Entangled Hearts

Winifred

     
           
                          Winifred

         
                     The other side felt cold and empty when she woke up. Winifred sat up, propping her back on the bed frame as she stifled a yawn. Her phone popped with a notification from phoenix and she sighed when she saw " 7:35 pm", in white letters on top of the screen but then it explained why the slight sounds of music had died down all of a sudden and why the other side of the bed was cold. The party had ended, Jalade had probably left  and she had slept straight for two hours or more.
              Winifred sighed again. More sad that Jalade had left than the fact that she had slept for so long. She couldn't be in the bathroom because there would have been sounds if she were. She would have heard the shower rush or the toilet groan if she flushed. She would have even been out by now. Jalade had left without waking her or even leaving a note behind, which was totally uncharacteristic of her.
            Probably she had been in a hurry because she came with her parents and had decided not to wake her when she was leaving so her sleep wouldn't be disturbed. Winifred sighed mentally criticizing herself for being selfish but then she really liked Jalade. She loved her and she couldn't wait to get a chance to go abroad. She would see Jalade first before anybody else and then show her how loving she could be. How fierce she could be loving someone.
            The bathroom was cold and empty with it's pink tiled walls and everything in order. Not just how she kept it but how it had always been. A tinge of jalade's perfume remained in the air satisfying that part of her that still hoped that she was still in the room. It also showed that she hadn't been gone for too long but then it reminded her of Debbie.
           Showering in the cold water she thought of Jalade, of the previous hours she had spent with her. If the times they had showered together, when no one was at home. When her mother wasn't bound to walk in at any moment. Back then when she hadn't learnt to lock the door. When she wasn't old enough to do so.
           The guilt of what she had done with Debbie whipped past her in the shower like an old ghost but she quickly washed that thought away with the splaying shower water. She was drunk and lonely and it wasn't like she was going to tell Jalade or Silver. That was like one of the things she would  take along with her to the grave. She had Jalade now and forever, possibly.
           The main palour was in disarray when she came down. It was now a shadow of what it bad been before the party. The ribbons and coloured fabrics that had once adorned it had now been taken down and piled on the floor in an untidy heap. The floor was now cluttered with enamel pates and empty drink cans doing their short marathon across the room, sprinklings of rice and vegetables that lay strewn across the floors and even on the furnitures like flowers. The types flower girls in the church weddings she attended threw across from their bowls to usher in the bride. The mess of rich people, her parents rich friends and their children. The entrance door opened, a short creak, letting her mother in.
           Her mother was still in her party frock looking exhausted with evident tiredness in her eyes. Winifred had expected her mother to stop and yell at the servants while they cleaned up but she didn't. She was obviously too weary to do that and Winifred wasn't surprised either. The party was exhausting enough to take up all that reserve of strength.
          " I see you had a lot of catching up", her mother said, breaking the ice.
          " Catching up?", Winifred blurted, feeling confused. Her mother's neck was lined up with sweat from the enermous jewellries nestling heavily on it. Her face now looked caked up with sweat and the brown powder that had started to turn to grime on account of the sweat.
         " Yes with Jalade, or what did you do?", She retorted with her eyes narrowed, seconds before she burst into a light cackle.
          Winifred breathed in relief. Her sins had been forgotten.
         " Yes, we did", she replied, almost stuttering.
         " I am really proud of that girl", her mother said thoughtfully as she climbed the stairs. Winifred followed behind, aware that she had the job of listening and echoeing a " yes or no", when required.
         " She came to see us and drop her wedding invitation. She's getting married to one delta boy...", her mother to slide of her shoes at the corridor.
         " He's from a rich family too and they seem to deal on crude oil..Winifred!", her mother piped all of a sudden.
           Winifred jumped. She looked up plainly in an attempt to look expressionless before her mother. To hide the shock that had coursed through her veins, that still coursed through it. Jalade's shock and the jump her mother gave her, more importantly jalade's shock.
           Her eyes met with her mother's narrowed ones, with their brows creased. The look she gave when she smelled a rat, when she was suspicious. Winifred breathed hard, tensely trying to push away the urge to scream, to shout , to break down in a panic attack or even cry.
          " You look startled", her mother stated calmly. Her eye brows were no longer raised they looked levelled now with concern.
          " It's nothing", she replied grateful to her voice that it did not stutter.
         " Are you sure Winifred?. You zoned off",
         " Mum, it's really nothing. I just remembered I have a lecture tomorrow morning", she lied, hoping her mother bought it. Her pretend serious student lie. Her mother laughed instead.
