'I'm not that type of girl, OK? I'm not into guys like you. Just stay out of my life. Please.'

She hung up.

I was numb. I kept staring at my phone screen and replaying Merit's words and wondering when this latest nightmare would end. How could a relationship that seemed to be going so well suddenly turn awry?

I sank back in the chair. It was all my fault. I should have known that, sooner or later, she would hear something. Merit might not have been so mad if I had told her myself. After all, 419er or no, was I not still Kingsley? Was I not the man who had come to my family's rescue after my father had failed? Was I not the man setting aside my own dreams for the sake of my mother and my siblings? Was I not the man still making efforts to reach out to my mother, even when she had been so judgmental and unreasonable?

I flung the phone on the table and hissed. I felt like screaming, grabbing the crockery from the table, and flinging each item against the wall. Instead, I placed my head in my hands and leaned my elbows on the dining table.

What a rotten world. Other poor people found women to marry them, other 419ers were besieged with desperate Misses. Many mothers would give an arm and a leg to have an opara like me. Yet my own mother was still bound by the mental shackles of a husband who had lived from beginning to end in a cloud. Maybe I was the one who suffered from bad luck - surrounded by ingrates and utopians. But no matter what, my siblings would have the best education I could afford. And I would never go back to a life of poverty and lack. Not for anyone dead or alive.

Perhaps Merit would understand. By morning, her anger would have subsided and I would explain everything to her. I was not a criminal. I had gone into 419 so that my mother could live in comfort and my siblings have a good education. Yes, I should have told her but I was not sure how to broach the topic, and I was very sorry for deceiving her. Besides, things were on the verge of changing. I would soon start work at the Ministry of Works and Transport. I would soon have a respectable job. I would soon have business investments.

Godfrey and his friends brought their noise back downstairs.

'Charity, is Kingsley still in the dining room?' I heard Godfrey ask from the staircase.

I raised my head quickly and turned back to my meal. My appetite had definitely fled, but I dipped my hands into the soup and pretended to be deep in chow.

His friends sat in the living room with my other siblings while Godfrey strutted over to me, pulled a dining chair noisily, and sat. The fragrance of his freshly sprayed Eternity wiped out every trace of the egusi aroma from the air.

'Kings, there's something I've been wanting to discuss with you,' he began without any ceremony.

I looked at his two friends sitting within earshot of us and looked back at him. He did not seem to mind their presence, so why should I?

'Kingsley, I've been thinking about it for some time. I've decided that I want to quit school. I've been thinking about it for a long time and I've decided that there's no point. I really don't want to go on. I'm thinking of going into business.'

'You want to go into business?'

'Yes. I'm tired of school. There's no reason for me to keep wasting my time in school when there's so much money to be made out there. The sooner I start making my own money, the better.'

Without a doubt, this boy was crazy. From the depths of my vexation, I borrowed from Cash Daddy's patented lingo.

'Godfrey, is your head correct? Have you been drinking? Are you on drugs?'

He appeared surprised at my reaction. Then he toughened up his face and seemed to be bracing himself for a stronger argument.

'Kings, let me ex-'

'Shut up!' I barked. Like Azuka, he sounded so idiotically confident. 'Just forget about it. End of discussion. Forget it. There's nothing to talk about. It's not my business what else you do with your life, but you must remain in school and you must graduate. Don't ever raise the matter again.'

Godfrey watched me while I washed my hands, put my phone into my pocket, grabbed my glass of water, and stood. When I started walking away, he also stood.

'Kings, you're the last person I'd expect to be making such a fuss. Look at you. After all your education, you're not even doing anything with your degree. What was the point? Do you think I don't want to make my own money for myself? You're just being hypocritical.'

The glass cup dropped from my hand and colonised a large portion of the marble floor. I stopped in my tracks and mutated into another being. My brother had the guts to spew this breed of rubbish after everything I had been through for them? Was I being hypocritical when I put their welfare and comfort ahead of mine? I turned round and gave him a wholehearted slap on the face.

'Do you think this is the sort of life I wanted to live?! Do you think I had much choice?!'

I slapped him again, grabbed his shirtfront, and pushed him against the wall.

'Don't you realise that I made the sacrifice for you people?!'

I tightened my grip on his shirt, pulled him towards me, and screamed into his face.

'I am the opara! I did it for you people! Do you understand me?!'

Right from childhood, Godfrey had had the formation of a gangster. He did not squeal, he did not try to escape, he did not beg for me to stop. And because of the age difference that granted me automatic authority to discipline him, he dared not fight back. He just stood there looking at me through squinted eyes and using his arms to shield himself from my blows.

