Behind Closed Doors

Chapter Five

As was customary, Henry went to the early-morning Sunday mass service with his mother at the St. Charles Boromeo parish, Victoria Island, and then he came back to the house. Rosalie herself prepared the Sunday meal, and she spent three hours in the kitchen displaying her culinary skills much to the consternation of the gentle Mrs. Oyono who was fluttering around the whole house like a butterfly, dusting non-existent specks of dust from the impeccable furniture and muttering to herself and grumbling as if her employment had been terminated. ‘I wonder why she even keeps me here,’ she kept on saying over and over again.

Henry spent his own time before the TV, watching an episode of the extremely popular La Usurpadora, though his mind was only half on it because he kept on wondering about his father and what his mother had told him about the man trying to write him out of his will. He had to find a way to confront his father, he knew, and that meant that he had to cancel the sex appointment he had with the sexy dancer, Phoenix.

He wrote out a note, put the note in an envelope along with some money and gave it to Andrew, the son of the gardener, to go to the Drummer Club at the Oniru Beach side of Victoria Island and give it to Phoenix.

‘There will be something for you when you return,’ Henry assured him, winking conspiratorially. Then he went up to his room to get ready for the child-naming dinner party they were intending to go to at their uncle’s breathtaking home at Ikeja. He had to hurry to join his mother who was complaining about not wanting to be trapped in the traffic jam. It was really unfortunate, but the truth of the matter was that the traffic situation in Lagos was ten times worse than in any other part of the country.

When they got to the house, Rosalie drove her Bentley coupe up the curved driveway to the front entrance, and as they got down from it, she was waving and talking to acquaintances and friends. The house was magnificent, modeled by a French architect after the stunning homes of the French upper class and it was elaborately furnished with imported French walnut furniture and rose-marble floors bordered with sienna-red marble.

The dressing code for the day was blue gowns and expensive lace dresses with pink scarves for the women, blue tuxedoes and expensive native Agbada for the men. Henry had complied with the code, but Rosalie, always the social deviant, had donned on a sleeveless, velvet sheath dress that hugged her trim figure and was slit up the front to reveal some long legs that had been the sensation during her time on the screens.

‘You look wonderful, dear,’ Alfred Johnson beamed at her, and, having spent several years in London and imbibed some of their cultures, he kissed her on the cheeks. ‘Your husband is here with a young woman who says she’s here at your invitation. She’s a real beauty, but she can’t light a candle to you, yes?’

‘Yes,’ Rosalie replied, smiling tightly. But it was obvious to Henry that she had no inkling about what Alfred was talking about. Though she remained outwardly calm and in control of herself, Henry could sense her recoil into an inner shell, her face an artificial mask that hid the inner terror within.

The party was held outdoors. There were bars and buffet tents and dancing tents spread out over the grounds, and there was a highlife band playing. But the house itself was off-limits. The mansion, the guest bungalows, the tennis court, and the swimming pool were all roped off and barred by security men.

The guests frolicked on the lawn, eating and dancing, plus gossiping for the obligatory four hours. The younger generation of the Johnson clan congregated together, leaving the older ones to discuss their business and their stocks and their love affairs and their women and the problems that came with being among the members of the upper echelon of the society. There was Cilia, the cousin who schooled in England; there was Dominic, the post-graduate law student at the Law School in Victoria Island, Lagos; there were so many of them. They chatted merrily, the young adults sneaking beer around under the censorious eyes of their watchful parents, the older youths swigging theirs without a care in the world.