Page 29

M r. Joshua had a very disagreeable face, with most features working in stubborn disharmony.

His full white sideburns refused to meet the scanty beards underneath his chin.

His eyebrows were wider apart, with one curling up, and the other drooping down.

And his forehead wrestled for territory with his receding hairline.

That was what Timi saw when the man opened the door to his unpainted bungalow, his stocky body covered in faded Ankara wrapper and a white singlet.

However, when he opened his mouth, Timi's back collided with Alex's chest at the sight of overgrown incisors digging into his lower lip as he snarled.

“I asked for you, and you alone. Get out of my compound if you're not ready.”

What he was seeing wasn't real, but he found himself swerving around, eyes frantically seeking out Alex's face.

And true to his prediction, it appeared different.

Open, kind, endearing, and handsome as ever.

Alex's eyes widened at whatever he saw on his face, then, his expression morphed into something resembling concern, but not quite.

“Is it starting again?” he asked softly.

“What?” Mr. Joshua snapped. “What's starting?”

Yes, Alex, what was starting? He'd assumed he knew better than to expose whatever they'd shared with each other. He'd only accompanied him to the door, to return to the LM after ensuring Timi didn't need his presence. Was he really going to talk about the faces here?

Alex turned to Mr. Joshua. “Hello, I'm Alexander Iyke, Timi Lawson's medi-psychologically prescribed emotional guide. His human defibrillator, if you please.”

Huh?

Mr. Joshua was more perplexed. “What the bloody hell are you talking about?”

Alex sent Timi a look of pity, then dropped his tone as his shoulders. “The thing is, he was recently diagnosed with, uh, location-borne semi-fatal hypochondria. We shouldn't be sharing this, but you're family and you need to understand the gravity of what you're asking.”

Timi gaped at Alex, very certain he'd never heard anything so wonderfully outrageous. And amidst the fear tearing him up inside, he swallowed a laugh bubbling through.

Alex. Oh, Alex. Surely, no one would believe this, but Mr. Joshua had grown quiet.

He could walk away. Avoid Uncle Jude's family as he'd been doing for years, but the man had dropped what he knew Timi could never ignore.

Not if he wanted his past to stay hidden.

He had no clue how much they knew, and if he was ready to bring Alex in.

However, he was a hundred percent certain he wouldn't survive being alone with Mr. Joshua.

And more than the fear of his past coming to light, was the fear of people witnessing his mental problems.

Uncle Jude, his former doctor, and Alex. The only people aware, and three too many .

He leaned into Alex, to let him know he'd caught on and approved. And Alex's arm immediately encircled his shoulder. He glanced up, stomach clenching tight when he met Alex's knowing gaze.

“Maybe you can leave,” he said piteously. “The blood and stool weren't so much last time.”

Alex pretended to contemplate. “I could fetch a bucket, or better still, have the meeting in the toilet…”

“What nonsense are you saying?” Mr. Joshua bellowed. “Will you stop wasting my—”

Alex's gaze snapped to him. “He's currently managing a humano-dependo disease, sir. The least you can do is show a little empathy. Now, I can leave him, but only on the condition that you allow us bring in the buckets, or have a bathroom accessible for—”

The door sprang open. “I don't have time for this,” Mr. Joshua said. “You sure you really want him here?”

The question gave Timi a pause, but what was the alternative? He couldn't even look at the man's face. He nodded against Alex's shoulder where he rested his head.

The living room he led them into was a stuffy room from the nineties.

It smelled of sweaty socks, and boasted of white-lace curtains, polyester chairs, and a wooden shelf laden with so many piled books, it appeared one book away from crumbling.

Then, posters. Lots of them. Screaming Armageddon, Gog and Magog, and the 144,000 saints bound for heaven.

On one of the white-clad white people flying to meet a white man in the sky, someone had painted a black face.

How reassuring. At least one black person, most undisputedly Mr. Joshua, had a seat reserved before the Lord. A colossal win for the black race.

Uncle Jude's family was far from poor, but Mr. Joshua's disagreeableness spilled into his social standing. He'd chosen the lecturing route, and last Timi heard, still taught at the Lagos State Polytechnic as a senior lecturer in the political science department.

