‘I’d forgotten about this,’ I said. It was easier in the dark. We had both escaped the awkwardness of an embrace.
‘When does it come back?’ Claudia asked.
‘Sometimes in a few minutes or a few hours,’ Aunt Ama replied. ‘Maybe tomorrow.’
‘Sometimes for days there won’t be any light!’ Uncle Raymond boomed as if it were a matter of pride. ‘After Easter, they punished us, didn’t they? We had to take all our frozens next door. That’s when you really need a generator.’ He collapsed into the sofa as if the speech had exhausted him.
‘I want to watch the movie,’ Asa whined, but with a hint of excitement. He would be mildly disappointed when the electricity supply returned.
We ate dinner by candlelight: steak and duchesse potatoes with boiled carrots in butter and parsley. Halfway through the meal, the lights flickered on. Asa screamed, with fear or delight. It was hard to tell.
‘Stop that nonsense!’ Uncle Raymond snapped and frowned with disapproval. Gaunt as he was I wanted to slap the stern look from his face. Asa went quiet with the rebuke. I could feel the old resentment seeping back into my bones.
‘Where’s Kunle these days?’ I asked, to break the mood.
‘He’s in Montreal now. He went three, four years ago,’ Uncle Raymond said.
‘He studied languages at university,’ Aunt Ama added. ‘Now he works for a company – what do they do again?’
‘Computers,’ Uncle Raymond said. ‘Computer programming.’
‘That’s right, computers,’ she said. ‘I’m not sure whether he’s going to do that forever, but he likes the place. Roli is in New York working for a firm of architects, and Bunmi works for Central Bank in Lagos.’
There was a silence.
‘And Kayode?’ I asked.
‘Only Kayode is jobless.’ Uncle Raymond spat out the word ‘jobless’. ‘He’s with the sister in New York. I told him he could come and work in petroleum – I can get him a job tomorrow-tomorrow, but he refuses even to consider it.’ His children had scattered. That none of them had chosen his own line of work must have been galling for him.
‘Kayo’s a dreamer,’ Matty said. ‘He won’t work in an office if he can help it. He’ll find something eventually, but he’ll take his time about it.’
‘Yes – maybe you’re right, dear,’ Aunt Ama said.
Uncle Raymond shrugged and looked at Asa and pouted. The boy giggled and shovelled a heap of potato into his mouth. He had already dismissed the earlier reprimand.
‘They tell me you’re in Germany now,’ Uncle Raymond said, as if he had only just heard. He pronounced it ‘Jamany’.
‘That’s right,’ I replied. ‘Berlin. West.’
‘And London – you didn’t take to it? I thought you would like the place – it’s the centre of everything. What is that saying? “To be tired of London is to be tired of life.”’
‘Yes, that’s probably it,’ I said. ‘But I prefer Berlin. It’s smaller. Cleaner. Not so expensive.’ I began to nibble the hated carrots I had pushed aside. I could hear Claudia chatting with Peju. I wanted to be involved in their conversation, away from Uncle Raymond’s scrutiny.
‘Yes, but journalism – it can’t pay much?’ he said. ‘Can it?’
‘Photography – I can make a living. It’s what I like to do.’
‘Photography?’ He grimaced as if his food were poisoned. He glanced at Matty. ‘I thought you said journalism?’
Matty sighed. ‘Well, I …’
‘How can you support yourself?’ Uncle Raymond continued. ‘Photos of what? Birds, weddings?’
‘Well, people mostly. Portraits and concerts … and that sort of thing.’ I had finished the carrots and there was nothing left to distract myself with.
Uncle Raymond gave Aunt Ama a look as if to say he had been right all along. ‘No, no, no, no,’ he said. ‘When you settle here, I’ll put you in touch with Mr Nwabuwe, in the company. I still have some leverage. No more of this nonsense. With your education he can get you something more profitable. I didn’t send you to the UK to waste your life.’
‘He’s doing all right,’ Matty jumped in. ‘It won’t be forever.’
I inhaled, held my breath, exhaled slowly.
