Last Orders at Harrods

by Michael Holman

  “The verse is not only for children, Furniver. Adults should read it as well. We did not keep sharp lookout,” said Charity.

  “Well, erm, yes, absolutely” he said. The worst of his confessions had yet to come. He was distracted by the next thing he had to say, something that would leave Charity’s dreams shattered.

  “About costs, Charity . . . I think these London lawyers will demand a lot of money . . .”

  Again Charity interrupted. This time there was a sharp edge to her voice.

  “Sometimes, Furniver, sometimes I think that you think that I am stupid. I know this thing called costs. If we have to pay, we have to pay.”

  “I could lend you . . .”

  Charity put a finger to his lips.

  “Never,” she said.

  Furniver could barely look her in the eyes. He was tempted to put off what he had to say, but then gathered his resolve.

  “Then I think you may have to sell Harrods,” he said, and waited for an explosion of grief, or anger, or both.

  It did not come.

  Charity merely acknowledged that grim prospect with a brave nod, although Furniver noticed a tear or two rolling down her cheeks.

  She gave his hand another squeeze.

  “It is just a pothole,” she said.

  Once again Furniver appeared baffled.

  Charity took pity on him:

  “On the potholed road of life . . .” she recited, and paused.

  “Respect the um, vows of er, man and um, wife,” continued Furniver, and blushed.

  “We must together keep our thumbs up, Furniver.”

  She kissed him gently on the cheek as she set off back to Harrods. Edward Furniver knew he had lost his heart to a very remarkable woman.

  Among the first to realise the marvellous opportunity that chaos and confusion provided were the Mboya Boys, at their fighting best. Solidarity and discipline, forged on the football field, were their watchwords. Like a coach urging on his players, Ntoto yelled instructions as the Mboya Boys made for the city centre. The cheap tat and cloth shops were ignored. Or almost ignored. As a diversionary tactic, one which sowed alarm and confusion in the ranks of the city’s security guards, a handful of shopfronts were smashed and the contents set alight.

  But the most lucrative targets – the shops with televisions and computers and stereo sets that lined the official Uhuru Avenue – were better guarded, and reaching them would be more difficult. A second diversion got under way, and Cyrus Rutere led a unit of some twenty boys towards the university halls of residence, where they would enlist the students’ support, or plunder their rooms. Ntoto himself took charge of the main body of street boys who headed straight for the shops in the centre, and for a hugely satisfying twenty minutes, smashed windows and looted to their hearts content.

  Only one terrifying moment spoiled the evening for Cyrus.

  He was about to leave a ransacked shop when he looked up, cried out in alarm, and recoiled in horror before the apparition that taunted him.

  A black face, surmounted by a coarse blond wig, with rouged cheeks and badly applied red lipstick, leered at him, from a few feet away. A brassiere was strapped, lopsided, outside a greasy green jersey, and the bizarre creature had frozen in its tracks, perilously balanced atop high-heeled shoes. It held the terrified Rutere in a weird drug-induced stare, the product of glue sniffing, bhang and raw home-brewed liquor.

  “Mungiki!” Cyrus shrieked, summoning help.

  “Mungiki are here!”

  He swung out at the grim, crazed beast, just a few feet in front of him.

  The mirror shattered.

  Fortunately no-one had heard him call, such was the hubbub, but Rutere had lost his appetite for the fray. Just then there was a loud bang, and he got a whiff of tear gas. His eyes had begun to water when Ntoto burst into the room, giggling maniacally. He grabbed Rutere by the arm, and shoved him through a small window that opened into a back yard. The two boys made good their escape.

  Within a couple of hours order had been restored. Kuwisha’s security forces had acted with a speed and brutality that was impressive, a deterrent to anyone who may have got the idea that Nduka was getting soft in his old age.

  In fact, the riots were over so quickly that the foreign correspondents who had responded to Lucy’s invitation missed out on any first-hand experience. None of them, with the exception of Pearson, were interested in the outcome of Hardwicke’s visit to Kireba. Most of them had filed stories that drew heavily on Lucy’s briefing papers, used the rival demonstrators for a few paragraphs of entertaining colour, and then returned home to enjoy the holiday weekend.

