When you arrived suddenly in the lachrymose milieu of midlife, you are always looking for ways to relight your dying fire. Mid life is like a graveyard when there is no fun. It is the period of life that keeps you focused on worry and the limited resources at your disposal to overcome it. The standard narrative that London is like a self-imposed exile for thousands of Nigerians has sailed passed the hurdle of cliché to becoming a daily and abiding truism. And for a hardcore Anglophile who had seen many moons in the UK and many T-shirts to prove my iconic fixture as a rugged Londoner, parties hardly hold any new thrill for my old hedonistic soul.
Until. Yes, until that fateful day when an invite creatively woven into a thumping music assaulted my WhatsApp.
I was momentarily struck by a professorial conundrum. An invitation to attend Professor Adebayo William’s son’s wedding seems like a fairy tale. Is Professor Williams baiting me to the trap of intellectual snobbism common to Nigerian professors? Or is he inviting me to experience the luxury and sybaritic pleasure of Owambe wedding party for Ladi and Sarah? When it comes to party, I am neither as cool as a cucumber nor as a virgin like the Arctic zone.
Yes, my presence at Forest Gate may signal a step forward intellectually. Then I was entrapped in a bog of confusion. Should I brush up on my Anton Chekhov, Maxim Gorky, Karl Marx, Edward Said, Karl Marx, Bertrand Russell, Sartre, Primo Levi, Plato, Socrates, Aristotle, Achebe, and Soyinka? When I was younger, my mortal affinity with these lovely authors knew no bounds. They shaped and moulded my affection for literature, journalism, and writing. I decided after unblocking all my permutations that I will attend the party purely to enjoy, amuse and feast my writerly eyes on two new couples taking a step of fate into the shark infested waters of married life.
Forest Gate is like world’s end to Stanmore. I called on one of my London aburos and together, like train spotters, we traversed station after station until we arrived at Romford station. It was a Saturday, and you could see the unspoilt loveliness of life everywhere. In the exuberant joy of freedom from lockdown, Londoners are out in battalion to sunbath the summer weather and reconquer the lost glow of party and club scenes.
At Romford, we jumped on the bus. The bus took us to a gentrified and lush corner of Romford reserved for the rich and the truly opulent. The area was truly a cut away from the banging sound of Romford battleground. We were too engrossed to know that we were on the right bus but toward the wrong direction. “Kenny, kilo nhappen, I could not hear our bus stop,” I said curiously. “Egbon, probably it is still ahead,” Kenny said encouragingly. I knew instantly that any reliance on our human radar would mean a failure. When I looked at my time piece, there was a little rush of adrenaline.
Then that dread of morbid defeat happened. The bus grounded to a final stop. What, I shouted! Kenny made an ironic crack and asked if the details I had on me was correct. I was expecting a straw of comfort and sympathy, but those became instantly subjective – to Kenny’s mood. Stiff upper lips and heroism are pointless at this quiet reserve of world’s end. I approached the Chinese bus driver. He looked like a martial art instructor than a bus driver. We were on the right bus but had come to the wrong direction. The Chinese said sternly.
We embarked on the same bus and journeyed back towards the other direction to get to Forest Gate where I hoped to recharge my light. Forty-five minutes later and after defying the law of street mapping, we arrived at the precinct of the hall where the aroma of colliding perfumes was mixed with jollof rice and a barrage of colourful sartorial display. In a crowded party hall where we have intellectuals hiding in cultural robes, I asked myself, how many here carry the gene of a hero like Uncle Larry B, as Professor Williams is known to close friends? How many here bear the moniker of Tatalo Alamu – his wit, awe, satire, depth, confidence, high culture, rigour, knowledge, and the inimitability of his style?
In the columnosphere communities, Tatalo Alamu represents the grandest platform where an unsmiling and unassuming assassin unleash his silver bullets on the political and social scoundrels who have made cultural choice for corruption. Professor Williams is a bruiser with words. He is one of Nigeria’s best public intellectuals – the best columnist of all time! He could afflict, cajole, comfort, confront and condemn with his satire.
The hall was brightly lit with soft decoration of a pink tree on each table. The bevy of ladies were gaily and merrily dressed. The master of ceremony (MC) had us in temporary suspended animation. She held us bound by her wit and the traditional mores or protocol of traditional Yoruba wedding. She was not a woman who entertain a timid, cautious, and restraining attitude to social etiquette. Ladi Williams, the tall, handsome groom lapped all the fun with his friends. The crucible of marriage is laden with stress and uncertainty. Ladi looked prepared and had hope written all over his face. By the time the bride sailed in with her bridesmaids, we were all standing in applause to a petite Sarah who looked like a beauty queen. At this stage, Professor Williams did not betray any emotion. He held on to his professorial calmness – his intellectual fortress of observation.
I was relieved when at last I saw Professor Williams tucking into his jollof rice. He had undergone the punishing task of sitting still for hours as memories are woven for posterity. He had to allow for a reasonable accommodation of our culture and its rigid etiquette that could render a mighty man of the pen totally powerless. Then the dance by the couple, the food, and the booze.
“Oh, Taju, thanks for coming,” Professor Williams said when he saw me. Instantly, I was reminded again how circular history could be. My first meeting with Professor Williams was at Hendon in the home of Uncle Tunde Fagbenle. My second meeting was at the premises of The Nation newspaper. The third meeting at Forest Gate in an atmosphere of jollof rice, hearty goodness, jolliness, and respect for an intellectual enigma.
By the time I had my second Guinness, Okon touched me on the shoulder and asked when I was leaving. Unfazed, I asked him to inform Mama Igosun that I must go home with some jollof rice takeaway with assorted chicken and meat. Okon gave me a dirty look. I knew it was time to leave. Prof, wishing Ladi and Sarah, a happy married life.