Chapter Sixteen

Rebecca was ill at ease as she switched focus from the clock to the door and back again to the clock. She could not sit still and in one position. She crossed her legs, uncrossed them; folded her hands, unfolded them; put them under her chin, placed them on her lap... until Chief could no longer ignore her.

"Woman, calm down!", he scolded.

"I'm calm na, Chief," she grumbled, shifting to yet another position. He simply shook his head and leaned back on the sofa.

"When will they come na?", Rebecca murmured, looking at the clock for the upteenth time.

"They said ten. Is it ten yet?"

"It's almost ten na. W..."

"Look, Rebecca. If you cannot wait in silence, go and take sleeping medicine. Your pro..."

"Chief, Chief, shhh! I think they're here."

"Who's where?"

But she was already on her feet and making for the door. He shook his head in pity as she went out of his sight. But just as he was about to lean back again, he heard a loud exclamation followed by the sounds of a joyous welcome. He jumped to his feet immediately and just then, Rebecca brought in a calm and orderly Timmy into the sitting room. They were followed by a uniformed police officer whom he knew from the State Police Headquarters.

He went over to thank and shake hands with the officer while Rebecca led her son to a sofa and continued to fuss over him.

"Are you sure you are not feeling any pain?", she asked for the third time in two minutes.

"Yes, mom. I'm totally fine."

"What's this on your forehead?", she questioned, lightly touching a small scar that he had obtained from running into a tree during his escape from the shrine.

"It's nothing, mom. Just a speck," Timmy sighed in exasperation.

"You look tired. Are you hungry? Have you eaten at all today?"

"Woman! Leave the boy in peace! Is he a baby?", Chief scolded on his return from seeing off the officer with a not-so-flat envelope and a promise to visit his Commissioner soon.

"Yes o, Chief. He's my baby. Please, leave me alone let me take care of my only son. If you want, we can go somewhere else and leave the parlour for you."

But Chief simply grabbed his walking stick and walked away and his wife went back to petting and fussing over Timmy.

"Don't hide any injury from me o. You can tell me anything. I'm your mother. Please, raise that hand for me let me see. Are you sure it's not paining you?"

"No, mom. Like I've been saying for the past ten minutes, I'm fine. Perfectly fine."

"Okay. So what would you like to eat? Do you want me to prepare your favorite? I'm sorry I forgot to prepare it before you came, but I could not think of anything else than seeing you. So let me go and prepare it. Don't worry, I'll be very fast. I'll tell Nkechi to bring some snacks for you, eh."

With a quick kiss on his brow, she hurried off, shouting the name of the housekeeper as she went.

***

Seated in the sitting room on a sofa adjacent to her husband's, Rebecca was fully engrossed in the family album. She smiled deeper every time she encountered a picture of Timmy who was at the moment asleep upstairs in his room.

"Chief, do you remember when Timothy won that quiz competition in Lagos? This is the best picture of him when he was small."

She said all this without taking her smile and attention from the album and her husband watched her with his hand supporting his chin like someone observing the behavior of a mad person. They were in this position when someone suddenly burst into the sitting room without notice.

"Tracy! What happened?", her mother asked in alarm as her clearly unhappy daughter took her stand halfway between both parents.

"I need money," she simply said, addressing her father.

Chief looked all around him, as if searching for someone. Then he turned to her.

"Are you talking to me? I thought you said you'll never want anything from me?"

"I remember what I said in the past. But now, I need money. And I need it fast."

"What do you want to use the money for?", Rebecca questioned.

"Wait, Rebecca. Let me ask her this question. Did you keep any money with me?"

"Ehhh... if you don't want to give me money, then divide everything you have and give me my share, so that I will go my own way."

"You want to share my property while I'm still alive? Are you mad? Look, if I close my eye now and open it and you're still here..."

"Papa, you can close your eyes till you're blind, but all I know is that I'm not leaving here emptyhanded. I'm ready to die here with you today."

Chief held his head in both hands and shook it mournfully for a while before turning to his astonished wife.

"Rebecca, are you sure I'm the father of this girl?"

"I'm even doubting if I'm her mother."

"Eh, you people can doubt like Apostle Thomas. Just give me my share of the property and I'll leave you to finish your doubting programme."

"Will you get out of this house before I call the police!", Chief roared, jumping to his feet.

"Call them! Call them, I'm waiting. Call your police and I'll call my soldiers. We'll see which one is more powerful."

"Are you talking to your father like that?!"

"Eh ehn Mama, stay out of this o! This is not the time to play the part of the loyal wife. What did you do when he starved me of money for how many months now? If you people don't want to take care of me, why did you give birth to me? Let us just share everything quietly and everybody will go his own way otherwise... hmmmmm! There will be war in this house."