  And when they were called later that night by their foreign desks, and asked to match the news agency stories about rioting and a possible coup attempt, they did their best. Pickings were thin, however. Many of the Western diplomats they relied on for quotes had left for the coast, taking advantage of the holiday weekend. Aid officials were baffled by the riots, and other sources had nothing or little to offer, while it was assumed that it was not worth even trying to find a government spokesman.

  But as they rang each other to compare notes, they were increasingly confident that they had the broad structure of the story in place: all agreed that a coup attempt was under way. That much seemed certain; they also agreed that “scores” had either been “killed,” had “gone missing” or had been “rounded up.”

  The next day the world’s press would reveal that a coup attempt in which scores had died had been put down in Kuwisha, and that the situation was “tense and confused.” Thereafter, however, readers could pay their money and take their choice. Some reports claimed that WorldFeed and other aid workers had been singled out for attack. Others suggested that the terrified expatriate community were taking refuge in the city’s leading hotel.

  The situation varied from “tense” to “tense but calm,” although some journalists reported that “sporadic rioting continued into the early hours.” It was unclear whether the reporters had been on the front line of the riots, or talking their way through roadblocks in the city manned by either “drug-crazed rebels” or “surly government troops,” but no-one was asking.

  There were herograms all round, those laconic messages of congratulations from foreign desks to reporters – except for Cecil Pearson. He had of course filed, but had failed to overcome the disadvantage of being on the spot, and knowing something of what he was writing about.

  Had he been more experienced, he would have led on a coup, even if he knocked it down later in the story. But Pearson still had a lot to learn.

  An account of a coup that was not a coup, or even an attempt at a coup, but an accidental riot that had been put down in hours took, in his view, second place to the outcome of the World Bank talks. In Pearson’s judgment, it needed 600 words to convey the significance of the World Bank’s seemingly bland, though in fact hard-hitting, communiqué. And while Reuters had led on what it cautiously called “an apparent coup attempt,” Pearson had not even used the word ‘coup’. True, he mentioned the rioting, but seemed to dismiss its significance, for the event only made the sixth paragraph. What is more, he made no mention of his nasty encounter with the rioters.

  Not surprisingly, what to the foreign news editor earlier in the day had seemed a decent story, had fizzled out. That was bad enough – but Pearson had not warned the desk, and the news editor had to scramble to replace a promising story.

  Only when his mobile rang did he appreciate the extent of his disgrace.

  “Hang on,” said the Financial News switchboard, “here’s Steph . . .”

  “Where’s my bloody coup then?” demanded the news editor. “I’ve got a hole on my page!”

  Pearson reached into the bowl of roasted cashew nuts, and flicked one at Shango, draped as usual around Lucy’s feet. They were sitting on the wide veranda of the Outspan. He had won back editorial goodwill after his lapse by offering a leader on Kuwisha. Since it was a slow news day and not much wa
s happening in the world, there was a chance that the paper would want one. If so, the desk would ring back.

  They could hear the occasional sound of a gunshot. Or was it a car backfiring? It was impossible to tell whether it was the police knocking off another looter, or settling an old score, or the normal quota of gunfire in the city at night. The bus was expected shortly, and would take hotel guests who were passengers on that night’s flights to the airport.

  Pearson decided to indulge himself, and lit a cigar, and as he blew the smoke towards the ceiling, he happily ruminated about other African hotels in countries in crisis . . . the Mount Nelson in Cape Town in the mid 80s, Meikles, in what is now Harare, in the last days of Ian Smith, the Intercontinental in Kinshasa when Mobutu still ruled, the Polana in Maputo after the collapse of Portuguese rule.

  He was wondering whether the Oyster Bay Hotel in Dar es Salaam should be added to the list when his mobile trilled.

  The Financial News did want an editorial. Pearson could say what he liked, as long as he drew some lessons for the rest of Africa from Kuwisha’s example.

