A Life Elsewhere Page 5

  ‘I’m thirsty again,’ the old man said.

  They both looked towards the bar which was surrounded by a mass of bodies.

  ‘They’ve forgotten us already,’ Salbatore complained. ‘You speak some words of thanks and kindness and they think you’re soft. We shouldn’t have said anything. We should have told her to refresh our glasses every half hour. Now we’ve lost our chance.’

  ‘Every hour,’ the old man said.

  ‘Eh? . . . Yes, every hour,’ Salbatore agreed. ‘I must think of my wife.’

  The two men left their instruments in the roped-off area and shuffled towards the bar, hoping to catch the eye of the barman, or the woman who had earlier brought their drinks. When they reached the counter, they were served by another staff member. The others were too busy to attend to them.

  ‘It’s on the house, ask your manager,’ Salbatore argued, but it was too hectic for the barman to make sense of what was being said and he only held out his palm and repeated the price.

  ‘We’ll ask tomorrow,’ the old man said. ‘We’ll get here early and pull his ear so he won’t forget us again.’

  ‘Yes, you’re right,’ Salbatore said. ‘Too many people, too much noise now.’ They both knew they would not ask tomorrow or the day after that or the next year. They were afraid, secretly, of what others thought of them – two old men – the bar staff, the musicians, the young ones who drifted through the door. Sometimes they heard laughter at their retreating forms. Often it was easier to make false plans than to concede defeat.

  The old man paid for the drinks and turned and there she was. Agnes. For a moment he could not hear the music or the sound of his friend’s relentless chatter. Her face moved from glee to puzzlement, to recognition and a polite smile.

  ‘It’s you,’ she said, ‘Hello.’ She touched her hair and dried her forehead with a handkerchief and held her dancing partner by the elbow. She seemed no more than a girl.

  The old man did not speak. Salbatore looked from the woman to his friend and back again, and for once, he too was quiet.

  ‘Graham, this is Graham,’ the woman said. ‘I’m sorry, I

  don’t know your name?’

  ‘Pleased to meet you.’ Her partner proffered a hand, which was shaken, but still no words issued from the old man. There was a moment when no one said anything. Even the merengue seemed subdued.

  ‘Kayode,’ Salbatore said. ‘That’s his name. He forgets to speak sometimes. I am Salbatore. Salbatore Gutierrez. Musician, singer, entrepreneur.’ He retrieved a tattered business card from his shirt pocket.

  The old man slapped his friend’s hand. ‘Kayode,’ he echoed. He reached out to greet the couple.

  ‘Palm-wine guitarist,’ Salbatore added. ‘You didn’t give your full title.’

  The old man gave his friend a look and said, ‘We are to play some music very soon. You must excuse us while we prepare.’

  ‘No? You up there on the stage? Really?’ the woman shrilled. ‘This is our first time here. I can’t wait to hear you.’

  The old man held his chest and grimaced.

  ‘Triffic,’ Graham said. ‘Musicians. Can I get you a drink or . . . ?’

  The old man indicated their full glasses and then began to edge away.

  ‘We’ll be watching!’ the woman called after them.

  It seemed here, under the lights with the music throbbing, a sea of youth everywhere, that she was very young, this Agnes. The old man could not get the childish shrieking out of his head.

  ‘She’s nice, your friend,’ Salbatore said. ‘Both of them. She didn’t give her name, though.’

  The old man grunted and stopped and looked back at the couple as they waited to be served at the bar.

  ‘What is her name?’ Salbatore persisted. ‘You know, you’re in a funny mood tonight.’

  ‘I don’t know . . . Agnes . . . Something like that,’ the old man replied. He could hear the sudden silence of the stage as the band paused for the intermission. He had a great fear of performing now and he wanted only to leave.

  ‘Hey, hey – they might call us any minute,’ Salbatore said. He took a sip of the Red Snapper and placed it on the floor next to his saxophone.

  They braced themselves as the hall manager moved in their direction, but they did not look at him for fear of seeming too eager.

