Ay-Fernao's Dream Stones

By Ena Eweka

In this second novel of his, the author, Ena Eweka, blazes an entirely different trail…..one that unravels some unusual, if otherworldly perceptions or views held of ‘coincidences’, and the travails such perceptions unleash on the paranoid, superstitious mind.
The main characters, Tricia and Folake, are each consumed by their own take regarding the ‘coincidence’ phenomenon, and coincidentally, want nothing of it in their respective lives for very different reasons. The paths of both ladies cross, however, and each of them comes to the realization that their continued existence just might depend on how well they understand it, and react every time the phenomenon occurs in relation to each other.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse UK
• Release date: Oct 18, 2019
• ISBN: 9781728394558

Ena Eweka

Ena Eweka is a Nigeria trained lawyer and obtained his secondary and tertiary education over there in the 70’s and 80’s. He spends his ‘writing time’, a period when he chooses to indulge in the creativity of writing, which he loves, in London, UK where his family resides. He also maintains an active legal practice in Benin, Nigeria. This is his second work; the first being under the title ‘Fog Soldiers’. Cover illustration concepts by Ena Eweka & Olu Ajayi

Book preview

Prologue

Wistful Thinking

Barrister Patricia Fayemi, or Tricia, as she was more often called, altered her slightly hunched posture to stretch out her strained back, which had been propped against the headboard of the bed.

The pertinent ratio, which had been her sole focus for the past hour or so, delivered by Justice Kayode Eso, had finally settled in nicely. She had been holding on to the judgement by a thread, studied it hard, and digested the reasoning of all the other supporting judges as well. Now she paused, satisfied with the legal ramifications and their application to the matter at hand. She clenched her fist and nodded to herself affirmatively. There was no doubt in her mind that the case was on all fours with the one she currently had going before the court. She said a silent prayer of blessing for her colleague, Jumai, for throwing the lifeline, and pouted her lips at the conjured image of Justice Ormisan—the ogre, as she was fondly called—who presided over Court Two, where the matter was being held.

The dread precipitated by thoughts of the pending presentation she had to make later on in the week dissipated, and then disappeared altogether, on account of the findings she had just thoroughly gleaned.

The volume of Gani Fawehimi’s law reports, from which the ratio had been gleaned, now rested idly on her lap, the pages splayed and kept apart with her left thumb, while she indulged in another digression—or break, as she preferred to call them.

She found the interludes to be a little time consuming, but they would not happen if the brain did not so often require them as a form of respite and, indeed, refreshment.

She stopped herself briefly, completed her notes on the application of the ratio to the case she had at hand, and set the law report aside.

Jumai was right, Tricia thought as she took a little time to acknowledge the junior lawyer’s prowess with the application and recall of appropriate legal precedents once again. Her ability in that respect was quite simply phenomenal, she concluded.

She glanced at the Samsung air conditioner, whirring cool air through the room, suddenly conscious of its noise consonance with the low humming from the ‘soundproof’ generator which powered the electrical implements whenever the national grid failed to live up to its required function, which, upon impulsive reflection, she assessed as having occurred way too often in the last couple of weeks or so. She shook her head in dismay over the cost implication.

She decided in favour of reducing the generator load, reached for the remote control, and hit the ‘off’ button. The room is already cold enough, she thought.

She was twenty-seven now, and the polygenic trait, which saw her hair fuse more readily than that of the average African, had become a source of solace. It was something to twist every time she needed to release nervous energy, whenever no one was watching.

Her mind drifted to the other source of her excitement, and again, with it came a certain degree of apprehension.

Handling a contract brief as large as the Jatto portfolio, which had recently landed on her lap on behalf of the chambers, came with its challenges, but it was the kind for which she cared the least that seemed to dog her the most. The type associated with a primordial fear of otherworldly interferences was the type for which she harboured a peculiarity.

Tricia sighed audibly. Thanks to her maternal side of the family, with her mother and grandma at the core, she had been well apprised of the possibilities and exactly what to look out for where foreboding was concerned, because ‘as sure as rain’, as her grandma would say, with good fortune came man-made pain.

She was equipped to handle the technical challenges associated with her work as a lawyer; all the answers could be found in the volumes of one hardback or softcover or the other—not to mention the Internet, if she strove hard enough. But the ones concerning otherworldly interferences expressed through signs and warnings, on which she had been schooled from as early an age as eleven, were a lot more difficult to address.

The enigmatic type, she thought. She likened them to the pools of water into which she would often stop to stare as a child, with the single hope of catching a glimpse of those that lurked within, evidenced only by little bubbles popping on the surface, but which she always found too murky. The waters had been stirred by the dwellers, who, as had become clear of late, seemed not to want to be seen. Sometimes the murk began to settle, and just when the surge of excitement began to swell in her, in expectation that the revelation just might happen, they stirred the waters up once again.

