People of Heaven

by Beverley Harper

  She nodded towards the house. ‘He’s a sweetie. Mum told me about his reaction. He seems fine now, talking nineteen to the dozen.’

  ‘Largely thanks to Gregor and Dominique.’

  At the mention of Sally’s daughter, Tessa’s eyes went soft. ‘I’m her godmother you know.’

  ‘Sally told me.’

  ‘I see them often. Whenever I’m in Paris.’

  She made it sound like a business trip. In a way, Michael realised, that is exactly what it was. At least the conversation was beginning to flow. ‘And Gregor?’

  She pulled a wry face. ‘Don’t see him much. He’s young. Finds my life difficult to accept I suppose . . .’ A slightly self-conscious laugh. ‘Besides, I was always such a bitch to him.’

  ‘You were always such a bitch to everyone.’

  The old Tessa would have become defensive. To his surprise, she threw back her head and laughed. ‘I know,’ she said finally. ‘Sorry for that. I didn’t like myself much back then.’

  ‘And now?’

  She leaned forward, elbows on the table, chin in hands, sparkle in her eyes. ‘Choc full of self-love, self-respect, self-worth. Get the picture?’ She was making fun of herself. ‘Seriously, though, it’s all about self.’ She leaned back. ‘The shrink said I had to think of me for a change. Hell! Wasn’t that what I’d always done?’ She laughed again in genuine amusement. ‘I always envied you, Michael. You never questioned who or what you were.’

  ‘Neither did Sally.’

  ‘I know. But I didn’t envy Sally, I hated her guts.’

  Michael grinned at Tessa’s frankness.

  ‘If I had the chance to start again, know what I’d do?’ She was still laughing. Michael had never seen her so happy. ‘I’d be the same selfish, lying, conniving, bloody little monster.’ She shrugged, spreading her hands. ‘I am what I am and I’ve learned to live with it. You might find that a bit hard to understand but it’s true.’

  Michael leaned towards his sister and took her hands in his. ‘I understand this much, sis. Your demons have gone. You’re calm, happy and, incidentally, you look lovely.’ He squeezed gently. ‘It’s a little startling to think of what you do for a living but it could be worse.’

  ‘Worse!’

  ‘Yeah!’ He grinned. ‘Give me a minute. I’ll think of something.’

  They both laughed and the last of the restraint faded away.

  ‘I saw Dyson last week. He says he’s seen you a couple of times.’

  ‘Yes. We’ve become friends.’ She hesitated, then went on in a rush. ‘I think Dyson’s feelings for me are a little more than that. He’s never said anything but . . . well, a woman can always tell.’

  Michael was surprised but it would explain Dyson’s reluctance to discuss Tessa the other night. ‘How do you feel about that?’

  She looked pensive. ‘As you know, the question of colour doesn’t bother me.’ She was struggling for the right words. ‘I like Dyson, but love? Love is too hard, too many restraints, too much commitment.’

  ‘Too much control?’ he suggested.

  She nodded. ‘That too. I’d be scared of hurting him.’

  ‘Perhaps you’re doing that already?’

  ‘I know.’ She sighed, bit her lip and looked away.

  Michael could see that her fear of commitment saddened her. He realised suddenly what a complicated person she was. No wonder she’d been so difficult all her life. ‘Sis, this life you’ve chosen for yourself, are you quite sure it’s the one you want?’

  ‘It’s the first time I’ve been happy.’

  ‘So what’s troubling you?’

  She thought about that for a long moment. ‘Last chance,’ she said finally. ‘Dyson seems like my last chance at everything that is decent, everything the rest of my family does instinctively.’

  ‘Wrong reason for getting married.’

  ‘I know. It’s just that . . . Oh, I don’t know, Michael. I don’t think I could love someone for the rest of my life but it doesn’t stop me wishing I could. It’s so very tempting to try, especially with Dyson. Sometimes I think I could . . . I do love him.’

  It came to Michael then that in her own strange way Tessa was about as honourable as a person could get. She was flawed and she knew it. She had learned to live with herself. She avoided commitment however much she might have wished for it because she knew she was incapable of sustaining a lasting relationship. Honourable was not a word he would have attributed to Tessa before now. Her eyes, held steady on his, revealed fear he would reject her and an aching need to be accepted but that didn’t stop her from being brutally honest about herself. ‘I love you, sis,’ he said suddenly.

