Olumayokun Ogunde

Ife

Novel extract

CHAPTER ONE

Ife was on a date. 

 ‘So, what do you do when you’re not working?’ 

‘I game’, her date replied. 

Ife watched as his face lit up and his lips began to move faster and faster. She was good at that. Good at making people feel like they could tell her what made them happiest in this world. The words spilt out of his mouth so fast she doubted he even realised she wasn’t listening. She was nodding and smiling at the right moments, but his voice was a flat buzzing in her ears. 

‘Some weekends I won’t leave my chair for hours, and my mum will have to come to mine and bring cooked food to me, so I don’t starve, you know?’

She didn’t know. Of course, she didn’t know, but she smiled politely anyway.

She should have stood up and told him she wasn’t interested in dating narcissistic mummy’s boys at this point in time. She should have said that she appreciated him taking the time out to meet her, but they weren’t well suited. But instead, she played with her food and allowed him to spiral deeper into the intricate world of Twitch streaming. 

She nudged a single chickpea around her plate, watching the bright orange oil stain the bottom of the bowl, when a notification flashed across her phone screen and caught her eye. 

She looked down and saw the familiar bird icon in the corner of her screen. 

If I hear that man scream ‘you’re my gurlfriendddd’ one more time my head is going to explode, the tweet read. 

A smile tugged at her lips; she had forfeited her nightly ritual of reality TV and Twitter to listen to a man she didn’t like talk about how much he liked to game. 

He was the kind of man who was used to being listened to. Twenty-five, six foot three, bearded, employed, a homeowner. On paper, he seemed like a catch. In reality, it was clear he believed his height and handsome face made up for a stark lack of charisma. 

‘I’m just going to the bathroom quickly.’ 

Without waiting for a reply, Ife made her way through the restaurant. Her date had chosen one of those whitewashed Caribbean food chains that advertised themselves as the height of culinary innovation but instead were flavourless imitations. 

She slipped through the doorway leading up to the toilet. The hallway had a gaudy pop art wall of Bob Marley’s face splashed across it. The words ‘one love’ were stamped across his face in each frame, obscuring his eyes. Ife thought that this must be some sort of copyright infringement. 

She pushed the bathroom door open and was faced with much of the same. The walls were covered in the same image. Even the sinks looked like steel pans. She’d already looked up the restaurant before she got here. Its owner was a fifty-year-old white man who’d spent six months in Jamaica two years ago and decided that this experience gave him the necessary expertise to open a restaurant. Her date had claimed to know a ‘really good Caribbean spot’ and this was what he meant. This alone for Ife was definitely a red flag. 

Her phone buzzed in her back pocket. She was expecting to see another Love Island tweet, instead, it was Vic calling.

She clicked accept just as she entered the cubicle. 

‘Yes?’ 

‘So should I be preparing Aso Ebi?’ 

‘I asked him what his favourite book was.’ 

‘And?’ 

‘Rich Dad, Poor Dad.’ 

‘Oh.’ 

‘Exactly.’ 

She paused for a moment, focusing her gaze on the familiar Ask Angela poster on the toilet door.

Are you on a date that isn’t working out? Go to the bar and ask for Angela, the bar staff will help get you out of your situation. No questions asked. 

She considered it briefly. Technically she was on a date that wasn’t working out. 

‘Okay so he isn’t the right person, but the next one might be.’

She sighed turned away from the poster and looked instead at her watch. Ten minutes had passed already.

‘I don’t think I can do this anymore Vic.’ 

Vic huffed. 

‘The right one is out there’, she said.

Lie. 

‘You just have to be a bit more open’, she said.

Lie. 

‘Any man would be lucky to have you’, she said. 

True. 

‘Vic, I have to go.’

‘Are you okay?’ 

Ife breathed out. Vic’s voice was sympathetic. She wanted to cry. 

‘I have to go back out there. I’ll speak to you later.’ 

Before Vic could probe any further, Ife hung up.

She stared at her reflection in the blank screen for a moment. She had spent two hours getting ready for this date. Her false lashes were so long she could feel them brushing the tops of her cheeks as she blinked. She looked good, and it was wasted.

Shaking her head, she stood and left. As soon as she exited the bathroom, the chill of the restaurant’s air conditioning triggered goosebumps on her arms. 

Choosing to take the longer route back to the table, she walked by the colourful bar in the centre of the restaurant. The side of the bar was decorated with fake palm fronds and Jamaican flags, the sight of it was so ridiculous she smiled. 

