Follow Me Down

by Tanya Byrne

  ‘You’ll be fine. Just picture everyone in their underwear.’

  He laughed. ‘That was my first piece of advice when I started at Crofton,’ he said, his eyes wide. ‘If you get nervous, don’t picture them in their underwear!’

  He must have said it too loudly because Scarlett’s grandmother shot a look down the table at us and he went so red, I thought he might hide under his chair. The old woman sitting opposite me looked horrified as well.

  I waited for her to look away, then lowered my voice. ‘You’re the first white person I’ve ever met who knows what an igba nwku is, by the way.’

  He brightened at that. ‘Really?’

  ‘I know some Nigerians who don’t know what an igba nwku is.’

  ‘It sounds amazing. Much more interesting than our “I Do” rubbish.’

  ‘I guess. But most couples still have a white wedding as well.’

  ‘Yeah.’ He nodded across the table at the overweight middle-aged man guffawing and spilling red wine on his shirt. ‘But they’re not like this.’

  I tried not to laugh, but he was right; as Western as they are now, they’re still so Nigerian. They have all the grandeur – the noise, the colour – and even if the groom is in a tux and sunglasses and arrives in an Escalade, they still reek of tradition. Like the last wedding I went to, it was for a Yoruba couple who had a white wedding a few days after their traditional one. While the bride wore a Kosibah dress Jumoke wanted to rip off her, most of the guests wore Aso Oke wrappers and gowns. Even Jumoke wore a gele, which she doesn’t always, but her father likes it when she does. But the bride’s mother owned her ass in a red one so tall, I’m sure she had to duck to get in the door.

  I had to raise a glass to her, because I still haven’t mastered tying them, despite watching my mother since I was a child, in awe of how the fabric would stay up, high and wide around her head, like a silk halo. When I was six, I tried to tie one using one of her Hermès scarves and when she found me struggling with it and whimpering that it wouldn’t stay up, she laughed and hugged me until I couldn’t breathe.

  ‘Do your parents want you to have a traditional wedding?’ Mr Lucas asked, rolling the stem of his empty champagne glass between his finger and thumb.

  I could hear Scarlett laughing at the other end of the table, but refused to give her the satisfaction of looking at her. Mr Lucas didn’t either and I was glad because I could just imagine her, eyes sparkling as she waited for us to look, one hand under the table on Dominic’s knee or her fingers lingering on the lapel of his suit jacket. So I just held Mr Lucas’s gaze as the waiter took our plates away.

  ‘Of course they do,’ I told him with a smile I hope Scarlett saw. As liberal as my parents think they are, they want all of that; me in an akwete cloth and coral beads, while my father refuses to give me the iko and everyone laughs.

  ‘So running off to Vegas isn’t an option?’

  I chuckled, but before I could respond, I heard someone say, ‘Who’s running off to Vegas?’ and looked up to find Dominic standing behind us with a smirk.

  Mr Lucas looked a little uncomfortable, then caught himself and smiled. ‘I do believe my glass is empty,’ he said, picking it up, then excusing himself.

  As soon as he did, Dominic sat in his seat. He put down his Scotch and I shouldn’t have been so surprised; not only do the kids at Crofton speak like grown-ups, but they drink like grown-ups as well.

  ‘Aren’t you at the wrong end of the table, Mr Sim?’

  The corners of his mouth twitched. ‘Depends on your definition of wrong.’

  My gaze flicked towards Scarlett, but she was distracted, her nose wrinkled as she giggled at something Mr Lucas was saying while he refilled his glass.

  ‘Are you looking forward to the wedding, Miss Okomma?’

  ‘It’s going to be a lot of fun.’ I looked at her when I said it because I knew she wouldn’t be able to resist looking at me, if only for a second. When she did, she smiled smugly, but it wasn’t her usual Scarlett smugness, it was a smile that told me I wouldn’t win. Two weeks ago, I would have been mortified and looked away, but something in me finally kicked back, so I raised my glass and gave her a smile that told her we’d see.

