Where Women are Kings (29 page)

Chanel smiled. ‘But you can take advice from both of them, you know? Make your own mind up. Take the professional advice from Chioma about how to deal with things, and take the optimism from Obi’s dad. I’m sure, along with his crazy beliefs, Obi’s dad also thinks that any child can be helped at any point – which I agree with. He’s so idealistic. That’s where Obi gets it from.’

Nikki laughed. ‘Obi
is
the same. They’re so kind, both of them. And Chioma, even though I wish she’d stop saying that families aren’t the right setting for all children.’

‘You do see the good in people,’ said Chanel. ‘You always have.’

Loud laughter came from the other room. They followed the noise to the living room where Daddy was dancing and shouting, ‘Checkmate! Checkmate! You may be younger, but I am far more intelligent. My brain cells are still pretty quick.’

Elijah and Jasmin ran down the stairs. Jasmin giggled really loudly and danced around with Daddy shouting, ‘Checkmate!’ then ‘Loser! Loser!’ to Obi.

‘Jasmin!’ shouted Chanel. ‘Stop being rude.’

Elijah was quiet. He sat down next to Obi, but Nikki thought she could see the corner of a smile appearing on his face.

*

Things were somehow getting a tiny bit easier for Nikki. She stopped feeling so scared. She’d hidden anything that could be harmful. Her cooking knives were in the highest cupboard, and locked away. Even though she barely slept because the skin across her stomach felt like it was going to split and her back was probably broken, these things were just part of having a healthy baby and, when she woke in the morning, her first thought was Elijah. Elijah crept into their bed that morning and snuggled up towards her and her ever-increasing bump, and Nikki couldn’t stop smiling. Obi turned over and threw his arm around her and Elijah, and the baby had kicked her so hard that Obi’s hand had slipped and he’d laughed and pulled them all closer together.

‘We’re seeing Ricardo today again,’ said Nikki. ‘I really think it’s helping. What do you think?’

Elijah nodded. He moved closer to her. His skin was so soft and warm.

Nikki kissed his head. She felt so tired. She wanted to travel back in time and have Elijah grow inside her, too, and give birth to him and make sure no one ever, ever hurt her son. ‘I’m glad,’ she said. ‘I’m so glad. Do you think you might be ready to talk about the wizard now?’

Elijah looked up at her. ‘I never ever would hurt you, Mum,’ he said. ‘Will you still love me when the baby comes?’

‘We’ll love you forever,’ she said. She looked at his face, his skinny arms, the way his chest dipped a tiny bit in the middle. He looked like a child who’d swallowed the goodness of the world, not one who was filled with horror.

As she showered, the baby kicked her and she could make out a tiny foot just below her ribs.

Little heart,

There were years in the middle that I hardly remember and that I find hard to write about, even to you, Elijah. I always said that there should be no secrets between us, but now I know that life is full of secrets we don’t even tell ourselves. The words on this page make no sense to me now.

The years passed, Elijah, with me scraping money for the Bishop. At first, it was all the money I’d been saving for the trip home to Nigeria. Akpan and I had saved as much as we could, but Bishop had it all. Then I was borrowing from neighbours, claiming benefits, even begging so that he could continue doing his best to get that stubborn wizard out of your body. There was no longer any chance of returning to Nigeria. After the acid bath, I thought the wizard had gone. You clung to me for the entire time it took for the skin on your little feet to grow back. But, as soon as your body healed, my dreams returned. The spinning. The insects. Bishop said the wizard was killing you, and I spent every night praying that you would be spared, that the wizard would leave your body and you’d return to me once more a small boy, my little son, my love.

Bishop preached every Sunday, his congregation increasing every week and his reputation growing as a saviour of
souls. People visited the flat – official-looking people. First midwives, then health visitors, then social workers, mental-health workers. But none of them could help with a wizard living in a boy. This was a Nigerian problem, and only a Nigerian solution would do. Everyone knows that if a spider bites you in a forest then the only place you will find an antidote is that same forest. But, even with the Bishop’s help, things became worse and worse, and there was still no sign that the wizard would leave us. You were five years old when things became worse than ever. You had started talking at three, copying the words I said to you, but then you became a quiet boy, unusually quiet. Sometimes you sang, but it wasn’t nursery rhymes that I recognised, but a strange low humming sound that made the whole world feel sad. I knew you were in there, Elijah; my sad boy, wanting to get out. I knew that deep down you were still there.