  ‘Kayo, Sal – you’re ready to go on? No sax tonight. Short set. Fifteen, twenty minutes, eh?’

  ‘Of course, Mike,’ Salbatore said as he reached again for his drink.

  The old man faced straight ahead, his eyes barely taking in the commotion. ‘Actually . . . Actually, it’s not possible,’ he started. ‘The arthritis – it’s troubling me again.’

  ‘Arthritis! What arthritis?’ Salbatore asked.

  ‘It’s not possible tonight, Mike. I’m sorry.’

  ‘No problem, guys,’ the manager said. ‘I’ll get Robbie to mix a few tracks.’

  ‘What arthritis?’ Salbatore repeated. He wanted to call Mike back, to explain that they had changed their minds, but Mike was already moving off in the thick of the crowd.

  The old man shrugged and held out his hands, which did not shake. They seemed supple enough to his friend. Salbatore looked from the hands to his friend’s face, to the welling in his eyes, and he was more confused than ever.

  ‘Well . . . who needs to play tonight anyway. There’s always another time,’ Salbatore said. He was quiet for a while as he thought of what he could say. ‘Mike will probably ask us to play tomorrow. That’s right. I’m sure he’ll ask us tomorrow.’ They both knew they were old and they were rarely asked, but he said it, regardless. He placed a hand on his friend’s shoulder, but the old man did not seem to notice.

  His wife had returned to the place where they had both been born; he had not followed her even though she had asked him. He felt he had been too long now in another man’s country; he had forgotten so much about himself, about the past. He was too stubborn and sometimes it seemed to him he had tried at life and failed, or had been carried along a road whose destination was not his own. ‘You know, Sal,’ he said. ‘It’s time for this old dog to go to bed.’

  Salbatore looked at him. It was scarcely midnight, still early for them, but he did not put up an argument. ‘My wife will be suspicious, me coming back so soon,’ he said, but really he looked forward to being with her, as he always did. ‘She’ll be like this with the questions – tat, tat, tat.’ He fired an imaginary machine gun.

  The old man snorted and picked up his guitar. Salbatore drained the contents of his glass and hurried after his friend. Usually they talked as they made their way to the bus stop, but Salbatore’s efforts to engage his friend were futile and he gave up after a while. They wrapped their scarves tight around themselves, and noticed the cold more because they were silent. The young ones chatted and drank from cans and bottles and occasionally peered at the old men, but they were used to that. When his bus approached Salbatore asked, ‘That girl, tonight – was it the girl?’

  The old man shrugged and finally smiled. ‘Salbatore, you will live long my friend. The bus will leave you behind if you don’t hurry. Go on now.’ As he waited for his own bus, more people arrived, most of them young and boisterous and, it seemed to him, very happy. He thought of his children who no longer visited him – only spoke to their mother in the other country. He had provided well for them and now their lives had moved beyond his expectations: an architect, a physician, a solicitor. But they did not love him, the girl and her two brothers. He had been remiss, stern, too often antagonistic towards their mother, and now they had chosen sides. Everything, he felt, was gradually being stripped away from him: his family, his voice, his years.

  He watched Salbatore struggle to find a place as the bus moved away; the young ones were reluctant to give up their seats. He had let his old friend down. It seemed to be his speciality: his wife, the children, those who had once relied on him. He stamped his feet on the pavement, against the cold.

/>   When it was crowded at Mama Yinka’s he was forced to share his table with another diner, and he would eat quickly and depart. Usually he liked to linger, listening to the sounds of conversation, the language and laughter, the occasional drama. He was able to forget his discontent. It was not so easy to be alone and old, to look back at one’s life and taste disappointment.

  He rested the guitar at the end of his bed and moved to the kitchen which was part of the same room. He placed the iyan and the egusi in the microwave for five minutes and watched the food rotate until it was warm.

