Copyright © 2019 David Fletcher
The moral right of the author has been asserted.
Apart from any fair dealing for the purposes of research or private study, or criticism or review, as permitted under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, this publication may only be reproduced, stored or transmitted, in any form or by any means, with the prior permission in writing of the publishers, or in the case of reprographic reproduction in accordance with the terms of licences issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency. Enquiries concerning reproduction outside those terms should be sent to the publishers.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
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For Fran and Jim
Contents
one
two
three
four
five
six
seven
eight
nine
ten
eleven
twelve
thirteen
fourteen
fifteen
sixteen
seventeen
eighteen
nineteen
twenty
twenty-one
twenty-two
twenty-three
twenty-four
twenty-five
twenty-six
twenty-seven
twenty-eight
twenty-nine
thirty
thirty-one
thirty-two
thirty-three
thirty-four
thirty-five
thirty-six
thirty-seven
thirty-eight
thirty-nine
forty
one
Monique was all too aware of the waistband of her skirt. It was not what she needed: yet another reminder that her latest diet, just like all those before it, was proving completely ineffectual. She would just have to accept that it was odds-on that she had only a fatter future to look forward to – whatever she ate. This unavoidable realisation, on top of having to deal with this flight to Brazzaville, made her feel suddenly very despondent and very tired.
She’d been an air stewardess with Air France for nearly fifteen years now, and there were some of its routes she enjoyed and other routes she did not. This Paris to Brazzaville haul was one she simply detested. The plane was always jam-packed with passengers, and all too often these passengers came equipped with too many possessions and too many unreasonable demands, demands that were all the more difficult to deal with when one was despondent and tired. And there was more. Many of the passengers also had some distinct “attitude problems”; they showed barely any respect for the cabin crew. Indeed, as she’d gradually sloughed her youth, these attitude problems had seemed to get worse, and to be a noticeably aging stewardess didn’t appear to entitle you to any respect whatsoever – especially if you were working in the business-class cabin. Here the predominantly male occupants tended to celebrate their government sinecures either with outbursts of arrogance or with displays of simple, old-style misogyny, and if you were a lowly stewardess you just had to take it. It was part of the job. Just like the God-awful safety briefing, that slightly embarrassing prelude to every flight that gave all the punters a chance to parade their insouciance by studiously ignoring it, or, for those so inclined, an opportunity to ogle the briefer. As Monique had often observed during this ritual performance, a close-fitting blouse, particularly when put under strain, appeared to be able to cast a spell over many men and to hold their unblinking gaze for the entire length of the performance.
Well, it was now show-time. The announcement had been made, and Monique, more conscious than ever of her waistband, positioned herself in the aisle of the business-class enclave and waited to engage autopilot. She had done this stuff so many times before that she now reckoned she could do it in her sleep. It was certainly so automatic that she could now use it as an opportunity to conduct an initial assessment of her charges and work out which of them was likely to be the most trying.
It would be the really fat guy, the one with his stomach trying to push past the buttons of his shirt. He had “bastard” written all over his face, and he had already decorated the aisle with a discarded magazine. But at least he wasn’t staring at her blouse. Not like the guy just behind him, undoubtedly another state employee, who was not just staring but also grinning obscenely and chewing – vigorously. Him, she would have to watch, particularly when she was within his reach.
The other passengers were more difficult to read – with one exception. This was an oldish guy who was attempting to show some interest in her demonstration – but failing – and instead was just radiating weariness and an unmistakable sense of sadness. He, she knew, would be quiet, undemanding and polite. What she did not know, of course, was why he looked so inwardly distressed. And she was very unlikely to find out.
– o –
Dan looked towards the stewardess. He knew it was rude to ignore these demonstrations, but at the same time he had now witnessed them so many times before that he could no longer absorb them. So it was just a case of lending his support to the charade and, as far as possible, putting the poor woman at ease. After all, it must, he thought, be a terrible trial, and particularly if your audience won’t even recognise your presence. Furthermore, this stewardess must have put on this performance thousands of times before. And whilst she was still attractive, her youthful figure had abandoned her, and having to stand there in a uniform designed for a twenty-year-old… well, it would have to make matters even worse.
Thankfully, the demonstration was soon at an end, and Dan’s mind turned to the task of enduring an eight-hour day-time flight. He didn’t do in-flight movies or games and preferred instead to read a book. Accordingly, he had equipped himself with a copy of Graham Greene’s A Burnt-Out Case. It was a book that had been sitting in his house in England, unread for more than twenty years – as was evidenced by the vaguely nicotine hue of its pages – and he knew nothing of its plot. He was therefore amazed when he read its back-cover synopsis to discover that its story took place in the Congo, and it was therefore one of the very few English novels to be set in that Francophone country, and of course the country where, within just a few hours, he would be landing. He could only think that his random choice of such a tome was simply an extraordinary coincidence or an example of remarkable serendipity. However, six hours later, when he had read the story, he thought it was something more. What it was he could not define, but it did make him smile. And it also made him want to be there – so he too, like the principal protagonist of the book, could taste the air of that country and begin his own expedition into its empty interior.