It had become so time consuming, Tricia recalled, that she had discarded the idea of looking altogether, opting instead for Kehinde’s take on life: ‘… it’s all down to what you believe in …’ her older brother had said during one of her visits to London. He had dismissed her concerns on the subject, in the face of what she considered glaring evidence that seemed to dash coincidence. He had said, ‘… put a brave face on it all, and act normal … like everyone else is looking, see, looking happy …’ nodding in the direction of all the happy-go-lucky commuters rushing about on the London Bridge train station platform on a warm Saturday afternoon. He continued, ‘… there’s actually nothing so unusual about life, so why worry about things you can’t change …’

Tricia sighed again, this time at the recall. Kehinde’s position served only to bring home the stark reality of how variedly life expressed itself—and the fact that people were certainly not all the same, because the experiences to which she referred were anything but normal.

Even the dark, neat, rich, curly locks she was toying with—a little more intensely now as the contemplation took hold—presented ample testimony of a life blighted by otherworldly indulgences into which her life had been forged. The hair was witnessing its seventh year of unhampered growth and now fell below her shoulders

The three-yearly head shaves, instigated at the instance of her mother, had stopped at that point, in compliance with some otherworldly directive her mother and grandmother alone knew about.

Tricia recalled her first lesson on the supernatural, received when she was just eleven, in response to her question on why her hair was ever so difficult to comb and always became knotted once it grew beyond three inches long. First her mother had gone on a social diatribe, harping on the need to acknowledge and accept her physical and spiritual heritage: ‘… physical beings are controlled by many unseen forces, my dear Etinosa, a good percentage of which comprises the energies of persons deceased from this world who, in some cases, can connect with the unseen energies of specific living people. It’s no reason to stigmatize …’

Her mother had gone on, narrating several anecdotes in the process; but even back then, Tricia knew she would always struggle with the conflicts: ‘… and those who have any sense accept it. Take the food you eat, for instance. To most, it serves merely as nourishment for the body, but in the mature medium’s understanding, it is symbolic of something far more significant, and that is the force which sustains life in all its mystery. So the herbalist will put the choicest bits of the meals in a small calabash and place it in a strategic location at a four-way junction as a symbolic sacrifice to appease whichever force it is that directs their affairs in life. Such phenomena are part of your heritage, Etinosa darling. With the one I just described, it’s a Benin practice called Uzohboh …’

Tricia recalled remembering, during the course of the narrative, that she had seen one such display on one of their earliest family visits to the ancient city of Benin and had interjected at that point to tell her mother so.

Her mother had replied, ‘… precisely … fortunately, yours is a different heritage, and something we must come to grips with …’

Tricia found she was feeling drowsy. Such thoughts, disturbing as she found them to be, always served to round up the day’s intellectual innings.

A sure sign of the impending slumber was her hand dropping to her lap, tired from fiddling with the tips of her locks. She reached for the cord and turned out the light.

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2359 hours

Tricia found that the ambience within the cabin of the Range espoused the elation she felt, and she was thoroughly enjoying it. The sizeable doses of good fortune she had enjoyed in the last couple of months leading up to her twenty-seventh birthday had left her virtually floating through time.

The warm glow intensified as thoughts of her accomplishment in securing the Jatto contract brief hit home, along with the even more important signs that a lifelong partner just might be in the offing.

She paused from singing along to Marvin Gaye’s ‘Let’s Get It On’ coming from the stereo and, through the rather surreal atmosphere, found herself shaking her head in agreement with her thoughts that the signs were indeed good.

She had considered herself ready for a lifelong partner the moment she graduated from the law school after a four-year stint devoid of any meaningful relationship at the University of Lagos, where she had delved deep and earned a second-class upper law degree—never minding the five years she had endured without a steady relationship since then.

‘The man’ had now materialized, seemingly from nowhere. She assured herself it could not possibly be a dream with a pinch, and she recoiled from the effect just as his handsome face promptly sprang up in her mind’s eye.

Everything about him came precisely as ordered. His height, at just over six feet, was the most appealing feature; she had never liked short men. The even white teeth and dimples, which lit up his face each time he smiled—which was very often—set her heart racing every time. Then there was the straight ridge, aquiline nose, and soft, clear brown eyes, all set in rich, dark brown skin. The kiss they shared just before she got in the car still lingered, making her ever so certain he was her Adonis.

As with the skip on a faulty film reel or scratched compact disc, Tricia suddenly found she was receiving attention from none other than the head of Chambers, T. A. Adegoke, SAN, on account, no doubt, of bringing in the biggest brief the chambers had handled in the last couple of years. She had probably been too preoccupied with thoughts of Greg to notice anything of the hour-long drive.

There could be no other reason T. A. was standing by his car and looking patiently in her direction, waiting for her to come over.

The westerly wind, as she alighted, was strong, and it almost snatched the door of the Range from her grasp. She shut it with enough force to oppose the resistance and shielded her face from the gust of dust, still feeling very upbeat.

Even the usually dull, partially peeled markings on the time-worn car park floor, as she sauntered over to meet the eagerly gesticulating SAN, as the senior advocates of Nigeria were called, seemed sharply highlighted in the windy midmorning sun. She was truly in good practice and right in the heart of the island, working hard to suppress the thrilling sensation.

