“What are you talking about?”
Chidima got up and moved away from Jumobi. “You know. You spend more time with him at the office, so you must know this woman.”
Jumobi couldn’t believe what she was hearing. “There is no one! Oh my God, don’t make me believe all your problems aroused from your assumptions. Assumptions could block your mind and damage your relationship.”
Chidima giggled. “You are a fool!” she spat. “Are you deaf? There never has been a relationship! The only one time Alex and I ever had sex was that first time I spent at his place. Remember when I got back from my grandmother’s burial?”
Jumobi stared at Chidima unbelievably as she felt her world stop. Had Alex been telling her the truth then? “What?”
Chidima looked away. “I lied.”
“Wait, wait, wait,” Jumobi tried to clear her head. “What are you saying? Lied about what?”
Chidima hesitated for long. “About Alex and I,” she replied and started to bite her nails. “As much as I wanted, there was nothing.”
Jumobi shook her head. She was shivering. It couldn’t be from cold. “I don’t believe you.”
Chidima nodded. “That is because you don’t care. How do we have children when we don’t even sleep in the same room,” she laughed. “I don’t know if he told you, but he was telling me about a certain girl. And I was jealous. She wasn’t you, she wasn’t me. And, I always had my fantasies about him, so I tried to bring them to life.” She cleared her throat and rested her back against the wall. “That day you walked in on us in his room way back, was the first time I tried to seduce him.” Chidima laughed at the memory. “Imagine me at fifteen then.” She shook her head. “But I was succeeding until you walked in. Then you left and he almost choked me,” she gave Jumobi a queer look. “I kept on him. He knew I was crazy about him, and I was aware of the unknown girl. But then, I told him I didn’t care as long as he doesn’t leave me.”
Jumobi’s mind was running. She was sure she knew who the unknown girl was. He never lied to her.
“Then,” Chidima continued. “I returned from that burial and he took me out that night.” Chidima closed her eyes. “He told me that we had to stop the façade. That he couldn’t live with the lie.”
“Oh God!” Jumobi cried out. Her life was falling apart.
“So I felt I was losing him.” Chidima told her friend carefully. She smiled. “I didn’t know how I could have faced you with the truth. And I still couldn’t think of it that another girl apart from us would have him.”
Jumobi looked up. Her face was wet with tears. “What did you do?” she wanted to know. Those months, years back, that she waited for the bombshell from her.
Chidima smiled. “Got him drunk and had my way. God! The next morning he cried like a baby. He cursed me! I made him cheat on his girl,” she squeezed her face at the memory. “That was the first and only time I have had sex. He wouldn’t with me anymore.”
Jumobi wanted to ask how they ended up married, but it was happening too fast.
“Those times you sensed something was wrong was when he came to me that he was tired.”
“I find this hard to believe,” she dried her face. “He doesn’t love you. You got him to marry you and still together for five years?”
“Marriage was easy. I told him I was pregnant and my parents said we must be married. Then of course, I know what to say to make him do as I say.”
Jumobi was learning too much. So she controlled him. Jumobi was getting disgusted. Who was Chidima? “Why are you against happiness?” she found herself asking.
“What I am against is our misery!” Chidima defended her act. “I did my part! You didn’t! You work with him and you still let him love another woman!”
“I said there is no woman!” Jumobi yelled back.
“Why don’t you just tell her the truth, Jumobi?”
They both stopped. Alex was in the room.
*****
“What truth?” Jumobi asked. She was breathing hard.
Alex held her gaze challengingly. “Tell her about the other woman in my life, the one I love.”
“Alex, I don’t know what you are talking about. I don’t know any woman. I have always believed in the both of you. Today is too much for me to bear.”
They were quiet.
“Okay,” Alex said. “She knows the woman.” He pointed to Chidima. “I told her, but she doesn’t believe me. All what she is putting you through now, is a test because she wants to hear you tell her.”
Chidima shook her head, looking from one to the other. “What are you saying Alex?”
He laughed. For the first time in another person’s presence, she dropped sweetheart or honey and the likes of them. “You say you love Jumobi. You call her your friend, yet you kill her.”
“Alex,” Jumobi started.
“Don’t let her get you,” Alex warned Jumobi. “She is dangerous! For twelve years, she has shown me that much!”
Jumobi laughed despite herself. “Oh yeah?”
“Do you want a proof?” he asked her.
Now, that got Jumobi. A proof? She was listening.
“What proof?” Chidima asked, suddenly caught off guard. She thought Alex was crazy. If he broke down now, he would be the loser. She had nothing to lose.
“I wasn’t talking to you,” Alex told her.
Jumobi got up and grabbed her bag from the bed. “I think I should be on my way,” she started for the door.
“And I am sure she asked you why you didn’t marry Bolaji,” Alex said.
Jumobi stopped at the door, just beside him. She looked at him. “What has that got to do with anything?”
Alex hated what was happening, but it was time Jumobi knew the truth. “Chidima had an arrangement with him. He was supposed to get you out of her way.”
Jumobi shook her head as she began to see in twos. Then to her surprise, Chidima laughed. Instead of denying the fact, she laughed, still looking at Jumobi with an unconcerned attitude.
