Mr. Ajayi and his mother have a conference:

Mrs. Toyin Ajayi Sr. lived in Surulere in one of the small bungalows off Adeniran Ogunsanya road.  The bungalow, though modest, served her purpose well.  As a widow and retired school teacher, she could live a decent life in relative equanimity.  All the windows and doors were heavily barred.  The small compound was walled in by a high brick fence topped with barbed wire.  By the solid iron gate was a little house in which the gate man slept and guarded the gate night and day.

Mr. Tokunbo Ajayi had left the offices of his company in Lagos Island early and stopped by in Surulere on his way home.  These visits were much anticipated by his mother.  Yet, dutifully she always provided an extra seat at her table lest her favorite son should come to dinner.

The menu likewise was always tailored to the likings of her son.  At the end of the day he wanted to eat garri and soup, no talk of beans or rice and stew.  That he could always eat at his own home.

On this evening in particular he arrived earlier than usual.

After the usual greetings he sat down beside his mother at the dining table and proceeded to eat. His intention had been to not introduce the topic of his estranged wife.  After a few minutes he could contain himself no longer.

“Mother, would you believe what happened to me a few days ago? I got home and received a letter from the steward that Toyin had given him.  In it she appealed for me to come over and see her for a possible reconciliation.  I was truly shocked and surprised. Initially  I had thought that she was perhaps going to appeal for me to give her a divorce so that she could marry Femi.”

His mother was looking at him keenly and said:

“ So, I hope you told her that you were very happy to give her a divorce.”

He shook his head between mouthfuls, and gestured with his left hand, “ I found out that her and Femi have now broken it off, and that Femi  has gone back to his wife.”

He paused and took a drink of water all the while looking at his mother to assess her reaction.  His mother who had finished eating , washed her hands in the bowl provided and shook her head back and forth in disbelief.

“ Well, I must tell you now, Tokunbo, you cannot go back to that woman no matter what Femi does or does not do.”

“ I quite agree with you, mom, I had actually never thought that the two of us could reconcile.  It looks to me that she thinks of this relationship as a relationship of convenience.” He answered trying to convince himself that he felt that way.

When dinner had finished they sat down and watched a video in the living room.  Tokunbo was exhausted from the day at work and the previous days turmoil and he fell asleep on his mothers sofa.  By the time he awoke, it  was too late to return safely to Ikeja.  It was decided that he should spend the night at his mothers home in Surulere.

As he made his way into the guest bedroom  he hoped that perhaps by morning he would feel differently about everything.  He might just be able to try to put this whole ruined marriage behind him and get on with his life.  Maybe one day, he thought, he would meet the love of his life , a real love.  Or maybe he had just been in love with the idea of love to the right person.  After all, Toyin had fit every image of the perfect wife for him. She came from the family of a wealthy retired military man, and had been schooled in the private schools of England.  There she had been a boarder for the last three years of her secondary school education.  She had returned to the University of Lagos to study law and had successfully acquired a degree in law in due course.  Moreover, her family came from Lagos, and so did his family as well; and their parents had been friends or at least acquaintances one might say.  The whole courtship had gone by in a flurry of events.  She had wanted marriage, and so had he.

 The “wedding”, had been, for that season, the talk of Lagos.  The ceremony itself had taken place at the Anglican Cathedral, and the reception had been held at the Federal Palace Hotel.  A thousand high powered attendees had graced the occasion.  The governors of Lagos and Oyo state had been present, and so had a sprinkling of commissioners including the most esteemed Dr. Williams of the Lagos State Ministry of Health.  The Governors of  Ondo and Ekiti states had sent their apologies, but had sent gifts and a representative.  Both families had been dressed up in Aso yebi, with the bride’s family coming in Pink Organza lace.  Blue Organza lace had been worn by the grooms family.  A cake had been flown in from a French bakery in Cotonou for the occasion.  Flowers had been ordered from Nairobi and Amsterdam, champagne from France.  The exclusive catering company of Okunyobi and sons had catered for the event with a tasty jeolloff rice, plantain and moi moi.  A salad of sorts had been served, and of course the drinks had all been on the house.  At the end of the formal reception there had been a reception at the brides and grooms families’ residences, after which the happy couple had finally been able to return to their suite at the Federal palace Hotel for the night.

Not long after the return from the honey moon in Abidjan things had started to unravel.  He had found her temperamental.  At first he had not understood why, then later he had found out that she would go out during the day. She would not say where she was going.  It was only much later that he had discovered that she was having lunch meetings with his best friend Femi at a variety of locations  close to Femi’s office.

When he now thought of how all these events unfolded it now seemed so simple and so obvious.  Now he had the benefit of hind sight and could only wonder at how he could have missed all these things at the time.  At that time, he had been perplexed and morose. He had not been able to understand why Toyin was so testy with him.  He could not understand why she rejected all of his advances.  It had become apparent that she was physically repulsed by him.  If he had even so much as touched her arm she would cringe, and quickly make an excuse to leave the room.  After the first month of marriage she had retired to sleep in a small study by the living room where she had placed a small six spring bed to enable her to avoid her husband.

It had only been a matter of time before he had found out the truth.  He could still remember the day when Iyabo had showed up at his office in great distress.  In her right hand she had a hand full of love notes signed “Toyin”.  As there had been no last name written she had wondered whether these belonged to his “ Toyin”.  He had immediately recognized the curly cursive writing of hers, and in disbelief had proceeded to torture himself by reading through every single one of the letters.. Wherin she described with detail how much she longed for Femi night and day.  Iyabo had become hysterical.  She was the mother of two small children and was now seemingly on the verge of finding herself single and alone if she did not think fast.  In her own grief she had not seen the tears slowly running down the cheeks of Mr. Ajayi.  He had said nothing, because if he had spoken the shaking of his voice would have betrayed the depth of his sorrow.  No words could express the fury of the emotion that overwhelmed him, no words he could think of could quell the ranting of Iyabo.

Finalkly he had summoned up enough courage to speak up and went over to the chair where Iyabo was seated and placed his hands on her shoulders.

‘Don’t weep!” he said gently. “ Please my dearest Iyabo, please don’t weep.  I blame myself for introducing them to each other.  But who would have ever imagined that such a dreadful thing would happen and that they would betray our trust so? I am so sorry…”

Iyabo had wailed and cried into his shoulder, for she had been confused and not known what else to do.