  The pounded yam resembled the steam buns they had loved in Chinese restaurants, he and his children. The aroma of the soup filled the little room. He closed his eyes and savoured it and felt he was home. He thought of his wife, and his sons and his daughter. He thought he would write or phone or visit one of the children. Probably a letter. He would try to make a connection. He sat on the edge of the bed with the photograph of his wife beside him, and then he began to eat.

  ARITHMETIC

  TWO OF THE people in this carriage are lovers. One has lost the will to live. I can see her in the reflection opposite, mouth slightly open, jaw slack. The other one, the man staring back at me, sits beside her turning her hand over and over. Fingers weaving between fingers. Human worry beads. Her name is Alicia, the woman in the reflection. Alicia Ajayi is my wife.

  A young woman is sitting almost opposite me, lost in a fashion magazine. There is a man next to her, cross-legged, his lips, his face pursed, wary-eyed, his body escaping into itself. Pinched. Imploding. That is the kind of man he is. The kind of man he seems to me to be.

  At the other end of the carriage two children are playing under the silent gaze of their mother, straying a little away from their seats. One of them is not so old. I cannot tell the sex from here, but it looks as if not so long ago he or she could only crawl.

  Alicia is sighing. Again, again. She is not a sigher; she is a woman who likes to laugh. I squeeze her worry beads once more and she turns to me and smiles. It is not a smile I am accustomed to. It is only there to reassure me.

  At the next station – Green Park – the doors open abruptly, noisily, and people exchange places with one another, some alighting, some stepping on, sitting in their predecessors’ seats. The two children have moved further away from their mother who isn’t paying attention to them now. I am always worried about separation; people not making it to the doors in time, watching their companions disappear as the train starts to pull away. That could happen to either of the children, the little one perhaps. He or she might just step off. The doors might close. There would be panic, hysteria, the mother not knowing what to do. Someone, though it would not be me, would pull the emergency chain. Someone quick thinking and self-assured. Still, there would be those awful moments. The lost child. The separation. The worry of abduction, tumbling headlong onto the rails. How would it feel, to lose a child that way? Watching it move towards the open doors. The doors closing, pincer-like. The train pulling you away. There would be nothing you could do except worry, feel distraught. Devastated. Devastador, as they say where my wife comes from.

  We have lost a child, a baby, a life form. A kind of life not fully formed. It is easier to think of it that way. Something undeveloped. Otherwise it would make things unbearable. The truth would be that much more difficult to take. Malparto, she whispered to her mother on the telephone. She cried until I took the handset from her. This is the third time it has happened. I do not see the fairness in that. I always thought life was equitable. That it balanced itself like scales. One thing taking away from another, adding to the other. Subtraction and gain. This time there has been too much subtraction, no gain, and I have discounted that idea.

  The first time there was brief disappointment, but Alicia took it well. She convinced herself it was meant to happen. We both did. The child would not have been complete other-wise; it was nature’s way of striving for perfection. People say losing a child early on is God’s way of telling us things weren’t meant to be. But I don’t know. We’ll try again, we agreed after the second time. She’s strong, Alicia. I have always admired her for that. Perhaps that’s one of the reasons I married her. For her sense of place, her sureness in the world. The opposite of me.

  Across the way, a young man wearing a shabby sheepskin coat is talking. There is no one beside him, but he is talking nonetheless. Not nonsense, but I would rather not have to listen. I do not feel it’s right to hear about his inner world this way.

  I keep expecting, hoping even, for Alicia to smack my hand away. To turn on me angrily. To explode. I think I would even like that. I need some kind of reaction from her to let me know she is all right, that she is fighting. Instead, she lets me finger her fingers. Turn her hand one way, then the other. Kneading her worry beads.

  I have tried to live an ordinary life, but each time something had to give. Gave way. All the bones in my body working against each other. Rebelling. Nothing in confluence. Everything about me was at war. Alicia once said to me: ‘You know, you’re not a typical man,’ and I tried to take it as a compliment, but from the way she said it, I knew I was supposed to feel shame.

