The Burial

They buried Dr Babajide Adeleke on a Saturday, under a grey sky, in the churchyard behind St Peter's.

Two thousand people came. Kemi had not expected it. She had expected thirty: the family, a few friends, the old nurse who had worked with him for twenty years. Instead, the lane outside the church was packed from end to end. Mothers with babies on their backs. Old men in faded agbada. Children in school uniform, holding hands. A man in a wheelchair, pushed by his wife. They had walked from villages ten miles away.

"They all came," she whispered to Seun.

"They all knew him."

"He treated them?"

"Every one." He nodded to a woman in a headscarf. "Her son was born in the clinic during a power cut. Your father delivered him by torchlight. That man there lost his leg and couldn't afford the operation. Your father did it for free. That boy..."

"Stop."

"I'm sorry."

"No, I..." Her voice shook. "I didn't know."

"He didn't tell you."

"He never told me anything."

"Because he was afraid you'd come back out of pity." Seun's tone was gentle. "He wanted you to go. He wanted you to live a bigger life. He said he'd rather be forgotten than be the reason you stayed."

She stared at the coffin, covered in white lilies. Rain began to fall, softly, like a veil.

The priest read the final blessing. The choir sang. One by one, the mourners filed past to throw a handful of red earth. Kemi stood at the head of the grave in her black dress, and received their condolences with a numb, frozen smile.

"He was a saint," said an old woman, gripping her hand.

"He was an angel," said another.

"He saved my daughter's life."

"He taught my son to read."

"He told me you were a nurse in England," said a stooped man in a threadbare suit. "He was so proud. He told everyone. He said: my daughter is looking after the Queen's people."

Kemi's chest convulsed. She bent at the waist, as if she'd been punched, and a sound tore out of her that she did not recognise. Seun caught her arm. Someone brought a chair. She sat on it, weeping, with her face in her hands, while the rain fell and the crowd looked on in respectful silence.

When it was over, and the last mourner had gone, she stayed at the grave. The sexton had begun to shovel earth. The sound was heavy and final. She watched it with dry eyes.

"Do you want me to stay?" said Seun.

"No."

"I'll be at the clinic."

"Seun."

He turned.

"What did he say about me?" She heard her own voice, small and high, a child's. "In the last week. Did he say anything?"

He hesitated.

"Tell me."

"He said you were stubborn." A faint smile. "He said you'd got that from his side. He said you'd gone to the other side of the world and made a name for yourself, and he was too proud to say it. And he said..."

"What?"

"He said he'd been wrong. In the car park. He said he'd say it to your face if you ever came home."

The rain ran down her face. She could not tell it from the tears.

"I never got to hear it."

"I know."

"I never got to say sorry."

"He knew." Seun came and stood beside her. He did not touch her. He only stood close enough that she could feel the warmth of him. "Kemi. He kept your nursing certificate on his desk. The one from Manchester Royal. He framed it. He used to show it to patients."

She laughed. It was a jagged, broken sound. "That's ridiculous."

"It's what he did."

"He told me I'd thrown my life away."

"He told himself that. So he wouldn't miss you."

She turned. Seun's face was close, thin, lined, familiar. In the rain-light she saw the nineteen-year-old boy he had been: the lanky medical student with a gap in his teeth and ink on his fingers, who used to sit on the clinic steps and help her with her anatomy.

"I'm so tired," she whispered.

"I know."

"I don't know what to do."

"You don't have to do anything." He lifted his hand. After a moment, hesitantly, he laid it on her shoulder. His palm was warm through the wet fabric. "Not today."

She leaned into it. Just slightly. Just enough.

Behind them, the sexton patted the last shovel of earth onto the mound, and set the little wooden cross at its head.