Furniver, however, had taken a different view.
“Smart little buggers,” he said. “The next thing we’ll hear is that Mlambo has been signed up by Arsenal.”
Charity said nothing.
“We have got to be realistic, my dear. And you have to save your anger for the big issues – such as the Kireba housing scheme. Get Ntoto on your side on that one, and there is a chance of stopping it.”
Her hopes that Ntoto and Rutere would go to school were a pipe dream. “A waste of hot air,” as Mildred had said. Charity reluctantly agreed.
On the far side of the slum, well beyond Ogata’s funeral parlour, a boy emerged. Even at a distance, Charity identified him.
She watched as Ntoto made his way to Harrods, across the sludge, hands in his pockets, glue apparatus dangling from his neck. She knew he would now be courted by politicians, for it was within an area boy’s power to deliver the Kireba vote.
He looked up, spotted her, and for a split second his face was creased with a smile, a beam that warmed her heart.
Once he reached the bar, however, he became taciturn. Ntoto disappeared behind the counter, and crawled into the space that he and Rutere had created for themselves.
Charity had made a point of treating it as their private den, and had never looked inside; and when Mildred had tried to do so, she had been defeated by the ripe, rich odour of street boy.
Mildred had banged her head on the bar counter when she recoiled in disgust, and had been quite cross when Charity said it was her own fault for parking her nose where it was not wanted.
Ntoto was there longer than Charity had expected, and she was reluctant to intrude. But she assumed he had gone to the suitcase she had given him and Rutere.
The rustle of paper suggested that he was sorting through his possessions.
She knew, because he had once shown them to her, that they included birthday cards sent to him by Charity and Furniver, pictures of Nelson Mandela, Desmond Tutu, Tom Mboya, the Kenyan trade unionist who was assassinated, and a photo of Robert Mugabe, all cut out from local papers.
She left him to it, and busied herself in the kitchen.
Then he called out.
It was time to talk.
“Thank you to Furniver.”
“I will say you thanked him,” she said. Furniver had offered to pay the school fees of Ntoto and Rutere, but the offer was turned down. No jobs, said Ntoto, and who could deny it?
“Furniver will be here soon,” Charity added.
Ntoto looked down at his bare feet.
He muttered something, and Charity moved closer, and asked him to repeat it.
“Beg pardon,” she said.
His face seemed more mature, gave less away, and Charity realised it was becoming a hard face.
Ntoto looked at his feet.
“I have decided,” he said. “I am to be the area boy,” a mix of defiance, pride and resignation in his voice.
She winced.
“I know. The truth is, Ntoto . . .” Charity began, and then abruptly stopped. Who could say what was the truth of this matter?
Stick to the facts. She could hear her late husband, as clearly as if he were by her side. Bishop David Mupanga had always distinguished between the two, between facts and truth. Facts were essential to truth, but truth? Often truth could be more than the sum of the facts.
She would stick to the facts. So she stood silent, saying nothing. Once again she felt she was living in a dream, a dream without noise. So many of the people around her in Kireba seemed always to be sleeping, or dozing; and moved with agonising slowness. At first she thought it was bilharzia, or malaria. Then she had realised it was worse. It was Aids, and it was sapping the vitality of Africa, draining the life from a continent that already was getting poorer while the rest of the world was getting richer.
Charity delved under the counter, and produced a cardboard box.
She handed it to Ntoto.
“Dough balls?”
She was about to respond, indignantly, when she realised he was joking.
He unwrapped the package, and took out the contents.
“Phauw!”
A pair of shoes. New! Well, as good as new, anyway. The cobbler had guaranteed that the replaced soles would outlast the rest of the shoe leather, and Didymus Kigali himself had spent the best part of half an hour, polishing, shining and buffing until they gleamed like the feathers of a crow that had just preened itself.
Ntoto looked at his feet.
“I am now a proper area boy.”
He did not smile.
Charity wanted to weep. Her vision blurred. She intended to pat the boy on the head, and found herself patting his shoulder. He had grown . . .
They formally shook hands. If there had been a demonstrative gesture of affection, Charity knew she would have cried.
“Good luck, Ntoto.”
Ntoto tried the shoes on, nodded, and took them off.
He tied the laces together, and slung them around his neck.
Just then a breathless Furniver turned up, and handed over a manila envelope. Not only was a membership card for the Kireba People’s Co-operative Bank enclosed (“Refundable deposit 500 ngwee”), complete with a photo of Ntoto, but the card registered a credit of 5,000 ngwee.
Furniver launched into an explanation of short- and long-term interest rates, which Charity felt obliged to interrupt.