  There was a time when we used to fight: arguments, skirmishes about nothing in particular. A missed appointment, tardiness, insensitivity, that kind of thing. I have always enjoyed quarrelling, fighting. It gives me a kind of thrill. Perhaps there was a part of me that encouraged these altercations. I think, perhaps, it was also a way of working things out, thinking things through. Aloud. It was a way of seeing the other person. Getting to know you time. We were much younger then. Beyond the romance, the politeness, the endless sex – life was much more than any of those things. All that addition, all that gain. There was unpleasantness, pain and ugliness. Perhaps we needed to view all these things in context to understand where we were in our lives. What we were doing. Perhaps we were terrified.

  We haven’t fought in a long time now. Things have settled over the years into a calm and routine I find agreeable. Not like the beginning when we were both raw, still learning. Not that we’re not learning now, but everything was much newer then. Now when things occur, it tends not to take us so much by surprise. It fails to unnerve us. Except this.

  I mentioned there was endless sex. I felt guilty about that, the idea it was endless. It couldn’t have been, of course, but it seemed that way to me in the beginning. It wasn’t something I was used to, but even so, at times it seemed excessive, to experience pleasure that way. I never asked Alicia about her life before me. How many men she might have known. Whether they had given her pleasure and if so, was it very different, was it often? It wasn’t something someone like me could have asked, even though I have often wondered. I think things are better left that way; unsaid. Curiosity can be vengeful. But in the beginning, it was new for me and frenzied. Something sweet and forbidden.

  The first time it happened there had been an interruption. A telephone call. I was relieved, I must admit. Afterwards, I did not want to continue. The second time we attempted to make love there were no interruptions. It was not an easy time for me. I was full of insecurity. How long should it last, how often, was she experiencing pleasure or was the expression on her face simply a mask of indifference? Perhaps she was thinking of someone else. I must have been working too hard. That might have shown on my face.

  Now there is no longer any anxiety, no shame. We are easy with each other. We might be watching television in the lounge. I’m not that keen on television; my concentration is not strong. Sometimes it hurts to look at the screen. Occasionally my hands will roam from room to room. Wander from the kitchen out into the hall. Scamper up the banisters into the bedroom, panting. Sometimes she will turn to me and say, Not now. No house-hunting tonight. I’m watching something here, can’t you see? I’m tired. Perhaps I’ll sigh, because I’m also tired, but I’ve got myself worked up. Sometimes she’ll feel like house-hunting too and we’ll explore our rooms together with the cast of a movie watch
ing on. I am never the one to say no.

  After the second time, it became easier, even something of an obsession for me. I think some sort of barrier had been broken. I became, I think, a kind of philanderer; the desire to perform again and again was all-consuming. I wanted to experience bliss. Perhaps I was making up for lost moments, lost pleasures.

  But that first time we made love properly was not pleasurable. It was like work, arithmetic. Calculations needed to be made. I wanted to get everything right, just so. I must have been high strung. When it was over, we lay side by side on the bed. I could hear Alicia breathing: heavy, steady, confident. But above that I could hear my own breath: erratic, convulsive almost. I lay there feeling pleased, accomplished. I had produced satisfactory work. There was silence. Laboured breathing. Then she turned to me and said, ‘You’ve never been with a woman before, have you?’ It wasn’t so much a question as a statement of fact. And it was true. I had not.

  She did not say it in a way that was designed to make me feel shame or indignation. She said it simply, straight out, without hesitation. I felt crushed and immediately anxious then. I forced myself to return her look. No, I replied, but I added nothing to it. There was nothing I could say in order to explain myself; how had I arrived at the age of twenty-seven without knowing a woman intimately. There was the silence and the sound of our breathing again. My heart beat rapidly. I did not turn away. She only smiled and I held a hand to one side of her face. It was not a good moment for me. Perhaps she felt the same way.

  From the look on Alicia’s face, what she was reading from mine, she may have thought I could only have slept with men. That I had deceived her in some way and the panic of such a revelation was what lay written across my face. But I preferred her to believe that rather than what was actually troubling me. I could never have told her that.