by KJ Griffin
Chapter 16
I'm up unusually late this morning. And what's even more unusual and the reason for this unexpected bounty is that Little Stevie got up by himself this morning for the first time in twenty years without so much as calling out to me, patting my back, stroking my hair or reciting stale football scores louder and louder till I'm forced to leave my bed. No, none of that malarkey whatsoever.
Today is special, and on this special day Little Stevie simply woke without worrying about me, dressed himself without any instructions and has gone for a run with Farah, an incredible personal achievement that ranks up there with that dreadful day one May back when Little Stevie was six and a half and he uttered his first ever words, Sorry, Dad! as I kicked the radio in rage across the yurt after Solskjaer scored his immortal stoppage time winner in the European Cup Final against Bayern Munich and a wad of my hard-won cash went south with the boys from Bavaria.
I find all this out from Fingers and Kevin, who are sitting at an outside table adjacent to the showpiece swimming pool with mugs of coffee in their hands and a couple of spare cups on the table. The best of the chipped plaster villas that make up this low-key holiday apartment complex front onto the pool, and ahead of us, towards the sea, the chink of bottles suggests they're stocking up in the bar where I sat up far too late by myself last night, chewing over how things might work out from here on if Little Stevie, Yasmiin and I really have become a family of three.
I'm yawning heavily despite this nine-thirty lie in and am still so taken aback by Little Stevie's new-found independence that it's only when Big Evans Majengwa arrives, muscles rippling tight against a colourful new t-shirt, that I notice Fingers and Kevin are wearing exactly the same gear. Big Evans Majengwa stops right in front of me so that I can read the slogan on these white t-shirts, which is scrawled in Betfair grey across his mountainous chest:
FC Kenya
That's all it says. But the tail of the 'a' of Kenya opens up into the outline of a chequered football.
'FC Kenya?' I ask suspiciously, looking in turn from Big Evans Majengwa to Fingers and then to Kevin.
Even Kevin is smirking for once:
'It stands for 'Forum for Change Kenya, Mr Brian,' he smiles. 'Your friend, Dismas Mosiro's new party.'
'Wapi, Bwana!' Fingers cuts in, laughing even louder. 'Forum for Change Kenya is too much rubbish. We all simply call it Football Club Kenya. It's your party, Mr Brian! People are wearing FC Kenya t-shirts all over Kenya at this very minute, even now as we are speaking.'
'FC Kenya!' Big Evans Majengwa shouts out in front of me, so loud I start to spill my coffee. Then the rest of the cup is sent shattering over the hot stone floor when he slaps my forearm, adding:
'There's a big rally called for tomorrow afternoon in Nairobi. Everyone is talking about it and all the mobiles are chattering. They have heard there is something special, very special about our new party.'
'Tomorrow, eh?' I yawn, pouring another coffee. 'That's quick work by Dismas.'
'Dismas Mosiro has quit the government and resigned as Minister for Tourism. Revolution is coming to Kenya,' Big Evans Majengwa thunders, fist held aloft, then adds, much more quietly:
'But really, Brian, many of us 'originals' will be wanting to hear the scores from Germany and Spain as much as what Dismas Mosiro has to say.'
I slurp some coffee thoughtfully from a fresh cup and sit down with Big Evans Majengwa next to Fingers and Kevin.
The water is gurgling in the swimming pool. There's hardly any breeze twisting the palm fronds above us and I'm glad I'm not wearing any kind of top. Even one of these fancy new t-shirts would be too much for me in this suffocating morning swelter.
'FC Kenya, eh?' I mutter, polishing off the rest of the coffee pot before Big Evans Majengwa piles in.
'Foot?ball? Club? Kenya?,' Big Evans Majengwa repeats, lazily articulating every syllable like there's a chocolate coating to savour wrapped around each one.
'I like it,' I nod approvingly. 'Clever old Dismas, eh? What a great double name for Kenya's all-new, mass-appeal political party.'
'Forum for Change, Kenya,' we all repeat, and hold our coffee cups up for a toast like they're champagne flutes, though Big Evans Majengwa will have to hang on till the waiter arrives back from the bar with a fresh brew before he gets his.
