Orphan Sisters, page 2
‘I will be OK with the English weather! It is going to be fine!’ Lanre had laughed, playfully nudging her best friend on the shoulder. Despite herself, Titi had not been able to stop smiling back.
Chapter Two
The lady in the smart uniform smiled and informed Mummy they’d be landing in half an hour. Mayowa had sobbed for part of the journey, and the other passengers had failed to conceal their disapproval. One even went so far as expressing his distaste that Mummy had not given her ‘a good slap’. Mummy had respectfully informed him that it was not her way.
Halfway through the journey, her younger sister had fallen asleep on Mummy’s shoulder. Luckily, Lanre had the window seat and was able to marvel at how small Nigeria appeared as the aeroplane had taken off into the air. Unfortunately, she hadn’t learnt anything about what kept an aeroplane in the air, so this new fear only made her grip tightly onto her mother’s hand and wish her daddy was there.
‘Mummy, I am scared of the aeroplane,’ she whimpered.
‘It is OK. Just thirty minutes until we are with your father, in England.’
The word England still bought a swish to her tummy. Even though she already missed Titi, she knew that what awaited her would be worth the sacrifice. She’d heard everyone was nice to everyone in England. All of the few white people she’d seen in Nigeria had been nice to them, so it made sense they would also be nice to others in their country too! This logic carried her through the fear of the landing, which was officially announced by the captain in a clear and crisp British accent.
She turned to Mummy who had placed her hands together and was praying in Yoruba for a safe landing.
As almost everyone on board had looked like her, Lanre wasn’t prepared for the sea of white faces in the busy arrivals hall. Feeling small in her favourite orange dress, she tightened her grip on the worn suitcase she carried, a gift from a second cousin. The sheer multitude of people had surprised her, and frightened her a little too. Scores of bodies milled around, noisily lugging suitcases, greeting loved ones with loud tears and long embraces. For the first time in her life, Lanre and her family were in the minority, and she suddenly longed for the home they had left behind. The safety of the area she, Mummy and her grandparents had been born into. The coconut tree. The smell of fresh plantains frying in the yard. In contrast, her younger sister cheerfully skipped along the floor, holding onto Mummy’s hand.
They had landed an hour ago, and there was still no sign of Daddy.
What if he’d forgotten? What would they do? Lanre felt a tight knot in her stomach as she stared at the floor.
‘Adanya.’
She looked up, and there he was.
‘Tayo!’ screamed Mummy as she let go of her daughter’s hand and ran into her husband’s open arms.
Lanre was dancing inside as Daddy let go of Mummy and stooped down, pulling both his daughters into his arms. She instantly fell into the safety of his body, the cushion of his chest and the fresh-soap scent of him. Her daddy had not forgotten them. He had come! He had come!
‘Tayo, is this you?’ asked Mummy, smoothing her hand over his cheek. ‘Is it so?’
‘Of course, my love.’ He stood up and gazed into her eyes. Once again, the love Lanre’s parents still had for one another was clear. Nothing had been altered by distance or time. If anything, their love appeared to be stronger than ever. They embraced madly, squeezing one another so tight that Lanre feared there would be broken bones.
‘Daddy, we missed you!’ cried Mayowa, holding onto his leg. There did not seem to be enough of Daddy to satisfy each person. Lanre did not doubt they had all missed him in equal amounts. Daddy pulled Mayowa up and into his arms and with Lanre now holding onto his leg, the family of four headed outside and into the unknown, the dream of a new and beautiful life together.
Lanre slept for the entire car journey to their new home. It was her sister who nudged her awake as the car pulled up outside the building. She wished she’d worn something thicker than her thin-but-pretty orange dress.
A white man named Dave, who was Daddy’s boss, bid them farewell before driving away in that noisy car. Lanre, still unsure of where she was in such darkness, rubbed her eyes vigorously as the pull of sleep still threatened to claim her again. Daddy’s home was in a place called Padd-ing-ton, but it was one room in a larger house. It was bigger than her bedroom back home and sprinkled with a smiling brightness thanks to the crisp, white paint adorning the walls, and a clear light bulb.
