Reading the Ceiling (22 page)

As well as supervising the Mothers' Union, Mrs Acheampong is also on the rota for recording amounts given during the Sunday offering. Two wooden bowls come out of her accommodating bag, one lying within the other. ‘I brought them with me. Look, this is what I usually do.' She plonks one bowl on the table. It has a large stone in it, the kind we pick up from the beach to scrub hardened heels with.

‘The stone keeps the notes down while I count.' The other bowl is thunked down onto what is now a crowded side table, still cluttered with our mugs, teaspoons and a jar of sugar.

‘Usually, I sort it out into piles of notes. I'd finished counting the twenty-fives and the tens. The total was five hundred dalasi. There were ten twenty-fives and twenty-five tens. I remember thinking how unusual this was.'

She has been clutching her patent bag hard, and now as she moves to put it down on the ground by her feet, I see her palm prints, foggy imprints of sweat on the shine.

‘Five hundred dalasis. That's what's gone missing. I was sure I'd locked the front door of the church so I walked up to check it was closed. By the time I got back to the vestry, the counted pile of notes had disappeared. Now, who would do such a thing? Whatever is the world coming to, when someone –' and here she pauses midsentence, as Foday makes his way down the steps, holding a tall glass from our wedding gift collection, beaded with ice sweat.

‘Oh thank you. And God save us all. What will the Bishop say?' Mrs Acheampong concludes, after draining the glass.

‘Like I said, we'll discuss it here first, among ourselves. We should avoid getting the Bishop involved, until necessary. If we agree on how to count the collection from now on, I think we can make sure this doesn't happen again.' Foday tries to bring the impromptu visit to a close: ‘You can leave the rest of the collection here today. Do you know how much of it is left now?'

‘Yes, oh, yes. Before I came round I counted it over and over again to check that I hadn't gone wrong. The five- and one-dalasi notes come to a total of three hundred and eighty-one, and the coins add up to thirty-two dalasi and fifty bututs. Nine hundred and thirteen dalasi – that would have been such a cheerful collection announcement in church next week.'

‘Never mind, it wasn't your fault. Let me walk you to your car. We can discuss this in the week.'

What I start to suspect becomes a band of anxiety, tight against my chest. My bra digs into my ribs and starts to rub off skin.

‘It's all my fault,' I begin, when Foday comes back. ‘I think we got off to a bad start yesterday. I have no idea how to be a stepmother.'

‘I doubt it's you, Dele. As far as Sira's concerned, she wants to teach me a lesson. I asked her to go to church this morning, and she behaved as if it was an order.' Foday stares away from me, looking out to where the Atlantic is unconcernedly blinking its blue, tossing its froth, sliding its water. ‘She did it to show me she does not conform with grace. And the thing is, she's old enough to know how to live life the way she wants to. I don't see how I could have done it different. It's not you.'

‘How can I hel–' I start, but he doesn't let me finish. He shakes his head, willing me to stop, asking me to leave him alone. During the night, a dust storm blows, heaving fine particles all the way from the Sahara, and depositing it in a layer on our dining room table.

As the week progresses, seismic undercurrents shift our emotions this way and that. Rumours reach my ears, via Radio CanCan, as Aunt Kiki used to say.

Mothers' Union meets on Tuesdays, so the first hint I have is when Beti Bright comes to say hello. She'd found Mrs Acheampong and two of her closest allies in hot consultation in the vestry. She waited outside the door for a few minutes and heard parts of the conversation. She hadn't quite dared to go in and display the crocheted table mats she'd made for next week's bring-and-buy sale.

‘Look, I'll show you them,' Beti offers.

She puts a crumpled blue plastic bag on the dining table. She's made five mats from white cotton circles, and added on bubbly crocheted stitches for edging.

‘Look,' she says, ‘I'm on the last one. I was aiming for a set of six.'

‘They are lovely.' I pause, just long enough to signal a change of topic. ‘And you were saying? About what happened in the vestry?'

‘Oh, well, I didn't go in. You're the first person I'm showing the mats. They weren't whispering, you know. The door wasn't closed. But they did not see me.'