'And what about Yasmiin?' I ask suspiciously, after we have had a swig of coffee.
'Don't worry, Mr Brian,' Fingers smiles. 'I've had people watching her room all night, just like you asked. She hasn't gone anywhere.'
In fact, Yasmiin doesn't appear till Little Stevie and Farah return from their run, panting in near convulsions and gushing out sweat like angry geysers. She's wearing a Somali-style diraa again, but this time my luck's out and the green and yellow dress is far less revealing and of a coarser, less transparent cloth.
Little Stevie is so hot he even breaks his water taboo and wades gingerly into the shallow end of the pool accompanied by Farah, who looks even less confident in the water than my son, while Yasmiin crouches by the edge, flicking droplets at Little Stevie, a teasing he endures silently with his eyes tightly closed and his head dodging the splashes.
The rest of this Saturday morning is a matchday build up that's changed beyond all recognition from the good old days when Little Stevie and I would sit huddled around the radio in the woods of West Sussex, me with a selection of sporting papers spread out over a plastic sheet, Little Stevie with his laptop, dongle and wireless internet connection.
For a start, it's amazing how much of an interest Yasmiin is suddenly taking in our operations. Far from huffing and puffing about all this filthy haram gambling, she seems to be doing her level best to take over the operational running of Football Kenya. Little Stevie and I have to get used to having Yasmiin sit around in the shade in between us during our usual pre-match conference, and she asks all sorts of questions that show she knows little about football, less, of course, about football betting, but has the appetite of a fast learner.
Fingers, Kevin and Big Evans Majengwa are quickly forced to assimilate Yasmiin into their self-created hierarchy too. She's the boss's girl, they so understandably yet so sadly, incorrectly assume, so they've probably accepted they'll have to put up with Yasmiin whether they like it or not.
But as the sun climbs high in the sky above us and thirty-five degrees of humid heat sends first me, then eventually everyone in our group, even Little Stevie, into the deep and shady end of the pool, stranger things still start to happen.
In twos and threes at first, then later in noisy family groups full of hullabaloo and how-do-you-do, great gatherings of local wananchi start to arrive, predominantly young men, but here and there a fair few women too and some older faces, all sporting the same white FC Kenya t-shirts with the logo inscribed in Betfair grey, like a whole army of fans that got lost on the way to the stadium and ended up by the beach instead.
They keep a respectful distance from our table but hang around in party-size gatherings, rapidly filling up the shade. Several have brought picnics with them, and this pisses off the solitary waiter, who starts to argue half-heartedly at first with one finger up a nostril, but when he doesn't deter one sizeable group behind me from opening up a large collection of unripe bananas and throwing greasy fingers into a communal dish of cooked rice, he has no other option than to return with the Asian owner and a couple more staff.
'It's OK,' I call over. 'They're my friends. Let me give you a little compensation, mate.'
The old Asian man seems determined to have an argument, else it wouldn't have been worth his while coming outside in the hot sun, and he's reluctant to leave it there despite the wad of large notes I thrust inside the front pocket of his shirt, but having checked the cash a second time, he simply shrugs at my largesse and retreats inside. He can see I'm obviously mad, but a madman with money is welcome to wallow in his insanity anywhere in the free-market world. For as long as his money lasts, at least.
'My God,' I sigh to F
ingers and the boys, looking all around me. 'What the hell is all this lot doing here?'
'They've come to watch the games with you, Mr Brian,' Fingers chuckles.
'But we don't even have a television set! And even if we did, M-Net won't be showing Schalke v Bochum followed by Man City away to Fulham.'
'That won't bother them, Mr Brian,' Big Evans Majengwa chuckles, pointing to the shapes in the shade of the palm trees. 'They just like to be near you and the Quiet Boy while the matches are being played.'
'I suppose I should be flattered. But we won't know anything that's going on in the games before they do. All of us will get the same score flashes on our mobiles at the same time from Luxmi's office.'
Kevin leans across the table and fixes Little Stevie a shifty stare, like he's checking to make sure Little Stevie is engrossed in his football books, which of course, he is, despite the fact that Yasmiin is sitting beside him, so close I'm momentarily insanely jealous.
