Last Orders at Harrods

by Michael Holman

  Furniver put on his threadbare green and grey striped dressing gown, unbolted the steel grill, and went through the customary exchange of greetings that Kuwisha etiquette demanded. Standing on the doorstep, one hand resting on the saddle of an elaborately decorated bicycle, the other holding a smart brown trilby, was Nellson Githongo, one of the co-operative’s first customers.

  The middle-aged man was distressed.

  “I am in default,” he said, thrusting the bicycle at Furniver. The machine had been bought a few weeks earlier with a loan from the savings bank.

  “You must repossess me.”

  In vain Furniver tried to point out that there was a discretionary period of grace before any repossession. As a longstanding saver, and with an otherwise unblemished payment record, he would undoubtedly qualify.

  Githongo was insistent. For a few moments Furniver had to suppress an urge to laugh aloud. If his former colleagues could see him now, in the heart of Africa, in the middle of a shanty town, standing in the doorway of his “office” in a shabby dressing gown, discussing the terms of a loan that would hardly buy a decent malt whisky, they would conclude that he had lost his marbles.

  Home was a one-bedroom flat above the Kireba Co-operative Bank’s offices, one of the handful of brick and mortar buildings in the slum. He had opted to live there against the unanimous advice of Kuwisha’s expatriates, who had warned him that it would be a dangerous act of folly. The ladies from this community had, during the first few months of his stay, tried to persuade him to move to the safer, “low density” enclaves of civilisation, and resorted to appeals to the baser appetites of a fifty-something bachelor, making regular gifts of home-made cakes and jams.

  Their husbands made clear that they regarded him as mad, a view shared by Kuwisha’s remaining white settlers. He had declined all offers of alternative accommodation, and to the general surprise of expatriates and settlers alike, he had come to no harm. His flat had remained unburgled, and he had yet to be mugged. Neither fact was unconnected with the discreet presence and protection of members of the Mboya Boys United Football Club, and in particular members of the under-15 football team, whose ubiquitous presence Furniver had come to take for granted.

  Suddenly the electricity supply, erratic at the best of times, cut off, just at the point that Furniver was about to concede Mr Githongo’s request. The stand-by generator automatically took over, and kept the all-important computer running, but it was too modest to cope with the additional demands of the air-conditioning system.

  Power cuts were frequent, but Furniver had turned them to an advantage, telling himself that the informal atmosphere of Harrods bar was a better place to do business than the office of the society. To see the man from whom you needed a loan sitting at a table, casually dressed, sipping a mango juice and nibbling on a handful of groundnuts, was a far less intimidating prospect for potential clients who would never have dreamt of crossing the threshold of a commercial bank.

  Githongo clasped Furniver’s right hand in both of his.

  “You must take it. I have broken the rules,” he said.

  There was little alternative but to store the bike in the ground floor strong room. He handed a receipt to Githongo, who thanked him profusely and hurried off. His parting words, however, added to Furniver’s sense of unease: “Look out for tsotsis, sir, look out for skellums and loafers.”

  Clearly something was not quite right. It did not take much for Furniver to convince himself that he needed to consult with a committee member. And since Charity Mupanga happened to be the nearest, he prepared to set off for Harrods, a journey of but a few hundred yards.

  If the truth were told, Furniver found it more and more difficult to resist the virtues of Mrs Mupanga. She was, he had come to realise, a most extraordinary woman. Indeed, such was her common-sense approach to life that he wondered whether he should not at least consult her about his embarrassing itch. After all, her cousin Mercy was the nurse in Kireba’s clinic. Perhaps Charity could raise the matter with her?

  Among Charity’s many virtues was thrift – unlike his ex-wife, she was admirably prudent with money, something Furniver knew from first-hand experience. He was, or at least had been, Charity’s bank manager, although he preferred the term “adviser”. He had monitored the society’s loan that had enabled Charity to purchase a second-hand fridge when she set up Harrods – a loan that had since been repaid ahead of schedule.

