In a flash the world exploded. The last thing Amie remembered was the cry, “Allah Akbar!”
When Amie opened her eyes all she could see was a bright, white ceiling, but the effort to stay awake was too much and she slipped back into unconsciousness.
In her dreams she heard voices and someone was shaking her shoulder gently but persistently. She didn’t want to wake up, she wanted to go on dreaming, something was warning her it would be too painful to wake up. She knew she must be in hospital, but why?
It came rushing back. The shopping mall, the cart, the monkey and … Angelina. Angelina! Her eyes flew open and she tried to sit up, but a nurse gently pushed her down.
“Angelina,” Amie gasped. “Where is she? And Sam and the children? Are they all right? Please, please tell me.”
The nurse smiled. “All in good time, when you’re stronger.”
“No, no. Tell me now!” Amie was shouting. She was aware of the door opening and her mother walking in. Amie held out her arms. “Tell me, tell me,” she sobbed. “What happened? Was anyone hurt?”
Her mother took her hand and perched on the edge of the bed, ignoring the nurse’s frown. “I’m sorry, Amie. I’m so, so sorry.”
It was all over the evening news. It made the headlines in every national paper and gave birth to dozens of panel discussions and chat shows with numerous experts grilled for their views.
At 4pm on Tuesday afternoon a bomb went off in a Birmingham shopping centre, killing at least twelve people and injuring a further twenty-three. A group calling themselves Boko Haram UK have claimed responsibility and proudly announced four of their group had become martyrs for the cause. The explosive device was apparently wheeled into the crowded mall on a trolley, pushed by the suicide bombers. No prior warning was given, and in a message posted immediately after the event, on Facebook and YouTube, the group stated this was in reprisal for the bombing of Syria by Western forces. They warned of further attacks to follow. The security forces are on high alert and reinforcements have been called in.
The names of the deceased are: …
Mary Reynolds didn’t know how to break the news to her bruised and battered daughter lying in the hospital bed. Jonathon rushed in and took Amie gently in his arms. He cradled her like a baby and whispered he loved her over and over again.
Without quite knowing why Amie burst into tears. “Tell me, tell me.”
Jonathon pulled away and taking a deep breath he answered her unfinished question. Sam and the children had escaped with only minor injuries and only been kept in hospital overnight, but Angelina had not been so lucky. By the time the paramedics had reached her it was too late.
Amie’s tears turned to gut-wrenching sobs. She had lost her child twice and through a miracle had found her again. All the problems and difficulties she might’ve had adopting the child had been overcome, only for this to happen. Her child of Africa had died in a foreign land and had no future.
Amie blamed herself. If only she’d left Angelina safely with Mrs Motswezi, in her own country. If only she’d listened to Ouma Adede and heeded her warning. Her own selfishness had been the cause of the little girl’s death. She wasn’t sure she could ever forgive herself.
Amie was kept in hospital for three days while they ran a barrage of tests, and then she returned with Jonathon to her parents’ home outside London. No one knew how to comfort her. Mary, Sam, her father and Jonathon’s folks told her it wasn’t her fault, but she sank into a deep depression. The other trials and problems she’d been able to handle, but this was the one she battled with, this was the one that had broken her.
“Amie, we must do something,” Jonathon said to her one afternoon as they sat alone in the garden. “I have to know whether to find work here, or tell my bosses if I’m going back to Apatu. They won’t wait forever.”
“Yes, I know,” Amie nodded. “I’ve been thinking too. I don’t want to stay here with Mum and Dad. Jonathon, I want to go back to Apatu.”
“Are you sure? We don’t have to if …”
Amie interrupted him. “No, I’m quite sure. It’s where my soul can heal and I promised Mrs Motswezi I would help her build the new orphanage. Although I wasn’t able to help Angelina …” her voice broke, “… I can help some of the other orphans. Will you take me back to Africa, Jonathon?”
“Yes,” he said. “Yes, I will.”
