Here in Lagos

Here in Lagos, a city forever out of control, Femi and I have managed to organise our lives through this past year so they’re as close as possible to exactly how we want them. Not easy in such a shambolic place, the antithesis of the Oz I left a couple of years ago to explore the world. But, after our initial struggle, work and life here have somewhat settled down. Or that’s what we thought. Until I got this bloody email!

“Femi, take a look at this!”

We were in the Bristol Hotel, Friday lunchtime, drinking cold Star beers, waiting for Modupe (mo-doo-pay) to join us before ordering our lunch.

Femi, as you might guess from his name, is a local, born in Benin City, from where those magnificent British Museum bronzes were, let’s politely say, souvenired back in 1897. He earned his engineering degree in London. His dad, his elder brothers and two uncles in Nigeria all put in to meet his fees and expenses, so when we arrived together in Lagos twelve months or so ago, he faced a family with their hands held out, expecting he’d be their cash cow in extremis.

I’ll tell you how our arrival here came about. For a year or so we’d both been working in London for Montagu Marsden Associates. Clients select MMA to design their complex projects, hotels, hospitals, uni master plans, under the fame and aura of Sir Hugo M. He runs the company worldwide. He’s the figurehead. He brings in the projects and gains the kudos, but it’s staff like Femi and me who do the hard yards.

One day, to our surprise, he called us both into his office, its windows overlooking Portman Square. He’d never deigned to even speak with us before. You, he said to Femi, you’re from Nigeria, it’s time you returned. And you, he said to me, I’m told you’re from Australia, no ties here, so nothing to prevent you going there as well.

These weren’t suggestions. They were quasi-regal commands. Sir Hugo took it for granted that his needs would become our obligations.

“I’m sending you to establish a new Lagos office,” he explained. “It should be a booming market for us. Never mind the corruption. I’m sure an upright pair like you will cope with that.” He managed a challenging smile. “We leave in a week. I’ll be coming too.”

No way, was my first reaction. My interest in Nigeria was slightly south of zero. I’d rather resign. I suspected Femi’s response, for his own reasons, would be the same. But then we read our contracts. Each provided an apartment, a car, our current salaries doubled. Femi had crushing family financial obligations. I had plans to travel in Europe, while all I could afford near the end of each month, thanks to London’s cost of living, was the spaghetti I cooked in my attic bedsit off Gloucester Road.

But back to that bloody email. “I’m arriving Lagos Monday,” it said. “To meet our clients. Inspect the projects. Go over the accounts. I’ll stay as long as it takes.” It was Sir Hugo, the first time we’d heard from him since leaving London a year ago, when he’d suddenly become too busy to accompany us here. His last emailed sentences were the most concerning: “I want to experience the real Nigeria. From now on I’ll be visiting every month.”

“What do you think?” I asked Femi.

“It’s a worry,” he said. He was eating a puff-puff, a deep-fried fluffy dough-ball laced with sugar and pepper. I’m okay with samosas, but the more traditional small chops served in hotels are a taste I’ve yet to acquire.

Modupe arrived. We ordered club sandwiches and more Star beers, and I told her about the email. She’s okay to tell. She’s my girlfriend after all, but on the books she’s our well-remunerated MMA Nigeria accountant. That made her a frontline part of our problem. Modupe’s smart, she knows computers, but an accountant? No way!

“It’s a worry,” Femi said again. And it was. His father and two older brothers were also on our payroll, well-paid senior employees. Never mind their lack of qualifications. Never mind their business repairing bicycles in Surulere. This arrangement helped with our personal finances, justified in our opinion by the extreme hours we worked and the local cost of living, which made our doubled London salaries far less generous than we’d assumed.

“It’s a worry if he twigs to what we’re doing,” I complained. “And figures out the cost. We’re stuck with him on Monday, but how do we stop him coming every month?”

Modupe is, but isn’t just, a pretty face. Tall, slender, beautifully black, today her braided hair was wrapped in an Atlantic sunset coloured headscarf. And yes, she’s street smart as well. She pointed out Sir Hugo’s phrase, “experience the real Nigeria”. “That’s your answer,” she said with a confident smile. “Let him experience the things here he’ll never want to see or do again.” She grinned. “Or eat again,” she added.

