by Gee, Maggie
I am happy for her, since yesterday. For God has smiled on his servant, Mary. I have been blessed, I am full to the brim.
My happiness makes me want to sing, although I know I have a squawking voice, worse than mouse-birds squabbling in the mango tree. And it makes me want to shout, and then I shush myself.
I am so lucky I am almost afraid. The last shall be first, the least have most. I thought my fruit had returned to dust. Now I have been blessed, I have been renewed. Katonda anjagalanyo. Praise God!
Something I am holding safe under my rib-cage. Something that makes me hug myself, hard, and yet I must be gentle with myself.
It is almost too precious to share with anyone, although Charles knows, and his eyes became moist, something I had never seen before. He brushed the wet away, and said it was a fly. But he could not speak, and he kissed my belly.
And now I must get up, and walk around the house, this big strange house I have been living in, with its books, and its pictures, and its piles of paper, its dust, and its shadows, and its photographs, its heavy old radiators making the air warm, because the sun does not shine on England. I walk around, and I think about it all. I walk upstairs, slowly, and down again. I walk into Vanessa’s sitting room. There are so many Christmas cards, maybe a hundred, although Vanessa does not have many friends, but these people are so rich that to send a card is nothing, and perhaps these people do not really like her.
Today I like her. Today I nearly love her, although it might be different if she were here. But if she were here, I would have to tell her, and I am almost sure that Vanessa would kiss me, as she did at the airport, when I did not expect it, and I know I hugged her, as the planes flew over. When we do not think, we like each other. And maybe thinking does not always matter.
I have discovered why I felt sick before. When I came to England, I was already pregnant.
I was not being poisoned by the air of London.
I was not being poisoned by Vanessa.
I, Mary Tendo, am pregnant again.
My friend the accountant is kind and clever, though he is no good at family planning (but he just smiles and says the condom was faulty, and it is true that many condoms are faulty in Kampala). It was he who noticed that my body was different, that my nipples were larger, that I had a new belly. And then we found a chemist, the only chemist still open in this part of London, and bought the test, which was very expensive, but worth each penny, since it told us good news.
My friend the accountant is completely happy. ‘How many shall we have? Three, four?’
He doesn’t understand that one is a miracle. It is a world of change: from nothing to something. It is the future, leading us out of the past.
And there is something else that he does not understand. ‘Now you will no longer think about Jamie.’ Of course, he says this because he loves me. He wants me to think about him and the baby.
I do think about them, and my heart swells with joy, but still, every day, I think about Jamie. I shall think about Jamie every day of my life. Till I know where he is, I shall carry him with me.
I have sent Charles to the kitchen to check on the chicken. He is very pleased that I’m cooking a chicken. Perhaps he thinks I have killed it for him. But in fact I took it from Vanessa’s freezer.
We are watching the television together. Soon we are going to see the Queen. It is a long time since I have seen her. Perhaps she will be thin and small, like Vanessa.
It is Christmas Day. It is the best day. It is the first of many great days. I took my friend the accountant to church, and we sat together, and looked at the stable, and he was happy because of the baby. ‘Mary, we will call him our English baby.’
I’m not sure that the English will call him that. In any case, he was conceived in Kampala. I am happy to be having a Ugandan baby.
I always wanted a brother for Jamie, but it is too late for them to play together. I do not say this to my kabito. I shall not shed a tear on Christmas Day. I think he will know his brother in heaven. Perhaps I will see them run to each other. And all the trees will be in flower.
But now Charles is coming through from the kitchen. He is bringing the chicken, steaming hot. It smells of baked salt and lemons and spices. I learned this recipe from Zakira. After lunch we are going to see Abdul Trevor.
I am very hungry. The food is delicious. Charles opens a bottle of champagne. When I told him to take the wine from the fridge, he said ‘We shall buy our own wine, Mary, I have changed enough money, I am not a pauper,’ and I agreed, we are not paupers, we have enough money, and so forth, et cetera. But still, Vanessa would want us to have it. On the phone, she told me to ‘help myself’. I raise my glass to her: ‘Cheers, Vanessa.’ (I hope Dom Perignon is a good make. I think she would not mind – it is old, it is ‘Vintage’, indeed the date on the bottle is 1990, so she will be glad that we have drunk it.)
And now the TV plays the national anthem. Charles starts to get up; he is fond of the Queen: but the plate on his lap spills a little gravy, and so he smiles and sits down again. They do not play all of it, just a little. Our minds turn towards the Ugandan national anthem. In our country, we play the whole anthem. ‘We are walking together down the road of education, marching towards a better Uganda ... ’
And now the Queen is talking and smiling. She has not got tiny and old, like Vanessa. She has tidy hair and a skirt and jumper.
