by Maggie Gee
Thank God no-one she knew was there to watch. Her flight bag wouldn’t fit in the overhead locker. She had hauled it up, she had heaved it sideways, she had pushed and pushed, but nothing happened. A man offered to help her, but she refused. She remembered her Pilates, and engaged her core muscles, and melted her shoulder blades down her back, then took a deep breath and shoved: no luck. Now the stewardess (young, she thought, and mean, too much make-up, with that terrible perky look they have) was watching her closely. ‘If it won’t go up, Madam, I’m afraid it will have to travel down in the hold.’
‘Impossible. My laptop’s in there. I am a novelist. It is essential.’
‘We would ask you to unpack essential items, and then the bag can go down in the hold.’ Her tone was bright, her smile adamant.
‘No, I need this bag. I am sure it will fit.’
Now the helpful man (who was built like a weightlifter) got up and took the bag from her hand. ‘Let me help you, Ma’am.’ American. Vanessa cocked her head at the stewardess, triumphant. She was not too old to have male supporters.
But two minutes later, he had given up. ‘I’m sorry, Ma’am, it’s impossible.’ Americans, of course, were cowards and weaklings. And so the case had come down again.
In the end Vanessa, watched by the entire cabin, had been forced to unpack the bag on the floor. The cabin staff remained forcefully pleasant; Vanessa struggled not to cry. The laptop was new, and not unimpressive, but she wished she had packed better underwear. In fact, those pants looked distinctly grey, and the light in the cabin was very harsh. She had blushed to remove, in full view of everyone (and they were all staring, or looking at their watches) her statutory see-through bag full of liquids – did she need more liquids than everyone else? She seemed to have litres and litres of the stuff. Toothpaste, cleanser, toning gel, moisturiser, contact lens fluid, sun cream and insecticide, ready for the dangerous Ugandan morning. And then all the other stuff she really needed. Her teeth, which she looked after extra carefully since she got them all sorted, five years ago, required interdens brushes, toothbrush, floss. And then there were her contact lens case and spectacles. And her pens and notebook and tissues, of course, and her Guide to Uganda, to refresh her memory. And her low-dose aspirin, for flying; and her high-dose aspirin, in case she got toothache; not to mention two blisters of Malarone, one spare, in case her luggage got delayed. Her sunglasses, in case tomorrow was sunny, and her umbrella, in case it rained. And of course the flight bag was so tightly packed that at first she couldn’t drag anything out, and the passengers all gawped as she hauled and sweated, and the stewardess brought her a plastic bag and stood there, imperfectly concealing impatience. She thinks I’m old and stupid, Vanessa thought, wincing. But at last it was over, and she could sit down, unable to meet her fellow passengers’ eyes.
Now her plastic bag of junk is wedged at her feet. She broods, if only they had given me my upgrade. I’m sure they should have given me an upgrade. The first man, in Departures, hadn’t actually said ‘No’. He had practically encouraged her to ask elsewhere. In Business and First they must have bigger lockers, and the bag would have fitted in perfectly.
Still she mustn’t obsess. Vanessa knows her faults. It’s not important. She tries to let go. She clenches her toes, then relaxes them. Her calf feels odd. Could it be a thrombosis? And she does not know what to do with her head, with her long fragile neck, rather too long for her body, and prone to arthritis if she doesn’t take care. She does take care: she exercises. And tonight she has already done her exercises, discreetly of course, head- and shoulder-circling, though the bad-mannered child next door had stared, and his mother seemed to have no control over him. And now he is watching three different films, switching from one to another, on the in-flight entertainment, a contented smile upon his face, as if he has never seen a film before (it is possible, she thinks. He is African.) His mother does not tell him to go to sleep, and Vanessa is maddened by the sound effects, even though he has got the volume on low. There are incessant faint bursts of gunfire, or screaming. As if the world is nothing but war.
She was a post-war baby, born just after the end of World War Two, and sometimes she feels as if all her life she has miraculously kept just ahead of war. She knows she has been lucky, but how long can that last? On 11 September 2001, Vanessa held her breath, like everyone else, and waited for a world war to break out; she had worried about Justin, and, oddly, Trevor. But after ten frightening days, it had blown over. And then there were the bombs on the London Underground. Fortunately, she is claustrophobic.
