Lará lived in a large house in Camberwell with a gate and gardens front and back. Glory found it odd that she would pay a premium to live a twenty-five-minute walk away from her own mother’s house, but Lará said she liked the “familiar change of scenery.” She lived with four other professionals, one couple who fancied themselves the parental figures of the house, another woman who had called Glory by Lará’s name twice within the first hour of Glory crossing the threshold, and a quiet, bird-like man who seemed to flit around, balancing a laptop on his bony wrists.
“He’s a programr, or something,” Lará had explained as Glory drank her peppermint tea. “Really nerdy and nervous but very intelligent. If you need your computer or smartphone fixed, he’s your guy.”
Now they were on their way to Elephant and Castle, where Lará said Mama Wawo would be. That Celeste and Mama Wawo could live and work in such close proximity and never come across each other was the nature of London in a nutshell. So many people, so much congestion, but everyone operating within their own separate galaxy.
They weaved between teenagers dawdling on their way to Saturday school or returning home from football. Tall buses queued up like red elephants waiting to unload their cargo, and the smell of hot churros tempted Glory as they walked past one of the huts selling Latin food. They descended the outdoor staircase and made their way through the market, where Glory used to spend her money on Chinese slippers, multicolored leggings or whatever else was the latest trend, while being harassed by young boys in fake Lot 29 and Akademiks tracksuits.
There were still the same shipping container shops and tarpaulin-covered metal frames weighed down by clothing, but the ambience felt different. The vibrancy had left, or perhaps it was Glory’s own youthful excitement that was missing. The truth was, the shopping center was caught between two worlds. Eventually this place along with all its memories would be flattened and reduced to broken concrete and twisted metal. Whatever would replace it would be nothing like what came before, and, of course, that was the point.
Lará led the way, passing the café, the WHSmith, the money transfer signs and discount shoe shop, until they reached a unit tucked away in a corner near the Greggs. The old signage was obscured by a white PVC banner, “Virtuous Woman Jewels and Accessorries,” the extra “r” turning the final word to gibberish. The inside of the shop was taken up by half empty plastic wrapping and cardboard boxes, but a pair of hands were arranging mannequin necks weighed down with reimagined designer logos in bright gold.
“Good morning, Auntie Níkẹ,” Lará called to the pair of hands, and a woman’s face ducked around the door frame to see who was greeting her.
“Ọmọlará! Morning, my dear.” Mama Wawo reached out for a hug. “How’s your mum?”
“She’s fine—I brought my friend as I said I would. Glory.”
Mama Wawo’s neck and wrists were weighed down with yellow gold. Pearlescent lilac eyeshadow stretched from her eyelashes to the hard black lines of her eyebrows. A gold tooth glittered in her mouth among straight white teeth.
“Good morning, Ma,” Glory said, dipping into a quick curtsey.
“Good morning, dear,” Mama Wawo said with a regal nod.
“We were hoping you might be able to help us,” Lará began and a single penciled eyebrow arched upward on Mama Wawo’s face.
“You know my mother,” Glory said, picking up from Lará’s introduction. “Well, you knew my mother, back when I was really small. She was looking for help with childcare and I believe you introduced her to a family—a white family—who looked after me and my sisters for a while.”
Mama Wawo squinted, sizing up Glory and what she had just said.
“What’s your mother’s name?”
“Celeste Akíndélé.”
“And you are?”
“Glory Akíndélé.”
“I see,” Mama Wawo said slowly, turning away to attend to a new task. “So what do you want my help with?”
Glory looked to Lará, who nodded in encouragement.
“Well, one of my sisters stayed with this family, after we left, and I haven’t seen her since. The white couple were called Joan and Edward Marksham. I wondered if you knew how to find them so that I could find her.”
Mama Wawo turned her head and looked at Lará. She stared at her for a long time until a smile broke across her face and she turned back to Glory slowly, her gold tooth flashing.
“I told her, you cannot question God. Sometimes you just have to wait,” she said with a knowing smile.
“You told who? My mother?”
“No, I haven’t seen your mother in years . . . but I know your family well. You have another sister, àbí? Grace?”
“Faith.”
“Yes, Faith. Your parents are Yorùbá but named you all like the Igbo.”
Mama Wawo laughed and shook her head like she was revisiting an old joke.
“I think my mum’s mum was Igbo . . .” Glory started to say but Mama Wawo waved away the rest of the thought.
“Does your father know you are here?” she asked, suddenly serious.
Glory felt Lará’s eyes on her.
“No, he passed actually,” Glory said, swallowing the lump that never failed to appear when she had to relay this information to someone new.
“Oh,” Mama Wawo said, shocked, but her voice softened. “I’m sorry, my dear. May God have mercy upon his precious soul.”
Mama Wawo turned and walked to the small storeroom in the back of the shop. She was gone for a minute, but returned with a worn purple notebook bursting with folded pieces of paper slipped in between its pages. She perched a pair of glasses on the end of her nose, running a fat finger ringed with gold down each page until she found what she was looking for. She ripped off the bottom half of a page and handed it to Glory.
“What’s this?”
“Your sister’s phone number.”
