Chapter Seven

SonOfMan got to Ms Iyebiye’s house when she hadn’t come out. He greeted her elder sister, who was going out for her work with her little daughter, and went straight to her room—she was sleeping, curling up on her side. He watched her a moment, wishing he had right to lie there and let that touching sleeping face bury against his chest. He tucked a cover around her legs, and moved to the sitting room. The woman of the house had left, so the house was freer, and he felt like to serve himself a cup of tea. He had almost had the breakfast when he saw Ms Iyebiye come through the door, with her weavon hair scattered in what looked like a wild heavy petting. He wished he had right for many things—yeah, to do many things.

“Good morning,” she greeted; her smile that accompanied that was quite warm. She was wearing a white quitted house-semi that didn’t really conceal a thing—but that wasn’t expected to be anybody’s problem now.

“Nice morning.” SonOfMan grinned. “Sit down and join me. As you can see I’m tucking into a breakfast I served myself.”

Ms Iyebiye first walked to a cushion and picked a cap which she tucked up her hair under it. “I wanted to come over to your house this morning and greet her, WyiWorri.” She pulled out a chair with her toe and sat.

“She left back yesterday, girl. All the same, I’m in a situation that comes to a head. In the offing… an imminent harbinger.”

Ms Iyebiye raised curious eyes. “Imminent harbinger?”

“Yeah; I’m putting on a red-alert on a rocky union that goes seriously ominous. Gawd, the prognosis is breaking my heart… my ingenuous heart.”

Ms Iyebiye made two surprising arcs with her eyebrows.

“I had a disturbing premonitory dream last night; that makes twice they came.”

“They came and portend?”

“I wouldn’t like to be a doomsayer of my own woe,” he lamented; “but it so breaks my heart!”

“The presage… your prognostication… what?” She was just in the fog.

“I wish I’m a trustworthy psychic or seer here; did you notice that I was seeing her as the life I live?”

“Why, certainly! Her, is it not Dumebi, the lady who…”

“Who I’m in love with. My girlfriend I so showed you,” he finished.

Ms Iyebiye frowned and nevertheless sipped her tea. “She’s your fiancée too.”

“Uh-huh… and now she’s mysteriously complicated. I want to find out if these visionary foreboding eye-openers are anything reflection of what is happening about her in reality.” He watched her. “How common is it for a young vibrant lady of twenty five to have some darn bleeding… I mean, for the reason of lack of pregnancy hormone?”

“Not very easy, but common, yes; it’s been observed. Do you think the trait is in her family, and she’d have it?”

“To the second question… maybe. I heard that something about indiscriminate abortions was the basic cause of such ill-fated problem on young ladies; do you know anything about it?” He eyed her probingly. “Of course, you have head for it by your profession.”

“The case in pregnancies, especially of young ladies, may not be the basic causes; but it’s possible, and it seems logical.” She watched him doubtfully. “But why would she want to indulge in rampart abortions? At least any promising man would be glad and blessed to take her as his wife any time any day, if such unplanned member comes up?”

“That my fiancée…” the goddamn mystery… “is playing me up. She’s…” he stopped in the middle of the sentence; “Girl, how good are you with trustworthiness; I mean, a hell of confidant?”

Ms Iyebiye dropped her tea cup, producing a tension clink against the tray. She read his vengeful expression and stiffened. “That’s not nice for a fiancée.”

“I don’t do nice things when I’m unfairly treated, and on edge for it, Chrisette; but I want you to know. I should shut up my mouth because you and Dumebi are on somewhat rivalry, but if you sound off to anyone in scurrilous or defamatory gossip, you’ll never be able to have my regard again. You understand that; don’t you?”

She greased her face with hot indignation. “You don’t have to tell me anything!”

“No, I don’t have to; but I can hold myself a bit reasonably, when I think someone out here cares to share my troubles. Listen, sieve and perm all you want to, but keep it to yourself. Like I was saying about Dumebi, my fiancée, she’s carrying a baby that I suspected I have no true business with. She has it all arranged so in case she’s unable to get rid of it, she’d be able to shove everything on me. Well, that may just be what is happening. She’s the one attracting the love, she’s still the one doing the desecration, and I’m taking the dopey fools-paradise for it.”

