47
she finds a belt and a pair of his underwear behind the bags. Perhaps
they are the reason his scent has persisted. After cleaning, she drops a
scented tablet on the wardrobe floor.
Ugandans rallied around her during that first week of Kayita’s death.
The men took over the mortuary issues, the women took care of the
home, while Nnam floated between weeping and sleeping. They
arranged the funeral service in Manchester and masterminded the
fundraising drive saying,
‘We are not burying one of us in snow.’
Throughout that week, women who worked shifts slept at Nnam’s
house looking after the children then going to work. People brought
food and money in the evening and prayed and sang. Two of her friends
took leave and bought tickets to fly back to Uganda with her.
It was when she was buying the tickets that she wondered where the
funeral would be held in Uganda as their house had tenants. She rang
and asked her father. He said that Kayita’s family was not forthcoming
about the arrangements.
‘Not forthcoming?’
‘Evasive.’
‘But why?’
‘They are peasants, Nnameya; you knew that when you married him.’
Nnam kept quiet. Her father was like that. H