John opened the door and stepped out of the car. Uncle T was shifting from one of his loafers to the other, white handkerchief in hand, wiping his shiny forehead, pulling on the other door so Karl could come out too. Karl didn’t. The front door opened. He could hear the excitement in John’s voice. It was all relief and shit. Greetings were exchanged. Words passed back and forth. Uncle T laughed. Happy, it seemed. John laughed too. A joke. Apparently. Karl remained in the taxi. The driver turned around. But John hadn’t paid him yet.
‘Excuse. Other business. You pay me.’
Karl looked down at his shoes. The trainers were dusty. He would wipe them later. The taxi driver poked him. John turned around from the conversation at the front door. Came back to the driveway. Handed money to the driver. Karl looked back down at his trainers. He had checked the whole scene out. It was a clear view. A dark man stood on the other side of the door, on the inside bit. In the half-shadow, half inside the bungalow. His cheeks were sunken in as if he was sucking on a cough drop and he frowned like he needed to concentrate to get the juices out of the sweet.
‘Excuse!’ The taxi driver was getting angry.
‘Karl, the driver needs to go. We are not paying him to wait.’
Karl stepped out. He stopped at the car bonnet. It was warm, very warm. The heat and the driving. Lethal combination. Uncle T walked and motioned for John to come closer. They talked in a low voice. There were grooves in the dust on Karl’s trainers. The water must have splashed on them when he was washing earlier. John turned to talk to the taxi driver. Karl couldn’t hear anything. His ears were hissing. John’s voice seemed shrill. He was saying something. The colours were bright. They stung the eyes. The air blocked the ears. Uncle T was smiling. He walked towards him, placed a hand on his shoulder. It was gentler this time, no clap, no heavy-handed slap.
‘I think you will need some privacy. We will be back in one hour.’
John hugged him. His smile wanted to blow up his face. ‘Finally!’
They entered the taxi with a nod to the driver. Both smiled, so pleased. It was good when things came together. Karl stood in the cemented driveway.
‘I believe we have some catching up to do …’
Stepping away from the entrance, the father entered the room, leaving the door wide open. He turned his head, scrutinised him, two deep lines furrowing the forehead, eyes a good stare in them. They were the opposite of Karl’s, no deflection whatsoever, no putting things at bay first, the processing in small bits, nothing at all, no fucking warmth as far as Karl was concerned, but all getting into your business, getting into you. Straightaway. No warm up.
‘… Carla.’
It was musty inside. No one had bothered to open the windows when electricity failed in the morning. Uncle T doing business and in Lagos, Karl helping Nakale take care of business and sleeping at John’s as usual. It could have gone on like this, as far as Karl was concerned. Not quite forever but for a long time. It worked. Everyone was happy. So far.
‘Sit down.’ The eyes were looking from Karl to the couch he now knew well from watching TV in the evenings while Uncle T was still on his phone to this or that person. He sat at the edge. Where he never sat.
‘What do you want? Water, soft drink? Do you want to eat? I can send someone.’
‘I’m fine,’ Karl replied. The thank you was stuck in his throat.
There was a pause.
‘This is not what I’ve been expecting.’
Things were funny like that. And this is not when I was expecting you.
‘Maybe some water.’ All was drying up. Karl’s thoughts felt slow and lumpy, a bad vacuum seal job. ‘Please,’ he added, ‘sah.’ John had said it so he would just copy him.
The father studied him. In silence.
Eventually, ‘How do you find Nigeria?’
He walked to the small kitchen with a window that opened towards the lounge. The fridge made that typical release noise. His father took out an old plastic bottle. The label had been peeled off. It was foggy.
‘It should still be cold.’
The sofa was different now. It felt a bit like King’s Cross. He knew it but any minute someone could spoil the fun. His father looked again. Piercing.
‘So?’ He handed him a full glass. The water swashed over the rim and made an uneven circle on the side table.
‘Pardon me?’
‘What do you think of our country so far,’ the father repeated with more emphasis. Was Karl included in the ‘our’?
‘I love it. Really. Brilliant visit so far.’
He reached for the water and gulped enough to push down the lump in his throat. He shouldn’t have said that, should he? It was odd to call it brilliant when he was here to meet the man himself. The one in front of him. He should have kept it vague, like open, so the father could know that everyone was really upset that he had disappeared. He could see his father’s legs, ashy feet in leather sandals with a large flap covering the top of the foot, a small leather ring for the big toe. They were obviously different. Very different. Uncle T and him. No moisturisation on this front. At all. The father didn’t seem to believe in Uncle T’s shea butter products. Not for the feet at least.
The seat cushion shifted. The father leaned back, arms crossed over his head, touching the wall, eyes looking straight ahead. Very delaying tactic for emphasis, for drama, as if rehearsed, but then again he’d had quite some time since Karl’s arrival in Nigeria, weeks of leaving everyone in limbo land, just so he could now come with effing heavy artillery.