FIVE
Once upon a time, Jumobi was my friend. Then in the twinkle of an eye, she got so engrossed in the thoughts of Alex. He was writing her letters.
How could I have allowed that? We were three friends. They wanted to cut me out. They wanted me in the street, stripped off the protection of friendship.
I acted that afternoon. I never knew Jumobi would come over to Alex place. But I was happy she came because she believed what she saw.
Jumobi, the nice girl couldn’t stop being my friend even as hurt as she was. Then I suspected she had erased Alex from her mind. So, I became her friend again.
In sincerity, I returned the friendship, until she betrayed me again. I had been looking for a pen in her school bag. She had gone to the staff room. I found the letter he wrote to her explaining what happened. I had been mad. She didn’t tell me about the letter. And I felt like a fool because she knew the truth. That fueled my determination to put them apart, since they were bent on being together and leaving me out in the cold.
I never allowed Alex fulfill his promises to Jumobi. Fate was on my side. Or, how else would I have come this far without the assistant of fate? At every point, I had what to use on him. His secret.
I knew that sooner than later, Alex would gather enough courage to tell Jumobi the truth. And out of love, she would forgive him, because love does stupid things. So I acted.
Bolaji fitted the plans. We knew from school. One guy who always had the hots for Jumobi. What guy didn’t back then? Even till now, they all want her.
Bolaji and I established a good friendship when I ran into him. Soon I knew all about his life and business. I could help him improve if he would help me take care of Jumobi. I told him she was lonely and scared of guys. After he started seeing her, I told him she loved him. That she told me, but that she was confused. I begged him. She is my friend. I want her to be happy. If he married her, I would help him get one important connection for his business. He believed me,
but he failed at her. He failed because he truly cared about Jumobi and he saw that something was wrong somewhere. So he backed off.
I wouldn’t have done anything, if Alex had been secretive as Jumobi. She tells me nothing. Not that they were sleeping together. Jumobi is too refined to take another woman’s husband to bed. But then, I know they love each other’s company so much. And he boasts about it to me a lot. One day he would get out of my bondage.
What could he do to make sure Jumobi never found out that he was the father of her nephew? That his action took a life?
How that event even came to be was still a mystery to him. It was Toyin who had made the pass at him. He couldn’t blame her entirely anyway, because she had too much to drink that night at the club. And he also had been tipsy. His problem was that he could have been able to control himself. Their dancing together had gotten more intimate and they got kissing and they had gone out to the car and they made out.
Alex came to his senses immediately after but it was too late to take back what had happened. They were both embarrassed by it, because they knew they crossed a dangerous line.
After that day, they simply drifted apart. What happened was an issue between them that they couldn’t live it.
Toyin was Jumobi’s elder sister. They were course mates at school. Because they knew from home, they remained friends at school and always went out together whenever they felt up to it. Toyin wasn’t into guys that much. She had broken up with her boyfriend two months before the episode with Alex at the club.
Then one day in class, from where she sat, Toyin passed a note to him that he should meet her outside. That it was very serious. He immediately reacted to the message. Since that night, all he and Toyin had said to each other were hi and hello. Why does she want to see him suddenly? He found out when he went outside to meet her. She didn’t wait for him to get closer before she threw the words at him that she was pregnant.
“Wh… wh… what?” Alex had stammered.
She simply looked at him. “Don’t stare at me that way. We have to do something?”
He was sensible enough not to ask her if she was sure he was responsible. Toyin was a good girl. He had remained speechless for long thinking how to handle the situation.
“I know Chidima is your girlfriend,” Toyin had told him. “Although she is Jumobi’s friend, she isn’t mine. I don’t want her shit. We have to do something.”
He was going to open his mouth to tell her it wasn’t Chidima but Jumobi. Then he realised what he almost did. Toyin would have killed herself to think she did that to her little sister.
The something was to have the pregnancy terminated. They both agreed. Alex went about getting an appointment with a doctor who did such operations in secret; he was quite known to students.
But on that day, the pregnancy wasn’t removed. Toyin had taken ill the night before and they decided to wait till she got better, since she was just five weeks along.
Unfortunately, her mother had visited and met her ill. The woman insisted that Toyin went to the hospital. Toyin couldn’t talk her way out. Toyin got admitted and her mother got to know from the doctor that she was pregnant. That was the end of the plan for an abortion.
*****
Toyin remained tight lipped. She couldn’t tell anyone. It was very disgraceful. How would her sister feel? Chidima was Jumobi’s friend. They would simply drift apart because of Toyin’s mistake. She couldn’t tell anyone.
But then, Chidima found out. She had gone to Jumobi’s place. From outside the door, she heard the argument inside. She listened. It was Alex voice. She couldn’t believe it. Alex was responsible. She sensed nobody was in the house. She didn’t bother to knock. She simply left.
She never told anyone what she knew. It was her treasure. It became a most priced treasure when Toyin died at child birth after losing so much blood. The whole family would have buried him alive if they had known that it was because of him that Toyin got to the labour room and died.
Fortunately for him, Dotun looked like his mother. But then, Alex lived in fear of his secret. It would have been easier, if Toyin had not died.
