When they opened the door, all they saw at first was Musyoka, John’s father, seated on the floor behind the door. He neither moved nor acknowledged their entrance. Turning to her left, she first saw the empty mattress, but then she saw that head, John’s head, the head she had held in her hands and kissed, but the mass of protruding bone, white brain matter, bloody flesh and matted hair offered nothing she recognised. The pool of blood had seeped under the bed, almost as far as where Musyoka crouched, still cradling the heavy bush knife he had used to murder his son.
***
Having left the room only a couple of minutes earlier, Janet rejoined her assembled diners with the words, “We can go through now.” She waited in the hall as the others filed past, like a dam in a stream, her outstretched arms ensuring the flow went directly where it should. They usually did not open the folding doors between the rooms in winter, since the resulting space was too large to secure from draughts.
It was David Smythe who managed the placement of each person to an allotted setting. He dutifully and officiously directed both son and daughter, despite their obvious familiarity with the setting and their correct assumption that they would be in the same places they occupied every week. These were places that, with only a minor aberration at the time of Douglas’s ‘coming out’, were the ones they had habitually occupied since the first day they were able to sit. Conscious of a stranger in his midst, David needed to show his control, however, and, directed, they paused, their father’s duty thus delaying the task. Janet had placed the two priests between herself and her husband at the round table, with Michael next to herself. To Janet’s left, and to her daughter’s right, she had left a gap for children-servicing but, as had become practice, the children would spend the meal time anywhere in the room except in the space designated for their use. Douglas was next to his father, a proximity that both were clearly used to, but which neither found comfortable. Their antipasto starter was already laid, the gilt-edged white porcelain setting off the rainbow colours of the cold meats, fish, shellfish and salad.
“Jaysus, that looks fierce,” said Michael even before he had taken his seat.
Janet burst out laughing and could not stop, prompting her daughter and son to catch the giggles. Father Bernard looked slightly embarrassed, whilst David and his son-in-law eyed one another ruefully, with exaggeratedly long-suffering but gentle sighs communicating ‘not again’ without words. Without a thought, Michael turned to his left and patted Janet on the back as she coughed a little, and then with fumbling hesitation withdrew the hand, stretching the fingers a little before unconsciously touching his lips.
“Was that in African?” asked Douglas.
“It’s as African as Limerick,” replied Janet, still recovering and half turning towards Michael. “Just shut up and eat your dinner! Leave the crack till later when your man will play a bit on the old yoke of a guitar,” she said to him with a stern elbow nudge into his ampler middle, her attempt at a Limerick accent passable.
“I bet you’ve got a pasta dish to follow,” said Marie, holding out a small piece of Parma ham for the three-year-old fingers by her side.
“Yes, darling,” said David, mildly annoyed. “You’ve educated us before about that. Marie is a stickler for correctness,” he said to Bernard, “and in her opinion an antipasto should be instead of a pasta dish.”
“Then we should call it ante pasta and we can all be happy,” said Janet.
“You can tell the ones who did Classics,” muttered Marie with a giggle.
“So what about mum’s African boyfriends, Father Michael? Tell us the whole truth and nothing but.” Douglas’s words prompted a nervous frown and several short coughs from his father, his words never quite getting past the apparent block of his throat.
Marie was not impressed by her brother. “Douglas, really…” she began, but her words were cut short by Janet’s question, quick-fired to her right.
“Whatever happened to Lesley Mwangangi?”
Michael remained engrossed in his starter before looking up and instinctively scanning each face in turn. Only he and Janet understood the question, but everyone was keenly interested in his answer. Ever careful in his dealings with people, if not always diplomatic, he knew the topic belonged to himself and Janet alone, but had not considered the ambiguity of the name. “She married again very soon afterwards. She married James Mulonzya’s son.”
“What?”
The word was said by four people, by Janet because she was shocked by the content and by Marie, Douglas and David because they had all assumed that ‘Lesley’ had referred to a boyfriend. Douglas was about to say, “Sex change?” but a sidelong admonitory glance from Marie said “Shut up” in silence and he obeyed. The fact that Lesley was a woman sank in.
They were, however, full of surprise and perhaps some momentary insecurity. They had never heard that tone in their mother’s invariably measured, planned and controlled voice. As Janet continued, both Marie and Douglas became aware that the person speaking was someone they had never known. This was their mother before she was ‘mother’. There was a sense of abandon, youth, risk, even insecurity in her voice. As ‘mother’, they had never known her admit doubt or hesitation. Their headmistress was always in control, never flustered, ever diplomatic and conciliatory.
“Oh bugger! She married that creep? What was his name…. Charles. I remember. He was the arrogant bimbo who drove the white Mercedes through town and slowed down every time so that people could see him better. What a creep!”
Michael took a mouthful before continuing. “Charles and Lesley had been having an affair for months, you know…” He turned towards Janet. The others waited for her reply, constructing their private, incomplete, imagined scenarios.
