A Bit of Difference (33 page)

She types:
Perhaps you were not listening when I told you.

Then she trashes Kate's e-mail. Why bother to reply? She is going home, where she will have a lot to deal with, but not this rubbish anymore.

z

On Thursday evening she drives Bandele to the clinic. He smells of cigarettes and Thai food. It is too cold to have her window down and she is gambling again, speeding through traffic lights after Vauxhall Bridge.

“Will you slow down?” he asks.

She gambles the other way around when she gets to Camberwell, waiting for traffic lights to change to red.

“Um, could you go a little faster?” he asks.

She turns on her car CD player and they listen to “Love All the Hurt Away.” The song makes her want to cry. Her legs are shaking. The symptoms she had when she first went to the clinic are back.

“Who's this?” Bandele asks.

“Aretha and George Benson.”

“Is it an old one?”

“Eighties.”

He huffs. “I hate eighties music. I hate duets.”

Bandele listens to black music so old it's gone white. He bites his bottom lip. She would give him a pat on the shoulder, but that might mean he has something to worry about. She ejects the CD. It is a relic she recorded, labeled
Ballads
.

They get to the clinic and Bandele, who normally refuses to identify himself as Nigerian, begins to show signs of the most common Nigerian phobia—of situations that remind him of his mortality. He is so petrified that he huddles over as he walks from the car park to the clinic. It is not that cold this evening.

“Are you all right?” she asks.

“Yeah,” he mumbles.

He waits for her to speak to the receptionist. She has to fill out his registration form. He can't think of a suitable fake name other than “J. M. Coetzee.”

“No one will be able to pronounce that,” she says. “What about James Baldwin?”

He nods. The waiting room is full. She wonders how many of them will know who James Baldwin is. The receptionist calls out his name and Bandele, who once called Nigerians a bunch of backward religious fanatics, lets out a cry, “Christ!”

He doubles over. The receptionist comes to his aid. “Are you all right? Does he speak English?”

Everyone watches as Deola helps him up. She assures the receptionist that he is fine and speaks English. She leads him to the doctor's office and prods him in. She prays as she waits, begging, whining, accusing and bargaining, conscious that she has prayed harder here than she has in any church. If only she could go to clinics every Sunday.

Bandele comes out still huddled over. Instead of stopping in the waiting room, he walks out of the clinic and she follows him to her car.

“Open the door,” he says.

He sits in her car. She knocks on the window several times, but he won't wind it down. She gets into the car. What should she do now? Drive off? Call the police?

She, too, has another common Nigerian phobia—of mental illness. She makes some attempt to rub his back. When it looks as if he is unlikely to budge she ends up going back to the clinic to get his results.

The receptionist is pleasant as usual. “I'll send you in when Dr. Srinivasan is free.”

“Thanks,” Deola says.

She hoped she would never see Dr. Srinivasan again in her life. She waits another ten minutes for the doctor, whose expression has not changed. Nor have her clothes. She wears the same black shirt under her white coat and the same ornamental gold earrings. It is almost as if she has been waiting for Deola's return.

“He's had a breakdown before,” Deola says. “I didn't think this would trigger another one. I just want you to tell me if he's okay. I'll tell him if you want. There is no guarantee how he will take it.”

“I can't do that,” Dr. Srinivasan says.

Her demeanor suggests she may not have encouraging news, but Deola is unsure: perhaps she is just irritated.

“Please,” Deola says. “All I need is a hint. I won't say anything to him.”

She rubs her leg, which has since gone numb. Why Bandele? After everything he has been through. The traffic lights were not in his favor.

“We'd better get out there,” Dr. Srinivasan says.

As they approach her car, they don't see Bandele and Deola hurries over. He is still there, but his forehead is practically on his knees. She knocks on his window again. What has she caused? Is he in shock? Dr. Srinivasan motions to her to wait and gets into the driver's seat. Bandele sits up obediently and Deola leans on her car, unable to watch. She stands up straight when Dr. Srinivasan comes out.

“He's fine,” Dr. Srinivasan says.

Deola shakes her hand. “Thank you.”

Dr. Srinivasan smiles. “He might want to go to somewhere else next time. Somewhere he can get the care he needs.”

Dr. Srinivasan returns to the clinic with a heroic strut. Deola gets into the driver's seat and Bandele is now slumped against the window.

“Are you all right?” she asks.

“Yeah.”

“Sorry I brought you here.”

“It was my fault.”

“I'm glad your test was okay.”

“Me too. I didn't mean to give you a scare.”

His contrition doesn't last. On the way back, she is driving past Kennington Park when her phone rings and she asks him to answer it. The lights of the tennis courts are already on. The call has to be from someone at home, her family or Wale calling to check up on her. Wale never speaks for long, but he writes her e-mails asking if she is keeping well and getting sufficient rest. She laughs out loud at his accounts of the daily events in his hotel he calls “Fawlty Towers.” He always ends with a “Looking forward to your safe return.
Yours, Wale.”

“Wally who?” Bandele asks.

Deola signals to him to hand her the phone.

“No, you haven't got the wrong number,” he says. “No, she can't take your call right now.”

“Give me the phone,” Deola says.

Bandele dodges her. “I'm her friend. Pardon? I said I'm her friend. Yes. We're off to Paris. Pardon? Yes, I'm sure she'll call you when we get back.”

He cuts Wale off. Deola keeps her eye on a cyclist ahead.

“Why did you do that?”

“He'll get over it.”

“Bloody hell, that was so childish of you. We're finally beginning to talk.”

“He'd better do more than talk.”

“I can't believe this. I don't play games. Give me that phone.”

“God, I feel as if I've taken a sleeping pill after speaking to him.”

“Give me my phone back!”

“No.”

“Bandele!”

