Everything Good Will Come (2 page)

Akanni must have thought he was Muhammad Ali. He
was shadow boxing around Bisi. “What's my name? What's
my name?” Bisi lunged forward and slapped his face. He
reached for her collar and ripped her blouse. “My bress? My
bress?” She spat in his face and grabbed the gold chain around
his neck. They both crashed into the dust and didn't stop
kicking till Baba lay flat out on the ground. “No more,” he
said. “No more, I beg of you.”

Most days were not that exciting. And I was beginning to
get bored of the wait when, two weeks to the end of the
vacation, everything changed. It was the third Sunday of
September 1971, late in the afternoon. I was playing with my
catapult when I mistakenly struck Baba as he was trimming
the lawn. He chased after me with his machete and I ran into
the barbed wire fence, snagging my sleeve. Yoruba tradition
has us believe that Nature heralds the beginning of a person's
transition: to life, adulthood, and death. A rooster's crow,
sudden rainfall, a full moon, seasonal changes. I had no such
salutations as I remember it.

“Serves you right,” came a girl's voice.

A nose appeared between the wide gap in the fence,
followed by a brown eye. I freed my sleeve from the barbed
wire fence and rubbed my elbow.

“For running around like that,” she said. “With no head
or tail. It serves you right that you got chooked.”

She looked nothing like the Bakare children who lived
next door. I'd seen them through the wide gap in our fence
and they were as dark as me; younger, too. Their father had
two wives who organized outdoor cooking jamborees. They
always looked pregnant, and so did he in his flowing robes. He
was known as Engineer Bakare. He was Uncle Fatai's friend
and Uncle Fatai called him Alhaji Bakare, because he'd been
on pilgrimage to Mecca. To us he was Chief Bakare. He threw
a huge party after his chieftancy ceremony last year and no
one could sleep that night for the sound of his juju band
badabooming through our walls. Typical Lagos people, my
father said. They made merry till they dropped, or until their
neighbors did.

“I'm Sheri,” she said, as if I'd asked for her name.

“I've never seen you before,” I said.

“So?”

She had a sharp mouth, I thought, as she burst into
giggles.

“Can I come to your house?” she asked.

I glanced around the yard, because my mother didn't
want me playing with the Bakare children.

“Come.”

I was bored. I waited by the barbed wire fence, forgot
about my torn sleeve, even about Baba who had chased me.
He, apparently, had forgotten me too, because he was cutting
grass by the other fence. Minutes later, she walked in. Just as
I thought, she was a half-caste. She wore a pink skirt and her white top ended just above her navel. With her short afro,
her face looked like a sunflower. I noticed she wore pink
lipstick.

“How old are you?”I accused.

“Eleven,” she said.

“Me too.”

“Eh? Small girl like you?” she said.

At least I was a decent eleven-year-old. She barely
reached my shoulders, even in her high heel shoes. I told her
my birthday was next January, but she said I was still her
junior. Her birthday was two months earlier, in November.
“I'm older, I'm senior. Don't you know? That's how it is. My
younger brothers and sisters call me Sister Sheri at home.”

“I don't believe you.”

“It's true,” she said.

Breeze rustled through the hibiscus patch. She eyed me
up and down.

“Did you see the executions on television last night?”

“What executions?”

“The armed robbers.”

“No.”

I was not allowed to watch; my father was against capital
punishment.

She smiled. “Ah, it was good. They shot them on the
beach. Tied them, covered their eyes. One, two, three.”

“Dead?”

“Pafuka,”
she said and dropped her head to one side. I
imagined the scene on the beach where public executions
were held. The photographs usually showed up in the
newspapers a day later.

“Where is your mother from?” I asked.

“England.”

“Does she live there?”

“She's dead.”

She spoke as if telling the time: three o'clock sharp, four o'clock dead. Didn't she care? I felt ashamed about my
brother's death, as if I had a bad leg that people could tease
me about.

“
Yei
,” she exclaimed. She'd spotted a circus of flying fish
on the lagoon. I, too, watched them flipping over and diving
in. They rarely surfaced from the water. They disappeared and
the water was still again.

“Do you have brothers and sisters?” she asked.

“Nope.”

“You must be spoiled rotten.”

“No, I'm not.”

“Yes, you are. Yes, you are. I can see it in your face.”

She spun around and began to boast. She was the oldest
of the Bakare children. She had seven brothers and sisters.
She would be starting boarding school in two weeks, in
another city, and she...

“I got into Royal College,” I said, to shut her up.

“Eyack! It's all girls!”

“It's still the best school in Lagos.”

“All girls is boring.”

“Depends how you look at it,” I said, quoting my father.

Through the fence we heard Akanni's juju music. Sheri
stuck her bottom out and began to wriggle. She dived lower
and wormed up.

“You like juju music?” I asked.

“Yep. Me and my grandma, we dance to it.”

“You dance with your grandma?”

“I live with her.”

The only grandparent I'd known was my father's mother,
who was now dead, and she scared me because of the grayish-white
films across her pupils. My mother said she got them
from her wickedness. The music stopped.