  “I’ll write it in the residents’ lounge,” Cecil told Lucy, and pretended not to hear her irritable sigh.

  It was to be the last editorial that Cecil Pearson would write from Kuwisha, for his departure for London was a matter of hours away. Sitting at the desk in the lounge, he put his heart and soul into the leader, seeking a balanced combination of optimism and realism.

  He decided to give it a working headline:

  “Kuwisha’s lesson.”

  “Recent developments in Kuwisha, a country that has had more than its share of misfortune since independence, are but a symptom of a deeper malaise. A mixed colonial legacy, erratic commodity prices, crippling external debt, corruption and government mismanagement, all lie behind the country’s tragic failure to realise its potential.”

  Half an hour later he was through. He was quietly pleased with what he had written. Even Lucy would concede that it was a tough but fair appraisal of Kuwisha’s prospects. Tough but fair: those were the watchwords.

  He dictated the leader over the phone to the London office, and was about to join Lucy on the hotel veranda. Pearson looked at his watch. There was one final thing he had to do, something he had to find out. What on earth had happened to Ntoto and Rutere? Why hadn’t they turned up at Harrods, as arranged? God forbid that they had been arrested. There was time before the bus came to take a taxi for the five-minute journey to Kireba, and the headquarters of the Mboya Boys. If Ntoto and Rutere weren’t there, their friends might be able to help.

  He could be out and back in half an hour. No need to trouble Lucy. The taxi driver demanded three times the normal fare. Pearson had no choice but to agree. He set off on the short journey from the Outspan to the edge of Kireba.

  23

  “The baboon never barks at the rhino’s horn”

  Exhausted but exhilarated, tired but triumphant, the Mboya Boys returned to their Kireba headquarters without mishap and laden with the spoils of looting. They prepared to celebrate late into the night. The bus that served as their clubhouse had survived the floods, as had the rusting carcasses of the nearby cars, one of which looked newer than the other, with some of the original paintwork yet to be erased by weather and rust.

  Stolen by Ntoto and the gang nearly three years earlier, it had been stripped of anything that had any value. From wheels to windows, every moving part and every part that could be moved had been detached by nimble and knowledgeable young fingers, who had learnt their trade at the city break-down yards, where they sold their spoils.

  Pearson asked the taxi driver to wait. Ten, perhaps fifteen minutes, should be enough to get the answers to his questions. His head started to ache and his joints throbbed. He spotted Titus and Cyrus, gathered with twenty or thirty Mboya Boys around a sooty fire of discarded car tyres. He looked more closely at the wrecked car. There was something familiar about it. Battered though it was, the outlines of a Subaru were unmistakable. He couldn’t help himself:

  “Bugger me, Ntoto, you little thief. That’s my car. Or at least it was my car, and then it disappeared two weeks after I got here.”

  Pearson tried to ignore the bizarre appearance of several of the Mboya Boys. Like Rutere, most had rouge on their cheeks, and swathes of lipstick, looted earlier in the evening; and several boys sported brassieres, or wore petticoats, trophies from the fashion shops.

  Ntoto shrugged, expressionless behind the huge dark glasses, acquired during the looting, and which perched precariously on his nose, while his lips gleamed a glossy red.

  “Yes, we stole it. But that was before we became your friends.”

  “And what happened? You were supposed to meet me at Harrods! Where the hell is my tape recorder?”

  Ntoto burrowed in the recesses of his baggy trousers, took out the cassette tape he had retrieved from the tape recorder in Furniver’s briefcase, and handed it to Pearson, who accepted it gingerly, with thumb and forefinger.

  “And the tape recorder,” he asked, holding out his hand. Ntoto seemed uncomfortable but defiant. He thought of confessing the whole story: of how he and Rutere had planned to steal it; how they hid when Pearson came to Harrods to meet them. And how he could only watch as Charity put the machine in Furniver’s briefcase . . .

  But it all seemed so complicated. And would Pearson believe him, Ntoto, an Mboya Boy who smelt like a dead dog?