         " Is that why you look like you saw a ghost?. You children are just like your father. Too serious with everything", she had bought it.  
             It had obviously gladdened her heart that Winifred had thought of that. That she valued her education. She was still smiling when they got to her door. Her room door. The room she shared with her husband to Winifred, it was her parents room.
             Winifred herself was suprised that they had gotten there, she hadn't even remembered walking. Her mother opened the door to the bedroom she and her father shared. She was supposed to walk away to her room, leave her mother to her privacy but she couldn't. Her feet stayed put rooted to the floor. It had become one with the tiles. Her mother turned to look at her.
           " Why are you standing like a stranger in your father's house. Come in, if you want",
           She took that as a cue.
           The room was three times wider, larger and more spacious than her room. In the center was a huge queens bed with the sheets, duvet and even the bed frame in milk colour. Everything else was red. The furnitures, air conditioner, wall rugs. Everything apart from the high brown ceiling, the coffee coloured furry foot rug that lay at the foot of the bed. The colour of the room changed with each new house her father built but the colour of the foot mat never changed, it stayed coffee, the colour of freshly brewed coffee forever. As long as she remembered and even now.
            An old memory unlocked itself, almost immediately. A memory of her parents room in their second house, two houses before they moved to this one. The memory of the time when her parents preferred their room being blue with everything except the ceiling and the foot rug. When she was a much younger girl, a child and they still lived in their second house.
             Back then, when she still loved to snuggle under duvet beside her mother on rainy nights when the rain fell angrily and the thunder barked. When her father had gone on one of his money making trips and her three brothers had all gone back to school and there was nobody else to go to. She had always come to her mother, snuggled into the duvet while she was still fast asleep. Allowing those motherly hands pull her closer, allowing her nose take in her mother's sweet night scent. The scent of high street talcum powder and her mild perfume that smelt like lavender and orchids. The scent that still up till now, made her mouth feel like it was filled with foaming ice cream. The scent that made her feel so safe that she could do anything. That she giggled and did a cockroach dance on the bed. Her hand and foot wiggling dance.
              Her mother turned from her seat on the stool in front of the dressing table . The dressing table she  shared with her father cluttered with her bottles of perfume, roll-ons, vitamin supplements with barely anything belonging to her father. Where she sat talking of her earrings and the huge configuration on her neck.
            " Do I still have to tell you to seat?", She asked her daughter before turning back to her mirror. To what she was doing.
              Winifred took her mother's cue again. She  sat on the edge of her parents bed with her feet lightly sunk in the furry foot mat. With her head hung limply, she watched her mother dab coconut oil on cotton wool which she ran on the sea of oily brown on her face. She thought of Jalade though it seemed impossible.
              She had always dreamed of them back then in the days. She had hoped that they would always be like that then, together. When Jalade left for her further studies at Oxford, her heart had compressed and stayed like that. She had only chosen to forget that it felt like that, tight and compressed.
              The only reason she could never look at another person, she could never think of  anybody else that way. The way she thought and saw Jalade and now, that feeling had come back. It had always been there but forgotten, this had reminded her of it. Of how compressed her heart felt.
          " Are you still thinking about the lecture?", her mother asked still facing the mirror. The sea of oily brown was gone and a smile sat instead, plastered on her face.
          " Your father wasn't this over zealous but I guess it increases with the generation", she added thoughtfully as she applied another coat of baby oil on her face. Some one knocked on the door.
          " Yes, come in", her mother called.
          " Ma", Bola peeked in. She was one of the two other maids apart from Bisi.
          " What it is it?", her mother asked. Her impatient tone had returned.
          " Madam, it's about dinner. What to cook ma",
          " Cook ke?, her mother paused looking up for moment. She looked thoughtful.she then  looked at the large wall clock above the table mirror. She took a deep breath before she spoke again.
         " It's already eight o'clock just warm the soups in the cooler"
         " Yes ma ", the girl replied.
         " Use fish for I and my husband. Winnie will you like the fish or chicken?",
          " Oh, fish...will be good", Winifred stuttered, suprised that her mother had called her with her name in short. That softly. 
             In a better mood she would have protested about the nickname but now, it did not matter. She was too sad to care. To make any long sentence, wether long, short or very short. A lump of water had already settled on her throat, she felt it. The kind of lump that only allowed her to swallow, nod, make a phrase but would fufil it's threat of bursting open if she made the mistake of opening her mouth to say something that was not a phrase. She had lost the appetite to eat but she had to do so, if she did not want any more attention.
