Butterfly Fish

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A green palm wine bottle rolled on the wet London Street. Its movements were audible gasps made of glass. It didn’t matter how the bottle had arrived at its location under the curious yellow gaze of the lamppost or whether the messenger had been a postman delivering for both God and the dancing devil. The image unfurling inside the bottle shimmering like moonlight trapped in glass mattered. Lick the edges of the picture presented and you could taste the sour, sweet traces of palm wine and trap your tongue in a different time; 19^th century Benin, Nigeria.

A court was on display. An emerald-eyed man and a young woman attired in traditional Nigerian cloth were before a more ostentatiously dressed committee who bore glum expressions. The woman’s head was bowed and she clutched a pink beaded bracelet, rubbing it repeatedly between thumb and forefinger. The man spoke in a calm, measured tone, his fate already hardened inside the Adams’ apples in the room. An arm was raised, heads snapped up. Then the image in the bottle spun like a revolving door. Dust swirled, and a bushy path emerged. The man and woman were being led by soldiers who could perform the nifty trick of building distances between bodies in close proximity. The heat was thick and intense. Fallen branches lining the twisting path cracked loudly. Buzzing mosquitoes were winged witnesses. Reluctant to draw blood they formed a black net above the bobbing heads.

Out of the dark London night a teenager being chased by two raucous friends, leaning for breath under the lamppost noticed the green glass glinting in the grey light. Slightly unsteady on his feet the boy swiped the bottle up and threw it against the wall, watching it smash. He yelped as the contents spilled out, an amorphous mass, images flickering like ancient film reel. The boy’s pupils were swimming in beer and he was uncertain of the picture before him as the scene dragged itself up the pavement, with bits of glass embedded in its outline. The bottom half of the bottle lay shattered on the ground. The scene continued to evolve, fragments of moonshine gleamed between puffs of red dust. Small movements fractured then reassembled as it hauled onwards stopping outside the chipped, wooden door of a quietly dark flat where only the sound of the trembling shrubbery flanking the recycle bin passed through the keyhole. It spun slowly on the thick, straw-coloured welcome mat. Inside the flat the young woman tossing in her sleep remained unaware of her breath clouding the surroundings, of turning her head towards two paths lined with coloured, broken glass, of the tiny people from the palm wine bottle pleading against her thumping heartbeat.

In The Beginning

The first time I met Mrs Harris, she’d told me she was certain that Buddy, her garden statue Buddha, had been eating her roses. Although, she’d added, there may have been a slim chance the fat, sepia-coloured cat of a neighbour was the one skulking around fighting her roses, who in turn offered only their blooms in scented, decorative peace offerings. Mrs Harris was my new next-door neighbour. A slight woman who chatted enthusiastically about all kinds of subjects, she lived alone and dressed like a hippy. Snow white hair hung past her shoulders in an unruly mess, shrouding her heavily lined face. A chicken pox mark on her left cheek looked like a teardrop. Her green eyes rippled with laughter and mischief.

That morning, she stood at my doorstep, hair slightly damp, clutching a small dark blue container with the word “tea” peeling off at the corners. She smelled of an odd combination of cigarettes and baked bread. “It’s Buddy,” she said. “He’s gone missing.” The sky swirled a moody grey. Along the street, the sound of doors shutting heralded the morning rush hour.

“Again?” I asked.

Her eyes narrowed into slits. “Can I come in?

I nodded reluctantly, stepping aside to allow entry. We moved down the wood floor hallway, the smell of damp clothes heavy in the air, past my messy sitting room with the previous evening’s Chinese takeaway containers stacked on the floor, a large black and white picture of Jimi Hendrix blowing smoke into the lens commanding one wall. My mother’s bright throw was slung deliberately over the blue sofa smothering past indiscretions. We entered the kitchen.

“Isn’t this the fifth time?” I asked. I wasn’t in the mood for visitors.

I watched her make herself comfortable at the worn wooden table an old traveller man with blackened teeth had sold me. I felt sluggish and depressed but I took the blue container from her and added bags of tea before handing it back. Three knives drying in the sink gleamed invitingly, old watermarks arched on their silver blades. Buddy had gone missing for days on several occasions. Each time, he was returned safely to a different spot in Mrs Harris’s garden.

I wasn’t certain if Buddy really did go off wandering — maybe it was a cruel trick played by bored kids on the street- or if Mrs Harris, a lonely, eccentric elderly woman engineered the whole thing just for some attention. There was genuine anger in her voice as she remarked, “I’m fed up of this happening! If I catch the little worm responsible God help them.”

“Hey, you didn’t see anything did you?”

I was slow to respond, putting the shiny kettle on and setting aside two cups with teabags, strings dangling down the side. “Can’t say I’ve been following Buddy’s movements.” I answered in an effort to make light of the situation.

She laughed then, full bodied and warm. “I suppose I sound a little crazy to you. But you know, from where he was Buddy could see clear across several gardens. He was probably exposed to things he shouldn’t have been seeing.” This was said with such sincerity, my gaze lingered on her face but it was met with what appeared to be genuine candour. The pipes began to interrupt. Thwack. Thwack. Thwack., as though someone was throwing stones against them.

“Oh God! You too! “Mrs Harris announced, groaning. “My pipes have been noisy all morning and now Buddy’s vanished. Not a good start to the day!”

Sudden concern clouded her features. “Are you okay?” Your energy seems a little off.” The kettle blew warm breaths at the ceiling. It hissed and the red light at the bottom flicked off. I filled both cups, handed one over. “Oh you know, okay. Getting on with things, actually you caught me in the middle of something. I was running a bath.” The sweet scent of blackcurrant filled the air. Both teas were a rich plum hue that darkened our tongues as if with our individual anxieties.

“You should have said dear, I don’t want to impose. I’ll finish my tea and be off, just thought you might have seen something, kids climbing the fence maybe.” She took another gulp, closed her eyes. “Oh that’s good, tea’s nice dear.”

“Yes it is.” I answered. “Maybe Buddy’s gone off on a tea tasting tour of all the exotic flavours he can get his hands on.”

“Maybe,” she said wryly.

“Lucky Buddy.” I took a sip, felt a strong undercurrent of something dark that made my limbs become heavy. I longed to be left on my own. The knives and sink had blended into one silvery entity, dripping small figures with expressions of distress and bladed mouths. Each drop reverberated in my head. I imagined Buddy in the garden commanded by something unknown, leading other garden statues astray up the highway, wearing a blushing pink azalea as an eye patch.

Mrs Harris gulped some more tea, interrupting my reverie. “You don’t like to spend much time in your garden?” she asked.

“Never really gave it much thought.” My dressing gown knot began to uncurl. I tied it back tightly.

“Ahh, I thought so. I can tell by the state it’s in. Gardening’s good for the soul.” She motioned at her head. “It’s a great stress reliever connecting with the soil like that. I can teach you sometime if you like? It’s simple enough.” She offered with an easy smile.

“Thank you, that’s kind.”

“I’ll tell you a secret.” She leaned in conspiratorially, “sometimes, I play classical music to my fruit and vegetable plants in the garden. It helps them grow you see!”

I smiled at the notion, the element of surprise, saw her apples ripening, patches of red spreading around the sweetness of fruit skin to the swelling strains of Samuel Coleridge-Taylor’s violins and Chopin’s piano.

“That’s genius,” I remarked appreciatively. “I’ll remember that.”

She tossed back the remnants of her tea and stood. “I’ll leave you to it. Oh! Before I forget, I brought these for you.” From her pocket she dug out a small bag of nuts, tied at the neck with a red ribbon. “They’re Brazilian,” she continued. “Lovely robust spicy flavour; let me know what you think!”

“Will do.” I waved her goodbye at the door as she breezed out.

After she left I began washing up and as I opened the cupboard, slowly stacking the clean cups there it was, my mother’s favourite mug, its handle jutting out, a hand-painted mint leaf curved across its white body. I hadn’t been able to bring myself to get rid of it. Seeing it brought back images of mum swept in by the wind, a winter chill behind her, reaching for that mug, filling it with tea and regaling me with stories of her day. It’s funny how the very things that once irritated you about a person were the things you missed most when they were gone. Like phone calls held together by an invisible current, or rummaging through markets because we were two creased people who needed steam ironing. Lately I tried to fill the silences with… anything.

Abruptly, a wave of fatigue swept over me. The thought of facing the day stripped any strength I had left. The stack of unopened letters I’d let build up on top of the DVD cabinet, upstairs the pile of dirty clothes overflowing from the laundry basket, the new battery I still needed to buy for the car, the call to the electricity company to stop them cutting me off. All the mundane dots we connect to keep going.

When I stood it was in slow motion. I was weightless; I didn’t feel my feet touch the first step or know when I had made it to the top. I remember opening the bathroom cabinet and inside seeing the razor that had called me by my name.

I ran myself a bath longing for the peace the water held out for me. Lying there I watched an insect circle the light bulb on the ceiling and envied its frenetic flight. For years I’d been fed on incongruous things; smudges on windows washed away by rain, static from the TV, white lines just before traffic lights, wilting in shaky, packed train carriages. On the need to hold my loneliness, watch it change shape yet essentially stay the same. I felt woozy, faint. In the tepid water my grip on things slipped. The small, silvery, distressed figures I’d seen earlier in the kitchen offered their limbs to the dropped, bloody razor as the frantic black eyes of the dice spun.

At the hospital, I drifted in and out of consciousness a lot. One time, I caught sight of my blood eating into the bandages tightly wrapped around my wrists. When awake, I felt drowsy and dazed, unhinged. I saw myself at the end of a distant tunnel, vaguely aware of the things floating inside it. Of the glare of sunlight filtering through oppressively small windows, the blandness of the ward’s cream walls, the chattering between patients and visitors, terrible food distributed on wooden trays and the squeaky wheeled contraptions delivering them crying against a resigned floor.

Other things lost their definition. I barely recalled swallowing tablets for the white, fabricated river lining my stomach. Nurses blended into one in those first few days. Strangely, I fixated on the staff with watches clipped onto the breast of their uniforms. Those compact keepers of time made me appreciate the beauty of small things and sometimes if I looked closely enough, the hands stopped or the Roman numerals disappeared. This gave the impression that somewhere a slate was being wiped clean.

One evening Mrs Harris came to see me, She sat at the foot of my bed concern inhabiting her face. She was clad in a red tartan coat, black corduroy trousers and a thick, woolly blue jumper. Her white hair was pale moonlight in the room. She picked at a thread on her jumper. “Will you be alright?” she asked in a paper-thin voice. Her green eyes were kind, non-judgmental. I was grateful for this. I cleared my throat, suddenly parched. “I don’t know.” I answered, words slow in my mouth, tongue half asleep, heavy with the realization I’d ended up in hospital.

She leaned forward in the chair, clasped her hands together. “Is there anything you’d like me to do?” There was an odd tone in her voice. Not impatience or reproach but curiosity. Her pink lips were slightly upturned as though about to smile. I was drugged up and a little confused. Somebody dancing a life affirming ritual in the ward aisle could have appeared sinister to me. Hot shame burned into my bones. “… I don’t think so”. What should I have said? That I just wanted the horrible feeling to end. That I’d been walking around with this weird sense of doom for a while, having heart palpitations, anxiety attacks, not sleeping very well?

She nodded gravely, stood and edged closer to the bed. I looked at the lines in her face wondering about the secrets they held.

“Things happen dear, don’t feel embarrassed. Sometimes, all it takes is that extra thing for life to unravel, a small push on top of everything else.” She responded candidly, peered at me as though seeing me through a foggy window.

“Thank you for what you did.” I held her gaze. “If you hadn’t had come back…”

“It’s alright, my ring had dropped off somewhere.” She raised her finger in support. When you didn’t answer the door, I got worried.”

We sat awkwardly in the moment, waiting for the noise of my crash landing to fill the silence.

Mrs Harris made several visits. She was light and colour from the world outside. She entertained me with interesting news stories, gesturing dramatically as she talked. She brought vanilla cheesecake, avocadoes “to fatten you up!” A 1970s copy of Time magazine with a feature on Ella Fitzgerald, old magazines from The Petrie Museum on Egyptology, a packet of bright, lusciously rendered Iranian playing cards bought from a car boot sale and swathed in plastic bags several slim bottles of green ginger wine.

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.

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 costumes 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.

The bed of forks beneath us trembled; one came unstuck rising towards me. The water pulled Mrs Harris, lithe and free. She drew me along, anchoring me somehow through the dip of her shoulder, the flick of her feet, the curve of a turn. When we broke the shivering water, the remnants of our conversation sunk to the bottom to become tadpoles.

“Shit! There’s a fish in the water.” A kid squealed.

“Where?”

“Behind you, no don’t move you’ll scare it!”

Some teenagers scurried around trying to grab it.

“No! There, there-aw. Get it.”

The noise level increased, the lifeguard blew his whistle.

“Who put the fish in the water?” he asked. “Where did it come from?”

Sure enough I could see the fish and I thought it could see me. It shimmered in my direction. Mrs Harris and I exchanged glances. It was silver with purple fins. Its fins were sewing needles stuck together.

Mrs Harris shook the water from her hair, “Quick, grab it before those crazy kids come down here.” Heat spread on my throat as if someone blew hot breaths there. I followed the wriggling fish, tracing it this way and that. I lunged at it, fumbled, the tail tipping my fingers. I tried again to catch it with clutches that limped to the finish like the slowest swimmers in a class. The fish was roughly two feet long and so shiny I was sure its skin was made of light. I stopped then, momentarily, throwing it with my stillness. It swam back towards me and my hands were poised in the water. I grabbed it, feeling its rough, lukewarm slippery skin. I pulled up and out, careful not to let it slide back into the water.

“Got it,” I murmured.

Mrs Harris smiled, she followed me up the steps and out onto the pale green floor. I heard the kids coming out of the pool, bits of their conversations trickled down.

“What? I don’t know man, that lady’s got it.”

The patter of footsteps grew closer. Mrs Harris and I knelt on the floor. We held the fish, a heartbeat between us. The blue light travelled across the ceiling and the scars on my wrists hummed the hymn that fish like to sing when the tide comes in. The fish stared at me; inside its filmy eye shuttered a mini camera lens. A crowd gathered around us. The fish’s mouth opened repeatedly. It trembled, then heaved and a worn, brass key slick with gut slime fell out of its mouth into my hand.

“No way!” a voice chimed. “Did you see that? It just threw up a key, man.”

“How did a key get inside it?” another voice chirped.

I took my swimming hat off and put the key inside it. Heavy with the weight of water my released hair in two-strand twists slapped against my neck.

The lifeguard ambled over. “Fess up. Which one of you clowns put the fish in the pool?”

Voices became a chorus. “I didn’t put no key there.”

“Yo, the bogie man did it!”

“It was my Nan, boss; she came out of Holloway prison to do it.”

Mrs Harris said awkwardly, “Can we get a container with some water for the fish?” She addressed the lifeguard. The fish trembled as if my hands gave electric shocks.

“It’s dying!” I screamed. “It needs mouth to mouth resuscitation.” I bent down and placed my mouth on its hard lips that felt like the opening to a defective bottle. I blew breaths into its clammy mouth. I felt Mrs Harris’s entranced gaze.

“Nasty, she’s kissing the fish man!”

“This woman’s weird.”

“What’s wrong with her?” The voices hovered above me, tiny planes with broken wings crashing down. Then everything went quiet, slowed down as though I’d gone temporarily deaf. I was vaguely aware of Mrs Harris grabbing my shoulder while I took deep breaths for the fish, its filmy eye replaced by my brown one. By the time the lifeguard pulled me off the fish the kids were stuck to the ceiling, the bed of forks had risen to the surface of water and the key was still in my hand.

The fish didn’t make it. Outside the sports centre Mrs Harris and I sat in my beaten up, blue Volkswagen Golf. I turned on the engine and the car spluttered to life. We sat quietly, processing what just happened. It settled in our mouths, rich and thick. In the back seats lay a bent copy of Trace Magazine and two dirty frying pans, a sheet of crinkled foil between them. Gold sweet wrappers were stray lights on the floor. To the far left corner, my silver spacesuit costume sat like our third passenger.

“What an incident!” she said finally.

I strapped my seatbelt in. “I know, the universe is speaking to me.”

“The universe could indeed be communicating with you.”

I swung my body to face her. “Seriously, that fish let me catch it. You saw what happened, it swam right to me.”

“I saw you got lucky.”

“What about the key?” I asked, pulling it out of my pocket, waving it at her.

“Maybe it’s as random as a fish swallowing a key, magical.”

I held up the brass object to the rear view mirror and reflected back at me wasn’t a key but a finger, a slender, tapered brown feminine finger. I slipped it back inside my pocket.

“You think the pool has some sort of pipe in it?” I sunk back into the grey seat.

Mrs Harris popped a piece of gum in her mouth, “Can’t say I’ve ever noticed. That was some sight, you giving a fish mouth to mouth!” Then she said, “You’re grieving but be careful, behaviour like that can get you thrown in the funny farm.”

“It was reactive!”

I looked out the window at the gaps between the leaves of the tree leaning to one side.

As if addressing the wing mirror I said, “Whatever we come back as in the next life, it’s mandatory for you to be my swimming partner.”

“Done deal”, she laughed. “RIP, fish.”

I hit the gas, turned the wheel and steered the car forward. I watched the right wing mirror on my side. People dripped out of it onto the pavements with bits of glass embedded in their bodies. I placed my left hand on the lump of key in my pocket, felt its finger guise against my thigh. The fish, the finger and the people were in my head. Swimming at the speed of a bullet from one end to the other, if my head got sliced open they would fall out, bucking with afterlife.

The Advantage of Nmebe Soup

Adesua recalled the advice Mama Uwamusi had given her earlier that morning. The secret of good Nmebe soup is balance and employing a light touch. All the flavours combined must play their part for the overall taste. The wild tomatoes should be ripe but not overly so, the onions sparsely added, a small portion of peppers for the required burst of heat, a sprinkling of bitter leaf. All cooked in the juices of a tender fowl. All around her, people were milling to and from the various stalls, their raised voices an ever-increasing hum. She often wondered whether people who came to the market thought they were in competition so keen was each person to out-shout and out-talk the other.

Apart from Adesua’s duty of cooking the soup, today was a special day for the bridal choice ceremony was to begin at The Royal Palace after the setting of the sun and the market was rife with gossip and high energy. The scent of peppered meats lingered in the air and children with small sugar cane sticks in their mouths, were roaming freely, happy to escape their mother’s heavy hands, their eager fingers quick to reach out and touch whatever caught their restless eyes.

