Cursed Daughters by Oyinkan Braithwaite - 77

Sango was tugging at her skirt. She left Tolu and Ebun in their quiet comradery and let him lead her to the courtyard. There was no breeze to speak of. The heat was so intense there was a crackling in the sky. She had no idea how her shaggy dog could bear it, but he was a creature on a mission. They walked past the iroko tree and headed to the bushes lining the wall that separated them from the next plot. A bird flew overhead, providing a brief shadow, and she listened to its crowing as it disappeared from view.

There. A lizard. Its head was a bright orange in the otherwise green backdrop – it was hard to miss. It was also clear to her that it was dying. Sango nudged it with his nose. She knew her dog had not been the animal to cut this life short. He had a sensitivity that she did not think could be easily explained. And he was squeamish. No, this lizard had probably come into contact with a rat – the type that would stand on hind legs and claw at your throat – hardened by years of survival on Lagos streets. What did Sango want her to do?

She lifted it with shaking hands. Its skin was rough and it stared at her with shining black eyes. She could see the insides of its neck. She wouldn’t be able to save it. So she held it till it was no more. And then she lowered it back to the ground. It was only a lizard, but she felt oddly wretched about what had taken place. She wouldn’t have said she was particularly sympathetic to the average beast’s plight, and her diet was near carnivorous; so there was nothing to explain the tears falling down her face. She wiped them away. She had been feeling emotional of late, and it didn’t help that Golden Boy was oscillating between wanting her in his arms and feeling as though his rightful place was at home.

‘Perhaps we should bury it?’ she asked Sango, who had sat and watched with her as the lizard breathed its last.

Tolu was snoring when she entered the living room. He was lying on the sofa with one hand hanging, sweeping the rug, and the other resting on his chest. His face was covered by a newspaper, so all you could see was his unruly hair, on the way to becoming dreadlocks. In front of the weakly turning standing fan, Ebun was still reading her ACCA textbook; and in the background, the presenter on NTA was arguing passionately with a guest. Mo unceremoniously swept the newspaper off Tolu’s face, startling her brother.

‘What the fuck?’

‘There is a dead lizard outside.’

‘And?’

‘I want us to give it a burial.’

Ebun lowered her book and raised her eyebrow.

‘You can’t be serious,’ said her brother.

‘It would be wrong to just leave it there.’

‘Then throw it in the bin,’ suggested Ebun.

‘Five minutes of your time. That’s all. I have already dug a little hole. We can say a few words …’

‘Say a few words?’ cried Tolu.

‘Lower it into the ground. And it’ll be done.’

‘All this time we have been using to talk, you could have started and finished burying it,’ Tolu ranted. ‘But instead, you have come to disturb—’

‘It’s boiling out there,’ cut in Ebun. ‘I am not going outside to do a funeral for an insect.’

‘It’s a reptile,’ Mo replied.

‘Okay … I am not going outside to do a funeral—’

‘Don’t make me do it alone.’ And they both paused to look at her, Tolu midway through resuming his position of rest. She did not know what they saw in her eyes, but her brother sat up and groaned.

‘Shit.’

She felt the heat more keenly, perhaps because she had two unwilling participants by her side. They stood at the iroko tree, on the other side to where she had chosen to bury her lover’s gifts. Her cousin and brother watched as she placed the creature in its last resting place. She remained on her knees, and thought of what to say.

‘Here I lay me down to sleep. To thee I give my soul to keep.’

‘Seriously?’ she heard Ebun whisper. She continued.

‘Wake I ever or wake I never; to thee, O Lord, I give my soul to keep for ever.’

‘Amen!’ said Tolu enthusiastically. And then he applauded loudly. She patted down the soil over the lizard’s body and then stood up. ‘You are a nutcase. You know that, right?’

Back in her room, she washed the blood off her hands. Then she sat on the toilet seat and stared at the green tiles.