The Returnees

by Elizabeth Okoh

Genres: Friendship; Asian American

Synopsis

An unforgettable tale of female friendship, love and mistaken identities set in modern Nigeria, from an exciting new voice in women's fiction.

'[An] evocative tale of identity, friendship and unexpected love' Mail on Sunday

'Marks Okoh as an exciting new voice in contemporary fiction.' AnOther magazine


After a bad break up, 25-year-old Osayuki Isahosa leaves behind everything she holds dear in London to return to Lagos, Nigeria: a country she hasn't set foot in for many years. Drawn by the transformations happening in the fashion industry in the city, she accepts a job at House of Martha as their Head of PR. While waiting at Milan airport for her connecting flight to Lagos she meets Cynthia Okoye and Kian Bajo.

Cynthia Okoye is a 21-year-old recent graduate whose laissez-faire attitude to life has become her undoing. Unsure of how else to help put her life back on track, her father banishes her to live with his brother in the capital city where she's required to attend the National Youth Service Corps.

Kian Bajo is a wannabe Afrobeat star whose left everything he knows in London to make it big in Lagos., Enthralled by the international success of young artists from his motherland, he will go to any lengths to conquer the Lagos music scene.

After the plane lands at the Lagos airport, they all go their separate ways but their lives will intertwine again and change the course of their lives forever.

(P) 2021 Hodder & Stoughton Limited

Release date: August 6, 2020

Publisher: Hodder & Stoughton

Print pages: 304

Sample

‘It is an artist’s duty to reflect the times.’ Nina Simone

This quote by Nina Simone easily summarises my reasons for writing this novel. The Returnees was inspired by my experience as a woman born Nigerian but now living in the diaspora and my observations of others like me who were returning to our motherland for various business or personal pursuits. Due to social media, now more than ever, we’re able to own our narrative and tell our complex and nuanced stories in a positive light – the positive stories that the western media has kept hidden while stereotypes and negative press abound.

I was inspired by the transformations I was seeing happening in Nigeria, especially in the creative and arts industries in Lagos; and like many others I’d assume, contemplated the idea of returning home to Lagos. Although The Returnees is a work of fiction, it was this idea of a diasporan returning home that I decided to use as a vehicle to archive these developments in our history, as a means to document some of our experiences in this decade. I wanted to capture a story that can easily be about any of the number of people who are currently navigating this path. This novel is very much about Lagos as it is the lives of the three characters.

For Cynthia, it is seeing Nigeria for the first time, with new eyes and not through the filter of the western media. For Osayuki, it is seeing Nigeria with curious but experienced eyes, having been born and partially raised in the country before migrating. And for Kian, there is no seeing or thought at all. He goes to take whatever he can, with no regard for the people, traditions or history.

Although the story could be one of an outsider looking in, observing and experiencing things with a different lens (to the locals), the characters are also very much a part of the people. Migration is a complex journey that both Nigerians on the continent and in the diaspora experience. So it has its place in the history of the country and how its people living all over the world interact with each other.

The novel illustrates a nuanced experience of what it can be to live in contemporary Lagos in an era of digital media and rapid globalisation.

My dream is that if hundreds of years from now, someone asks ‘How was life in the 2000s?’, The Returnees can be given to them.

Nigerians, and indeed Africans, have lost a lot of our history because hundreds of years ago, we preserved it through oral storytelling which is dying out and of course, because of the ramifications of colonisation. I felt that it was important as an artist to contribute to preserving our history in this way, so that nothing more would be lost from us and our future generations.

First of all, I’m grateful to God for my gifts and for everything else; and to the wonderful people I was surrounded by at the time I found my voice and confidence to unabashedly pursue writing as a career:

Teejay, for sharing your journey and philosophies with me so honestly. The idea for The Returnees truly began when I replayed our interview recording and heard you talk about your work with passion. It inspired me to pursue a meaningful narrative about our culture and country, so that it can be passed down to future generations.

Aminata Koné, for always believing in me. For your excitement and encouragement when I shared the synopsis of the novel. Your friendship meant a lot.

Marcelle Bernstein, for your thorough and insightful Novel Writing short course at City University, my very first step to taking myself seriously in ‘going for it’. The weekly assignments pushed me to develop the plot better and it was in one of those classes the plot for The Returnees was solidified. I still remember your enthusiasm when I shared my synopsis and how brilliant you thought it was. That gleam in your eye gave me the confidence to proceed.

