For Deola, Sundays were a day to have a lie-in. If it was a cold day, to pull the blanket over your head and continue snoozing felt so good after a long week’s slog of intense work. It was great to have a day when you didn’t have to get up early.
She wasn’t a churchgoer, but would pop in now and then to assuage her conscience. In the words of her friend Eni, who was an ardent churchgoer, she was a person who only went to church when someone was hatched, matched or despatched. Hard but true words.
In Nigeria, Sunday was really a day of restful contemplation. Most people went to church, and there were numerous churches situated along most roads, blaring loudspeakers competing with each other to preach the word of God. It was different in London. Your beliefs were a quiet, private matter, and Christians felt embarrassed to talk about their faith in a culture that seemed to have ‘moved on’.
As she emerged sleepily from her room, Deola saw that her flatmate Funmi had already put on her Sunday best. She had spent the night before at her boyfriend’s. From the look on her face, Deola figured that it probably hadn’t gone as planned.
“I’m off to church. I need to pray for our relationship. Can you believe that the man is going abroad and I had to hear about it from his colleague?”
How do you tell a woman that the man she is with isn’t as into her as she wants to believe? Why do we like to deceive ourselves like this?
But Deola smiled and asked Funmi whether she was feeling better. The past week she said her abdomen was swollen and she had felt feverish.
“I have taken some painkillers,” she said briskly, picking up her bag and adjusting her head gear in the mirror.
“The doctors have told you that you need to go for the operation. It’s not something painkillers can deal with any more. You told me that it happened at work last week and you could hardly walk and everyone was asking what was wrong with you.”
Funmi was putting finishing touches to her make-up. “I swear, I don’t know how many they are but it is like these fibroids are fighting against each other in my body. I have prayed and fasted that they will just dissolve away. There is a prophet that prays for people for this kind of thing, I tell you. There was a woman in our church that testified about what happened to her.”
“I don’t care about the woman in your church. I care about you, and I’m sure that God wouldn’t want you to be walking around in agony when there is an operation you can have so that they can be removed and you have your life back again.”
“Don’t you understand? The doctor said that before he operates I have to sign a document that gives them the right to perform a hysterectomy if I lose too much blood while they are removing the fibroids.”
“But you would be alive and healthy. Surely that’s the most important thing?”
Funmi shook her head and put down her make-up bag. “To be alive and not able to have children? I would be like a walking dead person.”
“Funmi, I’ve told you what happened between me and my ex. Don’t make the same mistake I made. There’s more to life out there – a whole world waiting for you to discover … ”
“I don’t want to discover the world,” Funmi snapped. “I just want to be respected.”
“And who says you’re not respected?”
“In my family, everyone goes on about this. First they were feeling sorry for me because my parents have gone and I have no siblings. Now they are sorry because I am almost thirty and have no husband.”
“They are sorry for me too because I’m almost forty and have no husband.”
The two women looked at each other and shook their heads.
“Life sha.” Funmi sighed and looked at her watch. “I had better go. I’m meeting bae.”
Deola nodded. As she heard Funmi walking down the stairs, she mulled over her words. To be alive and not able to have children – that would be like a walking dead person. Yeah, Deola would be lying if she couldn’t admit to herself that it hurt sometimes when she remembered the doctor’s words, shattering the dream she’d had since she was a little girl – that to be a mother one day might be medically impossible? She wondered what it would be like to go through life listening to others talking about PTA meetings, dance classes and football matches, birthday parties and baby showers. To be the person always on the outside looking in and wishing? What would it be like to tell the man you love that you can never fulfil his wish to be a father because your womb was all messed up, not due to anything else but Mother Nature?
Although she had those occasional thoughts, Deola still didn’t believe that motherhood and marriage was all women should aspire to. Should the fact that both had eluded her so far mean that her life and her achievements counted for nothing? That was the kind of thinking that had kept her in a relationship that was headed nowhere. Totally messed-up thinking.
OK, so Kunle and his wife would have had their baby by now. Ah well …
It wasn’t about the knocks you got in life. It was how fast you could bounce back after they happen. Wasn’t that the saying?
That was her all right. The bounce-back kid.