I wanted to kiss Modupe for her suggestion, but best not here in public. I took a first bite into my club sandwich, so generously filled it was a logistical challenge to control, while Femi, wolfing down a high-voltage-chilli mini sausage roll, grinned at the wisdom of Modupe’s suggestion.

“The real Nigeria! Shouldn’t be hard. But we need a plan.”

By Monday morning, as I drove to the airport at Ikeja with Mrs Babalola, our local fixer, we had our plan. Mrs B, munching on a chewing stick, knew what she had to do. Get Sir Hugo through Immigration and Customs, but let him suffer first!

Mrs Babalola, you did well! She rescued him from instant deportation for allegedly having the wrong kind of visa, but only after his initial arrest. She watched as his designer luggage was opened by Customs, its contents twice scattered over the floor, his chocolate bars and Johnnie Walker confiscated, before suggesting that a ten pound note might do the trick.

“Stressful but exciting!” Sir Hugo remarked by way of greeting, sweating profusely in his Savile Row suit, as he emerged with Mrs B from Arrivals. Driving towards the city, our open-sided Land Rover allowed the thick humid air and dust and open gutter smells free rein. A pity our air-conditioned Toyota had unexpectedly suffered last-minute engine trouble.

“At such short notice,” I said, “you’ll have to stay tonight at the Ajegunle Grande in Apapa. It overlooks the wharves. It’s not the best. Don’t even try the breakfast. But tomorrow we’ll switch you to the Federal Palace.”

This was part of our plan. The Ajegunle Grande was the pits. I’d give it one star for trying! Hopefully, if the power failed as it usually did, Sir Hugo would have to dash some dollars to the room steward, to carry water up three floors for him to experience a Nigerian bucket-and-dipper cold shower.

For want of a better phrase, let’s say Sir Hugo settled in. Next, plan B.

“Not much time before your first afternoon meeting,” I explained. “We’ll lunch at El Phoenicia, nearby. It’s Lebanese.”

“The best Lagos restaurants are Lebanese,” Femi explained as we entered El Phoenicia’s semi-darkness. The floor was noisy terrazzo, the air-conditioning shuddered, the windows were heavily draped. The tables had crisply starched slightly stained white covers.

“I’ve dined at the best in Beirut,” Sir Hugo said, looking around somewhat doubtfully.

“Maybe wise to pass on the fish,” I suggested. Femi obligingly screwed up his face in explanation.

We ordered far more than we needed. Variety increases risk! We ordered hummus, zaatar manakeesh, kafta with rice pilaf, a meat shawarma platter, mostly goat, and beer by agreement after I queried the dubious pedigree of the wine.

“What’s this fattoush dish?” Sir Hugo asked, studying the menu’s graphic photos. “Looks refreshing.”

“Salads are risky,” I cautioned. “They wash the ingredients in tap water.”

Our lunch was semi-passable but, as we finished, we hit the jackpot. Tentatively, Femi indicated where we should look. There, crouching on the window curtain pelmet, watching us with interest, was a rat the size of an Aussie rabbit.

“Time to leave for your meeting,” I suggested. “No big deal. Rats are everywhere!”

The drive from Apapa to Ikoyi was plan C, the usual Lagos afternoon traffic go-slow that regularly had me give up on my intended destination, bumpily u-turn over the median, and drive back frustrated to our office. As I’d expected, we arrived an hour late, drenched in sweat, for our meeting with the State Hospitals Director. Sir Hugo was frantic, but we were unworried. We knew the Director would turn up, unapologetic, in another hour or so.

It was 7 p.m. when we reached our office. Everyone was still working, not to impress Sir Hugo, but from the desperate deadlines we struggled with every day. We showed him through the office, introducing our senior staff. Modupe looked impressively busy. Then we called it a day, as we usually do, at 10 p.m.

“Where can we eat, this late?” Sir Hugo asked.