  And then there was her sheer presence and personality. Who else, Furniver mused, could deal so effectively with those pre-teen thugs in the making, the members of the infamous Mboya Boys United Football Club?

  There were several other places in Kireba that sold beer, but these were dark and insalubrious hole-in-the-wall joints, where strange characters lounged, shady business was transacted, and decent residents of Kireba did not tarry. Charity on the other hand, managed to run Harrods as a respectable family eating place, and seemed to have enlisted the boys to her cause. Quite how she had done it, Furniver could only guess, until two occasions had provided a clue. On the first, about two years ago, he had wandered in to the bar unusually early, only to find it deserted. But from the back of Harrods, from behind a grass partition that surrounded the area where the food was prepared and cooked over the charcoal braziers that helped give the roasted goat meat its characteristic woody, gamey flavour, came the smack of flesh on flesh alternated with howls. This was followed by a rapid-fire delivery of angry and passionate Swahili, which Furniver, much to his regret, had not at that stage mastered.

  From his vantage point – he was concealed by the refrigerator – he watched one of the Mboya Boys scuttle through the bar, his dusty cheeks creased by tears. But he also noted that, clutched in one hand (the other was holding his glue bottle) was an oily packet which, Furniver was sure, contained grilled chicken necks, a dish for which Harrods was renowned.

  The next occasion could not have been more different. It was a few months later and once again Furniver had come to the bar at a slow point in the office day. The same boy, whom Furniver now recognised as Titus Ntoto, was showing Charity what seemed to be an exercise book. It was the sort used in the local schools, which Ntoto and his friends could not afford to attend. After several minutes of close scrutiny, and animated exchanges, this time mostly in English, Charity patted the boy on his head, a gesture that prompted a rare, embarrassed smile from the lad. Charity delved among the food dishes for a couple of minutes, and re-emerged with an enamelled tin plate carrying a serving of grilled goat meat, which sat atop of an enormous mound of the porridge-type maize-meal which was the country’s basic food, swimming in peanut relish. This was then handed over with some ceremony.

  After a further one-sided exchange, with the occasional finger wag, the boy trotted off. Furniver had occasionally wondered how it was that many of the Mboya Boys spoke such good English, good even by the standards of a country of natural linguists, where most of its citizens could speak English and at least three local languages. Now he realised that they had been taken under the maternal wing of Charity Mupanga.

  Truly, she was an exceptional woman.

  If anyone could explain Nellson Githongo’s odd behaviour, it was Charity.

  “ ‘Look out for tsotsis, sir, look out for skellums.’ ” What on earth did the blighter mean, Furniver wondered as he locked the office door behind him, stepped outside, and recoiled at the powerful sun-ripened stench of a flooded Kireba.

  Ntoto and Rutere continued on their way to the post office, pausing outside the Bata shoe shop for a knowledgeable discussion about the merits of different brands of trainers. But when the boys passed the stores with electronic devices, televisions, radios and stereo sets, both fell silent as they mentally marked out what they would loot in the happy event of a riot. The askaris watched them suspiciously, and the Asian owners waved them away from the shopfronts.

  Ntoto muttered angrily, but there was important business to complete. They would not be provoked.

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bsp; Rutere, still worried about mungiki, waited on guard at the main entrance to the post office while Ntoto went inside. He was the first, and so far the only customer. Ntoto, barefooted like all Kireba urchins, rapped impatiently on the wooden counter, with its thick patina of sweat and dust and grime. The lady in charge, head resting in her arms crossed in front of her on a plastic topped table, looked up, irritated to have had her sleep disturbed.

  “Who is knocking?”

  Ntoto made an elaborate display of looking for someone else in the high ceilinged room, once part of the High Court in the colonial era. But this was as far as he dared tease the lady, for she was not to be trifled with. She was after all, the Keeper of the Registered Mail, and could withhold a long awaited letter on a whim, or – as was more likely – pending the payment of a larger than usual bribe, or “service payment” as she called it.

