Where Women are Kings

by Christie Watson

  ‘Eh? I hope you’re joking.’ Daddy pretended to fall off the arm of the sofa.

  Nikki ignored them and focused on the magazine. ‘They do look lovely, but can you imagine how much work they’ll be, how much help they will need? Maybe the older one cared for the younger one because they were so neglected. And I read somewhere that neglect is the worst form of abuse. It damages their brains. Anyway, look at this little fella!’ Nikki pointed to a photo of a fat baby with a gummy smile.

  Obi turned the page back to Talesha and Malika. ‘What are you talking about?’ He hadn’t even looked at the baby. Nikki felt her eyes sting. He put his other hand on top of Nikki’s. ‘That’s the whole point, isn’t it? That we help someone who needs help the most?’ He squeezed her hand.

  She looked at Obi’s kind face, the outline of Daddy’s kind face behind him. ‘You’re right,’ she said. ‘It’s just a bit scary, that’s all, to think about a life, a life that we’re in charge of.’

  ‘I know, but what a thing to do! Look at these kids. All of them. Of course they’ll have issues but they need love. Love is the most important thing they’ve missed. And we have plenty of love.’

  Nikki picked up a magazine from the pile and flicked through the pages. It was an older magazine, one that Ricardo had left them as it was out of date. ‘Malika and Talesha,’ she said. ‘Look.’

  It was definitely the children from the other magazine. ‘It’s the same two,’ Obi said. ‘A year ago. A whole year in care, being advertised and no parents coming forward. That should tell you everything you need to know if you’re feeling unsure about what we’re doing here.’

  ‘Poor little things,’ said Chanel. She leant towards Jasmin, but Jasmin stepped away from her.

  Nikki breathed deeply. Obi was right. It made perfect sense. They should help someone who needed help the most. Poor kids.

  ‘They are not the right ones for you,’ said Daddy.

  ‘We’re not shopping for a new car, Daddy. We’re looking at children. And lives. Imagine all these children and what they’ve been through.’ Obi moved the magazine over to Nikki’s lap.

  Daddy moved back over to his chair and sat down, leant forwards. ‘I know. I am making light of dark work,’ he said. ‘And I want you both to know that I will be on this journey with you every step of the way. We all are. I love you both and I’m so proud of you.’

  Obi laughed and pulled Nikki’s hand towards his mouth and kissed her fingers. ‘With us all together, we’ll be fine,’ he said.

  ‘We’ll help, Aunty Nikki,’ said Jasmin.

  ‘Of course we will,’ Chanel agreed.

  ‘I mean it,’ said Obi. ‘We are going to give a child a chance, a real chance.’

  Nikki looked back down to the magazine.

  So many children with read-between-the-lines stories. So many older children still waiting. Nikki tried to focus on them. But her eyes kept moving away and landing on the babies.

  ‘You don’t need the magazine,’ said Daddy. ‘Our boy isn’t in there.’

  ‘Here we go,’ said Nikki, loud enough for Daddy to hear.

  ‘I’m serious. My grandchild is a boy,’ he said. ‘A Nigerian boy.’ He looked to the ceiling and put his hands together as if praying. ‘A Nigerian boy.’

  *

  Later that afternoon, Obi was called into work. Something important. He had kissed her hair, grabbed his keys and run out. Nikki went for a walk to clear her head. She usually walked through the park towards the river – almost daily, if the weather allowed it. She loved to be near the water. Growing up, she’d lived close to the sea, her childhood filled with brawny, yellow-booted fishermen, whose laughter rattled like her mum and dad’s house. But that day Nikki found herself walking towards the swing park, in the opposite direction to the water that usually drew her. Their plans whirled round and round inside her. She understood why Obi wanted to help an older child, a child who needed help and who might be overlooked. And, seeing those children in the magazines getting older and older, she had felt his excitement that they might be able to rescue one. But still, her head was filled with the sound of a baby crying and her arms were too light and empty.

  She walked past the thick trees, and the playground full of children. The sun was shining brightly, making the grass look AstroTurf green. The park was filled with the smell of summer. An ice-cream van perched on the side of the path; a small queue of children formed in front of it, looking up longingly at the pictures on the side of the van of different coloured ice creams. As Nikki walked past, she smiled at a young girl pointing to a 99 Flake. Her mother shook her head.

