Beauty For Ashes (Chapter 8)

It was 2:00pm on a Tuesday and holidays were in progress. I was feeling lonely in the big house. Father was out of the country, and Mother was at work as usual. Of course, Nina was at home but all she did was work. She didn’t speak to me, except when she wanted to take orders. ‘Madam, what is you eating this morin’ or ‘madam, bring your dirty clothes, lemme put soap,’ she would say.
She was a very hardworking girl and did treat me like a queen but I preferred my nanny, Mrs Adams. She was a middle-aged woman employed when I was a year and six months old. She was the one who fed me and sang me a lullaby at bedtime. She called me endearing names like ‘honeypot’, ‘sweetheart’ and ‘my angel’. Unlike Nina, Mrs Adams was literate; she could read and write. She helped with my homework during my days in kindergarten and early primary school. She once told me she didn’t go beyond primary school but had learnt a lot by personal study. She read many books but the one she loved the most was her Bible. She told me stories at night, most of them cited from the Holy Book. She left us when I was ten. Her eldest daughter, a young woman married a wealthy young man and asked her to come live with them. She moved to join her daughter in a distant city, and so I only spoke to her via phone. She was a soft and cuddly woman; often times, I fell asleep in her comfy arms. Nina was young and energetic, almost masculine. She saw me only as her madam but Mrs Adams treated me more like a granddaughter. I missed her soft voice, smile and gentle pats. She was gone for good, but a part of me must have gone with her.

I went upstairs to my room and picked my purse from my drawer. I checked to be sure I had enough change in it. I didn’t change my clothes, I only changed my slippers for a pair of blue-leather sandals to go with my pale blue shirt. I brushed my hair as I looked into the long mirror leaning on the wall. I climbed down the stairs that led to the living room, picked my phone from the sofa where I had been sitting for hours watching TV, and walked out of the door into the wide compound. It took me a while to get to the gate. I didn’t want to call the gateman who was in his self-contain apartment close to the gate. I simply hit hard on the gate to get his attention. As expected, he hurried out of his small house.
‘Ah, small madam. Where you dey go?’
‘My friend’s house.’
‘Big madam know so?’ he asked. I simply shook my head.
‘Hmm. Okay o. Go, come,’ Aminu said as he bade me goodbye after opening the tall gate. I walked out of the gate feeling like a bird escaped from a cage. I lied. I didn’t tell Mother anything. I’ll call her while I’m there, I said to myself as I tried to push away the guilt nagging at me.
Although, Lisa’s house was not so far away, I boarded a bus just for the experience. I sat at the back with a fat lady and two dark men, one in red shirt and the other in a black jacket.
‘Driver, abeg stop,’ a woman muttered from the front. I decided to come down too since the bus stopped just before Lisa’s street. I paid my transport fare and walked into the street. I got to the gates and walked into the narrow compound.

My phone rang. My heart cut when I saw that it was Mother calling. Was she home already? ‘Hello mum,’ I said.
‘Ese, where are you?’ she said in a half-scream.
‘I…I… I’m……. in Lisa’s house,’ I stammered.
‘What? Samson is coming for you now,’ she said and ended the call.’
‘What’s wrong?’ Lisa asked.
‘Nothing serious.’
‘Then what’s with the look on your face?’ she asked.
‘It’s just that Mother came back from work and didn’t meet me at home.’
‘She wasn’t aware you were coming over?’
‘No, she wasn’t.’
‘Oh my!’
‘Well, Samson is coming for me.’
‘Your mum must be mad now.’
‘Sure.’
I had thoroughly enjoyed myself in the three hours I spent there. We talked about a lot of things, took some photo-shots with my phone, did all the flash-sharing we had to do and had a stroll in their garden behind the house- I even got to pluck the zobo flower, so I could make my very own zobo drink back home. Lisa’s love and keen interest in flowers was evident in the variety of flowers I found in the garden; from Rose flower to Hibiscus to Magnolia to Bird of Paradise to Pride of Barbados.