THEM

18^th August 2010

Tim is late for work and is very much irritated by Christie’s pace. He normally delighted in her deliberateness but today, he is late for work.  He is also dead broke so skipping breakfast, is out of the question. If he doesn’t eat these boiled yams, his stomach would have digested itself by the time he returns from work at six pm. He feels like slapping her but restrains himself. He’ll save it for later when he knows for a fact that he’d have something to celebrate albeit with apprehension. He wolfs down the food ignoring the searing heat on his tongue. The taste of the food helps. Among Christie’s many talents, is cooking. He stops suddenly; a cold hand just ran down his spine. He looks at Christie. She is cleaning the table top cooker. The feeling passes. He swallows the last of his yam and quickly washes his hand in the washbowl beside his plate.  As usual the water is lightly soapy and warm. Christie is a fantastic house keeper. Ever since she moved in with him, his home is spotless beyond description.  People notice immediately they walk into his self contained apartment, how clean it is. The girl was created for work, even her hips which should be sexy, are the quintessential child bearing hips.  He informs her about Tinu coming to see him tomorrow.  She gives her usual complacent nod. He feels nothing about entertaining other women in his home. It is his home and he is doing Christie a favour, never mind that they have this complicated relationship. Christie seems perfect. Why does she leave him cold? In bed she is pliant and what she lacks in skill, she makes up for with a very tight vagina and a high pain threshold.  Why isn’t he in love with this girl and rushing to marry her? All through the bus ride to Obalande where he changes buses, and on to VI where his office is, he thinks about the date and Christie with growing apprehension.

Tim listens in shock and fear at the whispers around him. Everyone from heads of departments to cashiers and security personnel has a theory and the telling of it, is probably helping the waiting period before the news of their apparent sudden redundancy. There is a persistent dull ache in his chest from his heart’s pounding. Tim is only half attentive as the HR manager tells every single staff of Halbank HQ that they are now suddenly and without notice out of work.  Tim walks out of the gates of Halbank fearful of the next few minutes but excited and expectant. Today is the eighteenth day of the month and like the past five months, Tim knows how today will play out. All he has left is his transport fare to Berger bus stop and he would have to walk the rest of the way home; except of course if it happens before he gets home.  He knows it the minute he hears the first of three honks. He turns around and sure enough the driver of the range rover beckons. The back window goes down and an elderly man smiles at Tim. Tim recognizes him as a customer from the bank. He commiserates with Tim on the latest development as he too had an early appointment at the bank and had heard the news. He gives Tim a business card with a name and a number scribbled behind it. He tells...no scratch that; he instructs Tim to call the number and tell them that he sent him. He hands Tim a fat brown envelope and waves him off as he instructs his driver to move. Tim stands rooted to the spot, clutching the brown envelop tightly.  He peers into the envelope and sure enough it is money; two bundles of one thousand naira notes, two hundred thousand Naira.  Tim breaks out in a cold sweat, more than his monthly salary. He flags down a red cab. All the way home Tim is a mess of thought and emotions; should he be scared or grateful?  Last month, his six month quit notice was two weeks to expiration when his Landlord had a ghastly motor accident, he was lucky to be alive. The same day, he came to Tim and waved off both the quit notice and the one year’s rent that Tim owed him. The date was the eighteenth.

Tim is pressed beyond his endurance but Christie isn’t getting the door but she is home because the door is locked from the inside. Tim eases himself by the corner of his house. As he urinates, he is convinced he can hear voices. He remembers how Mama Ekene, (his landlord’s sister and former neighbour) kept telling him she always heard loud voices in his house when he wasn’t home. That was before one of the twins got electrocuted and the family moved back to their village. He turns quickly as the door opens. He would normally beat some sense into her for keeping him outside, this would normally get him aroused and he would take her roughly but today, he is not thinking about sex; even less so as he sees his mother standing at the door with Christie. Tim groans inwardly, he can’t handle his mother today. She has been threatening fire and brimstone ever since she heard that he has a live in lover. As he approaches though, he is taken aback by her demeanour.

Two hours later, he is on his way to the bus park. Two hours of smiles and small chit chat. Tim cannot shake off the air of unease. The normal sequence of events have pass; something bad, something good but all is not right. For no reason(as she keeps insisting) his mother had arrived Lagos from the East by night bus to see him and insists on leaving on the same day.  Try as he may, he can’t get a concrete reason for her coming or her leaving almost immediately after.  Her strange visit scares him even more her insistence on leaving and her rather strange subdued demeanour. As he turns to leave, she grips his hand and looks into his eyes. Tim shivers; there is fear in her eyes.  “Timipre be prayerful”. Could this be old age, or could it be the date too?

19^th August 2010

Tim’s first waking thought is relief that the eighteenth is over. Yesterday had been taxing on his nerves. He had called his mother every hour on the hour until she reached their home in Warri. He opens his eyes to Christie as she stands in front of the mirror applying cream to her body. She takes too many baths; at least five a day.  Their eyes meet in the mirror and letting her towel drop, she walks up to him. He slaps her several times until he is sufficiently aroused. She cries softly but takes it all as usual as he sodomizes her roughly and pushes her away five minutes later; sated and disgusted with himself, and her. Then it all came flooding back, his plan for the day.

He unlocks the kitchen window and makes sure to make it look still locked. He leaves the house, with his heart in his mouth.  He met Christie six months ago when she had come looking for her relatives who were the former occupants of his flat. She was stranded and had nowhere to go and he had taken her in. When he reached out and cupped her breast that night, she didn’t utter a word of protest and so it began. Several times through the past six months, he’d wanted to send her away but he lost his nerve each time and this annoyed him even more. Tim is certain now that his date with destiny has something to do with her.

An hour later, Tim sneaks back to the house and opens the back door through the window. Sure enough, like the now mourning Mama Ekene had told him, he hears voices. He tiptoes to the entrance of the connecting door to the living room and peeks in.  His heart freezes for a split second then begins to beat so loud he is certain they can hear him. He wills himself to move, just turn around, walk out and keep walking but his legs have suddenly gone to sleep.  He swallows; it hurts, his throat is dry. “The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want.....” He keeps saying this in his head as he doesn’t know the rest.

TO BE CONTINUED....