Where Women are Kings (28 page)

‘Well, we’re here now,’ said Granddad. ‘Anyway, I’m going home. Call me later.’

He gave Elijah’s shoulder a squeeze and turned to walk away, but Mum ran after him, hugged him and kissed his cheek before he left. Then she walked back into the hallway and picked up Elijah’s hand. With his other hand, he pinched his nose and he kept his mouth shut. He would not let the wizard escape.

At the kitchen table sat Dad and Ricardo. The kitchen curtains were half closed and it made the room look different. The air was yellow and Elijah could see specks of dust dancing around in front of him. Dad jumped up and hugged Elijah and pulled him on to his lap. Elijah tried not to cry and no noise came out but huge tears rolled down his cheeks and on to Obi’s shirt.

‘Do you want a juice, Elijah? A biscuit?’ Mum kept touching, asking if he wanted things. He shook his head.

‘I think we need to get talking straight away,’ said Ricardo. ‘What do you think happened, Elijah?’

Elijah shut his mouth so tightly that he bit his tongue. He focused on the pile of papers that Obi had left on the table beside his laptop computer, which was shining silver.

‘I think that you thought the wizard stabbed Mum. I think that’s what is going on in your head. But I want to tell you now very clearly that there is no wizard. Wizards are simply not real.’

Elijah crumpled in half. He pinched his nose shut completely. Mum rushed over and pulled his hand from his face. ‘It’s OK, Elijah. It’s OK. We can all get through this. Me and Dad love you so, so much and nothing will ever change that. Nothing. You’re home now. You’re safe now. You can make the wizard disappear completely by just not believing in it. It doesn’t exist if you don’t believe in it.’

Wizards are real
, Elijah wanted to shout.

*

On Tuesday, Ricardo came round again. Elijah wasn’t at school because the doctor said he should have two weeks off. Ricardo wore jeans with a rip on the knee. ‘I’m sorry your appointment with Doctor Peters was cancelled last week. I understand you’re going on Monday? Anyway, I’m sorry you
haven’t had the appointment yet because I’m afraid today is going to be a difficult day,’ he said. ‘We’re going to look at a very special book and I need to start telling you a story. It’s a very special story because it’s your story, Elijah – your life story. And I know that you’ve done some life-story work in the past, but this time we’d like to do more. I know you had a special life book at Nargis’s house and that you didn’t want to read it then, which is fine. But now we think it’s very important that you start to read the book with Mum and Dad. Very important.’

Dad’s hand was Elijah’s back and they were sitting on the comfortable sofa. Mum was sitting next to him, the other side, with her arm around him too, on top of Dad’s. Her arm was freezing cold. Even though she was right there next to him, he felt alone.

‘I don’t want to.’

Mum lifted her hand up and stroked his hair. ‘It’s OK,’ she whispered.

‘I know you don’t, Elijah. Nargis told me how you found life-story work very, very difficult. Most children find that it really helps, you know. We’re going to read a little bit. Just a bit. It might help you to stop being scared.’

‘Is it about Mama?’

‘Some of it. But most of it is about you. And most of the time Mum and Dad can read it through with you, but I thought it might be nice if I’m here while we read the first bit. Today we’ll just read through a tiny section of the book and then I’ll tell you any hard words and then we’ll stop. OK?’

Elijah didn’t nod his head but he didn’t shake it either. Ricardo took the book out from his big bag. It was blue plastic on the outside and had stars on the cover. Elijah’s photo was on the front page and he was smiling, but Elijah
remembered that day. Darren had held him down on the ground and pushed his face into the mud and, with his other hand, burnt him behind his ear with a cigarette. Nargis had taken dozens of photos. She had said that some were for his life-story work.

Elijah looked at his life-story book. He turned the front page. At the beginning was a photo of Mama. She had a round tummy and he was inside it. His eyes burnt. He wanted to climb inside that photo and right back inside Mama’s tummy. In the photo, Mama was not smiling and her arm muscles were hard and tight, her legs bent slightly. She looked as if she wanted to run away.

