“Couldn’t be her, Charlie,” Tony spoke for the first time since Amie’s little lecture. “She got blown up in Togodo, didn’t you see it on the news? It was in all the papers, and they even had a huge memorial service for her, big fuss they made. Nah, that stupid little bitch is well dead. Teach her to mix with terrorists.”
Amie laughed and nodded with the rest of them. She kept her head down, trying to hide her red cheeks.
“I know it’s a bit late but anyone for coffee?” she said.
A chorus of, “Yes please,” or “Why not?” and an “OK,” from Nigel reached her in the kitchen where she’d headed to hide her face and her trembling fingers. Mention of that entire episode still made her sweat and her heart was beating an insane tattoo in her chest.
“Milk? Sugar?”
“Yes please both,” twittered Kirsty, “Thanks Felicity.”
Kirsty took over the lecture. “You know Flea’s right about the phone numbers we have to be able to contact each other, makes sense.”
Amie cringed. Flea? They’d be calling her Flicker next, but she liked Kirsty and she’d thank her for her support when they eventually got to bed. She passed the coffee cups round and Tony and Charlie nodded their thanks, but Tony didn’t look at Amie and Charlie put hers on the coffee table. She was combing her hair with a wire hairbrush she’d brought from the bedroom, but she didn’t seem to notice the long, dark strands falling onto the floor.
Hmm, often a sign of stress, Amie noted and she wondered what was worrying Charlie to the extent her hair was falling out. Every time she looked at Tony she had that puppy dog expression on her face. I’m not sure Tony feels the same way about Charlie, thought Amie.
Kirsty nudged Nigel, encouraging him to drink his coffee. He gave her a small smile and placed the mug on the table after only one small sip. Now that everyone knew his story, his reasons for being miserable were out in the open. But Amie wasn’t ready to give up on him yet.
“Hey, Nigel, why don’t you take charge of the meals, you know catering for the group? If you’re the only one who knows how to cook, you could experiment with all kinds of new foods, different spices and recipes. You might enjoy that.” Nice idea, she thought.
“We’ll be eating with the villagers, won’t we? We wouldn’t want to offend them,” said Tony.
“We might part of the time, but how are you with Mopani worms, or roasted snake or cows’ heads?” Amie had seen all those consumed with gusto before now and even today she would have to be very hungry to willingly eat them again. “We might want to cook for ourselves occasionally.” She grinned. She needed to lighten the atmosphere.
“You’re kidding,” Charlie’s eyes were as large as saucers. “Muck like that? Count me out!”
“We had a nice meal tonight,” Kirsty chipped in. “That was OK. Nothing wrong with that.”
“Yes, but we’re in the capital,” Amie reminded her. “Here, they’re used to westerners, travelling business men, sophisticated government employees. It will be very different out in the far flung rural areas.”
Tony drained his mug and addressed them. “That’s one reason we’ve bought so many supplies to take with us. You can cook up a storm Nigel, a thousand and five ways to prepare tins of Lobatse corned beef!”
“What’s Lobatse corned beef?” asked Kirsty. She moved over to sit in one of the arm chairs, produced some very flashy nail varnish and began painting her fingernails bright orange with silver sparkly bits that fluoresced like a disco ball.
Tony replied. “Lobatse is the town in Botswana where most of the cattle are killed and the beef canned. They drive them down from the north, often using horses, like in the old wild west days, and herd them into the abattoir.”
“Too much information, Tony, you’ll put us all off eating the stuff.” Charlie pulled a face. “But I’m more than happy to let Nigel do all the cooking, I can’t even boil an egg. Lived at home with my mum all my life and I’ll never be able to match her meals. Everything I tried fell apart.” She looked at Tony with a small smile on her face, but he ignored her.
Amie glanced round the group – maybe her soapbox lecture had broken the ice, facilitated the all-important bonding process. At least Nigel had opened up and Kirsty had shown herself to be affectionate and receptive so some good had come of it. Whether it would make any permanent difference remained to be seen. Tony hadn’t said much but he still didn’t look relaxed and he wasn’t the oh-so-earnest type you’d expect in a group like this.
