A Few Days Later

Emmanuel came through the door with his bag over over shoulder, and Tobiloba hit him at the was fully inside.

“Daddy.”

 

“Ah.” He dropped on one knee in the doorway, bag still hanging from his shoulder, and held the boy. Tobiloba wrapped both arms around his neck and Emmanuel laughed, a low, easy laugh, and stood with him, carrying him into the house the way you carry something you have missed.

Folake was already coming from the kitchen, Adesuwa on her hip. The smile that came when she saw him was immediate.

He kissed her, then took the baby from her arms and held her out for inspection, looking at her with great seriousness as though checking that everything was still exactly where it should be.

“She’s grown,” he said.

“You have been gone for only one month,” Folake said.

 “She’s grown,” he said.

“She hasn’t changed.” 

“She has.” He settled the baby against his chest and looked around the house. His eyes found Yetunde at the kitchen doorway. “Yetunde, how are you?”

 

“I am fine. Welcome back, sir.” Yetunde said, then went back to the soup she was cooking.

The house was different with him in it. She noticed it immediately, a settling, like a room that had been slightly off-balance returning to its proper position. Even Tobiloba was calmer, following his father from room to room, narrating everything that had happened in his absence.

 

She had just finished turning the poundo yam when the bell rang again.

 

She wiped her hands and went to the door.

 

A delivery man with a small box and a handheld device. She signed, took the package, and glanced at the label before pausing on the step.

 

Then she went back inside.

Emmanuel was passing through the hallway, on his way to wash his hands for dinner, when he noticed the box.

He paused.

“Ah,” he said. “People are sending you packages now.”

Yetunde laughed. “It’s not like that.”

“Mm-hmm.”

“It’s from a friend.”

“A friend,” he repeated.

“Yes.”

He nodded thoughtfully. “Very good.”

“Sir.”

“What? I didn’t say anything.”

“You were about to.”

He grinned.

“Enjoy your package.”

Then he continued down the hallway toward the bathroom.

Yetunde shook her head, smiling despite herself. She put the package in her room and came back to serve dinner.

They sat down to eat.

For a few minutes, the conversation stayed on ordinary things: Tobiloba’s day at nursery, the weather, and whether the baby was finally settling into a routine.

Yetunde barely spoke. She moved the food around her plate more than she ate it.

Emmanuel noticed.

“You okay?”

I’m fine,” Yetunde said.

He glanced at her plate.

“You don’t look fine. You’ve hardly eaten anything.”

Before Yetunde could answer, Folake sighed.

“She’s been like this all week.”

“Like what?” Emmanuel asked

“Distracted.” Folake smiled. “I told her not to go and see a man.”

Emmanuel looked up from his food.

“A man?”

“She met him on the plane,” Folake said. “He’s been calling her every day. Now he wants to come and see her tomorrow. I told her no.”

Emmanuel set down his fork and looked at Yetunde.

“You talk to this person every day?”

“Yes, sir.”

 

“I’m guessing he’s the friend who sent the gift.”

Folake cut in. “I told her not to encourage it.” She reached for her water. “The man just wants to take advantage of her and I told her to stop entertaining it and end the friendship before it becomes a problem.”

Emmanuel set his fork down. He looked at Folake.

 

“That’s not up to you.”

 

“Emmanuel—”

 

“She’s not a child” He said it without heat, taking her hand to caress it softly, calming her. Then he turned to Yetunde. “You are good friends with this guy?”

 

“Yes, sir.”

 

“How did you meet?”

 

“He helped me with my excess luggage, and sat next to me on the flight to Birmingham. We talked for the most part of the flight, then he lent me his jacket when we landed and it was cold. We’ve been friends since then.”

 

Emmanuel looked back at his wife. “How did I meet you?”

 

Folake said nothing.

“Campus gate. Neither of us planned to be there.” He picked his fork back up. “People meet people. That is how it works. You cannot tell this girl who she can and cannot see.”

 

“I’m trying to protect her. She’s innocent. She doesn’t know how the men here operate.”

 

“And she won’t learn by sitting in this house.” He looked at Yetunde again, his voice straightforward. “If you spend time with this man and you see that he is not who he says he is, you will know. And you will walk away. Yes?”

 

“Yes,” Yetunde said. “I promise.”

 

“Then see him.” He reached for his water. “What if this is her husband, Folake? We’ll have ended a friendship for nothing.”

