Blood Is Dirt

by Robert Wilson

  On the other sofa was a different animal altogether. A huge-headed man with wire-wool hair and olive skin which hung a little loose around the neck. His face held up a pair of heavy-framed tortoiseshell sunglasses, the arms at least an inch thick, with lenses so black life must have been like looking into hell. His jaw had the solidity of peasant stock, his mouth the luxuriance of an opera villain. He was wearing a pillar-box-red polo shirt and he bench-pressed at least 200 pounds from the way the material snagged on his shoulders and chest. The gut wasn’t so clever, needed a little work. That was heading west over his belt, which held up a pair of black trousers. He wore red socks to match and black loafers with nothing fancy. He smiled, at something Graydon might have said if he’d have moved his lips, and revealed big white teeth, tablet-size. He leaned over to a side table and picked up a cigar he’d been smoking earlier and relit it. He swilled something red around in a glass and sunk it and held up his hand to show Graydon he didn’t need refilling.

  Gale was introducing Selina to a Nigerian whose name was Robert Keshi who’d been in Napier’s book under NNPC storage department. Gale had her arm around Selina’s waist and, smaller than her, had to go on tiptoe to whisper something in her ear. Selina put her arm around Gale and whispered something back. They parted and Gale came over to me.

  ‘She’s gorgeous,’ said Gale. ‘Is she all yours?’

  ‘She’s no one’s.’

  ‘Nice to have another around.’

  ‘Who’s the other single white female?’

  ‘Me, of course, and don’t say anything bitchy, Bruce. I bitch for the USA. I’m their great medal hope in the Fuck You Olympics.’

  ‘That Graydon over there?’

  ‘Yeah, we’ll let him warm up first. He doesn’t drink,’ she said and closed a nostril with a finger. ‘Mum’s the word. He won’t start on the toot until Franconelli goes.’ Gale leaned in. ‘The Italian does not approve.’

  ‘How did he find out?’

  ‘Maybe Gray offered him a line and he gave him a finger up the ass.’

  ‘What’s Franconelli’s connection?’

  ‘Business, Bruce. It’s all business.’

  ‘Concrete?’

  ‘Toot and smack for all I care.’

  ‘Don’t joke about it, Gale.’

  ‘Who’s joking?’

  ‘You don’t need me for this.’

  ‘I need you. Come on. I want to show you something.’

  Gale led me back to the house, swatting at the creeps around the pool. We turned a hard right inside the French windows and powered through a forty-five-foot living room which had three cream leather sofas in it drawn up to a smoked-glass table set on an acre of parquet flooring. Gale had her arms out as if she was flying, as if she’d had some toot. She stopped at the door and gave me a pirouette.

  ‘Steel doors,’ she said, and pointed to another doorway across a corridor. ‘Steel doors to the kitchen.’

  We turned left down the corridor. She pointed to a door on the right.

  ‘Graydon’s study. Locked.’

  She pointed to another door further along on the right.

  ‘Security,’ she said, and turned the handle. ‘Unlocked.’

  It was a closet room with eight monitors set into a huge cabinet on one wall. There was a console and a chair. The screens showed scenes from outside the house. The party around the pool. An empty front door. The driveway outside the front door. Outside the front gate. The perimeter walls.

  ‘You saw the barrier we’re putting up in the street,’ said Gale. ‘This is kinda normal for Lagos. You know, there’s a lot of armed robbery, people smashing into your home and, well, killing you. It’s death for murder and armed robbery so you might as well rob ’em and pump ’em. Less chance of a witness.

  ‘OK, so we can afford to have sliding steel doors to seal off this part of the house. We got a staircase that goes up to the roof. We got a reinforced roof so a chopper can land and take us off to the US Navy when it all goes rat shit. But nearly everybody in Lagos has a place they can retreat to. It’s serious stuff out here. I might look like a businessman’s wife, Bruce...’

  ‘But in fact you’re a fully-trained anti-assault blah-blah-blah.’

  ‘Right.’

  ‘I promise I won’t break in.’

  ‘Other people have got this kind of thing,’ she said, pressing a button on the console. The images on the monitors changed to the house interior. ‘These are all the ground-floor rooms. Nothing strange about. You want to see where the suckers go once they get in. This... is a little more unconventional.’