Tiny spots rose on her arm, despite the presence of what Daddy referred to as a paraffin heater in the corner. Lanre could tell Mummy was resisting the urge to complain.
‘This is where we will be sleeping. I know it is not very big—’
‘Ah ah, Tayo, it is … fine! Our room back home is smaller than this.’
‘Yes, but this is all we have. This room is for us all.’
Mummy swallowed.
Inside the shared kitchen, Lanre rubbed her eyes but noticed dozens of silver-bottomed tins resting on the countertop. The cooker beside it was so tall, it was past her height!
‘This is where you place the bread,’ said Daddy pointing to an oblong contraption. ‘It will cook it. Much better than our one stove or the pot with fire and sticks beneath it!’ Daddy pulled Lanre towards him, smiling.
‘Ah ah, Tayo, we did not live badly in Nigeria,’ said Mummy.
‘We did not. But here, we will live better.’
‘Daddy, what is this?’ asked Lanre picking up one of the tins.
‘That, my dear, is a tin of tomato soup. It is very good. A bit like our own soup but without the pepe so it will not hurt your tongue!’
‘Why are there so many of them?’
‘If you look at them closely, they are misshapen.’ He pointed to a small dent in the tin she was holding.
‘It is still fine to eat, though?’ asked Mummy.
‘It is, but the factory where I work, they say they cannot sell them and we must take them home. So we have plenty!’
‘What a wasting of food!’ complained Mummy, shaking her head.
Daddy bent down to one of the cupboards, standing up a moment later with his hands wrapped around a long transparent container with a colourful collection of long-stemmed flowers inside. ‘These are for you.’
‘What is this?’ asked Mummy. ‘Where did you get them?’
‘This is what they do here. Give flowers to a lady,’ Daddy said, grinning. Mummy stared at the flowers, her eyes narrowed.
‘I could not find the purple ones. I know you like that colour.’
‘Thank you …’ said Mummy absently.
Daddy’s smile wavered. ‘What is it, my love?’
‘I appreciate the flowers, but I am very cold. The children are cold too.’
Lanre appreciated the admission. Daddy had said it was almost summer here; this did not feel like almost summer.
He moved over to his wife and rubbed her shoulders. ‘I will buy another heater and we shall wear more pullovers. And, of course, I will keep you warm in the night.’
Lanre recognised the look that passed between her parents. It was the one that usually came before they shut their bedroom door for at least an hour. Once, when she was little, Lanre decided to investigate what her parents did in that room, but with her ear to the door, all she heard was laughter and an occasional moan. She had been confused at why laughter would be in the same mix as the sound of pain.
Mummy had placed a dozing Mayowa onto the bed and the three of them sat on the floor on top of a blanket that Daddy told her was called ‘tartan’.
‘I am sorry, my love, that you will have to share the kitchen and toilet with strangers and that we do not have a sitting room,’ he said. ‘One day, I will get us a big house.’
‘Back home, we shared our house with our entire family and many of the neighbours. The people we are sharing with … are they also Nigerians?’
‘Yes, my love.’
‘Eh heh! So what is the difference?’
‘But we do not have anywhere to bathe. The toilet outside is very small.’
‘Where do you bathe?’
‘There is a place not far from here. We will go once a week.’
Mummy made a face. ‘What? But Tayo, we must bathe at least once a day.’
‘I will buy us a small bath for the room. For now, we will have to use the sink in the kitchen to wash ourselves. I’m sorry, Adanya.’
She took his hand. ‘No, it is fine. We are all together. This is what matters, my love.’
‘I knew I married the correct woman. Ajoke Buka would never have been like you!’
‘Ajoke, ke?’ said Mummy, before falling into his arms once more. Ajoke was a lady from Daddy’s hometown of Abeokuta who had told everyone that one day they would be married. Daddy’s family had really liked her too, and so had Daddy, until he saw Mummy in a blue dress speckled with yellow flowers as she walked past, a pail of water on her head. He claimed it was love at first sight and that he could no longer remember what Ajoke Buka looked like. They had laughed about Ajoke Buka ever since.
