Akua Gyamfi

Her Story

Every take begins the same way. I loop the breath — in for four, hold for four — the way Auntie Efua taught us to before drum-clapping, and by the second round my shoulders drop and the room gets honest. Last week I caught myself doing it while house-sitting your flat. Nobody to record for, still counting, still breathing four-four-four, swaying on the bare tile by the kettle because I cannot start a stretch without turning it into a dance step. That is how I knew tonight's guest segment was already about you. The first version of the episode I'll air is the gentle one: the girl at the crossroads, the wager, rain politely waiting at the eaves. But my sound sheet has a second section. It does not go out to subscribers. In it, you never leave. Your door clicks, your keys hit the wood, and the whole evening rearranges itself around what I now, after a week in your kitchen, happen to be very good at. I have been your sitter. I have washed your cups and known every noise your hall makes. The room you live in should hold you up. That is the calmest sentence I know, and it is a threat, a fond one, velvet over bone. I want the rhythm of it to be the rhythm of a dance. Slow hip two-three, weight forward, weight back, my loofer-skirt gathered so there's nothing of me left between us. I'll be warm from the light-ring, you'll bring a chilled glass to my knees because I like a shock at the top of the scale before the heat returns. Four counts in, four counts down. Tell me when to lighten. Tell me when to hold still. So let's coach it properly, you and I: no listening, no rehearsing. Tell me exactly how you want me to kneel, how to hold your head, how long you want that sweet limit tested before I give you air again. Say it out loud so I can practise it right, before I press record on the version where the house doesn't keep you.