I squeezed her hand. ‘Tell me.’
‘That was before my parents split up. Before Dad walked out. So long ago.’ She sighed. ‘We used to bring a picnic, hire a pedalo, and go off into the middle of the lake. We fed the sandwich crusts to the ducks and then there were Jaffa Cakes and tea out of a Thermos. That was the last time I can remember being really happy.’
Stacey clung on to my arm as she wobbled on her heels over a bump in the path. At the edge of the lake, Monty was barking dementedly at a white swan pedalo gliding along a few yards from the shore with a bunch of kids drinking out of cans and letting off party-poppers.
Suddenly a memory came crashing in on me: the absolute darkness, the fathomless water, the rope tightening around my middle as I dangled from a bridge in Hackney or Islington – I couldn’t remember exactly where – above the white swan pedalo. Nige and Howard had found or stolen it somewhere and decided to bring it closer to home and keep it hidden under the bridge to use for fishing, and to impress their friends. I remembered their reedy excited voices as they hatched their plan. I remembered the voice of the policeman on the pavement above, interrogating them about the stolen pedalo; I remembered their squeaky emphatic denial of any knowledge of it whatsoever, no sir, it wasn’t us. And I remembered the splash as Howard, or maybe it was Nige, let go of the rope.
Although there was not much of a current on the canal, the white swan had drifted away so it was no longer directly beneath me when I fell. It had floated into the entrance of a tunnel where the canal went underground. Of course I couldn’t swim, and as I floundered desperately towards it, it drifted away on the ripples I made with my splashing, the faint light gleaming on its puffed-out wings like a will-o’-the-wisp luring me into the darkness. I remembered the foul taste of the water gurgling through my mouth, my throat and lungs soggy with it, something slimy stuck to my tongue as I gasped for air. I remembered total blackness; whether inside me or outside I could no longer tell.
I had no recollection of how I was rescued, but I remembered throwing up wretchedly on the towpath, and Howard coaching me as we walked home, soaking wet and shivering, through the dusk.
‘So when Dad asks what happened, you’re going to say you fell off a bridge, right? What are you going to say?’
‘I fell off a b-b-bridge.’
Stacey slipped her hand into mine. ‘Oh, you poor pet! That sounds terrifying!’ She frowned. ‘I wonder where they got the swan. Maybe it came from here. They find them every winter, you know, abandoned in the bushes or even dumped on the River Lea.’
‘But how did they get it to Islington?’
‘There are secret waterways all over London. Probably full of dead bodies.’ She squeezed my arm. ‘Were you scared, Bertie?’
‘Mm. As scared as I’ve ever been.’ I was shivering uncontrollably now.
Stacey held me tight. ‘Let’s go and get a cup of tea.’
‘I’d rather …’
I surrendered. I let her lead me to a small round table and order a pot of tea for two.
‘I’ll be mother.’ She poured the milk in first, from a small china jug, and then added the tea. ‘Say when.’
I gulped the warm tasteless liquid and as it trickled down inside me I felt the twist of cold and fear unwind.
Mother, I recalled, had offered me tea too, and interceded with Sid to let me warm up a bit before he thrashed me. Thwack! I didn’t tell him about Howard and Nige and the white swan pedalo. There was no point in getting thrashed twice – first by Dad and then by them for telling tales.
‘I fell off a b-b-bridge.’
Mother said that was the first time she ever heard me stammer.
Violet: Bulbul
With so much to keep her busy since she started her new job, and determined to make a success of it, Violet has put her inquiries about Horace Nzangu on to the back-burner. But today is Friday, and she has invited Lynette to join her for a coffee at the Bulbul at four o’clock. Lynette is the eldest daughter of her mother’s second brother, her favourite cousin and the nearest she has to a sister. She is a teacher, a couple of years older than her, married to a civil engineer called Archie; they have three small children, and she has only just returned to work. Lynette is round-cheeked, slim and wiry, like all the cousins, and today she is wearing a white cotton dress with small pink and green candy-stripes and narrow shoulder straps.
