Page 93

This is what we do with our love. We are dancing, we’re all dancing, in the dining area of Sákárà, on the anniversary of our reopening, as a band plays, as someone sings a cover of a classic Afrobeat song, as talking drums yell even though the lyrics sing of a love that’s tender. The air is fluffy like puff-puff straight from the air fryer and thick with good feeling. Sweet perfume hits against muskier colognes, the air a little greener in some areas of the room where some people have snuck out to the garden to partake in some heavy lifting, if you know what I mean.

I told that joke to Malakai and he said, ‘Everybody knows what you mean, Scotch. Nerd.’ And then a kiss.

As I sway, as I swing to the beat, I have a gurgling child on my hip, a little girl with curls that reach for the sky and eyes like her mum and a smile like her dad’s, face always ready to compete with the sun. Aminah of Minah’s Management comes up to me and tickles the baby in my arms.

‘She needs nappy changing,’ she says, and coos at the child: ‘Don’t you know your auntie won a Grammy for Best Music Film—’

‘Grammy nominated as a producer—’

‘Same difference,’ she says. ‘You’re Taré Souza’s creative consultant and a famed cultural producer with your own docu-series. My point is she can’t be pooing in your arms anyhow.’ She plucks Adeyinka Aurora Akua Kikiola Bakare-Adjei from me and promptly places her in Kofi’s arms as he’s passing by, dropping a kiss on his cheek. ‘My darling, your princess needs a nappy change,’ and Kofi acquiesces, immediately making silly faces at his cherubic daughter – my goddaughter – whilst she gurgles in delight. Aminah beams at them both before telling me she’ll be right back. She wants to get more of Meji’s suya chicken-pops that he’s added to our menu, a joint venture in which me, my parents and Meji have shares, a sweet amalgamation of old school and new school.

Our whole family is here, Malakai’s mum and brother gisting with my parents and sister, Chioma and her new girlfriend are in our booth, Laide with Ty, giggling at something he said, which is so interesting because I’ve never heard her giggle like that before. In a corner, Shanti is smirking flirtatiously up at the handsome lead of Malakai’s film,Apple– an indie darling and a stunning meditation on fatherhood and love that received standing ovations at festivals. The first time I saw Malakai’s name in the credits of a cinema screen I cried with pride. And also the second, and the third.

Then, Malakai himself looks my way, and a light in his eyes bounds, sharp and dark. If music suspends time, then we are suspended even further within that moment. I feel a disorientating floating feeling that could just be the Champagne mixing with my dad’s Chapman, but I’ve done that before and this feels different.

They say there are certain dramatic, life-changing occurrences that a person can recognise are about happen, immediately before they happen. A hope fulfilled, for instance. Malakai approaches me and bundles me into his arms, his hand lightly brushing the slit in my yellow sun dress and sending desire and goosebumps through my body.

‘Again, Kiki, here you go trying to kill me in front of all our friends and family.’

‘Ten years and I still haven’t succeeded. I need to change tack.’

Kai grins, and pulls me to the corner by the bar, just behind the photobooth, and kisses me, tongue slowly caressing, deeply, sensually, with precise abandon, and I lose my mind and find it again, twice. How has the hunger not abated? How have I never felt more satisfied? He drops a cushiony peck on my lips tenderly, making me blurry eyed, fall off my bone. ‘I love you a freaky amount, Kikiola Banjo. Are you aware of that? You cool with that?’

I compose myself after my customary melting. Every time I do, I find myself more fortified– not against him; I don’t need to be against him. Against the world, against doubt. We’ve learned to unpick the tangles of the heart and loosen the Unsaids, no matter how painful, how exposing, to trust one another to hold each other’s jagged edges. We’ve worked to protect what is so easy for us. I’m so secure in this; even the hard parts have been a revelation of how far our love can go, how fathomless its depth is.

‘So cool with it,’ I say, ‘that I’ve decided to see your freaky amount of love and raise it awildamount.’

‘Freaky beats wild, but that’s fine, I guess.’ I pinch his arm and he smiles. ‘I’m so proud of you, Scotch. Look what you’ve done.’

‘Proud of us. Look at what we’ve done.’ I look around, at our home full of joy, and us, still here despite, still here because.

I look up, meet his sparkling gaze. ‘When.’

Kai freezes. ‘What?’

My smile broadens. ‘When.’

Malakai’s face is the sun itself and it nourishes me, his smile radiating hope and promise and safety to me, adoration to me.

‘Thank God. About time. Been carrying this around in my pocket for two years. And I’ve been waiting for this moment for ten.’

I thought I was just giving him permission for a near future but it shouldn’t surprise me that Malakai, a Sundance Award-winning director, has thoroughly prepared for this moment. He calls out to the house band, says, ‘Now!’

Then the love of my life, twice over, drops to his knee and brings a small box from his pocket as an amazingly bizarre Fuji version of ‘Thong Song’begins to flood the aural atmosphere of the room. I hear Aminah exclaim, ‘Oh my God, finally. It’s happening!’ but, actually, it’s right on time. We are always right on time. Malakai beams love up at me, eyes shining, takes my hand. Yes to what we’ve been, yes to where we are, yes to where we’re going. We’ve grown, we are growing, we will grow and we’ve always beenthis, always had this, and we will choose, commit to, sweat for, what our hearts already know. That’s what makes it sacred. Glory. The sun in me rises further in my new-ancient world, more entrenched, more present, just when I thought it couldn’t get any higher.

The End (The Beginning)