  ‘No,’ she said. ‘You can have a small natural-fruit lolly only. Don’t want to spoil your dinner.’ She looked over the girl’s head and winked at Nikki.

  But Nikki didn’t wink back. She’d have loved the chance to give her child an ice cream. Nikki walked on towards the playground, which was filled with mothers. Some were talking while their children went up and down slides; some pushed younger children and babies on the swings while texting or talking on mobile phones. One mum, though, was completely focused on her child. Her boy, who was around six or seven years old, was climbing a tree and she was standing below it, her arms outstretched as if to catch him.

  ‘I won’t fall, Mum,’ he shouted.

  He was almost hanging upside down. But his mum laughed. ‘I’ll catch you.’

  ‘Am I allowed to go higher?’

  ‘Yes, but be careful.’

  Nikki stood next to the gate and found that she was gripping the railings and holding her breath. He was so high up in the tree that she only saw a trainer poking out from the branches.

  His mum stood, looking up, still smiling.

  Eventually he climbed down and jumped the last part, and then ran towards his mum’s outstretched arms. ‘I did it, Mum! I did it!’

  Nikki found her eyes glued to the mother and son. She’d give anything to be that mother standing under the tree. She thought about the girl without an ice cream. Nikki looked around the playground in front of her.

  I can do it, she thought. I don’t need a baby. A child is a child. I will have a son or daughter at last. I’ll let them climb really high, and be ready to catch them if they fall.

  SEVEN

  My Elijah,

  As I write this, I can see the colours of spring bursting through the ground. I can see everything here from the shade of this tree, sitting on my ‘writing bench’, as I’ve named it. I like looking out. Especially at this time of year. The best thing about England is surely the spring, here reminding us that after every winter come flowers and sunshine, with tiny buds of colour and hope. With the air like it is today – blowing so soft on my face, smelling of all things pure – and the lawn laid out green in front of me, anything feels possible. Even in England. But I know the truth of it. That, of course, after every colour comes another, and after spring, summer and autumn comes winter, dark and cold like a terrible dream. There is never winter in Nigeria. Even now, as I look at the first hint of the best English spring, my stomach rolls into a ball when I think of home, spiny like a hedgehog curled up inside me. I remember everything as if it all happened in a dream last night. Leaving Nigeria was the most difficult thing of all. I’ll never forget the look on my mother’s face at the airport, the pain in her eyes wider than the earth. But I was young, and excited, and going to England. I imagined a place as sweet-tasting as my childhood breakfast cereals. The reality I was confronted with was not sweet at all, but bitter and sour.

  We had a small flat, Akpan and I, which was difficult to clean, and smelt of the dead mouse that, despite our best efforts, we could never find. We lived on the eighth floor of a tall building with lifts that were stained with urine. Nigeria is a much cleaner place. We had two neighbours: the first, a Ghanaian, was an unregistered childminder and had somehow found a way to hide twenty or so young children whenever the authorities came knocking, and would take down the note from her door that said, One hour, one pou
nd, per child. I waved at her a few times but she was hardly ever on the balcony and kept the children inside with the curtains closed and television on loud. The flat on the other side was quieter and always smelt of burning plantain, sweet and fiery at the same time. Men went in and out, and hung around the doorway. Bad-looking men. Those kinds of men would have been arrested in Lagos, simply for looking the way they did – shifty-eyed and furtive, like they’d committed a crime. Akpan told me to stay away from that doorway as bad people lived there, but, son of mine, I had a brain in my head and could see for myself. I made the sign of the cross whenever I walked quickly past. But they didn’t bother us, and so we didn’t bother them. Our flat was desperate for decoration; the carpet had lived many generations and the pattern was difficult to see, but cleanliness is next to Godliness, as you know, and so I did my best, keeping the surfaces clean, filling the air with the smell of jollof rice. I had Akpan buy plenty of bleach and small wipes in a yellow packet that removed the smell of the mouse, for a few minutes at least. We were not rich, and it was not a palace, but those first few months of living in Deptford were magical, filled with brightness. We lived in our own little cloud. Akpan would return from his work and we’d sit on the balcony and look out across London, while I fried some plantain and listened to his stories. He liked to tell me about his childhood and the games he played, the school he loved where he was president of the chess society. We heard of a church, Deliverance Church, which was at the end of Deptford High Street, next to the stalls selling coats and bathroom products, bin bags and trainers, and was run by Bishop Fortune, a Nigerian man from Jos.

