Newham Writers Workshop Anthology 1999

		OLA OPESAN I rejoined the workshop in September 1998 after a ten year break (maybe that’s a record?). Nevertheless, I believe I’m deriving a lot more pleasure from Newham Writers Workshop, second time around. Currently I live in Plaistow with my wife and two kids and work in Forest Gate, as an editor for a specialist magazine. Also, I freelance as a media consultant for an African TV channel. CHAPTER TWO: FIRST NIGHT MY NAMES ARE Ayodele Taiwo Akins. Popularly known as Dee One (D1), except by my sister (Nike) who always insists on calling me Dele. Today, the first Sunday after Easter, was to be our first day at school, at least as boarders. Dee and I held on like rodeo cowboys as the open-back truck drew up outside Hannibal House. In our excited state of intense anticipation we clambered down the sides of the truck before it came to a complete stop. "Ah! Driver! Stop!" squealed Mum. Seeing that we had somehow managed to retain our balance, she rounded on us. "You boys want to break your legs! At least wait till when your father gets back. Me – I have no money for hospital bills." That was typical mum doublespeak. Did she mean, don’t break your legs since I can’t afford it, or when I can afford it – break your legs? Weird stuff, but that was mum all over. The last two weeks had been hectic. We had been shopping nearly everyday – buying new clothes, selecting cloth for uniforms, stocking up on provisions, utensils, buckets, all sorts, you name it – in an effort to tick off every single item present on our school lists. The first couple of days of going to the shops had been a jolly experience. Especially since it was our only real opportunity to get out of the house, Dad having grounded myself and Dee for a week. Although we had resisted admitting to our involvement in the chicken and the dog incident in the VP’s house on the first night, we had yielded to his intense questioning early the next morning. Dad, ever willing to be seen as being liberal, offered us the choice between a week of being grounded, a week without pocket money or seven strokes each from his as yet untried fishing rod. We choose the very former, as the best of evils. So, the first few days of trawling around the markets with Mum and Nike had seemed heaven sent. Even the dull, but intense sun in the featureless sky was bearable, for a while. But Mum could out-shop anyone. And that includes Imelda Marcos. Okay, maybe not in terms of money spent, but surely in terms of shopping-hours. Dad called her a professional shopper. He often wondered whether she had majored in shopping engineering, rather than food science technology. Nike was able to last the pace a little while longer, but even she had retired injured before the end of the first week. She joined us in the hospitality suite – the air-conditioned Peugeot 505, that crawled along after Mum through crowded markets, as she approached her quest – which was surely to break all shopping records. Nike finally acknowledged that listening to the latest singles sent by our friends in England on the car’s stereo cassette player beat haggling in the scorching sun. However, Mum’s efforts were soon to be appreciated in our new environment. After seeing Nike settled into her dormitory in the top government girls’ school in the country’s capital the day before, we believed that we would be well prepared for our first day as boarders in Nigeria. How wrong we were. It took only a short while to unload our gear from the hired pick-up truck, but throughout all I could think of was gulping down an icy lemonade. "I wonder where one gets a fizzy drink around here?" "Don’t know, and at the moment I don’t care. All I know is that as soon as we’ve finished I’m gonna get started on those biscuits." "Boys come on, just a little more now. You! You know, you’re not gonna wilt without a drink, and you, big man," Mum said, prodding Dee’s belly. "You’re not gonna disappear without your biscuits, so let’s finish. Please!" Soon, we were sat engulfed by our possessions on the raised concrete foundation that surrounded Hannibal House, observing the true extent of our property. We must have looked like two overfed refugees at the start of a mini evacuation. Mum sat in the front section of the truck with the driver, awaiting our new House Master. For some reason my eyes kept falling on the cutlass wedged between my pillow and metal bucket, listed as Flying Blade/Cutlass on the school’s recommended students’ inventory. I was still unsure of what it was for, but little did I know that my temperament meant that I was to become an expert in its use. There was scant but constant activity outside Hannibal House – which had all its wooden slated windows, window frames and ledges painted in the house colour of dark green. Every now and again a car would pull up outside the main entrance and let out a boy or two. Also, occasionally a couple of pupils could be seen strolling across the main playing field from the direction of the gates towards the House. Some of them carried light hand luggage: a suitcase, a sports hold-all or a carrier bag or two. Though, none had been away long enough to move in wholesale like Dee and myself. Dad’s friend, the school’s first VP (Vice Principal) had arranged for our House Master to receive us. A privilege that was extended to only a select few. But as our luck would have it, a much older boy arrived to inform Mum that the House Master had been called away to the Sick Bay, and he would be the one to show us