The Girl with the Louding Voice(68)

Big Daddy hold his hand up. “Actually, Florence. It is a good idea,” he say. “In fact, you can have Adunni help you out one evening in the week.”

Big Madam look like she want to use her eyesballs to bullet Big Daddy, kill him dead for that stupid talk.

“Are you sure?” Ms. Tia say. “I mean, if it won’t be a problem, that’d be amazing.”

“Not a problem,” Big Daddy say. “I insist. Dr. Ken is a dear, dear friend of ours, and if his wonderful wife asks us a small favor, who are we to refuse?”

Ms. Tia smile to the doctor. “Babe, did you hear that?”

The doctor look like he confuse. “I don’t think Madam Florence thinks it is a good idea to—”

“It is okay,” Big Madam say, shocking everybody. “She can come and help you go to the market one day a week for a short time only. A very, very short time. I need her here for the housework, so please, if you think you need her for longer, I can recommend Mr. Kola, my agent. He can get you a good house help for a reasonable price.”

“That is so kind of you,” Ms. Tia say. “I am ever so grateful. Thank you.”

Big Madam grunt, say something nobody hear.

My heart start a skipping beat. Does that mean that me and Ms. Tia will be seeing ourselfs once in the week? And we can be learning more things before I write my essay? That is the best good news I ever hear since I reach Lagos.

Big Madam turn her head to look me. “What are you still doing there? Get inside and bring our juice before I wipe the smile off your face with a slap.”





CHAPTER 39

At night, I say my evening prayer to be thanking God for entering Big Madam’s mind for letting me go out with Ms. Tia one day in the week.

I am also thanking Him that, even though Mr. Kola didn’t come back with my money, I am not in a coffin in the ground, using the soil inside the earth as a wrapper and as a pillow. I say prayers for the new year 2015 coming, that it will be good and a happy year for me, the year I will enter school. I remember Khadija, tell God to make her feel good in heaven, give her big bed and plenty food. I tell God to take care of my mama too.

I remember Ms. Tia too, that she will get pregnant and have one child in the next year, because she only want one, not two or three childrens, and that it will not cause troubles with the doctor mama. And Papa, that God will give him a kind heart and make his mind at peace.

I don’t pray for Kayus. Thinking or praying for Kayus will make my heart full of sadness. Today is a good day, no sadness for me. When I finish my prayer, I feel a free that I didn’t feel in long time, and when I smile, it climb from inside my stomach and spread itself on my teeth.

I set to removing the plaiting on my hair. My hair was a rich black color, thick as a sponge, use to break all my mama’s wooden comb when I was growing. It has a smell now, of bleach and dusty oil, and it take me a whole one hour to remove all the plaiting, and when I finish, I look my hair inside the looking-glass, sitting like a cloud around my neck, warm and full of grease. I shake my head, watching as the hair bounce itself on my shoulders, and I laugh as I remove all my cloth, take a cloth, wrap it around my body, and leave the room.

It is dark outside now, the moon look like God plant a glowing egg into a flat black slate with stars scattering theirselfs around it, some fading and blinking, others staying still, forming one kind of strange shape in the sky. I walk quick, cutting the grass, laughing as some cricket jump out from it and make a kre-kre noise. As I cut to the part of the house where we spread clothes on the line, I see the shape of a man coming in the dark, walking like he has one half of a leg: Big Daddy. I stop, press my hand to my chest, and keep looking him. He is on the phone, talking to somebody, voice low but loud enough for me to hear him:

“Baby love, I said I was sorry,” he say. “I will make it up to you, I promise. Why don’t we meet tomorrow night at the Federal Palace Hotel? Or at a special— Adunni!”

He sort of freeze like a statue when he see me. He press the phone to his ear and wide his eyes until it be as if his forehead is one big eyeball. The woman inside the phone is still talking, sounding like she swallow a bee, speaking bzz-bzz, but my ears can pick the low “Baby love, are you there?” of her words.

“Good evening, sah,” I say as Big Daddy shake out of his freeze and slide the phone from his ear. It is a phone I have never see him use before, a black, slim, costly-looking thing, the size of a matchbox. He press the phone, and the numbers on the face of it glow, coloring his face a strange green too, before he put the phone into the pocket of his ankara trouser—same one he was wearing in the morning.

“What are you doing here?” he ask. “Wait. Were you listening to my conversation?”

“I am going to the washing line,” I say. I am not caring if Big Daddy is talking to another woman outside when his wife is sleeping in the house. “I didn’t hear anything, sah.”

Big Daddy nod his head. “Good. Because I was speaking to my pastor, my pastor’s wife, I mean. We are, er, planning a special service tomorrow at a hotel. Isn’t it a beautiful evening?”

“Good night, sah,” I say.

“Come back here a minute. Don’t you think I deserve a dash of gratitude after what happened today?”

“Dash of grati-what?” I ask, pulling my cloth tighter on my chest.