“And can we take Angelina’s ashes back with us?”
“If you want to.”
“I do. She was a child of Africa and that’s where we should lay her to rest.”
When Amie took her seat on the plane, she felt a very small part of her begin to relax. It was sad saying goodbye to her family again, but she knew they were doing the right thing. She had great hopes for the future. She would mend and one day, sitting out in the bush, surrounded by the vast African landscape, she would find peace.
The pilot welcomed them aboard and reminded them to switch off their mobile phones and electronic devices. Amie obediently pulled hers out of her bag and pressed the off button.
She wouldn’t have been so relaxed had she stopped to read the message which had just dropped into her inbox.
We know who you are, and where you are going. We will never forgive you for the deaths you are responsible for. We will not rest until the martyr Shalima’s death has been avenged.
AMIE
STOLEN FUTURE
1 THE FINAL GOODBYE
Present day
Behind her veil the tears streamed down Amie’s face as she watched them lower the coffins into the freshly dug graves. She could remember little about the previous few days, and constantly fought an overwhelming panic. Her mind was a jumble of disconnected thoughts, blurred memories and questions. People she didn’t know well had invaded her world to arrange this terrible funeral.
From where she was standing on the far side of the cemetery, partially concealed behind a tall Natal Mahogany tree, she could see Ouma Adede who had once foretold her future. What was she doing here? There were others: Mrs Motswezi from the orphanage where Amie had first found Angelina, half-familiar faces from the Club, couples they’d dined or swam with at the beach. There was a tall, very good-looking man with blonde hair she had never seen before, he was probably from the embassy. And Ken, of course, the sun reflecting off his dark skin and black curly hair that showed his African heritage. Even Jennifer and Patrick were there, but Amie was not allowed to talk to them, neither could she approach them. At one point, without thinking, she’d taken a step forward as if to walk over and join them, but a hand had grabbed her arm and held her back.
“You can’t go any closer, not now, not ever,” the stern voice displayed no emotion.
At last the preacher finished his eulogy. One by one the mourners filed past the graves on the way to their cars. Ouma Adede looked up and stared straight at Amie, even though she was shrouded in a black muslin veil and hidden behind the tree, and Amie could have sworn she gave a brief nod. But then the elderly witchdoctor walked out of the graveyard without a backward glance. Did their eyes really connect or was it her imagination?
Once all the mourners had departed and the preacher had hurried away, Amie was herded straight to the car, then back to her room and once more the door was firmly locked behind her.
Now Amie could weep in private.
Mrs Motswezi had also left the cemetery, but if she’d known Amie was there would her friend have thought her cold and unfeeling? When Africans attended a funeral they wept and wailed, shrieking and sobbing. For Amie, that was not an option. She would grieve in silence, not making an overt display of grief. She was English not African.
Back in her prison-like room Amie reached for a tissue to blow her nose and wipe her eyes. The sight of Mrs Motswezi had drawn back a veil to her past, and triggered a flashback to a conversation she’d had with the elderly headmistress only a few weeks earlier at the orphanage.
“What do you tell them?” she’d asked.
Amie ha
d been watching the young children, many of them just staring into space, and she’d wondered where their minds had taken them. Back to the war? To the atrocities they’d witnessed? Had they seen family members butchered and killed? Had they been forced to watch as their houses were burned to the ground? Had they run to escape and hide in the bush? How much worse it must have been for them. They had no idea why the adults were behaving like this. Why were they so angry with each other? Why did the men kill people?
“Come,” Mrs Motswezi had pointed to a small table, in reality a plank on two piles of bricks. “Come, have some tea, it is hot.”
Amie had followed her and sat beside her on an old tree stump. The air was still, the heat radiated from both the sky above, and the ground below, the dust swirling around them in the light breeze as they shuffled their feet in the dirt.
