29
Them east London relatives have call donkey number of times now. I sit tight.
Another letter for Shingi arrive from MaiShingi. She bawl that the government have send bulldozers to demolish people's houses and they new four-room house have been demolished in second wave of Operation Murambatsvina. Now many people become homeless, Zimbabwe is no more she cry. Me I don't have no sympathy for Zimbabwean people about this because they have spend lot of time throwing they tails all over and trying to vote for opposition party. Now look where this have landed them. The winds is howling through house of stones, tall trees is swaying and people's lives beginning to fall apart, everything start to fall apart now and they think that me I can solve all they problems? Me I sleep over things so I can think clear. I wake up and text message arrive from them London relatives asking why I don't call like I promise two weeks ago.
Evening. My chest is full of wriggling things now and get tight like my suitcase. I go to kitchen to eat. I cut bread. It refuse to go down throat. I spit it into sink and go back to my room.
I shut my eyes to sleep but I am wide awake. I have to wash my hands of Shingi now. I switch light on because in the dark I become more awake. The mushrooms on my ceiling is starting to grow again. I sit on my suitcase and look out of my eye into street. Nothing happening. Even shadows stop moving.
I feel sleepy. I switch light off and lie down; I am wide awake. I turn. In the east, cold old sun start to climb up over them jagged roof and jutting chimneys throw shadows. I have to make my mind up. When I hear the bells ringing at 7am, I get out of bed, wear my twelve-pocket coat and get out of house for early-morning walk to sort my head. I want to go to the river. Everyone in London is going to they graft.
I catch Tube and find myself sitting on old bench under Waterloo Bridge; trying to reason with power; my head start to get hot. I throw my cigarette stub onto the pavement, grind it hard with my boot and step off. One more second on that bench, I will have change my mind. I have make final decision now – Shingi none of my business no more.
I head for Waterloo station with big stride.
When I climb out of Brixton Tube station, some pale icy sun hang in the sky like frozen pizza base. In them these mental streets, bitter cold wind is blowing. And the traffic lights – they is red like ketchup.
To the right of station entrance, newspaper vendors stand beside pile of copies of Evening Standard. On front page of every one of them papers President Robert Mugabe's face folded in two. I still can identify His Excellency. The paper say that Zimbabwe run out toilet paper.
I step into the house, shut the door, lock it and jam it with long floorboard that is lying loose, shutting out Dave and Jenny, who already have gone out. There is no heating in the house; small icicles going to be on the ceiling any minute.
Dave and Jenny come back last night and knock on the door until they give up. Me, I lie on my bed most of the day trying not to think about nothing.
I have not have shower in days because my pubic hair is maybe turning blue. I have animal odour that is always around them stressed people. Outside the city is approaching peak hour; I imagine them sounds: one computer falling off some desk in some London Underground control room and causing delays on the Victoria Line. The heavy breathing of two over-caffeinate men panicking in the control room. Inside them crowded late trains, vex passengers have desert them trains and make for the station exits where they gush out of the earth, some of them waving them caffè lattes in the air as usual and elbow others out of they way. Why them people in Harare North always refuse to take they medication me I don't get the score.
Inside my suitcase, that Moschino Parfum that I buy for Tsitsi but never have chance to give it to she, it has been leaking. It is cheap fake perfume; proper genuine things don't leak without being opened. I bin it.
I go to toilet. I reason hard. I get out of the toilet and go to lie on Shingi's bed. Shingi's pocket album is still on the floor, by his bed. It contain photo of his mother. She look like nice mother and remind me of my mother in some funny way. I get into my blankets, roll some skunk.
I wake up and realise I had fall asleep. It's maybe after four o'clock in the afternoon. But it also can be after six o'clock because from outside, the street lamp is already beaming into my room. I check Shingi's mobile phone – it say it's 3.03pm. I get out of bed, open my suitcase to take clean socks out and the smell of Mother hit my nose and make me feel dizzy. I put on my brown shoes, grab my twelve-pocket coat, and as quick as brown fox, leave the house and go down to Brixton Road to wait for bus to go to city to look for graft.