‘I like the cut of her jib,’ I tell Charles. When he looks puzzled, I laugh, and he laughs, politely. ‘Ha, ha. English English is amusing,’ he says. But Charles likes the look of the Queen, as well, though he slightly prefers our own Nnaabagareka Sylvia Luswata, the young, pretty bride of our King Ronald.
We watch Queen Elizabeth meeting people. ‘There are a lot of African faces,’ says my friend the accountant. He drinks more champagne. ‘The Queen has a lot of African friends.’ He is pleased with this. He burps and chuckles.
‘They show more Africans at Christmas,’ I say, because I have drunk less than Charles. I think of the Ugandans in Forest Gate. They don’t spend their days at Buckingham Palace.
Then I think about the Bible teachings on slander. Christmas Day is a time to be happy. So I try again, with a mouthful of chicken, which is plump and delicious: soon I’ll suck the bone. ‘Maybe the Queen has grown tired of the English. I myself have had enough of them, for now. Soon we will go home again.’
‘Perhaps the Queen will come and see us in Uganda.’
And I think about Vanessa, who said on the phone, ‘I should like to come and see you in Uganda.’ And I smile, and say to Charles, ‘Perhaps she will.’
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I am grateful to Sarah Smyth, Adam Pushkin and Cheltenham Literary Festival, whose ‘Across Continents’ commission sent me to Uganda in 2003, and to the Society of Authors for an Authors’ Foundation grant which allowed further travel to Africa.
To read vivid contemporary Ugandan writing, contact Femrite publications ([email protected]) or their distributor, African Books Collective in Oxford (01865-726686).
Thanks are due to many people who helped me in Uganda. To brave Margaret Achan Loum, Nakalanda Sanyu Francese, Beatrice Kabasambu Manyinde and Sarah Young. To all the ‘Femrite’ writers in Kampala who made me welcome, particularly Jackee Batanda, Winnie Rukidi, Lillian Tindyebwa, Hilda Twongyeirwe and Ayeta Anne Wangusa. The critical intelligence of Jackee Batanda and Hilda Twongyeirwe saved me from making many more errors. Thanks to my friend Charles Sempiira; to Pamela Acaye; to Syed Jafar Ali; to everyone at Blue Mango, particularly Annette Kibuuka; to Sandra Hook at the British Council, Kampala; to Nick Minogue, Kirsty Hutchinson and Becky Walker; and to Carol Lindsay Smith ([email protected]) who helps Ugandan NACWOLA to distribute ‘Memory Books’ for families affected by AIDS.
Thanks always to Christine Casley. To Sue Jay, Graham Mort, Jacqueline Nkusi, Nick Rankin, John Ryle, Hanna Sakyi and Dan Shepherd for information and encouragement, to Hannah Henderson at the British Council, London, for se
nding me to Libya, and above all to Anna Wilson, Rebecca O’Connor and everyone at Saqi Books.
MAGGIE GEE has published many novels to great acclaim, including The White Family, shortlisted for the Orange and IMPAC prizes, My Driver and The Flood, longlisted for the Orange Prize, and a memoir, My Animal Life. She was the first female Chair of the Royal Society of Literature and is now one of its Vice-Presidents. Maggie was awarded an OBE for Services to Literature in 2012. Her work has been translated into fourteen languages.
‘An intelligent and satisfying read.’ Sunday Times
‘Much of the joy of reading Maggie Gee derives from her ability to take control of a complex and multilayered narrative and render it as accessible and satisfying as a television soap. Her prose is rich and gossipy; it mixes the highbrow with the vernacular, and is, at times, shockingly cynical.’ Observer
‘Must Read: we get the trademark Gee humour and also a thoughtful, moving read.’ New Nation
‘A smart satire on a subject central to most women’s lives ... we either keep our houses clean, or pay someone else to do it. It’s a queasy thought ... and [one] you will never brush casually aside again after reading My Cleaner.’ Daily Telegraph
‘A masterful study in Africa/UK relations.’ Big Issue
‘Gee satirises the liberal conscience of the chattering classes with uncomfortable perception in this hugely enjoyable novel ... her portrayal of Britain’s new underclass of immigrant workers is presented with her trademark stinging clarity.’ Metro
‘My Cleaner is another successful attempt on Gee’s part to inhabit the mind of someone who is quite unlike her: in this case, a black Ugandan ... Gee gives all her characters, white and black, male and female, the dignity of knowing that they live according to the choices they have made.’ New Statesman
‘It’s amazing how many details, characters, stories within stories, Maggie Gee’s unquenchable exuberance crams into this comparatively short book.’ The Spectator
First published in hardback by Saqi Books in 2005
Paperback edition published by Telegram in 2012
This ebook edition published in 2012
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ISBN: 978-1-84659-078-8
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Copyright © Maggie Gee 2005 and 2012
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