At the furthest stretch of the market next to Ijoma’s fish stand, Adesua saw a young boy eating watermelon who helped himself to another healthy sized piece whilst Ijoma’s back was turned, and was soon chased. There was a juggler dressed in red with multi-coloured pieces of string tied across his head and two sets of white feathers tucked near each of his ears. In the middle of the market, as well as various fruit and farm produce stalls was Esemuede the palm wine seller who was always remarkably merry. Next to him sat Ahere, the one armed beggar accompanied by his dog who was quick to imitate his master and stick a needy paw out at passers by. On the opposite side across from them was Emeka the tailor who sold some of the finest cloths and materials, all laid out in an elaborate fashion to tempt the most disciplined of market visitors. Beside Emeka was the curious figure of Ehinome, the medicine man surrounded by bags of herbal remedies, each designed to resolve ailments such as back pain and bowel trouble.

This was what she loved about market day, the familiar comfort of mayhem that surrounded her. The women with their generous hips and ample bosoms, chopping fish and slaughtering chickens, ignoring the sweat that glistened on their furrowed brows and the sheen it left on their taut skin. The men wielding produce in their powerful arms, jokingly exchanging banter across the amused heads of customers who would at times pass judgement and salute their chosen winner; smoke rising to the sky and the distinctive aroma of goat roasting, your stomach growling, mouth watering and tongue snaking across your lips in approval.

It was during this moment of reverie that Adesua saw what she was destined to purchase on Emeka’s stall. It lay right at the very bottom under a weighty pile of displayed attire and she’d never have even noticed it had it not been for the left corner folded up, like a crooked finger beckoning her towards it.

Emeka smiled knowingly when she reached him.

“Aha, I know what you want, it is the only one of its kind that I have,” he said smoothly removing the desired garment from its position and spreading it on the top where it truly belonged in all its glory. “You will be a vision in this; I have been waiting to sell it to the right person, a person who truly deserves it.”

Adesua resisted the urge to laugh in response, knowing full well that Emeka would have sold it to a giant grasshopper had it presented him with a half decent offer. “It is beautiful,” she whispered, stroking the bold print of deep blue and orange angular lines that your eyes traced until you touched the outer edges kissed with gold.

“My father will give you a week’s supply of farm produce in exchange for this cloth and the matching head dress,” Adesua said careful to keep a pleading expression on her face.

“What? No, no, no,” Emeka responded, shaking his large head from side to side adamantly. “You want people to laugh and say Emeka is a fool. No, you will pay me like everybody else.”

“But I am not trying to get out of paying sir, I am simply giving you another choice of payment, please I am like your daughter. I have nothing to wear for the king’s ceremony.”

At last Emeka agreed, biting heavily into the chewing stick dangling from his mouth. He made a show of packing her item for her, folding and tying it so it rested neatly and addressing people walking past, “Let nobody say Emeka is not a kind man oh! Let nobody say Emeka does not have a heart that gives.” He gestured pulling at his ear lobe urging people to listen, instead they were only fleetingly distracted.

“Thank you sir,” Adesua responded. “You will be well rewarded.”

“Yes, just make sure your father is ready to give me what I am owed, I will pass by in a few days to collect my payment.”

“Yes Papa Emeka.”

“Be sure to tell him I am coming, I do not want to be a bearer of bad news.”

It was only after she picked up her cloth and walked away that Adesua saw the monkey approaching. Before she could react it had jumped on her back, desperately clinging on. She tried to ply its wily brown body off her but it would not relent. It brought its pinched face close to hers and bared its teeth, grabbing at her hair and pulling tufts out, noisily screeching while her hair fell to the ground. It scratched her face and neck drawing blood and she felt a stinging burn on her skin. She screamed at the top of her voice, furiously flailing her arms about and hopping up and down, yet the stubborn animal remained there, boring its black eyes into hers, hissing and spitting angrily. She raised her palm in defence but it shot its head forward and bit her finger. By the time Emeka and a few others reached her, she lay in a heap; there was no hair on the ground, no marks on her body, and no blood.

The monkey had vanished but momentarily Adesua had felt that there was nothing she could do to get that monkey off her back.

It was a sign of things to come.

Will

The cat’s meow drew me outside. I recognised the neighbourhood rambler, black with a split white stripe down its back. It stood on a half smashed green bottle, back arched, body poised. Its amber gaze bore into mine and momentarily it looked like an artist’s sculpture: Cat on a Green Bottle.

“Hey boy,” I cooed gently, tightening my dressing gown. “Get off that.” I bent down to shoo it off amazed it had at all managed to balance on the bottle. Smoke filled its eyes as it leapt off in a nifty trick. The bottle rolled towards my feet, and its jagged base stared down my fluffy slippers in an unequal stand off. The cat circled, tail upright like an antenna drawing an invisible line in the air before approaching the bottle again. It leaned low, stretched its neck, shot its tongue out and licked, deftly avoiding shards.

I slapped my hands together. “Stop that! You’re a bad boy.” I ran indoors, grabbed the plastic bag that was a green tongue poking out of the kitchen drawer. By the time I re-emerged, the troublemaker had disappeared into the shrubbery separating my house from the neighbour’s. The sky was shedding one darkening blue to reveal another. I scooped up the bottle by its neck, sniffed. It smelled like palm wine. Fermented wine was a sharp scent that lingered; I wondered if the smell would remain in my nostrils throughout the rest of the day.

The bottle slipped, nicked my finger. My blood became a small red tide that ebbed down settling on the jagged rim in a circular, bloody kiss. I dropped the broken bottle inside the green plastic bag and shoved it in my wheelie bin. I locked the door, checked the post hatch. It was empty. The cut throbbed and the blood drop began to grow into a red bulb. I looked at my finger, noticed the tiny piece of green glass grinning inside the wound.

I had a meeting planned with my mother’s old friend and solicitor Mervyn for later in the day. Mervyn and his family collected strays. He was the centre, a warm, pulsing nucleus people surrounded. You never knew who you’d see at their house; maybe a Jamaican cabbie with gambling debts needing an unlikely haven to lie low, or broken prostitutes with heroin babies needing rescuing, or a friend whose hands were disappearing, who needed help before his whole body vanished, reduced to a heap of clothes on a side road.

I’d known him for as long as I could remember and it was hard to separate him from the things I associated with him. The smoothness of his bald head, like a crystal ball hiding the night, crumpled expensive suits, expressions of concern, large Cuban cigars dangling jauntily from the corner of his mouth. As a kid, I imagined he slept with one of those cigars firmly lodged between his lips, lit and burning with particles of the cases he’d taken home. I saw him tossing and turning without dropping that cigar, and winding curls of smoke twisting in the dark around him like flying white snakes.

I used to play hide and seek with his sons as a kid. I hid so well behind the line of cushions on the soft, plum sofa I slipped into a world beneath where coins and old conversations hummed their approval. Mervyn was a great dad. I watched the way he threw his sons in the air as if they were the only suns allowed to set and rise back up with each catch and fling. In Mervyn’s home, the warmth and love was inescapable. Whenever I saw this, the well inside me deepened, lengthened. Only there was no water at the bottom, just stones thrown swallowed by silence. All this made me like Mervyn, even love him a little. I pictured my mother and me arriving in his life as two stray winds creating small havocs for Mervyn and his boy’s but that story she’d never told me.

I caught the train from Elephant & Castle to Mervyn’s in Harlesden. In a fairly empty carriage, heads unconsciously bobbed to its rhythm. I coughed and the coloured train lines flattened. The train paused for breath frequently at main station stops, and at pits in-between, the ones left off the map. It squeaked and sputtered, its sounds creating a low, dark horizon on tracks were mice flew. It shuddered along.

At Harlesden, I moved with the throng of people spilling out of the station like a language. I spotted a young woman stealing a bouquet of blue azaleas from a flower stall right behind the owner’s back. Her arms were outstretched, mischievous grin in tow. Her body was arched and she was dressed in a yellowy brown African wrapper. Braided in multiple single plaits, her hair looked neat. She stood tall and the lines of her body seemed familiar. Then, she looked right at me, and as if it was a signal of sorts, turned to run. Instinctively I followed. I chased her and the distance between us shook like a rickety, wooden bridge. She flew, dipped, turned and twisted. Her movements were rugged musical notes. She had moonshine on her back. I removed my rucksack from my shoulder, rummaged for Marpessa, soon solid in my hands. I pressed the power switch, watched it light red. I snapped away. Marpessa’s lens whirred the way cameras did when they spoke. Above us, pigeons flying drew another skyline with their beaks. They cooed at each other, grey wings spreading.

I followed the young woman’s moving back. Follow, follow, follow, I muttered to myself, small beads of sweat springing up in my armpits like translucent crops. Marpessa’s frayed strap bit into my neck. The summer streets were fully occupied by clusters of people, their perspiration dripping along the pavements. I shoved Marpessa back into the rucksack. Ahead, my pied piper of sorts waited outside the inviting, yellow sign of Honey’s Caribbean takeaway.

She’d paused, as though giving me an opportunity to close the gap between us. She sat on the steps outside, hand on her jaw, flowers beside her, wrapper riding up smooth, brown legs. Something about her on that stairway made the hairs on my arms stand to attention. I spotted moss growing on the stairs, green dreams of concrete she’d somehow commanded. I fished Marpessa out once more, snapped away.

“Hey!” I said, “I’d like to photograph you some more.”

She sprang up, shoved Marpessa away, grabbed her flowers and took off again. Past the laundrette with washing machines mid- cycle, the funeral home set in large green grounds, past rows of quaint shops sporting colourful window displays that shared one neon heartbeat they rotated during breaks.

At the compact, red-stoned building on a raised kerb with a roof that looked like a low brow, she dropped her flowers and disappeared around the corner. Slanted, elegant typography on the window read Williams & Co. Solicitors. Near my feet something rustled. I stared. The azaleas she’d dropped were no longer flowers but crushed blue butterflies near death. Some had wings shorn, some were partially squashed. A few attempting to unstick themselves, fluttered pathetically. I tasted their desperation for one last broken flight.

Inside the building, the secretary Pauline sat behind a black-flecked grey desk that might have been made of marble and fog. She wore a crisp white blouse and a brown woollen skirt. Red-framed glasses finished the look.

“Well, well, well,” she said. “Wonders will never cease.” A finger and its long nail curled away from the keyboard. “You allergic to this area or something?” she asked. I always enjoyed her warm, Bajan accent, even when it was biting.

I dropped the rucksack and helped myself to a cup of water. “Nice to see you too. He in?”

“Yeah, he’s in,” she said leaning back into her chair.

The hallway curved snakelike and was flanked by rooms on either side; there were cracks of light underneath the doors that were closed. On the left, I passed a grey-haired man standing behind a desk piled high with files, talking insistently into a mobile phone. Spotting me he smiled distantly and shut the door firmly. To my right a slender black woman in a charcoal grey trouser suit paced back and forth. I caught the wink of a slim gold watch from her wrist. At the end of the hall stood Mervyn’s office. I knocked.

“Come in,” his voice boomed.

I could smell and feel his presence even before seeing him. Paco Rabanne aftershave mingled with Cuban cigars. He sat in the skylight window at an enormous sprawling oak desk that managed not to swallow the whole room. There was a chocolate leather chair at the back next to a compact library of Law and fishing books. On the walls were hung certificates, photos of him and his sons, his staff and a picture of him holding a kingfisher on a hook.

“The prodigal daughter returns,” he said enveloping me in a hug. He had a habit of doing that, drawing me into things whether I had a say in it or not. It felt good. At 6 feet 2 inches he towered above me, a black skinned man with broad facial features and a Jamaican lilt, like molasses melting in his voice. When he became angry the molasses turned molten.

“Sorry,” I said, dropping my rucksack at the foot of the chair opposite his desk. “I’ve been busy.”

“Yes but this meeting was for your benefit.” He walked back round, folded his considerable frame into the seat. At my mother’s funeral, he had cried for her. I’d never seen a grown man cry other than on TV. His body had trembled in grief while my own wails stayed caught in my throat. I held his cries gently, as if they were the delicate rims of fragile cups.

He nudged the open file on his desk towards me before reclining back into his seat.

“This is it?” I asked studying it as though it was in a foreign language.

“Yes, your mother’s will.”

I pulled the file closer, felt a fresh film of tears I blinked away.

I shook my head. “I can’t believe she was organised enough to arrange a will, she never said a word.”

I could feel Mervyn’s gaze on me, I snuck a look and the corners of his mouth were drawn making me wish I had a father to hold my hand. To tell me how to navigate emotional landmines that unexpectedly went off and rendered you crawling legless because the lines of someone’s mouth triggered your memories.

“Well, she was your mother and maybe she didn’t want to worry you,” Mervyn said, yanking me out of my reverie. I felt a twinge of jealousy that he’d known this secret.

“She managed to tell you though.” I didn’t quite keep the resentment from my voice.

“I was her lawyer and friend, of course she told me. Your mother could be very secretive, in fact annoyingly so at times. This she was absolutely clear on.”

A fat tear ran down my cheek.

Mervyn brought out a worn piece of paper from the file. I bent my head, drank the words in:

I, Queenie Lowon leave the sum of £80,000 to my only child Joy Omoregbe Lowon. As well as my house at 89 Windamere Avenue and all the contents within it, I bequeath a brass head artefact and her grandfather Peter Lowon’s diary to her. She’ll figure out what to do with them. I leave her everything I have. I ask my lawyer Mervyn Williams to advise her should it be necessary.

Below it was the date and my mother’s signature which looked hurried and leaned to the right, slightly squiggly, as if it would morph into a mosquito and fly off the page, fat with her blood.

I leave her everything I have…

It was there in black and white, the proof my mother wouldn’t suddenly re-appear and declare this a joke. The offending document was becoming a white room with words dripping black ink on the walls.

Mervyn loosened his tie and motioned at the wide, square windows behind him. “You mind if I open them, bit stuffy in here.”

I shrugged, barely looking at him. “It’s your office.”

I glanced to my left and Mervyn’s picture with the fish on his hook had changed. The fish’s mouth had become a woman’s jaw straining against the hook, threatening to leap out through the glass.

I was holding my breath and didn’t even know it. Mervyn fished out from the bottom drawer of his desk a white plastic bag bulky with the shapes inside it. From the bag he pulled out a brown leather diary and the brass head. He laid them on his desk. “These are yours.”

All the sketches of myself I’d drawn in my head with a finger dipped in saliva seemed to show up. Better versions of myself in a suit facing Piccadilly Circus tube, waiting to pick up another version of myself from a curved, red carriage. Another dumping an attempted suicide version in a grey bin bag, me walking a black tightrope in the sky, naked. In this life, my mother would never see those versions of me but maybe all they needed was her gaze from the next life, to stop them jumping into the orange sea at the horizon.

I picked up the brass head, weighed it. I ran a finger over the high, proud forehead, its broad nose, wondering how many lives it had seen with its defiant expression. I placed it back on the table.

I murmured, “I’ve never seen this.”

Mervyn leaned forward, smiled reassuringly. “It’s just an art piece, she probably kept it among her personal things.”

A tiny drop of sweat ran down my back. “If you had something like this, you’d display it though wouldn’t you?”

“Not necessarily, I have lots of things I’ve collected I haven’t displayed.”

“Hmmm, it’s just odd I’ve never seen it. And £80,000? Where did she get that kind of money?” I felt flat, dispossessed, thinking of all the ways I’d wanted to get money and nice things, but never like this. Never without her here to help me squander some of my new found glory.

“She used to own a flat in Brixton, sold it a while back now.”

“Oh my God! Something else I didn’t know about. Was this woman even my mother?” My hands became wet cloths I wrung.

“I’m sure she had her reasons.”

“Yup, and she’s taken them to the grave. I have no idea what to do with her money.”

“You know that youth project in that abandoned building I volunteer for? Why don’t we run something there together?”

I shrugged, slightly surprised at the ease and speed with which he found something for me to do with the money. He continued, “There’s lots of space and you could incorporate photography into it. Think about it,” he advised.

I stood abruptly, slid the diary back over. “Will you hold onto that? Just for a little while,” I instructed.

“Of course.” He walked round the table, hands stuffed inside his pockets. I took off my cardigan and wrapped the brass head in it, placed it carefully inside my rucksack. Mervyn hugged me again and right then I wanted to tell him about the young woman I’d followed from the flower stall, who’d oddly enough led me to him as if I didn’t already know where he was. But I thought better of it. He already seemed to think my behaviour was strange. I didn’t want him worrying even more. I said goodbye, feeling the familiar tug of my strap on my shoulder. On my way out, I noticed a red ant crawling in a step I’d taken. I watched it drag my step to a corner and feed on its memories.

In my bag I felt Marpessa and the brass head in a loose embrace. I crossed the gauntlet the road threw at vehicles daily, passed through ghosts that signalled when traffic lights stopped working. Could you leap from all the tipping points in your life at once? In the distance, a breeze carried new beginnings in unsealed white envelopes that hovered just beyond my reach.

Monkey Dey Work Bamboo Dey Chop

Blessings sometimes travelled in pairs. And when they did, especially during a rainy season, there was a unanimous decision by the Gods to give way to them through the traffic of the living. They floated above the still moist beds of earth where cassava plants slept, bounced off the hard backs of restless tortoises in humid unforgiving nights, joined the march of ants under remnants of partially eaten sweet wild berries and clung to the tiny wings of fireflies that appeared as small bursts of light in the belly of night air.

When they finally deposited themselves on Adesua’s head on the morning of the ceremony at the palace, the only indication that they had arrived was an itch to the right side of her brow. This itch did not stop after the necessary scratch, no. Instead, it spread like fire all over her head and the only thing that cooled its ardour was the kiss of cold water. The blessings laughed because their seeds had been sown. They knew that later in the day when the family set out for the palace, the skies overhead would part and shed tears upon them all.

It did not stop Adesua from sweating while she laboured over the pot of nmebe soup she prepared under Mama’s supervision. Nor did it stop Papa from killing their biggest goat that he said had tried to run when it saw the glint from the newly sharpened blade. It did not stop Adesua from having her thick hair plied into submission by nimble hands, her body oiled till it gleamed and the wrapper material she purchased from the market tied and fitted so perfectly around her tall frame it would have convinced anybody the material was made with only her figure in mind.

All over their village a variation of this occurred. Households in small and large compounds were busy preparing their suitable daughters as though the king had made a personal visit to request for their daughter’s hand. Prayers were said, offerings made. It seemed there was nothing people wouldn’t do to beat the competition, but nobody except Mama Adabra knew what the neighbouring villages were up to. There were whispers in the village that she had travelled as far as Shekoni to visit a medicine man who claimed he could insert himself into scenes of the future then come back to tell you about it. These whispers were soon slapped away by the hands of excitement and expectation.

For days before, the soil was fruitful; yielding cocoyam and plump melons that changed the colour of your tongue momentarily. Blades of grass shot out from hungry, dry patches, plants reached up high off the ground as if attempting to have conversations with the heavens. Purple and yellow petals scattered around like their hopes and dreams clinging to a foundation of dust. Even the air seemed filled with expectation. It touched the villagers or maybe they touched it, and it sighed in appreciation and carried them along in this period of madness and desire.

