I would sit on its cockle-plastered edge and wait for the water to lap at my feet, fling my fishing rod, which was made from tree branch, string, and a cork from one of my father’s discarded wine bottles. The late afternoons, after homework, I spent on our jetty, a short wooden promenade I could walk in three steps, if I took long enough strides to strain the muscles between my thighs. The early afternoons were for eat and sleep breaks: eat a heavy lunch, sleep like a drunk. Hot, hot were the days as I remember them, with runny-egg sunshine and brief breezes. I played, carelessly, on the West side because the East side bordered the mangroves of Ikoyi Park and I’d once seen a water snake slither past. Our yard stretched over an acre and was surrounded by a high wooden fence that could drive splinters into careless fingers. My worst was to hear my mother’s shout from her kitchen window: ‘Enitan, come and help in here.’ At an age when other Nigerian girls were masters at ten-ten, the game in which we stamped our feet in rhythm and tried to outwit partners with sudden knee jerks, my favorite moments were spent sitting on a jetty pretending to fish. From the beginning I believed whatever I was told, downright lies even, about how best to behave, although I had my own inclinations.
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