Big Mummy’s Son and I (part 5)

TUNDE

He was going to be honest with himself: the last two months had been the worst of his adult life, and that included the period when his startup had nearly collapsed, which was saying something.

It had started with a call at six in the morning from his co-founder in London. The kind of call that meant everything, and not in a good way. A key investor had pulled out. The legal situation was complicated. He needed to be there. Now.

He had packed in forty minutes. He had meant to text Mabel before he got on the plane. He had been composing the text in his head on the way to the airport, not a long one, just: I have to go back to London, something came up with work, I’ll explain when I can reach you properly — when his phone had slid out of his pocket in the chaos of the departure gate and he had not noticed until he was in the air.

He had spent the next six weeks in London being a person who did not have a phone and could not afford to stop and buy one because every hour was going to something that needed his attention and his money and his focus. He had borrowed phones. He had emailed. He had done everything except the one thing he needed to do, which was reach Mabel, and the reason he had not managed that was that he did not know her email address or her last name with any certainty and Instagram. When he finally got access to a laptop, it showed him that she had blocked him, which told him something had happened that he did not yet have the information to understand.

He had come back to Lagos with a new phone and a business that was still standing, barely, and the specific focused intention of a man who had decided that before anything else he was going to fix this.

What he had found when he got here: Mabel had blocked him on every platform. She had closed her door in his face. She had sent back his food… twice. She had told the receptionist at her office that she was not available to him.

He did not understand any of it.

He had left Lagos for an emergency. He had lost his phone. He had come back as fast as he could. And somewhere in those two months, without any conversation, without any explanation he had been given, Mabel had decided that they were done. He turned it over from every angle and could not find the logic in it. He had done nothing, nothing he could identify that warranted this level of shutdown.

He was confused and frustrated and, underneath both of those things, quietly scared in a way he was not going to say out loud to anyone.

Eventually he got Bayo to sit down with him at a restaurant in Victoria Island. Bayo looked at him across the table with the expression of a man who was reserving judgment and said: “Tell me what happened. From the beginning.”

So he told him. The call from his co-founder. The airport. The phone sliding out of his pocket at the departure gate and not realising until he was in the air. Six weeks in London without a replacement, every hour going to a business that was bleeding money and needed him present in a way that left no room for anything else. Coming back to find himself blocked on every platform, with no idea what had happened while he was gone.

Bayo was quiet for a moment. “She blocked you everywhere.”

“I noticed.”

“And she sent the food back.”

“Twice.”

“Do you know why?”

Tunde shook his head. “That’s what I can’t figure out. I left for an emergency. I lost my phone. I came back as fast as I could. And she’s — I don’t understand what I did. I don’t know what happened while I was gone.”

Bayo looked at him steadily. Said nothing.

“I just need to talk to her,” Tunde said. “If I could just get her to hear me out—”

“She’s not ready.”

“I know. But I can’t just—”

“She blocked you everywhere,” Bayo said again, more gently this time. “That’s not an accident. Something happened. And until you know what it is, you’re not going to be able to fix it.”

MABEL

He called Linda.

She told me this the next morning as she walked into my house, with the specific expression of someone delivering information they know will be received badly and have decided to deliver anyway.

”He called you,”I said.

“Yes.”

”You picked up.”

“Yes.”

”Linda?….”

”Your enemies are my enemies,” she said. ”But I need information to know if he’s actually an enemy.”

I looked at her. ”What did he say?”

“He said his business abroad, he has a tech startup he was running from the UK, he got a call that something had gone seriously wrong. He left Lagos in a rush. Lost his phone at the airport.”

“He lost his phone.”

”That’s what he said.”

”Conveniently.”

”Mabel.”

”That’s very convenient, Linda.”

”I know it sounds—”

”It sounds like an excuse.”

”It might be an excuse,” she said carefully. ”Or it might be what happened. I don’t know him well enough to say which.”

I was quiet for a moment. ”What else?”

”He said when he tried to reach you, you’d blocked him. Everywhere. He doesn’t know why. I don’t think he knows about Kemi coming to the office, because he didn’t mention it to me or Bayo when they met, as far as he’s concerned, he left Lagos for an emergency and came back to find you’d shut him out completely and he has no idea what happened.”

”So he thinks I just randomly blocked him.”

”Essentially.”

”And he doesn’t know about Kemi?.”

”He said never mentioned her and I didn’t ask.”

I processed this. ”Why?”

She paused. ”I don’t know, maybe I wanted him to say it himself .”

“Hmmmmm”

”yep….. Maybe Bayo should talk to him again”

“Why Bayo?”

”Because Bayo will ask the right questions and won’t let him get away with anything.”

“But didnt he and Bayo just see, why didnt Bayo ask questions?”

“Bayo was there to only listen”

I thought about Bayo’s specific brand of quiet, precise, not-letting-anyone-get-away-with-anything energy. ”Fine,” I said. ”But I’m not talking to him.”

“I know.”

”And I’m not unblocking him.”

