9
It was one of those nights when the Tropicana was poor company, and Jagua was bored. The chairs were empty. The girls sat still as anthills, their eyes trained on a gate that brought in no customers. For many of them it was going to be a lonely night without a man, and a hungry day without a pound in the purse. It was just past midnight when Jagua decided to walk home.
She walked up the road between the waiting taxis and the lustful eyes that leered after her dancing hips. The noise of passing traffic surprised her at this hour of the night. She was forced to pick her way on the edge of the road among the petty traders selling bread, matches, cigarettes, tea, fried bean cakes. She felt not merely on the edge of the road but on the edge of a world totally different from the Tropicana, the real Lagos, noisy and confused, speaking the after-midnight language. She was more preoccupied with the tiny naked lights set on little tables than with the big moon-shaped glares from the cars and lorries. The woman sitting behind the tables flashed her white teeth and beckoned at Jagua. Some of these traders must know her now – as Jagwa. She heard the growling trumpet floating above the noise and hesitated. If she had gone back then, what happened that night would have been avoided. But she walked on because she knew that nothing had changed since she left the Tropicana. Nobody had arrived. The trumpet was merely warming the air.
She walked consciously, dangling the bait. The women in the Club had told her that if ‘trade’ was bad, all she needed to do was walk along this road and the men would stop their cars and start up some conversation. This night would be the third time she had tried and failed. It was the wrong time of the month. Payday was usually on the twenty-sixth. By the twentieth of the month, no Lagos man had any more spending money. This was the time when the men resorted to credit buying and the women trekked across the bridge instead of going by bus. There was no more question of rushing to the big Department Store; instead, everyone sought out the cut-price markets and bought tinned foods from dubious sources. Jagua knew all this, and yet she walked. She passed the roundabout and for some reason, she suddenly remembered Freddie lying in his bed but quickly dismissed the picture from her mind.
A car had stopped. A white face was peering at her and horns were sounding all round. One of the men inside the car began to wave and to shout at Jagua. She walked on. The white man’s car had held up the traffic and now the horns were blowing louder and the air became a loudspeaker from the rehearsal of the giants. To make things worse the road was ‘one-way’ and one part of it had been dug up. The other side had been piled high with huge pipes for the Public Works Department. The white man simply had no choice but to drive straight on till he found a clear space – some hundred yards off – or obstinately hold up the traffic till he had spoken to Jagua. He had swallowed the bait completely. Jagua smiled to herself.
‘Going my way?’ Jagua heard him yell from the din.
She shook her head. The white man leaned further out of the car, his hair darker than the gleaming black limousine. ‘Come with me – to Tropicana – come for a drink!’
She could well go and it might represent a victory – something to show off to the other girls, especially on a dry night like this. ‘No sah! I jus’ comin’ from dere. Drive on! You soon meet odder women plenty!’ She was tickled.
The car revved up and slowly moved away. Another girl who had been standing in the shadows came out and looked with some surprise at Jagua. She was small and sweet and rather new to Jagua. ‘What de white man tell you? Why you don’ follow am? He be rich man, you see de car? He for give you plenty money.’
‘Lef’ me. I tire.’
‘Person who findin’ money cannot tire in dis Lagos. De month done reach twenty-hungry. You got boy friend who jealous?’
‘Boy frien’?’ asked Jagua. ‘What boy frien’ got to do wit’ dis one?’ She looked at the face of the girl; heart-shaped it was very beautiful. She was entering the trade young. ‘Ah never seen you before. You use to come Tropicana?’
‘Sometime … My name be Rosa. I use to see you in de Tropicana? Not you be Jagwa Nana?’
‘Yes. Rosa, my dear; ah use to be careful about dose men with car. Dem too fool woman.’ The wind had begun to stir and she looked at the sky. ‘I hope de rain no go fall because I wan’ to take foot reach house. De night still young.’
Rosa studied the sky. ‘No. Rain no go fall. Jagwa, I sure dat you let dat man go because you be rich woman. If is me—’
As they stood arguing, another car stopped within reach. Both of them saw the blaze of red rear lights. The man at the wheel pointed instantly at Jagua and Jagua walked towards them, feeling strangely elated.
‘Rosa, excuse me. Ah goin’ to see what dem want.’
She thought at first that she saw two heads but when she approached she was certain it must have been the shadows and the poor light playing tricks.
‘Good evenin’.’ She leaned into the car.
The man’s bow tie was dark and his hair odorous in a manly way. He was a Nigerian of some class, she could see that. The lights of passing cars shone on his dark eyebrows and strongly defined nose. ‘I – I always see you standin’ here – every night when I’m going home. I work at the airport …’
Jagua laughed. ‘I waiting for somebody, das why ah standin’ there.’
‘Every night? Who you be waiting for? Not me, I hope? Well, jump in, le’s go.’
She did not answer for a moment. She had seen another car stop in the distance. The other girl – Rosa, was racing towards it.
‘Where you live?’
‘Ikoyi.’ He held the door open. ‘Get in, we go there.’
She drew in her breath. ‘Ikoyi.’ That was the Government Reservation where the white men and the Africans high up in the civil service lived. Ikoyi where the streets were straight and smooth, where they played golf on the open sands: a reservation complete with its own police station, electricity base, motorboat beaches, a romantic place. This man must be set high up on the ladder, because an Englishman she used to know lived there in a flat by the lagoon.
‘I got mah own place,’ Jagua said. A gentle wind began to stir carrying with it a damp smell. ‘If you wan’ to see me, you mus’ come dere. I never sleep in anodder man house.’ In that interval she could hardly understand the reason why she hesitated. But the novelty of the strange man’s house was there: perhaps he was some youngster whom she could bewitch and sap, draining the pennies out of his purse. Certainly his new car suggested a possible victim. If he insisted she would go to his flat, but she would not remain there till morning. She might on getting there, discover that he was a married man whose wife had gone away for a holiday. Then Jagua would see his wife’s wedding picture on the radiogram. She would wear his wife’s dressing gown, bathe in the same bath, be fussed over by husbandly hands. In that brief interval the make-believe would be sweet and when the morning came she would be paid off; discreetly or degradingly depending on the finesse of the man. In the cold streets she would once again revert to what she was, and who cared? The real wives were no better than she was. In her make-believe she could claim these various men as husbands for a time. The wind blew dust against her skirts and into the car. Better to go with this man, poor though he looked (the good-looking Nigerians were always poor, she knew) than to hang about and earn nothing this night. She thought of the countless girls now in the Tropicana, showing off, casting aside offers until the rain came as it did now, pelting down, hurrying them off to their empty beds.
The door opened wider and she went inside. The car moved forward. She looked at the young man, but he only smiled and said: ‘Get up, Freddie. You owe me ten shillings! I won the bet! I think I told you I saw her?’
Jagua nestled closer to him. ‘What you say?’
‘Freddie, get up now! You owe me ten shillings!’