The Beautiful Side of the Moon Read online

  Table of Contents

  The Beautiful Side of the Moon

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Acknowledgements

  Chapter 1 The Strange Letter

  Chapter 2 Ultraviolet and Biography

  Chapter 3 Red Wine and Familiar Spirits

  Chapter 4 A Storm Brewing Over Lagos

  Chapter 5 Lapu, Lapo, Laki

  Chapter 6 A Coin in Time

  Chapter 7 The Prefiguration of Mr Magic

  Chapter 8 Always Coming When You’re Going

  Chapter 9 Osmium or Not

  Chapter 10 Running Out of Time

  Chapter 11 The Other Men in Black

  Chapter 12 A Long Short Ride

  Chapter 13 Faith the Size of a Ball

  Chapter 14 Once Again One More Time

  Chapter 15 Soulful Penance

  Chapter 16 A Sleight of Hand

  Chapter 17 The Great Schism

  Chapter 18 Passages

  Chapter 19 Faka fiki

  Chapter 20 Of Jasmine and Strangers

  Chapter 21 The Plural of You

  Chapter 22 Things Missing

  Chapter 23 Fear and Serendipity

  Chapter 24 Late Night Hospitality

  Chapter 25 The Magician’s Assistant

  Chapter 26 An App for Everything

  Chapter 27 Stir Me Hot

  Chapter 28 Omo Pidan Pidan

  Chapter 30 The Village Doctor

  Chapter 31 The White Death

  Chapter 32 Through Innocent Eyes

  Chapter 33 One False Start

  Chapter 34 Like Father Like Son

  Chapter 35 God’s Eye View

  Chapter 36 The Real Mr Magic

  Chapter 37 A Walk in the Rain

  Chapter 38 Dragon’s Breath

  Chapter 39 A Super Woman

  Chapter 40 Stabbed in the Front

  Chapter 41 For Fear of Men

  Chapter 42 Into the Magnetic Garden

  Chapter 43 Taken in The Night

  Chapter 44 Afternoon Trip to the Moon

  Chapter 45 Red Eye Speaks

  Chapter 46 Lost in A Crater

  Chapter 47 Desolation Rock

  Chapter 48 Through an Infant’s Eyes

  Chapter 49 To Die Breathing

  Chapter 50 Strange Letter G

  Chapter 51 Space Robot

  Chapter 52 Doubting Women

  Chapter 53 The Beautiful Side of The Moon

  Chapter 54 Silhouettes of Fire

  Chapter 55 Cool Moon Fire

  Chapter 56 The Moon Revisited

  Chapter 57 Alien in the Window

  Chapter 58 The Return

  Chapter 59 Red Rain Day

  Chapter 60 E Pluribus Unum

  Chapter 61 Splitting Atoms

  The Beautiful Side of the Moon

  Leye Adenle

  All characters in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, whether living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  THE BEAUTIFUL SIDE OF THE MOON © Leye Adenle 2019

  ISBN 978-1-912563-01-2

  eISBN 978-1-912563-02-9

  Published in 2019 by Hoatzin Books, an imprint of Harding Book Publishing Company Limited

  The right of Leye Adenle to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

  A CIP record of this book is available from the British Library.

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the copyright holder.

  Cover design by blacksheep-uk.com

  For the kind hearted

  With special thanks to you, my dear friend Robin Gibson,

  for believing in this book when it was still just a draft, for

  patiently and beautifully editing the manuscript till it was

  good enough to show to agents, and for constantly and

  lovingly encouraging me to get it published.

  And also, of course, with particular thanks to:

  Ben and Iola Gbadamosi, Anne Adaba,

  Osaretin Oswlad Guobadia, Kola Tubosun,

  Geoff Ryman, Dick Cartmel, Zoë Apostolides,

  Lisa Moylett, Sarah Williams, and Sofia Alexandrache.

  Chapter 1 The Strange Letter

  I will not finish telling this story.

