“All right. We agree.” Abeo seemed to spit the words out. Tani was not surprised when his father went on with, “No filthy Somali will touch my daughter.”
“Then we now talk of what must be done by you in advance. I leave this information for you. Certain requirements must be met.”
At this, Tani faded back to his bedroom. He was sweating heavily. His palms were tingling. The pounding in his chest told him how stupid he’d been. How bloody seriously he’d misunderstood what was going on between his parents. This today—what he was hearing from the sitting-room conversation—went far beyond finding a husband willing to pay a high bride price for Simisola. This today was being engineered to make Simi worth the high price.
Tani understood from the overheard conversation that there had never been a real chance for him to strike a deal with his father regarding the virgin chosen for him to marry. He had been a fool to think otherwise. He’d left Pembury Estate presuming Simi was finally safe. Now all bets were off. He moved in silence back into his room, pulled out of the clothes cupboard the rucksack containing some of Simisola’s clothes as well as her sequins and glitter and glue, and climbed over the bed to open the window.
Once out of the flat and round the corner from the play area across the lane from Bronte House, he phoned Sophie on her mobile. She was at home, she told him, memorising her lines for a very small theatre company’s production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream. She was one of the fairies accompanying Titania. She’d wanted Helena—she’d longed for Helena—but had to settle for Mustardseed. Mustardseed said virtually nothing, she explained. The main requirement of the actor playing any one of the fairies was to flit around and to look enthusiastic whenever directed by the fairy queen to do something.
Their respective worlds could not have been more different. Still, Tani made what he hoped were sympathetic noises directed at her world before telling her what was going on in his. When he was finished, Sophie said, “Oh my God! They’re going to cut her? Tani, are you certain? Did you hear them say it?”
“I heard this woman sayin’ she needed aunties to hold Simi down.”
“This’s madness. I didn’t even know it was still going on in this country. When’s it supposed to happen?”
Tani didn’t know. If they’d set a date, it was after he’d climbed out of the window with Simi’s things. But now was the time to hide his sister, he told her, and he’d made arrangements to do just that.
“Ring me when it’s all set up, ’kay? And be careful, Tani. I expect your dad’ll work out who managed to get Simisola away from him so fast.”
They rang off. Tani picked up his pace. He decided he’d go directly to Xhosa’s Beauty to give Tiombe the rucksack to hold while he started looking for his sister. Simi would be somewhere in the market, and leaving the rucksack in the hair salon would prevent her from clocking what he had in mind. If she realised what was up, Tani knew, she might well refuse to go with him.
He was careful about the route he took to Xhosa’s Beauty. He didn’t want to risk being seen by anyone who knew him. He chose to dart along the pavement on the opposite side of the street from the butcher shop, ducking behind each stall he came to, keeping his face hidden from view.
Opposite Xhosa’s Beauty, he looked right and left before he darted across the market street. He muttered “Shit!” as someone called his name. He glanced behind him and saw that it was Talatu, the woman who sold Simi’s head wraps. She called out, “Where’s that sister of yours? She’s s’posed to deliver more turban caps.”
He waved and shrugged. The interpretation of this was meant to be “Clueless on that score,” and Talatu was shouting, “You tell her Talatu needs those head wraps, you hear me, Tani?” as he swung round and stepped inside Xhosa’s Beauty.
Tiombe, he saw, was not there. He scrambled in his head for the other woman’s name. Happiness? Joy? No. Bliss, he thought. Her name was Bliss. He said, “Tiombe? She somewhere in the market, Bliss?”
Bliss was leaning on the salon’s glass countertop, a chat magazine opened in front of her and a takeaway cup sweating beads of moisture set to one side. She looked up and it seemed to take her a moment to clock who he was. She said, “Nowhere in th’market ’t all.”
“I got to talk to her. Where is she?”
“Wolverhampton. Mum broke her hip. This’s last night and Tiombe’s up there. She went straightaway she got the word. Surgery and rehab and Tiombe’s the only one who c’n care for her. Got sisters and a brother, Tiombe does, but they got families and she doesn’t, so off she goes.”