~WHEN IT RAINS…IT POURS~
~PART 7~
“Mama Chinyere, come out here immediately. You didn’t tell me you are now breeding prostitutes in your house” she shouted and pounded on our open sitting room door.
“Who is that fool that wants to break down my door?” My mother questioned angrily rising from the settee. “It is like you people want Alice to talk and talk today. Anybody who wants something from me will see it today” she made towards the door angrily and I followed bridling with curiosity.
I needed to know why Mrs. Maduka made that comment. I noticed Chinyere trying to go back to the room hurriedly. I found that strange. She was a well-known gossip and would have been in the forefront to find out what the matter was.
“Yes O, I want something from you and that is my husband’s money that he has been lavishing on your daughter Chinyere. Are you not ashamed of yourself?” she increased her shouting clapping her hands to accentuate her words almost bouncing on the balls of her feet.
She was a fair plump woman who was average in height with an enormous backside. Boys in the area would always snicker when she walked past them, so huge were her buttocks.
Her husband, a lecherous philandering buffoon of about sixty was a contractor who worked jobs for the state government and some corporate organizations. He was loaded obviously but word on the street was that he was mean to his wife and rarely spent the money on her or her children. He had slept with virtually every loose girl around and I was disgusted that Chinyere could ever fall into his hands.
“Nwanyi, go and meet your husband and get away from my house. You won’t like what you will see if you keep on staying here. If your husband is spending on my daughter, then she obviously has something you don’t possess. Get away from here. Rubbish” my mother said shamelessly making to enter back into the house. I was flabbergasted and a little repulsed by her attitude.
“Tell your shameless daughter that I am Nwanyi Onitsha. She doesn’t know me. I will deal with her if she continues to poke her finger in my nose. Don’t say I did not warn both of you. Don’t say I did not warn you” she pushed past me and waddled out of our compound completely ignoring me.
I shook my head to clear it of the crazy happenings today and took my now-sleeping son to the pharmacy.
The rather noisy hum of the air conditioner was the only noise in the quiet as–a-tomb waiting room of the quite squalid microfinance bank where I had gone for an interview.
I looked around and wondered why anyone would feel confident enough to deposit their hard earned money in such a place. Well, beggars can’t be choosers.
I need a job and if it is this dilapidated place I am destined to end in as long as my son eats, then I will be just fine. The young lady who had been moderating the interviews all morning came out to read out names of successful candidates and once again, I did not make the cut.
I won’t cry, I said fiercely to myself as I got up to leave. Why am I not good enough? What is wrong with me? I walked towards the gate of the complex where the microfinance was located.
The loud hooting of the horn of a flashy Toyota car brought me back to the present. I really need to watch where I am going before I kill myself. Ebube will be alone in the whole world if I die I thought wildly looking at the car and waving apologetically meaning to walk past….
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