'Listen, guys, I cannot tell my wife anything about this. Trust me. I cannot tell her anything and I was explaining it to Gerald while I was at his office. To some extent, I am restraining myself from declaring that I really regret my marriage to Gifty because I have endured so much quietly and I don't think it is advisable for me to tell her. First of all, my marriage to her came with an uphill journey. My father's behaviour was just the recipe for marital challenges I did not anticipate,' Lancelot spoke with so much passion, which held the three men spellbound and attentive. The time was 8:55 pm and they were still at the pub talking. It did not look like they would leave anytime soon because the issues that Lancelot was pouring onto the table were much deep seated than they thought.
'No, you still sound very vague when you say you have been through so much quietly and it is not advisable. So, how are you going to live in the house? You are going to pretend that you go to work daily? What exactly are you going to do to make sure that she does not find out?' Gyasi asked with a tone of annoyance. He simply did not understand what Lancelot was trying to do. 'Even hidden children pop up one way or the other. How much more being dismissed from such a key role in a huge organisation that is run by someone of Nana Sir's calibre?'
'You guys do not understand what I am saying,' Lancelot reiterated for the umpteenth time since they had started the conversation over food and drinks. Lancelot was literally gulping bottles of beer and Gerald had told him that the bottle in front of him was the last. Nurudeen wanted to try the yam chips with chicken wings and a glass of cocktail. Gerald and Gyasi were simply holding themselves down with their favourite cocktails from the bar.
Nurudeen spoke now. 'Look, Lance, help us to get this straight. You have been sacked from your job but on the pretext of the fact that they don't want it to appear that you were sacked – so a resignation instead. Now , you don't want your wife to know that you have resigned. Let's say that the reason for your sack is a story for another day but your silence in the context of making your wife aware of your reality is that which is not making sense. I get it that the women can be quite over the top with their reactions – the nagging will just go from 0 to 100. That is a point but what is happening in your life isn't a point for you to cave into more silence. When she finds out, what then should she do? How then should she react?'
'Nuru, the women can be a bother, bro. They wouldn't want to ask questions but would assume and …whew. Sometimes, it is just crazy,' Gerald commented, reflecting on the brief altercation he had had with his wife earlier in the day. He did not want to bring that up now – there was too much of sordid details that would shock them as well as weigh on them. 'And sometimes, you don't even know how they process things, how they think about issues because most of their expressions seem to suggest that you the man have to be okay with everything, take everything, swallow everything and be a man about it per what society has tagged as being a man about things. When you want to voice an argument to clear the air, it becomes more complex. When you keep quiet too and excuse the drama as much as you can, the unexpected nagging and theatrics begin in ways you cant imagine. So, why won't men keep mute? The silence is simply the answer to avoid being misconstrued or some unnecessary battle that you are not even prepared to fight. I mean all of us have seen the reality of this one way or the other… in this thing called marriage especially…' Gerald's voice tapered off as his mind was still reflecting on the happenings of that morning.
'Probably except me,' Nurudeen replied with a chuckle. The three laughed. They had teased his singlehood the last time they met at their alma mater. 'Why are you all laughing?'
'This your case of being single needs to be fully investigatedby the FBI or something because, Nurudeen? With all that you are there is no woman in your life?' Lancelot inquired, his mind drifting safely from his predicament. He sipped the last of the beer in the bottle.
'Ask this man again. Maybe no damsel has won his heart yet. Because ei!' Gerald teased. For another five or so minutes, they had almost forgotten that Lancelot had a pressing matter that needed attention. The teasing triggered a lot of laughter and joy for a moment. Nurudeen was trying to calm their voices so he could speak but they did not want to allow him to defend himself. They knew Nurudeen could speak his way out of any situation, solidly and convincingly.
'Will you guys allow me to talk?' Nurudeen voiced, as loud as the music in the room.
'No, no, no, no. We will not allow you,' Gyasi replied with a grin. 'You want to weasel your way out of this one but no way…'
'You guys, I have been married before, alright?' Nurudeen announced in a tone that sounded much more serious that the mood of jest they were in that evening. It took a while before the announcement sank in – and when it did, it looked as though Nurudeen had dropped a bombshell.
'Wait, what? You have been married before? How come that is not public knowledge? I mean Google knowledge…' Gyasi would always come through with some humour.
'Well, it is not because it was barely on paper. And why are you all looking at me as if you just met a ghost? I am telling you the truth. So much for my advocacy for men to speak up when I am literally dead silent about my marital life that was dead on commencement.' Nurudeen sipped some of his cocktail while his friends processed the information. 'So, in as much as I am not really in the marriage circle now, I shouldn'tbe excluding myself from the knowledge of how wives can be. I understand you guys and I understand you Lancelot – we all do. However, come on, man. There is the need for her to know what has happened.'
'So that she will finally have the full-fledged power to strut herself around the house and flaunt in my face how much she had told me that my decision to exclude myself from my family dynasty was wrong? So that she will scream that I ruined our bright future we had? So that she would what carry a placard around of how she has earned more than me for the last five years since her great promotion at work? You have no idea how she has literally driven me insane with her so-called passion to make us great and blah blah blah. So, I should tell her what has happened so that she would now have proper ammunition to destroy whatever is left of my emotions, my ego, my manhood, my value? We sleep in separate rooms for crying aloud – it has been on for the last one year, brothers and it is all because of her silly idea to push me to be daring enough? I mean I don't even know the woman I married anymore because her ambition seems to have surpassed her apparent love for me. It is as though I married my father all over again – she wants to run things, she wants to be in control… you guys don't get it.' Lancelot said everything so quickly. He snapped his finger and the waiter came in and he asked for some shots of whiskey this time. Nobody could stop his order and it was obvious that he was going to drink himself to pulp that night.
There was silence at the table for the sixty seconds or more after Lancelot placed the order. The music in the pub was suddenly drowned in everyone's ear by the weight of what Lancelot had let lose. It was heavy on all of them and individually, they thought of their own lives and how much they had been too much of society's men rather than living like human beings who needed to be human. Each of them had their own deep seated challenges and the roots of these challenges were shaken by what Lancelot had shared.
The silence was becoming too loud for Nurudeen.
'I am really sorry about everything, Lance. Errrmm… I don'treally know but this is a lot to deal with.'
'It has been a lot to deal with for years. From my father's incomprehensible hatred toward me to marrying the wrong woman whose ambition took the place of love, I have really had a lot to deal with. I don't even want to go back to that house. I just want to disappear and get my life together again… I don't even think I can go for a divorce – I doubt I am man enough for it because family would crack the whip for I brought them disgrace. I just want to vanish.'
The four men were silent, not knowing what next and what else to say to help one another.
No comments:
Post a Comment