Treating corpse like carcass

---

The man's room seemed to be asking for one more chair as a condition for not shedding tears any more. Many such rooms there were of those owned by jobless bachelors. The somewhat striking piece of carpentry in this one was an inherited carved chair with curved arms. The room had some three minutes ago swallowed an Alphonsus living three kilometres away. Like the Bertram owner of the room, Alphonsus had his polo top over a waist-high jeans trousers that for this reason could decently conceal the small of his back. Bertram was the slightly fairer of the two but also the one bulkier while both of them had just clocked twenty-seven with Alphonsus looking twenty-eight or twenty nine.

Presently, in a bossy voice, Alphonsus, who had invited himself to the apartment sought to have a newspaper not more than two-days old for a lingered glance at its headlines and centre-spread.

"I'm sure this is your first time here", remarked Host Bertram.

"That's the just naked truth", admitted Alphonsus.

"Then, try to show naked interest in my albums, not in newspapers old by a day or two".

"Oh, I'm sorry", came the defeated voice of Alphonsus but his was a ceremonial request for Bertram's album and for it was obliged three of the same color but not of the same size.

Only a minute spent by Alphonsus' eyes on the smallest of the albums and a questioning finger was planted by him on one of the pictures in it with a desire to know if Bertram was the fellow.

"No. My father. By the way, the woman beside him is gone".

"Your mother?"

"Yep".

"Now, some kind of ghost?"

"Yes. Fully a ghost".

A sincere silence of about ten seconds, then Alphonsus' sincere sorry for the three-years-old event and loss.

"It's alright, Buddy..... The incident shall soon be four-years-old.

Alphonsus had restarted his glances at the pictures with roughly a half minutes for each. Soon, he stopped to show Bertram a picture he could swear he had snapped in the frontage of a building for goods storage. Bertram was impressed by the faultless guess and said so through on-the-spot remark about his having got a remarkable gift of recognition.

"Really? Remember, I'd mistaken your father for you in the other pix".

"Yes. For our resemblance in a tricky manner", quipped Bertram. Bertram did not forget to also quip that he had not been very excited about the resemblance.

"Sorry", said a digressing Alphonsus.

"You' aren't the fellow in yellow polo, his bag yellow".

Alphonsus had said this as though declaring a religious belief.

"Actually, a first cousin of mine from father' side", replied Bertram.

Easily, Bertram remembered aloud Alphonsus interest in a newspaper not more than two days old.

"Well, I'd reckoned you might not have today's paper nor yesterday's".

Alphonsus' eyes had stopped following the pictures in Bertram's mini album and started following Bertram himself, for his having begun to arrange some meal for both of them.

"But your request for a newspaper of two days at the longest had also meant you wouldn't release your precious time for a week-old newspaper".

It had become convenient for Bertram to hand his visitor Alphonsus a plateful of fried rice; on Bertram's face as he was doing it, an unprofessional cook's contentment with his kitchen effort. Alphonsus' interest in answering Bertram's question was not lessened by this gesture of hospitality.

"It's my thinking that readers of newspapers in public shouldn't go beyond two-days-old ones for the sake of their image".

Alphonsus could have added that weekly magazines behind by another one week on date of publication should not be displayed in the open by its readers, except the ones who would not ask a said "Why?" when it had become a subject of lengthy gossip.

Meanwhile, Alphonsus had collected and used Bertram's extended hand wash dish, flapped his hands to rid them of water droplets and begun to help himself to spoonfuls of the fried rice with stew.

Midway the banquet, Bertram got from him a complimentary rating as a five-star chef. A 'Thank You' from Bertram and drama of glancing at himself in a near mirror for the obvious or hidden chef in him. Alphonsus had some more spoonfuls of the served fried rice with stew, smacked lips of satisfaction, saluted Bertram for the hospitality and thanked God for same.

"I must thank you for saluting me and simply thanking God for the received", said Bertram for the sake of comic laughter but ended up sounding like a Christian by half.

