Charity looked disapproving; and Lucy ignored him.
Water had become her priority. Passionate, articulate, persuasive, she now mounted her soapbox and painted a picture of a decent Kireba. Clean water would not only end cholera and combat other diseases, argued Lucy. It would transform the working day.
As if on cue, a group of women passed Harrods, buckets in hand, heading for the nearest standpipe, one of half a dozen that served the slum. One waved at Charity, and said something which prompted peals of laughter.
Lucy begged Charity to translate.
“She asked: Why are we behaving like men? Lounging and talking. Behave like women! Tell that white girl to stop loafing, and help us carry buckets!”
A funeral procession followed, and the table fell silent.
When conversation resumed, much to Lucy’s fury Pearson was dismissive about her scheme. Any money raised would be lost to graft, inflated contracts, bribes and kickbacks, he argued. The first step was to end the corruption that was sapping Kuwisha, and that meant getting rid of President Nduka.
“Patronage, corruption, same thing. He runs the country through patronage, and his patronage destroys Kuwisha. Until he and his system are destroyed, WorldFeed is wasting its time and its money,” said Cecil.
Charity tried to cool things down. It was not the first time she had heard the two argue along these lines.
“Decent toilets. We need decent toilets.”
But Lucy wouldn’t be put off.
“You’ve never done anything worthwhile, Cecil,” she said angrily.
“All your editorials, all your columns . . . haven’t changed life in Kuwisha a jot, not a bloody jot.”
“And your lot has made a difference?” Cyril hit back. “Twenty years after you began putting aid into this place, more people are poor, schools are dreadful, the health service is terrible. Things are worse, not better. And you say I’m wasting my time?”
Charity silently intervened, raising her finger to her lips.
“Could this man Hardwicke from the Bank help?” she asked.
Lucy gave Pearson a baleful look, but Charity’s suggestion had caught her fancy.
“Absolutely. We really could get the support of Hardwicke,” she said with growing excitement. “He’s due to visit Kireba to inspect that housing scheme. He could be buttonholed then.”
She went on to stress one thing in particular: any initiative should be inspired by the residents of Kireba. Furthermore, they should be consulted regularly; and ultimately the project planners should be answerable to them.
“Ownership! It’s all about ownership,” declared Lucy.
Cecil snorted, but decided to keep quiet, not out of deference to Lucy, but out of fear of provoking Charity’s wrath. It was not the time to list the history of past efforts to bring water to Kireba. Anyway, Lucy had the bit between her teeth:
“It would need the backing of WorldFeed, but the chances of that are jolly good. After all, we are pressing the right buttons,” continued Lucy, her enthusiasm turning her face pink.
Charity chose to appear baffled.
“Buttons? What are these buttons? I thought we are talking about water. Buttons are the business of the Kireba ladies’ sewing circle.”
Lucy suspected that her friend was teasing her, but Charity’s expression gave nothing away.
“What I mean is that we’d be tackling development issues from the grassroots up, and not imposing our ideas from the top. Obviously, we would be following the main aid and development agenda issues, such as, well, water projects are making a comeback, and health . . .”
Lucy took a deep breath.
“And sustainability is absolutely critical; and if you can show it is a community backed scheme, we’re in the pound seats.”
She looked at Charity. She would be the ideal local chairperson . . . her church background, her role in Kireba as a community leader, and of course she was the right gender.
“What about it?”
“What?” said Charity.
“Oh for God’s sake, Charity. I’ve just been banging on about it. Setting up a plan to deliver clean water to Kireba. What do you think?”
“Toilets, first,” said Charity.
“But what about water, clean water? WorldFeed could help raise the money, I’m sure we can, Charity – especially if you are chairperson. You would have to make at least one visit to Oxford, of course . . . to help us explain things, and encourage other donors.”
Lucy took her silence for assent.
“In principle, Charity, would you agree? Please? Part of the money would be used to buy decent toilets, the rest would provide a clean water system for Kireba.”
Charity considered the proposal for a few moments.