‘Mama,’ you said one day. ‘Mama, can I go to school?’

You had seen the children outside the window walking along the path with their hair neat and their schoolbags swinging. I wanted you to go to school so desperately, Elijah, but you were too sick to send outside. Too full of wizard. And the red car was there following us, or parked outside our flat. The health visitor and social workers were calling more and more often. I pretended to be out. But then, once, they found me in. It was a lady who had a face the same shape as a horse, and I couldn’t hear her very well but she said she was going to hold a child-protection meeting as she had a few concerns, and that they had spoken to my neighbours, who also had concerns. It was not true! She smiled at you across the room and asked if you were OK, and what activities you liked to do. You looked at me with sad eyes, Elijah, and looked back at the woman. ‘I like to be with Mama,’ you said.

When she left, I ran all the way to church and fell on to my knees in front of the Bishop. But, instead of helping me up, of helping us, he looked around and then stepped backwards. ‘I think you need to see someone else,’ he said. ‘Join another church. I cannot help you.’

I stood and looked at the Bishop with my face full of tears. God spoke through him. God couldn’t help us. The devil was winning. When we returned home, Elijah, I held your arms close to your body and looked straight inside your face. ‘You are a wizard, aren’t you? You are full with wizard.’

You looked at me for the longest time, and then you spoke, your voice soft and clear. ‘I’ll be a wizard if you want me to, Mama.’

I could see in your eyes the tricks you were using, that the wizard was using to kill you, and to kill us. I knew the wizard was winning then.

The moment when I woke in the mornings, when everything was quiet, even my heart, was my favourite time of day. I let my head travel backwards to my warm Nigeria, with my smiling sisters and the courtyard with my mummy cooking or wiping her shining pots. But something always snapped me back – back to the cold flat, with no money for the electric machine. I could see you were pale, and losing even more weight. You looked at me with knowing eyes. I could see badness in them. The devil himself. The red car parked underneath the balcony every night and I knew they would take you forever. The way your mouth curled slightly at the edges, like a secret half-told … You grew like a weed … You spoke hardly any words … Some days, you simply sat in your bed and rocked back and forth until it was time to lie down once more. I tried not to watch you. I focused on praying and praying and, when you were well enough,
you joined me, both of us praying and praying. But nothing changed. The terrible dreams continued.

I had to do something. Elijah, the depression had taken hold of me for so long I could barely stand up; but, with the strength you gave me, I found the courage from somewhere. I imagined another life for us, and the image of that – of us in Nigeria, where we were meant to be – well, that image broke through real life and stood me up. I didn’t need the Bishop any more. I didn’t even need to be in the church. God spoke directly to me, anyway, telling me I was his special angel and he could help me save you from the evil inside. I had seen the treatment of witches and wizards and sorcerers. I knew that pastors at home would beat the wizard out, or burn it out, or poison it out. I had tried the special medicine with you, but it hadn’t worked. The wizard was killing you. Soon, there would be none of my son left at all. I had to act. I suddenly knew what I had to do. You told me. The voices told me. God’s voice. I could hear God’s voice above all others:

The wizard is killing him. Only you can save his life
.

I looked at your small body. My son, my little heart. I would have taken my own life if I thought it would help save yours. I knew with such clarity what the Bishop would have me do, what I could do. I was your mother. I knew you better than I knew life itself. I was a committed Christian and I could pray and act. Akpan had left his screwdriver in the drawer. He was forever fixing things – small things, only. I remembered Akpan, your baba, so fondly, even though by then he’d been gone and dead for years too long. I looked at you, picked you up in my arms. You looked back at me, slowly blinking. ‘Are you in there, Elijah? Mama is coming to save you.’

I had to release the wizard.

The screwdriver was tiny, really. Meant for delicate things. Small things.

Your head bent backwards and your eyes did not open. ‘Elijah!’ I shouted. ‘Elijah!’ You began to shake. Shakes on shakes, like a woman who had just given birth. Then you stopped suddenly and were too still. ‘Elijah! Elijah!’