  I returned to my desk and found a red envelope on my laptop keyboard. My name was handwritten on it in blue ink in a beautiful scroll that must have taken time to do: Master Osaretin Osagiemwenagbon. The last time I was addressed as master was in primary school. There was no stamp and no return address, and the envelope wasn’t sealed. I imagined that one of my colleagues in the open plan office had waited for me to leave before placing the envelope there. I suspected it was Rachel, and I suspected she was looking at me. I tried to hide my smile as I opened it.

  I pulled out a folded piece of light purple paper. It smelt of… I sniffed it. Lavender. I couldn’t hide my smile. She was probably watching. I unfolded the paper. The same beautiful writing swirled across the page.

  Dear son of my late friend,

  I will pay you a visit shortly, the purpose of which is to instruct you in the magic that your father was known and famous for.

  Our meeting has been set for tomorrow, provided that it does not rain on you, you do not touch a frog, and you do not know a woman before then. You must also abstain from putting your hand inside the finger – I do hope you never ever do this.

  Yours magically, Brother Moses,

  Most magnificent magician of the second to the highest level of all magicians.

  I read it over. Two things were clear. Firstly, it was a joke, and secondly, Rachel wasn’t responsible. She knew better than to make a joke that involved my late father. I read the message one last time. It could have been funny if they hadn’t mentioned him. Holding the letter, I looked around. No one was watching me. No one looked as though they were suspiciously ‘not-watching’ me.

  I put the purple paper back in its envelope, fetched my laptop bag from under the desk and slid the envelope into one of its inner compartments. By the time I was done rolling up my power cable I’d forgotten all about it.

  As always, I did not drive straight from Ikoyi to Ajah. At that time, when the majority of the Lagos island workforce finished for the day, it would have taken me at least two to three hours to get home. That’s two to three hours of burning pre- cious petrol in crawling traffic. Two to three hours of looking about, afraid that at any moment armed robbers on motor- bikes would smash my window, take my phone, my wallet, my money, and maybe even shoot me, just because. Better to spend longer on the island and then do a thirty-minute high-speed drive home.

  I went to the Fly Bar in Victoria Island. Hassan and Bowale were already on their second bottles of Star when I got there. As Laide, the fourth member of our group, had not yet arrived, Hassan and Bowale were talking about what they would like to do with Laide’s new girlfriend. I didn’t have a girlfriend so I never worried over what they talked about when I wasn’t there.

  The thin waitress with thick framed glasses that made her look like a rocket scientist moonlighting in a beer parlour brought my half-finished bottle of red wine from the day before. I held up the glass to inspect it. I suspect that sometimes they don’t bother to wash used cups. I im- agined they just wiped them dry with a dirty cloth. As I looked into the glass, I saw a face looking at me. I looked up. The most beautiful, chocolate-skin, long-haired, sweetly perfumed woman asked if she could join us, and before any one of us
could respond, she sat opposite me in the chair that was meant for Laide.

  She was beautiful. So, so beautiful. I would never have been able to say hi to her. None of us would have been able to. She had an open bottle of wine in one hand, the same bottle as mine, and a full glass in the other. I hadn’t noticed her when I walked into the Fly Bar and I’d never seen her there before. There were many empty tables, what was she doing asking to sit with us? Us. Could she be a prostitute? If she was, she was a well-dressed one. She was in a one-piece body-hugging beige dress that stopped a few inches above her knees - her legs were amazing. She had a beige leather bag and beige suede shoes. She looked like a banker. I’d heard of girls who preyed on the island’s big boys. We weren’t island big boys. Also, if she was a prostitute, Madam Kike would have spotted her and asked her to come outside for a talk. Madam Kike never missed an opportunity to let it be known that she did not want her bar to become that kind of place. I looked around for the no-nonsense, heavily made-up owner. I desperately hoped she wasn’t a prostitute. But why had she asked to sit with us?

  ‘Do you always have wine?’ she asked me.

  Bowale and Hassan were staring and holding their glasses as if for support. I could see why. She was shapely, which Bowale liked, and she was dark-skinned, really, really dark-skinned, which Hassan liked. I liked everything about her. Everything. I’d not felt like that in a long time. It was like primary school falling-in-love. My heart was so fast that I felt it pounding up into my throat. She was out of my league, and I knew I would stay awake all through the night thinking of her. It was as if she’d cast a spell on me.

