In Dependence

Before leaving for Oxford, Tayo and his father visit relatives in Ibadan to say goodbye. Uncle Bola, usually given to jokes and drink, is moved by the departure and gives Tayo clothes and money. The family travels to Uncle Kayode’s house in Lagos, where Tayo is offered more advice than he can remember. That night, his excitement gives way to homesickness as he looks at Modupe’s photograph. At the port, his relatives gather in matching clothes to see him off.

Tayo writes home about the rough crossing, the people he met aboard ship and his first weeks at Oxford. He tells his father about meeting other Nigerian students, including Christine Arinze, and his interest in football and the West African Society. His father replies with news of his siblings’ achievements and Nigeria’s third anniversary of independence. Their letters show two different kinds of adjustment taking place at once, as Tayo gets used to England and his father considers how much has changed in Nigeria since British rule.

Edward Barker and his wife, Isabella, host a drinks party for overseas students. Tayo finds Barker gentler and more approachable than he expected. At the gathering, he joins Bolaji and Christine in conversation and later invites Christine out for a drink. He begins to recognise her interest in him, and the two become involved. The chapter introduces the friendship with Edward that will matter much later, when Vanessa tells Tayo whom she has married.

The point of view shifts to Vanessa. She goes to a party at Balliol, where she encounters Charlie and Mehul and drinks enough to wake up feeling miserable the next morning. She starts to write about Oxford men for a student publication but turns instead to a letter to Jane. Meeting Vanessa through her own observations gives readers a sense of her humour and her interest in writing before Tayo gets to know her.

At a West African Society meeting, students debate a film about Nigeria and ask who gets to portray the country after independence. Vanessa speaks up during the discussion of Négritude, and Tayo introduces himself afterwards. His interest in Vanessa develops while his relationship with Christine is already strained. Later, Christine asks him to come over and confides that she is struggling with the pressure to do well in her final examinations. Tayo tries to reassure her.

On a walk near Oxford, Vanessa and Tayo talk about Malcolm X’s visit and whether racial attitudes in Britain can change. Vanessa explains that her father and grandfather served in the colonial administration, and Tayo tells her about his own father’s work under British rule. Their outing is interrupted by an encounter with two men at a pub. Tayo gives Vanessa the Yoruba name Moremi, responding to the fighting spirit she shows in their conversation, and she invites him to her family’s Christmas gathering.

Vanessa goes home for Christmas and finds her parents tense with each other. As the family discusses the guest list, her father objects to the idea of her inviting anti-apartheid guests because he has invited associates with South African mining interests. Vanessa is angry about the views those men represent and worries about what her African friends will encounter at the party. The disagreement puts her political convictions in direct conflict with what her father expects of her at home.

Tayo arrives at Aberleigh for the Christmas party. Vanessa introduces him to her relatives, and a guest connected to her father mistakes him for a servant. Later, Vanessa visits Tayo in the room where he is staying. Away from the other guests, they talk about her parents and about Tayo’s mother. The private conversation allows them to share family experiences that are difficult to discuss in the company of Vanessa’s father and his friends.

Vanessa brings daffodils to Tayo’s room. They look at a family photograph, talk about Nigerian books and newspapers, and listen to music. Tayo playfully imagines that their paths crossed in childhood when he first saw the ship that later carried him to England. Vanessa is more serious when she asks whether, as an Englishwoman, she should write about Africa. Tayo encourages her to develop her own voice. Their time together brings her professional ambitions into a relationship that is becoming more intimate.

Tayo and Vanessa spend Easter in Paris with Simon and Nima. Vanessa gives Tayo a journal, and he begins recording their time there. Near the end of the holiday, a telegram brings news that Christine has died by suicide. Tayo is shocked and goes over his earlier dealings with her, wondering whether he failed to recognise how much she was struggling. The news also leaves him grieving for someone whose importance in his life he has never fully explained to Vanessa.

Vanessa spends part of the summer with her family in France while Tayo plans to stay with his cousin in England. Jane, Uncle Tony and the Murdochs join the family around the Bastille Day holiday. At dinner, Vanessa’s writing and her support for African independence provoke dismissive remarks. She also notices how easily her parents’ disagreements turn personal. Later, she and Jane speak privately about their relationships, including Vanessa’s feelings for Tayo and what a future with him might involve.

Vanessa writes from France, telling Tayo how much she misses him and offering comments on his review of Margery Perham’s work on colonial rule. Her suggestions show how closely she has engaged with his argument. Tayo replies from Bradford, where he is staying with his cousin Tunde. He describes the long hours African students work to support themselves and the racial hierarchy he encounters in the workplace. Bradford makes him more aware of the financial security his scholarship gives him at Oxford.

