I laughed. ‘I can do anything I want.’
His nails bit into my arms through my shirtsleeves. ‘Yejide, you can’t.’
I wagged my head. ‘But I can. I can. I can.’
He shook me until my head bobbed and my teeth rattled. Then he let go suddenly. I crashed into a chair, grasping the table for balance.
He picked up a saucer from the table and held it aloft. In one frightening moment I could see him breaking the delicate china on my head. He threw it across the room, then he pulled the tablecloth off the dining table. Plates, mugs, saucers and vacuum flasks crashed to the floor. My husband was not a violent man, and the man who lifted a dining chair and hit it against the dining table until the chair broke was someone I did not know.
Wesley Guild Hospital stank of antiseptic. The stench of chemically enforced cleanliness had me rushing out of the antenatal class twice to vomit. I would never have imagined that vomit could make me so happy. Yet I grinned at the mess I had deposited in the gutter and wanted to call passers-by to come and take a look at it. The inability to keep food down, the extra sensitivity to touch and the general discomfort I felt were rites of passage into motherhood, initiation into a rank that I had always longed to attain. I was a woman at last.
A nurse explained what was going on in our bodies. She taught us a song about breastfeeding and discussed diet and exercise.
The nurse came to me after she dismissed the class. ‘Madam, congratulations! How is the body?’
‘Thank you, Ma. You know how it is now,’ I chuckled. ‘I keep vomiting everything I eat and I can’t eat much. Since last week, I’ve only been eating pineapples and beans, imagine the combination, my sister. Pineapple inside palm oil beans! I try and try to eat something else but no, nothing else is staying inside me.’
‘Abi, that is how it is. In fact with my last child I could eat only eba, no stew, no vegetables to go with it, nothing, just eba and water. Just imagine that. If I tried anything else, it came right out of my nose.’
We laughed.
‘Then the sleeping too, I can only sleep on one side,’ I said. ‘I wake up every time I have to turn.’
The nurse stared at my stomach. ‘Your stomach is not that big yet.’ She frowned. ‘You shouldn’t be having problems sleeping at this stage. I hope there is nothing –’
‘There is nothing wrong with me – everything is going normally.’
‘Oh, how long has this been going on? The discomfort, how long?’
‘Aunty Nurse, why are you bothering yourself? I said everything is fine; it is probably just me.’
‘Ah, ha. See you calling me Aunty Nurse. You don’t know me? I get my hair done at your salon now, once every two weeks.’
‘Oh. Yes, yes,’ I said, trying and failing to remember her face.
‘You remember now?’ she asked.
I smiled and nodded. ‘Of course,’ I said, still unable to place her face.
‘Congratulations, my sister. Those men, they don’t understand, but thank God all your enemies have been put to shame. Every time they will be blaming the woman and sometimes it is their own body that has a problem.’ She hugged me tightly as if we were team-mates in some unspoken game and I had just scored a winning goal against the opposing side.
Funmi was waiting outside my salon when I got back from the hospital. I had given my stylists firm instructions never to let her inside my salon after her last visit. But that afternoon, I was happy to see her. On that day, I would have been happy to see all my stepmothers lined up in front of the salon. The antenatal class had filled me with unconditional love for all living creatures.
‘Come in, my dear,’ I said.
When I served her a bottle of Coke, she didn’t drink it until I took a sip to assure her it had not been poisoned.
She said, ‘I have come to beg you.’
But her clenched jaw told me she wanted to fight, not beg.
‘Our husband fought with me this morning because of you. He said he would not visit me again because of you. Please let him come-o because I have tried for you. I have tried staying outside when my place is inside. Please-o.’ She said this in a tone low enough to give the impression that she wanted no one to hear her words, but loud enough for the stylists and customers who were unusually silent to hear. I knew then that she was a dangerous woman, that Funmi, the type of woman who would call you a witch just so you could beat her to death and end up in jail.
I was in a generous mood. I could have given away everything in my shop that afternoon. I was pregnant at last. I had attended an antenatal meeting and people in the antenatal unit had treated me with care: they had asked me to eat fruit, rest and exercise. Nothing else mattered. God had been generous to me and I had no reason to hoard my husband. Anyway, what was a husband compared to a child that would be all mine? A man can have many wives or concubines; a child can have only one mother.
‘I will talk to him about it. You’ll see him before this week ends,’ I said.
Funmi’s mouth dropped open in what I assumed was surprise. She had come for a fight, for a story she could share over and over to prove that I was evil, and she was going away without that ammunition. She masked her disappointment, stood up and said goodbye. As she was about to step out of the shop, I said, ‘My dear, be among the first to know, I started my antenatal today. God has done it.’
She whirled around and stared at me. I saw in her eyes the realisation that I was now a threat to her instead of the other way round. She gripped her forehead. Unable to fake joy, she walked away.
My stylists went crazy; they hugged me, laughed and sang praise songs. Even the customers joined in. I was a miracle, a vindication for good women like me everywhere. I stayed seated; sure that I had grown taller, sure that if I stood up my head would raise the roof.
The news of my pregnancy travelled fast, just as I intended. Funmi accompanied my mother-in-law to my home that evening. It was obvious that she was eager to play the good younger wife now that my stakes in Akin’s life had been strengthened. They were waiting on the front porch when I arrived home.
I smiled, went into Moomi’s embrace and nodded as she asked over and over, ‘Is it true? Is it true?’
Funmi grinned so widely, my cheeks hurt just from looking at her.
‘You must give us twins. Two fat boys, fat baby boys. That is what you will give us,’ Moomi said, settling into a cushioned chair once we got inside.
‘As I am, I am ready to give you six boys at once,’ I said.
‘Let’s start with a soft hand – two boys at first, just give me those two first. After that, I will leave you to do any magic you want to do.’
‘What will you eat?’ I asked.
Moomi shook her head. ‘Not today. This news is more than enough to keep me from going hungry for days. Besides, I don’t want you going up and down unnecessarily at
