Something to Hide

  ‘Good hunting,’ he replies. ‘They’re rehearsing for the hibiscus.’

  ‘What does that mean?’

  ‘The Hibiscus Hotel. They perform for the guests on Saturday night.’

  I still haven’t asked about the poaching. I don’t know how to broach the subject. Hassan, who seems to have time on his hands, takes me to see the farm.

  This, too, is not what I expected. What did I expect? Not a small patch of what looks like maize. Tall dried plants anyway, with drooping husks that rustle in the wind. There’s a few cows too, standing in a dusty compound hedged with thorn branches. They have huge horns and their hide is stretched over their bones like canvas over tents. A teenage boy sits guarding them. He has luxuriant black hair and listens to something on his iPhone, nodding to the beat.

  Hassan’s telling me about the crops they’re planting and the craft workshops they’ve set up and the programme of vocational courses where they’re teaching the younger generation how to adapt to the modern world. He’s starting to get on my nerves, I tell Jeremy. Did you really like him? He’s such a smoothy-chops, so shiny and bland, I’m not sure I trust him.

  ‘Are there elephants round here?’ I blurt out. ‘I’ve heard they get in and destroy the crops.’

  ‘Where did you hear that, dear?’ Hassan raises his eyebrows, smiling.

  ‘Just – someone told me that the Kikanda used to live happily alongside them but now they’re killing them.’

  Is there a flicker? ‘The Kikanda respect all forms of life,’ he says easily. ‘They only kill to eat.’

  Anyway, there aren’t many crops to trample on. But at least I’ve introduced the subject of elephants.

  ‘What about poaching, though? For the ivory?’

  I watch him closely. He’s perspiring but then it is suffocatingly hot. ‘Poaching?’

  ‘I know there’s a lot of it round here,’ I say. ‘And it must be very tempting. I mean, thousands of dollars for one tusk and so forth, which they probably didn’t know until now. You know. When they made contact with the outside world.’ I stumble to a stop. He’s watching me politely. ‘I was just wondering if, well – if you knew of anyone here, in Manak, who might be involved.’

  He bursts out laughing – a deep, trombone laugh. Over the thorn-hedge, the cow-boy removes his headphones.

  ‘My dear, er …’

  ‘Petra.’

  ‘Petra. What put that idea into your head? If I may say so, you have a very British sense of humour.’ He’s still shaking with merriment. ‘Like your Monty Python. This parrot is dead!’ He shouts at the boy. ‘This parrot has kicked the bucket! We love this Mr John Cleese, don’t we, Chika!’

  I’ve drawn a blank. This place has defeated me. Hassan has gone back to his office. I’m alone in the middle of Africa, sodden with sweat, bitten by no doubt parasitic insects, my head throbbing. What was the point of it anyway? I want to go home.

  There’s no answers to my questions, and nobody to ask. The village seems to have closed its shutters. When I walk past the library it’s padlocked. So is the shop. Where have they all gone? Did they know I was coming, Jeremy, or were they all a figment of my imagination? In the distance the horizon dissolves into liquid. It’s all slipping through my fingers like mercury.

  A plane drones overhead. It’s flying low. Where’s it landing, somewhere near? The landscape is empty, just trees and scrub stretching into the distance, and there’s been no sign of human habitation except for that vast meaningless hotel. Where were those businessmen going, disappearing into this void?

  And where are the Kikanda men? There’s something odd about this settlement; it’s so small and listless. From what Jeremy said I expected a thriving community – acres of fields being tilled, animals raised, workshops and craft centres. Despite Hassan’s promotional gush, there’s no sign of those. And though I’ve seen plenty of women I’ve seen few men – just that performing freak-show and a few sullen fatties. Is that because the majority of them are miles away, deep in the bush, pursuing another activity entirely? They are hunters, after all; it’s in their blood. The money to be made must be beyond their dreams, and who cares if the elephant population is wiped out in a generation?

  I’ve been trying so hard to believe in Jeremy’s innocence – that this dispiriting place is simply the result of misplaced idealism. I’ve read about this so often – how people go to Africa filled with good intentions and find themselves defeated by apathy, superstition and corruption. By the sheer, suffocating heat. It’s hard to function at all in this temperature; I feel like a sandbag and can hardly move one foot in front of the other.