She rose from the chintzy chair, picked up her phone from the coffee table and disappeared to the outside loo. She tried again to contact Simon but with no success. The phone still emitted static, crackles and pops and nothing more. Nor had he replied to her email.
They’d become so close over the last few months that not being able to contact him suggested a major problem. Was it ever on the cards he was going to join her? Did he guess they were sending her into serious danger? A hidden agenda that in her besotted state she failed to see? Too many questions and too few answers. Isolated from the man she loved, she had allowed herself to feel vulnerable and weak.
She was going deep rural and could only hope that the faceless others in London knew where she was and would pass it on. With no laptop and an unreliable phone she was stuck. She tapped in another email and addressed it to Simon at the consulate, the only other contact she had for him. Someone might intercept it, she could only hope for the best. There was no way of delaying their departure for even an extra day, for some reason Tony was in a tearing hurry to leave Gaborone.
Several hundred miles away Simon was sitting at his desk in a foul temper. He swore and swore again but it wasn’t helping. The bastards had gone back on their word. All the persuading he’d done to get them to agree to him going out in the field had come to nothing. And they tell him now! When Amie was already out there – and he couldn’t get hold of her. Damn!
Simon was livid, he felt so impotent. They’d reneged even after they said they were sending a replacement, sons of bitches, how dare they do that to him; and to Amie. He slammed his fist on the desk making the keyboard jump and knocking the little glass surfboard Amie had given him onto the floor. It shattered into small fragments.
He groaned as he re-read the feeble excuse they’d sent him: Your job as Consul in Durban is far more important, Simon, you can serve Her Majesty’s Government better where you are. Miss Mansell is more than capable of handling this simple mission on her own, it’s only a look and listen foray.
Was it? Had HQ got wind of their relationship? Interdepartmental relationships were frowned upon, actively discouraged, now he experienced a little of Amie’s frustration at not being allowed to live the life she wanted. He had believed them, trusted them and they had reneged on the deal.
He was tempted to throw it all in and go and join her anyway, but that would be career suicide, a man in his mid-thirties needed to think twice. And now, he couldn’t even reach her on her new cell phone, though he’d rung it possibly fifty times since she’d left. What was wrong with it? Every email he’d sent her had bounced with the message address not found. What was going on?
His eye caught sight of his desk diary and picking it up he flipped through the pages to calculate how long until he could next take leave. The least he could do was follow Amie to wherever she was and spend a couple of weeks with her and explain. He had no idea what she must be thinking now. That he’d abandoned her? That he’d lied? No, he would make a plan and catch up with her as soon as he could. The silence from her was deafening. Was she safe? Was she even alive?
It was a subdued group that finally went to bed that night. No one spoke much, each concentrating on collecting their gear, repacking, not looking at each other. Once Amie had wriggled into her sleeping bag her mind drifted to her small apartment in Durban: its comfortable bed and the frequent visitor who shared it with her. Once he arrived, if he arrived there would be little opportunity for that sort of thing. Camp cots in girls’ only
tents would leave little chance of cuddles in the foreseeable future. Sex would be out for sure. Why wasn’t her phone working and why hadn’t Simon called her? And who the bloody hell had stolen her laptop? Endless questions with no answers eventually sent her to sleep.
The mysterious stranger cautiously approached the Hilux parked outside the guesthouse. He was holding a tiny tracking device. He flicked the on switch, checked the light then attached it inside the rear wheel arch. The second one in his pocket was for the Land Rover still parked in the garage forecourt. It would only take a couple of moments to walk there.
The next morning the crew were up with the sun. Tony was still directing operations though he was less aggressive than he’d been the day before. Amie noticed Charlie grinning at him and wondered if anything had happened between them last night. She had that look that suggested they were more than just colleagues.
