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Muli Amaye

Muli Amaye

 

Profile

Muli Amaye was born in a cottage flat, in the corner of a tiny cul-de-sac in Burnage, Manchester . She went to Wright Robinson High School , leaving to start work at 16. She worked in offices over the next 20 years from solicitors to housing to a weekly dog's newspaper publishers. She went to Manchester Metropolitan University in 1998 to study English and discovered a love of writing that complimented her lifelong love of reading. An MA in Creative Writing followed and after a two-year break working in the community she began her PhD in Creative Writing at Lancaster University . Her writing interests are very much centered around Manchester , migration, memory and notions of home and this is incorporated into the workshops and projects she is involved in throughout Greater Manchester.

 

Creative Work

To Benin and Back

I'm standing on the red earth inside the walls of my father's compound. Things have changed. The paint on the wall is peeling and the palm nut tree in the front yard is so withered it's almost a bush. The gates are rusting and the garage is in a dilapidated state. There are no cars parked in it. The gardens are uncared for with patchy, dry tufts of grass. Scrawny white chickens run around, pecking at the earth.

The front door opens and three strangers come out. They are my sisters and brother. I smile, expecting them to greet me as their senior. They don't move from the steps. They're older now and look at me with reserve or maybe even disdain. The years have been hard on them. It's written on all their faces. The door opens once more and behind them comes their Mama. Her wrapper is dirty, pulled tight across her large bosom and under her arms. Her feet are dry, pushed into old, ripped slippers. They're the ones I bought for her ten years ago. She takes one look at me and begins to scream. She wails and pulls at her grey, matted hair. The children don't move. Their eyes are accusing me.

There are words coming out of her mouth that I don't understand. A mixture of Itsikiri, Pidgen and English. I don't need to understand. The expression on her face says it all. She hates me. She fears me. Her voice rises, the children turn from me.

‘No Mama, no. Stop. Come now. Come.'

Sophia's weary voice tries to stabilise her Mama. To ground her into the here and now. But it doesn't penetrate the wails that circle in the air. Nor does it still the hands that are pulling at the wrapper, as though trying to shred the material.

Papa hurries round the corner. He stands and watches his wife, strain shows on his face. He doesn't seem to see me and begins cussing the children.

‘Are you useless? You know wetin u dey do? Or you want mek I beat you first?'

The children jump into action. Sophia pushes her Mama roughly towards the door. Yemi tries to hold onto the hands that have begun to rip at the fleshy stomach that has become exposed. Bola runs through the compound gates and disappears from sight. I stand here. My heart pumping hard. A chill surrounds me despite the heat that makes sweat run down my spine and between my breasts.

Still Papa hasn't looked at me. Hasn't seen me. Instead his eyes turn to the tenants who have slipped from their doors. The women stand together; all have the same tight expression. The men look at Papa with something akin to pity. Only their children seem to notice me. Small, brown bodies spotted with red dust. Dirty shorts or knickers their only covering, leaving firm, round baby bellies exposed, hernias protruding where belly buttons should have been. There must be eight or nine toddlers, all staring with solemn faces. No interest in anything except the stranger who stands in the middle of the front yard.

Muffled wails reach my ears. I haven't moved since getting out of the car that brought me. I stare at Papa willing him to acknowledge me.

‘Papa?'

My voice sounds different to me. Unsure. I don't know if I've said the word out loud.

‘Papa, it's me.'

Now attention is focussed on me. The tenants appear to hold a collective breath waiting for the next turn of events. Papa walks around the side of the house. Away from me. He doesn't even glance in my direction. I don't know what to do.

A woman tenant walks towards me, a smile on her face,

‘Welcome, daughter, welcome. D o ?'

She dips a curtsey and my mouth smiles. After all these years I still don't know how to respond to this simple greeting. Uh huh, fine thank you, d o ? Other tenants come forward, smiling, patting, d o -ing . The toddlers pick up on the excitement of the moment and begin to push each other, tripping and laughing. I want to get away from them all. I want to follow Papa. I glance towards the corner of the house waiting for him to reappear. I know he won't. I turn to my driver.

‘I need a hotel. Can you take me to a good one please? One with security?'

‘Yes sistah, Airport Road , a very good hotel, come.'

I'm not his sister. But I don't say anything. I get into the car and we turn slowly in the compound. He shouts at the children who are still running around and laughing.

‘You want to die? Move now. Hey mothers get your picken now. Are you too stupid? Heh, you don't deserve the picken you have if you can't look after them. Move them now.'