‘How was court yesterday morning, Tricia?’

She shielded her eyes from the fierce sun rays coming through and over the high-rise buildings to the east and looked up at the tall, imposing figure and into his face. It was very pleasant. She had never seen him that welcoming in all five years she had been at the Chambers.

‘It was fine, sir. The ruling was in our favour, and we were awarded costs in line with our request.’

‘Excellent. I have ordered Bolade to go straight to work on your commission over the Jahttoh brief. It should be ready for collection by Thursday. Congratulations.’

He stooped to enter the back space of the metallic gold 7-series BMW and disappeared from view behind the tinted windows.

Somewhere in the distance, a dog barked—one of the large breeds. She could tell a Rottweiler by the way it sustained its loud, terrifying growl. The sound was mingled with one which had to be a lot closer, like a soft rapping on wood, and Tricia awoke to her mother softly calling out her name through the bedroom door.

I should have known I was dreaming, Tricia mused, struggling against the grogginess. The learned senior advocate of Nigeria, or SAN, never used the same car park as the staff did, and she most certainly would not have been looking upward at T. A. either. He was barely above average height.

She responded to her mother and sighed audibly. It hurt to think it was just another damned dream.

She tossed off the sheet and placed both feet on the black star-patterned Persian rug tentatively, just as the correlation with things going on around her in real life struck home. Two things in particular stood out in relation to the phenomenon her mother so often spoke about whenever the subject of dreams came up. The first was that ‘… only a selected few feel the wind in their dreams, so if you find yourself walking into one, rest assured someone quite powerful, somewhere, is going to be bent on hampering your future happiness. If you recall clearly enough, and follow the symbols, you will also find out exactly who the person is …’

Second, and slightly more puzzling, was the figure 11,596, which had featured three times under what she now considered very ridiculous circumstances, which even now came through so clearly at one point or another during the night, particularly as it related to the costs of the puzzling purchases depicted. Why would she have purchased a book by Ambode Tanjuwal, an author she knew nothing about? And why did the name lend itself so readily to recollection so long after the dream? Tricia pondered further on the subject. Quantities on Road Constructions, was the title, and the outrageously high price for the book made the purchase all the more ridiculous.

Similarly outrageous was the prospect of the black silk handkerchief, which she found she had used as a bookmark. She hated black, even if it was embroidered with gold threading. It makes absolutely no sense, she thought, still glued to the bed’s edge.

Another reel in the dream—just as bizarre in nature, she thought—was the fact that she had been taken back to the funeral ceremony, at which the family of the deceased had presented their guests, who attended the function with black embroidered handkerchiefs as memorabilia in honour of their deceased relative—all in the same instant, and in a process that made complete nonsense of time.

Then there was the case in which the figures featured as the price for a return air ticket to Warri, the closest airstrip to Jatto. I most certainly wish they were that cheap, Tricia thought, on the end of a dubious smile.

And finally they had featured as the time of departure. She recalled looking at the face of her phone just as the tyres lifted off the ground. She was being naughty, she recalled, in deciding to finish off a text to Jumai despite the warning from the flight captain.

Tricia’s mind dwelt on the prayer recitations, which were supposedly effective at abating any possible foreboding such dreams could represent, but she felt deflated by a sense of lethargy over the energy required.

The scenes were clear enough, she thought, and she was sure any symbolic references could easily be picked out, which meant she could easily determine those which had expressed themselves as opposite to what she actually wished for—a key feature, as she recalled, for determining the appropriate recitation that was needed. But the lethargy brought on by the desire to drop back on the bed and skip the day altogether was the single most debilitating factor that made her choose to forget such dreams, or act on them in the manner prescribed.

She reached for her phone and checked the time. It was five thirty in the morning, and the alarm had failed to go off once again. She tossed it into the mattress and rubbed hard against her face in the hope of clearing the grogginess.

It was certainly as good a time as any to visit her altar, etched into the diagonally positioned wardrobe unit, and reach for the rosary to recite her Hail Marys and offer up any prayer request through Sister Imariah, the African matron saint; but she got up, staggered past the altar, and made her way towards the bathroom.

She reached the door and stopped just short of twisting the knob. She had left out the tail end of the dream in the recollection—the aspect relating to the elation she felt—and quickly retraced her steps to the altar. It was a sensation she desperately needed to be sustained even if she had to pray for it.

So with Monday on her mind, along with the knowledge it had to be the worst day for Mother Justice in Lagos, particularly with junior lawyers, she commenced her prayers.

It was just three miles to the office, but she was all the while conscious that the pace was forty-five minutes per mile.

Chapter 1

T he sun was placed as far west as it could go just before disappearing over the jutting forms of barges, ships, and rigs which graced the stretch of the marina presently in view from her preferred spot behind the large office window.

