TÓDÙN

36

TÓDÙN

I counted oranges into the basin that was placed at my front after talking to Kunle who was just waking up when I was almost done with all my house chores.

"Thirty, thirty two, thirty four, thirty six." I counted in twos and stopped when Aunty Romoke walked into the house with her children.

"Good morning ma." I greeted and went on my kneels.

"Morning, my dear." She replied, dropped her baby on the floor and pulled a stool closer to me. She helped in counting into another basin, stood up and went to the backyard when she heard my Mum's voice, she then came back some few minutes later and resumed what she was doing earlier.

"What about our in-law." I blurted because basically that has been one of what I was thinking ever since I saw her the previous day. Why will she be in her parents house when she has a husband, I asked myself several times before the arrival of my Mum but something kept telling me she might be around on a visit.

"He is no longer your in-law." She replied instantly.

"Why?" I questioned her and held the hand of her daughter who sat very close to me.

"We broke up."

"Why?" I asked again and she laughed.

"Why do people break up?" She answered my question with a question. "Isn't it because they are incompatible? She asked and used her hand to wipe the tears that was gathering in her eyes.

"it might be because of that." I answered her and watched her blow her nose into her baby's bib that also serves as handkerchief.

"What happened." I inquired, ready to suspend the orange business and listen to the plight of a friend I have had since childhood, a friend that doesn't mind the age distance between us.

"You know he learnt tailoring, right?"

"Yes I did."

"And he opted for farming when it wasn't paying off." She continued and sniffed while I shook my head to tell her I was listening. That he learnt tailoring for several years and turned out to be a farmer, to me has been an old gist because her Mum told my Mum herself.

"We borrowed money from a microfinance bank to use in making the farm a big one." She sniffed. "And with the help of God things changed a little, at least unlike before the time we borrowed the money, we ate three square meals a day, I started a petty trading and we managed to buy a plot of land apart from the land he farmed." She continued, sniffed and cleaned her tears before they flowed down to her cheek.

"All of a sudden he started the habit of drinking and started a big time womanizing." She said in distinctive English, it wasn't a surprise since she took most of the prizes for English language when she was in school. I patted her back and watched her use the same bib she used to wipe her nose to wipe dirt off the hand of her baby.

"I tried to understand because most of the men in the area we lived did same thing, I even had to stop buying expensive things so that there will be money for my child." She pointed to her daughter "To go to school and I talked to him about it believing he would stop the act but instead he got worse and on some occasions when he came back home drunk, he lets out his frustration by beating me." She burst into tears and her body shook vigorously.

"E pele ma, I am so sorry." I rubbed her back the more and pacified her while my Mum joined us by spreading the mat on the floor and sat on it.

"My business even though it was small crumbled, he could barely feed us, we had to sell off the land and everything on it when the microfinance bank came asking for their money and each night after each drink he beats me up." She raised her cloth to show me the scars on her body.