Mombasa Road Retravelled

by KJ Griffin

  Chapter 15

  Now we're alone again Little Stevie and I can relax on the beds, where we stay for what seems an age, me chewing qat, Little Stevie reciting.

  'Dad?' he asks me, sometime after crash-landing in Caelum and we're lying supine and almost side by side under a chopping fan, 'Is it true Yasmiin is coming to see us later?'

  'Fingers and Kevin think so,' I answer cautiously. 'So I guess it must be. But why are you thinking about Yasmiin, Stevie?'

  He's quiet for a while, almost like he's going to ignore that one, then finally:

  'We could play pool together. I've seen a pool table in the bar near the sea.'

  'Pool table?' I'm puzzled by this and so slide from the bed, stretch and lean out of the window, contentedly chewing sticks of qat as I peer out.

  A fresh breeze rustles palm leaves that are tickling the surface skin of a sumptuous, deep-blue swimming pool, the chief and unique pride of these Octopussy Beach Apartments. Straight ahead there's a nondescript little bar, and beyond that, obscured by a further fringe of palms, must lie the beach and the ocean.

  He's right about the bar of course, but from our window you can't make out the inside and there's certainly no sign of a pool table, so I turn towards Little Stevie, still stretched out rigidly under the fan, and frown:

  'When did you notice the bar and how do you know there's a pool table inside it?' I ask suspiciously. 'You've been doing nothing but star talk with your eyes closed since we got here and you certainly can't have been out of the room.'

  Of course, I knew my son wasn't going to make eye contact anyway, but just to be certain there's absolutely no chance of a freak and unintentional collision of pupils, he shifts on to his side so that I'm left talking to his back.

  'I just know these things, Dad,' he whispers enigmatically, and not for the first time with Little Stevie, I'm left with a sense of wonder and disbelief, the sort of bewilderment you might get if you lived in a slum dwelling in Kibera, and some cousin of your long-lost uncle suddenly informed you were coming into a supply of regular cash, which a complete stranger was passing your way courtesy of betting on European football matches.

  'Well, let's go and take a look then,' I finally tell him. 'It's nearly dusk now and I bet most of the Football Kenya people will have moved on. I'll give you a few games of pool while we wait for Yasmiin.'

  I'm right about the crowds and Little Stevie is right about the pool table too. Fingers, Kevin and Big Evans Majengwa are the only other customers in the bar, apart from a couple of very basic-looking 'good time' girls and two geriatric Germans they're trying to pull, who look so old they probably came here for the first time in Pickelhaube helmets on a First World War raid from neighbouring Tanganyika.

  The pool table is positioned at the front of the bar facing the beach, so I let Little Stevie get on with the business of administering a series of thrashings to Fingers, Kevin and Big Evans Majengwa, while I spread my sticks out over a table and order a succession of tonic waters to accompany my narcotic chewing.

  Dusk falls outside. I have Fingers slip the barman a few hundred shillings to pull the plug on the dire rap mix he's blasting out to an empty bar, and in the perfection of silence regained, the bar girls and the geriatric Germans must realize how ridiculous they look and move on to somewhere with the camouflage of greater kitsch.

  Fingers, Kevin and Big Evans Majengwa come to join me in turns, but I guess they can sense my contemplative mood and so avoid conversation. That's good of them. There are stars outside to stare at. Little Stevie and I can enjoy these together later on, while I take a sneaky preview.

  I sit for time unmeasured in silent rapture, while dusk ripens to deep-blue darkness and the ocean breeze freshens. It's so mellow here now that the borders between dreamworld and reality are smudging, so I don't know which state is truer or more desirable when the figure I've been waiting for not just tonight but for all the long, lonely nights since Jameela died finally emerges from the shadows in front of me and sits down next to me as casually as if she's actually been with me all evening and is just returning from a visit to the toilet.

  'Still chewing, Brian?' she asks softly.

  'Still chewing,' I repeat lethargically and glance for the first time at Yasmiin. Tonight she's dressed in Islamic buibui, a headscarf covering her hair and little or no make-up on her face. I should be disappointed by such austerity but am not. Something in her voice. A soupcon of complicity.

  'Let me say hello to Little Stevie,' she says, and disappears inside. For some time too. I like the way Little Stevie is never far from her thoughts either. Yasmiin fits effortlessly into our unconventional lives.