By this time, Eugene, Charity, Godfrey's two friends, my cook, my washer man, my gardener, my mother's niece's daughter had gathered. They all pleaded and begged and blocked. They were wasting their time.

'Kings, pleeeeease! Please leave him! Please leave him!' Charity wept and screamed.

I dragged my brother by his shirt collar and yanked him towards the staircase. I turned round to the sympathetic crowd.

'Nobody should follow me upstairs!' I warned.

My cook, whose communication with me never exceeded 'Yes, sir!' 'No, sir!', shouted, 'Oga, abeg no kill am, abeg no kill am!' and ventured up the first stair. I pulled off the right foot of my natural viper snakeskin slippers and flung it at his head. The slipper missed, but he learnt his lesson.

I hauled Godfrey into his bedroom and deposited him in a heap on the floor. I shut the bedroom door and looked round. The first thing that caught my eyes was the sound system that stood by his dresser. I punched it. It fell with a huge crash.

In one sweep of my hand, everything on his dressing table tumbled to the floor. The air filled with the aroma of a mixture of designer fragrances. I yanked open the wardrobe and grabbed an empty bag. I dragged his clothes from the hangers and stuffed as many of them as I could fit into the bag. There was no time for me to pause and tear them into shreds like I really wanted to do. I heaved the bag across my shoulder and caught Godfrey by his shirt collar again. On my way out, I reached out my free hand and knocked the compact disc rack. The stack of disks rattled to the floor in a pile. I brought down my left foot on them. They crackled with each fresh stomp.

Outside, the sympathetic crowd had regrouped by the bedroom door. With more pressing tasks to tackle, I ignored their disobedience and descended the stairs with my two pieces of load. I went straight to my Lexus and tossed Godfrey and the travelling bag inside.

'Open the gate!' I shouted.

The terrified gateman rushed to obey.

My foot did not leave the accelerator until we arrived in Umuahia. Godfrey sat in stunned silence as I sped straight to the flat on Ojike Street and deposited him and his luggage outside the door.

'I never ever want to see you in my house again,' I warned.

My mother was on her way out of the house when I jumped back into my car and vroomed off.

Forty-four

Of all the emotions that kept me wide awake that night, the one that stayed with me until the following morning was anger. I was angry with my mother, angry with my father, angry with myself for allowing my family to exercise so much control over my existence. Cash Daddy was right. Relatives were the cause of hip disease. And schizophrenia and dementia and hypertension and spontaneous combustion. Someday, even Charity might look me in the face and call me a hypocrite, and tell me that I had no right to tell her whom not to marry.

I was tired of trying to please everyone, of making sacrifices that no one seemed to appreciate. Many mothers would give an arm and a leg to have an opara like me. Yet my own mother was still bound by the mental shackles of a husband who had lived from beginning to end in a cloud. Perhaps, I should just be like Cash Daddy and do and say as I pleased. With time, people would learn to accept me for who I was. And so what if Merit did not want me? There were many Thelmas and Sandras out there who would gladly jump at the opportunity to wear my ring on their finger. After all, if Cash Daddy had paid attention to people like my father and my mother, he might never have made it this far.

Someone knocked on my door. I ignored it. The person knocked again. I still ignored it.

'Kings,' Charity said in a grasshopper voice, 'Mummy and Aunty Dimma are here.'

Last night, my sister had almost slid into the wall when I passed her on the staircase, as if she were afraid that I would sting if her body made contact with mine.

'I'm coming,' I replied.

I rolled out of bed and pulled a T-shirt over my boxer shorts.

Aunty and Mummy were seated in the living room when I entered. My mother had actually persuaded Aunty Dimma to forgo her Sunday morning service to accompany her here today? The gravity of their mission was evident on their faces.

Charity was nowhere in sight. I greeted them and sat. For a while, we sat looking at each other. Finally, Aunty Dimma glanced at my mother and whispered.

'Ozoemena.'

My mother then took in a deep breath, exhaled noisily, and opened up her case.

'Kings, what happened between you and Godfrey yesterday?'

I kept quiet.

'Why did you almost kill your brother?' she added.

I continued keeping quiet.

'Kings, am I not talking to you?'

'Mummy, why didn't you ask him what he did? Why did you have to come all the way to Aba to ask me that question?'

The women exchanged glances. Aunty Dimma's glance seemed to be saying, I told you so.