Then, a dramatic remembrance by Alphonsus of a 4.00pm appointment he had with a Gas Supplier and as dramatic disclosure that he would have to forget about it, for it was long past the hour - almost 5.00pm.

"But what if the chap learns that you're here and makes for my apartment in quest of you?"

"No, Bert; what I've cancelled is cancelled for all giants and dwarfs. The Gas Thing shall have to be some tomorrow". Alphonsus felt a curious ease, just watching the effect of this remark on his Bertram host.

"Oh! You've finally helped me to understand why Harriet's father's pressures have yet to move you on the need to properly marry Harriet.

"Marriage my foot! I heard that your community later asks for the dead body of her daughters married to non-natives like me"

"What? who had told you that?"

"Goodness me! You've just sounded like God after Adam's admission of his nakedness".

"Please, answer my question: who has been your reckless informant of a hardly important matter for the bachelor who wants to change his story with a wife from here?"

From Alphonsus Bertram first got a moment's hesitation and a fake yawn.

"Well, shall I say: somebody like you?"

"What? somebody like Bertram?"

"Yes, in the sense that the fellow is a native of Odomo Ancient Kingdom?"

"Oh really? And the guy probably said that Odomo Custom has elements of foul play in it".

"I think I can assure you that the person never said anything of the like".

"All the same, I'm permitted to believe - or am I not? that your mind is now a poisoned one; so much that you can't bring yourself to complete the marriage rites you owe Harriet.

"You know that I haven't yet said anything of the sort".

"Oh! Forget it... should Harriet after your traditional wedding, suddenly breathe her last, you'd love to head for your Ugam Community with her corpse".

"Perhaps, you should tell me what would be angering or unfair about it".

"I'm afraid that has rung in my ears like you might try to preserve Harriet's body for the purpose of occasional love-making with her?"

"Then, Bertram fully knows how sweet sex with The Dead tastes!"

"Wuh! Now, I know it'd mean a fat lot to you that you were finally denied your rightful collection of your wife's corpse".

This time, Alphonsus did not feel persuaded to vouchsafe Bertram's remark a reply. What he thought fitted Bertram and his last words was a sudden abandonment of his apartment for his own apartment...

Readily, Alphonsus dropped Bertram a "See you, some other time" and turned to take an ungentlemanly leave of him. He had made it to the rooms exit door, when he said to have one last casual look at Bertram's face before quitting his presence.

"God! I saw that smile or didn't I?"

Alphonsus had just turned in time to glimpse a dozen-times pitying smile, which Bertram's lips had the special pleasure of describing behind his back. Before this paid visit, Alphonsus had heard a great deal about the smile and had said, on foot, for the purpose of verification, crush the three-kilometre wide berth between his own lodge and Bertram's, fully trusting that an opportunity to catch the smile would present itself.

And - lol - the opportunity did come - a painful one though, for he did not find the smile funny at all! A damned too patronizing one it was!

At last, it had proven true the gossipy rumor by his whisky friends on the subject. Bertram felt much delighted by his crazy rush at Harriet for a raunchy affair, as he had been trying to find her a replacement, dying to end their love affair ceremoniously and if he could not, then, unceremoniously. Alphonsus thought now he should believe the story. A man who had long co-habited with a woman but no longer wished to have her for a wife often hooked her up with some other fun lover and later kept artfully prodding the guy to hasten their tying of the nuptial knot. So, is it any longer a wonder while he was in Bertram's apartment the bastard showed his anxiety that he make Harriet his legitimate wife partner. Good and fine! But, unfortunately, he is not ready, for now, to name let alone choose a wife. Perhaps, in the nearest future the idea will sneak into his mind.

"Yes. soon, I shall begin to spare the very idea thoughts".

Still, Alphonsus knew that he had lost the firmest ground on which a man, young or old, could stand and reason in the manner he had been doing. He had no right anymore to a "Fuck, Harriet and fuck the idea"! or "I don't fucking care about any fucking marriage with any fucking woman".