But it was the fading light from the now orange rays—still at interplay within the activities, frenzied and yet undimmed—on the causeway bordering the mile-and-a-half-wide stretch of water seven floors below which provided Tricia the serenity she enjoyed.

The insulation she felt from it all took her back to a very special time in her life, which manifested itself in the spell she enjoyed sitting in front of her goldfish bowl back in Brighton—the place where she had been born and raised till age seven.

She had been totally oblivious to all the background bantering and clattering while she stared at the fish—which she believed could sense nothing of the chaotic, noisy environment, as it was encased in the calm-looking waters. Once locked in, Tricia remembered having to be torn away from the spot if anyone wanted to engage her in conversation.

Her thoughts were invaded for no apparent reason other than the possible exhaustions the day had presented. ‘Locks, locks, dreadlocks. Who will help me comb my locks?’

Why did that wayward rhyme keep interjecting? Adjusting her position slightly, she thought of the persistence with which it lingered. Her ‘thought-relief’, as she liked to term the intrusions, precipitated the breaks she often took from intensive reasoning. She forced it out each time to return to her thought trail, but it was like a stubborn he-goat, and it quickly came back to fill the void once her mind again strayed from the pertinent matters on which she dwelled.

She briefly reminisced on the merciless kids from whom the jibe had emanated. They were layabouts, as she later came to understand them to be after a year or so of settling in at Raven Stone Primary upon their return from the United Kingdom, where her father, now a pro-chancellor, had undergone a five-year master’s and doctoral education stint.

She tossed the silly rhythm aside, now even further removed from the vibrancy unfolding on the bank of the marina below. She brought her thoughts back to the ramifications which she sensed could flow from the troublesome clause within the contract papers now resting idly in the hands she held against her thighs, and with it the exasperation returned.

A few voices filtered through the thin plaster-panel wall separating the library from the adjoining recliner room, indicating that the rest of her colleagues, back in chambers for the evening session, were out of their respective offices for a break.

A sharp crescendo from their bantering pierced her thoughts, and for some strange reason they drew her to the inexplicable logic she found associated with the phenomenon she observed of a tiny tugboat pulling a ship close to a hundred times its size away from the harbour and into the congested stretch of water below.

She pulled away from the windowsill to rest against the edge of the closest desk. The door opened, and the image of Jumai, the relatively new office recruit -and sensation, was reflected in the glass pane.

‘Now which would you rather be, Senior Tricia—the oppressor or the oppressed?’ Jumai asked once she reached her side.

Tricia sighed. All thoughts on the contract dissipated as she prepared herself for another Jum-Jum conundrum—a reference to Jumai’s nickname. As was the custom, names which bore more than two vowels tended to end up with one corrupted version of its pronunciation or another. Strangely enough, the resulting name often had more vowels than the real name everyone had been too lazy to pronounce in the first place.

‘So what’s so pleasurable about being oppressed?’ she asked

‘The whining, wailing—you know, the whole being part of the victim story thing.’

Tricia suppressed a chuckle. The subject matter accounted for the peaked crescendo she had heard earlier. Jumai’s conundrums always had that exact effect.

‘In that case, Jum-Jum, the oppressed,’ Tricia said finally, smiling expectantly.

‘I know you’re just saying that because you love me, senior,’ Jumai said, laughing heartily. ‘Something’s eating you, senior.’

‘Yeah, it’s the same old contract clause, Jums—the one I told you about Friday evening. Haunted me all weekend.’

‘Paragraph eleven, bullet point five, nine; subclause six?’ asked Jumai.

Tricia nodded, somewhat mesmerized by Jumai’s level of retention. Even with all the exposure she had to the contract papers, Tricia knew she would be hard pressed to recall the exact digits of the clause. That was the reason she had it highlighted and simply referred to it as paragraph 11.5.9. The sixth subclause simply did not lend itself to mind registration.

‘I am struggling with the notion of them attempting to extricate the pollution clauses I put in from the lease.’

‘Why not take this up with Senior Sukere? He’s a genius with tripartite agreements and such technicalities, especially with leases,’ Jumai said.

‘That’s a brilliant idea. Why on earth didn’t I think of that?’

‘Besides, he likes you a lot,’ Jumai said. Her tone was teasing, but it still drew a jocular remonstrative scowl from Tricia. ‘Come into the recliner room. There’s some very interesting chatter going on in there,’ Jumai said, pulling away.

‘Yeah, in a minute,’ replied Tricia. She heard the door close behind her and slid off the desk bearing her weight.

The lighting inside the room was more intense now that the sun had all but disappeared, and she stared at her reflection in the tinted windowpane.

Jumai had been teasing, of course, but there was nothing not to like in the reflection, she thought, resisting the urge to do a twirl.

All her friends described her as pretty and every part the attractive legal practitioner. She was of slender build and stood at five feet eight inches tall in her leggings, with somewhat stern facial features characterized by high cheekbones and intelligent big brown eyes.