 

“Her husband.” Folake shook her head. “Listen to what you’re saying.”

 

“I’m being fair, babe.”

 

Folake did not respond. She turned back to her food, her expression saying clearly that she had not changed her mind but had decided to stop arguing for now.

 

Yetunde excused herself, took her leftovers to the fridge, and went to her room.

She heard them as she climbed the stairs. Folake’s voice dropping lower, persistent, Emmanuel’s responses short and steady. She closed the door and the voices became just sound.

 

She lay on the bed still in her clothes.

 

The week had been long. The cooking, the baby, the daily management of this house and her place in it. She was grateful, but gratitude and exhaustion live side by side, and she felt both fully.

 

She closed her eyes.

 

Lord, thank you for Mr. Emmanuel. Thank you that someone in this house can see it clearly. She breathed. I’m getting tired. Not of helping, I don’t mind helping. But I don’t know how much longer I can hold all of this. Part of me wants to go home. Part of me loves being here. I don’t know which part to listen to. Please just direct me. Show me what to do.

 

In Jesus’ name.

 

Her phone rang.

 

She looked at the screen and smiled before she could stop herself.

 

Jide.

 

She picked up.

 

—————————————————

 

It had been this way since Jide arrived in Birmingham. A standing arrangement, unscheduled but consistent, held together by habit and shared need. Kunle’s house in Erdington had a garden big enough for the numbers that showed up, and the food was always too much. They never really managed to keep the guests contained. Nigerians mostly, but not only, there were Ghanaians who came regularly, and a Kenyan couple who had been fixtures for two years. For a few hours every last Friday, the on-and-off loneliness of being African in England lifted a little.

 

Tonight, Jide was there only in body.

 

It started the moment he arrived, when someone asked about Elizabeth. He had expected it.  Elizabeth had been known in this circle, mentioned at gatherings, asked after.

 

“We broke up,” he said.

 

The noise was immediate. Ah ah. Ehn? What happened?

“There’s someone else,” he said, not wanting to talk about Elizabeth. He regretted it immediately. 

Everyone at his table spoke at once. Someone else? Already? This guy. One minute Elizabeth, next minute– who is she? Where did you find her? Someone said he moved fast. 

Kunle, across the garden, raised an eyebrow and said nothing.

Jide laughed with them because it was easier than explaining, and through all of it he kept thinking about her. How was it possible that he had seen her once and she had lodged herself so completely? He had her display picture saved. He had looked at it more times than he would admit to anyone in this garden. That skin. Those braids – he didn’t even know if she still had them. She wasn’t even aware of herself. That was the thing about her. She moved through the world without any idea of what she looked like moving through it.

 

He stepped out into the courtyard and called her.

 

She picked up and he said, “Hello, baby,” and didn’t realize it until the words were already out.

 

“Baby how?” Her voice was amused and alert at the same time. “Don’t let your girlfriend catch you o.”

 

“You know I don’t have a girlfriend.”

 

“If she keeps begging you, are you not going to forgive her?”

 

“I already broke up with her.”

 

“So fast? You will not even mourn a bit?”

 

“I mourned for one whole night in a hotel room where I couldn’t sleep, shocked by the betrayal of finding her in my T-shirt after sleeping with another man in the apartment I rented for her,” he said, like he was giving her a report. “I have forgiven her completely, but I broke up with her because I realized I had made a mistake. She was never the one for me. My heart is somewhere else already.”

 

“With who?”

 

“Someone I recently got to know.”

 

Her tone shifted, softer without meaning to be. He noticed immediately.

 

“Why did your voice just change?”

 

“Nothing. There’s nothing.”

 

“Yetunde.”

“I said nothing.” A beat. “Did you say there’s a letter in the shoe?”

 

“There’s a card inside the box.”

 

“There’s a card? I didn’t see any card.”

 

“Go and look.”

 

He heard her moving, the small sounds of her crossing the room, the rustle of the box. A pause. Then silence as she read.

 

He had written it the evening he ordered the shoe. He had sat at his desk for a long time before he found the words. 

 

One month with you has been more precious than all the years I’ve been in this country. I want to explore a different kind of friendship with you. Do you think that’s something you could manage?

 

“Jide,” she said. Her voice was doing the thing it did when she was moved and was trying not to show it.

“Yetunde.”

