Roses Under the Miombo Trees

by Amanda Parkyn

  The smallest competitor in the longest drive competition

  As the January rains continued, a new houseboy, Bourdillon, started; I was initially ‘not optimistic’, but later reported that he was ‘quite good’. Will returned to England and his Foreign Office exams, and I began to hope that this time the baby wouldn’t be late – well, later than the date I had been given. Blood tests being clear of antibodies, I could plan for an Abercorn delivery. Dear Dr. Trant had pronounced herself an authority on determining the sex of the unborn infant – by its heart beat – and after earnestly listening to my tum, had confidently pronounced it another boy. Of course we tried not to mind, but I wrote home ‘oh dear, goodbye Caroline then, I must hope I can avoid it being dull ‘John’…’ Mark, in a Christmas thank you letter, tried valiantly to be even-handed: I am sure you would like a grand-daughter, but most of the money seems to be on its being a boy, but I hope the punters are dumbfounded. Still we shall be pleased with whatever we get.

  My letters, so preoccupied with my late pregnancy, make no mention of the January elections that would lead to self-government later in the year. Kenneth Kaunda’s United National Independence Party (UNIP) won 55 of the 65 seats, and he was sworn in as prime minister with an entirely African cabinet. Northern Rhodesia was on the last leg of its journey to independence.

  Calling Barbara Yates

  Now and then I have another look

  for my old address book, try to visualise

  your entry – though I know it wouldn’t do,

  even the country’s changed its name

  and you and I moved on. So I am left

  with your crazy laugh over yet more beer,

  that night spent on your knobbly couch, and how

  you got me, hangover and all, to the old airport

  just in time for check-in. Sometimes I wonder

  if your name’s out there in cyberspace

  waiting for me to find you.

  CHAPTER 10

  Nuns’ head-dresses ‘fluttering like great white

  birds’

  The government Land Rover lurched and bumped its way down the road to Mpulungu. ‘Faster!’ I urged, hanging on for dear life. Alan had offered to take me on a birth-inducing trip down to the fisheries on the lake, for this baby too was late, Mark was needed at the Abercorn depot and I, large and hot, was fed up.

  The rough drive was to no avail. However, this time my doctor was my ally, for Dr Trant’s locum stint was coming to an end, and, anxious not to miss this baby, she insisted I was ready for an induction. I happily agreed, Paul went to stay with the McLoughlins and his friend Pip, and I checked into the little bungalow hospital under the care of Sister Amabilis. From there, on 6 February 1964, Mark wrote one of his rare letters, to be taken by a colleague leaving next day and posted on the Copper Belt: it is headed ‘The Labour Ward’: … she is now in full labour and we hope that in a few hours we shall have a bonny baby with us. Amanda is fine and appears to be enjoying herself really. She is looking very pretty and I am sure that everything will be alright …the Bowmakers have visited several times and Pix McLoughlin (looking after Paul)… we thought you would love to have the latest up to date news from your man on the spot.

  I am astonished to read that I was looking very pretty, and enjoying myself. But yes, how much easier it was second time around! By sundowner time Mark had been despatched to wait elsewhere, as husbands were in those days, and drank gin with the Bowmakers next door. I remember the nuns’ headdresses fluttering around me like great white birds, their encouraging Irish voices, Dr Trant’s warm tones, and the sudden realisation in the midst of my hard work that my baby had indeed arrived. Then came Dr Trant’s surprised ‘Oh! It’s a wee girlie!’. Our daughter Caroline had slipped easily into the world, and Mark and I had our longed for ‘pigeon pair’.