Tunde and Yusuf hold a party in Bradford to celebrate Gambian independence. Beforehand, Yusuf talks about his English girlfriend, Joyce, and tells Tayo that he expects to marry a Nigerian woman. During the party, a man objects to Tayo dancing with his white sister and strikes him. A fight follows, and the police take Tayo, Tunde and Yusuf to the station. Their treatment there makes the evening another lesson for Tayo in how openly racial prejudice can shape his life in Britain.

Back from Bradford, Tayo avoids explaining the real cause of his chipped tooth. He and Vanessa attend Yusuf’s wedding, where the bride turns out to be Joy Williams, rather than Joyce, Yusuf’s English girlfriend. Joyce arrives and angrily confronts him. The incident sharpens Vanessa’s doubts about what Tayo has told her. On their way back, she challenges him about having presented Christine as a cousin when they had been lovers. They part angrily without settling the dispute.

After the argument, Vanessa suggests they spend Christmas apart. Tayo agrees and keeps himself occupied with a strict routine. By New Year’s Eve, he is homesick enough to attempt a chicken stew, despite being unsure how to prepare it. Vanessa arrives unexpectedly while he is cooking. They spend the evening together and make up. The ordinary work of preparing and sharing a meal gives them a way back into each other’s company after weeks of distance.

Uncle Kayode visits England, and Tayo arranges for Vanessa to meet him over tea at Oxford’s Randolph Hotel. Vanessa prepares a Yoruba greeting and worries about the impression she will make. Kayode puts her at ease, talking easily about subjects ranging from Tayo’s sporting ability to books. The warmth of the meeting makes Vanessa hopeful about getting to know the rest of Tayo’s family. It also shows her that at least one of his relatives welcomes her interest in their lives.

Tayo earns a first-class degree and a graduate scholarship. Mr Richardson invites him to speak about Nigeria at the boys’ school where he is headmaster, and Tayo holds the pupils’ attention by drawing on his childhood. Afterwards, Richardson questions him privately about his intentions toward Vanessa and makes his opposition clear. Vanessa urges Tayo to stand up for their relationship. Before he can decide what to do, a telegram from his mother tells him that his father is gravely ill.

Back in Ibadan, Tayo finds that his siblings have grown and familiar features of home feel strange after his years abroad. He tries to write to Vanessa while wondering how his family would respond if he brought her home as his wife. He also sees Modupe, now married and expecting a child. His thoughts are interrupted by reports of military upheaval involving General Aguiyi-Ironsi. As neighbours and relatives gather anxiously, Tayo tries to calm them.

Vanessa waits through a long silence before Tayo writes again. He explains that his father has had another health crisis and that political upheaval and civil war have disrupted his plans. After her examinations, Vanessa goes to Lagos despite a telegram asking her to delay. They are happy to see each other at first. Then Tayo tells her that he has been with another woman and that she is pregnant. Vanessa walks out, and the visit that was meant to bring them together ends their relationship.

The story moves to Dakar, where Vanessa is working as a journalist and sending stories to Reuters. She befriends Salamatou, who braids her hair, teaches her Wolof and has a young son, Suleiman. When Salamatou asks about Vanessa’s past, Vanessa tells her about Tayo and says the relationship is over. Alone later, she cries for him. Dakar gives Vanessa rewarding work and a close friendship, while her conversation with Salamatou shows how much the loss still affects her.

Years later, Tayo is a professor and writer, married to Miriam and raising Kemi. At home, he considers the preface to his manuscript and thinks about how greed, mismanagement and international influence have contributed to Nigeria’s difficulties. At the Yelwa Club, conversation with Yusuf turns to politics and problems in the universities. Yusuf cautions him about speaking so freely against the authorities. Tayo remains committed to his students and is reluctant to accept an opportunity to teach abroad, despite Miriam’s preference that he take it.

An old diary in Tayo’s study brings Vanessa back to mind. He revisits the choices he made after his return to Nigeria and remembers how Miriam supported his family during his father’s illness. Her pregnancy led him to marry her, and his memories of that decision contain affection, guilt and a sense of duty. Kemi interrupts his reflections and asks for a story. He tells her about a childhood trip to Lagos, and Miriam joins them, giving the chapter a warm glimpse of the family they have built.

On a family holiday in Lagos, Tayo hears about an elderly man who worked for Lord Lugard. He sees an opportunity to bring a Nigerian witness’s perspective into his research on colonial rule. Miriam reminds him that his mother is old and waiting for a visit, but he goes ahead with the interview and stays longer than he intended. When he returns, he learns that his mother died in a road accident while travelling to see him. He reproaches himself for putting the interview first.

A military takeover raises hopes that the new rulers will tackle corruption. That optimism fades as repression increases and student protests lead to university closures. At home, money and essential supplies are short. Miriam points out that friends and colleagues are leaving and asks Tayo to move abroad with her and Kemi. He insists on staying because he feels responsible for his students and his country. For Miriam, his decision means asking the family to bear hardships that he has chosen to accept.