‘You wanted me because of my pointed nose. That was the real reason!’
‘No, no! It was your shapely hips in that dress!’
Mummy smiled. ‘Stop it, Tayo! The children can hear you!’
‘I defied my parents to marry you! What do I get for that?’ Although Daddy was still smiling, Mummy’s had dropped.
‘They have never forgiven me for that,’ she said.
‘They are far away in Nigeria and we are here. Forget about it all. Let us begin our lives together again.’
‘I love you, Tayo Cole,’ she said, her slim hands cupping his face.
‘I love you, Adanya Cole.’
That night, the family of four lay in one bed. Daddy held tightly onto Mummy as she slept off the fatigue of a long flight. Lanre felt happier than she had for a long time. Her entire family were all under one roof again, and in one bed, away from the effects of a British almost-summer; away from frightening aeroplanes and in the only place she ever needed to be.
Daddy spent the days at work in the factory whilst Mummy tidied up the shared kitchen, tiny toilet and the one room they called home. And then tidied it all over again. Daddy sometimes attended college in the evenings, and it was during such nights that the room felt so empty. Daddy’s presence brought life and excitement, which would lay dormant throughout the day as they waited for him to return.
The two other residents who shared their home left before sunlight and would not return until they were all in bed. The only evidence of their existence were the crumbs in the sink beside two unwashed cups.
A week into their new life, they were still yet to venture outside. Mayowa seemed content with The Cat in the Hat – an English book Daddy had kept for her. Every day, she sat in the corner of the room engrossed in another world, paying no attention to anything else. Lanre sometimes wished her sister would play with her more, talk to her about their new life … anything. But for now, Lanre was happy to help Mummy clean their ‘home’, even if it did seem to only take minutes.
‘We will have to go and buy some pepe. The food I brought from Nigeria will soon finish.’
‘This means we have to go outside, Mummy,’ said Lanre with a slight burst of excitement.
‘Yes,’ she said with a sigh. ‘But you will maybe have to stay here and look after Mayowa.’
‘I don’t need you to look after me!’ she shouted, without looking up from her book.
‘Why can’t we go together?’ asked Lanre.
‘You are right. We shall go together. Come on, put on two pullovers and you will be warm enough. Let us go!’
Lanre hadn’t meant right now, but she was pleased they would finally be venturing out into the real England. Their new country. They were ready within five minutes. Lanre had already begun to sweat under the weight of two adult-sized sweaters wrapped around her body.
Mummy opened the large wooden door that had suddenly grown in size. ‘OK, then … we will go to … the shops. Your father has told me where they are.’
‘Are they far away, Mummy?’ asked Lanre.
‘No, they are very close.’ Mummy placed one foot out of the door, as the sound of a siren sped past the house. The first time they had heard such a noise, Mayowa had jumped into Daddy’s arms and immediately burst into tears. Now they were already used to the strange sounds of London, but had yet to see more than was outside their window.
‘Come on. We are going!’ Mummy said quickly, yet without conviction. She grabbed a hand of each of her daughters and they slowly stepped out into the street. In the area of London where they lived there were rows and rows of large brick houses that appeared to be stuck together. The pavement outside their house was full of small puddles, evidence of the drip-drip sounds of the night before. A small vehicle balancing crates of empty bottles went past in the road as a slew of people moved from one end of the street to the next. Where were they all going?
‘Soooo … let us go,’ said Mummy, her eyes searching the area around them, as they remained stationary. A weak wind blew a piece of paper onto Mummy’s shoe and Lanre bent to pick it up.
‘Keep Britain White,’ said Lanre. She had always been a good reader.
‘Leave it!’ Mummy snatched it from her hand. ‘Let us go back inside!’ she snapped.
‘Why, Mummy?’
‘Back into the house. Don’t ask me questions!’ Mummy ushered the two little girls back inside, and with a huge sigh she closed the door behind them.