Adesua had asked about this king many times. But each person gave a different answer each time and she was convinced very few of the villagers had actually seen him.

“I heard he fed one of his wives to hyenas for disobeying him.” Old man Ononkwe had said, “Wise man.”

“You know he changes into a lion at night,” Amassi offered another time.

“The King has dealings with pale men from lands far, far away,” Obiriame, one of the village elders, had told her, conspiratorially. Of all three, Adesua was convinced Obiriame was the biggest liar. Imagine such a thing, pale men!

And so it went on and on, till Adesua became tired of all the talk and wonder at this King who did not even deign to visit his people and who seemed to have too many wives already by all accounts. Adesua could not wait for the day and the ceremony to be over so the village could stop humming with gossip, she could go back to swinging from trees and not worry about cuts on her skin or Papa’s disapproving eyes. She could race some of the young men in the village near the riverbank and when she won join them on their jaunt to a hidden clearing where they said human bones lay in wait. She dreamed of following Papa on one of his hunting trips, watching from a secret place while he stalked and captured his prey.

By early afternoon many of the villagers started out for the palace ceremony. The beautiful young women in their colourful prints and intricately plaited hair, were led enthusiastically by their mothers each desperate to outdo the other while the fathers loitered behind slightly, chewing on sugar cane while they speculated on the day’s events to come.

On they went, past riverbanks with edges like disfigured faces licked by keen waters. Through long, dusty paths that coughed up red dirt as determined feet trampled along their winded chests. Past the gaze of tall trees whose branches shook slightly in greeting. They paused for food and rest on the outskirts of the town of Ego. They marvelled at the hospitality of some of the townsfolk who although welcoming them with curiosity still offered cooked ripe bananas and palm wine.

It was here that the villagers met a man called Igwehi. His hair was completely white and he walked with a stooped back and propped himself up on a stick. Igwehi said that he had worked as a craftsman producing leather for the previous king, Oba Anuje, the father of the current king. He had witnessed many royal ceremonies and even been favoured by the king. He relayed that Oba Anuje ruled with a strong fist and on discovering a coup to overthrow him by one of his closest advisors in the royal court, had ordered his rival’s head to be chopped off using a ritual sword. For ten days the advisor’s head had been left for all to see on a specially made clay mantle within the palace walls. And even when high-ranking members in the palace had pleaded with Oba Anuje to have the head removed, he refused. He let it sit on the mantle till the blood dried into all the creases and crevasses in the clay created by the baking sun and the stench turned the stomachs of nervous courtiers.

Igwehi told this tale with relish, chewing over the words like the flesh of a tenderly cooked cow and rubbing his left thigh with one hand while gently banging his stick on the ground with the other. Then, he accidentally revealed that he having lost favour with the king had also been thrown out of the royal court. The revelation slipped from his mouth the way a breast spills out from a loosely tied wrapper. He attempted to contain it by covering his mouth as it had not been meant for the ears of strangers. When Adesua asked him why the king had banished him, his eyes began to roll in their sockets as though running to take cover in the far corners of his mind.

Benin was a city that had flourished over time under the rule of the different obas, and for the most part sat in quiet, satisfied contentment. You could see it in the number of undamaged gates there were throughout, many of them reaching eight or nine feet in height, with doors made from single pieces of ancient wood hinged on pegs, behind which smart and sometimes opulent homes had been built. You could see it in the Queens’ court which stretched for over six miles and was protected by a wall ten feet tall, fashioned from enormous trees tied to one another by cross beams and in-filled with red clay. Even along the streets the houses sat in neat rows.

The palace of Benin was divided into several quarters, apartments for courtiers and houses in sprawling, endless dust-shrouded grounds. Beautiful square galleries kissed by the breath of the gods rested on wooden pillars covered in the finest cast copper. In the afternoon, the sun shone on the ornate copper engravings depicting war exploits; images of soldiers rushing into battle wielding finely crafted spears and carrying sunrays in their mouths. Each roof had a small turret with copper casted birds harbouring the sounds of battle, waiting to carry them into angles of light swirling in the blue sky.

When Adesua and her family finally arrived outside the king’s court to be greeted by four appointed armed guards, they were ushered through a spotless square shaped courtyard, passing members of the palace dotted around in groups who turned to watch the new arrivals with a mixture of amusement and trepidation.

Adesua drank in the harried servants carrying bundles of wood and rushing into a side entrance where more shouting could be heard. A man ran out blowing through a copper instrument that alerted the palace a gathering before the king was occurring. Then came a procession of dancing men and women with their faces painted white wearing tight costumes made of luminous green cloth.

Eventually Adesua and her family were shown into the biggest room they had ever seen. On the walls were plaques carved from the finest brass commemorating more battles. The space was so wide and lengthy she was sure the inhabitants of six villages could fit into it. It was spilling over with people who tumbled around each other adept in the way they managed to avoid colliding. There was a specially allocated section for the royal advisors who talked among themselves, whispering behind cunning fingers and releasing eager laughs. To the right of them sat the king’s wives, a brood of decorated hens, clucking niceties to each other while brimming with resentment. They cast roving eyes over the proceedings their faces drawn with sour expressions and intermittently adjusted their childbearing hips as though the servants had placed insects there. They ignored the performing acrobats who somersaulted to a sweaty drummer’s beat for their pleasure. For centuries it was custom that some of the king’s army and courtiers sat behind the wives of the palace. From them the acrobatic spectacle drew gasps and applause as well as from the happy crowd who had travelled from all corners of the Edo kingdom to be assailed with wonders they could never have imagined seeing.

In the gap running through the crowd, a long line of women stood on offer, one behind the other like sacrifices to a God. The king himself sat in an exquisitely crafted chair made from ancient teak wood, flanked by his royal priest on one side and a member of the court council on the other. You could not tell how old the Oba was from looking at him but his black skin shone and his head seemed too big for his body. The wrapper he wore was heavily embroidered with a frill overlaid by a waistband sash with tassels. He had royal iwu tattoos on both arms that Adesua was too far away to see in detail.

As the family tentatively moved to the front, the procession of dancers began to navigate through the room. People clapped along as they wiggled and shook body parts, drawing admirable glances and whoops of encouragement. By the time they had worked their way to the back, the councilman beside the king stood up and held his hand out for silence.

“You!” he said pointing to Adesua, “come forward and introduce yourself to the king.”

Adesua walked towards them “I am Adesua sir.”

“And where have you come from?” the councilman asked.

“Ishan.”

“Tell us what you have brought as a gift for the king and why you would make a good wife.”

“I brought a pot of nmebe soup and I would make a fine wife because one day I’m going to be the best hunter in all of Edo.”

The crowd burst into laughter and the other wives giggled. Adesua turned to see that Papa had his hands on his head and Mama was trying not to smile. After the laughter died, the councilman looked to the king. He was sitting forward in his chair and studying Adesua as if she were a rainbow piercing through the heart of the sky.

Condition Make Crayfish Bend

If during his time as king Oba Anuje had been an unwavering rock that even tidal waves bowed to, his son Odion was not. Anuje had sowed the first seeds of inadequacy in Odion when on picking him up as a newborn he had wrinkled his nose as if the child smelled rotten. When the baby curled its lips and let out a wail as most babies do when born, Anuje seemed to take it as a personal affront and declared, “This child is useless,” then handed the baby back to its perplexed mother.

Nobody in the palace knew why Anuje hated his son Odion. He had many children from various wives, some whom he loved, some he tolerated. But his reaction to his fourth son was as strange as an antelope mating with a hare. When Odion was a boy he did everything he could to gain his father’s approval. He won wrestling matches, attempted to squash any signs of rebellion from villagers who didn’t want to pay their annual tributes, he solved riddles Anuje liked to set to amuse himself. All to no avail, Odion was not even a crumb on his father’s plate. Through the years, he longed for his father’s approval.

Sometimes when Odion dozed at night, he imagined that a Mammy Water with her big tail wriggled into his head through his ear and like a broom sweeps dirt, swept away the faults his father saw, leaving behind multi-coloured scales that glittered like rare gems. Despite this, Odion continued to suffer under his father’s hand haunted by one dream; a human heart swelling, then shrinking on a copper plate engraved in a foreign language and his father eating the heart with his bare hands before releasing his bloody mouth to the kingdom’s sky. He never asked Anuje to whom that heart belonged.

Years later Odion, now a young man, stumbled on Anuje in one of his rooms, clutching at his throat and gesturing wildly for help. Aware in that moment of being the only person his father needed and the only one who could help him Odion stood rooted to the spot, basking in his father’s weakness. Something exchanged between father and son that was worse than death tapping you on the shoulder. Anuje had been poisoned. Fully aware his son had no intention to help; with his last breath he cursed him.

After Anuje returned to the ground, flesh to dust, Odion was left still chasing a ghost. And even as king he heard the mocking laughter of his father’s ghost sneaking through the gaps in the palace gates and laying claim to the Oba’s chair.

And so against the advice of the head councilman and private berating of his priest, Odion insisted on marrying Adesua. “Such insolence Oba! She is not fit for marriage and will embarrass the palace. Think of your reputation!” Odion could no more explain his choice of a new bride as he could the desire that drove him to be king. Seeing her for the first time reminded him of a stalk that refused to be bent by the wind and for reasons unknown to him he equated such strength of character to mean loyalty. Adesua bid goodbye to everything she knew. To days spent exploring and wondering where her adventurous feet would take her, to nights around a fire listening to her father’s stories while Mama threw in a word here and there. Goodbye to old friendships and maybe blossoming new ones.

Her village rejoiced, their daughter had been chosen. If Adesua, a beautiful young woman, but one who walked purposefully rather than swung her hips to catch a young man’s eye and preferred playing with animals to learning recipes, could become queen, then there was hope for all their daughters! But there was a muted uproar, too. Within the palace walls vicious whispers circulated amongst courtiers, noblemen and women like a plague amidst its victims. Preparations were made to celebrate the king’s new bride under what struck Adesua as false jollity. Some people smiled but were not really happy. Others seemed to welcome her with open arms but their embraces left her cold.

In the days before the wedding Adesua paced the palace floors with a lump in her throat no amount of spit swallowing would push down. She wished her Papa and Mama had never brought her to the ceremony but wishing could not erase what had already come to pass. In the palace walls something dark hatched in the stomachs of hungry creatures growing small, ambitious tentacles, whispering to body organs at night. Adesua prayed and pleaded with the Gods, feeling like a small stone catapulted into a dense forest.

During the night before the wedding, after pre-celebrations had slowed to a close and the trees sunburnt leaves still trembled with the last notes of music, Oba Odion wound his way through the back routes of the palace. Benin was beautifully shrouded in a feverish orange glow, as if the lines of the buildings would shift beneath his touch and the copper birds on the turreted roofs had returned from secret journeys, pressing their newly inherited irises against a darkening skyline and lining the rooftops with small spoils visible only in a certain light.

Clutching an empty green bottle of palm wine, Oba Odion stumbled along, an almost comical figure. His large belly stuck out, he followed its rumblings, occasionally looking down, patting it affectionately. He could smell the palm wine on his own breath, could feel the looseness and lightness of his tongue, as though it would shoot out and keep the rooftop birds company, or trace a coming dawn with saliva before being swallowed by its pale mist.

Oba Odion raised the bottle to his lips, thinking of the new road to Benin he’d instructed his workers to start building. Not only would it lead to more trade for Benin but it meant labour for some of the people of the kingdom, who repeatedly came to the palace begging for scraps. Who knew what that road would bring to Benin’s gates? Arching his neck, he spoke to the bottle. “Go and tell the world about Oba Odion! Tell them the wonders I can do!” He flung the bottle. It landed in a gnarly patch of shrubbery, neck jutting out, and ready to catch tiny silvery cracks winding their way towards it.

When the Oba arrived at Omotole’s quarters she was naked, and voluptuous. He knelt before her in the warm dark room, reached for her waiting body. He traced the line of sweat snaking between her breasts greedily with the remnants of the wine from the mouth of the green bottle. He did not tell her about seeing her spread-eagled on that new road and that the copper palace rooftop birds had passed through her womb in a blurry blue light that rendered a person temporarily blind. Instead he stuck his face deep into the folds of Omotole’s bountiful breasts and told his mind to quiet down. Meanwhile Adesua the new bride paced her quarters, unaware of the slow erosion eating through the virgin movements her silhouette shared or that bits of the red trail had found its way into the Oba’s thrown bottle.

On her wedding day Adesua was struck by two things: that life would never be the same again and secondly, it would always be divided into sections: life before and life after the wedding. The day itself rolled in as if reluctant and with the pace of a snail. The palace roused with a gentle hum that turned into a buzz of activity on discovering Oba Odion had gone missing. Adesua heard the news through her personal servant, a young woman with tribal markings on her arms who stammered slightly. She bore a cut above her left eye and her small frame belied a sturdy strength of character.

Her name was Etabi and it was she who burst through the wide door of Adesua’s living quarters as if a flame had been set on her backside. “Mistress! Mistress! The Oba is nowhere to be seen,” she said, out of breath having run all the way from the servants building. There she had heard it from one of the noblemen’s servants, who in turn had eavesdropped on his master’s conversation with one of the councilmen and took it as his duty to spread it to any equally lowly person within the palace grounds.

On hearing this good news Adesua had to stop herself from jumping up and down. She smiled and it was wrapped in sunshine and nearly threw her arms around the servant as they went through the motions of dressing her for the day. Throughout she hoped this meant her predicament would change. She fantasised that the reality of having her as a new wife had troubled Oba Odion so much it had given him stomach ache and he was crumpled in a heap somewhere. Or that he was in a secret meeting with one of his advisers who was doing such a good job of persuading him to send her back home, that by the following day, she would be back in her village trying to outrun her shadow and making stupid bets with some of the elders. By the time she was fully dressed, Etabi fuelled by both instinct and excitement said “Mistress, this is the happiest I’ve seen you in days.”

This happiness was fleeting because a few hours later, the king finally arrived for his wedding. Caught up in the excitement that ensued as for the whole palace, the moment they had all so long anticipated was finally here, they prepared to produce the most impressive wedding any of them had ever witnessed, for their Oba Odion. Adesua waited anxiously as Odion approached her. He was unsteady on his feet and rocked slightly from side to side and for the entire ceremony appeared as if impatient for it to be finished. His breath was wine-soaked and intoxicated words tripped off his tongue. Adesua felt her nails digging into her palms; it reminded her she was alive because throughout the wedding, it was as though she was not there but rather in the crowd of guests somewhere, watching a frightened young woman being dragged into what looked like a steep grave. She watched the unfamiliar faces surrounding them. She resented the pitiful glances that came so frequently. It was hard to miss Papa’s nervous shuffle and Mama’s wringing hands.

The celebrations went on for a while, till the sun and moon swapped greetings as the moon took charge of overseeing the proceedings. It shone over the courtiers who speculated on the Oba’s whereabouts earlier in the day, and the tailors and craftsmen who marvelled at the coolness of the new bride whom they had all hoped would crumble a little to make the spectacle even more amusing.

Darkness wasn’t just outside, it waited for Adesua in the king’s chamber.

Under the force of his clammy body and his insistent tongue in her mouth, Adesua’s innocence was taken.

She’d finally become a wife in the truest sense of the word.

After the deed was done the Oba relaxed on Adesua’s chest, his own rising and falling in the satisfying comfort of a deep slumber while his snores slid off her cold shoulders and escaped through the ceiling into the night. With all her might Adesua shoved him off her grateful body and listened as he rolled over and fell to the floor. He did not get up and the only move she made was to turn her long frame to the opposite side. Meanwhile a tiny spider crawled onto her heart. It sat comfortably and arranged its slightly crooked legs. It sipped a little blood.

The next morning Adesua woke to an empty bedchamber. To the smell of stale sweat clinging to the air as if they were lovers too. The sound of unfamiliar voices loitering in the palace grounds gave her no comfort, instead it was a reminder that today was the beginning of a new life. She longed for her Mama and Papa and for the yesterday she once knew that was now napping in her village. She felt a throbbing at the juncture of her thighs and an ache that ran through to her stomach before pausing in her chest. She touched the inside of her left thigh and felt dried blood. She rubbed it hard, then harder, as if to wipe away the night before.

Oba Odion’s face swam in the waters of her head, his full bottom lip dropped down and arms stretched out of his mouth like branches with open palms. She sat up and shook the vision away with the vigour of an angry father shaking a stubborn child. She counted her toes as if she didn’t know how many she had. She stroked her smallest toe; it leaned against the other toe like an anxious sibling vying for support. She studied her feet, soft front hard back. Soft front hard back, she spoke the word out like a chant. These were the feet that had carried her through the yolk of childhood and into the bowels of adulthood, along a road that appeared to have no ending. And into a clearing of thorns disguised as eager smiles and forced jubilation. It had brought her here; where betrayal slapped you awake and waited patiently while you dressed. The voices outside grew louder. But outside could have been inside and inside outside because she was thinking of her feet, soft front hard back. She wanted to cut them off.

Once again Oba Odion went to his hiding place, between the soft folds of flesh of his Omotole. Whenever he laid his head to rest on her generous breasts, the howl of wild beasts could not drag him away. He forgot about rebellious villagers who needed to be made examples of and the nagging doubts of members of his council with selfish interests. He forgot about the invisible rope that hung around his neck daily.

Omotole was the daughter of a nobleman who had travelled to Benin in search of fortune and prosperity. He did not find prosperity but found fortune in the form of a bow-legged, light skinned beauty who thought after she spoke and was never really made for motherhood. She bore him five children and each time she gave birth a little part of her seemed to die. Omotole was her last born and the Oba believed she schemed her way out of her mother’s womb. What she lacked in looks she more than made up for with her wily ways.

It was Omotole who had devised the plan to snare more villages outside Benin to increase the kingdom and Omotole who whispered the idea of a fresh bride to confuse the greedy noblemen who resided in the royal court. If Oba Odion had his wish, he would have dismissed some of the council and appointed Omotole as one of his official advisers. But a woman could not be given such a coveted position and a king could not be openly seen to do such things. Omotole was dutifully rewarded for her contribution; the Oba was affectionate and of all the eight brides, she resided in the most comfortable quarters in the Queens’ palace, but to her, there was still more to be done and she knew that for her the Oba possessed an easily bent ear.

“Ah, tongues will be wagging that you have wickedly abandoned your new bride.” She said, tucking her legs between the Oba’s. They lay on a large leather mat that cushioned their bodies and their plans.

“Then let them wag, the girl should be grateful. Does she know how many young women would like to be the wife of a king?”

Omotole laughed coldly. “You should at least wait a few days before leaving her like that Odion, it is cruel and believe it or not, I sympathise a little.”