Glory looked up.
“B-but—what? How?”
Glory looked at the scrap of paper again, her lips mouthing each of the eleven digits written in front of her. She then glanced at Lará, who looked just as bewildered.
“The way that God works is mysterious,” Mama Wawo said, looking upward as if she was consulting with angels sitting in the rafters. “Your sister came to me several months ago, she had been looking for your parents. I even knew who you were as soon as you came, but I had to be careful.”
Mama Wawo’s voice began to swim in and out as Glory stared past her into the bare interior of the shop. For so long Hope had felt like mist in the distance, but Mama Wawo speaking of her in the recent past made her seem terribly real.
Glory began imagining what she looked like, how tall she might have been, what clothes she wore when she came and what had even brought her to London? How did Hope come so close—a twenty-minute bus ride away—and Glory didn’t know? Was there not meant to be some kind of twin intuition, some sixth sense that would let her know that Hope was looking for her? Or was it because she wasn’t in the country at the time, so it didn’t work? Or maybe she had switched that part of her brain off since all this time she had thought—she had been told, deceived, lied to—that her sister, the person who had shared a womb with her for nine months, was dead.
She interrupted Mama Wawo’s monologue.
“She came here?”
“Yes! I already said that!”
The air around Glory felt thin, like it could not support the weight of her and she was about to crash right through it. Everything around her felt too light and bright and garish, the sounds of people and voices got too loud. Her knees buckled and she was down.
Glory felt the smooth, hard floor beneath her as she came to. Someone had folded her over into the recovery position and she could hear another voice asking if anybody had called an ambulance.
“No, please don’t,” she managed to croak. “I just need a minute.”
She tried to push herself up into a seated position and felt hands lift her weight.
“Don’t let her sit there, bring her into my shop.”
The stern voice of Mama Wawo cut through the clamor and the same hands carried her into the cool storeroom at the back of the tiny little unit. Glory was lifted onto a stack of boxes, the cardboard sagging beneath her weight.
“Be careful, o! Don’t crush my merchandise or I will have to charge you.”
But when Glory looked into Mama Wawo’s face, she wasn’t angry.
“When did you last eat?” Mama Wawo tutted.
She went over to another stack of boxes, which sat next to a small, compact fridge with a microwave on top. Mama Wawo opened the fridge, fiddled around and the microwave made a few beeps before humming into action.
“Oya, Ọmọlará, go buy water!” Mama Wawo ordered. Lará was lingering in the entryway to the storeroom, looking worried, but on Mama Wawo’s command she hurried away.
“Was it what I said about your dad? Did that upset you?” Mama Wawo asked Glory gently when Lará had left. There was hardly any light back here, the single swinging fixture was bulbless and bare, so Mama Wawo looked carefully into Glory’s face with the light that came in from the front of the shop.
“I didn’t hear that bit. I think I was in shock. What did you say about my father?”
The microwave pinged and Mama Wawo opened the door, taking out a paper bag and wrapping a couple of sheets of kitchen roll around it.
“Let it cool,” she instructed as she handed it to Glory. Glory unwrapped the paper and peered into the bag at a steaming meat pie.
Mama Wawo folded her hands against her stomach and sighed, she no longer looked like she wanted to talk.
“What were you saying about my father?”
“When Hope first came to me, I got in touch with him. He was not interested.”
She pushed out her lips and dusted off her palms with a few claps.
“What did he say?”
“He said that it was not the right time.”
Glory’s body started shuddering violently, and before she knew it she was crying. Hacking sobs rose from her chest and she gripped the paper bag in her hand so hard the heat from the meat pie began to burn her fingertips.
“Please, please,” Mama Wawo said, bringing her hands up and letting them drop again, but Glory couldn’t stop, her shoulders shook until they ached. She was heartbroken.
“Here.” Mama Wawo handed a wad of kitchen roll to Glory and laid a hand on her shoulder, squeezing lightly. “There’s no need to cry, dear. It is well.”
“But why? Why did he . . .” Glory’s question trailed off into a gasp.
“We cannot question the dead,” Mama Wawo said with finality.
Glory wiped her face and felt frantic when she realized she didn’t know what happened to the scrap of paper with the phone number.
“Wh-where’s it gone?” she asked desperately, setting the meat pie on her lap and feeling through her pockets. “Her number! I don’t know where I put it!”
“Here, here!” Mama Wawo pushed the scrap back at Glory. “Ọmọlará picked it up from where you dropped it. Please, calm down, ehn?”
Now it was Mama Wawo’s turned to look worried, as though she regretted everything she had said so far.
This was lost to Glory, who stared at the jagged scrap of paper until she was seeing through it, the numbers reduced to a white blur.
“What we name our children is very important, you know that, ehn?” Mama Wawo said after a few moments of calm silence had passed. “When we name a child we are calling forth their destiny.”
Glory stayed silent. She folded the scrap of paper and put it into the coin pocket of her jeans, sure that it would not get lost in this small compartment. Then she blew on the meat pie and took a wide bite. The filling was still hot and scalded the inside of her mouth, but she chewed and chewed until she could eventually swallow.