  Unshed tears filled her eyes. ‘I love you too,’ she said huskily. She brushed at the tears. ‘I’m sorry I was such a trial.’

  ‘Trial!’ Michael smiled to take the sting out of his words. ‘You were bloody horrible.’

  Tessa jumped up suddenly, came around behind him and flung her arms around his neck. ‘I’m so pleased you came. I was dreading this meeting.’

  He patted her arm. ‘You always were a bit thick.’

  It was a strange feeling. Two adults with so many bad memories between them striving hard to achieve an easy camaraderie which, all things being equal, should have come naturally. Even though neither one of them were acting normally, the easiness was happening. That was what was so strange.

  When Michael left a few hours later with a chocolate-smeared son whom Tessa and Judith had done their best to clean up he asked, ‘When are you coming to Hertford?’

  ‘Soon,’ Tessa promised warmly. ‘And this time I mean it.’

  As the taxi drove away, Tessa stood on the pavement waving. There was only one topic the two of them had avoided. Jackson.

  Jackson Mpande was, at that precise moment, on a flight from the Zambian capital, Lusaka, bound for Nairobi in Kenya. From there he would pick up the connecting South African Airways flight to London. The white South African businessman sitting next to him wrinkled his nose in distaste at the body odour that wafted around him every time Jackson shifted position. ‘Hasn’t the bloody man heard of soap and water?’ he wondered, the smell reaffirming his belief that while you can take the kaffir out of the bush you can’t take the bush out of the kaffir.

  In fact, Jackson was as clean as a whistle and wearing brand new clothes. He did not, however, use deodorant. He found the cloying sweetness of deodorant and aftershave sickening. As far as Jackson was concerned there was nothing wrong with a man smelling like a man.

  It was almost impossible to find a comfortable position in the narrow, economy class seat. Although he was hardly a seasoned traveller, Jackson hated flying. He hated being cooped up in an aeroplane wearing constricting white man’s clothing. If he’d had his way, he would not be making this trip at all. One of the Russians, thinking he was doing Jackson a favour and intending nothing more than rewarding him for work well done in the Caprivi Strip, had made a big fuss about selecting him as a courier to carry important documents that were needed urgently in London and had, for some reason, to be personally delivered. ‘Take a couple of weeks,’ he told Jackson expansively. ‘You’ve earned it.’

  Jackson had never been to England but one of the others had told him, ‘The seasons are back-to-front and the skies, if you can see them, do not carry the stars as we know them.’ Jackson had made the same observations on his yearlong training trip in Russia and would have much rather stayed in Africa and let someone else deliver the documents. However, when the Russian masters spoke, he had long since learned that it was best to obey. And quickly. So he feigned pleasure, approaching the so-called honour with an unspoken feeling of dread.

  More and more of late Jackson had been experiencing pangs of homesickness. He longed for the lush tropical heat of Zululand, to watch an African sunrise from the mighty Indian Ocean, to smell the smoke of burning sugar cane, to walk the secret hills and valleys of the Umfolozi River. He’d give anything to go back there, t
o see his mother and father, his sister and brother. But would they welcome him? Could he ever go home?

  The Zambian bush was hot, dust laden and sparsely vegetated. Day-to-day life had become monotonously boring with too few opportunities to go into a town, get drunk or pick up a woman. Sure, there were camp followers, but who wanted to lie with some whore who had been with every other man in camp? Who wanted to get drunk with men you knew so well that each time they opened their mouths you knew exactly what would come out? Even trips into the Caprivi had lost their lustre.

  The Caprivi Strip was sandy country with stunted vegetation, malaria-carrying mosquitoes and scurrying, deadly scorpions. Jackson and his men had become so good at crossing the border undetected, laying their mines and getting back into Zambia that the danger of being caught was remote. Although satisfying to receive word of a hit, like that white woman and her child which had made world headlines, confirmed kills were few and far between. That one big success had been the highlight of more than five years with SWAPO. He would never forget the feeling of elation when the Russians showed him a South African newspaper which carried the report. The names Jennifer and Jeremy King meant nothing to Jackson, he made no connection with the King family in Zululand.