  Orla wasn’t invited to the wedding so I was surprised to see so many people from our year there, especially so close to Christmas. But it seems that I wasn’t the only one who made an effort to be there, even the teachers had, and when I stopped outside the church to adjust the strap of my shoe and saw Headmaster Ballard and his wife inside, trying to find a seat, I realised that Orla wasn’t being paranoid; Scarlett hadn’t invited her on purpose. I had no idea why she was still holding a grudge, but when I walked in and Sam winked at me, I began to wonder.

  I think half the village was there, too, so the church filled up quickly. I could hear the pews groaning grumpily as more people tried to squeeze onto them, but I was too late to get on one so stood at the back with a sullen sigh, wishing I’d worn flats. But then Mr Crane saw my heels and graciously offered me his seat and I sat down as the ‘Wedding March’ began playing.

  Edith looked every inch the English bride, her blond hair up and her cheeks pink as she walked up the aisle. Her dress was beautiful; strapless and delicate milk-white lace. It was her something borrowed, Scarlett told me, the dress her mother wore on her wedding day, which, I guessed from the tone of Scarlett’s email, she had wanted to wear first.

  Nishad glanced back at her and when he saw her, he smiled clumsily. It made my heart flutter suddenly and I found myself looking for him in the church. It took a few moments, but when our gaze met, my stomach burst into a mass of butterflies.

  I looked at Scarlett then, she and Olivia were at the top of the aisle in their bridesmaid’s dresses, grinning and nudging each other when their mother started crying. But their grandmother was unmoved and stood stiffly facing the altar, as their father led Edith up the aisle. And it’s funny, isn’t it? How you can love someone so much that in wanting the best for them, you can’t even see what is?

  The reception was held in a marquee in the grounds of Scarlett’s house. I’ve been to a lot of weddings with my parents and they’re right, they are becoming more and more alike, but thankfully, one tradition that hasn’t changed at Nigerian weddings is the food. And while I wasn’t holding my breath for any red stew and rice, I think my parents would have liked the food at Edith’s wedding – although I’m sure my father would have grumbled that the pumpkin soup wasn’t spicy enough. He would have liked the beef Wellington, though, and my mother loves mulled wine, so she probably would have drunk far too much of it. I know I did.

  They would have thought the marquee was pretty as well, with the candles and the knots of holly and ivy tied to the back of each chair. The first thing my mother would have done when we sat at our table would be to smell the white camellias in the centrepiece. I could see her taking one and tucking it into her hair or putting one in my father’s buttonhole. But I think they would have been bemused by how quiet it was. Even with the string quartet, you could hear the ting of everyone’s cutlery. There must have been at least three hundred guests – which is tiny compared to a Nigerian wedding – but the hush made it feel much smaller. There was no singing, no fans, no drums, no colour. And it was so dull; most of the men were in black suits and the women in dark-coloured gowns. Nigerian weddings are nothing but colour, swathes and swathes of patterned cloth – oranges and greens and bright, bright blues.

  Scarlett must have been really pissed at me, because she sat me next to Molly. I spent most of the dinner nodding and pretending to be shocked as she updated me on what I’d missed while I’d been at home. Scarlett also made sure that he and I were at different tables, but we texted constantly through dinner while we snuck looks across the marquee at one another. He sent me one to ask if Scarlett could have sat us any further apart and it wasn’t until
we were there, right in the middle of it, that I realised what we were doing, that we were crossing a line. Into what, I didn’t know, but after dinner, when the band started playing, I wanted him to take a rose out of one of the centrepieces and ask me to dance. But I knew he wouldn’t – couldn’t – because then everyone would know that we were, what? I didn’t know. Until I did, it was probably best not to dance in front of everyone at Crofton. It would cause so much drama, Molly would faint with joy.

  So I settled for dancing with Scarlett instead, who was as drunk as I was (mulled wine and champagne are a lethal combination, it seems) and kept pulling me into photos, her cheekbone digging into mine, like old times. Everyone was having such a good time. Headmaster Ballard’s wife danced so much that her hair started coming out of her bun and, when Edith tossed the bouquet, Hannah and Madame Girard collided in their haste to catch it.