'Some of the people, Mr Brian,' Kevin whispers so quietly he's almost hissing, 'they believe your son can control the games.'
'What?' I scoff so loudly that this time Little Stevie does look up. 'Why the hell would anyone think that?'
Fingers and Kevin are both laughing now:
'This is Africa, bwana. People, they just know these things. You should not ask why. It is not right for you to ask.'
'But he's my son,' I almost shout back, and even Little Stevie looks interested now.
'That can be true,' Kevin replies. 'But it makes no difference.'
I see I'm stuck in one of those bizarre, clash-of-cultural-understanding conversations that is going nowhere, and experience tells me to drop it here and now, even if this is way beyond the norm for what passes as weird, even around here.
'It's too hot out here,' Yasmiin announces, bringing a refreshing touch of banality to the situation; or maybe she's turned psychic now as well and has just been reading my lustful mind. 'I'm going inside to change.'
We all keep a sly, intrusive eye on Yasmiin as she gets up. She smiles briefly my way with her dress rippling suggestively in the wind, before turning her back on us and flip-flopping towards the apartments. I wait till she has passed the pool and I'm sure she's out of earshot before I ask Fingers:
'Have you still??'
He nods. I am almost too ashamed to complete the question, got someone watching her room? For Yasmiin is one of us now, after all.
'OK,' I acknowledge wistfully, feeling like I've just ordered a hit on her family.
We all fall into a silence that is broken only by the gurgling of water in the pool filter and by the pitter-patter of distant conversations from amid the bushes. Little Stevie checks his watch and pronounces us only twelve minutes away from kick-off in Gelsenkirchen. So, with a sense of urgency we order food and eat quickly, but it takes Little Stevie so long to chew suspiciously at his chicken and chips that I send him back to the room between mouthfuls in search of our satellite radio so that we can pick up Radio Five Live and at least gain coverage of the English afternoon games.
Little Stevie has to pick his way carefully past the pool, between all the clumps of FC Kenya t-shirts that look up at him and smirk 'Quiet Boy!' to each other as he passes, and their sibilant murmurings create a steady susurration that is sustained and soon amplified by the burgeoning afternoon kusi wind, now washing away the heaviness of the oppressive morning heat.
I take the opportunity of a few minutes without Little Stevie in my immediate consciousness to get up and talk to some of this picnicking horde. At first I'm greeted by a variety of bashful, grinning faces, but as I draw within handshaking range, several young men stand to attention and grab my hand all stiff and courteous, like we're all standing round some bloody flagpole and I'm going to award them medals, or make a bullshit speech about duty and sacrifice.
It takes time to break the ice with these guys, but eventually I succeed and we do chat. Most are local from Mombasa and its shantytown suburbs like Changamwe and Bombolulu. Some are sporting a newer version of the FC Kenya t-shirt, on the back of which I can see a photo of Dismas with the larger words Mosiro Rais! (Mosiro for President!) shouting loudly at me in the same Betfair grey. Everywhere I go, people are curling their thumb and forefinger into a circular gesture, flashing up zero signs at my face.
'What does that zero mean?' I ask Fingers, whose neatly pressed, baggy white shirt is starting to flap in this delicious afternoon breeze.
Fingers laughs:
'It's not a zero, it's a football, Mr Brian. Everywhere you go in Kenya now people are telling me, every market place, every street, every alleyway, people will flash you the football.'
'Jesus!' I murmur. 'It really has worked!'
It takes time to wash over me, like the freshening vigour in this long-anticipated breeze, and I must be beaming like a wild madman at Little Stevie for no good reason at all when he reappears with the radio, for my dumb leering sends him into a minor panic and he starts covering his ears. But suddenly this all feels so good to me. So good! So I close my eyes tight, then open them again. And when I look around me this time, I no longer see scores of faces intruding on my privacy - I see the future. Mine are the eyes of a believer.
Inspired with the passion of a new believer, I'm taken by a sudden desire to spring off my chair and rush off to shake as many outstretched hands as I can, but I instantly get hit by a pang of the old gut pain and almost immediately have to return chastened to my chair, arriving there just in time to see Yasmiin walking through the scant and narrow gaps she can find amid the ranks of the FC Kenya faithful, and ? Oh? my? God!
