“But that’s not fair!” I offered, genuinely annoyed on her behalf.
“You don’t know the half of it!” she announced, shouting in my ear. “Bryn inherited the estate. After everything my father and I went through in that house, he and his mother just waltzed in and took it. It was as if my father rewarded them for being his new beginning.”
The track changed. David Bowie was signalling to Major Tom.
“You know what was awful?” she continued. “When I got admitted to the mental hospital, Bryn sent me a letter with a hundred pounds enclosed. He said he was disappointed by my circumstances and here was some money to spend wisely. Spend wisely! As though I was an idiot.” She sipped from her glass, shook her head frustrated. “So you see my dear, you’re not the only one that has to wrestle with the burden of an inheritance. I’m not talking about just money and objects. I mean things people like you and I see clearly that others may not. Sometimes, I think I inherited a different destiny simply because my mother walked out.” She gripped my arm tightly. Her eyes glowed ominously.
Later in the evening, Mrs Harris and I decided to separate and mingle. After several extra drinks for Dutch courage, I relaxed more. I’d had no intentions of launching myself sober into random conversations with strangers yet I chatted amiably with a pope smoking a spliff by the piano in the cherry-coloured living room. I danced with a Charlie Chaplin who reeked of beer. In the kitchen, I watched Mr T and Darth Vader arm wrestle. On the stairs, two bumblebees kissed passionately. I felt light and floated amongst bodies whose lines were blurring, only to emerge slumped over tables, languishing on cramped sofas and pushed up against each other in doorways. My feet began to hurt so I took my ankle length, black boots off. I dropped them amidst the pile of shoes in the hallway.
When my energy began to dwindle, I expected somebody to slot coins in my back so my eyes could shine brighter. But nobody did and the whites of my eyes continued to fill with the hand drawn movements of the night. More alcohol was shoved my way.
Hey! Have a Corona.
Want another Vodka and orange?
You’re a lightweight; try some of this!
At some point, I wandered slack-jawed into the garden. Smatterings of people had gathered and I noticed Mrs Harris and Otto the Pirate by the swings. They appeared to be arguing but I wasn’t close enough to hear what was being said. I felt a sharp twinge in my foot, looked down and a bit of broken glass was covered in my blood. I made my way indoors into the bathroom, where I spent some time washing a bloody, grimace from my foot.
My shoes went missing. A waifish, blonde dressed as Veronica Lake loaned me white slippers. “Cinderella you shall go home! Imagine if you could never leave the party.” She mused. “Imagine if this was all there was, just this party and the characters in it, twenty four hours a day, for the rest of your life.”
“Just imagine,” I slurred.
After her exit, I scanned the bodies milling to and fro but couldn’t see Mrs Harris. I sat against a wall in the hallway nodding off, head jerking up intermittently. Then from nowhere, through a smoky cloud I caught a glimpse of a familiar dress, a skeleton’s pattern on the bodice. My eyes adjusted, took in the crown of dead flowers askew on a pile of wiry, black hair. A breath left my chest like a one winged bird. It was Anon dressed in Mrs Harris’s costume, face painted skeleton white. She flew up the stairs, the traces of another life clinging to the hem of her skirt. I uncurled my body, followed her. In my inebriated state I was slower, tripping a few times. I squeezed past bodies on the carpeted stairs. By the time I reached the roof, the music had shrunk to a hum. Anon stood on the edge and was about to leap off.
“No, don’t!” I urged, rushing forward. Then she vanished. Cold sweat popped on my brow. I looked down, realising I was steps away from flying to my death.