He continues his tirade throughout the short journey. I try not to listen, stay silent when I know he wants a response. He doesn't take the hint. Outside, on the highway, the car traders are pushing their wares. Gala bars, water, Fanta. No thoughts of safety as they run in between vehicles. We inch forward slowly. Faces come and press up against the window, eyes trying to make contact with mine. I look down at my hands until we enter the hotel gates. I leave the car, struggle with my suitcase and pay him. He's still talking at me. I turn away.

From the outside the hotel looks fine. Not particularly good, but fine. The walls are painted white and there's a glass porch leading to the reception. Potted palms line the short walkway. I pull my case inside. A handwritten sign taped to the wall offers air conditioning. I hope they have a generator that works. The girl on reception is sullen. I request a room and she passes me a card displaying the rates. I ask to see a single room with a shower.

The room we enter is adequate. There's a large bed that takes up most of the space. At the foot of the bed a dark wood cabinet houses the wardrobe, a small TV and a mini fridge, which is shown to me with pride. The bathroom is clean and has its own water heater over the bath with a shower attached. The shower curtain hanging from the rusting ceiling pole is thick plastic that may once have been white but is now cream with brown water stains along the bottom. I return to reception and pay for one night. Back in my room I lie down on the bed and close my eyes.

The sun has moved across the sky when I wake and its beam through the dirty window now rests across my feet. It takes me a while to get my bearings and realise where I am. I reach for my mobile, search for Papa's number and press send. I know it will cost me but I haven't bought a local sim card yet. His phone rings, breaks up and cuts off. I try again.

‘He-llo. He-llo.'

Always in double. Papa answers like this every time.

‘Papa? It's me. How are you?'

‘ Elizabeth . Is it you? How are you, my dear?'

‘I'm fine papa. You? How are you?'

‘Are you fine? Are you well?'

‘Papa, I'm here. I'm in Nigeria .'

‘How is London ? Is it cold?'

‘Manchester Papa, you know I live in Manchester .'

Extract from short story, 2006

 

Reflection

To Benin and Back developed as a personal response to two visits I made to Nigeria , the first to meet my father in 1996 and the second to bury him in 2005.

As a child I attempted to find ‘home' in my surroundings, within my white family and my white community, but failed to connect with the only life I knew. Always, there was the romantic notion that a figure that I had never met, who lived in a country I had never been to, would be my salvation. It would be there that I would be at peace, that nobody would turn and stare, point the finger, shout undesirable words at me or ask to touch my hair. In my mind I built up a picture of what my ‘home' would be like, taken from books and missionary tales, my Africa, my Nigeria took on amazing proportions. Reality, of course, could never live up to those grandiose expectations.

When I arrived in Nigeria the first time I immediately felt a sense of belonging. The heat, the crowds, the military men with their guns, the beat-up shared taxi all felt familiar. The two-hour drive to Benin was a fascinating experience. In Lagos young people ran between the jammed traffic offering water in plastic bags, gala bars, CD's and fruits. Over the bridge and out of the city onto the main road where broken down lorries had been left to rust and forced us to drive into oncoming traffic I stared out of the window at lepers hunched in the centre of the road begging for money.

Arriving at my father's compound I was stunned at the size of the house and the number of people walking around. I was greeted and hugged and led into the main room by sisters, brothers, cousins, wives. I was home. Libations were poured, ancestors were called upon, kola nut was chewed and I sat beside my father while he issued orders and talked about the wonderful country I had come from. The Manchester he had left in 1963 was a romantic memory that had no resemblance to the Manchester I had been brought up in.

I wanted to capture the strangeness of all of this. The way in which our memories are formed even before we have anything to remember and the disproportionate importance we place on notions of belonging and home. To the elders that I met there was no question that I had returned home to a place I had never been before. To me I was visiting a country that since childhood I had imagined to be the one place that I truly belonged. The reality was that I was a stranger both in Benin and to an extent in the Manchester where I grew up. My imagined Nigeria and my father's remembered Manchester were the places that we were looking for and neither of them existed.

 

Publications

Bloody's in the Bible, Muse 1 Anthology, MMU, 2000
Kyle, Muse 2 Anthology, MMU, 2001
Slim Pickings, summer shorts play at West Yorkshire Playhouse, 2003
An Old Tune, The Suitcase Book of Love Poems, Suitcase, 2008

Contact & Links

muliamaye@gmail.com
My new blog: muliamaye.wordpress.com



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