Ricardo turned another page. There was a photo of a man wearing clothes like the clothes that Granddad wore, only the man in the photo was blurred and Granddad was always bright.

Elijah looked up at Dad. He didn’t want to cry, but there was something very sad about the picture of the saxophone that Ricardo must have found and stuck on to the page below Akpan’s photo. His birth father did not look like Dad at all.

‘Your reading is getting very good, but some of the words are super-hard so I will read this next bit out,’ said Ricardo. He looked at Elijah and smiled, but Elijah couldn’t smile back. His heart was stabbing him.

Elijah rocked back and forth. He wanted to close his ears because he knew Mama could keep him safe and he knew Mama loved him. Mama knew that babies needed milk and
cuddles and clean nappies. They had it all wrong. Mama would never ever hurt a baby.

Dad stood up and walked to the window, looked out.

‘Shhh,’ said Mum. She stroked his head and he closed his eyes and he rocked and rocked until he heard Ricardo shut the book.

*

They went to Chioma twice a week, so it felt like Elijah was seeing her all the time. They played with the sand and, when they went to clean it up at the end, Chioma stopped them. ‘Can you leave it, Elijah?’

He looked at her.

‘I can read sand,’ she said. ‘Just like how some people can read tea leaves, I can read sand – it tells me how you are, deep inside your body.’

He looked at the sand. There was nothing different about it. They’d built a few castles and other shapes. But something made him put his hand out and mess it up and the castles were quickly flattened.

‘Elijah!’ Dad shouted. ‘That was silly.’

Chioma didn’t shout. Instead, she said, ‘Also, I’m really good at reading why children do things.’ She smiled. ‘Wow, Elijah, you really don’t want me to see inside your body, do you? You must feel like something very bad is inside you. Ricardo told me how you think there’s a wizard.’

Chioma looked at Elijah. But he didn’t want to talk to her about the wizard.

She didn’t wait too long for him to answer, but opened the door and said, ‘Excellent work today. I’ll see you all next week.’ Mum looked at Dad and they both raised their eyebrows.

*

That evening, they were all together and Elijah was trying not to think about Mama, but she kept popping into his mind like a giant star. He thought of the book that Ricardo had – a book full of reasons he couldn’t live with Mama. It was very hard, but he would do anything to make Mum smile. ‘I will look at it, if you want me too,’ he said.

If only he could make the wizard go away for good. If Mum and Dad sent him away, Mama would never find him. And if he had to live in a children’s home then she’d never be able to live with him. Only children could live in children’s homes. He wanted Mum and Dad to love him again. He wanted to be a good big brother. And, most of all, he needed Mama. Only Mama could save them all from the wizard. He remembered Ricardo telling him that he’d tried to hurt Mum, but he knew it was the wizard that had tried to hurt Mum and his own baby brother or sister. He hated the wizard more than ever. Elijah put his ear to Mum’s round belly and he felt her smile.

She squeezed his back. ‘Knew it would help,’ she said.

Dad nodded. ‘Every week we’ll read a little bit more and it will help you to understand.’

Elijah looked up.

‘What is it?’

Elijah made his tummy hard. ‘Can I go to church with Granddad? I think he will let me.’ He knew that Granddad’s church would be safe. He would pray and pray and try to fight the wizard himself. Maybe he would find a Bishop who would help him cut the wizard out.

Mum and Dad flicked their eyes at each other.

‘You tried going to church with Granddad once before and it just made you even more scared …’ Then Mum’s eyes found Elijah’s. ‘OK, if it will help.’

They listened to the show on the radio about tigers, who
were the biggest and strongest cats in the world. A mum tiger sensed danger and carried the baby tiger in her mouth until it was safe. ‘Tigers must love their babies a lot,’ he said. And Mum pulled him closer and, when she did, the wizard was quiet. It couldn’t even laugh.