She thought of saying ‘What about the buttons?’ but decided that it would just make Lucy cross.
“That,” she said, “is good.”
“And will you chair the appeal?”
Charity shook her head.
“No,” she said firmly. “No. That is a job for loafers.”
Lucy knew when to give up.
“OK fine. But can we at least put you on our board of advisers?”
Charity gave a grudging, ambiguous nod.
Lucy hugged the manager of Harrods, and jotted down thoughts and ideas, beginning with a list of names that would give the project credibility and assure potential donors of its integrity. She needed someone to front the project, someone who was young, with a rising profile, up and coming . . .
“What about Newman?” suggested Pearson, seeking to make amends for his earlier comments. He drained his glass of mango juice and scooped up the last of the roast peanuts.
“Of course,” exclaimed Lucy. “Absolutely perfect!”
Newman Kibwana, the charismatic young lawyer, would be ideal. She had met him on the cocktail circuit, and had been a fellow dinner guest on a couple of occasions. If Pearson had his number, she would ring him then and there. Cecil flicked through his contact book.
“Bless you, Cecil,” said Lucy sweetly, and Pearson knew that she had not forgiven him.
She caught Kibwana in his office, just as he was leaving for court:
“Newman? It’s Lucy Gomball, from WorldFeed. We met . . . yes, yes . . . Look, this cholera thing.”
Her fingers curled and uncurled a stray lock of her fair hair as she spoke.
“We’re thinking about a water project for Kireba. And we’re looking for someone to chair the appeal.”
Five minutes later, it had been settled. Kibwana could hardly have been more enthusiastic, particularly when Lucy asked if he would be free to travel abroad to raise funds.
“We must meet. When can we get together?”
Diaries were consulted, the venue and time agreed.
“Super,” said Lucy, “see you then.”
Lucy and Cecil headed for Pearson’s car. As they carefully picked their way across the muddy wasteland, Cecil broached a delicate subject.
With elaborate casualness, tossing the last of the nuts into his mouth, and with a feigned world-weary air, he disclosed his news:
“Gathered from Punabantu that Nduka wants to see me . . . don’t know if I’ll take it up.”
Lucy’s response dripped scorn.
“He wants to see you? I happen to know, Cecil, that you have been pestering poor Puna for weeks . . .”
Lucy loathed Nduka with a passion that matched Pearson’s; but she also was scornful of his belief that journalists could make a difference through what they wrote.
“Why toady up to Nduka? Just report the news. Instead you give yourself airs and graces – all those editorials. They don’t count for a row of beans . . .”
He was right. Lucy had not forgiven his scepticism about her water proposal.
Suddenly she stopped, grabbed Cecil’s shoulder, and examined the soles of her tennis shoes.
“Oh God! Absolutely yucky! Is it what I think it is, Pearson?”
Pearson, grat
eful for the respite, curbed the urge to giggle, commiserated, and held her hand while she went to work with a handy stick. A few damp blond tendrils strayed across her neck, and Lucy’s ears looked good enough to eat. He could not resist giving her a kiss on her shoulder when she had finished her distasteful task. Her apparent indifference to the gesture cheered him up no end: he had been forgiven.
Concealed behind the pile of old car tyres which his friend the cobbler was turning into sandals, Titus Ntoto looked on. Holding hands, touching again, and kissing, all in public! As the two visitors drove off to the city centre, Ntoto continued on his way to the market, where he hoped to catch up with Rutere. With any luck, they would return that night with fresh supplies of rotting fruit. Mangoes, sweet as toffee below their black skin, juicy chunks from discarded pineapples, over-ripe bananas . . . he smacked his lips in anticipation.
Her visitors gone, Charity took advantage of the mid-morning lull in business, poured herself a Tusker – which she allowed herself on special occasions – pulled up a chair, and sat down . The first deep quaff of ice cold beer tingled all the way down to her belly. It was followed by an explosive belch, and she had a quick look round to check that there was no Mboya Boy in earshot.