But the shooting goes on in the seat beside her, rat-a-tat-a-tat, and the whoosh of explosions. There are wars, she knows, on the edges of Uganda. The war in the north is supposed to be over, the war between the LRA and the government, but she’s read that the Juba peace talks aren’t working. And then there are always wars in Congo, or DRC as the Ugandans like to call it, and some of the LRA have regrouped down there, on the border between DRC and Uganda. Which makes Vanessa nervous, because that’s where she is going. Not yet, but after the end of her conference, on her long-awaited trip to see the gorillas. She fears that, at last, war might find her there.
A bigger explosion from the seat next door. Vanessa taps sharply at the child’s thin arm, then reminds herself to smile, and points at his screen, so he looks at her, puzzled, as she mimes tiredness. Light seems to dawn. Bright-eyed, he leans across her, switches on her screen, and scrolls the arm control to Movies. Instantly gun-fire breaks out in front of her. He looks so satisfied with what he has achieved that for a moment he reminds her of Justin, and Vanessa remembers, with a small stab of guilt, how often she had hurt her son by insufficiently appreciating his achievements: or so he has recently started to tell her. Swallowing her dismay, she says, ‘Ah, thank you,’ grits her capped teeth and endures for a while, until she can decently turn it off again ...
But in fact she sleeps, and is carried, unresisting, released from fretting or struggling, high above the clouds which are heavy with rain, high above Sardinia, high above Sicily, high above Libya’s lost Roman cities, and the wars go on, only inches from her face, just in front of her safely sleeping eyelids, as the air warms over North Africa, swooping down over Sudan now, coming closer to Entebbe, her little feet twitching, sometimes, like birds’ feet, her thin mouth smiling, in a happy dream in which Mary Tendo will be waiting to meet her, and at last, this time, they will be like sisters.
‘Tea or coffee, Madam?’
Hallo. It’s morning.
6
‘Cabin crew to positions for landing.’
Vanessa braces, and clutches her landing card, her passport, her Yellow Fever Certificate, and worries that the pilot’s coming in too fast. Isn’t Uganda rather high, she wonders? In which case, he might bump into it. The voice on the intercom was confident, perhaps over-confident, and certainly too young. They are bounding through the clouds now; there’s turbulence. She finds she is sweating, and frankly, frightened, but she must remember not to try to fly the plane. Twenty-seven years ago, when they were just married, Trevor had told her that on the flight to Paris where they were going on their honeymoon. ‘Relax, Nessie. Try to enjoy it. He’s a trained pilot. Let him fly the plane.’
She dares a glance out of the window now and is relieved by the sight of toy trees and houses. If the engines failed now, she might still survive, and she’s suddenly near enough to see sharp fronds on a palm tree, she’s level with a roof, red ridged roof-tiles – and with two bumps, they have landed, and her heart leaps up as the engines throttle thunderously down the runway. She beams a triumphant smile at the boy, it is always such a relief to have made it, but he looks back blankly, eyes veiled with sleep. And suddenly Vanessa’s full of energy, re-infused with hopefulness, the first on her feet as they roll to a halt – though the mean stewardess motions her down again.
She emerges into a warm pink morning. The air smells wonderful: of earth, of growth. The sky is low and misty, with a thinl
y veiled sun. It’s a small airport, and they set off walking, a narrow stream of passengers, white people and Africans. Only one stream is open in Immigration, so everyone goes through ‘Ugandan Residents’. It’s as if Uganda’s giving her a personal welcome.
The baggage hall, by contrast, is hell. Only one carousel is working, reluctantly, its armoured plates rubbing over each other like the broken shell of a dying armadillo. On one particular corner, all the cases get stuck, and baggage-handlers zestfully chuck them on the floor. This seems to be the baggage-handlers’ main function, so a great bruised herd of unwanted cases is slowly surging across the room. Anxious passengers strain to keep an eye on both the herd and the tame line of cases traipsing in from outside.
Vanessa’s flight bag arrives quite quickly. She strides forward to claim it, one of the elect. But the other case, the real, important one, with almost all her things, doesn’t follow. At first Vanessa stays cheerful. She offers a harassed-looking woman beside her an old hand’s smile: ‘Well, this is Africa! T.I.A!’ (An expression she learned on a travellers’ website, and has been dying for the chance to use.) But the woman says, ‘Bitte? Verstehe nicht,’ and then darts forward, as Vanessa’s heart sinks, to collect her own bag with a cry of belonging.