With her eyes still on the image, Tricia’s right hand instinctively went for the tip of one of her shoulder-length locks, which was one of her more engaging and probably intimidating features. She wanly smiled. They were not particularly to the taste of the average Nigerian man—just the enlightened few of the sort she cared to attract. And not for the first time, she pondered the irony displayed in the attitudes of average Nigerian women, seeing how quick they were to purchase artificial locks made from natural hair and place them on their heads as attachments. Such locks were in vogue, yet they shied away from naturally growing their hair.

Her ready, fierce countenance was a marked departure from her slender and even fragile-looking frame. Her skin tended towards pale or a softer tone of chocolate brown, which came from insistent protection against the intense sunrays. That was the lot of all the not-so-well-to-do and indeed the result of her liking for expensive foreign skin creams. She spun on her heels away from the reflection and hurried out of the library.

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Tricia tucked most of the contract papers into the appropriate file and locked it away in the top drawer, her mind all the while preoccupied with the penny that had just dropped a little over ten seconds ago. If she had not pondered the relevance of the figures in her dream so intensely as soon as she awoke, she would have had no idea that they were an exact replication of the digits in the contract clause playing so heavily on her mind. Jumai’s recitation had brought them sharply into focus once again.

Tricia made her way through the east wing of the chamber’s complex, in the direction of the recreation room, stopping off briefly at the reception. She popped her head round the door and was glad to see Bolade, the receptionist, staring into her phone, no doubt enjoying a clip from one of the Africa Magic channels. She dropped off five more sheets to be added to her work currently in the pool, along with a healthy dinner tip.

Bolade’s blank expression switched to a brimming smile on noticing the money. ‘I need the full draft for Thursday, Bola, please.’

‘That’s no problem at all,’ Bolade replied. She switched off the handset and tucked it away in one of the desk drawers.

The chamber’s layout was created from an open-plan patch which took up the better part of five thousand square feet of office space. On the choicest of the four, Western House partitions which existed on the seventh floor. It had been kitted out to suit the expensive tastes of the chamber’s founding partner, a senior advocate, or SAN, going by the prefix Adegoke Tunde Adaramola. His peers referred to him as T. A., as did the junior lawyers, but only when they were far enough behind him.

In keeping with professional ethics, plasterboard in rich but subdued tones was set from the floor to a height just above waist level. Tall, one-way mirror glass panes, fitted in thick aluminium trim reaching to the ceiling lined one side of the passage, separating the offices from which she had just emerged, from the outer boundaries of the conference room, library, and reception spaces attached to their wing of the complex.

Tricia was the first to admit that she found the chamber’s environment, with its lavish furnishings, very empowering.

The thick cushioning of the reception room’s furniture showed evidence of the inherent carpentry skills and indeed tenacity of local makers, and Ohshohdin and Company, T. A.’s choice outside of Italian imports, was no doubt the best of them. He had left the bare wooden ones, like the glass-door bookshelves and the file storage cabinets, to the Europeans.

With the locally made furniture in the room she had just vacated, there was little pretension about the source from which the styles originated. To the discerning eye, the end result was an unusual serendipitous fusion of Italian furniture ideas and those inherent in Edo carpentry. The seat cushions fitted into the three- or four-seater chairs were big, being over ten inches thick, and the backs, bases, and armrests showed similar boldness with thickness of cushioning. The complementary wood trims were etched with Edo and European calligraphy. In all the presentation, what stood out was the quality of the expensive leather used as a coating, which, going by the commendations received from most of the local visitors, was aesthetically pleasing.

The reclining room adjoining T. A.’s office, for clients already in the practice’s system, was markedly different, characterized as it was by three imitation low-back, three-seater Chesterfields. The antique tan on the real leather used came close enough, but it didn’t take a Drew Pritchard eye to see that the octagonal patterns were, in some areas, completely out of sync. But the cast showed an attempt at old English.

It was an all-girl affair when she entered her sector’s recliner, with Adanma, more often called Ada, nursing a bottle of Nestlé water, and Jumai sharing the sofa at the far end of the room. Olabisi—or Bisi, as she was called—a third colleague, was on the phone, engaged in discussions over one contract or the other. She rose from her chair as Tricia went over to join the other two, and she left the room, obviously to ensure confidentiality.

‘Are you coming for Bode Adegbenro’s thirty-seventh birthday bash over the weekend?’ Ada asked once Tricia took up space in the adjoining two-seater. ‘Abi, you want to close another five-property deal between now and then?’ she teased.

‘I’m struggling with just the one at the moment,’ Tricia replied. ‘Senior Seyi handed me the invite when I got in from court. I haven’t had the chance to glance through it though.’

Ada was harmless, generally polite, and cautiously bubbly. They had struck up a close friendship only whilst at law school together, despite their having been in the same faculty at the University of Lagos for four years, at the same time. ‘Who goes around celebrating thirty-seven?’ She snorted lightly.

‘The very narcissistic sort, I guess,’ Jumai quipped. ‘But it’s on the calendar, so …’

‘Got to love the venue, though—the Marniere Grand, overlooking the peninsula. It should make for a great atmosphere,’ Tricia said

Ada gave her a dubious look. ‘That’s your neck of the woods, hun?’