On my way back down, dice spun on the ceilings. I rummaged in the cupboard beneath the stairs, grabbed my coat and flung it on. Anon waited by a street lamp, it was after three am and the cold air nipped my skin. She picked up the pace while I trailed behind. We dashed past satellite dishes transmitting pictures of other life to sleeping TV sets. She whistled the tune Mrs Harris had been whistling the other day. That strange, melancholy song was water seeping into our movements. I kept blinking it away. It made my nerves jangle. The borrowed slippers rapped against the ground and my feet were freezing. Somewhere along the way, it dawned on me that Anon was wearing my missing boots. And somehow it made sense. She led me home. In my frosted window, Anon waited to wear limbs that ambled towards her from the four corners. I stood outside watching. I stuffed my hands in my jacket pockets, felt a folded flyer for a show called Eat. I fished it out, a storm was gathering in the mouth of the afro-haired woman featured, spawning creases on the shiny sheaf of paper. I tucked it back into my pocket where a broken key ring languished; I fingered the break in the key ring.
Light Spinning
I stuffed some clothes in the washing machine, including the skeleton costume. I watched its turns, the previous night calling to it, spinning too, a watery eye pressed against the glass. Later, I swept cobwebs from my head, knowing they’d reappear on Anon’s open palms. That evening I rapped on Mrs Harris’s door, still upset by her disappearance at the party. She opened the door puffing on a cigarette, wearing a robe bearing a flamingo print. She smelled of smoke and something sweet and exotic like jasmine.
“Ahh, Ronnie Wood,” she exclaimed, peering at me as if seeing me in a new light.
I smiled uncertainly. She shut the door firmly, kicked aside a pizza leaflet that slipped from the mail flap. “You were a party animal last night, good to see you having fun.”
“About that,” I tucked my pyjama top in my jeans properly. “It wasn’t nice for you to leave me like that. I came home on my own.”
In the living room she paused, looking at me with a baffled expression. “What are you talking about? We arrived home together dearie. I walked you to your door.”
“No you didn’t!” I answered, in a tone sharper than I’d intended.
“I did. You were so drunk you didn’t even know where you’d left your shoes. One second.” She began rummaging through a green glass ornament shaped like a pearl on the mantelpiece. It sounded like whispering sweet wrappers followed by the sound of coins clashing. I wiped a perspiring hand on the back of my left buttock, feeling the thin leaf of the Iranian playing card she’d given me in hospital. I’d taken to carrying it as a good luck charm, unable to forget its burst of brightly coloured possibilities in a glum ward.
“Aha! Here it is,” Mrs Harris uttered triumphantly, clutching an object that looked suspiciously familiar. A round, metallic ring poked between two fingers as she handed it over. It was my super eagle, my broken key ring with the green, white, green blocks of colour. The Nigerian flag encased in plastic. I was nauseous and gulped it down.
“You dropped it last night on the way home. I know it’s just a damaged key ring but I thought you’d miss it for some reason,” she explained, laughter lines crinkling at the corners of her mouth.
I fingered the break in the plastic, the same action from the night before. It was one of the handfuls of lucid moments I thought I’d had on my way back home. Now I wasn’t even certain I’d had that. I didn’t feel the tear until it hit my lip, until I tasted a salty sorrow with a swipe of my tongue. I wanted to tell her about how I’d begun to grow trees in silences. I couldn’t bring myself to talk about it. My tongue tightened from the burden of balancing half formed things.
I smiled ruefully. “Butterflies.”
“Indeed, never underestimate them. Come on, I’ll show you something,” she said.
The stairs creaked as we walked up. I spotted a coppery, watermark on the ceiling. It traced our movements all the way. And the exotic, sweet floral scent intensified the further we went. Mrs Harris began to hum that strange, haunting tune again.
“What is that song?” I asked, side-stepping a dustpan and brush. “You were whistling it the oth
er day.”
“It’s an old Romany song about two lovers who died together promising to meet in the after life.”
I felt a weird sensation in my left arm, as if the hairs were needles holding half threads in them.
“My mother used to sing it to me as a child,” she continued, nudging the loft door open. “For some reason, it always stayed with me.”
“Odd song to sing to a child.”
“Yes it was but like I said, she was a little crazy.”
