Writing is breathing
Novelist and Creative Writing lecturer at UWI, Dr Muli Amaye’s debut novel, A House With No Angels (Crocus Press 2019), was imagined years before it was published. Dr Amaye, who was born and grew up in Manchester, UK, began to explore her identity as a child of mixed heritage (British and Nigerian) “in the stark whiteness of a family, church, school, and community at an early age.”
Amaya had already begun writing seriously when the inspiration to write A House With No Angels came out of the blue while she was attending Manchester Metropolitan University. One day, while on campus, she stopped in front of a building facing a local park (All Saints) when a blue plaque, “high up and barely noticeable,” caught her attention. She looked closer to read that the plaque commemorated the Pan-African Congress held in Manchester in 1945.
Amaye, for whom “writing is like breathing, bringing life to life,” and a release from strong emotion, knew she wanted to write about this meeting, which was a precursor for the independence of several colonial countries. Although her novel A House with No Angels “ended up somewhere completely different” from where it began, Amaye knew even then she would be writing a woman’s story “in three different voices, from three different generations. My women are brash, loud, and unapologetic—flawed, daring, and perfect.”
These early ruminations deepened, and Amaye’s short stories on “belonging, women’s voices, migration, memory, family dynamics, secrets women in the diaspora” were published in anthologies and literary journals, such as Midnight & Indigo Literary Magazine, USA, and the recent speculative fiction anthology, Glimpse, UK, edited by Leone Ross.
If writing is breathing to Amaye, who gained a PhD in Creative Writing at Lancaster University, UK (and has taught creative writing in the UK, Kurdistan in Northern Iraq, and T&T since 2006), teaching comes a close second. She finds teaching at the University of the West Indies (UWI) “incredible”, marvelling at the diversity and unique styles of writers who attend the Masters of Fine Arts programme.
“I love to see how young writers see the world, how they want to express that and find the best way to help them bloom.”
Excerpt from A House With No Angels (Crocus Press 2019) by Muli Amaye, with all permissions granted exclusively to The Sunday Guardian WE magazine.
Ade
So, my husband has gone. Before I lifted the telephone to my ear and before Funmi greeted me, I sensed that something had happened. I do not know how many hours I have been sitting in this chair, but my body is stiff. My room looks strange to me as though I have just entered somewhere I do not know. James is dead. He is gone. If it had not been for that man, Sha! But what am I saying? Did he force me to come to this place? The journey-o! How I survived it I do not know. When we arrived in Lagos port I thought I would pass out. The smell-o! Aiyaiy-aiy!
The ship was so large. I had never seen anything so big in my life. But, of course, I was young and excited. I was more concerned with looking over my shoulder to make sure that I had not been followed. I do not think I shed one tear at the thought of leaving my home.
It was not as difficult as we thought it would be for me to slip into James’s car at the edge of the village. When Funmi and I reach the Iroko tree, the women’s tree, I look up. It is as though the moon is impaled on its highest branch. Earlier the children were playing, as they do at full moon, placing broken chalk and china around each other to create moon-babies that litter the floor. I grip Funmi’s hand, suddenly frightened. ‘What if he does not turn up-o? What will I do? I will die.’ ‘Sistah, I beg-o, you do not need to do this. It will be well. Mama will understand.’ ‘But Funmi, I love him. Can you not be happy for me?’ ‘But, sistah, he is so old?’ ‘What do you mean? He is twenty-five. Just eight years more than me.’ ‘Yes, a whole eight years. What will his job be in England? Do you think he can look after you? Will he still drive for his government?’
I try to let go of her hand, but she grips me tight. The air is still, thick. The scent of evening rides on top of it. Saturating my senses. Pepper soup is mixed with charcoal and the village latrines. The river is glinting as the moon whispers its secrets in a thousand voices to its ebb and flow.
