by Maggie Gee
The receptionists stand like gleaming statues in a gold-clad row behind the long desk. Poor things, thinks Vanessa, why can’t they sit down?
On the other hand, why doesn’t someone help her with her cases?
Now, at once. Is she invisible?
Somebody does. He is old, and smiles a lot. His eyes look damp, as if they are melting. She’d forgotten how black Ugandans are. Or is she unnaturally pale? In the mirrored lift, the contrast is startling. As they fly upwards, he smiles some more, and Vanessa begins to find it oppressive. ‘So sorry I can’t give you a tip,’ she says, with emphasis, to be sure he understands. ‘I have only large dollar notes.’ ‘Dollar notes,’ he nods eagerly, but then his smile fades as her apologetic hand signals get through. ‘It’s OK,’ he says. It’s another disappointment. But with kindness, and good manners, he smiles at her again. Then he wheels the great case right into the room. ‘Thank you,’ she says, and changing her mind, she gives him her few remaining Ugandan shillings.
And the room? It’s fine. An enormous bed (how long is it, she wonders, since I shared a bed? Will anyone, ever, share my bed again?) – an emperor-size bed, with snow-white linen. One whole wall of her room is window, with a view over the lush Sheraton gardens – rows of palms, pink and purple blossom – and behind them, skyscrapers selling insurance, traffic jams, smoke, half-built buildings, and the hills she remembers, Kampala’s green hills – though there are definitely more new red roofs, marching out from the centre into low hazy cloud, stretching away into the distance.
Yes, she is here. In Africa. Vanessa can’t wait to get acclimatised. Unlike most white people (she tells herself) she is not afraid to go out on foot. She will just lie down and relax for a second ... Then she will have breakfast, and go and meet the natives!
It’s 9.15 AM. But when she wakes again, breakfast is over. It’s nearly lunchtime.
(If Vanessa had in fact gone down at 9.15, she would have met a native, the Executive Housekeeper, who had just popped down for a word with Front Office. Mary Tendo would have been as amazed as Vanessa. And both women would have laughed and hugged, and Vanessa would have cried, though Mary Tendo wouldn’t, and our story would have untangled in a flash. Instead, Vanessa slept like a baby, and Mary sang as she got back to her office and spotted an email from Trevor in her inbox.)
7
Vanessa has a whole free afternoon. The conference doesn’t start till tomorrow. She drinks the two complimentary bottles of water she finds by her bedside down in one. Then she lets the shower run and run. Beautiful, African hot water, in the walk-in shower with its faux-stone facings. It’s a sensual thing. Yes, she is sensual. She congratulates herself on still being sensual. Reluctantly, she turns off the tap.
Then it’s time to look around Kampala. Of course she mustn’t appear too wealthy, but nor must she be scruffy, for Ugandans, she remembers, are very smart people. She settles on multi-pocketed beige trousers, good for carrying a few Ugandan thousand-shilling notes, once she’s changed some money down in the foyer. The trousers are meant for the trip to Bwindi, but she feels like getting in the African swing. She adds a crisp white shirt, a neat beige jacket and her safari boots, which she needs to break in, necessitating slightly hot woollen socks. OK, the label of the boots says ‘Lake District’, but Kampala and Cumbria have lakes in common.
She’s halfway down the landing when she remembers her phone, and goes back for that. Ditto camera: sun cream: insect repellent: map. Two minutes later, she returns for her notebook, and remembers she lost her pen on the plane, which involves a ten-minute search for another. She’s shooting down in the lift, they have reached Ground Floor, the doors open, and without warning Mary Tendo strolls by at a leisurely pace with a message for her colleague Patrick in Reception – oh look, Vanessa, please look up!
But Vanessa, realising she hasn’t got her sunhat, is peering at the button for ‘8th Floor’, and gliding back up again, feeling foolish. And down again, to change her money. And up again, to stash the surplus in her safe. Eventually she is down for good.
Her first intention is to try and contact Mary, for Reception will have a more current number for the elusive Nile Imperial Hotel, but the line of golden statues are all bent to their work, dealing with a host of pale- or red-faced guests who are holding out their wafer-thin laptops towards them like supplicants at a long altar, complaining with agitated, dwindling politeness that the hotel internet is down again. She waits for a second, and then gives up. There will be time this evening, or tomorrow.
