The Cellar Read online

  A look of amusement crossed Mrs Hughes’s face. ‘I’m sure you’d come up with a good one.’ She took the bag that Muna had brought. ‘At least let me give you some food to see you through today. I have some of the items your mother likes in my fridge.’

  ‘I can’t pay you, lady.’

  ‘I don’t expect you to. Think of it as a gift from a friend.’ She rose to her feet and looked down at the girl. ‘You need a friend, don’t you, Muna?’

  Muna ducked her head in pretended gratitude, but her heart fluttered nervously. Her first impression of Mrs Hughes had been right. This witchy-white was as knowing and clever as she was.

  Fourteen

  Ebuka’s ill-humour of the morning had passed, helped by the fried chicken, spiced rice and beans that Muna gave him for lunch. It was always his favourite, reminding him of meals his mother had made. He still harboured doubts about the speed of Yetunde’s departure, but since he couldn’t see anyone taking her against her will – her bulk alone would have prevented it – he decided Muna’s suggestion was correct.

  I can just imagine Princess storming out of the house with an acquaintance and demanding to be dropped at a hotel. If she isn’t home by tomorrow, I’ll contact the credit-card company to find out where she’s staying.

  Muna was putting him through his exercises, crooking his left knee over her arm and manipulating his foot. How will they know, Master?

  Her card will tell them. She can’t book into a hotel without one.

  What else does a card do, Master? Is it like a smartphone and the cameras in the roads that take photographs? Can it find a person?

  Only if they’re staying in a hotel. Otherwise it shows where they’ve been shopping. If I discover Princess is costing me a fortune, I’ll cancel it. She’ll come back soon enough when she’s deprived of funds.

  Perhaps she’s not using the card because she doesn’t want you to know where she is, Master. What will you do then?

  Call the police, said Ebuka, using the hoist to pull himself into a sitting position. It’ll mean something’s happened to her.

  Muna shone the torch beam into Yetunde’s face and this time there was no question the woman was dead. Her head was tilted back against the wall as if she were stretching her neck in a last attempt to breathe, but her half-open eyes were glazed and milky. There was no air in the second chamber when the door was closed. Muna knew this from shutting herself inside in the early days. The idea of starving to death hadn’t troubled her – Yetunde gave her so little to eat anyway – but her panicky struggle for breath as she slowly asphyxiated had persuaded her she’d rather live.

  She moved the beam to pick out Abiola where he lay on the floor. She’d shown Yetunde her son before she plunged her into darkness by sealing the door. It pleased her to think Yetunde had died knowing that Muna was cleverer than the police. Had she cried for Abiola or only for herself?

  The fat, ugly boy seemed quite unchanged. Muna thought he’d be a skeleton by now, his bones as white as the animal bones she remembered from her childhood. Dogs and cats lay scattered about the road outside the schoolyard, knocked down by cars before birds picked them clean. She thought all death was the same.

  Yet Abiola was still clothed in his school uniform and his face was pleasant to look at. In truth Muna found him more attractive in death than she had in life. He was thinner and more handsome. Like the unspoilt four-year-old he’d been before Yetunde taught him that Muna could be beaten and kicked for every little mistake she made. There was a time – quite brief – when Muna had wanted to love Abiola, for she’d yearned to show and receive affection, but he’d learned all too quickly that she was a person of no account and treated her with the same cruelty as his mother.

  Yetunde had found his antics amusing until he turned his temper tantrums on her. By then it was too late. Abiola had become unmanageable, and the only way to pacify him was with sweets and treats. Such things made him worse. The fatter he grew the more monstrous and demanding he became, delighting in the pain he caused with his fleshy fists and heavy feet.

  How Muna had loathed him, having to take the punishment when he stole food and being forced to clean the filth from his sheets and underwear every day. It had pleased her to lure him into this chamber and leave him to die. The Devil had laughed as the door closed and his cries of rage and fear were muffled.

  It was his own fault. Had he gone to school as he should, it would not have happened. Instead he crept back into the house after his mother left, and Muna found him eating the creamy chocolate dessert that Yetunde had ordered for the meal that evening, digging his fingers into the soft mixture and stuffing it into his mouth.