The 159 bus come and it take me straight to Bond Street station where I jump off because I have to check out for the second time that place where they stick many grafts on the window. But Shingi is still in my head, so me I go window-shopping to get him out of the head first. The city swirl around me like it is in the grip of bitter winds and it make me feel dizzy.
To get this funny feeling off my tail, me I go into West One Shopping Centre where I see electronics shop is flaunting them latest hi-fis, iPods and flat-screen TVs. I quick my pace past the shop, not wanting to let such desire catch me.
And suddenly absent-minded, I stray into clothes shop fizzing over with them people. My odour suddenly back. Over one of the mirrors to the right of the entrance, they have stick notice: This mirror compresses your image and makes you look short, squat and wide. We suggest you go to the basement where there's a better mirror that will make you look nice. I think it would be hard for me to tell which is normal mirror – the one downstairs or the one that I am looking at – but me I see no point in wasting time on this.
I throw my eye into basement and down there is this short customer queue of them beautiful women with them fibreglass fingernail and tattoo above they tail-bones. It is inching forward to the till. The sight is powerful and maybe untie spaghetti jumble of them questions inside my head, but which have been answered and which not, I have no way of tell. I stagger out of the shop like I am emerging from big battle.
30
Where are you? Back later; that's the note Dave leave on the door. I open the door, step in, lock it and jam it again.
I walk into kitchen and Shingi's fat rat rumble across them floorboards like big marble and disappear into some hole on the floorboards. I ignore the rat, grab plastic cup from the sink and wash it. The sink drain do one belch and bad stench shoot up and hang in the air. In house across the road the curtain twitch, but I don't care one bag of beans. In the next house members of Romanian family is crowded at they windows again: mother, two teenage sons, younger daughter and maybe the mother's sister. The whole tribe. But today I stand my ground, whip them with powerful look and they scatter away from the windows and leave me to drink my water before I am tossing the cup into the sink bowl and stepping off.
I sleep with the screwdriver under my pillow. I am alone now since Jenny and Dave go. I sleep in my clothes and shoes because I have make big vow never to allow any intruder to set they eyes on me without my clothes on. If you is taken by surprise, once your enemy see you in them shabby underpants, the humiliation is big; you is two times set back and is fighting from position of big disadvantage.
In the morning I am lying on my bed and I hear voice saying, '. . . we could try the kitchen window.' I know straight away that someone need to be deal with quick.
I grab the screwdriver, kick the blankets off me and step downstairs. Holding the screwdriver tight, I fling the front door open. There, looking wretched like Israelites that have walk all the way from Egypt, is Dave and Jenny. I have been too optimistic to think that they is not coming back again. The winds is now blowing in different direction but they don't get it. Now they is pushing back again.
Hanging around Dave's neck and almost toppling him to the ground is the binoculars that he get from the Salvation Army shop and now use for trying to check time off the Big Ben in Westminster while sitting under the chestnut tree in Brixton.
&
nbsp; They have just been to Marks & Spencer's bins again. There's bag of tinned food and sandwiches hanging on Dave's microscooter. From behind his gap tooth and disorderly beard, Dave look at my hand with horror, but Jenny is not bothered. She scruffy dog wag tail, while she mouse have nose peeping out of she jacket's side pocket. Jenny have big stain on she jeans that run down she right leg all the way into one of she paramilitary boots.
I show them my teethies in good friendly way – 'You people give me big fright, I was expect them burglars.'
Dave is silent; the wart on his nose throb and start to get fiery red. I know he think that I'm spinning him the fat old jazz number. His eyes shine and fill with vex. I don't know how to continue from there; I shut door and go back inside house and sit on the stair. As they walk away I hear the tinkle tinkle of them likkle bells that Jenny always keep tied to she boots.
