Something to Hide, page 10
“So where do I take her if I get her out? Like I said, there’s no point to going to the police and where the hell else is there?”
She looked from him to the building across the courtyard. He followed her gaze. Someone was busily opening windows, hoping for the best, which would be the sudden manifestation of a stiff and cooling breeze. Sophie was silent, and in her silence birds twittered as they dipped and fluttered in and out of the nearby fountain, where water burbled pleasantly. Everything was going on as normal, except in his life and Simi’s. Sophie finally replied with, “If there’s really no point to ringing the police, when the time comes, you can bring her to me.”
“No way I can do that.”
“Why not? You never told them, did you? Your parents? About us, I mean.”
“No, but we’ve been in the market together, Soph. Someone would’ve seen us and you c’n bet on that. Market’s the first place they’d look for her. And when Simi’s not there, Mum’s going to know I’m behind it cos Simi’s been dead chuffed with everything she’s been told about her ‘initiation,’ so she bloody well isn’t going to run off on her own. All it’ll take is jus’ one person in Ridley Road saying, ‘What about that girl been seen with your Tani?’ And then tha’s that. A few more questions and they have your name and off they go. No, I need to find a place for her where she can’t be got to.”
“Care might be the answer.”
“I can’t do that to Simi.”
“What other answer is there?”
“I don’t know, but I can’t have her going into Care cos what happens next? When does she come out? Does she ever come out?”
“She comes out when your parents agree not to find a husband for her.”
“They won’t agree to anything. Ever. My dad won’t agree and my mum ends up doing whatever he tells her. So Simi goes into Care and gets punished for something they want to do.”
“Care isn’t a punishment, Tani.”
“Bloody hell it isn’t. And how’s she supposed to see things? How’s she goin’ to feel other than scared out of her mind?”
“But you’ll have to get her out of their control, your mum and dad, at least till someone can talk to them about whatever plan they have in mind for selling Simisola.”
“Yeah? Who’s going to talk to them?”
They were silent again, considering this. Sophie scratched her head, found a pencil she’d stowed behind her ear, brought it out, played with it between her fingers. She tilted her head with a sudden thought, saying, “Tani, do you think . . .”
He waited. When she didn’t go on he said, “What?”
“Well, it’s this and could be it’s too dumb. But is there anything you can hold over them? Either one of them? Both of them? To keep Simisola safe from being sold for a bride price?”
“Hold over them how?”
“Like blackmail. P’rhaps something they’re doing that they don’t want anyone to know they’re doing? Only you do know and you tell them you’ll not say a word to anyone about it long ’s Simisola’s kept safe.”
“What would they be doing? Selling drugs out ’f the butcher shop? Running a sex ring? Tha’s not on. And Mum hardly ever leaves the flat.”
“Could there be something your dad’s doing on his own, then? Something he doesn’t want your mum to know?”
Tani considered this. There was the fact that his dad left many nights, returning only in the early hours of the morning. He’d always reckoned his father had gone down the pub or to his men’s club, but could be he was up to something. Gambling, betting on horses, bringing immigrants illegally into the country, smuggling something heavily taxed.
“Could be,” he said. “He’s gone at night. A lot, this is. Gen’rally he comes back in the morning, though.”
“What if you followed him?”
“I could do that. But what if what he’s doing in’t secret or illegal? Then what?”
“Then you and I think what to do next. Meantime and just in case, you must get Simi’s things together so you can get her out of there fast if you need to.”
MAYVILLE ESTATE
DALSTON
NORTH-EAST LONDON
As things turned out, Tani had the opportunity for discovery that very night. Abeo was a brooding presence at the evening meal. Even the egg rice went no distance to alter his mood. Nor did the asun Monifa had plopped onto the table as a starter, despite the ram meat she had managed to find and the ewedu soup she’d also prepared. She had everything ready for the moment Abeo came into the flat, his shirt heavily bloodied from a day in the butcher shop. Whatever he’d been cutting up had given him the unappetising appearance of a forensic pathologist after an autopsy. It would have been more pleasant for the rest of them to dip into the meal had he changed his shirt, but no one was about to recommend he do that. Or ask him. It seemed that—without consulting one another—the three other members of the family had decided that averting their eyes was a better course of action. So aside from the moment when Abeo pushed back from the table for the stomach-turning ritual of blowing his nose and tossing his paper napkin onto the floor, there was no other noise save chewing, swallowing, and whatever voices reached them from beyond the windows and open door of the flat.
As far as Tani could tell, nothing had changed since the night his parents had argued. Abeo still wanted something from Monifa. Monifa had not given it to him. Both of them were stone when it came to each other.
After the meal, Abeo shoved his chair back from the table and left them. He disappeared into the family bathroom and the water began noisily filling the tub. Monifa stood and started to clear the table of their plates and the remains of the food. She said, “Simi, you will help me,” and Simi scampered off to do just that. She cast a glance at Tani as she snatched up glassware in the crook of her arm. He could see she was uneasy with the change that had come upon their family: everyone avoiding conversation, their parents at some mysterious odds, and her coming “celebration” a topic no one seemed willing to bring up any longer. That part was just as well, he thought. He would have hoped everything to do with that was fast becoming a distant memory.