  I should have known it wouldn’t last, though, because an hour or so later, while Mr Lucas and Hannah were showing me how to do the dance to the ‘Birdy Song’, Dominic joined in. I’d been having so much fun – laughing and almost falling over so many times, that Mr Lucas had to prop me up (which, with hindsight, probably wasn’t a good idea given that I was still trying to convince Hannah that I was a serious journalist) – that when Hannah headed off the dance floor, I hesitated. I glanced towards the bar at Molly, who was on tiptoes, her nose in the air as she watched us, when all of a sudden, Scarlett was there.

  I heard him calling after us as she tugged me away, but it still didn’t register that she was pissed. I thought she wanted to take another photo and waited for her to sling her arm around my shoulders and tell me to smile, but then I felt her nails digging into my arm as she led me into the corner of the marquee, near the table of cupcakes.

  When she stopped, she spun around to face me, her dark hair a whir. ‘Are you really doing this here?’ she hissed and I knew then that she was livid. I’d never seen her like that, so when she took a step towards me, I held my breath. ‘You’re dancing with him here? At my sister’s wedding? In front of everyone?’

  ‘Scarlett—’

  She wouldn’t let me finish and I could see her shaking, her chin trembling as she shook her head. ‘Why are you doing this to me?’

  ‘Can we not do this now?’ I pleaded, looking around the marquee at half our classmates and teachers milling around. I had no idea where Molly was, but I knew everyone would be talking about this before Edith and Nishad had cut the cake.

  ‘You’re the one doing it now.’

  ‘Scarlett—’

  ‘You know we’re together.’

  My heart stopped. ‘No you’re not.’

  They weren’t. I knew they had a history, but he told me that they hadn’t been near each other in months (not like that, anyway) and he wouldn’t lie. He wouldn’t.

  ‘You need to choose, Adamma,’ she snapped, and when she changed the subject, I knew that she was lying.

  My shoulders fell. ‘Choose?’

  I stared at her, but before she could respond, I saw her cheeks go red and turned around as Mr Lucas and Hannah emerged from behind the cake stand. My cheeks burned, too, my hands fisting in the skirt of my dress as I fought the urge to hide under the table.

  ‘We were just,’ Hannah murmured, holding up a cupcake, then glancing at Mr Lucas, who looked equally embarrassed.

  ‘Excuse us,’ he said with a tight smile, and when he led her away, I wanted to die, my blood burning with shame.

  ‘Oh God,’ I breathed.

  Of all the people to see us squabbling.

  I tried to walk away, but Scarlett grabbed my arm again. ‘Stop!’ I snapped, shrugging her off, then lowering my voice. ‘You’re acting like a crazy person.’

  ‘You need to choose.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because I can’t be friends with you if you’re with him. I can’t.’

  ‘Stop being so melodramatic.’

  ‘I’m being real, Adamma.’ I rolled my eyes and when I turned away, she stepped in front of me. ‘OK. Fine. We let him choose, but we both know that it’ll kill our friendship so let’s just shorthand this, OK? Him or me?’

  ‘Jesus, Scarlett,’ I said through my teeth. ‘You don’t even want him, you just don’t want anyone else to have him.’ She shrugged as if to say Yeah. So? and I threw my hands up. ‘How is that fair?’

  ‘None of this is fair, Adamma. You can’t compete. We’ve known each other for years. If I wanted him back, I could have him like that.’

  Back.

  I knew she was lying.

  She clicked her fingers and if I wasn’t willing to fight for him before, I was then. ‘If you thought that for a second then you wouldn’t be asking me to back off.’

  She stared at me. I don’t know if anyone’s ever stood up to her before, but she looked at me as though I was a member of staff who’d just answered back. But then she caught herself and crossed her arms. ‘How was the play?’ she asked with a nasty smile. ‘He told me it was boring.’

  The blow landed, but I tried not to let it register because he told me that the night at the theatre was nothing; she’d said that she might go when he told her that his cousin was going to be in the play, but it was nothing more than that. So I just rolled my eyes at her again. It obviously wasn’t the reaction she was hoping for, because she came at me again. ‘You’ll always be second best, Adamma.’