No Mboya Boys could be seen, but she had nevertheless been heard.
“You are never alone with a Tusker,” said Eveready Kosgei, the local coffin maker, wiping his brow, and swigging a cola as he emerged from the kitchen. He handed over the price of the drink. Business was booming, and he was a regular at Harrods.
“Beg pardon” said Charity, and they both giggled.
He returned to his open site after a few minutes, and Charity sat alone with her thoughts.
Her decision to confide in Furniver, to tell him about a ghastly recurring nightmare, had taken a load off her mind. It had been the previous Sunday, after a lunch in his flat of chicken and pumpkin and tender green beans. She had not intended to fall asleep, but once settled into the deep, red-cushioned sofa which had pride of place in the flat’s whitewashed living room, she could not resist closing her eyes.
Immediately – or so it seemed – the locusts were back in her head.
She awoke to find Furniver anxiously wiping her brow with his handkerchief, and noticed that his fingers, big, like sausages, had the ochre soil of Kuwisha under the nails. He insisted on growing lettuce and carrots in a tiny garden, next to Harrods. The sight calmed her.
“I’m having the same dream, Furniver, a dream that one day the orphans will eat us.”
Something new and dreadful was happening, she told him. It was frightening enough that the people who were dying of Aids were mainly young and productive. But values were dying with them, the values attached to families and to age, values that had sustained Kuwisha for generations. That the old people were also dying, did not unduly distress her, for it was part of Life’s order. But now there was no-one to take over, no generation to take the place of dying grandparents. They too had died, or were dying, of Aids. This was not the natural order.
“Who will look after the young people?” she asked Furniver. “Children without grandmothers and grandfathers? Who will teach them about how to behave? Who will tell them about manners, and show them that you should have respect for old people, and to honour tradition? Who will hug them?”
Charity shook her head.
“Who will teach them about the songs of their people, about the tales of their tribes? What will happen to my little rats?”
Furniver could only squeeze her hand.
“In my dream, Furniver, there are many locusts, many, many locusts, but with the heads of young people.”
She shuddered at the recollection.
“They are so many, that the sun is made dark by the swarms, always eating, eating, eating. Eating leaves from trees, eating the grass . . . and then their heads turn into the heads of rats, but still looking like people, still eating – but now eating the maize from our granaries, even eating the seed set aside for the next season planting . . .”
She had looked at Titus Ntoto and Cyrus Rutere. The two youngsters, who had carried fresh vegetables to the flat, had been invited in to finish off the meal, and were now fast asleep, rolled up in a clean blanket, stretched out on the first floor balcony. Her compassion and her love for them was not diminished but enhanced by the horror of her vision.
“So that is why I am fearful. One day, Furniver, one day, the Ntotos and the Ruteres will eat us. We cannot blame them, for they want to live. But surely they will eat us, unless . . .”
“Unless what?”
Charity tried to lighten the mood, which had become as dark and gloomy as the sky over Kuwisha.
“If you have no unless, then you despair. And my David always said that despair was a sin. But do not ask me, Charity Mupanga, to tell you, Edward Furniver, what this unless might be – we all have to look for unless. Clean water is a start, literacy, good toilets, mosquito nets, condoms, discipline, leadership, self-respect . . . all together, they make this thing, which I call unless . . .”
It was time she opened the London letter, addressed to “Ms Charity Mupanga, The Proprietor, Harrods International Bar (and Nightspot), Uhuru Avenue,” and marked: “For the urgent attention of Edward Furniver.” She snorted derisively. Ms Charity Mupanga indeed! Charity had no truck with the title “Ms”. She was Mrs Charity Mupanga, and proud of it.
It was the third she had received from the firm, and she feared it would be the most serious.
The first letter, sent by airmail, had followed hard on the heels of a story Pearson had written for the Financial News, setting out Kuwisha’s economic difficulties. He had given a photocopy to Charity. Among several local businessmen and women interviewed, Pearson had quoted “Mrs Charity Mupanga, proprietor and owner of Harrods International Bar (and Nightspot)”.