Her hair is loose, flowing freely in this lascivious wind. She's got make up on now too: blue eyelids set against red lips, with dark-brown latticed henna spiralling symmetrically all the way from fingertips to bare elbows. But what has really done me over is her dress: she's practically not wearing any! Just a cream-coloured bikini top plumped out to such perfection that deep clefts of brown cleavage are at long last revealed, and haven't I already conjured up those smooth contours in my febrile imagination many times too many before on those cool evenings back in Annie Oakley's, when Yasmiin would sit stiffly-buttoned opposite me.
I must be staring far too obviously but I can't help myself, for this is perfection, pure perfection, which is constricting my larynx in a vice-like grip of hard desire.
Gulping for breath I look Yasmiin up and down all over again, then more down than up, and all of a sudden there don't seem to be too many FC Kenya hands bobbing and waving in my face, and don't I know the reason why: they're all ogling what I'm ogling! They're all staring at those firm, feminine contours, at all the hard-limbed, naked beauty of an antique goddess, staring at a statue of Athene the Warrior that has walked off the Parthenon frieze, turned a rich chocolate brown in the sun, and has come to greet her attendants in the Festival of Mysteries.
'Come on over, Yasmiin,' I beckon hoarsely. 'They must be just about to kick off in Gelsenkirchen.'
Little Stevie dutifully checks his watch:
'Two minutes to go, Dad.'
'Two minutes for you to get the radio in its best position then.'
Yasmiin is standing right in front of me now and I can't help myself any longer:
'And if Schalke play anywhere near as good as you look, Yasmiin, half of Kenya will be much the richer!'
Fingers and Kevin start chuckling behind me, which in turn infects Big Evans Majengwa, who sets out on one of his crescendoing, ocean-filling laughs, and far from the cool look I'm expecting from Yasmiin, instead I get the faintest of smiles, and she takes Little Stevie's hand again and settles in between the two of us, dipping her toes in the pool.
But Schalke's play soon falls woefully short of our goddess's perfection. For no sooner have we have sat down and Big Evans Majengwa's thundering guffaw has calmed to something more like an engine-idling drone, than a swarm of mobiles from every corner of shade and sun all over the beach apartments starts bleeping in unison.
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br /> 'Shit!' Fingers curses. 'Bochum have scored!'
And his disappointment is echoed in a hubbub of plaintive wailing that erupts here and there from every clump of shade.
'Oh well, it's still early in the game I shrug. Plenty of time to turn things around.'
Which evaporates, slowly at first then with increasing gusto, exacerbated, no doubt, by the weight of expectation around this pool. For a long time now we've been sitting in silence listening to the Liverpool v Spurs game on Five Live, while the absence of news from Craven Cottage is annoying proof that what's really motivating the millionaire footballers of Man City on this trip to South West London is the lure of a post-match shopping trip to Harrods rather than the prospect of making the Fulham net swell with goals. And there can only be seconds left in Gelsenkirchen.
Back here in Mombasa, Little Stevie has slumped over the table next to the radio, staring resolutely at his watch. Not even the brush of Yasmiin's hand on his shoulder can distract him from this lugubrious countdown.
'How long?' I ask.
'Ninety-two minutes played, Dad.'
We hear the first mobile bleep somewhere in the shade between the pool and the apartments. Almost immediately it's followed by a buzz that amplifies and screeches from behind every palm tree, as if Esso had accidentally poisoned every tree frog in Mombasa in some apocalyptic oil spill and flown in a load of plastic replicas from China on the sly, in the biggest amphibian cover up ever staged by corporate America.
What follows next is one of those slow-motion moments you only get when the adrenalin is so explosive inside your veins that it freeze-frames every millisecond into stretched time.
Shouts erupt from every quarter. But more up-close-and-personal, Big Evans Majengwa is screaming in my face like he's spewing out the primordial roar from which all creation sprang, and I'm so ecstatic that I grip him in a reciprocal bear hug, which knocks the giant boxer off balance and sends us both tumbling into the pool.