By the time they had finished breakfast Tony had already returned from the garage with the Land Rover and the next altercation came when it was time to decide who would drive the trucks. Tony told Kirsty that she could take the first spell in the Land Rover but she shook her head, saying that she was not used to driving on the left-hand side of the road.
“What? How the hell did they let you on this trip if you can’t drive on the left-hand side? That’s bloody nuts!” Tony’s red hair was standing on end as if he’d been dragged through an electric fence.
Kirsty wailed. “I will once we get to a country where they drive on the right side of the road – the side I’m used to.”
“This is Botswana, you moron. They all drive on the left, which means the steering wheel is on the right-hand side. Ergo, dipshit, the middle of the bloody road. You’re just going to have to bloody well learn. Hell! What kind of a team do I have here!”
Amie opened her mouth to say this wasn’t actually Tony’s team but an aid agency group of adults, but one look at Charlie holding back the laughter, and she thought better of it.
“Oh. I just told them I could drive, they checked my licence, I showed it to them on the Skype interview, and they didn’t ask me anything else. Sorry.” Kirsty slunk over to Nigel and put her arm through his.
“I’ll drive.” Charlie tapped Tony on the back and made for the driving seat.
Tony put out a hand to stop her. “That’s not the point!” he ranted. “We’ll all have to drive at one time or another and we need to share it out. So, why not start Kirsty now and get her used to it?”
Tony’s attitude wasn’t far off bullying, and Amie noticed the tears welling up in Kirsty’s eyes. She stepped in.
“Let’s get out of town first and onto the open road,” she suggested. “It’s a bit daunting with all the carts and pedestrians. Let her practice where it’s less crowded.”
Tony simply shrugged and flung himself behind the wheel of the Hilux. He was eager to get going.
Amie squeezed Kirsty’s arm and whispered. “Later, you and me, we’ll take one of the trucks and you can drive slowly until you are confident, how’s that?”
Kirsty nodded and gave her a grateful smile as they scrambled into the Land Rover and squeezed in among all the foodstuffs, water containers and mosquito nets. Charlie had jumped into the driver’s seat and was already drumming her fingers impatiently on the steering wheel. Amie slid into the passenger seat beside her and Kirsty crawled into the back, leaving Nigel to travel with Tony.
When they stopped to fill the jerricans with fuel on the outskirts of town, Amie tried one more time to contact Simon, but the phone would not or could not connect to his number. Amie wracked her brains to remember any other South African number she could try, but she was so used to the speed dial and contacts list that Simon’s was the only one she’d memorised.
A quick check on her phone before they raced off again confirmed that Maddy had not been in touch either; no missed calls, no emails, another reason for Amie to inwardly curse the faceless ones. She had met very few others employed by the service. You couldn’t count those who’d trained her in Scotland, nor her handler in Durban, none of them were around anymore. That only left Simon. Except for a few brief meetings with the men sent out to debrief her after the last escapade, Maddy was her only lifeline. Amie prayed that satellite transmissions would be enough for her to keep in contact. ‘Look and listen’ were all the instructions she’d received, but look and listen to what and to whom? The other aid workers or the people in the villages they visited? She had no idea, but perhaps it would all become clear later.
A signpost pointing to the airport made her heart flutter, and a plane circling low as it approached the runway made her wonder if Simon was on it or had already arrived without her knowing. And now she was heading off without him. It was so tempting to ask if they could detour just to check, but how could she explain knowing the extra member of the group would be flying in? It would be just as easy to drive the few hours from Johannesburg by car. There was nothing she could do but send mind messages to Simon. Who knows, they might work.
The road from Gaborone to Francistown was a wide ribbon of tarmac that stretched straight ahead of them as far as the eye could see. They passed villages on either side where small children with wide, excited smiles waved to them as they slowed down to avoid the goats, chickens and cattle that wandered unconcerned in the middle of the road.