  I’ll tell Mamma you ate it, he said. You know she’ll believe me.

  She won’t like it that you haven’t gone to school on the day she’s away, Muna answered, placing his soiled bedding on the floor beside the washing machine.

  I’ll tell her I felt sick. He dropped the bowl in the sink and opened the cupboards. Where are the salt and vinegar crisps? I’ll beat you if you don’t tell me. I know you hide them so you won’t get punished when there aren’t enough for Mamma.

  Muna watched his chocolate-covered fingers leave a smear of sticky grime on the handles, and she thought of the time and effort it would take to clean them before Yetunde came home.

  She lowered her gaze in pretended fear and spoke in a tearful whisper. I keep them in the cellar, Master. There’s a cupboard no one knows about except me. I hide your favourite food in there so you can’t steal it and get me into trouble.

  What a stupid creature he was. He felt superior to be called Master, and never doubted Muna was telling the truth. He waddled across the hall behind her and down the cellar steps, treading on her mattress and crushing it. Without a bulb in the cellar light, he couldn’t see as well as Muna, but there was enough brightness from the hall to show him how she reached through the metal rack and pushed the door to the second chamber open. He gave a gasp of astonishment.

  Muna sank to her knees on the floor. Please be kind, Master, she begged, holding out her hands. Princess lets me eat so little that I’ll die if you steal everything that’s in there.

  Abiola moved forward, eyes full of curiosity. You’d better hope I don’t tell Mamma this cupboard exists. You’re not allowed to have secrets.

  Muna believed the Devil reached out to pull him inside and slam the door closed, but once or twice she had flashbacks of memory where she leaped on his back and dug her fingers into his eyes to send him staggering into the darkness. She had no doubt about the deep, raucous laughter that filled her ears afterwards.

  Once she’d washed the soiled sheets, cleaned the kitchen and made a new creamy chocolate pudding for Yetunde, she picked up the rod and collected Abiola’s lunch box and schoolbag from where he’d left them on the sideboard in the hall. She didn’t need a torch. She could see in the dark, and would beat him if he tried to attack her. But he was dead. And Muna was glad.

  He lay now as he’d lain then, fully clothed and curled in a ball with his eyes shut and his thumb in his mouth. Beside him were the lunch box and the schoolbag. Muna thought she could love him quite easily like this. Yetunde, too, who looked kind and motherly leaning against her suitcase, her right hand reaching out to the son she’d lost.

  There was no smell, not even from the urine that had soaked Yetunde’s skirt. Muna wondered if the Devil had built this cool, airless chamber for that purpose – to keep the bodies of her enemies whole and clean for her to enjoy. She shone the torch into Yetunde’s handbag to find the wallet and remove the credit card. Then, as carefully as she’d done each time before, she closed the door and tiptoed backwards, using a soft brush to swirl dust over the footprints that showed she’d walked through a wall.

  She squatted in the corner of her room that night, staring at Yetunde’s smartphone and the two small squares of plastic on the carpet in front of her. She had taken the mobile and Ebuka’s credit card after he fell asleep, but she was s
till undecided whether to use his number or Yetunde’s to buy food. The gulf in her understanding of how such small, lifeless things could speak was huge.

  The decision would have been removed from her if Ebuka hadn’t stirred when she returned from Mrs Hughes. He’d opened his eyes as she stood looking down at him, and she’d had to pretend the mobile had slipped from his lap as he dozed. She stooped as if to pick it up and her chance of ordering the food then, using the card he kept in his wallet beside his bed, was lost.

  Now she didn’t know which to choose. Ebuka had said he would know Yetunde was alive if she spent money. But was that enough? What else might the card tell Ebuka? She lifted it and held it close to her face, wondering how it could even say it belonged to Yetunde. Where was its voice?

  Muna’s lack of expression and long schooling in patience served her well the next day. With no idea when the white van would come, or even if she had succeeded in placing an order, she stretched the food Mrs Hughes had given her and listened calmly to Ebuka’s frustrations.

