Coincidence: A Novel

by J. W. Ironmonger

  ‘I expect you might be ready for a beer,’ says Luke, and he gives a slow smile. ‘A cold beer?’

  ‘I’d love one.’

  Luke calls out a name and one of the older children comes running up. ‘Lakwo – could you bring a cold beer for this man – and one for me too?’

  ‘Of course, Mr Luke.’

  ‘They seem very fond of you,’ Thomas says. ‘The children, I mean.’

  ‘Are they? I’m not sure. They’ve all had a terrible time.’

  ‘Why did you change the place from a mission to a rescue centre?’

  ‘It seemed like an important thing to do,’ Luke says. He leans back in the chair. ‘Some of the kids coming down from Sudan were Muslims. Some had no religion. It occurred to me one day that we were part of the problem. We were making this into a religious conflict simply by helping to sustain the ridiculous social convention that every child is born with a set of beliefs and that every child has to stay loyal to those beliefs until the day they die. All the missions in Africa – they all share part of the blame.’

  ‘And was it . . . a religious conflict?’ Thomas asks.

  ‘In part. One man with a set of mumbo-jumbo beliefs decided that God had spoken to him, so anyone who disagreed could be shot, or have bits of their body hacked off.’

  ‘I see.’

  A boy comes to the table with two bottles of cold beer. He has wide eyes and a beaming smile.

  ‘Thank you.’ Thomas takes a long draught. A year of anxiety is starting to dissolve. He feels relaxed sitting here, with this man he feels that he knows.

  ‘Would it be all right if I stayed here a night . . . or two?’ he asks.

  ‘Of course,’ Luke says.

  Thomas has not planned much beyond this moment. ‘What time will Azalea be here?’

  ‘Soon enough. She’s been to Arua. Reuniting a child with her mother.’

  ‘Ahh.’ The enormity of this responsibility fills Thomas with a sudden feeling of tenderness. Azalea is reuniting a child with her mother. A child who, presumably, has been separated from her family by war and by terror is being delivered back into the arms of her family. By Azalea. He takes another mouthful of beer.

  ‘So what do you believe, Thomas?’ Luke asks. ‘Azalea thinks that everything happens for a reason. What do you think?’

  ‘I think,’ Thomas says, ‘that this is what came between us. Between Azalea and me. We were compatible in so many ways, but never, somehow, in this.’ He thinks about it. ‘I believe that the world is a random place. If I see a rock falling down a hill, I don’t imagine that anyone is controlling the way it bounces, sending it this way or that. If there were a child at the foot of the hill, then I wouldn’t think that the fate of that child would be in the hands of anything except for the laws of gravity and physics.’

  ‘So no overseeing angel? No great plan?’

  Thomas shakes his head. ‘If there were, then I find it hard to imagine how it would work.’

  ‘So who is in control of our lives? Who manages our destiny?’

  ‘No one.’

  Luke clicks his tongue. ‘Maybe Azalea couldn’t live with such a nihilistic idea.’

  ‘Maybe not.’

  ‘The Acholi have a saying: “Each rat has its own whiskers”.’

  ‘Which means?’

  ‘It means we are all responsible for our own problems.’

  ‘I see.’ Thomas reflects. ‘I think I’ve been responsible for a few problems of my own.’

  ‘I daresay we all have.’

  ‘I convinced myself that Azalea’s prediction would come true. I just assumed . . .’ Thomas lets the thought hang in the air.

  ‘Do you love Azalea?’ Luke asks.

  ‘Yes sir. I do.’

  ‘Perhaps not enough, though? If you really love her, then why weren’t you here for her yesterday?’

  ‘I should have been.’ Thomas looks sorrowfully into his beer. The scale of his stupidity is looming into focus. ‘Is that what she wanted? Is that why she did this? Did she want me to be here?’

  ‘I don’t know. You shall have to ask her.’

  ‘I wish she was here.’

  ‘She will be. Soon.’

  How fast the sunsets are here, Thomas thinks. Azalea told him this. ‘Pfft,’ she had said. Pfft, and it would be dark. Soon, he knew, the great blanket of African darkness would settle over the landscape, and all the way down the valley barely a flame would flicker in the void. And a great sweep of stars would litter the sky.

