Leah What are you saying? You don’t want to do it?

Tara I’m really sorry.

Leah Wow.

Tara What are you doing?

Leah I’m going.

Tara Where?

Leah I don’t know. I’ll stay at Mischa’s.

Tara You can’t leave.

Leah You just told me that you wanted to cancel our wedding, Tara.

Tara We can talk about it.

Leah I don’t think there’s anything else to say.

Tara Don’t go.

Leah I’ll pick my stuff up in the morning or, god, I don’t know, I’ll get Mischa to.

Scene Thirteen

The North Star.

Adebisi Wait . . . I don’t understand any of this! Why didn’t he just take the money?

Yetunde What did you do? Teju? Did you go to London anyway?

Babatunde Yetunde, with respect, if he went to London I don’t think he would be here now.

Yetunde I want to hear it from him. How did you die?

Babatunde It doesn’t matter. He’s dead now and he’s voted. We need to go back.

Yetunde Why did you vote this way? You don’t have to.

Babatunde We must respect his decision.

Yetunde I can’t.

Babatunde Why not?

Yetunde I need to understand.

Babatunde What’s wrong with you, Yetunde? Why is this thing pepe-ing you so much?

Yetunde Why won’t you bless this wedding?

Teju I can’t.

Yetunde What happened to you, Teju?

Teju He turned his back on me. All that time he knew and he turned away from it. He didn’t want it near him.

Yetunde But you could have still travelled to London?

Teju For what?

Yetunde For your safety. For a better life!

Teju Without Segun it was too hard. I wouldn’t have anywhere to live. Nowhere to go. They would have put me in a detention centre. I couldn’t work and I couldn’t receive any money while I waited for my asylum claim. I would have just been moving from one cage to another.

Yetunde He might have changed his mind.

Teju No. That day I realised. He thought just like my father. Him and Segun were the same. Daddy always knew. I know it. He would have beaten it out of me if he could.

Yetunde What did you do after your brother left you?

Teju I went back to the Stone Bar. Every night. For weeks. I kept hoping Wale would come in. I thought, somehow, he’d know to meet me there, and he’d come for me. It felt obvious. Maybe we could run away together? Start a new life. It was foolish. I didn’t even know him. The police kept coming around, hassling me for money. I felt as if everyone knew, or if they didn’t, the news would travel soon. I stopped going to work. Definitely couldn’t go to Church. I only left the house to go to the bar. Hoping. Started drinking. Wale never came. I didn’t know where to go. Once, I even went to the hotel, where the raid happened. I sat at the reception for hours. I was so alone.