Reading the Ceiling (32 page)

‘It's too bloody hot. What do you want to walk for at this hour,' she grumbles. Then she picks up her bag. ‘Come on then, what are you waiting for?'

‘Didn't you just say . . .'

‘Of course I'll come. I felt like complaining, that's all. Bye, Kainde.'

More often than not, when I come to the beach now, I turn right. Today, we go the other way, intending to walk past the hotels to a stretch of dune and orphaned sea.

‘What happened to us?' I say.

‘Life?' says Amina.

‘Were you happy in Italy?'

‘Sometimes. But bad things happen wherever you are.'

‘Mostly things happened the way you wanted. You seemed to be in control.'

‘To some extent, yes. But I couldn't shape everything exactly as I liked. I'll never grow up, Dele, I'll never learn enough.'

There are many things I want to say to my friend. About this stupid life when we choose things that breed unhappiness, and then know that we have ourselves to blame. This constant following of the perfect life leads to wants that cannot be satisfied, like a
mamiwata
longing for a life with legs on land, when all of the ocean is open to her, free to swim in, free to claim.

There's a man ahead of us, with a dog on a leash. By the time we are past the busiest three hotels, I can make out his footprints in the sand. The heels sink in far deeper than the toes and the strides are wide. When he lets his dog off the leash, the pawprints race off into the distance and then double back to meet up with his, before looping off again. Then the dog stops, at a largish pool that will join up with the sea at the next high tide. There is a palm tree standing at its post, wagging its ears at the wind. The dog barks, runs back to its owner and then back to the pool to bark some more. When the man reaches his dog, he crouches down.

We soon catch up. Amina walks up to the pool to pat the dog and say, ‘Hey, what did you find?'

Without looking up, the man points at the shallow water and says, ‘That.'

That
is a fish, about a foot long, curving and flapping its tail, smacking the water with each flick.

‘It looks tired,' I say.

‘And the water must have got hotter during the day,' he says.

‘I guess you could try to catch it and drop it back in the sea,' I say.

‘I was just thinking that myself. But how?'

I offer my flipflops, ‘If you angle them in a V, you'll be able to scoop up the fish.'

He manages to drop the fish in the water after four tries. Amina stands by the edge of the water and chats to him. I look out to sea, to the line where it meets the sky.

There once was
. A girl called Ayodele. Her story can be told in many different ways.

 My eyes catch what looks like the flick of a tail, sprinkling splashes of water high above the surface, slicing cleanly back into the ocean. Then it's gone.

Disorderly thanks for:

Reading the book and remembering home,

Vibrant introduction to the American short story and the magic creating fiction,

The knack of helping me out of sticky writerly corners,

Spreading nice rumours about my novel,

Enthusiastically taking me on and getting me published,

Listening to the mermaid tale and pronouncing it brilliant,

Early and practical encouragement,

Amazingly attentive editing,

Egging me on by always asking whether I'd met my deadline,

to the following wonderful people:

Caroline Lightowler
Binyavanga Wainana
Rupert Heath
Joshua Snow
Jane Katims
Rochelle Venables
Musabi Muteshi
Danda Jaroljmek
Muthoni Garland

Dayo Forster was born in Gambia and now lives in England. She has published a short story in
Kwani?
, Kenya's literary magazine, and was one of twelve African writers selected as a participant for the 2006 Caine Prize Writer's Workshop.

Dayo's novel
Reading The Ceiling
 has been widely praised by the British literary press. It was shortlisted for a Commonwealth Writer's Prize (best first novel).