There were also many other people who were crucial to the production of this book and for which I’m also grateful.

My wonderful editor, Francine Toon, for believing in me, championing the book during Hachette’s Future Bookshelf open submissions and bringing it to fruition. Thank you for encouraging me to stretch myself even when I thought I was done. I’m deeply grateful. Also, to the Future Bookshelf team, I’m grateful to you for creating this scheme to amplify voices like mine. The world needs more diverse stories. And of course, to everyone at Hodder who made all this happen, thank you.

The Society of Authors, thank you for assigning me an amazing professional who helped me with the contract since I didn’t have an agent.

My sister, Adole (the Tom to my Jerry), thank you for being selfless and answering all my questions. I know I ask too many! I’m grateful to you for going over every detail of your NYSC experience even after years away from service and you claimed not to remember. For cross-checking the facts and helping me find others who could give insight when you couldn’t.

To my cousin TJ, thank you for taking me to the Lagos NYSC camp to see it first hand; and Vivien Omesiete my dearest childhood friend, for sharing your experiences of studying in Abuja and for reading the NYSC chapters.

Tope Okonkwo, George Ikemefuna, Cindy Kelechi Ikpe, Dunsin Ruhle, Toyin Hamza, Kevwe Omoghuvwu, Kenechukwu Okpala, and the many others who filled out my questionnaires, thank you for sharing your NYSC experiences; and especially Uzoamaka Obijiofor for sharing your experience as an IJGB!

Chiamaka Obuekwe, Cassandra Ikegbune and again, Uzoamaka Obijiofor, thank you for sharing your Igbo traditions and trips to ‘the village.’ Chiamaka Obuekwe and Besidonne Moore, thank you for helping me with the Igbo translations. I couldn’t have done it without you.

Daniel Obasi, Papa Omisore and Bright Uwaomah thank you for sharing your insights about the fashion and PR industry.

Soji Abifarin, thank you for connecting me with young artists in a moments notice; and Ono Mccaulay, for sharing your knowledge on managing artists and giving me a wake up call to take my research more seriously when it seemed I was going to leave Lagos without accomplishing all of my goals.

Maryam Adeleke, thank you for asking me about the progress of the book after a long time had passed and I was struggling to continue. That seemingly inconsequential question, meant you had taken me seriously when others didn’t. Your show of care gave me the boost to continue writing during my darkest days. Writing this book was truly a lonely journey and for this, thank you.

Yemi Adisa and Leah Adenaike, what wonderful friends and cheerleaders you’ve both been! Thank you for everything and your endless support and care.

To the team at Project Noir, thank you for creating a safe space where for the very first time I was able to share some chapters with an audience. The round of applause after reading the first chapter, the questions and the feedback I got at that reading (a few weeks after I finished writing) gave me a great boost of confidence that I hadn’t wasted my time and energy in vain.

Finally, I’d like to thank my mother for simply letting me be. For not giving me any ‘Nigerian-like’ ultimatum or pressure to abandon my foolhardy dream. Even though as a Nigerian mother, she couldn’t help herself as the years went by to cautiously ask if it wasn’t time I look for a good paying job and get going on the housing ladder. Now you can proudly tell all of your friends and our relatives that your daughter is an Author. God is good.

The sweet smell of Fairy Dust wafts into my nostrils from where it burns on the marble stool I’ve placed by my white stone bathtub. The scented candle had been hand delivered only five days before by Cynthia, one of my closest friends, who had picked it up from a boutique shop in Covent Garden on her way from London. That candle shop had been one of my guilty pleasures. Back in the day, I could easily have spent hours in there, watching as the small batches of handmade candles were set into jars and then left to cool at the far end of the shop. When I’d finally leave, I’d be on a sweet-smelling high with a new stock of Fairy Dust and sometimes Wild Berries in my bag; but that was years ago. Now living in a beautiful house in Lagos, tastefully decorated thanks to Pinterest boards and 3 a.m. calls to suppliers in China, I am still the same carefree and adventurous girl, but in a different city – one that, equally, does not sleep.