“Silence!” Oba Odion stood abruptly and tightened the dropping cloth around his waist.

“I thought this was what you wanted?” He reminded her.

“Yes but you must at least play the dutiful husband for sometime, let things settle eh?”

“Who is the king of Benin, you or me?”

She moved towards him and wrapped her arms around his waist. “You are king, Oba of Benin and strong in your ways and will.”

As she settled her ample frame into his, Oba Odion parsed a single thought and it was this: that he envied simple men, with their simple ways and trivial problems. Yet again that night he abandoned his new wife and stayed in Omotole’s quarters. While they slept, the spirit of his father, Oba Anuje chuckled outside Omotole’s door. And knocked. Twice.

Wahala Don Wear Shoe

The fall of a great kingdom did not always start with war. Sometimes, it took a vicious wish shrouded by the hot breath of a bitter woman, or rebellious words broken out of the mouths of ambitious councillors desirous to form their own army, perhaps even the good intentions of a craftsman, locked in an arm wrestle with the voice of a king’s slain rival.

Ere was such a craftsman who had toiled in the service of Oba Odion for many years. He worked leather, clay, wood and brass. There was nothing his touch could not mould or caress into life and there was no royal emblem that Ere had not had a hand in since Oba Odion fought his way to rule over Benin. These included the crown, ritual swords, the throne, showpieces and art brass pieces he had created, to celebrate Benin and the power the Oba possessed. Oba Odion also had a wealth of weavers, carvers and potters who threw their backs into his biddings without the slightest hesitation. Ere did as he was told, how could he not? But despite being hailed as one of the finest craftsmen in the land, he was just a fleck of spit in the Oba’s river until surprising circumstances delivered a new assignment.

Two weeks after the Oba married Adesua a golden nugget dropped into his lap and propped his back straighter. Some of his soldiers had captured Ogiso, a rival of Oba Odion who had been plotting the end of the Oba’s reign and steadily gathering supporters in villages like Ego and others dotting the back end of Benin. Once upon a time Oba Odion and Ogiso had been boyhood friends. They had chased the same girls, run through the dirt tracks of unidentifiable animals and collapsed against each other many times under the influence of much food and drink at Igewhi festivals, the memories of which, as they grew older, weakened in their grips like a slippery rope. It pulled and they let go.

Eventually it became who could outperform the other and this created a litany of rivalries like tiny stones in Odion’s eye. Ogiso did not know his place. One day they argued, worse than ever before. But this argument did not come from thin air. It had been sniffing at them for years, waiting for the scent of distrust and resentment to line their dealings the way soft silk lined the inside of a decadent outfit. Fuelled by anger and full of simmering resentments Ogiso left the kingdom but vowed to return one day to reclaim what he insisted was also rightfully his. He was warned to never return again.

Ogiso was found in the town of Epoma, amongst a plethora of like-minded bandits, caught in his bed, in that sweet induced state between being half asleep, half awake. They brought him to the palace in heavy, hard chains that cut into his wrist. Oba Odion fought with the burden that landed his way. He sought out his council for advice and they insisted Ogiso be tried; if found guilty, nothing less than death should be his punishment or the Oba would look like a weak king. Strangely, Ogiso did not plead for Oba Odion’s mercy. He accepted his fate, switching between whistling merrily and laughing hysterically. Four days after he arrived at the palace he was tried, and found guilty of scheming to overthrow the king by every single member of the council. All fourteen of them.

Ogiso’s last words were to insist Oba Odion have the courage to personally tell his mother what he had done to her son. Oba Odion did show a mercy of sorts; instead of being beheaded, Ogiso was hung. He was taken to a spot deep within the heart of a near forest. When his neck snapped and his feet spasmed next to the trunk of a bewildered ebony tree, a crushing pain exploded in Ogiso’s mother’s head and shot all the way down to her toes at the same moment. After she was told the news of her son’s death, she was unable to move the right side of her body. It was paralysed by despair and loss. From that day onwards until she passed, Ogiso’s mother would slur from the far left corner of her mouth every morning the mantra that Oba Odion should receive a fate worse than his father before him. Her daily ritual was done, without fail.

Craftsman Ere was called to one of the king’s chambers on an afternoon when the sun was intent on punishing the inhabitants of Benin. It was so hot that a person could be tempted to walk around naked had it not been for social etiquette. People were gulping pails of water as if Benin had turned into a desert overnight. Little children waded into the shallow ends of rivers to cool down and older ones splashed their faces enthusiastically. Ere met the Oba standing next to the wide square window that overlooked the main courtyard in the palace. There were intricately designed, plump, dark brown cushions on the floor. Throws in hues of amber, gold and maroon covered the circular, tall chairs made from the finest teak wood. A large, straw coloured mat trimmed with red beads lay on the ground. The high ceiling was golden and copper plaques showing old battles decorated the walls. The room had a subdued glow, as if it was waiting for a soldier from a plaque to come to life, pull the ceiling off and let it combust with light.

“Oba, you called for me?” Craftsman Ere said, bowing his head. Oba Odion faced him squarely, unlocking his hands from behind his upright back.

“I want you to make a brass head in Ogiso’s likeness for my collection.”

Craftsman Ere sprang back, startled. “Surely you cannot be serious Oba?”

The Oba’s face crumpled, “Do I look like a jester? Explain yourself!”

“Oba, I know it is tradition to often make pieces in honour of your conquests but I think in this case you should make an exception.”

The Oba stroked his chin as though it had suddenly grown a beard. “Why make an exception this time? Ogiso was an enemy, who showed no regret for his actions.”

“Oba, he was your friend, and like a brother to you before.”

Oba Odion raised his hand abruptly. “Have you forgotten who stands before you?”

“No Oba, I feel this is not right, my concern is for you. It is asking for trouble.”

“Ere, I will be the judge of what or who is trouble. Never question my authority again, or you and your family will find yourselves thrown out of the palace. It is only because of the great work you’ve done that I am sparing you.”

Craftsman Ere, being a man who knew when he was beaten, gave up and held his tongue from arguing any further.

“I expect this to be a wonderful example of your skill, Ere and remember as much in Ogiso’s likeness as possible.”

Craftsman Ere nodded and only the pulse in the side of his neck fluttered. It was his final sentence of protest.

The next day Craftsman Ere began to work on producing the brass head. He recalled every feature of Ogiso’s. He set about sharpening his tools and choosing the best brass the palace stocked. First Ere made a wax model of Ogiso which was framed over a clay core. When he finished the model, he painstakingly applied the clay over the wax, almost tenderly, pausing now and again to admire the lines of the figure. Ere started to detail the dead warrior: the flared nose, wide forehead and tribal markings. He was so saddened by the death of this man, he barely realised he’d made a small tear of betrayal at the corner of the model’s eye.

That night, the tear fell then evaporated into the air. The next day, the children of the kingdom began to change. Filled with an overwhelming sadness, they ran to the rivers’ edges crying quietly into the waters. They gathered around trees holding long, dark cloths, circling the trunks and communicating in a silent language only they understood. They clustered at the palace windows grabbing and squeezing their throats violently, feet jerking uncontrollably while they tried to be still. For four nights, the children did not sleep. They wandered the kingdom with bloodshot eyes cloaked in a heavy, melancholy silence. At night they sat in the king’s garden, crying into the soil. When their mothers found them, they removed tiny brass tears from the corners of their eyes. They held their children’s brass tears over fires, watching them melt into the lines of their palms.

For the next stage, Ere proceeded to heat, then melt Ogiso’s model, pouring it into a mould. Later, after the clay hardened, he began to chip and cast the image. When the brass head was finished, the children became themselves again, though there was no ceremony to honour the completion, no celebration of the return of the children’s laughter, no music that ignited the switch of hips no thunderous applause. Instead it was presented on an evening when a hushed silence fell on Benin. And the clouds coughed raindrops that dampened not just the land but the spirit of people.

Once the rain passed Benin looked like a kingdom that had risen from under water and was drying itself off. Craftsman Ere had worked long hours to ensure the head was finished on time. He had joked with his wife that you could fill a large metal bowl with the amount of sweat he had produced over this task. Ere was convinced he had been watched. There was no proof of this except there was occasionally a whoosh of air that threw dust in the doorway of his workroom followed by the sound of rapid steps in the distance. When he had relayed these fears to his wife, she promptly squashed them with a lashing from her mouth, and warned him not to embarrass their family with tales based on hot air.

When Oba Odion finally first saw the brass head, he studied it hard for so long without a word that Craftsman Ere was forced to ask, “Oba is it to your satisfaction?” The Oba touched it tentatively, as if afraid his hand would be snapped off.

“It is too much like Ogiso, as if he is standing here before me!”

Craftsman Ere shifted his weight from one leg to the other along with his patience. “But Oba, that is what you asked me to do. I did as you instructed.”

“I did as you instructed,” Oba mimicked him. “Don’t you have a mind of your own? ‘In his likeness’ does not mean I want it in his exact image.”

Craftsman Ere gritted his teeth; a braver man would have slapped the Oba. He saw himself doing so in his head, a slap for every day he had spent producing this artefact now met with scorn. Instead he said, “Oba what would you have me do? Surely you cannot expect me to make another one?”

“No, you will not have to make another head,” Oba Odion said, but it sounded hollow, as if the words were coming from far away and not him.

“Besides,” he added, “I am now sick of the sight of you Ere.”

“I only did my best Oba, after all, this was what you asked for,” Craftsman Ere grumbled, feeling deeply insulted that the Oba had not complimented his skill and hard work. Stupid king! Just then a fly swept in encouraged by the heat and noise. It buzzed around perusing the Oba’s chamber as if deciding if it was good enough to languish in. It finally settled on a tiny crack in the wall that looked like it was a scar healing.

“Will it be displayed with the other pieces Oba?” He watched as Oba Odion tried to kill the fly and failed. It laughed at him before rising to the ceiling for a celebratory jig.

“I have not decided where it will go yet, when I have Ere you will know.”

“Thank you Oba.”

“You can go.”

“Yes Oba,” he said, bowing again on his way out.

Oba Odion thought long and hard about what to do with the brass head. He admitted the truth to himself only, which was that Craftsman Ere had been right, the brass head had an unsettling power about it. It was a little disturbing to see it finished, as if it would come to life the minute he turned his back. At night, he began to sweat thinking of the head. His heart rate increased whenever he passed it, a feeling of suffocation overtook his body. He couldn’t breathe looking at it. Oba Odion gave the brass head to Adesua and lied to her that it was in honour of their marriage, although this had never been the case by an Oba. She accepted it gratefully and when he handed it to her, it was the first time he had seen her smile in days, as if it had slipped from someone’s face and fallen onto hers. Word spread around the palace that the Oba was showing favour to his new young bride and upon hearing this the other wives seethed like boiling pots.

Deep in a forest another body dangled from a tired tree. Dead for months, it too had sweltered in the heat. Oozing a rotten stench that stirred sated barks and crinkled the faces of leaves, stinging bush wilted and poisonous nettle shuddered, as the toes of the hanging frame trembled one last time, Ogiso left his body at last to find a new home.

Vicarious through Fuchsia

I threw on clothes and hopped on a few trains to Harlesden, to Williams and Co. Solicitors. The scent of curry goat and hot rotis wafting from the Caribbean takeaway meant I didn’t have to glance at the clock to know it was nearly lunchtime. Inside the building, Pauline the gatekeeper was typing swiftly on her PC and barking orders into a telephone handset. She winked before waving me through with a wiggle of her multi-tasking fingers. Mervyn was at the fax machine yanking documents out and scrunching them into paper missiles before flinging them into a wastebasket.

“Hey,” I mumbled in greeting.

He turned to face me. “Go inside nuh.”

On his desk, a mug of steaming coffee rested dangerously near the edge. An atlas sat right next to a new photograph of Mervyn and his two sons in a boat in Jamaica. They were holding large crabs that looked as though they’d crawl over their heads and eat their expressions. Big smiles were plastered on their faces. Behind them the water was like a big, rippling blue sky.

I studied his extensive library; Fly Fishing for Beginners and How Not to Kill Your Wife on Holiday held my attention among the heavy bound volumes of Law. He walked in whistling, more papers tucked under his left arm and clutching a bag of sweets in his right hand. He dumped them unceremoniously on the desk.

“So wha’appen, answering machine brok’ up again?” He pointed to the bag and I popped a chewy cola bottle in my mouth.

“Naw, I hardly check it.”

“You’ve come for the diary,” he said.

“How did you know that?”

“Because I know you.” He stroked a finger over his lip and took a quick sip of coffee.

“You haven’t read it have you?” I leaned forward in the chair watching for any deceptive body language.

“Nope, I’ll admit I’m curious though.”

“I don’t know why my mother didn’t give it to me years ago.”

“Me neither but about three months before she died she came to see me.”

“So?”

“Well she was behaving odd like, agitated.”

“Did she say why?”

“Nah man, I told her to chill out, she was still young with plenty of time but she was insistent about the will, so I obliged.”

He jangled some keys in his trousers before using it to unlock the bottom drawer. Took out the worn, black leather bound book and handed it over.

“Thanks.” It felt warm against my hand and I bent to rest my ear on the cover as if it would speak. I plunged my finger in, flicked to a random page.

I said, “I wonder what a handwriting expert could tell me about him from this?”

“Somehow I don’t think you’ll need that,” he replied, stuffing three cola bottles in his mouth.

Throughout most of the train journey back I clutched the journal tightly. It looked remarkably ordinary and was light to carry with a slightly stale smell. Besides some thumb indentations it was still in good condition. At some point I noticed the name Peter Lowon scrawled haphazardly inside the cover and the date beside the name read 1950. A black and white photograph slipped out. In it three black men wearing army uniforms sat around a tiny wooden table filled with beer bottles. A curvy woman sat in the lap of one man who appeared to be laughing at something the man opposite him was doing. It was the third gentleman who caught my attention. He was sat slightly apart from the others. There was a handkerchief tucked in his breast pocket. He watched the other two with an expression that can only be described as disdainful. I flipped the photograph over and printed on the back was Ijoma’s bar, Lagos. I thought about starting to read the journal on the District line from Mile End but when an arguing couple stepped inside my carriage, it was a reminder to save my reading for another time. I played with the idea of who these men were. How they were linked to my mother, if at all. When I got to my final stop, I let out a sigh of relief and felt deflated as if my body was a deployed airbag.

Chewing Sticks

A near-sated Benin now gorged on fat sunrays producing warm belches of air-spun dust that tethered to the tips of body hairs and coated the fingernails of its inhabitants. Adesua stood on the brink of being a little pleased. A sweeter alternative place to the misery she had experienced, not full happiness but a small portion she could be persuaded to dive into. This was because the Oba had handed over a peace offering that chipped somewhat at her newly erected barricade of a hard heart.

Adesua had never seen anything like the brass head. It was so beautiful and so well polished that had it been possible to see her reflection in it, she would have found that an interference and attempted to wipe her image away just to continue admiring it. The proud expression captured on its face was disturbingly life-like and inspired the viewer to want to stand to attention. Adesua felt the sculpted face was the face of a true king, but of course did not say this to the Oba. Instead, she genuflected gracefully and thanked him for his consideration.

Oba Odion in return forgetting his motivation for disposing of the object preened at her obvious pleasure. She was certain if he could have patted himself on the back he would have. He made a show of slapping his chest and announcing to her, let nobody say the Oba neglected his wives. He was so loud she was sure even the servants who kept their ears hovering near the ground at all times had already heard and digested the news and by the next day, would have repeated it to each other amidst their morning tasks while swapping complaints and gnawing on chewing sticks. Adesua did not complain when the Oba insisted he had court matters to see to, she caught the look of relief on his face, although, even that did not detract from the new prize in her possession.

Oba Odion had eight wives. Eight wives who lined their chambers every morning like the curious bottles of perfume a Portuguese ally had brought for him several seasons ago. Eight lives he attempted to delicately shelter depending on his mood. His platoon of women were there to bear his children and prop up his pride even when their hands were bruised and left wanting. Of course the Oba did not love all of his wives. This was a task he was convinced most men would fail at even if they tried, so he did not pretend to try. Sometimes he imagined himself cut into eight slices served on a different platter for each wife to swallow. They were an unlikely bunch, each one different to the next, like colourful seashells thrown into a sandpit of the palace rather than coughed up freely on the banks of the sea.

Omotole was his third and favourite wife and the smartest of all, with dark beady eyes that pulled you into their depths. His fourth wife Ekere was always sickly and each season the palace fretted whether she would see the beginning of the next. She had an angular jutting face and looked like thin brown skin poured over walking bones. At night she clutched her youngest child to her side as if she would draw strength from his soft smooth fleshed youth. Filo the fifth wife wore her sadness on her wrists like haphazard bracelets that wounded her skin. Her womb had apologetically born three dead babies, and on days when the air was thick with disdain for all who resided in the royal enclave, she could be found wandering the grounds harassing whoever she encountered to return her children. When the Oba had important guests visiting, she was kept hidden as if she were dirt sullying the Oba’s name.

The sixth wife Remitan was known to stretch the truth as though it was a large ball of string. Most people in the palace believed every other word she uttered was a lie. Her hair was the envy of many. Full and long, it was the colour of a raven’s wing; it spiralled down her back in a tumbling curly mass. Sometimes she would be spotted leaning against the palace walls and joked that it was the weight of carrying so much good hair that caused her to pause for breath. The seventh wife Ono was feisty and held the moral heart of the group. The first two wives Kemi and Ore were busy bodies. They were opposite in every way except for their love of rumours and gossiping with each other.

Then there was Adesua.

The Oba’s marital life ran as well as it could, most of the time. But now that a new bride had arrived a sense of unease among the women crept in and widened the holes that were already becoming apparent. The Oba had added further insult by giving the brass head to Adesua, a bush village girl who did not appear to recognise her luck. Wonders would never cease! The other wives knew the palace was privately laughing at them, sneering as their stupid loyalty had only turned around to hold a dagger to their backs. Tempers and resentment bloomed like water lilies stuck in the slopy underside of their breasts.

It was the seventh wife Ono who first openly voiced her disapproval of the Oba’s actions with Adesua to Omotole. They two banded together, not out of genuine friendship and loyalty, but rather a tarnished, copper-tinged ‘safety in numbers.’ They watched each other through heavy-lidded pretend collusion, putting on their masks of camaraderie and mutual interests, only to rip them off as soon as the other walked away. That day Ono and Omotole strolled together through one of the palace hallways, a lengthy teak-hued seemingly never-ending stretch, with decadent rooms curving off into lofty spaces. As they talked their breaths were laced with sour spirits and jealousy.

“Oba is making us look foolish, giving Adesua such a gift! A brass head! Does she even know what it is?” And when was the last time any of us received such a thing? Nonsense,” Ono whined, refusing to leave anger behind. Omotole scratched the stems of connecting green veins that rose to the surface of her skin as if Ono’s voice had irked them into motion. The scratch reassured them and they flattened down slowly.

