Some Things Never Change

By Ola Ekechukwu

Each story focuses on the main characters internal struggle to balance out personal principles with societal expectations consistent with the realities of living in present day Nigeria. In The Echoes of Twilight Bukola, the daughter of Nigerian immigrants flees the UK to Nigeria after losing her beloved father in suspicious circumstances and suffering untold abuse in the hands of her stepfather. Her fatherland however, offers no lasting comfort. Some Things Never Change tells the story of Jude Bellema a young medical doctor whose manipulative girlfriend coerces him to go against the ethics of his profession. He ultimately loses everything. Petals in the Rain centers around the emotional abuse, which a young girl forced into marriage, suffers in the hands of her ruthless husband. The fourth story The Lagos Onlooker delves into the culture shock experienced by a boy on his first visit to Lagos. It explores the seeming dearth of a societys conscience as it pertains to good and evil. The criteria for judging a womans success in present day Nigeria is the focus of the fourth story Before the Cock Crows. In this story, the main characters enviable success in her career fails to provide the much-needed fulfillment in the face of her mothers displeasure at her unmarried status. The last story in this collection The Lizard has Grown Hairs tells the story of a parents struggle to save their daughter from a seemingly unknown illness. It explores the relationship between African superstitious beliefs as compared to Western ideologies.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris UK
• Release date: Mar 14, 2013
• ISBN: 9781483607757

Ola Ekechukwu

Born in Nigeria, 29 years old Olachi Ekechukwu grew up in the serene town of Nsukka where her parents lecture. Some Things Never Change, her first attempt at writing a work of fiction is a collection of short stories all set in her native country. One of the short stories in this collection “The Lizard has Grown Hairs” won the public choice award in 2013 for the Best Short Story in the online literary blog NaijaStories.com. She lives in Lagos with her husband and two children and works as a Learning and Development Manager in a foremost insurance company.

Book preview

Copyright © 2013 by Ola Ekechukwu.

ISBN:

   Softcover   978-1-4836-0774-0

   Ebook       978-1-4836-0775-7

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Rev. date: 03/09/2013

To order additional copies of this book, contact:

Xlibris Corporation

0-800-644-6988

www.xlibrispublishing.co.uk

[e-mail]

305754

Contents

The Echoes of Twilight

Some Things Never Change

Petals in the Rain

The Lagos Onlooker

The Lizard Has Grown Hairs

Before the Cock Crows

Dedication

This book is dedicated to my late dad Professor Basil Soronnadi Chinenye Nwaozuzu. Your guidance and protection, I will never forget.

The Echoes of Twilight

26050.jpg

T he fiery cold wind hit hard against my face as I sat in the passenger side of the car, staring out of the window. Its ferocity drew salty tears to my eyes, making my nose burn, even though I had lived in England for the first twenty-seven years of my life. I felt Tega’s heated glance on me, though I was intentionally facing away from him, and swallowed the hard lump in my throat threatening to choke me. As I watched the tall, green gmelina trees speeding away from our car, my whole life flashed before me, catapulting me into a world I had long since forgotten—a world that seemed like a dream presently, a world I had known for twenty-seven years of my life…

‘Bukky! Bukola!’ I jerked awake as I heard my mum calling my name and knew I was in trouble again. Whenever my mother used my native name instead of my English name, I knew there was trouble. Calling it in full meant big trouble!

‘Yes, Mum!’ I answered as I drew my warm robe around me, realising how cold it was with the winter season just around the corner.

‘Bukola,’ my mum yelled immediately I stepped into the kitchen.

‘What happened to the burger I left in the refrigerator yesterday, which your dad planned to have for breakfast this morning?’

I glanced at the old wooden grandfather’s clock hanging just above the kitchen sink and groaned inwardly. It was still a full twenty minutes to 6 a.m.

‘Mum,’ I started a bit hesitantly, ‘I closed a bit late yesterday and could not find anywhere to grab a quick bite and I was quite hungry. So I ate the burger when I came back. I am so sorry I did not know Victor had planned having it for breakfast.’

The words were not yet out of my mouth when my mother reached across the kitchen table and slapped me so hard that I staggered a few steps back, my mouth open in surprise. Out of the corner of my tear-filled eyes, I saw my stepfather’s grim smile of satisfaction. I turned and slowly walked out of the kitchen as my mother hurled insults at me.

‘You will not go and get married and leave me and my husband alone to enjoy our home. All you know how to do is to gallivant all over town with that useless Ghanaian boy in his rickety godforsaken car, only to come home and eat the food I bought with my hard-earned money!’ my mother continued in Yoruba.

‘Bukola, marry o! Better still, go and look for your father’s people in Nigeria to wait upon you hand and foot. My husband and I have tried for you.’

She went on until I shut my tiny basement bedroom door and could hear her no more. Then I let the tears fall.

I must have fallen asleep because I suddenly realised I could not turn over in my bed; my bones were stiff with cold in my unheated room. I peeped out through the low basement window, gazed upon the first snow of winter, white and glittering, and was transported back to the last winter I spent with my father.

