Uncle Tam takes her.
Remember aunty Billy?, she’s mummy’s younger sister and as they say, “a woman of the world”. Her bouts with various men had lead her to Mr Tamandu, that’s Uncle Tamandu to Wanda and her sisters, they never caught his surname and honestly didn’t care to know.
Their on and off relationship of over 15 years hadn’t provided an offspring (not that anty Billy wanted a child to tie her down) and he was the least bit worried because he had an array of baby mama’s; three to be precise but these two always found a way back to each other. They would fight dangerously, love passionately and almost kill each other in-between, but I guess it worked for them”.
Because he had always been known to the family, he was trusted around the girls (Florence,Wanda and Charis).
Wanda was in SS 1 and that long vacation seemed like an opportunity to visit Abuja, the city was still developing and it was always fun holidaying at aunty Billy’s. The girls ate what they wanted, when they wanted and what quantity; mum felt like a kill-joy with her principles and rules. The girls often heard her and aunty quarrel about spoiling them, and how she couldn’t understand being childless and all.
Wanda’s older sister Florence was in SS3 and had friends who lived in Abuja so the entire holiday was spent visiting one friend or the other, Charis (the younger of the three) on the other hand was a “follow-follow” she tagged along, Wanda the loner and introvert decided being indoors was good enough.
Florence and Charis had mapped their paroles (as they like to call it) and tried to convince Wanda it will be worth her while, “You need to drop these novels and live a little” Flo knew she was a beautiful girl and had the trail of boys to prove it…she was also a tough nut to crack but she loved and cared for her sisters. “Wanda, just this once come have fun with my friends and I, just before you say you don’t know anyone, Charis will be there”… the smiles didn’t convince her. that week she had rented three novels and needed to return them, the guy that like her was no longer at the rental store and that new girl was mean so; “no I have reading to catch up on, I’ll join you tomorrow” if she knew the events of the next hour would change her life forever, Wanda would have made that outing.
It wasn’t clear what line of work Uncle Tam was in, but he always had meetings, the land-line was always engaged while he was around and the smell of stale cigarette (benson and hedges) and gin filled the air; if you saw him take a whiff you’d want to smoke. He hardly ate, even if he did, he just picked at the food till it was too cold to eat. He would playfully tap the girls’ buttocks as they walked passed him and no one thought much of it Flo and Charis we off and he had the house all to himself.
The new Joe CD Wanda was listening to had taken her entire attention, earphones plugged in and Disc-man in hand, she was going about her chores not knowing Uncle Tam’s wondering eyes were prying….
It happened so fast she could hardly retell it, sometimes she even asked herself if she only just imagined it…. As she walked into the room to pick the laundry pile aunty had left her she felt his cold hands grab her, that familiar smell of stale cigarette and gin almost drowned her; her screams were muffled, his large hand ensured she could barely breath, she knew this wasn’t happening, no screams, no fighting, she was defeated, she was damaged…as he had his way with her, the tears trickling down her face all she could hear was the soothing voice of Joe playing in her head, “I wanna know” was just released the year before and Wanda would come to hate that song.
After what seemed like a life time, it was over and he was out….
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