Tricia lifted her nose mockingly. ‘One has had a few dinners in there, if that’s what you mean. Yes, I guess you could say that.’

The ladies burst into spontaneous but subdued laughter. It was loud enough to carry across the room to the seat where Olabisi, who had just returned, sat penning more texts. She finished, got up, and drifted over, still seemingly self-absorbed. Her wide hips were accentuated by every step in the tight-fitting Nigeria Bar Association–regulated skirt, as was her larger-than-average bustline, which strained against the frilly white top beneath the equally tight-fitting black regulation jacket.

Except for Jumai, who was three years their junior, the others had been called to the Nigeria Bar in the same year, 2011, and formed the middle echelon in the chamber’s team of nine lawyers below partnership level.

Bisi rummaged in her bag, retrieved a second phone, and expertly navigated the applications. She found what she wanted and held the face to the view of all three ladies. ‘Check this out. They must be bowled over. Ha. Aymi loh sorbeh. They must see sonnnntin,’ she stressed, playing local parlance to the gallery, obviously very proud of the image on display.

‘But the dress code says gold and purple though,’ Ada said before looking away to stare into her own phone, which was vibrating to signal an incoming call. ‘Paddock calls, please excuse me, ladies,’ she said, and she pulled away from the group.

Bisi waited till she was out of earshot. ‘Why does she always do that—criticize and try to make me feel small?’ She didn’t wait for a response. ‘I know what it is—pure jealousy. Nothing she can do about my stats, and that’s that.’

‘Same applies to me then, Bisi; I mean, you bested everyone in the commission stakes for the last two years, remember?’ Tricia said.

Bisi’s blank expression broke into a smile. ‘You have no reason to be jealous, Trish—not like her. Outside Goke & Co., she can’t afford Gucci.’

Tricia and Jumai chuckled.

‘Besides, I intend to wear plenty of gold, so I don’t have a clue what she’s on about.’

‘Nice dress, though; I like the shades of green, and it does show off your figure. Was that from your last Dubai trip?’

‘No, Italy. It was love at first sight. But seriously, Trish, the Jahttoh brief will launch you into orbit sha. Three point six b’s? That’s astonishing!’

‘I’m not sure who told you that figure, Bee, or whether you’re allowed to say that above a whisper, but it’s Goke & Co’s stock, as you know. Besides, we’re still struggling with the fine points,’ Tricia said, feeling a little uncomfortable with the subject for reasons she could not immediately put a finger on. She was not too sure, but she felt she detected an undesirable undertone.

‘From what I hear, that one is in the bag. Dead game! Point one of point one, from a single transaction, puts you ahead of everyone for the past three years at least!’ Bisi continued, as if Tricia hadn’t spoken

‘I claim it in Jesus’s name!’ Tricia said, deciding to address any possible negative vibes spiritually. Bisi’s interest in the portfolio, judging by the figures she had just thrown out, was more than merely superficial, as with the other colleagues, and calling on Jesus was the only way she knew to stop an aggressive force of the type Bisi possessed, even if just temporarily. She had the vague feeling Bisi was not the type who, deep down, professed Jesus, considering her known exploits, but she felt safer calling on the name all the same.

‘I would say attending Bode’s bash will favour you quite a bit,’ Jumai said. ‘Besides bringing the power generation investors into the Jatto contract, his uncle is the MD of Imrotech Construction Group. They actually own a grid eighty miles east of Sapele.’

Tricia looked with undisguised surprise from Jumai to Bisi and back again. It was obvious that her short spell of associating with the chamber’s leading socialite was yielding dividends.

The knowing smile on Bisi’s lips depicted one showing pride in her pupil, which helped to confirm Tricia’s suspicions. Jumai knew nada about the key players in the Lagos business circles, let alone those as far afield as Jatto. Her forte was case law precedents, right across the board, and, to an extent, legal drafting formats. This was a fact which drew everyone in the chambers towards her like a magnet, including the two SANs. She did not look quite like the office nerd, which she obviously was, and that was down to her appearance. She had perfect features set in a slightly elongated, narrow face typical of the Fulani stock, from which she partly hailed, and she stood close to six feet tall. She was slim, with splayed hips and a head full of curly, dark, rich shoulder-length hair which was almost always hidden beneath one silk scarf or the other, in keeping with her religious doctrines. Those in the chambers, particularly the females, got rare glimpses of her drop-dead-gorgeous figure whenever she was dressing up for court appearances, but otherwise it was all always hidden away beneath luxuriant, free-flowing garments, into which she changed as soon as the court sessions were over. Her skin, too, was of a comparatively lighter papaya hue, contrasting sharply with her largish, clear, deep brown eyes.

Besides being of northern elite stock, Jumai was steeped in the conflicts associated with her unusual combination of religions, and intellectual ambitions. Her father was Muslim, and her mother Christian. She also conformed to the tenets associated with revelling in old Islamic wealth, and had little time to allow for the indulgences of unravelling the intrigues about who’s who in south-west Nigeria’s social circles. She had opted for her dad’s religion and had a healthy understanding of her mum’s.