We hit it about half way down and emerge to stand there with the water up to our chests shouting in delirium, gripped tight in mock-combat. It's only then I that I see Little Stevie and Yasmiin hugging in a similar embrace and teetering right on the edge of the pool. My ears are still full of 'Goal, Goal, GOAL!' echoing from everywhere the electronic tree frogs were chirruping only microseconds ago, when Little Stevie and Yasmiin come crashing into the water almost directly on top of us.
Which throws me into sudden panic and I lunge under the water to the spot where Little Stevie landed, yanking him up with the survival instincts of First Woman warding off a sabre-toothed tiger with a firebrand. My arms lock around his chest and I haul him to the surface, expecting the biggest whinge since Arsene Wenger last got a player yellow carded in a friendly reserve fixture.
But far from it! Little Stevie is quite able to stand on the bottom of the pool by himself, and with his feet safely anchored to the bottom, he leans back laughing as naturally as I've ever heard him do, his shoulders arching backwards with every spasm of laughter. Only his eyes, remaining tightly scrunched up to keep out the drops of water, give him away as a fish very much out of water.
Next to him Yasmiin surfaces like Aphrodite from the sea foam, and I'm staring in see-through rapture at a pert pair of nipples thrusting rock-hard upwards into the gossamer-thin cups of her bikini.
All three of us instinctively come together in a tight hug with the water eddying just above our waists. Of course, Little Stevie is never good at this sort of thing, even now that Yasmiin is involved. One arm hangs stiffly around my neck and the other is equally rigid around Yasmiin's, while his eyelids stay tightly closed.
But when Yasmiin moves a hand free to brush the water from his forehead and away from his eyes, he is finally confident enough to open them, and as she moves her hand away from his, it brushes gently against my own cheek, strokes it softly, almost imperceptibly, and our eyes now meet. The Schalke goal means nothing in comparison to this smile, this touch, and when we finally break from our team hug to be hauled out of the pool by Kevin and Fingers, my throat is almost garrotted by desire. Not even Jameela could ever do this to me.
There are dozens of hands to shake now we are out of the pool and dripping around our table, and though Schalke's late equalizer has only done enough to claw most of everyone's stake back, the euphoria fizzing all around us feels like we have just successfully backed the first African team to lift the World Cup at odds of over 33 to 1.
We hear the good news of Sergio Aguerro's goal at Craven Cottage from Alan Green on Five Live before any of the mobiles squeal, and even when they do follow through a good two minutes later, the joy of actually holding a winning position with Man City is tepid in comparison to the Schalke equalizer. Even when David Silva extends City's lead with a second goal only minutes later, the roar from the London terraces is nothing compared to the communal riot we've all just celebrated, a humdinger that even brought the Asian owner back out into the hot sun with a bemused smile on his face.
Fingers and Big Evans Majengwa have racked up the beers, which they still prefer to drink warm, even in this heat, and the party is on full swing despite Fulham pulling back a soft goal and mounting a late rally, which we hear worrying reports of on the radio right up to the final whistle. And when Five Live finally does bring confirmation of the City win, it's only really Little Stevie and me who have literally sweated it out with our ears locked on to Alan Green, praying there wouldn't be news of a late equalizer at the Cottage, because for once, we have no insurance on the 2-2 correct score.
But with full time at Fulham, Little Stevie switches off the radio. We can relax. And we wash away the tension of the last two hours with our customary high-five ritual and a long bear hug.
'Ten games undefeated now, Dad,' Little Stevie beams.
'Ten games, man!' Fingers echoes, chinking bottles with Big Evans Majengwa and Kevin.
Fingers and Kevin have been joined by a pair of young ladies with massive thighs and even larger breasts, but despite their girth, both of the girls can easily fit on Big Evans Majengwa's lap, where they sit taking it in turns to swig his beer and laughing at whatever Kevin, the unlikely comic, is telling them in Kikuyu.
Yasmiin has gone quiet now and has brought out her own bundle of fresh qat, and though we're both busy with the same narcotic, we each keep quiet and withdrawn; what happened in the pool has changed the dynamic between the two of us, and I think we both need time to come to terms with that.
