“She is thinking that Nadia is very poor that she must wear animal skins which do not cover her body. She is wanting to give Nadia this dress. It is her best dress and she says that if she will visit their homes, they have food for her.”
He said something to the woman. She listened, then started to laugh too, hooting at the joke, banging her forehead, bending double, regaling the women around her so that they all started laughing too.
“I told her that Nadia was rich and that rich women in the West like to dress like refugee woman, and that this is how she think refugee woman dress,” said Muhammad.
“Very amusing,” said O’Rourke, “but I am still not having that woman in the hospital.”
He hurried ahead and caught up with Abdul Gerbil. I could hear them conversing angrily as the party marched forward.
“Birra belly bra. Wibbit.”
“Dongola fnirra.”
“Sinabat. Fnarraboot. Wop.”
The lady from Hey! magazine was getting anxious about the light. There was no sunset because of the clouds, but it would be dark in an hour. As we approached the hospital I saw that another of the Land Cruisers from the Charitable Acts convoy was parked next to mine. I hoped it was Henry. I hoped the others had not escaped from the compound. O’Rourke and Abdul Gerbil were still arguing in Nambulan, outside the entrance to the hospital.
“Guys, I can’t hang around here. I’m losing my light,” said the photographer, bustling ahead. “Sharee, come on, sweetie. Matte her down, sweetie. Matte her down.”
Nadia, Mike, the photographer and the makeup girl were heading for the hospital entrance now. O’Rourke and Abdul Gerbil, still arguing, hadn’t seen them. I rushed ahead to try to stop them.
“Mikey. What’s she doin’ ’ere?” Nadia’s mid-Atlantic drawl had slipped at the sight of Kate Fortune.
Kate was sitting on a low wooden bed just inside the entrance, with her hair wrapped in a peach-colored turban. Cradled in the crook of each arm were two of the marasmic babies. The News photographer was lying on the floor in front of them, looking through his camera. The mother of the third marasmic baby was holding the child out at an awkward angle, just above Kate’s lap.
“Can you just cheat it up for me, love?” the photographer said to the mother. “Up a bit. No, that’s too far. Split the difference.”
“GET OUT.”
There was not a sound. The population of the hospital, Jane, Linda, Sian, Kate Fortune, Nadia Simpson, both photographers, Sharee the makeup girl stared at O’Rourke open-mouthed.
“GET OUT. ALL OF YOU. NOW.”
“Hey, listen, mate, we’ve got an exclusive—” began the News photographer, trying to get up from the floor.
O’Rourke bent down, grabbed him by the back of his shirt and shoved him towards the entrance. He turned back to the assembled group.
“You heard,” he said. “Leave.”
“But—” began the Hey! photographer.
“Mikey—” began Nadia.
“I WILL NOT,” O’Rourke roared again, “HAVE MY PATIENTS USED AS FASHION ACCESSORIES. Now get out. All of you.”
As the invaders filed out huffily, Kate Fortune handed back the babies to their anxious mothers and hurried out after the others, adjusting her turban.
Ruffled feathers had been smoothed to some extent. Abdul Gerbil had been persuaded that things were much worse at Wad Denazen, and Nadia, cheered by the notion that her people were more starving elsewhere, had agreed to depart. Kate and her photographer had returned to the compound. It was dark now. The frogs in the river had begun to make their astonishingly loud belching noises. There were still a few lamps lit, but the refugees were turning in.
“I’d better go back up to the compound,” I said to O’Rourke. It was almost seven.
“You’re very tired,” said O’Rourke. “Why don’t you stay down here for a while? Sit with Muhammad. Unwind.”
“Because I’ve got to get everything organized. They’ve all got to find places to sleep and be sorted out.”
“Henry can deal with the sleeping arrangements. There’s plenty of beds.”
“But we have to organize the food and the showers and everything.”
“Save your energies for keeping that broadcast within the boundaries of taste. I’ll go up there and tell them you have things to do down here.”