Funmi begins to cry, quietly. We hear the thrum-thrum of the car’s engine as it loops around the village. My heart leaps and my insides tighten, and I know I am doing the right thing. The headlights create shadows of us that reach up into the branches. Stretching for the moon. We hide behind the tree. Just in case. Just in case it is somebody else. Just in case it is my papa returning. James pulls up right beside us, drives over the thick, knobbled roots. ‘Ade, hurry up. I saw you. Come on, quick.’ ‘I’m coming. I’m coming.’ I turn to Funmi. I cannot see her, but I can feel her. Her fear is trying to hold on to me. To stop me from leaving.
‘Remember, Funmi, you do not know anything. Promise me again that you will not tell. Promise me.’ In the back of my mind I know that I am sentencing her. When Papa returns he will beat her. If Mama has not banished her before then. Her own mama, my aunty, will take pleasure in our downfall. But there is nothing I can do. I must go. I climb into the backseat. The car smells of leather and tobacco. It smells of James. He switches off the headlights and we drive away with the moon riding on the bonnet. I dare to look up one more time. I think I can make out Funmi. She is standing, her hand over her mouth as though to stop herself shouting out. Mud houses and the concrete school shimmer, like a mirage in the desert. I do not cry.
When we have travelled for some time James says, ‘Ade, sit up now and look like somebody.’ I sit as I have seen Papa sit many times in the back of that big, black car. I would like to ride up front with James, but I do not know how to ask him. Instead I breathe him in until I feel dizzy with the fumes. ‘Tell me again, James, where will we live?’ ‘I’ve told you half a dozen times. I need to concentrate. Do you want us to be ambushed?’ Of course, I did not. But at that time, I could not imagine who would want to ambush us. Especially if we were in a white man’s car. Belonging to the Foreign Office.
I was too young to understand. But I did not wish to irritate James. We were going on an adventure. We were starting our new life. We would marry and have our baby and live in James’s England. I lay my head on my luggage and slept. Elizabeth I feel like I’m in a movie and I should be swooning over the frigging sofa or something. Maybe that’s what I should be doing. But then that doesn’t make sense because my dad is, was, Ola’s dad so he would be in the same state. Except that he’s a man so he’d have to show his grief in a different way. Shepherd’s pie. That’s what I’m supposed to be making. And cauliflower cheese. ‘What are you saying, sistah? I can’t hear you. Are you counting?’ ‘No. I’m thinking a bit out loud. Why would I be counting?’ On and on. It’s obvious I’m not talking to him, I’m just trying to sort things out. ‘Have you spoken to Tosan again? Did you manage to get her?’ ‘No sistah, she has to travel from Warri to Benin. I will try later or she will call me.’
The pain in my head’s getting worse. My dad’s dead. Our dad’s dead. But he hadn’t been dying, he’d been ill. Ill and dying are not the same thing. What do you do next when your dad has died? I really don’t have a clue. How should I be feeling? Swooning doesn’t really happen anymore. I wonder what the modern equivalent is. Punching things? Running amok? That’s a good word. But not really a death word. Maybe I’m supposed to be sitting down in the lounge with the curtains drawn and neighbours bringing food? That’s how it used to be. I remember.
The old lady across the road died. I was about nine. I’d never liked her. She had a strange face and would stand at her gate all the time. She tried to talk but her mouth dropped and dribbled and we made up stories about her. How she was a witch who cast spells on little kids she didn’t like. But when she died all the neighbours closed their curtains. I stood behind our hedge and watched them taking pans and cake tins to her family. Even mum took a pan of stew. It went on for days. John Sinclair, who lived two doors down, said if we didn’t close our curtains and take nice food she’d come and stare in our windows at night-time and give the evil eye to people who’d laughed at her and if they looked at her their face would drop.
He also said his mum had gone and seen her in the coffin. She was on the dining room table. Her face was proper, he said. Smooth and straight. And she had no toes. I wet the bed that night. On the day of her funeral we had to dress up in our best clothes and stand outside when the coffin came out. I stood behind my mum and closed my eyes.” Ola’s putting the phone in my hand, I hadn’t heard it ring. It’s Dia and I say, ‘My dad’s dead’ and she puts the phone down.
–End of excerpt