It was an hour before Abeo left the bathroom. He went from there to the bedroom he shared with Monifa, and Tani thought at first he would not emerge again that night, punishing all of them with a silence that contained a fury he couldn’t adequately conceal.
Tani went to his own room, and from beneath his bed, he found the rucksack he’d used in secondary school. He emptied it and went to the clothes cupboard he shared with Simi. He was reaching for one of her summer dresses when she came into the room. He dropped his hand and turned to her. No way could he tell her what he was doing.
She said, “Papa is cross, Tani.”
He said, “Yeah, but it’s got nothing to do with you.”
“What’s it got to do with, then? Is he cross because you tol’ him you won’t marry that girl?”
“Omorooki or whoever she is?” Tani said. “Tha’s part of it, that is.”
“An’ the rest? Is it about . . . Tani, is it about me?”
“You jus’ stay out of everything having to do with Mum and Pa, Squeak. Less you’re involved in wha’s going on, less anyone’s thinking about you. Which, lemme tell you, is a good thing jus’ now.”
“I don’t un’erstand.”
“Tha’s just as well.”
He heard his parents’ bedroom door open. He cracked the door to his own room, wide enough to see Monifa going inside to join his father. The sight of her made his muscles go tight. He didn’t know what she was willing to do to keep the peace, and he didn’t want to know.
It was dark when he heard their door open again. He was sitting on his bed, waiting for Simi to fall asleep so that he could pack up some of her clothes without her knowledge. He heard his mother say, “Abeo, can you not—” before the door shut again. He eased open his own door in time to see his father crossing into the lounge, fully dressed, and trailing the scent of aftershave, the signal he was leaving for the night.
Tani turned to Simi. He whispered, “I’ll be back. No noise, you got that? Mum’s not to know.”
“ ’Kay,” she said. “But where . . . ?”
“Don’t know. Like I said, I’ll be back. Go to sleep.” He waited till she’d settled in, at least to try.
He traced his father’s steps and went out into the heavy humid night. He didn’t see Abeo at once, so he listened carefully. A dog barked, and he followed that sound.
Closer to the barking dog, he saw the unmistakable burly shape of his father. He was in no apparent hurry, looking merely like a bloke out for a walk in the hope of escaping the heat inside his home. He was strolling towards Woodville Road. There, he turned left, and Tani jogged to catch him up. He was in time to see Abeo heading in the general direction of Kingsland High Street. But the route he was taking took him to deserted streets, with housing estates and tower blocks defining the places where families slept, doing their best to cope with the temperature that even darkness had not relieved.
Finally, Abeo came to the high street. Here, too, no one was about. The air felt thick with the heat, as if the temperature wished to be absorbed into the storefronts, invading shops long closed for the night. The exhaust fumes from the day’s heavy traffic seemed to ooze from the pavements, and wheelie bins puffed out foetid clouds from rotting vegetables and the remains of takeaway meals.
Abeo crossed over, throwing a glance back the way he’d come. Quickly, Tani faded against the navy-painted grille that covered the entry to an Asian furniture shop, with the hope that this would be enough to camouflage him from his father’s gaze. It seemed sufficient, as Abeo continued on his way, and minutes later he made the turn into Ridley Road.
For a moment, Tani entertained the thought that his father—sleepless in the night—intended to do some work inside Into Africa or the butcher’s shop. There seemed to be no other reason why he’d be setting this course. There was nothing else in the area. Everything was closed and locked, and in the dim light from the streetlamps the day’s rubbish waited for someone to sweep it away. They were hours from this happening, though. The street sweepers would come with the dawn, as with the dawn would come the market traders.
Abeo made no stop in Ridley Road. Instead, his pace increased. There was now something of a furtiveness to his movements as he darted into Chester Crescent and from there into Dalston Lane. Up ahead in the distance Tani could dimly see the viaduct that carried the railway tracks across the lane, and for a crazy moment he thought his father was going somewhere via rail, despite the hour, which was one when no London train would be travelling anywhere.
Tani felt a quickening of excitement as he acknowledged the brilliance of Sophie’s idea. His father did indeed have something to hide, and if it was good enough to use against him, Simi was free from whatever their parents had in mind for her. Tani had never before thought much about his father leaving the family on the nights he chose to do so. He’d just considered it part and parcel of what married men did when they wanted the company of other married men. But this—what he was witnessing now in Abeo’s night-time stroll—this had nothing to do with wanting the company of other married men. He was up to something, and Tani reckoned he had it all put together by the time he’d trailed his father past Hackney Downs station and then Amhurst Road, to follow him into The Narrow Way.
There were pawnshops here, which told Tani that some kind of exchange was about to occur and that exchange ultimately would result in money. There would be contraband involved, and either Abeo was in this place to receive it for selling from the butcher’s shop or from Into Africa or he was here to hand over part of the profits. One thing was certain, though: no matter what was happening at this time of night, whatever the exchange was, it was probably illegal. But by the time Tani had worked through this scenario, his father had reached the top of the street. He crossed over, where on the corner stood his apparent destination.