  'Where are you staying?' I ask when Yasmiin returns, after what sounded like a couple of lightning-quick pool disasters administered by Little Stevie's uncompromising cue.

  'In Mombasa Old Town. With my family.'

  'Mum and Dad?' I ask casually.

  Fingers and Kevin wander over from the pool table to loiter next to us, but immediately have the good sense to return quickly to where they came from and watch Big Evans Majengwa going down on the pool table in a way he surely never did in the ring.

  'Just family,' Yasmiin repeats blandly, as the waiter delivers a tonic water identical to my own. She lets him pour it then lights a cigarette.

  'But you found us easily enough,' I smile, catching Yasmiin's eyes as she exhales. 'You didn't even need to call me.'

  'All of Mombasa knows where you and Little Stevie stay, Brian. That's not good for you.'

  'Oh? Why so?'

  'You are getting too famous. The Big Men will get jealous of you. Even if you have a politician friend.'

  I am curious at this.

  'You know, Yasmiin, you're the second person in two days who's told me that. And the other was my politician friend!'

  'The people who rule this country are thieves! We need revolution to get rid of them, Kenyan Arab Spring!'

  I am looking directly at Yasmiin as she spits out the last line; the fire in her eyes is fulminating defiantly.

  'I agree with you, Yasmiin. But maybe we can change this place a little less painfully with football, not civil war and Arab Spring.'

  'Don't joke, Brian. I'm serious.'

  'I'm sure you are, so am I.'

  Yasmiin's sullen anger simmers in the stillness for some time, till eventually Little Stevie returns from the pool table and offers Yasmiin the chance of another thrashing. It's a generous offer, but one she declines all the same, and in so doing finally smiles.

  'Not now, Little Stevie, I'm tired. Pool tomorrow, insh'Allah.'

  Kevin, Fingers and Big Evans Majengwa also take this as their cue to move elsewhere. Kevin puts Little Stevie through his handshake combo, Big Evans Majengwa gives me a hefty whack on the back that almost makes me choke on my miraa, while Fingers, standing right behind Yasmiin, just nods at me and winks:

  'Good night, Mr Brian. We will see you for the matches tomorrow.'

  'Good night, boys,' I nod catatonically, while Little Stevie sits down next to Yasmiin, who strokes the side of his cheek and runs her fingers through his wavy hair. And he doesn't even flinch!

  It's just the three of us now and each of us, for reasons of their own, prefers to hug the silence. Nothing is said in words; instead, we listen to the barman chatting to the waiter for what seems an eternity before I ask:

  'Are you going up the coast to Lamu, Yasmiin? Back home to your real family?'

  Yasmiin has stopped stroking Little Stevie's hair now. Her hand drops like a stone, and when I catch her eyes, they're inscrutable. So I carry on:

  'I know who you are, Yasmiin. Fingers told me.'

  She's silent again, rattling an ice cube in an empty glass, searching for a Marlboro cigarette that just won't leave the packet.

  'Please don't smoke, Yasmiin,' Little Stevie pleads. 'I hate smoke!'

  'Ok, Little Stevie, just for you,' Yasmiin sighs, tapping the tips of these reclusive cigarettes back into their packet. A
nd her unquestioning submission to Little Stevie's rules again intrigues me; I'm sure if I had asked Yasmiin not to smoke she would have lit one, inhaled, and blown smoke straight into my eyes!

  So we sit silently for longer than ever now, me steadily chewing, Yasmiin rattling the last shards of a melted ice cube in her glass. Little Stevie is rhythmically tapping his pool cue against the floor and squinting at a span of stars that are playing hide-and-seek above a spiky canopy of palm leaves, rustling to and fro in the wind.

  In the end, Yasmiin removes her headscarf and shakes out that long silky hair. She turns towards me, and when our eyes meet, hers are fired by the wild fury of a sorceress, whose holiest and most arcane incantations have been decoded and diffused on Twitter.

  'Who else knows about me?' she asks, deceptively coolly.

  'Little Stevie, Fingers, of course, Kevin and Big Evans Majengwa. But they're no friends of Vic Hanson or Gregory Aspinall-Watt, so no need to worry there. At least, Yasmiin, now I know why you were so keen to tell me that Vic Hanson is definitely not your boyfriend!'

  'Ok, you know my business now, Brian. But will you still help me?'

