Cursed Daughters by Oyinkan Braithwaite - 9

Monife returned to find her home clouded in fog. The incense was so thick she could barely see. She considered walking back out, returning to the university grounds and burying her head in her books. Nothing good would come of going deeper into the Falodun property, where delusion was surely waiting for her. For a couple of minutes she stood in the hallway and pretended she had a choice – go back to school or enter the house; go back to school or cross the threshold; go back to school or engage with crazy.

But in truth, she avoided staying on campus for longer than she had to. Growing up in London, she had taken for granted that she would pursue the arts in England; but fate and a philandering father had meant her life had not gone quite as she had planned. Instead she was reading law in Lagos, with no real intention of becoming a lawyer, under the tutelage of uninspiring old men, commuting from the home her great-grandfather had built.

Great-Grandpa Kunle had claimed he didn’t believe in the curse, but still he had planned for it. There were exactly six rooms in the two-storey home, one for each of his daughters – Toke, Bimpe, Afoke, Fikayo, Sayo, Ronke – so that whatever happened to them, they would have somewhere to escape to. And at various points, they had all needed somewhere to escape to.

The Falodun home was virtually a museum; no one here ever thought to throw things away, except perhaps her cousin. Ebun found the clutter oppressive, but Mo was charmed by the hair claw that may or may not have belonged to Grandma Afoke, the pearl earrings that purportedly belonged to Grand-Aunty Toke and the dusty bible owned by Grand-Aunty Bimpe – her name was inscribed on the first page.

The house was interesting and eccentric, with its creaky floors, flickering lights and doors that swung open of their own will at night. But this, the cloying smell of incense, made her eyes water and her heart sink.

She walked past the main living room, where she heard the faint roar of the crowd on the wrestling channel – so Aunty Kemi was in and pretending that all was well; fantastic. She marched towards the west wing of the house, where the fog was foggiest and the scent at its strongest. As she drew nearer, she could make out chanting. She arrived at her mother’s door and knocked. The chanting didn’t stop; apparently her mother had no intention of welcoming her in. She opened the door.

The room was dim – the lights were off, curtains drawn – all the better to welcome in some nefarious spirit. She managed to avoid tripping over the stool that belonged tucked in below the dressing table. As the fog cleared and her eyes adjusted, she saw that there was a void in the centre of the room, where her mother stood. Furniture had been pushed out of the way to make space for whatever shenanigans were taking place.

‘Mummy,’ she said. But no other words followed. Her eyes took in her mother’s body. Her breasts and stomach were beginning to sag, but her arms and thighs were toned, and the hair that Monife had inherited, though greying, was clearly still a force to be reckoned with. She wore it in her signature six cornrows. Mo noted the keloid on her mother’s arm, the skin tag on her neck and the beauty spot on her stomach. She could note all these things because her mother stood before her naked, but for the wrapper that was loosely tied around her waist.

The world saw a woman who was unflappable, a woman of God, a respected headmistress at the local school – but behind closed doors, her mother flirted with strange spirits and gods.

‘Mummy.’

Her mother did not respond, so Mo strode over to the stereo, where the chanting was coming from, and pressed the stop button. Then she opened the curtains and a window. She took another look at her mother.

The older woman had a glazed look on her face; the whites of her eyes were tinted red. Mo could only imagine what substance she had ingested, and from where. Her mother squinted at the light, shielding her eyes with her palm.

‘Close it. Close it,’ she muttered as she waved her other hand at Mo. ‘You will disturb them.’

Monife looked around her. She could not tell whether there were spirits in the room with them, but what she could see was a pot with a strange-looking plant creeping out of it, a small bowl of herbs from which smoke was rising and some misshapen stones scattered about.

‘What are you doing?’ she asked, even though of course she knew. This was perhaps her mother’s seventy-fourth attempt to lead her exhusband back to them – despite the fact that he had a new wife and two children under five, shacked up in what used to be their London home. He had moved on. Mo and Tolu had moved on. But still, her mother used any free moment she had to try to pull off in the spirit world what she hadn’t been able to achieve in the physical.

‘This,’ Bunmi announced, pointing vigorously at the bowl of herbs, ‘will clear his eye. He will remember who his family is.’

Mo sighed. The fog was beginning to dissipate. ‘It’s been four years, Mummy. He is not coming back.’

‘We can undo the things that could not previously be undone.’

‘Who are you quoting this time?’

‘I am not your mate, Monife. You will show me respect.’ But her words lacked any real bite; she sounded drunk.

‘You need to stop giving these people your hard-earned money.’

‘This time it will work. He will come back to me.’

‘We don’t want him to come back.’ Though even as she said it, Mo felt the familiar pang. He was her father; she had loved him for fifteen years, and then he’d discarded her as if she were nothing. He rarely called. Sometimes she wondered if she had done something to offend him. Still, she would never voice that hurt. She would swallow it down so deep that she’d forget it was there. And she needed her mother to follow suit.

‘No! This isn’t your father’s fault. It is the curse.’

The curse. The curse. Damn the curse.

‘How much did you spend?’

‘Kí ló sọ?’

She was confident her mother had heard the question, but she repeated herself. ‘How much did you spend? On these stones? And whatever has made you high?’

‘What are you talking about? I was given a spiritual herb …’

‘Is that what they are calling weed now?’

‘Weed?’

‘Marijuana. Ganja. I don’t know what they called it in your generation.’ Her mother’s eyes widened. It had not occurred to her that she was simply becoming stoned. ‘How much did this cost you, Mummy?’

‘A hundred naira.’

Monife swore under her breath. Her mother only earned seven hundred and fifty naira a month, and once again she had spent a sizeable portion of her salary on quacks.

‘A hundred, Mummy. Fan-tastic.’

‘She said it would bring me fast results.’

‘Who? Mama G?’

Her mother did not respond, which was answer enough.

‘A hundred! Then you will say there is no money for fuel.’

‘It’s an investment.’

‘Mmm-hmm. So what did she offer you? Weed and …?’

‘It’s not weed. This herb is for clearing the person’s eyes. Then this plant, it opens up the door to the spirit world. The stones will centre him with me.’

‘Sure. The 419 special,’ she muttered. It was all fraud in the end; wasn’t it? She passed her mother a T-shirt to put on, remembering to switch the shirt from her left hand to her right to avoid the reprimand that would follow. Then she began to collect the stones. Her mother didn’t fight her. The weed was making her docile. She was not generally a docile woman.

Bunmi lowered her body onto the stool and helped herself to a pinch of loose tobacco from a small rectangular tin, slipping it between her cheek and gum. It was a fairly new habit, but she was already addicted to the practice. Monife kept her thoughts to herself and left the room to fetch water, bread and beans, because with the consuming of weed would surely come the munchies.