Miriam and Kemi have left for England, and Tayo is living alone in Nigeria. With the university struggling, he hopes an overseas foundation might provide practical help. A meeting arranged through Simon produces an offer of second-hand books and outdated software that the university is poorly equipped to use. The encounter deepens Tayo’s frustration with donors who decide what African institutions need from a distance. At home, the absence of Miriam and Kemi makes him question the personal cost of staying.

Tayo is dismayed by his students’ work, though he understands how difficult it is for them to study under the prevailing conditions. His relatives worry that his public criticism will bring trouble. On the way home, soldiers stop him and take him to a barracks. They beat him and warn him to stop writing against the government. When he regains his bearings at home, he learns that the soldiers have explained away his injuries as the result of a road accident.

Vanessa learns that Tayo is touring England to promote his biography of Lord Lugard and attends one of his talks. He spots her at the end, and they arrange to spend time together. Over dinner, they try to catch up on decades of work, marriage, children and loss. Vanessa tells him about Edward and Suleiman. The conversation is interrupted by an old acquaintance, and the evening ends at the point when Tayo asks to kiss her. Vanessa leaves to catch her train.

Sitting in a park near her London home, Vanessa reflects on seeing Tayo again. She misses the community she had in Dakar and worries about her relationship with the now teenage Suleiman. On her wedding anniversary, she remembers Edward’s kindness and the circumstances in which she agreed to marry him. She also recognises how lonely she sometimes feels in the marriage. Edward surprises her with Nelson Mandela’s Long Walk to Freedom, a gift that recalls the interests they have shared for years.

Tayo and Vanessa begin writing to each other again. They discuss what artists and writers owe their societies and how living in several countries has complicated their sense of belonging. Vanessa has heard about Tayo’s detention and urges him to be careful. She also confides that she worries about whether she has given Suleiman enough attention. Tayo tries to reassure her and admits his own regrets about fatherhood, his marriage and the years he put his work before his family.

Vanessa drives Suleiman to the airport for his trip to Senegal. Their conversation becomes a quarrel about his future, his adoption and whether she understands what returning to Senegal means to him. Vanessa reminds him that she loved Salamatou and promised to care for him. He leaves while both are still hurt. Afterwards, Vanessa writes to Tayo about what his letters mean to her and imagines how their life might have turned out together. She keeps the letter to herself.

Vanessa visits her elderly father at the Carrington care home, where he is increasingly frail and forgetful. She helps him with small practical tasks, but when she mentions that she is going to meet Tayo, he falls back on the same racist suspicions he voiced years earlier. Vanessa goes to Heathrow the next day and waits for Tayo’s flight. When he does not appear, she asks about the passenger list and learns that he was never aboard.

The narrative returns to Nigeria and shows what happened before the flight. Abdou drives Tayo toward the airport, and they talk about Abdou’s hopes of working in England. Tayo urges him to take marriage seriously when Abdou suggests it might help him stay there. Tayo is also thinking about seeing Vanessa and revisiting choices he made years ago. The drive ends in a crash. Accounts differ on whether the collision was deliberate, though the journey takes place after Tayo has already been threatened by soldiers.

Kemi takes Tayo into her San Francisco apartment while he recovers from a serious leg injury. Abdou has died from injuries sustained in the crash, and Tayo struggles with grief, isolation and dependence on his daughter. Kemi suggests therapy. His resistance leads to an argument in which she tells him how his absence and the breakdown of her parents’ marriage affected her. They eventually talk more honestly, and Tayo learns that Miriam has been helping pay for his treatment.

After her father’s death, Vanessa examines his manuscript about his years in colonial service. She looks for Nigerian perspectives missing from his account and receives a reply from Saratu, the daughter of a woman who worked for Vanessa’s mother. The correspondence and family recollections lead Vanessa to wonder whether her mother’s early return to England followed a relationship with Danjuma, the family gardener. As Vanessa comes to see her parents differently, she and Suleiman also begin talking more openly, including about his interest in promoting African books and art.

Kemi introduces Tayo to Professor John Harris, who offers him part-time teaching work in San Francisco. Tayo is reluctant at first, then begins to enjoy teaching West African history again. His friendship with Kwame gives him someone with whom to discuss race in the United States, a subject that also comes up sharply in his classroom. As he regains mobility and a measure of financial independence, he receives unexpected news that Oxford has awarded him an honorary degree.

Tayo receives his honorary degree at Oxford’s Sheldonian Theatre. Family and friends attend, including Miriam, Kemi, Vanessa and Suleiman. Kemi and Miriam receive Vanessa warmly. Later, Tayo and Vanessa leave the gathering and walk by the river, recalling their student years and talking about choices they wish they could revisit. Tayo says he would have married her if he could live his life again. They kiss, and the story closes with their affection renewed and the next step still theirs to decide.