  “Am sorry to disturb, Mama. I have been sent by Mrs Charity Mupanga to collect this letter.”

  She took the proffered slip and looked at him with sleepy distrust. Polite street boys were a rare phenomenon. She nevertheless imposed no more than her normal tariff – twice the face value of the stamps – and watched curiously as the boy ran towards the exit. When he had got up sufficient momentum, Titus slid across the polished wooden floor for the last few yards, a skateboarder without a skateboard.

  Once outside, Ntoto and Rutere closely inspected the sealed envelope, addressed to Charity but marked for the attention of Edward Furniver.

  “Let us open it,” suggested Rutere. “We can tell Mrs Charity that it was the post office people.”

  Ntoto was tempted. But as he examined the letter he had been given, with its red and blue airmail edging, decided against it. There was something intimidating about the envelope, and the sooner he got back, the better. The precision with which the address had been typed, in large crisp black letters, was impressive. This was no ordinary correspondence. It clearly had not come from David Mupanga Junior; nor had it come from the Leeds seminary, where the Bishop had studied, for it had a London postmark.

  You could learn a lot from letters, he had soon realised after accepting the job as Chief Postman for Harrods – provided Rutere could be his deputy. More than that, he enjoyed the task. It made him feel part of a family; and on his last birthday – an arbitrary date, since he had no idea when he was born – he had been thrilled to receive a card from Charity and Furniver when he collected the post one day.

  Master Titus Ntoto

  Harrods International Bar (and Nightspot)

  Kireba

  Kuwisha

  The envelope and the card, the first he had ever received, had been left in Charity’s keeping, along with other precious documents, including a newspaper cutting about his hero, Mr Tom Mboya.

  Rutere, who had given his friend a pineapple that was only slightly overripe, a twist of bhang, and a fresh egg, had been unusually quiet. Ntoto had found him later behind Harrods, crying to himself, but managed to slip away before Rutere spotted him.

  He had told Charity about what he had seen, and she seemed unmoved.

  “That Rutere, he is foolish,” was all she would say, although Ntoto noticed that the slice of birthday cake she gave Cyrus was at least as big as his own portion.

  Two weeks later, Rutere got his own birthday card. He was all smiles.

  “I had forgotten which day was my birthday,” he confessed to Ntoto. “I thought Mrs Charity also had forgotten . . .”

  On most visits to the post office there was something personal for Charity in the mail. Over the past few weeks it had been a postcard, with a picture of Kuwisha’s fabled game reserves. Each one came from David Junior.

  When the third such card arrived, Ntoto could not restrain his curiosity.

  “David is like all young men,” she had told him. So before her son left for London, Charity had given him twelve local postcards, each with a British stamp which she had bought from Cecil Pearson, addressed to Charity Mupanga at Harrods. Each postcard had four hand-drawn boxes, alongside carefully-lettered statements:

  I am well

  I am eating

  I am behaving

  I need money

  The last one had already been ticked.

  “Why tick this one yourself?”

  Charity’s reply was short and to the point:

  “Sons always need money. If he has no money, he must come home. He can work on the shamba.”

  Then there were the monthly newsletters from Leeds, and local post, mainly bills.

  This registered letter from London, however, was special – nothing like it had come before.

  Rutere watched as Ntoto frowned, and smelt the envelope – a gentle, exploratory sniff the first time, and vigorously the second time. There was a fragrance he could not identify.

  “It is a clue,” he told the mystified Rutere. “I am sure, or nearly sure, that this is a very important letter. Very important,” he added.

  “It has been sent to Mrs Charity by a man who is big enough to have a secretary.”

  Rutere’s eyes widened.

  “What muti can tell you this?”

  Ntoto clucked impatiently.

  “Rutere, you only talk of mungiki and of your grandmother’s muti. Where is your brain?”

  Rutere shrugged.

  “Then tell me about this clue.”

  “If you smell this envelope, carefully, it smells like flowers. Men do not smell of flowers – but big men, very big men in London, have secretaries who use perfume.”