“You don’t even know me.”

“I know you enough to know that I want to spend more time with you.” He leaned against the wall of the courtyard. Inside he could hear the gathering continuing without him. “ I want to tell you something.”

“What?”

“Four years ago, God told me something. He told me that my wife was a twenty-year-old girl in Nigeria.” Jide said it plainly, trying not to overwhelm her. “I thought I knew who it was. I was wrong. I was impatient. I decided and stopped seeking. But when I did the calculation, Yetunde, four years ago you were also twenty years old.”

The line was quiet.

“What were you doing four years ago?” he asked.

She was quiet for a while before she answered, thinking, but Jide feared for a moment that he had confused her, till he heard her voice.

“Four years ago I was leaving my village, Osi, for the first time, coming to Lagos. I was confused. I had wanted to further my education and instead I was going to work as a maid in someone’s house. I kept wondering if God had forgotten me. But I remembered the scripture. Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with all your might. So I just did it. I did it well.

Jide was quiet.

“What if doing it well is exactly what made it possible for us to meet?” he said. “If you didn’t go and work with the Adeyemis, if they didn’t bring you to the UK, we would never meet on that plane. What if all of it, every step of it, was working together for our good?”

She didn’t answer.

“I’m overwhelmed,” she said softly.

“When can we see?” Jide asked, worried he was moving too fast, but her answer shocked him.

“How about tomorrow?”

“I thought you said I shouldn’t come.”

“My madam does not agree but her husband thinks we should see, and he has convinced her.”

He laughed. “Men supporting men. I need to bring that man a present. 

I can be there by noon.”

“Noon?” A pause. “I don’t even have clothes. What am I going to wear?”

“Wear anything. It’s you that matters.”

A small silence. Then he said, “Do you think there’s something here? This thing I’m feeling, do you think you feel it too?”

She took her time.

“I really like you,” she said. “I’m not even going to pretend. But so many things make this feel almost impossible. You’re a big-time software engineer here in the U.K. I’m just… I’m just whatever I am.”

He was quiet.

“Yetunde, do you know what I like about talking to you?”

“What?”

“You never talk about people. You talk about ideas. About God. About business. About things you want to build. You make things with your hands. You take care of people. You make everything better than you found it.”

“And every time you describe yourself, you leave all of that out.”

Yetunde stuttered, unable to reply properly.

“I’m serious. You are saying, ‘I’m just Yetunde,’ as though that explains why I shouldn’t like you.”

Neither of them spoke.

Then he said, lighter now, “I’ll see you tomorrow, Babe.”

“Ha! It’s too early to start calling me babe o. We are still just friends.”

They both laughed, then Jide broke it and said, “By this time tomorrow you will have no problem with it.”

“Ha. Okay, bye.”

“Bye—”

Jide stood in the courtyard looking at the phone, smiling without meaning to.

“Ah ah.”

He turned. Femi was leaning against the doorframe with a small plate of food, chewing slowly, watching him with the expression of a man who had been there for some time.

“How long have you been standing there?”

“Long enough.” Femi pointed his fork at him. “Who is she?”

“Nobody.”

“Nobody?” Femi came out into the courtyard properly and sat on the low wall. “You stepped out of a room full of people having fun to call nobody. And nobody made you smile like that?” He shook his head. “Where is she? I heard Coventry.”

“You were listening to my conversation.”

“I was standing in my cousin’s doorway eating my food. You were the one talking loud.” He tilted his head. “Coventry though. My girlfriend is in Coventry.”

Jide looked at him. “Seriously?”

“Seriously. My Adaeze. You know she would have been here with me tonight if not. She’s been there eight months.” He pointed the fork again. “Are you driving tomorrow?”

 

“I’m driving.”

 

“Then I’m coming with you. I’ll surprise her.”

 

“Femi, I need privacy. This is the first time I’m seeing her properly since we met on the plane. I don’t need you there commenting.”

“I will be quiet. I will be with Adaeze the whole time.” Femi set his plate down. “Listen to me. Double dating takes the pressure off a first date. You’re nervous, don’t say you’re not. When there’s another couple there it takes the weight off. Nobody is performing. Nobody is sitting across the table feeling awkward. You can just —- be.” He paused. “And you can watch her when she doesn’t know you’re watching. That tells you everything. Trust me.”

 

Jide looked at him.

 

“You will make any comment.”

