The Ghosts of Eden

by Andrew JH Sharp

  She left the drinks and crossed quickly to her bedroom, saying, ‘Your tea’s there. Please excuse me, I’m very tired.’

  He glanced at her and saw wetness in the angle of her eyes. She closed her bedroom door hard behind her. He found himself standing outside the door and was going to call her name. But then what? What could he say that would help? Any oil he tried to pour on the choppy water of her emotions would ignite in his face. He returned to the radio; he did not have to understand the words to hear that the songs were about heart-stopping infatuation. He felt his own infatuation with Felice; nothing good could come of it. He tried to analyse it dispassionately: it had driven him to fantasise about the death of Stanley; imagining Felice saved from a life of privation. Damn it! Whose satisfaction was he after? Guilt slashed at him. He took in a calming breath and made an effort to get a grip: the picture of himself that had emerged was an exaggeration; after all, he had stepped back from his dangerous thoughts in the operating theatre, had hardly forced himself on her and, surely he had not been mistaken, there had been moments when Felice seemed to crave his attention – had given him mixed signals. Adultery had been in the imagination only and, he reassured himself, the private life was harmless as long as the public life was seen to be proper. Everyone nowadays agreed with that.

  Michael had a restless night. He kept waking, thinking he heard movement outside the window. He heard Felice get up at least once and go through to the kitchen. At six he was woken again by a loud knocking. After a brief struggle to pull the mosquito netting out from under the mattress he went to the door, turned the large key and peered anxiously at the nurse outside, suddenly aware that he was naked apart from lightweight pyjama shorts.

  ‘Dr Lacey, come quickly! Dr Katura is not so well.’

  He dressed with the haste of a house officer answering a crash bleep, pulling his trousers over his pyjamas. He left his cufflinks on the bedside table, forewent his socks and threw his laces with a surgical knot. Felice’s door was open – she must have gone down to the hospital again in the night. The nurse was moving off as fast as she could without running. Michael buttoned his shirt as he followed her, feeling a chill in the air on the skin around his waist.

  ‘What’s happened?’

  ‘His breath is leaving him. Maybe he’s already passed away.’

  ‘Is Mrs Katura with him?’

  ‘She came not long ago. To bring him milk.’

  ‘Milk? What the . . .? He’s nil by mouth.’

  ‘It’s a custom . . . the Bahima . . . the wife brings milk to her husband.’

  ‘A custom?’

  ‘She wished to bring him a gift. To honour him.’

  He tried to run through a checklist of possibilities, but his clarity of decision-making had splintered. He felt something akin to panic; as if his mental faculties had abandoned him. Please God, I’m terrified she’s about to be hurt. As he hurried down the dim ward he was aware that all the patients were sitting upright in their beds and those on the floor were supporting themselves on their arms, all looking at the door at the far end of the ward. In the room Felice sat holding Stanley’s hand. Stanley lay as still as the air.

  Michael took Stanley’s other wrist, felt for his carotid pulse, then listened with the stethoscope handed to him by the nurse. He stayed listening for a long time – much longer than he needed to. He could not bring himself to straighten up and meet Felice’s eye. How would he break the news? What exactly would he say? He wanted to remain bent over Stanley and wait until something else came along – some other situation. This was an in-between moment: when the world did not know, but he knew. Before long he would have to say it, and all the consequences would roll.

  Then he heard Felice’s voice. ‘Michael, I know.’

  He could not look at her. He glanced at the central venous pressure line that he had inserted to help monitor Stanley’s fluid balance. A trickle of blood and saline spilled from its end. ‘The line – it’s been disconnected,’ he said, more loudly than he had intended.

  The nurse stepped forward as if ordered by a drill sergeant. ‘I fear it fell out in the night, sir,’ she said, a tremble in her voice.

  ‘Was no one checking it?’

  She did not answer.

  ‘How?’ he asked.

  He heard Felice again. ‘Please, Michael. It’s of no importance now.’ She was gripping Stanley’s hand tighter, as if she could change things by just holding onto him a little harder.