As the baggage hall empties of people, Vanessa learns how much she loves her suitcase. The familiar faces from her flight light up in turn as their luggage is reborn through the flap in the wall. How gladly they bundle them on to trolleys, how gaily they speed away out of sight. She’s alone, destitute, in Africa. Why ever did she come? It was all a mistake.
Then the worst moment: the next plane arrives, new chattering strangers flock into the hall, and soon their luggage will be driving out hers. By now only one last lonely bundle from London is circling the carousel, wrapped in layers and layers of glittering plastic, so small it is ignored even by the baggage-handlers, who refrain from casting this one on to the floor. It makes her think suddenly of her grandson: so small and vulnerable, encased in all his layers.
And then the ugly flap lifts one more time – and everything changes, for there it is, the very last case to arrive from London: blue, battered, but her own. Vanessa runs round the carousel to meet it, and swings it, mighty midget-style, on to her trolley. My things, my things, my most beloved.
But the Sheraton bus, to her dismay, has gone. ‘They knew I was coming,’ she complains to the polite and passive woman in Sheraton uniform, whose dark eyes are lowered over her golden jacket. ‘Dr Vanessa Henman. I was confirmed.’
‘Ah, sorry,’ the woman agrees, caressively (Vanessa remembers those Ugandan ‘sorrys’: how kind they sound, a descending bird-call). ‘But the other guests, they sometimes do not like to wait. So would you like to pay for a special taxi? I can arrange it. Only 20 dollars.’
Vanessa’s battle-light comes on. She is hot, and tired, and it isn’t fair. ‘No, I wouldn’t,’ she says, shortly. ‘I was down for the bus.’
‘So would you like to pay 15 dollars?’ the woman inquires, cautiously. ‘It is OK.’
‘I just want to get there,’ says Vanessa, ‘soon.’
But soon, very soon, she is regretting she said it. The young, eager driver of a special taxi arrives, smiling and out of breath, and she remembers, with relief, that a Ugandan ‘special taxi’ does not mean a specially expensive one, but merely a taxi for one person, as opposed to ordinary taxis, which hold lots of people, vegetables, chickens. Her driver’s name is Isaac. He has bright, dark eyes, an American t-shirt, cut-off trousers. At first, Vanessa thinks he looks sweet.
Urgently instructed by the Sheraton woman in their own language, Isaac begins a headlong, hooting dash for Kampala, apparently taking the straightest line no matter what bends there are in the road. He claims she has interrupted his breakfast, which he had been about to eat at the airport. ‘Ah, sorry,’ Vanessa says, and realises she is accidentally mimicking the caring intonation of the Sheraton employee.
‘Of course, I did not mind missing it, you must not be late for your appointment,’ he says, with eager, reproachful virtue, and accelerates to show his keenness, jerking erratically through grinding gears. ‘Luckily, I am a fast, safe driver. This is not my car, but I can drive it.’
Soon he ‘wonders’, as he drives at breakneck speed, whether she will buy him breakfast in Kampala? He smiles so sweetly, and she is so surprised, that she hears herself agreeing, and at once regrets it.
Before long she finds Isaac has one obsession. He does not like Museveni; Museveni’s family, even less. He thinks Museveni’s family is ruining Uganda. He is driven to heights of irony if anything remotely connected to politics comes up, and sometimes when there’s no connection at all. At first she does not understand his scoffing asides about ‘the First Family’.
‘There seem to be fewer trees than before.’
‘Yes, they are being cut down for firewood. The First Family must have money.’
‘Is the new shopping centre finished, at Garden City?’
‘Of course! First Family must shop somewhere.’
‘I’m a little worried about mosquitoes,’ she says, to change the subject, but also to explain why she is rubbing herself with cream from the shameful plastic bag of unguents.
‘Madam, do not worry about the mosquitoes,’ he says, turning to look into her eyes so an oncoming bus bearing the slogan GOD SAVES almost hits them, and Vanessa sees the frightened face of its driver. ‘There is no malaria in Kampala.’
‘People always told me that before,’ says Vanessa. ‘But all the Ugandans I met had had malaria. Have you had malaria?’
