Once Alice and Tabby had mastered the egg rice, Monifa joined Alice in the café’s kitchen, where the cooker elevated the temperature so much that they draped wet hand towels over their heads and when the towels were dry, they dampened them again and each took another to wear around her neck. Throughout the day, Tabby worked behind the counter, taking customers’ orders for takeaway food, serving customers’ orders for eating in. There were plenty of both, and Monifa discovered that Alice as well as Tabby knew most of the clientele by name. Indeed, Tabby was able to order for most of them on her own, so regular were their habits. As cheerful Jamaican music played, conversation and laughter dominated the eating area.
The cleanup required two hours, delivering her back to Loughborough Estate just before six. Alice chose a different route to take them there from the one she’d used in the morning. Again, it served to confuse Monifa. She had no way of knowing exactly where they were once they made the first turn at the second corner beyond the café.
“Now you sit down and put your feet up, Monifa,” Alice told her as they entered the family’s flat. “I’m making us a pot of tea. Or p’rhaps you’d want a fizzy water?”
Tea, Monifa told her, would be very nice, thank you. She went on to ask Alice if there was any blank paper to be had in the flat. Alice thought there was a yellow pad inside the piano bench, from the long-ago days when Benj fancied himself a composer, she added. “There’s prob’ly a pencil or biro ’s well. But you say the word if there i’n’t and I can get you one.”
“I must write for the detective sergeant,” she said.
“Mind you make it legible, then. Jewel’s a stickler when it comes to penmanship. You ever see his, Monifa? No? He writes like it’s going into some museum, he does. Watch your q’s, specially. Jewel can’t abide q’s that look like g’s not able to make up their minds.”
Monifa lifted the piano bench and found the yellow pad. A biro was attached to it by its own clip. The top page of the pad did indeed hold some bars of music.
She thought about what she needed to write. She wanted to consider how she might state what she knew without damaging anyone. If the clinic was indeed closed as the detective sergeant had told her it was, then the only worry she actually had was what her statement would do to Mercy Hart. She could lie about Mercy Hart. She could swear that Mercy Hart had nothing to do with any part of whatever went on in the clinic. She could write that, as far as she knew, Mercy Hart’s job consisted of taking in down payments or full payments, making appointments for women and their daughters, and dealing with body temperatures and blood pressure. There would be no way for DS Nkata to have any other information. If he was trying to get it from her, it stood to reason that he hadn’t got anything from Mercy herself. But would lying bring Tani and Simisola back to her? It didn’t seem so.
When Alice came into the lounge with a teapot and cup, Monifa had not yet written a word. She was staring at the yellow pad as if it could remove her from the dilemma she faced. When Alice said, “Sugar and milk, Monifa?” Monifa didn’t register that she was being asked a question. Alice went back to the kitchen and returned with a white jug in the shape of a cow as well as a bowl of sugar. Monifa felt her light touch on the shoulder. She looked up.
“My Jewel’s a good man,” she said. “Whatever he’s said to you, I just want you to know you can trust him. I never knew him to lie about anything. Full stop. He doesn’t have it in him.”
When Alice returned to the kitchen and began removing items from the fridge for dinner, Monifa finally picked up the biro and put it to paper. She began the statement that Alice’s son required of her.
She started with her name: Monifa Bankole. She started with the fact of discovery: conversation with a customer at the stall selling dried herbs and spices. She herself was seeking Cameroon pepper, dried bitter leaf, yaji, ata Jos. She’d been listening to a woman next to her complaining about the scarcity of uziza leaves when, from behind her, a woman’s low voice said, “They do it different. There’s someone knows how to do it clean and sterile.”
Monifa glanced over her shoulder and saw two women having this low-voiced chat. She joined them, said her name, told them she had a daughter who was of age. The women had been reluctant to bring her into their circle till Talatu walked by and called out, “Tell that Simisola of yours that I’m still waiting for those head wraps, the special ones, she’ll know what I mean. Hope I don’t have to wait till next hols to get her back on board.”