“Mostly we go to New Cancan,” I said, “but we can hardly take you there.”

He smiled in his condescending way, insisting he experience the local scene. Of course that was our intention. We walked past grasping street beggars to Marina Road, and were greeted at the door by Tiger, New Cancan’s Middle Eastern owner. He was short, stocky, of doubtful reputation. He was known to regularly fly in a rotation of over-ripe young Levantine ladies for belly dancing, maybe more. Tiger’s own skill was dancing with a full opened beer bottle balanced on his head.

Our focus, after every exhausting working day, wasn’t Godwin Omabuwa’s exciting highlife music, as glistening local girls danced the funky chicken, but Tiger’s house special. Every night it was the same. We each ate a whole scrawny roasted chicken, heavily over-drenched with garlic and lemon, ripped apart with our hands, helped down by a large bottle or three of chilled Star beer.

Our New Cancan objective was that Sir Hugo would be shocked. To our chagrin he was enthralled.

Tuesday, late morning, we ferried Sir Hugo to the Federal Palace, Nigeria’s notionally best hotel. Of course his room wasn’t ready. We sat in the lobby lounge.

“Watch your passport,” Femi warned, as our visitor placed his Italian leather hold-all casually on a nearby side table. “They can disappear at lightning speed.”

“I never drink this early,” Sir Hugo said, securing the hold-all between his knees, “but the humidity’s a struggle, and you warned me never to drink the water.”

“Not if you hope to grow old,” I confirmed.

He shrugged. “Then we’d better have a beer.”

Femi ordered, asking as well for small chops. The platter arrived and Sir Hugo studied it with interest. Asun, chin chin, crispy peppered snails. I selected a spring roll. Femi took a chicken drumette doused in chilli. To avoid greasy fingers, Sir Hugo chose some whitish wiggly meat speared on a toothpick.

“What’s this?” he asked.

“Try it,” Femi said, which he bravely did. “In English it’s peppered chicken gizzards.”

He spat it out. “Maybe something else.” He studied the platter. Along one edge was a decorative row of finely sliced seedless red chillies. He picked up a minimal handful. Femi went to warn him but I quickly shook my head. He stuffed them into his mouth. You can guess what followed.

“Sorry,” I said as he struggled to recover. “We thought you’d know what they are.” Things were going well!

We spent the day in the office. Femi’s family members were supposedly out on site, Modupe with the tax commissioner. Sir Hugo had wanted to accompany her but, with appropriate facial expressions, we explained that meetings with government tax officials are better left unwitnessed. And where did we go that night? To New Cancan again. Sir Hugo insisted. Tiger’s delectably scrawny roasted garlic-flooded chicken!

Next day we were heading up country to meet the Army.

Lagos to Ibadan is about 120 ks. We took the Ikorodu Road, three hours if things go well. They seldom do. They didn’t! A head-on collision between a dusty truck and an overcrowded bus forced us to divert, but that turned out okay. Approaching Shagamu we were hungry, thirsty, and Femi knew just the place, Mama Ajani’s roadside bukka.

We turned onto potholed red laterite dirt spread before an open-fronted shanty. Even I would have looked askance, but Femi had taken me there before and we’d survived. We sat in low-slung wicker chairs around a clean but ramshackle table. As Femi ordered from Mama Ajani, her baby, wrapped on her back, dribbled onto Sir Hugo’s slicked-down hair.

“Bushmeat stew,” Femi ordered. “Beer, of course. Palm wine to try.”

The serves were generous, the stew chilli-hot and delicious, but Sir Hugo seemed apprehensive. He asked, what’s bushmeat? We shrugged noncommittally and he left it untouched. He sipped his beer, looking hopefully but nervously at the palm wine.

“Try it,” Femi said, as a tsetse fly buzzed between us. “I think it’s fresh and pure. Mama Ajani claims she hasn’t diluted it with creek water.” We told Sir Hugo that freshly tapped palm wine isn’t alcoholic but, in this heat, it’s soon a powerful brew.