“Be calm Ono, remember she is fresh to the palace and the Oba is only doing his duty by welcoming her. Still, I was not given such a welcome.”

“You see!” Ono screeched smacking her thigh for effect. “Even you, and we all know the Oba thinks highly of you.” A smattering of light gathered at their feet before breaking up to plunder more interesting things.

“All I’m saying is she has to learn her place, not cheat and jump to the front of the line. She is a lot cleverer than we gave her credit for. Before you know it Oba will be giving her even more consideration than the rest of us.” A pair of panicked wings fluttered. Omotole stroked the tender lobe of her ear and the snakeskin amulet just beneath.

If the truth was told, and the palace crier told it with slight reservations to his wife, all was not well in the palace. On appearances, things ran well but underneath, tiny cracks were beginning to appear. Oba Odion had debts, owed to white men from foreign lands and they did not loiter when it came to collecting what was due to them. Hearsay circulated that the Oba may have to sell some of his land or indeed some of his people. Even if they were just prisoners whose captured lives had been reduced to the worth of animals, the rumours both terrified and soothed the courtiers. Councilmen were seen coming out of meetings with the Oba wearing worried expressions. Palace officials hung around their superiors subtly to catch coded sentences. And the cooks were ordered to watch rations carefully, though all meals for the Oba were still to be of the highest standard.

In the north of Benin there was spreading unrest; increasingly dissatisfied with the Oba’s rule, people were claiming that the palace got richer while some of the Oba’s people starved, yet fees for inhabiting land were still being collected. Oba Odion was robbing broken people. These people wanted to put their cases forward, take their legs, hollow with disappointment, all the way to the palace gates to complain. But they knew what awaited them was a punishment more severe than they already suffered. Some of the Oba’s army were dispatched on palace grounds poised to attack at the first sign of trouble. They were strong and lean and wore hammered shields that hugged their upper bodies so closely the men appeared to be made of metal. They carried long, well-sculpted wooden staffs with angular tips. Their eyes roamed not just about the palace and its flock of odd people but over it, as though they were waiting for something way beyond the palace and its high gates.

It was inevitable that Filo, the Oba’s fifth wife would develop an unusual interest in Adesua. The novelty of becoming the king’s fifth wife had long gone; the shine dulled by the harsh reality of life as just another piece in the Oba’s collection of wives. Filo liked new things; when things were new for a brief moment in time they possessed an air of invincibility, of endless possibilities. This was how she saw Adesua, like soft new skin before it started to leather and toughen. Filo studied her discreetly, as though she were a rare butterfly and saw the way Adesua hummed to herself with innocent abandon. How she practiced unusual hunter-like stances she must have imitated from her father or the other men from her village, crouching down low on her haunches as if ready to pounce on any living, breathing thing should there be a need to.

She watched Adesua walking through the palace with an expression of barely concealed boredom. It was clear that becoming a king’s wife was not the exciting life this unusual young woman had envisioned for herself. Filo admired her for her gumption, which she allowed to bubble through to the surface. She knew how it was to feel out of place. She understood. She too was walking around with a big hole inside her. She knew the others could see it because they winced when she stood before them, as if it wasn’t only her words that caused offence but her very presence. The other wives were uncomfortable near her, their silences told her this loudly.

These were the thoughts swimming in her mind when Filo sneaked into Adesua’s chamber, drawn mainly by the sweet energy of the king’s new wife and the fact that she seemed as out of place as Filo herself felt. She had not really intended to take anything, but once inside her eyes alighted on the brass head and it seemed to call to her. Once she had seen it, she could not un-see it. She picked it up and touched it tentatively at first before boldly rubbing her hands on it. It seemed to know her sorrow, to offer itself as her saviour. It was difficult to keep thinking of ways to fill a hole that was too big for your chest. She decided then that if she were caught she would tell the truth.

In another corner of the palace, a gift lay in wait for Oba Odion. He had discovered white oval seeds with cracked edges and a soft centre that throbbed strewn over the floor of his private room. People were questioned but the Oba never found the guilty party. He did not throw the seeds away either, instead, he called for some of the most experienced farmers in Benin to study them. Nobody knew what sort of seeds they were, where they had come from or what they would grow into. Intrigued, the Oba offered a reasonable reward to the farmer who was willing to grow them. Several accepted but nothing happened. It was as though the seeds they buried were dead. Finally Oba Odion instructed that they be planted in the palace garden. Soon, the soil began to rumble. Small blue bulbs popped their eager heads out, simmering while they gulped on leftover dew and tiny embers of dissent.

Queenie, London 1970

At Victoria station the train screeched to a halt, jerking Queenie back in her seat. She paused momentarily to catch her breath, then stood, wide-eyed and excited. She’d just turned twenty and had promised herself on her eighteenth birthday that by the age of twenty she’d be in London. She wanted to reach back in time and pinch her eighteen-year-old self. Instead, she pressed her face closer to the slightly dusty, finger-printed window on her right, swallowing the sights of people milling about. Aah ah!

She’d never seen so many white people. They dispersed like rats into every direction wearing long winter coats, dark colours and guarded expressions. Their eyes looked like pieces of pale sky and their even paler skin seemed thin and fragile. Of course she’d seen white people back home in Lagos. There were the white businessmen her father had entertained in their beautiful, old house. And most of the nuns at Our Lady of Lourdes secondary school were white. Sister Wilhelmina who had a perpetually grey tinge to her skin had a fondness for telling her, “Queenie, you have the disposition of a cockroach! Why are you always where you’re not supposed to be?” And she’d smile back as though she’d been paid a compliment. “Thank you Sister, cockroaches are great survivors.” And Sister Wilhelmina would reply, “Not if you have the correct insecticide.” But secretly, despite her severe nun’s outfit, she was charmed. She’d shake her head at Queenie and smile.

Queenie grabbed her medium-sized black suitcase and two outsized red checked bags, and waited behind a small group of people. She followed them out of the carriage, marvelling at the smoothness and ease of her journey so far. Even eating on the train had been an experience. They didn’t have transport like this back home. Uniformed stewards pushing trolleys containing sandwiches, chocolates, bottled water and doughnuts amongst other things approached and asked if you wanted a drink. Queenie had longed to try the Queen of England’s tea! She’d ordered a cup and drank it daintily, imagining her girlfriends from home gathered around her, ooohing and aaahing at the sophisticated way she sipped, saying very loudly, “Nah wah oh! You have truly come a looong way!”

Queenie dragged her bags along, imagining British angels filling her pockets with pound sterling! She was so lost in her reverie she nearly bumped into another one of those uniformed station guards. This one had a whistle in his mouth and held his hand up to signal her to stop.

“Watch your step dear,” he said, eyeing her as though she was an imbecile. “The way out is through the barriers and then down to your right.”

“Thank you,” she said, intrigued by the man’s accent, which wasn’t like the Queen of England accents she’d heard on TV. It was rougher. She grabbed her bags tighter, encouraged by the mass of people heading every which way. There was no ambling along or lazy steps, the cold didn’t allow for it. Instead she noticed they all moved with a sense of urgency. People weren’t talking in a leisurely manner either; she caught bits of conversations that were functional, efficient.

“Zip that coat Tommy, I won’t tell you again!” a woman ordered.

“Mum!”

“I mean it, if you get ill; don’t expect me to waste my time sitting at the GP.”

The mother tugged at the lapels of her woolly, black coat where a red, lizard-shaped brooch was pinned and marched ahead, her son, a boy of about seven in an ill-fitting navy jacket running fast to catch her.

Queenie’s stomach rumbled. She noticed a few shops lined the edges around the station. They had brightly coloured signs that read Manny’s Pie & Mash Shop, Beggar’s Feast and Longjohn’s Café where thick-crusted sandwiches heavy with slices of cold meats were arranged in small pyramids in the window. A smoky, meaty smell clung to the air. What she wouldn’t do for some rice and stew with fried plantain!

It could have been the thought of eating such comfort food alone but suddenly she felt fear inside her. She knew nobody in England. She didn’t even know where she would stay. What she’d done was either very stupid or very brave. She’d followed the lure of a man’s laughter that every time she attempted to turn back had reclaimed her heart and mind. The sound of rushing traffic ricocheted around her. The air was crisp and when people spoke their breaths turned white as though they were blowing smoke out of their mouths. Queenie trembled, struggling to adapt to the cold. In the distance a siren wailed as though it was giving birth. She was fascinated by the enormous, red double decker buses rumbling through the streets bearing oddly named destinations; Oxford Circus! Peckham Rye! Southwark! They were completely unlike the yellow, dust-covered buses back home where the jumbled in bodies were sweaty coins in heat.

Her destination, St Michael’s hostel in Borough, was a squat, nondescript building tucked beneath a short flight of concrete steps covered sparingly with moss. If you blinked you’d miss it. The door had a large, black lion knocker and a dirty white buzzer was positioned roughly at eye level to the left of the entrance. Queenie had circled the same street at least four times before finding it. She’d asked the Indian shopkeeper who ran the corner shop with a fading green sign that read Ali’s Market Place and at the hairdresser’s where a white woman blankly looked her up and down. This London nah wah oh!

She hadn’t known what to expect but Queenie found the houses disappointing. They weren’t like the sprawling, brightly coloured houses back home in places like Festac, Ikeja or Victoria Island where grasshoppers fed on invisible lines of heat and sweat formed on tall iron gates and the foreheads of lazy mayguards dressed in white vests with chewing sticks dangling from the corners of their mouths. Here, the houses all seemed to share the same glum expression, all squashed together and small. She wondered what the people did when they threw parties. Maybe they just had them spilling out into the streets, threading between lampposts and captured on car windscreens.

When Queenie pressed the dirty buzzer, the male voice that said, “Come in,” was distorted by static. He spoke again but she couldn’t make out the words since it broke up and only a hissing sound filtered through. Instinctively she pushed at the wooden door. It opened. By now her earlier excitement had worn thin and tiredness had set in. She patted her right linen trouser pocket for the reassuring feel of her newly exchanged pound notes then began walking down another flight of stairs, admonishing the tiredness in her limbs. The building was an extension to St Michael’s church, more modern than its Gothic host, but hints of likeness could be found in the high ceilings and the large stained glass windows.

Queenie arrived in an orange coloured hallway where a large grandfather clock stood and a water fountain littered with coins glistened. In Nigeria that money would have been gone! A vase filled with blue flowers sat on top of a dark wooden display cabinet filled with china. A large notice board on the wall had sheets of different coloured leaflets pinned on it. Dragging her bags she veered to the right where she met another flight of stairs at the bottom of which was a painting of a woman planting in her garden. The burnished orange light within it with hints of red permeating its glow reminded her of the late afternoon sunlight back home and seemed to set her mind at ease.

Behind the reception desk, the guy wore a bored expression. His lank, greasy brown hair pulled into a ponytail. A scar marred his left brow and his black t-shirt was decorated with skulls. A tattoo on his neck looked like the roots of a tree. She regarded him curiously, imagining him watering those roots with beer. He was definitely not like the white businessmen she’d seen at home, in their pristine shirts with their sleeves rolled up. She paid for two nights up front, exactly £25. The crisp notes felt alien in her hands.

“So where are you from?” he asked in an attempt to make conversation. “You’ve come to find your fortune? An age old tale.”

She rubbed the copper room key. “I don’t know about fortune mister but to come to England is a big thing.”

He laughed, threw a couple of peanuts from a bowl on the desk into his mouth. “Good luck, prepare yourself for miserable weather and a frosty welcome but you should know in advance not everybody will be like that.”

She shrugged, mind and body already in the bed that awaited her. “Thank you for the advice, oracle.”

His mouth twitched at her humour. “Hey, it’s free. Come to Oracle Jay any time, always happy to lend a helping hand and other parts of my body to very attractive damsels in distress. Let me know if you have any problems with the room.”

Queenie nodded, lugged her bags ahead. Her mother’s voice rang in her head.

I hope you know what you’re doing; a pipe dream can be just that under the right angle of light.

Random

Over the next few days, I thought about my mother dying suddenly in her living room, the TV blaring, the open basement door revealing its stale breath: no history of pre-existing medical conditions. Leaving behind on an island, one daughter who flaps her right arm like a broken wing. It had rained heavily, the echoes of something drowning bounced off the windowpanes. Spiders made of water crawled on my skin. I kept the key that became a finger in my bottom bedroom drawer, next to a copy of Yan Martel’s The Life of Pi. I was worried it would morph into a whole body if it somehow accidentally caught its own reflection. I left the diary on top of the chest of drawers and the brass head in my rucksack, not quite comfortable with displaying it yet. I was superstitious about things you brought home and what they carried with them. I had no idea why my mother had left me these gifts. A brass head I’d never seen, the diary of a grandfather I’d never met. I didn’t even know if he was alive or dead. Did she want me to find him? To give the diary back? Then there were the properties I never knew she’d owned. It was odd she didn’t mention any of this to her only child. There had been her phone calls back home, muted conversations with my grandmother, her mouth curling anxiously. Maybe dead people left behind puzzles for their loved ones all the time.

During the next few days I began a project for Void magazine on street style. The premise was simple, trudging around London I’d shoot people whose striking style caught my eye and ask where they drew inspiration from. Fashion as an extension of creative expression; that kind of angle. I walked around the streets of Dalston with newly migrated hipsters. I liked the art venues showcasing unknown artists whose work was sometimes terrifying, and sometimes made me gasp and I loved the big old art deco façade of the Rio cinema. I shot dandies in skintight trousers, brightly patterned shirts and fedora hats. In Camden, I captured punk chicks wearing ripped denim, orange hair, studded leather jackets and chokers. The goths came out to play, dressed in faux misery and doom. Goth girls boasted slashes of black lipstick and shredded, rebellious expressions.

Brick Lane was full of the annoyingly, arty, cool young crowd. Too many students with overly contrived senses of style ran the gauntlet of the curry houses, where exotic looking men badgered and smouldered, begging you to eat at whichever outlet they happened to represent that day. I snapped pretty, thin girls in vintage dresses, girls in men’s blazers, quirky t-shirts and penny loafer shoes sporting wispy hair styles; girls who teamed boyfriend jeans with loud, 80s tops. I shot tattoo addicts brandishing intricate designs that shimmered and became multi-limbed black creatures on pavements. I took a picture of a handsome red-headed guy who carried his guitar like a lover and a broad faced gypsy woman with flat features. She had a multi-coloured shawl draped over her shoulders, sold tiny, dead flowers and didn’t seem to care. She shoved them in your face as if they were good interruptions.

Over two days I developed the photos and noticed a strange infiltration. The young woman I’d chased in Harlesden appeared in the background of some shots. I recognised the flurry of her long limbs, her rich dark skin and angular face. She was flicking a coin up behind a picture of a bald woman with a stud in her tongue like a small, silver nipple. Next to the dread-headed African man who sat by his stall in Dalston wearing an orange Fela Kuti shirt, she was naked but adorned in heavy, pink traditional jewellery. There were white markings on her face, a blackboard on which past and present were rewritten. Behind the blank-faced gypsy woman selling dead flowers in Brick Lane, she held the flowers and they were alive, becoming purple flames in her grasp. She looked directly at the camera, at me, as somebody on the fringes getting closer.

On Friday night I broke my sometime habit of watching film noir while slowly sipping Irish cream absorbed in the moody world of dark vices, intrigue and tortured loves. In one of my favourites Bogart and Bacall’s razor-sharp dialogue exchange and electric chemistry entirely transported me. I missed my days as a student, smoking weed, sitting cross-legged writing song lyrics and strumming my guitar, singing folk songs and stealing looks at inanimate objects as if they’d give feedback.

I’d checked TV listings earlier and Spike Lee’s She’s Gotta Have It would be coming on Channel 4 at 1am. It annoyed me that channels usually showed black interest films late into the night when nobody could watch them. I fought sleep, entering the hazy space between sleep and wakefulness. I spotted a stray feather from my pillow, grabbed it. I heard the hum of traffic from outside and cars running over conversations that limped into the night. By this time of night the foxes would be rummaging, the glow from their eyes rivalling the street lamps while they sent ahead prowls to cover more ground. I saw the woman walking through the photos, swapping backgrounds and settings as if it were a game, armed with the wits she’d honed in travel and the wet second tongue she used to pick locks and change the lines of things. I saw her reduced to a small, jagged entity in the corners of pictures, and the early arrival of wear and tear lines creating a white silence over her mouth.

At 1am I was still up and headed to my room. The “blue den” I called it. My crappy, old Alba TV had no antenna so I fashioned one using a hanger. It still produced semi-decent pictures. I’d left the window open earlier and the scent of smoke teased my nostrils. I went to close it and looked into my garden and those of some neighbours. In her garden, Mrs Harris stood over a short mountain of fire, a cigarette wedged in the corner of her mouth. Some of her hair was upright in white tufts. She was having a clear out, burning what looked like documents. Smoke twisted into the sky. I retreated back to avoid being spotted. For a few minutes, I watched flames lick and curl piles of paper in illicit, final kisses.

Cunning Man Die, Cunning Man Bury Am

Half a season passed. The Festival of Yam came and the Oba was bombarded with the best the farmers of Benin had produced that year. The unusual seeds they had planted in the palace garden bloomed into flowers with blue stained petals that covered the ground. The wives continued to bicker amongst themselves. And whenever Oba Odion came to visit Adesua in her chamber he remained uncomfortable, shooting ill-at-ease glances at the brass head as if it would attack like an enemy. The brass head however had seen the slow blossoming of Adesua. It had noticed her desires seeping through her skin, her need for adventure, her longing to hunt. Sometimes in the evening when the hum of Benin settled to a gentle murmur Adesua liked to wander, beginning at the forest, behind the blue garden and onto the weathered pathway that led to the Queens’ palace.

Then a worrying thing began to happen; Adesua would wake in the mornings to find the brass head rattling on the mantle. The first time it occurred she dismissed it, walked to its place and steadied it. But it continued like that over a few mornings as though shaking with anger. She reported it to the Oba who in turn told her she had an overactive imagination and wasn’t it time she adjusted properly? Instead of creating tales about a gift he was kind enough to give her, he warned her to learn from the other wives or she would lose his favour. It was not long before the Oba began to avoid coming to her quarters. She would see him walking out of Esezele’s door, rushing to Omotole or Ono’s chambers. Adesua struggled to know how to feel about the Oba’s rejection of her but there was small comfort in one thing. Filo was ignored too, and Adesua did not believe it was only because Filo had been unlucky during childbirth. There was a strange quality to Filo, pain so strong a pungent aroma emanated off her skin. You looked into her eyes and saw the shadow of things you couldn’t put a name to as she flitted about the kingdom injured but still breathing. In a way, this made Adesua warm to her.

