Several evenings a week, I would leave work and head straight for Good Life. Amidst the din of music, the spectacle of possessed dancers, the spirals of cigarette smoke, the clatter of beer bottles, the sight of men and women raising wine- or spirit-filled glasses to their sad faces, Iyese and I snuggled inside the shell of our private desires and despairs. We drank and joked and rubbed thighs as well as sides and exchanged pecks, arousing each other’s ancient hungers in a variety of subtle as well as brazen ways.
Some nights Iyese became tipsy and melancholy, and let slip some morsel of truth about her past. Occasionally she began to sob quietly. From time to time her demons seized her more violently and I took her outside into the cool air and held her in a strong embrace while she wet my shirt with the storm of her pain.
Whenever I got drunk and grew bold I slipped my hand under the table and sought out Iyese’s thighs. She would let my hand wander for a while, then she would remove it from the warm place it had found, put it on the table and softly slap it, purring, “Bad boy, bad boy.” Depending on how drunk she felt I was, she would either invite me to sleep at her flat – “But you must promise not to try any hanky-panky” – or plead with me to take a taxi home.
*
The editor of the Daily Monitor at the time was a fellow named Austine Pepe. He had begun his career at the Star, Madia’s oldest newspaper, in the years preceding independence when most of the paper’s senior editorial staff were British and he was a lone bright native. He had been much beholden to his Anglo-Saxon mentors at the paper. They in turn had looked upon his industriousness as proof of the smaller blessings of the colonial enterprise.
As independence approached, and it became necessary to train the native talent who would take over and run many institutions, Austine Pepe was sent to Fleet Street to learn the secrets of British newspapering. He spent nine months of studious apprenticeship in England. On his return he was appointed deputy to a Bob Owen, the Star’s last British editor. It fell to Owen to let Pepe into the finer tricks of the trade.
The English labour was not wasted. Pepe the editor held himself and all who worked for him uncompromisingly to British standards. At editorial meetings (often without much provocation) he would brandish a copy of Owen’s parting testimonial, which stated that Pepe was “as good an editor as any to be found in Britain”. After reading it aloud he would hold up the piece of paper and pronounce the moral: “Bloody hell! We all know how difficult it is to impress the English. This letter attests to my qualification to edit the British Times or Guardian or Telegraph. So, when I talk, I know what I’m talking about, for God’s sake!” Pepe’s sharpest rebuke to a shoddy reporter was to thunder, “Bloody hell! No British reporter would give this kind of copy to his editor!”
But Pepe was not stiff like the English, nor did he prefer tea to a good beer. Outside his job there was hardly anything British about him. He was a small man who seemed to jump when he walked, as if to stretch his body. He sported a goatee streaked with grey that made him look like a wise village troubadour.
In his easy moments, on the odd day when everything went well, when he was not on edge about deadlines or sloppy reports, he liked to tell ribald jokes, gently stroking his beard. I liked him.
At first when I approached him with the idea of publishing a profile of Iyese, he was dubious. The Monitor was not a bawdy tabloid, he said. But I told him that this prostitute moved in powerful circles. For proof, I said that she was Peter Stramulous’s mistress. His eyes lit up, half in excitement, half in doubt. He thought about it for a moment, then said, “Bloody hell! I’ll assign you the feature. On speculation.” Meaning that he would decide whether to publish or not upon reviewing the report I turned in.
That evening I went to Iyese’s flat. I wanted to give her the news, share a drink or two with her and, with any luck, get a good blood-warming kiss and cuddle. She was not at home so I went to the Good Life in search of her.
I saw her sharing a table with Power Steve, a burly wrestler with rippling muscles and a ruthless reputation, and two other muscle-bound men. From a darkened spot I watched them, painfully conscious of my own smallness. Was I to turn around and go home, accepting defeat? Or could I bravely walk up to the table, beguile the musclemen with my charms and run off with the prize? The first option was shameful, the second dangerous. In the end I decided to advance, but to do so cautiously, giving myself room to make a quick retreat if things began to go wrong.
Luck: I saw Violet, pressing past me to join a table of excited beer-guzzlers one of whom had called out to her. I touched her on the shoulder and she wheeled around.
“Wey Ashiki?” she asked, recognising me.
“He’s caught up in a meeting,” I lied.
“Ah, that man. Na so so meeting him do.”
“Our work involves a lot of meetings.”
Her voice mellowed. “I sorry for him sister wey come die. Ooh, na devil work. Proper devil work.”
I nodded my concurrence. “Do you want to dance?” I hoped that Iyese would see us on the dance floor and perhaps approach me.
While we danced, Violet made lively conversation that I neither heard (for the volume of the music) nor cared for. My attention was fixed on the table where Iyese was carrying on with the musclemen. She laughed wildly and leaned against Power Steve. Then she rubbed the wrestler’s shaved head. Her jocularity aroused a dark resentment within me. I couldn’t help imagining her in a ménage à trois with the three men, and the thought drove me to bursting point. Violet and I had danced to four songs and Iyese had not done anything to acknowledge me, even though I was certain that she had seen us.
What did it mean? The previous night I had spent a long time with her, drinking, talking, doing little silly things. Did it mean nothing that she had trusted me enough to tell me what her real name was? Or that she let me stroke her thighs and hold her while she cried? Was I, after everything, just another man to her?
Anger turned my legs to lead. When the fifth song began I thanked Violet for dancing with me, but told her I needed to go outside for fresh air. She asked me to buy her a drink. I bought her a glass of cheap brandy, then waded through the crowd of tables and chairs and sweaty bodies, past the table where Iyese sat, towards the exit.
The cool air washed over me. I drew in a deep draught, hoping to soothe some of the pain that I was suffering. Somebody came up behind me. I turned around and faced – Power Steve!
“Emilia said you should wait for her.” His voice was oddly soft. Iyese floated out moments later, her dress shimmering in the darkness.
“You look like an angel,” I said, enclosing her in an embrace.
“You look like a traitor,” she replied, gently pushing me off. “Bloody two-timer! Ashiki told you Violet is good in bed and now you want to taste for yourself.”
Relieved to see her jealous, I decided to press my advantage.
“How about you? I saw you with the wrestlers.”
“Huh. They are not my type. Besides, if I had anything going on with them, why would I send Power Steve with a message for you?”
“Perhaps you told him I was your cousin or something.”
“I don’t lie like journalists!” she said, sharply.
I was tempted to say something to the effect that I didn’t flirt with whoever bought me a beer, but restrained myself. Instead, I said, “Now you sound like Violet.”
“If you dislike Violet that much, why did you dance with her for so long?”
“To attract your attention.”
“Couldn’t you come to the table and talk to me?”
“With the wrestlers there? I’m not looking to be killed.”
“Coward!... Anyway, let’s go and dance.”
“No.”
“No?”
“I don’t want one of your wrestler boyfriends to break my legs.”
“Don’t be silly!” She made to walk off in anger. I held her back.
I told her that my editor wanted to read her story. After agreeing on a date for the interview, she kissed me, her lips cold. We parted: she, back to the bar; I, to the solitude of my quarters.
That night, I dreamt of a much younger Iyese, a simulacrum of the black-and-white photograph I had seen in her flat, and it was raining, and she was out under the downpour, and she was crying, like the orphan in the fable, and I was recording the symphony of her sadness.