In the afternoon, I jump out of my bed, gather all of Dave and Jenny's belongings – cigarette lighters, Rizlas, blankets and syringes – and throw them out. I don't know what to do with Shingi's belongings. He have few more things than Dave and Jenny. It is not his things inside the house that is bother me, but those that he have accumulate in the back garden, those that he fish them out of skips. Computer monitors, surge protectors, toasters, CDs and bathroom accessories, they is all piled up in the garden. Three TV sets is stack on each each. The rest of them items, Shingi arrange around the TV sets according to they importance to him.
Days leap quick and die on the horizon. Every night I come back from graft hunting and, for long time, gaze at Shingi's things. I can't make decision and his things is making frightful silence with each day that pass. I am also worryful about mamhepo. I am worryful because Shingi's mother originally come from Chipinge near Banda. But I observe moment of silence in the garden and after that I busy myself carrying all of Shingi's things to the pavement outside, where I stack them up for passers-by to help themselves. The Romanian family have learn to do the curtain-twitching thing, I can tell.
I have move all of Shingi's things. I go into the kitchen, cut two thick slices of bread, butter them thickly, pour some Coke and go upstairs to my room where I slide into them my blankets and feast hard.
Then I get my cigarette out and set it on fire. It crackle and glow in front of my face and make me feel like I am in Mother's womb, safe and feeling good.
This Comrade Mhiripiri jazz number have so nearly push me over the edge. No wonder why I sometimes find myself being charmed and put under spell by my own kaka as it whirl about in the WC before disappearing. That has never been me.
Me I puff and reason hard.
31
Jenny come to invite me to poetry evening that is to be held in Clapham in memory of whale that have die after getting lost and wandering up Thames River some few weeks ago.
'In memory of whale?'
She say there will be heap of nice people but me I keep quiet because this is getting my head out of gear. She ask if I have poems about fish.
'No. If anyone hear that I have go to evening in memory of dead fish they will start to worry that something is going funny inside my head.'
Now she start telling me that she have get good news; she have decide to stop doing smack and have just have HIV test because she have been sharing too many needles with them many people. She have pass the test, she tell me.
'The results say I'm HIV-negative,' she shout with big crazy smile on she face.
'You can't tell me about HIV, I know, me I've been there in prison. I know all about it because me I have had bicycle spoke being hold close to my heart by some thug that give me no choice. And they do the HIV test on everyone before they leave prison. And my result, it come out bad, me I know.' I shut the door on she face. She's lunatic, Jenny. HIV-negative; how can negative be good news?
You see it in the faces of the health people that hand the paper to you when you leave prison. They don't say no word. One of them maybe stand leaning against desk with one hand on hip looking at you like you is already dead thing. That's because they know that everyone in prison have HIV. They eyes is talking, you can tell and you even hear them whisper as you leave they room because they know you have it. When you open your envelope, the result is on the paper. HIV-negative, that's what it say. Who has ever hear of good news that is negative?
Negative result. But you don't throw it away. It's proof that life is not fair. You keep it inside the pocket. You keep it inside the suitcase where no one can see it. Right there. Life is not fair, you even tell that traitor in Goromonzi when you give him your touch because you was knowing that tomorrow you is going to be dead. And it's all because life is never fair, you tell him, but he don't understand you is also dying and it's not your fault. By the end he can only tell you apart from everyone because of your touch; the skill and the laughter. Jenny cannot be right, otherwise everything has been one big waste. Life is not fair, me I know.
I follow Jenny out to chestnut tree. She get my head all out of gear.
Under the tree is Dave. He start shouting: yeee you thief my ideas; you have to give back my notebook that I leave in your house.
He shout and stagger all over. Me I sit down, cough, move the phlegm out of my lungs and spit on the ground.
'Thief; fuckin' thief, give me my notebook,' Dave keep bawling.
I clear my throat. I spit on the ground. Close to his boot.
Now he start silly style: yeee do you want to fight me, do you want to fight me? You call all your boys and I call mine then we will see; my boys going to kill ya two-faced Donald Duck yari yari yari!
