“Go,” she says, waving me to the door, her eyes wet, angry. “Get out of my sight!”
CHAPTER 53
At night, there is banging on the gate, a crazy horning, as if the person driving the car put his hand on the horn and slap, slap, slap it. When the sound doesn’t go away after three minutes, I stand up from my bed and peep out of my room.
“That fool has been horning for close to thirty minutes,” Kofi says from where he is standing in the corridor, scratching his eyes and yawning.
“Which fool?” I ask, coming out of my room and closing the door. I stand beside him, and together we look to the darkness, where the night is one thick wall of black, and the crickets and the horning are filling the air turn by turn, making it one kind crazy melody sounding song: peen—kre-kre—peen—kre-kre.
“Big Daddy,” Kofi says. “He’s the one horning like a maniac. Big Madam instructed Abu and me not to open the gate for him, which is very strange.”
“Why is it very strange?” I ask.
“Because she has never instructed us not to let him in. Not even when she is sure he’s been to see his girlfriend.”
“You’ve seen his girlfriend before?”
“He has a few,” Kofi says. “I have seen one of them—a girl he picks up at Shoprite. Skinny thing. Looks like a twelve-year-old. A gust of wind would snap her in two on a good day. But that’s the fool’s problem.” Kofi bend his neck, eye me. “So, what did Big Madam say to you when she called you to her room?”
“Nothing,” I say as another horn noise blast the air. “Why did Big Madam say we don’t open the gate?”
Kofi shrugs. “As I said, she’s never done that before. If anything, she’ll direct me to make sure Big Daddy’s food is served, no matter how late he gets back home. You should have seen her when she gave us the instruction, Adunni. Her eyes were raw, full of something I have never seen before. Something like steel. Resolve.”
“Did you ask Abu? For the list for shopping?”
“Ah, yes.” Kofi puts his hand into his trouser pocket, brings out a paper. “Here it is. The last shopping list she wrote before she . . . you know.”
I take the paper, open it. The writing—a list of shopping for Fairy Soap, White Rice, Cling Film, Tissue Paper, and Bleach—is the same as the letter.
My heart sighs. “Kofi, did you ever see her and Big Daddy together?”
“A few times.” Kofi frowns, his forehead flesh dividing into three thick lines of skin. “I had caught him leaving Rebecca’s room a few times. They seemed close, unusually so, especially when Big Madam was away. I asked her about it, told her to be careful with him, but she always laughed and said I was jealous. Why would I be jealous of a fool? I know how every single maid we’ve had always seemed to interest him. Which was why I warned you to be careful of him from the very first day. I warn every single maid that comes to work in this house.”
I feel a chill, it comes so sudden, causing the hair on my hand to stand up. “Did Big Madam go to Rebecca’s house in the village? To find her?”
Kofi shakes his head. “I heard Mr. Kola went a week or two after she disappeared. Big Madam, as far as I am aware, did not go anywhere.”
There is another horning, and Big Madam, her voice like five thunders, screams from the main house: “Go back to the hell you are coming from, Chief! No one is opening this gate for you.”
Who knows what that man did to her? My eyes surprise me, bring out tears. I wipe it quick. “I am going back into my room.”
“Same here,” Kofi says, yawning again. “Looks like the fool is going to spend a night with mosquitoes in the car. It’s the least the bastard deserves for all he’s put everyone through.”
* * *
Big Madam stays locked up for the two days. She doesn’t go to her shop or to church or to anywhere. She stays in her room and sleeps. In the morning, Kofi will take up her food of yam and egg, or bread and boiled egg, or toast and tea, and she will only bite a pinch, send the rest down, which Kofi will give me to eat. At night, she will send for me to come and massage her feet. She doesn’t talk when I massage her feet, she just sits there, trapping her tears with her eyes. I want to show her the letter again, but I sense that her heart is so heavy, it weighs her down, too down to even hear what I want to say.
Big Daddy is nowhere around the house. We don’t see him, and we don’t ask questions, but we whisper to ourselves, me and Kofi, or Kofi and Abu, or me and myself. We talk about where Big Daddy is, and if he will ever be coming back, but it is all empty talk, nobody is knowing anything, nobody is seeing anything.
* * *
The third evening after Big Daddy left the house, Big Madam sent for me to come to her room.
This time, I find her sitting in the purple chair, holding her phone to her ear. She waves at me to wait, and so I stand to one corner and keep my hands behind my back. She is looking a lot better, the sore red under her eyes is now the purple of the chair she is sitting on.
“Chief’s people are coming here tomorrow,” she says to the phone. “No, I don’t think you need to come. You need to concentrate on getting better. I know they want to beg me to take him back in. One of his useless sisters sent me a text message last night; Chief has been demanding money from them. He couldn’t even fuel the Mercedes. I always used to put petrol in that car.” She laughs a sad laugh and shakes her head. “Ah, Kemi, I have been a fool. A big fool.”
Yes, ma, I say with my eyes. A very big fool.
“Where was his family when I was struggling to build my client list? To raise our children? To pay the bills? You are my sister.” She wipes her left eye with a finger. “You know what I went through with this man. How I suffered to support our family with my business. I never told you this, Kemi, but for years, I would bring home the money I made and give it to Chief, and he would pocket my money and still beat me and carry his girlfriends. Still, I gave him clothes to wear, took care of him. I covered his shame. I turned a blind eye to his nonsense, but for him to do this . . . with, with Caroline Bankole from the WRWA! Right under my nose. No, please don’t tell me to calm down. No, I am not imagining things. I wish I was.
“I told you how I found the phone he’d been calling her with. The fool stored her number as ‘Baby Love.’ Baby love? From Chief? He has never called me anything love! . . . Kemi, why are you asking me these senseless questions? What do you mean by ‘Are you sure?’ Of course I am sure! I confronted her! She said it was the devil’s fault. The devil? Does that even make sense? This is a woman I called my friend. My friend.” She presses a shaking hand to her mouth to cover her crying noise, and my heart is shifting as I think of Caroline Bankole, the cat with green eyes and bitter orange smell, of the woman who is kind to Chisom because Chisom is keeping her secrets, of the night Big Daddy was talking on the phone behind the boys’ quarters.