  I meant to answer but I just stared, so she continued, ‘I asked the woman at the bar for a good bottle of red. She recommended this one. I asked how she knew it was good. She said because the customer who knows wine always asks for it. Are you that customer?’

  I think I nodded.

  She stretched her hand to me across the table.

  ‘Hi. I’m Adesua.’ She was Edo too!

  I shook her hand and managed to say my name, ‘Osaretin.’

  ‘Edo,’ she said. Her face brightened. I blushed under my black skin. Bowale introduced himself: ‘Bowale Mogaji. CEO, Blue Star Investments.’

  Nobody asked what he did for a living. She shook his hand.

  Hassan was next. ‘Hassan Lawal. Medical doctor.’

  He too! She shook hands with him and turned her at- tention back to me. ‘And you?’ she said.

  ‘Me? I’m in IT.’

  ‘Yeah? Me too. I’m an IT project manager. What about you?’

  I had never been so ashamed to say what I do. ‘I am a programmer,’ I said in a low voice while looking away, and I hoped she didn’t hear it. From the corner of my eye I searched her face for disappointment. Before she could say anything else Bowale started talking to her about her investment portfolio, the commodities market, diversification, and meeting up to discuss her options. His big talk had never been so well-timed.

  I downed the last of my wine. She had been listening to Bowale who was now talking about the time he went to France to collect a client’s private jet that he’d helped finance. She barely turned her face away from him as she poured me a full glass from her bottle. She had been paying attention to me. In fact, I hadn’t even placed the empty glass back on the table before she lifted her bottle to top me up.

  Hassan tried to start a discussion about collecting contemporary art by Nigerian artists. When he tried to remember the name of the female painter who was ‘hot right now’ and whose two early paintings he’d bought, Bowale started talking about the small private airports between France and Lagos where the plane had to stop to refuel because it was a mid-range jet. I’d heard the story before. He left out the part where it was his former boss who helped arranged the purchase of the jet for a former governor who had since been jailed for corruption. Boys’ code meant that Hassan and I let it slide.

  ‘That sounds so exciting,’ Adesua said when Bowale finally finished the story at touchdown in the private wing of Murtala Muhammad Airport.

  ‘Yeah, you could say so. But such things are not un- common, considering my clientele.’

  I could have picked up my empty wine bottle and smashed it over his balding head.

  ‘What about you, anything exciting happen to you lately?’ Adesua asked me. I could just imagine how Bowale and Hassan must have felt. They were hard at work trying to outdo each other with their embellished sales pitches yet she kept returning to me. Me. I was on the verge of admitting the lacklustre disappointment my life had turned out to be when I remembered the red envelope. As luck would have it, my laptop case was under the table. I always took it out of the car. Although both the car and the laptop belonged to the bank and were covered by insurance, when it came to the laptop the bank would, by policy, cover its loss by deducting the purchase price from my salary. A whole month’s salary.

  ‘Someone left a strange letter on my table today,’ I said. I had the floor at strange letter. I took a sip of the wine which she had poured for me. They all waited to hear about my letter. ‘It was in a red envelope. It said I would be visited tomorrow to be taught magic. It was signed by a Brother Moses, most magnificent magician of the second to the highest level of all magicians.’

  It was a good story. I knew it. It didn’t have private jets or private airstrips, but it had magic. Magic trumps jets. And paintings.

  ‘Bullshit,’ Bowale said after a pause.

  I’d been anticipating that. I reached for my laptop bag under the table. I was about to play my ace. I relished their rapt silence as I opened the bag, retrieved the envelope, placed it down on a dry spot on the table, and returned the laptop bag to the ground. I’d already won but I wanted to enjoy every moment of my victory. I carefully opened the envelope as if I was handling ancient papyrus. Pinch- ing the purple letter by the edge, I slowly pulled it out. I unfolded it. It was blank. I turned the paper round but there was nothing written on the other side either. Panic. I checked in the envelope again. I pushed its edges together to open it up wide. I turned it upside down to shake out the real letter. The envelope was empty.

