Page 47

A lex's house was a block of flats, atrociously painted lemon-green, with a fence bearing; THIS HOUSE IS NOT FOR SALE. BEWARE OF MY SON, KUNLE, AND MY THIRD WIFE, MEMUNAT. SIGNED: OGA LANDLORD. Written with charcoal and frustration.

From across the long, tarred street flanked by houses with peeling walls and brown roofs, a small crowd gathered around the LM. Children, men, women. Their gazes skimmed Timi's disguise to settle firmly on the vehicle. Even the trenches weren't free from capitalism's grip.

Alex had instructed Triple T to look after the LM since his compound was too small to park in, but Timi still sent the address to Suleiman and Dagger.

At the Kiosk attached to a grey gate hanging on its last hinges, a middle-aged woman who didn't bother hiding her gawking, informed Alex the gate needed a new padlock .

“But I bought one some months back.”

“Ah, Uncle Alex,” she said. “That one no go hold the gate as you like, and sometimes, I dey comot shop, shey you know.”

“I hear you,” he said.

Being an uninvited guest who had threatened his host with physical violence if he didn't bring him along, Timi tried to blend with the background. But the woman's determination to strip him naked with her eyes was making that difficult.

“Uncle Alex, who be your—”

“No one important,” Alex said and strode off.

Timi followed, unbothered. They were together, in his home. That made up for his hostility.

In front of Alex's flat at the back of the house were the hanging punchbag and a wooden bench press he'd told Timi he had his daily exercise on. And seeing something so private to Alex increased the tingly feeling that had refused to dissipate since their reunion.

As Alex turned the key in the front door, a voice called from within, “Kaka, is that you?”

The tingling vapourised instantly. And the door had barely opened before Timi was dashing down a narrow passage towards the female voice, praying all the way he'd heard wrong.

He'd never met anyone as comported as Alex, and it was one of the reasons the night they'd spent together felt so surreal. The way he'd come completely undone. His tenderness at par with his tough exterior.

Seeing him back in his element, seemingly unaffected by their weeks of separation had been a little jarring. But never would Timi have imagined it was because he'd moved on. Put off by his rejection and Nejeere's clinginess and gone for someone with no baggage.

And he'd brought Timi over to kill whatever notion he had of them becoming something. In the same callous manner Timi had done to every woman who'd dared to love him.

He burst through an archway into a living room, nearly crashing into a smallish middle-aged woman in an Ankara gown and white scarf standing before a television. And he had to grip the walls to steady his legs buckling from fierce relief.

“Who are you?” the woman asked.

Timi stared. How had he mistaken this nasal, wobbly tone for a young woman's?

The woman moved closer, and her eyes widened upon seeing his bare face. “Eh, eh eh, who am I seeing?” She swung her gaze towards Alex, who had appeared behind Timi, probably stunned by Timi's actions. “Kaka, is Richard standing in our parlour?”

Alex pushed past Timi, gripped the woman's shoulder and guided her back into her chair.

“Am I dreaming again?” she asked, as Alex sorted through channels with the remote he'd picked up from the table right in front of her.

“Mummy...” Alex said.

Mummy.

Timi's legs regained coordination. Hastening towards the woman and bending in a stoop. “Yes, ma, I'm Richard,” he said, gargantuan embarrassment heating him up. “Nice to meet you.”

She squealed. Any resonance higher, and glasses would have shattered.

Alex sighed. “Mummy, don't strain yourself.”

She shrugged off the blankets he was putting over her, and gripped Timi's hand in both of hers. “It's really you?”

Timi smiled. “Yes.”

She beamed, her face, a narrower version of Alex's. “I've watched all your movies! The prince one. The one you joined a cult. When you saved that woman.”

They were vague descriptions, but the only time he'd felt this proud was the day Uncle Jude revealed he'd never missed any of his work, despite not being a movie person.

“I'm glad. Thank you for watching.”

“Come. Come.” She urged him up and patted the space beside her. “Sit with me and tell me how you know my son.”

Timi got up. The sitting room was surrounded by army green walls, soothed by black surfaces of furniture repelling streaks of sunlight escaping draped brocade curtains, and cute pots of diverse species of flowers hanging from walls, or resting on flat surfaces.

Some of which Alex had taken from Timi's house.

The room's tastefulness and the curry smell permeating the warm air wrapped Timi up in an embrace so gentle, he finally understood why Uncle Jude had considered his house lifeless.

