Whether she directed the question to me or not, I grunted, 'I don't know.'

'Peter!' she called.

Peter answered from within.

'Check the time for me.'

'It's five-thirty.'

'Five-thirty!'

Yet dad hadn't come. We'd almost finished the cooking. I dashed into the bathroom to wash up. A film began to play on my mind as soon as the privacy of the bathroom roomed me. Dad sat in a well-tailored suit, handsome, his lips rapid with rhythms of bizarre words, like Michael Henchard when he auctioned his wife, in the midst of energetic drunkards, doing a significant Father Christmas with the hundred thousand naira. He urged everyone to drink as many bottles of Star as they could. Then he began to slam his feverish philosophy into their rheumy-eyes stares. 'Best people in this world are people who are drunkards!' he was shouting on top of his voice; and they were hailing him triumphantly; his gesticulations were wild and he kept uttering, so spiritedly, a lot of that nonsense he'd sermonize to me and Peter. He sprang up at the peak of it all, 'This world has two classes: one class is that of drunkards, our own class,' he swept everyone with his wild arms, 'it's the class of the sanest people. The other class belongs to non-drunkards, insane people, pitiably plunged into their own quest for acquiring people's money, public fund, and stashing it into their foreign accounts. They lack philosophy of life; they lack soul of man; in short, they are not human beings like us.'

A huge rat rumbling on the rusted ceiling of the bathroom nudged me into reality. I eyed the rat and watched its long tail as it drew away. In no time, I took my bath, sped to our bedroom, creamed my body, and wore my favorite home wear. I knew mum would have frowned at my wear if she hadn't been immersed in her increasing moody mien. She would have yelled that I was always out of place when people were in place; she could have repeated her favorite line against me: 'Ruth, you don't ever know how to make appearance; like your dad.' This didn't bother me, though. I'd, however, respected and appreciated mum's taste. She knew how to match colors. She was also a natural talent in decoration. Mum did National Diploma in Theatre Arts. She loved acting and had once figured herself as a star actress (you'd be enthralled if she told you about her dead ambition in acting). Dad perfectly killed that ambition in her because it had been his long-held conviction that actors and actresses were wayward people, and adventurous in uncanny eccentricities. And mum became a trader, an unsuccessful and murmuring one. She watched Home Movies with passion, kept a perfect list of all Home Movie stars, had a staggering knowledge of their lives, and even dreamt dreams for them. In most of her quarrels with dad, she'd bluntly told him that if he hadn't used grandfather-made love portion to trap her under his armpit, she would have outdone Liz Benson and would, probably, have been a wife to Olu Jacobs, Pete Edochie or RMD. In one of such cases, Dad, with his virulent tongue, said something that was awfully outrageous. He picked his words slowly, bitingly, 'I know you've been making love to those men in your fantasy; that's why you reject me in the nights. And because you're so foolish, it has never occurred to you that none of those men will buy you for a sisi!' Dad said this in the parlor while we were all there. Mum was so stung that she remained deadly moody throughout the day. I caught her twice looking herself up in the long, bedside mirror questioningly.

Suddenly, we heard the proud tramp of dad's manly steps towards the door. Mum sprang up and made for the outer door, but changed her mind and turned to the door into the inner room. She was soon inside the inner room, at the centre, standing, doing nothing. Peter and Judith rushed to dadand collected his handbag. I seized a look at the bag to see if it was bulging; it was. Dad entered the house proudly, happiness all over his face.

'Where is she?'

'Oh sweetheart!' Mum rushed in from the bedroom and embraced him. 'Oh sweetheart! You've made it. You're my hero. I'm proud of you.' It was the first time we heard mum call dad so.

Dad kept dishing out rich man's laughter.

Dad's handbag was still with Peter. Peter was massaging it with his two palms, maybe tying to feel the money inside it. Dad and mum were already seated. Mum, whose eyes had been straying towards the money, spoke to Peter, when she couldn't bear the suspense anymore, 'Peter, bring the bag let me see the money.' Peter took it to her and when she was about opening it, dad asked me, 'Ruth, what is today's date?'

'First April, dad.'

Mum had opened the bag. Her eyes suddenly dimmed; her countenance deflated.

'April fool!' dad shouted.

Except for dad, a sepulchral silence fell on us. Mum was slowly fingering out tailor's pieces of clothes from the bag. There was in her look a sense of anger, a sense of frustration, a sense of resignation. I thought she would explode and make trouble.

Dad called, 'Peter.'

Peter grunted an answer.

'There is a need for a man to play April fool, especially if he has a wife who lives in dreams.'

Mum sprang at dad and jacked him up. Dad was just laughing too much. And I knew that the parlor would not turn to a wrestling ring anymore. Judith had a morose stare at them. Peter and I left the room.