  Ntoto was not absolutely certain about this. He depended on the little black and white television set at Harrods for this insight. And there was an element of wishful thinking. But if the glamorous white ladies whom he watched avidly did not have a delicious fragrance about them he would be astonished.

  “So I am sure this is a very, very important letter, sent by a big man . . .”

  With that, the two boys parted company outside the post office: Rutere planned to call by the city’s central market to rummage for rotten fruit put out the night before by the stall holders in their daily clear-out.

  Normally Ntoto would have accompanied him, but they agreed that the sooner the letter was delivered, the better. He trotted most of the journey back to Harrods, slowing down with the caution that was second nature to any boy from Kireba as he approached the bar.

  Charity was not to be seen. She was almost certainly in the kitchen supervising the cooking. Customers were relaxing, and her friend Edward Furniver was in his usual place in his usual chair, a glass of mango juice to hand, and a bowl of salted groundnuts within easy reach.

  Every now and then he moved his bottom from side to side. Ntoto giggled. It had been happening for a few days now: “Like a dog with worms”.

  That journalist from London, Pearson, was also there, with the aid worker from England, Lucy, who used strange words like empowerment, and spoke about ownership and civil society.

  Ntoto was not sure what to make of these two, both in their mid-thirties, and both fair-haired. They seemed good people: Pearson paid him and Rutere well for looking after his car when it was parked at the Financial News office, and he and Lucy had become frequent visitors to Harrods. But Ntoto could not help noticing that Pearson touched Lucy often, too often, as if they were married. And they were not even engaged! Ntoto found this behaviour embarrassing. Charity and Furniver, on the other hand, seldom touched each other. It was all in their eyes, and they spoke with their looks.

  Ntoto took a quick sniff from his glue bottle, and tucked it back under his sleeve. He watched the bar for a further minute or two. You could never be sure that off-duty policemen were not at one of the tables. As far as Ntoto was concerned, policemen were never to be trusted, on or off duty.

  He focused his attention on Furniver, still sweating after the journey from his office, and then fixed his gaze on the banker’s half-open briefcase that was alongside him. Ntoto suspected that the fruit juice Furniver was sipping had been reinfor
ced by a shot of the clear liquid from a small bottle which, he had spotted on several occasions, the banker carried in his case.

  There was no time to lose. Dark clouds that had been building up on the horizon were advancing on Kireba. The wind had suddenly dropped. Ntoto looked around for the last time, put aside any feelings of friendship for his targets, and prepared to attack the unsuspecting and defenceless trio.

  6

  “When the buffalo move south, wise men check their trouser buttons”

  The first of the day’s planes flew over Kireba, its wheels out and ready for landing. Had Charity or Ntoto looked up, they would have been able to see the rivets on the undercarriage, it was so low. It was the closest most of the passengers would ever get to the slum. Within an hour or so of the aircraft’s arrival, a pink tide of newcomers from Europe would spread across Kuwisha, heading for the beaches and game parks, before returning to their overseas homes a fortnight later, wearing tans and multi-pocketed safari suits, clutching wooden giraffes and soapstone chess sets, ebony key tags and stone hippos, Maasai spears and sheepskin rugs. Some of the visitors, would return with other deadly, insidious souvenirs, the result of visits to massage parlours, and liaisons at nightclubs.

  Many of the passengers had been to Kuwisha before, such was its popularity as a holiday destination. For one very important passenger, however, it was his first official visit to Africa as the recently appointed head of the world’s most important development agency.

  Bathed in a shaft of early morning sunshine that came in through the cabin porthole, sitting in his business class seat, Hardwick Hardwicke, president of the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development, otherwise known as the World Bank, put away the papers, preparing for landing. A compact, plump man, horn-rimmed glasses on the end of his nose, in his early sixties, whose foul language and short temper was legendary, he had spent much of the overnight journey engrossed in a bundle of files on Kuwisha.