“No! And I'll tell you this, this isn't another job in Wolverhampton!”

“Wembley!”

“Wherever. You'd better get more demanding. He'd better know what you're worth. This might be your last chance out of spinsterhood.”

“Oh, shut up.”

“No! The least he can do while you're getting fat is call you!”

“Give me back my phone.”

“Go on, then. Call him, if you must.”

She doesn't, but she has had enough of Bandele. She decides she won't see him for a while.

“I can't go to Paris with you,” she says.

“Why not?” he asks.

“I'm not allowed to travel in my first trimester.”

He looks her up and down. “You little liar.”

She doesn't admit to lying and she resists pushing him out of her car when she drops him off. He takes too long to say goodbye.

“I just don't want to see you acting so feeble anymore,” he says. “No, really. I don't think you get it. I don't think you get it yet. You need to be more demanding. I know I may go on at you about this or that, but you're a good friend. A really good friend, and I'll miss you when you're gone. No, really, I will. Don't look at me in that way. I'm being serious here, for once, and I just… I just don't want anyone taking advantage of you. Why do you keep looking at me like that?”

She wants to go. Wale might be calling her at home.

“I'm serious. He'd better be nice to you. That's all I'm saying. I don't know what he's like, but if he's anything like the others, then don't do that to yourself.”

“I won't,” she says, to hurry him.

“Good, because you're better than that. You are, Old Fanny, and it's time you start demanding more. You can't be too timid. ‘There are casualties, but there is nothing to fear.' Those were your words.”

“When did I say that?”

He smiles. “Well, to paraphrase.”

She is exhausted. Bandele exhausts her like no one else.

“Say hello to Charlie,” she says.

He raises a brow, then seems to remember he is having a kind moment.

“I will.”

“Does your family ever ask why you're not married?”

“No.”

“That's good. It's good you're a man.”

“It's good that I am mad. It has its advantages.”

“Is your novel about you and Charlie?”

He eyes her. “Why?”

“You've done autobiographical before. Is it about two men?”

“I think I have enough imagination to write about an unsuited hetero couple. If I don't, I have you and Wally What's-it to use as muses.”

She would like to ask if his characters save their relationship in Paris, but that would be gambling yet again.

He imitates her cheerless expression as she drives off. He is not mad; he is extremely annoying. Her oblivion still astonishes her. It is odd to imagine him with a man. She would like to think he is faithful. She hopes he will finish his novel.

z

When she gets home, Wale hasn't called back or left a message on her phone. The least he can do and he hasn't even done that. Why would she expect more from him? She eats dinner and still no phone call from him.

Tonight she watches a Hollywood film that takes place during a genocide in an imaginary African country. The usual elements are in the film: the benevolent missionary priest; the hopeful expatriate and cynical foreign journalist who has a change of conscience; the sidekick African intellectual and the corrupt local politician. Red-eyed African military men drive around in trucks brandishing machine guns. Arrogant UN troops are unsympathetic to the hungry refugees and barefoot children. The children run after their trucks. A token pet dog gets slaughtered. There is much drumming and singing and panoramic shots of green hills. Normally, she allows herself to be seduced, but not today. It is painful to watch, almost as if a mass sacrifice has taken place so the journalist and the expatriate can fall in love.

She has never recognized this Africa. She is increasingly dissatisfied with what she sees on television about Africa, most especially on the news. Not the barrage of news clips on wars and poverty-stricken villages—after all, they are not made up—but the lack of perspective and continued absence of her experiences.

What she would give to see a boring old banker going on about capital growth, as they do in Nigeria, just for once. Why not? Don't they exist? Don't they count? Or are they so well assimilated into the rest of the world that they are no longer visible? Or—and this would be a conspiracy of the most tragic consequence—are Westerners, now that Africans readily process themselves for Western consumption, developing a preference for Africans who are pure and unadulterated?

z

Morning sickness is meant to prepare her womb for her child. She is beginning to believe it is also preparing her as well because it is becoming more and more trying to get up and eat breakfast, yet she does. She has to get enough nutrients and stay active. She thinks of her growing child as a friend, a friend she is getting acquainted with. She must have grown up to some extent because she is able to put her fears aside, and what might have been a sense of failure is now a determination to be worthy of being a mother.

On Saturday afternoon she is recovering from her breakfast of cereal and banana when her doorbell rings. She thinks it is Subu again, but looking out of her window, she can't see Subu's Audi. She takes off her dressing gown and changes into sweatpants. It is a cold day. She opens the door of her flat and Wale is walking up the stairs.

“What are you doing here?”

“I came to see you.”

“Who let you in?”

“Your neighbor. She was on her way out.”

She hugs him out of shock, but he doesn't hold her.

“What's wrong?” she asks.

“Can we?” he asks, pointing indoors.

“What for?”

“I want to talk to you.”

“About?”

“You want to talk out here?”

She crosses her arms. “It depends what you have to say.”

“Paris.”

“That's why you came?”

He shuts her door after he walks in and looks around as if he expects to find an orgy.

“I don't know what is going on,” he says, “but I have just told my family about you. You don't want to meet them? Fine. You have other men in your life? Fine with me. All I need to know is if you are pregnant or not. I also have the right to know if you have jeopardized my health. Now, I'm sure you have evidence of the tests you've had and I want to see them.”

Jeopardize
. She is still a little nauseous. She will always associate her love for him with nausea. She goes to her bedroom and retrieves her tests from the drawer by her bed and hands them to him.

“Are you satisfied?” she asks, as he reads.

“What was the phone call I had with that man about?”

“I've known him longer than I've known you.”

“You didn't mention you were going to Paris.”

Typical, she thinks. The moment he opens up, he is given to acts of heroism, flying across the Sahara and Atlantic to stand on her head and stick a flag in her arse.

“He's gay,” she says.