Bisi, to the contrary, was adept at garnering and trading juicy social secrets—and, from the look of things, Tricia thought, this was now working with Jumai.

Tricia smiled to herself. It was just the kind of strategy that would always catch the socially inept Jumai right out. It meant Bisi had leapt to the front of the queue and now had the quickest access to the one everyone called the brain box of the chambers.

When she was not working on Jumai or the other female colleagues, Tricia knew Bisi to flaunt her bustline, hips, and bulged, searching dark brown eyes in quests of empathy from the male-heavy upper echelons in the chambers. Her keenness for relevance also kept her abreast of every development within or outside the office.

‘Are you coming to the party then, Bookie?’ Tricia asked, looking directly at Jumai.

Jumai gave Tricia a brief smile, and then her big brown eyes seemed to blank out, giving the impression that she was not sure it had been a good idea to have dabbled thus far. The use of the reserved nickname by Tricia, she knew, always came as a light remonstration and had the particular effect of throwing her off guard.

‘I’ll be picking her up by three,’ Bisi said, answering for her. ‘I know a big slice of the contract connection is coming through your parent’s contacts, Tricia, but I could introduce you to Bode if you want. His father, as you know, is SAN Tajudeen Adegbenro and has virtually retired and left Adegbenro & Co for Bode and his older sister, Folake. He’s the main man right now.’

Tricia ignored the offence she had initially taken regarding Bisi’s allusion to dependency on her parents’ help in securing the brief, preferring instead to mentally assess Bode’s relevance in the scheme of things, in light of the information Bisi had just provided. Her focus had always been on the SAN himself, having mistakenly taken Bode, whom she also knew well enough, for a mere underling. Tricia suddenly felt vulnerable and a little exposed. There was bound to be a danger in accepting any favours from Bisi.

‘That would be nice, considering the intricacies. I’m not so sure he’s that relevant to our side of things, though, but it would be nice to meet him. We are all still at the mercy of the natural gas suppliers, to some extent. All that keeps us really relevant to the deal is the strategic location of the intended site being in Jatto,’ Tricia said, switching on a plastic smile. She accepted that the Adegbenro group was respected within the ambit of the contract, mainly because they had a lot more local presence and ground links—with a vibrant office branch in the Niger Delta, which was quite close to the Jatto region. That much had become obvious to her from studying letters sent out during the initial exchange of terms of reference.

The weekend ahead was suddenly beginning to show more promise than she expected. For the next few hours, she could abandon all thoughts of the contract and the need to secure her client’s financial position, and do some daydreaming of various pattern permutations of gold and purple that would cleave to her own curves.

Chapter 2

A da sat as patiently as a pet dog at the dinner table, in the tastefully furnished living room. Her face showed none of the strain from having waited nearly two hours. She had nodded off twice while studying the glossy socialites’ magazines for recognizable faces, but she was not fazed by the experience. She still felt safer down in the living room.

She looked around her, taking in everything that was new since the last time she visited, and was impressed with the new arrangement. Tricia is too energetic to allow the previous furniture to remain in place for more than three months, she mused. The erstwhile, very ample space had been somewhat split by the introduction of a new set of leather chairs and side stools of matching colours, which contrasted sharply with those in the larger section, where she was sitting. The stairs which led to the living quarters, with its opening to her right, had also received a facelift, with newly fitted lush green carpeting.

Her excuse to Tricia for opting to remain downstairs had been that she had a host of very important texts to send off to various clients and needed a bit of quiet.

The house was airy and very comfortable, being based, as it was, in Ikoyi, and it thoroughly reflected the technical capacities of the colonialist who had overseen its construction, having taken the sun and wind dynamics into consideration. It also smelled nicely of old money and had none of the vulgar-looking contortions she often witnessed in the houses of the newly enriched.

The compound was large too—a traditional colonialist acre, with most of the open space shaded by a blend of very old imported trees that had been planted in the main by the previous colonial owners and a few modern horticulturists.

Ada had quietly resolved, following her previous two visits, to avoid venturing upstairs to Tricia’s bedroom. Her experience of the ambience during the first visit she had put down to a fluke, albeit one which gave her a lot to think about. But the second visit to the room served as confirmation that the aura in there was at variance with her own spiritual balance. The unsettlement she felt had been even stronger.

Ada paused with the pages and looked around. The lounge, as she had determined on the last visit, certainly had no such aura. For a start, there were not nearly as many mirrors, unlike the room, which was characterized by an obvious obsession for inanimate objects she considered to be of very dubious origins, which somehow, she found, offended her psyche—mainly, she thought, because of the associated spiritual connotations deeply embedded in her own upbringing.

