you glue the split inside together by forcing yourself out of bed in the mornings, eating cereal with hot milk and leaving the radio on at every opportunity, scared of your own thoughts. And some nights when the loneliness is so bad and a frayed, rough desperation courses through your veins, you pick up your phone book and trace the cobwebs off names you suddenly want to leap over the margins to sit beside you.
Amidst the throng of people I watched couples. Some appeared anxious, some amorous. Most were oblivious to world beyond the other’s gaze. Jagged pangs of longing unexpectedly hit me like mouths beneath the skin cutting across organs. I longed to be in love, to have a lover. I felt sad, inadequate and lonely. What must it be like to never feel the mumbled words of a lover become handwriting against your jaw?
As I hit the steps of The Royal London Hospital to pick up my mother’s items, my thoughts flapped at crossed purposes sending me meandering down conflicting dead ends. Might I die like that too…? Suddenly end up so still…. Weighing in, heavier than the rest is the last thought, the moment when I first arrived at the hospital when I was convinced mum would rouse, groggy but still fighting. I really did, right up to the point where she disappeared behind the large shrieking double doors with the NHS regulation blue and white paint peeling off. But she didn’t. She became in that moment an imaginary being even, as evidenced by the thumping of my heart, she existed as still real through me. I saw myself clearly caught between life as I once knew it and life never being the same again.
I stood still on the hospital’s grey steps, absorbing the nurses in their crisply ironed uniforms, the inaudible chatter of jaded ambulance men, people clutching official looking envelopes and folded letters, the tearing away of tires in the distance, all part of some strange, orchestral music the city produced. Everything stuck to the magnet of my pulse. I saw myself sitting on a crumbling rock, swatting cobwebs away from my privates frantically. When a tiny speck of rock was left, I fell to a bottom lined with broken eggshells.
Simultaneous Equations
If I’d been born a water baby, I’d liquefy into coffee-stained mugs so people could drink me and taste peach iced tea. On the London Underground during summer my clothes would become wet to cool me down and make a stunted river for the seven lives in my feet to float. I chewed on these thoughts as I watched Mrs Harris front crawl in our local pool, her movements slick in the water.
I was waist deep in the shallow end, walking on water trying to warm myself up. The pool was shrouded in a strange pulsing blue light. A young lifeguard in his high chair looked bored, stroked his whistle and the dormant sweet screams it carried, while the wet floor beneath him was slippery with invisible verrucas. I watched the kids at the opposite end fling themselves into the water in beautiful, awkward shapes that died on the surface. Their yells pierced the distance between us. My hair was wet, my skin tingled and a pair of white goggles felt tight on my head. I went under. I longed for Marpessa, my old SLR camera, to be waterproof so her greedy, rotating lens could capture the black lines that created lanes, the strokes that continued swimming after you exited the pool and the silver carpet of forks at the bottom nobody else saw. So I could tap people on their shoulders and say, “Excuse me, can I take pictures of your kick?” I named my camera after the actress Marpessa Dawn: both were black, magical, and mysterious. Having her had taught me how to embrace inanimate objects.
By the time Mrs Harris made her way to me I’d had my fill of admiring other swimmers, wanting to steal their easy strokes as though they were costu
mes to be worn. She eased in front of me, white locks across her face fat with water.
We hadn’t had a chance to really talk yet. I fiddled with my goggles trying to contain the anger rising. “I can’t believe you fucked off and left me. You realise I have nobody right now.”
A tiny bulb of water flattened on her neck. “What about the counselling sessions? I thought they would help.” Her tone was patient.
“I’m not talking about a doctor that I’m just another case to,” I spat. “I’m talking about you. He’s a stranger paid to listen to me confess things they might use against me.”
We went under, swimming towards the middle. I was aware of people kicking around me moving water through their fingers that would trickle down into the rest of their day. Behind my goggles I cried. It’s possible to cry and hold your breath under water. We were at the bottom of the sea, not the crammed leisure centre pool in east London. She turned her head, grabbed my hand. We spoke silently knowing our words would not survive without air.
She just fucking died with no warning, I said. My words swallowed by splashes above us.
She always did things without preparing you.
What do I do now?
She squeezed my fingers. You can’t resent her for something she couldn’t control. Shit happens. Some people go to sleep and don’t wake up. Others cross a street without looking and get hit by a car. A man I once knew left an incense stick burning while he dozed off, the whole flat went up in smoke. Then the water pulled her silent apology away.
We came up for air, holding onto the side, kicking gently. Mrs Harris squeezed water from her bun. “You want me to lie to you and tell you things will be better overnight? They won’t be.”
“No,” I said, feeling the tug of my swimming costume strap on my shoulder, blinking at the strange blue light, at Mrs Harris as though she was a product of it. “I just feel… abandoned.” A sour taste filled my tongue. I pulled my costume strap up before we went under again.
Butterfly Fish Page 2