  'Taking that 'package' to Nairobi?'

  I shake my head.

  'Not a good idea, Yasmiin. I don't want to see you go down for Hanson and Aspinall-Watt. They're not worth it.'

  She's leaning across the table now almost right into my face. Strands of loose hair brush against my cheeks in the breeze. My throat tightens.

  'You don't think they deserve it, Brian?' she hisses in a whisper. 'Do you know what they did to my father?'

  I grab her wrists and pull Yasmiin even closer. To my amazement, she doesn't resist.

  Little Stevie is standing up now and has moved out into the courtyard to squint at Orion, which is rising over the ocean but remains obscured from me and Yasmiin by a spread of palm leaves.

  Left alone with Yasmiin, this should be our first-kiss moment, but if it happens that way, Yasmiin will have me in on her revenge and all three of us will be doomed. It's vital I don't give in.

  So instead, I lean back and sigh:

  'Twenty years ago, Yasmiin, I'd have done both of them for you. Honest! But things aren't so simple now. For a start, I don't want you spending the rest of your life in a Kenyan jail, nor can I afford to get involved either,' I add, nodding towards Little Stevie's back. 'For his sake.'

  Yasmiin has slumped back in her chair now. Her chest is heaving, and for once I'm not staring at it for kicks.

  'You won't help me then, Brian? Not at all?'

  'Not at all. And what's more, Yasmiin, if I even think you're going to make the journey back to Nairobi without me, I'll pay Fingers and Kevin to find some big, bad boys to lock you up somewhere nice and safe for as long as it takes you to cool down. That's a promise.'

  I'm expecting Yasmiin to lean back across the table now and slap me in the face, but to my renewed astonishment that doesn't happen. Instead, this so-proud young woman does something I never thought I'd see: she bursts into tears right in front of me, then collapses over the table, burying her face in her hands just like Little Stevie does, muffling the sobs and convulsions.

  I've barely had time to react before Little Stevie makes it a double miracle. At the sound of Yasmiin's tears, he ghosts in from his star-gazing and just sits down right next to her, throwing an arm tight around her shoulder.

  Yasmiin sits up at Little Stevie's touch and hugs his arm against her chest as naturally as if Little Stevie has always been the one to comfort and console her since birth. Together, they sway gently back and forth this way, ignoring even the waiter when he approaches with a Kleenex and a pole sana, before I have to wave him back to the bar with an acknowledgement and a large tip.

  'It's all right, Yasmiin. It's all right, he won't hurt you,' Little Stevie mumbles repetitively in his soft drone.

  I can't resist a little smirk at this, because I recognise the line and I know who the 'he' refers to. Little Stevie has always been afraid of dogs, you see, right back since the age of four, and he still mutters this line of mine to himself every time he sees even the most cowering of sissy-footed Chihuahuas cringing at the end of an old lady's lead.

  Curiously, Yasmiin seems to draw some comfort from Little Stevie's dog-defence line, and she hugs him even tighter. And they keep up this emotional embrace for some time, while I sit chewing silently opposite and polish off a couple more tonic waters.

  Finally Yasmiin breaks free.

  There was no make-up to smudge, so she still looks delicious despite her red and puffy eyes.

  'What can I do then, Brian?' she asks plaintively, while I'm totally amazed that this determined woman, who's been crafting such a carefully planned revenge for so long, can seemingly have abandoned it all so suddenly, without so much as a fight, and has promptly committed herself to my care.

  'Stay here with us,' I answer, barely audibly, so hard is the lump that's bobbing up and down in my throat. 'Between us we'll think of something.'

  Yasmiin doesn't answer directly, but she stretches out an arm across the table towards mine. I clasp it tightly, real tight, and Little Stevie does the same with the other.

  So now we're sitting holding hands altogether and smiling at each other like a prayer circle, and what makes it even more sublime for me is that Little Stevie can obviously appreciate the intensity of the moment too, for he reaches out and offers his free hand to join with mine, and when I take it, his grip is even firmer and more sustained than Big Evans Majengwa's.

  So this is it! We've become the Holy Family. And for me, the only regret that can sully our considerable communal joy, and which back eddies against the colossal depth of all this emotion, is a sixth sense that as far as any other kind of intimacy goes, virgin births will be all the rage in this latter-day Holy Family too.