CHAPTER 101
"I call this the conservatory," said Winston's father, proud and a little embarrassed. Mangoes hanging heavy and ripe, all but begging to be bitten. "A modest arrangement, but a pleasant mix, I think. Those are date palms by the wall, and beside them, that's the eucalyptus. This underperforming fellow is a jacaranda. When they flower, they are very beautiful, more of a northern tree, really.
If it gets much larger, I will have to prune it into shape. But that's unlikely. With these high walls, we don't get enough light." Broken glass and razor wire lining the tops. "Unsightly, I know. But we need to keep the rascals out."
Winston was standing on the threshold of the back door, having refused to step into the garden.
His mother gave him a disapproving look. "Where is your hospitality, Winston?"
"Even with the walls, Lagos creeps in," Winstons father continued with a sigh. "Sometimes, when soot blows in from the mainland, I have to dust these flowers. Can you imagine? Having to dust flowers!"
They came to a raised bed of dirt. Folded petals of white and red. "This is the one little bit of the garden my husband allows me," Winston's mother said with a half-laugh. "Roses, imported from England. It's dark now, but in the sunlight, they glow."
"They're beautiful," said Laura.
"I'm leaving," said Winston.
Laura ignored him. Looked instead to the house beyond the garden. Ivy-clad. Handsome walls. Solid. Colonial.
"A lovely home as well." She took another baby step forward, inched closer.
Mother-may-I?
"This old pile?" His mother wouldn't take the compliment. "Old and damp, like my husband. If he put the same effort into its upkeep as he does into this garden, we'd be living in a palace!"
Winston was trying to wrap things up, but Laura had no intention of leaving. She thought she might ask for a glass of water, maybe a chair to rest upon. But there was no need.
"Have you eaten?" Winston's mother asked. "You must be famished."
Laura smiled. "I am a little hungry, yes. But I wouldn't want to impose."
"Nonsense! Come, we'll feed you."
Laura turned, called back to Winston. "Would you bring my bag?" And before he could sputter an answer, she'd slipped inside.
"But the driver is waiting!"
"Pay him and send him on his way," said his father. "We have company."
Large leather chairs to sink into. Pastel paintings of the English countryside to admire. Formal family portraiture framed on the wall. Their studio-lit, canvas-cloud backdrops made her think of the Sears photo studio back home.
"We call this the drawing room, though TV room is perhaps more accurate."
They had a giant pedestal-mounted television screen, and Laura sat across from it, facing her own murky reflection.
"High def," Winston's father said. "Fifty-four-inch plasma. A Sony." He pronounced it
sonny.
"Winston bought it for us."
"Did he now?"
Winston was sulking on the couch beside her, saying not a word as his mother bustled about in the next room, assembling a tray of food for their guest.
"Oh yes," said Winston's father. "He had it shipped in from America. I still don't know what half the buttons on the remote controller do."
Winston muttered something about reading the manual, kept his arms crossed over his chest, said nothing. Loudly.
His father ignored him. "Something to drink, miss? Perhaps a glass of Moet or Re my Martin? We have Guinness, as well. Canned, of course. And Scotch eggs to go with it, if you'd like. "
"Fm so jet-lagged, a drink would go right to my head."
"My wife will soon be in with tea.
Mariam!
Our guest is going to faint from hunger."
Winston's mother appeared with a silver tray laden with grapes and cheese cubes and Ritz crackers fanned out like playing cards.
She poured a cup of Earl Grey for Laura and offered a tin of condensed milk to go with it.
"Thank you so much," said Laura.
But this was only his mothers opening volley. The food kept coming as though on a conveyor belt: avocado cocktails, cold creamed pasta from lunch, mushrooms basted in wine sauce from supper, apples diced with almonds, sugary cakes and cinnamon rolls, and even the Scotch eggs, as promised.
"Shall I warm up a meat pie? We have kidney and mashed peas.
Or maybe a small quiche? We have canned pears as well, imported from Portugal."
"But you have pears in your garden."
"Not sweet enough," said Mariam. "Nigerian pears tend to be starchy."
"Nigerian pears are fine," said Winston. He leaned over, spooned some creamed pasta onto a plate, grabbed a Scotch egg.
His sour mood was slowly lifting as he resigned himself to a meal with his parents. Even if he didn't get the money tonight, he could still stage an ambush tomorrow, have the money robbed from him in front of her, turn himself into a co-victim, maybe accuse her of being in on it, threaten her with arrest.
Winston's mother clucked again at his attire. "I don't know why Winston met you at the airport dressed like that. African robes, that silly cap. He has expensive silk ties he could have worn."
"Well," said Laura. "For what it's worth, I think he looks dashing."
His mother beamed. "You hear that, son?"
Winston said nothing. Ate his Scotch egg.
The lights in the house began to flicker, and Winston turned to his father, sighed. "Shall I start the gen?"
"NEPA has been like this all day. It should pass."
The lights flickered again.
"NEPA is the national electrical power authority," Winston explained, speaking to Laura for the first time since they'd sat down to eat. "It stands for Never Expect Power Again."
"Don't listen to my son," said the father. "He's disrespectful.
NEPA is much improved. It's been completely reorganized."
Winston scoffed at this. "Yes, it is now the Power Holding Company of Nigeria, PLC. Which means Problem Has Changed Name, Please Light Candle. Even with the name change, everyone still calls it NEPA. NEPA this, NEPA that."
"Winston," his father said. "Don't insult our national institutions in front of our guest. She will get a bad image."
"But you complain about NEPA all the time!" he said.
"Not in front of guests."
The lights flickered again.
"Shall I start the generator or not?"