  Bowale took the paper from me. I saw the smirk on his face. I searched in my laptop case. There had to be an explanation.

  ‘You started drinking at work?’ Bowale said.

  I thought Hassan’s laughter was louder than it should have been.

  Adesua stood up and picked her handbag off the table.

  At that moment I felt like crying. ‘What’s your number?’ she asked.

  She was looking at me when she said it. She was talking to me. She wanted my number – even after I’d managed to look stupid. I started reciting my number then I stopped after the first three digits and waited for her to get her phone out. She didn’t. Instead, she said, ‘Go on.’ I felt stupid reading out my number to someone who wasn’t storing it into her phone.

  ‘Hope to see you guys again,’ she said, and she left. You guys, she said. You guys. Not me, Osaretin, but Bowale and Hassan and maybe me as well. If only I’d not talked about that stupid letter.

  We all watched as she walked out. She passed Laide walking in through the entrance. Bowale had handed the paper to Hassan who was also holding it up to the light to confirm that it lacked the words I’d claimed had covered it. Bowale made a remark, at my expense, which they were both laughing at. It was mockery.

  I went over every word of the stupid letter in my mind. It was a practical joke and it would have bought me more time with Adesua, but now I blamed whoever was behind it for my gaffe, not that they knew I would have tried to use it to impress a woman, and I no longer saw the funny side of it. It said the meeting to teach me magic would go ahead tomorrow if it did not rain on me. It was Decem-ber. It had not rained for weeks and it wouldn’t rain for months. They didn’t even bother with that little detail. I felt stupid for bringing up the letter and I felt confused that it was now blank. But mostly I felt stupid.

  Laide sat down
where Adesua had sat. His face, his arms, his clothes, all were soaking wet.

  ‘What happened to you?’ Bowale asked.

  Laide drew the back of his hand across his wet fore- head.

  ‘It’s raining like hell in Ikoyi,’ he said.

  Chapter 2 Ultraviolet and Biography

  On my tenth birthday my father finally showed me how he made the money disappear. It was my birthday present. He made me promise not to show anyone how it was done. I was terrible at it. Every time I tried to do the trick, the kids at school always knew I’d hidden the note in my other palm. Dad could also make money appear in a handkerchief, and throw an egg up and catch it in his palm but when he opened his fingers the egg wasn’t there. He didn’t teach me how to do those tricks. He was not a magician-magician. He was a doctor. He only did his tricks for my cousins and me when we were little. He died in a car crash in London just after I turned thirteen. He was buried there. I have never been to London so I have never visited his grave.

  The stupid letter had reminded me of my dad.

  When I turned twenty-eight, my mum said that I was becoming more and more like him. Her face, when she said it, didn’t show if she thought it was a good thing or a bad thing. She never remarried, there had never been a boyfriend, and she had never even been on a date since my dad died. As far as I knew, I was the only man in her life.

  She spoke little about dad after the accident, and when she did it was through necessity rather than from reflection. She would say, for instance, ‘Your aunty is coming to visit you today.’ And when I asked ‘Which aunty?’ she would say, ‘Your father’s brother’s wife.’ Even as a child I found it strange that none of my dad’s brothers or sisters or any blood relatives ever came to see us. To see me. It was always a husband or a wife, or a friend of a brother or a friend of a sister. This oddity was nothing, however, compared to mum’s failure to mourn. I have tried but I cannot remember seeing her cry over dad’s death in faraway London. I cried. I remember her watching me cry. She picked me from school in dad’s car. We stopped at Leventis where she bought me an ice cream. Vanilla, I remember. I noticed she was very quiet but licking my ice cream before it melted in the afternoon heat kept me occupied. A lot of people were in our house when we got home. A lot of them had been crying. The women stretched their hands out to me. Mum led me through them into her and dad’s room, sat me on his chair and sat on the bed to face me and calmly said, ‘Daddy had an accident in London last week. He died this morning.’ After that she just watched me until I started crying.