Nevertheless, he would have to be patient. There were two more hours of flying to endure, and that meant two more hours in the company of strangers, a couple of wh
om had been rather inconsiderate in their behaviour to the cabin staff, and a couple of whom had been downright offensive. At one point, he had even considered intervening. It was when the stewardess who had conducted the safety briefing had been abused by a fat guy. He had been complaining vociferously about his brandy – as far as Dan could tell, just so he could be vociferous – and he had been treating the stewardess appallingly. However, heroics were not required. Another stewardess hurried to provide support to her companion, and within seconds she had been joined by a fairly beefy steward from the economy cabin, and the ogre piped down. Then, for the rest of the trip, he just slept, snoring loudly and with his belly exposed. He was, Dan decided, the archetypal business-class slob, albeit he would never be aware of this himself.
Dan wished he’d brought another book. He also wished he didn’t feel quite so responsible for the poor behaviour of his fellow males. But he couldn’t help himself. Indeed, when just minutes before their approach to Brazzaville’s Maya-Maya Airport, offensive passenger number two rubbed himself against that same long-suffering stewardess as he passed her in the aisle, Dan felt distinctly uncomfortable. Fortunately, the assaulted stewardess had in her armoury the sort of withering look that could deflate even the most outrageous of unwanted suitors, and she deployed it – with stunning success. The creep returned to his seat looking hurt, confused, and very stupid.
Dan felt a little wave of admiration for the stewardess – and a little wave of relief. He could now relax and maybe indulge in a further contemplation of Mr Greene’s A Burnt-Out Case, and then maybe a further contemplation of his travelling brethren, and in particular the behaviour that two of them had displayed in the latter part of the flight. It is interesting, he thought, how some on-board alcohol or just a misplaced belief in one’s importance can cause the mask to slip. How it takes so very little for some humans to reveal their true identity. Not, of course, that he hadn’t witnessed far worse behaviour than this, and behaviour that hadn’t required the contents of a bottle or a dose of hubris to foment it. Indeed, he’d witnessed infinitely worse behaviour, nothing less than evil behaviour. And wasn’t that why he now trailed about him that heavy cloak of weariness? And why he would never be able to discard it?
– o –
Monique watched him leave the plane. She had exchanged a smile with him, but his had been drained by his morose demeanour and it had left her feeling very uneasy, so much so that she wanted to help him. And she decided there and then that if she saw him again on a return flight to Paris, she would ignore company rules and engage him in some serious conversation. She would find out what was wrong.
She never did.
But she did lose some weight.
two
Brazzaville’s airport wasn’t at all what Dan had been expecting. Because what he’d been expecting was some sort of shabby, tired-looking terminal building, complete with missing ceiling tiles, broken light fittings and a series of faded, twenty-year-old likenesses of a much-loved seventy-year-old president. However, this Maya-Maya Airport was anything but shabby, and there wasn’t so much as a missing lightbulb. In fact, Dan’s first thought as he walked into its arrivals area was that he had walked into an annex of Charles de Gaulle Airport, the airport he’d left only eight hours before. It wasn’t just that it was as smart as Charles de Gaulle, but it was also constructed in the same style and it was furnished with the same fittings. It was as though a bit of that French aviation hub had itself taken flight and then, much to the delight of the people of the Republic of Congo, had made a perfect landing in their country’s capital. It really was that similar to its big cousin back in France, except, thought Dan, for the prominence of notices and directions in Chinese. Clearly, he decided, the most populous nation on Earth held more sway in this country than it yet did in the land of the Gauls.
His assessment was confirmed when he left the airport. For there, just beyond the airport car park, was a new airport hotel, designed and built by the Chinese. Dan knew it was built by them because a huge poster announced this. And he knew it was designed by them because it had been built in that strange soulless Lego style that is unique to that Far-Eastern nation. Dan was less than impressed. However, as his taxi took him away from the environs of the airport and into Brazzaville proper, he was more than impressed.