“You… you…” Ms Iyebiye’s eyes dilated; she was not just getting it. She adjusted all herself over the chair. A position that allowed her sit with her legs tucking up under her. “You went to the hospital with her?”

“Yeah, and saw a doctor. He was going to diagnose her for an ailment that struck her chest down the stomach the second night the first time she visited me earlier this year, but found out that she might be pregnant and advised us to go for a test… a pregnancy test.” He watched her. “True, but we didn’t go for that test, and nobody bordered until now; how could we border, after all!”

“You’re sure about this?” she asked.

“As sure as I can be, during my damning time, without any proof. If I know more about how doctors know a pregnancy, just a day old pregnancy, without carrying out any medical test, I’d have put that question in the right place.”

Ms Iyebiye threw her eyebrows up again—even higher this time. “But you… you’d been having…”

“I never made love to her in ages before she came,” he said; “because of prudish distance in our residing stations. You’re the first person I’ve told this, and you’re going to be the last. For the two years I’ve known her, and a year now we had our engagement, it was only on two occasions that we’d so celebrated our consummation of love. The period we celebrated our oath of betrothal, and the period she visited. I’m just a guy who has a torrid fiancée that hops about with careless sexual escapades, at the expense of his sex-starved sacrificial love.”

Anyway, SonOfMan gave Ms Iyebiye the dreams with few citation of probing aphorisms, and she just sat there with her mouth open trying to absorb them all. And if not he motioned her to eat while she was listening, she wouldn’t have even finished about the same time he did his story.

“It’s just incredible, really; nobody would think differently!” she said at last.

“Not so now the prophetic visions have portended. I’m going to play the game right up to the hilt until I find out the reason behind these visionary facts that hunted me in the dreams. Do you even know she kind of said the baby is refusing to stay there in the womb because of some shortage of progesterone?” He grinned bitterly. “And sometimes I think she was trying to explain, in addition, that there was problem of wrong positional location of the foetus. You’re wondering why I bother telling you all this; it’s because I’m going to need you.”

“What do you want me to do?”

“I want you to help me do a research, or as you’ve known already, write out things for me… things about oestrus circle… you know, safe period, foetus formation, hormonal changes and imbalance… and the rest of them. Nurses are good at teaching things like that, right? Try and write out any other causes other than incessant abortions or maybe in line with trait of a family or maybe advancement in maternal age.”

“Well, aside occurring from either of them, you have other causes like uterus abnormalities. You still have some causes like tract infection or tissue rejection… and don’t forget, chromosomal problems due to a parent’s genes are, however, a big possibility.”

“That’s all right; her case may be traced to indiscriminate abortions, because if her mother, who I know, had continued to have baby at later advanced age, with no qualms and no hormone replacement therapy, she’s probably not going to have it in her trait as problem at twenty five. After all, genetic problems occur with older parents. She could be cooking up a story like that to go with miscarriage, while she actually gets rid of the controversial baby herself… and no one can start asking questions.” He watched Ms Iyebiye and grinned again—sadly. “You see, I know… yeah, I know… I’m living in quite awful fools-paradise, but not unwittingly. Yeah, I know, not slavishly.”

Ms Iyebiye pushed her cup back; SonOfMan watched that and got up rather.

“Alright, WyiWorri, you can count on my confidentiality if you want to. I’ll use this morning and write out those things in a way an average man would understand them. I’ll bring them to you.”

“Yeah, I count on you. And I won’t wait up for it.” He grinned.

“Then you’ll be back a little time.”

He watched her up and down tentatively. “What else, perhaps?”

“Kiss?” She tilted her head up and half closed her eyes.

“Uh-uh, I won’t think you didn’t scrub before eating.”

“Stupid boy,” she hit him—still ready with half closed eyes.

“You beat me, Chrisette, because I wouldn’t mind that you didn’t wash before coming to sit here with me?”

“You’re a hopeless fellow, I tell you.” She backed off.

“Ugh, I wouldn’t know.”

She pursed with disabuseness.

Ms Iyebiye was in truth a pretty dish—alright, a little on the lovelorn side when you came close and you didn’t take away the pity that lurked in the corner, around her failed love. She was a million dough under nobles oblige, and two million in therapeutic melting partnership. And would have to be a dime dozen as the so much needed inamorata. Though.

“I wouldn’t—God knows why,” he said again and walked out.