‘I see him in his car with that new woman. They say he buy some new place – All Language Club. You know the place?’
‘I use to play there, barber.’
Now it was clear. If Lajide had become the lover of Beatrice, it could only mean that she had put the idea of buying the Club into his head.
Aina came back to say that all would be well. The Alhaji had given permission. He was very pleased with the idea because he thought Sango’s band would make the school popular. Sango and his men could go there twice a week – Mondays and Thursdays – to practise. She smiled happily and said: ‘Let us go to the beach by the lagoon and play.’
Again the barber winked, a little more knowingly this time.
•
Sango had not noticed the moon till he saw the shadows of the coconut fronds waving against the sky. The surf beat with violence and the courting couples were dark clumps on the sands. There was a faint breeze with a tang in it.
‘Don’t be sad any more,’ Aina said, leaning against him.
‘No more. I’m happy.’
‘Because of me? Sango, do you love me now?’
He was silent, trying desperately to collect his thoughts, to marshal his forces against the wiles of this seductress. He looked at her face, serene, with long lashes and pouting lips. In the eyes he read admiration. Just for this once, he decided to be defeated. He held her to himself and she sighed the sigh of love in triumph.
10
Bayo it was who brought the news about the battle for Beatrice. Lajide, as owner of 163B Clifford Street, was at war with Muhammad Zamil, the tenant – or so it seemed. How else could he explain what had happened? Zamil, after buying the house, had allowed Lajide to let one of the rooms to the girl; but he could visit Beatrice only by day. Sleeping in her room was out of the question for a man who had eight wives.
‘Tha’s where the trouble began,’ Bayo said. ‘You know that Zamil is a bachelor, always home in the evenings – and Beatrice is the kind of girl that foreigners like.’ Bayo glanced round the crowded restaurant where Sango had taken him for lunch and continued: ‘I know all this because when Beatrice was there she helped me a lot. I used to meet Suad in her room and no one would know.’
‘Wait a minute. “When Beatrice was there,” you said just now. You mean – she’s no longer there?’
‘She left. I don’ know where she is now. Perhaps she’s gone back home to the Eastern Greens. I heard she was very ill lately.’
‘Home is the place for her,’ Sango said.
‘I wish she had not left Zamil,’ Bayo said. ‘It has upset all my plans. I’ve not seen Suad for three weeks now. When I go to the shop I cannot meet her, and at their home it is so difficult.’
He sipped his lime-juice. He had not touched his steak. It was unlike Bayo to show no appetite. ‘Sango, what am I to do? I love this girl very much!’
‘It will pass away,’ Sango said. ‘I’m sure it will. She’s not taking you seriously. And you are only kidding yourself. Come off it! When that girl meets some young man from her home, you think she’ll remember you?’
Bayo sat back in his chair, but his depressed mood remained. Sango could not get him to talk about anything else but Suad Zamil.
•
Beatrice had become the thorn in Lajide’s flesh, the one woman his vanity and money could not conquer in a city where women yielded to money and influence. He could not understand the girl, because their backgrounds were so different. Beatrice came from a poor but proud family where values still mattered. Right was right, but wrong met its punishment. The end was not the most important thing, but the means. Lajide had lived too long in the city to care about right or wrong, so long as the end was achieved. And that end was so often achieved by money that it was inconceivable to him that money could ever fail in anything or with anybody.
Lajide went to see her in the department store. She had told him of her desire to work there and within a week he had made the desire a reality. He boasted to his friends: ‘One of the girls in the department store is my gal!’
He saw her now in the top rung of the ladder, fetching down a packet of something for a white woman. She looked ultra-smart in the close-fitting uniform with the ‘D.S.’ above the breast. Her eyebrows were cleverly pencilled and she wore lipstick.
‘Choose one scent – for yourself!’ Lajide said impulsively as the white woman made her purchase and left. ‘You look too fine, Beatrice!’
‘Lajide, please!’
‘Ready to close now,’ he said possessively.
‘Remain half an hour.’
‘Beatrice, you vex with me? I go to the restaurant till the time reach.’