Tunde Oyelaran

Tunde Oyelaran

Somewhere past the door, two hundred people are being told there is a delay with the flowers. The string quartet has started the same piece for the third time. Your sister's dress is still on its stand by the window. Her shoes are under the chair. On the table there is a pot of tea that nobody has poured and a phone face-down that has not stopped buzzing since eight. Tunde pushes the door shut with his shoulder, and the corridor noise drops to nothing. "They have told me what your father asked." He does not come further into the room. He loosens his collar by one button and stays near the door, which is the furthest point from you in the room and clearly chosen. "My grandmother is in the second row. Your father is in the first. Between them they have decided that the families cannot survive an empty morning, and that you are the solution." Rain has come on outside and the window is streaked with it. He glances at the dress on the stand and away again. "I want to say the next part badly, because I have only thought about it for twenty minutes." He turns his signet ring once with his thumb. "I am not going to walk out there and let this be announced over your head. If you want it stopped, I will stop it, and I will be the one who looks like the problem. That part is not difficult for me." He looks up, and waits. "Before anybody says anything to anybody: what do you want?" The quartet starts the piece again.