“Kaka, you didn't tell me you're friends with Richard,” she scolded, though her eyes remained on Timi.

“He's my bo…former boss, mummy.”

Timi's heart squeezed at the slip up.

She looked lost for a second, then her eyes widened. “Oh, the one at the fashion house?” She hit Timi on the arm. “Why did you stop acting? I love your movies.”

Alex sighed again. “No, not that one. He's still an actor.”

She smiled. Full teeth and crinkled eyes. “Ah, very good. Kaka, get him a drink. You like soft drinks, don't you, Richard?” Timi made to answer, but she fired on. “I know you young people like wine too. Kaka, go to the big store that just opened on Cooper Street. Buy their finest wine, okay?”

Alex's eyes were dull. “Okay.”

“And make sure it's non-alcoholic. So, your father won't see it and you and Oyin have to hide again.”

“Okay,” Alex said again. “Watch your movie, I'll be right back.” He hit the play button and disappeared through the archway.

“He's a good boy, isn't he?” Alex's mother said over the loud clanks of wood against wood coming from the television. “I don't know how we will cope without him.”

Timi didn't need a medical degree to recognise the signs. The few house-calls he'd gone with Uncle Jude had also exposed him to the loss of cognitive skills and memory some of the elderlies suffered. And the story of Alex beating up Triple T and his crew made more sense now.

His throat squeezed. “He is.”

Was this why Alex had kept his address private?

Why he'd been reluctant to invite Timi to his home?

How had he coped juggling between caring for her and working for him?

The thought that Alex wanted to hide this from him tore at Timi.

Those moments it had felt so right sharing a huge part of themselves now seemed like a dream. And he'd caused that.

“He doesn't have friends, you know,” Alex's mother said. “Always by himself. How will he survive when he starts university?” She reached for Timi's hand again. “You promise to always be his friend?”

Timi nodded. “Always.”

He imagined a lone boy, blending with the shadows, surrounded by life but unable to live. A boy like him, who became an adult completely different from him.

She smiled. “You're a good man, Richard. I'm glad Kaka has you. Oyin is always busy.”

He squeezed her hand.

“You're staying for dinner?”

“Dinner?” he echoed faintly.

She nodded. “While in England, behave like the English. Here, we have strict mealtimes. You just missed lunch. So?”

“I'll be delighted.”

She started to smile, but it turned to a frown.

“While you're here, would you tell Kaka not to fight anymore?

We can find another way to pay Mr. Perkins.

And please lend him some money you made from America, would you?

He'll pay back. Look at his face…my baby's face…” She faced the television, lips quivering.

Timi nodded furiously, eyes starting to sting. “I'll go check on him.”

The chair he sat on had become a throne of spikes. Every fibre of him straining to seek Alex out. For someone who had lived an apology-free life for years, he was fast becoming a vending machine for sorrys. “I'll be back, ma,” he said.

She turned, staring blankly at him for a moment, then beamed. “Richard! You're here.”

Timi bowed low and escaped the room.

He found Alex in a room at the end of a green-lit corridor, dabbing at the gash on his cheek that had reopened during the fight at Sporax Media. They stared at each other through the dressing mirror Alex faced, everything he wanted to say to him stretching into an endless string of silence.

Then, Alex dropped his gaze and resumed cleaning his wound. “You should go,” he said. “I'm a bit tired.”

He should, shouldn't he? But his damned legs had a beef with logic. They pushed him towards Alex, and handed the mantle of disobedience to his hands, which reached out and snatched the iodine-soaked cotton wool from Alex's fingers, placing it gently against the gash.

Alex pulled away. “Don't.”

Timi slid a firm hand underneath his jaw, turned his face upwards, and resumed dabbing the wound. He took his time, cleaning every gash, thin, healing, or fresh, trying hard not to dwell on the minty freshness of Alex's breath skittering across his face.

Once done, he began applying the ointment he found beside the iodine bottle. And all through his ministrations, Alex, who had stopped resisting, didn't remove his eyes from Timi's face

“As a fighter,” he said as he rubbed on the last gash underneath the jaw, “shouldn't you have a code or something?”

Alex stayed quiet.

“Like every body part but the face,” Timi continued, unperturbed by his silence.

But when he finally met his gaze, his nerves went on a jamboree.

Those eyes, although darkened by the bruises underneath, were still as hauntingly beautiful as he remembered.

Reminding him of everything they'd been to each other.

And Alex must have seen something in his gaze because his eyes widened slightly, then he pushed back, focusing on gathering his supply.