Kevin, Big Evans Majengwa and their new girlfriends are making enough noise to cover comfortably for our silent chewing, while Little Stevie sits at my side, contently inputting all the afternoon scores into pages of Excel spreadsheets, updating his ratings and tabulating his data, muttering the scores out loud while he does so in his robotic drone.
Dusk gathers and the Football Kenya crowds dissipate stealthily back into the shadows whence they emerged, while Kevin and Big Evans Majengwa decide to take their new girlfriends off into Bombolulu town and so leave us with boozy farewells and long handshakes, in the course of which Big Evans Majengwa inadvertently pulverizes those digits in my right hand that remain barely functional.
Not long after their departure Little Stevie finishes on his computer and with something else he has been scribbling in a new exercise book, leaving the three of us sitting silently in the dark for some time, till a waiter brings a couple of candles over and Kevin returns from somewhere or other, sounding strangely morose, even for Kevin, like the last-minute miracle in Gelsenkirchen never happened.
'Let's go inside and play some pool,' he suggests to Little Stevie, and it's such a forlorn-sounding invitation that I'm left wondering if it's just the thrashing he's about to endure that's getting Kevin down, or was there an unexpected problem with the girls? Or perhaps he has secretly opened his own private Betfair account on the sly and been lumping on losers behind our backs?
'Can I, Dad?' Little Stevie asks.
'Of course, son. You don't need to
ask me for permission.'
Yasmiin has to push her chair back, almost to the water's edge to let Little Stevie past. She shivers as she does so and looks up at me:
'I'm cold,' Yasmiin says, 'I'm going inside to change.'
Of course, she's right. Suddenly I feel glacial too, but I know that the sensation is merely a perverse trick of our qat chewing and perhaps a little after-sun too.
'Good idea,' I agree, then call out to Little Stevie as he follows Kevin inside the bar, 'And I'll take your laptop back to the room.'
Yasmiin walks ahead of me, almost hurrying in case I catch her up. She seems to hesitate for a second outside my room but then changes her mind and continues up the path without turning around. Her room is furthest from the pool towards the road, and I don't know why I do it, but I have to wait till I hear the sound of her key turning in the lock and the door slamming shut behind her before I enter my own. Do I still doubt Yasmiin? Even now?
It's like an igloo inside, so I rush to switch the air conditioner off. Shivering and goose pimply, I shower quickly in salty water and dress, zipping my biking jacket up tight across my chest. It's time to get rid of the qat too, so I clean my mouth thoroughly and am soon ready to join Little Stevie in the bar. The first cold beer after a long chew is always a divine experience. Even if Yasmiin is walking down the road and hitching a ride to Nairobi this very minute, I'm not going to let anything put me off the simple hedonism of that first, thirst-slaking gulp.
I'm standing outside and turning the key in the lock when I hear what can only be Yasmiin doing the same, so I wait in a mixture of relief and anticipation as the shuffle of sandals draws closer towards me and soon she is standing next to me dressed in white Somali diraa, which gleams eerily in the dim security light outside my door.
She brushes strands of loose hair from her face and looks up, so that our eyes meet for the first time since the pool this afternoon:
'Come on, Brian, let's go,' she whispers.
The soft clasp of Yasmiin's hand in mine has killed all words. I squeeze it gently with the modicum of sensation Big Evans Majengwa has left in my battered fingers and my clasp is deliciously returned. We pull up just outside the front of the bar and I can hear a ramrod break on the pool table that only Little Stevie's cobra-strike cue can deliver, but as I make to pull her hand forwards, Yasmiin hangs back.
'No Brian,' she whispers, stroking my cheek again as she did earlier in the pool, 'Not inside. Not now. Take me for a walk on the beach instead.'
My throat can't take much more of this and I can barely murmur, 'OK'.
An unlit path winds to the right of the bar, squeezing through a narrow corridor between our beach apartments and the wall of the adjoining five-star hotel. Stirred by a roaring night-time blast of the kusi tradewind, palm leaves whip out from the shadows to maw at our faces more reliably than the notorious gangs of thieves who regularly haunt this night strip, but I guess all the hoodlums must have taken tonight off to get pissed in Bombolulu courtesy of the Man City win. Anyway, when you're holding a hand like I've got, you're beyond fear. Oh yes, there is nothing that can touch me anymore, for I have just become the archetypal super-hero; I have slain every mythological monster, ogre and villain from Minotaur to Terminator. Bring them all on! I'll mince them!