Ada recalled the second visit upstairs. She had felt drawn to the square recession, no more than eighteen inches in diameter, etched into the walk-in dresser-wardrobe unit. It was not so much the porcelain effigy of the Virgin Mary and the unusually large rosary beads that had got her attention in the end, but rather the two dark, bean-shaped objects located across from each other in the innermost recesses of the boxlike space.

The porcelain statue of the Virgin Mary was nothing new, so the beads had seemed like the main attraction, and she had been fascinated by the luminescent qualities in the purple beads and their texture. But that interest had dissipated quickly when she realized there was something else that was far more intriguing in the collection, when she looked beyond them.

She had observed that the inside space, to which she had been drawn, had its five surfaces covered by mirrors which merged seamlessly with those on the surrounding external panelling, forged, as they were, in the manner of a cross.

Guided by no other instinct than sheer curiosity, her hand had reached into the recess, in the direction of the mirror nearest her right shoulder, for the object within its confines. She picked it up and looked across to what looked like a replica positioned to the left of the recess, and she reached in for it as well. Close examination showed the three-inch-thick, cherubim-like images to be identical, cut from a dense substance that felt like silicon to the touch.

Ada looked into her palms as she dwelt on the recall, and she could have sworn they felt warm. She put them to her face and quickly dismissed the hot sensation they provided. It had to be psychological, she thought, as she recalled how warm the stones had felt on the day in question, despite the cold air-conditioned temperature in the room. She thought further on the experience, considering the unususal colour of the objects, which though dark in appearance didn’t exactly fit any of the hues of grey she knew. They also appeared a little cloudy when held to the light. She had just been about to replace them when she felt the pull of her palms to each other and discovered the objects were magnetic, albeit just along the upper halves of their backs. That explained why they had been kept so far apart from each other. Strongly fascinated by the find, but having had her fill of contemplation about them, she dropped the objects in their respective positions and again turned her attention to the pretty-looking rosary. In an instant, she felt an overwhelming urge to turn around.

Ada shuddered at the recall of the experience, and the skin on her upper forearms broke out in goosebumps. As she stroked her arms gently to give them some warmth, she considered that had probably been too nosey and had got her just deserts for the effort.

With her back turned to the recess and all it had on display, she looked at her reflection in the full-length mirror on the wall directly across the room and felt the sensation of being sucked into another world. It was such a surreal experience. She recalled first a strange sense of déjà vu, and then an unusual added sensation she still found difficult to describe. This was particularly so because it related to a resurgence of feelings attached to an experience she never knew was buried somewhere deep in her subconscious.

She recalled being transfixed and in that moment being thrown back, as it seemed, to a period she spent at the centre of an unknown crossing of bush paths, where she had sat and cried for hours, being lost in the dense Obagie Forest on the outskirts east of Ovia town, her maternal grandfather’s birthplace, many years ago. With the recall, Ada realized she had been transported back to the most miserable experience of her life for absolutely no reason other than that she had been standing in front of some unknown spiritual configuration. The episode to which she had been transported turned out to be the last of the numerous hunting trips she undertook with her grandfather, incidentally solidifying her role as a tomboy and her insistence that she was just as capable of attending such hunting expeditions as any of her brothers and male cousins.

She recalled coming back to her senses and the present, like something spat out by a Tardis, just before Tricia came back into the room.

She had quietly withdrawn from the spot, unobserved by Tricia, and taken her seat at the foot of the bed.

Again Ada shuddered slightly. Such an experience was not one she cared to discuss with anyone. She feared she had probably suffered a psychotic episode, which was bound to raise one level of stigmatization or the other, and if keeping away from the room meant it never recurred, then she was happy to do so.

The more she thought back on the setting, the harder it was, Ada found, to fathom why anyone in his or her right mind, not to mention one of Tricia’s status, would have a dresser unit designed and fitted in such an eccentric manner.

Ada replaced the glossy magazine on the glass-top centre table, unable to shake the surreality. She chuckled mirthlessly, though, when she recalled Tricia’s explanation regarding the unusual collection of items in her altar, describing the setup away as her special prayer section.

Even further out had been the story presented concerning the strange cherubim-like stones, and of their having come from some catholic reverend sister called Maria, of great antiquity. It did not come as a surprise to her when Tricia refused to be drawn into any discussions on which parish the said Sister Maria belonged to. The same unsatisfactory response trailed her explanation regarding the beads. She said they had been hacked out of jade-like boulders discovered in a rocky sector of the Iebuzor Forest in Jahtoh by her grandmother and the same Mexican missionary mentor, Maria, whom she worked with some ninety or so odd years back. In her books, the fact Tricia had virtually sworn by beads and cherubim’s protective powers was nothing short of idolatry. It had made absolutely no sense then, and still didn’t. Ada gave a resigned shrug. She sighed and reached for another glossy magazine from the stack, concluding, as she was often wont to, that life was very much each to one’s own.

She checked her watch, and a knowing smile crossed her pretty face, which had close-to-perfect features set in ebony skin. Her friend was bound to be changing, irascibly, from one exquisite outfit to the next, in the presence of the young but ever alert and very apprehensive