It was a funny thing when a powerful man had more than one wife because the posturing never stopped. It increased even more when an opportunity for one to outshine the other arrived. Such a chance presented itself when the Oba suddenly became sick. His body burned with fever and he couldn’t hold food or water down. His stomach shrunk and his eyes sunk deeper into his head. He became bed-ridden and his medicine man was called upon to provide a concoction of healing herbs. The wives pounced, fussing over the Oba as if the illness was chronic. His fourth wife Ekere refused to leave his bedside for the first two nights till his sixth wife Remitan came and pushed her out, saying that the last thing a sick king needed was to be cared for by a wife struggling for good health who would only infect him with her feeble disposition. Ekere said that the last thing the Oba needed was a lying wife who would reassure him he would survive even if he were drawing his last breath. They bustled in and out, and continued to swap turns keeping vigils by his side. Remitan left and was replaced by Yewande who was shoved aside by Esezele, the oldest and first wife.

Omotole did not hurry to him immediately. She waited for him to improve, letting news of his progress filter through to her from the others before she deemed it safe enough to see him. After all, what use was a sick husband to her? And even the Oba noticed this despite his sorry state. Weak and scared he reached out a hand to her in relief as she had finally arrived to his aid, wiping his mouth and posturing the movements of a dutiful wife.

“What is the meaning of you only coming to see me now?” he asked.

“Oba, you know I’m not the first wife, so I have to give her respect as the eldest and wait till she saw you before coming. How would it look if I had openly ignored her position? I know you care about appearances.” She grabbed his hand and he said, “Omotole you are right, you are always right my dear.” She stayed there mopping his brow and cooing over his feverish body while confirming in her mind she was still at the forefront of his heart and desires.

Gifts

Gifts began to appear in my flat. I found a broken, pink beaded bracelet under my pillow. I kept it in my bedroom top drawer. On the kitchen counter an overly ripe plantain lay blackening, an audience of flies buzzing erratically about it. The bedroom mirror showed long, tapered handprints I didn’t recognise. A green fluffy towel in my bathroom was wet from having been handled. In the toilet, tiny drops of blood ran down the white bowl. I felt uneasy seeing these things, anxious. I ran to the bedroom to check my belongings and there was blood inside my trainers, in the heel area. I inspected my feet for cuts and bites I may have missed but there was nothing.

I padded back to the bathroom, flushed the blood down the toilet, and brushed my teeth. I glared at my reflection in the mirror in case she may have seen something but she only looked back at me wearing a perplexed expression. I pressed play on my answering machine and listened to messages reel off. There was one from Mervyn asking me to call back to check in. His deep voice filled the room, even from a machine. Another message came from Robinson Way debt collectors about an HSBC loan I’d been dodging paying back for years. A feeling of sickness crept up my throat.

In the kitchen I stuck my face under the tap, ran cold water to cool down. On the fridge a couple of holiday snaps from a trip to Greece tucked between stuck bottle tops blinked at me. I noticed that I was missing from some of my pictures: the shot of me in a seafood restaurant next to large tanks of lobsters that threatened to smash through the glass and perch on tables. Another in the city square surrounded by brightly coloured sugar cube shaped houses with a large, grey fountain and birds swooping down to feed on light. On the boat after a day of island hopping, being helped off by a man holding a bottle of water, one by the old town wall where I’d popped my head through an opening. Only my head had disappeared and the opening was filled with a blurred, bright light.

I hadn’t been sleeping very well for a while, staying up late and I didn’t even know why. My nerves were frayed and my body clock had washed down the bath plughole; upright with its eyes open. My Doctor prescribed anti-depressants and anti-anxiety medication but I wasn’t sure they were doing much. I always swallowed the white tablets with trepidation. Looking like pit stops on my tongue, I sometimes saw tiny versions of myself resting on them to catch their breath. When I couldn’t sleep I watched films late into the night, surfed the net or cut out pictures from magazines to create odd random images on my collage board. A man entering a shark’s mouth, a baby’s head growing on a cactus, a dirty angel flying out of a fan.

The notion of an uninvited guest lingered. In my mind’s eye I saw her at the flower stall, in the photographs I’d taken. She appeared to be doing her long-limbed dance from a distance but each time she and the dance drew closer.

Queenie London 1970: London Nah Wah

After two months in England Queenie still hadn’t fully adapted. She missed her mother’s marauding smile. She caught it circling the sink taps in her room or hovering near cracks on the white ceiling. Sometimes it was the last thing she saw before falling asleep. She missed the sight of lone street vendors on hot tarmac roads, selling spicy rice and stew on broad, green leaves and warm balls of greasy akara. She longed for raucous house parties where there was always somebody new to meet. And the pleasure of bodies dancing so close you could smell intentions mingled with sweat.

She missed the markets. She often recalled the endless chatter and the lingering rich scents of fresh fish, sweet ripening fruits, people’s strong, healthy bodies. Markets in London were not the haggling, bustling markets of back home. Lagos markets fed off the heat. They were animals in their own right, with the heads being the upper halves of traders mid-custom and the tail-ends the backs of customers walking to stalls. Queenie now carried the unfamiliar sensation of the cold in her bones. It even changed her walk, instead of the practiced sashay she’d unleashed in Nigeria drawing admiring glances; she now walked hurriedly, body tucked in and braced with the cruel cold climate perpetually at her heels.

At times at night her room got damp, making her fear of catching flu very real. Mice had gnawed their way through floorboards making holes in her underwear the weight of a yawn. They screeched at each other in an abrasive language and repeatedly flew across the table as if they planned to topple it. In retaliation, Queenie threw anything she could grab quickly at the moving targets of sound. Usually weapons that had no impact: books, shoes, a purple hot water bottle. Sometimes, she saw herself caught in a mousetrap, giant mice hurling objects at her.

One evening she took a walk up Lavender Hill, an undulating stretch of road peppered with shops. She liked the odd, interesting stores; the retro sweets haven selling multi-coloured sins that became small planets on your tongue, the pink and white umbrella shaped treats in tall glass jars that made her think of sugar cane sticks. There was a typewriter shop with rare models in the display window, neatly arranged in rows of five on each side. She imagined the ribbons coming undone at night, pressed against the glass imprinting half formed sentences.

At Sal’s Café, an armpit of a place sporting chipped wooden tables, maroon walls were decorated with old film noir posters and the smell of coffee and hot chocolate intertwined. She saw men who worked construction slouched in their seats, dried bits of cement splattered on their jeans, faces bearing an unhealthy pallor. Broken shadows inched forward and sipped from their cups. Sal himself was a stocky Italian with thinning black hair and a tic in his face travelled through his features. He always wore a stained white apron over his clothes. She liked Sal’s because it was warm and cosy, and because occasionally the same drunken tramp would come in spouting poetry. He’d tell her she was beautiful, and eventually stumble out with a piece of cake in his hands. Sal’s became one of her havens; she often rushed in counting coins from fingers made crooked by the cold unintentionally blowing cloudy breaths in the paths of those she crossed.

She was on her way to Sal’s that day, when she caught the white handwritten sign in the Gift! charity shop window: Store Assistant Wanted. Stop by for details. She peered in, noticed racks of used clothing, stacks of crossword puzzles next to old videos, scuffed shoes dented from rough travels. Beautiful abstract paintings were propped up against mauve walls. Bookshelves teemed with paperbacks. Records, lampshades and china tableware all shared an area. A jewellery display cabinet was positioned beneath the cash register and in the window display sat a family of puppets.

Slouched and wide-eyed, the puppets looked as if they spoke to each other between the ringing of the cash register making up stories about the customers, where they’d come from and who they were buying gifts for. A slender, pink haired woman wearing blue-framed glasses emerged from a set of double doors with a poster of a naked woman entering a lamp. Next to the doors a white arrow read Staff Only underneath. The woman also carried a basket of scarves. Queenie pushed the shop door open gently and was greeted by an upbeat song on the radio about rockets. She smiled at the sole staff member who darted a quick, curious glance her way. She walked leisurely through, studying items that grabbed her attention picking up a few here and there.

“Looking for anything in particular?” the lady asked a warm, open expression on her face. She’d set the basket at her feet next to a rack of empty hangers and was efficiently slotting scarves into them. Queenie edged closer. “Actually, I’m here about the sign.”

The woman’s face crinkled in confusion. “The sign, what sign?”

“The position,” Queenie said, her accent suddenly sounding thicker to her own ears.

“Oh the job!” Realization dawned with a half laugh on the woman.

Sighing audibly, Queenie internally admonished herself for not stopping by after having prepared. “You are a charity?” she said with a tone of uncertainty that Ella the store manager found charming. As if she’d come in on a hunch and Ella liked the idea of Gift! delivering the unexpected.

“Yes, we’re a homeless charity. Do you like the shop?”

Queenie’s lips curved. “A lot, it’s like a contained mad market indoors.”

“I never thought of it that way but you’re right. That’s a good way of putting it!” Ella replied, already half way through emptying her basket. They were still the only two people in the shop and the song on the radio changed. A man was now singing about living in a missing train carriage with a bright-eyed girl in rough, urgent tones over heavy guitar riffs.

British people nah wah! Queenie thought, even their songs were strange.

“Sorry about earlier, sometimes there’s just too much going on in my head. Have you had any experience working in a shop?” Ella asked, glancing at her over a shoulder and admiring Queenie’s striking features.

“A little, back home I worked in our local tailor’s shop. I learn fast and I like people.”

“Well, liking people certainly helps in this job, in fact a lot of jobs I suspect!” Ella was intrigued by this warm young woman who seemed very present. Queenie walked towards the display window. “I love the family of puppets. You sold one?”

Ella followed suit, they stood together behind the items. The puppets leaned into each other.

Bending forward, Ella touched one. “They came in last week. Great aren’t they? No we sell them as a complete set.”

Tugging at her coat, Queenie decided that she’d get a warmer jacket as soon as she had more money. “One’s missing.”

“Shit!” Ella darted forward for a closer inspection. “How did you know that?”

Queenie shrugged as though it was nothing. “It’s a family and there’s only a little boy, usually there would be a girl too. And… they look as if they’re missing something.”

Brow furrowed, Ella touched the boy puppet in case he disappeared before her eyes. “God well spotted! Somebody must have pinched it.”

“Pinched? Who goes around pinching objects?”

“Sorry, pinched means stolen, some little thief helped themselves. We’ve had trouble with thieves for a while, another reason it would be good to have an extra pair of hands and eyes.”

Digesting this information, she held Ella’s gaze. “So how many people work here?”

“At the moment, there’s just me and Simon. They locked eyes briefly. Queenie saw that she was being sized up. Then Ella finally said, “You know the WAC Arts centre down the road?”

Queenie nodded.

“Well,” Ella continued, “Every six months we convert their basement hall into a restaurant for the homeless, serve them three course sit-down meals so they can eat and have some dignity. We’ve served up to a hundred people in one day and the atmosphere’s great. We get lots of volunteers come down to help.”

“Really?” Queenie asked surprised. “Back home beggars and homeless people are considered pests.”

“Oh, there are plenty of people who think that way here believe me! Can you come on Thursday around 3pm for an interview? I’m Ella by the way.”

“Yes. Queenie. Nice to meet you.”

“You too, see you soon.”

“Thank you.”

“No problem.” Ella said, watching Queenie’s back disappear through the front door.

At the hostel, Queenie stuffed a pile of dirty laundry into a wheelie bag with a faulty squeaky left wheel. She dragged the bag to the local laundrette and the wheel talked all the way. She flung her clothes into the large, circular mouth of a big, dark yellow washing machine that shook after she slotted coins in. Silently she cried watching her reflection in the machine’s glass door. The water rose steadily over her face. She was running out of money, lonely and cold, constantly cold. She had no idea where to start looking for him. She’d come all the way to England riding the split tails of a feeling, on the words of a broken man. Her gut instinct’s slippery outline lay on the ground. She left the laundrette with washing machine cycles whirring inside her and mumbled a short prayer soon caught in the flimsy Ferris wheel of a cobweb clinging to the wet sheen of a lamppost.

Ogoro Must Jump

In the end, it was neither the wives sweeping in like the changing seasons nor the heady, bitter herbal concoctions that fuelled Oba Odion’s recovery. It was a childhood memory, a lie that had lined the mouth of a child and rolled out slowly. This lie had fed on Oba Odion’s guilt as a boy, till he was certain it stood small shoulder to small shoulder with him. At naming ceremonies, it tripped him up even when he was perfectly steady and rested in the black crescent-shaped shadows under his father’s eyes. So the boy Odion wrestled with it and won temporarily.

On the day he left his bedchamber, it was to an air of disappointment from the servants. As if they had hoped death would squeeze him in its grip till he succumbed, limp and placid, while death escaped with another life pocketed. But the servants at the bottom of the palace hierarchy reserved their true irritation for their private quarters. There, they would serve up their disdain for the Oba along with the latest mishaps that had befallen palace residents. The Oba sought out his councilmen who on seeing him pretended to be relieved as well. In their array of bright native outfits, they appeared a council worthy of any good king. They welcomed the renewed health of the Oba with outstretched arms and tense laughter but an outside eye would have noted that just before the Oba appeared they, an assortment of plotters, angled their necks into unspoken questions, traces of a possible coup evaporating behind false smiles. When the Oba finally sat down after all the back slapping and hailing, he did not stop to ask why none of them had bothered to visit when the fever sat inside him like a stubborn tenant refusing to leave the owner’s land.

Stranger things may have happened in Benin but Adesua was convinced the brass head was stealing her dreams. That it waited for her body to be loosened by slumber before it helped itself to a large selection of past and present dreams. Stripping her till she woke up empty-headed and feeling bereft. She wanted dreams that tasted like pink watermelon juice, sunshine in her mouth. But these she believed were being snapped up by cold, hard brass. Even though a short arrow of fear hovered at her chest, she did not want to give the brass head back to the Oba. She knew it had raised her status amongst the other wives, a sword against their lofty sense of importance. She knew it had stolen the words of her dreams, which meant she could not express those lost dreams to anybody. As if the head had sewn invisible stitching in areas of her tongue.

When Kalu the medicine man lay cocooned in his mother’s belly, many, many years ago, his preferred view of her womb was from the side. This inclination had not changed; it was the way he liked to look at the world. When giving readings, he would stare dramatically from the side, intensely scrutinizing the pile of useless bones, nuts, leaves and haphazardly gathered debris that meant absolutely nothing before declaring, “This is serious!” to his latest victim. He would pause, let his remark sink into their chest like a tingly ointment, all the while inwardly contemplating the delicious meals he would eat from the plump fowl and fat lambs that they were to bring him in payment. He would allow his bottom lip to tremble, and even managed to break into sweat now and again, before whispering in an otherworldly voice, “to resolve this, we will have to do another reading, this is what you must bring…” Then he would proceed to chant loudly in a made up tongue, widening his eyes till they appeared to pop out of his head and frighten any doubts out of his customer’s mind. Finally, he would throw spiritual liquid (water) sparingly over the stash of nothingness that separated him and his visitor, to slow down whatever doom was cutting a path towards them.

Kalu did not see himself as a trickster; he was a counsellor, a sage. As a boy, he had realised quickly that he did not want to toil the land as a farmer, nor learn a craft. It was too much hard work. His true calling revealed itself to him when he happened upon a travelling medicine man with a tongue easily loosened by wine. The man had revealed that his gift was an act, a deception that had served him well for many years. Kalu, ever the inquisitive child, asked him about guilt. But the man shrugged it off. Most people, he said, just needed you to confirm what they wanted to hear. They agreed of course that there were real, truly blessed medicine men. Men who could read the heart of another man from looking at his face and could sniff out the intentions of a customer hearing a single word. Kalu and this medicine man were not naturally gifted in that way. Kalu had lived in the same place all his adult life. He liked his familiar mottled terracotta hut with its sloping, patchy roof top of long palm leaves and the eroding, not quite square make-shift window, where he could keep an eye out for arrivals. Kalu preferred living reclusively and of course, it added to his aura of mystery. This hut he’d built with his own hands, was hidden inside the forest away from the gaze of outsiders. At night, he usually lit a fire and it would guide his visitors to him, the gangly brown man with the head full of lengthy locks like twisted grey snakes fighting to flee his scalp.

Very early in his career, a prediction he had plucked out of thin air came true and shook the eerily calm Kalu to the core. A boy had come to see him, moody and with determination etched in his face. He had looked Kalu in the eye and said, “I want my father dead, what can you do to make this happen?” Kalu had unfolded his feet from their position resting against the firm, rounded walls of his backside and cracked his dry lips open. “Are you mad? Have your friends dared you to come and say such a thing? Go away and don’t waste my time again. I can turn you into a snail if I like.” The boy grabbed Kalu’s wrist firmly and dug his fingers in, “I’m not joking, if you don’t help me, I will go to someone else.” Then he added slyly, “or are you not powerful enough?

“Why would you want to kill your father?” Only stoic silence met him. So Kalu entertained the boy, instructing him but expecting it to amount to nothing. But the boy took Kalu’s advice and turned his wish into a song. That evening, Kalu the fake medicine man became the keeper of a terrible secret and won himself his most powerful and loyal customer

Omotole decided that smashing stones never hurt anyone. Not like the desire to break the bones of someone you once loved, to quench the thirst of hot, dry earth with their blood. She sat at the mouth of the Ijoye River, watching the water lap at her scarred feet, only temporarily cooling the ardour of the other thing inside her, this thing she tried to contain each day that wanted to jump out of her and wreak havoc on Benin, the kingdom that had taken away so much from her.

During times like this when she had risen bathed in an unrepentant, molten rage that led her by the hand to the water’s edge, she could not ignore it. The rage gathering within her heated her blood and shot through her veins, wailing inside her mind as though it were being whipped. It had not always been like that. Once upon a time she had been a wide-eyed girl and Benin the bountiful land of prosperity, where the impossible happened and the possible watched from the outskirts gulping its envy.

She stood, straightened her shoulders and cackled, convinced her laughter flirted with the rushing, rippling river. She stretched her arms behind her and rocked on the balls of her feet as if she would shoot off the ground. But she was dancing, and spinning, tamping the dry ground till the disturbed dust settled onto her body and lay there protectively, a third, fickle skin that she would sweat off in the hours to come. She reached her arms up to the sky and cried out, pleading to the Gods in anguish, the way a desperate woman with two faces would.

It was forbidden to enter the old, abandoned Ikere wing in the palace. It stood west of the building, like a forgotten thought. This rule had been in place since the days of Oba Anuje’s reign and for the most part, the inhabitants obeyed it. But on rare occasions, encouraged by a mixture of curiosity and boldness, someone would cross the empty entranceway with its intricately woven spiders’ webs listing in crooks and corners, like small, translucent nets bobbing in an airy sea.

