Chapter Forty-Four
The next evening, Anika watches as one of the insect-repelling citronella candles flickers out on the patio outside.
The sky has finally darkened, pinpricks of stars illuminating it.
They’re all seated around a beautifully laid table in the open-plan, indoor-outdoor dining space that is decorated throughout with warm, brightly patterned tiles and subtle white fairy lights.
While clearing down at the huge kitchen island nearby, chef Stacey Bankole-Smith pushes her locs over one shoulder beneath her blue bandana and leans over to her assistant, nodding quietly towards the bi-fold doors that are pulled wide to the expanse of warm night beyond.
The elegant young man in a white chef’s jacket threads around the table and out to the patio to attend to the candle.
The chef put together an incredible private dining experience.
Anika felt almost tearful as Stacey and her small team revealed the spread a couple of hours earlier.
The fusion of Sierra Leonean food and ‘fine dining’ was every bit as delicious as she hoped – delectable canapés of cassava croquettes, pepeh tilapia in a peanut-butter sauce, jollof rice cooked oven-style with an elevated Salone chicken stew …
Anika is thrilled that they pulled this off so last minute.
She looks around the table at each of her friends and family scraping up the last few delicious morsels of mango sorbet and coconut tuiles.
Nella and Philip are chatting to Chef Stacey, who has now come over and crouched down deferentially to, ‘Yes, Aunty. No, Aunty,’ at Anika’s mother’s reminiscences.
Maia is playfully reaching her spoon over to Shameeka’s plate.
Tina has her brows knit together somewhat incredulously but with a wide grin on her face as she listens to Wendy, who has gone into her usual self-conscious-but-endearingly-verbose mode in this less-familiar company.
Anika thinks she’s recounting the details of a recent disastrous date, and smiles affectionately in her friend’s direction.
Cam is momentarily distracted from Anika, joking with the waiter who comes over to refill their wine glasses.
She suddenly feels like a ghost, alone and observing those she loves. Is this what it would be like if I died? The thought scares her so much she jolts fractionally in her seat, causing Cam to turn to her.
‘The sorbet gave me a shiver,’ she says to him.
Her braids are piled into a high, wrapped bun, and Cam rubs one warm hand on the exposed skin between her shoulder blades in her strappy, loose black dress.
Anika moves to stand up so his hand drops away – as much because she’s decided she wants to say something as because the feel of Cam touching her suddenly generates a strange exasperation.
She clears her throat, and her friends and family around the table turn towards her.
‘Uh, OK, everyone. Thanks so much for coming, I just wanted to say a few words. Firstly, I think you’ll all agree that Stacey has done an incredible job with the food, and this dining space is amazing, right?
’ They all give a heartfelt round of applause to the chef, who grins at them and bows her head a little before going back to clearing.
Anika reaches for her wine glass. ‘I just wanted to raise a toast to you all. Thank you so much for getting me through what’s been a really weird period for me since going to the hospital and being told …
Well, that it could all have ended …’ She snaps her fingers, which are unexpectedly clammy with sweat, ‘Like that.’
She looks down for a minute, and into the awkward pause Shameeka says, ‘Yeah, they forgot you were that bitch, though.’ Everyone laughs and Shamz apologises to Anika’s mum, who bunched her lips in good-humoured disapproval.
Despite smiling along with the rest of them, Anika feels a cold, sombre pall come over her like smoke.
‘Yeah,’ she replies ponderously. After a beat, she says slowly, ‘I had something in my gut, blocking my ability to follow it. Trying to make me disappear.’ They’ve grown quiet now too, focused on her.
Anika can almost hear their thoughts edging towards discomfort but can’t stop this all from pouring out of her.
Not any more. ‘Before this happened, I was scared and angry all the time. I was passive. And I thought I couldn’t do anything about it.
’ She looks at Wendy, Shameeka and Tina.
‘I’d be the slightly pathetic friend, right?
Overly reserved. The one who could never quite get it together, who stayed in jobs and relationships that didn’t serve me because …
Because it was easier. Because I was afraid of what would happen if I left.
I’d be the one who needed advice, who’d exasperate you lot, but I’d also be reliably there to make you feel better by comparison, right? ’
‘Anika, that’s not true. We’ve been over this.’ Shameeka folds her napkin, then her arms.
Tina shakes her head. ‘She’s right, babe. Where is this coming from?’