  She clicked another button and this time four of the monitors came up with empty bedrooms, the others remained blank. Gale opened up the cabinet which showed four VCRs.

  ‘Graydon likes to video his guests?’ I asked.

  ‘He’s a creep,’ she said. ‘He doesn’t even have to do it. Most of these guys are so glad to get a piece of black ass they’ll do anything for him. He does it so that he knows he’s got that power in reserve.’

  I thought about David and Ali and wondered whether he’d been stupid enough to transgress in the house. At a party like this he probably had the opportunity. Christ, this would make him sweat.

  ‘Great dirt, Gale,’ I said. ‘But not usable.’

  ‘It’s a character reference, Bruce. I don’t want you going in to bat against Gray without knowing about his fastball, no, I mean his forkball or slider or whatever they call that shit. What do they say in England?’

  ‘Googly.’

  ‘Jesus. That sounds tricky. Well, that’s what he’s like. Googlies everywhere. He’s got wealth, intelligence and most of all charm. The number of stupid bitches I’ve seen go in on Gray spitting blood and come out wanting his babies... it makes me puke.’

  ‘Does he video your bedroom too?’

  ‘Uh-uh, nor his own.’

  She clicked the monitors back to house exterior. The gates were opening up to a Rolls Royce. We watched it draw up to the front of the house. It had a flag on the bonnet.

  ‘Here comes the chief,’ said Gale.

  ‘What’s with the flag?’

  ‘He’s practising,’ she said. ‘I better go get Gray fired up.’

  We went back down to the party, skirting the pool away from the riffraff.

  Inside the walled garden Selina was no longer talking to Robert Keshi but had moved up on to the dais and was sitting talking to Franconelli on his swing. Graydon was leaning forward off his and seemed close to having a good time. Gale flitted through the crowd and took Graydon by the hand and led him away.

  Franconelli was sitting sideways with his leg cocked up on the sofa and leaning over the back. There was a guy behind who was joining in the conversation. I took a drink and moved closer. They were speaking Italian. I was strictly ‘restaurant’ in that language so I left Selina to get on with it. I went looking for Robert Keshi.

  I never made it to Robert Keshi. I’d become a part of the Selina phenomenon. The whole party was talking about her as if they were her bestest friends.

  ‘You’re with Selina, aren’t you?’ asked a blonde woman in a gold sheath who must have reaped them like corn in her youth and was doing her best now, but with a tired sickle arm.

  ‘That’s right. I’m Bruce,’ I said, trying to keep the smile contained, didn’t want to get shit-eater’s cramp early on.

  ‘Marcella Jones-Cassatta,’ she said in all seriousness. ‘That’s my husband over there, Gryf. He runs Graydon’s bottled-water company in Austria.’

  ‘You sound Italian,’ I said.

  ‘Yes, but with the Welsh bastard thrown in,’ she said, and laughed at her little joke which she made frequently. She swung her hair back over her strapless shoulders and produced an Art-Deco cigarette case from her purse. She smoked filterless so she had to pick strands of tobacco off her tongue with a long painted nail.

  She probably didn’t make that joke in Gryf’s hearing, or if she did she cracked it on his cauliflowe
r-ear side. The man was front-row-forward material, international rather than club level.

  ‘Who’s he talking to?’ I asked.

  ‘Graydon’s art-buyer in Europe.’

  ‘Your husband likes art?’

  ‘Look at him,’ she said without contempt. Gryf took three inches off a beer he held in a grazed knuckle hand. ‘Piss art, maybe. Shall we move over here a little?’ she said, and slipped her hand up my shirt arm and cupped the bicep which she squeezed and let go.

  ‘Another one of your compatriots,’ I said, nodding at Franconelli.

  ‘He’s a southerner,’ she said, explaining everything.

  ‘What does he do that allows him up on stage?’

  ‘He’ll tap dance for you... on your balls.’

  ‘A vaudeville Italian?’

  ‘He’d cut them off if he heard you say that.’

  ‘Can’t laugh at himself?’