This turned out to be Pembury Estate, an enormous collection of red-brick blocks of flats. The estate sat at the junction of Dalston Lane and Clarence Road, conveniently close to a Paddy Power betting shop for any hopeful punters who happened to occupy one of the hundreds of flats on the estate itself.
Tani paused at the corner as his father entered the grounds of the housing estate. It looked larger even than Mayville Estate, and because Abeo’s route involved no hesitation and required no studying of the estate plan posted just beyond the entrance, Tani understood that his father had been there before.
He shortened the distance between them, keeping to the edge of the paths Abeo took so that he could leap into the shadows on the chance that Abeo would turn round and look for followers here. But Abeo didn’t turn. He merely paced through the warren of buildings till he came to the one he sought. He strode to a panel on the lift shaft. There were buzzers on it, but it seemed that none were necessary, for Abeo removed something from his pocket that gave him access to the lift. It came, he stepped inside, and up he went.
Tani retreated in an effort to see where his father left the lift. Soon enough he was rewarded. On the third floor, he saw Abeo stride along the outdoor corridor. He went in the direction of a door that opened. In the doorway Tani saw the woman, and from where he was, he could hear her voice.
“You’re very late tonight,” was what she said.
For Tani, this was quite enough.
1 AUGUST
PEMBURY ESTATE
HACKNEY
NORTH-EAST LONDON
Tani spent the rest of the night just there, on Pembury Estate, thinking about his choices. He waited within sight of the lift that had taken his father to the third floor of the block of flats. When he’d followed Abeo here from Mayville Estate, he’d reckoned something useful could come out of it, but he’d not had the least idea that he’d be handed such an opportunity as the one that lay before him now.
Several people came out of the lift at 5:30. Several more at 5:45. It was just after 6:00 when Abeo appeared on the third floor’s outdoor corridor. He went to the lift and used it. He walked jauntily towards Tani as if expecting him to be there. He carried a large manila envelope. Once he stood in front of Tani, Abeo used this to gesture with as he spoke.
“I thought it was you who followed,” he said. “You were careful, yes, but not careful enough.”
Up close, Abeo smelled of sex and sweat. The odour was so strong that Tani stepped away. At this Abeo smiled slyly. He began to retrace his route of the previous night.
Tani said to his father’s retreating back, “If you’re going to fuck some nasty bit on the side, a shower wouldn’t hurt when you finish with her.”
Abeo made no reply. His gait looked youthful, as if he was proud he’d been found out.
“Can’t be bothered to wash?” Tani demanded. “But wait. Right. You want that stench because how else will every person within twenty feet of you know you had it off last night? And tha’s the important bit, innit, Pa? People have to know Abeo Bankole’s getting some.”
At that, Abeo paused, but he didn’t turn completely. He just moved his head so that Tani could hear him when he said, “You will speak to your father like this?”
Tani approached him. “Who is she? How long has this been going on?”
“The answers to those questions are not your affair,” Abeo said. “When I think something is your concern, I will tell you.” He resumed his walk, slapping the manila envelope against his thigh. He began to whistle tunelessly.
Tani followed close behind him. “Third floor,” he said. “I can get in. Is that what you want? Your son showing up at the minge pie’s door? And who is she? Haven’t you made Mum miserable enough without finding some greasy bag to spread them open for you?”
A street sweeper approached, clearing the pavements and the gutters. He glanced between them and gave them a sharp nod. Abeo nodded back. Tani did nothing.
They continued on their way. Traffic was building. Buses were grinding along the streets. The air sucked up exhaust fumes greedily, and the sun promised yet another day of blazing heat.
Tani saw his father unfasten the clasp on the manila envelope. He drew from it a piece of heavy paper. He handed it to Tani. On it, a very young hand had drawn and labeled a group of stick figures and had given them each spiralling hair. Two of the figures were large. Two were small. Above the group of them was printed My Famly. Beneath the two smaller figures a more skilled hand had printed Elton and Davrina. Beneath the two larger figures that same hand had identified Mummy and Daddy. There was nothing else of note save the stomach of Mummy, which bulged. An arrow pointed to it and along that arrow’s shaft was printed Baby.
Tani said, “You’re fucking some bloke’s wife? And she’s up the spout? What’s wrong with you?”
Abeo said nothing. He merely handed the envelope to Tani. At first Tani thought he was meant to return the crude drawing there, but then Abeo said, “Turn it over,” and Tani saw that For My Daddy From Elton was printed on the front.
Tani looked from those words to his father and back to those words. He said, “What the hell? Who are these people?”
Abeo said, “My children and their mother. Elton is six. Davrina is four. There will be a third in December. A man is meant to have a family. Children and grandchildren. Your mother is ruined. Lark is not.”
“Lark?” Tani asked. “She’s called Lark?” Then he twigged. “Christ! She’s English. All your talk about Nigeria and shit and you’re fucking some English woman.”