“What? You mean they were having an affair before… before… John died.” Michael nodded. “So that’s why she was so calm and cool that afternoon. I knew there was something strange, but I never thought that… that she had got what she wanted.” Janet paused abruptly, her words almost choked back. Father Bernard was the only person who continued merely to eat. “Wait a minute. Presumably John’s father went to prison?”
“He was convicted. I went to the trial and read out the statement you made to the police in Migwani. Remember I had to be with you as a witness to what the young fellow wrote down because you were leaving the country that day. Anyway, Musyoka killed himself in jail a few months later. What was left of the family just fell apart. His first wife, John’s mother, disappeared soon after John died. No one knew where she went. The second wife was much younger. She re-married very soon afterwards and took her children with her. The first wife’s children, of course, left home at the same time that John did. None of them had his education and, I think, none of them were in contact with the parents. Now that was strange, but not unknown. It could be that the mother went to live with one of them. There were rumours that she had gone to Mombasa, but no one knew where she went.”
“So who was this John Mwangangi, mum? How did you know him?”
“Oh, she knew him very well indeed!” said Michael with heavy theatre.
“And since you’re a priest, we must assume that the ‘knowing’ is in the biblical sense,” said Douglas, his response immediate.
“Douglas, why do you always…” scoffed Marie. “You’re getting prurient in your old age!”
“Oh… oh... oh, prurient, are we?” he said sarcastically. “So my Mum made it with a black man in Africa! And it sounds like he was married as well. Cool! Congrats, Mum. I can’t believe it. I just can’t imagine you not being my Mother. You must have been about the same age as Marie!”
Janet had not been listening to her son. She laid her knife and fork on her plate with a loud porcelain ring and turned to face Michael. “So who got John’s land?” Michael leaned forward and bowed his head a little, turning it to face her. Janet answered her own question. “You don’t mean
… Did Lesley inherit? Yes, she must have done. John would have done everything with proper legal title. So did Charles Mulonzya get it?” Michael nodded slowly. “The bastard!”
Marie exclaimed “Mother!” and David “Steady on!” while Douglas laughed out loud. Bernard had almost finished his plate. Karl, whom everyone tended to ignore, was, as ever, silent.
“So why was this bloke so important?” asked David hesitantly. “Well I suppose he would be important,” he continued, “if he really was your boyfriend. And what was he like?”
“He was – or could have been a great man. He had big ideas but enough humility to want to make them work for others’ benefit. And what was he like?” she repeated turning away from Michael to look straight across at her husband. “Like you, he was over ten years older than me. Unlike you, he was kind. He was considerate. And fuck me he was good in bed.” Karl dropped his knife. Douglas screamed and tumbled backwards off his chair. David’s jaw dropped and his arms went limp. Marie offered consolation as the two-year-old began to scream a split second after Douglas’s developing show was obviously not a threat. Father Bernard readjusted the position of his knife and fork on his empty plate. Janet shed a tear and Michael did not react.
“You never did get over it, did you?” he asked, placing his hand on her forearm. Janet looked towards him, but could not speak. “Douglas, please,” said Michael. “John Mwangangi was murdered and your mother discovered the body. It was the day she flew home. It was something that changed her life. I’m sure that your mother’s world changed that day and never let her go back to what it had been. It was one of those things that you never forget, something that stays fresh in your mind forever. Some things, you know, are like that. They’re so momentous they happen again every day of your life. It’s like being haunted. It’s all in here, of course,” he said, touching his forehead, still addressing Douglas, though it was David who listened intently, “but, for the person with the experience, it’s as real as banging your head. It hurts.” He turned in the new silence that surrounded them all to look at Janet, offering a long unspoken question with his gently raised eyebrows.
Janet simply stared back. She was not sure which event he was asking about, but she was reasonably sure it did not concern John Mwangangi. She made no attempt to pre-empt the possibility that he might divulge the secret that only he and she knew, because she trusted him. She did not know this Michael, had not seen him for thirty years, but still she trusted him. Almost apologetically she lifted her napkin to her face and dabbed at her eyes.
“That day when you told her that you had found John with his head bashed in, Lesley wasn’t planning anything with Charles. They had been having an affair, no doubt seeing one another at the same times that you were with John. But they didn’t marry immediately. Lesley’s reaction was shock. It does strange things. She was unhappy with life in Kenya, but she wasn’t a schemer, or mercenary.”
Displaying rapid and accurate insight, Douglas spoke and, in doing so, placed an idea in Janet’s mind that she had never once considered, but, once identified, it made perfect, if uncomfortable sense. “So this John was killed by his father?” Michael nodded. “He didn’t do it, by any chance, because his son was having it off on the side with a white woman?” Janet was speechless, but not angry. She really had never thought of the possibility that her affair with John might have been the father’s motive. When no one answered, Douglas tried to retract. “Sorry, it was just an idea. I was thinking that it would make a superb script.”
“We don’t know why he did it,” said Michael, pre-empting both Marie’s and David’s intention to scold. “Personally, I’m sure it wasn’t anything to do with your mother. When the case was heard in court, it was clear that the rift between John and his father had developed years before, and they were also having a private but bitter feud over the circumcision of John and Lesley’s daughter. It was complicated.”
