The Baby Is Mine Read online

  Oyinkan Braithwaite gained a degree

  in Creative Writing and Law at Kingston

  University. Her first book, My Sister, the Serial

  Killer, was a number-one bestseller. It was

  shortlisted for the Women’s Prize for Fiction

  2019 and was on the longlist for the

  Booker Prize 2019.

  For more information visit Oyinkan’s website

  www.oyinkanbraithwaite.com or find her on

  Instagram @Oyinbraithwaite

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  Also by Oyinkan Braithwaite

  My Sister, the Serial Killer

  First published in paperback in Great Britain in 2021 by

  Atlantic Books, an imprint of Atlantic Books Ltd.

  Copyright © Oyinkan Braithwaite, 2021

  The moral right of Oyinkan Braithwaite to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act of 1988.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.

  This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities, is entirely coincidental.

  10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

  Paperback ISBN: 978 1 83895 256 3

  E-book ISBN: 978 1 83895 257 0

  Printed in Great Britain

  Typeset by www.benstudios.co.uk

  Atlantic Books

  An imprint of Atlantic Books Ltd

  Ormond House

  26–27 Boswell Street

  London

  WC1N 3JZ

  www.atlantic-books.co.uk

  For my grandmother –

  Mrs Florence Olubosola Oduntan

  You were the first person to pay me

  for my writing, thank you

  Chapter One

  I was living with Mide (she of the wide hips and kinky hair) when we heard the news. The Nigerian government wanted us to join the world and go into lockdown. So we did. We stayed home.

  I didn’t mind. Mide had a beautiful flat in Ikoyi looking over the Lagoon. She had large French windows, so light was always streaming in and bouncing off her many mirrors. We fell into a routine. She liked to cook for me, I liked letting her. We would eat and then we would part for a few hours to check our emails and join Zoom meetings, before coming together again in the evenings. We were happy.

  So I wasn’t expecting to be woken up at one in the morning, by a phone glowing just two inches from my face. Had she been holding it there till I woke up, or had she called my name?

  ‘What is this?’ she asked. Her words were half cry, half bark, so I knew something was wrong. I squinted at the bright light. The phone in her hand was mine, and it was open on a WhatsApp chat from a week ago. How had I forgotten to delete it?

  ‘You went through my phone?’ I asked. I didn’t know what else to say. I was still rubbing the sleep from my eyes, still trying to work out how she knew my password.

  ‘I did. And I’m glad I did, because you are a liar and a cheat!’

  She dropped the phone beside me and leapt from our bed. I scooped up my phone, deleted the messages and photos, and scrambled after her.

  ‘I can explain,’ I told her. I couldn’t. I said all the things you were supposed to say – It meant nothing. It was a mistake. It had happened before things got serious between us. But my words were only making her angrier.

  ‘They warned me about you, but I didn’t listen,’ she said as she flung open the wardrobe and began dragging out my shirts and trousers.

  ‘Haters. All of them. Babe, we can work through this. Every relationship has its ups and downs.’

  She laughed. ‘You are incredible, Bambi, really. One of a kind. But I’m not the one you are going to make a fool of. I want you out of my house!’

  This was starting to look serious. I tried a different approach. ‘Babe, calm down. I can’t even go anywhere right now. We are on lockdown, remember?’

  I only just managed to dodge one of my shoes. I decided that maybe a little space was best. I gathered my clothes and stuffed them into a bag, promising her I would call. She reacted by unlocking the front door and holding it open. I got into my car and backed out of her driveway for the first time in two weeks.

  The question now was, where would I go? Mide didn’t leave me with enough time to work that out, so I was just driving up and down empty streets. I tried to call Uche, who I had shared a flat with before I moved in with Mide. But he didn’t pick up, and in any case, he had already told me someone had taken my room. My sister would have been the easiest option, but she and her family hadn’t made it back from their holiday before Nigeria closed its borders. So they were forced to extend their stay in an Airbnb, spending money they hadn’t planned on spending. I might have called her anyway, for a little bit of comfort, but she would only snort at the mess I had landed myself in.

  ‘It serves you right,’ she would say. ‘Maybe this will teach you to keep it in your pants.’

  Even though I had told her, time and time again, that a man was not meant to be tied to only one woman. It went against the laws of nature itself. And who was I to argue with nature?

  Chapter Two

  My grandfather’s house was one of the few left on Awolowo Road. He had bought it just before the civil war and left the property to Uncle Folu in his will.

  I hadn’t been to the house in a while, but it was only a ten-minute drive from Mide’s flat and I knew where they kept a spare key. I imagined it would be empty – Uncle Folu was the first person I knew to die from the virus, and I didn’t think my aunt would stay in the house on her own. And since she had a newborn baby, it was far more likely that she would have gone to stay with a relative. I would hang out at the old bungalow till the lockdown was over.

