Where Women are Kings (3 page)

But Elijah didn’t feel good or safe. His heart was running across him and his stomach had moved. He looked past the orchids and out of the window into the daylight.

Ricardo smiled again but Elijah could see his thoughts. Inside Ricardo’s head he was running fast away, all the way back to Brazil where he could hide from such an evil wizard
in the jungle that had neon-green frogs and spiders as big as a hand and you could keep lizards as pets in your living room.

‘Do you want a biscuit?’ Ricardo reached down into his bag and pulled something out. He waved a packet in the air: custard creams. Ricardo always brought custard creams.

‘Wicked boys don’t eat biscuits,’ Elijah said. He sighed. ‘You don’t believe that I’m evil.’

‘No, I actually know for sure that you’re a good boy. I want to help you, and I can. We’ve got you to a safe place, and I’ve lined up some therapy. Now that you’re settled with Sue and Gary, we can help you properly. Play therapy and art therapy, a nice school for you to start. I want you to see a special lady, Chioma, who helps children just like you. She’s very nice. I think we can all help you, Elijah.’

‘Nobody can help me. Even Mama couldn’t help me.’

After the hospital, where he couldn’t see Mama at all but could hear her howling like a wolf from somewhere far away, they had told him he had to stay with other families for a while. Elijah had stayed with many strange families in many strange houses. At first, when he had moved in with Sue and Gary, he had been allowed to see her three times a week, and she’d held him and whispered into his ear, ‘I love you so much, and I promise everything will turn out well,’ and pulled him close to her body, close enough for him to smell her skin, and everything was strange but bearable. But then the weeks went on and on, and he was waiting and waiting; they told him he had to stay with Sue and Gary for a while. Nobody told him when he could go home with Mama. Not even Ricardo. ‘I want to go home.’

‘I know you do, but it’s our job – my job – to keep you safe. You deserve to be loved and to be safe.’

‘I want to go home. I don’t deserve anything.’

Ricardo opened the biscuits. ‘You deserve so much, Elijah. But why don’t you start with a biscuit, for now?’

I feast on human flesh
. Elijah looked at the packet for a long time before reaching his small hand towards the biscuits, taking one, and putting it into his mouth whole.

Ricardo smiled, the special one. ‘I think you’re making real progress, Elijah. I’m so glad you’re feeling settled enough here to talk about how you feel. And nothing has gone wrong for a long time. You’re doing really well.’

Elijah shrugged back at Ricardo. He wanted to climb on his lap and go to sleep. Once, Ricardo had picked him up and carried him, and Elijah had liked it, the sense that Ricardo might be strong enough to carry a wizard, or even fight a wizard. Maybe Ricardo had special powers too. He felt close to safe. Almost. After Mama, Ricardo had known Elijah the longest in the world.

‘Before we go for our visit today, I have to tell you about your Mama,’ said Ricardo. ‘There’s some things we need to talk about. She’s not doing so well, Elijah, I’m afraid. She’s still being assessed for a while, but we need to talk about the future …’

Elijah ate his biscuit and closed his ears. Being a wizard could sometimes be useful. If he wanted to close his ears, he could, like they had tiny shutters that came down whenever he commanded. He didn’t hear another word that Ricardo said.

*

The contact centre was a low building with windows that didn’t open. There were children’s pictures on the walls next to more notices telling you what to do. Elijah asked Ricardo to tell him what they all said. ‘Nothing exciting,’ he said, but then Elijah made him talk with mind control. Ricardo sighed, then read:

‘In case of fire, assemble in car park.’

‘Please ensure door is closed on way out.’

‘C.C.T.V. in operation.’

Elijah followed Ricardo down the long corridor. Ricardo’s flip-flops that day were green. Sometimes Elijah looked very closely at Ricardo’s toes. His toes were smooth. Mama had hairy toes and so did Sue and Gary. Ricardo must have shaved them. ‘Do you shave your toes?’ Elijah asked.

Ricardo laughed. ‘You’re very funny, Elijah. You make me laugh a lot. That’s such a good skill, to make people laugh.’

Elijah felt his stomach turn when Ricardo said he was good at something. He knew it wasn’t true. He wasn’t really good at anything at all, except evil. They went into a room where there was a table in the middle and two sofas. On the other side of the room there was another door. They sat on a sofa. Elijah tried to see through the door but his eyes were wet. He wondered what Mama would look like today, what she’d be wearing, what she’d whisper into his ear. He felt the wizard push down low inside his body. Whenever Mama was near, the wizard got smaller, like it was scared of Mama.

