Scars (Romola 2)

35: Poke Nosing

He had not returned to Lagos to work as Ajoke's errand boy. Even worse, she sent a dispatch rider to drop the lace at his office.

He stared at the clothes on the corner of the passenger seat before dialling her number.

She picked on the third ring.

"Why?"

"Olumide." Her voice was light and slow. Not in the usually assertive and speedy way she spoke. "Please, just help me deliver that to daddy. They're for Dami's wedding."

"Why can't you do it? I'm at work for goodness sake."

"I'm sorry."

Apologizing? Ajoke apologizing for sending him to do her work? Never in the 28 years of his existence had his sister apologized for passing on her duties to him.

She continued, "I'm just really busy right now with Leo."

Olumide stared at his car ceiling. How could she be busy with the son that she claimed she had sent to Easter camp along with Modupe?

"Can I speak to him?"

"Not now, Mide. Let me know when you've delivered it."

"I don't know if he would be home. Why didn't you send the dispatch rider?"

"He's home. I already promised to deliver it myself but something came up."

Olumide sighed. Something came up and Ajoke...

He remembered the early days of her marriage when their mother claimed that Ajoke came back to the family home too often and that she ought to stay in her house like a proper married woman.

Now, Ajoke choose to stay. That too was a problem, according to his mother and he agreed. His sister had never been a home loving person.
Even while she was pregnant, she had travelled against the doctor's advice, to spend Christmas with him abroad. His parents had never visited. Her husband had been furious and she'd never visited him again him again until he came to Nigeria. They all missed his graduation.

That had to be it. Tomiwa must have insisted she stayed at home.
The ride to his parent's house revolved around the same thoughts. He parked the car then walked into the house. A maid directed him to his father's study.

He opened the door and shut it behind him, his eyes adjusting to the darker light of the room.

"Don't you know how to knock?" His father leaned back into the chair, raising his spectacle and placing it on the curve of his head.

"Good morning Dad." Olumide stepped deeper into the study, his eyes resting on the lean man in the black leather swivel chair backing two large wooden doors.

"Why are you here?"

Olumide walked over the wooden floor, unto the dark green rug where two chairs stood facing his father. One of his hands rested on the chair. His butt had married this chair on many occasions of a stern warning from his father. And the table. He tightened his stomach core to stop the shudder that followed the memory.

"Ajoke asked me to deliver this. She said it's for Dami's wedding."

His father waved to his side and Olumide dropped it beside the reading lamp on that side. His eyes strolled to the windows at the right, partly obscured by the thick green curtains. This place always needed light but his dad's preferred source of light was the sunroof at the the top of the room whose light barely reached his father's table on the hottest days.

Olumide turned to leave.

"Where is yours?"

He turned back, "Sir?"

"Where are your clothes?"

"I'm going to be the best man. I will be dressed in a suit."

His position as best man was still being contested. Dami wanted him. Vicky didn't. He didn't want to be the best man for Vicky's wedding either.
His father grunted, then picked the carrier bag up. He brought out the fine yellow piece of clothes. "Just one?"

"That's what she gave me."

His father grunted again and dropped it to the side like a discarded tissue paper. "She should have delivered this herself."

Olumide drew the chair backwards and sat in it, even though his father had told him times without number, to ask for a seat first. "Dad?"

His father raised his brows even though his eyes were glued to the pile of A4 paper in his hand.

"Shouldn't you be getting to work?"

"In a moment. I want to talk about something."

The older man neither approved nor rejected his request.

"It's about sister Joke and Tomiwa."

"What about them?"

Olumide drew in a breath. Whatever he said now would affect how his father viewed Tomiwa and there was Joke to think about. She didn't want him to interfere but he couldn't sit back while his sister suffered.

"Tomiwa... Yesterday—"

"Talk."

"I think the reason Joke didn't come today is because Tomiwa is holding her hostage."

"And what am I supposed to do with this information?"

"It's more serious than that. See, a few weeks ago, she asked me to meet her at my house and she had a scar on her face. Like someone had hit her. The day before at the event centre, I walked in on them arguing. He was going to hit her."

His father packed the A4 paper away, met his eyes without any emotion then fell back into the chair, flipping through the pages. "Conflict is normal in marriages."

"You don't get it. He hit my sister."

Olumide's jaw tightened. He kept his finger locked to avoid punching his father's table. "And I bet it isn't the first time."

"Every couple fights, Olumide."

"Does he have to turn her to a punching bag? Tell me, when you and mom fight, do you hit her?"

His father's silence stunned him. He had expected an emphatic no. His parents had been an unstoppable team but the silence now...

His father flipped open another page of the newspaper. "Once. I told her I was sorry."

"Dad—" Olumide's mouth hung open. Disappointment hung on his shoulder like a monkey clinging to the last branch of a tree for dear life.

"Just once, Mide. Conflict is normal. Besides you said he looked like he wanted to hit her. Not that he did."

"Dad. He was going to—"

His father slammed the newspaper on the table, leaning forward and placing his elbows on his desk. "What is all this nonsense about Tomiwa. Don't you have anything better to do than to insult my son-in-law?"

"He's not the angel you think he is."

"And you are?" His father shot him a pointed look. "You, running up and down and gossiping about people's marriages? When will you solve your problems and stop poke nosing in people's affairs."

"Tomiwa—"

"He saved this family from the mess you created. Do you know how many business deals I lost because of you and your insanity?" His father's voice rose by the second. "Everything about you is unstable. Find a woman, get out of my hotel and settle down."
Olumide rose to his feet. This was his father, silent one moment, a critical chatter box the next.

"This isn't about me."

"It's never about you. But you killed Muyi. You brought that useless girl to the house warming. I should've left you to rot in jail."

"I said I was sorry."

"Sorry won't bring Muyi back."