Free Butterfly Fish by Irenosen Okojie Page A

trembled one last time, Ogiso left his body at last to find a new home.

Vicarious through Fuchsia
    I threw on clothes and hopped on a few trains to Harlesden, to Williams and Co. Solicitors. The scent of curry goat and hot rotis wafting from the Caribbean takeaway meant I didn’t have to glance at the clock to know it was nearly lunchtime. Inside the building, Pauline the gatekeeper was typing swiftly on her PC and barking orders into a telephone handset. She winked before waving me through with a wiggle of her multi-tasking fingers. Mervyn was at the fax machine yanking documents out and scrunching them into paper missiles before flinging them into a wastebasket.
    â€œHey,” I mumbled in greeting.
    He turned to face me. “Go inside nuh.”
    On his desk, a mug of steaming coffee rested dangerously near the edge. An atlas sat right next to a new photograph of Mervyn and his two sons in a boat in Jamaica. They were holding large crabs that looked as though they’d crawl over their heads and eat their expressions. Big smiles were plastered on their faces. Behind them the water was like a big, rippling blue sky.
    I studied his extensive library; Fly Fishing for Beginners and How Not to Kill Your Wife on Holiday held my attention among the heavy bound volumes of Law. He walked in whistling, more papers tucked under his left arm and clutching a bag of sweets in his right hand. He dumped them unceremoniously on the desk.
    â€œSo wha’appen, answering machine brok’ up again?” He pointed to the bag and I popped a chewy cola bottle in my mouth.
    â€œNaw, I hardly check it.”
    â€œYou’ve come for the diary,” he said.
    â€œHow did you know that?”
    â€œBecause I know you.” He stroked a finger over his lip and took a quick sip of coffee.
    â€œYou haven’t read it have you?” I leaned forward in the chair watching for any deceptive body language.
    â€œNope, I’ll admit I’m curious though.”
    â€œI don’t know why my mother didn’t give it to me years ago.”
    â€œMe neither but about three months before she died she came to see me.”
    â€œSo?”
    â€œWell she was behaving odd like, agitated.”
    â€œDid she say why?”
    â€œNah man, I told her to chill out, she was still young with plenty of time but she was insistent about the will, so I obliged.”
    He jangled some keys in his trousers before using it to unlock the bottom drawer. Took out the worn, black leather bound book and handed it over.
    â€œThanks.” It felt warm against my hand and I bent to rest my ear on the cover as if it would speak. I plunged my finger in, flicked to a random page.
    I said, “I wonder what a handwriting expert could tell me about him from this?”
    â€œSomehow I don’t think you’ll need that,” he replied, stuffing three cola bottles in his mouth.
    Throughout most of the train journey back I clutched the journal tightly. It looked remarkably ordinary and was light to carry with a slightly stale smell. Besides some thumb indentations it was still in good condition. At some point I noticed the name Peter Lowon scrawled haphazardly inside the cover and the date beside the name read 1950. A black and white photograph slipped out. In it threeblack men wearing army uniforms sat around a tiny wooden table filled with beer bottles. A curvy woman sat in the lap of one man who appeared to be laughing at something the man opposite him was doing. It was the third gentleman who caught my attention. He was sat slightly apart from the others. There was a handkerchief tucked in his breast pocket. He watched the other two with an expression that can only be described as disdainful. I flipped the photograph over and printed on the back was Ijoma’s bar, Lagos. I thought about starting to read the journal on the District line from Mile End but when an arguing couple stepped inside my carriage, it was a reminder to