  Michael lifted the end of the line. A disconnected line could give rise to an air embolus: the air finding its way to the heart, to then be forced in a fatal froth up into the arteries of the brain, starving it of oxygen. I’m sure I connected it securely, he thought, remembering the difficulty he’d had finding compatible connectors for the tubes. Then he saw the open window. ‘Was this window open all night?’

  In his mind’s eye he could see Zachye climbing through, pulling apart the tubing and then blowing into it. But would Zachye have known its fatal effects? Would a stupid bandit know that?

  Felice had started to sob. She looked up at him and said, ‘Please, Michael!’

  The nurse was moaning, leaning against the wall. Another nurse was at the door muttering something agonised, over and over again. Michael saw that the consequences had started to roll but that he was an obstacle in its path, preventing it gaining proper momentum. He had to get out of the way.

  As he left the room and retraced his steps up the ward – aware of his hair dishevelled, his shirt half-buttoned, his sleeves flapping: he felt every eye on him. Leaving the compound, he saw something that he had somehow missed on his dash to the ward: a crowd huddled, wrapped by a cold mist, on the slopes of the hospital grounds in the dismal light of the early dawn. It was like a Galilean, Sermon-on-the-Mount scene from his old Picture Bible. Eerie waves of wailing rippled out. Staff passed him, running to the ward, not seeing him. Their beloved physician, Dr Katura, was dead. Michael saw that he, himself, was a nobody: an expendable technician, replaceable immediately with an eager senior registrar if he should drop dead. Stanley was a one off; a Messiah to his people. Michael found himself speared by remorse, blaming himself for Stanley’s death. If he had not yielded, like a teenager with a crush, to Felice’s allure, the Katuras would never have found themselves in the game reserve; perhaps he had misjudged the tension on one of his sutures and it had given way, causing sudden massive internal bleeding; perhaps he should have got Stanley moved to the capital to be properly monitored in an intensive care unit – whatever the risks of the journey. It struck him with horror that this would be the second time he would be going back to the UK following a death in which he was implicated. How ironic to come out to Africa, determined to put behind him what had happened, and to return having as good as killed again.

  He passed the road running to the hospital before taking the path to the house. A bus had drawn up. Tired people stepped down including an old woman in long white robes, thin and bent. A broad-shouldered man, not unlike Zachye in build, supported her. Michael knew at once that he was looking at Stanley’s mother and some other relation. He hurried on. The maid nearly collided with him as he neared the house. She looked at him, fear in her eyes.

  ‘It was too late,’ Michael said.

  She cried out and ran on.

  Michael quickened his pace, his footfalls reverberating on the path as he passed the spot where Zachye had spoken to him. Bloody Zachye. Felice was right. The psychopath should be locked up. Even if he’d not murdered Stanley in the night then his was the hand that pulled, or as good as pulled, the trigger. He looked forward to giving his statement to the police.

  Nine

  When he got to his room Michael changed into his pressed trousers and a fresh white shirt, slipped on his well-cut jacket, shaved his face ultra-smooth, wet his comb to slick his hair, vigorously polished his shoes and clipped in his cufflinks, lining them up symmetrically. He was keen to recreate Mr Michael Lacey, Consultant Surgeon; to return to order
in his dress, his bearing and his thoughts. He felt thirsty and strode to the kitchen. The stove was cold but Felice had left milk in a pan. He poured himself a glass and gulped it down, remembering on the last swallow that he was drinking the dregs of some sort of sacred offering that Felice had taken to Stanley. It’s just milk, he told himself.

  When the maid returned, moving on automatic, she said that Stanley’s mother and cousin had arrived and it would be appreciated if he would move out to make way for them. A room would be given him in Mr Magara’s house. Michael asked if there was transport back to Kampala and she replied that there was the bus. It would leave mid-afternoon and arrive in Kampala in the evening after dark – she did not recommend it. She also had to tell him that the police had arrived and wished to question him about the shooting.

