Tani said to him, “Really, eh? Okay, I’ll tell her and we’ll see how she feels.”
“If you must.” Abeo was, it seemed, without embarrassment, shame, or guilt, without anything at all. He merely was. Everything about him was saying to Tani, This is who I am and you can cope or not. It is of little matter to me.
Tani reckoned Abeo was trying to pull whatever wool he could get his hands on. He said, “I’m telling her, Pa.”
Abeo replied, “As you wish.”
“You’ll lose Mum, Simi, and me. You’ll lose half of everything you own. Is that what you want? Because I swear I’m going to tell her. Unless.”
Abeo glanced at him then. He cocked his head, interested to hear what followed unless.
“Unless you swear to leave Simi alone. You swear to it here. Now. You leave her alone, you leave her in London, and no way do you ever sell her to some bloke in Nigeria.”
Abeo crossed the road. Tani followed. In the distance the sun was striking the tops of the tower blocks of Mayville Estate. More and more people were in the streets: on bicycles, in cars, on foot, on motorbikes. Shops would soon open and the market traders would be arranging their wares.
Abeo said to Tani, “That is your price?”
“Tha’s my price. Simi’s my price. Simi staying in London is my price. Simi being left alone is my price.”
Abeo nodded thoughtfully. The right side of his upper lip twitched. “I will think about it if you say nothing for now.”
“Decide by tonight,” Tani told him.
“Tonight,” Abeo acknowledged.
When they reached Bronte House, neither Monifa nor Simisola had yet awoken. Tani expected his father to head to the bathroom straightaway, to wash the smell of Lark and sex and sweat from his body. But instead he went to the door of the bedroom he shared with Monifa. He opened it without ceremony and said, “Nifa, come here.”
Tani could hear his mother stirring. He heard her say, “What is it?”
“I said come, Monifa. Did you not hear me?”
There was rustling from the room, and then in a moment Monifa appeared in the doorway. Her face was swollen with sleep or lack of it. Her eyes looked hooded. She saw Tani, and she looked from him to Abeo as she brought one of her hands to her throat.
Abeo said, “Show it to her, Tani,” and he handed Tani the manila envelope. “You wish so much to do it, yes? So do it now.” And when Tani did nothing, “Tani, I said show it your mother as you said you would do if I did not follow your wishes in this matter.” And still when Tani didn’t move, Abeo snatched the envelope and thrust it at Monifa. “Look,” he told her. “Your son wants you to see this, so look at it.”
Monifa shifted her gaze from husband to son to the envelope she held. She did not have to be told again what to do. She opened the envelope and drew out the paper and her gaze fell upon what Tani himself had seen. Slowly she raised her head and looked at Tani. Slowly she covered half of her face. “I’m sorry,” she told him. “I didn’t want you to know.”
Abeo lifted his head and tossed it in a way that unaccountably reminded Tani of a bull. But when he spoke, it was to Monifa. “Make coffee,” he said. “I will be in the bath.”
TRINITY GREEN
WHITECHAPEL
EAST LONDON
Narissa Cameron’s efforts with the girls were not paying off in the way she seemed to desire. Although one of the adult volunteers had done a brilliant job two weeks earlier of demonstrating exactly the storytelling style Narissa was after—indeed, Deborah had photographed her and recorded her words as well in the hope she could use both when she put together her book—there wasn’t a single girl who so far had been able to emulate that. Instead, whether it was rehearsing or filming, the girls depended upon recitation, becoming automatons in front of the camera.
Narissa’s reaction to this was made worse by the fact that with Deborah—a bloody white woman, for God’s sake—the girls seemed natural. Deborah knew the reason was not that she had a magic touch of some kind. It was merely that she had more experience. Part of what she’d learned both in photography school and over the years making portraits was how to draw her photographic subjects out of themselves. It seemed to her that Narissa didn’t yet have that ability, which came mostly from experience, and her frustrated intention was at war with her passionate desire to dig into the girls’ stories.
Deborah paused as she was leaving Orchid House when she saw Narissa on her mobile, at the bottom of the steps. She heard her saying, “It’s bad. It’s truly bad. Hideously bad. Victoria, you must—”