Both are not utterances one still bold makes after fathering a baby by a woman and the woman is not allergic to marriage nor disinterested in having a wedding ring slipped on her finger for it ...

Not quite three years he, Alphonsus, youthfully - or was it rashly? - allowed his egg-fertilizing sperms to swim into Harriet's urethra and mould his now two years-and-eight-months-old son, Darlington, whereas he had had a world of chances as a devoted watcher of blue films to be expertly withdrawing his seven inches from Harriet's six at ejaculation time. Alphonsus found it difficult to believe that Harriet herself had lacked knowledge of the tips and guides to safe sex or love making without condom that would not lead to conception...

Only for a week had Alphonsus and Harriet shared what might be called illicit conjugal bliss. From the very moment their male-now-very-sick son Darlington was born to a following seven days...

After the Seventh day's expiration, that was it! Goodbye to a momentary conjugal stay and bliss that had not the legitimacy of that of the traditional wedded... All through the sheer fault of Alphonsus' freshly scrutinizing eyes that would no longer excuse Miss/Madam Harriet's choice of blouses and skirts. Sometimes, Alphonsus had had to exclaim his rude shock at the much Harriet's garments often revealed to the uncorrupted passer-by. While Harriet's skimpy blouses were like transparent truths her miniskirts proved to be recorded speeches bearing the owner's coughs besides words proper. The following week Alphonsus confronted Harriet on the near scandal but it mattered little to her that she had become the mother of his son.

"Maybe, yesterday, unknown to me, you finally released my bride price to my Father Chief and Uncles and today - no, right now - you have a say on how I should dress and all that...

More-so, Alphonsus might keep hating Harriet for her attempted inspiring of fears in him over her father's enormous passion for first class revenge.

"Without bragging about Evil..." That was the way Harriet had taken it up" My father is a Vengeance Institution long in the business of graduating first Degree Holders Masters' and Doctorates' in the act!"

"Oh! Oh! Oh! That's interesting; Alphonsus had said at first and then finished it off with thanks to Harriet for having forewarned him on supping with Chief Onyema, who would not mind to poison his food like a rat's.

Harriet was not in the least expecting this manner of reply, for it screaming Christ Shepherd!' and fleeing from Alphonsus' presence like one would from a depraved mind particularly, it was angering to Alphonsus that he had never heard any person in Chief Onyema's house address his son by the Darlington name he had given him. Alphonsus' first knowledge of his son's renaming as Jerry by Harriet's father had come, when the titled man was blabbering on the need for him to state in a transparent language his plans for Harriet and the future of her son, Jerry. On the spot, Alphonsus got frozen like what had long stayed in the deep freezer.

"Please, Chief, if you won't mind, whose Jerry? You mean Darlington, my son?"

At first, Chief Onyema would not conclude that it was time he took offence at Alphonsus for the poorly disguised hardihood of his decorated question.

"Sorry, Young Alphonsus, there's no Darlington in the house of Chief Onyema... So, that's your name for Harriet's Jerry?"

Alphonsus could not help a minute silence, as though some adult had died, then promptly only sought to be told how his Darlington son was assigned another name he had not its idea.

"Custom - Blind You!" stormed the chief at last.

"You'll soon be forcing me to reach you for a hard slap".

"That I'm custom-blind, Chief?" Alphonsus tested for some response to the Chief's outburst.

"Yes!" boomed Chief Onyema's voice."Nobody and - I repeat - nobody claims the child of a woman he impregnated but had failed to pay her betrothal price nor can he propose a name for the child and it stands or sticks.

Alphonsus could only keep simply staring at the speaker. At Chief Onyema.

You mean to wire across that the Jerry name you gave my son is a more binding one on him than Darlington?

"I reckon your unfortunate ignorance of our Odomo Custom is dealing with you".

"But fortunately for me your Jerry had been responding to my Darlington choice of name for him?"

"I'm rather sure your mind carefreely made that up; for one who prefers living in fantasy to facing bitter truths and ugly ones".

Suddenly, Chief Onyema felt like laughing and actually started a paroxysm of it.