I know what's coming even before I hear it. Not the specifics of course, but the intent, the purpose, the gossip.

‘Mrs Acheampong's voice was especially loud, but her friends also had things to say.'

As she catches sight of my head, stiffly inclined towards her, she shifts the chair, which eeks a screech on the concrete. My eyes hardly blink.

‘Oh, none of the things they said were especially bad,' she soothes. ‘But I know you are new here, and these things can worry.'

‘Hmm.'

‘They were saying things like: “Those poor children”, “Of course she doesn't know how to handle them”. I mean, they meant you don't know how to handle them. They said Foday's children are “going wild”. And that you have said you're not sure you're a Christian. One of them said “not even believing in God” yet “daring to be a preacher's wife”.'

She stops to catch her breath. ‘I also heard something about your trouser suit – they didn't like you wearing one to church on a communion Sunday.'

The next day, Wednesday, Sira is supposed to be in school. When I pop my head round her bedroom door, the backpack she carries with her is not there. I assume she's left with her brother or sister. It's not until much later in the morning, when I go into the back garden to pick some chillies, that I notice the drift of a sharp- sweet, singed-oil smell. Thinking it odd, I gather a handful of finger-thick chillis and return to the kitchen to drop them into the catfish and onion casserole.

I start to worry when Debba comes in, late afternoon, without her sister in tow.

‘Where is Sira?'

‘I don't know. I didn't see her at school and she was still in bed when I left this morning. I had to go in early to check a chemistry experiment.'

‘Where could she . . .'

The memory of the tangy air. I know exactly where she is and what she's been doing all day. Skiving off school to sit in the tree- house their father built for them. Smoking
jamba
. Unspeakable cheek.

‘Come with me,' I say, with a knot of anger in me, sprinkled with granules of apprehension.

Back in the garden, we make our way towards the mango tree. Looking up, I notice a leg hanging over one edge of the wooden platform. There is no ladder. I have to climb. My rage has doubled in volume. I grasp the tree's rough bark and angle a foothold into the Y formed by the branches. I heave myself up and look for the next foothold.

‘Please, Aunt Dele,' begins Debba. ‘Let me go up, let me speak to her.'

I concede my place, and when I get back to the ground, I find my hands are trembling. I hear the murmur of Debba's voice when she reaches the platform: ‘Sira, Sira, wake up.'

I make my way back into the house. I cannot wait to hear more.

‘I'm sorry, it's harder than I thought. I don't know how to talk to you about her. Or how to be with them. I'm not sure why I ever thought I'd fit into a readymade family.'

Foday and I are in our bedroom. I've been crying while Sira has been sitting sullenly in the sitting room, defiance wiring her eyes, curling her toes under the chair cushion, setting her shoulders in utter lack of shame.

‘Well, you've never had children to care for so it's not surprising it's hard.'

‘I've been a child. I've grown through it all. I remember how it feels – surely that should be enough.'

‘But being a parent, . . .' he starts.

‘Godammit,' I say, not letting him finish. ‘I'm
trying
.'

‘You cannot take God's name in vain while you are living under his roof,' Foday's voice is loud, with a grumble and a roar in it.

I tut. ‘My, my, getting all Moses-like are we?'

This stops him in his rage, and his mouth opens but no words come out. He closes it and swallows, and his Adam's apple moves slowly up and down as if a mole is trying to poke its head through his throat.

His eyes meet mine, and then immediately flicker to the window.

A wind puffs out the striped curtain I put up a month ago. Beyond I can see the edge of the day's sun slipping below a line the ocean has slashed against the sky. The water reflects streaks of orange light, holding broken bits of the last of the sunlight as it fades away.

‘I am sorry,' I say. And the curtain slowly flutters down.

In a way it works the way I wanted it to. He picks us up from the disco and I insist I need to collect my sports kit from her house. So she stays and we are alone. I know it's time to go home, I say, but I'm not really tired. He says, do you want to go for a drive along the beach road. Good idea, I reply. A few beers to take with us, he says. He stops by a roadside bar, carefully parking the car in the deepest of shadows. And then, with windows down, we drive way past the last of the hotels, where the cliffs dampen down to a sandy beach and the sound of the sea becomes a slush rather than a crash.