"It's the dry season," his father said. "Water levels are low. There's not enough hydro power to support the grid. But NEPA is doing its best. The power usually goes out only when it's getting dark."
"At the very moment we need it!" said Winston.
"It goes out because of the power surge," he said, ignoring his son. "Everyone selfishly putting on lights at the same time. Some people leave all their lights on just to show off! This is why we have a backup generator that runs on diesel."
And on that, the house was plunged into darkness.
Miss Scarlet. In the drawing room. With the night.
A disembodied voice, Winston's mother: "I'll go."
Laura sat, waiting in the darkness. She could hear Winston breathing. Then a rattle, a cough, and the lights flickered back on.
Winston was staring at her, hard and unblinking.
"Finish and go," he said, voice low. She pretended not to hear.
Winston's mother returned, having somehow conjured a fresh pot of tea en route to the generator. She topped up Laura's cup.
"You must be so tired."
"A little. I haven't checked into my hotel yet. That's why I asked Winston to bring my luggage in."
Her carry-on was next to the couch, beside him.
"That's all you have?" his mother asked.
"That's all I need."
"And the traffic to the Island?" asked the father. "No trouble?"
"No trouble," said Winston.
"Well," said Laura. "We did run into some problems under one of the bridges."
"Area boys," said Winston. "It was nothing."
"Area boys," said his father.
"Yan daba
is more like it. ‘Sons of evil.' Lazy Nigerian youths. No ambition, no moral compass."
"They didn't cause you any grief, did they?" asked Winston's mother.
"No," said Laura. "Winston took care of it."
"I paid them off, it was nothing."
"Shameful," said his father. "Deeply shameful. These young people don't want to work, they're looking for easy money, the quick fix. They have no patience, they want everything fast. For them, it doesn't matter how you get money, only that you get it.
And once they have the money, they expect everyone to bow down to them like a golden calf, even if they haven't earned it."
"Papa," said Winston, weary of what he'd clearly heard many times before.
"The problems in Nigeria trickle
up,"
said his father, "from our youth, from our schooling, from a lack of proper parenting that infects everything, tainting our national esteem, poisoning our national institutions. I tell you, what we need in this country is another War Against Indiscipline, like we had under General Buhari."
"Papa, don't even joke about such a thing!"
"Who's joking? I will say it: Things were better under the generals. These area boys and their
yan daba
allies should be put to the gun! It's shameful that a visitor, a lady such as yourself, is robbed in daylight on her first evening in Lagos. It was better under the generals!"
"Even Abacha? He bled us dry. Trickle up? Under General Abacha, the badness pissed down! The fish rots from the head—you always say that, Papa."
"Winston!" said his mother. "Such language! A guest is present."
But Winston refused to budge. This was clearly an argument they'd been having for years, given fresh vigour by Laura's presence.
"Have you forgotten, Papa? How General Abacha treated the Yoruba, how he persecuted us? We are only now waking up from that nightmare."
"It was still better then."
Winston's mother steered the conversation into calmer waters.
"First time in Africa?"
Laura nodded.
"Oh, that's very exciting. Did you get a chance to see some of the city on the drive in?"
"I did. The
juju
market certainly made an impression."
Winston's father was instantly affronted. "The
juju
market!
By Jankara Hospital? Winston, why on earth would you take her through there?"
"The traffic was bad."
"Not five minutes ago you said the traffic was fine!"
"Did our son show you a bit of Ikoyi?" asked his mother.
"He did. I got quite the tour of the back alleys and side streets."
"The driver," Winston said, cutting in before his father could build up another head of bluster, "he got us lost."
"You live three streets from here!" his father said. "How could you let yourself get lost?"
Laura smiled. "I didn't know you lived so close to your parents, Winston. How sweet. You must remember to give me your address."
And for the first time, Winston caught a glimmer of the larger game she was playing. Just an inkling of what was really going on here, but it was enough. "Best we go," he said. "It's getting too late."
"But I haven't finished my tea."
His mother offered Laura another sugary cake. "You must come back in the daylight," she said. "Ikoyi is very different from the rest of Lagos Island. This was once the G.R.A, you see. The Government Reserve Area, set aside exclusively for Europeans. Our home was originally built for a German diplomat, so we are told.
There are many homes much lovelier than ours. The embassies and the more expensive hotels are on Victoria Island. But Ikoyi is quieter, more peaceful. Many of the foreigners in Lagos have homes here in Ikoyi. So if you ever move to Lagos, we might be neighbours!"
Laura turned to Winston. "Wouldn't that be something? You and me, neighbours. What do you think, Winston?"
He said nothing. Glared.
"You have to understand," Winston's father said to Laura.
"Lagos was never colonized. This was British territory, under the dominion of the British monarch. We had the same rights as British citizens. The rest of Nigeria may have been conquered and cobbled together, but not us. Sometimes I think we should separate, create our own city state."
"And where would we get our oil, Papa?" Winston gathered his robe about him, bristling with annoyance.
Winston's mother leaned in, as though confiding a secret.
"Our Winston has a degree in commerce, with a minor in political science. He went to university in Ibadan. His sister Rita is there now, doing her post-graduate work."
"You must be very proud."
"We have always valued education in Nigeria," said the father. "Or at least, we once did. This is the problem. So many top-notch universities, so few opportunities. We have a surplus of educated young men and women coming out of their schooling with no careers waiting for them at the other end. Educated and unemployed: it's shameful."
The tea was done. Winston's father served up a tall glass of berry-red bitters mixed with tonic water and topped with a fresh slice of lemon.
"Chapman's," he said, referring to the drink. "Very expensive, hard to find. Winston buys it for us by the crate."
"Does he?"
"He's very successful," his mother said.
"Very
successful."
"Winston spoils us," his father conceded.