Gyptians Hold Yuh began to play, and an older couple stood up and began dancing to it by the bar. 

Feeling no rush to return to her table, she stopped to watch them. She watched as they swayed together, heads tipped back slightly so they could look into each other’s eyes. He mouthed something that made her eyes crinkle with laughter. He watched her and smiled, gripped her waist tighter. The streaks of white and grey amidst the woman’s afro caught the light as she swayed, matching the greying beard of her husband. Their feet moved in sync, they didn’t need prompting or coordination. 

There wasn’t a dance floor but there should have been. Just so they could dance together, just so Ife could watch them dance. 

As the song faded into the next, the couple returned to their seats, and so did Ife. 

‘I thought maybe you’d run off.’ 

Ife grimaced. If she hadn’t left her bag at the table she might have. 

‘I’m not feeling too good.’ 

‘Oh. Okay, let me call the waitress over for the bill.’ 

He lifted his hand and clicked. Twice. Ife watched in disgust as he sat back with a satisfied look. 

The waitress made her way towards their table. 

‘What can I do for you?’

‘Bill please’, he said shortly. 

The waitress, seemingly unphased, did as he asked and returned moments later with the bill and a card machine in hand.

‘Here’s your bill. I hope everything was okay with your meal.’  

Ife smiled at the waitress hoping that her eyes were apologising well enough for her date’s behaviour. 

‘Actually, the chicken was dry, take it off the bill.’ 

Ife looked at the waitress who lifted an eyebrow in surprise. 

Her date turned to her.

‘I’m not paying for bad food. And I only got water. You got the chickpea curry and a mojito, so you should probably pay for that.’

Slowly the waitress said ‘Okay.’

Ife saying nothing pulled her card from her purse and held it out to waitress. 

‘You sure?’ 

Ife nodded and waited for the familiar beep, then pushed her chair out to leave.

‘So, you coming back to mine?’ 

‘You’re an idiot.’ 

The satisfied smile fell from his face as he realised what she’d said. 

‘What?’ he spluttered, conjuring up a retort, but she didn’t wait for it. 

Ife stood and walked towards the waitress who was now wiping down another table.

‘Hey, I’m sorry about him. Here.’ 

She pushed a ten-pound note into her hands then made a beeline for the restaurant exit.

Out on the street people buzzed around as usual. Shoreditch was alight with excitement. She started to walk, worried that if she didn’t, her date might attempt to catch up with her. After about two streets of craning over her shoulder to make sure she wasn’t being followed, she slowed her pace. 

It was one of those rare days at the start of a British summer where temperatures reached 30 degrees. The warmth that had seconds ago been a welcome change, was already oppressive.

 Everything was sticky. 

Pulling her dress away from her clammy chest she enjoyed a fleeting moment of relief. She decided that instead of her usual bad habit of getting a cab to Liverpool Street Station, she’d walk. 

As she walked, she reached into her bag for her phone, swiped onto the page with a folder labelled bottomless pit and one by one deleted all the apps. 

Are you sure you want to delete this app? Deleting this app will also delete all its data. 

Yes.

After watching the folder disappear, she continued down the street. 

The sun retreated slowly into the horizon as more and more people filled the pavement. Groups of friends poured into clubs already giddy and tipsy, and happy. 

Everyone around her looked so happy. 

Suddenly, her breaths were getting shallower. As she walked, she tried to force them deeper. A familiar pressure rose in her. There was an alley coming up, she turned into it and dropped her bag onto the floor. She brought a hand to the space just above her bust and rubbed, attempting to relieve the sharp ache that was making it impossible to breathe.

Then, the sob that had been sitting at the back of her throat since she left the restaurant ripped its way through her chest.

 It was one of those sobs that were so deep, so powerful that she was silent apart from the occasional jagged shudder. She could hear the beeps from cars and the laughs of passers-by, but she needed a sound to anchor onto. There was music playing from the bar across the street from the alley. She could barely make out the lyrics, but she could feel the vibrations of the bass under her feet. Forcing her mind to focus and counting in time with the bass, the grip on her chest began to slacken, and the space around her came slowly back into focus. 

She wasn’t okay.

Hey, I just want to be honest. I don’t think I’m ready for a relationship right now. I don’t want to lead you.

Droplets of water on her phone screen distorted the words of the text. 

Don’t want to lead you on.

She’d just gotten out of the shower.

Her skin was still wet. 