The bath water is beginning to feel lukewarm, so I pick up my sponge and start scrubbing my neck, then my arms and enlarged breasts, which now hold milk and are a size that I’ve only come to know over the last couple of months. I do ten reps of the Kegel exercise and massage my thigh, just below my moon tattoo, and then scrub my belly. It is no longer as firm as it once was. Giving birth does that to you. I have expected these changes, but living through them is still a wonder on the days I feel like my old self and can’t believe that I am now a mother.

Through the small slit between the bathroom door and its lock, I hear the voices in the other room. Someone has come in and I think I hear Cynthia saying the guests have started to arrive. This information doesn’t make me rush; I know Mum will knock on the door when it’s time. I lean back again and rest my head on the edge of the bathtub.

Twenty minutes later, I walk out of the bathroom to find that my red-and-silver-coloured asoke is laid carefully on the bed. I sniggered when Mum told me the market seller had assured her that the woven fabric had been made by the best hand-loomers in Ibadan. ‘Ahn ahn …’ Mama Fola had drawled, neither confirming nor disputing the claim, although her coy smile had attested to the latter.

I get ready in the bedroom that I had prepared for my mum and step-dad, Bob. He is already downstairs with our guests while Mum and some female relatives are helping to prepare me for my baby’s naming ceremony. I pick up my iro – a Yoruba word for a large piece of fabric worn as a wrap-around skirt – and look it over. It is beautiful. Mum made a good choice at the market weeks ago when I was still heavily pregnant and unable to leave the house. It is crazy that only eight days ago, my baby boy, Nimi, was still inside me. I didn’t expect my last trimester to have been so testing, but now my son is here, I am happy to announce his arrival to the world in the way required by my husband Fola’s Yoruba tradition.

I wonder what Fola is doing. I guess that he is most likely ready and waiting for me, but I am in no hurry. We still have to get Nimi dressed. I put on my iro and buba – a blouse – and then sit on the bed while a friend of Mama Fola ties my gele on my head. Mum is dressing Nimi, and when he stirs and begins to cry, I know he needs another feed. We stop the head tying and Nimi is passed over to me. He latches on with toothless gums and I flinch. I am still getting used to being a new mum and it still hurts whenever he clings to my breast. Eight days in and I am still figuring out what being a mother entails. No one told me that it would hurt for this long. But I love my son and would do anything for him. This was once a cliché to me, but now I fully understand it.

An hour later we are all dressed and ready to start the ceremony. Fola joins us outside the room. I pass Nimi to him and we all make our way downstairs to the waiting party. The house, a three-bedroom duplex, is in a coveted area in Victoria Island, only a fifteen-minute drive from my Aunty Rosemary’s house. I fell in love with our place the first time we went for a viewing, despite the previous owners’ questionable taste in decor. It still pains me to think of all the garish furnishings adorning the interiors of Lagos’ most lavish houses. ‘Money can never buy class!’ said my friend Wendy when I aired my frustration. We signed the papers and put down a deposit for the house a few days later, and thus began my task of making it fit to move into with my new family. I had initially worked with my own ideas and then completed the makeover with an interior designer, and the house that Fola and I would call our first home was ready to be inhabited just in time for our baby’s arrival.

Our families quieten down as Fola and I walk into the brightly lit living room, decked with gold accents and large framed illustrations. When we were decorating, I had ordered an oval gold-framed mirror and asked that it be hung on the wall just before the marble staircase. When I instructed that another be put in the living room, Fola had protested. He said we ‘weren’t vain people’. So instead, we hung pictures of us in our traditional wedding attire and at our reception, both of us smiling like we had won the lottery. Perhaps we had.

Our new chandelier with teardrop diamonds is glittering above our families and guests. Just behind my parents, I can see my friends and my Aunty Rosemary, along with her husband Osi and my cousins. There are some other relatives I don’t know too well – I smile at them all as we walk in. Fola’s family and friends are there too. We beam with pride and take our seats at the head of the gathering, with our parents on either side of us.

Mama Fola’s pastor is already at the front of the room waiting to proceed with the naming ceremony. It is a tradition that has to take place on the eighth day after the birth of the child. On the table next to the pastor are bowls containing substances the Yoruba people believe are essential to a child’s start in life – honey, salt, sugar, alligator pepper, palm oil, kola nut, bitter kola and water, all of them a representation of goodwill and prosperity. Fola passes Nimi to the pastor and the ceremony begins. A prayer is said, followed by the recitation of a hymn from an Anglican hymn book.