  He felt belittled because the credit-card company had refused to give him the information he wanted. At Yetunde’s insistence, he had made her the primary cardholder so she could deal direct with the company if questions of fraud arose. It had seemed wise at the time. Yetunde knew Ebuka’s shopping habits – he was predictable – and she would recognise a criminal transaction immediately. The same could not be said of him.

  Muna was kneading dough for flatbreads from the flour Mrs Hughes had given her. What does all that mean, Master?

  Yetunde never gave me the security password. Only she can be told how the card’s being used. I pay the bill but I have no rights.

  Does that make you angry, Master?

  Ebuka gave a sour smile. It’ll teach me to keep control next time. They told me one thing at least, but only because I said I was worried my wife had had an accident. The last transaction was at two o’clock this morning.

  Is that good, Master?

  It says she’s hasn’t lost her taste for spending money … though God knows what she was buying in the early hours. She never stays awake beyond ten.

  She watches the shopping channels, Master. I’ve seen her buy many things from the television when she’s unhappy.

  More likely she’s with her sister, and the pair of them are draining the account. There’s no containing Yetunde when she’s in this sort of mood. She won’t stop until the card reaches its limit … which it will when I refuse to pay it off.

  Muna nodded as if she understood. Yes, Master.

  Ebuka muttered that all he’d ever been good for was paying bills, and it was time Yetunde learned those days were over. After that he had other things to preoccupy him. The nurse came. She was glad to hear he and his daughter had made an excursion to the High Street but she tut-tutted at the shortage of disposable gloves and swabs. Mr Songoli should have used the opportunity to buy supplies. She gave Muna some replacements but told Ebuka that hygiene and cleanliness were his responsibility. It was no excuse to say his wife was away for a few days. There were plenty of pharmacies close by, and it would be good therapy to go out and make the purchases himself.

  Ebuka pretended to agree. Muna would take him later, he said. But the nurse shook her head, telling the girl she must encourage her father to make the trip alone. Coping with disability was as much about building confidence as managing bedsores and catheters. She watched Ebuka demonstrate how easily he could now move from his bed to his chair, and urged him to build on this new independence. He couldn’t rely on his wife and daughter all his life.

  Later, Muna took Ebuka’s jacket and gloves to the sitting room and urged him to do as the nurse had suggested. She couched her request in the terms the woman had used – the Master would build his confidence by going out alone – but her motives were selfish. Ebuka’s absence from the house would spare her having to invent explanations when the white van came. If necessary, she would find more reasons to send him out tomorrow.

  Ebuka took food for granted – it was always there – but he would be curious if a man arrived with plastic bags. Who had told him to come, he would ask, and Muna feared the man would answer that the order came from Yetunde’s phone and was paid for by her card. For every problem she solved, another arose.

  She was too persistent in her attempts to persuade Ebuka from the house. He accused her of nagging and said he would make the decision in his own good time. With a small shrug, she left the room, closing the door behind her, but her heart hardened against him. She had done everything she could to spare Ebuka harm, and the fault would be his if the Devil punished him for making little Muna’s troubles more onerous.

  Fifteen

  Olubayo came home from school and leered at her from the kitchen doorway as she pulled the last of the flesh from the chicken carcase to make soup. He rubbed his groin against the doorjamb, and Muna bared her teeth at him, hissing loudly. He took no notice. She’d lost her power to scare him since his father had started listening to what he had to say. If he’d ever believed that Ebuka had killed Abiola, or that demons lived in the walls of the cellar, he didn’t any more.

  Where’s Dada? he demanded.

  Muna watched him out of the corner of her eye. The Master went to the shops as the nurse instructed him to do, she said.

  When’s he coming back?

  When he has what he needs.

  Olubayo’s eyes filled with lust. It was the first time he and Muna had been alone in the house since Abiola went missing. He moved into the room, unzipping his fly. I know you want me. Ask what I can give you. Tell me you’re a slut and a whore.

  Muna had heard such phrases coming out of his computer. They made no sense to her. She picked up the heavy saucepan and cradled it against her chest. I have no use for you at all. I’d like it better if you weren’t here.

