September, 2002
Watching her father expertly and effortlessly hoist their luggage onto a trolley, 16year-old Nadine Obiageli Ngozi Nwaturuegwu smiled weakly, betraying her tiredness.
“I still don’t see why you had to bring so much,” Ezekiel grumbled.
“Daddy, you are being dramatic.”
“It is a lot of luggage!”
“Mum made me.”
“Hmm.”
“You were there; you could have stopped her … told her not to fuss?”
Ezekiel sighed.
“It’s not like all of it is mine. Some of your stuff actually contributed to the surcharge for excess luggage. Granted, I have a fair amount of stuff, but I’m going to be here for a considerable length of time – what’s your excuse?”
“You’ve made your point. Don’t over-flog this dead horse.”
Nadine rolled her eyes and shook her head.
“I think that’s for us,” he said, pointing to a man holding a placard with their names written on it. There was a woman beside him.
Ezekiel and Nadine walked in the direction of the two staff members of Bella Ray College, whose duty it was to convey Nadine from Heathrow Airport to her student accommodation.
“Hello,” Ezekiel began with a smile. “My daughter, Nadine.”
“Good morning,” Nadine said, as she took off one glove and stuck out a virtually frozen right hand for a handshake. She smiled as she saw the man relieve her father of the reins of the trolley, then flinched involuntarily as she heard the woman try to pronounce their surname. Ezekiel seemed not to have noticed.
“Please, call me Nadine,” she begged.
“Julia Middleton.”
“Good morning.”
“I’m the Accommodation Officer for the Oxford centre. This is Vernon Stiles.”
Nadine nodded acknowledgement.
“How do you do?” Ezekiel asked.
“How do you do? How was your flight?” Julia asked.
“You know,” Ezekiel shrugged.
It was 7am in the morning and the flight from Nigeria had arrived at least an hour and a half later than they had all anticipated, because the plane departed the Port-Harcourt International Airport, nearly two hours later than scheduled.
“Would you like to get something hot to drink before we set off?”
“Nadine?” Ezekiel looked at his daughter.
She shook her head. Nadine had no appetite and did not trust that any hot beverage, no matter how scalding, would be potent enough to ward off the freezing cold.
“Are you sure?” asked Vernon.
She smiled. God, she loved the English! They could be so polite.
She nodded. “Positive.”
All the way to the McMillan Student Village, the accommodation that had been pre-arranged for her, Nadine forced herself to engage in conversation when all she really wanted to do was sleep. So as not to appear rude, she talked to Vernon and Julia, making conversation and answering different questions; questions she deemed irrelevant. It wasn’t like Ms Middleton or Mr Stiles hadn’t seen Nigerians before – they worked at a college that was as renowned for its excellent results as it was for its international student base, for goodness’ sake. Nadine tried not to sigh. She recognised that they were just being courteous. They were not trying to be intrusive. It was not their fault that the flight from Port-Harcourt to London had been uncomfortable, and the food so awful … in ‘business class’. Even the skyline of London, which Nadine thought was one of the most breathtaking things she had ever seen when viewed at around 5o'clock in the morning, had done little to placate her. But it would serve no purpose to take her irritation out on two strangers who were actually trying to make her comfortable. So, she squelched her feelings of annoyance and decided to at least, be civil. Observing the scenery, she was struck by how clean the roads seemed, compared to the ones in Port-Harcourt. Port-Harcourt, the Garden City of Nigeria, had been re-named the Garbage City by cynics and sceptics, who were justifiably frustrated at the shoddy and laughable attempts made by the state government, to clean up the state capital and restore it to its former glory. From the constant public service announcements by the Environmental Sanitation Authority, claiming that operations to demolish all illegal structures and architectural eye-sores, were imminent. To the Environmental Sanitation Day initiative which was meant to compel the residents of Port-Harcourt to take responsibility for the upkeep of public property – such as gutters outside their personal residences. This plan was great in theory, with a ‘no movement before 10am’ policy to boot. In practice however, the first Saturday of every month was a day on which some people made a show of taking their hygienic activities beyond their front doors, while some others had a lie-in till 10am. The city usually returned to normal by 10.30am. Nadine shivered and now wished she had accepted the offer of the hot drink, back at Heathrow.
