When Nina Met Mani

By Ian C. Dawkins Moore

PROLOGUE

Two wounded souls, both alike in identity
Meet as strangers searching for dignity.
The land of their birth denied them their dream
While they strove and fought their nation’s scheme.
Held by stubborn fate, they built hardened shells
To protect themselves from their world of hells.
Each day brought them showers of bitter tears
From parents whose acts evoked frightened years.
They crossed paths at last, and sparks flew all night
But they loved so intense it caused a fright.
Two paternal angels stepped into the fray.
And gave them purpose and saved the day.
Then fate and dumb luck opened up their lives
And let them see love through each other’s eyes.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Ian C. Dawkins Moore
• Release date: Feb 28, 2023
• ISBN: 9798215738191

Ian C. Dawkins Moore

Ian C. Dawkins Moore was born under the sign of Aries in the year of the Tiger. He survived a British boarding school, the jock world of football hooliganism, hitch-hiking across the Sahara desert, and the two-tone culture of American racism. He is the published author of over 20 books, and he can still see the funny side of life- Be Well & Enjoy!

Book preview

WHEN

NINA MET MANI

A Romance Novella

Ian C. Dawkins Moore

WHEN NINA MET MANI

A Romance Novella

Copyright © 2023 Ian C. Dawkins Moore

All rights reserved.

ISBN: 9798215738191

A SMASHWORDS.COM EDITION

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This is a work of fiction.

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CONTENT:

Prologue

1 – Stubborn Fate

2 – Wounded Love

3 – Tireless Strivings

4 – Hardened Shells

5 – Crossed Lovers

6 - Nina’s Hell

7 – Striving Together

8 – Bitter Tears

9 – Guardian Angels

10 – Opening Up

11 – Running Away

12 – The Road to Ramadan

13 – A Proper English Gentleman

14 – Dumb Luck

15 – Back in Babylon

16 – Together Again

17 – In Disgrace with Fortune

About the Author

Books in the Nina & Mani Mystery series

Nina & Mani Detectives

Fortune Favors the Brave – novel

Other books by the Author

PROLOGUE

Two wounded souls, both alike in identity

Meet as strangers searching for dignity.

The land of their birth denied them their dream

While they strove and fought their nation’s scheme.

Held by stubborn fate, they built hardened shells

To protect themselves from their world of hells.

Each day brought them showers of bitter tears

From parents whose acts evoked frightened years.

They crossed paths at last, and sparks flew all night

But they loved so intense it caused a fright.

Two paternal angels stepped into the fray.

And gave them purpose and saved the day.

Then fate and dumb luck opened up their lives

And let them see love through each other’s eyes.

1 - stubborn fate

I sat in the throne room, a corrugated iron shed at the bottom of the garden. I gripped a pen in my mittens with the fingertips cut off. I used the trash can as a portable desk and the sanitary towel container piled high with reference books. I was studying for my final tests the following week. I wore long johns under corduroy pants over a thick tartan skirt from my chest to my knees. A broad white scarf wound around my neck, and a Jamaican yellow, black, and green tammy covered my curly hair and held my glasses which slipped comfortably up and down my slim petite nose.

I lived with my family in a council (government-sponsored) house in Leicester, a city in the east midlands of England, whose claim to fame was King Richard III - Shakespeare’s hunchback King - lay buried in the city center parking lot.

It was Friday, and it was raining. It had been raining all week; as usual, it had been intermittently for the past month.

The city of Leicester had other reasons for existing, but none were on my mind as I hid in the privy, away from my three older ugly married sisters and their revolting kids. The backyard lavatory was the quietest place in the house which I’d turned into a lab to study for my degree in chemical engineering.

When I was young, my siblings and parents migrated from Nigeria, West Africa. My parents had been hoping to further their education in the capital of the British Empire. But the debilitating cold weather, the niggerly environment, and the brutal racism had clipped their wings. I was their youngest child and the only one to pursue my parents’ dreams, much to the envy of my sisters and brother.

Uche, my father, struggled to keep his transportation business alive but faced increasing costs and competition from Polish, Romanian, and Irish competitors. My brother, Derek, worked with my father, and they both lived apart from us, my mother, and the family. Uche had left over five years previously, and thirty years of a competitive marriage had almost destroyed my parents. Living apart now, they had reconnected as friends and shared holiday and birthday events. Uche, my father continued to pay Ama, my mother, a monthly stipend when he could, but times were hard for working people in Britain in the eighties.

Maggie Thatcher, the prime minister, was attacking the working class and selling off the recently discovered oil concessions in the North Sea to private corporations. Thatcher and her government were realigning the country’s major industries, making them more capitalist-friendly. The working man saw all their gains from a hundred years of struggle slowly cut away.

I heard my mother yell that dinner was ready as I packed my papers in my sachet; pulled down my raincoat off the hook on the shed’s door; pulled it around my shoulders, and swaddled in layers of thick sweaters, three at last count.

Friday night was one day a week when Ama prepared and served Nigerian food. However, my sister’s kids hated African food. They hated anything to do with Africa, thanks to their mothers. Jollof rice, stewed beef, and a bowl of carrots that no one ate crowded the center of the table as five kids from the three mothers fussed around the table. I hurried past the frantic, shouting, and grabbing children’s hands as food flew off the center bowls, past their plates, and onto the floor while their grandmother yelled:

Lakeshia, will you control that boy? And Philippa, what’s wrong with Trevor’s eyes? Look at him; he’s putting food in his eyes. How old is he?

He’s five years old, mother, as you know, said Philippa.

Why does he do that - putting food in his eyes.

"I think he saw it on TV. He’ll get over it. They always do, eventually.

Shirley, will you stop hitting your brother. Said Carol.

Carol, said Ama. Where does she get all that aggression from? In my day, a girl wouldn’t dare strike a boy.

"Yes, mother, we know. In your day, back in the ‘old country,’ everyone shared eating dirt pies and pounding yam together for community harmony -eh -eh! But we are British now, mother, certified members of the Empire. Here we have ‘progress.’

Chaw! If this is progress, give me my clean straw hut any day.

Oh, mother, I said, poking my nose into the dining room. I’ll be out late tonight; I’m going to the library to finish studying for my exams next week. I’ll be back late. Don’t wait up for me.

No chance of that, said Carol, turning her head towards me while Shirley, her youngest, wriggled in her arms. All that studying in the privy, sister, will make you go blind! Lakeshia, Philippa, and Carol burst out laughing.

Don’t be so mean, you girls, said Ama. At least she tries to improve herself, not like - .

What? Like- what- Mother-.Us! Your daughters, whom you urged to get married before we were out of high school to save the race, to continue the fertility rites of your primitive culture, only to discover -eh -eh! that all that stuff was B.S. She covered Shirley’s ears and repeated the word ‘Bullshit,’ shaping the words with her lips.

Ama bowed her head and stormed out of the room, grasping and twisting her food-soiled apron. She met me as I came down the stairs, readying myself to head out to the library, and fell into my arms sobbing.

What’s the matter now, mom? Is Carol being beastly again? I keep telling you; she’s the one that got pregnant to that fool Barry. We all told her at the time that he was a Wuss. But when she went with Barry again and had little Trevor, it only compounded her stupidity. Now she’s always looking for someone to blame.

Thank you, petal. You’re such a sweetheart. Ama held onto me, stroking my hair and kissing my cheek. You’re the one hope I have left of all my children. Please don’t do what I did and marry someone because he’s tall, dark, and handsome. Not that I had a choice -eh -eh, in Nigeria! They’re all tall, dark, and handsome-eh-eh!

She giggled like a little girl, and Nina couldn’t help laughing