Ambrose said there was no reason for me to work, and so I stayed at home with Junior and little Yaya, who was born soon after we returned. I enjoyed myself, why not? Though sometimes I wondered what the years of study had been for. Every morning I waved goodbye to Ambrose as he drove to his job in the Attorney-General’s office where he was helping to draft new Acts of Parliament. I made friends among the wives of Ambrose’s colleagues and spent my days visiting, going from house to house. I would sit in their parlours, being served cold drinks by the houseboy, eating honeyed sesame cakes and roasted groundnuts while our husbands worked late.
Hannah, my dear friend Hannah, had never married. She never did go to study in England, despite her father’s connections which should have been enough to secure her a Government grant. Instead she had taken a shorthand and typing course at the Young Women’s Christian Association and as it turned out was working as a legal secretary at the Attorney-General’s office. In the evenings Hannah would come around and we would hide away in the bedroom I shared with Ambrose. She would try on my clothes and my shoes, which were far too big for her and afterwards we would lie on the bed giggling like schoolgirls again. ‘You have found a man who really knows how to look after you!’ she teased me. ‘Why don’t you find one for me?’ And she wore my shoes to work with paper stuffed into the toes.
It bothered me that Ambrose did not take to Hannah. There were times I found myself defending her. One evening as I sat with Ambrose I suggested to him perhaps I might take a job. After a few months I had begun to find the gossiping and endless keeping company dull, I needed more to fill my days. Ambrose wouldn’t hear of it.
‘You’re a decent woman, Serah,’ he told me. ‘Why do you want to be like those girls? Men don’t respect them. With those tight clothes they wear and that stuff smeared on their faces.’
I bridled at that: ‘You mean like Hannah?’ I retorted. But Ambrose only told me not to be so ridiculous.
It occurred to me Ambrose had never objected to me working when we were in England, but I pushed the thought to the furthest place in my mind. And, if I’m honest with you, I didn’t really know what I wanted. Part of me was pleased Ambrose wanted me to stay at home. Ya Memso and my father’s wives, always so busy with their gardens or else harvesting coffee or taking food to the workers. Ya Namina balancing the books. My mother’s hands, the stained crescents of her cuticles. Sometimes I imagined I was one of those women on television in England, with a carpet sweeper and children I fed on instant pink desserts, and a pet who dined on food that came in special tins.
So you see, this is how I was thinking when I came home. I was thinking in a small way. I had forgotten Janneh’s warnings. I bought food for the table with the new money with the President’s face on it, but did not notice the prices because Ambrose’s salary was enough to cover our needs. At the post office I bought stamps with the same man’s face on them. The world’s first self-adhesive postage stamp was invented in this country. Did you know that? Some countries produced the smallpox vaccine. The atom bomb. Canned peas. Permanent press cotton. The microchip. We had flower stamps. Bird stamps. Stamps in the shape of diamonds. Country-shaped stamps. Stamps in the shape of the continent. One with a small hippopotamus who lived only in our swamps. Stamps that required no licking. Stamps with the President’s face on them. Yes, we would be remembered for our stamps.
At the time I did not think things could be so bad if we had new stamps and our very own new money.
It’s true there were occasional power cuts and the drainage in the city was poor, the smell sometimes drifting into the house. I planted frangipani between the fig trees, beautiful pink frangipani. I picked the blooms and floated them in bowls of water and placed them all around the house. And soon all you could smell was the scent of those flowers.
* * *
One thing I forgot to mention, I saw my mother again. I mean just that, literally — I saw her. On my way back to the city from travelling north to see Ya Memso and my father. It was at the junction of the roads heading north, south, east and west. At the time I was sure it was her, passing through the crowd. She didn’t see me. So many people were gathered around the car, some selling, others simply staring. A private vehicle was still a rarity in those days. People were curious. Just as we had been, Yaya and me, that time when we went to the East with her and we travelled in a truck and chased shiny cars up and down the streets of the mining town.
My heart thumped hard inside my ribs. I told the driver to wait, got out of the car, and stepped towards her, but a woman carrying a tray of fish upon her head passed in front of me. The fish were packed into tight circles with all the care of a flower arrangement, their mouths open, pointed at the sky as though they were catching raindrops. For a few moments my view was blocked and when the way was clear again, my mother was gone. I craned my neck, searching for her among the people changing buses, but I couldn’t find her again.
All the way home I wondered what I might have said to her. What kind of life was she leading? Did she even know I was back home?
Then I decided maybe it hadn’t been her at all. Just a woman with the same look. Why, I probably wouldn’t even recognise her now. By the time I was in front of the gates of my house I had decided I had been mistaken.
Ambrose’s work kept him late at the office on many evenings. There were times when I was already asleep by the time he came home. The lawyers in his office were labouring around the clock drafting the new constitution to turn us into a republic. It was important work.
One evening he arrived home bringing a friend of his, a townsmate whom he had happened upon in the street. I don’t mind telling you that from the very start there was something about this man that I didn’t like. He sweated and wiped his forehead with a flannel he kept in his pocket. He wore a suit, shiny at the lapels. And shoes made from two types of leather like a Nigerian pastor. He held on to my hand for too long and pushed his face into mine, his breath was sour and the look he gave me was of hunger mixed with something knowing.
It was a Thursday, the servants’ day off. I went to the fridge and fetched cold beers, poured some nuts into a dish along with some of Ambrose’s favourite fried dough pieces and carried them out to where the two of them sat at the front of the house.
How this man liked to talk! And to drink. Several beers were downed, Ambrose went to fetch a bottle of Scotch and set it on the table. I watched as the man filled his glass right up to the brim. I tried to replace the bottle with a bowl of cashew nuts, but he waved at me to put it back. Time passed with no indication of when he might be leaving. We sat side by side on the settee watching him drink, until Ambrose was obliged to invite him to eat with us. I whispered into Ambrose’s ear there was no food. Ambrose’s erratic hours meant he had taken to eating on his way home. I ate with the children. It was too late now to start cooking.
’OK, we’ll go out.‘ Ambrose picked up his friend’s jacket just as the man poured himself a third glass of whisky.
‘What? Hey! Out you say? But I am very comfortable here. This is a fine place you have.’
Ambrose apologised, explaining there was nothing to eat. His friend belched and laughed, a big laugh, fat with scorn.