In the loft we were greeted by three candles flickering on the windowsill and the coppery watermark had retreated. It was a good-sized space containing a warm, wooden floor, a slanted ceiling and orange walls. A short bookcase sat tucked away in one corner and old record sleeves of obscure artists leaned lazily against it. In the centre stood a headless dress form, flanked by slouched bin bags spilling clothes. I ran my hand over its naked, smooth body, imagining the strewn clothes were trains of thought. “Where did you get it?” Under the low lighting it was a piece of art.
“Oh many years ago now.” She stood to the right studying it as if picturing that first instance. “I got it in Edinburgh from a shop that sold sewing machines. One day, they had it for sale in their display window. I’m always struck by things that are out of place, it felt right so I bought it.” She took a drag from her shrinking cigarette.
“It seems…” I struggled to find the right words without sounding judgemental.
“Old fashioned?” she offered, eyes sparkling.
“Yes! Old fashioned.”
“That’s because it is dear.” She shrugged resignedly.
I searched her features. “Do you use it often?”
“Sometimes.”
“Why?” I was genuinely interested; to me it lengthened the process of getting ready.
She rolled her eyes as though I was an idiot. “Because it’s fun to play dress up, no matter how old you get dear,” she remarked.
In my mind’s eye, I saw her working in the attic surrounded by twin dress forms, beneath a bulb lit by an orange echo, drawing her features onto heads for her army, dressing them up, sending them out into the corners of the city. And they bore mouths melted by candlelight, shrouded in the smog of God’s breath.
I left Mrs Harris’s with the same strange sensation in my left arm. As if the two were connected, I plucked the playing card from my back pocket. Sure enough, the spear-wielding figure had changed clothes.
At night I didn’t sleep till late. I sketched pictures of Mrs Harris in her different guises. Later, I watched the drawings for changes in their expressions, revelations in the lines of their bodies. But all they did was lead me back to the same blank space.
Periodic Elements
Mercury Hg 80 = Mrs Harris
It was a ridiculous hour of the day, maybe 2 or 3am. Mrs Harris stood amidst squares of flattened cardboard in her sitting room that would become temporary homes for things that have no business growing roots. She lifted them, her things, like dumbbells, as if expecting resistance. The black rectangular radio sat listening, her sounds slipping through its speakers. She could smell the mustard from the half eaten sandwich that rested on the arm of her sofa. A creature of the night, she was at room temperature when she left to go next door. She lifted the key from the potted plant underneath Joy’s window; of course it turned the lock open.
Hydrogen H1 = Joy
In sleep she followed a thought because it had something to show her. At first, it was pure, singular. She was a grown woman with her little girl voice, being thrown up in the air and caught. She could not see by whom. They were brown hands and arms locking over her middle. Each time she was thrown, glowing, meandering triangles approached her from either side before slipping over her feet and upwards. This happened many times until eventually she turned gold in colour. She heated up, boiling till it became unbearable. Her head exploded against the black backdrop revealing a red mist. The brass head was rolling at her feet, grinning again. Then she was headless, she had no choice, she picked it up. It was a scorching helmet in her hands. She paced through the red mist feeling no sense of belonging and floated above other elements.
Carbon C6 = Queen
She was a child waking up to find her father gone. Later, her mother would make moi moi she’d pick at. They’d sit across from each other at the big, empty glass table and try not to tremble. In a child’s way, she would blame herself and her mother for a long time.
Then:
She was clutching the brass head and a diary.
These memories became: Padding for her coffin
Fertiliser for the soil
Clothing to wear dead
She was a nucleus curling and unfurling its distended, wet eye.
The breath on a window with nobody there, a subtle repositioning of slippers, photographs, mugs. Whispers tickling the spine of a maple tree leaning to the side. Everywhere, the dead were among the living.
Peter Lowon Journal entry July 1964
I left Okafor having confessed nothing with the mouth but everything with the body. The panic in my pupils, the sweat across my top lip, the attempt to keep my limbs still; I was dead weight in a chair. I walked away upright, down the seven steps out. I felt his eyes bore into my back.
