‘I love you babe,’ the man wrote. ‘I really can’t wait to meet you.’

‘Me, too,’ Wizard replied. ‘I promise we’re gonna have a swell time and you’re not gonna wanna let me go.’

Wizard wrote something vulgar. The man replied with something equally vulgar. Wizard topped it with something much more vulgar which Azuka had suggested, and then added one or two more unprintable things that he was going to do to the man when they met.

‘By the way, hun,’ the man added, ‘while you’re out there, you’d better watch out for diseases, especially HIV. I hear almost all of them over there have got it.’

All of us standing round the screen stopped giggling. In the ensuing silence, I could almost hear the whisperings of our National Pledge.

I pledge to Nigeria my country

To be faithful, loyal and honest

To serve Nigeria with all my strength

To defend her unity

And uphold her honour and glory

So help me God

Wizard seemed to have heard it as well. The faint voice of patriotism must have ministered to the young Nigerian.

‘It’s not like that in Nigeria,’ he replied. ‘It’s in South Africa that they’ve got it so bad.’

‘Is it? Anyway, you still be careful. All them places are all the same thing to me.’

Suddenly, I stopped feeling sorry for the mugu and remembered something I had to do. I went back to my desk, clicked the Send icon, and wished my urgent email Godspeed.

This business of being a man of means had taken me quite a while to get used to. Sometimes, I even forgot that my circumstances had changed. I was about to pass out on the floor the day my first cellular phone bill arrived, when I remembered that I could afford to pay it. I was storming my way out of an Aba ‘Big Boys’ shop in protest at the obese price tags, when I remembered that I had nothing to quarrel about, went back in and bought my Swatch wristwatch. My mother was also having a hard time getting used to the better life.

She had been delighted the day I visited home with the cooking gas and the wrappers and the rice, she told me how much I reminded her of my father when I brought a variety of McVitie’s biscuits and Just Juice for my siblings, but when I presented her with a bundle of oven fresh notes, her feelings took on a different shape.

‘Kings,’ she asked with fear, ‘how did you get all this money?’

‘Mummy, I told you I’ve been doing some work for Uncle Boniface. This is from my salary.’

‘What sort of work do you do?’

I had told her before.

‘I help out at his office. I take phone calls. I run small errands. I help him organise his business meetings…’

‘So how much is this salary he gives you for running errands?’

‘Well, it varies,’ I shrugged. ‘It’s all done on a commission basis.’

‘Commission – on errands?’

I fumbled with my shoelaces, pretending I had not heard.

My mother continued staring at the bundle in her lap without touching it, as if she expected the cash to rise up on its two feet and bite. She was about to ask another question when I laid firm hold of her Achilles’ heel and twisted.

‘Don’t worry, Mummy. I know how much you miss having Daddy around, but I’m your opara and I’m really going to take care of you. Very soon I’ll get my own house and all of you can come and be spending time with me.’

My mother smiled. For the first time since the money took up residence in her lap, she invited it into her fingers for a proper welcome. My dear mother had probably never handled so many notes at any one time in her entire life. Her smile grew very fat.

‘But make sure you keep looking for a proper job,’ she said. ‘You know this work for Boniface is only temporary.’

‘Mummy, don’t worry. I’ll keep looking.’

‘OK, come let me bless you.’

I knelt on the floor in front of her. She placed her right palm on the centre of my head. Legend had it that her own father had done the same thing when she brought him an envelope containing half of her very first salary. The other half had paid obeisance to her husband.

‘You will have good children who will take care of you in your old age,’ she began.

‘Amen,’ I replied.

‘You will find a good wife.’

‘Amen.’

‘Evil men and evil women will never come near you.’

‘Amen.’

‘You will continue to prosper.’

‘Amen.’

‘Wherever this money came from, more will continue to come.’

‘Amen.’

My mother’s prayers worked. A few weeks later, I made a $27,000 hit and moved from Cash Daddy’s mansion into a rented four-bedroom duplex in Aba.

Shortly after, I travelled to Umuahia.

My family rushed out when I arrived. Eugene and Charity hovered around my brand new Lexus. They stroked the body, sat inside, took turns at pretending to steer the wheel. My mother admired the car briefly and stood by the front door watching them. Odinkemmelu and Chikaodinaka peeped from behind the living room curtains. When my cellular phone rang, the excitement was just too much for my siblings to contain. They squealed like toddlers being tickled in their armpits and navel.

It was my Lufthansa airline pilot mugu whose $27,000 had rented my new house and contributed towards my Lexus. I asked my family’s patron saint to please ring back later. Under the best of conditions, I required superhuman faculties to unravel his guttural accent; with my mother standing beside me, I was certain not to extricate a word. My mother was staring at the cellular phone and then at the car. She looked slightly disturbed. There was no need for me to worry too much about her mood. Wait until she saw the surprise I had in store for her.

‘Are you people ready?’ I asked.

My mother and siblings threw their bags into the car boot. They were spending the weekend with me.

‘Mummy, sit in the owner’s corner,’ I said.

‘Yes, sit in the owner’s corner,’ Eugene and Charity chanted.

With a modest smile, my mother went round to the back right of the car where people who could afford chauffeurs usually sat. Eugene held the door open for her.

‘Mummy,’ I said, looking up at her image in the rearview mirror as we sped off, ‘I forgot to tell you. Please can you arrange for some relatives – at least two – to come and live with me? It’s a big house and I’ll need help.’

‘OK. I’ll ask Chikaodinaka’s mother. I think she has some younger ones.’

‘No, no, no. I don’t want people that are too young. I’ll prefer people who’re older. Or people who’ve already lived with someone before. I don’t have the time to start teaching anybody how to flush the toilet and turn on the gas.’

Everybody laughed. Once, we had a help from the village who mistook the china teapot as an exotic drinking cup. And another one who blocked the toilet with sheets of my father’s Statesman newspaper which she had ripped out to clean up herself. These helps were as useful as oxen, but they came with their own variety of headaches.

‘How big is the house?’ Charity asked.

‘You mean the one we’re going to or the one I’m planning to build?’

‘The one we’re going to.’

‘Don’t worry. You’ll soon see it.’

She bounced about on her seat and beamed. Charity was such a big baby. She leaned forward on the back of my headrest and played with my ears. I felt like a real elder brother.

‘OK, how about the one you’re going to build?’ Eugene asked. ‘How big is it?’

‘It’s double the size of the one you’re going to see now.’

‘Wow! I’m so glad my school hasn’t yet resumed,’ Eugene said. ‘I wrote to Godfrey to tell him that we were going to your house this weekend. Once he gets the letter, I’m sure he’ll go straight to Aba.’

Eugene was in his first semester at the University of Ibadan. My mother had tried persuading him to choose a university that was closer to home, but he remained adamant that the medical department in Ibadan was the best. Nobody had any argument with that; it was the distance that troubled us. Plus, Ibadan was a favourite hotspot for trouble. As soon as the elections gained momentum, the place would be boiling with bloody riots. My father would never have allowed Eugene to go, but then, there were so many other things my father would never have allowed if he were alive.