  But I can’t fool myself, and Jeremy’s silent. This place is making me more and more uneasy. I have the feeling that it opened up for my benefit, like Hassan’s dazzling smile, and now its shutters are down. Nothing is actually happening here at all. The library, for instance – why is it full of useless books that nobody will ever read? Why is Hassan so shiny and unconvincing? This charity is just a front, a fraud; the real business lies elsewhere. I have no idea who might be involved, but there was something dodgy about that shopkeeper, muttering into his mobile, and I’ve noticed Hassan has a brand new Range Rover – black, with tinted windows. Where did that come from?

  Clarence is asleep in the back seat of the tro-tro. I nudge him roughly. He opens one bloodshot eye.

  ‘What really goes on here?’ I demand. ‘What did Mr Payne do, when he came here?’

  ‘Mr Payne was a good man,’ he mumbles.

  ‘Where did he go? He went somewhere else, didn’t he? To another place, not far away. Did you go with him?’

  ‘He was a good man.’ His face has closed down. ‘He loved our people.’

  I glare at him. I’m past caring about Clarence’s loyalty to his master. I’m past caring about everything. I just want to know the truth.

  ‘I loved Mr Payne too, but he’s betrayed us both – you and me and the country he loved!’ I’m shouting, but what the hell. ‘He was involved in bloody elephant poaching!’

  Clarence heaves himself into a sitting position. ‘Excuse me, madam, but you are old and sad.’

  I spring back. ‘I beg your pardon?’

  ‘You need a man.’

  Suddenly I burst into tears. It’s humiliating but I can’t stop myself. I weep for Jeremy, so dear to me and now lost. I weep for my ageing body and the horrors of being alone. I weep for the pitiful lives of the Kikanda, what’s left of them. Leaning against the sliding door of the tro-tro, I weep for us all. I even weep for the bloody elephants.

  And then a voice speaks beside me. ‘I’ll show you where they are.’

  It’s Chika. He’s taken off his headphones and speaks in perfect English.

  ‘Give me a thousand ledi,’ he says. ‘And I’ll show you.’

  Clarence drives grimly along a rutted track. Thorn bushes bash at the windows. He’s in a sulk. He wants to get home to his beautiful young wife in her tiny shorts. My fury with him has wiped away any fear I might be feeling. You need a man. And he’s conned a taxi out of me! I thought we were friends, that I’d become close to Africa through an African. How deluded I’d been.

  This country’ll be the death of me. Jeremy’s speaking for us both, now. It was certainly the death of him. As for myself – God knows what I’m facing, it’s way beyond my imagination. But who gives a stuff? I don’t, I’m past caring. My children will be upset but they’re grown-up now, almost middle-aged, and at least I’ll be saving them my inevitable slide into dementia. And anyway, it’s so hot in this tin furnace that I’ll probably be fried alive before I get there.

  Do you really trust me so little? Jeremy’s sounding angry now, I’ve never heard him speak like this. Just because Alan betrayed you, because your husband betrayed you? That’s been your trouble with men, hasn’t it? I’m furious and shut him up: over and out.

  It’s two o’clock and my stomach’s growling with hunger. Chika says it’s an hour’s journey but we’ve already
been driving for longer than that. He’s sitting in the front seat, curled up like a cat, contemptuously checking through Clarence’s collection of cassettes. He’s into heavy metal, not this middle-of-the-road crap. He obviously knows Clarence and treats him with the patronizing weariness of somebody too old for his years. Apart from pocketing my money, he’s ignored me. When I asked him where he learnt such good English he simply said hotels. What hotels? Where?

  And then it dawns on me that they’re both nervous. I’m sitting behind them and I can tell by the backs of their heads. I hardly know them, but there’s a rigidity about them that reminds me of my son, on his way to a new school.

  I wish I hadn’t noticed this. I still don’t know if Clarence has been here before. If he has, he’s only too aware of what lies ahead. Chika has been giving him directions but he might just know a better route. Now, however, even Chika has fallen silent.

  And then he holds up his hand. Clarence brakes to a halt and switches off the engine.

  It’s then that I hear it – a low drone, getting louder. A shadow passes over us. We all jump. It’s a plane, flying low. Its belly nearly grazes the trees ahead of us. It slips out of sight beyond them.

