‘I’m suffering for marrying the wrong man’ (1)

“While I was growing up, I had numerous suitors. They started coming right from when I was  18 then I was still battling with my JAMB examinations. I never wanted anything that would distract my attention from my education. So, I never looked their way nor listened to them. Some who summoned  up courage to see my parents about marrying me were dismissed  with disdain because I saw them as a distraction,” Gloria remembered.

Gloria was her parents last daughter. She was indeed beautiful and all men wanted her for keeps. Her parents loved the fact that she was interested in her education and sided her when she refused to get married. She insisted on getting married after graduation. When she was on the verge of graduation, she started courting Derrick, fondly known as The Rasta Man,  whom she loved at a glance. Derrick a musician was not popular in the musical world, hadn’t made money from music and was only singing other people’s songs. That was what he was good in, miming peoples songs both circular and gospel songs and he paraded himself as a musician.

Some ladies wanted him because he was known in the whole village of Ibusa, in Delta state where Gloria hails from.

He had dread locks and smoked weed with tattoos on his left arm. The little money he made from shows, he would squander on Gloria. “I was happy that upon all the ladies in my village that wanted him, I was the only one he admired and approached. I didn’t hesitate when he wooed me. He told me that he  studied music in a university in Australia but that he didn’t want to be based there. That he preferred to come home and made an impact. I believed him and we started dating. We used to travel to a lot of places in the country anytime he was invited to perform in shows. He was always bringing me to Lagos where he had numerous friends. When I brought him home for my mother to see before I present him to my father, a great disciplinarian, mum pretended as if she was happy to see him. I knew when my mother’s smile wasn’t real. She faked to be joyful when she saw Derrick, who  started feeling uncomfortable with my mother’s questions. She asked him where he graduated from, what he studied, why he decided to have dreadlocks since he wasn’t born with it and why he had a scorpion sign of tattoo on his left arm. As he was answering those posers, I saw it that mum was  disgusted but she managed to hide her feelings. Immediately Derrick left and I went to see him off, she told me not be long that she needed me in the kitchen. I knew she wanted to tell me what she felt or observed about him.

“I was quick about it, I just saw Derrick off to his car and came back. That was when Mum told me her mind,” she said.

When Gloria stepped in, her mother asked her to sit down and face her. They both sat in a living room and her mother told her what she had in mind. “Gloria, that man won’t be your husband. If you insist, I won’t give my blessings and trust me your father would pursue him out of his presence the very moment he sets his eyes on him. I used to see him loiter about the whole village, and people call him Rasta man. Is that the person you want to spend the rest of your life with? What did you see in him? This one who wears long and unkempt dreadlocks about? Smokes weed at Madam Ebeano’s joint and talks to himself like a mad man when he walks on  the street? No, never! This is not why you waited this far Gloria my daughter. Upon all the reasonable suitors that came for you,  you told them off because you wanted to be through with school first. I won’t accept this one,” she fumed.

Gloria who had seated and listened to her mother sprang up angrily. “Mum, you better accept him the way he is. He is my choice of man. It’s true he may not look like a gentleman but must everyone be a gentleman? He makes me happy…”

At that, Gloria’s mother quickly picked a towel that was kept on the chair close to her and wanted to wipe Gloria with it, she ran.

To be continued

 Story by ADAEZE AMOS