“These flowers are nice,” Sheri said, contemplating them
as she might an array of chocolates. She plucked one of them
and planted it behind her ear.

“Is it pretty?”

I nodded. She looked for more and began to pick them
one by one. Soon she had five hibiscus in her hair. She picked
her sixth as we heard a cry from across the yard. Baba was
charging toward us with his machete in the air. “You! Get
away from there!”

Sheri caught sight of him and screamed. We ran round
the side of the house and hobbled over the gravel on the front
drive.

“Who was that?” Sheri asked, rubbing her chest.

I took short breaths. “Our gardener.”

“I'm afraid of him.”

“Baba can't do anything. He likes to scare people.”

She sucked her teeth. “Look at his legs crooked as crab's,
his lips red as a monkey's bottom.”

We rolled around the gravel. The hibiscus toppled out of
Sheri's afro and she kicked her legs about, relishing her
laughter and prolonging mine. She recovered first and wiped
her eyes with her fingers.

“Do you have a best friend?” she asked.

“No.”

“Then, I will be your best friend.” She patted her chest. “Every day, until we go to school.”

“I can only play on Sundays,” I said.

My mother would drive her out if she ever saw her.

She shrugged. “Next Sunday then. Come to my house if
you like.”

“All right,” I said.

Who would know? She was funny, and she was also rude,
but that was probably because she had no home training.

She yelled from our gates. “I'll call you
aburo
, little sister,
from now on. And I'll beat you at ten-ten, wait and see.”

It's a stupid game, I was about to say, but she'd
disappeared behind the cement column. Didn't anyone tell
her she couldn't wear high heels? Lipstick? Any of that? Where was her respect for an old man like Baba? She was the
spoiled one. Sharp mouth and all.

Baba was raking the grass when I returned to the back yard.

“I'm going to tell your mother about her,” he said.

I stamped my foot in frustration. “But she's my friend.”

“How can she be your friend? You've just met her, and
your mother does not know her.”

“She doesn't have to know her.”

I'd known him all my life. How could he tell? He made a
face as if the memory of Sheri had left a bad taste in his
mouth. “Your mother will not like that one.”

“Please, don't tell. Please.”

I knelt and pressed my palms together. It was my best
trick ever to wear him out.

“All right,” he said. “But I must not see you or her
anywhere near those flowers again.”

“Never,” I said, scrambling to my feet. “See? I'm going
inside. You won't find me near them.”

I walked backward into the house. Baba's legs really were
like crab's, I thought, scurrying through the living room.
Then I bumped my shin on the corner of a chair and hopped
the rest of the way to my bedroom. God was already
punishing me.

My suitcase was under my bed. It was a fake leather one,
large enough to accommodate me if I curled up tight, but now
it was full. I dragged it out. I had two weeks to go before
leaving home, and had started packing the contents a month
early: a mosquito net, bed sheets, flip-flops, a flashlight. The
props for my make-believe television adverts: bathing soap,
toothpaste, a bag of sanitary towels. I wondered what I would
do with those.

As I stood before my mirror, I traced the grooves around
my plaits. Sheri's afro was so fluffy, it moved as she talked. I
grabbed a comb from my table and began to undo my plaits.
My arms ached by the time I finished and my hair flopped
over my face. From my top drawer, I took a red marker and
painted my lips. At least my cheeks were smooth, unlike hers.
She had a spray of rashes and was so fair-skinned. People her
color got called “Yellow Pawpaw” or “Yellow Banana” in
school.

In school you were teased for being yellow or fat; for
being Moslem or for being dumb; for stuttering or wearing a
bra and for being Igbo, because it meant that you were
Biafran or knew people who were. I was painting my finger
nails with the marker pen, recalling other teasable offenses,
when my mother walked in. She was wearing her white
church gown.

“You're here?” she said.

“Yes,” I said.

In her church gowns I always thought my mother
resembled a column. She stood tall and squared her
shoulders, even as a child, she said. She would not play rough,
or slump around, so why did I? Her question often prompted
me to walk with my back straight until I forgot.

“I thought you would be outside,” she said.

I patted my hair down. Her own hair was in two neat
cornrows and she narrowed her eyes as if there were sunlight
in my room.

“Ah-ah? What is this? You're wearing lipstick?”

I placed my pen down, more embarrassed than scared.

She beckoned. “Let me see.”

Her voice softened when she saw the red ink. “You
shouldn't be coloring your mouth at your age. I see you're also
packing your suitcase again. Maybe you're ready to leave this
house.”

My gaze reached the ceiling.

“Where is your father?”

“I don't know.”

“Did he say when he will be back?”

“No.”

She surveyed the rest of my room. “Clean this place up.”

“Yes, Mummy.”

“And come and help me in the kitchen afterward. I want
to speak to you later on tonight. Make sure you wash your
mouth before you come.”

I pretended to be preoccupied with the contents of my
dressing table until she left. Using a pair of scissors, I scraped
the red ink from my nails. What did she want to speak to me
about? Baba couldn't have told.