THE VILLAGE GIRL. . . . EPISODE 6

THE VILLAGE GIRL. . . . EPISODE 6

Another small pause and a sudden
seriousness
came over Mma’s face again.She moved
further
aside and when she talked again, her voice
went
significantly lower.
‘Yes. Very serious problem o.’
‘Mama–‘ She looked at Nkechi. She was
humming
as she gathered the rubbish of leaves and
used
recharge cards together.
Mma moved further away, closer to the
mango
tree near the edge of the road.
‘Mama chasing me out of the house o. I
even
sleeping in the bush last night.’
‘Ha! I telling you the truth o.’
‘I thinking I’m pregnant.’
A long pause.
It lingered.
‘Nnanna, you hearing me?’
She appeared surprised at herself with the
smoothness with which she called him by
his first
name. Things have changed. She was now
carrying
his child. Might be.
‘I not very sure yet but everything looking
it.
Everything.’
‘No. Very far, I not sleeping in the bush till
next
week. Telling me your address and I will
coming
myself.’
‘Ha, see you! You not knowing I have going
to
Onitsha before to looking for Okechukwu?’
‘Lagos and Onitsha, which is big pass?’
‘Is lie. Aunty Rosa saying Onitsha is
biggest city in
African.’
She ended the call with ‘Ok. I leaving first
thing
tomorrow morning.’
Nkechi told her her call was 5 minutes.
‘How much?’
‘One-fifty.’
She handed her a crisp N500 note. ‘Giving
me my
change fast fast.
She left very early that morning. Her
younger
brotherhad cried when she told him. He
begged
her not to go. But she tried to explain to
him why
she must. He didn’t seem to understand
but he
finally nodded and wiped his eyes. ‘Go well,
sister,’
he said to her.
She hugged him and told him to remember
what
she’d told him about not telling their
mother.
She took a green bus to Onitsha and
boarded a
Lagos bus at Upper Iweka.
She was shocked that after she woke up the
third
time in the bus that they hadn’t yet arrived
Lagos.
She turned to the big woman sitting next to
her.
‘Madam, please we not reaching the Lagos
yet?’
The woman shook her head. ‘No. We are in
Benin
now.’
‘Ha.’ She stirred on her seat, trying to
stretch her
legs.
The woman looked at her.
‘Sorry. My bom bom scratching me.’
‘You can stand for a while,’ the woman told
her.
She was on another round of sleep when a
hand
tapped her gently.
She came awake with a start, clutching her
Ghana-
Must-Go tightly to herself.
‘Come down,’ the man told her. ‘I want to
lock the
door.’
It took a while before she realized he was
the
driver of the bus. She looked round in the
bus,
everyone has gone down.
She was terrified. ‘Hey!’ she whimpered.
‘Driver,
we have passing Lagos?’
‘This is Ore. Come down.’
‘Hey!’ She started to cry. ‘Driver, I telling
you I
going to Lagos o! I telling you this from the
beginning o! Now you carrying me to Ole,
how I
going back now, how?’
‘Come down, we are not in Lagos yet.’ The
man’s
impatience was tempered by his
amusement.
Mma stopped crying. She eyed the man.
‘You saying we not reaching Lagos yet?’
‘We have not reached,’ the man said in
Igbo.
‘Come down.’
She climbed down from the vehicle slowly,
her bag
hugged to her belly.
‘Drop your bag in the car.’
‘No. I carrying it with me.’
The man slid the door of the bus shut. ‘Go
and find
something to eat and make sure you come
back
here fast, otherwise we will leave you
behind.’
She nodded. She bought banana and
groundnut.
‘Madam, you saying this banana is two-
fifty?’ she
asked the banana seller.
She examined the bunch again. ‘Everything
two-
fifty? You stealing it?’
The woman selling the bananas smiled and
shook
her head.
They arrived Lagos in late evening, that
time of the
day when daylight seemed to be uniting
with
darkness.
The driver stopped her at Anthony Bus stop
as
Nnanna had told her.
She called him with a public phone and he
hurriedly told her he was coming, that she
should
make sure she didn’t go anywhere.
‘Where I knowing in Lagos to going?’
She waited and after about thirty minutes
and she
hadn’t seen him, she called him again.
‘Nnanna, wearing you na? Wearing you?
You
wanting police to catching me here and
putting
my picture on TV and saying I missing?’
‘Ha, t-l-a-fik kwa? Which one is tlafik
now?’
‘Oh you meaning go-slow?’
‘Ha. But motos passing here na?’
She frowned. ‘Ok.’
‘Ok. I waiting small and I calling you
again.’
She gave the phone back to the tall slim
boy
standing beside her and paid him. ‘So
calling
somebody is ten-ten naira in Lagos?’
The call boy nodded.
‘Chai. And that fatibombo Nkechi will be
collecting
thirty-thirty naira with her kpankolo phone
that
you not even hearing anything.’ She did
something like snapping her fingers. ‘Chelu,
I will
come back for her.’
Finally Nnanna came. He drove into the
space and
waved at her.
She screamed and rushed to him, throwing
herself
into him without care.
He held her. She smelt nice despite the
long
journey. He knew from the unrefined flowery
scent
that the perfume she’d used was cheap, but
the
smell was acceptably lovely.
He wanted to kiss her and she quickly
dodged his
lips
TBC...