"Are you, therefore, suggesting that I join you in calling my child a name, which had grown from your own fancy?"

"Alphonsus, you're much worse than a mad man. Honestly, much worse".

"Only if my utterances are more disjointed than a mad man's?"

"Shar rap! Your crazy claim that you have a son is a statement made by the deranged".

"But Chief, prejudice swept aside, you wouldn't say - let alone repeat, that I don't have a son under your roof right now".

"No, I should choose to keep repeating to the Big fool I'm foolishly speaking with to take the big step of properly marrying the mother of whom he claims to be his son so as to properly start answering his father ..."

Such an unhealthy, even shocking conversation with Chief Onyema! Alphonsus had not the courage to be paying any more his thrice - a - week visit to his son in the guise of indulging the company of his mother.

How does any sensible man get about risking a second encounter with an incarnated Heart of Stone or, if he were a quadruped, a Predator? Just How?

The very last appearance Alphonsus made at the Chief's residence sorely brought him face to face with a very sick Darlington but also gave him his truly first eye-witness view of the deep-running bond between Mother and Child for which the age-old Sweet Mother designation for all sincere and fake mothers could never in principle, be a misnomer. Then, in Onyema's premises, a very sick Darlington was resting on the laps of a visibly confused Harriet. Darlington, still about to make it to three years, had looked to be nearly four from a High Fever with its children. Also, on the scene was Chief Onyema gladly showing off a grin that had no right to be seen within the perimeters of his lips under the circumstance. The way the chief had stood on a spot in the expanse and was regarding his dying grandson, he must have been no different from Prophet Jonah waiting at the outskirts of the Great Nineveh just to see what program of destruction God still had for the wicked but repented city. Progressively, The chief was finding ignoble pleasure in mutely repeating the barely understandable words of dying Jerry- "Mammy" for "Mummy", "Tota" for "water".

"Oh! my dried-up son wants a cup of water", released Harriet. "I'll soon ask Beatrice to get some, okay", she directed to her expiring Jerry and got his sickly nods.

For the most part, Alphonsus was speechless and wisely remained motionless for lesser notice of an unrecognized father. Alphonsus was quite sure he could help the listless dying thing. He had not come empty-handed, rather with some thousands that could foot the bills of the child's emergency medication before hospitalization. But it was important that he was formally signaled to step on the scene - very important. Under the circumstance, quiet sensible not to shift an inch from where he is standing, until Chief Onyema and father - dreading daughter, Harriet, pointedly desire it...

Not long, Harriet's maid, Beatrice became reachable, after Harriet had thrice yelled her name. A seventeen-year-old adolescent in knee-high skirt: Beatrice, when she surfaced on the scene, had a sizable novel in her left hand.

"Yes, I can see your big novel. Still, you tell me where the hell you've gone", came the agitated voice of Harriet.

"At the other side of this building reading"., answered Beatrice, her outward calm the one a gifted liar radiates while standing trial.

"Swollen - cheeked liar!" You dared to deny you weren't in the next house for some silly movie".

"No, it's not the case, Auntie".

"Then, what?"

"Auntie, the statement I made now..."

"About having been at the other side of Chief's building reading Taylor Caldwell..."

"No: Marie Corelli's temporal power, which I'm still clutching".

"Coolly" is the faultless word for a perfect capture of the manner in which Beatrice showed off the big - like - Holy Bible novel.

"Quit your denial and for now, discard that cover-up".

"Auntie, you mean this successful novel?"

"I don't care about successful writings, right now.

You get Jerry some water with his favorite cup. You know where it is".

"The Red Plastic?"

Beatrice dropped the novel on a part of the floor that looked decent for such an act and declared that she would look for the cup.

"Not what I want to hear. Rather that you know where the Red Thing is".

A challenged, still pondering Beatrice suddenly voiced that she was beginning to think of a place she would find the cup and breezed out.

Meanwhile, Jerry had begun to squirm and wriggle anew with Mammy... M - Mammy.