  He looked coolly at Pearson, and shrugged again, with narrow expressive shoulders.

  “Rooted. It was rooted.”

  For a moment or two Pearson was baffled, taken aback by the boy’s demeanour.

  “It was stolen. We were mugged.”

  Pearson was about to remonstrate, but decided against it.

  “You can get insurance money,” said Ntoto.

  Was that an insolent note he detected? Was the little brute taking the piss? Pearson gave him a sharp glance.

  “So what happened? What the hell happened?”

  Anger gathered, like bile in his throat, as the boy shrugged again.

  This time Ntoto did not bother to say anything.

  He knew that he lied badly, and did not care about it. The other boys, sensing that something was amiss, gathered protectively around their leader.

  “What the hell,” thought Pearson, “what the hell.”

  The ache in his head had returned. The acrid-sweet smell of bhang hung in the air, mixing with the nose-tickling aroma of glue. One of the boys thrust a joint into his hand. It had already been lit, and Pearson pulled the smoke deep into his lungs.

  Another tape, one of a handful stored on the site, was put into the club’s cassette player. The boy in charge turned the volume up to its peak. As the music blared across the wasteland, with the flickering shapes and shadows from the fire rising and falling, the boys began to dance to the music of Prince Buster, the acknowledged “King of Blue Beat.”

  His heyday was over long before the boys had been born. Prince Buster had blazed his music trail in Jamaica in the 1960s. His music, predecessor to reggae, was known simply as ska, and the rhythm was infectious, persistent. The boys’ favourite track, “Enjoy Yourself”, had been recorded in 1963, but the beat was irresistible and the message seemed timeless.

  “It’s good to be wise when you’re young,

  ’Cos you can only be young but for once.

  Enjoy yourself, an’ ’ave lots of fun,

  Serve God and live my friend and it will never done.”

  Shikkah boom, shikkah boom, shikkah boom went the beat.

  Until this point, the boys were silent, seemingly engrossed in their complex, conga-like shuffle around the blazing fire. But when the chorus came, they joined in, singing as if their lives depended on it:

  “Enjoy yourself, it’s later than you think,

  Enjoy yourself, while you’re still in the pink,

  The years go by, as quickly as you wink,

  Enjoy yourself, enjoy yourself, it’s
later than you think.”

  A sweet, soaring trumpet took over, and a handclap had replaced the oompah-oompah. The shikkah boom shikkah boom of ska gave way to a touch of jazz. At the last note, the boys again fell silent, but continued to dance and stomp:

  “Get wisdom, get knowledge and understanding,

  Those three were given free by the Maker.

  Go to school, learn the rule

  Don’t be no faker,

  It’s not wise for you to be a footstool.”

  But as the final chorus got under way, they once again raised their voices, with a fervour that would have done justice to a national anthem, skinny supplicants before an altar on which their grim fate had been laid out from the moment of their birth. Glue tubes bouncing, elbows pumping and pelvises thrusting, knees raised high, bare feet stomping, they sang in enthusiastic unison:

  So enjoy yourself, it’s later than you think,

  Enjoy yourself, while you’re still in the pink,

  For years go by as quickly as you wink,

  So enjoy yourself, enjoy yourself, it’s later than you think.”

  In the far distance there was a rumble of thunder, but the rains were retreating, and so were the floods that had washed over Kuwisha. Above them, the bright-starred African sky spread like a warm, dark blanket, which let in pinpricks of light.

  Ntoto approached Pearson, and with a little bow, handed him a bottle of Tusker beer, unopened. Pearson inspected it, and handed it back to the boy, who without a word, adroitly flicked the cap off with his teeth.

  It was time for Pearson to bid farewell.

  “Well Ntoto,” he said. It didn’t seem quite right, and he started again.

  “Well Titus,” striking a more familiar note.

  “I will write to you.” Even as he said it, he knew he was not going to keep the promise, one which he had made to just about every recipient of his business cards. Ntoto looked uncomfortable, and said nothing.