By Ayọ̀bámi Adébáyọ̀

Kúnlé was waiting beside her hatchback, wearing that black blazer he liked so much. It was as though he could not feel how thoroughly the sun had banished that morning’s harmattan chill.

“Aren’t you braising?” Wúràọlá said.

“How about, ‘Good morning, my love,’ or ‘It’s so nice to see you’? Maybe, ‘How sweet of you to have come over,’ or better still, ‘I was just about to call you back,’” Kúnlé said, counting off each statement on his left hand.

“All of that too, but this jacket, aren’t you hot?”

“You were not picking up my calls.”

“I wasn’t picking up anyone’s calls.”

“I have become anyone to you now.”

He paused to make air quotes when he said “anyone,” and she watched his hands move in two arcs. Those hands. She thought about them in waking hours, how his long fingers tapered towards the nailbed, how impossibly nimble they were inside her.

“I am just one of the random people who call you, ehn?”

Wúràọlá rummaged through her bag for the car keys. “Calm down, please, you know what I meant. Even my mother has been calling about the dress for her birthday and I haven’t been able to . . . Where did I put this key, sef? I’ve not had a minute to myself until now.”

“We are taking my car.” Kúnlé pointed across the car park to his blue Sentra.

“I want to drop something in my back seat.” Wúràọlá dangled her keys in Kúnlé’s face. “And who told you I’m going somewhere with you.”

He laughed and leaned against her car, effectively blocking access to the driver’s door.

“Shift, let me open my door,” Wúràọlá said.

“You were not picking up my calls.”

Most times, Kúnlé seemed to enjoy bickering. He called it sparring and said he found it stimulating. Wúràọlá didn’t mind the makeup sex that followed what she thought of as fake fights. She played along, performing a belligerence he could later brag about pleasuring into a pliant state. What bothered her was how tenuous that playful mood was; a so-called sparring session could escalate into combat at some point during the pause between one word and the next.

She held his wrist and tried to pull him out of her way, but he didn’t budge or smile. Full combat. Even though she’d put all her strength into that pull, he’d remained unmoved. Maybe he hadn’t been bickering at all; sometimes it was hard to tell.

“And you did not even bother to call back or text.”

She shut her eyes briefly. Had his voice risen several pitches with each word?

“Are you shouting at me?” she asked.

“You are saying I do not have a right to be upset?”

“I’m actually just asking if you’re shouting at me right now.”

“What’s the implication of that? Doesn’t that imply that ignoring my calls does not warrant a reaction from me? Is that the sort of thing we are doing here?”

Wúràọlá glanced around the car park. There were fewer cars and people because it was a Saturday, but that also meant his voice would carry. To her right, some men had stopped putting an empty stretcher into an ambulance so they could stare at them. Yes, it wasn’t just that her exhausted brain was amplifying sounds; Kúnlé had been shouting.

“Could you just step aside?” She kept her voice low and even. She wasn’t about to start any nonsense in public.

“What do you want to put in your car that’s so important, you think it’s okay to ignore my questions?”

“Kúnlé, let me just drop this textbook. We can speak when we’re on our way. Step aside.”

“And if I don’t?”

Wúràọlá cocked her head to one side. “Seriously?”

He shrugged and folded his arms across his chest. In those movements she caught a glimpse of what he had been like when they were younger and still attended the same primary school, before they were sent off to different boarding schools for secondary school. Kúnlé would often trail his father to IEMPU meetings, because their parents had assumed he was friends with Láyí. Although the two boys were classmates, two years ahead of Wúràọlá, her brother’s circle of primary school friends had formed before Kúnlé’s family moved into town and never widened to include him. Wúràọlá and Láyí used to laugh at him back then, imitating his shrugging and arm folding, motions he made right before going off to rat them out to an adult for teasing him and mimicking his I will tell my daddy and I will tell your mummy. He was even pursing his lips now; all that remained was for him to stomp away. Wúràọlá almost laughed but managed to suppress her mirth.

She went around the car, opened it up from the passenger’s side and flung her Clinical Neuroanatomy in the back seat. She had stuffed it into her handbag earlier in the week, hoping—foolishly, in retrospect—that she would at least have some time to skim through. It wouldn’t help if her consultants thought she was a spectacular idiot when she started her neuro rotation in a few weeks. Everyone was an idiot when they got to neuro; the goal was to be an average one. She had not gotten around to opening the book all week, but her handbag’s strap was frayed from carrying it back and forth. Time for that switch to a laptop bag. She slid into the front passenger seat, then leaned towards the driver’s side to switch on the engine.

