‘Madam the madam!’ he said in stentorian tones as he engulfed Syreeta’s hand in both his massive paws. Pulling her deeper into his blue-lighted shop, he barked at his young assistant to move his yansh from the only seat in sight. Syreeta settled into the deckchair, and placing her handbag in her lap, she crossed her legs. While she responded to Yelloman’s animated greetings, Furo admired the painted toenails of her dangling foot, his eyes following her baby-oiled shin all the way up to her pampered knee, which peeped out from under the frilly hem of her skirt. Then he turned his gaze to the shoes spread across the floor like a horde missing its bodies. Every bit of space in the shop was taken up by all manner of fashion items. Folded on ledges and swinging from hangers were authentic designer clothes as well as their Aba imitations — but the real and fake were segregated, displayed with varying degrees of esteem. It was obvious to Furo why Syreeta had brought him here. The shop owner practised business with conspicuous candour.
It struck Furo that Yelloman hadn’t yet greeted him.
Syreeta addressed Furo. ‘This is it, the surprise. We need to get you some clothes for work. I can spend …’ She shot a glance at Yelloman’s averted face, and then held up her hands, one with fingers spread and the other curved in a fist. Furo’s eyes widened as she mouthed, Fifty thousand. He had never spent that much on clothes, not at one time. And never had he needed clothes as much as now. He felt a boiling need to express his joy, his relief at a problem solved. He wanted to fling his arms around Syreeta and squeeze her till she understood.
‘Thank you,’ he said in a quiet, even voice.
It was time to choose. He needed shirts, trousers, ties for the office, a set of underwear. But where to start? The shop was stuffed so full it seemed futile to search. No matter what he found, no matter how right for him it might seem in the blue light of the buying moment, the dim lighting of the shop, there would always be something better he had missed. He glanced at the corner where the assistant had scurried to, but the youngster was no longer there, he had slipped out the back door. And so Furo turned to Yelloman. ‘I want some shirts that look like what I’m wearing, but a bit cheaper than this. Can you advise me?’
Yelloman was standing perhaps two feet away, right beside Syreeta’s seat, and yet he acted as if Furo hadn’t spoken. When Syreeta tapped his leg with a knuckle, he glanced down at her. ‘My friend dey talk to you,’ she said.
In a tone edging towards aggression, Yelloman responded, ‘Wetin e talk?’
‘But see am for your front nah! E get mouth, abi?’
Yelloman turned to Furo, but his eyes were lowered. He was light-complexioned, his skin tone the Semitic hue associated with the most Roman Catholic of Igbos, and in the open neck of his shirt Furo could see a flush spreading. Reluctance pulsed through his frame and his fleshy nose quivered. Furo felt a thrill of misgiving. Yelloman was over six feet tall and built like a discus thrower. Veins rippled beneath the stiff hairs on his bulky forearms; his muscled legs made his trousers look small and tight. He appeared the quick-tempered sort, a man to be treated with caution, and something about Furo had clearly incensed him.
Yelloman made a sound in his throat in preparation to speak. Like a conductor at the start of a symphony, he raised his arms in the air, and then, with sweeping gestures, his movements exaggerated as if sign talking to the brain damaged, he said to Furo, ‘What — did — you — say?’
A spasm of laughter touched Furo’s face but he forced it back in time. Yelloman was staring at Syreeta, who was bent double in the chair with her hands gripping her sides and her shoulders heaving. She laughed so long that Furo got embarrassed on Yelloman’s behalf. Finally she straightened up, flicked a tear from her eye corner with a finger, and then met Yelloman’s look of brooding. ‘Abeg, Yelloman, no kill me with laugh,’ she said in a choked voice. ‘My friend sabe speak pidgin. No need to wave your hand like person wey dey drown.’
Yelloman’s face lit up with excitement. ‘Talk true? E dey speak pidgin?’
‘Talk to am, you go see.’
Yelloman looked Furo in the face for the first time. His golden-brown eyes glistened like boiled sweets. He sucked on his lips, as if tasting his words, and then he fired, ‘How you dey?’
‘I full ground,’ Furo replied.
‘Hah hah — correct guy!’ Yelloman barked in exultation, spreading his arms at the same time as if to throw them around Furo in a big-brother hug. But he checked himself, then glanced down at Syreeta and declared, ‘I like this oyibo.’
He talked nonstop as he led Furo around the shop and guided him to the best bargains. Long monologues about Nigeria, about the meaning of man’s existence as discovered through the experiences of a clothing salesman, and then questions about Furo: prying questions, eager questions, assertions phrased as questions. Where was Furo from, did he watch football, what did he think of Lagos, was he Syreeta’s man, wouldn’t he hurry up and start a family with her? His only daughter was six years old and already she spoke English better than her father. (‘Bone that CK shirt, no be orijo. Carry the Gap one. I dey sell am for six thousand but if you buy five I go give you everything for twenty-five.’) He was a self-made man, his father had lost everything during the civil war and so he had to give up school to learn a trade, but nothing spoil, he was successful as you can see, he was the owner of this shop and another in Ojuelegba, and he was widely travelled, he used to visit London every year for summer sales but had recently stopped, partly because it was cheaper to shop in Dubai and import from China, but also because those oyibo dey knack English like sey nah only them sabe the language. (‘That jeans nah your own, dem make am for you, nah your size finish. Take am for two thousand.’) But Furo was different, he spoke pidgin like a trueborn Nigerian, and even though his skin was white and his bia-bia was red and his eyes were green, his heart without a doubt was black. Abi no be so?
‘I be full Naija,’ Furo agreed, and Yelloman pounded him on the back in approval, then slashed the price of the leather slippers they were haggling over. With that last purchase Furo’s budget was exhausted and, as the assistant — who had returned to receive a reprimanding knock on the head from Yelloman — began bagging his wardrobe, he took the cash from Syreeta and paid Yelloman. ‘You be my personal person,’ Yelloman said as he walked them to the sliding glass door. ‘My gism number dey for the nylon. Call me anytime you wan’ drink beer.’
Arriving at the car, Syreeta unlocked the doors before taking the shopping bags from Furo’s hands and, after dropping them on the back seat, she turned back to him and linked her arms round his waist. ‘Thank you,’ she said, her voice muffled against his chest. She gave him a squeeze before stepping back. Her eyes shone with emotion.
‘Why?’ Furo asked in surprise. ‘I should be thanking you!’
‘I’m thanking you for what you did in there, for being nice to Yelloman.’ She opened the driver’s door, stuck a foot in the car, and spoke into the sun-baked interior: ‘And for being you.’