“Bo, son of man done tire.”
“Did you find out about that girl?” I asked.
“Why na so so girl, girl, girl, girl been full your mouth. Wetin? So person no fit talk any serious talk with you. I never see.”
“O.K., Mr Gentleman,” I said, pumping the lamp. “Any person wey first mention about girl again for this room make him tongue cut. How is the weather?” He laughed.
At that point my house-boy, a fifteen-year-old rogue called Peter, came in to ask what he should cook for supper.
“You no hear the news for three o’clock?” I asked, feigning great seriousness.
“Sir?”
“Government done pass new law say na only two times a day person go de chop now. For morning and for afternoon. Finish.”
He laughed.
“That is next to impossibility,” he said. Peter liked his words long. He had his standard six certificate which two or three years before could have got him a job as a messenger in an office or even a teacher in an elementary school. But today there simply aren’t any jobs for his kind of person any more and he was lucky to be a sort of housekeeper to me for one pound a month, including, of course, free board and lodging. He spent most of his spare time reading, although his favourite literature is of a very dubious kind. I once found him reading a strange book he had just received from India. I think it was called How to Solve the Fair Sex and had cost him no less than ten shillings excluding postage from New Delhi. I had roundly rebuked him.
I couldn’t think what to eat. So I told him to go and roast me some yams.
“Roast yams at night?” screamed Andrew. “If you knock at my door in the middle of the night I shan’t wake up.”
This was a crude reference to the night I had a violent stomach-ache after eating half a dozen roasted corn. I had been so scared I had gone and called Andrew up to take me to hospital in his ancient car.
“What do you suggest I eat then?” I asked him.
“Am I your wife? Don’t you see all the girls waiting for husbands?”
“Don’t you fear. I have my eyes on one right now.”
“True? Give me tori. Who is she? What about the poem?”
“The same,” I said, and we recited together a poem one of our acquaintances had composed for his wedding invitation card:
“It’s time to spread the news abroad
That we are well prepared
To tie ourselves with silvery cord
Of sweet conjugal bond.”
“Look at this small pickin,” said Andrew in pretended anger to Peter who had joined our laughter. “How dare you laugh with your elders?”
“Sorry, sir,” said Peter, frowning comically.
“What do you think I should eat, Peter?” I asked.
“Anything master talk. Like Jollof rice, sir.”
I knew. Whenever you allowed him a say in this matter he invariably came up with Jollof rice—his favourite dish.
“O.K.,” I said. “One cup of rice—not one and a half; not one and a quarter.”
“Yes, sir,” he said, and went away happily. I knew he would cook at least two cups.
“Who is she?” I said.