So I sat with Muhammad. It was tranquil in his shelter. He had a pot boiling on the embers, incense burning and lamps flickering all around. I gave him his Shakespeare. He was very pleased. People I knew dropped in to sit with us for a while.
Liben Alye came. He smiled and nodded and took my hand but his eyes were dead and he seemed finished. I had brought him a pair of trainers. He seemed pleased. All the refugees wanted trainers. But I felt shabby giving him these, when the only thing which gave his life meaning had been taken away.
We sat in silence for some time, as was the way. I asked Muhammad to explain to Liben about the broadcast and to say that it was to remind people in the West that famine should not be allowed to happen again. His eyes came to life for a moment but then he seemed to sink back in despair.
When Liben had gone, Muhammad said something to a boy outside then came back in, and said, “No more. Rest now.”
But he didn’t give me a rest. He limped over to where he had pinned a map of Kefti to the rush mats which made the wall.
“These of my fellow countrymen, for whom I sacrificed my leg—” he began melodramatically, then turned to see if he was having the desired effect.
“Ye-es . . .” I said.
“Where have they gone?” he whispered. He looked very dark in the lamplight. One side of his face had a line of light down it, highlighting his cheekbone. “The Security forces tell us that they have dispersed because of the evil bombing of the Marxist autocrats.”
“Dispersed where, though?” I said. “I thought they had no food reserves up there.”
“That is the reality,” he said. “There is no food.”
“So what’s happening?”
“I believe they have dispersed widely across the lowlands, but are still traveling by night. Their progress is slowed as they reach the open desert because of the need to construct camouflage for the daylight hours.”
“When will they come?”
“I am waiting for news.”
“You have people looking for them?”
“I am waiting for news.”
“Cannot reveal your sources, eh?” I said.
“Perhaps your team will have their starving babies in abundance,” he said, ignoring my question. “And we will have more sorrows. The broadcast is on Wednesday?”
“The day after tomorrow, yes. I’d better get back up to the compound, I suppose.”
“And I had better start work on my lines. You will let me speak? You will let the Keftian people speak for themselves? Or must we have these Western women with bones and turbans in their hair who understand nothing?”
“That’s not fair. They’ve done their research. But of course you can speak.” I thought of Vernon Briggs and lost my confidence. “At least, I hope so, but it’s not me who’s in charge.”
“But always,” he said, glinting in the half-light as he showed me out, “in the end, it is the woman who is in charge.”
“I wish it were true.”
“Then let it be true this time.”
CHAPTER
Twenty-eight
It was very late when I got back to the compound, but the lights of the cabana were still on, and O’Rourke and Corinna were standing in the shadows round the side. I felt a horrible jealous lunge. Surely he wasn’t going to fall for Corinna? She was still wearing her sunglasses, for God’s sake.
“Oh, puh-lease,” she was saying. “This is cultural imperialism in its most blatant form. I cannot, in all conscience, stay here.”
“I completely understand. Perhaps you’d like me to drive you to the village?” said O’Rourke, politely.
“Is there a hot
el there?” she said, huskily.
“There’s a little place, yes. It’s pretty much free of any form of colonialism, neo or otherwise, and not at all racist. You have a mosquito net? And a torch? I’ll get you some water. And take your own sheets, of course. It’s open to the sky but I don’t think you need worry about rain. It’s a dormitory room. They don’t get many women there but they do have an equal opportunities policy—so keep all your clothes on.”
It hadn’t taken him long to suss her.
“Hello,” said O’Rourke, as I walked up to them. “Corinna is wanting to stay elsewhere.”
“Yes, I heard you saying. You’re going to the village, then?”
Corinna tossed her head. “I’m afraid I find it completely abhorrent to be waited on by black servants.”
“Kamal isn’t a servant. He’s a cook.”
“Oh, yes, it’s easy to hide behind semantics, isn’t it? Is this where donations go? Is this why we’re out here? Asking the public to pay up to have you lot waited on? So you don’t have to lift a finger? I have to say I’m appalled.”
O’Rourke started lighting a cigarette.
“Please do not smoke next to me.”