 

“I will not.”

 

“You will not embarrass me.”

 

“When have I ever embarrassed you?”

 

Jide gave him a look.

 

“Okay, there was that one time,” Kunle said. “But I was younger. I’ve grown.” He picked his plate back up. “Deal?”

 

Jide shook his head slowly. “Deal.”

 

Femi smiled and went back inside.

 

Jide stood in the courtyard a moment longer, the cold settling around him, the noise of the gathering spilling through the door. He looked at his phone one more time.

 

Then he followed him in.

—————————————————————————————————————-

 

She had been awake until past midnight sorting laundry.

 

Folake had come to her the previous evening with a pile of clothes and said they needed to do laundry in the morning, and Yetunde, knowing what morning would look like, had stayed up and done most of it herself. She had fallen asleep somewhere between the sorting and the folding, still in her clothes, the last items in her lap.

 

Jide’s message had come through while she was sleeping.

 

Coming with a friend. See you soon.

 

By the time he called to say he was in Coventry and on his way to the house, she had not bathed. She was at the stove. Folake had mentioned, just before 11am, that she should cook something for lunch before she left.

 

“Please,” she said into the phone. “Give me one hour. I’m so sorry.”

“It’s fine,” he said. “I’ll go with my friend to pick up his girlfriend first. Take your time.”

 

She was grateful that he wouldn’t be waiting alone.

 

Yetunde handed the baby, who had been strapped to her back while cooking, to Folake, then went upstairs to get ready. She was halfway to the bathroom when Folake appeared at the bottom of the stairs.

 

“Before you go, Tobiloba has some classwork. Can you just quickly go through it with him?”

 

That was when Emmanuel came out of the sitting room.

 

He looked at Yetunde on the stairs, then at his wife and the clock on the wall.

 

“Why is this girl still in the house? Did she not say she was going out by twelve? It’s one-thirty.”

 

“She just needs to help me with one or two things–”

 

“What things? Tell me. I’ll do them.”

 

Folake pressed her lips together and said nothing.

 

Emmanuel looked up at Yetunde. “Go and get ready. Go.”

 

She went, grateful for the intervention.

 

She stood in her room in her towel afterwards,  looking at everything she had brought with her. She had not planned this moment, so nothing felt right. She pulled out the black jeans, those were fine. But the tops. She went through them twice. They were either too plain, too casual, or too much.

What did you wear to see a man who called you ‘babe’ without hesitation and confessed feelings you were beginning to suspect you shared?

Yetunde did not know.

She stood in front of the wardrobe longer than necessary, looking at clothes she had worn a hundred times as though they might suddenly tell her the answer.

Then she found the Ankara top she had made herself back in Lagos.

She held it up.

She almost put it back.

‘I’ll look like a village girl,’ she thought. ‘Wearing Ankara abroad when everybody else is wearing proper English clothes.’

She looked at the other options again.

Then she put on the Ankara top.

It was the only option she had. And she had made it with her own hands, which counted for something.

She put mousse on her braids, smoothing down the parts that had gone rough overnight. She slipped on her hoops and applied lip gloss. She looked at herself in the mirror.

Not for long. Just long enough to make sure everything was where it should be, but not long enough to start changing things.

She went downstairs.

He had been waiting outside for thirty minutes.

She saw the car as she stepped through the front door and felt her stomach drop.

He was here.

She just stood there, looking at it.

Then she started walking.

By the time she got to the pavement, he was getting out of the driver’s seat, unfolding himself from the car, and she was already talking before she reached him.

“I am so, so sorry. Please forgive me. You know today is Saturday, there was so much to do and I didn’t know how to stop. I didn’t even plan my outfit, I just threw this on, I–”

“Hey,” he said it quietly. “It’s fine. I’m not upset.”

She stopped.

He was looking at her in that same unhurried way she had been trying not to think about since the plane.

“I didn’t even have time to think about what to wear,” she said, quieter now.

“You look beautiful.”

She glanced down at the shoes. “At least my sneakers are fine. Thank God for them. You saved me.”

He smiled. “Can I hug you?”

She looked up at him. “Yes.”

She stepped forward and he folded her in. It felt surprisingly natural, as though they had done this before. He held her for a full minute. She felt him breathe in slowly near her hair.

“You smell nice,” he said.

“It’s Madam Folake’s perfume. She gave it to me when I arrived.”