No food, no palm wine, only beer. Sir Hugo wasn’t in his best frame of mind for our afternoon meeting in the sprawling low-rise city of Ibadan, an undulating sea of rusted roofs, with a client who had extravagant plans but only fanciful hope for money. Later, checking into the Premier Hotel, famished Sir Hugo said, “Let’s eat here.” Femi cautioned, “Better not.” I said, “They try, but … you know!”

Instead, at twilight, we took him to Baba Westend’s, an Ibadan dining institution.

Climbing two external flights of precarious wooden stairs to the flat roof of a derelict warehouse, we stepped around an elderly figure in baggy shorts, sitting on an ancient dining chair, his bare gammy leg propped on another.

“Meet Baba Westend.”

To his mumbled response we introduced Sir Hugo as a famous visitor from England. Baba waved us into his restaurant, a dozen weathered tables and chairs scattered over the drab concrete roof, with a galvanised iron kitchen, a bar devoid of drinks, a few bare bulb lights strung overhead. A smiling waiter came to serve us.

“Bring food and beer,” Femi said.

“Sorry masta. No beer today. Baba last night lost beer float money at casino.”

We sent the waiter out with cash to bring us three Star lagers from a nearby provision store. Sir Hugo looked anxious.

“This is the real Nigeria,” I explained.

“I’m hungry. No lunch. What did you mean, bring food?”

“Whatever the kitchen’s cooked,” Femi explained, his shrug conveying false optimism.

Well, poor fool us. It was a banquet. Not French, not Lebanese, not Nigerian, a dozen meat and vegetable dishes, dips, condiments, pita bread. Unfortunately it was delicious. We ate and drank until the wind sprang up, swollen drops of rain announcing a coming downpour. In a dishevelled shilling-shilling taxi we made it back to our hotel. Sir Hugo, his stomach satisfied, regrettably was blissfully content.

Thursday, at our late morning meeting with the influential Brigadier Abubakar, Sir Hugo’s new project hopes were quickly dashed. Realising his guest’s disappointment, the courteous Brigadier insisted we lunch with him at the officers’ mess, a stroke of luck for us. From experience, Femi and I knew what to expect, guaranteed to wipe last night’s satisfying banquet from Sir Hugo’s memory.

We had goat meat and spinach stew in a fiery curry. We had black snails the size of cricket balls and the consistency of tractor tyres, symmetrically sliced in half, in a fiery curry. We had pounded yam in a doubly fiery pepper soup. We watched with barely concealed enjoyment as Sir Hugo painfully experienced the real Nigeria.

Surely his suffering sealed our success!

That evening, after returning to Lagos, Femi and I, with Mrs Babalola briefed to complicate any departure problems, farewelled Sir Hugo at the airport.

“A memorable experience?” Femi suggested. “No urgent need for you to return.”

“A minor problem or two,” I added, optimistically. “They’re all under control.”

“It’s tough here, I know,” he acknowledged. “But you colonials don’t understand us Brits. Since when would we ever let a little hardship stand in our way? The best of us still have the spirit that created our mighty empire. You’re doing well here, but on my next month’s visit I want to interview each of your staff in turn. And I’ll need a full day meeting to go over the books with your accountant.”

A full day to go over the books with Modupe? A catch-up with Femi’s well-paid dad and brothers? One imposter, three phantoms. Four generous salaries impossible to explain. I suppose we could say, sorry Sir Hugo, but here in Nigeria corruption’s endemic. You can’t help but catch it. There’s no vaccine.

What else could we say?

So, I’ve come reluctantly to a conclusion. It’s this. Sorry, Femi, I feel bad leaving you to face the music, but I need to do a runner. Four weeks till Sir Hugo’s return gives me four weeks to disappear.

I’ve saved a bit of cash. Modupe has too. A flight to Rome, a month together in Italy, which I’ve always wanted to see. And after that? I’ve heard there’s plenty of work in China, in spite of some new virus that’s supposedly turned up there. Wuhan flu, or whatever. Of course, here in Lagos, I’m somewhat out of touch. But health problems? They’re no big deal. In this modern world they’re cleared up pretty quick.

John Dennis lives in Melbourne. He is completing a novel.