Over the years, he had visited a number of African capitals and he had formed the impression that, with a couple of notable exceptions, they were either pretty uninviting or worse than uninviting. There were places like Banjul in the Gambia, for example – a city characterised by neglect, decay and plain out-and-out ugliness. Or Dar-es-Salaam, Africa’s squalid version of India’s squalid Kolkata. But Brazzaville… well, it was characterful and it bordered on the chic, helped to no small degree by its obvious “Frenchness”. It was everywhere. In the architecture. In the appearance, at the side of the road, of countless patisseries and boulangeries. And in the appearance, right next to the road, of French road names on genuine French road signs, the sort one sees all over France. Quite clearly, thought Dan, this independent country might now be flirting with a new Chinese hussy, but it is still very much wedded to its old colonial wife, and even if it gets serious with the hussy, Madame France will not be going away. The Congo will not let her.
Inevitably, when Dan finally checked into his overnight hotel, the receptionist addressed him in French. She, like all her colleagues in the establishment, had only a smattering of English, and Dan doubted this limited facility was that often put to the test. After all, the Republic of Congo hardly ever registered on a British radar, and he suspected its appearance on any American radar was fairly intermittent, even with the advent of the Congo’s oil age. In fact, he suspected this pretty black woman behind reception probably knew more Mandarin than she did the language of Shakespeare. So, if asked by a Chinese visitor to identify the gentleman in the framed photograph hanging on the wall behind her, she could probably tell him that it was of one Denis Sassou Nguesso, the Congo’s much-loved president, who was also the longest-serving “democratic” president in all of Africa. Yes, possibly Dan had overlooked his likeness at the airport, but it was impossible to miss it here. Just as it was impossible to miss a solitary English voice at the hotel bar.
Dan had now freshened himself up in his room and had decided that it was time for a pre-dinner drink. He had therefore sought out the hotel’s rather swish-looking bar and, while waiting to be served, had picked out in the hubbub of French the unmistakable words of ‘I won’t get the runs, will I?’ He looked along the bar and there, standing with what looked like a gin and tonic in his hand, complete with lime and ice, was a stocky white man with a stocky white nose. He appeared to be seeking assurance from the barman that the ice in his drink was made with bottled water and that he wouldn’t be picking up some sort of infection. But not too seriously. Both he and the barman were smiling, and soon the very English Schnozzle Durante was sipping from his glass. Dan looked away. He was planning to drink alone, and when another barman approached him, he ordered his own gin and tonic as un gin tonic – and in a low voice. It didn’t work. Schnozzle had big ears as well as a big nose, and they clearly worked very well. Within only seconds he was standing next to Dan and offering him a hand.
‘Mike Singer,’ he announced. ‘Don’t normally approach men in bars, but it ain’t normal here, is it? It’s all bloody French.’
Dan took the offered hand and shook it. Then, with the fleeting thought of Stanley and Livingstone in his mind, he announced his own name.
‘Dan Worthington. Pleased to meet you.’
In response, Mike made a soft sort of grunting sound, as if trying to decide how to continue the exchange he’d so impetuously started, and Dan used this brief hiatus to take a closer look at his new acquaintance. The nose was captivating. It was far too big for its owner’s face. But when he’d broken loose from its captivating grip, Dan was able to take in some of Mike’s other features – l
ike his big ears, his clear blue eyes, his impish, craggy face and his thinning grey hair. He must have been about the same age as Dan himself, or maybe a bit younger, say sixty or so. And he was certainly fit. Not thin by any means, but solid rather than fat. And that solid frame was currently clothed in “safari casual”. Dan doubted he was here on business. Then the hiatus was over.
‘What brings you here, Dan? Can’t be the skiing.’
Dan was slightly taken aback. It was such a direct question – from a complete stranger – but with those eyes, that impish face and that reference to skiing, the stranger got away with it, and Dan replied almost immediately.
‘The Odzala-Kokoua National Park. I’m off up there tomorrow. Erhh… for a week or so…’
Mike’s blue eyes lit up.
‘Well, bugger me. So am I! Lango first and then Ngaga.’
Dan took a deep breath. This stranger at the bar had just metamorphosed into someone who would now be his unavoidable travelling companion for the next few days. Lango and Ngaga were the only two camps in the national park that was Dan’s next destination, and each of them accommodated only a handful of guests. He was staying at Lango first and then Ngaga – just as Mike was – and whether they were full or not, Dan was unlikely to be able to lose him in the crowd. But there again, he thought, why would he want to? There were always going to be other people on this trip to the north of the Congo, and it made not the slightest difference that he’d met one of them before the event. Just as long as he didn’t attach himself too closely…
The deep breath now concluded, Dan found himself able to respond to Mike’s pronouncement with a credible level of enthusiasm.
‘That’s great. At least two of us will speak English!’
‘Bloody right. Though, there again, the Frenchies aren’t much into wildlife – as I’m sure you know. And as for the Chinese… well, all they do is fucking eat it or turn it into trinkets, pills and pessaries. So I don’t think we’ll be much bothered by them.’
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