The message was from her latest romantic interest, who was supposed to be picking her up for dinner in an hour. After the gamer she’d told herself she was no longer dating. She even deleted all her dating apps. But she had resurrected from her WhatsApp archive graveyard and asked her out on a date. Maybe it was fate? And who was she to stand in the way of fate? 

Ife stood by her bedside table for a few moments. She was wrapped in a pink towel, her favourite. The towel had been washed so many times it wasn’t fluffy any more, a few loose threads hung from it. 

She wasn’t angry. 

Anger required energy. She didn’t have energy. The string of useless men she’d been entertaining for the last year and a half had stolen all of hers. 

She wiped her phone screen clean with the corner of her towel and began to type out a response. 

After typing and retyping for a minute, she decided against it. 

Up until today, Sam had been nice. He messaged her regularly, they’d been on three unremarkable but sort of enjoyable dates, and he was kind of cute. Kind of. 

She couldn’t even feel sorry for herself. Her incessant need to be dating or ‘talking’ at all times was a character flaw. She knew that.

Sam said he just wanted to be honest. Ife was sick and tired of men and their honesty. She could imagine him thinking ‘wow, how tactful of me’ when he typed out his stupid message. 

He had surprised her. Normally she could see the ‘I’m not ready for a relationship’ spiel coming from a mile off. It usually started with a few lacklustre replies. First clipped answers, then one-word replies, then laughing faces, then nothing, then this. On their last date only a week ago, Sam had suggested that they should go on holiday to his family’s timeshare in Spain in the autumn. 

At the time she didn’t think much of it. It was nice to believe he thought they might be in each other’s lives in a couple of months’ time. Now, she could only wonder why he felt the need to lie. Had he known the words were untrue as he said them? 

Ife returned her phone to the bedside table and collapsed onto her bed on top of all the clothes she’d tried on. She didn’t care. She lay there stretched out like a starfish.

That only lasted for a few moments. She could feel her skin drying, between her fingers, on her face. 

She reached for the tub of cream on the table. Her door opened. 

‘Don’t you have a date with ‘Mr I’m 5’9” but say I’m 5’11”?’

Her best friend stood in the doorway, still wearing hospital scrubs and her ugly work rucksack on her back. Ife couldn’t be bothered to explain, instead, she tossed Vic the phone. 

She watched Vic’s eyes scan the screen, reading quickly. 

‘Men are not good people,’ she said shaking her head. 

Ife rolled her eyes and began to spread her thick white cream over her arms, rubbing until it melted under the heat of her palms. 

‘See, I know that. So why do I keep subjecting myself to their torture?’

The question was rhetorical. They both knew why.

Vic liked to say that Ife tried to microdose on love. Some phrase she’d picked up from a social media relationship guru, most likely. But unfortunately, the description was accurate.

Most of the time when Ife met these men, she knew they couldn’t be the one (she wasn’t completely sure she believed in the one, but that didn’t stop her from trying). They were hardly ever very smart, or interesting, or funny. But they offered crumbs that she could collect and pretend they made up for her longing for love. A hug. A kiss. Sex. 

All these men took more than they gave.

Ife felt the bed dip. Vic sat down beside her, after clearing a small spot in the mess, and handed back her phone. 

‘Are you gonna respond?’

‘Nope.’

‘Makes sense. He definitely doesn’t deserve one, dick head.’ 

Ife nodded. The outfit she was going to wear was laid out over her pillow. Jeans and a blue strappy top. Piles of other clothes, outfits that had been tried on and immediately discarded. Clothes on the bed, on the floor, everywhere. She stood up and started to fold items, creating a neat pile in the midst of the mess. She picked up the clothes and began to return them to their respective spaces in her wardrobe. 

‘I think I’m going to have an early night. I might order a Chinese. Should I get your usual?’ Ife said whilst placing the hangers back onto the rack.

‘No.’ 

‘You’re trying something new?’ Ife turned, surprised. They’d both been ordering the same thing since they’d moved in together two years ago.

‘No Chinese. We’re going out.’ 

‘Out?’ 

Vic nodded.

‘I’m getting you out of this flat and onto the streets. Literal streets, not the proverbial dating streets.’

‘Vic, I’m tired,’ Ife said. Today’s disappointment had manifested itself as a dull ache at her temples. 

‘No, no, no. You need to snap out of it, Fe. You need to take a break from this dating torture thing you’ve been doing and have some fun.’

‘I have lots of fun.’ 