"What's going on? Tracy?", Timmy said as he came down the stairs. "What's the problem, Trace? Why..."

"Hey Mummy's pet, mind your business o. Nobody called you in this matter. When adults are talking, children should go and play outside."

"Calm down, Trace. Whatever the problem is, we can sort it out as a family."

"I'm not interested in any sorting out! Who's your family? I'm not your family o! I've disfathered, disbrothered and dismothered all of you. Just tell this man to give me my share of the property or else... hmm mm! Hollywood willl happen in this house today."

And she stood battle-ready, arms akimbo, legs apart and one of her feet tapping the floor impatiently.

"Rebecca, Rebecca, Rebecca," Chief called, his voice rising with each call. "If you don't evacuate this non-entity you call a daughter..."

"Please Chief, calm down," she begged, standing between father and daughter. "Tracy, let's go. We need to talk."

"Mama, I'm not going anywhere till this man gives me what's rightfully mine."

"Ehhh, that's what we will talk about. Come, let's go."

But the girl wouldn't budge.

"Timmy," she turned to her son. "Please come and help me hold her let's..."

"Mummy's pet, if you dare touch me, I will beat you till you forget your surname."

Timmy stood rooted to the spot, not daring to move a single inch toward his sister who was fully focused on him with eyes full of fury. But Rebecca saw her chance and took it.

With sudden force, she pulled Tracy by the arm and turned her away from the men, dragging her toward where she wanted to take her.

"Mama, leave me o! I'm not interested in any talking," she shouted as she stumbled and slid after her fat mother who opened the desired door, dragged her in and shut it behind them. But before Tracy could look around to identify what room she was in, Rebecca landed a stinging slap on her face.

"Ah! Mama! What's this na?"

Another one followed on the other cheek and Tracy immediately grabbed the door knob. But before she could turn it, Rebecca tackled her from behind, dragged her to the bed and dumped her on it. Then she jumped on her and started pinching her face, neck, shoulders, arms and any other exposed body part she could find.

"Mama, leave me! What did I do to you na?", Tracy wailed as she struggled beneath the weight and assault of the heavier woman.

"You want to fight na, abi? You want to act Hollywood abi Nollywood. You want to do Commando abi Rambo. Oya, let's do it."

"Mama, I'm not doing again. Just leave me, please. Mama, I'm begging you na!"

But Rebecca was deaf to her pleas. She continued her assault of pinches and occasional slaps until her victim stopped struggling and suddenly burst into tears. Then she rolled off her and stood beside the bed and watched her daughter cry out all the bitterness and anger in her.

When Tracy had exhausted her tears and strength, Rebecca got her a roll of tissue with which the girl dried her face and blew her nose. Then she took her to the bathroom, washed her face and hair and then dried them.

"Oya come and apologize to your father."

On hearing this, Tracy, who had been walking voluntarily, suddenly stopped. But Rebecca grabbed her hand and dragged her all the way to the sitting room. Placing her before her now relatively calm father, she left her alone and went to sit on a sofa.

After a few seconds of head scratching and feet shifting, Tracy abruptly went down on her knees in front of her father.

"I'm sorry, Papa... for everything... I said and... and... did."

But Chief acted like it was the sound from a movie playing in another room. He went on flipping through the pages of the magazine he was reading. Rebecca, seeing the situation, went down on her knees too.

"Chief, I've dealt with her. She has realized her mistake. The child has been beaten with one hand, let us draw it to ourselves with the other hand, so it would not get lost. Please Chief, forgive her. She's just a child. She did not know what she was doing."

But Chief kept reading and flipping with no sign that he could hear them. To everyone's surprise, Timmy also went down on his knees!

"Pop... um... Dad. What Trace did was real crazy and all, you know. But like Mom said, you gotta uh... uh... hit the kid with the one hand and pull it in with the other. I'm sure she's learned her lesson, Pops. She'll never try this again, right Trace?"

And Tracy quickly nodded in concurrence. "It'll never happen again, Papa. Never."

Chief still continued with his reading, but suddenly, he folded the magazine and sighed.

"It's okay, It's okay. You can get up."

"Thank you, Papa," Tracy said, about to return to her feet, but her mother held her down.

"Say you forgive her, Chief."

He looked up at the ceiling for quite a while, then he sighed deeply.

"I forgive you," he finally said. And they all scrambled to their feet with many thanks. "But you must continue without money for one more month."

The smile vanished from Tracy's face and she was about to say something, but her mother quickly clamped her hand over her mouth.

"No problem, Chief. She will endure."

Chief nodded and it was their cue to leave. Timmy went back upstairs and Rebecca took her daughter in another direction. As soon as they were out of earshot of her father, the first thing she said to her mother was, "Who will pay all my debts? They'll kill me if I don't go back with that money o."

"Don't worry, I'll give you the money."