Nigerians say that when your palms are itchy, money or good fortune is coming your way. But itchy palms have always spelled trouble for me, and I wonder why it has to be at this moment when I am carrying Nimi in my arms that my left palm decides to itch its way to madness. I badly want to scratch the damn thing, but I can’t let go of my son, so I try my best to ignore it. I smile as the salt is rubbed on the tip of his tongue and he contorts his face. That there is the beautiful thing I love about the Yoruba culture. But I have also learned that tradition is something that can hold someone captive; that can turn them stone cold to any concept of reasoning and make them refuse to grow or think for themselves. I once heard a lady on a yellow danfo bus swear that culture and religion stunt the growth of Nigerians more than anything else, after a preacher stopped by to deliver a sermon in the fifteen minutes it took for the bus to load full of passengers. ‘Na inside this hot sun where person dey find peace, wey him kon dey shout on top of our head? Abeg, make we hear word!’ she hissed. I couldn’t have agreed more. So when I do fawn at the beauty of culture, I do so with finger-measured adulation.

The Yorubas believe that just as honey is sweet, so will be the life of the child, and just as salt adds flavour to food, so will the child’s life be full of substance and happiness. The sugar also represents a sweet life, and just like the plentiful seeds in an alligator pepper, the child’s lineage will multiply. Palm oil is to signify a smooth and easy life, while the kola nut is to repel evil. The bitter kola is for a very long life and, finally, water is present so that the child is never thirsty in life and so that no enemy will slow its growth. I taste each and rub them on my poor baby’s mouth, this small creature of mine who is still breathing new, unrecognisable air, another life in a terrible yet wondrous world. I hope the world won’t be cruel to him.

I have already decided that my Nimi will be a feminist. Fola nodded in agreement, knowing better than to argue with me. I want him to play with dolls just as much as he does with cars. I want him not just to enjoy egusi soup but to know how to cook it too. I want him to know what it is to love a woman wholeheartedly, so that her submission is never a conversation at the dining table. As well as knowing how to repair a car, he’ll know how to do his own laundry. By God, he’ll learn to do it all, and where I fail, Fola will come to the rescue, teaching him what I cannot. The world desperately needs more feminists and my Nimi is going to be one.

I am upstairs in my bedroom taking a much-needed break from the celebration downstairs. I have fed Nimi again and he is peacefully asleep in his grandmother’s arms. I can already tell that Mama Fola will spoil him. She had happily taken him from me when I said I was coming up to the room. ‘Go and rest a bit my dear,’ she had nodded in understanding. The formal part of the ceremony is over and everyone is helping themselves to the food we prepared for the big feast. But before this, the pastor called on both grandparents to hold Nimi, to give him a name and pray for him by declaring great things into his life. Later on, other relatives were also given a chance to give him a name if they wanted to, but they were first required to put money into a bowl. At the end of the ceremony, Nimi came away with five names. But Fola and I know that there are only three that will make it to his birth certificate. The one we have given him – Oluwalonimi, a Yoruba name meaning ‘God owns me’, due to the circumstances of his conception; Ife˙le˙wa, another Yoruba name meaning ‘beautiful love’, given by Fola’s mother; and Osaze, given by my mother, meaning ‘chosen by God’ in our Edo language. Our little boy will be known to the world as Oluwalonimi Ife˙le˙wa Osaze Morgan, beautiful names rooted in love and God’s grace.

I take off my heels and relax into the flower-patterned chaise longue adjacent to our king-sized bed. I stretch out my legs and turn on the TV to distract me from the headache I am beginning to feel, thanks to the tightness of the gele on my head. I look for the knots. While I loosen them, I watch the news on the BBC. They’re talking about a young man who died a month ago while on a trip to Nigeria. The reporter says that he was a third-generation British-Nigerian man, and had been in his motherland for over a year before his untimely death. Not today, oh not today. I can’t breathe, I can’t breathe.

I am shocked to the core and, all of a sudden, I feel numb. I stare at the TV in silence, my lips trembling, watching flashing images transition from a solemn crowd in London gathered at a graveside, to a bustling junction in Lagos, overflowing with market sellers. I try to process what I am hearing. I knew that the day would come when I’d have to make a decision. But why today? The day of my baby’s naming ceremony. Is it a sign? I realise I am covered in goosebumps and the once humid room now feels cold. I grab my throw and wrap myself in its faux fur. Without warning, tears begin to race down my cheeks.