‘Of course you do,’ she said sarcastically. ‘Tonight, you need to just enjoy yourself. Kiss a boy in the club or something.’ 

Ife grimaced at the prospect. Kiss men whose mouths had been God knows where? Vic would say that. She had her boyfriend to call when she was drunk and horny.

‘We’re gonna get dressed up. Heels dressed up. Then we’ll go to Calypso. Lani knows the promoter and she’s gonna be there tonight.’ 

‘How do you even know this? Didn’t you finish your shift less than an hour ago?’

‘I can multitask.’

‘I don’t think doctors are supposed to organise nights out while their patients suffer.’

‘Oh, shut it. We’re going out! We’ll go, look good, get drunk.’ 

‘No’ didn’t seem like a viable option.

‘Okay.’ 

‘Good, let’s find you something to wear in this bombsite of a room.’ 

Ife watched as Vic rummaged through the heaping pile of clothes on the bed. 

‘What are you looking for?’ 

‘We need the corset.’ 

At that, she stilled. 

‘The corset?’

Vic pulled it out from under the mess. 

The corset was legend. The corset was everything a favourite piece of clothing should be. Black, satin, and expensive. 

‘Put it on.’ 

‘I was thinking something a bit more casual?’ Ife said picking up a top from the bed. 

Vic lifted an eyebrow at her. 

She’d never worn the corset outside of her room.  Vic had only seen it in the blurry window of a FaceTime call. Ife loved clothes, and she wasn’t shy about wearing revealing ones. Not anymore. But the corset was a lot.

Ife was soft. She had grown up seeing girls who were made up of harsh edges and sharp angles splatted across TV screens, on the front of magazines, even between the lines of the romance novels she held so dear. But she was soft, all dimpled flesh and pudgy rolls. 

The first time she’d worn the corset, she looked at herself properly. She twisted and turned in the mirror for what felt like hours. She was the version of herself she imagined when she thought of outfits, a version that usually wasn’t reality. The bones of the corset forced her waist to dip where it didn’t naturally, moulding her into the shape she felt her body was meant to be. It forced the softness of her belly downwards before flaring out in hips she didn’t have before. 

The corset was dangerous territory. 

‘I don’t think the corset should be worn outside of these four walls Victoria.’ 

‘Why not?’ 

She couldn’t tell Vic how she felt about it. She would be inundated with talks about how beautiful and worthy she was. She knew how beautiful and worthy she was.  

‘Will you try it on? It’s just us Ife. It’s only me.’ 

She took the corset from Vic. It was smooth against her fingers.

‘Fine, I’ll wear it.’

‘Good, I’m gonna get a glass of water and I’ll be back to help you fasten it.’

‘I’m good. I can do it.’

‘I’ll be back.’ 

She waited until she could hear Vic’s footsteps padding down the hallway to drop her towel. She felt silly hiding from Vic. She quickly pulled on a pair of knickers and moved to the mirror.

 The feeling of the weight of her chest was familiar. She stared at herself, watching the gentle undulation of her chest, rising, rising, rising, then falling. 

She picked the corset up from where it was waiting on the bed. The ribbon was threaded through each eyelet, the strings sagged awaiting her body to push them, to make them taut. The opening was wide enough for her to step into. She wiggled it over her hips and pulled till the top of the corset was held just below her neck. In the mirror’s reflection she could see Vic slip back into the room. No glass in hand. 

Her friend stood behind her and paused.

After a few moments she could feel Vic’s fingers pulling on the ribbon. Without a word she began working down the laces, each like the rung of a ladder. As she pulled, Ife’s back straightened, forcing her to look up into the mirror and watch. Vic moved quickly. With each pull Ife could feel her waist give way to the rigid boning. She watched as her waist was carved into, chiselled away. She tried to look down at herself, the softness of her bust was now almost brushing her chin. 

‘Steady?’ 

‘Steady.’

Vic pulled the ribbon, harder this time, hard enough to move Ife. Ife reached her arms out searching for something to steady herself. Before she could find anything to hold Vic pulled again. This time the force rocked Ife so hard that she lost her footing for a moment.

‘Last pull.’ 

With one last pull the corset was fastened. Vic stepped out from behind Ife, so she could watch her friend in the mirror.

 Ife was quiet. 

The corset was the same as before, unchanged by Victoria’s presence. Ife felt the warmth of confidence flood her body as she looked at herself. 

She ran her hands down her sides, watching them in the mirror as if they weren’t her own.

‘You look so fucking sexy.’

They both broke into laughter.