Adesua was there because of a story with no ending. As she wandered through a broad, dry communal room, past another room with old garments gathering films of dirt and resentment, into a circular chamber with steep steps leading in, she remembered the beginning of the tale. According to the gossipers and story spinners, during Oba Anuje’s time, a woman had stayed there for a short period. She was not a potential wife or relative of the Oba’s so nobody knew why she was residing in the palace. But one day she disappeared, in the same way she had arrived, without announcement. Only the blood-soaked wrapper that she wore on her last sighting remained and was buried immediately upon instruction. As Adesua traced with her eyes the bed mat and sombre throw cloth covering a high, imposing chair, she realised that one visit to this wing would never solve the mystery of the missing woman. She watched as a yellow ladybird with its dotted, bulbous back scurried across the floor, stopping now and again to flex its tiny black legs. She wondered if Oba Odion knew anything about this woman’s disappearance. And would he tell her if he did. There were so many things she did not know. Among them she did not know that death tasted like sweet, sugarcane kisses. She returned to the main palace to discover more news. Omotole, the Oba’s favourite wife was pregnant and Filo, the wife convinced her dead babies wandered the palace grounds, had lost her voice.

Drawing Tables

In the days to come my intruder like a defiant squatter made more appearances in my house. I was secretly impressed; I’d never have the balls to do it. Only I wasn’t resigning myself to being ambushed, despite feeling as though we knew each other. Maybe this woman, this mysterious entity that stole flowers and slipped into background scenes of photographs used to be a nurse. Maybe she had held my mother’s hand while she gave birth to me. Maybe hers was one of the first faces I’d seen when I squealed into this world covered in gunk. And like a thumbprint on the brain her face had imprinted itself into my memory. Perhaps she’d fallen through a wormhole from the past. Maybe she’d come to collect something that would reveal itself on the expanses of my skin. Maybe, maybe, maybe…

One night she appeared on my bedroom ceiling, sleeping with her back against it as if it had sprung from her spine. She sat curled in the chair next to my TV with a forlorn expression on her face. She planted herself in the big copper pot growing my cactus, sitting in the soil and openly absorbing its sustenance as if for a resurrection. Plucking the plant’s bristles, she waited to throw them in my path. She surfaced in miniature form in Marpessa’s lens. Coming up for air with blue hands and things she’d fished from Marpessa: a damaged, old crown, a thick masculine neck with markings, torn bits of traditional cloth, a worn copper key. She pressed her eyes to the lens when it hardened into glass again, pressed her tinted gaze against mine.

On Tuesday, I bought a six-piece chalk set from the pound shop down the road. They also sold egg timers with hands and feet and colourful imitation Arabian carpets. I hunted for other random things since I didn’t have a photo shoot until evening; a musician called La La Love wanted photos taken on the gleaming, split Tate Modern Bridge for an album cover. Strangely, I’d found a blackboard at The Salvation Army store, perched next to an oval magic distortion mirror that scrunched your face up when you looked into it.

At home I leaned the blackboard against a wall in the kitchen beside my radiator that was covered in splatters of purple paint. Occasionally, it made a knocking sound from a metal heart that beat inside it. I decided it was fate since I’d spotted chalk and a blackboard on the same day. With assured fingers, chalk in hand I drew a table documenting recent sightings of my intruder on the board.

Date

When

Where

10^th April

8pm

In the car left side mirror walking forward.

10^th April

1am

Hanging from the bedroom ceiling and swallowing the light bulb.

12^th April

6am

On top of the TV set cross-legged, playing with static.

16^th April

11pm

In Marpessa’s lens becoming a flash

16^th April

2am

In the bedroom placing her pink bracelet back in the bottom drawer.

In my head I marked the areas she’d appeared with white chalk, they blended into the whites of my eyes. I began to set traps around the flat. I couldn’t decide whether they were for her or me. I left the bath full hoping she’d fall in, and that I’d find her submerged under water, unplug the plughole’s mouth of dead skin and watch her get sucked under. I opened the loft entrance, wishing she’d rummage through the old clothes, photos, paintings, roller skates, and maybe slip. I doodled on sketchpads, drawing trap doors and a slim woman falling through. I breathed over these drawings willing them to come to life.

On Sunday I resorted to attending an the evangelical church I used to visit in New Cross. I hadn’t set foot in Guiding Light for years. I sat through extortionate requests for tithes, the week’s miracles, people being filled with the Holy Spirit convulsing at the touch of the pastor and a story of a jealous colleague becoming a one-eyed goat. Throughout proceedings, the smell of meat pies filled the room from a small kitchen at the back. Pastor Matthew wore snakeskin shoes, a crisp black suit and punctuated each anecdote with, “If you need a revelation say Amen!” I left the service with some holy water in an Evian bottle.

At home I kicked off my suede shoes and began. I sprinkled holy water on the sofa, in the kitchen, at my bedroom ceiling and wherever else I’d spotted her. I felt like a hypocrite since I wasn’t even particularly religious. But I was ready to clutch at any potential solution. Any life raft I could heave myself on to. All the while I was aware of the medication in my bathroom cabinet, suffocating inside the sickly brown glaze of its round-headed container. I was like a musical conductor; flinging holy water everywhere at a one-woman orchestra who’d brought her strange music into my home. I waited to see if it worked, convincing myself I could go back to the church and tell them about my miracle. So the congregation could chorus, “God doesn’t work on miracles part time! He delivers, Amen!” followed by drumming of feet and deafening handclaps.

I believed it would work, the Holy water, that it covered cracks on the walls, protected the depths of wardrobes, the small holes in the circular hobs on the cooker, pores on my skin. Gaps I’d left around shaped like me. Any holes an unexpected guest could slither through, gently tugging the lines of your body till she held them in one hand.

For two days it was bliss, I felt some semblance of normality. I printed pictures from the La La Love shoot, tried a yoga class before a swimming hangout with Mrs Harris and realised how stiff my body was, visited the Tate on a research trip about art installations without enough context. I helped Mrs Harris repaint her bathroom while we listened to the soundtrack of The Harder They Come.

The following night I woke up to feel someone’s breath on my neck. I padded into the kitchen, the metal heart inside the radiator throbbed. I drained half a glass of exotic fruit juice. In my sleep-coated blur of movements the blackboard caught my eye. Written at the bottom in an unsteady scrawl was the line why don’t you remember?

Holy water evaporated in my chest. It hadn’t done shit.

I walked back but couldn’t feel my steps. In the bedroom my guest sat on the pile of books laying on the dresser. She was covered in chalky white ash, thumbing through a book with blank pages.

Queenie London 1970: Gift Mouth

Queenie got the job at Gift! During the interview, she had the impression Ella would have given her the position even if she’d had no experience and could only speak pigeon English. For whatever reason, Ella had taken to her and the interview seemed to be a formality. She worked Mondays to Wednesdays so she could shadow Ella who was warm, pragmatic and efficient. Queenie began her training in the stock room, sorting piles of items into baskets.

After her first week she could identify the different areas and items from the clothes racks to the bookshelves to the clusters of china with her eyes closed. The new display window had two female mannequins at opposite ends dressed in Forties fashion. Sometimes, Queenie thought she saw the footsteps of passers-by rotate in the mannequins’ plastic eyes. Sometimes she envied their stillness and wanted to join them in that window, complete with braided hair and flared black trousers. She would be on display just in case he ever wandered by and discovered his little girl all grown up in a shop window.

One evening after a tiring shift, she came home to her lonely hostel room and the echoes of other people’s lives in the building. They had become familiar to her; the skinny Pakistani student whose room smelled of cardamom spice, the white lady with rhinestones for eyes who always snuck her scruffy, gap-toothed junkie boyfriend in and the strange girl blessed with fine features and close cropped hair that reminded Queenie of a helmet. The girl claimed she’d escaped from a cult and that mice in the building had stolen her voice. The receptionist called her “Jeanie the habitual liar.” They were all misfits in one place with lives intertwining in tiny steps. It wasn’t like back home where people living in such close quarters would know much more about each other.

On her bed, Queenie heard doors shutting, the wide yawning of windows opening. And broken conversations gathering like the breeze between fan blades. She rummaged through one big travel bag she kept under the bed, fished out a brass head and some pictures, things she’d borrowed from her mother without asking. The brass artefact, a warrior’s head, stared back at her with an intensely calm expression. In one photo, her parents posed next to a white Volkswagen car, filled with youth and laughter. Her father wore a green army uniform; her mother was dressed in a pretty dress the colour of a purple seashell. She was laughing at something in the distance; he was looking at her mid-chuckle, as though seeing her for the first time again. A memory fell through the ceiling and her parents were there in the middle of her room, dancing to Fela Kuti. Their bodies threw robust moves and they were staying in love. They danced in an invisible, movable frame. Queenie silently asked the memory to stay the night. The weight of the brass head sank into her left hand.

After two weeks, Ella moved her on to the till and she learned quickly. She became used to the curious gazes of customers and their questions. Where are you from? Is it just you or did you bring a family along? Oh Africa sounds fascinating but… is it safe? Did you fly here? Some of the questions were asked in a friendly manner and she was fine with that. Simple curiosity never killed anybody. But there were a handful of people who asked those questions in an accusatory tone. When she picked up on this, she answered mischievously. No, she hadn’t come alone, she’d brought eleven members of her family with her and they lived a cramp, gleeful existence in a one bedroom flat. Oh Africa definitely wasn’t safe! In fact, when you arrived at Lagos Airport there were taxi cab drivers in horn helmets that lured stupid foreigners into their cars. They butchered them and used their flesh to make money, bought land and dined on suya for days. And no, she hadn’t flown to England but she’d ensured all eleven members of her family had been illegally smuggled into the country. Ah Ah! She herself had arrived on a boat so weighed down by bananas; it had nearly sunk en route. When she made these comments, chuckling within at some of the ignorant questions thrown her way, a small red sea frothed in the corner of the shop floor, then flooded the faces of guilty parties. Glints of embarrassment turned into cataracts in their eyes. Their lips pursed tightly, curved upwards reluctantly as though the wanted to rip their smiles off and use them to strangle her. “Oh Ella! Delightful girl! Interesting humour…” One customer said. And Queenie smiled too, hiding the daggers beneath her teeth.

On the morning of her first experience of a Gift! Banquet for the homeless, all signs pointed to a good day. Sunlight streamed through the cream curtains of her bedroom, filling her rat-infested palace with a special kind of hope. She had a clean pair of odd socks to wear, something she considered good luck, one blue, one red. She’d also managed to save a bit of money for a shopping trip to Petticoat Lane market on the weekend. She’d try to decode some of the cockney lingo falling from the mouths of traders. If that failed, she’d simply ask what the hell they were talking about. Queenie was pleased she managed to send some money to her mother, having queued behind all the other foreigners at the bank watching them hand over their hard-earned cash many with relief showing on their faces. The same feeling swelled in her chest. That exchange indicated their sacrifices meant something, deep in the cold, loneliness and unfamiliarity of an alien country. Then they left with all the expectations of home on their shoulders, stalking through the streets like rooted up trees.

At around 9.30am Queenie arrived at the WAC Arts Centre to assist Ella along with all the other volunteers. The old basement hall where lunch and dinner would be served from 1pm was a large space with the capacity to hold two hundred people. The stage area had blood red, pleated velvet curtains, with the smell of old performances trapped inside them. There was a tall, standing lamp covered by a colourful chintzy lampshade. A black leather chair faced the audience and in case the chair wanted to talk into it a microphone stood directly in front. Big square windows with glass panes were slightly were open. The polished dark oak floor gave the room warmth. Golden, ornate candlestick holders were mounted on the walls.

Ella had rounded up all volunteers in the kitchen area, tucked away through an archway on the right. They gathered like troops; social workers, teachers, nurses and all sorts. Queenie was repeatedly surprised by how many people Ella seemed to know. How was a woman who managed a charity shop so well connected? She noticed a tall, broad shouldered, bald-headed black man amidst the group. When he laughed the whole room filled with it. For some reason they gravitated towards each other. Maybe it was because they were the only two black people amongst the volunteers. He walked right up to her, swallowed her hand in his. “I’m Mervyn, willing victim and volunteer. Who are you and how did Ella bribe you? Come nuh, don’t be shy.” The musical lilt of his Jamaican accent was attractive. A good tool to disarm people with Queenie thought but she smiled and held his gaze. “Queen, I work in the Gift! Shop.”

He chuckled then as if an anecdote he’d heard was coming to life. “Oh! So you’re the African lady. I’ve heard a lot about you.”

She felt self-conscious then, a little annoyed at him for having a hand he’d been waiting to play all along.

“What have you heard?” she asked, unable to keep a slight bite from her tone. For some reason, she found herself standing a bit straighter, lifting her chin; a compass that pointed north. He bit back another smile. “Well for one, I’ve never met an African. You know? A Motherland princess.”

She nodded her understanding. “Ah, I know what you mean Methalyn.”

“Mervyn,” he corrected.

“Ok Melvyn, we Africans even walk and talk at the same time!”

They both burst into laughter, the ice had melted.

“Sorry,” Queenie mumbled, shoulders still shaking with mirth. “It’s just sometimes people say really stupid things to me!”

“I know me too!” Mervyn said and they both collapsed into a heap of laughter.

She discovered from him that Ella’s family was rich, her estranged father was an earl and the charity was her passion. Mervyn was studying to be a lawyer. He told her that one day he’d own his own practice. He had a fiancé who was a nurse. She couldn’t come since she worked nights and needed daytimes to sleep. Queenie saw her then, hovering above their heads deep in sleep; a curvy, Jamaican woman in a blue nurse’s outfit stretched taut against her dark brown skin, a thermometer tucked in the corner of her mouth.

They filled the hall with circular, wooden tables decorated in red and blue checked tablecloths. Rings of wine-red fake flowers and upwards facing playing cards lay on top. There were small, glass bowls bearing pick “n” mix sweets. One chair on each table had loose Christmas-style lights draped around it. Printed cream coloured menus with gold lettering rested on tables in square, wooden holders. On offer was a traditional hotpot with a twist and a prize for whoever guessed what the secret ingredient was. Prawn cocktail, Spaghetti Bolognese, chilli con carne, beef risotto and Chicken Kiev were options. Pork pies, sausage rolls, cheese and pineapple on small sticks were also on the menu. For dessert; butterscotch angel delight, arctic roll, black forest gateau and lemon meringue pie.

By 12:30pm people started filing in. As meals were served and Queenie interacted with the homeless men and women, she discovered there were people from all kinds of backgrounds. One teenage girl had run away from home due to her mother’s violent, alcoholic boyfriend. Another man had been a civil servant. When his wife left and took the children, things spiralled out of control. One woman had been sharing a house with squatters but the property was torn down and she found herself on the streets again. Queenie enjoyed talking to the people. They were underdogs down on their luck. She knew what that felt like, maybe not to the same extent but she understood.

In admiration she watched Ella steering the whole operation with ease. With her slender frame, you could spot her easily. Pink hair now gone, she sported a sharply cut black bob and her features while delicate were reminiscent of Popeye’s Olive Oyl, only much prettier. She wore a red jumper and red floral-patterned trousers, as if she’d arranged her outfit to coordinate with the décor. She ran the whole operation effortlessly, gliding from table to table, chatting with people warmly. She’d organised the team of volunteers commandingly, thanking them now for their efforts and seemed to be everywhere at once, cooking, serving, taking orders and liaising with the arts centre staff. She’d hired an artist for a few hours, a scrawny guy with long brown hair, holes in his green jumper and a thick moustache. Queenie got the impression this guy lived on other people’s sofas. He spent his time drawing amusing caricatures of people who captured his imagination and worked on a piece depicting the joyous, chaotic scenes there that he called “The Banquet.” At one point, holding a stack of plates, sweating profusely and balancing three orders on her tongue, Queenie passed Ella by the kitchen. “Oh God! How can you look so calm, it’s chaos out there!”

“It’s great isn’t it?” Ella replied. “From my count we’ve had an even bigger turn out than last year. Inside, I’m not calm, just resigned to the fact that no matter how precisely I plan, something always goes wrong!”

Sure enough it did. The house band Ella booked as part of the evening programme had been double-booked. Mervyn pulled a favour from a ska band he knew called The Pipers. By 6pm the evening programme kicked off; a mix of writers, open mic poets and the band. There was some good poetry and some terrible poetry. The band held it all together nicely, playing infectious, melodious songs to an audience who’d really only turned up for some free food but were happy enough to be entertained. Behind the scenes Queenie and Mervyn exchanged anecdotes.

“Come nuh, did you see that drunken guy reciting the poem about catching his girlfriend in bed with someone else?”

“Oh God! Yes, now I wan you ru die a thousan’ deaths a thousan’ different ways!” Queenie mimicked the poet’s slurred delivery. “I didn’t see the whole thing but I thought he was going to fall off the stage.”

“He did,” Mervyn said, cracking up.

“Are there a thousand ways to die?” Queenie asked.

“Probably.” Mervyn answered and they convulsed with laughter.

At the end of the evening Queenie was exhausted. After the room had been cleared, rubbish tied, leftover food distributed in Tupperware, and volunteers filed out of the back entrance, swathed in her new £15 grey tweed coat from Petticoat Lane Market, Queenie waved an animated wave goodnight to Ella and Mervyn. She walked through the hallway where the large notice board hoarded leaflets that flapped like pinned paper wings whenever the door opened. She felt someone grab her elbow from behind, turned to find Mervyn, one hand buried in his pocket. Cool and casual. “Hey Africa, you escaping already nuh? The night is young. Come for a drink, The Pipers and I are heading to this blues bar. We can give you a lift in the van.”

She noticed specks of food stains on his rolled up blue sleeves, fine hairs on his arm. Her pulse slipped into the face of his gold watch. “I don’t think so, you have a girlfriend remember?” She said, tugging self-consciously at her jacket lapels.

“Oh come on man! Just as a friend. I’d like to hear about Africa, I’m curious. Besides, if I was trying to get you into bed you’d know it, trust me. And…”

“And?”

“You’re interesting but you’re not my type, so rest assured girl, I won’t be pouncing on you any time soon.”

Queenie didn’t know why but a small part of her felt disappointed. Did he really have to tell her that last bit of information? Typical.

Sheepishly she said, “Okay, why not.”

The Blue Havana in Oxford Circus was a cosy, smoky bar with low lighting perfect for shape shifters. Alcohol-lined voices in intimate conversations rose and dipped in cycles. Plush leather chairs and tall, black stools were dotted around a marble bar area. The barman’s weathered face and rough voice gave the impression he’d probably sampled every drink they served. On the tiny stage, a black woman wearing a slinky, long purple dress cried into the microphone under a blue spotlight. A white flower grew out of her head. She sang as though she lived on disappointment, cigarettes and whisky. In that light, Queenie worried Mervyn would see under her skin and realise half of her was mangled. Since she arrived, she’d been walking on a rolling tide throughout the city but something about him steadied her. He was a man who took things at his own pace, even in England. They talked, laughed and talked some more. He watched her knock back shots of rum in amusement, often adding, “Gwaan girl!” and “Is that you?”