  Mark came in and saw her half an hour later, then was off to celebrate with company colleagues up on a visit. Next morning at the depot his clerk greeted the news with a wide smile and ‘Ah – another little Zambian has arrived!’. Mark despatched telegrams, but it was another five days before I could catch the mail plane with an account of the whole thing to her grandparents. How different the regime from stern old Birchenough House in Gwelo! The baby was in a cot by my bed during the day, though removed at night so that I could sleep, and: ‘This is the hospital to be in – no visiting hours, coffee provided for visitors, and Mark drops in at all hours. People here are so kind – I had masses of flowers, and presents. There are two sisters on duty, one day and one night, very Irish and amusing – they are blood sisters. They all adore babies and nothing is too much trouble for Caroline, nor for dear old Dr Trant, who leaves on Thursday, when Chris is due back. However I am going home tomorrow, I wouldn’t go so early but Mark is taking a few days leave from today to the w/e, so he can help out while I get a bit organised. I am apprehensive at having to manage a baby and Paul. Paul all this time has been with the McLoughlin’s and his girlfriend Pip. It is reported they are getting on alright, but I’ve only seen him twice, over the w/e with Mark, as it seemed to upset him afterwards. He was most intrigued to hear cries coming from a cot, and had to have a good look, but lost interest after a while as she wasn’ t much value for playing with!

  There were three sisters: Amabilis and Romana who were blood sisters, and a novice Sister Lazalet. They were great fun and I remember their pride at the recent promotion of a cousin to Cardinal. Hospital was a happy time for me, although I feel sad now, realising how little access Paul had to his mum; that is another thing that would not happen today. Caroline’s first days were well recorded on camera (in contrast to Paul’s, our earliest of him being at several weeks old), for Pix McLoughlin was a keen photographer who also did her own developing and printing. Paul, snapped sitting on my bed with the baby, looks by turns happy and slightly bewildered, as indeed he must have been. I was anxious about going home to cope with two small children, especially as our servant at that time, Bourdillon, did no cooking – ‘tins will no doubt come in’ – and worried – ‘ I do hope Paul’s not going to be jealous of the attention he’ll inevitably lose, and we shall have to try to spend plenty of time on him to start with. He’s sure to want to wheel the pram all day!

  In hospital: Caroline at 3 days old

  The first weeks at home were not easy: poor Paul was miserable and whiney, we assumed as a reaction to his stay away, but he turned out to be cutting all four back teeth at once, the effects enhanced by a nasty cold. He mizzled all day and woke at night, whilst I had ‘post partum neuralgia’ up my neck and into my head, and of all things, a boil on my bottom. Thank heavens Mark was on what we now call paternity leave. In the midst of this, baby Caroline settled in quite happily: Your granddaughter is fine and really no trouble at all. One does enjoy a second baby so much more that the first. I don’t worry about crying etc. and find everything easier this time. The feeding continues well and I consume vast quantities of beer and food, and try to rest, as I am determined not to fail now. Paul soon learned to pat ‘baba’ on the back for winding, carrying nappies to the soak bucket and dashing at the pram with a dummy at the first cry, (this last much to my mother’s dismay, for to her dummies were ‘common’ and to be avoided at all costs). By the time Mark went back to work, Paul was a real daddy’s boy, with a sad ‘Dad’s away’ during his many business trips.

  I was determined to keep on with breastfeeding. I can remember Jiff and I bending over the pram in the garden, her finger stroking the baby’s cheek: Look how well she is on it! she exclaimed. And she was. But other elements of life militated against my avowed regime of a quiet life with plenty of rest, of spending time not only with my baby, but with my little boy, who was having to adjust to not being the only child in the family.

  For a start there was my now much loved gardening. It was so easy to achieve the rapid results I craved, so satisfying, so hard to put off! With impeccable timing, the dozen rose bushes I had ordered from Ndola had arrived, bare rooted, a
s I came out of hospital. In they must go straight away, into the new island beds around the freshly planted kikuyu grass lawn, lightly shaded by a couple of miombo trees: white Iceberg (still a favourite everywhere), deep red fragrant Papa Meilland, vivid flaming Super Star, Eclipse, Brazil, Largo … no colour coordination, just lots of colour. Practical Jiff was asking, Why all these flowers? What you need is a bigger veg patch! She was right of course, and in that climate, with the help of plenty of fertiliser, you could grow pretty much anything, and quickly too. Later we raised everything from spinach to aubergines, but for now, determined to have my English garden, it was flowers I craved; my carnations raised from seed were blooming, and trays of delicate annuals like linaria and mignonette were coming on, to go at the feet of the roses. Soon I was into ‘a spate of winter planting, sweet peas, dahlias, a huge bed of arum lilies etc. – then to start the new veg. garden. We shared a truckload of manure with the Bowmakers. She has smocked a beautiful little dress for Caroline’. By mid-year I was able to write: ‘ In a vase today I have lupins, sweet peas, carnations, chrysanths, petunias and a large rose, all grown by me. Super broad beans and broccoli too.’