I have one extra beer. It is cramped in the back seat. He's as eager as a teenage boy and very sweaty. I can no longer dictate what he does with me. No time to take the condom out. He grunts and moves my legs this way and that. After, a bit of silence in which we rearrange our clothes and he clears his throat. It's late, I should take you home, he says.

I lean my head against the door jamb and pretend to fall asleep while all of me screams:
Is that it?
At our gate I say goodnight and he says take care.

Our watchman lets me in. I could walk straight into the house. Or maybe I could continue in the vein of what I've started tonight. Target. Entice. And see what happens, eh?

The next few months pass in mute. Most of us get ready to go away. I'm allocated a Senegalese scholarship to Dakar, not the British one I'd wanted. My induction year attempts to teach me enough French to understand the lectures for my degree in African and Development Studies. Living in Dakar feels like living in a proper city, large enough so no one knows me. But all around me there are signs of home – the indignation of street beggars at being forced off the pavement, boiled groundnuts and roasted maize with frozen tubes of baobab juice for sale at stalls outside the university. It's a strange familiarity, but one step removed. No Remi or Amina or even Moira. We've been scattered to start our new lives.

Soon it's time to go home for Christmas. My clothes start to feel tight around the waist.

Five o'clock arrives with that smothering of sound that comes with the onset of dusk, as if the world itself is tiring of the sun, and ready to bed down.

Aunt Kiki hugs me goodnight and says, ‘Dele, you're getting too wide for me to put my arms around you properly.'

The door slams shut behind her. My mother turns to me, her eyes searching my body, probing, asking.

‘Is it true?' she says.

We are sitting in the quietest place in the house, on the quietest day. On Sundays, we have no one in to help cook or clean. When visitors come, we prepare things to serve them and make them feel welcome. My sisters and I wash the dishes, we light the charcoal fire, we sweep floors, we cook. When visitors leave, we tidy up after them.

I don't reply right away. I busy myself with piling things onto the tray: bottles of Guinness, empty glasses, chewed ends of chicken bones. Then: ‘Is what true, Ma?'

‘Are you taking me to be a fool? What have you been up to, child?'

I keep my quiet, still trying to form words in an answer.

‘I never thought it would come to this,' my mother says. ‘What did I do to God?'

She answers her own question. I deny nothing. She starts to plan a response. ‘Of course, I'll have to talk to Kiki about it. For now, the only thing I need to do is find a doctor, a reliable and quiet one, who can keep things to himself.'

I feel a rush of release, relief. My secret was as easy to crack as a ridge of mud tunnel built by hopeful, blind termites. I hadn't quite decided up to this point. I knew the options. I knew how having a baby would not get me back to university, how it would mark me apart, how it would take my life in directions I'd not previously contemplated.

‘I'm keeping it,' I say. A bitter, slashing rancid taste washes my mouth. I feel giddy from saying it.

My mother
cheepooes
, sucking spit between her teeth. ‘Don't be silly.'

My decision stokes an anger, a rage that she is deciding for me, telling me what I am to do. ‘Have you asked me how I am? Do you know what
I
want to do?'

‘It's obvious, isn't it? What else is there to know? You're a young girl, you're only eighteen. Become a mother? At your age? It's unthinkable.'

My mother's right, but I don't concede the point. I've had a term of misery. And after all, not everyone goes to university. Remi's gone with Kojo, but not to study. Moira's here, working. I close my eyes tight for a second. Many of the others have gone, though – to Nigeria, England, Italy, America. In my obstinacy, I know that with this choice, I'm making sure I'll stay here.

‘Of course it's thinkable. It's my body and I can do with it what I want. I want this baby.'

‘Who is going to help you bring it up? The child's father?'

‘It doesn't matter. I'm old enough to look after myself, I'm old enough to look after a child.'

‘Sometimes,' my mother says, ‘I want to wash my hands of you. No gratitude, no sense of shame, no sense of obligation, of the right way to do things, to be.' She flaps off to talk to my sisters, leaving me at the doorway of my new beginning.