What was more, in the story he had inadvertently given away her address. He described her looking out over Kireba while bemoaning the impact of low coffee prices on beer sales at Harrods, and criticising the government’s failure to do anything about the dreadful state of Uhuru Avenue, “a few steps from Mrs Mupanga’s popular bar.”
A reference to Harrods in the world’s leading international financial newspaper had triggered the attention of a prominent firm of London lawyers, Fanshawe and Fanshawe, Turnagain Lane, London EC4. Their fierce vigilance on behalf of companies that had retained them to monitor the world’s press for trademark violations was legendary. The use of the name Harrods was a flagrant breach of trademark, and the lawyers were in no doubt: it deserved a forthright statement to that effect.
The first letter had been a standard demand that Harrods of Uhuru Avenue, Kuwisha, cease trading under that name. Had it been up to her, Charity might have sought advice. But Furniver had been confidently and cheerfully dismissive.
Then came a second letter, saying the same thing but in a more peremptory fashion. And now this one.
It made no reference to the story of how her father acquired the name Harrods, other than the acknowledgement that the letter setting it out had been received. The response was cold and peremptory, and brought home the nature of her predicament.
“They really do mean it,” said Charity to herself. Once again there was a cold feeling in her stomach, but this time the sensation was not at all pleasant. The sting was in the final paragraph of the letter:
“Unless you confirm in writing that you will cease trading under the name of Harrods by the end of this month,” it concluded, “we will have no alternative but to seek redress in Court. We will of course seek costs, and I must advise you that outlays to date are already substantial.”
“Outlays . . . outlays” she mouthed the word. Why did people have to use words like outlays or resources when what they meant was plain money? Doubts about the quality of Furniver’s advice were creeping in. And if she did have to pay money, where would it come from?
Charity pushed the Tusker to one side, and rested her head in her hands. For t
he first time she realised that the future of her bar and nightspot was at stake: its very existence could be in jeopardy, and the name of her dear father could well be dragged through the courts.
8
“If you eat the ugali (maize meal) you must stoke the fire”
The day moved on. The breakfast rush was over, and the takings were safe in the clinic. Charity began the lunchtime preparations, peeling avocados and chopping onions, every now and then attending to an early customer dropping in for a drink.
More water was needed. Charity put two fingers to her mouth, and let out a piercing whistle. Within minutes, an Mboya Boy was setting off to Kireba’s only tap, container in each hand – knowing that his reward would be a dough ball.
There was nothing she could do until he got back. Charity seldom dwelt on the past, but today seemed to be different. She felt a need to take stock of her life and its events, the periods of sadness and joy. Her deepest and abiding sorrow had been the loss of David, when she had been in her mid-thirties, and he was six years older. Her greatest and enduring comfort was the fruits of their marriage, David Junior and Blessing. But Charity nevertheless yearned for company.
She had borne her loss and her loneliness after her husband’s death bravely and stoically. Indeed, until not so long ago, Charity had not thought of herself as lonely. She certainly was not short of friends of both sexes, including that up-and-coming opposition politician, Anna Nugilu, whom she had first met at a church tea that she had hosted, when David was still alive. But Charity was increasingly preoccupied by a single question: was there, would there ever be, a man who could replace David Mupanga in her heart, and in her bed?
In Kuwisha’s past, a suitor for a maiden’s hand had to show his worth with an act of bravery. Times had changed, but perhaps this legal business might be Furniver’s modern challenge. Could he cope with those clever lawyers in London and protect her father’s name?
Charity was starting to have her doubts. He seemed to lack the cunning that the task required. Yet the more she saw of Edward Furniver, and the closer she got to him, the more she liked him. True, he was losing his figure and developing a paunch, his brown hair was thinning, and his clothes sense was so conservative it bordered on the bizarre: identical blue Sea Island cotton shirts, all tailor made, pink socks, and a sand-coloured suit, every day of the week. And there was never any deviation from this pattern.
Last Orders at Harrods Page 7
