WRECKED 29 28

Anaya was halfway up the stairs when she met Kuku coming down. "Oh, hello, Anaya!" Immediately, there was that bright smile which Anaya was learning to distrust. "I am going down for lunch."

"Isn't Mustapha coming?" Anaya stopped in front of her.

"He's got a migraine." The answer was so quick; Anaya knew it was rehearsed. "He'll come down later."

"I'll go and see him."

Kuku didn't step aside. "I said he's asleep," she said. "I gave him Paracetamol and he lay down. He's asleep, Anaya."

It had been going on since they arrived a week ago. Too many drinks at night when they were spending a quiet evening. Kuku appearing without him, with some excuse. The smell of drink that couldn't be washed away by the next morning. For a whole week Anaya had said nothing, just watched; not wanting to confirm Afsat's fears but clinging to the hope that it wasn't serious, just a phase some men went through. She looked at Kuku. There was a guilty look on her face and her bright smile was fading.

"He's drunk," Anaya said. "Don't lie to me. Get out of my way! Now!"

Mustapha wasn't asleep. Far from it. He was semi-conscious, sprawled out in a chair, his arms dangling, his legs stuck out in front of him, an empty bottle on the floor.

"Anaya, he's really tired. He works so hard…"

"Oh, shut up! Get ready for trouble. Afsat will not believe this charade for long. If I were you, I would tell her before she finds out on her own. This is not good," she said, waving at Mustapha's slumped figure.

For a moment, Anaya stood and looked down on him. His hair was bushy, his face dark and shiny with sweat. She had never imagined he could look repulsive to her, but he did. She felt a surge of disgust and anger. The latter directed at Kuku. She turned away, dragged Kuku out from the room and locked the door. Afsat must not go in and find her son like that. The women went downstairs, not speaking to each other, and joined the family for lunch.

Mustapha tried to rouse himself as the women left. Alcohol, he thought. It made him feel confident, forget the miseries of the last attempt to satisfy his wife and try again. Even so, he had to fail in the end. He could not keep pace with her. Sometimes, lying beside her in the dark, before he anesthetised himself with alcohol, he could not believe that the insatiable demands were made by the same girl who was sweet-natured, loving to him, still unspoiled in every other way. He felt he was being eaten alive.

Yet he still loved her. He loved her even when he discovered that she was slipping away in the afternoons, while they were still in Abuja, and seeing an old boyfriend. He only found out by accident, because he saw her leaving a block of ats in Asokoro as he drove past. She told a tissue of lies that evening when he asked how she had spent her day. He looked in her diary and saw the initial 'A.' and a scribbled 2:15 on the same date.

She went on lying, weeping and inventing, while he swallowed two glasses of vodka and kept on demanding the truth.

He left without waking her in the morning. He went to the block of flats in Asokoro and watched the door to the apartment she had come out from the day before. Someone came out and locked up. It was a man.

He got drunk before he got home, because he was so afraid he might beat her into telling the truth. She tried to make it up. She begged him to forget it, not to ask, just to believe she loved him more than anything and anyone else in the world, and he'd never need to be jealous or suspicious, because nobody meant anything to her except him. She began to whimper. Mustapha took her in his arms and wept with her.

He didn't follow her or pry again. He knew when she went to the at in Asokoro, because there was an aura of guilty excitement about her, and she would pour him a drink and make an extra fuss over him.

He had dreaded going to Lake Alau. He dreaded his mother suspecting that he wasn't happy, and blaming Kuku. He fooled himself that he could control his drinking, and for some time he managed to deceive them all. He had done his best to sober up; but he had enough drink in his system, to be instantly lit up by even a small shot. He hated himself even more, because it was failure that was the cause of it all. His failure to match the endless demands for more and more sex that left him exhausted.

The game was up now. He said that to Kuku as soon as she returned from lunch. "The game's up, darling. I heard your conversation with Anaya. She will tell mother, for sure. And I know my mother. You may lie to me, and I may lie about how many drinks I've had, but we won't get away with it."

"What are we going to do? What are we going to tell her? You won't say anything about me, will you? Promise me? Please, please, don't say anything."

"I won't tell her," he said. "I won't tell her you can't just have enough of it, and if I can't do it, you'll sneak o to someone else."

Kuku gasped in horror.

"Oh, for Christ sake, do you think I don't know? How is the man in Asokoro? I'm surprised you haven't worn him out yet."

Kuku began to shiver.

"I'm sorry, Kuku. I shouldn't have said that," he continued wearily, "I wish we could tell my mother. She would know what to do…"

Kuku sprang up. "No! No!" she cried. "Don't you know what would happen? She would make you divorce me. She'd throw me out."

Mustapha got up and paced the room. His mother could help. He knew it. But, she'd never forgive Kuku. He looked at his wife and thought If only she wouldn't lie, but she lies and pretends there's nothing the matter. He steadied himself. "Leave it to me, Kuku."

****

"He's lying to me Anaya," Afsat said. "I begged him to tell me what the problem was but he insisted that alcohol had become a bad habit. It's not true. Something is definitely wrong. But I couldn't get it out of him."

Anaya watched her in silence. Afsat was pacing up and down her bedroom in agitation, asking Anaya questions without waiting for an answer. "Maybe it's his work," she said.

"No," Afsat dismissed that suggestion immediately. "That's the first thing I thought of. I have asked Jubril in a roundabout way, he was a bit evasive, but that is Jubril for you. He doesn't exactly praise his brother. No, if Mustapha's work was the issue, I'd have heard about it." She sat on the bed with a sigh. "Oh God, Anaya, I could smell the alcohol on him when he came into my room this afternoon. He'd been drinking already."

"If he's not worrying about the bank then it must be something else," Anaya said, trying to be tactful. She knew how fiercely protective Afsat was about her son, and that protection may extend to Kuku. She wasn't sure about Afsat's feeling for that girl. Anaya knew Kuku was gentle, charming, always pleasant, but a bit too sweet. Anaya suspected perfect people; she knew human nature just wasn't like that. Afsat stood up and continued pacing, then she stopped and looked hard at Anaya. "You think it's Kuku?"

Anaya retreated quickly, "I didn't say that, ma."

"But you think so? Come out with it, Anaya!"

"I'm not sure. Really, I'm not. I'm as confused as you are."

"What do you think I should do about it, Anaya? Help me. I thought I was going to die seeing him in that state."

She swung around out of Anaya's sight, but not in time to hide the tears she couldn't hold back.

"Maybe he should see someone," Anaya replied.

"He's going to see a specialist," Afsat said after a pause. She cleared her throat and turned around. She was composed again, but there was a set to her jaw that Anaya recognised. Whatever or whoever it was, she was going to fight it for her son's sake.
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"If he and Kuku are unhappy, I want to know about it," Afsat said. "Can you do that for me, Anaya? Can you keep an eye on things when he returns?"

Anaya nodded. "I'll see what I can do."

Chapter end