”I know.”

”And if Bayo comes back and says he’s lying, I never want to hear his name again.”

”Understood.”

The next day was the day that ended my career for two weeks.

I was at my desk. It was a Thursday. I was having a good Thursday, productive, focused, the kind of day where the code was doing what you asked it to do and the meetings were mercifully short. I was, genuinely, fine.

The receptionist appeared. ”There’s a woman—”

I knew before she finished the sentence.

Kemi was at reception in something white that I would have appreciated on any other day. She looked at me as I came out with the expression of a woman who had come prepared.

”I told you to stay away from him,” she said.

”And I did,” I said.

”Then why is he back in Lagos? Why is he showing up everywhere for you? If you had stayed away like I asked—”

”I’m not responsible for where he goes or what he does,” I said. ”If you have a problem with his choices, that’s a conversation for you and him.”

”I’m having it with you.”

”I noticed.” I looked at her. ”We’ve done this. I don’t know what you want me to say.”

”I want you to leave him alone.”

”I have left him alone. I blocked him everywhere. I sent back his food. I told him to leave my office. What exactly do you think is happening here?”

She looked at me with the particular look of a woman who had a narrative and was not going to let facts interrupt it. ”He’s still here because of you.”

”He’s here because he wants to be here. That’s a him problem, not a me problem. If you want him, go and have him. I’m not in your way.”

Something shifted in her expression. ”You think you’re so—”

”I think,” I said carefully, ”that I have been very patient with this situation and I am running out of patience. I did not know about you when I met him. I’m not the person you should be angry at.”

”You knew something was there and you continued—”

”I didn’t know anything.”

”Please.” She looked at me with something that was almost pity and was more insulting than anger would have been. ”I don’t know what he said in you. I really don’t. At least if he was going to leave me for someone, pick someone at his level. Someone above my level.” She looked at me, at my locs, specifically, ”Not some nerdy girl with locs who works in an office. I really don’t—”

That was when I stopped being calm.

I am not a violent person. I want to put that on record. I am a software engineer. I resolve conflicts through logic and communication and, if necessary, strongly worded Slack messages. I do not lunge at people.

I lunged at her.

Not effectively, there were people between us almost immediately, colleagues appearing from nowhere with the speed of people who had been watching this whole thing and had been waiting for the moment to intervene. Someone grabbed my arm. Someone else stepped between us. Kemi stumbled back, looking genuinely startled for the first time, which I noted with some satisfaction even as I was being redirected.

”You can insult me,” I yell, over whoever’s shoulder was between us. ”You can come to my office twice. You can say whatever you want about me. But do not….., insult my locs.

And then Tunde walked in.

I don’t know what sequence of events had led him to my office at that exact moment, later he would say he had come to try again, he had not known Kemi was there, he had walked in to find his ex-fiancée backed against the reception wall looking shaken and three of my colleagues holding me back. He stood in the doorway and took in the scene with the expression of a man who understood immediately that he was responsible for all of it.

”Kemi?….,” he said. ”What the fuck, are you doing here?”

She turned to him. And whatever composure she had been maintaining for the previous five minutes left her entirely. ”What am I doing here? What are YOU doing here? I told you it wasnt over, that we weren’t done, and we should try again and yet here you are still coming here every day like—”

”We are done,” he said. ”Kemi. We’ve been done. I told you that.”

”You told me you could never move back to Lagos and then you came back to Lagos for her?”

”I came back to Lagos for my mother’s business —”

”Don’t.”* Her voice cracked. ”Don’t do that. I know why you came.”

The reception had gone very quiet. My colleagues were doing the thing people do when they are witnessing something they know they shouldn’t be witnessing and cannot look away from. The receptionist was looking at her screen with intense focus on nothing.

”This isn’t the place,” Tunde said. His voice was low and careful. ”Let’s go outside.”

”I’m not going anywhere with you.”

”Kemi—”

”After everything.” Her voice was doing something complicated now, anger and grief twisted together, the specific sound of someone who had loved something for a long time and was finally accepting that it was gone. ”After everything we had. You’re leaving me for this?”

”It wasn’t working,” he said. ”It stopped working a long time ago. You know that.”

”Because you refuse to make it work… YOU GAVE UP ON US!!” She yelled

”We gave up. Both of us. We’d been giving up for two years.”

The silence in reception was absolute.

She looked at him for a long moment. Then she picked up her bag from where it had ended up on the floor in the proceedings. She looked at me once, not with the earlier contempt, more with the exhausted look of a woman who had come here for a fight and had gotten something more complicated and was not sure how to carry it.

Then she walked out.

Tunde watched her go. Then he looked at me.

I looked at him.

My HR manager appeared in the doorway behind reception.

---

Two weeks suspension. With pay, which was something, but still.

I sat in my apartment on the first day of it and stared at the wall and thought about all the ways this was Tunde’s fault, which took a while because there were many, and then I called Linda and said: ”I got suspended.”

The sound she made was not helpful but it was honest. ”Oh, Mabel.”