He walked half a dozen paces away and lit the cigarette.
“Did O’Rourke explain why we have staff?”
“Nope,” came his voice, out of the blackness.
“The people in the village need the work.”
“Oh, excuse me,” said Corinna. “I’ve found out how much these people earn. It’s a pittance. It’s slave labor.”
“The trouble is we can’t pay much above the going rate, or it mucks up the local economy.”
“Oh, puh-lease. Why don’t you wipe your own tables if you don’t want to muck up the local economy?”
“It’s stupid having nurses doing housework, when they’re overstretched in the camp and someone else needs the work.”
“Oh, come on. It doesn’t take that much effort to run up a bit of supper.”
“Good. You can cook the chicken tomorrow night,” said O’Rourke, appearing back out of the darkness. “You’ll have to kill it. That’s OK?”
“I am, as you know, a vegetarian,” hissed Corinna.
“Does it ever occur to you,” he said mildly, “that you might be missing the wood for the trees? Now, shall I run you to the village?”
“Oh, don’t be ridiculous,” she said. “It’s obvious I can’t stay in that place.”
I wasn’t sure I wanted this sparring to continue between them. It was just a touch too sparky-warky for my liking.
“Shall we go back in, then?” I said. “Is there anything left to eat?”
“I’m going to bed,” said Corinna. “With Kate Fortune, apparently.”
“Night, then,” said O’Rourke. “I take it you won’t want to be woken with tea.”
“Depends who brings it,” she said throatily, gave him a long, unambiguous look, and sashayed off. I stared after her. I’d never seen her coming on strong to anyone before.
“Hmm,” said O’Rourke, when she’d gone. “Did you talk to Muhammad?”
“Yes.” I wanted to talk to O’Rourke now, too, but I felt unusually tongue-tied.
“You must be tired,” he said.
“Yes.”
“Well, get a good night’s rest.” He hesitated. “Night.”
Then he went off into the darkness, and I wondered where to.
Most people had gone to bed. At the far end of the cabana Betty was rabbiting on at the camera crew, still wearing her pink outfit. A bottle of gin stood in front of them. Betty’s face was almost as pink as the outfit and she was gesticulating even more than usual. Julian had found a new victim for his Janey stories in Debbie. The two of them were bent over the kitchen table.
“You see, I think I was afraid when Janey had Irony—that’s our child. I couldn’t deal with the child because I still felt I was a child myself.”
“Surely not,” said Debbie.
“Ah,” he said, beaming at me. “I was just telling Debbie here how I felt with the children today. You know, today, with those children, I felt for the first time that I was needed for myself—by the children,” he said, looking at me, thrilled, obviously forgetting all about the dollars.
“That’s great. Is there any stew left?”
After I had eaten, I looked for my bag but I couldn’t find it anywhere. It wasn’t in the Land Cruiser or in the cabana. It was one of those tiny, stupid irritations that completely floor you when you are tired. I wanted to scream, and bang on everyone’s doors with a stick. I would have to go to bed without brushing my teeth. I made my way to the hut, trying to keep control. I let myself in without a torch, and felt my way across the room, fumbling for a match to light the hurricane lamp. As the flame flared up I heard someone stir behind me. I spun round and let out a scream.
Oliver was lying on the bed, stark naked. “Hi, sweetheart,” he said, with a lazy smile.
“What are you doing here?” I shouted. I was nearly in tears. I was so tired. I picked up a towel from the chair and threw it to him. “Cover yourself up.”
He swung his legs to the floor, wrapped the towel round his waist and moved towards me. “I just thought you might need a cuddle. Don’t you?”
“What I need is sleep.”
He was moving close to me now, towering above me with the lamp behind him. I couldn’t see his face.
“I thought you might be frightened,” he said. “All this pressure building up for the broadcast, all alone in a mud hut. Wouldn’t you like me to sleep with you?”
“NO. No. I just want to be quiet, and rest.”
“But you’re all alone, with insects and rats and snakes everywhere.” His voice wobbled slightly. “I heard drums outside, and something that sounded like, like a hyena.”