Wúràọlá let the engine roll for about a minute before turning on the air-conditioning. She engaged the central lock and relaxed her chair all the way back. The cold blast of air enveloped her as she smiled at Kúnlé. He glared back. She held her smile in place, certain and pleased that it was infuriating him. For a brief moment, she wondered if he might leave her and go to his car. She would follow him if he did. It didn’t make sense to drive that morning. Her hands had been trembling by the time she left the ward minutes ago, and that was after she’d made it through the night only with the help of a can of energy drink that another house officer had given her. Kúnlé tapped the glass and motioned for her to open the door. She wound down the glass just enough for him to stick a finger inside the car.

“You need to apologise for shouting,” she said.

He grimaced. “Have you said you’re sorry for ignoring my calls?”

“I was working when you called.”

“You could have texted?”

“Do you really know what doctors do when they’re on call?”

“You’re so full of yourself.”

“Okay. Please, remove your finger, let me wind up well.”

“Wúrà, just open this door, abeg.”

“Abeg” was not an apology. At least not in that tone, but it would have to do. She was too tired and hungry for drama. If they got over this and set out, she could eat soon. She let him in and braced herself, ready for an extended rant. Kúnlé said nothing before reversing in a swift motion that jolted her.

“I thought we were taking your car.” She sat her chair up and fixed the seat belt. “Can we buy food? I’m hungry.”

Kúnlé did not respond.

“Can we stop at Captain Cook before going to your place? We could just get meat pie to start with? What do you think? Okay, play dumb. Just don’t ever talk to me like that again. I’m warning you now. Why were you shouting in front of everybody, because of what?”

He slowed down as they approached the hospital gate. Somewhere between secondary school and university, whiny, sulky Kúnlé had become the sort of person who now wound down his window to greet the security guards, with such an abundance of Ẹ kú iṣẹ́ , Major, and Well done, Officers, that he was passed through without being asked to open the boot for inspection. His manoeuvre collapsed the gap between aspirations and reality with two words, “Major,” “Officers.” The men and woman he had greeted had no title beyond security guard. They could not be further away from the military cadres that their beaming responses to Kúnlé’s flattery suggested they had once aspired to. Although they were employees of the hospital, there were rumours that their roles would soon be outsourced to private firms. She wasn’t sure if Kúnlé’s practice of endearing himself to strangers in this way was exploitative or benevolent. Perhaps as with many acts of generosity, it was both. Once they drove out of the hospital, she turned to stare at the stalls and houses that whizzed by until they all blurred into a dream.

Excerpt from “A Spell of Good Things” copyright © 2023 by Ayọ̀bámi Adébáyọ̀. Published by Canongate (UK)

About the book: Eniola is tall for his age, a boy who looks like a man. His father has lost his job, so Eniola spends his days running errands for the local tailor, collecting newspapers and begging, dreaming of a big future.Wuraola is a golden girl, the perfect child of a wealthy family. Now an exhausted young doctor in her first year of practice, she is beloved by Kunle, the volatile son of family friends.

When a local politician takes an interest in Eniola and sudden violence shatters a family party, Wuraola and Eniola’s lives become intertwined. In this breathtaking novel, Ayòbámi Adébáyò shines her light on Nigeria, on the gaping divide between the haves and the have-nots, and the shared humanity that lives in between.

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Ayọ̀bámi Adébáyọ̀ was born in Lagos, Nigeria. Her debut novel, Stay With Me, won the 9mobile Prize for Literature, was shortlisted for the Baileys Prize for Women’s Fiction, the Wellcome Book Prize and the Kwani? Manuscript Prize. It has been translated into twenty languages and the French translation was awarded the Prix Les Afriques. Longlisted for the International Dylan Thomas Prize and the International Dublin Literary Award, Stay With Me was a New York Times, Guardian, Chicago Tribune and NPR Best Book of the Year. Ayòbámi Adébàyò splits her time between Norwich and Lagos.

You can read our interview with Ayọ̀bámi Adébáyọ̀ here

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