  There was no gateman to open the gate for me, so I lifted the bolts myself and pushed the old creaking gates, until the gap was wide enough. I drove the car in and turned the engine off. Nothing stirred, except the large palm trees that hid the bungalow from view. I walked round to the back of the house, skipping over the mangoes that had ripened long ago and fallen to the ground. They were starting to rot. I lifted the mat in front of the kitchen door, and picked up the silver key. I went into the kitchen.

  The house was in darkness. I flicked the light switch but nothing happened – there was no electricity. I used the torch from my phone to search the drawers till I found a candle and a box of matches. Without electricity, I wouldn’t be able to charge my phone, so I didn’t want to waste the battery.

  I warmed the bottom of the candle with the flame from the match, so it melted a little and would stick to a saucer. That way I could carry it without having the wax drip onto my skin.

  A door shut and I almost
dropped the candle. But unless the old bungalow had ghosts now, it was safe to say my aunt was home. I should have called ahead. I lit the candle and went out of the kitchen and down the hallway to the dining room. I was heading to the heart of the house.

  Suddenly the door to the guest bathroom opened and startled me, forcing me to take a couple of steps back. Aunty Bidemi popped out. She squeaked in terror when she saw me. I lifted the candle a little, so she could get a proper look at my face.

  ‘It’s me, Aunty.’

  ‘Bambi?’

  ‘The one and only.’

  I could make her out as the light flickered – her short frame, large hips and the long wig glued to her head – so unlike Mide’s natural sexy afro.

  ‘Why are you here? Haven’t you heard about the lockdown?’ Aunty Bidemi asked, squinting at me.

  ‘The lease for my place had come to an end, and the landlord was being unreasonable. You know how people are these days ...’

  She didn’t respond for a moment, a moment in which I worried that I would soon be back in my car. As I looked at her, I noticed her wig was skewed slightly to the left, and it probably hadn’t been combed in weeks. It was straw-like and tangled in places. Her grief was heavy on her still. I tried to remember if I had called her to tell her that I was sorry for her loss.

  ‘Well, maybe it is a good thing you are here,’ she sighed. She opened the living-room door, I followed her in.

  The room was softly lit by a battery-powered lantern. The walls were covered with pictures of children and grandchildren that my grandfather had collected. Above the TV was the picture of me after my graduation, hanging over the one of my sister. The old-world sofas were covered with large cloths, so they wouldn’t gather dust, and so was the piano. And there was a woman in the room. Even though she had her back to us, I could tell who she was by the shape of her hips and her long strong legs. Esohe turned and our eyes met. I was confused. I had never expected to see the two women in the same room.

  ‘Bambi, this is Esohe,’ said Aunty Bidemi.

  Should I admit that I knew her?

  I cleared my throat. ‘Hello.’

  ‘Hi.’

  We stood there, with our little sources of light revealing our dull faces. I was tempted to blow my candle out, in case my face gave away my thoughts. Seeing Esohe, here, when my aunt was also in the house, was strange. There were so many questions I wanted to ask, but I could ask none of them without revealing too much. And I did not want to be thrown out of two houses in one day.

  ‘Are you hungry?’ asked Aunty Bidemi. ‘Esohe, get Bambi some food.’

  Esohe put her hands on her bony hips and pressed her lips together. She was wearing a T-shirt and leggings, which was a sharp contrast to Aunty Bidemi’s shapeless bubu. ‘I’m tired.’

  Aunty Bidemi massaged the lines in her forehead and stretched her lips into a smile. It was a gesture I knew from my angry teen years. I could guess her next words.

  ‘I’m not asking for too much, am I?’

  Esohe shrugged. ‘I’ll go and prepare it. But you cannot treat me like I’m the house girl.’

  She passed by me. She smelt of mango and mint. I felt my muscles tense. I decided against following her. I turned back to find Aunty Bidemi staring at me, as if trying to read my mind. She smiled.

  ‘Come, come and see the baby, Bambi.’

  It was then that I noticed the cot.

  Chapter Three

  Aunty Bidemi was smiling at me, waiting for me to look into the cot and make goo-goo sounds. I went up to the cot and peered in.

  The baby looked like a baked potato.

  I wanted to be able to say it was cute, but I couldn’t work out if it was a boy or a girl. They had dressed it in white, which did not help. It was awake and it reached for me with its tiny fingers.

  ‘Congratulations, Aunty. E ku ewu omo.’ I told her in Yoruba, congratulating her on surviving the risks that came with childbirth. I had meant to call her and Uncle Folu when I got news of the baby; but I hadn’t gotten round to it. Still, I knew how long she had tried for a child, and I was happy for her.

  She turned to me, blinked and then smiled. Aunty Bidemi had a sweet smile – her lips would push her cheeks up, her cheeks would flatten her eyes, so that they became near slits. It was good to see that, even after all she had been through, she could still smile.

  ‘E se o,’ she replied. ‘Do you want to carry him?’

  A boy then. She didn’t give me a chance to refuse. She scooped him up, and passed him over to me. I had just enough time to put down the candle and twist my arms into an awkward hammock. He stared at me. It appeared he knew I was a stranger. His white T-shirt had written across it – My father is a hero – which I found incredibly sad.

