‘I sure say you don de miss the cold, eh? Here na so so heat full everywhere. Heat and soja. If the heat no kill you, soja go harass you.’ He tapped his wooden leg. ‘See this one, na soja gun do am. Six of dem, I handle five with my bare hands. When dem see say I go finish dem, na im dem carry gun shoot me for leg. You don hear the story, abi?’

I nodded.

‘Tell me, wetin be your name?’ he asked, at last releasing my hand. It was wet with sweat. I wiped it covertly against my trouser.

‘Kela.’

‘Good. Now go and tell that girl to bring me eba and okro. I am hungry.’

Nancy was back in the kitchen. I gave her Brother’s order and stood watching her as she picked out a clean bowl, filled it with hot water and poured the garri into it to make the eba.

‘A strange man,’ I said, holding the pot cover for her.

‘His real name is Mohammed. He is from the north, though he has lived here all his life. He claims he is related to your auntie, but it is all lies. Don’t ever believe anything he tells you. That thing he smokes has turned his head,’ Nancy said. She was in one of her bad moods; it could last for days. She dipped the spoon into the pot of okro soup. She cut viciously with her finger at the elastic trickle trailing the spoon like a tail. Nancy was short and dark; she had the quick, springy step of a tomboy. She wasn’t pretty – her eyes were too small and close together, almost meeting over her nose; her mouth was too large – but when she laughed, her face became so pleasant that you forgot she wasn’t pretty. But she didn’t laugh often. She was always screaming and cursing at Mark, her three-year-old son. She was only twenty, five years older than I was.

When she took the food to Brother, she slapped the tray on the table, making the plates jump.

‘Crazy girl,’ he muttered.