Moments later, I hear the loud clickety sounds of stilettos on the marble floor outside, coming towards my room, and I grab a pocket tissue and quickly dab my face, making sure I don’t ruin the makeup Cynthia had perfectly applied this morning. I fluff my buba, pat down my iro and compose myself. No one must know what is unravelling in my head. The news on the TV continues to recount the events that led to the young man’s death by the roadside. I bend over and tie the straps of my heels back up. I look up to find Cynthia leaning against the door frame, staring at me with arms akimbo, accentuating her hourglass figure even further.

‘Yuki what are you doing here? Hiding away while the rest of us attend to the guests huh?’ she drawls. ‘You’re lucky today is your day, you know I dislike babysitting adults at parties, especially these aunties we all know are here just for the food! I don’t know what it is with Nigerians and party jollof,’ she continues, exaggerating the last two words as they roll off her tongue.

She walks over and joins me on the chaise, nudging her big bum against mine, an order to scoot over.

‘Don’t tell me you’re already tired? You’ve only worn that head tie for like … an hour? Come on, give me a break!’ she goes on, relaxing into the chair and making herself comfortable.

‘So why are you sitting down then?’ I smirk.

‘Well if you can sit, so can I!’ she counters.

She picks up the remote and I attempt to collect it from her, but she is too fast. She sways it out of my reach and turns up the volume. I can tell that she is going to sit for a while.

‘Oh God, he looks familiar,’ she says.

‘Who?’ I ask, pretending not to understand.

‘Were you not just watching this? He looks familiar, but I don’t remember where.’

‘I’m sure every good-looking guy looks familiar to you Cynthia. Please, let’s join the others downstairs. Who’s with Nimi?’ I change the subject.

I get up, take the remote out of her grasp and turn off the TV, even though I know that she still won’t follow me immediately. With shaky legs, I walk towards the door, glad that my back is now to her, hiding the tremor in my lips and the tears welling up again in my eyes.

I pause. ‘Let’s go, I don’t want people wondering where the mother of the day is,’ I say, and walk out.

‘Go on, I’m right behind you,’ Cynthia says while still seated, one foot now crossed over the other.

I don’t bother urging her any further. I need the time it will take to walk from my room to the winding staircase and down into the living room to get myself together and be the proud, smiling mother that I was a few minutes ago. Even though my sanity is beginning to crumble, I have to put on a facade for the rest of the day until the last of the guests are seen out. Like a swan, I have to be regal and glide with charm, even though underneath I am swimming for dear life.

Finally alone, I turn the TV back on and take off the corset that is holding my tummy in. It had been amusing to watch Fola’s mother try to convince me to eat that mound of pounded yam. She had got quite upset when I had refused to, seeing as it had been dished out with my favourite soup.

I had followed Yuki upstairs, hoping to chat to her about my latest struggles with setting up my beauty academy back in London. The road to being self-employed is definitely not as linear as I had imagined when I first thought of the idea to create a brand to help women build their self-esteem through makeup. Yuki always knows how to put things into perspective, so I had hoped we’d get a chance to chat properly before I returned to England.

‘I’ll just close my eyes for five minutes,’ I think as I stretch my legs on the chaise longue. But just a few seconds later, I am brought out of my dreamland by the news reporter’s solemn voice. I sit up and watch with keen eyes. Something is amiss. I’m not sure what it is, but I know exactly who can explain it to me. I head back downstairs.

I’ve been watching Yuki for an hour now, and something is definitely up. She no longer has that spring in her step or that glow in her eyes. If anything, she looks on the brink of tears. It might not be visible to the undiscerning eye, but I know her well and I know that something is wrong. I look at Fola who is seated beside her, and wonder if he too can tell.

‘Of course he can.’ I answer the daft question in my head and fan myself with a newspaper as the help runs out to turn on the generator again. For the second time this afternoon, the power has gone out. ‘Ah NEPA!’ comes the familiar lament. Nigeria’s National Electric Power Authority, long ago privatised and given a new name, has been providing such treats for years. But the disappointment is fresh every time, like a mother who suddenly realises that her son is now grown and no longer wants to be kissed in public.

Some hours l. . .