"Yes, Jerry, water is on its way. And you'll drink it from your regal cup. Only be patient a little".

"No, menicine... Hotital. Take me to hotital".

Harriet was shaking her head, great her amazement.

"A strange Jerry you are! One not afraid of medicine, drugs - injections I'd bet?"

Harriet's next remark was a solemn promise to Jerry that she would move him, soonest, to Hero's Clinic, where doctors and nurses with life-saving medicine restore children to their mothers fully.

An arch smile at the expiring two-years-and-eight-months-old Jerry. Harriet brought her face skin-close to Jerry's, as though she longed to kiss it. Sick Jerry's response to this show of affection was a feeble one, for being much fatigued. Shortly, Beatrice re-emerged on the scene with Jerry's red plastic and at Harriet's orders handed it to her and left. Then, gently, Harriet fixed the cup with water to Jerry's feebly moving lips for a miraculous mouthful of it and as Jerry seemed to be draining the content of the cup further tilting it. But in reality much of the fluid was snaking down Jerry's chest with a pinafore from the tired edges of his upper and lower lips. It was a Harriet so much unnerved by what this might portend that she had to discontinue the business, leave her still dry eyes to gather mist and her heart to start supporting a burdensome weight.

"Tears that I don't understand", Harriet's father, Chief Onyema, finally chose as breaker of his apparent long silence" Your Jerry now wants to quit the scene so as to help us clean up the biggest evidence of Alphonsus in our lives!"

In multiples, Harriet was shocked; nearly wanted to scream "Chief Onyema - a!"

Does her father think she will find the remark a fascinating one she would go ahead to praise with glow? Simply, Harriet swore aloud that she would do all she could to stop Jerry from quitting Planet Earth.

"Prevent it then", laughed Chief Onyema.

"Yes, I'm powerfully thinking of how to do it, beginning with taking Jerry to Hero's Clinic..."

Harriet's face and smile were a replica of those of persons who had already gloriously accomplished what they had said they would. Unmoved Chief Onyema could only make it clear to daughter that his penny further split into two would not be part of Jerry's hospital bill.

"No. Don't let it worry you one bit", Harriet had told her father with a maternal confidence that was magical under the circumstance. She had high, hopes of assembling the cash for Jerry's admission in Hero's Clinic and went ahead to demonstrate the mindset for it with shot maternal glances at Jerry.

One might say wickedly, Alphonsus for some time, then a mere watcher of the unfolding episodes, dramatically remembered that he had been wrongly ignored all these while by his host and daughter and, therefore, should vamoose.

And Alphonsus did! On the spur of the moment. Piah! Off! Disappearing like Philip after his conversion and baptism of the Ethiopian Eunuch on the road leading to Philistia's Gaza.

Miss Harriet Onyema would have made a third-rate liar, if she had tried to give out that she did not feel the villain's stab of Alphonsus' French leave of their presence, when Jerry's hospital bill palaver came to the fore. Simply, she was abandoned by Alphonsus Romanus: by one who should have been the very last to have done so in such a scenario for fully owed paternal obligations to her contested-by-Death Jerry. Really, unforgivably, for two-years-and-eight-months he had played the poorest father's role in the life of her Jerry, now and then stealing into her father's house, when he was miles away with money gifts he had probably managed not to steal for mother and child.

Harriet Onyema could yell it to the heavens, if it was necessary that the pains from this causeless abandonment by Alphonsus of their seed did exceed by a wide margin his causeless angering public attacks on her casual interest in body-hugging tops and skirts, whose only fault was their excusable half transparency.

Briefly, on where he now straddled, Alphonsus pondered the wisdom in even freshly setting foot on the precincts of Chief Onyema building let alone stride into the building proper. Three weeks now he indecorously left their company and his priced-by-Death Darlington. Not a sum of money resembling Five Thousand Naira, Four, Three, Two, nor One thoughtfully dropped by him, before he did...

Just like that: melted away; vaporized...

"Yes. Really, you'd messed up good!"