He tried focusing on the rubber band on his wrist, but his mind couldn't help conjuring a sitting room like this. A matriarch planted in a wing chair, with oval-shaped glasses perched on an aquiline nose, placing a tape recorder in the outstretched hands of a girl stooping at her feet.

“Well done. But don't do anything again without recording it or our deal is off. And tell the girls not to bother him. One at a time. Okay?”

Two other girls, peeping in from the passage door, gazes alternating between the woman and the boy who had stumbled on a conversation he shouldn't have.

The Witches of the West.

Alex's thigh nudged his, and Timi raised his gaze to notice Alex nearly crowding into him. If they were alone, his nose might have sought out the dip in his neck where his scent was the strongest.

A mousy woman appeared with a tray of garden eggs and ose oji.

She placed it on the wooden stool before them, then scurried off without making eye-contact with anyone.

Timi stared at the tray, wondering how Uncle Jude would react if he showed up dead from poisoned garden eggs offered by a family he'd cut off for his sake.

“Since you haven't deemed us fit to acknowledge our summons, it had to come to this,” Mr. Joshua said in a deceptively mild tone. “We can only hope our brother understands that death unbinds agreements.”

Timi's fingers found the band on his wrist.

“I'm a lecturer,” he said. “The boy after Jude is a chartered accountant.

The two girls, a seasoned artist and a barrister.

My brother…was a doctor. For generations, we have carried the purity of our heritage.

Lawson was our father's name. An eminent civil servant, who served the country until his death. A name people continued to speak of even after he died. A name, Jude deemed worthy to adopt as his surname. A name now irredeemably besmirched by the ongoing travesty. All because he rebuffed us and took in a curse.”

A curse.

A new one. As the years went by, Uncle Jude's family expanded their vocabulary list with brilliant nouns they'd created specially for him.

Despite his ability to joke his way out of unpleasant situations, he had never been able to stand up to their vituperations.

Out of respect for Uncle Jude, he'd believed, and confirmed it when he matched them nastiness for nastiness during the burial.

He thought he'd won. They'd lost their power.

So, why was he back to feeling like the green-coloured froth spilling out of Mr. Joshua's snarling mouth?

The first snap of the band on his wrist barely registered, his head filling up with chants of, 'it's not real'.

The man ploughed on. “It's even more egregious it would be as a result of a scapegrace my brother had been too credulous of.

You think we didn't envisage this? The Holy Spirit is a divulger of things unseen. When Jude intimated us of a certain riffraff in one of those benighted towns he wasted his time in, we warned him to take caution. But did he?!”

Alex stirred when Timi remained quiet. “Can we please keep things civil, Mr. Joshua?” he said, still in character.

Mr. Joshua, as expected, ignored him. “We know! Who you are. What you are. How dare you?”

The shivers descended. The faces. Laughter. Screams. The pants and groans. Timi nearly curved into a ball, rocking back and forth, intensifying the chants in his head and snapping the band faster.

Of course, they would find out. All they needed was the boy's dead name and the town, and every guarded secret became news headlines.

Mr. Joshua was relentless. He spoke like he'd rehearsed this moment for the years Timi spent as Uncle Jude's son.

“Despite the evil clinging to you like a decrepit shawl he deliberately hid from us; he returned with you to Lagos. Ah! What good could come from a boy with such family? Such life. We warned Brother. Now, look at him. And instead of you parasitic urchin to go down into hell and lock horns with the devil for everything our family did for you, we get malodorous web heads continuously desecrating our name in the most sacrilegious manner, while you go around cavorting with women, like the prostitute you are.”

Alex, who had faded from Timi's vision, sprang up. “Get up.” When Timi remained bent, Alex yanked him up by the arm, face growing a storm. “I said get up!”

Mr. Joshua got up too, gripping Timi's hand to stop Alex from guiding him out and running his hands over Timi's trembling body as though searching for something.

“Where are the lacerations on your body proving you've done all to halt the abomination associated with his name, ehn? What have you done for the man who gave you life?” He straightened, spittle spraying.

“Go and tell everyone who you are and how our brother was the saint who rescued a disease-infested prosti —”

A grunt and something crashing into wood cut off the words.

Timi raised his head to see the shelf let out a feeble groan and begin tilting forward.

Alex dashed towards where Mr. Joshua lay at its base, dragging him away just in time before it came crashing down on the chairs and glass centre table in a deafening clatter.