Chanel and Jasmin and Daddy came over for lunch. They had stayed away for a while and, apart from speaking to her on the phone, Nikki hadn’t seen Chanel in days. They hugged as if it had been a year.

‘Are you OK?’ Chanel whispered into Nikki’s ear. She nodded. She was OK. They were coming through it. Elijah hadn’t acted out since that awful night. He was still very subdued, but seemed less nervous, and her love for him didn’t feel any different at all. In fact, it felt stronger, as though knowing what he’d been through made her feel even more protective.

Chanel rested her hand on Nikki’s bump and smiled. She turned to Elijah. ‘How are you, little man?’ Chanel handed Elijah a bag. She turned to Nikki. ‘A tracksuit we saw in JD Sports.’

Nikki raised her eyebrows.

‘Thank you, Aunty Chanel,’ said Elijah. His voice was still quiet, but he didn’t look like his face was in pain any more. Slowly but surely he was looking more confident again. His skin was beginning to shine.

‘Can we go and play?’ Jasmin led Elijah by the hand, straight up the stairs, before Nikki had time to open her mouth.

Daddy laughed. ‘Kids, eh?’ He smiled.

‘Game of chess?’ asked Obi. Daddy nodded. He looked at Nikki. ‘Sounds good.’ They sat at the coffee table opposite each other and Obi set out his wooden chess set. Nikki and Chanel disappeared into the kitchen and Nikki put the kettle on for yet more herbal tea. She’d stopped drinking strong coffee as all the books had recommended, but what she wouldn’t do for an espresso!

‘How are you?’ asked Chanel.

‘I’m really OK,’ said Nikki. ‘Really.’ But then she burst into tears and Chanel jumped across to her and held her close. ‘It’s OK.’ Nikki removed herself from Chanel’s hold. ‘I’m just being silly. It was probably just some freak thing that happened and will never happen again; I mean, it was our fault and we’re not going to let it happen again, but it was so scary, Chanel. And what they told us, all that he’s been through …’

Nikki found herself telling Chanel everything: how much she wanted the baby; how Obi had seemed to think all the blame was on her; how, at first, he hadn’t wanted to hold her hand in the hospital and how she needed him now more than ever. And how much she worried about Elijah. She told her what the social workers had said, about what he’d suffered.

‘Acid?’ asked Chanel. Her mouth was open wide. ‘Well, it’s no wonder he’s messed up. In fact, I’m surprised he’s coping this well. Little love!’

Nikki nodded. ‘I know. I hate her,’ she said. ‘His birth mother. Then I start to feel sorry for her. It’s so mixed up. I wish I could only see the good in people. Obi keeps trying to rationalise why she did it—’

‘Why do you think she did it?’

‘Obviously she has quite serious mental-health problems, but it’s more than that. It’s not so important now why she did
what she did, but we need to figure out what to do about it, how to handle things from now. I read Obi’s boring books and we’re following the advice of the social workers and Chioma, but they all contradict what Obi’s dad thinks.’

‘He has weird views about life. You shouldn’t take the advice of a crazy old man over the professionals.’

‘I know, but he is talking sense to me. He says there’s no point telling Elijah that wizards don’t exist, because they do—’

Chanel rolled her eyes. ‘Oh, for God’s sake.’

‘I know it sounds crazy, but he does actually believe in that kind of thing. He says, to dismiss the idea of a belief system, just because it’s alien to us, is to deny identity, and Elijah will never belong unless his identity is accepted.’

‘Well, what does Chioma think?’

‘Chioma says it’s nonsense – we mustn’t indulge his belief in any way or it’ll reinforce his sense of loss and cause further trauma.’

‘That sounds like it makes more sense …’

Nikki sighed. ‘She also thinks that some children are too traumatised to ever be able to live in families. Which is too horrible to even consider.’