Irenosen Okojie - Butterfly Fish

I learned how to make goat pepper soup from Mama Carol who ran the boarding house I was staying at, a ramshackle white building where clusters of mosquitoes shaped like small countries sang on the netted, peeling green door before dying mid-conversation. I attempted to make the soup one day, but the goat’s head pressed its mouth into the gap, telling me the stones in Africa tasted different. Sometimes, on his way back from a run, Nosa would stop by. We’d sit out in the breeze drinking palm wine, discussing the house he wanted to build and how he found himself visiting the scene of his near-death, collecting his organs again and again as if they were passengers. We’d watch the scrawny local dog chasing its tail in front of other houses, before dragging random things to the side of the road.

I accidentally got a job helping the local tailor. It started when I sought advice about making items from the materials I’d bought. She let me use her back room. I began making curious things; small market scenes, interactions of people I’d spotted in the day, headless creatures stumbling towards a sun. It became a kind of therapy, producing objects in the hot back room with the fan blowing on my skin. And the yellow and black butterfly fish swam in the window as though it would survive in any surface. News spread. In town, people started to call me the one armed wonder.

London seemed a world away.

On the last day of my first month, I phoned Mervyn from a call centre. I told him that sometimes, when the electricity stopped, I traced the things I’d built to the sound of the generator, that those small figures with unfinished stories carried them into the dust. He didn’t laugh. Instead he said I’m glad you called, you’re like a daughter to me. I’m happy you’re okay. Call again sometime. Let me know when you’re ready to come home .

In the evening, I tucked a leather bound book under my arm, dragged a small stool out to the front of the boarding house. I got comfortable cutting old newspaper clippings; drinking cold bitter lemon and watching car headlights become spotlights for things in the dark.

At first I thought it was a trick of the light when I spotted it but the scrawny street dog stood on its hind legs barking, and then retreated back in alarm. It appeared in a trail of exhaust pipe smoke from a black jeep groaning past. A clay baby stumbled in the middle of the road, clucking then mumbling about the kingdom, clucking then spilling yellow grains out of its mouth, holding the blue flame from my kerosene lantern.

Its gaze was fixed in the distance, at the sprawling, dense lands beyond, where the terracotta kingdom once glimmered. It’s small chest rose and fell as we shared the night’s heartbeat. Transfixed, my eyes followed it all the way down to the end of the street, till it disappeared from my vision, shattering in the white. I waited for it’s clucking once again but the small chasm in the air closed and the crickets wanted to be heard.

I rocked back on my heels, listening for the dog on the tin roof next door to make it’s way back to the blue flame. I thought of Anon losing her limbs, her mouth now silent in my hand. On the plot of land tucked behind the boarding house, right arms grew in soft soil, rising amidst yams, cassava, bitter leaf, waiting to bend in the afternoon light, catching fragments of their various lives. I listened for the ripple a butterfly fish made in glass. I held my father’s diary, stroked the warm leather. Grappling with his legacy, I opened the pages and sat under water, waiting to begin again.

THE END

My gratitude and thanks to the extraordinary Alex Wheatle; top corner stone, literary co-conspirator and friend, thanks for believing in me during hard times and offering invaluable support. To my lovely agent, the inimitable Elise Dillsworth, thank you so much for being passionate about the work, steering me wisely, all the things an agent does quietly, cups of tea and phonecalls! Big thanks to the dedicated Jacaranda team, Valerie Brandes and Jazzmine Breary for taking a risk on a plucky outsider and all your hard work. Once again thanks to my editor Valerie Brandes for sharp eyes and brilliant guidance and thank you to Rukhsana Yasmin. To Julian Brown for the years and encouragement. Maggie Gee for reading that second draft. The wonderful Yvvette Edwards for support, advice and lots of laughter. Malaika Adero for championing me Stateside. PR extraordinaire Sue Amaradivakara for excitement and belief in the project. My first and unforgettable mentor Donna Daley-Clarke for wit, patience and understanding. Spread The Word for the Flight programme and their continued support, Words of Colour and Black Book Swap for providing platforms for writers. And Jenneba Sie-Jalloh for seeing something in my writing years ago, thank you, I’ll never forget.

Irenosen Okojie is a writer, curator and Arts Project Manager. She has worked with the Royal Shakespeare Company, the Southbank Centre, and the Caine Prize. Her short stories have been published internationally, including the Kwani 07 and Phatitude . She was a selected writer by Theatre Royal Stratford East and Writer in Residence for TEDx East End. In 2014, she was the Prize Advocate for the SI Leeds Literary Prize. She is a mentor for the Pen to Print project supported by publisher Constable & Robinson. She lives in east London. Butterfly Fish is her first novel.