‘Under the Rain’: Deforge weaves a searing intimacy lifestyle tool for youngsters
By Anote Ajeluorou
THE complicated relationship between Bolaji and Shola upends the well-worn saying that good girls always get badly-behaved boys. This time it’s the other way round. In their younger, university days, Bolaji and Shola switched places, more or less. While ‘boys are supposed to be boys’ that act nasty, that notorious honour falls on Shola instead and Bolaji is the good boy looking after his wayward ‘cousin’, Shola, who goes wild in a string of relationships that test their friendship and the love he has for her. And from one failed relationship to another and a pregnancy that gets complicated, Bolaji maintains his gentlemen’s mien as Shola runs wild.
Unlike most female writers who pitch or project bad boy persona towards all men and see no good in them, Ayo Deforge takes the other route in her latest novel, Under the Rain (Witsprouts Willow, Lagos; 2025). Rather, she turns her attention to her fellow women, especially young adult women just starting to experience sexuality and who throw all restraints to the wind. Having lost a sister early from complications arising from an unsafe abortion from an unwanted pregnancy, commonsense should have guided Shola to live differently. But on getting to university, she throws all caution to the wind and decides to indulge herself. But the pregnancy and the resulting complicated abortions that nearly kill her are from a lecherous lecturer, who would fail her if she refuses his advances. It’s the same abortions that would alter her relationship status with Bolaji, from friendship to love and its painful aftermath.
They are childhood neighbours and sweethearts who are drawn deeply together by Bolaji’s sickly brother Bamidele, who would die of sickle cell anaemia complications; Bolaji escapes being a carrier of that tragic gene. While Bolaji enjoys a healthy childhood, Shola does not; she is forced to cringe under the weight and trauma of her wayward sister’s death. Her father brutalises her in a bid to stamp out any trace of waywardness from her. She must not go the way of her late sister. But that is exactly what Shola becomes at her first opportunity to leave home for university and freedom. Bolaji is determined to be a doctor so he can find a cure to sufferers of sickle cell anaemia or at least help manage those suffering it. When Sola joins him in the university, he is overjoyed, but Shola soon shows who she really is. In all these, Bolaji shows immense stoicism and faith in their eventual togetherness as husband and wife. He remains Shola’s true friend, as she jumps from the arms of one boyfriend to yet another, who serially break her heart.
But Shola’s complicated abortions become the turning point; that’s when she finally realises that Bolaji is the only true friend and lover she has failed to recognise in all her years of wandering in relationship jungle. But this realisation is also short-lived. While Bolaji is projecting marriage into their relationship that promises near perfection, Shola is rational for once to not want marriage entanglement with Bolaji on account of the sickle cell trait that children from their union would likely inherit. So she breaks up with Bolaji, gets married and travels abroad with her husband. The devastation of the heartbreak is too much for Bolaji. He marries a woman who is anything but ideal for him; a sedate marriage, but they have two children together. But then Shola returns on a visit, and crashes into Bolaji’s seemingly ordered life to upturn it yet again in a romantic whirlpool that sucks him into its terrible vortex.
Deforge’s deft weaving of the love lives of Bolaji and Shola is art in service of social crusading that cuts at the root of teenage love and its potential catastrophic consequences. Under the Rain advocates against teenage girls and young women who indulge in unprotected sex and procures illicit abortions that mostly result in deaths. Shola’s sister went that route; Shola didn’t learn from it. She almost lost her life; hers is an ectopic pregnancy that happens outside the womb that is usually a complicated affair. While segments of society frowns at anyone promoting safe sex with the use of condoms among teenagers and young adults, what cannot be wished away is the fact of active sexuality among many teenagers that Deforge insists on. Under the rain advocates a healthy sex education that prevents teenage girls from falling into the dangers of procuring abortions in unsafe hands that cause deaths.
While sickle cell is real and causes so much harm, medical advances have now provided a means to bypass the likelihood of parents passing the gene to their children. This can be done through the selection of the right genes or through surrogacy. Deforge is particular in advocating for these rights and viable options that usually truncate otherwise blooming relationships among youngsters wishing to start life together.
However, while Under the Rain is a big read for female youngsters, certain sexually steamy and charged scenes make recommending it tricky. Until these scenes are toned down considerably, Under the Rain remains an adults-only fiction. However, parents will find it immensely useful reading, so they can educate their teenage and young adult girls what they need to know about their sexuality and be better guided in their choice of lifestyle that does not jeopardise their future. Shola’s illicit abortions render her unable to get pregnant as a married woman later in life. Under the Rain can also benefit significantly from further editorial work to make aspects of it tighter and better.