He shrugs. ‘Of course. But the bazungu do not get it. And the rain will wash away the mosquitoes.’
‘I thought mosquitoes liked water? I’m sure they do.’
But he looks sulky, and ignores her. Perhaps he knows his epidemiology is sketchy. Or else he wants to fob her off with nonsense. She grips the seatbelt hard with both hands as he honks oncoming traffic out of their path.
Bip-bip-bip-BEEEYUP! Pip-pip-pip-pip-B-A-A-A-R-P! It is a fanfare of arrival. A famous writer is in Kampala!
‘Are you ready for CHOGM?’ huge billboards inquire, or more defiantly, ‘Uganda is ready for CHOGM’. By the side of the road, red earth, low shacks, rather fewer of them than she remembers, but a lot of brick building is going on. ‘Is this building work for CHOGM?’ she inquires.
‘Everything is for First Family.’
She had forgotten how enchanting the children are. Small troops of them, single-file, leap neatly off the road and back again as they thunder past. ‘I love your school uniforms, so smart,’ she says.
‘Of course you like them, they are British,’ Isaac says. He seems less polite than when she first embarked, as if she’s broken some pact by disagreeing with him, although the subject of dispute was only mosquitoes.
‘Our children would refuse to wear them,’ says Vanessa, stung by the idea that she is typically British. ‘Actually I like Ugandan things.’
He seems to snicker to himself, and she feels insulted, but of course he is just young. She tells herself she must not take against him. He is not so much older than her son Justin.
She spots a big pile of what must be charcoal. So that’s where some of the trees have gone. But some remain; lush date palms, pineapples, and are those ...? ‘Are they matooke?’ she asks, proud to deploy a local word.
‘Obviously they are bananas,’ he says, smiles sideways annoyingly, and just misses a lorry.
‘It doesn’t matter, please watch the road.’
But the nearer they come to Kampala, the less he can do anything but join the great clunky jam of white metal public taxis, and they slow to a heaving, parp-parp-ing halt. And now they are in the Kampala Vanessa remembers. The roadside is a seething mass of stalls and sellers, going back as far as the eye can see, with hand-painted signs whose cheerful ambition flares gallantly over tiny box-sized shops: WISE AFRICAN AIDS RESEARCH CENTRE; MAAMA SOPHIA GENERAL MERCHANDISE.
; ‘I love all this. It’s so interesting,’ she says, good humour coming back. ‘What is this district called?’
‘It is Nateete Market,’ the driver answers. ‘The government has sold it, because of CHOGM. Soon we will have a modern market!’
‘Is this a good thing?’
‘Of course. Except the market traders do not think so, or the customers. Profits will go to the First Family.’
Now Vanessa’s hips are starting to ache, and she’s bored with the First Family, and the red dust is blowing in through the window, slipping grainily under her contact lenses. It is exciting, but she wants to sleep, or eat, or do anything except keep travelling.
It is a huge relief when the Sheraton guards raise the red-and-white-striped pole to let them in. They sweep down the drive through the Sheraton gardens, gold-jacketed men salute their arrival, the driver unloads Vanessa’s cases, and they march through the arch of the metal detector, which blares shrilly, but the armed guard waves them through: she’s a middle-aged white woman, she can’t be a terrorist.
And Isaac? Oh, he’s just her driver. They barely look at him. All the guests have one.
Vanessa is keen to pay him off: 15 dollars, as agreed, plus a tip of 4,000 Ugandan shillings, about 2 dollars, which is more than 10 per cent, and uses nearly all the currency she’d saved from her last trip to Uganda. But Isaac still lingers, as if expecting more. ‘That should cover you for something to eat,’ she urges. Isaac looks at the floor, and says, ‘It is OK,’ but his body language implies that it isn’t. (Yet he’s hardly going to eat at the Sheraton, is he, where breakfast would cost five times as much!) Her own mouth waters in anticipation. Golden fried potatoes, eggs, steak, smooth terraces of mango, watermelon, pineapple, glistening on enormous china dishes. Sheraton breakfasts are an event!
The back of his red t-shirt and Harlem-style cut-offs look suddenly poor as he crosses the bright foyer. Has she done right? But of course she has. She has been more than fair. She dismisses it.