It had been bearable when he saw Mama regularly, but when the visits became less and less, the wizard flipped around inside him and sometimes did something dangerous, like eat human flesh or cause sickness and misery. Elijah sat up straight and focused on the door without blinking, in case he missed the first look of her. He imagined exactly what she’d say to him:
Little Nigeria, you are the best thing that ever happened to me
, or,
My lovely son, I’ve missed you so much I can barely breathe
.

Ricardo tapped his foot on the carpet. The door they’d entered the room through opened, and the head of an old white man with a beard popped around the corner. ‘Word, please?’

Ricardo looked at Elijah very quickly. ‘Back in a minute, OK?’

Elijah smiled. He might get time on his own with Mama. Maybe they’d let them cuddle, or even take a nap like they used to, tangled up in a ball until it was impossible to move and felt so safe and they both had dreamless sleep. Mama must be waiting the other side of the door. Elijah could smell her: slightly burning plantain and old library books.

He looked at the door and held his breath until small dancing lights filled his head. The other door opened. ‘Elijah,’ said Ricardo, sitting down on the sofa. ‘Mama isn’t here yet, I’m afraid.’

Elijah let out all of his breath in a rush. ‘Where is she?’

‘I’m afraid it’s bad news, Elijah. It doesn’t look like she’ll be coming today.’ Ricardo’s voice sounded full of danger, like it was on a tightrope at the top of a circus tent, walking across very slowly.

‘She will come,’ said Elijah. He felt the wizard laugh inside him, a kind of rumbling in his belly. ‘We just need to wait.’ He started crying and let the tears spill down his face, no longer bothering to try and hold them in. ‘She will come. She probably missed the bus.’

Ricardo pulled Elijah towards him and brushed his face dry with the palm of his hand. ‘I’m sorry, Elijah. I did tell you this might happen.’

‘We need to wait.’ Elijah looked up at Ricardo and into his eyes. ‘Please can we wait?’

Ricardo looked at his watch. ‘We’ll give it ten minutes, OK? But I really think that she won’t make it this time.’

Elijah let Ricardo hold him while he watched the door. He prayed inside his body and inside his head. Open the door! his
insides screamed. Open the door. He used all his powers until he felt empty.

The minutes ticked by and the door remained shut. Elijah became smaller and smaller and the wizard grew. The wizard laughed in Elijah’s ear so loudly Elijah knew Ricardo must have heard it. But Ricardo just loosened his grip on Elijah. ‘We have to go now, Elijah. I’m sorry Mama couldn’t make it. I’m really sorry. She loves you very much.’ Before Ricardo turned his head away and stood up, Elijah saw that Ricardo’s eyes were wet. ‘We better go before they kick us out,’ said Ricardo.

But Elijah couldn’t move. He just looked and looked at the closed door.

*

That night, it was so dark when Elijah woke up that he felt dead. He had to move his fingers and toes to know he was still alive. Elijah died once, the first night he had been away from Mama. He was so dead then that he couldn’t move anything. Not even one toe. Being dead was like living inside a dream. Only some things were real, but you didn’t know which ones.

It was quiet, but not too quiet. Elijah heard the snoring of Gary. Gary snored loudly and, before Gary, Marie never snored and, when Elijah stayed with Linda and Pete, Pete snored in bursts and then it went terrifyingly quiet, like Pete was dead, but then a sudden snore would come and Elijah knew he was all right, which was good because he liked Pete. He liked Pete so much he’d put a force field around the house to protect him from evil spirits. Before Pete and Linda’s was Olu’s house and, even though Olu’s son, Fola, was only fourteen, he snored the loudest of all.

Listening to Gary snoring made Elijah think about all the other snores he’d heard in his life. He tried to focus really
hard on the sound but he felt the badness inside him come alive like the snoring was waking it up. He felt the wizard grow bigger and bigger until he couldn’t hold it down any more and the feeling made everything close in like the world was folding in half. He felt the wizard inside him wanting to get out. He knew the wizard would use its powers for evil but he had no fight left.

Creeping out of little boys’ skins took a lot of effort, even for experienced wizards. First, it had to push Elijah’s insides far down until it could sneak up his back. Then it moved itself up towards Elijah’s head. When it was nearly there, it had to look for the nose or ear. Then was the tricky bit: getting itself really small – small enough to fit through a nostril. It pressed and pushed through and then it was free.

