Behind Closed Doors

Chapter Thirty-six

Henry walked into the living room of the palatial home he had inherited from his dead father, and there was Rosalie waiting up there, settled on a settee with a novel, waiting. He smiled at her, but her face remained impassive and beautiful, as per usual. She was one of the very few women he had seen who had refused to look their true age, and he was proud of her for it, though he could never fathom how such a woman could have given birth to a faggot like him.

Rosalie flashed him an alluring smile, one he’d learned the hard way that she always gave out when she had an agenda to pursue. She was truly the perfect specimen, with no chips in her nail polish, her clothes perfectly tailored to fit like a glove. She was the perfect woman, the ideal that many women of the country could only dream of being like but which would never really happen because they could not be bothered to start taking such extraordinarily good care of themselves like she did.

She rolled her eyes and then floated up to him with her unconscious grace of movements that had always turned heads. ‘There is something I’d love to discuss with you,’ she told him without preamble.

‘This had better be important.’

‘Oh, but it is, darling,’ she replied cheerfully. ‘I have employed some perfect screenwriters, and they had to brainstorm in order to get the perfect concept that will be a hit from the studio, as per usual. What they managed to come up with is so brilliant that I was shocked it had never come to me sooner. It’s a gay story, with two men being in love in this ridiculous country.’

Henry was struggling to control the anger he was feeling at the things his mother was saying; had she joined them too? ‘What are you trying to say, mother?’ he asked guardedly.

Rosalie clapped her hands with childlike enthusiasm as if she had single-handedly devised a cure for AIDS. ‘It will be the very first movie in Nigeria featuring a gay man with a story to tell to the world. The publicity will blow you away when the time comes for it to happen.’

‘And you’re telling me this because you wanted to have in on it, as per usual. Who is the lead actor you had in mind for this?’

Rosalie looked at her son as if he’d gotten deranged. ‘Why, Phoenix, of course! Who else did you think would be able to pull this off?’

Henry could almost swear that his jaws had dropped to the floor right then, as he felt the anger boiling up within him as he felt how right Phoenix had been when he’d said that nobody really cared for whether he was really gay or not; the point was that the guy fit into the stereotype of what people perceived the gay man to be.

‘This is the height of craziness!’ he exclaimed. ‘What makes you think he’ll agree to listen to you rant about what you’re ranting about now? And even if the thieving bastard were to choose to agree to this hare-brained scheme, how much do you think that the guy will be looking at to collect from you?’

‘Henry, Phoenix is a very practical person, as am I, so he’ll see the big picture,’ Rosalie said confidently. ‘I got in touch with him and we’ll meet together later to discuss the proposal. Even if he were to dare to refuse the thing, then there is always someone else to snag up the role.’

With a very weary shake of his head, Henry stood up from the chair and left his mother to her devises. Good luck to her with the actor that had claimed his heart. He went into the private office he had in the house and flopped into the nearest plush chair, his head held in his hands. He could smell the leather of the richly bound volumes that adorned the shelves, books that had belonged to his father when the man was still alive but which had now been passed on to him by inheritance. Treasures they were, all of them, heavy volumes that spilled out Philosophy and Religion and Literature, and of course, books on human sexuality.

He felt shattered, broken down, and gelatinous with mental fatigue, and there were tears blurring his vision as he drew up the images of T. O. Phoenix from the inner sanctum of his mind. He remembered that stunning face with the high cheekbones, the talented angel who had committed an act of murder but had chosen to say nothing about it; and why had he kept quiet? Why had his act of self-defense driven a wedge between them when they could have gone around gallivanting all over the place and having fun?

Why was Rosalie now interested in the gay question too? The woman was a businesswoman first and foremost, so she was to be expected to know these things; she had to know the things that made the society tick so she could capitalize on them and get her cash. She must have known that the gay question was one that popped up at all times and in all places, with the hypocritical masses making huge mountains out of the natural choices that individuals had made in their lives.

And she knew too that there was only one person in the whole of Nigeria that could play the role of the perfect gay man for the screens and the people would have no option other than to gobble it all up greedily. It did not matter that Phoenix had gotten beyond her grasp after he had been threatened by Henry; what mattered now was the project at hand and the money they could make from it, plus the awards and the recognitions.