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the person I send out to bring in important clients. It’s high-level marketing – you’ll have to dress formally for meetings. The company will provide you with an official car and a driver. How does that sound so far?’
    Speechless, Furo nodded, and Arinze continued.
    ‘The marketing office is empty, so you’ll have it to yourself. Do you own a laptop?’
    Furo shook his head no.
    ‘But you know how to use one?’
    He nodded yes.
    ‘It’s company policy that all employees must own their own laptops. We’ll buy you one, but you’ll have to pay back from your salary over six months. Is that OK?’
    ‘Yes.’
    ‘Perfect. Now your salary. Executive pay at Haba! starts at eighty thousand a month. That’s what you’ll earn at first. But you’ll also get a percentage on your sales. For sales of up to five hundred books, you get two point five per cent. For sales of five hundred to a thousand, you get …’
    While Arinze reeled off percentages, Furo was calculating his good fortune in decimals. This offer of employment was the first he’d ever got, and a salary of eighty thousand naira was eighty thousand times better than nothing. It was also fifty thousand more than he’d expected, as the vacancy he’d applied for, the salesperson job, paid thirty thousand naira. Even better, this position came with a car and driver, free transportation, meaning more money for him. With all that money in his hands he wouldn’t need anyone. He could feed himself, buy new clothes, start his life for real, and still have enough left over to save towards renting an apartment. Eighty thousand naira wasn’t just money, it was freedom. For the first time since waking that morning, Furo had no doubts about the path to take.
    Arinze had fallen silent, and now Furo could ask the question burning his tongue.
    ‘When do I start?’
    Arinze reached for his open laptop, then tapped the keypad and stared at the screen, his eyes reflecting the plasma glow. ‘Today’s the eighteenth,’ he said. ‘How about the first Monday in July? That’s July second. You can start then.’
    ‘I’ll be here,’ Furo said. And in a voice hoarsened by emotion: ‘Thank you.’ On impulse he jumped to his feet and stretched his hand across the desk, and his eyes, catching a movement, swung to the glass below. He was still staring at the white face staring back at him when Arinze took his hand. ‘I like that, a businesslike approach to business,’ he said, nodding with approval. ‘I have a strong feeling I made the right decision. I’m looking forward to you proving me right.’ He walked round the table, placed his hand on Furo’s shoulder, steered him to the door, and threw it open. ‘Go well, Mr Wariboko.’
    When the mind is at rest the body shouts its demands. Furo Wariboko, back on the streets of Lagos, now realised how hungry he was. Weak with it, his head aching, stomach juices churning, his breath reeking with it. He considered his choices. He had eight hundred naira left over from the money he’d borrowed from Ekemini, and that amount would just about cover a meal at Mr Biggs, the cheapest of the fast food chains. He was reluctant to spend everything. Thus far he had refused to pop his jubilant mood by thinking about where to go next, where to sleep tonight, but somewhere behind the wall of his mind he knew there was no going back.
    No choice then. He had to eat in a roadside buka.
    The roadway by which he strolled was jammed with traffic, cars crawled along at a pace that turned the drivers’ faces tight with frustration, okadas tore through gaps that even the bravest hawkers hesitated to enter, and petrol fumes from overheated engines thickened the air. Like oases on a desert caravan route, child vulcanisers and apprentice mechanics loitered in roadside lean-tos that offered scant shelter from today’s sunshine and tomorrow’s rainstorms. Exhausted vehicles dotted the roadside, some with bonnets opened to let out steam from gasping