They were forced to slow down at the veterinary checkpoints, bumping over the cattle grids to stop and allow the officers to inspect the trucks to make sure they were not transporting animals of any kind from one area of the country to the other.
“What’s all this?” grumbled Charlie.
“I think it’s to contain disease, if you read the notices over there. It’s a clever idea,” Amie remarked.
“So what are they looking for?”
A smart green-uniformed official poked his nose through the window. “You have meat? Or animals?” he asked.
“Only meat in tins,” Amie told him.
“That is allowed. No domestic dogs or cats?”
“God forbid!” Charlie exclaimed.
“So, please to step out of the car.” The polite official smiled.
“What for? Why do we have to do that?” Charlie was rattled. She glared at the border official’s smiling face.
Amie was worried this could escalate. She didn’t know how to shut Charlie up and she was only going to make things worse by whingeing and carrying on. “Do we all need to get out?” she smiled at the Motswana.
“Yes, please Madam, all of you. You see you must walk through this disinfectant, then you must also put all your shoes in the disinfectant bath as well, so if you have footwear in your luggage you must get it out, now.”
“What a bloody nuisance,” grumbled Charlie as she reluctantly climbed out. Going round to the back of the truck she began foraging for her rucksack. Amie and Kirsty followed.
“Patience is a prerequisite for living in Africa,” Amie hissed. “You’re going to get us into real trouble if you upset the officials. They’re only doing their job, and it’s just common sense to do as they ask, so chill, Charlie.” Amie tugged at her luggage and riffled around inside for her flip flops and an extra pair of boots.
“I hate petty officialdom,” muttered Charlie yanking her belongings onto the road to reach the trainers at the bottom of her bag.
“You have to admit there are plenty of irritating and petty rules in UK these days,” Amie shot back. “You know it’s called the nanny state, don’t you?”
“Humph,” was the only reply she received as they dipped their shoes into the foot bath.
“When you leave,” said the border guard, peering at all the closely packed contents in the truck, “you must drive through the bath to get the tyres wet.”
“Uh-huh?” Charlie glared at him.
“I think this is such a good idea.” Amie gave him her widest, friendliest smile and dug Charlie in the ribs.
“Ah, but still there are problems – with the wild animals you know. We ha
ve to make sure they can still migrate and reach the water holes, so there are always problems.” The guard waved his arms expansively, his gun draped loosely over his shoulder. “But we do our best. In Botswana we have success as a country, we are proud of all our industry and our towns, and we have many visitors too, from all over the world.”
“And they all have to take their shoes off I suppose.” Charlie stomped back and began repacking her bags. “Now, can we go?”
“Of course, it is my pleasure.” The guard motioned them forwards waving cheerily at them.
Amie was fuming. She was astonished these supposed aid workers had had little or no training in local customs. Every traveller knows that you always complied as best you could with officials. They have the power to sling you in jail where you might be left to rot for years. Botswana might be a pretty civilised country, but western rules do not apply worldwide, and human rights abuses were rife. It crossed her mind to tell Charlie that the death penalty was still on the books in Botswana, but decided to keep quiet. As Felicity, she shouldn’t in fact, appear to know too much. She wasn’t going to win friends that way. Time to shut up and let events take their course. Listen and inwardly digest, Amie Fish – watch and wait.
Just north of Palapye Tony signalled a halt. They pulled off the road, got out, broke open one of the cool boxes and shared the ice-cold cans. It was hot and dusty, the sun blazing down from a clear, blue sky. The heat shimmered on the tarmac creating waves and mirages all around them. The road ahead appeared to be covered in water, a wide lake shimmering in the heat extending across to each side.
“Look, at that huge mirage on the road!” exclaimed Kirsty pointing. It was the first remark she’d made since they’d left Gaborone. “It’s the biggest one I’ve ever seen,” she added.
“An illusion, as soon as we get closer it will just disappear,” Tony sounded really pompous.
“I know that.” Kirsty rolled her eyes at Amie. “Guess I should try and drive now?”
Cut for Life Page 7
