He sighed. “Lipe, there is a situation. Things are not as they should be. I can’t explain right now. I know it’s selfish to ask you to be patient, but I’d really like you to be patient.”
“You —”
“I’m —”
He stopped, as did she, realizing they’d spoken at the same time. For the longest of moments, there was no sound but her quivering breath. A situation. Was that what people called the things they didn’t want to tell other people? The terms of their association, in truth, had never been defined. He owed her no explanation; he made no promises to her. Shame was a small word for what Lipe felt. “It’s not just selfish to ask me to be patient. It’s pointless,” she finally said. “This whole thing is pointless. Listen, don’t you ever call me again. Ever. Is that clear?” She hung up.
Three whole weeks passed. She kept herself busy. She conquered the urge to call him. It was like changing a dream. If a dream could indeed be swapped for another that didn’t peel back the skin of her mind. And then her phone vibrated during an hour of online window shopping. An unknown number. She reached for it hurriedly. “Hello, Hello?”
It was Sophie-Sylvia, calling to say she had locked herself out and could Lipe please help?
Early the next morning, Lipe walked along the lake. A fierce wind blew open her coat. She pulled it close and went through the wire gate, all the way under the seamless awning of trees, right to the point where the trail thickened into tar. Cars made a slow weave around the bend, and the heavy fog, descending over the campus, sparked off an ache in her lungs. She turned back and sat on a bench in front of the pier, gazing at its damp base and its cracked surface, and at the murky waters skulking in and out of the shore.
* * *
Lipe listened to Uzomma moan about a missed deadline in Café Direct. She nodded when Uzomma mentioned a meeting with their advisor, and then feeling guilty for not being more attentive, murmured, “Okay.”
Uzomma’s poreless face, the one thing Lipe envied about her, crumpled. Uzomma kept her jacket on despite the dim warmth of the café, and the new leanness to her body gave her an air of containment. “How can you say okay when five marks were deducted from my essay?” she asked.
“Oh. Sorry.”
Uzomma looked directly at Lipe. “Your mind is not here,” Uzomma said.
“Are you okay?”
Lipe had no plans to tell her about Dafe. She had no plans to tell anyone. Instead she said that she had a cold. But Uzomma fretted and said they should go to the medical centre in case it was a rare East Anglian virus, and so Lipe had to tell her that she had strolled by the lake earlier, and that was probably the cause.
“Lipe, you’re funny,” Uzomma said. “I’ve never heard of a Nigerian going hiking or camping. Some things are not in our blood.” Uzomma started to say more, changed her mind. Lipe remained quiet.
“This is lovely,” Uzomma said eventually, stroking Lipe’s cornflower blue jumper.
“Thanks.”
Uzomma got up and picked up her bag. “I’d better leave now or I’ll be late for mid-week service. Are you coming?” she asked, an earnest lift to her eyebrows, as though she already didn’t know the reply.
“No.”
The next day, in a foreign policy lecture, Lipe couldn’t focus. She checked her phone. No missed calls.
“Can they hurry up already? I’m dying of hunger,” Uzomma whispered beside her.
Lipe idly considered confiding in Uzomma, in the detached manner she often planned to do things she knew she would never do. Uzomma with her pious philosophies wouldn’t understand. She would cast and bind the spirit of Dafe out of Lipe’s life.
Afterwards they went to the crowded foyer, track lights gleaming like overhead shards, tiles the brownish orange of toast spilling into the next room. A leather couch was pushed to a corner, making space for the usual table with sparkling water and orange juice.
Uzomma groaned. “There’s no food. Not even potato chips.”
“Surprise, surprise.” Lipe glanced at the entrance door. She needed to be alone. At last Uzomma saw the Japanese boy in her Globalisation class and went over to say hi.
Back in her room, Lipe opened the closet to hang up her coat. Dafe’s tartan scarf slipped off a hanger, landed on her suede boots. In spite of herself, she pressed the scarf to her nose, inhaling its musky scent. She almost wept with longing.
After dinner she checked her phone again, the blank screen almost seeming to deride her. She took her plate to the kitchen. Her flatmates had thrown a party that evening. Empty wine bottles and soiled paper napkins littered the counter. Clumps of dough had fluffed up and hardened beneath the oven. She couldn’t tell which most disgusted her—the sight or herself. It brought a weight to her chest, that she had become a woman who knew how to wait.
* * *
Dafe called in the middle of the morning. Lipe had purposely set a song she hated as his ringtone. While it played she headed out of her residence to the square. She let her phone ring while she used the ATM, did her laundry, bought groceries in the Union Store. It rang again in her room as she booted up her laptop to watch a TV series.
She answered the call and said, “Stop bothering me.”
“Why?” Dafe asked. “You’ve bothered my head for weeks.”
He sounded calm, way too calm. Lipe hung up and put her phone on silent. Halfway into the series, he called back. “What I meant to say was that I miss you.”
In her stomach, something dropped. “So what am I supposed to say?”
“How about I miss you too?”
“You must be joking,” she said. “Didn’t I tell you not to call me?”
“Yes you did. But I’m not very good at playing along.”
Lipe sighed. “Dafe, look, I’m tired of your mind games.”
“Then why don’t you hang up?”
Silence.
“Lipe, come on. Just admit that you miss me.”
His smug tone did it. She hung up again, the phone ringing as she placed it on the table.
“Does this mean we’re talking again?” he asked.
“Dafe—”
He cut her off. “I’m sorry, okay? If you ever tell me to stop calling you again, I won’t listen.”
“Dafe, please leave me alone. Go and disturb somebody else.”
“You know I won’t do that. What are you wearing?”
“You’re crazy.”
“I won’t leave you alone unless you tell me what you’re wearing.” She spoke with a sullen resignation.
“A sweater and a pair of tights.”
“And your panties. What colour are they?”
“Purple.”
“God. Plain or not?”
“That’s enough.”
“Spoilsport.” He paused. “Lipe.”
“Yes?”
“I meant what I said earlier. I fucking miss you.”