The headmistress had lifted a kettle from the fire and poured boiling water into two tin mugs sharing one tea bag between them, before heaping four spoonfuls of sugar into each. It didn’t matter how many times Amie told her friend that she did not take sugar in tea, the elderly lady simply ignored her. Africans like tea with their sugar and no one had less than four spoons in every cup.
Amie lifted the mug to her lips then paused. “What do you tell them?” she’d repeated.
Mrs Motswezi had raised her sparse eyebrows.
“About the war?”
“Yes. How do you explain the fighting and the killing and all the brutal things they must have seen?”
The headmistress had shrugged. “Nothing.”
“Nothing, nothing at all? You don’t mention it?” Amie hadn’t been able to see the wisdom in that. Didn’t everyone know you should talk about past traumas in order to begin healing?
“There is no need,” Mrs Motswezi had spoken firmly. “They will soon forget. They must look now to growing up and a good education and learn to have manners and to speak English. That is important in the world today. The important countries speak English and they will get better jobs.”
Amie huddled under the covers of her prison bed as she remembered Mrs Motswezi’s words. She recognized the gulf between the Africans and herself; the funeral had brought it sharply home to her. While Africans might cry and wail at a death, they did not take weeks to mourn or go on a pity party. They got on with life.
Was it better to look only to the future and forget the past? Realistically, the ordinary people didn’t have a choice. Living day to day, working long hours just to provide the bare necessities, you don’t have time to sit and feel sorry for yourself.
“These are the lucky ones,” Mrs Motswezi had pointed to the children, some solitary, others sitting in groups or running around playing with a ball made from several pairs of old rolled-up tights. “They have found their way to me, and I will care for them. Others are not so fortunate.”
“You mean the gangs in town?” Amie had pointed her thumb in the general direction of the city centre.
“Yes. Some of those poor little ones will find a family of sorts, a young chief to follow and they will get comfort from the others in their group. For a while they will be happy, but only for a while.”
Amie knew what Mrs Motswezi meant. Sooner or later most of the children would be caught stealing, and get a good beating from either the shop owner or the householder. They wouldn’t escape a further thrashing if the police were called. Those uniformed guardians of the law thought nothing of giving them a good hiding before throwing the older ones into jail. When Amie had been imprisoned, it had been in a cell in the main offices in town, but the jail on the outskirts of the city had not changed since long before the first civil war, and strangely enough had suffered no damage in either of the conflicts. It made Amie shudder every time they drove past it on their way to the beach. Dozens of men would be sitting outside in the searing heat, there wasn’t an ounce of shade, and she could only guess they were not allowed into the barrack-like buildings that enclosed two sides of the compound. She’d learned to look away from the desperate eyes that followed their car as they drove past the high razor-wired fence. Amie would have preferred to drive by as fast as possible, but the road wasn’t tarred yet and the potholes were so large, especially after the rains, that speed wasn’t an option.
What chance did these little ones have? She had asked herself. What hopes for the future? What ambitions?
“What chance do they have?” Amie said out loud.
Mrs Motswezi had glared at her before her face softened as she replied. “You have been in Africa for many years now, and still you think like a white man.” She seized Amie’s arm in a claw-like grip and pointed with her other hand to a nearby camel thorn tree.
“See those little yellow birds?”
Amie nodded.
“Those are the weaver birds. They are African birds. They have the spirit of Africa. You see, the male bird is building the nest on the end of that thin twig.”
Amie had watched it struggling to weave a length of grass round a half-completed ball at the very end of the branch that swayed precariously in the light breeze.
“It will take many hours to make the home, up high where it is safe from the snakes and the lizards so they cannot take the eggs. But ...” she paused, “... all that work may be for nothing. It is only when the lady bird thinks it is a good nest will she agree to put her eggs there. See, that other one is going to look to see if it is a good home.”
A female bird, less brightly coloured than the builder anxiously calling to her, was investigating the nest. She clung daintily to the woven ball for a few moments and then disappeared inside through the hole at the bottom. After a little while she reappeared and flew off.