On the beach the tide is out and a sliver of crescent moon is rising from the breakers beyond the reef, while streaks of low cloud scud across the magnificent glare of the Milky Way right overhead. The wind is so strong now that Yasmiin turns away from its force and barrels into my chest.
'I'm cold, Brian.'
Our eyes meet.
'I'm not. My whole body is on fire!'
Her eyes pierce through mine in the half-light.
'I have never had a proper boyfriend, Brian. Only pretending with that monster Vic Hanson. And even then, I never let him touch me; the moment he was waiting to have with me was the moment I was preparing for his last.'
The recollection of Vic Hanson must have sharpened Yasmiin's voice, but now just as quickly it softens again:
'So if you want to kiss me, Brian, you must show me the way.'
My whole life has been instantly crystallized into a single moment and this is it: The Zen enlightenment; the shocking realization of godhead laid bare. I have been offered my place in Nirvana and the answers to everything are suddenly laid bare with austere and frightening clarity.
I lean gently forward. Yasmiin reciprocates. But that split-second of inner revelation has totally changed what lies ahead. As our lips draw together, mine swerve at the last gasp and are borne upwards on a sacred thermal, skimming the top of her brow to land a fatherly kiss on the top of Yasmiin's hair; for it has been revealed: a daughter is all she must ever be to me.
'I can't be your lover, Yasmiin,' I whisper. 'It wouldn't be right.'
I'm expecting offence and rebuke, but instead Yasmiin nuzzles even more closely against my shoulder, showering my face with criss-crossing strands of hair.
'Why not?' she asks, almost as an after-thought.
'I'm dying,' I whisper. 'Soon, very soon, I'll be gone, Yasmiin.'
She pushes me away now, and her eyes are fiery once again:
'Only Allah knows when we die, Brian. You are fit and strong. It is not your time!'
'Oh, it's past my time, believe me, Yasmiin. Well past. Maybe Allah knows the exact day, but the doctors can make a pretty good guess too. And I'm already eighteen months beyond what they gave me. Maybe I can squeeze another couple out, but it's already deep into extra time and I can feel the game is almost up.'
Yasmiin stretches her hands out towards mine. We clasp fingers and pull closer but do not embrace.
'Prostate cancer,' I add limply, staring into her mournful eyes. 'But it's spread. I refused surgery and chemo. Couldn't stand all the fuss, you see. And what would happen to Little Stevie with me lying in a hospital bed for months on end? No, I've been fighting the disease with will power alone these last two years and not done too badly at all, I reckon. But the cancer has returned stronger than before over the last three months. That's not a diagnosis; I can just feel it. And now my body is telling me that it's closing in for the kill.'
For a few seconds it looks like Yasmiin is going to slap me, but eventually she clasps my fingers tightly once again and huddles once more against my chest.
I don't know how long we stand this way while the howling wind washes all the sadness of the world from my heart. A wind of truly numinous potency. For in a couple of deep sighs, I'm quickly and cathartically cleansed of even my deepest regrets - regrets for a Little Stevie soon to be left abandoned to a world that could let two year-old Beatrice suck glue on a shit-heap in Kibera slum; regrets for the most passionate love affair that never can be with beautiful Yasmiin; and lugubrious melancholia for a World of Wonder that's busy witnessing the Amazon jungle being processed into coffee tables to adorn the high-rise apartments of the nouveau-riche Chinese in Shanghai.
'But Little Stevie,' I murmur eventually. 'You'll look after him for me when I'm gone, won't you, Yasmiin? I mean, you and Little Stevie could be close, couldn't you? Very close, I mean.'
Now it's Yasmiin's turn to sigh, and it's curious to see how the feel of her chest heaving deep against my own, which would have thrown me into torments of eroticism only half an hour ago, no longer induces any sensation stronger than mild regret.
'He will be my brother, Brian. A very special brother.'