‘Haqbari ya leo!’ They hug and laugh, pleased as always to see each other, and gossip for a while about family news.
She tells Lynette about the projects she has visited for her job, and mentions that she came across some big-time corruption in Kenya in her previous London job that could have some bearing on how their Babu Josaphat died.
‘Violet, why you can’t leave that dirty history alone?’ Lynette wrinkles her nose. ‘All that corruption belongs in the time of Baba Moi.’ That is the nickname of ex-President Daniel Arap Moi. ‘It is out of date. Archie says if people always think of corruption when they think of Kenya, it’ll put them off investment.’
‘But Lynette, sometimes it’s the investment that brings the corruption.’
‘Since your British have started poking their clean white noses into corruption, our Government has just cosied up more with the Chinese, who don’t give a fly what anybody does. That’s what everybody says.’
‘Lynette, have you heard of the name Horace Nzangu?’
She takes the four GRM photocopies out of their brown envelope and spreads them on the table. Lynette glances at them.
‘Nzangu? Hm. I think he’s some big bwana in the Health Ministry, married to a cousin of Baba Moi. So what? He’s corrupt? Tell me something new.’ She fakes a big yawn, covering her mouth with her hand. ‘No one can touch him. That man put all his relatives in positions where they could get rich. He bled the country for twenty-four years, and we’re still bleeding. Nothing we can do, little cousin. All the money is in Europe now. Better to burn those papers and pretend you never seen them.’
‘What are you saying, Lynette?’ Her cousin’s attitude shocks her.
Their coffee arrives. The waiter is tall and slim, with beautiful eyes that linger on the women’s bare shoulders.
Lynette takes a slow sip of coffee. ‘Shall we order some pastries? The sticky-chocolate cake here is heavenly.’ She waits until the waiter has moved away and slides the copies back into their envelope. ‘Who else have you shown these to?’
‘Nobody. Only the people in my office.’
‘Those people have ears and eyes everywhere,’ she whispers. ‘You don’t know who is listening.’
At the next table a group of young people are celebrating somebody’s birthday. ‘Happy birthday to you,’ they sing. A plump girl with mauve hair extensions leans forward to blow the candles out on an iced cake, while everyone cheers and claps. Then the birthday girl makes a speech thanking her mum and dad, to another round of applause. Nobody seems to be taking any notice of them.
‘When it comes to bribery, Violet, there’s always two parties – one to give the bribe, and one to take it. So why don’t your British look into that?’
‘That’s what I’m doing. It’s not like you to be such a pussy, Lynette. I thought you were the brave one out of us.’
The waiter arrives with their chocolate cake. Lynette attacks hers with a fork. Violet cuts her slice of cake into four chunks and forks the first one into her mouth. It is so unbelievably delicious, an explosion of sweetness and bitterness on her tongue, that for a moment she just wants to surrender to the double bliss of chocolate and gossip and forget the whole sleazy HN story that brought her here.
‘Violet, mpenzi, take my advice, the best thing is to find yourself a nice rich husband and forget about all that history. When you have kids of your own, you’ll understand what really matters.’
‘Listen, Lynette, my parents told me that in the Mbagathi Hospital when they worked there someone was collecting the used syringes, rinsing them in water, and selling them back to the hospit
al – not the best thing during an AIDS epidemic. But the case never went to court because no one would stand up and testify. Babu Josaphat worked in accounts, and he had evidence that this was going on, but someone killed him before he could bring it to court. I think that was Horace Nzangu. He started small. Now he’s got two point three million dollars in the British Virgin Isles.’
Lynette shrugs her shiny shoulders, polishes off her coffee and cake, and stands up to go, saying Archie will be waiting for her in his pickup on the corner of Kenyatta Avenue. They hug and Lynette presses her with a soft perfumed cheek to whisper in her ear, ‘You’re playing with fire, Violet. Leave it alone.’
