Madam's Maid & Other Stories

By Ayibu Makolo

Madam's Maid was long listed in the 2013 Golden Baobab Prize.
It tells the story of a young girl, Acharu whose father dies and the family falls on hard times. Aunt Blessing, a good friend of Acharu's mother has a plan that could make all the difference. It means that 11 year old Acharu has to leave her home in rural Nigeria for Port Harcourt, an Oil Capital.
It means leaving her mother and becoming Madam Gloria's maid.
It all seems like a gift from heaven...but is it?
Find out what happens in this gripping tale of hope and despair, and of the turns that life can bring.

This book is a collection of short stories.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Ayibu Makolo
• Release date: Jan 22, 2016
• ISBN: 9781310597916

Ayibu Makolo

Ayibu Makolo writes stories that are human and personal. Her stories have been published in the Scottish PEN, Bare Fiction magazine, Brittle Paper, Kalahari Review, Bahati books, AFREADA and Jungle Jim.She was long listed in the 2013 Golden Baobab Prize across two categories.Ayibu is also an author with Bahati Books.She lives in Scotland with her family and is a medical doctor.

Book preview

Madam’s Maid & Other Stories

By Ayibu Makolo

Smashwords Edition

Copyright 2016 Ayibu Makolo

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Madam’s Maid

Acharu sat on the aged wooden table in her father’s shop. He sold food items like corn and beans in bags. She was reading a book that she had borrowed from school that day.

She enjoyed stopping over at her father’s shop and relished the chance of reading her books in peace and quiet, something which was impossible to do at home. With three brothers and three sisters in a small two room house she could never read anything in peace. Apart from reading Acharu also liked to write. Mostly she wrote about escaping to big towns like Lagos and Abuja and living the good life.

Her father came into the shop. He was a stout man who leaned towards his left when he walked. He had just come in from chatting with Uncle Joseph who owned the store next door. He and Uncle Joseph were very good friends and spent a great deal of time together talking about things that were happening in the village or just generally about their families and businesses.

‘Did anybody buy anything while I was away?’ Her father asked.

‘No Papa, but Ogujo’s mother was here. She wanted to know when you will have black eyed beans.’

‘How can I?’ Acharu’s father hurled his bunch of keys across the table. ‘How can I have black eyed beans when no one is buying the brown beans that I have? How will I buy new food items if there is no money?’

Acharu did not answer. She was used to her father asking questions that he did not expect answers for. She also knew that he did that when he was upset, and he was upset most of the time these days as the business was not doing well. Everyone knew that at home because all they had to eat these days was Oje Abacha and Jagada soup. It had not been so before.

Whenever Acharu or her siblings complained their mother would tell them to shut up and be grateful that they at least had something to eat.

‘Some people cannot afford three square meals a day,’ she liked to say.

‘Have you done your homework?’ Her father asked.

‘I don’t have any homework today Papa. Ms Veronica was not in school so we did not have many lessons.’

‘What did you people do then?’ He asked, absentmindedly stroking his chin.

‘Some of my friends went to Ayingba but Vicky and I stayed back to read.’ Vicky was Acharu’s best friend and contender for first position in their exams. Suddenly Acharu smiled.

‘Papa,’ she said, dragging a book out of her green khaki bag. ‘See the book I borrowed from our Geography teacher today.’

Her father squinted at it then, moving closer, he picked it up. He flipped through it and read sentences from it. His lips moved as he pronounced each word.

‘It is a book about war!’ He exclaimed. ‘I didn’t know that you had an interest in wars.’

Acharu shrugged. ‘I don’t really. But there was nothing else to borrow.’

Her father nodded solemnly and went to take the only chair in the room. It had a missing leg so he had to prop it against the wall to sit on it.

‘I wish that I could afford to put you in a better school.’ Deep lines of sadness accentuated the grooves running from the corners of his nose to his mouth. ‘My desire is for you and your siblings to have a good life, for you to be well educated. It’s something your mother and I talk about all the time.’

Acharu turned a page in her book. She did not like it when her father talked like that, it made her uncomfortable. Usually he liked to scold and shout and Acharu and her siblings were used to him that way. She thought now that she preferred him that way than like this.

It was seven in the evening when her father locked up his shop and they walked home after yet another day of poor sales. Their house was a fifteen minute walk from the shop; a walk everyone in the family was accustomed to.

They arrived home to the usual chaos. Zachary, Acharu’s eldest brother, was arguing with his younger brother Moses. They were debating who was the stronger of the two and were measuring the circumference of their arms amidst shouts of distrust.

One of Acharu’s sisters, Ochena, was complaining from the bathroom. She thought it unfair that she had to wash the bathroom while her twin had only a room to tidy. Ochena made sure that everyone knew how she felt.

Acharu dropped her school bag on the carpeted floor of the room that served as sitting room. She noted rather absentmindedly that the holes in the carpet were getting bigger. She went into the kitchen to greet her mother and saw that she was cooking rice and stew which was the family’s favourite. Excited she ran out and bumped into her father. He must have tripped over her school bag because he started berating her over that. Her father was back to his normal self, Acharu thought happily. Everything was back to normal again.

Unfortunately that was not so because that night her mother woke her and her older siblings.

‘I am taking your father to the hospital,’ she said in a voice filled with panic. ‘He is not at all well.’

‘What is wrong with him Mama?’ asked Acharu’s older sister Ele. Tears were already welling up in her eyes.

‘It’s his headache. It’s especially bad tonight.’ Their mother looked like she was going to cry.

‘But how will you go?’ Ele asked. Tears were running down her cheeks now. ‘Who will take you?’

‘Yes Mama, who will take you?’ parroted Zachary. The sleep had finally cleared from his eyes.

‘I will go to Joseph, your father’s friend. Perhaps he will agree to help me or suggest something.’ Her mother looked so troubled that Acharu wanted to cry too.

‘You must all look after the house while I’m gone. You are old enough.’

She turned to Ele. ‘If I have not returned by morning boil some yam for breakfast and none of you should leave for school until