“You can’t do anything,” Big Madam shout back. “I put my money in your pocket so you can hold your head up. So that you can be a man. Do you think I don’t know about Amaka in University of Lagos? You put two hundred thousand naira of my money into her account just last week, didn’t you? Or about Tayo? That thing with skinny legs in University of Ife, did you not send that one to Zanzibar, just last month? I know them all. But to bring it to my house again? Under my roof? Ah, God will deal with you. How can you keep chasing our common house girl for cheap sex? A nonentity? How low can you stoop, Chief?” Big Madam starts to cry loud, wailing, saying, “Why won’t you love me? What more can I do to make you see me as I am, as a woman worth loving? A woman who has sacrificed so much for you? Your children have refused to come home for Christmas because they don’t like how you treat me, and yet I remain in this marriage because I love you!”
“So this is why Kayla hasn’t called me in two months?” Big Daddy roar the question, use it to silent Big Madam’s wailing cry. “What have you been telling my children?!”
“I don’t need to tell them anything, Chief,” she say, more quiet now. “They are not blind. They grew up in this house, saw how you have always treated me! Why are you doing this to our home?”
Then she begin to ask Big Daddy how low he is going in chasing a nobody entity like me until I hear a noise. Like somebody punch a pillow. A slap. Two slaps. Three slaps. I put my hand on my chest, feel my heart beating fast. Is it because I ask of a lock that Big Madam and Big Daddy are fighting like this? Am I the cause of the troubles between them? Ah! Why didn’t I keep shut my big mouth?
Will Big Madam send me away? And if she does that, where will I go? When Big Madam starts to curse Big Daddy and his family, I take one step back, and another step, and then I am running down the stairs, through the kitchen, until I reach my room in the boys’ quarters.
CHAPTER 37
When I reach my room, I find Kofi standing in front of my room door, giving me a vexing look.
“I have been killing myself, cooking since morning,” he say, wiping the sweat from his forehead with his apron cloth. “The doorbell rings, and I start shouting your name in the main house like a crazy person because the last time I checked, you were the housemaid. I didn’t realize you had retreated to the boys’ quarters.”
“Who is treating who?” I ask. “Is Big Madam needing a doctor? Have she dead?”
“I said ‘retreat.’ Follow me. We have guests.”
“Who is the guest?” I ask as I pick myself and follow him. “Where is Big Madam? Everything okay with her?”
“Big Madam is fine,” Kofi say, walking fast, making me run to catch him to hear what he is saying.
“They had a fight. Chale, your mouth will kill you one day. Why did you ask Big Madam for a lock to your room? I told you to be careful. You didn’t have to ask for a lock. There are options. You should have consulted me. For instance, you could have dragged the cupboard in your room, pushed it behind the door. Or placed a rat trap at the entrance, watch it snap the useless man’s foot shut when he comes to your door. Now that would be a scene to watch. Imagine Big Daddy hopping around on one foot, howling in pain, but unable to tell his wife the source of the pain. Ha!”
“I didn’t know it will cause them to be fighting,” I say, wiping new tears. “Wait, you are walking too fast.”
“I have chicken drumsticks in the deep fryer,” he say. “I don’t have time to stroll and chat.”
“But Ms. Tia say I should ask for lock,” I say. “I ask, and now, I am in big trouble. Will Big Madam send me away?”
“I don’t know,” Kofi say. “Ms. Tia happens to be married to a filthy-rich doctor and has no problems in life. She should not be dishing out advice to a semi-illiterate with the IQ of a fried fish.”
“IQ fish?” I ask. “You are frying some with the chickens?”
Kofi stop his fast walk, give me a long, vex look, begin his walking again. “You better pray that the wedding will keep Big Madam’s mind too occupied to think about replacing you before you hear back from the scholarship people,” he say. “That is, after she recovers from this recent battering from Big Daddy.”
“Why is Big Daddy always beating Big Madam?” I ask.
We reach the kitchen back door, and Kofi goes to the fryer on the kitchen table, bring out the basket of frying chickens from the hot oil. The chickens are golden brown, the smell of it filling my mouth with spit, my stomach twisting with hunger. Big Madam is back home now, so no more eating of morning food.
“The guests are in the reception area,” Kofi say, picking one chicken thigh from the basket and tearing it with his teeth. “This is spectacularly seasoned. Perfect balance of salt and spice. What are you staring at? Go and make the guests welcome, and then go upstairs to let Big Madam know that she has visitors. I pray you come back down alive.”
* * *
Ms. Tia and the doctor are sitting in the visitors’ parlor. When I kneel down to greet her, she gives me a smile, but not a smile like she knows me, or have talk to me before. It is a stiff smile, a drawing of her lips in a tight line, like I am one kind of stranger, a stranger she met from long ago.
“Adunni, right? How are you? Nice to see you again,” she say, putting her hand on the lap of the doctor. “This is my husband, Dr. Ken. We are here to congratulate Madam Florence and Chief on their daughter’s engagement. Kofi says they are upstairs. Can you let them know we are here?”
She face the doctor. “I told you I met Adunni at the WRWA meeting. She’s the one I said might be best placed to come with me to the market, to teach me how to improve my haggling skills and all that. That is, of course, if her madam does not object.”
The doctor is a tall man with eyes that make me think of stale brown water. He has bushy eyebrows, mustaches that start a journey from under his nostrils and end it in the middle of his jaw. He is wearing a white shirt, button up to his chest to show gold chain with gold cross hanging on his long, smooth neck. He has on a short, brown knicker that stop at his knees, showing legs with plenty curling hair. There are slippers in his feet, brown, smelling of rich rubber.
He nod his head, look me up, down, down to up. “I have heard a few interesting things about you,” he say. His voice is polish, smooth, words flowing from his mouth like he is using oil to wrap his word before talking. He and Ms. Tia, they fit theirselfs. Honey voice and oil voice. Pity they have small troubles because of childrens.
“Yes, sah,” I say. “Good evening, sah. I will call Big Madam and Big Daddy to come downstairs. You want ice-cold drink? We are having cold Fanta and fresh juice and wine drink in the fridge. Which one do you want?”