  The church was beautiful, the pulpit filled with gospel singers, the floors clean enough to eat off, the Nigerian congregation pressed into their neatest clothes. When we first met him, Akpan shook Bishop’s hand so enthusiastically I thought he was hurting the poor Bishop, but he simply laughed. ‘Welcome! Welcome!’ he said. ‘I’m Bishop Fortune Oladipo Jerusalem Pilgrim at your service, sir! If our Muslim brothers and sisters can have their Mecca, then why can we not?’

  Akpan had laughed and lit up like a star. He’d taken home a card, given to him by the Bishop, and Blu-tacked it to the wall above our bed:

  Bishop Fortune Oladipo J.P. (The Doctor of Souls).

  Owner and Manager of Deliverance Church,

  41 Hill Street, Deptford –

  where the Devil is

  NOT WELCOME.

  Fighting Evil with God-Given Powers

  by Bishop Fortune Oladipo

  is for sale at £4.99 from Evangelical Book Shop,

  London SE5 7RY

  We attended that church all the time, Elijah. We were so impressed by the four-wheel-drive cars parked outside, the flash of the Rolex watches coming from the men in the congregation. The Bishop impressed us the most: he wore a different silk suit every time we saw him, and had a reputation for exorcising evil spirits.

  ‘He has a private jet,’ one of the congregation, a smart man, whispered during the Sunday sermon. He always wore a waistcoat, and Akpan always nodded to him. ‘He uses it to fly back to Nigeria whenever he feels like it.’

  It didn’t surprise me at all, Elijah. My own Uncle Pastor was a miracle maker, and so he was, by then, a famous man, and also very rich. He owned four television sets as big as wheelbarrows, a fleet of Mercedes, and had his suits imported directly from Italy. It was Uncle Pastor who’d paid for our large house and school uniforms, as Baba’s mechanic’s salary was barely enough to cover Mummy’s cooking pots, and my grandparents were too old to work. Uncle Pastor performed miracles at Guaranteed Success Ministries. His sermons were a concert of the greatest music ever played. The Holy Ghost Night Programme at Guaranteed Success Ministries attracted people in their masses, falling over and around each other; even though the church was as big as an aircraft hangar, there simply was not enough floor space. The women who did not have room to jump down on to the floor would complain loudly. They were so dramatic, the women of my childhood church. And Bishop reminded me of them, those women, of my Uncle Pastor, of my family.

  It must be strange to you, Elijah, that we were so impressed by such a wealthy man of God, but we were. In Nigeria, there were pastors who had their own television channels, a fleet of Mercedes, private jets, bodyguards, and were millionaires – some actually billionaires. They were more popular than movie stars, or pop stars, more popular than kings and presidents. They wore the finest clothes – imported, fine Italian silk suits, or designers such as Dolce and Gabbana, Gucci, Moschino – and their shoes were one hundred per cent crocodile skin. They were smart and shining, those men, groomed so far that the Rolexes on their wrists didn’t even appear to shine in comparison. And I don’t mean my Uncle Pastor, although he was famous and had a congregation of millions, but some of the others had their own recording studios. They were so famous that people, women usually, fainted and screamed and queued through the night to get glimpses of them speeding past in their new-series BMWs. These men are the reason that BMW brings out the new series in Lagos before any other place. They know wealth like I could never understand.

