January, 2003
Nadine walked into the suite and squealed in delight. Shopping bags full of purchases from some of the best high-end boutiques – not to mention, some designers – in Paris, littered the area around the foot of the bed. She walked towards the bed where two huge bouquets of her favourite flowers – lilies and white roses – beckoned. She remembered that she had seen three vases on her dressing table, when she first checked into the suite. Filling two of them with water and arranging the flowers in them, added to her pleasure. She let her fingers roam over the embossed card, on which a note accompanying the flowers was written, and smiled. She felt like she had been on an adrenaline high for the past three days … and still could not believe how fortunate she was, or how ingenious her father was.
The Christmas spent with the Matthews’ had been interesting. To say that it was quite unlike anything that Nadine had experienced before, was putting it mildly. Nadine’s usual Christmas Day went something like – wake up early in the morning, prepare and have breakfast with her father, try not to notice her mother ignore breakfast in favour of yelling at the house staff, spend a considerable amount of time getting ready for church, tease her father while he grumbled and threatened to leave for church alone because Nadine and her mother were unprepared, attend Christmas service with her parents, return home to try and assist in supervising the house-staff as they welcomed and served the numerous guests who inevitably came visiting, get exasperated at her mother who would want to do everything herself, eat some of every kind of dish that had been prepared, and manage to spend some time with her cousins or children of her father’s business associates. There was also the predictable indigestion she would suffer at night – a tendency towards gluttony always had a punishing effect on the body – her father staying up all night to nurse her, and her mother alternating between scolding her for over-eating and being convinced that her only daughter was about to die from the pain.
At the Matthews’, expensive presents, jokes over the dinner table, several helpings of roast turkey, and pudding over a one-hour episode of Eastenders – in which one character was killed off, apparently killing off characters at Christmastime was excellent for the ratings – left Nadine feeling stuffed, and laughing till she cried. The activities couldn’t have been more different from what she was used to, but the spirit was very similar. She went to bed happy, and with her obligatory stomach-ache in place. The passing of the remainder of the month was swift, and on the first day of the New Year, Nadine walked into the living room to see her father sitting there. It took her a while to realise that she was not dreaming or hallucinating. She and Stella had returned from a night-club in the early hours of that morning, and slept in till midday. It turned out that Lucas and Melinda Matthews were aware of Ezekiel’s impending visit. He was eager to see his daughter and surprise her.
Nadine was very surprised, with good reason. Her father took her to Paris and proceeded to spoil her silly. Luxurious hotel suite with impeccable room service, scrumptious food in weight-inducing amounts … and the shopping. She only had to look at something, and it was hers. She had also remembered to get some things for Stella. Money was no object. And then, there was the fashion show. It happened that a client of Ezekiel’s, who had been blown away by the very personal and impeccable service she had received from his property management firm, was keen to show her appreciation. With no idea that the woman was well-connected, he had treated her like every other customer – someone who deserved to be given their money’s worth, whilst being treated decently. He thought nothing more of it – particularly after his invoice had been settled – and moved on to the next project. But on Christmas Eve, the lady’s chauffeur arrived with specific instructions, to hand-deliver tickets which afforded the holders entry to a fashion show in Paris … along with her profuse apologies for not showing her appreciation earlier. Ezekiel was truly flabbergasted – as far as he was concerned, customers’ appreciation was sufficiently shown in the prompt payment of their bills. He didn’t even expect tips; and he certainly didn’t expect his and his daughter’s names to be put on the guest list of an exclusive fashion show, just for carrying on his business as he normally did. But astute entrepreneur that he was, he knew a good opportunity when he saw one – although, like most men his age, Ezekiel did not understand ‘young people’s fashion’, he knew that Nadine would be thrilled to attend. And anything he could do to put another smile on the face of his only child, he was going to do. No price was too high, no depths too low.
Today, with more luggage to her name than she had thought it was feasible to acquire in three days, Nadine now looked forward to watching a movie. They would be watching it in his suite, as they had already been out to a cinema yesterday and Nadine wanted to spend time alone with her father on their last day in Paris. She would be returning to Bella Ray the following morning, and there was a good chance she wouldn’t see him till three months had elapsed. The thought of that made her sad, but she quickly brushed the feeling away. She was a daddy’s girl through and through, but she had managed to go the past three months without seeing him. She had even spent the Christmas holiday without either of her parents – something none of them had ever thought could happen before she got married – and none of them had died as a result. She knew she would miss her parents terribly during the next three months, but she was also sure the next three months would go by quickly; so was determined that depressing imaginations of what might be, would not spoil the certainty of her happiness tonight.