I suddenly understood and tried not to smile. “Are you worried about sleeping on your own?”
“No, no, of course not,” he said, too quickly. “It’s just I find it . . . well, it is rather—”
There was a bang as the corrugated iron flung open. “SHE SAID NO.”
O’Rourke was standing in the doorway. “You heard her. She said no.”
O’Rourke, too, was naked, except for a towel wrapped round his waist. I was waiting for Oliver to lose his temper, swear at O’Rourke, but he just stood weakly in the middle of the room.
“What kind of man are you?” said O’Rourke, looking at Oliver incredulously. “What kind of low behavior is this?”
The two men stared at each other for a moment, in their towels.
“Get out,” said O’Rourke. He seemed to be making rather a habit of this today.
Oliver picked up his clothes from the table, still holding the towel round his waist, and started to shuffle out, saying, as he went, “I’ve got nowhere to sleep now.”
“You can sleep,” said O’Rourke, “with me.”
The next morning we organized a supervised tour of the camp, dividing the party into groups. The crew stayed up in the compound, working on the equipment. Corinna had stayed up there too, saying she didn’t want to gawp at human beings as if they were animals in a zoo.
The clouds had gone today and it was hot—even for Safila. I was walking towards the hospital with Julian and Oliver. Oliver had been in a state of traumatized silence all morning. He was pale and odd, shrinking from contact with the refugees. At first I had thought it was a sulk because of what had happened in the hut last night. But then, watching him, I remembered what it was like when you first came across all this: the stenches, the faces covered in flies, the gungy eyes, the amputated limbs.
As we entered the hospital, the News photographer was sitting in exactly the same position he had been in an hour and a half ago, with his lens pointing at the head of a woman patient.
Sian came hurrying up to me, wide-eyed and anxious. “I think we must ask this man to leave,” she said.
“What is he doing?” I said.
“I think he’s waiti
ng for her to die.”
“Jesus Christ,” said Oliver, and walked unsteadily back into the air.
“Come on, darling,” the photographer was saying to me, as we stood outside, in heat that threatened to take the skin off our faces. “You don’t want me taking pictures of Kate with the kids. You don’t want me taking pictures in the hospital. What am I doing here? There’s a story to tell, love. It’s got to be done somehow.”
Vernon Briggs was making his way up the path towards us, sweating, panting and wiping his forehead with a red handkerchief.
“There isn’t a bloody story to tell, that’s the bloody truth of it,” he bellowed. “This is a right bloody carry-on, this is. Sod this for a game of soldiers.”
Kate and the cameraman were following after him, with Muhammad and Henry. Betty was bringing up the rear, talking to the soundman.
“We can’t make a bloody emergency appeal out of this lot,” Vernon was going on. “Nothing bloody well wrong with ’em.”
“What are you talking about?” said Oliver. “Just look at them. This is no way to live. Look at them.”
“Don’t you start waxing poetical with me, lad. You can see this sort of thing every day, the length and breadth of bloody Africa. Crisis? This isn’t a bloody crisis. As far as they’re concerned, this is bloody luxury.”
“Well, I must admit I’m disappointed,” said Kate.
“Disappointed? It’s a bloody shambles. Crying wolf is all these aid agencies ever do,” said Vernon.
“It’s not crying wolf,” I said. “It could all still happen.”
“Not in the next two bloody days, it couldn’t. Listen, luvvie, I’m not fart-arseing and fannying about with ifs, buts and maybes. There’s some expensive time being wasted here. We’ve got that bloody satellite dish up from Nairobi. We’ve got a technical crew, a camera crew, we’ve got Kate Fortune, Julian Alman, Corinna Borghese, the head and deputy head of programming from CDT out here on a wild goose chase, with the world’s press looking on, the network cleared on Wednesday night, the franchise and my credibility hanging on it and nothing to put in it. If we weren’t stuck in the middle of bloody nowhere, I’d put a call in to London and pull the whole thing now. It’s a bloody disaster.”
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