In the Summer of 2015, I met and briefly befriended an interesting and pretty British-Nigerian lady in London for a couple of months. She was a focused intellectual type and an ardent seeker of knowledge. She was introverted and I extraverted. For some inexplicable reason, there were many popular and unusual topics we debated for hours. Unexpectedly, in September 2015 she announced to me she had gotten a scholarship to study for a PhD in the USA and promised she was going to miss me. I was flattered. That was the last I saw of her and her company. Despite having spent so many hours talking with her about a variety of topics, we never exchanged surnames. It was a sincere Platonic relationship we had.
Taba and Tomos were left at Marioka’s place alone together, the host had a sudden emergency to attend to on the other side of town. It was a lovely well-decorated three-bedroom house overlooking a leafy park in South London. Both men were in one of the bedrooms upstairs working on the computer server for the organisation they belonged.
Tomos was up to his evil heartless old tricks yet again. Smartly dressed as ever, Tomos was smugly taking a nasty verbal swipe at Taba. He haughtily boasted of his father’s exploits as a notable architect while associating his on-and-off friend, Taba, with peasantry and obsession with parvenu. Tomos was patronisingly educating Taba with as nasty sarcasm as one could muster that one is either well-born or not and that self-made men are usually ‘one generation wonders’. Taba was in his trademark leather jacket, polo shirt and jeans which always looked cool on him and seemed very relaxed.