She finishes her cake, pays the bill and makes for the door. The heat in the street outside is intense after the cool of the café. The air is humid with the promise of rain and heavy with the scent of earth, cumin, burned sugar, and a background stink of petrol fumes and stagnant drains. She breathes deeply as she stands in the doorway to get her bearings. A scruffy ginger mongrel is stretched out asleep in the shade. Dogs. Rabies. You have to be careful. You can’t pet them, like people do in England. She remembers her dog, Mfumu, she left behind in Karen – he will be dead by now – and the friendly one-legged pigeon she adopted in London. This little dog is incredibly ugly, everything about him seems to be the wrong size or shape. He stirs and gets up to follow her, lazily slinking in the narrow strip of shade along the edge of the pavement.
She needs to call at the office to finish off some paperwork before going home. She walks quickly, so it’s only by chance that she happens to look back and notice a lean shadowy figure following behind the dog, on the edge of her vision. She turns and stares. It’s the waiter from the Bulbul. ‘Hi,’ she smiles as he gets closer, but he looks right through her. That’s strange. He watches her let herself into the office building with her key, and she sees him disappear into a side street by the tobacco kiosk.
Everyone has left the office except Queenie, the administrator, a plump motherly woman with an elaborate coiffure and nail extensions, who is still jabbing at her computer keyboard, muttering to herself under her breath. While Queenie is absorbed in her work, she takes the envelope with the photocopies out of her bag and stows it in the bottom drawer of her desk, between the leaves of a computer manual.
‘You’re working late, Queenie. You should get yourself off home.’
Queenie laughs and says something in the Kamba language that she can’t understand.
At six o’clock they leave the office together, and make their way to the bus stop. Nairobi minibuses are crowded, chaotic and buzzing with talk and laughter. She joins the queue for the Langata matatu where a noisy crew of women are coming home from market balancing baskets on their heads.
The traffic, as always, is slow and lawless, accompanied by a chorus of horns. One of the differences she has noticed between England and Kenya is the sudden nightfall; twilight fades into dusk in half an hour. By the time the minibus drops her off on Kaunda Avenue it’s already dark.
Violet: Kibera
The rainy season usually comes in November, but this year it starts early. On Sunday morning she wakes to the hammering of rain on the roof and windows. Downstairs in the kitchen, Njoki is rolling up old towels to catch the puddles that leak in under the door, and singing to herself. In spite of the mess and chaos, the first big rains are always a cause for joy, a welcome relief from the dust of summer. Njoki has just switched the kettle on for tea when the phone starts to ring in the hall; she clucks with annoyance and runs to answer it, wiping her hands on her pinafore.
‘It’s for you.’
‘Hello, Violet, is that you?’ The voice at the other end sounds both familiar and strange above the racket of the rain. Maybe there’s a fault with the line.
‘Violet speaking. Who is this?’
‘It’s Queenie. Violet, I need to get back into the office. Can you come over and let me in?’
Yes, it sounds like Queenie’s voice, but she is usually a chatty and relaxed person; she has never heard her sound so anxious before.
‘What, now? Haven’t you seen the weather, Queenie? Can’t it wait until Monday?’
‘It’s rather urgent. Something I need. Please, Violet. Come straight away.’
Surely no work they are doing could be that urgent, but Queenie sounds desperate.
‘Okay. I’ll be there in half an hour.’
She grabs her raincoat and umbrella and sets off towards the bus stop.
The road is pitted and puddly, made treacherous by the heavy rain. She tries to pick her way carefully, keeping her feet dry, but soon gives up and splashes straight through the muddy water. What on earth possessed Queenie to go out on a day like this? It seems that the rain has stopped the traffic, so there are no buses or taxis coming through. Too bad. She decides to walk, and takes a left turn off the Southern Bypass, thinking to cut through the Kibera slum and cross the river bridge, which is the quickest way from here into town. This is not normally a route she would take, but she reckons it will be safe in the middle of the day – and in any case, most people will be trying to patch up their pitiful tin-roofed shacks against the rain, or crowding inside.