‘But look at you, Matthew. You are doing so well in London, with your career, your fine family.’ He looked at Asa and forced a smile. He wouldn’t let go. He was like a dog with a bone clenched between its jaws; you couldn’t tear it away from him. ‘Vincent, look to your brother! Our elders are not there just for the sake of it.’
He had forgotten about his unemployed son in New York, meting out useless advice as he was. I had come to support what I had assumed was a dying man, and here I was bristling as if time hadn’t moved on.
‘Who said …’ I started, but Aunt Ama had lost none of her skill for distraction.
‘Ray, look at your plate!’ she scolded. ‘You haven’t even touched half of it. Ah! Ah! Eat now and stop talking so that these young people can go and rest. They’ve been travelling non-stop since early yesterday.’
‘Look to your plate!’ Asa shouted, mimicking Aunt Ama. He looked from her to his mother, with a wavering grin. Peju couldn’t help snorting.
Uncle Raymond glanced across at his wife as if he did not know who she was, then began to fork tiny morsels into his mouth. He had reversed roles with Asa, who had already finished his meal. I wondered again what was wrong with him, but I didn’t speak.
I showered next door to Asa’s room, while Claudia used the bathroom further along the hall. We had been in the house less than four hours and already I was exhausted, but I could not sleep. I waited until I assumed Claudia had finished changing before knocking at her door. She had laid out her things – a bottle of perfume, lotions, talcum powder, make-up – on the dressing table. A straw hat I had never seen before crowned a chest of drawers. A small framed photograph of her mother, smiling, stood on the bedside table. It was already like a room that had been lived in and cherished.
‘You’re settled then?’ I said.
She was sitting against the headboard, reading the novel she had begun on the plane. She peered at me above the rim of her glasses – I had seen them for the first time during the flight.
‘Don’t just stand there.’ She patted the bed. ‘Keep me company. Come.’
She had propped both pillows against the headboard and I had to lean on my elbow for support. She wore a night-dress – beige cotton, decorated with bluebells and daisies. The whole effect – book, glasses, nightie, hair tied back in a bun – was of a prim schoolmistress. She glanced down at me.
‘I’m wide awake,’ she said. ‘It’s funny, isn’t it? I should be fast asleep by now.’
‘I couldn’t sleep either,’ I said. ‘It was a mistake to come. For me, I mean. I can’t stand him. I don’t know if I can face tomorrow.’ I lay back and placed my hands behind my head.
Claudia put the book face down on the blanket. ‘You feel so strongly about your uncle. He seems okay to me.’
‘That’s just part of his cunning. He’s charming to other people, but beware if he’s singled you out. It’s like not being picked for the football team – you’re left on the sidelines while everyone else is busy with the game.’
‘They didn’t pick you for the football team?’
‘No – I was just trying to explain. It can be very isolating. It doesn’t matter.’
She reached over and lifted my T-shirt and moved the flat of her hand in slow circles across my stomach. Skin barely touched skin, but the effect was both soothing and arousing.
‘You haven’t been eating?’ she asked, and withdrew her hand when my penis stirred.
‘I’ve been swimming.’ I could think of no other reason for the weight loss. I remembered the woman at the pool that day. How we lay naked and panting, side by side, like whales on a beach.
‘I’ve been reading this page for about ten minutes,’ Claudia laughed suddenly. ‘I keep reading the same senten
ces again and again, but they do not make sense.’ She picked up the novel and bent the pages back so that the spine cracked. A minute of silence passed and she said, ‘Strange not to hear the cars and the ambulance and people talking in the streets, and the neighbours’ television. Just the insects. What are they, crickets, cicadas? I remember this sound from Atlanta.’
‘I don’t know. Crickets, I suppose.’ I was heavy with sleep now. ‘When you’ve got mosquitoes in your ear, you’ll happily swap them for traffic, any day.’
She laughed, not realizing I wasn’t joking. She spoke, but I could not understand her. Her voice was the song of the mosquito keeping me in this world, when my body ached for unconsciousness.