  He returned to the hospital. From the crush around the chapel it was clear that Stanley’s body had been moved from the side room. The Ugandan flag over the chapel was at half-mast. A steady stream of people entered the hospital compound – a mass migration from the surrounding hills. He imagined Felice with her mother-in-law and her late husband’s relative in the chapel, pressed in by mourners. She would not feel alone – a grief shared with a multitude. Surely that would make the heartbreak less keen? But grief was infinite – he knew that. It could not be reduced by division.

  He saw the crowd part to make way for Felice. She was coming through with Stanley’s relative. Michael could see the police waiting by the administrative office, but Stanley’s relative raised his arm to signal that they wanted to speak to him. They stopped on the path away from the crowds.

  ‘I’m so sorry,’ Michael said.

  Felice was far away, not registering his presence. Now that she was out of public gaze she leant heavily on her helper’s proffered arm.

  ‘Words are not enough, of course,’ he said. She looked towards him but he could see that she had not yet seen him. ‘I wish I could have done more.’

  Stanley’s relative spoke. ‘I’m Kabutiiti. A distant cousin of Stanley. We’re all grateful for your efforts. Felice will give her thanks at a less difficult time.’

  ‘None are due,’ Michael said, and sized up Kabutiiti. The man was calm and strong. He could see that Kabutiiti would carry Felice through.

  Relieved to be able to excuse himself, he said to Kabutiiti, ‘The police want to see me now. They’ll want to question me about the shooting. I shall give them a full account.’

  Felice gasped as if a bucket of cold water had been thrown in her face. She said in a rush, ‘Michael, I’ll be respecting Stanley’s wish. I ask you to do the same.’

  Now she was looking into his eyes. Michael took his time to reply, thinking through the implications for his statement to the police, and then said, as gently as he could and hoping to sound as he felt: a friend giving kind council, ‘I don’t think that’s wise. You were right last night.’

  Felice recoiled, and said, ‘Michael, please respect my request. For my late husband’s sake.’

  She had let go of Kabutiiti’s arm and had clasped her hands tightly in front of her, twisting her palms against each other.

  Late husband; how the dead so quickly vanish into the past. ‘I understand, but he’ll not know. He’s . . . not here.’

  ‘He’s not dead,’ she said immediately.

  Michael did not reply but nodded sympathetically: the recently bereaved have their defences. Did she mean that she thought Stanley had become an ancestral ghost or was this her Christian belief in the resurrection of the dead? It occurred to him that she might hold a fusion of both traditions.

  Felice turned herself away from Michael towards Kabutiiti and said to him, as if he at least would comprehend, ‘What we believe is not destroyed by Stanley’s death. My pledge to him honours that.’

  Kabutiiti put his hand gently on her forearm and said, ‘You’re right.’

  She turned back to Michael and took a step towards him. ‘For my sake, Michael. Michael?’

  She spoke his name tenderly, almost intimately. It came to him that she was appealing to his feelings for her. That she knew their intensity. An incongruous regret came over him: that she could not appeal to his citizenship of a shared kingdom of belief. At this moment, he almost wished she could.

  He met her eyes. ‘I’ll do as you ask.’

  She grasped Kabutiiti’s arm again and they walked on. Michael returned to his appointment with the police. Beatrice and the maid came hurrying past him, weeping.

  Michael’s meeting with the police was long and tedious. He had given witness statements before, as a casualty officer in London after he had attended stabbing victims, and now he discovered that their ponderous methodology was universal: one of the two officers, his stomach stretching his black jersey, wrote out Michael’s witness statement himself, in capital letters, with a pen that required several strokes to leave a mark, and with cold turns of phrase: ‘I OBSERVED FOUR MEN . . . THE VEHICLE WAS BROUGHT TO A HALT . . . WE MOVED OFF AGAIN . . .WE PROCEEDED TO THE PARK ENTRANCE . . .’

  He told the bare minimum to avoid saying anything that might conflict with the other witnesses. It was harder than he imagined. With a frisson of worry it occurred to him that the police might have already interviewed the game warden, who might have spilled the beans on Zachye. So he emphasised how fast everything had happened and how difficult it was to remember the exact sequence of events. He said he was sure they would understand. They asked whether he had witnessed the quick actions of the game warden. He sensed a trap, but when he looked non-committal the police officer was eager to fill him in: the game warden had certainly saved their lives by his quick thinking in firing back out of the window, so scattering the bandits.