Ntoto turned away abruptly, and set off down the track that led to the railway line.
Charity called after him:
“Bye-bye, Ntoto . . .”
No response.
Again: “Bye-bye . . .”
Still no response.
Suddenly, spontaneously, she called out: “Ack-ack!”
Still he kept walking.
She called out again, for the last time. He would soon be out of earshot: “Ack-ack!”
“Good luck, Ntoto!” cried Furniver.
They watched, as Ntoto, a teenager who had never known youth, set off on his way to the matatu stop, about a hundred yards distant.
Suddenly the boy stopped, and bent down.
She saw that he was putting on the shoes.
At first she thought he was dancing, doing the toyi-toyi. It was Furniver who was the first to realise just what Ntoto was doing.
“An aeroplane . . . the boy is an aeroplane.”
Then Ntoto extended his arms, one hand closed into a fist. No, no, he was wrong. It was not a fist, but a microphone. Captain Ntoto was reporting to base, awaiting clearance from traffic control.
“Of course! He’s a pilot! The boy wants to be a pilot. And here I am, thinking that he wanted to be a pirate . . .”
Charity took his hand.
Ntoto pranced like a young gazelle, along the muddy track that was parallel to the railway line that formed the western border of Kireba.
Then he stopped.
For half a minute, his knees rising, higher and higher, he built up power, containing the thrust of the Rolls-Royce engines that would propel him through the sky. The noise reached a crescendo, and with the perfect timing born of years of training, he gave the plane its head. His words carried in the breeze that came up most afternoons, and they could hear the boy, a teenager for the last time, announce: “Welcome on your flight to Rondon, England. This is your pilot speaking, Captain Odhiambo Titus Ntoto. With Vice-Captain Cyrus Rutere, Senior Engineer Ferdinand Mlambo and Chief Steward Bright Khumalo . . .” And as he spoke, Captain Ntoto pulled back on the joystick, and the great silver machine soared into the sky and waggled its wings in salute as it cut ties with Earth.
EPILOGUE
The Oldest Member’s car pulled up. Furniver’s chats with the OM over a couple of gin and tonics had become a regular part of his life, and each time the OM drove Furniver back to Kireba, stopping as close to Harrods as he could get. From here on Furniver would have to walk. The OM had done most of the talking during the twenty minute drive. The lights from Harrods shone out,
like an oasis of light in a sea of darkness.
A duty Mboya Boy, summoned to escort Furniver via the bar’s mobile phone, loomed out of the shadows.
“The matatu, it is waiting and ready, suh.”
Furniver unlocked the passenger door, climbed out, and shook the OM’s hand through the open window.
“Africa. Don’t get so worried, young man. Relax. It will work out. A hundred years, and you won’t recognise the place.”
He reversed the car.
“But then I am an optimist,” he added.
Furniver looked closely but the light from the car’s dashboard was faint, and it was impossible to see if the OM was joking.
The evening flight to London flew overhead.
Charity was waiting for him, standing patiently beside the matatu that would take them to the shamba.
She gave him a welcoming hug, but there was something that she wanted to do before they set off.
Clarence Mudenge deserved a piece of her mind.
Furniver trailed reluctantly behind her. When she was in this mood, there was no stopping her. The beam from his spare torch guided them across the filthy rivulet, as they stepped on stones laid by a team of Mboya Boys, and followed the muddy path to the Klean Blood Klinic.
An oil lamp was burning, and “Results” Mudenge, who seldom went to bed before midnight, was reading yesterday’s paper.
He stood up as they approached.
“Welcome.”
“Good evening, Mr Mudenge,” said Charity. “I am here, with my friend Furniver. He has had business with you.”
Mudenge gave Furniver a friendly nod.
“Furniver,” she ordered, “show Mr Mudenge your head.”
“Do we have to do this now, my dear?” he asked plaintively.
His protests were in vain.
Clarence Mudenge examined Furniver’s scalp, and carefully parted the banker’s hair.
“I cannot see head lice, but I have muti . . .”
Charity interrupted with a bark of triumph.
“You are too clever, Mr Mudenge. His hair! What about his hair!”
Mudenge frowned.
A man’s hair was a private matter.
“Is his hair growing?” Charity demanded. “Is it longer, Mr Mudenge, or shorter? Is there more, or is there less?”
He whispered in her ear.
“Furniver, I think he is going bald . . .”
“Ehehe!”
Triumphantly, Charity held out her hand.
“So, Mr Clarence Mudenge,” and pointed at the sign above the shack.
“Clarence Mudenge: Proprietor, Klean Blood Klinic. Results or Money Back”, she read out.
“Haugh!” she barked scornfully. “No results for Furniver! So money back!”