to our dorm. "By the way, my name is Segun Williams. I’m the house prefect." He stated proudly, before drawing himself to his full height. He stood erect as if about to salute, while holding the door open for Mum to alight from the truck. Already Dee had taken advantage of the short wait to start on the provisions. He nibbled at a biscuit, taken from the assorted tin of biscuits, stacked on top of our bedding in the other bucket. Already his buff coloured, khaki shorts were beginning to appear too tight, especially around the inner right leg. "Dee, seems like your shorts aren’t even going to make it through your first day." I said, pointing. Dee looked down and hissed, then crossed his legs and got back to reading his Marvel comic, while reaching for another biscuit. But he was too late, Mum removed his hand from the tin, and signalled that he got to his feet. The house prefect’s uniform was of a shinier, almost metallic-coloured variety to the khaki shorts worn by most of the other boys. And rather than shorts, he had on a pair of trousers, complete with smart turn-ups. His white shirt, though short sleeved like ours, had embroidered white epaulets on the shoulders. "You boys there!" He called to two boys leaving the house, carrying a small table between them. "Come and make yourselves useful here," he ordered in a gravely voice that seemed to travel the length of the main field and back. Between us – that is the house prefect, Mum, the driver, the two boys, Dee and myself – we were able to transfer all our possessions in one trip. The house prefect led the way through the dark green double doors which led into a spacious courtyard. The lawn was sandy in the middle, with the greener grass growing closest to the neatly trimmed hedges that bordered it on all four sides. Turning slightly towards Mum, the house prefect brought us all to a stop by placing my leather suitcase on the floor. "That dorm over there," he announced, sweeping his hand to indicate the opposite side of the quadrangle. "Is the senior dorm. The one in the middle is the junior dorm. That’s where the twins will stay. It’s for those in forms one to three. And this one here is the intermediate dorm. For forms four and five students. The little rooms facing the field are for other school prefects, and that slightly bigger room is mine. You know, the house prefect." With that he resumed possession of my suitcase and led us along the concrete path – fissured with fine cracks, towards the junior dorm. "By the way," he said over his shoulder. "I’ll show you the bog and showers when you’ve finished unpacking." It was clear that Mum was becoming uncertain about leaving us in our new environment. And how she must have wished that Dad was here, and not somewhere outside Lagos on an important business engagement. There was nothing overtly wrong with what we had seen so far, but our previous boarding school in Kent could have been a five star hotel when compared to the bleached yellow walls and austere surroundings of Hannibal House. Also, it was apparent to ourselves and Mum, that the two boys assisting us felt a sense of indignation, but it was something they kept well hidden from the house prefect. A combination of these subtle differences had made her wary. And now she hesitantly peered into the dimly lit room from the south entrance to the junior dorm. Dee was indifferent to what he saw, no doubt he would be more concerned with the dining conditions than sleeping arrangements. At present, he brought up the rear, and was the last person to arrive in the dorm. The house prefect marched forward to open a set of dark green windows – consisting of rigid wooden slants, to let in more light. While doing this, he pointed to our double bunk in the corner, and immediately Dee moved to occupy the lower bunk. "Ah!" he sighed repeatedly in relief. "I could do with a breather." "I suppose you want the lower bunk as well, don’t ya?" "It would save the effort of climbing up each night," was his sarky reply. I smiled. Dee had always had the lower bed. At school in Kent, and at home, before Dad had moved us to a bigger house. It made no difference to me, as long as I got a good night’s sleep, and I had a wall or guard rail to help keep my bearings and stop me rolling out of bed on a turbulent night. With the shadows chased into the corners of the room, Mum took in more of the dorm. There were another dozen or so bunk beds in the room, each with a medium-sized cabinet on either side. She seemed to briefly study the face of every student currently present. A number of boys were playing a board game in the far corner, two boys lay on their bed – one fast asleep, the other reading. The boy opposite our bunk, was busy arranging his personal effects inside his bedside cabinet. Dee took a cue from him to start arranging his own beside cupboard; of course, starting with his provisions. "Let me let the boys settle in, Ma. I will return before you go." And with that the house prefect turned to leave the room, but not before he noticed Mum slip each of the two helpers a one naira note. Pausing by the exit, he turned to Dee and I. "By the way boys, supper is served at seven, you’ll hear the first bell at six-forty-five." "Thank you, house prefect," called Mum after him. "Well done, I will see you before I leave." He nodded and left the room with a smile. By the time the sun decided to have an early night at quarter past five, Mum had helped us unpack and concluded her fussing, and we had slipped her several attempts to hug us