“I don’t think it’s the perfume.”

She pulled back slightly to look at him. He was still looking at her the same way.

“I want to love you,” he said. “Let me love you.”

Something moved through her that she didn’t have a name for. She felt it from her chest down to her hands.

She looked away first.

“There are people in the car.”

“Let them wait.”

“What if Madam Folake is watching from the window?”

He glanced at the house.

Then back at her.

“You can leave if you want,” he said.

She laughed.

“I can’t,” she replied.

Then he took her hand and led her towards the car.

Femi was already leaning out of the window before they reached it.

“So this is the famous Yetunde.” He grinned. “Finally. In the flesh.”

Yetunde looked at Jide.

Jide, suddenly very interested in the passenger door, opened it for her and looked away with a smile.

“Don’t mind him,” he said.

“Famous how?” Yetunde asked.

“Famous how?” Femi turned to Adaeze beside him. “She’s asking. This man has not stopped talking about her since I got into the car.” 

Femi looked at Jide for confirmation, but Jide just shook his head playfully. 

He turned back to Yetunde. “I have been trapped in a car with this man for hours. At this point I feel like I already know you. My name is Femi. This is my girlfriend, Adaeze. We’ve been waiting to meet you.”

Adaeze leaned forward and touched his arm. “Femi, don’t make her uncomfortable.”

 

“I’m just being honest.”

 

“You’re being a lot.” She smiled at Yetunde. “Please ignore his excess. I’m Adaeze. It’s really nice to meet you.”

 

“Nice to meet you Adaeze, and you too, Femi.”

 

“Seriously,” Femi said, “I want you to know that I am personally invested in this. Jide is my guy. Good man. Brilliant man, best nerd I know. I hear his company would double his salary just to keep him if he ever tries to leave them. And to think they already pay him so well. He’s a –”

 

“Femi.” Jide started the engine.

 

“I’m marketing you. Let me market you.”

 

“I don’t need your help.”

Yetunde laughed. Adaeze laughed. Femi spread his hands as if to say, I give up.

 

“I’m just  saying that you have a good one here. I want to make sure you know what you have.”

 

“Femi,” Adaeze said, pulling him by the sleeve. “That’s enough. Let them breathe.”

 

He settled back, only slightly chastened, and Jide pulled out of the street.

 

After a moment of quiet, Adaeze leaned forward.

 

“Yetunde, I love your top. Where did you get it?”

 

Yetunde glanced down. The Ankara top she had almost talked herself out of. “I made it.”

 

“You made it?” Adaeze sat forward further. “You sewed this yourself?”

 

“Yes. Back in Lagos. I have a tailoring business.”

 

“This is beautiful. The cut, the fabric, you did this?” She touched her own collar as though measuring it against what Yetunde was wearing. “Jide, your girl is talented.”

 

“I know,” Jide said, without taking his eyes off the road.

Yetunde looked out of the window, hiding the quiet blossoming of pride that came with hearing someone admire something she had made.

The conversation drifted after that. Adaeze asked questions about Lagos, tailoring and how long Yetunde had been sewing. Femi contributed opinions nobody had requested. Jide drove, occasionally joining in, though mostly he seemed content to listen.

By the time they got to the restaurant, Yetunde had almost forgotten she had been nervous.

Femi was out of the car before the engine had fully settled.

“Food,” he announced.

Adaeze laughed and followed him.

“We’ll get a table,” she called over her shoulder.

Within seconds they were heading towards the entrance, leaving Jide and Yetunde standing beside the car.

Neither of them moved.

Jide looked at her.

“I’m not sure if I ever told you during any of our hundred video calls how beautiful you are.”

Yetunde laughed softly.

“You did. Once.”

“I did?”

“You said my chubby face was pretty.”

“That was a compliment.”

She folded her arms. “I wasn’t entirely sure.”

“It was definitely a compliment.”

“So you’re saying I’m fat.”

Jide stared at her.

“You are not fat.”

“You called my face chubby.”

“You have flesh in all the right places.”

Yetunde covered her face.

“Oh my God.”

He laughed.

“Don’t make me shy. I’m not a shy girl.”

“Then don’t be shy.” His eyes stayed on hers. “I’m admiring you. Maybe you can do the same.”

She looked at him.

“Ah, so I should tell you that your own pretty face is chubby?”

“No. My face is not chubby.”