‘I was expecting a daughter.’
Karl wasn’t sure; was this for effect or was he for real?
When you close something, something that could have been an opening, the manner is always more defined, more punctuated than any question you could have asked. It ends up hanging on the hinges, only for effect.
body /ˈbɒdɪ/
noun pl bodies
adjective
‘I was standing at the airport waiting for you. I left. I wasn’t in the position to come back.’
It was a strange conversation. Stranger than any of Abu’s ramblings, which were well strange at times.
‘Uncle T said you disappeared the day before.’
‘Yes indeed, something happened.’
What effing sense did that make? Karl thought he had been kidnapped. Had he come to the airport or not? What was going on?
‘How is your mother?’
‘Very ill.’ Another adult who couldn’t stay with the topic.
‘Tunde told me. What is it?’
‘Multiple Sclerosis. Degenerative. She gets a lot of pain. Loses her mobility.’
‘I’m very sorry to hear that. She was very active when I … knew her.’
‘Yes, she used to do lots of things.’
Points need to be connected or made here, man. You couldn’t just keep it all casual like this. Because it would fall through the cracks otherwise, become meaningless, nothing at all. Then what’s the point? What’s the fucking point?
‘How long has she been ill?’
‘For long, but it got worse the last four or five years.’
‘I’m very sorry to hear.’
That made two of them. Sorry. About a lot of things. Karl was getting restless.
‘And your injury?’
It was Adebanjo’s turn to be surprised.
‘I thought it all started because of your injury. That is how Uncle T came to talk about me. Or my mum. Rebecca.’
He looked at him. The father. Karl wasn’t focusing on his face but even with lowered lids he could scan the body. All seemed fine now, no cast or bandage, nothing. But of course it had been months since. Since Uncle T’s letter arrived in London.
‘I caught a bad infection. It was serious for a few days but the antibiotics worked. There are some very good doctors here.’
‘I can imagine.’ Karl wasn’t sure what he imagined. The good doctors? The leg injury? The hospital stay? A softer version of the cold man in front of him? One that matched the phone conversations they had had. We look forward to welcoming you, Karl. That person. Where was he?
A mosquito was buzzing around, amplifying the silence. You couldn’t not look. Karl followed it with his eyes, thinking about the inevitable, the having to strip so that some stranger in front of you could decide whether you were good enough for them. Or not. Might as well get it over and done with.
‘Being trans … I always knew. As long as I can remember. Mum always let me be myself. When I was eleven I just said I wouldn’t pretend to be a girl no more. She understood. She knew. I had never been one.’
It was hot, no fan or air-conditioning to separate the time from the weight that crushed down. For some reason they hadn’t been turned on. Karl knew for a fact that the generator had enough fuel. They had topped it up only last night. His father was looking at him. Then back on the floor in front of him.
‘Is it the reason you disappeared?’
What difference did it make, right? The falling, the running, the leaving? When you open to something it gives the illusion of boundless possibility. But you know how these things are, it is difficult to say what, when and how qualifies as being a beginning. Or possibility.
The mosquito buzzed and buzzed like there was no bloody tomorrow.
‘Who knows?’
‘About me being trans? Uncle T should have known but I think he doesn’t. He never mentions anything. Maybe he’s just cool like that. In fact …’
Karl thought about how cool he actually was. Uncle T. He pushed the glass, only slightly, on the table. It slid over the bit of water that had spilled. At last something went smooth.
‘Tunde doesn’t know. Your mother never told him.’
The father leaned back further, as if that were possible, really, but once you are making dramatic statements with your body, you have to go there, all the way.
‘When he told me about you I asked him. Naturally I wanted to know. Is it a boy or a girl? He didn’t know. All he knew was that there was a child.’
Funny how life foreshadows better than spoiler alerts on Internet gossip magazines. He was his mother’s baby. Nothing else. No drama. It had been like that when he had started on puberty blockers. Rebecca hadn’t made a big thing of it. Most kids in his support group had had a much more difficult time with their parents’ consent.
‘Who told you to dress as a boy? What is this?’ The way it was said you could have used it to break down passive-aggro behaviour to others. It was done so well, so clear, so stinging. The body shouted, the father’s body, all the things that he wouldn’t say. Almost like the skin was foaming, all the unsaid underneath bubbling away.
‘I just told you—’ But Karl stopped. His father was walking him to the front door, metaphorically. It was as if he had the knob in hand, the door already half-open, the air impatient and ready for Karl to be swept out.
‘I cannot accept your behaviour.’
No one had asked. No one had talked about behaviour. Karl had spoken about being. Being himself. About gender and truth. That bodies weren’t the marker, for anyone. That things weren’t all that clear-cut or obvious. Not even what constituted a man or a woman. Boy or a girl. He would have said more, even. Opened up right here and there just to get it out of the way. To show that he understood if it took him a while, the father, to understand the details of Karl’s transition. But that Karl was willing to share with him.
