ffemi had felt that they should just elope, or go to the registry office by themselves and be done with it. they had both already been " victims' of huge society weddings which had made many amother weep with envy in Lagos at the time. And in light of all the hoopla, the failure of these same marriages had made it even more difficult to bear than would be expected.
But Toyin jr. was an incurable romantic, and being true to herself there was something totally unacceptable about not crowning this true love with a proper ceremony. For she knew that even the minds of men were affected by pomp, and elegance and ceremony. Inevitably ,all these elements aided a man to fall in love with his bride,and in the hard and cold days which were sure to come as some point couold be counted upon to sustain it. Then, the memories of past events could serve as an anchor for his soul to her, and allow the ship of their love to weather the storm.
" I have been thinking, femi darling," she began to address him, as she so often did whilst their were seated at the dining table. he had finished eating, and although no mention had been made of what she was about to address, he could see before him that by default the conversation must be about the proposed nuptials and the fulfillment thereof.
She continued," I know you have left all the arrangements to me..."
And he thought to himself without betraying for a moment in his demeanor his displeasure at this nightly conversation," Would that they would have this all behind them! And he wondered facetiously if after the event was done and past they might nrun out of topics of conversation. But then he knew Toyin well, and once she had her mind set upon something it was nearly impossible to sway her from such, and she would doubtlessly replace this cause with another once this issue has been resolved.
He walked over to the other side of the table where his lover sat, and seated himself on the chair beside her, and gently cradling her face in his two hands he kissed first her left cheek, and then her right, and smiling all the while .
" My dearest Toyin,", he finally mustered," you know very well that the last thing in the world I would like to do would be to deny you of your opportunity for a wedding. It should have been both of our firsts, but as fate would have it, is both of our seconds. And i think we must bear this in mind when making the plans. Can we not scale it back a little? It is not because of cost, but more privacy. I dont need the whole of Lagos to attend my wedding to make it valid. "
" I dont think that the term scaling back is one I care to use in this matter. How would I put it? Perhaps if I said something "different" from what our first marriages were those infamous jamborees where we hosted thousands.." Then she paused, and added" Yes,I like the idea of something different, yes,.. something far away from Lagos..."
Now that he opened the pandoras box, the flow of details cou.ld not be stopped, she was now hurling like a runaway train on the tracks being buoyed along by the coals of love." that sounds like an idea to me, the mere fact of removing the venue from Lagos will give us the freedom to make the ceremony more intimate and after what I went through with my first wedding i think that is preferable.. I have been looking at a number of places, and I seem to be settling for for a small chapel ceremony in Las Vegas, we can a small private court weding here before we leave for the U.S. of course, my brothers and their wives shall attend, and you brothers and sisters as well. As for the children, I had hoped they could be ring bearers but then when I think of the trouble of dealing with Iyabo, then I shelve the idea. .. I quite like Las Vegas in the spring.."
She needed little or no encouragement at this point to continue with her reverie, she could already see herself in Las Vegas, surrounded by close family and a few select friends, that appealed to her as a wedding that could be romantic and also fun.
Femi did not seem to be totally averse to the idea, and actually quite liked the thought of it, and it was discussed between them and decided that Las vegas might be the perfect place for them with twenty or thirty guests in attendance.
" i dont mind up to fifty guests total," Femi said, with a mischevious glint in his eyes," and then added as an afterthought," As long as the guests all fly themselves over there. I am not one of those rich nigerians who hires aeroplanes on stolen money to fly guests off to farflung destinations for the wedding of the century! No, and i dont foot hotel bills either, thank you very much. If anyone wants to attend the wedding then they should first make sure that they can afford it." At this they both laughed, for it was true that he would not support his guests in an ostentatious manner, but that was not because he could not afford to do these things, more than that these things offended his sense of propriety. If it came to donating money to the poor or the needy, then femi could open his wallet with ease, but he found it uniquely distasteful to be wasting his hard earned money on the rich and the frivolous.
Toyin had burst into laughter, and rose from her chair by the table. She briefly rang the bell on the dining table to signal the steward to clear the dining table as dinner was over. Then arm in arm they sauntered over to the white leather sofa which was in the adjacent living room, and laid down leaning on the small bule pillows that dotted it. Safely ensconced in each others arms on the sofa they fell asleep in front of the television.
And as all women who live with their lover before marriage, she now found herself in a hurry to put their affairs in order and regularise their situation. This was not only for her own sake, but also due to the fact that her brothers had made it quite clear that to them a tradtional weding ceremony was not quite the same thing as a court or church wedding. For God's sake, they had said, you need some kind of legal footing in this case, no matter how much in love you were, because " when the shit hits the fan" yuo need all the protection of the heavy hand of the law. This was not to say that they anticipated any problems with Femi, as they had both known Femi fairly well for a long time and they felt they had enough knowledge of him to vouchsafe for his basic character., but neither could pretend to know the interior workings of his mind. In reality, they had felt, he was a better match than that "learned" engineer Tokunbo who thought himself a " cut above the rest of humanity" could ever have been. From what they had heard the man had not taken the divorce well at all, but then they had never understood what Toyin had liked about him in the first place; and then to make matters worse, she had even thought that she would be happy living with him in that dreary flat in ikeja, that they could barely stomach to visit. Indeed, they had quietly sniggered behind the back of the engineer when Toyin had left. True, Toyin was altruistic, but she had been brought up accustomed to a certain standard of living and when she had gradually realised that for all Toks positive attributes even he could not make 100 Naira become a million, and so on and so forth. On the otherhand, Femi, though modest at all times, came from one of the wealthiest families in Lagos too. He could afford to send her on those annual excursions to be spent worshipping at the thrones of hedonism at Harrod's and Selfridge's. And, Femi appreciated her efforts, he would notice the new blouse, or the cut of the dress that showed her figure to advantage. On the rare occasions when they attended social functions, he wanted her to appear at his side as the embodiment of sophistication and grace.
For the time being her focus was on the wedding, but after that, who knew what would preoccupy her mind? She had already fully determined that she wanted, God willing, to have four children. This number had not been arbitrarily chosen but rather served to ensure that the numbe rof children she would bear would exceed the three of Iyabo. Yes, she too could be competitive in all the arenas of life, and in this instance she the prisoner of his love, would reverse the role to become the warden herself holding him to her soul with the living shackles of their children for all eternity.
He had originally objected to the idea vehemently, fancying himself the father of seven at the end of the day. " You would make me the father of seven!" he had gushed with some embarrassment.
And she had laughed herself at the expression of his face, " Father of many! They will call you when you go to the market."
Then he would reiterate that seven could never be enough, and to this Toyin was quite fearful that he might actually mean what he was saying, and she accused him of being a male chauvinist who thought that the only role of women was childbearing and housework. " Howe could you say such a thing.." she would say in all earnestness, having totally forgotten that she was the one who had begun the conversation in that direction. " And I who thought I knew you all along? Is that why they say everything changes when you marry? No, Femi, let it not be so for us..."
Inevitably,this would make him laugh all the more, as she still could not always figure out when he was serious or joking with her,
And he laughed, and and with a twinkle in his eye, he took her into his arms and covered her hands and cheeks with small little kisses ever so gentle as a breeze of wind on her cheeks, " Now that was a joke. i dont think
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