Yetunde tilted her head as though considering it.

“Well…”

Jide shook his head.

“Shall we?”

She smiled.

“Yes.”

He held out his hand.

She looked at it for a second before placing hers in it.

Then together, they walked towards the restaurant.

Jide saw Femi the moment they walked in.

He and Adaeze had taken a small table near the window, already seated, menus open. Femi looked up, caught Jide’s eye, and Jide gave him a single nod. Femi nodded back, like a man who had finally decided to behave himself.

Jide steered them towards a table on the other side of the restaurant.

Yetunde looked around.

“Are we not sitting with them?”

“No.”

“Why not? I thought we were all—”

“I have spent one month talking to you through a phone.” He pulled out her chair. “I am not spending the first hour I have with you in person with other people at the table. Next time you’ll meet everyone properly. Today, you’re mine.”

 

She sat down. She was trying not to smile and not quite managing it.

 

They picked up their menus. After two minutes, Jide had decided. Some minutes later, he looked up to find her still reading, her brow slightly furrowed.

 

“What is this?” she said, half to herself. She read something aloud, something French, something with a sauce, and looked up at him. “What is this thing?”

 

He pressed his lips together.

 

“Are you laughing at me?” she said.

 

“I’m not laughing.”

 

“You are.”

 

“I’m fascinated. There’s a difference.” He leaned forward. “Where has this girl been? I genuinely want to know. Where have you been?”

 

“I’ve been in Nigeria where food has names that I can understand.” She put the menu down. “I don’t know how to order anything on this menu.”

 

Jide laughs.

 

“I will help you. Do you have allergies?”

 

“No. I can eat anything.”

 

“Then have what I’m having. Spaghetti bolognese, diced chicken, garlic bread.”

 

“Okay. But tell them to put pepper.”

 

“They don’t really do pepper here.”

 

“Tell them to try.”

 

He smiled. “Fine. And for starters, we can have chicken wings.”

 

Her face changed immediately. “Spicy?”

“Spicy it shall be.”

 

“Okay. Now we’re talking.”

 

The waiter came. Jide ordered for both of them and asked if the kitchen could add pepper to the bolognese. The waiter said he would see what he could do. Jide ordered water with lemon. Yetunde asked for mango juice.

 

“Ever since the flight to Birmingham,” she said, when the waiter had gone. “I’ve been obsessed. We don’t really have mango juice in Nigeria, or maybe we have and it’s not common. I have been thinking about it.”

 

“You think about mango juice?”

 

“I think about mango juice.”

 

He laughed. Then he reached across the table and put his hand over hers.

 

She looked down at their hands and then up at him.

 

“I don’t know why I can’t stop doing that,” he said. “I keep reaching for you.”

 

“You really like me like that?” she said.

 

“You don’t like me like that?”

 

“I like you.”

 

“Exactly.”

 

She shook her head slowly. He kept his hand where it was.

 

“Since the flight when you fell in love with mango juice,” he said. “That’s when it started. You just, you took over. Which is strange, because I was in a relationship. I’ve not hidden that from you. But meeting you was like, I don’t know how to say it, like air. Like breathing properly again.” He paused. “I’m actually grateful to Elizabeth.”

 

Yetunde looked at him. “Grateful that she cheated on you?”

 

“Grateful because if she hadn’t done what she did, I would have tried to fix our struggling relationship. I would have been over there trying to make something work that was already wrong, and you would have been here.” He looked down at the table. “I paid her a year’s rent when I broke up with her.”

 

“You paid rent for a girl who cheated on you?”

 

“Out of gratitude.”

 

She stared at him. “Are you sure you don’t still love her? Secretly?”

 

“I’m sure. I’m grateful the way you’re grateful when something bad happens and you later see what it made room for.” He looked at her. “You’re what it made room for. So kind, so… you’re perfect for me, Yetunde. I mean that.”

 

She pulled her hands back.

 

“My hands are sweaty,” she said. “You’re making me shy.”

 

He smiled. “Do you think you can like me? Properly. Do you think we could love each other?”

 

She was quiet. When she answered she was looking at the table.

 

“I think I can love you,” she said. “I think so. You’re sweet. And I like the idea of you. But I have to be honest with myself. I’m still thinking about school. I still have just my tailoring business. And you, you were about to propose to someone, you had a ring. I’m not ready for marriage, Jide. I mean, I thought by now I would be married, I always wanted an early marriage, but I can’t marry a successful man and be his uneducated wife.”

