Free Reading the Ceiling by Dayo Forster Page B

that ridiculous gait of his, knees pointed outward, heels bouncing lightly on each step.
    We’re off to watch a bunch of his friends play in a post-punk band. Rifat promises it will be loud. He plans to help sell tickets at the door. I assure him the music will be incomprehensible. He says he guarantees entertainment. I accept on condition that a proportion of his earnings purchases drinks.
    I’ve made a Gambian salad – hand-shredded lettuce leaves, slices of tomatoes, cucumber, onions, thick quarters of hard-boiled egg, halves of deboned sardines from a tin – in a version of my mother’s dressing. I bought two baguette loaves and have sliced them into angled ovals. After we’ve joked and eaten with Meena, I make my way downstairs to pick out my boots and jacket. The doorbell rings, and I jump. When I open the door, it’s Akim.
    He says, ‘I wanted to phone you to ask whether you’re up to anything, but I decided to come round to see you in case you were not.’
    â€˜In five minutes, you wouldn’t have found me in. We are on our way out.’
    I hear Rifat saying goodbye to Meena as he moves towards the stairs. When they are within spitting distance the two men nod to each other in a silent male-male exchange. I say, ‘Rifat, Akim.’ They shake hands. Akim puts both hands in his front pockets just as a gust of wind blows up a couple of empty crisp packets around my ankles.
    â€˜We’re just off now,’ I say, ‘to see a band. I’ll catch up with you some other time.’
    And Akim says, ‘Sure,’ in a voice that matches his face. It’s the first time I’ve seen him look at me like that.
    Akim starts to phone me more often.
    â€˜Where have you been?’ is often his greeting.
    I start to find notes under my door:
    Was hoping you might want to go out for a Chinese meal.
    There’s a good film on – thought you might want to see it.
    Just popping by, I had nothing else that I wanted to do.
    Â I ask him when he plans to go home. He says he might stay for the graduation ceremony and there is no particular hurry. I say I’ll have to leave by mid-November as I will have run out of money by then.
    I come home one day, late – around two – from a new babysitting job I’ve found. Akim is sitting in his blue BMW with the cover up, listening to Marvin Gaye.
    â€˜What are you doing here?’
    â€˜Needed to see you,’ he mumbles. ‘Can I come in?’
    â€˜Look, this isn’t going to work. I’m dead tired. I need to go to bed.’
    â€˜Where have you been?’
    â€˜Babysitting.’
    â€˜It’s not safe, coming back this late. You should let me pick you up.’
    â€˜I’ve been fine doing this for the last three weeks. They pay for my cab home.’
    â€˜Can I come in?’ he asks again.
    â€˜No. Go home. It’s late.’
    Two months later, Akim tries to kill himself. He leaves a yellow sticky note on a table in his kitchen, with a little arrow:

    He attaches a stamped and addressed letter to me. The police find it and a social worker brings it round to see me and have a little chat. Akim declares to the world that I was the one who drove him to it, that I was the cause. Isn’t that the way it is in tales of romance, in which the lover gives up life to protect the beloved? One is ready to die so that the one who is loved can live? Is that the ultimate proof of love, to say ‘I’d rather die than live without you’ and then to go ahead and tie a rope around your neck and kick a stool away.
    What I know for sure is that, as a consequence, shock and guilt rampage through my life.
    *
    His parents both fly over from Lagos. They arrange for a course of treatment with a psychiatrist in South Kensington, then they take him back to Nigeria.
    His mother writes to me. Her letter starts: ‘My dear Ayodele’. Being called a ‘dear’ when I feel like