NKECHI: good evening, brother. How was work?
EBUKA: work wasn’t too bad. Where have you been?
NKECHI: I’ve been upstairs
FUNMI: good evening, Inkechi
NKECHI: hia!!! Oh! Please Funmi my name is not Inkechi! Seriously, what’s so difficult about my name! I pronounce your name perfectly why can’t you do same! I am beginning to think you do it on purpose just to wind me up! Stop it please! Call me Jessica!
EBUKA: all these rants for pronouncing your name a little different from what is it? Come on, Nkechinyere! Drop this bitterness and bickering over nothing!
NKECHI: to you it’s nothing! To me it’s everything! Dede, i want to have a word with you…
EBUKA: okay, but first, what have you had to eat today?
NKECHI: I cooked chicken stew in a little pot.
EBUKA: why didn’t you eat the okro soup Funmi made? It’s very delicious
NKECHI: hmmm! Nke ahu juru na mmanu na ose! (You mean the one that’s full of oil and pepper!)
EBUKA: Nkechi, kedu ihe nwata nwanyi a mere gi biko? (Nkechi, what has this lady done to you please!)
NKECHI: can I talk to you now, please?
EBUKA: sure! I’m all ears
NKECHI: i want to discuss a private family matter with you so if your wife can excuse us, that will be great!
EBUKA: Funmi by virtue of our marriage has become my family so you have no right to exclude her in any family discussion you wish to have with me.
FUNMI: sweetheart, I’ll be upstairs (goes into their bedroom upstairs ?)
EBUKA: Funmi! Come back here! I’m sure you are enjoying the TV programme you were watching! Nkechi what’s the meaning of this!
FUNMI: no, don’t worry sweets, I’ll continue with the TV in the bedroom. Good night, Jessica
NKECHI: good night o!
EBUKA: be fast about whatever you have to say. I need to join my wife upstairs!
NKECHI:ooooo! Wife! Anyways, I want to go on holiday. Not alone o! It’s a group holiday and all my friend have bought their tickets except me. That’s why I came. I need money
EBUKA: where are you going?
NKECHI: Dubai
EBUKA: I do not have the money.
NKECHI: why?
EBUKA: simply because I… D–O N-O-T have it!
NKECHI: why must I continue to look like the poorest of all my friends when I have a brother who is very rich and who is supposed to be responsible for my financial needs!!!!
Claire has booked her ticket and so has Sophia!
EBUKA: it’s not my fault that you chose to be friends with the high and mighty! Claire’s father is a Minister and Sophia’s brother is a drug dealer. I work my backside off to earn every single penny that drops into my account!
Last year you went on a holiday in China and I paid for it. This year, I am not in a position to do so! Simple!
NKECHI: so what are you doing with your money then!
EBUKA: if you must know, Funmi recently started her part time MSC programme and I’ve just paid her fees, so i am low on funds. I cannot do it, baby girl!
NKECHI: if she wanted to be a masters degree holder, why didn’t her parents see to it. They waited for an Igbo saviour and all of a sudden she wants to do MSC!
Since you married this woman it’s now all about her and no one else! You’ve forgotten everything daddy told you before he died and now you are treating me this way! (Starts crying????)
EBUKA: Oh come off the cheap blackmail! Come off it! You are in the best university in the country, who pays for it? Ebuka! You have sworn never to wear any garment below ten thousand naira at 23 years of age. Who pays for them? Ebuka!
Nkechi, you own a car, you live in the most expensive area, I’ve bought you shares, not to talk of the monthly allowance I give you. What else do you want me to do!
Funmi is my wife and therefore my responsibility too!
If I invest in her, I am investing in the future of our children, so technically, it is to my advantage!
Give me a break!
NKECHI: Is that what you have to say eh! I’ll tell brother Chinwendu!
EBUKA: it doesn’t bother me. If you like, tell the whole world.
NKECHI: (runs off to her room and started ringing Chinwendu, the eldest of them all?????)
CHINWENDU: Nkechi, are you okay?
NKECHI: No, I’m not!!????
CHINWENDU: Jesus! Where are you? What happened? Why are you crying? Talk to me. Where exactly are you so I can drive down???
NKECHI: I am in his stupid house!
CHINWENDU: In whose stupid house!!
NKECHI: brother Ebuka!
CHINWENDU: so what’s going on? Is Ebuka okay?
NKECHI: he said he will never give me any money again that he is married now. I am suffering in uni and it doesn’t bother him. He said my suffering is yet to start??
CHINWENDU: Ebuka uttered those words!ara na ayi ya!(he is mad) I will break him! Afterall i made him! Ebuka is beginning to bite way more than he can chew with his Yoruba wife!
I’ll give him a call in the morning. He must give you the money you need.
Wipe your tears nnem, alright? Chy Chy?
NKECHI: eh?
CHINWENDU: I’ll handle him. I promise you. Stop crying inugo?
To be continued
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