Furniver did not know where to look.
“Return Furniver’s ngwee, Clarence Mudenge.”
Mudenge pulled out a handful of grubby notes.
“Before I give you this money, I have one question,” he said, and turned to Furniver: “Are you happy, Mr Edward?”
Furniver looked at Charity . . . those teeth! That smile!
The truth was that he was happier than he had ever been.
He squeezed her hand.
“Absolutely, er, happy, yes. Definitely.”
“And are you happy, Mrs Charity Mupanga?”
She was about to insist on the money, but the question made her think again, and take stock. And as she did so, she realised that she was in danger of forgetting the very blessings she counted so assiduously each day.
Furniver kept her hand in his, and she felt his forefinger curl around hers. And with a rush that made her chest tight, she remembered what it was about him that appealed to her, and won her heart. Many things about him she enjoyed, but there was one thing in particular.
He had faith in the future. They both believed that tomorrow would surely be better than today.
“Yes, Clarence Mudenge, I am happy.”
Clarence Mudenge returned the ngwee to his wallet as his visitors made their way back to their waiting car.
They slammed the boot, now packed with weekend provisions, and squeezed into the matatu.
Charity broke the silence with a chuckle that made her body shake.
“That Clarence Mudenge, he is too clever.”
Furniver kissed her on the cheek.
“Results, my dear. He gets results.”
ALSO AVAILABLE FROM POLYGON BY MICHAEL HOLMAN
FATBOY AND THE DANCING LADIES
Ferdinand Mlambo, the youngest boy ever to become senior kitchen toto at State House, is in deep trouble. Disloyalty to Kuwisha’s Life President Ngwazi Nduka has not only cost him his prestigious job: the sinister chief steward to the president, Lovemore Mboga, has humiliated Mlambo by stripping him of his name. Word goes out: henceforth, he will be known as Fatboy. But with the help of Titus Ntoto, leader of the notorious Mboya Boys gang of teenage street children, Mlambo recovers his name and his dignity. In this sequel to his widely praised debut, “Last Orders at Harrods”, Michael Holman again combines the insights of someone brought up in Africa with the experience of nearly 20 years as the “London Financial Times’” Africa editor. With a sharp observant pen, he describes a world of abandoned street children, corrupt politicians, disillusioned journalists, well meaning aid workers, celebrity outsiders, self-deceiving donors, and resilient residents of Kireba, Kuwisha’s worst slum - where the tough but maternal Mrs Charity Tangwenya Mupanga, presides over the popular rendezvous, Harrods International Bar (and Nightspot).
LAST ORDERS AT HARRODS
Charity Mupanga is the widowed owner of Harrods International Bar (and Nightspot) - a favourite meeting place for the movers and shakers of Kibera. While she can handle most challenges, from an erratic supply of Worcestershire sauce, the secret ingredient in her cooking, to the political tensions in East Africa’s most notorious slum and a cholera outbreak that follows the freak floods in the state of Ubuntu, some threatening letters from London lawyers are beginning to overwhelm her. How dare a London store, no matter how big and famous, claim exclusive use of the first name of her late father, Harrods Tangwenya, gardener to successive British high commissioners for nearly twenty years? Well-meant but inept efforts to foil the lawyers by Edward Furniver, a former fund manager who runs Kibera’s co-operative bank and who seeks Charity’s hand in marriage, bring Harrods International Bar to the brink of disaster, and Charity close to despair. In the nick of time an accidental riot, triggered by the visit to the slum of World Bank President Hardwick Hardwicke, coupled with some quick thinking by Titus Ntoto, the 14-year-old leader of Kibera’s toughest gang, the Mboya Boys United Football Club, help Charity - and Harrods - to triumph in the end.
DIZZY WORMS
Mupanga, the resilient and maternal proprietor of Harrods International Bar (and Nightspot) faces her toughest challenge in “Dizzy Worms”, the final novel in Michael Holman’s acclaimed trilogy set in the African slum of Kireba. Faced with a Health and Safety closure, Charity has a week to appeal and the chances of success seem negligible: elections are imminent, and Kireba is due to become a showcase of President Josiah Nduka’s ‘slum rehabilitation program’, backed by gullible foreign donors. But before taking on Nduka and the council, she has a promise to keep - to provide a supply of her famous sweet doughballs to a small army of street children, as voracious as they are malodorous...Michael Holman uses his witty satirical pen to brilliant effect in this affectionate portrait of a troubled region, targeting local politicians, western diplomats, foreign donors and journalists, puncturing pretensions and questioning the philosophy of aid.
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Fatboy and the Dancing Ladies Page 22