You are looking for a hairclip. It exasperates you how you can never
find one when you need it. Your mum hates it when you try to share her stuff. You have an allowance. You shouldn’t
cultivate the habit of borrowing. It’s bad for a woman. Aunt Ryan in Jos
thinks your mum is just stingy. She has been like that since they were kids,
she says.
Your mum does not use hairclips.
She has been cutting her hair low since she had Jang nine years ago. She even
went totally bald once. ‘Felt like doing something revolutionary,’ she said.
Your dad almost passed out when he saw it. You couldn’t tell whether it was one
of her happy or depressed spells. She did crazy things when she was excited.
Crazy things when she was depressed.
You check her drawers
anyway, starting with the one by the full length mirror adjacent her bed. There
used to be two beds but your mum and dad sleep in separate rooms now. Your mum
never throws anything away; perhaps you will find something from when she still
had hair.
The first drawer has
sequins, a new tape measure, her big turquoise marble ring that you have always
wanted, two sewing needles stuck in a used MTN recharge card and a single key.
You pick up the turquoise ring and slip it into your middle finger, taking note
of the exact position of the ring- your mum pays attention to detail in a scary
way. The ring looks perfect on you, you think. You strut up and down the room
in mock model fashion making silly faces in the mirror.
The bottom drawer is
always locked. You try the key in the top drawer and it opens. There are two
diaries. You have always been taught never to look at another person’s diary, not
even your brother’s which he started keeping right after his eighth birthday.
Keeping a diary has never appealed to you. You are staring at the open drawer
battling with your conscience. The front door creaks open and you hear
footsteps. You jam your index finger trying to slam the drawer shut. The pain
travels in quick circular motion from your finger through your entire body to
your head and back to your finger. Tears fill your eyes and you double over
squeezing the finger in your left palm.
‘Maggi,’ Noro, the
housemaid calls out.
‘Magdalene?’
Her voice adds to your
pain. You would scream at her but she really has done nothing but walk in with
confident footsteps like your mum.
‘What?’ you shout.
‘I have gone. Till
tomorrow.’
You do not answer. Slowly
you release pressure from your injured finger and look at it. A blood clot is
forming beneath the nail. Now you will have to wear coloured nail polish, which
you do not like.
If this was all for the
diaries, then dammit, I might as well read it, you say to yourself.
The bigger diary is the High Court diary mum gets every year from her
friend who is a registrar. In it she writes shopping lists, lists of her
debtors and how much they owe, addresses and phone numbers. The smaller diary-
the black New Yorker desk diary she ordered from America with her name crested
in silver- is the one that has a lot of writing. You sit on the hard bed.
The first entry on January
3 is short. Lidocaine. STUD 100. You
whip out your smartphone and search the internet. As you scroll down and read,
your eyes widen, your mouth assumes an O shape. The website you find says it is
a desensitizer for men. It helps delay ejaculation. You struggle to suppress
the combined thoughts of your father and quick ejaculations. You flip the page.
Met Q at the
gym today. Flirty as ever. Not a good time to be running into Q especially as
the one you are bound to is refusing to be reasonable.
You go quickly through
paragraphs and pages looking for other occurrences of Q; through thoughts and
feelings; through anxieties about weight and stretch marks; through resolutions
to quit drinking; through unexplained frustrations about your father. You feel
your blood rushing faster through your veins. Too much blood going too quickly
to your heart. In her last entry on April 3, five days ago, you find the
mysterious Q again.
Easy
lunch. Then pool to burn calories. Went to see Q’s new gym at home. Impressive.
I told myself no shenanigans. No resuming old habits. I hate feeling powerless,
but with Q, you feel it’s all ok. Crazy how Q still knows every bit of my body…
You pick up the big diary. Carefully with your finger
you search for all names beginning with Q. You scan every page. Nothing. After
many searches, the closest you find to Q is Sadiq. You know a Sadiq that is
nicknamed Q.
***
You have been snooping around your mum for three days
now, waiting for her to leave her phone for a few minutes. Her phone is like an
appendage to her body. Even if you get it, you still have to get past her lock
code. You put your phone on silent and slip it into one of your sneakers in
your room.
‘Mum I can’t find my
phone, can you please dial my number?’
‘Ok,’ she says and dials.
‘It’s ringing.’
You make a show of
searching. You search the living room, the dining room, the kitchen; everywhere
but your sneakers.
‘Shit!’ you say.
‘What?’
‘I think I put it on
vibrate.’
‘But why would you turn
your ringer off in the house?’
‘Mum can you just keep
dialing while I check?’
This is the plan: your mum
doesn’t like to feel like she is being made to do something.
‘Here, do it yourself,’
she says.
You walk into your room
and quickly search for Q in her contacts. It is there sitting pretty with a
number beneath it. You take out your phone from your sneakers and save the
number. As Q.
‘Found it!’ you scream.
It all feels so wrong, but
you will not be able to sleep well if you do not finish this.
You compare Q’s number with Sadiq’s. They are
different. You hide your number and call Q. As it starts to ring, you feel
faint. The caller tune is Martin Luther King’s ‘I have a dream’ speech. Suddenly you realize, you do not know what to
say to Q, what to ask him. You feel cramps in your stomach. Dozens of thoughts
cram themselves into these few seconds in a way you did not know was possible.
Is Q an
older, richer man? Richer than dad? Or one of those young studs, young enough
to date me? How long has this been going on? Does my brother look like dad? Do
I?
‘Hello,’ the voice comes,
crisp, clear.
‘Q?’ you ask, a quiver in
your voice.
‘Yes, Queen speaking, who
is this?’ she says.
You drop the call. Grit
your teeth. And cry.
***
‘How many do you need?’ the sales girl without eyebrows asks.
‘Just show me everything
you have,’ you say.
She brings out a
transparent plastic box.
‘How much?’
‘For which one?’
‘For all.’
The sales girl looks at
you to make sure you aren’t joking. She gets the big calculator and starts
counting, the surprise never leaving her face. This is an early eighteenth
birthday gift for yourself. A box of sixty-seven hairclips.