            Winifred ate dinner alone with her mother. Her father had not returned from where ever he had gone off to and if it bothered her mother, she did not show it. She ate with much enthusiasm but Winifred picked at her food, barely touching the fish and occasionally zoning off.
           " Jalade would have her white wedding by December, she'll probably resign her job abroad and stay back to face her family", her mother said while she ate. Winifred only nodded as her mother drove home her stab.
          " So you'll have to be there ", her mother was looking directly at her.
          " Why!", Winifred blurted. It was more of a scream, a shout, an out burst, than a question and if it was a question, it sounded rude. She bit her tongue, regretting her lack of control.
          " For Jalade's wedding, you two are like best friends. I'm sure she'll very much want you to come", her mother explained innocently as if Winifred hadn't given her out burst seconds ago. She chuckled again, she was in a good mood.
          " I better ask Titilayo for the price of her daughters aso-oke. Or better still, give her the money to help me get my own material tomorrow", she rattled on. Winifred nodded again.
              She wished her mother knew how many daggers she had already sent to her poor heart with her happy words.
              For once, Winifred wished her mother would choke on her food and stop talking, so that the room would fill with her coughing . That she would topple over her chair with coughing, so she could run out to get some water for her and then dissolve into her room and stay there,  getting rid of the steam surging in her heart, the one that was presently making her nose hurt. She shuffled her feet and stood up. Her mother paused her food to look at her.
           " What is it?",
           " Nothing mum, I'm going to my room", she replied.
           " Why?", her mother asked again. She felt like breaking a chair on her, she wished she could.
            Her mother's eyes darted all over her, searching for and waiting for an explanation. She had to think of something, a solid reason to leave but then she couldn't think. Thinking took too long, she wacked her brain instead.
            " My stomach..it's not feeling good" she lied squeezing her face. She had to look it. Every one in the world no matter how intelligent they were always fell for that.
           " It must have been from the party, something I ate", she pushed on, this time more in control of herself.
          " Ok", her mother shrugged. She didn't mind. " Take some flagyll to calm it", she added in concern.
          " I will mum, goodnight", she replied, trying to sound as blunt as ever. So that her mother wouldn't sense anything or hear the water that stood in-between her voice.
          " Good night dear", her mother replied.
              Winifred willed her legs, she did not look back instead, she focused on making it to the stairs. Her legs felt as heavy as logs but not as heavy as her heart was. She had barely even made it to her room before the steam rose to her eyes, condensing and then rolling down her eyes, her face. A rivulet from each eyes. A tiny sob escaped her chapped lips while she locked the door.
             Throwing herself on the bed, she grabbed one of her pillows pushing her face into it before uttering her first scream admist the hot tears that flowed freshly on her face with the stick images of Jalade rearing themselves in her head.
             It would have been much better if Jalade stayed back and got married there. It would have been much better if she hadn't come back and ressurected the feelings that now churned in her now. Those feelings that she had once thought were dead. That she had forgot to feel.
             It was even much better that she hadn't even attended the party or come to her, given her so much hopes. Made her think that they were back to normal, that she still thought of her, wanted her. Stirred up deep feelings that had now turned to pain in her heart.
           Now she understood everything, she understood why she had first suggested they go upstairs in the first place. Why she had left so quickly without even bothering to wake her or drop a note. The ring on her finger. She started to cry afresh, pulling the sheets to her face. She even cried more because the sheets, even the pillows smelt like her. Even the bathroom. She knew she would spend most of her days in the house, haunted by Jalade's memories.
           Haunted by the past memories of a girl she  loved, one she couldn't have but had always wanted to be with. To marry, if Nigeria wasn't so homophobic. She banged her fists against her pillow, hating herself for being so vulnerable, for almost confessing love to a girl who was not even available. A girl who chose a boy over her, someone else other than her.
            She even hated herself more for longing for Jalade, hoping that she would fufil her promise of staying. She hated whatever made her think that someone she had lost contact with for about five years hadn't moved on, still had her in mind. She felt foolish.
             She rolled over willing herself to stop but she couldn't instead, more tears came and in their torrents as more and more memories flashed before her, taunting her to do her worst. She cried even more because she knew she still loved Jalade and there was nothing she could do to save the situation.

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