“Daughter…?” said Douglas. “I saw a film on the tele about circumcising girls in Africa. I didn’t believe a word of it.”
“But we were in touch for a couple of years after I left Kenya. Why didn’t you tell me all this at the time?” asked Janet, audibly entering a world that only she and Michael could share.
Michael smiled and without looking up from the unrolling of a pastrami slice, the last item on his plate, said, “I thought the emotional space we shared at the time did not have room for more content.”
“Is this a bloody crossword or something?” said David forcefully and uncharacteristically without punctuation. “You two are growing more and more cryptic.”
And so the subject was dropped. Douglas was firmly seated again and for a moment or two the only sounds were the scratchings of cutlery on porcelain as they all finished their first course.
Father Bernard spoke, an event that surprised them all. It was if he had not even heard what went before. “You told me earlier you were also in Nigeria.”
“Yes,” replied Michael, glancing for the first time to his right since coming to table. “But that was a fundamentally different experience. It was during the war. I ended up being deported. Like Janet discovering John’s body, in Nigeria I had an experience of my own that has stayed with me. I got caught up in the war. I was there, standing in the background while a young fellow too big for his boots shot a bloke through the head. There was a film crew and the whole thing was broadcast on British television. They didn’t know what to do with me, so I got deported.”
“You know,” said David quickly, “I can remember that.” Again he was uncharacteristically fluent, suddenly interested, sensing a handle in the conversation that he could grasp on his own terms and exploit to his advantage. “End of the 1960s. This Week… Panorama… World In Action… can’t remember which one. But I can remember seeing that on television. Harold Wilson was selling helicopters to the Federal Government… General Gowan, I think, was the name of the Nigerian leader. And what was the Biafran guy called… O … Ojukwu? It was in the news all the time. But that programme was a bit special. Millions of people saw that poor fellow’s brains being blown out. There was a hell of a fuss at the time. And then they court martialled the soldier who did it. I can remember it like it was yesterday. They put him in front of a firing squad.” David’s memory was perfect, his gaze darting from person to person in his audience as he spoke. “And the television programme...? I can’t remember which one carried it. Do you know, one of them had Sibelius as theme music? It was the start of the Karelia Suite. One of the others… Was it Panorama?… Had the opening fanfare of the fourth movement of Rachmaninov’s First Symphony as its theme tune. Fancy choosing such an immature work to introduce such weighty content!”
“Well I was the white guy that got shot by the camera, standing in the background, being held up at gunpoint. The bloke being shot with the gun was a man who lived in the village where I was priest. He was travelling with me when we were stopped.”
“It’s amazing. You were right about some things being momentous enough to live on in the mind. I can remember seeing that on television, but the experience now is still vivid, much more than mere memory. It was the first time I had ever seen anyone actually die,” said David. As he spoke, the door to his left began to open.
“Are you ready, ma’am?” said Rosita, carefully manoeuvring the wide pasta bowl laden with farfalle and Janet’s new sauce towards the heatproof mats with views of Tuscany that adorned the centre of the table.
Janet was about to say, “Yes, Rosita, that’s fine,” but she did not even manage a completed syllable. In that instant, Rosita turned momentarily to her left towards Michael, almost dropped the dish and knocked over David’s and Bernard’s wine glasses as, luckily, the heavy dish, loosened prematurely from her grasp, dropped half onto the intended mats with a loud crash. And then she fled. A moment before, David’s face had been adorned with a confident smile which had flashed from one diner to the next to elicit recogni
tion of the accuracy and poignancy of his memory. He had reclaimed what he considered to be his rightful place at the centre of attention and was about to consolidate his hold. But suddenly, there was a look of horror about him, and it was not concern for the spilt wine or rolling glasses that prompted the change.
***
Term ends were always messy, had always been messy and would continue to be messy. Messiest of all was the end of the summer term, year in, year out, a hotchpotch of early closures, class trips, meetings, courses, training days, open days, class parties, home room shifts, refits, valedictory gatherings and conferences. Every year routine was sacrificed. Every time it was different and the three weeks after the exams seemed to drag into an age. And it had been one of these abnormal summer diversions that Janet had just left, a two-day, London-wide gathering of heads aiming to deliver training in the latest nuances of budgetary management. All present had sensed the irony involved in being told in one breath that they were all now in complete control of their school’s finances and then in the next that they must follow procedures so rigid that they felt they had no control at all. The head teacher group had begun to ridicule the whole affair by the time it reached its scheduled close of formal business at lunchtime on the second day. There had perhaps been some logic in the early finish, but no one seemed to know what it was. Finishing after lunch at two thirty in the afternoon left no one enough time to go back to work and do something useful at their respective institutions, so they were all presented with that extremely rare commodity, an afternoon off. It did leave time and space, as the schedule had indicated, for the participants to have an hour or two to share experiences, perhaps to bond, to share professional opinion or, in other words, to have a chin wag. Head teachers rarely got the opportunity to speak to others of their kind outside the constraints of an agenda, except at their association’s annual conference, but that was always so full of politics and posturing that small talk was rarely small, and words had to be watched as well as spoken.
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