‘Taxi?’ the porters outside offer, but she repels them with a stern smile. She isn’t a tourist, she’s practically Ugandan. The cloud has lifted into a white story-book castle, and the sun beats down, glorious, implacable. Vanessa sometimes thinks of herself as cold-blooded, needing extra blankets and hot-water bottles, but now she thrills to the warm sun on her cheek, the moist rich smell of hot broad-leaved grass, hibiscus bushes, and blowing from the road, petrol, dust. So ... African! She strides past the armed guards in their navy uniforms and leaves the enclave of the Sheraton.
At once there is a choice between walking in the road and trying the bank of red mud beside it. It’s crowded: a man tries to sell her an Economist; two boys offer taxis; here’s her first beggar, but she shakes her head firmly and marches forward, trying to look as if she knows exactly where she’s going, and she does remember this big roundabout, with people selling nuts and sweets and MTN phone cards, though she doesn’t have a clue which road to take off it. She plumps for sharp left. Nile Avenue.
It’s a dual carriage-way, at first, with a green swathe of grass and trees down the middle (and she suddenly remembers five years ago, her first trip to Kampala. On that same long green runway, the shock of discovering, early in the morning, a family from the country, the adults swathed in bright cloth, who had clearly slept there. They were stretching in the sunlight. Small hills of rag bundles. Two young children were naked. The dirty urban taxis swept past on either side of them. Vanessa, a white woman, had paused to look, and they stood staring at each other, framed, trapped and bemused by the twenty-first century.)
But Vanessa has been told that Kampala has changed. Five years is a lot in a developing country, and Kampala is getting ready for CHOGM.
And then she wonders, has she changed?
Surely she is humbler? She thinks she is. And yet, her career’s gone from strength to strength. This time she’s invited in a different capacity, not just as a teacher but as a writer, a Featured Writer on an International Programme (yes, she was asked a little late, but that just showed people were disorganised). Which proves her reputation is growing, the reputation of the two literary novels she wrote a while ago in the 1980s, which received wonderful reviews. The sales, of course, were not all that great, because the publisher was inefficient, but the critical raves were emblazoned on the paperback, and still sustain her when she’s low: ‘Henman’s ambitions are great ... praiseworthy.’ The Times. ‘A brave attempt ... literary innovation ... to be encouraged.’ Independent on Sunday. Vanessa knows them both by heart.
(She has forgotten the full text of The Times. ‘Even though she does not always succeed, Henman’s ambitions are great. Granted, the prose is overworked. But in the dismally dull landscape of today’s fiction, her stylistic flights can seem almost praiseworthy.’ While the Independent on Sunday called My Pale Ark ‘A courageous attempt at poetic prose. Though the author of this ambitious second novel has no insight into her own characters, she makes a brave stab at literary innovation. Her efforts to escape her own limitations are, surely, to be encouraged.’
On the weekend these reviews appeared, Vanessa had rung her friend Fifi in tears. Fifi promised to read them and ring her back. ‘Darling, I scoured the shops until I found them. I don’t see what you’re complaining about. For a start they both say how ambitious you are, and for a second, that photo is at least ten years old. It’s very flattering, honestly.’
‘Do you think so?’ Vanessa was c
autiously encouraged, though ‘flattering’ wasn’t quite the right adjective – Fifi was not very good with words. ‘Well, it’s interesting to hear the view of a non-literary person, as it were.’
‘I am a great reader,’ Fifi had said, hurt. ‘You never asked me what I thought of your novel.’
‘OK, what did you think of my novel?’
There was a long silence. Fifi knew this was important. ‘I think I agree with the reviewers.’ Then Vanessa felt happy, and rang off, reassured.
Soon, in her mind, the book was a triumph.)