Everything seemed worse after that. The hot air outside that smelled of sun-stroked bodies, meat pies, roasted corn. Ripe failure. The women milling about with loaded baskets on their heads and worn, heavy expressions looked at me in judgement. I stuttered and tripped over a crushed, green, soft drink can.
To avoid having any witnesses I had asked the driver not to come, so I opened the black Mercedes driver-side door. The heat hit me all at once. If a man could sit in a car and while away his life I would have done it. I sat inside for the longest time watching my hands shake at the wheel. Listening as the noises of cars, chatter, music and life were drowned out by a splintered cry that came from beyond me. I thought of calling my father, my mother, rubbing the possibility as though it was a colourless marble. They would find out soon enough, but I did not want to tell them, knowing that if I did, there would be nothing but disappointment to follow.
I spent the afternoon driving around aimlessly. Early evening, I stopped by a street vendor not too far from Festac to pick up Queenie’s favourite snacks; perm dodo and suya. I got there early knowing soon queues would form.
I nodded watching the vendor’s fast hands chop onions, season and salt the partially cooked strips of meat. He hummed to himself; the only dent on his perfect black skin was a pock mark between his eyes. His eyes were red, as if from worry, maybe they were always that way and I was noticing for the first time. His nose was broken and his white vest had spots of food. I felt an unexpected kindred connection. He moved his wiry, agile body effortlessly. I said “You’re here every evening?”
“Three evenings a week, I do other things too sir.” He answered laughing; as though being underestimated was a common mistake people made.
I asked him what kind of other things? He chuckled, telling me he was a survivor.
To my surprise, I started talking. That was how I came up with the second part of my plan, plotting with a stranger, a street vendor I had never had a proper conversation with before.
I rang General Akhatar when I got home, but he was away in Abuja and not due back till the following afternoon. Heaviness slowed me down. Sitting in my big, white house with its servant quarters I felt like a poor man. Then I was angry. Angry at myself for doing a terrible thing you cannot erase, angry at meritocracy and the way it infected your system as a young man, angry happiness eluded me. No matter what I did, it danced away because of one night. One mistake. Something else nagged, making me furious. I couldn’t remember who had introduced me to the General, how we had met. In my mind’s eye, I saw myself reaching back into that moment, grabbing it like a rolled up piece of paper, then tossing it away.
I knew Felicia would be due home from the shop, her car tyres whispering as she eased in through t
he tall, black gates.
I found Queenie on her bed, awake, looking young and wise all at once. She stood to attention, laughing in her bright pyjamas after noticing the plate of suya and dodo in my hands. She told me she had known I bought suya, that mummy would be angry if she caught us with food upstairs. We traded secretive smiles before eating. Just for an instant, I nearly folded; a father sharing dinner with his child is a beautiful, uncomplicated thing. Not on this occasion. The smell of onions in suya hung in the air; our hands were greased and peppered from the meat, a last supper for two fraudulent disciples.
That night I could not sleep. I sat up in my double bed picking holes through the time line of my life with a toothpick. I heard Felicia’s steps approach my room. I knew they were hers, soft, as though she was walking through sand. They have always been that way. I knew she stood there listening, her eardrums prickled to detect every sound, sensing something, a feeling things would change again. She was breathing through the door and through a war only couples fought, bruised but still human. Now we wanted to show each other our bruises and say look what you have done. Can you see it there? Here? There? Okay, make it go away, do magic.
Now I stood on the other side, my fingers splayed against the door, listening like her. Wanting. I was a mystery to my wife; one day she had opened her eyes and not recognised me. We stayed that way for a while, listening to our breaths warming a wooden door, knowing each other through body movements we couldn’t see. I remembered then how she used to burn herself by candle light, poring over old books that horded unfulfilled dreams. I wondered whether what I’d done to our marriage felt like a massive burn chafing against her clothes when she moved. Then, the handle turned, neither of us knowing which one had opened the door.
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