The Heritage

He’d been receiving calls from Nigeria since he made his first trip there six months ago. He’s 40 something years old. He was born in Britain into a mixed marriage – father from Nigeria and mother from St. Lucia in the Caribbean. The father moved out of the house when Bamidele was 15 years. He had the option of living with his father but chose to remain with his mother. In fact he was going to start moonlighting to help his mum with the housekeeping but the latter stopped him. She said to him them,

–          Education! Education!! Education!!!

She used to say that, if she had gone much higher with her education, she would have made much more progress than what was thrown at her despite the prejudices of those days.

He and his sister lived with their mother who supported them with her earnings from two different jobs. She had an early morning job as a cleaner. She cleaned offices in the City for two hours very early. From that job she would go to the main one in the post office. She used to leave home as early as 4 a.m. and returned 12 hours later at 4 p.m. when he and his sister were returning from school. She closed early on Saturdays and there were some days in the week when she was off work. Their father was often in arrears with their maintenance allowance. This put pressure on their mother’s finances but she plodded on. There was always food in the house, there wasn’t any hole in their socks neither did they wear tattered clothes. Bamidele and his sister, Modupe went to visit their father for he, out of pride, had refused to come see them at their mother’s house. So twice a month they went up to see Dad. He could remember not having so much to say to his father. The conversation was often,

–          How’s school?

–          How’re your teachers?

–          Do you understand what they teach you?

–          When are the holidays?

Bamidele recalls answering in a word or two at most. The conversation didn’t go any further than that. But Dad wasn’t like that with his sister, Modupe. He was softer with her. He used to tie her ribbon. He would coax her to eat the Nigerian food he made. Well, he made only jollof rice. And not as good as his mother who though not from Nigeria cooked it better.

On one of those visits, they met a woman in their father’s house.

–          Come and meet your auntie.

Their father had said as they walked through the door that afternoon.

That was a first to Bamidele. A relation visiting his father! His father, a man who never encouraged his relations to stay with him! So this auntie must either have just found out Dad’s address and re-connected with him or must be a special relation. They were herded into the front room where the auntie was seated. She was clad in a Nigerian dress. She said something that he – and he believed his sister as well – didn’t understand. Anyway, they sat with the woman in the front room. Dad then spoke to her in Yoruba and she left them. Dad told the children that she had gone to make them some food. Bamidele found the food served very spicy but much better than what their father had been feeding them. That was how he met the woman his father married. He later learnt during his first visit to Nigeria that she was ‘shipped’ to him. After their father took a new wife, he stopped sending them any allowance. Their mother’s patience with him snapped.

–          No allowance, no visit. So she decided.

Their mother stood her ground and said he wasn’t fit to receive their visit if he didn’t pay any allowance. All this happened when Bamidele was 16 going 17. He decided there and then to forget the Nigerian side of his heritage and feel British instead. He started to forget his father. The visit, from him to his father, stopped but at times, he could swear that his sister continued to call on their father. She never said this but he was very convinced of it.

Bamidele went to university and graduated in engineering. He applied and got a job in Scotland. It was there that he met an English rose to whom he proposed marriage. When he informed his mother of his intention to take a wife she begged him to invite his father to the wedding. It was her pleas that made him go back to his father 10 years after he had cut all ties. By now his mother was also in a close relationship with a jolly man.

The wedding was a grand occasion. His father was decked in his Yoruba woven cloth. He looked regal. He begged him to come back to England. He told him that he should ‘let bygones be bygones’. But Bamidele has started a new life in Scotland. He has re-invented himself. He’s cut off his Nigerian heritage. So he thought until he got news that his father had passed away in far away Nigeria. And as the first and only son of the deceased he had to be present at the funeral. His mother pleaded with him again to do his duties. He made the trip and met the family. He had nothing in common with this people. So he thought. But their father, in his will, left his property in Nigeria to him and his sister. Bamidele has been in a dilemma since the will was read in the probate office.

–          What, for goodness sake, was my old man thinking about when he wrote that will?

He already renounced his Nigerian heritage. He’s British. He doesn’t want to live in Nigeria. He doesn’t want to be reminded of this heritage.

–          Dad’s surely having a good laugh wherever he is.