He told her about his love of magic, he carried an ace of spades playing card in his pocket wherever he went for good luck. He performed the trick of pulling a perfectly tied red ribbon from behind her ear.

As the night progressed Queenie became drunk. She decided then she’d tell him at least some of her story. She didn’t know why. Maybe it was the loneliness, or the intimate setting, cigarette smoke curling through the room like mist gathering and ash from the embers of stories dying quick deaths in body temperature ashtrays.

Maybe it was the howl of the woman’s piercing voice. Something came undone, floated inside her. She saw her own tongue on stage, wagging underneath the blue spotlight.

“What’s your favourite magic trick?” she asked

Mervyn drained the last bit of cream liqueur in his glass, looked her dead in the eye. “That’s easy, the disappearing act. Vanishing without a trace, it’s the greatest trick of all.”

Fist Of Drum

It was the cool north breeze that swept Sully Morier to the palace gates on the night that was to change his life. They found him, the guards, at the foot of the gates, beaten and bruised with his face buried in a puddle of dirt and rain. They patted his roughened, battered body down gently. He responded by cracking open a blackened eye, mumbling something unintelligible, and then slumping his slightly raised head back to the ground. His long body was strong and firm and as the guards lifted him they humphed under their breath as he began to kick at them in short bursts that were surprisingly well landed. He seemed to be trapped in another moment that refused to let him go. “Hold him!” one guard said.

“I’m trying,” the other guard paused his hand hovering over Sully’s one dropped ankle as though it were a slippery fish he was attempting to outwit. Then a decision was made for him as Sully landed a sly kick that caught the bridge of the guard’s nose. “Fool, the sooner we take this white man inside the sooner we can visit the servant women’s quarters,” guard number one hissed, while the other guard clutched his injured nose, tilted his head back and drew some night air into his nostrils slowly to ease the spreading pain. Then, Sully’s body relaxed, punctuated by a deep grunt. The guard rubbed the knuckles on the hand he had used to quieten Sully, albeit temporarily.

As the guards carried him through to the holding section, lazy moonlight spilled over his body revealing brown khaki trousers and a torn loose cream shirt. There was a thin grape-coloured leather strap wrapped around his waist with two small shallow pockets that had been emptied by roving hands. A bag fashioned out of what looked like an old sack was strapped to his back. His chest bore nicks and cuts crusted with blood. Once in the holding pen, a plain room with shabby straw mats, Sully was left to rest. Half-starved and weak, he spluttered and coughed through the following days that ran into each other, only roused awake by the shuffle of footsteps to look through the blurry recurring crimson mist that clouded his vision when food was brought to him. He ate and found himself clutching his stomach at night despite food like roasted yams and hot vegetable soup sating his hunger. But just as night was showing its hand, a hot spurt of fire would run burning through his stomach. He tried to comfort himself by rocking his body back and forth, ignoring the sting of salty sweat that trickled into his eyes, dousing his lips with a feverish tongue.

News of the handsome foreign stranger spread through the palace like a whirlwind. Did he have any identifying tribal marks? No, but his arms were solid, his face rugged and his eyes greener than the densest forests in Benin. Had he said anything about where he came from? No, only incoherent mutterings that fell flat on the ears of the uninterested guards. Was he recovering well? Yes, but slowly, and there were shadows lingering in the corner of his eyes. Overgrown black hair grazed his neck, days old beard covered his jaw and a tear shaped birthmark nestled high up his inner left muscled thigh. To catch a glimpse of him female servants armed with wet cloths and herbal brews offered the excuse of nursing him while their eyes struggled to absorb every small detail of the new stranger who now languished in the dark. Surely the arrival of this pale stranger meant something? Nobody knew. Unaware of the hum and flutter he’d caused in the palace, Sully was waging his own battle, a battle that rushed through his veins and boiled his blood. He shook fervently and violently. He wrestled as the naked taunts of the old whispers choked his throat, twisted his heart with long, brutal fingers and echoed his cries off the hollow, bruised walls.

Oba Odion was still celebrating the news of Omotole’s pregnancy when a councilman came to him brimming with excitement at the news of a stranger in the palace. He thought his tongue would leap out and of it’s own accord tell Oba Odion about this new development. Instead, it resigned itself to darting out sporadically, pink and shining.

There were times when the Oba saw his council as resentful, hungry shadows that loomed over him and were barely tethered to the line he drew for them. He imagined them picking at the same white line with their greasy hands till it became faint from each mauling. So when councilman Ewe came to him, green beads jangling against his hairy chest, Oba Odion’s reaction wrong-footed him. “But we should use this opportunity to make the stranger talk while he is weak, a little pressure and he will surely crumble before our eyes!” Ewe said. Oba Odion rocked back patiently in his, sturdy chair “Leave the man alone for now; I have other things troubling me. When he recovers, bring him to me.”

“Ah, Oba you are becoming soft, I know you are still celebrating your good news but do you not find it troubling that this pale man comes from nowhere to find himself clinging to the palace gates? This is no accident.” The Oba shook his head in annoyance, “When I speak to him, I will decide what happens to him. He may be somebody who came to the palace for help. Did you not say he was beaten?”

“Yes Oba, but let us ask why he was beaten, this is a prosperous land, and there are enemies out there willing to try anything to destroy us.”

“Ewe, I will think over what you have said.”

“Most of the other councilmen agree with me Oba.”

Oba Odion sighed wearily, “Must I have my own council’s approval on every decision? Get out.”

“Yes Oba” Ewe replied, turning on his heel, his anger smarting two steps behind him.

At that moment, Adesua was biting back her fury after discovering the brass head vanished from its home on her mantle. She could still feel its imposing presence in her chamber, shifting the air till there was a powerful undercurrent of expectation, as though something chameleon-like was coming, and menacingly entwining itself with her hot breath. So she swallowed a dose of it daily. She searched every inch of her chamber till having had enough of that pointless exercise; she hit the palace grounds barefoot. She screamed at the servants to find the thief among them who’d taken her prized piece. Gone was the uncertain young woman who had arrived at the palace, wary of the strangers surrounding her. The woman in her place had roaring flames in her eyes and barked orders as though she was born to do so.

The servants pushed by her slicing ire scoured their quarters keen to escape whatever terrible punishment awaited them if they failed to find it and kept the fact that the brass head was missing to themselves so desperate were they to make sure word did not reach the Oba. Adesua continued to search the grounds her veins swelling in anticipation. She dug her nails into her palms. Fresh sweat popped on her brow and down her back. She tried to dampen the panic that was eating its way into her heart.

In the end, it was a raven-winged bird that led her to the brass head. She watched it from the main palace flapping repeatedly above the roof of Filo’s quarters as if was alarmed, before running. She ran through the glare of disapproving councilmen, past the open mouths of servants and the glee of two other wives. She met Filo’s door open and the sound of sniffing drew her in. Filo was gripping the brass head as if she would never let it go. Tears trickled onto her raised knuckles and onto the head. Filo only looked up at Adesua briefly and then turned away, as if she had been expecting her for some time. She continued to sob, gut wrenching cries that wandered all the way back to the entrance of a palace darker than the first scowl of night. She heaved, as if emptying her insides out.

The murmurings over Sully’s presence were such that after a few days, even some of the lazy guards were bitten by curiosity. As his body slowly recovered, something else happened. The guards became less suspicious. He told them that he had travelled from the north where the golden-hued land was dry and stretched wide in endless waves lit with sunshine. Land that could break you if you did not use a gentle hand on her. He spoke of the women, dark, dusky loose-limbed nubile beauties who walked the land as though wading through water, bearing miniature reflections of themselves tied onto their backs or at their breasts. At night he said, when the brazen glow of the moon courted the pliant land, you thought you could sometimes see the fragments of light falling down from the sky.

The guards were spellbound, why would he leave such a place? He told them he was a restless soul, an explorer and that Benin had been hailed as the land of possibilities. He wanted to travel and see as much as possible. He had been coping with an unusual affliction for as far back as he could remember. His feet could not stay still in one place long enough to grow roots, as if as a child an itchy curse had been cast on them. What of his family? Surely they disapproved of his running from place to place. He told them he had no real family. Sully answered their questions, throwing a patient smile here and there, a nonchalant shrug if they attempted to pull his tales apart. He informed them that he had just crossed into Benin when bandits attacked and stole some of his belongings. Joking and laughing with all of them, he found himself telling the story several times to different guards. In each instance, he told it as though it were the first time.

On the day Sully was to be taken before the Oba, he awoke craving ripe mangoes. His limbs were still sore and thin, black scabs had formed over wounds only the eyes could see. He was quiet too, only nodding his thanks to the slight servant girl who brought him a small pail of water to wash himself. He sniffed his armpits; an, eye-watering smell emanated from them. Disgusted, he picked up the cloth left beside the sleeping mat, dampened it in the water and gently began to wash his body, careful not to wet his wounds. He waited for his body to dry before slowly slipping on the loose fitting shirt that had also been washed and dried.

Outside, the two guards sent to take him to the main palace, jokingly shoved each other pretending to play fight. He whistled his readiness and sniggering over something both men came to him, one on each side, lightly holding his arms. As they took the walk up through to the palace, he eyed the bustling, sprawling courtyards, the neat apartments for those of royal lineage and finally the high, imposing terracotta palace building, its conquests depicted in brass plaques embedded on the front view of the roof. He swallowed a bitter smile at the cruelty of the gods.

Inside, he was made to stand in a room before the Oba and his councilmen. A small river of accusatory stares followed. Oba Odion’s voice boomed “Tell me what has brought you to Benin.” Sully did so, calmly, with the right intonations of humbleness and disbelief at his misfortune. Inside, he locked away twinges of pleasure as he held his audience rapt, watching their doubts fall to the ground like fish scales. He told himself that sometimes you had to take the beginning you deserved. This was his.

Say Anon

I began calling my uninvited guest Anon. Somehow, weirdly, I’d adjusted to having another presence in the house. The blackboard in the kitchen was full of sightings; the wooden floor had small areas cordoned off with white chalk. My bedroom ceiling bore splatters of purple paint from attempting to capture her body using colour. Traps I’d set failed. Buckets of water placed in corners of my living room so she could fall inside her own image and drown. Instead, the water rippled from her breath and sometimes her wet mirror images left the buckets so there were four of her wandering through the flat. Water versions of Anon eventually collapsed into puddles I mopped dry with shaky hands. Sometimes when I turned the radio on and listened to LBC she swallowed the frequency using silence the weight of a room. And I found myself beneath it, arms and legs flailing to survive.

The days became darker.

I played drunken bingo with Mrs Harris, mulled over what to do with my inheritance money and ignored Mervyn’s phone messages. Anon persisted, she dangled off cobwebs in my throat with one finger and inserted her gap-toothed smile in the mouths of people I shot. I functioned, the way a person carrying broken things inside them does, until they start bleeding from a big wound on their face that has seemingly arrived overnight.

One evening I lay on my blue sofa, my mother’s throw covering my feet, watching a rerun of Deal or No Deal on More4, playing with the key from the fish. I rubbed it as though it could grant wishes, Anon sat in a single wooden chair on the side. Noel Edmonds wore a ridiculously loud shirt, the clothing equivalent of a box of Smarties. In between the boxes opening on screen, with revelations of blue or red cash values inside, I listened for heartbeats Anon may have borrowed from someone else. I was resigned to us living an unsettling co-existence.

The heating was on full blast; subconsciously I thought I could make her sweat until she evaporated. The smell of weed lingered, what was left of the slim roll burned in a glass ashtray on the floor, its tiny specks of orange light with smoke curling into the amber iris of a third eye. I drained half a glass of Baileys and set it on the floor, next to it I laid two flattened cereal boxes, Cornflakes and Rice Krispies. I’d planned to use them to make robots but got distracted by my vices of weed, alcohol and television. From the kitchen, the bottle tops stuck to my notice board of weird collages rattled, releasing whispers.

Anon unfolded her limbs and walked to the kitchen. I slipped the key into my trouser pocket. In my mental fog I could straddle two planes. I was aware of her movements, a series of scratches wearing skin, rummaging through the cutlery drawer. She appeared by my side wielding my sharpest knife, the one I used for cutting stubborn pieces of meat. I saw a green vein reflected through the blade, from tip to handle. It throbbed; I couldn’t tell if it was hers or mine. A purple haze floated into a parachute, hovered above us. I felt a slick of sweat on my neck, heard the scurry of unidentifiable things in holes. Anon held me and it was like holding myself, the gleam of a blade sat between us. She pressed the knife to the left side of my head, made an incision just above my ear. She placed her mouth on it and spoke into the cut.

I found myself on a dusty, lengthy road, warm against my bare feet. Broken stones dug into them. The dark fell in swoops then broke off into marauding limbs. My blue living room curtains billowed against an anaemic moon, swirling dust tainted part of it red. Static from the TV ceased, swallowed by my eardrums and Noel Edmonds voice waned in the distance. The silence around me spun like a colourless kaleidoscope. A river situated to my right rippled gently washing over rocks that could have been heads barely bobbing above water. I saw a cluster of large terracotta buildings situated in sprawling grounds surrounded by tall black gates. The gates were flanked by guards in traditional clothing, their eye-catching material of a golden leafed design and the leaves curled up as if they intended to crackle into life. I heard a faint murmur of chatter between the guards. Angular pieces of stained glass window fell from my mouth onto a path of coloured glass. I walked tentatively on the glass path, even though I had a feeling that if I ran it wouldn’t have broken.

The guards held wooden spears with sharp, brass tips. As I drew closer, one signalled to the others. They’d been sucking on oranges, sharing anecdotes and swatting fat, hungry flies. Another guard spat orange pips into his hand. I stared, expecting an orange tree to bloom from his palm. My throat constricted, a nervous habit. I stopped myself from chanting aloud, just. For one, I didn’t want to appear crazy and two; it wasn’t a good idea to jar men holding weapons. I drew my shoulders up, prepared to spin a lie from the small bank of wool that resided in the scars on my wrists. Wearing respectful expressions, the guards opened the gates.

“Good evening,” they each said in turn.

I nodded, walked through. My pulse hummed, I stayed quiet. I didn’t want to talk and give myself away. But these men seemed to have mistaken me for someone else. One foot stepped in front of the other, guided by an invisible hand. Voices filtered from the surrounding smaller apartments. Noise slipped out as if the rooftops were lids that weren’t closed properly. I wandered into a square courtyard where footsteps were still visible. Vines crawled up tall pillars and whispered to the drawings of battles won, etched in a golden undulating ceiling. I wanted to go down and talk to the footsteps, to see if they’d move. For some reason, I felt I knew who they belonged to, that the lines were telling me. I grabbed a handful of earth and it ran through my fingers, warm and real. Sweat coated my body. I knew this place. I sensed the new and familiar all at once.

I knew that the short copper-toned flight of steps outside the main building led to a room I’d visited before. Brass artefacts were mounted on walls near the stairwell; they shifted under the sly night light. I’d been thrown into something incongruous, like a piece of time landing in a glass bowl. I walked up the steps to the first floor. A guard sat snoozing outside a room tucked behind a golden arched doorway. One eye flew open as my gentle steps approached. He stood groggily to attention. Tightened the knot of the green cloth he wore at the waist and wiped some crusted drool off his chin.

“When I last checked, he was still awake.” He edged the door open slowly.

I entered the large bedroom, closed the door. A dishevelled, raised wooden bed dominated the room. Two brown mats lay on either side. Carved wooden masks hung on the walls, watching with the expressions of Gods. In the thick of the heat I gathered my breaths and smelled palm wine in the air. On a dark stool with a low gaze, a kerosene lamp rested. Its flame flickered, bending in a glass bubble. I heard a rapping noise, a fist knocking inside my head. A small river in my left foot threatened to leak out. The tingly sensation of pins and needles pricked my skin.

In the corner, a man’s shadow rose above him while he hunched low. He washed his hands in a metallic bowl, feverishly muttering to himself. This continued for a few moments as he muttered “Iz not clean, never clean again.”

I walked into his shadow, touched his shoulder gently, driven by instinct and adrenalin. He uncurled slowly, his native wear covered in sweat marks. His protruding gut revealed a man with a very healthy appetite, wild eyes blinked at me.

My voice seemed to come from somewhere else. “What happened?” I asked

The whites of his eyes grew bigger. A red ant clung to a hair on my arm. An army of ants scurried into cracks on the floor and in our speech. He curled his hands into fists, knuckles straining.

“Nothing can be done.” He held up his palms, red from vigorous washing. “My enemies are no longer of this world. Are you one of them?” He pointed a finger accusingly. There was madness in his eyes.

“Nnnno, of course not!” I stammered.

“Why are you dressed in those clothes? Are you trying to mock me?” His voice bellowed.

“I found them in my room; I don’t know where they came from.” I managed a sincere expression, tugged at my baggy boyfriend jeans and loose Ren and Stimpy t-shirt.

“I will have whoever is responsible for this flogged! They may lose three fingers.”

“No need, it’s just a bad joke done in poor taste; I put them on out of curiosity.” I placed both hands on his rising shoulders to steady them. The sound of something dripping caught my attention. He drew me closer, wrapped one trembling arm around me and pointed to the ceiling. A ring of red appeared in the centre. The ceiling talked in a language of blood. It dripped onto our heads. Fat drops fell into my right eye as I looked up. I rubbed urgently, alarmed by the sight.

“What have you done?” I asked.

He threw his back and laughed dementedly, crawled into the unmade bed and assumed the foetal position.

I left the palace with my vision partially blurred. The guards lay slumped back into sleep. At the palace gates I remembered the key in my pocket, an invisible hand guided me again. Relief surged in my chest as I inserted it into the lock and turned. It opened. I thanked the dead fish that brought it to me and shrouded it in luck. Now the road felt cooler on my bare feet. The singing crickets had half whistles inside them; their sound grazed the night. An even paler moon morphed into a broken plate and its red dust disappeared back into the ground. Hovering in the air behind me was the sprawling red palace, somehow uprooted by my visit. Beside me the riverbanks arched, water rippled.

In the distance the sound of static beckoned me. I walked till my feet ached and the sound became a wall close enough to touch, twitching like the instances we change our minds. I couldn’t tell when I was swallowed into the other side.

In the morning, I rolled off the sofa and landed with a thump on the floor. Red ants crawled out of my pockets and made a trail. Anon sat opposite me laughing, more ants spilled from her mouth. I traced the cut on the side of my head, a morning alarm. I stood still for minutes, covered in a cold blanket, rubbing an optical illusion that had landed in my hands. Turn it one way and you had a lady with a cut on her head that would change location. Turn it the opposite way and a woman with blood becoming a small, red country in her eye appeared.