Ancestor Stones - Aminatta Forna [113]
Kadie showed no interest in the wedding plans, was heedless of the negotiations over her bride gift. Whenever I showed her swatches of cloth she yawned and kissed me. ‘Whatever you think, mother,’ she said, before changing the subject back to her beloved.
One evening as I looked at my daughter, I thought for the first time how much the nature of love had changed, so much so it was almost unrecognisable.
And then I shook the thought out of my head, because I was her mother and, after all, one of us had to be practical.
The stores in the city sold cloth far superior to any in our town. I stared at the towering piles of folded cloth behind the shop owner. So many to choose from! She was wearing a heavy woven cotton of dark red, shot with gold thread and the highest headdress I had ever seen. I decided to ask her advice.
‘What is the occasion?’ she asked me.
I told her: my daughters wedding ashobi.
‘Come.’ She moved out from behind the counter, beckoning me over. From a glass-fronted cabinet on the other side of the room she pulled out bolts of the finest fabric I had ever seen.
‘What’s this?’ I asked, fingering an edge. Printed on two sides, too.
‘Sheku lappa,’ she said, ‘from Nigeria.’
It was a hot day, she clapped her hands for two glasses of water while we settled down to make a deal. Many dozens of yards of fabric were required to make ashobi outfits for everybody. In the time it took to agree a price we talked of many things. I learned how she travelled to Lagos and brought back the cloth herself. How her shop was the first of three stores she planned. Another in the North and then the South. In time, outlets in the East and West as well. Hours passed before we concluded our business, both of us delaying the time when we would arrive at an agreement and our conversation would come to an end. I decided I liked this woman. I liked her broad, flat face, which was honest — especially for a shop owner. We exchanged names and parted company, but I thought about our conversation for a long time. After the wedding I left Alpha with my mother and travelled back to the city. I was a widow. My daughter had just married. I had negotiated her bride gift well and since my husband was no longer alive, all of it came to me. Well, not exactly all of it. There was family to consider, but even once those obligations were met, a good sum remained. Enough to go into business.
Madam Turay shook her head at me: ‘Pack one good dress, but wear something not so good for the journey,’ she told me. I was wearing my best dress for the trip, I did not want to be shamed in the streets of Lagos.
A saltwater wind whipped our faces as the ship gathered steam. The deck tilted first to one side and then to the other, making it impossible to stand and so we stayed huddled on the floor. I stared at the sea, which from a distance had seemed so inviting but now writhed and roared like a beast. The wind sculpted the water into great white crested waves. I felt certain we would soon all be dead. I could not understand how a boat made of iron could possibly float, but I saw no creases mar the features of Madam Turay’s flat face, so I told myself perhaps we would be all right. Madam Turay found us a place near the middle of the ship, close to the great chimneys where we were sheltered from the worst of it. I pitied the poor souls out there on the open deck in front of us, and I envied the paying passengers in their bunks down below. With each movement of the ship my stomach lurched, as though it had broken free and was rolling around my insides. Madam Turay lit a small stove and set about brewing us some tea. She told me to fix my eyes on the horizon. I did as she bid me and gradually I began to feel better. The horizon looked so close, I assured myself we would be there in no time at all.
Three days and nights the ship sailed. The first night I watched the sun set behind the mountains. In the morning the coast had disappeared from view. Sometimes the sun was in one place and sometimes in another, but the horizon always