  That was like a kick in the heart, but as soon as I considered grabbing a cupcake and smashing it in her face, I stopped myself and made myself take a breath.

  ‘Stop it,’ I said with a long sigh. ‘Just stop it. This is ridiculous. We’re supposed to be friends and you have me cornered, screaming at me about some guy.’

  ‘Friends?’ She barked out a laugh. ‘I know you’ve been texting each other.’

  I felt an itch of anger at that. ‘So that’s why you haven’t been in touch.’

  She huffed as if to say, Not this again and I could feel it coming. Building. I tried to swallow the words back, but I couldn’t. I had to get them out.

  ‘Why are you doing this? You don’t even want him, Scarlett,’ I told her again and I don’t know why, whether it was because I really believed it or if I was just trying to make myself feel better. After all, I knew they weren’t seeing each other now, but I thought they were that night at the theatre and I still let it happen.

  ‘You don’t know what I want,’ she said, flicking her hair.

  ‘Because you don’t tell me anything!’ Stop, a voice in my head roared as I took a step towards her. But I couldn’t. ‘Some friend! You don’t tell me anything. You run away to New York and I don’t hear about it until your sister calls. My father is shot and I don’t even hear from you! You’re not my friend!’

  I shouldn’t have said it – not there, not like that – but it just rushed out of me and she stared at me, too angry to respond, so I looked at the cupcakes, at the pink heart on each one. When she stopped to take a breath, I thought she might cry and say what a mess it was, ask what we should do, but she took a step back.

  ‘We’re done, Adamma.’

  She walked away and I watched her go, the hem of her pale green bridesmaid’s dress swishing back and forth and with that, I guess I chose him. He must have known, because a few minutes later, when I summoned the courage to go back to my table, I saw him on the other side of the marquee, the corners of his mouth curling into a slow smile. I felt something in me realign, not because I was right and Scarlett was wrong, but because I was right about him.

  I didn’t know until then how much I liked him. I liked the way he called me Miss Okomma. I liked the way he said it, how he didn’t hesitate, didn’t stumble, as though he’d practised it. I thought about it too much, about him too much; the space between each thought getting shorter and shorter until days became hours
became minutes became heartbeats and then he was all I could think about.

  I looked over at Scarlett, at the bar with Sam, a glass of champagne hanging from her fingers and something told me I was right, to hold on. Actually, it told me to let go, to forget about Scarlett and my parents and whether it was wrong or if we were doomed and just fall down, down, down because it was going to be amazing.

  I loved him, I realised then, but it was a reaction, something I hadn’t noticed until I was faced with the threat of losing him. I loved him and he didn’t need to do anything. He didn’t even need to love me back, I just did.

  Can you be scared of your heart? I was scared of mine, scared that he might never love me back and I’d still love him. He could go – leave Crofton – and I’d still love him and what would I do? I’ve never felt anything like that before, that huge, ravenous love I’ve only read about in books. I guess he felt the same, because when I was walking back to Burnham, I found a note in my coat pocket. He didn’t sign it, but I recognised his handwriting, his perfect Os and long, loose Ps, and when I read it, I had to stop and take a breath.

  No one’s ever picked me.

  I turned and headed back to Scarlett’s house, his note still in my fist, but halfway down the road, I saw him walking towards me. When he saw me, he stopped then started running, and I don’t think I’ve ever run so hard. I thought my legs were about to give way, but a moment before they did, I felt his cold fingers on my face, then his mouth on mine as we collided in a kiss that made my feet leave the ground.

  10 DAYS AFTER

  MAY

  I didn’t move, because I couldn’t. But that’s me, isn’t it? I’m either running or I’m too scared to move. I don’t know how long I was sitting there, my back to a gravestone, the chill from the grass bleeding through my skirt. The sun was on my face, but I couldn’t summon the strength to move it, then it wasn’t, and the relief made me sigh.

  ‘Miss Okomma,’ Mr Lucas said and I lifted my eyelashes to find him standing over me in a black suit, his hands on his hips.