The father looked at Karl, eyes squinting now as if they would be able to squeeze something else out of this situation. Karl thought about where to continue, what next to offer. He was tired of explaining. His lips parted. The next sentence was going to reveal more than he had planned when he left London weeks ago. Not at their first meeting anyway.
‘I think it’s best for you to return to London straight away.’
Karl’s mouth stayed open, words stuck inside.
Adebanjo lifted himself slowly off the cushiony chair. It was grand, the movement. Calculated for maximum impact. The weight shifted slowly away from the seat back to full standing. Respect me, hai hai, respect me, hai hai. One of the songs Karl’s mother used to listen to and tell him how great the singer was. Adeva or something. How she used to make the dance floor hot. Another of those whatever-mum moments because, frankly, who cared about parents’ club days?
‘Send my wishes to your mother.’
The mosquito must have found its way into one of the bedrooms. It was quiet. The buzzing would have helped. Karl could hear Adeva’s song loud and clear. He should have asked his mother what ‘hot’ had meant in her days. What were clubs like? More importantly, could he go without any curfew?
‘But how did you know?’ If it hadn’t been Uncle T who had told him, who was it?
The father had already closed for the day. Moved on like end of discussion and so forth. ‘Your friend, your uncle.’ Feet moved apart. ‘What is his name?’
No eyes for Karl. He looked at himself. Metafuckinphorically speaking. Karl was all puzzled. Who? Nakale?
‘Godfrey.’
He was taller than Karl, a squarer version. Solid, well-proportioned. His there are no bad kids Godfrey. There are only bad outcomes. Godfrey! Like this wasn’t like the worst possible one? Karl sunk deeper into the couch. There wasn’t anything to say. Nothing. Abu would have come in handy now. To take the edge off.
The father did his steady, confirming authority strides, all the way down the hall. Returned in record time with a small plastic bag, folded. Karl studied him. Now that this part of fate was sealed he had time to check for resemblances. The face, yes, some of it, the body, in a shrunken kind of fashion, but he had noticed the lashes. A little longer than usual and curved, but nothing like Karl’s.
‘This is for John, for his help. You can stay with him for tonight. Tunde told me that you two are close.’
He handed him the bag. It contained wads of bundled naira. ‘There is no need for him to know.’
He looked at Karl again. Eyes all the way, straight into the mind. Something, wanting something. Something undiscussable.
‘Or Tunde.’
‘He will probably wonder why I am not staying here after all this waiting.’
‘I will make an excuse. I will have someone arrange your return.’
One last look, brief, a trained inspection, then the father returned to his bedroom, closing the door behind. Karl could hear a car climbing back on to the driveway. There had been no embrace. Their skin had not touched each other’s in any way. He left the house, door ajar, stepped out, into the air. There was no bloody relief. The air hung lazy and heavy, closing in on Karl’s throat.
* * *
Mama Abu held the cup in both her hands and smiled at Rebecca.
‘I thought all of you were avoiding me.’
Mama Abu followed the steam rising from the hot tea.
‘Godfrey is not making himself available and Karl doesn’t pick up the phone.’ Rebecca sat down next to Mama Abu and turned towards her.
‘What’s going on?’
They sat for a while, Rebecca looking at Mama Abu. Mama Abu fumbled for a tissue in her cardigan pocket, blew her nose. Took her time with putting the crumpled tissue back. Her eyes were tired again. Not so much from the long days of taking care of a household but from having to sit here. The only one who made herself available to Rebecca. Karl had been gone for five weeks now. Five! She had pleaded with Godfrey to go to Nigeria and find him. Anything could have happened by now. And did the father call, at all? Hadn’t called once. What kind of person was that? What kind? It was the first time Godfrey had seen her angry. She had raised her voice and asked again. ‘Who does that? You tell me Godfrey. It is not right.’ Abu behind his father, who stood at the kitchen door. Godfrey had started to cry. He had promised to talk to Rebecca but Mama Abu couldn’t wait any longer. Abu had reassured her all was well with Karl. He just didn’t feel them at the moment. Abu’s words. But he was sending bbms. He could probably get him on the phone if he wasn’t too busy with his new friends. There wasn’t anything to worry about. Just Karl doing Karl. Doing a runner.
Still. Five weeks was too long to lie. She started speaking. First slow, then quicker until it all poured out.
‘I don’t agree. I didn’t agree! I understand that Karl wants to find his father—’‘
Rebecca had sprung up and rushed over to the small side table by the door. She went for her bag and pulled out her mobile.
‘We need to talk!’
Mama Abu stopped mid-sentence.
‘Godfrey. We will really have to talk.’
Her mouth made a funny sound. Mama Abu was alarmed. She had never seen Rebecca like this.
‘Aargh! I can’t believe you. You all knew.’ Then the phone landed on the armchair. Rebecca had flung it. She turned around.
‘Are you out of your mind? All of you?’