'No fighting here,' someone say but Dave don't stop. He is throwing them arms in the air in that kind of style.
The tall man with them soldier's eyes that I once see at Elser Cafe now come and try to pull Dave away but Dave have make up his mind that he don't like my guts and won't move. I step back to our house.
32
I get home and I find there is another letter from Shingi's uncle, Sinyoro the old nincompoop. He is worried that Shingi have lose his head or something. He make big threat of coming to London. I bin the letter.
The kitchen-sink bowl is nearly overflow with things floating on water. There is no movement down the sink drain, and stench is starting to become hard to live with. The cupboard door below the sink have long fall off hinges, and after being toss about, soak with spilt water, and trampled on, it have lost its colour and have expand, warp and crack. It lean against the cupboard frame.
I lift the door and place it flat on the floor.
From the rubber P-trap, which have swell and is covered by fungus, water drip down onto the floor of the cupboard, which have also start to rot; there's heaps of bread that Shingi have been putting there to feed the rat. Now mushrooms is growing everywhere.
I go down on my knees for closer look. Scatterings of kaka by Shingi's rat is fertilising mushrooms on the floor of cupboard. Rat is dangerous thing inside house. He can eat anything – plastic, wire, bread or wood. This is danger to my suitcase; people going to laugh if they hear that my suitcase and money for my plane ticket get eat by some rat.
I take plastic bag, pick the rotting bread and put it inside bin. Then I pick the cupboard door and put it back where it have been.
Everything falling apart. I don't know how to fix this. I have to stop the rat. He is hitting my food.
I go to my room and write inside my head that, from now on, I keep sharp lookout for the rat who is doing all the kaka.
I want to eat. I'm hungry. I go to kitchen to find bread and I find that Shingi's rat have nibble it. I go to my room and put my suitcase on windowsill; you never know what else this rat is going to eat. Then I write to them Ancient & Honourable Society of Rat Catchers. Me I give detail of everything that is about to start in the house because some of my plane ticket money is in danger of being eat now. Now I feel cold like I start to catch fever, so I wear my twelve-pocket coat and sit on floor by the window to finish writing letter.
Now I star
t big wait for rat in the kitchen.
It's late into night but I have no sleep. I have already miss rat once now with claw hammer that Shingi pick from skip. Even if I feel like I have fever inside my head I sit on the stair on the ground floor waiting patient holding my screwdriver and claw hammer.
The rat don't come out all night.
I come from graft hunting and there is rat kaka on the kitchen floor, so I don't go to graft hunting the following day.
I go to buy bread – only enough for me since I am now the only one left inside our house. I come back, there is rat's kaka by the stairs. I stop going out of house altogether.
I have not hear from them, the Ancient & Honourable Society of Rat Catchers. So I write another letter to them reminding them that even if I am original native, me I still know misbehaviour by professional organisation; if they cannot help at least they tell me straight and square. I don't manage to send the letter because I don't want to go out of the house and come back to find rat has do kaka on the floor again.
* * *
Inside our house. Shadows shiver, become long, become short and disappear; days scatter away like birds flying off the wire. I stop sleeping.
I walk around the house with screwdriver and claw hammer, my boots make clattering sound on them floorboards. It is the beginning of week and right under my nose the rat have do more kaka. But I have been keeping my eyes wide open.
I have one rat to kill or else I die in this foreign place. I have to get to source of the problem before I get overwhelmed. I sense it coming. The rat want to keep me in London now.
Tuesday night. I am almost nodding off when the rat appear at kitchen doorway. I throw spanner and catch him on his bum. He fly into the air, come down on the floorboards, try to scurry away but his behind legs look like they is broken so that he remain on the same spot like the squirrel that I kill in the park. I think I have maybe break his spine or something. When I get up to finish him off, he recover and slip into some hole that I can't fit into. But I know that I have deal fatal blow and expect the smell of rotting body in them coming days. No one is going to eat my money.
Harare North Page 18