She and Funke are the only wives separated from their husbands on the table. Oyinda and Oliver are together across from them. Akin is right next to Saheed on Saheed’s table. She imagines herself running over there and yelling, “What is wrong with you? How could you even consider doing business with him at a time like this? Have you no shame?”

The menu distracts her for a while. The first course is salad with goat’s cheese or lobster bisque. She goes for the bisque, which turns out to be bland. The main meal is chicken breast in a béchamel-based sauce with steamed vegetables. Her clients are usually not keen on white meat or any meat mixed with dairy. They don’t appreciate al dente vegetables. Or vegetarian meals. The vegetarian meal is a risotto. Oliver is the only one who has requested it.

She is not a food or wine connoisseur, or a conversationalist. Her favourite way to pass time at dinner parties is to listen to other people talking. She avoids looking at them to decode their conversations. Her father taught her how to: he fancied himself an expert on espionage.

“That country is useless. Useless, I tell you.”

Biola complaining to Funke about mobile-phone services in Nigeria. Yemisi has heard Nigerians call Nigeria a useless country for more trivial problems, a bad pedicure, a shirt button lost at the dry cleaner’s. She calls Nigeria a useless country whenever she gets stuck in traffic.

“They don’t practise medicine there. They practise business. Any doctor who wants to practise medicine has left the country and the newly qualified ones are just badly trained…”

A man telling Oyinda why she is better off practising paediatrics in England. His mother was misdiagnosed with malaria in Nigeria, when she had pancreatitis. He is managing director of a cable-television company. Yemisi holds him personally responsible for the latest trend of theme parties in Lagos. Because of E! Entertainment Television and other such networks, her clients want menus to match their themes. They ask for cupcakes and cake pops.

For a moment, she panics over her parents. She must call them in the morning to find out if her mother has had her blood pressure tested, and if her father has seen a doctor about his lower back pain.

“She carries herself well. She dresses conservatively. What I like most about her is that she is not trying to upstage her husband. She came into that family knowing her place.”

Funke talking about Prince William and Kate and making them sound awfully Nigerian.

What is it with clothes? Yemisi thinks. What is it with Nigerians and clothes? It’s not as if there is a designer in Paris, looking at his collection and saying, “C’est parfait pour mes clientes Nigériennes!”

“I still don’t understand the fuss about Pippa.”

Biola, doing what she does best.

“Of course I’m against free education!”

The same man who said newly qualified Nigerian doctors were badly trained.

“How can anyone be against free education?”

Oyinda, who laughs even though she’s outraged.

“Don’t mind him. He’s talking rubbish.”

The man’s wife. Her bluntness is unusual. She may be upset with him over an unrelated matter. She is an interior decorator – a real one, not just an attractive woman who has an eye for colour and knows how to put a room together. These days, in Lagos, any woman who can put a meal together can call herself a caterer.

“Free education ruined the school system in Lagos. We used to have good schools before they opened them up to the masses. I went to Saint Greg’s. People like us can’t send our sons to Saint Greg’s any more.”

The man, ignoring his wife.

“I suppose that’s one way of looking at it.”

Oyinda, disagreeing.

“Don’t mind him. He doesn’t know what he’s talking about.”

His wife, refusing to be ignored.

“Did anyone read that article about the Lagos elite?”

Oyinda.

“What article?”

Funke.

“Saheed was mentioned.”

Oyinda, soliciting gossip.

“Not that article again.”

Funke, pretending to be embarrassed.

“They were just upper-middle-class Nigerians. You can’t compare them to the global elite.”

Biola, an authority on class since her early schooling in Switzerland.

“It made us look bad to the rest of the world, though. We don’t all live lavishly.”

Oyinda, who still doesn’t realise she is not part of the one percentile in Lagos.

“Anyone can live lavishly in Nigeria if they have money. That doesn’t mean they have class.”

Biola, taking a jab.

“Some elite Nigerians do.”

Funke, blocking.

Elite at what? Yemisi thinks. Shopping? What does class mean in Nigeria anyway? Nigerians call themselves upper middle class if they manage to buy a house on a mortgage. Akin once called her high class because she made spaghetti alla puttanesca. English classes cause confusion. American percentiles are better suited to Nigeria. Besides, who in the world would take seriously an article about people who are of no consequence to anyone but themselves?

“It was shocking to me, actually.”

Oliver.

“Really? Why?”

Biola, attempting to bully him.

“That people can be so excessive in the midst of so much poverty.”

Oliver, with First World indignation.

“There’s poverty in Europe. That’s why half of Europe is here.”

Biola, with Third World defensiveness.

“Not the kind of poverty you have in Africa, surely.”

Oliver, laughing cautiously.

“You look like a world traveller. Which African countries have you been to?”

Biola, condescendingly.

“Oyinda and I went on holiday to Kenya. We hiked up Kilimanjaro for charity.”

Oliver, humbly.

“He took photos.”

Funke, bored with the conversation. She is an intelligent woman. She may not be as intelligent as Biola, but she practised law for many years, which was more than Biola did. Biola had a one-year stint at her uncle’s firm, then she worked for her father, which amounted to attending boardroom meetings on his behalf. The problem with Funke was that as soon as Saheed made money, she had new concerns. She got involved with a group of women who had similar concerns. Now, if a conversation isn’t about their concerns, she is not interested. Biola has to stay on top of issues outside their circle to run her foundation.

“Kenya is very different from Nigeria, economically.”

Biola, professorially.

“Yes, I know Nigeria is oil rich, but there is that gap between the rich and the poor, isn’t there?”

Oliver, earnestly.

“There is, there is.”

Oyinda, who sounds as if she’s rocking back and forth.

Yemisi has heard Nigerians refer to themselves as poor because they can’t afford to send their children to schools abroad. She would say her house help and catering staff are poor. If they stopped working for a month, they might starve, unless they were prepared to beg. Yet they might say beggars on the streets are poor. She gives leftover food to her catering staff after jobs. She pays her house help’s hospital bills. Akin thinks they take advantage of her. “They’re always sick,” he once said. He is polite to them because he is a polite person, but he doesn’t trust them. He has the usual anxieties about theft and that other unspoken fear, that no matter how well he treats them, come a revolution, they would turn around and slit his throat.

“I imagine that affluent Nigerians are sufficiently well-placed to do something about the economic divide.”

Oliver, who doesn’t know the calibre of Nigerian he is fraternising with. He thinks he can shift their consciences. He cannot. He thinks they’re capitalists. Poor Nigerians are the capitalists. They have to be. They don’t depend on the government for deals; they don’t get to dip their hands in state treasuries or commit bank fraud; they don’t even get to smell oil money.

“I think every Nigerian should do what they can. I run a foundation. I’m an advocate for the eradication of poverty in Nigeria. I’ve been invited to the UN to give a talk. It may not be as arduous as a trek up Kilimanjaro, but it’s a start.”

Biola.

Knockout, Yemisi thinks.

The dessert options are chocolate gateau or tiramisu. She goes for the gateau, which has a glutinous filling that sticks to the roof of her mouth.

Written by Sefi Atta

Sefi Atta was born in Lagos, Nigeria, in 1964 and currently divides her time between the United States, England and Nigeria. An award winning writer and playwright, she qualified as a Chartered Accountant in England and a Certified Public Accountant in the United States. She is the author of Everything Good Will Come, News from Home, Swallow, A Bit of Difference and Sefi Atta: Selected Plays.

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