When she walked into her father’s hotel suite, she was surprised to see that the entire living room area had been turned into a temporary cinema. It wasn’t simply a matter of moving furniture about, and putting a DVD player in the middle of the room. She actually thought she was in someone’s private cinema. Ezekiel had to have enlisted the help and expertise of hotel staff – and heaven knows, who else – to bring this about.
“I thought that if we weren’t going to the cinema, the cinema could come to us.”
“How much did it cost?” she wondered out loud. She could almost hear Stella’s voice, Nadine, after a three-day non-stop spending spree, you’re going to worry about expense now?
“Money is just money,” Ezekiel said, “I think it’s made to be spent. I mean, what’s the point of having money if you can’t spend it – especially on your own child?”
That was one thing about her father. He was a typical African man in that sense – a lot of them believed that money was made to be spent. Some of them made the mistake of spending everything they made, but Nadine knew that her father’s generosity did not mean that they were frittering away her inheritance. He was too shrewd a businessman to let that happen, and he loved her too much to do that to her.
“Seriously, daddy, I would have been alright with just a DVD and popcorn.”
A shadow dented Ezekiel’s countenance.
“I am grateful,” she said hastily, “I’m just saying that spending time with you is all that mattered. I don’t need a … big production.”
“O otu ahu ka o di? Is that how it is now? Because I don’t remember you saying this, when we were cleaning out those boutiques, and the assistants were giving us funny looks until you mentioned that I was your father?” he teased.
“Daddy, it’s not my fault that those shop assistants had their minds in the gutter. And as for the things we got from the shops, please, don’t even go there,” she said, with a smile.
“But you said you didn’t need a big production.”
“Yves St Laurent, Vera Wang, Burberry, Versace and Dior are necessities,” she replied, half-seriously.
“Is that so?”
Nadine nodded.
“Just remember that, when you’re considering a boy to go out with.”
“What? Daddy, you’re saying that if a guy doesn’t take me shopping in Paris, he’s not good enough for me?” she said, laughing.
“Amongst other things.”
“Daddy, only guys your age have this kind of money to spend. Surely you can’t expect me to only consider guys, my father’s age?”
“If any man, even half my age comes near you, I will kill him. And very gladly go to prison.”
“OK, daddy, there’s no need to get carried away. That was just a hypothetical question.”
“I know,” he smiled. Then he continued, “I don’t think any man will ever be good enough for you.”
She blinked when she saw that he was serious. “You want mummy to throw me out.”
“What for? Nobody can throw you out of your father’s house.”
“She’d probably be like Nadine, go to your own husband’s house and leave mine alone. I wouldn’t be very amused, too. Not that I want to get married now, obviously. So, some guy, somewhere in this world, has to be good enough.”
“Oby”, her father said, shortening the Igbo name he liked to use sometimes, Obiageli – which literally meant ‘she (who) came to eat’. Like every indigenous name given to a Nigerian child, this name was meant to allude to the circumstances surrounding her birth. As the first – and although it wasn’t known at the time, only – child of wealthy parents, she was named as someone who had 'come to enjoy that wealth'.
“Yes, daddy.”
“That’s what every father thinks. No other man can ever be good enough for his little girl.”
“I’m not a little girl,” she replied, “I’m 17.”
But Ezekiel shook his head. “You’ll always be my little girl. Even when you’re old and grey. I waited a long time … your mother and I were married 15 years before you came. When you’ve waited so long for something and you finally have it, it’s precious. It’s a blessing. That’s why your aunt also gave you the name Ngozi.”
“Yes, I am aware of the meaning of my name. Blessing. But it’s rare for fantasy to live up to reality,” Nadine said in a small voice, wise beyond her years.
Ezekiel looked at his only child and shook his head. “You are not a fantasy. Fantasies are fleeting. You are a reality. My reality. You are the best reality I could have had. The day you were born was the happiest day of my life. Since then, you’ve brought me nothing but happiness and good luck. Beyond my wildest dreams. I have such high hopes for you.”