There was no sign of wickedness, no sign of wizard or evil. The room was so quiet I could have heard a pin. Your skin was grey, like the outside sky. Like a pigeon.

At first I thought you were dead, the wizard had killed you, and I was getting ready to kill myself. A pot of tablets flashed in front of my mind; I heard them shouting for me. I would eat them all. But then you moaned, a sound like a dog that had been kicked, and I knew that God was with me. God had not forsaken me. You might live.

I grabbed the sheet from the bed and wrapped you tightly, held you close enough that I could feel if you were breathing. You needed a doctor, I knew. But the spinning and the voices, the men and the dogs … How would I take you all the way to the hospital? It was far – the nearest in Lewisham, and a bus ride away. I had no money for the bus. I felt you sucking air from me to you. ‘Shut up!’ I screamed to the voice in my ear.
The wizard has killed him. The wizard has killed your son. You have killed your son. You
.

‘Shut up!’

God, lead me to the hospital and a doctor who can help my son, I prayed. He is nearly dead from the wizard and he needs Your help. Please, Jesus, let me take him to safety. I prayed for what seemed like hours. My hands were numb when I took them apart.

I prayed all the way down the stairwell, which was moving sideways. I prayed all the way past those men who saw you
and stopped whistling, then laughed hard. I prayed all the way to the main street, where I stopped a white man in a red car and screamed, showed him my grey Elijah. The red car.

He drove me all the way to Lewisham accident department and I prayed all the way, while he swore. ‘Fucking hell! Fucking traffic, get out of the way! There’s a sick kid in here! Fucking hell, lady, you should have phoned an ambulance! God, if that kid dies in my car … Fuck!’

The staff ran out as soon as the man got out of the car and shouted, ‘Help! We need some help! Emergency!’ Nurses with blue pyjamas, doctors wearing shirts and stethoscopes around their necks, all running to pull you from me, run you inside.

I ran and shouted to God. ‘Please, Jesus, let my child live! Let him, oh dear Jesus! God, let this boy live!’

They ran into a room full of machines and took the sheet off your body until you were naked. ‘He will be too cold! He is too cold! Jesus! Heavens! Give him a blanket! Please, give him a blanket! Nobody would give him a blanket, you see, and that’s why he nearly died. He was so cold. So cold.’

I prayed and prayed, Elijah. Later, I heard them in the small office next to me. They were meeting, a lot of women who looked the same: white, horse-shaped faces, coloured-beaded necklaces, ugly shoes. I watched them walk into the room, one after the other, carrying steaming drinks in front of them. I recognised one of them. ‘There is some concern about the old burn on his head,’ one said. ‘Other old injuries. We need to do a full skeletal survey.’ The wall was very thin and a gap in the door meant every word floated right out, even though someone had written
Confidential meeting in progress
on a piece of white paper and stuck it on the door. The ward was empty of parents, except for me. It was quiet time, as if the
children had any other time. They were all so sick that every minute was quiet. Too quiet. I could only hear the beep of the machines and the women’s confidential voices.

‘Do you think it’s one of those spiritual-healing things? I keep hearing more and more about it. So awful. Not that that’s definitely what’s going on here.’

‘Yes, I agree. It’s tricky, though, as it’s one of those practices that’s culturally normal. We need to be particularly sensitive to that. We can’t know that’s what this is. It may have been some sort of cupping.’

‘Isn’t cupping Chinese?’

‘I’ve had some experience of this kind of thing before. I mean, look at Climbié. And there was the headless torso, thrown into the Thames. That was some kind of black magic – ritual abuse, wasn’t it?’

‘That was the foster family. And this is the birth mother. Also, it’s very different, taking into account the birth mother’s mental state. This is not really about the church and cultural beliefs, much more about the mental-health issues.’

‘Which make the birth mother vulnerable …’

‘Well, we need to be so careful how we present it, and make sure we’re fully aware of cultural norms.’

‘Child abuse is child abuse.’

‘Agreed; but we can’t separate the family from their culture. We need to be sensitive. Anyway, did you see Margaret last week? You know she’s moved to Tunbridge Wells. Right by my house – well, a short drive away. Her daughter’s passed the eleven-plus to get into Tonbridge Grammar School. She’s so delighted. All those school fees and tuition finally paying off!’