”Two weeks.”

”Because of—”

”Yes.I hate that foolish man”

“Did you really fight her?”

”Yes.”

”Are you okay?”

”No.”

She came over that evening with Bayo and food and the particular energy of two people who had decided they were going to be present and useful and were not going to make it weird. Bayo set up on my kitchen counter with the efficiency of a man who cooked when he didn’t know what else to do, which I had come to understand was his version of comfort. Linda sat beside me on the couch.

”I hate him,” I said.

”I know.”

”I don’t hate him.”

”I know.”

”I hate that I don’t hate him.”

”That’s the worst one,” she said.

I pulled my knees up. ”Why is this my life? Why can’t I just have a man that wants me without all of this? Without the ex-fiancée and the disappearing and the suspension from work—”

”The suspension is partly your…….”

”I know whose fault the suspension is, Linda.”

”Okay.”

”I know. I lunged at her.”

”You did.”

”She insulted my locs.”

”She did.”

”You would have lunged.”

A pause. ”I would have absolutely lunged,” she said.

I laughed. It was not a happy laugh but it was a laugh, which was something. ”I always do this. I always end up in someone else’s drama. I always pick the complicated one.”

”You didn’t know he was complicated.”

”I should have known. The undisclosed ex-fiancée is usually a sign.”

”He didn’t disclose her, so you couldn’t have known.”

”Linda.”

”I’m serious. You’re not responsible for information he didn’t give you.”

I was quiet for a moment. ”Do you think he was telling the truth? About the phone? About not knowing about Kemi being over before he came here?”

She took a moment before answering, which I appreciated because it meant she was being honest rather than kind. ”I think Bayo thinks he was telling the truth. And Bayo is hard to fool.”

”That doesn’t answer my question.”

”I know.” She looked at me. ”I think the situation is more complicated than either the best version or the worst version. I think he made mistakes. I think she did things he didn’t sanction. I think you got caught in the middle of something you didn’t have the full picture of.” She paused. ”And I think he really likes you. Which doesn’t fix anything. But it’s true.”

I looked at the ceiling.

Bayo appeared from the kitchen with food and set it on the coffee table and sat in the armchair across from us and said: ”Eat.”

We ate.

---

The two weeks passed in a rhythm I had not chosen but settled into by necessity. I woke up. I read. I coded personal projects because I could not stop being a software engineer even when I was suspended from being one professionally. I walked, Lagos in the morning, before the heat, was a different city than Lagos at noon. I called my mother and did not tell her about the suspension because that was a conversation for another day.

And every evening, there was food at my door.

Not inside, he never knocked, never pushed. Just food, left on the mat, sometimes with a note that said nothing except: “in case you haven’t eaten.” Sometimes without a note at all. Just the containers, warm, from somewhere that was not the nearest cheap option.

The first time I left it there and it got cold and I felt guilty about the waste and ate it at midnight.

The second time I left it there for an hour and then brought it in.

By the end of the first week I was bringing it in immediately. I told myself this was practical. I told myself nothing about it meant anything.

I ate his food every night for two weeks and did not acknowledge it and he did not ask me to.

On the last day of my suspension, Linda and Bayo came over and we ate together and watched something and it was good, the way the evenings with them were always good warm and easy and enough. At some point Bayo looked at his phone and something moved in his face.

”What?” Linda said.

”Nothing.”

”Bayo.”

”It’s nothing. Work thing.”

She looked at him. He showed her the screen. She looked at it and then looked at me and then looked back at the TV.

”What?” I said.

”Nothing,” they said, in unison, which was the most suspicious possible response.

”Tell me.”

”It’s not—”

”Linda.”

She sighed. ”He asked Bayo if you were okay. That’s all. He just asked if you were okay.”

I looked at the TV.

”He asks every few days,” Bayo said. ”I haven’t been, I’ve just been saying you’re fine. Because you are fine.”

”I am fine,” I confirmed.

”I know.”

We watched the TV. The evening continued. They left at ten and I tidied up and turned off the lights and was in my room changing for bed when someone knocked on my door.

I thought: of course.

I thought: I have had enough of this. I am going to open this door and I am going to tell this man, clearly and finally, that I have nothing to say to him and he needs to stop coming here and stop leaving food and stop asking Bayo if I’m okay and—

I opened the door.

A man I had not seen in two years was standing in my hallway looking like he had not been expecting to find himself there.

”Hi, Mabel,” said Daniel.

I stared at him.

”Surprise,” he said, in the voice of someone who understood immediately that surprise had been the wrong word.

I stood in my doorway in my house clothes at ten-fifteen at night and looked at my ex-boyfriend and thought: of all the doors, in all of Lagos, in all of the weeks I have been having the worst time of my adult life—

”Daniel,” I said.

”Yeah,”he said.

”What are you doing here?”

He opened his mouth. Closed it. Opened it again.

”I think,” he said, ”that’s a long story.”

TBC

JOYZTHELOSTWRITER ❤️‍🔥