“Please sir. I am very sorry, my dog was chasing your cat and I was trying to stop him … I didn’t mean to trespass your property.”

The artist came towards me and switched off his torch; his other arm supported two heavy grocery bags. He stared at me for a moment before handing me one of the bags to carry and told me to follow. He brought out a bunch of keys from his pocket and selected a key that fitted into the lock of his back door. He told me to leave my dog outside before entering. I was too overwhelmed to argue with him.

His kitchen was neat and well kept, as was the rest of the house. Thom, ever happy to see him jumped down from the window and curled her tail around his legs and meowed; the artist bent down and stroked her chin. He took the other bag from me, dropped them on a cabinet and told me to wait for him in the sitting room while he went into his bedroom.

The sitting room was big and spacious and smelt of lemon and incense. The walls were entirely decorated with colourful motifs, paintings, and wall statues. Two famous Yoruba ebony heads stood on opposite sides of the television stand. The sofas were covered with the skin of a wild animal’s, perhaps a tiger or a leopard – I couldn’t recall which. Hanging on the left wall was a large beautiful oriental hand-fan. Everything in the room spoke of ancient beauty.

The artist came from behind and handed me a soft drink and motioned me to sit. He sat across from me on a wicket chair. Thom appeared from nowhere and jumped onto his lap. He stroked her back softly, all the time staring at me.

“You’re Bayo, aren’t you?” he asked. I slowly nodded my head while my toes nervously scratched each other. My hands held tight to my soft drink, which sat between my knees.

“I’ve seen you around – you and those noisy little friends of yours who like climbing my orange tree.”

True, my friends and I often climbed his orange tree, sometimes to play Hide-and-Seek games – sometimes we even sneaked around the back of his studio looking for discarded wood and planks, which we often fashioned into makeshift toy guns – but I was surprised to hear him say this.

“Don’t worry,” he said. “I’m not angry. Though I’m sorry to say it’s not yet the season and much of the fruits are still unripe.”

He became silent while Thom purred on his lap. I kept turning my head around, looking at the various portraits and art works on the wall. I couldn’t help asking him: “Did you do all of this?”

“Some of them, yes, the rest I bought in the city. I never enjoy keeping much of my works around – they make me feel depressed.” He lowered his eyes and rubbed his beard. I was about asking him why when he looked up and asked me to tell what most of the folks around have been talking about him.

“They are all angry about you. They say you’re very arrogant and cruel and that you don’t care much about them.” I was embarrassed the moment I said this and I thought he would get angry and ask me to leave, but he didn’t. He took everything with a calm face and simply shrugged.

“Well,” he said, “I guess that shows you can’t always please everybody.”

Trying to undo the damage I thought I had caused, I said: “No, it’s not really like that. They’re just very worried about you – they thought you were ill or something.”

“Well that sounds very noble of them, especially hearing it from you.”

“You can’t help it, everybody around likes you … and respect you, too.”

“What about you, were you worried just like them?”

I nodded. After I had finished my drink he got up and asked me to come with him. We went through his kitchen where he once again carried the grocery bags, though this time he didn’t ask me to help but instead told me to carry Thom for him. Whiskey still sat outside and on seeing Thom in my arms stood up and started growling but I told him to hush up, which he did.

On getting to his studio, the artist brought out once more his bunch of keys and selected the right one for the door. I was so excited that for a moment I believe I stopped breathing. I was about to enter his studio – the most hidden lair in his home. I was about to see the most kept secret in the entire village!

The door creaked open into darkness and for a second I was once more afraid until the artist turned around and switched on the lights.

The room was the exact opposite of how his home was. It was dirty, scattered and complicated. There were splashes of dried paint of different colours on the walls and on the floor. An ancient worn-out couch sat on a corner of the room next to a messy table filled with already opened paint cans, brushes, little lumps of charcoal and various measuring equipments and stuff I couldn’t identify. At the far corner of the room, leaning by the wall stood several previously finished paintings; some of them were partly covered with dust. Graffiti and arcane symbols were scrawled recklessly on most parts of the walls but they were too complex and bizarre for me to recognise or understand. The entire floor was partly littered with soiled papers, torn-out pages and clippings from various magazines and articles, discarded pieces of canvas wood, and wrappings of various junk food items. Everything about the room was chaos – it wasn’t what I expected. The artist immediately saw it on my face and smiled.

“Not exactly like the Roman cathedral, is it?” he said while he dropped the grocery bags on the floor. Thom jumped out of my arms and strolled over to a bunch of dirty rags lying on a corner. My eyes went everywhere, trying to absorb everything but the problem was there was just too much to look at and my eyes were once more starting to get heavy with sleep.

“Do you really enjoy painting your work here?” I asked him.

“You obviously mean to ask whether the rumours you’ve been hearing about me losing my sanity and going mad is true, right?”

Once again I was embarrassed and simply nodded my head. He understood what I meant.

“Whenever I want to create something, I first of all search for an idea … a muse. That is what all these are for.” He swept his hands across the room, but I was still confused.

“What is a muse?”

“It’s a Greek word. It means something or rather anything that inspires you to do whatever artistic work you want to do.”

“But you are an artist – that shouldn’t be so difficult for you.”

“I never said it was. It’s not often that I just pick up a brush and starting painting away – no, I never have. You have to be inspired … moved for it … open your third eye … let the beauty come to you … then when it comes, you try as much as you can to seize it and capture it on canvas.”

“Wow, that’s nice,” I said, thoroughly impressed. “How long does it take for you to get inspired?”