  ‘Is there an airstrip there?’ I ask.

  There’s no reply. I’m sitting behind Clarence. The back of his head is covered with tight little whorls of hair like question marks. They’re sodden with sweat.

  ‘I’m not going any further, madam,’ he says.

  I burst out laughing. ‘Call yourself a man? What’s your lovely wife going to say about that? You’re leaving me to face a bunch of criminals, alone with a teenage boy?’

  ‘I’m not going either,’ says Chika.

  ‘What?’

  ‘I’ve taken you to the place. I didn’t say I was going in.’

  There’s a silence. Something rustles in the bushes and scurries off.

  ‘Thanks a bunch,’ I say at last. ‘I thought you Kikanda were warriors.’

  ‘I’m not Kikanda.’ He swings round in his seat. ‘I’m from Mumbai.’

  There’s a silence. Everything shifts, yet again. Now I look at him, of course he’s Indian. I blush at my own stupidity.

  ‘How come you’re here?’ I ask.

  ‘I met Hassan in the Taj Hotel. He was on a business trip.’

  Ah, he’s Hassan’s boyfriend! He is indeed seductive, with plump lips and all that hair. So they met in a hotel. It slots into place. Of course, he’s a rent boy. That would explain the greed; a thousand ledis is a lot of money.

  ‘And I’m not a teenager,’ he says. ‘I’m twenty-six.’ He says he’s bored out of his mind and spends all his time playing computer games. ‘I want to go to the UK. Can you help me? This country’s medieval, it’s worse than India. If they find out I’m gay they’ll throw me into prison where I’ll be sodomized by murderers and rapists, no way Jose.’

  He passes the water bottle to Clarence, who shakes his head with a shudder and passes it back. I realize that this is news to him, too. He’s shifted away from Chika and is now pressed against the window.

  ‘How did you know about this poaching operation?’ I ask Chika. ‘You’ve obviously been here before.’

  ‘One of the Kikanda guys took me. We stole a motorbike to get here. He told me they kill them with a paste they make from the acokanthera tree, they boil it up and smear it on their arrows.’ He glugs some water. ‘He was a fun guy but he’s gone now. The guys my age have mostly gone. Can you get me out of here, like get me a UK passport?’

  I point to the clump of trees. ‘So it is the Kikanda who’re involved in the poaching?’

  Chika shrugs. ‘Maybe. Hassan says they’ve mostly disappeared back into the bush. They’re hunters, they’ve gone back to their old ways, hunting game for food. It drove them nuts, being cooped up. But he doesn’t want people to know that, it’s bad publicity.’

  So that explains the lack of Kikanda men. I ask Chika who the poachers are nowadays.

  ‘They fly guys in from Nigeria, professional gangs. That’s what I heard. They have AK-47s and can take out a whole group of tuskers at a time. Kerpow!’

  Clarence and I jump.

  ‘What about Mr Payne?’ I ask. ‘Did he come here?’

  ‘Mr Payne was a good man,’ says Clarence.

  ‘Oh shut up!’

  ‘Mr Payne was a lovely guy, full of jokes,’ says Chika. ‘He gave me a book by Mr P. G. Wodehouse.’

  My heart squeezes tight. Jeremy’s laughing at me, the old Jeremy, back again. What DO you think you’re doing, stuck out in the middle of Africa with my trusty houseboy and a gay hooker? What a caution you are, my dearest love. What a total hoot. Wish I was there.

  I miss him so much I want to die. And who knows? I might. Whatever’s going on beyond those trees is fraught with danger. But I really don’t care.

  Then Clarence speaks. Still pressed against the window, he says: ‘I’m coming with you.’

  Surprised, I look at him. The man is rigid with fear. And then I realize: he’s more frightened of being stuck in a van with a homosexual than a gang of criminals with AK-47s.

  I burst out laughing. This whole thing is no longer a hoot. It’s way out there, beyond the wildest shores of insanity.

  ‘Come on then.’ I slide open the door.

  Clarence and I push our way through the bushes. A bird flies up and lands on a branch, chattering in alarm. It’s shadowy under the trees and there’s a sort of path. The sand is knitted with some spiny plant, prostrate beneath our feet; here and there it’s struggled to produce a dirty pink flower. Maybe this is kar; Jeremy said it was a sort of cactus. I don’t care.