  By the time the last word had been scratched into the paper he was happy to sign anything: further tinkering was too wearisome to contemplate. He asked a few questions of his own which the police were pleased to answer, as if anxious to show that they were well advanced in the murder investigation: Did they have any idea who these bandits were? Ex-soldiers probably. Would they be able to catch them? If the bandits stayed together the police would find them, but if they split up and left the district it would be difficult. How many bullets were fired into the vehicle? Just one. Yes, that was strange. Perhaps they only had one bullet remaining, suggested the junior officer. The senior officer looked doubtful.

  The police thanked Michael for his help and apologised for the ‘unfortunate incident’, asking if he could mention their diligence to any officials he might meet in the capital: out here they got passed over for promotion. The junior officer started asking Michael if he would write a letter in support of his son to do a veterinary course in Great Britain, but Michael excused himself firmly and left.

  He took the afternoon bus back to Kampala, despite the protestations of Kabutiiti and Beatrice. They told him it was the slow bus, it was uncomfortable, it might arrive late and he might have difficulty finding a taxi at the other end. But Michael was resolute, saying that he did not wish to burden them further. He left Felice a note, saying he would write when he got back to the UK. He put two hundred US dollars in the folded paper: ‘A small gift as a token of my wish to help you in any way I can’.

  Kabutiiti insisted on carrying his suitcase to the bus. They said little to each other. Kabutiiti looked distracted as he shook Michael’s hand, and said, ‘All the best for the future.’ It sounded as if he assumed he would never see him again.

  Ten

  Michael squeezed his briefcase into the small space under his feet. His suitcase was on the roof of the bus, conspicuous amongst the sacks, crates and sticks of bananas. He had to rest his left foot on his briefcase, his hip and knee uncomfortably flexed. Despite his discomfort he had a sense of relief that he was on his way, tempered a little by the fear that his troubles were not yet over.

  To take his mind off the gloom he allowed himself a mental indulgence: once back in the white rooms of his town house in Ealing, he would devise a strategy to woo
Felice; to bring her to him. He would take her to the best venues in London: shows, clubs (he would become much more sociable) and restaurants (she would never have to sit on the floor again). She was a jewel that he had stumbled upon in the forest, a diamond he had come across on a mountain, and he longed to display her. She would want for nothing.

  It did not take long for his rosy daydream to be muddied by the appearance of Naomi, not because he thought she would be waiting for him (he was sure that he had failed to live up to her expectations; convinced now that the airport goodbye had been a farewell), but because he couldn’t see why Felice, in the end, should see anything more in him than Naomi had, or Annie or Jo for that matter? Enjoying each others’ company was one thing, but he seemed to be drawn to women who wanted more than good repartee, good sex, or goods and chattels. What was it? Honesty? Openness? One thing was sure: if his relationship with Felice grew, she would demand whatever was missing. But if he revealed to her his childhood secret – that he had killed his friend; had been granted a moment’s wish – how could he expect her to accept him? If he could not forgive himself he saw no reason why anyone else should. There was also what happened afterwards – after Simon’s death – which he refused to think about.

  Next to him sat a diminutive old man, hair like a thin frost, who clasped the head of a cane with his shrunken, breakable hand. The old man looked out through whitened corneas but held his head up with a private dignity. When Michael manoeuvred his right shoe to the floor beside his briefcase he noticed that the side of the old man’s bare foot had rubbed away the dust on the shoe leather, to reveal the polished lustre that had been buried yet again by Africa’s dust. He looked forward to getting to the end of a day untarnished.

  The aisle filled with standing passengers carrying wicker baskets and cloth bundles. Chickens clucked in alarm somewhere up ahead. A baby, strapped to the back of a woman in the aisle, pressed against his shoulder when its mother turned. He tried to get up to offer her a seat but he was too wedged in. The air was thick with the organic odours of peasant people. He feared he would start to feel panicky, but for now the coiled serpent of his claustrophobia lay dormant.