  ‘In my job,’ Thomas tells Luke, ‘people often come to me with a story about a coincidence; something that happened to them. That’s my field, you see. I’m an authority on coincidences. So someone will knock on my door, and the next thing I know they’ll be telling me about the man they met on holiday who turned out to have been at the same school as their neighbour. Or else they went to buy a car, and the person selling it just happened to share the same name as them. I’ve heard so many of these stories. People will catch me at a dinner party, or even in the street, and they’ll expect me to explain. Two sisters both married a man named Ron, and both sisters called their dogs Poppy, and both Rons have the same birthday. I’m supposed to be amazed by these stories. But I never am. I always explain that this is the way a random universe works. Sometimes when you throw two dice, you’ll throw two sixes. It isn’t a coincidence. It’s just mathematics. And that’s what I always thought. Until one day the person who came and knocked on my door was Azalea.’

  ‘I see.’

  ‘Azalea’s coincidences seemed to be off the scale. They seemed to define her life. No wonder Azalea thinks that everything happens for a reason. In her universe, that is how it looks.’

  ‘I suppose it does.’

  ‘But I think I can get her to see that it isn’t like that. She did survive midsummer 2012. There’s a big question mark over some of the other dates, anyway. No one is pulling her strings.’

  Luke is rocking gently in his chair. The hubbub of voices in the mess hall is making it difficult to hear the conversation. ‘Maybe,’ he says, so softly that Thomas has to lean forward to catch his words, ‘she wants to believe it?’ He makes this into a question. ‘And if so, maybe you need to be comfortable with that?’

  Thomas looks at him.

  ‘If it came between you last time, why let it come between you again?’ Luke says. ‘Maybe there’s another way. Did you ever consider that?’

  ‘I’m not sure I quite understand . . .’

  ‘Azalea’s life is a mess of contradictions and coincidences and peculiarities; things that shouldn’t have happened but did; things that couldn’t possibly have happened, but did. You’re the expert, Mr Thomas Post. Stop trying to explain it. Start trying to embrace it. Don’t poke around looking for evidence of a conspiracy. But don’t try to dismiss it all, either. Enjoy it. Relish it. Look forward to the next big shock. Because there will be one. If Azalea’s life teaches us anything, it at least teaches us that we need to be prepared – because anything can happen, and it probably will. Azalea came to you looking for an explanation, and you’ve been busy trying to provide her with one. But perhaps you don’t understand what is really going on, Mr Post. Perhaps you don’t really understand Azalea. What if Azalea doesn’t want an explanation at all? What then? What if the thing that Azalea really wants is support? Or understanding? Did you ever consider that? What if all Azalea wants is someone to face life’s surprises with her?’

  It is a long speech, and it seems to have tired Luke out.

  An ancient-looking man with a white beard stands up at the far end of the mess hall and taps loudly on the table.

  ‘Time for grace,’ Luke whispers. ‘A bit of a hangover from the days when this was still a mission.’

  The voices of the children subside and everyone stands politely.

  ‘For those of us who believe in God, let us thank him for this meal,’ the old man intones in heavily accented English. ‘And for those who do not believe, let us tha
nk the farmers who grew the food, the donors who paid for it, the kitchen staff who cooked it and the friends who brought it to our table. Amen.’

  ‘Amen,’ chant fifty voices.

  ‘I’ve never heard a grace like that,’ Thomas tells Luke.

  ‘It is our compromise,’ Luke says. ‘Will you help me to the table?’

  ‘Why yes,’ says Thomas, surprised. He lifts himself clumsily off his stool and holds out a hand. ‘Are you in some difficulty?’ he asks, painfully conscious of the tactlessness of the question.

  But Luke rises effortlessly from the wicker chair with a chuckle. ‘It’s these sunglasses,’ he declares. ‘They fool a lot of people.’ He holds out an arm. ‘It helps if you take hold of my shoulder.’

  Thomas grasps Luke’s upper arm.