She is right. The narrow alleys are empty, streaming with dirty water which pours in brown rivulets down into the Nairobi River carrying bits of debris, plastic bottles, torn carrier bags, fallen jacaranda flowers, dead rats, ownerless undergarments that swirl around her shoes. Lines of soggy washing strung across the alleys flap in her face as she passes. Chickens squawk and huddle for shelter. Wet, half-naked children splash and throw mudballs, or chase the stray dogs about. ‘Hujambo!’ they wave and shout as she passes, and she waves back, holding her umbrella low.
The Nairobi River has swollen into a foaming filthy torrent. At the bridge, a gaggle of little boys are yelling and running ahead of her waving sticks. Suddenly they stop dead in their tracks, shriek, and turn back to run in the opposite direction, almost pushing her into the water. Maybe this short cut isn’t such a good idea. She clings on to the railings, and a moment later three sodden goats thunder across the bridge, and behind them another gaggle of grinning boys with sticks chase them into the alleys. She can hear their excited shrieks long after they have disappeared from view.
At Kambi Muru, she carries on up to Kibera Drive, hoping the matatus will be running once more. The rain has eased now, and there are a few other people at the stop. Before long, a battered yellow Toyota pulls up full of damp people on their way from church. There is little traffic, and despite having to navigate around a number of deep treacherous puddles and a flooding water main, she is soon back at the office. She fishes her keys out of her bag and looks around.
There is no sign of Queenie.
She stands at the intersection, peering impatiently in both directions. The streets are deserted. It is too annoying. Queenie seemed in such a hurry. Njoki will be waiting for her return to sit down to lunch.
As she waits, a battered white taxi-van pulls up close by. Thinking it must be Queenie arriving, she steps forward. Then a man’s voice shouts her name, she spins around, and the next thing she knows, rough arms grab hold of her, her hands are tied behind her, and as she starts to scream something dark and suffocating is pulled down over her head. Then she is bundled into the back of the van. The engine revs and roars as she lies face down on the floor, seething with fear and rage, listening to the voices of her three kidnappers discussing where they should take her in a Kamba dialect she can barely follow. Her heart is beating so fast she thinks it will burst out of her chest, but all her senses are on full alert, feeling the vibration of the engine through her cheekbone, registering every bump and swerve of the road through her spine, smelling the burning diesel from the engine and the sweat of the three men.
Then the van swerves, her head hits something hard and she blacks out.
Berthold: Happiness
When, after four weeks at The Bridge, the final curtain came down to wild applause, Waiting for Godot tran
sferred to the West End. I was pleased, but not surprised. The show had an electricity that seemed to light up the audience in that small space. Transferring to a bigger theatre lost the intimacy, but was replaced by the pulse generated by a much bigger crowd.
Stacey came along once or twice out of loyalty, but I think she got bored with the play in a way you don’t get bored if you’re one of the players. She was pleased when I was mentioned in reviews and my face began to appear in the better class of newspaper, though admittedly not on the backs of buses. I took it all in my stride without letting it go to my head: the sudden celebrity seemed as unreal and arbitrary as my prolonged absence from the stage had been.
During that time I would often return home after midnight, pleasantly tired in my bones from the long effort of focusing on the stage-moment, flushed with the triumph of a standing ovation or slightly fuddled from a post-performance drink on an empty stomach. The flat greeted me with a welcoming hush after the clamour of the theatre. Flossie was usually asleep, and though I missed Inna’s cheerful presence I no longer felt loneliness stalking me like an assassin.
Stacey was at the last West End performance of Godot. There were ovations, flowers, tears, farewells, and a long boozy supper afterwards, and in the small hours she guided me towards the little red car that was parked around the corner, and thence to her bed. We made love, and as I drifted into sleep I felt a pleasant warm sensation which seemed to start in my chest and emanate throughout my whole body. This, I realised, in the sweet moment before sleep whacked me out, is what they call happiness. It was so long since I had felt it, I had almost forgotten what it was like.
Violet: The Chair
Thwack! The blow jerks her into consciousness. She can feel a bruise starting to form.
‘Tell us where you put the papers. Else we kill you.’
The older man is standing over her, while the younger one is tying her to a chair from behind. The third man, the van driver, has disappeared.
The Lubetkin Legacy Page 29