I half-opened an eye and there was the lamplight and Claudia’s silhouette before it. I supposed she was still reading. I closed my eyes and opened them again and the light had changed. It was grey, though I could make out an area of sun beyond the window. Claudia was on her side, facing me, breathing calmly in deep sleep. She had pulled the sheet and blanket over herself until it almost reached her neck. I was surprised at the coolness of the morning. For a moment I wondered where I was in the world; Claudia was beside me, but I could not discern a location. I began to take in the room: the floral curtains, the straw hat on the chest of drawers, the motionless ceiling fan. The memory of the previous evening rose to the surface and I was wide awake with apprehension.
I returned to my room and pulled on a pair of jeans and the faded yellow chambray shirt. The house was sleeping; the slap of my feet against the floor seemed excessive in the silence. Asa’s toys and the video containers littered the carpet in the sitting room. It was too early for Musa to have begun his chores.
‘Well, this is a surprise,’ Aunt Ama said. She was leaning against the kitchen counter, sipping tea. She wore a washed-out blue dressing gown that fell almost to her ankles. The rolled-up sleeves were bunched thick. I assumed the gown belonged to Uncle Raymond or to one of their sons. ‘You never used to be an early bird,’ she said.
‘I couldn’t sleep,’ I replied. ‘I’m not tired, strangely enough. I must have slept soundly.’
‘It rained during the night,’ Aunt Ama said. ‘Sometimes that helps.’
I looked out of the kitchen window at the driveway. Most of the moisture had evaporated, but there were shallow pools where the surface dipped. Aunt Ama said, ‘Let me look at you,’ and walked up and reached across to hug me. ‘Welcome home,’ she said. I was embarrassed at the sudden tenderness and didn’t speak.
‘Come, let us have our breakfast outside.’ She took half a bread loaf from the fridge and placed it on a tray with a flask of tea and a tin of evaporated milk with tiny holes punched on either side. She filled two glasses with filtered water.
I carried the tray to the patio near the far end of the sitting room, which looked out at the only expanse of lawn not interspersed with trees. Here, there were mainly hedges, garnished with shrubs and flowers: a bloom of magnolias overhanging the concrete slabs; a single avocado tree, pregnant with fruit, at the bottom of the garden. Puddles blotted the patio. We wiped the plastic furniture dry. A breeze stirred the tassels of the folded parasol, but the wind was barely discernible. We sat in the shadow of the bungalow and again I shivered.
‘Don’t you miss Lagos?’ I asked. I was unfamiliar with every aspect of this place. There were no memories attached to it.
‘Well … yes and no,’ Aunt Ama said. ‘It’s cooler here and quieter, and we don’t have to worry so much about armed robbery. But we have left most of our old friends behind. You know how I like to gossip. We are far away from all of that now. It can be dull sometimes. Quiet.’
‘You wouldn’t want to go back?’
‘No, never!’ she laughed, but she was resolute. ‘Ah, we need peace in our old age. We know enough people here. In time you get used to anything.’ She poured the tea as she talked, stirring in generous amounts of milk and sugar for me. She had not forgotten. She said, ‘You know, when you leave a place, if you move away in favour of another, you can never completely forget the first.’ She held a fist against her chest. ‘It is like a stone tied around your heart. It keeps you from floating away from yourself, from losing something essential that once belonged to you.’
I wondered whether she was remembering Lagos or her own country, Ghana, which she had left as a child. I tore off a piece of bread to dip into the tea. When she had refilled her own cup, she pulled the lapels of the dressing gown closer together and sat back in the chair, looking out at the trees beyond the lawn. There were no clouds in the sky.
She began quietly. ‘Claudia’s a nice girl. Have you been together very long?’
‘No, not really. But it doesn’t matter.’
She looked across at me sharply. I couldn’t afford to be flippant. ‘I mean, we still don’t know that much about each other.’ I thought of other words to say, but they would have sounded strange here, away from what I had grown used to. I grew desperate. ‘I don’t know how long it will last. We’re not married, if that’s what you’re asking.’
‘Of course I know that. Matthew told us. You don’t tell us anything.’ She spoke looking out at the bougainvillea as if she was furious with it. ‘You could have been dead or alive all these years. But for your brother, we wouldn’t know. Just like those Ajegunle boys who take off – not even a word to the mother, even on the deathbed. As if you don’t care, eh?’
I put down a clump of bread. I hadn’t expected this, at least not from Aunt Ama. She made no attempt to disguise her rage. I made no reply. I let her simmer for a while, hoping the storm would pass. I noticed breadcrumbs swimming in my milky tea and felt queasy.
