By Koyade Ajala

The phone rang stridently, intruding into my thoughts and jolting me back to reality. I had been lost in thought for hours. I stared at the phone as if it was an apparition, then I ignored it. I wasn’t in the mood to talk to anybody. The caller might turn out to be one of my friends wanting to make little talk and I just wasn’t in that mood. All I wanted to do was withdraw into my shell and think of nothing but the trauma that Dapo, my husband, was putting me through. If I didn’t do something fast about Dapo, I might end up in a home for the mentally retarded. Dapo was gradually making me lose my sanity. The phone continued to ring but still, I ignored it.

I hadn’t seen my husband in the last three days. He had left home on a Friday night after telling me that he was going out with “the boys.”

“I will be back tomorrow morning,” he had said. Without looking at me and without waiting for my response, he had gotten into his car and driven into the night.

And whenever Dapo refused to look into my eyes when talking to me, I automatically knew he was lying. He was away for the next three days. He left home on Friday night and by Monday morning, he was still not back. It wasn’t the first time that my husband was staying away from home for days, under one pretext or the other. Dapo had always been an outgoing person. I knew that even before I got married to him and I could live with it. As outgoing as he was, Dapo was not an irresponsible man. He loved me and the home and would go the extra length to ensure that I was happy.

But all that has since changed. There was no way I could come to terms with some of the stories making the rounds about my husband. Dapo was said to have a string of girlfriends all over town. Apart from his constant outings, which I saw nothing wrong in, he had never given me any reason to suspect infidelity. And this was what I told Dare, Dapo’s friend and colleague, when he gave me the information that Dapo was cheating on me.

“Why are you telling me all this?” I asked Dare that afternoon, “you are the closest person to my husband and you guys are always together. If Dapo is cheating on me, it means you are also cheating on your wife. You guys are two of a kind.”

“That’s where you are wrong. I am only telling you this because your husband’s case is getting out of hand. I don’t want you to be taken unawares. Dapo has gone as far as renting an apartment for this lady.”He brought the picture of a light complexioned lady and thrusted it into my face. “Her name is Lola and she has a reputation of being the most notorious husband snatcher in town. Once she sinks her claws into a man, that man is a goner! Do something before she gets pregnant for your husband.”

“Can you let me have this picture please?” I pleaded with Dare.

“Only on one condition. You must not let Dapo know where you got it from.”

I assured Dare that Dapo would never get to know where I got the picture from and he departed.

When Dapo returned home that day, I confronted him with the allegation that he was having an affair with Lola and had even rented an apartment for her. I even showed him the picture. I expected Dapo to be thrown off balance but he wasn’t. Without batting an eyelid, Dapo told me to be careful who I listened to.

I neither confirmed nor denied that it was Dare who gave me the picture. But I was confused as to how Dapo knew that it was Dare who had talked to me. When I asked him, he refused to reveal anything, I became more careful thereafter. I let Dapo be. But the information kept filtering in.

And that Monday morning, as I sat pondering over Dapo’s whereabouts for the past three days, a little bird kept whispering to me that the story Dare had told me was true. Just then, the phone began to ring again. This time, I decided to pick it up. For all I knew, it could be Dapo trying to reach me. I was wrong.

“Hello,” I said into the mouth piece. Silence. I was about to replace the receiver in annoyance when a female voice responded from the other end.

“May I speak to Laura?” the female voice had asked.

“Yes, Laura here,” I said.

“Fine,” the voice said again, “I want you to listen very carefully. You don’t know me but I know you very well. My name is Lola. I want to inform you that I am Dapo’s new wife. The same Dapo whom you have been fooling yourself and referring to as your husband. Dapo and I are married. Not only that, I am carrying his baby and I can no longer endure being hidden from you. That’s why I decided to call you. Dapo has been with me since Friday night. Hopefully, I would release him to come tomorrow. But even that depends on my mood...” she was still talking when the phone dropped from my loose grip and I collapsed on the living room floor. I didn’t lose consciousness, I was only paralysed with shock. I was completely devastated. When my brains began to work again, I began to strategise.

It was a painful experience. More harrowing than mere words can ever describe. But I pulled myself together. If that was the way Dapo wanted to play the game, no problem! I was up to the challenge. The first thing that occurred to me was that I had to regain my financial independence if I wanted to checkmate Dapo.

I have since worked tirelessly towards that. I have been busy working on my old contacts in the business world and also in government. So far, the response I have been getting has been very encouraging. Once I put my business back on a sound footing, I would move to the next stage of my plan, which I am not ready to disclose here.

It is a blueprint that is very close to my chest. I only need to implement it and it will become clear to the whole world that, indeed, “Hell hath no fury like a woman’s scorn.”

Dapo is still neck deep into his relationship with Lola. I’m no longer bothered about that. He seems to have completely forgotten that he is like a house that I built with my hands. It will take me a lesser effort to destroy that house completely. Let’s just wait and see!