Irenosen Okojie - Butterfly Fish

“No, its fine, I want to.” She drew her shoulders back, as if steeling herself then continued. “I had a break down just after my marriage ended. Nicholas, my husband was a very creative man. He had this ethereal quality about him.” She smiled wistfully. “He used to make the most beautiful scenes and figurines from wood. Oh, they were stunning! The level of detail… He’d lock himself away for hours carving those things.”

“Did he ever make any money from it?” I asked.

“Well, there were small commissions from friends, people we knew but nothing steady,” she answered. “He was your classic frustrated artist, delightful if you caught him on the right day. Struggled with terrible mood swings though. We fought a lot over money since I was covering most of the bills. He accused me of attempting to turn him into something soulless.” I stood and opened the window slightly to counter a growing tension in the air. She tucked a wisp of hair behind her ear.

“One day, we had a terrible fight. He’d asked me for money, quite a large sum. I wanted to know what it was for. He claimed I was emasculating him. He was in a rage, he flew at me, grabbed me by the throat strangling me.” She stopped again, stared at the memory head on. “At the time, I was battling one of my awful headaches. You have to understand that sometimes when they come, things take on a dream like quality; I can lose my sense of time. I picked up the metal poker we kept by the fireplace and hit him. I kept hitting him until I saw blood and he went limp. The headache was screaming.”

“Jesus,” I murmured sympathetically.

“I was stumbling around, my head felt like it was split open. I left him lying on the floor. I went calmly upstairs to find my medication. But he’d thrown them away you see. I blacked out on the bed the pain was so intense.”

“Sorry to hear that,” I responded, squeezing her arm. She laughed her eyes bright and leaned forward assessing my face. “You’re shocked, you think I’m heartless. I have to admit at the time, I thought he was dead. When I came round, he’d disappeared, taken my bankcard and wiped out the account. Everything fell apart after that.” The sadness in her eyes cloaked the whole space. I felt sorry for her, sorry for both of us, cardboard cut-outs of ourselves crashing into real life.

“What about those pictures?” She pointed to a stash in a grey envelope at the foot of the sofa.

“I’ve looked, didn’t pick up on anything.” I grabbed them, handed them over. “Feel free,” I added. She leafed through, lips curving up and brow furrowed.

“That’s interesting,” she said, spreading them on the table like a stack of trump cards.

“What?” I navigated myself round for an even closer view.

“Well… the lens on her. See the light in which she’s been captured? It’s beautiful, personal. Look at the way she’s interacting with the camera. See the look in her eyes? It’s quite intimate. It’s like a lover’s gaze.”

I peered closer and she was right. In the photograph my mother wore a thinly-strapped white top teamed with a red velvet mini-skirt that exposed her long, lean legs. One strap had slipped down teasingly against her arm. Her feet were encased in fire engine red, traffic-stopping heels. A purple Hermes scarf was tied jauntily around her neck and she leaned back against a beat up, blue Ford. Of course, I recognised the scarf. It was the one Mervyn kept beneath his pillow. She was laughing in some of the shots, head thrown back, light falling gently on her neck. In others, smiling coyly, a hand splayed invitingly on her chest, sweat beading on the rise of plump breasts. And others still, mouth twitching knowingly, staring at the camera head on. She penetrated it with a subtle defiance, communicating to the glass eye in a language imprinting itself on the roll of film. I animated her with the flicks of my finger.

Mrs Harris picked up the bottle of green ginger wine, unscrewed the cap. I moved to grab another glass but she motioned with her hand. “Don’t worry; I’ll use yours, no point sullying another glass. And you don’t have anything I can catch?” she said in jest, filling the glass and moving to stand by the window. “Did you know any of your mother’s boyfriends?”

“Not really, she was discreet about that sort of thing. An unmarried African woman with boyfriends having no intention of getting married would have been frowned upon back home.” I ignored the ticking in my temple.

Mrs Harris rubbed her face, eyed the glass. “It’s just a thought but maybe her last lover knew something, people tell each other all kinds of things in bed.”

A sick feeling crept inside me. I watched her raise the glass to her lips, thought maybe I’d pushed glass rims towards her unwittingly all evening. We caught the arrival of car headlights engraving yellow travel journeys on the road. For a moment, watching her knock her drink back, it was as if her head had split in two, drowning her silhouette yet harbouring daylight in her eyes.

Rumours of a curse in the palace began to take on funny shapes. A servant fixing the hole on the roof could have sworn he saw a woman drumming her fingers on her jaw inside it. She looked lost and forlorn, but before he could reach out a hand to help her, he slipped and fell to his death. In the roughened, scab-ridden feet of the chief courtier that had ceased leaving footprints, making him marvel as to how he could both be and not be in a place all at once. In the ever-burgeoning belly of Omotole whose greedy baby was sapping all her strength. She found herself pausing to check he hadn’t stolen her heartbeat too, placing her clammy fingers on her chest and at her wrists, anxious for the faint throb of her existence. And where was Oba Odion? Locked away in his chamber worshipping the darkness of his shadow, and the murky, distorted shapes that flittered from his lids and darted across the warm floor.

The council were now running the kingdom but their quiet triumph fell flat on its face, gashing its thin skin under the altered glow of a waning Benin. The people did not know why things were happening as they were, but it continued. One of the Oba’s tailors became stuck in a moment of coming in and out of his door with a small pail of water. He kept repeating this action again and again, until he was dragged out of it, flailing his arms in resistance. The palace appeared unsettled, there was a hushed fear rubbing the walls and the teeth of the gates had a sinister gleam when the light caught. People wondered why their lives began to droop right in front of their eyes. Their sympathy shrank. Where was the king to rule over his kingdom? Where was he to stroke their questions with reassuring answers? A thick resentment began to build, passing between them like morning greetings, lagging at the entrance of the palace waiting for any opening. And when blood started leaking through the roof, nobody dared go up there to see why. Instead they scrambled to their knees, at once mopping the jewel-like droplets with a snatched cloth and the loosened shock from their jaws.

It was that time of day when Benin was caught between late afternoon and early evening. When the daylight dimmed to a duskier yellowy orange, and you could swear that someone was shrouding the sun. The smell of cocoa yams doused in flavours of wild peppers, onion and meat stock wandered from the main palace like a drifter requesting entry at the nostrils of irritable inhabitants. When the day stopped deceiving itself and it finally became evening, it was the perfect time for two lovers to meet because everybody was distracted. The palace servants had gathered wood for their small celebration of nothing and would soon form a ring of mouths around a ravenous fire. Most of the councilmen were in their various apartments, doing anything to stop their stomachs from somersaulting over the future prospects of Benin. The Oba’s wives, disconnected pieces of a game, loitered in their compound. They were braiding their hair into submission, attempting to wash the stubborn odours of the palace from their clothes or tracking their restless children.