goodbye. She had seen the house prefect right, by slipping him a fiver, and we had been introduced to the shower room, which was wrongly named, because the showers had long ceased to work. The paint on the walls had gradually peeled away in the upper corners to expose bare concrete chased with greenish algae. A smile touched my lips, as I realised how ironic it was that the algae was almost identical to the house colour. Still, it made me cringe. Opposite the shower area was a row of enamel wash basins, some were cracked, none produced water – at least, not outside the hours of six to eight in the morning, we were told. Already we had put our buckets to use, by fetching water from inside the wash room adjacent to the showers. We showered by throwing water over our heads with a plastic container the size of a small bowl. Dee was getting quite used to cold showers, but I still missed my hot and cold taps, which meant my shower really consisted of tipping the bucket over my head in one go. Even wearing flip-flops I could still feel the slime underfoot on the bare concrete floor of the shower area. The slime was undetectable to the naked eye, except were the water ran out through a hole at the bottom of the wall. It made me squirm with every initial movement. My experience of the showers made me decline an invitation to become acquainted with the lavatory, I was going to save that for when it became unavoidable. Still, Dee gleefully went along to inspect the bog – as it was generally called, in company of another form three student – as if he was being led on an adventure safari. At a few minutes past six, we were ready for our first supper at boarding school in Nigeria. Dee and I were sat on either side of the lower bunk, racing each other to see who could unfasten and re-lock the padlock to their cabinet the quickest. It was simply a way of killing time before the house prefect arrived to show us to the dining hall. It was while playing this childish game that we encountered our first taste of boarding house being indistinct from life within a barracks. The first we knew of his presence was when the commotion in the far corner where some boys were still playing Ludo, hushed suddenly. He strode into the room purposefully, with a tee-square underneath his armpit, held like a marching sergeant would hold his baton. The boys at the other end of the room, got up one by one, each seeming to bow their heads in reverence. The newcomer was a boy no more than two inches taller than myself, and certainly no taller than Dee. At most he was about six months to a year older than us, but yet, he wore the shinier type of uniform worn by the house prefect, which we had soon found out was worn, only by those in lower six and upper six. I was sure the boy could be no more than 14 and a few months. As he marched towards us, a toothy grin pasted on his boyish face, a pair of dimples playing hide and seek on his cheeks, I had my doubts as to whether he was a day older than us. But his self assured demeanour had brought us to our feet also. I came round the bunk to stand by Dee, trying not to smile at the boy’s pompous strut, which could easily be mistaken for arrogance. "Who are you?" he said spreading his legs, balancing the tee square across his chest. "You can call me Double Dee, and my twin," said Dee punching my shoulder. "Not that you’d know it. He’s called Dee One." The boy laughed heartily and jabbed the narrow end of the tee-square on the concrete floor. After his joviality seemed spent he brushed some imaginary specks off his shoulder and resumed his pose, legs akimbo. "What’s all this. Two Dee and three Dee. Are you singers?" There was laughter from the boys in the corner that seemed to encourage him. "Or are you part of the Three Degrees, that we’ve been hearing of?" There was more laughter from the corner, which stopped abruptly as the boy leaned forward and barked: "What are your real names! The names given to you by your parents." "Dele." "Deji." "In full!" "Ayodeji." "And Ayodele," he chorused with me. "That’s better. Now, do you know who I am?" he posed, lowering his tone, so that that wistful, almost effeminate quality returned to his voice. "Is that supposed to be some kind of trick question?" Dee asked with as much candour as he could muster, though it was clear to me that he was only to eager to mock Mr Peacock – who thought the sinking sun was returning to his backside. "Trick question? So, you look at me, you see a trickster. Do you see any paint on my face?" "Pardon?" I asked, feigning ignorance, hoping to hear him stress the ‘P’ in paint again. "I say, do you see any paint on my face? Do I look like a clown to you, that I should be performing tricks?" He smirked at his own query. A little laughter rippled in the corner, but was soon silenced when the boy lifted his hand and beckoned to no one in particular. To our surprise, the lot of them, a group of six boys started making their way towards us. A stocky lad stepped to the front to act as the group’s spokesperson as they arrived by our bunk. "They are new boys, they only arrived today, they were brought in by!" "Huh!" he uttered, raising his hand to silence the stocky spokesman "Who asked you to speak? Speak when you are spoken to. You! Tell them who I am." "He is Senior Santos," said the nominated boy, speaking directly to us. "Senior Santos," mused the boy, rolling the second ‘S’ in Santos, as if thrilled by the sound of his own name. A clanging of the bell for supper reached the room from some far away