  ‘His name is Remi,’ she told me, even though I hadn’t asked. ‘He likes you.’

  ‘Hmmm.’

  ‘Does he look like Folu?’

  I looked for my uncle in his face, but I couldn’t see anything about him that was familiar to me. His hair was pitch black and curly, slicked onto his head. He tugged at the thin silver chain that dangled from my neck. He clearly had no clue how expensive that chain was. I gently lifted it free from his fingers and handed him over to his mum.

  ‘He is very cute,’ I told her and she gave me a wobbly smile. Was she going to cry? I grabbed my candle from the side table and excused myself quickly.

  I walked down one of the long corridors, the sound of my footsteps echoing off the tiles, to the room that was the furthest from the living room and kitchen. I passed three bedrooms and a secondary hallway to reach it. I liked the privacy there.

  I sat on the bed, and wondered for the hundredth time which of my grandfather’s four wives had decorated the rooms. It seemed to me that she had picked the ugliest wallpaper that she could find. Here, in my room, it was a weird mix of mustard and green. Esohe’s leggings had been green. Why on earth was she at the house?

  My T-shirt stuck to my skin and I was reminded of how hot it was. So I peeled it off and tossed it on to the chair. I checked my phone to see if Mide had come to her senses. She hadn’t. I blew out the candle and closed my eyes.

  Chapter Four

  I woke up feeling hungry and sticky, and realized that the house was humming with activity. I could hear the low drone of kitchen appliances and the static from the TV. Electricity had returned, for now at least. I climbed out of bed, stretched my tight muscles and turned on the air con. I stood just below it and the blast of cool air soothed my body and soul.

  There was a soft knock on the door.

  ‘Come in.’

  ‘Help me open the door, please.’

  I opened the door and found Aunty Bidemi holding a tray of food. I took it from her and set it on my bed.

  ‘Thank you. You should have told me it was ready, I would have come to collect it myself.’

  ‘Ah no. You are a guest. We must treat you accordingly.’ Her gaze slipped away from my face and down to my bare chest. I grabbed my T-shirt and pulled it on.

  There were beads of sweat on her forehead, nose and upper lip, where I could also make out a faint moustache. She really wasn’t looking after herself. I still remembered what she had looked like as a young bride. I was only ten then and to me she was a Disney princess. Or three Disney princesses – even back then, her waist had not been small. She sat down on my chair and it creaked in protest. She wiped her forehead, and her wig shifted a little further to the left.

  Outside, I could hear the crowing of a cock. I glanced at my phone. It was early still. I wanted to eat alone, but she did not seem to be in a hurry to leave. The meal was beans and plantain. I sat on my bed, took up the tray and began to eat. I would have waited for her to go, but I was hungry. Perhaps when she had caught her breath, she would—

  ‘Esohe was your uncle’s … mistress.’

  I lowered the fork back to the plate. I tried to look shocked.

  ‘Really?!’

  Chapter Five


  The first time I met Esohe was at a bar. It was a place I went to when I didn’t want to bump into anyone I knew. It was out of the way, drab and always heavy with the fog of cigarette smoke and weed. That night I walked in and nodded across the room to Dotun, the barmaid. She gave me two thumbs-up and set about getting my regular order.

  I headed to the corner seat that I usually took – it gave you the perfect view of the bar and the entrance – but it was occupied.

  ‘Uncle Folu?’

  He looked up at me and frowned. He wasn’t pleased to see me. The girl sitting opposite him and with her back to me twisted around. I was struck by how long and thin she was, like a praying mantis. She didn’t seem like the type of girl you would cheat on your wife with – her breasts were tiny. We both had a liking for curvy, full-figured women and she was not that. Maybe she wasn’t having an affair with my uncle. Perhaps I had stumbled across a business meeting. But who held business meetings in a place like this?

  I returned my uncle’s grim look with a smile and slipped into the seat beside him. I held out my hand to the woman.

  ‘My name is Bambi. Who do I have the pleasure of meeting?’ She shook my hand. The pandemic hadn’t yet arrived to make us afraid of physical contact. She smiled at me, but she looked at him for approval. Definitely an affair, then. He gave her a stiff nod. And we turned back to one another.

  ‘I’m Esohe.’

  I studied her, trying to understand what had attracted him to her. She seemed younger than me, which made her at least twenty years younger than Uncle Folu. Perhaps that was what drew him. Dotun brought my food to the table.

  ‘Add it to my uncle’s tab, please,’ I told her. ‘Esohe, have you ordered?’

  ‘No, I—’

  ‘Ah! Dotun, please bring her your best goat meat, and … would you like Chapman? They make great Chapman here … excellent! And Chapman, Dotun!’

  I knew Uncle Folu would have a go at me later, but I was enjoying myself. And Esohe was smiling a little. She could tell I was messing with him. Maybe she was glad that he was being made to squirm.