Later that afternoon, Deola had scrubbed up nicely as she made her way to her parents’ for dinner. Her mother would be happy to see that her hair was in curly Afro braids. Unless it was tucked under a weave or braids, her hair was always ‘untidy’ in her mother’s opinion. She had also decided to wear a dress and not her usual casual weekend uniform of jeans and a T-shirt.
She drove her car into the compound, parked up, and walked towards the house. Almost immediately, her mother came out to greet her.
“My daughter, doesn’t that dress have a jacket?” she called, eyeing Deola’s fuchsia sleeveless dress.
Deola decided to waka pass on that. “I’m fine, Mother, and you and dad?”
“We are both fine. Come in, come in.”
Deola accompanied her mother into the house and caught the smell of fried plantain. Comfort, the house girl, bustled around with plates of food. Her father was in the sitting room watching football.
“Good afternoon, dad.” She hugged him.
“How are you?” He smiled but there was something in his eyes that she couldn’t fathom. He looked detached, as if he really wasn’t part of what was going on. Something was in the air but she couldn’t put her finger on it.
Suddenly her aunt and her cousin Bisola came down the stairs, talking excitedly. They were smartly dressed with big floppy hats and smart skirt suits, but they saw her and stopped their discussion.
Bisola stared at Deola’s dress. “Did you wear that to church today?”
“And how are you two?”
Her aunt ignored her greeting, went into the kitchen and started whispering with her mother. Deola felt decidedly uneasy.
They took their place in the dining room, which was adjacent to the kitchen. Comfort poured out the drinks and her mother served the rice.
“I heard your business is really doing well, Deola.” Her aunt was making conversation while passing round a dish of appealing-looking grilled chicken. “This is good. Nigeria is a good place to be. It is not just about United Kingdom. We are also doing well here.”
Bisola chipped in. “So many people think that we are backward people in Nigeria but at least we have our culture and we have a proper way of doing things.
“As opposed to the UK where the women drink, smoke and remain unmarried beyond thirty which is an abomination, I guess.” Deola’s voice was calm and even.
There was a long silence during which her mother asked whether anyone wanted any more rice.
Bisola looked calm and unruffled. “Yes. I said it. The truth is bitter but it will also set you free! The reason why so many of you are still unmarried is because of all this feminist stuff. Women trying to be like men. Women not ready to take the leadership of a man.”
“Bisola, I can’t do this today. Abeg.”
“Listen to Bisola. You can learn from her,” her aunt interjected, eyebrows raised. “She is married with children. She can advise you.”
“Aunty, I do not see why I should take advice from anybody because they are married, as if that makes them the fount of all knowledge. I don’t understand the mentality that makes people feel they have to patronise or put a person down because they are not married.”
“Baba Deola!” Her aunt looked mortified now. “Will you not intervene in this matter?”
They all looked up at the older man, who seemed to be only one who was enjoying his meal. “What do you want me to say? I happen to agree with my daughter, going by the state of some of the relationships in our family.” He coughed and looked around the room. “We are not in a position to preach about marriage to anyone. Surely all we want is for our children to be happy, whether they are married or not, and to let them know that we are proud of them and their accomplishments.”
Deola gave her father a warm look.
He went back to his food.
“But in this society,” continued his wife, “women get their fulfilment and respect from being wives and mothers. That’s how it is. That’s how it will always be.”
Deola decided to keep quiet and let the conversation continue around her. They talked about a new addition to the family, another little niece, then Bisola’s children, and then went on the latest Aso Ebi they were buying for some uncle’s 80th birthday. Deola zoned out and imagined herself back at work finishing off a project she had for a client. Her reverie was broken by the doorbell. Immediately her mother jumped up and exchanged a nervous glance with her aunt. Her father continued with his food.
Deola could hear her mother greeting somebody and bringing him into the room. She looked up and saw a portly middle-aged man with thick glasses. He was smiling at her expectantly.
“Deola, meet Peter Koleosho. Peter, meet Deola, my lovely accomplished daughter from London. Peter owns a bank, you know.”
Deola’s fork was poised mid-air. She put it down on her plate. All eyes were on her face. She could have awarded herself an Oscar for her poise and calm as she took his hand and shook it. She even smiled politely. “Hi Peter. Pleased to meet you.”
She could feel the tension in the room dissipate and everyone started talking at once as he sat down.
Deola smiled wryly as she stabbed at the last piece of chicken on her plate.
Seriously?