  Jackson was becoming increasingly disenchanted with SWAPO. Their raids into South West Africa had achieved so little. The South Africans were worried, that was true, but this only made Pretoria more determined than ever to maintain their occupation of the Caprivi Strip. Jackson’s youthful aim to help free the Zulu nation was nothing more than a pipedream, he could see that now. Maybe someone knew where SWAPO activities were leading, Jackson certainly didn’t.

  And now this. Constrained in a suit a little too tight for his liking, stuck for hours on aeroplanes which he hated, all so he could deliver an envelope to some address in South Kensington, wherever that was. Mission accomplished, he was then obliged to kick his heels for two weeks and supposed to be grateful. They had given him hardly any money. He couldn’t afford two weeks in London.

  There was only one positive aspect to this trip and even that wasn’t a foregone conclusion. Dyson lived in London. Jackson had both his work and private addresses. He was ambivalent about the possibility of seeing his brother again but at least there was one person in London he knew. He wondered if Dyson would be happy to see him. There had been no contact between them since that evening, so very long ago, when his brother had been arrested by the South African police.

  Much as the ANC kept a watch on SWAPO, so too did SWAPO know most things about ANC activities. It had been easy enough for Jackson, once he knew he had to make this trip, to find out where Dyson lived and worked. He had been aware for some years that his older brother had escaped and fled to the United Kingdom. But he also realised that Dyson would be in touch with their parents, which meant he must know about Tessa. Would he be welcome? There was only one way to find out.

  The aeroplane was starting its descent into Nairobi. Jackson did up his seat belt. The white man next to him, who had studiously ignored Jackson throughout the flight, spoke to him suddenly. ‘Thank God that’s nearly over. I hate these mickey mouse airlines.’ He stretched and, as he had done earlier over Jackson’s body odour, Jackson wrinkled his nose as he caught the sickly, sweet whiff of deodorant mixed with perspiration coming from his body. ‘Are you getting off in Nairobi?’

  ‘No. I’m going on to London.’

  The white man raised his eyebrows. ‘You live in Lusaka?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Forgive me for saying so but I’m from Durban. You look Zulu to me.’

  Jackson shrugged. ‘Sorry to disappoint you.’

  ‘Oh well,’ the man smiled vaguely then shut his eyes tightly as the aeroplane landed. On the ground, and barely waiting for the aircraft to slow down, he rose and rummaged in the overhead locker for his hand luggage. ‘This yours?’ He handed Jackson his shoulder bag, a free gift from the Lusaka office of Zambia Airways and emblazoned as such on both sides.

  Jackson took the bag, saying nothing.

  The man grunted as he sat down again. He eyed the colourful green and orange bag but made no comment. Jackson wondered what was going through his head. A Zulu-looking man from Zambia, flying to London via Nairobi had to raise suspicions given the paranoia of today’s white South Africans.

  His thoughts drifted back to Zululand. The home he loved with every fibre of his body. The brilliant green of sugar cane. The rich mahogany of cattle. The full-blown voluptuousness of a butter-yellow moon as it rises from the sea, so huge, so unashamedly piss-elegant that your heart creeps into your mouth in wonder. The blood-red sunsets diffused by drifting dust, the sun’s ghostly outline filling the western horizon. The warm, rolling, restless Indian Ocean caressing countless beaches, marked perhaps by the footsteps of a single traveller. The chocolate brown of waters in full flood, roaring rivers rushing headlong to the ocean, staining the brilliant blue with rich soil for kilometres out to sea. The soft sea breezes that carry with them a hint of seaweed and the promise of relief from the day’s humid heat.

  Jackson sighed. He could never go back.

  Passengers were moving slowly forward. The white man next to him rose stiffly. ‘Enjoy your trip,’ he said politely, squeezing himself into the line of passengers, his hand luggage gripped tightly in the crook of his arm as though it might develop legs and run away.