'No more than that?'
Yasmiin looks askance and I feel a tinge of shame. Am I bartering on Little Stevie's behalf now?
She rests her head against my neck and I can't resist stroking a cheek:
'We will not be like this, me and your son, Brian. I will love Little Stevie, Brian, you know that. But not as my husband.'
A few moments ago, Yasmiin had wiped away all my regrets with that unsolicited embrace. But now they've all been tossed straight back in my face with a furious blast of this raging tradewind; a vision of Little St
evie unloved and alone brings bitter tears to my eyes.
'But what will happen to Little Stevie when you meet someone else?'
Clutching a dress that is furling like a sail ripped in a crosswind, she backs away. Pouting and defiant, the old Yasmiin has returned.
'I told you, Brian, Little Stevie will be my brother. Even if I a married, he will live in my house. My husband must accept that!'
'And if he wants to marry?'
At that she smiles again:
'Then I will find him a wife. For my brother I will find only the most beautiful and the best girl all the way from Lamu to Mombasa!'
'Yes, well be careful,' I sigh. 'Remember what happened with little Janet in Nairobi. Anyway, we must go back to the bar now. Little Stevie will be missing me.'
I shouldn't have said those last words, for suddenly my whole heart has erupted. Little Stevie will be missing me! Little Stevie will be missing me! Too right, he will! Be missing me. All too soon.
My own death means nothing, a return to the bosom of the Life Force that cares nothing for the individual, only for the process of life itself. But a mental image of my dear, dear son abandoned, alone and forlorn leaves me quivering in despair. Even if Yasmiin can be trusted to care for my boy, how can she ever replace me, I who have been father, mother and best friend all rolled into one all these years? Little Stevie will simply turn in on himself. He'll be a muttering wreck, fit only for the asylum - and they don't even have asylums in Kenya!
Breaking down and sobbing in huge convulsions, I can feel myself sinking uncontrollably to my knees, clawing at the sand like a suppliant, before collapsing exhausted on my back. Momentarily I can see flashes of the stars above. Next thing I know, however, the sky is suddenly blotted out and the saltiness of my tears is replaced by the softness of Yasmiin's mouth. She sits straddled on top of me now. I am holding her so tight I must be choking the life out of her, clinging to her with the desperation of the dying. Clinging and kissing. Clinging and kissing. But this is asexual kissing. There's nothing erotic in it. Yasmiin is life itself. She is the Mother Earth I must leave and into whose uncertain care I must soon bequeath my helpless son.
And then, my despair softens and my grip relaxes. I am no longer kissing with the intensity of the ship-wrecked sailor hugging a barnacled rock in a treacherous sea. No, something's changed now, for I can feel Yasmiin's breath hot and expectant against my own and I become aware again of her body hot and hard on top of mine. We are kissing like lovers now: soft mouths, searching hands, aching limbs. And finally, in the renewed awakening of desire, something from deep within cuts loose and all my fears for Little Stevie have finally and mysteriously surrendered to the serenity of acceptance about what must come and what is meant to be.
Gently I push Yasmiin off, wiping away my tears with sandy fingers. She stands up smiling bashfully at me as she helps me to my feet too with an outstretched hand.
Standing face to face again I hold her close one more time:
'Come on, Yasmiin. We really must go now. Little Stevie will be missing us.'
There, I've said the danger words again, but this time I can take them. Our eyes meet and we both giggle. I press Yasmiin's hand, swallow hard and glance around at the awesome canopy of stars up above: I'll be joining you bastards soon enough, I grunt to myself. And suddenly I feel able to accept that. I can't fight it any longer and have simply embraced what will and must be.
And as the stars stare back at me I marvel once more at their austere beauty. When I follow the Egyptian pharaohs to their bosom soon enough, I too will become just more star-shit data for Little Stevie's Yellow Peril notebook. But I'm confident that he'll find out the constellation they've housed me in and my bearings will get recited now and again when times get tough. My memory will not fade. My astro-coordinates will be forever regurgitated in the great circle of Little Stevie's crisis moments. Now that's a comforting thought!
I squeeze Yasmiin's hand once again and with heads bowed we make our way back to the bar.