  But the principal reason I could not sit at home, leading a quiet, baby-focussed life was the lure of Abercorn’s club and lively social activities. It tapped into that old, deep need to be at the centre of things, to be popular, above all never to be left out. Hating the thought of things taking place without me, I was always a ready volunteer, certain that I could combine all this busy-ness with being a good wife and mother, giving my children all the attention they needed. I feel sad about that now, even as I remember what tremendous fun we had too. By mid- March I was writing to my parents: A v. good day’s sailing on Sunday, all day, and I have begun taking the tiller again. I can feed Caroline in the ladies’ loo. It’s 40 for lunch every week now, and I shall have to do it again soon. I am Yacht Club gardener and must go and do some this p.m. Now Pix wants me to take over as Main Club Secretary, I’m not sure if I have time. Committee meetings, once a month, are 5.30 pm, which is hopeless, but they might change the time. However, in the same letter I had already reported: Caroline is fine, but a slow gainer compared to Paul, only 3 oz this week, now 7lb 9 oz. I hope she’s getting enough! There was a sad inevitability in my writing in early April that she was now bottle fed – ‘having so much to do didn’t help’.

  Social life in Abercorn had a momentum of its own, and with Easter’s approach I reported that regardless of Holy Week, life was ‘quite frantic. Last Sat. the doctor gave an absolute bunfight sundowner and we gave the Bowmakers fish and chips at 10.30 pm. Sailing all Sunday. Out to dinner last night, again tonight, then a frantic Easter w/e. A friend of Mark’s from Kasama plus fiancée are staying Sat. night. All Sat. and Mon. are our big Regatta, with lunch and an evening braaivleis there on Sat. and lunch again on Monday, which I am doing with the vet’s wife and we are catering for 60. A fish thing in big baking trays and salad. On top of that we’ve decided to give a fondue party on Sun. night, which has swelled to 11. It’s meat fondue, you dip pieces of fillet steak in deep hot oil and then into a dish of various sauces. Mark got hold of a Bunsen burner as oil heater, and we flew the steak up from Ndola. Road transport has been so bad, with terrible rains recently, that even the refrigerated truck arrives with the meat rotten. I’ve also had to do ghastly things like washing loose covers and making a Christening cake, wh. I hope someone else will ice!

  All this plus 2 kids is a bit much, but fortunately isn’t for long! Caroline seems to need feeding 3-hourly during the day, as she can’t hold a lot at one sitting, but is doing well, 7lbs 15 oz today, and laps up cereal at 6 pm. She smiles a lot and looks older and more human. Paul is fine though seems poor thing to have a genius for doing things he oughtn’t.

  With the wisdom of hindsight I now realise that, probably like most babies at that time, Caroline was started on solid foods far too early, when what her immature digestion needed was six months of plenty of milk. Perhaps as a result, she went through several months of gastric upsets, on one occasion spending two nights in hospital with severe diarrhoea, and I continued for some months to report that, despite being a very active and happy baby, she ate ‘like a little bird’.

  I remember the fun of that first meat fondue vividly: the recipe came from, of all sources, Playboy magazine (of which more later). You provided at least three dipping sauces, including my first shot at hollandaise and it was a huge success. I loved cooking – still do – and that letter also reminds me of something else that kept many of us busy – the amount of cooking we did; large-scale catering for the club and frequent entertaining were something we all learned as we went along. Nothing fancy, mostly: for the sailing club the ‘fish thing’ I had mentioned was portions of Lake Tanganyika nile perch tray-baked in a tomato sauce; other times, huge ‘pizza pies’ or pasta dishes, so unauthentic that Giuseppe, Abercorn’s unofficial barber, whose day job was managing the local flour mill, refused to come for lunch on our ‘Italian’ days. Entertaining at home ranged from stretching whatever we were having with pasta or local rice (grown down at Mpulungu), through to carefully planned meals with meat – there was always meat (pre-ordered) and vegetables from the garden. Braaivleis were usually big affairs at the club, rather than at home, like the whole buck roasted for a club ‘do’ to say farewell to a number of departing couples. And who could forget Mrs. Campbell-Gray’s Sunday curry lunches? Redolent of the days of the Raj (for she had lived in India), they were surrounded by a huge array of side dishes from toasted coconut to fried onion slices to chopped peppers. I still have her recipe for chicken curry, which includes tomatoes, a can of evaporated milk and curry powder, which you add to the hot oil ‘judging the amount by eye’ as she mysteriously advises.

