Chapter VIII
VIII
Elegushi beach was not a sexy spot, but a beach was a beach.
Eniiyi found Funsho and his friends on reed mats, spread over what could be bird shit.
They’d kicked away empty bottles and plastic bags so they had a relatively clear little patch of sand.
The important thing was, she was away from the women at home.
She wore a mustard bikini, which blazed brightly against her dark skin, and she caught Funsho gazing at her. But her friend was not the only one. All the members of their party had stolen a glance at some point or other. She quite liked their attention.
All around them people huddled round benches, sat on mats, danced on the sand, played games, ate food; the closest anyone got to the ocean was to dip their feet in the shallows and then, clutching each other, laughing and screaming, run back to the safety of dry sand.
None of them were actually going in. Lagos may have been an island, but they might as well have been landlocked for all the use Lagosians got out of the water.
They spent an hour enjoying the ocean breeze, passing around food and joints.
One of the boys had brought a speaker for his phone, and as Teni’s “Case” wound down, Burna Boy’s “Gbona” came on.
Eniiyi stood up, dusted the sand from her skin and began dancing, comfortable with all the eyes that were on her.
This was unlike her; she didn’t usually look for the spotlight.
She felt less like Eniiyi, and wondered if this was who Monife had been—sultry, confident, commanding the attention of men and the jealousy of women.
Suddenly she noticed one of the gatemen of Elegushi beach running towards them, waving his arms.
“Oya! Everybody! Be going!” The man’s expression was one of irritation; or perhaps it was…fear? But nobody moved. They had each dropped a thousand naira and they were not leaving until they got their money’s worth.
The man continued to shoo at them with his hands. He went from mat to mat, and slowly people began to reluctantly stand up. Someone turned off the music.
“What happened?” asked one of Funsho’s friends.
“One man don enter water. We no fit reach am.”
They instinctively turned their heads towards the ocean.
It had never looked vaster. There were no lifeguards at Elegushi beach; there was rarely a need because no one ever entered the water.
Why would you? It wasn’t the sparkling blue of a Hawaiian sea or that glassy translucent colour that allowed you to see what lay beneath.
The same bottles and carrier bags on the sand floated in the murky waters, and the currents could be deceptively strong.
The people around her were rolling up their mats, gathering their things. No attempt was being made to rescue the boy who’d got into difficulty. The gatekeepers simply wanted the witnesses gone. She scanned the lagoon. And then she spotted a hand disappearing into the water.
She began to run. She heard Funsho call out after her, but she did not answer. The hand was not so far. He was not so far at all.
She leapt into the water before she had a chance to think, and she felt it embrace her.
She swam with strong, confident strokes, but it was choppier than she’d realised and she couldn’t always keep sight of him.
She hoped she wasn’t swimming in the wrong direction.
But there he was—perhaps God was on her side.
She grabbed an arm to turn him, so he was facing the sky.
He was barely conscious and he was not light, so she supported his head and twisted his arm under his armpit so he would float and she could paddle him to shore.
The waves were breaking over them; they were pulled under twice.
The sea did not give up her prey so easily.
But before long, she could see the sand, and there were hands pulling her out of the water. She released her ward to them.
She collapsed on the sand.
“You silly, silly girl,” cried Funsho.
“Is he alive?” asked someone else.
The crowd looked at the man laid on the sand. On closer inspection, he was about their age. His body was long and fit. His face angular, with sharp cheekbones and full lips. Eniiyi wondered what his eyes would be like. She wondered if he would ever open those eyes again.
Someone dropped to their knees and started giving him mouth-to-mouth. It dawned on her that they should call an ambulance, but she had no idea what the number was for that; or if there even was a number to call.
The gateman who had tried to chase them away was making her dizzy with his pacing and annoying her with his muttering. He was more concerned with the potential trouble of a corpse than he was with the life hanging in the balance. Meanwhile, instructions were flowing in from all around them.
“Press his chest,” said someone.
“You have to lift his neck up,” another chimed in.
Someone in the background was speaking in tongues. Eniiyi added a prayer under her breath.
Suddenly the man coughed. God was praised as the water dribbled from his mouth. Someone patted her on her back. He opened his eyes.
His eyes were beautiful.