So Alex lived with his secret that nobody knew, or so he thought.
On one vacation from school, he had been under a lot of pressure from Chidima. She wouldn’t stop pretending that they were dating. He begged her off. He told her the truth about Jumobi and she said she knew.
He had been shocked. “So why are you doing this?”
“Because I want you.”
“But I love Jumobi, don’t you understand?”
Chidima had looked at him long. “If you did you wouldn’t have done what you did.”
He had been confused. “What did I do?”
“Dotun is your son. Toyin told me.”
Alex had been speechless. He didn’t know if to believe her. Toyin couldn’t have told her, but he couldn’t prove that. The girl was dead.
“Let’s don’t make matters worse. What would it take for you to be my boyfriend?”
He almost screamed at her, but he thought twice.
She had smiled. “Okay just pretend. Please.”
He never knew her gain from depriving Jumobi. And he never told Jumobi; because she never would have believed it that her friend didn’t want her happiness. It sounded absurd.
There were times he had wanted to spill the truth out to Jumobi’s family. Then he would remember how Jumobi’s mother swore the day her daughter died and he would develop cold feet.
He relived his punishment anytime he saw Dotun. His son. Alex got used to living with his secret. And he got used to Chidima. All he believed was that one day, he was going to tell the truth and free himself off her. She was more dangerous than the devil. Or how else could he explain how she remained at his side always whenever he was around from school. She never left him alone in a room with Jumobi. It got to a point that his precious Jumobi started to stay away from him. She told him that she loved Chidima. She wanted Chidima to be happy. They had a good relationship, he should forget about her. There was nothing he could say to change Jumobi’s mind.
Then he had his opportunity when Chidima traveled to bury her grandmother. He thanked God that Jumobi had a make-up test, else she would have gone with her friend. He had taken that opportunity and had still messed it up. What he intended to do that night was tell her the truth, but he couldn’t. It was one night he should enjoy with her, not cry over.
*****
Then Chidima came back and somehow, she got him to take her to bed. The next morning he chased her away from his place. He couldn’t see Jumobi with the guilt of what he did. Chidima came most time, but he would chase her away. He realised she didn’t return to the hostel, but to a friend’s place in town. He cared less. She never said anything, until the day she came to tell him she was pregnant and wouldn’t terminate it. He knew he was trapped. It was either he married her or his secret poured out. She told him. He almost chose his secret, but he thought about not having Jumobi anymore. If he married Chidima, Jumobi would still be there for him. She would be hurt but would overlook it all because they were all friends.
It worked. Jumobi never said anything to him. She never questioned why he changed his mind about telling Chidima about them. She was more concerned about hurting Chidima than she was about her happiness.
Then they started working together. Chidima did that to taunt them. They had been working together for three weeks and Alex was getting more restless because she was keeping her distance. Worse was the fact that she moved out of Ikeja, where her family was to Akoka. He felt she was purposely keeping a distance between them.
Jumobi was clearing her desk to go home when he walked into her office one day to talk to her. She had smiled at him. Well, he was used to that. She always smiled at him.
“Hi,” she said. “I thought you had left.”
He hesitated as he watched her, wondering how he lost her. He wondered if it was his destiny that he should never have her. “Wa
iting to talk to you.”
She stopped what she was doing and looked at him. “Hope nothing is wrong.”
“Us.”
Then she turned away from him. “I don’t want to talk about it,” she faced him and folded her hands. “Don’t get me wrong. I am not mad at you. You guys are my friends and I want you to be happy.”
“And you?”
She smiled. “I am a big girl. I can handle me well.”
He had nothing else to say. He couldn’t say he didn’t feel anything for Chidima; else he would have explained how they ended up married.
*****
They continued that way. In his presence, she started to date other guys and he bled inside. But he couldn’t tell her not to have a life. He made his choice. And she never knew his pains and his bondage. If only he could tell her! But telling her had its own consequences. He tried to stay contented with the fact that they were friends. Each day, they broke a wall and got closer. Having her as a friend made him forget about his bondage, for he spent more time with Jumobi. Gradually, she warmed up to him again and they never talked about the past. To her, he was happily married.
Anytime she saw a sad look upon Chidima’s face, she would question him as a very concerned friend, but he would always tell her that they were fine. He didn’t know when it happened. It started like a joke and she got so serious with Bolaji. It was Chidima who encouraged her. She said everything good about Bolaji and pushed Jumobi harder. Then as suddenly as it had started, it ended. He couldn’t have been happier. He never asked her why because Chidima told him why. Jumobi was still waiting for him. Alex had laughed. He didn’t believe it. He lost Jumobi a long time ago. They were very good friends alright, working together and all that, but that was where it ended.
*****
The day had really been disastrous. He knew what his wife was up to when she convinced Jumobi to stay the night. Chidima had gotten so restless of late that he felt she was tired of the life they were both living.
He had pushed his dinner away because he couldn’t eat it. He hardly ate at home. It was occasionally when he was in a good mood that he ate. And he was in a good mood during the party, because Jumobi was close by. Then she took Jumobi away into the room and his mind kept running wild, wondering at the kind of friend his wife was.