‘Paulinus, come and eat,’ she called out.

My father stood up from his favourite armchair. He shuffled to the dining table, bringing with him the combined odour of medication and illness and age. My siblings joined us. Charity sat between me and my mother on my right; Godfrey and Eugene sat to my left. The noise of tongues sucking, teeth chomping, and throats swallowing soon floated about in the air like ghosts. My father’s voice joined in.

‘Augustina, I need a little bit more salt.’

My mother considered his request for a while. Because he also suffered from high blood pressure, every day she reduced the quantity of salt she added to his food, hoping that he would not notice. Reluctantly, she succumbed.

‘Odinkemmelu,’ she called out.

There was no reply.

Odinkemmelu!’

Silence was the answer.

‘Odinkemmelu! Odinkemmelu!’

‘Yes, Ma!’ a voice responded from the kitchen.

The air in the room was suddenly invaded by the feral stench of pubescent sweat. Odinkemmelu entered wearing a rusty white T-shirt and a pair of khaki shorts that had jagged holes in several inappropriate places. He and the other girl, Chikaodinaka, had come from the village to live with us. Neither of them was allowed to sit at the dining table.

‘How come it took you so long to answer?’ my mother asked.

‘Mama Kingsley, sorry, Ma. I am put off the fire for the kerosene stove by the time you call and I doesn’t heard you.’

My mother ran her eyes up and down Odinkemmelu’s body in a way that must have tied knots in his spinal cord. But the boy was not telling a lie; the fumes floated in right on time. We had stopped using the gas cooker because cooking gas was too expensive, and had switched to the kerosene stove that contaminated the air in the house with thick, toxic clouds whenever it was quenched with either a sprinkling of water or the blasts of someone’s breath.