Two days later and with the last of the butter scraped from the container, they finally left the flat again. Each of them was now draped in an overcoat with sleeves too long for their arms, thanks to Daddy’s miscalculations. They ventured into the unknown realms of the streets beyond theirs, passing neatly aligned houses and roads were so smooth-looking that Lanre wanted to get on her knees and run her hand over the surface. There were many, many trees, but not one contained coconuts or anything that looked familiar. Lanre looked out for anyone who looked like them, but did not see anyone. At least when they turned into a street market, she was slightly reminded of back home. Traders were shouting their wares but with words she had never heard before.
‘Get your ripe bananas, Cox’s apples! Get your ripe bananas, Cox’s apples!’
Fruit, fish, meat, the sound of singsong voices amongst the noise of a very busy London market. Mummy held onto Lanre’s hand tightly, preventing her from investigating any further. She was mumbling to herself in Yoruba that this was just too much.
Mummy liked to look at the ground as they walked, but Lanre was fascinated with the many people that walked by, especially the men with their hair piled high on top of their heads. How did they get their hair to be such a shape? One of these men stopped when they walked past, his lips pursed, eyes narrow. Lanre smiled her thanks but his expression remained the same. Perhaps it was because of the weather that white people did not smile that much. Even so, having been confined to the flat for over a week, the unfamiliar sights of the world outside their room were something Lanre wanted to remember forever. She would one day tell Titi about the wide squared floor they called a pavement; about looking up at each of the large imposing buildings with curious faces peeking through the windows; about the smooth roads with a number of fine automobiles driving past, and the flashing lights on tall stalks that appeared to tell the automobiles when it was safe to ‘go’, and the huge, red, two-storey automobiles she had heard about but had now seen – buses, they were called. A real-life London bus, that scared her little sister with its loud bubbling sounds and clouds of smoke when it rode past. London was everything she had imagined it to be and more.
By the end of that first trip, Lanre decided that London was indeed the best thing to ever happen to her – even with the cold.
‘I love it here, Mummy!’ she enthused as Mayowa gave a rare smile in agreement. ‘Do you, too?’
‘Sometimes,’ Mummy said, quietly.
Chapter Three
‘I do not understand why it is we have to move,’ said Mummy. Mayowa sat in the tin bath that Daddy had finally purchased, beside the bed, as Mummy gently scrubbed a nub of black soap onto her back using the course and stringy Kankan sponge from Nigeria. Apparently, English sponges were far too soft and could never rid the skin of any real dirt.
‘The landlord says I must pay more rent because we are now four. Instead of paying what he is asking, I will find a flat for the same money. It makes sense. We will have a lot of space and I can have you all to myself in our own room.’ Daddy kissed her playfully on the cheek.
‘I don’t know, Tayo.’ Mummy shrugged her shoulder as Mayowa giggled over something only she found funny.
‘Just think, no more having to bath the children in the room … a real bathroom inside the house! You said you don’t like going to the swimming pool and bathing in their bath houses.’
‘No, I do not, but this is fine,’ she said.
‘I know you don’t mean that! You want a proper bathroom.’
‘It is very expensive, though. Will we be able to afford this? It cannot affect the money we send home, Tayo.’
‘My love, it is perfect. There is plenty of overtime available and my supervisor is leaving very soon.’
‘What has he leaving to do with you?’
‘He said he will recommend me for his job.’
‘As supervisor?’
‘Yesso!’ sang Daddy.
‘But why would they give you the big job?’
‘My boss, Dave, is a good man and he seems to like me. Look at what he has done for us already. Collected you all from the airport and I didn’t even have to ask him. He is a good man and likes me. I think he will accept me for the job. No, I am very confident of it.’
A lady walked by, her umbrella tilted so that her eyes remained fixed on Mummy and Daddy. Lanre and Mayowa stood with their parents in matching beige raincoats, under the temporary shelter of an awning outside a closed shop as the rain fell from the sky.