I was to turn seventeen two days away from Christmas Day, and my dad, being a window cleaner, had been away at work. He was working overtime in order to have some days off for my birthday and Christmas holidays. The job was very tough, he used to tell me, and entailed being suspended on ropes to clean windows of office buildings almost thrice as high as our apartment block. Most times, he came back cold, tired, and hungry and still had to deal with my mother’s incessant demands. My mother would nag about the huge mounting bills, our poor living conditions, my father’s unfulfilled promises to her of a better life in England than what she had back home in Nigeria; her list was inexhaustible. My father, being soft-spoken, would go to bed hungry and dejected.

Then I would quarrel with my mother over her incessant nagging.

‘Mummy, Daddy is trying his best. Two years ago, we could not even afford a Christmas tree and presents. Aren’t you ever satisfied?’

My mum would scream at me.

‘Ki lo so? Bukola, may thunder blast off your head for opening that your rotten mouth to vomit such rubbish! What exactly has your father done for us? Is this the beautiful life he deceived my parents that he was going to give me in England? Is this the luxury? Let me tell you, your father is better dead to us than alive. At least those useless people will pay us his insurance money on this useless job he is doing.’ I cringed inside, knowing my dad could hear her.

I walked slowly to my parent’s small, stuffy bedroom and met my father standing by the window, looking down at the dirty streets below, and I placed my hand on his shoulder. He did not look back but held my hand on his shoulder and sighed.

‘Daddy, don’t listen to her please. You know how Mum lets her emotions get the better of her.’

My father heaved, turned slowly towards me, and said, ‘Maybe your mother is right, maybe am better off dead to you both. At least if I am dead, you will get to go to college with the insurance pay-off, you know.’

I stared at my father, dumbfounded!

‘Daddy, how can you say such a thing? It is not your fault that you were laid off few months after you married Mum, and since then you have been trying your best to provide for your family. Please don’t let Mummy’s words weigh you down, please, Daddy.’

My father smiled.

That was the last time I saw my father alive. I had gone to East Street Market near the LIDL shop, some distance away from our apartment block on Old Kent Road, to pick up some groceries for my birthday dinner and was on my way back when I saw the police car pulling up to our block of flats. My mum answered the door. They told her she was needed to identify a scantily clad man that had been found hanging dead on the rope whilst cleaning windows that cold winter morning. That man was my father. The man that had taught me how to laugh, to appreciate the little I had in the midst of lack, the man I had come to love and adore.

We buried him in the local cemetery on Christmas Day with just my mum and I and a few of my dad’s colleagues in attendance. I wept uncontrollably throughout the interment while my mum stared with glazed unfocused eyes. Later, she called my uncle back in Nigeria to tell him that his younger brother Tunde (as my dad was called back home) was dead and buried. She told me that my uncle was angry that she had waited two whole days to inform them of my father’s death and, worse still, had waited until she had buried him to call him. He had insinuated that she killed him, and she had angrily slammed the phone in his ear. My mother told me how backward and uneducated my father’s people were and how they had ruined my dad and sent him to an early grave with their incessant demands. That Christmas Day, she screamed, ‘Good riddance to bad rubbish!’ slamming the phone on the cradle so hard that I jumped.

Two weeks after Christmas, my mother informed me that we would be moving out of the house because the electricity, water, and heating services were no longer available because of the huge bills we owed. Four days later, we moved in with a Nigerian friend of hers who lived in an even worse neighbourhood—Elephant and Castle, four bus stops away from our former house. My mother said we had to manage until the insurance people finished with their investigations so we could collect the amount due to us as my father’s beneficiaries and find a better accommodation.

In exchange for living there, we had to babysit the woman’s two little boys whom she had out of wedlock. I had totally stopped going to school, since my mother said there was no money. I decided to look for a job around the neighbourhood. On one of the days I went job hunting in the neighbourhood, I met my mother’s friend Angela, who was speaking with a notorious Jamaican man I had come to know as Victor. They sat close to a Jamaican stall, eating Jamaican patties. Angela was clearly flirting with him.

Victor was a pimp, who enjoyed a handsome pay-off from the women he managed. I rushed home and told my mum what I had seen, letting her know that I thought Angela was probably one of Victor’s girls.

My mother’s reaction surprised me.

‘So what? It’s time you grew up and stepped off your high horse. How do you think she manages to pay rent and take care of these little boys and even put up with both of us?’

I stared at my mother incredulously, shocked to my marrows. We were living with a prostitute!

As I turned nineteen, I managed to find a job and tried getting back into school, but fate intervened again. Of course, my mother had been worried about the child protection services being alerted about my prolonged absence at school, but Angela assured her Victor had it taken care of.

It was a beautiful spring day; my mother had rushed into the house calling out for me.

‘Rachael!’ she shouted my English name, which I hated because it was the name she gave to me, having hated my native name Bukola that my father gave me.

‘Over here, Mum,’ I answered.

My mother rushed in and handed me a letter from the insurance people, saying our cheque was ready for collection. I screamed, hugging my mother in pure happiness, with the