  ‘Now,’ Luke says, ‘we have a democratic seating arrangement here, apart from me.’ He swings his free arm to point in the direction of one of the tables. ‘There should be a couple of spare seats at the head of that table.’

  Thomas leads Luke to his seat. ‘When did you . . . lose your sight?’

  ‘Oh, you know. A long time ago. Long enough to be fairly used to it, anyway.’ Luke lowers himself carefully into his seat. ‘Have you thought about how long you’re going to stay?’

  Thomas looks around. The children seem to span an age range from possibly nine or ten through to late teens. All wear simple blue uniforms and plastic sandals, and Thomas notes that there is a crest badge in white embroidered cotton on every breast pocket. The badge reads, ‘The Rebecca Folley Centre for the Children of Conflict’. There are a dozen adults, too, one wearing the uniform of a nurse, one in a business suit with a starched shirt, several dressed like the security man at the gate. They all have cheerful faces, the stoic yet jovial expressions of men and women who follow a calling. The big cook is ladling stew onto tin plates, a younger cook in a tall chef’s hat is straining potatoes, two of the older girls are delivering jugs of water to the tables. It is a scene of practised routine, of comfortable, homely domesticity. But in the eyes of the children, Thomas fancies, just for the brief flicker of a moment, he can see something else. Something burns in those eyes, in those nervous, fleeting expressions that tell of a different, darker narrative. Every child in this hall has their own story, Thomas thinks. And every story is one of violence and unhappiness, of pain and loss.

  Luke is facing him, waiting for an answer to his question.

  Outside the mess hall the sky is the colour of bougainvillea.

  ‘Have you given it any thought?’ Luke asks.

  And truly Thomas hasn’t. ‘It depends,’ he finds himself saying.

  ‘Upon what?’

  And to this question he possesses no answer.

  Outside, and up the driveway, a car is approaching, and the gate is being swung aside to let it pass. Thomas rises to his feet. Something pulls him forward. He takes a hesitant step, and then another.

  Along the driveway the old car is rattling in a slipstream of dust.

  The car door opens. In the amber glow of sunset, a glimpse of hair that seems like a flame.

  And now she steps out, lifting herself into a world she thought she was leaving, on a day she believed she would never see. Her gaze flickers out toward the mess hall, and her expression transforms into a smile.

  27

  November 2012

  far far out on ocean’s swell

  and all is well

  all is well

  the clapping of the klaxon bell

  and all is well

  all is well

  the crack of boots on iron deck

  a silent twisting of the neck

  the echo of a distant yell

  and all is well

  all is well

  the slamming of a steel hatch

  the sliding of a heavy latch

  a crashing hammer blow from hell

  and naught is well

  naught is well

  and thirty years of darkness pass

  black paint upon my looking glass

  and time placates that lethal shell

  all will be well

  all will be well

  a visitor from long times past

  unlashed me from the mizzen mast

  she led me from the deathly knell

  to where a young man never fell

  to where the memories dispel

  and all is well

  all is well

  so let cruel providence compel

  the exodus of personnel

  and when the mysteries foretell

  the coming of the sentinel

  then send for me

  and I will tell

  that all is well

  all is well

  p. j. loak

  . . . there’s a special providence in the fall of a sparrow.

  If it be now, ’tis not to come;

  if it be not to come, it will be now;

  if it be not now, yet it will come:

  the readiness is all:

  William Shakespeare, Hamlet

  P. S.

  Insights, Interviews & More . . .

  About the author

  Meet J. W. Ironmonger

  IN MAY 2011 I flew into Kampala with my son, Jon, and together we set off on an overland journey through Uganda to West Nile Province. For me it was nostalgic return to a place I once knew well. I was a teenager when I first made this trip, working as a spanner-boy for my brother-in-law, Graham “Doop” Doupé. Doop was an engineer, employed on a series of well-intended construction projects funded by the government of Sweden. His work took him the length and breadth of Uganda. He and I spent a good few weeks on hospital building sites in places like Gulu, Moyo, and Arua, all townships close to the borders of Congo and Sudan, and all locations that would eventually feature in Coincidence. I developed an enormous affection for the region and its people on that trip. We stopped one afternoon, in a place whose name I have long forgotten, and we shared a beer with a missionary couple in the shade of their veranda. Afterward they showed us around their makeshift school, their refectory, and their basic clinic, and this was the place I visited in my memory and my imagination when I wrote about the mission in Langadi.