Elijah could feel the wizard crawling out of him and flying around the room, faster and faster. He shut his eyes tight and tried to keep them closed but something forced them open. He could hear the wizard slithering out of the door then swooping down the stairs. Elijah’s heart was thumping like it was trying to get out. He thought of Sue and Gary asleep, and forced his legs to swing out of bed. Elijah walked down the stairs as quietly as possible with his thumping heart. The kitchen was quiet except for his heart and the clock, and everything was locked and closed. Even the fridge had a small lock on it. There was a sink with a washcloth hanging over the tap, the brightest yellow colour of the sun in Nigeria.

The wizard climbed back inside Elijah and filled him up until his stomach burnt and twisted. It picked up the dishcloth with Elijah’s mind and made the cloth dance in the air. It danced all over the kitchen and above the cooker. The wizard liked making people sick and angry and mad. It liked the smell of things on fire. The cooker had tiny buttons on
the side that Sue used to turn on the fire. Elijah had seen her do it. She cooked pasta for him sometimes, which was not so bad as swede, and she turned the buttons and fire appeared. ‘Don’t go near the oven,’ she said, ‘it’s dangerous.’ But it wasn’t dangerous for the wizard. The wizard was laughing and Elijah was crying and crying. It felt like a belt on his tummy was pulling too tight. The wizard was squeezing. The fire made a sound like
puff!
and a tiny corner of the cloth started to turn black. Then there was orange on yellow. Elijah wanted to close his eyes and lie down and cry and cry, but the wizard didn’t let him. It made him watch as the fire grew and grew. He watched the sun burning hot, and the fire rising and running, and the cupboards melting.

‘Right, now this is going to be a challenge for some of you, but it’s very important we can talk about loss in an open way, in order that we are comfortable talking with our children about their losses surrounding the adoption process.’

Nikki found herself closing her eyes. She felt Obi’s arm against hers stiffen. His leg twitched. They were sitting on plastic chairs, set out in a circle. A circle of childless couples, thought Nikki, and pushed her leg towards Obi’s.

‘I’m going to come around the room with this marker pen and clipboard, and I’d like you to list all the losses you’ve experienced – particularly in the last ten years, as time is ticking on –’ the social worker flicked his head towards the clock – ‘in chronological order.’

A couple to Nikki’s right put their hands up at the same time, then laughed. ‘We just have a few questions,’ they said, also in unison.

‘Yes? What is it, Sandra and Chris? It’s good that you feel able to ask any questions, and that you’re comfortable within the group to do that.’

‘Do we list every loss? Sometimes Chris loses his keys, for example, or his temper. Or is it only major losses that we should write down? I mean, sometimes it does get him down, losing his keys.’

Everyone in the room tutted and shook their heads, except Obi, who Nikki could feel holding in laughter. She pressed his leg with hers. If he laughed out loud, she’d kill him. His laughter had always got them into trouble.

But he didn’t laugh. Instead, the social worker, whose name was Ricardo, started laughing loudly. Then he coughed and pressed his mouth closed. ‘Well, we like to leave it open to how it affected you,’ he said. ‘If you consider it a major loss, regardless of the cause, then write it down. Whatever led you to the adoption process.’ He looked at the clock again, then clapped his hands. ‘Right, let’s get started; we have fifteen minutes before moving on to resolution.’

As Ricardo moved around the room, handing out marker pens, he hovered in front of Obi and Nikki until his aftershave filled the air between them and Obi coughed. Ricardo wore a pair of jeans and flip-flops, and a checked shirt with four undone buttons. There were two strings of beads around his neck. What was it about social workers that they had to dress like teenagers? And they were always late. Since starting the assessment process, Ricardo had been late every visit. Once he had not turned up, and e-mailed two days later to send his apologies and explain that he was on a last-minute holiday.
Very good offer – too cheap to miss
. Obi wanted to ask for a different social worker, but Nikki managed to talk him out of it. ‘They’re probably all the same, anyway,’ she’d said, but really, she liked Ricardo and felt relaxed around him. He was simply normal – like someone they’d have a drink with in the pub: friendly and unassuming, a normal, everyday man who made her feel relaxed enough to talk about the most private things, or the very worst of things. Perhaps that was a prerequisite for social workers – like hairdressers or taxi drivers – they had to be able to win trust, to get people
talking to them, spilling their problems out in public. She had reminded Obi that the social workers were a means to an end. ‘He’s just doing a job. A very stressful job. There’s a child at the end of this,’ she’d said. ‘Or a baby.’