Soon they arrived at the rather impressive-looking McMillan Student Village, where she would be staying for the duration of her course; the village was a 20-minute walk from the college. Offloading her belongings from the trunk of the car, Nadine tried not to shiver as a cold gust of wind hit her. Walking Nadine and her father to the check-in reception in the block designated for students under the age of 18, Julia reeled off information that was intended to give newcomers a mini-education on the history of the McMillan Student Village. Ezekiel nodded and grunted in all the right places, but Nadine doubted he was actually listening, either. This was something that never ceased to amaze her about her father – a successful hotelier and entrepreneur, Ezekiel Nwaturuegwu had an incredible ability to zone out, when he wasn’t interested in something someone had to say, yet look and sound like he was giving them his full attention. Nadine was a bit more transparent – she tried to stifle a yawn, which was noticeable, despite her discreet attempt to cover her mouth with the back of her hand. Her weariness was overtaken by utter disbelief, when she saw the number of people who were already in the reception area. Students, parents, siblings, some even had their grandparents with them; there had to be at least 150 people standing around! Nadine felt a tinge of despair when she saw that there did not appear to be more than five members of staff working on getting the students checked in. They were working as fast as they could, but Nadine reckoned that it would take at least an hour and a half before they got to her. She was right – six cups of vending-machine hot chocolate and nearly two hours later, Nadine smiled gratefully as her name was entered onto a computer database and she was handed the keys to her room.
Had she not been so tired, her relief would have dissipated, as soon as she stepped into her room. It was clean and airy; it didn’t have that musty smell that was common in uninhabited rooms, whose windows had not been utilised. But it was smaller than her bedroom at home … and so bare. Apart from a reading table, chair, chest of drawers, small wardrobe and a bed with a mattress and two pillows, the room was empty. The en-suite bathroom did not fill her with joy, either. There was a standing shower, a WC, a sink and a cabinet. In a different time and place, the ‘stripped bare chic’ look the room was sporting would have depressed her, but here and now, she was too drained to even care. A grunt from her father indicated that she was not alone in her disappointment. She looked at him and could see him mentally calculating what it would take to make the room liveable for his only offspring. Nadine was thankful that her mother had not travelled with them; she would have been incredibly vocal about her discontent.
Alone and inside her room two hours after she had arrived at McMillan Student Village, Nadine felt total exhaustion, kick in. The checking-in process had sapped her completely and although Nadine knew she ought to call her mother to let her know she had settled in, the only attractive prospect right now, was getting into the queen-sized bed.
A knock on her door made her look towards it, instead. “Come in,” she called.
Julia entered. “You’re settling in nicely, I hope?”
Nadine nodded.
“Your dad said something about you calling your mum … did you want to do that now?”
Nadine knew that the woman was not making a request; she was telling her what to do and phrasing it so it sounded like a question that appeared to give her some choice, just made it more polite.
“OK.”
“You can make calls at the reception. There are international calling cards you can buy there. Or there are some cheap sim cards, if you prefer.”
“OK, thanks,” she replied, before following her out of the room.
When she returned to the room, some twenty minutes later, she locked the door behind her and leaned her back on it. Tears rolled down the cold face of the homesick 16year-old, who suddenly felt very frail and alone. She hadn’t let on to her mother how she was feeling or she was sure that her mother would have had her on the next flight out of England. She smiled ruefully through her tears. It would have broken her father’s heart to see her cry, but he was not here. There was no one to see her, so she took comfort in that and did not bother to wipe her face. She also felt hungry, but just stood at her door and cried.
She knew her bright educational future began here at Bella Ray, and that neither she nor her parents would regret her coming to England to study, yet she just could not stop crying. She wasn’t even sure she wanted to. She sank down into a sitting position on the floor and sobbed quietly, grabbing the collar of her jacket in her hands, trying to keep warm.
Nadine desperately hoped that she would settle in fast and make good friends. They would help alleviate the pain of loneliness … the loneliness she now knew, as well as her shadow. She had been fully involved in her parents’ decision to enrol her at Bella Ray, but here and now, she could not shake the immense sense of loss she felt at being uprooted from the only place she had ever known as home. Presently, there was a lot at stake – her parents were depending on her to do them proud; that was why they were making such a massive investment in her. And her expectations of herself actually exceeded theirs, if that was possible. She could not afford to fail.
Soon, she would have to snap out of this and make the best of the situation. But right now, all she wanted was time to be herself … sob to her heart’s content, without feeling ashamed of not living up to expectation.