Ignoring them, Anika continues. ‘And, like, Wendy? You’re an incredible friend – you really are.
You’re fun and supportive and amazing, but occasionally I’d let you get away with stuff.
I mean, I’d let you be clueless, and,’ Anika lets out a breathy laugh, ‘sometimes I’d let you spout microaggressions that I’d come home to our flat to avoid, not to find residing where I lived too.
D’you know what I mean? And I know it wasn’t deliberate.
I know. It was on me to say something. I promise that from now on, I will. ’
Wendy frowns up towards Anika at the head of the table.
‘Blimey, OK, well, yeah. OK …’ Anika sees her friend flailing, her face turning red.
She doesn’t want to make Wendy feel bad but is equally relieved at having articulated some of her concerns.
This is fine, right … ? She presses on, ignoring the doubts and her friend trying to disguise the upset in her eyes with the smile on her lips.
‘Listen, you told me last time we went out that I was the strongest woman you know, Wend. And I’m starting to realise that you all have no idea just how true that statement is.
So, I dunno …’ She pauses to sip her wine, throat dry, and the liquid tastes suddenly bitter on her tongue. Cam takes the moment to interrupt.
‘Rah. Who’s next in the firing line, then? Me?’ he asks quietly, adjusting the placement of his cutlery on the plate. He looks up at Anika, one hand resting on the back of the chair she’s no longer sitting in. The silence suggests they agree with him. That they think this is an attack.
‘That’s not what this is!’ Anika replies with a bloom of exasperation. ‘I just want to be honest, to show you all that I’m different—’
‘We get it,’ she hears Shamz mutter.
Anika sucks in a breath to continue, looking at Cam.
‘Like, the night we first talked, back when we were kids? When I was so afraid to interact with anyone that I was hiding in a fucking—’ She glances at her mum, who has a deep frown on her face.
‘In a utility room? Afterwards, when all that awful shit went down in the park, I just left you guys …’
‘What?’ Nella exclaims, and Anika faintly registers that this would be news to her mother. She ignores her, trying to press on.
‘I left you all to deal with—’
‘Enough,’ Cam says quickly, his brow pressed flat, his voice tight. ‘You were seventeen years old. Of course you’ve changed.’
She’s not used to Cam being angry, but she must carry on. ‘It does matter! I was a coward and that stayed with me. I lived that way for so long, all the way into adulthood.’ Anika’s voice begins to tremble. ‘It took thinking I was going to die to reset my … my brain. My soul. My life, and I—’
‘Anika.’ It’s Nella. The tone of her voice is so utterly maternal that it stops Anika in her tracks. Her mother rises slowly from her chair and walks around the table to turn Anika and grip her daughter’s shoulders, her eyes shining with concern. ‘What is it, eh?’ she says. ‘Are you OK?’
Anika draws more air in slowly, like it’s the first breath she’s ever taken.
Or like the next could be her last. ‘Mum, I am,’ she says determinedly.
You need to do this. You can’t be weak any more.
‘I am now. It’s like … ever since I was little, we’ve just had to push on, right?
Head down, take what we can get. Dad, he …
he was only around when he felt like it.
And you having to work, and me being by myself?
And then Clive, and moving away and …’ She hears herself hardly making sense.
‘What I mean is, we had to fight. Always. I mean …’ She tapers off again, gesturing over to Philip, whose concerned look is principally for his wife.
Anika feels bad again and returns her gaze to her mother, who is staring at Anika wide-eyed, her grip on her daughter’s shoulder slackening.
The disappointed look on Nella’s face almost makes Anika falter.
‘Anika …’ her mum says again, voice stern this time.
‘I’m powerful now,’ Anika interrupts. ‘I don’t have to struggle.
I make my own choices and I’m not afraid any more.
’ But even as she speaks the words, she feels lightheaded.
She takes another sip of wine, which doesn’t help.
‘I know what it means to stare death in the face,’ she continues, louder to combat the tremor in her voice.
‘T-to hold it in my hand and crush it …’ Anika is panting now, her head whirling.
Everyone’s stares radiate confusion. Looking down, she notices that one fist is tightly balled, wine sloshing down the side of the glass in her other hand and dribbling over her fingers. She puts it down, wiping her hand on a napkin and trying to re-centre herself.
‘We loved the old you, Anika,’ Shameeka says into the settling silence.