The novel highlights the destructive rivalry in polygamy and its
resultant consequences for everyone involved.
Obanua Ozoma has 2 wives : Nwabunor and Ogugua. He and Ogugua are
both from Ozala while Nwabunor is from Aje (between Ozala and Benin
City). Nwabunor has her first child, a son, Ubaka after 3 years of
marriage. For 9 more years, they can't have another child. Then,
Obanua marries Ogugua (who has had 2 teenage twin daughters with
another man at 17 and is a stubborn daughter to her own parents) as
his second wife . The family lives in Ozala.
Obanua has only 2 rooms : one for himself and the other for Nwabunor.
Nwabunor(determined not to be pushed to the second place) moves into
her husband's room with her only child before Ogugua's arrival. Ogugua
and her daughters occupy the other room. A few months after Ogugua has
moved in, she gives birth to a boy, Bomboy. About a year later,
Nwabunor has a miscarriage. This makes her bitter and suspicious of
Ogugua. Besides, Obanua shows open favouritism to Ogugua.
The struggle for supremacy between Obanua's wives drives him to
drunkenness. They have stopped cooking for him and he , in turn, has
stopped giving them money. He finds the bar woman more understanding
than his wives and makes the bar his second home with his friend
Nwanze, the town-crier. Each wife works hard (Nwabunor as a wares
seller and Ogugua as a tailor) to take care of only herself and her
children. Obanua and Nwabunor fight almost everyday because of his
inability to pay their son's school fees. While Ogugua and her
daughters watch the fights with sadistic delight and refuse to
intervene (even when challenged by outsiders), Bomboy truly
sympathises with Ubaka.
One particular morning, Nwabunor tears Obanua's driver uniform and he
has to wear his personal clothes to work. He beats her before rushing
off to work and she faints later. Ogugua calls in the neighbours and
blames Nwabunor for the fight until the neighbours tell her to shut up
and call Nwosisi, the local "doctor" ( an unskilled attendant at the
local dispensary). When Nwosisi leaves after telling Ogugua to make
pap and àkàrà (bean cakes) for Nwabunor, Ogugua serves her children
food without leaving anything for Ubaka.
Obanua arrives work 2 hours late and meets an angry boss who reminds
him of his earlier offences (losing a uniform earlier in a fight with
Ogugua, delivering people's property in a damaged form,
drunkenness,etc) and gives him the last warning. Still , he heads for
the bar from there. He sleeps off while queueing for the ferry with
his truckload and the ferry officers tell his boss (at Umukoro & Sons
Transport Ltd), who immediately send another driver with another truck
on the mission. He is sacked for this. When Obanua returns home and
meets more troubles at home, he leaves home at night with his
"severance benefits" for the bar.
Meanwhile, Ndidi and Ogo have stolen 2 tins of sardines from the stock
of the sick Nwabunor. After lying in bed for one week after the fight,
Nwabunor sets up her wares and discovers that 2 tins of sardines are
missing. The wives are about to engage in physical combat when their
mother-in-law, Ma Nwojide, walks in and stops them.
Ogugua now has a secret lover, Odafe Gwam ( a widowed politician who
plans to take her away to be his wife). During a vacation, Odafe
engages Ubaka among the 20 schoolboys gathering sand for him (after
laying off 3 adult labourers for being too demanding for his liking).
This is his way of seeking acceptance with the family and
concealing his secret affair with Ogugua. Ubaka welcomes this
opportunity to work for his school fees and stop his parents' fights.
Each boy will get £3 (for fetching 10 buckets daily) at the end of
the vacation. Meanwhile , Ogugua's children continue stealing from
Nwabunor.
Obanua gets a job nobody else wants as a nightwatchman for the nearby
Catholic Mission. The previous nightwatchman has run out on the job
because the rocks and the sand dredged from the nearby river during
the day are carried back into the river at night by mysterious
white-robed figures. However, the job provides Obanua with money and a
safe haven from an unhappy home. The rocks are safe for the first few
nights under Obanua until he falls asleep from drunkenness one night.
He gets another "last warning".
Again, Nwabunor discovers her 15 Shillings gone and gets beaten to
coma by Ogugua for questioning her children. Nwabunor goes to her
ever-demanding soothsayer , who says he doesn't harm people (unlike
his rival, Ese Nwozomudo, a female hunchback). On pay day, both the 20
boys and the 3 adult ex-labourers are disappointed as Odafe has
disappeared to an unknown destination (after seeing a nosedive in his
political fortunes against Enyinabo's) . Ubaka doesn't get the £3 to
pay part of his £5 debt accumulated over the years so he is sent out
of school. Nwabunor sees this as a conspiracy between Odafe and Ogugua
, who actually has no foreknowledge of his flight but is too arrogant
to admit this to Nwabunor. Obanua has been sacked (without any
severance pay this time) for sleeping off and letting the rocks
disappear again.
While Nwabunor and Ogugua are in yet another shouting match , Ma
Nwojide walks in with Ndidi and Ogo who were fighting. Ogo openly
confesses they were fighting over the 3 packs of biscuits they stole
from Nwabunor. Ignoring Ma Nwojide, the wives fight brutally until
Nwabunor slumps heavily to the ground.
After the usual treatment by Nwosisi, Ma Nwojide tells Nwabunor to go
to her hometown the following morning for full recuperation before
deciding whether to come back or not. Angry Nwabunor goes to Ese
Nwozomudo and returns at midnight to poison Ogugua's pot of soup (in
their shared kitchen) before leaving. While she lingers behind to
watch all of them eat the poison, Ubaka walks across to Bomboy (unseen
by their mothers, as Nwabunor is bathing) and accepts a morsel from
him.
Predictably, Ogugua and all her children die at home while Ubaka dies
during the journey. Nwabunor runs mad in her hometown, Aje. Ma Nwojide
visits her son's home, sees the corpses and carries Bomboy's body to
his father at the bar. Obanua becomes momentarily sober but
eventually gets drunk again at the end of the novel.
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