  ‘I don’t think he’s ever had to.’

  The garden went quiet for a moment. The pressure change of a celebrity’s imminent arrival. Gale burst in and flicked her wrist. Everybody put their glasses down. Graydon came in with a huge Nigerian of at least six foot three and weighing a good three hundred and fifty pounds, maybe more with the quantity of Dutch wax he had built into his ceremonial robes. We all clapped.

  The crowd parted and the Nigerian waded through us up to the dais, shaking the odd hand. Graydon accompanied a woman who must have been the chief’s wife, and not his first. She was tall and slim and achingly elegant. She looked down as she walked as if there were print marks on the floor for her to place her feet in. She wore a single piece of stiff Dutch wax which went from orange, through crimson to deep arterial red. It was cut low at the front so that the gold chain holding a tiny chandelier of diamonds looked no less than a million dollars against her perfect black skin.

  ‘May I present to you,’ said Graydon, reaching the dais, ‘the next president of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. Chief Babba Seko.’

  ‘Not quite,’ said Marcella under her breath.

  The chief came to the front of the dais and shook Graydon’s hand.

  ‘Thank you,’ he said. ‘Thank you.

  ‘My friend, Graydon Strudwick, is, as always, thinking way ahead. We are at the beginning of an arduous road, and there are many competitors in the race. But I believe our esteemed military leader is thinking very positively at the moment and I hope it will not be long before this great country of ours is returned to the hands of its great people.

  ‘This, my friends, is not a political occasion. We are here as Graydon’s guests. He wishes us to enjoy ourselves, which means I must shut up immediately. My wife and I would like to thank you and the Strudwicks for such a warm welcome. Thank you.’

  During the speech the chief’s retinue filed in. Not many for a man of his importance, a mere dozen. One of them had found his way to Marcella’s side, a mid-thirties guy who looked as if he’d studied Ralph Lauren at school. His face was in a permanent state of amusement, although his expressions were minimalist. His only curiosities were an enjoyment of his own lips and the proprietorial way he had placed a hand on Marcella’s behind. This must have happened before, but still Marcella stiffened, checking her radar for Gryf’s whereabouts. She introduced the man to me, just to get that hand off her rear end.

  ‘Bruce?’ she asked.

  ‘Medway,’ I filled in.

  ‘This is Ben Agu.’

  The MD of Seriki Haulage and I shook hands.

  ‘How is it...?’ I started.

  ‘Oh, fine, fine,’ said Ben.

  ‘...working for the great man?’

  ‘Ben’s going to be the chief’s campaign manager once the military die—leader has given the go-ahead for elections,’ said Marcella.

  ‘Bof and I will be heading up the team,’ he said.

  ‘Bof?’ I asked.

  ‘Bof Nwanu. Bof worked on the Bush administration’s campaign.’

  ‘The one he won or the one he lost?’

  ‘The ninety-two campaign,’ he said, smiling.

  ‘He’s made for it, don’t you think?’ said Marcella.

  ‘How long do you think it’s going to be?’

  ‘There should be an announcement about the candidates by the middle of the year with the elections to follow six to nine months after.’

  ‘You don’t think you’ll get strung along?’

  ‘The people won’t have it,’ he said.

  ‘Do they matter? I’d have thought South Africa and the US are more important this time.’

  ‘It doesn’t matter where the pressure comes from as long as it’s the pressure for change.’

  Marcella slumped on to one foot and propped up her smoking elbow with her hand.

  ‘If the campaign hasn’t started, what are you doing with yourselves now?’

  ‘Business. We need to raise money. “Our man” doesn’t have the same advantages as others. He’s not, for instance, a billionaire. We work, and of course we have our benefactors.’

  ‘What sort of work?’

  ‘I was going to ask you the same question,’ he said, his face as still and concentrated as a stalking leopard.

  ‘Commodities,’ I said.

  ‘Commodities,’ he said. ‘Interesting.’

  ‘You?’

  ‘Well, apart from road haulage, storage, construction and taxis we do as much import/export as we can.’

  ‘Commodities?’

  ‘Cocoa...’

  ‘Palm oil, timber, sheanut, maybe?’

