He chuckled deeply. “I can’t be a runaway Nigerian if I’m already back. Can I?”
“So you’re back!” I said.
“Yes.” He replied. “I’m stuck at the airport waiting for my driver; he says he’s stuck in traffic, still around
Obalende
.”
“That’s far” I said, as I drove forward a car length,
then
stopped again. “If the traffic on the bridge is anything like it is on the mainland, you’ll be waiting till 9.pm.”
“
Arghhh
.”
He said. “I know. I already checked on
Gidi_Traffic
. It seems the rain has brought Lagos to a standstill.” He paused. “Where are you anyway?”
“I’m approaching Allen Roundabout” I said. “I’ve been in
Ikeja
all day doing interviews.”
“
Hmmn
.”
He said. “Allen roundabout” I could almost hear his smile. “That’s not far from here at all.” He paused. “So anyway, how did your interviews go?”
“Fine” I replied.
“Really great.”
I laughed inwardly. Just ask me already! I exclaimed silently.
“That’s good” he said. “You know Allen is really not that far from the international airport.” He continued seriously.
“Really” I said straight-faced. “Imagine that”
“Actually, it’s kind of close, it probably wouldn’t take up to thirty minutes for someone on Allen to get to the airport, especially to help a friend in need. The friend would feel extremely lucky”
“Hah!” I said laughing. “You’re wasting time. Beat the bush”
He burst out laughing. “Beat the …. What? You’re unbelievable” he paused. “OK please can you branch at the airport and pick me up? Thank you.”
“Already on my way” I told him, still laughing. “Be there as soon as I can.”
It took a while. It was already close to 7 pm when I finally drove up the ramp, luckily he didn’t have any luggage, just a suitcase that he threw in the back seat before he jumped into the passenger seat.
“Hey.” He said, smiling broadly. “Thanks for coming.”
I
batted
my eyelashes at him. “We aim to please.”
“We?”
He turned to look at the back-seat. “I’m only strong enough for one.”
I narrowed my eyes and tried to look stern. “You have a bad mind
Mr.
Ade-Cole. Please do not corrupt me.”
“Noted.”
He smiled mischievously. “But seriously, thanks. I know how tired you must be.”
I shook my head. “It was no problem, but you’re welcome”
He nodded and leaned back on the seat, sighing.
“
Meeeeen
!
I’m tired.” He exclaimed.
“And hungry.”
“
Sowee
” I said. “If we pass by any hawkers I’ll buy you Gala and a Coke.”
“Or La
Casera
.”
He laughed as I gave him a look. “What!” He protested. “It’s been a while since I had it.”
“Na you know” I said. I concentrated on the road, while he busied himself with trying to find music he liked among my CD’s.
“So how was the trip?” I asked when we hit another patch of traffic at
Oshodi
.
He shrugged. “It was good.” He said. “A lot of work, but it was fine.”
I nodded. So it was a work trip after all, not a getaway for him and his fiancée. I was relieved, a little guilty, but relieved all the same.
“So how is Folake?” I asked. I knew I was fishing for information, information with the potential to hurt me, but I couldn’t stop myself.
“She’s fine.” He said slowly, dragging out the words. I turned to look at his face, but there was nothing in his expression that I could read. I turned back to the road.
We were both silent for a few minutes. I wondered what he was thinking. Why had I even brought up Folake? I asked myself, marvelling at how I had succeeded in spoiling our easy camaraderie of a few minutes earlier.
“She was with me in SA.” He said finally.
So it had been a lover’s getaway after all. A well of pain rose in my chest and enveloped my whole body, my fingers tightened around the steering wheel. I don’t care, I thought silently, I don’t care if they go on holidays together all over the world, I don’t care and I’m not going to cry.
“Oh!” I said, blinking furiously. I forced a smile. “I didn’t know you guys were going together.”
“We didn’t go together.” He said. I could feel him looking at me, but I willed myself not to turn to look at
him, I didn’t want him to see any shiny tears in my eyes, any sign that I was still weakly, stupidly, hung up on him.
When I didn’t say anything, he continued. “She called two days after I arrived, and said she was in Johannesburg.” He shrugged. “And she came over.”
I nodded and swallowed, why was he even telling me. Didn’t he know, couldn’t he guess how painful all this was for me. “I hope you guys had fun.” I said, trying to sound nonchalant, and failing horribly.
He scoffed. “Fun… if only.” He shook his head. “She was there because she came to find out for herself that you were not with me.”
I turned to look at him, unable to contain my surprise, then turned back to the road and kept silent.
“She actually checked all the drawers.” He laughed bitterly. Then stopped and looked at me. “Aren’t you going to say anything?”
“What am I supposed to say?” I asked. “I don’t think I have the right to an opinion in your relationship.”
“But you do have an opinion.” He pressed.
“I don’t have enough information to form an opinion” I said. I really didn’t know what to feel, on one hand I detested Folake for being the hypocrite, trying to catch Michael out for having an affair, when she was having one
herself. On the other hand I just felt weak, exhausted by the whole insane love triangle this was becoming.
He laughed without mirth. “You always know the right thing to say.” He said finally.
“Do you love her?” I asked quietly.
He looked at me for what seemed like hours, though it could only have been mere moments, and then turned back to the windscreen, we were nearing the end of Third Mainland Bridge now, and driving against traffic, the roads were free. It almost felt like I was flying, like the car was driving itself, flying with Michael and I to some destination that was a mystery to me, as much of a mystery as his relationship with Folake.
“You don’t like her, so you don’t understand why I would want to be with her.” He stated softly.