Alphonsus' Conscience had begun to speak: prophesy, its tied tongue at last loosened by owner.

However, it was not Alphonsus' Conscience that made him dash off to the house of Onyema while he was still midway reflection. A wayfarer moderate acquaintance of his with news he would not receive and still act 'normal' had crossed his path and anxiously vomited it.

"Right now, only few persons without handkerchiefs are the ones able to cross the part of the road in front of Chief Onyema's house".

"God! please don't repeat that, "Alphonsus had innocently exclaimed and as innocently pressed to know 'why?' In the clearest of sentences for a reply to his question had the wayfarer released the sought with curiosity.

"Your Darlington is dead; and for two days now, neither in fridge nor in grave!"

Honestly, it is not the narrators wish to dwell in any length on the spontaneous reactions of Alphonsus to the bombshell, trusting that the Reader should be able to imagine the worst of a storming-around by Alphonsus Romanus also heaping unbearably vulgar abuses on Chief Onyema.

At Chief Onyema's house, almost in tears, Alphonsus demanded from the Chief the remains of his son, Darlington, his two nostrils sealed with a just purchased flannel.

"You're sure you know what you're talking about", asked Chief Onyema looking both curious and serious.

"Oh common, Chief, stop joking with me. 'Darlington' I said. The child you've messed up his corpse". Chief Onyema rather found interest in advising Alphonsus against calling him a joker once more, lest it earn him a vicious strike with his walking stick.

A slight shudder by Alphonsus, however his minding of the Chief's words of ill will was soon lost to a passerby's loud protest of the stench his plugged nostrils still picked from the Chief's house.

"See, Chief! An avoidable embarrassment. No walker of this road would've learnt in this odd manner that somebody had died".

Alphonsus with his eyes was weighing the effect of his last utterance on Chief Onyema, somewhat sure he would not make a syllable reply.

"Well, Young man, I should use what I have to clinch what I want. or shouldn't I?"

Freshly, Alphonsus had to start boiling with anger describing Chief Onyema's last statement as an unnecessary riddle.

"I'm not going to hide it: Your now decomposing Darlington is what I've got and Harriet's Bride price what I want. "Comfortably, the first will give me the second!"

An indignant Alphonsus was hatched before Chief Onyema. Alphonsus kept a sneer and challenging eyes for the Chief, when he told him that he could still choose not to marry Harriet if it became a thing of "By Fire By Force"; for a means to a dirty end, demeaning a child's corpse.

The disturbing laughter of a human monster!

With patience, Chief Onyema made Alphonsus understand that, already, the Youths of their Odomo Ancient Kingdom had decided to meet him like an irate mob over his decomposing Darlington.

"Somehow, they know that I'm the one standing between you and the performance of your duty. However, as far as they're concerned, I'm doing so for a worthy and even blameless cause.

"Oh really?" dropped Alphonsus' lips.

"This is more than "Oh Really!" I tell you, Young man, Odomo Youths won't hesitate to butcher my own flesh, If I should hand over Jerry's corpse to you without first collecting Harriet's Bride Price... Nor am I ready to do so, even if the poor corpse balloons in size!"

Alphonsus Romanus did not know when he or his lips asked to know the reason.

"The reason? Goodness me! won't it be the same thing as spending one's good fortune on a perfectly rude enemy?"

Chief Onyema, it appeared, was ready to keep calmly waiting for whatever response Alphonsus might make to his last voiced thought. For a response, Alphonsus chose a suddenly lost self control and the loudest verbal encouragement to Chief Onyema to keep assisting the decay of Darlington or it's "a shame on him".

Like would most enraged persons who had sorely berated elders they owed some deference, Alphonsus abruptly left the one he had just swiped to privately lick his justly or unjustly received wounds. To absorb his own shock, Chief Onyema wore a smile of the Unusually Calm after a most unpleasant experience but soon solemnly swore that it was the last time he saw the face of Alphonsus save as his daughter's suitor.