  He pulled out his penis. You’ll wish you hadn’t said that when I make you swallow this.

  Muna looked at the engorged and filthy thing with its glistening head. Was this what Ebuka had put in her mouth? Bile rose in her throat as she lowered the saucepan to her side to swing it. She was too slow. Olubayo was upon her, knocking the weapon from her grasp and slamming the weight of his other fist against the side of her head.

  Muna slumped to the ground, curling herself into a tight ball. He tugged at her clothes, her arms, her hair in an attempt to turn her into one of the amenable rag dolls he saw on his computer screen, but Muna knew from Yetunde’s attacks that the damage would be less if she kept herself small. He growled as he kicked her, voicing his frustration in animal-like grunts, calling her a fucking bitch and a cock-teaser.

  It seemed an age before Ebuka rescued her. He swung the rod against his son’s back and then drove it into Olubayo’s midriff as the boy turned with a howl of shock. But Ebuka was mistaken if he thought his son would recognise his authority. Hot with rage, Olubayo grasped the rod and threatened to pull his father from his chair if he didn’t let go.

  I’m no different from you, he snarled. Do you think me and Abiola didn’t know she sucked you off whenever you felt like it? Do you think Mamma didn’t know? She thought it was funny. She slept better after she gave you the piccaninny to fuck.

  He knew a brief triumph as his father shrank away from him but his gloating expression turned to pained surprise as something sharp was thrust into the muscle of his right arm. He stared at his father in confusion, unsure what was happening, then let go of the rod as the blade was wrenched free. He pulled away, gasps of shock issuing from his mouth, and Muna’s second strike glanced off his ribs instead of plunging into his side.

  She dropped the small Japanese paring knife into the sink and pulled a larger one from the wooden block on the worktop. She inspected it for a moment, as if wondering why she was holding it; then, without warning, she dropped into a cat-like crouch and jumped at Olubayo, her lips drawn back in a snarl.

  With a shout of alarm Ebuka pushed his son aside and raised the rod. Enough! he cried. Don�
�t make me hit you, Muna! Olubayo is sorry for hurting you.

  Muna straightened. From the bowels of the earth she heard the faint echo of the Devil’s laugh. Olubayo is never sorry for what he does, Master. I ache all over from where he kicked me. Only you have ever said you were wrong to treat little Muna with cruelty.

  Ebuka glanced at the boy. Apologise, he ordered. You behaved badly.

  But Olubayo refused. Why do you take her side? he demanded angrily. She’s made me bleed. He took his hand from where it was clutching the wound on his arm and showed the blood on his palm. If you cared about me, you’d order her to the cellar and call the police.

  Ebuka’s tone was scornful. Has epilepsy turned you into an imbecile? How will you explain why she attacked you? Look at yourself. You’re undone and there’s semen on your trousers. Do you want it known that you tried to rape your sister?

  A dark flush burned the boy’s cheeks as he pulled up his zip. She’s not my sister. She’s no one … just a fucking slave.

  Then call the police yourself. She’ll receive more kindness from them than you or I will. We’ll go to prison while she goes to a welcoming home. Are you too stupid to understand that?

  Olubayo stamped his foot. It wasn’t me who stole her. I hate her. I’ve always hated her. Abiola hated her. You give her more love than you ever gave us.

  With a sigh of despair, Ebuka lowered the rod. You have your mother’s jealousy. She destroyed us all by what she did. I should have sent Muna back to the orphanage when Yetunde first brought her home – it’s what I wanted to do – but I allowed myself to be persuaded it was a good thing to offer shelter to an abandoned child.

  You kept her because you liked fucking her, the boy cried, clutching his arm again. She liked it too or she’d have told the police on you.

  Ebuka shook his head, remembering Muna’s pitiless face when he begged for her help in the cellar. Be grateful she didn’t, he snapped. Your parents would have been lost to you if she’d told the truth. Is that your wish? To become as unloved and unwanted as she was? You’ll achieve it easily enough by whining that a slave hurt you when you tried to rape her.