“You see,” continued the headmistress, “she does not like it. Now he will have to begin to build another nest that is good for her. He may try many, many times before she likes his nest.”
Amie smiled. She knew all about the weaver birds and their habits. Dirk had told her about them long ago when she’d stayed at the game lodge. The large flocks of little birds were a common sight everywhere, crowding together for safety, building dozens of nests in the same tree, each a miracle of skilled workmanship.
“We learn from these little birds that we must live. We are strong, we do not give up. We are African.” Mrs Motswezi sat up straight and tall.
Yes, Africans would mourn their dead and then they got on with life. But Amie was not sure if she could do that. She felt totally defeated, completely lost. The future stretched before her like a fog and there was no way she could see through it.
2 A SENSE OF UNEASE
Six months earlier
When Amie stepped off the plane at Apatu airport she took in a deep breath of the hot African air. She felt a part of her relax, she was home. England was a foreign land, and it didn’t take long to slip back into the old routine. Under the new government, the plans for the desalination plant were resurrected; surprisingly there had been little damage to the early construction, and Jonathon was busy again from dawn till dusk. With their close connections to those now in power, the project was going well and it looked as if it would be up and running within two years.
Amie slipped back into her busy routine. There was the new house to organize. It was much bigger than their old one with four bedrooms, all en-suite, plus a guest bathroom, three reception rooms and a study. The kitchen was rather old fashioned, but serviceable and she made several trips to the shops to restock everything; pots and pans, crockery and cutlery, bedding, a few extra pieces of small furniture and electronic goods. It took a lot of hunting to find many of the things she wanted. New merchandise was only slowly trickling back into the shops after a second civil war in the space of a couple of years.
One of the first things Amie bought was a new cell phone. Just as they stepped out of the plane onto the gangway, her old one had fallen out of her coat pocket and crashed onto the tarmac below, shattering into several pieces. The lady in front of them was struggling with a push chair and two badly b
ehaved toddlers, so before either Amie or Jonathon could get to the bottom of the steps to retrieve what was left of it, the phone was beyond repair. Amie picked up a few bits that had not been run over by the re-fuelling truck wheels, dangerously racing around the wrong side of the aircraft, and then further trampled on by the passengers rushing to get inside the cool terminal building. She threw the buckled metal and plastic remains into a bin outside the arrivals door, noticing that even the sim card had been damaged. She never saw the threatening message that had dropped into her in box after she boarded the plane in London. It came from the group that had promised revenge. If she thought that chapter in her life was closed, she was mistaken.
The watchers watched – and missed nothing.
Amie and Jonathon went around to the old house to find out if any of their belongings were still there, but the new residents had become quite abusive and they decided it wasn’t worth all the fuss to retrieve the few bits and pieces that might have escaped damage. Both of them noticed the crowd of small children that ran riot in and out of the back door, the pile of neglected and broken toys, the stuffing hanging out of the sofa and the general unkempt, dirty appearance of the current owners. It was unlikely they would get any of their possessions back.
Amie didn’t protest too hard. Jonathon’s company had been amazingly generous, probably because they were worried that after all the chaos he’d refuse to return to Africa. That’s the way he explained it to Amie, but she had a good idea that it might be the British government doing most of the funding. If Jonathon was still in Her Majesty’s spy circle, then they wanted him in Apatu for a good reason. She could only hope they did not suspect another civil war was about to erupt.
Despite her reservations she spent many happy hours trawling round the shops spending to her heart’s content, although she didn’t buy very much. She was aware that after losing everything she had ever owned, her attitude to material possessions had changed. Before, she had been quite possessive of her belongings, now she realised how unimportant they were. Life, health and the ability to survive came top of her list. Yes, it was nice to surround yourself with beautiful things but they were not necessary either for happiness or a better life. Many Africans had very little and were still happy. Never again would she worry about how much she had as long as her daily needs were met and she had Jonathon beside her.
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