place, and immediately Dee saw this as his cue to round up this unusual interview. "Master Santos, nice to meet you. Right now, myself and my brother are off to have our dinner." And with that Dee attempted to push me ahead of him, and head for the nearest exit. It was a nice try, but Dee only succeeded in stumbling into me as I was brought to a halt by the outstretched tee-square. The boy they called Santos, had barred our way without even looking in our direction. "Thanks for stopping by. Nice to meet you." I said, offering an outstretched hand. This brought a series of soft snorts from Santos, his eyes closed, his head shaking in dismay. Then he took a step back to eyeball us, before looking down at my extended hand, as if though its members had spent all afternoon investigating my nostrils. The on-looking boys had by now stopped murmuring, they seemed to be holding their breath. "So, I am speaking to you, and you want to walk away. That alone deserves punishment. You’ve heard someone call me Senior Santos, then you try to mock me by calling me Master. Save your Master for the Head Master, or House Master. Right now, you are going to serve serious punishment. First of all, kneel down." "Why?" asked Dee innocently, moving closer to me. Why he moved closer to me, I don’t know. We had gone through some things together, but for this very situation, I was already getting ready to make a run for it. That was until Dee cut off my most direct route. "Ah!" came Santos’ reply, jabbing the tee-square on the floor, while smiling impishly. "Look, all this your phoney, sweet sounding phonetics is useless with me. If you try my patience, I will make sure that you are still kneeling down by the time all these boys return from supper. Oya, kneel!" he commanded, pointing to the ground between us. The brief period of intense silence that followed was thankfully punctuated by another distant clanging of the bell summoning the boarders to eat. "Sammy, take off your belt." This brought an immediate reaction from the stocky guy who started to loosen the belt that held up his buff coloured shorts. "You two – stay!" called Santos over his shoulder, indicating the stocky fellow named Sammy and the boy next to him. "The rest of you, report for supper." Dee and I looked at each other with weak smiles, now we could only hope that this was some sort of initiation charade, that would soon draw to a close, bringing relief and laughter. It was all so surreal, Santos himself didn’t appear angry, maybe slightly peeved. Yet that dimpled smile never quiet left his cute baby face, and his tone even in anger had ranged from an excited ET to a mournful Michael Jackson. "I hope you guys are hungry." This was him in ET mode, no doubt he thought he was impersonating Barry White. "Very." I replied, honestly, suddenly remembering that in the excitement of attending our first day, we had skipped lunch, and unlike Dee I had not snacked between meals. Eventually, Sammy whipped out his belt, and attempted to hand it to Santos. A pained expression clouded Santos’ face, as if the thought of holding the belt or putting it to use, would cause undue exertion. He held up his hand to signal Sammy retain possession of the belt. "Even if I was to let you go for your food. You will still be under punishment. Have you tried to eat from a plate balanced on your head before? If you are lucky I will give you that opportunity, but first, kneel down! Before the count of three." He concluded in a rush clicking his fingers and hopping on the spot. "But what have!" I started. "One!" barked Santos, starting to circle us. "You aren’t allowed to!" started Dee. "Two!" "Senior!" Called the other boy trying to attract Santos’ attention. "Three!" My legs began to buckle, one knee started to involuntarily descend, but Dee held me up while looking on at Santos defiantly. "Sammy, belt them." Came the final order. Sammy wound up the belt. He had reached the top of his upswing, when the belt was tugged from behind. He turned, as did Santos. The House Prefect stood their in his shiny trousers, every bit a true knight. "Easy." Came his mellifluous baritone, as he gently took Santos by the shoulders. Santos seemed crestfallen, almost deflated, as he was led away to a corner of the room, mouthing, ‘No,’ and shaking his head, repeatedly. A serious round of negotiations seemed to be going on. Obviously, the House Prefect was making a great attempt to save face for Santos. By now the third bell had gone, and by the time the talks were concluded, we had been sent ahead to attend supper. We were accompanied by Sammy and the other guy, whose name was Austin. On the way, we were caught up by the House Prefect, whose graceful jog seemed to draw him nearer at the speed of a strolling giraffe. He reached our side, and placed one arm over each of our shoulders, as we took the steps to the dining hall. "I’ve pleaded on your behalf. Santos has forgiven you guys, but just so that you know how things work here, you’ll be reporting to him for the next three days, in case he has any little chores he needs you to help him with." It was so nicely put, wrapped up in candy floss, topped with syrup, that I didn’t need to look at Dee to know that he was smiling too. Already, Sammy and Austin, had expressed how proud they were to see us get away with disrespecting a Senior. We hadn’t even been aware of what we were doing; but still, it always felt good to get away with anything. Or so we thought, that was until we started to report for those ‘little chores’.