Five years ago, many things were different. Justin had never been depressed: he was happy and successful, just out of university. Five years ago she would never have believed that her son would go to bed for six months, would stop talking to her, and washing, and reading – in a house that was full of wonderful books! He had lost his job, which was not wholly his fault, then his love life went wrong, and he had just given up. Which Vanessa could not bear, of course, since determination was her strong suit, it had carried her out of that pathetic little village, had brought her to London, had made her a writer. Perhaps Justin takes after Trevor, who is perfectly content to remain a plumber. Vanessa knows she has been a good mother – no-one could care more, or try harder, than her – and yet for some reason, her son had failed her. (But she mustn’t think like that. She herself isn’t perfect. She has learned some hard truths about herself, through all this.) It hurt when Justin started asking for Mary. ‘I just want Mary. Get me Mary.’ But by that time he was naked and semi-incontinent, and Vanessa would have done anything. She had managed to track Mary down in Uganda, though nothing had been easy, far from it. A great deal of money had changed hands, and Mary eventually came back to London, quite a different person from the sweet young girl they had known before.
Yes, there had been a certain amount of tension. Occasionally she’d felt a little excluded, for Mary and Justin became very close. And Mary got on very well with Trevor, who despite the divorce, liked to hang around the house, tinkering and pottering as men do (and to be fair, Tigger was sometimes useful). Vanessa was mature enough not to be jealous. And with hindsight, Mary had been perfectly right, she could not really be expected still to do their cleaning. Indeed she had more or less taken charge. Everything had changed, their diet, their routine, until slowly, Justin got back on his feet. Mary was something of a power-house, and Vanessa had tried to appreciate that. As a feminist, she naturally approved of strong women, but two in one house wasn’t always easy. Perhaps she was relieved when Mary went home, but the two of them had become firm friends, a friendship that will last to the end of their lives, she suddenly thinks, with a rush of emotion – We’ll always be grateful to one another.
It was true they had got somewhat out of touch.
The problem was distance, and poor communication. If the British Council had invited her earlier, Vanessa would have been sure to contact Mary before she left the country, but as it was, though she had emailed Mary several times at the Nile Imperial Hotel, they had bounced back, and the phone number was wrong, giving a constant ‘unobtainable’. Vanessa isn’t worried; she is used to Uganda. She will track down Mary in person, instead, and it will all be a wonderful surprise. She will ask her to supper at the Sheraton; Vanessa imagines this with a warm glow. She doubts whether her friend has ever been there. She will find the Piano Bar quite impressive.
Yet doubt wriggles somewhere like a wire worm as she strides, lost in thought, on and on down Nile Avenue, not getting anywhere, dazzled by the sun, blinking it to blackness, the beginning of a headache. How much, really, does she know about this country, or even (she dismisses this thought) about Mary?
They are such good friends, but ...
What if I can’t find her?
Uganda suddenly seems big and – dark around the edges, which shade into war zones, Sudan, Congo ... Why on earth is she planning to drive to Bwindi when she can’t seem to find her way around Kampala?
8
Vanessa has been walking at quite a lick, not really noticing where she is going. The road has got rougher, and the traffic heavier, probably because this is Kampala’s lunch-hour. She suddenly notices how hot she is. The sun beats down through the cotton of her hat. The dust gets under her contact lenses and dries the lining of her nose, which itches, there is sweat trickling under the neck of her jacket and her feet in thick socks feel like over-swaddled babies. The left heel is just beginning to rub. The light is fiercely bright, yet her sunglasses seem to make it harder to see. Perhaps there is sun cream on the lens.
Workmen loom in front of her, digging up the road. She can’t veer left, where paving-stones are piled, and she daren’t go right, into the traffic. She believes she is heading for Kampala Road, the main highway of the city, with banks and cafés, but this road seems to go on for ever, and no-one is walking here, not even Ugandans. And now the navy-clad workmen are shouting at her, but she doesn’t understand what they are saying.
‘Kampala Road?’ she inquires, slowly and clearly, but they are shaking their heads, and pointing behind her. ‘English!’ one of them shouts, unhelpfully, and yet they don’t appear to speak English. Now they are laughing, which she doesn’t like. She is not against people having a laugh – her ex, Trevor, is a terrible tease, and he has explained it’s a sign of affection – but nobody enjoys it when they can’t get the joke. She stops, firmly, in the middle of the workmen, and pulls the map out of her trouser pocket. She points to the long streak of Kampala Road. ‘Kampala Road. Nando’s,’ she says. To her delight she has remembered the name of a restaurant, though she can’t be sure these workmen would eat there. It’s a Ugandan place, not like English Nando’s, but perhaps it isn’t entirely authentic. ‘English, Kampala,’ the loudest one says, and once again, they laugh a lot. ‘QUEEN!’ he shouts, and they laugh even more. ‘Queen is coming!’ They don’t look at the map. Some of them give the thumbs-up, and smile at her, though a young one looks down darkly, and mutters. The general atmosphere is slightly too lively, and she isn’t there for their entertainment, though of course she loves Ugandan joie de vivre.