  And where were all our children during this constant whirl of social activity, you might well ask? The quick answer is that they were almost always wherever we mums were: playing in the garden mostly, kept an eye on by a garden boy, as we cooked; in little playgroups in our houses when we met to plan a club event or sew; around us in larger groups at the club house or, better still from their point of view, on the shores of Lake Chila at the Yacht Club. They all knew each other well, shared their toys and generally had a happy, largely outdoor life. In the evenings we either took them with us, asleep in the car, popping out regularly to see them, or babysat for each other. Almost all domestic servants were men and it was not deemed advisable to leave children at home with them. Our little Mini estate made a good-sized dormitory for Paul in a sleeping bag and Caroline in her carry cot, although later, when she took to clambering out, we relied more on baby sitters and did resort occasionally to leaving them with the trusted Uelo.

  Into this whirl of activity came Mark’s parents for a fortnight’s visit, their chance to meet their grand-daughter and for ‘Boompapa’ to see Paul for the first time since he was tiny. The timing also meant they could be there for Caroline’s Christening. They arrived bearing toys, baby dresses and even clothes for me. Despite being the opposite of me in build, Mother was brilliant at choosing things that suited me – a welcome talent for a daughter-in-law so far from any clothes shops. Invitations to drinks and dinners came thick and fast; we took them on our only tourist trails – Mpulungu and the Liemba, and the Kalambo Falls – played bridge, and prepared for the Christening party. By dint of much pestering we had persuaded the Archdeacon to visit Abercorn, and on Sunday 12 April, after the 4 p.m. service in the little church decorated with Mother’s flower arrangements, about 35 guests and their children came home for tea, cake and champagne cocktails. Standing on our front terrace – the rains having now finished – I felt proud of our new garden with its green lawn and the rose bushes already starting to bloom. Photos show our smart guests glass in hand, all the men in suits, the women in frocks and hats and Jiff, Caroline’s godmother, elegant in pale, elbow-length gloves. Someone had indeed iced the cake, for a close-up photo by Pix in Caroline’s baby book shows an elaborate riot
of roses and trellis patterns in white icing, topped by the stork from Paul’s Christening cake. Perhaps it was done by Mrs. Smit, a show prize-winner, whose cake for the 10th anniversary celebrations of All Saints’ Church had been ‘a masterpiece of confectionery bearing on its iced surface a sugar model of the church building, perfectly executed and much admired by everyone’, as Abercornucopia had reported.

  With the Cape Town grandparents at Caroline’s Christening

  Caroline with her Dad at one month

  The grandparents’ departure left that sad quiet gap that follows any successful visit: Paul missed all the attention, I Mother’s practical help and even Boy had got used to regular grooming and walkies. Mark though had to catch up with work after his holiday, and his spirits were low. The relentless pressure of covering a very large sales area, of having to look after numerous visitors (the depot on Lake Tanganyika a constant source of interest), and of feeling he was not being kept up-to-date with company matters were getting him down. And holiday or no, the S.S. Liemba must be met, every other Sunday.

  Paul baby-minding

  It was at about this time that the Liemba brought another mini-drama to Abercorn: a young girl travelling down from Kigoma turned out to have smallpox. There was an instant alert and Caroline for one had to have her inoculation far earlier than had been planned. I remember Chris Roberts showing us a photo of the child, her impassive face and skinny body a mass of raised pustules. I must have realised how much it would have worried my parents, for – atypically – I discreetly left this news item out of my letters home.