"How much do you think we are talking about here? It's almost half a million o."

"I said I will give you the money... on one condition."

"Eh? Which condition?"

"That you remove and stop buying all these artificial eyelashes, artificial nails, artificial make-up and that useless hair that's smelling like a corpse that has been abandoned in a mortuary where there's no light."

"Mama, I'm not Mary Amaka. I don't want my friends to laugh at me," she quickly countered, maintaining a defensive stance.

"Look here," her mother said, grabbing her face which she had turned away in anger. "If you want my money, you must do as I say. Understand?"

She jerked her face away and stomped off, grumbling as she went: "I will now be looking like an old witch while others would be shining."

*****

Timmy was in conference with his parents, a serious conference that Chief had called to strategize on a way forward for Timmy as a man.

"We have seen that the Lagos experiment has failed," he said, addressing mother and son. "So the question is, what next? But the most important question is to you, Timothy. What do you want to do next?"

"I wanna go back there," Timmy replied immediately.

"Go back where?", his mother asked, even faster. "Look here, you are not going back anywhere o. You better stay here in Abuja. Even a blind man will not walk into fire two times."

"Woman, let the young man speak for himself. He is old enough to make his own decisions."

"Old kwa? When he's on top of his wife, he can be old enough. But while he's still under my roof and under my care, he cannot be old enough."

"Okay," Chief sighed, getting up to his feet. "Since you're now the new head of the family, I wish you luck..."

"Ah Chief. No na. Don't mind me. Please sit down," she urged as she went down on her knees.

"Ehh it's okay. Get up before you behave as if I'm an idol."

"You are our idol na. Nigerian Idol!"

"Hmm," he scoffed. "Women and their tricks."

"But Chief, if women are tricky, then you should avoid eating their food na, abi?"

"You have saved the transport that will take you back to your father's house, eh?"

"No o. It's the transport that will bring my relatives to take over all your property, that's the one I've saved."

Chief simply responded with a hiss and mother and son burst into laughter.

"I did not call this meeting for comedy purpose."

They both apologized and immediately put up a serious face. Chief cleared his throat and then continued.

"So young man, what were you saying again?"

"Um... I wanna head back to Lagos and strike it out on my own."

"On your own?", Rebecca asked in alarm.

Chief glared at her and she relapsed into silence. Then he signed for the boy to continue.

"I wanna delve into fashion and run my own label someday."

"So all the money I spent to send you to school in America is all for nothing?"

"Not really, Pops. I really think I can make it big with fashion, you know. I've got a lot of passion for this stuff."

Chief sighed and shook his head sadly.

"Rebecca, what do you think?"

"I don't know o, Chief. I'm not the head of the house. But the only thing I know is that he should not go back to Lagos. Why can't you do your fashion here in Abuja?"

"Come on, Mom. Lagos has got a huge market and by the way, there's this guy who's willing to take me on as a partner, show me the ropes and all, you know. Then..."

"So you've been planning this thing for a very long time?", his mother asked in an accusatory tone.

"How much do you and this your partner need?", Chief cut in.

"Just two hundred grand for starters."

"Hmm mm. Not only starters, it's enders. Two hundred thousand for what, eh?"

"Rebecca!", Chief scolded.

"Chief, this is a clear case of 419. They have found out that he comes from a rich family and they want to scam him a..."

"Is it your money? I am the one giving out the money; let me decide for myself. So young man, do you trust this your partner? Are you sure he knows what he's doing?"

"Dead sure, Pops," Timmy nodded enthusiastically. "This dude's got the experience. He's been there, done that, knows the holes and the common flaws and all that shit. All he needs is a little something extra to start something average and take it forward. He's already got something going, you know. Seen the place with my own eyes."

"Hmm. After you give him the money, the place would be locked forever."

"No, Mom. I got this one, believe me. We're setting this up in a way that he don't make a move without my knowledge. Everything's gonna be j..."

"Hey, it's okay," his father interrupted. "You said you need two hundred to start with, abi?"

"Yeah. J..."

"Then how much do you need to continue with?"

"Uh... well, we haven't gotten to that bridge yet, but..."

"Are you sure this is what you want to do?"

"Dead sure, Pops."

"Okay o. I just want you to know that I'm not Father Christmas... and keep that useless name to yourself before I break your head with my walking stick. Rebecca, go and bring my checkbook."

"Chief..."

"I said go and bring my checkbook, woman! Stop Chiefing me."

"Okay o," she sighed, rising to her feet. "But don't say I didn't warn you people o."

And she went off to retrieve the checkbook from their bedroom. "You won't regret this, Po... Dad," Timmy smiled, rubbing his hands enthusiastically as they awaited the return of his mother.

"Me, regret? No o. You will be the one to regret if anything goes wrong, because you'll get no other money from me. Not even a dime."