  We cross a gap in the trees. Clarence’s breath is hoarse behind me. There’s a depression in the dust which, for a moment, I mistake for an elephant’s footprint. I long to see a sign – a print, a giant heap of dung. It’s hard to believe the elephants exist. Harder still to believe in my own former existence – the woman with a job, and friends, and a house in Pimlico.

  And then I glimpse an airstrip. I hold up my hand like a commando and Clarence stops.

  The smell of kerosene hangs in the air. Ahead of us, through the trees, there’s a grassy clearing. The runway is merely a strip of earth. On it sits the plane. Nearby are a group of huts and a corrugated-iron building. A lorry is parked there, and a couple of Jeeps. Men are moving around purposefully; no listlessness here. From this distance, they all seem to be Africans.

  Clarence stands near me, wheezing. He whispers that he has asthma. My own heart’s pounding and my legs are buckling.

  ‘Please, madam.’ He touches my arm. ‘Let us leave.’

  I stand there, swaying, dizzy with the heat. When someone dies, what happens here? Does their soul merge into the animals or birds? Or does it fly away to join the ancestors in some heavenly hunting-ground, leaving their loved ones to smear themselves with ash?

  ‘I’m a Christian,’ says Clarence.

  Oh! I’d been speaking out loud. My voice feels detached from my body – in fact, my body feels detached from my body. The sun’s driving me batty. I’m that woman in the pub, the woman with the dog, babbling to strangers with that madwoman’s glare. I’m a wrinkled old crone who’s desperate for a man. Why have I embarked on such an insane mission?

  You are in a muddle, sweetheart, aren’t you? Jeremy’s hand is on my arm. Just remember how happy we were. It’s as simple as that. What on earth is the point of this? Bugger off home before something nasty happens.

  He’s right.

  ‘You’re right!’ I blurt out.

  Clarence turns to me, his eyebrows raised.

  ‘This is insane.’ I’m limp with relief. ‘Let’s get out of here.’

  His face breaks into a smile. I look at the place one last time. A herd of goats has trickled out of the woods and grazes on the far side of the clearing. They’re accompanied by a small boy. A man squats beneath the undercarriage of the plane, fiddling with something. From this distance it all looks quite i
nnocent.

  We make our way back through the bushes. Now I’m restored to normality I’m seized with exhilaration. Thank God I saw sense before it was too late! I could have been killed and my body flung into the bushes to be eaten by hyenas! I realize I have a raging thirst and I’m desperately hungry – all we’ve had to eat, whilst driving here, were some tasteless pink wafer biscuits that dissolved away in my mouth and yet got stuck to my palate, like Communion ones. It’s been a long, long day but soon we’ll be on the road back to Oreya and this will all be a memory – more and more unlikely, no doubt, as time passes.

  And at last we even see some wildlife. For suddenly there’s a crashing sound and three gazelles burst out of the bushes. They stop dead, staring at us, their lovely limbs trembling. Then they wheel round and bound off in great jumps – springs, they’re springboks – their white rumps flashing.

  In fact the whole place has come to life. A bird jabbers in the foliage, an alarm call, rising and falling. Another beast blunders through the undergrowth. Something has panicked them; it must be us.

  But it’s not. It’s something else. Because now I hear voices. Men’s voices, shouting.

  We emerge into dazzling sunlight and see two men brandishing rifles. They’re shouting at Chika, who cowers in the tro-tro. One of them tries to open the door but Chika’s holding on for dear life. I can hear his muffled wails.

  ‘What the fuck are you doing?’ I yell.

  They swing round and shout at me in some language or other. Strangely enough I don’t feel frightened; they look so inept. One of them is trying to reorganize his rifle which has swung round the wrong way on its strap, and now points at his thigh.

  ‘Get out of here,’ I shout. ‘This is private property!’ This is bonkers, of course, but I hope my cut-glass accent will bludgeon them into submission. After all, they’re merely boys and I’m a white woman. Didn’t we used to rule this place, or was that other countries like Kenya?

  One of them has forced open the door. He pushes me inside and Clarence is bundled in next to me. I can smell his musky sweat, reeking of fear.