“It doesn’t matter whether I like her or not” I stammered. I slowed down and joined the traffic descending at
Onikan
. It was already
dark,
the sun had gone and left a cloudy, moonless night. There was a brief flash of white, followed by the deep rumble of thunder.
“When I met Folake, I wasn’t interested in love or in a relationship.” He said. “I knew who I wanted” He gave me a look. “But she didn’t want me.” He paused and thought for a second.
“She was a challenge, she had all these guys hanging around her, twisted around her little finger, she acted like she didn’t care about any of them, but she needed their attention, it gave her some sort of validation”
You don’t have to tell me all this, I wanted to say. But I couldn’t. Why was he telling me? I wondered. Was he trying to validate his love for Folake? And when he said the person he loved didn’t want him, did he mean me? I remembered all the calls I had ignored and the texts I had deleted without reading, and I felt foolish, how could I have made him feel that I wanted nothing to do with him, when all the time I had been longing for him.
But it was he who had made love to me, and afterwards
apologized,
filled with regret, regret that he had taken my innocence, regret because he had nothing to offer me, apart from apologies. I sighed. I hadn’t taken his calls because I didn’t want to hear apologies; I had wanted his love and nothing less….. And yet now he was saying…. What was he saying?
“Maybe I was bored.” Michael
continued,
his voice only slightly higher than the hum of the AC. I sighed and continued listening “She added some colour to my life.” He said. “The constant challenge of being her boyfriend was the distraction I needed from studying all the time. At the time, it was interesting, it was even fun, to walk up to her in restaurants where she’d be on a date with some other guy, give her a kiss, and then introduce myself to her
date as her boyfriend.” He shook his head. “I didn’t mind that she was like that.” He said. “I knew she wasn’t interested in all those people, but she wasn’t very interested in me either, or I in her, but we were both lonely and I was more interesting to her than all the others for whatever reason.”
I nodded. The rain had started again and was hitting the car in torrents. The wind was also moving powerfully, shrieking like a banshee. I could see a broken down truck blocking the road ahead of us, causing the traffic hold up. All the cars were trying to squeeze past it into V.I.
“Then she got the job and came back home, and I stayed behind. By this time we had been together for a while, we decided to cool it but we remained friends. I found out she was dating
Adeleke
, but I didn’t mind, we were no longer together.” He shrugged. “We saw each other occasionally, you know, but just because it was easy to be together, after such a long time.” He sighed. “I’m afraid I sound like a terrible person.”
I shook my head. “No you don’t.” I said softly.
“When she found out I was planning to come back home, she called me and asked if I was seeing anyone. When I said no, she said she wasn’t seeing anyone either, and maybe we could give it another try. She said she’s stopped seeing
Adeleke
. At this point she was the only thing close to a girlfriend I had had I a long time. We were
both a certain age, and I had lost my illusions that love would always end perfectly. So things progressed naturally, and we got engaged.”
“And
Adeleke
?”
I asked. I had finally squeezed through beside the broken down truck, and gotten into Victoria Island and though there was a little traffic, it wasn’t much.
“
Adeleke
?”
He let out a small laugh. “Everybody knows how that story ended… or didn’t end, if you catch my drift.” He almost seemed amused. “This is classic Folake, even though we’re no longer in an environment where there are countless guys with enough time and energy to vie for her
attentions,
she still wants the satisfaction of being the belle of the ball. She wants to play one man off against another to massage her ego. But I’m not that bored student anymore. I don’t need to entertain myself with a continuous bout of ‘two can play that game’ with her. It lost its appeal a long time ago.”
“So why didn’t you do something?” I asked. In that moment a blinding flash of lightening illuminated the whole road, the other cars, Michael’s face, and the electric pole it hit. It disappeared in an instant, leaving the electric pole on fire and all the streetlights off.
“Wow!” We both exclaimed. As we watched the pole start to burn, the road cleared up in front of me and I sped forward, slightly shaken. It was still raining heavily, and the road had flooded. The flashes of lightning and the rumble
of thunder were becoming more frequent and the wind was still blowing strongly. “I don’t think we can make it to
Lekki
tonight” I said, there was no way my tiny Yaris would survive
Lekki
in a rainstorm. I looked over at
him,
he was looking at my face. “You can sleep over at my flat?” I suggested. “You don’t mind, do you?”
He shook his head. “No.” He said finally. “I don’t mind at all.”
It was still raining heavily when I pulled into the parking lot at my
building,
I had driven a little bit faster than usual, after the lightning struck an electric pole, right beside my car. I was still shaken and as I stopped the engine I let out a sigh of relief. I turned to Michael, surprised by the amusement I could see on his face, his eyes were dancing with suppressed laughter.
“What’s so funny?” I asked him, suddenly embarrassed by my show of panic.
“I didn’t know you were so scared of lightning” He said, smiling. “It was interesting to watch, especially when you started driving like we were escaping a gang of assassins”
I pursed my lips. “I should have stayed there and waited for the cables to fall on the car” I said. “I’m sure you would have found that very funny”
“Well it couldn’t have killed us.” He said smugly. “There’s no power.”
He was right, of course. Even through the noise of the rain I could hear the sounds of a thousand generators. The soundtrack of Lagos, I thought, of the whole country even, the unending music of power generators.
In front of me on the windscreen huge drops of rain met their deaths, I watched as each drop shattered on the glass, leaving a watery carcass that ran down to ultimately join the puddles pooling on the concrete paving. I sighed. Even though it was less than fifteen meters to the main entrance door, we would be drenched before we made it that far.