  ‘Sheanut,’ he said. ‘I haven’t met many white men who’ve even heard of sheanut.’

  I slipped into the role of complete arsehole with preternatural ease and Ben came alongside so that we could throw jargon at each other and feel important. My God, I even ended up talking to him about free fatty acid content and mobile labs and loading systems. Marcella had to hold her breath to keep her tits from sagging with boredom. Ben Agu became a close personal friend.

  ‘Are you alone here?’ he asked finally.

  I pointed out Selina on Franconelli’s couch and Ben glued his eyes to her behind. Marcella started an impatient jiggle in her hip and hit Ben on the elbow. The chief suddenly raised a huge middle finger as if to tell the assembled company where to go and Ben was off and at his side.

  ‘Sod him,’ said Marcella, and drained her flute.

  It was important for Ben to be at the chief’s side. Lunch was about to be served. Gale had been through the menu with him. He had his own personal tin of Beluga, Ben had to check it. The chief was convinced he could get poisoned at any moment. He would only drink champagne opened in front of him and only Krug 71. The melba toast for the caviare had to be just so thin. Ben was in charge of ‘our man’s’ stomach. He was the most important aide on the team.

  Marcella grabbed another flute and sighed from down the back of her knees. Ben Agu was pointing out Selina and me to the chief. The chief was doing some sage nodding as if he was bored shitless. Ben realized his mistake and backed off. Timing. Get the man on a full stomach.

  Marcella said something about black men which I missed. She’d rattled through the last flute and whipped another off a passing tray. Graydon moved off the dais and looked through the crowd as if he’d lost his yacht in a marina. He stopped in front of me, a hand in his pocket, the other offered. I shook it. He was glowing with health. His skin shone from years of oils and unguents pressed into it by expert fingers. He smelled better than a bed of roses.

  ‘You’re Selina Aguia’s partner?’ he said. ‘We should talk.’

  ‘Hi, Gray,’ said Marcella. ‘How’s it going?’

  ‘Hi, Marcella,’ he smiled.

  ‘I didn’t know they had announced the presidential nominees,’ she said.

  ‘They haven’t,’ said Graydon.

  ‘Oh really,’ she said, with ludicrous mock surprise.

  Graydon gave Marcella the same hooded look I’d seen on his cat when it was stalking Gale. He didn�
��t like drunks. This was not a problem for me—if I had the mechanism inside me that made me drunk I wouldn’t drink so much. Graydon liked control and he liked others to be controlled. Maybe that was why he was a toot man—it gave him the illusion of complete control.

  ‘Catch you later, Bruce,’ he said, patting my shoulder.

  Marcella giggled. I could tell from the back of Graydon’s head that he’d heard.

  The party rolled on. People edged towards the table, which was being loaded with food—lobster, crab, salmon, prawns, quivering mounds of mayonnaise on ice, a fantastic quantity of antipasti—but there was a large gap in the middle. Everybody seemed to know what was going in there except me. They all had little spoons and plates at the ready.

  There was a rush of excitement and Ali came in with a silver tray two inches thick with crushed ice and a slag heap of caviare on top that must have snipped $5000 off the bottom of Graydon’s pocket money. The company fell on it. Extremely polite knock-down-drag-out fights developed. Women appeared with their shoulder straps askew and an earring missing, but with a molehill of Beluga that could have got them two nights in the George V.

  The tray was down to water by the time I got in there so I had the swordfish carpaccio and ciabatta with a half lobster. Selina appeared on my elbow and kissed me on the ear.

  ‘We’re in,’ she whispered.

  Chapter 19

  By the late afternoon, when the houseboys had started putting out the smoking mosquito coils, there was only the hard core left. The chief was on his third bottle of Krug, and Ben Agu and Bof Nwanu were getting on down with the willowy ‘companions’ who’d hijacked the sound system and were giving the Afrobeat a belt. The chief’s wife was sitting in the corner of his swing sofa sleeping soundly. Franconelli was inhaling some prewar Armagnac. Gryf was still on the beer, his lack of neck curiously friendly now. The Moët-fuelled Marcella had gone for more cigarettes and Gale had taken Selina off to ‘freshen up’.