‘I don’t understand, Vincent. Not even telephone calls, or letters. Not one Christmas card? What were we supposed to think? Even your cousins, not a word to them – ah, ah! What is that?’ She picked up her cup and stared at it and put it down again as if she could not understand how it had got there. She gathered the lapels again and pulled harshly. That she was ordinarily placid made her anger all the more alarming. ‘Only now that he is sick do you come back. How does that happen, Vincent?’
‘What’s wrong with him?’ I snapped. I could match her anger with ample reserves of my own.
‘Ah, ah!’ Aunt Ama looked at me. ‘You hate him so much? You don’t care if he lives or dies?’
I could not think in this chaotic, broiling state. If I spoke I would regret my words. Aunt Ama was the last person I would want to hurt. I could feel my anger turning in on itself, flowing back through my veins, like a venom, searching for a place to rest.
‘Is it that you don’t care, Vincent? That you stayed away for so long? Eh? Answer me!’
I stared ahead at the unbroken skyline. Such a piercing blue. A blue to love and hate all at the same time. I suddenly remembered that Claudia was asleep, that there was a house full of people behind us. My jaw was trembling.
‘What do you say?’ Aunt Ama persisted.
Lawn, trees, sky, sun. There was no escape.
‘I thought … you didn’t want me,’ I said. My voice was thin with strain.
A barefoot man appeared on the lawn wearing corduroy trousers cut off at the knee, and a T-shirt promoting a Prince concert. The T-shirt would have belonged to Roli or Kayode at one time. I noticed a limp as he walked. One leg was thinner than the other, markedly so, and slightly bowed. He carried a trowel in one hand, an aluminium watering can in the other. He called out a greeting to my aunt and she answered him. He looked not far from his fiftieth birthday. A houseboy, a gardener, a megadi, a cook. Four to watch over two. I wondered if there was a chauffeur.
Aunt Ama sank back into her chair and sighed. We watched as the gardener attended to the plants and the soil. He was talking, but only to himself.
‘He has had two strokes already this year,’ Aunt Ama said. ‘Who knows when the next one will arrive.’ A tone of resignation had replaced the umbrage.
I thought for a moment she was referring to the
gardener.
‘Between that and the cancer, I don’t know.’ It was her turn to stare ahead.
The chattering gardener put down the trowel and began to gather individual flowers from the periphery of the garden. He stood in front of the foliage, turning his head this way and that, before deciding whether a flower would compliment the bunch in his hand.
‘Cancer?’ I stared at her. ‘I didn’t know.’
Aunt Ama nodded slowly, as if there was something to comprehend. ‘Well, now you are here. That’s all that matters.’
‘Do you mean he could go any day now?’ Panic was rushing in, sweeping aside the anger. ‘Why didn’t you tell me before?’ I regretted the words even before they had left my mouth, but I was powerless to stop them.
Aunt Ama gave me a look and smiled. ‘With the cancer he is managing, but this other illness … well, we can never tell. Kunle, Bunmi, your brother – they come and go. Kayode and Roli were here only last month. We never hear from you. He just wanted to see you, you understand? For you and for him. He is angry too, and he cannot afford to be angry when he is like this. He needs peace, in himself. You understand?’
I nodded, but all I felt was confused. This, the man I had hated for most of my life, reduced to a husk, the membrane of a husk. What point was there in hating now? I had hated for years in vain. ‘How long is he expected to live?’
‘Months, a year. No one can say,’ she sighed. ‘It is possible that he could live for years. It all depends. It could be tomorrow. But then,’ she smiled, ‘I could go tomorrow.’
I wondered how it would be for her when Uncle Raymond died, alone in this vast house. I couldn’t imagine either one of them without the crutch of the other. I pushed the thought away. The gardener approached with the flowers arranged in the watering can. Before he stood on the patio, he stepped into a pair of pink plastic slippers that lay to one side. He swung the withered leg further and higher than the healthy one as he propelled himself forward. The watering can swayed from side to side. The whole effect seemed guaranteed to end in disaster.
Goodbye Lucille Page 21