  Elijah, it is common knowledge how pastors make their wealth, how they take ten per cent of their congregation’s earnings, how the congregation has to give this ten per cent, these alms, to maintain the upkeep of the church. It is tricky to explain this to you when you’ve only known England, and the churches filled with six people at best on a Sunday, and terrible singing. Elijah, the Nigerian church is the pastor, and who would want to belong to a church that did not have enough faith in God to keep their pastor well? Every Nigerian knows that this money will come back tenfold. I have seen it with my own eyes, time and time again. And the reality, Elijah, is that when you are so poor you have to step over the dead bodies on your way to market as you cannot take on the funeral costs of a stranger, when you are that poor, Elijah, the dream of two Ferraris is just as reachable as the dream of good roads to drive them on, or food for all your neighbours, adequate healthcare. You get what you put into this world, and prayer is no different.

  I explain all this to you, Elijah, so that you understand a little bit. Being English now, it will be hard for you, but I pray that one day you will find yourself in Nigeria and at church and see the pastors preaching, and the millions listening and literally throwing money at the pastor’s feet – money they don’t have, they cannot afford. But if you follow those people home you will understand something more; for how can they afford not to?

  We began to settle, enjoying living in our own private world, talking to each other until late in the night, whispering across a pillow. Akpan removed any of my worries. When I first saw a red car and noticed the men inside it looking up at our balcony, Akpan convinced me I was imagining it. He pulled me towards him and kissed my worries gone, a kiss for each worry.

  ‘There’s nobody there.’ He looked out of the window and down into the street below, where I’d seen the red car and noticed something black pointing upwards. A camera? Why would anyone photograph our flat?

  ‘Honestly, there’s nobody there.’ Akpan stroked the back of my neck with his fingertips. ‘My love, you worry so much. Even if there was a car following us, I have all the correct documents. They are after that childminder. In the UK they have to be registered so the government can take most of the money. Please try not to worry.’

  ‘I’ll try. I don’t want you to worry about my worrying!’

  We laughed, and how I loved him. I loved him so. I read my notebooks to Akpan while he slept, sending the words of Nigeria and God into his dreams. I recited psalms and Egyptian love poetry. Elijah, you were inside me by then, but Akpan did not know. It was a secret between you and me and God. I could feel a soft warmth running through me, God whispering to my body. I spoke to you all the time, sang songs from my own childhood. I felt like an old woman and a young girl all at once; everything looked so clear, even the grey colour of England seemed beautiful. Akpan and I made love all the time. Elijah, your very first foundat
ions were strong, and I hope those early months of strength will help. When the wind blows hard, as it surely will, I pray you will only shake a little.

  EIGHT

  It was a gloomy day. Not cold, but with a wind that whipped up around Nikki’s face, blowing her hair in all directions. The kind of day she loved most: a Wales-weather day, as she always told Obi. Good for growing. She looked upwards. It might rain but she didn’t mind being outside, even then. This was the best bit. Assessing the dogs for rehoming; watching and analysing and sometimes treating their behaviours; the way she gained their trust; how they went from being scared, ears down, flinching, to jumping and running towards her excitedly. It was remarkable how quickly they improved with the right sort of care and attention.

  Nikki had fallen into charity work, starting in the office in the fundraising department, full of glamorous colleagues with perfect hair. Everyone was friendly but she’d found herself taking lunch breaks with the animals instead of her colleagues. A few courses and a lot of experience later, and Nikki was a valued member of the rehoming team. She still attended all the fundraising events, which was how she had met Obi, but her heart was outside with the dogs. She smiled as she remembered the night she and Obi had met. It was at the Dorchester Hotel, every bit as opulent and luxurious as she’d imagined, and Nikki had for once taken the entire afternoon to get ready. She’d worn a long, backless, jade-green silk dress and the highest heels imaginable, and tamed her hair into submission before arriving a fashionable ten minutes late. Nikki had always been able to talk to anyone and was more than happy circulating, a glass of champagne in her hand, cool and composed when she thought of the dogs and how much money she’d be able to raise. And then she’d seen him. A tall, strong, handsome man with the smoothest skin and widest smile, dressed in a petrol-blue suit. He’d smiled at her and suddenly she’d felt nervous. Nikki threw back her head and took a mouthful of champagne, and somehow it had ended up going down the wrong way, and she was spluttering and coughing and making noises that sounded barely human and there he was, the handsomest man in the room, patting her on the back of her backless dress, his skin on hers.