Nadine hugged her father and tried not to cry. “So, you’re not going to hate me, if something happens and I don’t fulfil your high hopes?” she asked, in a muffled voice.
“Why? Is anything wrong?” he asked her, his eyes full of concern.
She shrugged. “My upcoming exams. I don’t know … sometimes I get scared and think that I might not do well. I don’t mean I’ll fail; at least, I hope I won’t. But sometimes, it crosses my mind that I might not do as well as you and mummy want me to do, and that I’m really going to disappoint you.”
“Nadine …”
“And then, all this will be for nothing.”
“Where are you getting this? Who have you been listening to?” Ezekiel asked, looking genuinely worried and pained.
Nadine shook her head.
“OK, first of all, if you’re having problems in school, we can get you extra-tuition … I will gladly do whatever needs to be done, to fix the problem.”
“OK.”
“I don’t buy or give you things because I’m trying to get something from you. So … any guy who tries that with you …”
“Daddy!”
“I’m serious, Nadine. Listen to me.”
“OK, I’m listening.”
“I buy you things, because you are my daughter and I love you. I have told you this, many times. ”
“I know.”
“And,” he continued, “nothing you could ever do or fail to do, will make me … Yes, I do have high hopes for you; every parent does. Every good parent has high hopes for their child. But at the end of the day, we just want our child to be happy and healthy.”
“Daddy, you say that now, but …”
“I mean it, Nadine. I loved you, from the moment your mother told me we were expecting you. Nothing can change that. It is my hope and my prayer that nothing will distract you from the path we … your mother and I, have tried to teach you to go on. That we’ve done enough to help imbibe in you, a strength of character that is able to make you refuse to tow any line of destruction. I know that you are your own person. You will eventually make decisions that I may not be ecstatic about. I dread the day. But I will get over them, because they won’t change the fact that you are my daughter. Nothing you ever do, could make me love you any less. Nothing.”
Nadine wiped a stray tear – from her father’s face. She had only ever seen her father cry once, in her life. That was at the time when she, her father and her mother, had discovered that Nadine attending a boarding school for her secondary school education, was not a good idea. On her mother’s insistence that boarding school would be good, because it would help her to become more independent, a 10year-old Nadine had been enrolled accordingly at a secondary school with boarding facilities, in Nigeria. Her father had openly opposed the idea from the start, but his wife, Maria had been so insistent, that he had succumbed. Nadine seemed ambivalent at first, then said she wanted to go. She had been regaled with funny tales from other students who were boarders and thought why not? Ezekiel had found that he could not win this painfully one-sided battle, especially as his wife and child were on the other team. Besides, sending 10year-olds to boarding school was not a sign of neglect – it was the thing that many Nigerian parents did at the time. But Nadine’s experience of terrible food and water, left her looking like an anorexic teetering on the brink of exhaustion – or that was the way Ezekiel told the story. With her mother openly crying and making exclamations – none of them good – in their native language in the office of the school principal, her father sat stoically, or so it seemed, as he asked to be allowed to immediately withdraw his daughter from the boarding house. Nadine had sat there in miserable reticence – now she thought it was the hunger that made her submit to silence – and wondered why her father seemed unmoved. Till she saw him wipe his face to clean tears. Tears that her mother had been oblivious to. Maria, at the time, conveniently forgot that boarding house had initially been her own idea. So much so, that she blatantly blamed Ezekiel for ‘sending her only daughter away to be starved to death’.
“Nwa m oma,” he said to her, “My beautiful child. Your mother says I have to let you go, to have your own experiences.”
Nadine smiled, wondering if her mother remembered the result of insisting that Nadine needed to experience boarding-school, or if Maria had successfully managed to re-write history in that regard.
“One day, you’ll bring some man home and tell me daddy, I love him. I’m not particularly looking forward to it. The day when you choose another man over your father.”
“You’ll always be my number one, daddy. You know that.”
“I know, my child, I know. He will take good care of you … not as good as me, but he will take good care of you. Or else, I will come after him.” After a pause, he continued, “they call Paris, ‘the city of love’. That’s why I brought you here.”
“So I can compare it to any other place that any other man takes me to?” she asked, laughing.
“Sometimes because your relationship with someone has changed, your perception of the experiences you had with them, may also be damaged. I wanted you to see Paris for the first time with me, so that your memories will never be tainted. I wanted you to see the city of love with the one man who will always love you, no matter what.”