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Ayo was my good friend. She used to give me good movies and sometimes selected good songs from 'Boney M'. "Still I am Sad" reminds me of Ayo singing in the kitchen on a bright, pleasant and extremely fresh Sunday morning.
Every evening since Ayo left '59 Tavistock Street', our apartment in Luton, UK, I played music, and this evening, Boney M is singing again 'Still I Am Sad'.
"Now I found the wind is blowing time into my heart.
When the wind blows hard we are apart.
Still, I am sad."
And I just slept off.
It was Ayo’s boyfriend Aaban that woke me up. He came to collect her mail.
I gave him all of the letters that had arrived since she left Tavistock Street.
Late in the evening is not really a good time to wake up. But before even being forced to realize that lonely ‘nowhereness’, it should have been understood that; it is not really a good idea to sleep late in the afternoon.
Ayo was my good friend. She left Tavistock Street last year and after that, there was hardly any music heard early in the morning. Weekends remained lazy and lethargic. She used to make 59 Tavistock Street pleasant and maintained it until the time she left. Ayo used to play ‘Boney M’ and ‘Akon’ every morning. She asked me not to cook on Christmas or New Years' Eve because she used to make ‘Concoction rice’ and her special ‘Plantain cakes’ for me.
Whenever she cooks, It always filled the kitchen and the hall with the sweet smell of boiled beans and smoked meat with aromatic spices. It used to lure me to the kitchen even if I was about to finish some important assignments!
I remember Ayo likes Chinua Achebe very much because Chinua is someone well-known in her place. Ayo also liked movies and used to give me old classics, but on the weekdays I hardly met up with her.
Ayo came to 59 Tavistock Street long before I did. She was not the first one I met when I moved in, Falu was. He welcomed me with his strange smile and said “my pleasure” when I said, “nice to meet you Falu”. He would often visit me even after he shifted to Canary Wharf. And I often ask Tomy, Falu’s one and only sister, if she hears from Falu.
Late in the evening, I would always find it difficult to figure things out. Everything appears strange and scary late in the evening and I feel it‘s a time when you realize the intensity with which you have committed to memories. You would find yourself homesick. and that is perhaps the worst part when the sun sends strange lights that peep into the windows, making weird shadows with shapeless edges.
I don’t remember the first movie Ayo had given me, but it was ‘The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, she gave me last.
One night when it started snowing at Tavistock Street, it was Ayo who called me down and said, “it is all white out there already“. And when I looked outside it was like cotton balls floating all around. That day I heard the sound of silence for the first time in my life, and the silence was remarkable and uninterrupted. That December seemed to last forever with the silence of the snow.
Ayo’s boyfriend was happy and said, “it was from bank and O2 (mobile service provider) you would get maximum letters regularly “. He left saying he would probably pop in next month. I asked him to tell Ayo that I would miss her ‘Plantain cake’ this December.
It is no longer an evening now; it is almost night, and the shadows would certainly have some shapes. Tommy is getting ready to leave for night mass. It is already dark out there on Tavistock Street, and I think this time I really miss my friend.