In the end she has to retrace her footsteps, and the heat beats down much harder than before. She finds she is tired – probably from flying. She gazes at her feet, so as not to trip up. There is suddenly a presence in front of her. And then she realises it isn’t human. A stork has landed on the empty stretch of pavement. It is looking at her, from nine feet away. She stands motionless: they stare at each other, and then it begins to pace in her direction, grey and gangly, harshly protuberant.
It has a long, sharp beak, a dirty flesh colour, and a long wrinkled gizzard, like a stretched scrotum, and two long white stick legs, with little cartoon knees, neat bumps from which the legs swing forward with great delicacy, bringing down stretched claws upon the pavement like a stately woman walking in high heels, though in other respects it is fiercely masculine, wearing its hunched black wings like an academic gown, and its hanging gizzard like a mayoral chain. Its eyes are large and bright. It is coming towards her. As it does so, it shits, profusely, on the pavement. It is very large. Vanessa’s paralysed. There aren’t any other human beings around, and this stork seems to know it owns the road. ‘Go away,’ she says quietly, then more shrilly, ‘Shoo!’ It opens its great razors of beak, and laughs. But it pauses, too. They both stare at each other. It looks supremely intelligent. She veers into the road and walks gingerly around it, hoping it won’t suddenly dart its neck out and spear her. A Japanese jeep tries not to kill her. Once she is ten feet past, she turns and stares back at it. The stork carries on, impervious, well-sprung. It seems to be saying, ‘You don’t belong here.’
‘The storks are so weird!’ she writes in her Sheraton postcard to Fifi, sitting in the window of Nando’s at last, gulping down bottled water and the lukewarm buffet. ‘That thing could have eaten Mimi for breakfast!’ Too late she thinks, that wasn’t tactful, for Mimi is Fifi’s child substitute, an adored and pampered Sia
mese cat, neutered, of course, and becoming fat, though Fifi feeds it an organic diet. ‘I am getting acclimatised, and seeing friends.’ That isn’t quite true, but soon she’ll meet Mary. She and Fifi have written books about Pilates together, a successful series called The Long Lean Line, but Fifi does occasionally take her for granted. (It has never ceased to rankle with Vanessa that the books used Fifi for ALL the photographs, though she, Vanessa, was very little older, and could perfectly well have demonstrated some postures. It was a point she had expected Fifi to take up with the publisher, but Fifi just said, ‘Well I am the Pilates teacher.’ ‘But I am the writer,’ Vanessa had said. ‘In general, books use photographs of the author.’) In any case, they had got over that quarrel, and now Fifi thinks she is Vanessa’s best friend, though Vanessa naturally has reservations ... Poor Fifi! She is hardly an intellectual. ‘Love from Vanessa in up-town Kampala.’ That ought to make Fifi slightly jealous.
The waiter is hovering beside her. Vanessa realises that she has demolished a huge plate of starchy potatoes and plantain, cassava, chicken and pink groundnut sauce. (How Mary would have approved of that! Her mission in London was to feed them fibre. The loo was constantly in use.) The bill is 18,000 Ugandan shillings. She offers him both her 10,000 shilling notes.
Wind blows through the window like a whirling dervish and nearly snatches the money away. Paper napkins start flying around the room. Outside the window, it’s suddenly dark. She peers out and sees that the storybook clouds have bellied blackly up over the sun. The leisurely walk of the people on the pavement has turned to a trot: almost a run. There’s a clap of thunder. Oh dear. Among all the kit she has brought with her, she did not manage to include her umbrella. She can’t leave the restaurant until the storm is over. ‘Bring me some tea,’ she tells the waiter. The room lights up, livid: then another crash. The rain begins, slow and determined, and the waiter brings her tea with hot milk, and is not happy when she sends it back. ‘Black tea, cold milk, English-style,’ she says, slowly and with emphasis. Why can’t they ever get tea right?