'Kings, what is coming over you?' my mother asked. 'You don't even seem to realise that what you've done is very evil. Whatever your brother did, is that the way for you to behave? Couldn't you find another way to resolve the issue without . . . without trying to kill him?'

'There's nothing to resolve,' I replied coolly. 'I can sponsor Godfrey and give him whatever he needs. But if you want your son to remain alive, he'd better stay in Umuahia with you. Maybe that will help tighten some of the screws that have gone loose in his head.'

'Jesus is Lord!' Aunty Dimma exclaimed.

Ha.

'Jesus is Lord. Education is gold. God will provide. You people should continue living in your dream world.'

Aunty Dimma glanced at my mother again. My mother stood up and leaned forward with one hand on her waist and the other pointing at me.

'Look at how you're talking. See who's talking about loose screws in the head. What about you?'

I still had some left over of yesterday's oomph. I jumped up from my chair, slammed my fists in the air and stared her in the face.

'I'm tired of all this rubbish! I'm tired! Whether you people appreciate it or not, I've been making all these sacrifices for the family. It's because of you. And all I get is insults and derogatory remarks.'

Charity had reappeared. She was watching from the bottom of the stairs.

'It's not for us you're doing it,' my mother spat through clenched teeth. 'I told you long time ago that I don't want any of your dirty money. If your father were alive, none of this would have happened. Your father is there turning in his grave and wondering how his son, his own flesh and blood, can be living this sort of despicable life. This is not the way we brought you up. As far as I'm concerned, you're a disgrace to your father's memory.'

'Let him keep turning in his grave,' I said. 'That's why he died a poor man. If he had done what other people were doing instead of sitting there and idealising, he would still be alive today.'

Aunty Dimma covered her mouth with her hand and allowed her eyes to do the exclaiming instead. My mother became a column of ice and focused her frozen eyeballs on my face. Gradually, she thawed. Then, rushed over and landed two slaps on my right cheek.

'Kingsley,' she said, with tears rising in her eyes, 'your father and I did not raise you to be a conman. You hear me? Enough is enough. You have to stop this 419. If not, I will never mention your name again as my son. As far as I'm concerned, you no longer exist.'

She sniffed. The tears had now overflowed the banks and were creeping far out to shore.

'Since this your fast money has given you the guts to talk about your father in this manner, then you might as well just forget about me. Until you stop this 419, I will never, ever set foot in your house again. And I don't want you to come and visit me. If you ever see me here in your house again, that is the day I will drop dead. You had better not think for one second that I'm joking. I mean every single word I'm saying.'

She grabbed her handbag and stormed out. Even the sound of Charity's sobbing was drowned out by her footsteps.

'Kingsley,' Aunty Dimma said. 'Don't allow the devil to use you to wreak havoc in this family! Don't allow-'

'You people should learn to be realistic,' I cut in gruffly, recalling Cash Daddy's long-time-ago imitation of how rich people behaved and spoke. 'This has nothing to do with the devil.'

'That's what you think! Even the devil was not always the devil. God made Lucifer then Lucifer turned himself into the devil. You might not know it, but money is turning you into a devil. You'd better stop yourself before-'

'I don't want to hear any more of this rubbish. Aunty Dimma, I've tolerated your tongue enough. All this talk . . . Does it put food on the table? Does it pay school fees? Me, I don't believe in film tricks, I believe in real, live action.'

Whatever else she wanted to say got stuck inside her throat. She looked on in disbelief while I stormed past her and headed for the stairs.

For the first time in the history of womankind, Aunty Dimma's tongue appeared tied.

I sat on my bed and swept the room with my eyes. My Rolexes and Movados on the dresser, my five bunches of car keys on the bedside stool, my Persian rug, my six pillows, my rows of shoes by the split-unit air conditioner - a mere fraction of what I had in my closet. None of this was worth losing my mother for. And, truth be told, I would have loved to have Merit in my life.

Nevertheless, I could not face poverty again. Never again. My best bet was Cash Daddy's suggestion. Once I took up his job offer at the Ministry of Works and Transport, my mother - and Merit - would definitely be appeased. So what if it was just a facade?

I noticed that my cellular screen was flashing. I grabbed it from the edge of my pillow and saw the five missed calls. All were from Cash Daddy's number. I rang back immediately.

'Kings, they got him, they got him,' Protocol Officer said over and over again.

'Got whom?'

'Kings, Cash Daddy is dead.'

Then he started sobbing, making the sort of noises you should hope never to hear from a grown man.