 

“Who said anything about marriage?”

 

“You did. Earlier.”

 

“I said I wanted to love you.”

 

“You said why not marry me.”

 

He paused. “I meant eventually.”

 

“I haven’t even achieved what I want to achieve. What have I done that I can stand before a man and say I’m ready to marry?”

 

“You can achieve everything. We don’t have to rush anything.” He leaned forward. “You’re here for six months. Let’s just be together and date properly, get to know each other. After that, we decide what we want.”

 

She looked at him. Something in her face was doing calculations he couldn’t fully read.

 

“I don’t know how I’ll survive the remaining months in that house,” she said gently. “When I first arrived, I was okay. I could manage. But now, I don’t know why I’m not okay with it anymore. Something has changed.”

 

“I know what changed,” he said. “And I feel worse than the people you’re living with, honestly, because I know the solution and I’m not offering it because I want you to stay in the UK. Which is selfish of me.”

 

“What solution?”

 

“Change your ticket. If you want to go, I can look into it right now, we can sort it out–”

 

“That’s expensive.”

 

“It’s fine.”

 

“Jide.”

 

“And if you want to be here for the next five, six months I’ll come and see you every weekend.”

 

“Every weekend is too much.”

 

“I want to see you as much as I can before you leave.”

 

She thought about it. “Twice a month. That’s fair.”

 

“Twice a month then. And Madam Folake will not have a choice, especially with the man of the house already on my side.”

 

She laughed. “Don’t push your luck.”

 

The food arrived. She looked at the bolognese, picked up her fork, tasted it and frowned.

 

“There’s no pepper.”

 

“I told you.”

 

“You said they would try.”

 

“They tried. This is their attempt at trying.”

 

She laughed despite herself and took another bite. Then she said, “It’s actually nice. It’s just missing pepper.”

 

She pointed her fork at him. “Don’t forget. When you cook for me one day, there must be pepper.”

 

“Noted.” He watched her eat, smiling to himself. Then his expression softened. “About school. You’ll need to sit an IELTS first, an English test. After that, probably a foundation year to bridge into university. One year, then your degree.”

Yetunde shook her head.

“I don’t think I’ll go to school here.”

“Why?”

She moved her food around her plate.

“School is expensive here.”

“It is.”

“I hear people pay thousands and thousands of pounds.” She laughed softly. “I’m not even sure how I would afford it. It’s better for me to do it in Nigeria.”

Jide was quiet.

“Yetunde.”

She looked up.

“We’re in this together. We’ll figure it out.”

She immediately shook her head.

“No. I don’t want to become your burden.”

Something changed in his face.

“What do you think it means when a man says he wants to love a woman?”

She blinked.

“I don’t know. Be her boyfriend?”

He laughed.

“No.”

“Then what does it mean?”

“It means responsibility.”

The word landed between them.

“It means I care about what happens to you. It means your problems become my concern. It means if there is a mountain in front of you, I don’t stand at the bottom and wish you luck. I climb with you.”

Yetunde was looking at him very carefully now.

“And it goes both ways,” he continued. “I would expect partnership from you too. I would expect you to help me when I need help. To pray for me. To stand by me. To carry things with me.”

She smiled faintly.

“I can do those ones.”

“I know you can.”

He reached for his drink.

“So, if school is the issue, we will figure it out. Together.”

Yetunde looked down at her food.

“I still think it may be easier in Nigeria.”

“Maybe.” He shrugged. “But let’s not decide that today.”

She looked back up.

“Why?”

“Because today we’re only talking about possibilities. Not limitations.”

She stared at him.

Then he added, more quietly:

“If we’re serious about this, then we should at least think about what a future together looks like. And for me, that future is a lot easier to imagine if we’re in the same country.”

She opened her mouth.

“Yes now,” he said. “We are trying to build something together.”

She closed her mouth again, looked at her food. Then she started laughing.

“What?” he said, but she didn’t say anything.

They focused on the food, and talked about it, about the garlic bread which she declared the best thing on the table, about the chicken wings which had arrived properly spiced and which she ate in appreciation of the pepper. At some point Femi appeared beside them dragging a chair, Adaeze behind him with her own, and suddenly the table was four and the conversation opened up and got louder and nobody minded.