  I was born in Africa. My father was a British civil servant, part of the Colonial Service in Kenya. My mother was a typist at Shell Oil. The need for colonial administrators disappeared after Kenyan independence in 1963, and my father became a bursar at Nairobi University. We lived in a succession of houses on the outskirts of the city, and I grew up (like so many of my contemporaries) comfortable in English and Swahili cultures, fluent in both languages, barefoot, sunburned, with a taste for local delicacies and a familiarity with the all the bugs, snakes, and hostile plants that infested the landscape around Nairobi. It was an extraordinary place to be a child. Now and then, the wildlife of the savannahs invaded our domain: A neighbor’s dog was eaten by a leopard. A local man was killed by a puff adder. Vervet monkeys robbed fruit from gardens. Africa was right on our doorstep. It was sometimes frightening. But it was always magical.

  At the age of thirteen I was dispatched to school in England. The high cost of flights meant that for the next few years I would wave goodbye to my parents in January and I wouldn’t see them again until July. And as I write this paragraph it strikes me, for the very first time, that this was when (and why) I became a writer. I would write epic letters back home to my family, letters so long I could barely squeeze them into envelopes. I spared my parents no details of life at my English boarding school: the cold dormitories, the bullies, the canings, the rugby games played on frozen pitches, and (to use a word that may be unfamiliar to American readers) the “fagging.” (My online dictionary defines fagging as: the practice whereby a student at a British public school is required to perform menial tasks for a student in a higher class. That pretty much covers it.)

  I’m conscious, now, that this portrays my schooldays in England as an ordeal. They weren’t. This was Hogwarts
but without the magic. (Or the girls.) It was a place where learning was an adventure, where Shakespeare was performed and revered, where I became an athlete and learned to fence, and made strong friendships and became a writer.

  Now here is a coincidence: I sat in my school common-room alongside two friends who have both become successful novelists. Colin Greenland writes science fiction. His best-known novel, Take Back Plenty, won several major awards. Humphrey Hawksley is a journalist who writes political thrillers, bestsellers in Britain, with titles like Absolute Measures and The Third World War.

  Perhaps our school put something in the water.

  In Coincidence there is a character called Luke Folley who drifts a little after leaving school. He is swept up by the hippie culture of the sixties, the drugs, the music, and the casual lifestyle. This wasn’t me, but it nearly was. I see in Luke the man I almost became. I saw Jimi Hendrix play the Isle of Wight festival in 1970 (his last concert ever), and it lives in my memory as a week of excess, musical ecstasy, and near-starvation. Somehow, it brought me to my senses. But I know how Luke Folley felt when he sat on his boxes and saw his dreams dissolving in the London rain.

  The sixties ended and we all grew up. The Beatles had split, psychedelia was evaporating, hairstyles were becoming more sensible (slowly), and my generation in England was faced with the economic realities of the seventies. I went to university, met and married a wonderful girl (Sue), and plotted to become a zoologist. I had met zoologists in Africa. They had the most glamorous lives I could imagine. They trailed around the national parks in Land Rovers, with scientific instruments and long-lensed cameras. They hung around beach bars in Mombasa regaling tourists with unlikely tales of man-eating lions and charging rhinos. I wanted to do that.

  For a while it all looked good. I studied zoology, and my wife had become a zoologist herself. I wrote an eight-hundred-page thesis on leeches, and in 1979 set off to teach zoology at a University in Nigeria. I was back in Africa. But it was short-lived. The job fell apart under a welter of disorganised bureaucracy and we fled back to London. I took a job selling computers, and for three decades that was where I built my career. Our daughter, Zoe, made her appearance, and a few years later our son, Jon. We made a home in the north of England, we had livestock and horses; and in the long winter evenings I started to write.