  Jackson joined the queue without enthusiasm. He had hours to wait in the transit lounge and then a ten-hour flight to London. For some reason, although Kenya had added its voice to those African countries that had severed diplomatic and economic connections with South Africa, their stand did not seem to include its airline, although the Boeing 707’s take-off time from Nairobi was midnight, thereby ensuring that as few observers as possible would witness the offensive flying springbok on its tail.

  SEVENTEEN

  Jackson breathed a sigh of relief when the aeroplane touched down into the dull grey wetness of London. ‘No wonder the white man wants my land,’ he thought. London was worse than Russia. At least in Moscow the buildings were interesting and, although it rained often, Jackson remembered days when weak sunshine twinkled with colour on crisp white snow under a canopy of the palest blue sky he had ever seen. First impressions being what they are, grey would remain Jackson’s mental image of London for as long as he lived.

  He emerged into the milling throng of people waiting to greet arriving passengers and was faced with a bewildering number of choices. Shuttle buses, courtesy buses, express buses to connect with the Underground at a place called Hounslow, ordinary buses, tour coaches, London taxis. If he knew where South Kensington was he might be able to work out how to get there. A taxi would be easiest but he couldn’t afford one. Finally he stopped two airport policemen and asked.

  ‘And where would you be from?’

  ‘Zambia.’

  ‘Long way from home.’

  ‘Too far,’ Jackson said with feeling.

  The policemen, part of an extra presence on duty at Heathrow to discourage a recent increase in baggage theft but whose brief also included assisting visitors, took pity on this obviously bemused tourist. They went with him to cash some traveller’s cheques, then on to a newsagency where he purchased a pocket-size A to Z of London. They even showed him how to read the symbols and work out a route.

  Slightly more enlightened, Jackson first found himself on a bus headed for Hounslow and something called the Piccadilly line, and then on an underground train to South Kensington with the words, ‘Piccadilly mate, don’t even have to change tubes,’ ringing in his ears. Jackson assumed the policeman had been speaking English but managed to understand that all he had to do was watch the route map in the carriage, keep an eye on the stations they passed and get off at South Kensington.

  It was easier than he expected.

  Tessa, who was on a train coming from the other direction, heading for an appointment, also alighted at South Kensington. She and Jackson missed each oth
er by two minutes. By the time Tessa emerged from the tube station, Jackson was walking down the Old Brompton Road looking for Cranley Place.

  Tessa drew admiring looks as she strode along South Kensington’s Thurloe Square. Dressed in slacks the colour of cream with knee-length suede boots and a caramel silk blouse, she was the picture of elegance. Cascading from beneath a black beret, dark curly hair bounced off her shoulders as she walked and a black scarf, worn loose and trailing behind, added a further touch of chic. She was making her way from the South Kensington tube station to the Rembrandt Hotel where she had arranged to have lunch with a regular client. From there, they would go on to a flat he kept for his use whenever he was in London.

  Kerry Glasshouse was typical of the kind of client favoured by Judith Murray-Brown. Well-spoken, discreet and considerate, he treated her girls with utmost respect. That he was rich, in his thirties, rather handsome and in good physical condition might have helped too. Tessa liked him. They had fun just being together, often no more than seeing a show and going on to dinner. He’d been a regular client of Judith’s for nearly four years. At first he’d been happy to take out any of the girls, but over the past couple of years he specifically requested Tessa. She saw him about once a month. If she were unavailable, he would thank Judith politely and, just as politely, refuse her offer of another girl. Tessa was often teased about him.

  ‘He’ll ask you to marry him one day, wait and see.’

  ‘You’ve bewitched him.’

  ‘He’s in love with you, he must be.’

  To all of this, Tessa would smile and shake her head. She didn’t want anybody to be in love with her or to ask her to marry him. It was like she’d told Michael. If there was one thing she’d learned about herself it was that any attempt to slot herself into what was generally regarded as a normal lifestyle would possibly lead to unhappiness. And she knew well enough that an unhappy Tessa was a bitch for all concerned. Or was it? Lately, and with increasing urgency, she had been considering leaving Judith and trying to make a life of her own with a regular job. If necessary, she was prepared to enrol in a college to learn typing and shorthand.