Not another full day spent and Alphonsus was back at Chief Onyema's house in quest of him but instead met the Chief's unbolted living room and a Beatrice determinedly freeing its walls of cobwebs and its pictures of dusts. Plans Beatrice had too to do something about the long not swept floor of the room.

Alphonsus had purposely refused to knock on the oaken door but upon entry into the room realized that the smell of Decomposing Darlington had become sharper and more intolerable.

"So, where's Mr. Onyema? " asked Alphonsus aware of the consequences of stripping a Chief of his title even behind his back.

A startled and turned Beatrice, her own nostrils covered with her left hand, still sought to know from Alphonsus whether he had the Chief in mind or some other Onyema.

"Don't generalize it. Your own chief!"

"He's not around", answered Beatrice making it straight.

When did he sneak out?"

Beatrice was baffled and made sure she looked it "why would Daddy want to do so? He boldly left the house".

"For?"

"I'm sorry he didn't tell me".

"And neither told you the time he would be back?"

"No, he didn't".

Politely, Beatrice asked to know if her interviewer had brought with him something she should keep for Chief Onyema.

"Who put the idea into your head that he is to receive something from me?"

"He himself did. He said an Alphonsus shall be here to hand me my auntie's bride price of N7000:00 and another bulkier sum of money for the purchase of two goats, seven gourds of the freshest palm wine, a carton of Aromatic schnapps, a dozen carton of Guinness stout, and forty pieces of kola-nut".

Alphonsus Romanus was down cast: a good swimmer suddenly faced with bad tidal flow.

"You're sure Mr. Onyema told you all these?"

"Yes Daddy did... and more".

"Like...?"

"I mean: a portmanteau for Auntie Harriet, wrappers, ornament and the basic kitchen utensils of a newly married woman Medusa of hell!

It seemed Alphonsus would have to start adjusting to this new embarrassment.

"That would mean Onyema was quite sure I would come back", Alphonsus said more to himself than to Beatrice but the latter felt persuaded to affirm the part comment part muse, completely removing her left hand from her nose. Alphonsus made a fuller turn towards Beatrice.

"Then, clearly, you must've remembered his exact words?"

"By Jesus, No. I didn't memorize Daddy's words", she first said.

"Yet, I could say and perhaps repeat that I'd heard something like: Definitely he's going to call again".

"What?"

"Yes... Definitely Young Lousy Alphonsus is going to call again.

I now remember!"

A bent head from a wounded pride and hurt heart. For more than a minute, Alphonsus remained in that position, his flannel far away from his nostrils. Then, he looked at half-petrified Beatrice, brought out a bulging pack enveloping four hundred thousand naira and pushed it into her hands.

"What is in the pack shall swallow with ease all that you've listed plus the ones your memory failed"

Beatrice was silent, quiet, rat-quiet, but had begun to take in more of the air of stench as through of aroma.

"And please-very important - don't forget..."

Alphonsus began anew... You tell your Daddy Chief that I eventually called like he had said I definitely would; but not from fear of his cohorts in the village nor in terror of what might happen, if Dead Darlington remains unburied... Of course, not. God Himself knows that... Only that I seek with his envelope to arrest the tongue with which he had been engineering all Odomo young women and the old to start making me a subject of their late-night gossips while seated on low kitchen stools!

At first much shaken and robbed of speech, clear-headed Beatrice later found the voice to release a jet-stream of No-No-No and an "Excuse Sir, Wait"

On Beatrice face was perceptible worry.

"Wait a minute sir, I'd rather you wrote down an important message. Also, you'll have graciously protected me and my maid's job".

This request in the cloak of an advice, Alphonsus thought over: had to think over.

"Then, bring a pen: a biro," said he with a free mind" or alternatively, I'll give a better job for a long-lasting smile".

"No, let me bring a biro", decided Beatrice, leaving Alphonsus presence for one she was sure she would find.

As Alphonsus waited for Beatrice and her pen, he was progressively mentally shaping the way his married life with Harriet would be.

"Of course my corrections of her abominable dressing shall mostly be through a Heavy Weight Boxers Punch!.

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