Dizzy Worms

by Michael Holman

  “Good morning, madam,” he called out. “My name is Digby, Digby Adams, regional director for communications, at WorldFeed. Cecil Pearson said you make the best dough balls in Kuwisha.”

  Charity gave a brief nod of acknowledgment.

  “You have a good voice. Let me hear you sing more!” she urged.

  Digby obliged, faltering at first, and then louder. Without prompting, Aloysius joined in, as did a dozen or so customers waiting for tea, with an unselfconscious grace and harmony.

  Are we weak and heavy laden, cumbered with a load of care?

  Precious Saviour, still our refuge, take it to the Lord in prayer.

  Do your friends despise, forsake you? Take it to the Lord in prayer!

  In His arms He will take and shield you; you will find a solace there.

  “That is good,” said Charity, clapping her hands. “For an Englishman you sing well, very well. We must thank the Lord above for your voice. Tea?”

  These people, they get younger every day, she thought. Another one, sent from England . . . at least he could sing.

  “Sit. I will bring your tea to your table. Sit.”

  Digby obeyed, but first gestured towards Aloysius, indicating that he should be included in the invitation.

  “The boy has good manners,” Charity said in Swahili.

  She recognised Aloysius as a regular customer.

  “Tea, Mr Hatende?”

  “Yes, please, mama. Tea with condensed milk, double helping, since the boy is paying.”

  Aloysius took out the stub of a cigarette that he had picked up and re-packed at the airport that morning, applied the flame from a red plastic lighter marked Kuwisha Airways, and sucked his first drag of the day deep into his lungs.

  “Yes, the boy has good manners. Unlike many white people, he does not call me ‘bwana’, or ‘my friend’. And he lets me read his newspaper, and he told the paper boy to keep the change. Although that is foolish. They spend it on girls. And he sits next to me, in the front of the car, not like a boss, who sits in the back.”

  Aloysius took a sip from the tin mug of tea Charity had set down beside him, added a spoon of sugar, gave it a stir, and returned the spoon to Charity.

  He took another drag, and slowly expelled the smoke.

  Charity’s nostrils twitched as the sour-sweet scent of Mtoko Gold – Kuwisha’s best bhang – drifted into the warm air. She was about to rebuke him, but decided against it. If she allowed street boys to poison themselves with changa and glue, how could she tell a man old enough to be her father that he could not smoke bhang?

  “Yes, the young man is polite enough,” he continued in Swahili. “But he is very unhappy. I met him at the airport, this morning.”

  He cleared his throat, and was about to spit, when he caught Charity’s warning look.

  “Yes, he is from London. He brought a present from the people of England. But he has lost it.”

  Charity turned to Digby. “What can I do for you, young man? What have you lost?”

  Seldom had Digby Adams felt so inadequate, never had he felt such a fool, as he heard himself say:

  “Good morning, Mrs Mupanga. My name is Digby Adams. I have lost my goat. She is called Dolly. Please, will you help me find her?”

  10

  “Your goat? Lost your goat?” asked Charity. She tried to keep a straight face. “That is very serious.”

  As she questioned Digby, her tone changed from polite concern to growing incredulity, while Aloysius listened intently, occasionally interjecting with a comment or question of his own.

  He was the first to broach a delicate matter, one which he’d been wanting to raise almost from the moment that he had met the Englishman.

  “How much did you pay for your Dolly?”

  “She cost £20. But it’s not the price, it’s the principle. Dolly was the first. And I have lost her. What do I tell her family?”

  Aloysius and Charity were both lost for words.

  Twenty pounds for a goat? Exorbitant! And what was this about a goat and its family? Aloysius decided that he should tread carefully. He gave Charity a meaningful look.

  It was Charity’s turn.

  “Aloysius tells me that your goat has, er, um, a family in England?”

  “All our goats have families. Families who pay for them to come to Africa. But Dolly’s family was the first. From Oxford. They bought Dolly for £20, and have given her to the people of Kuwisha, as a present.”

  Aloysius and Charity digested this extraordinary information.

  “Too much.”

  Aloysius broke the silence: “In Kuwisha, a goat costs very little. Your friends in Oxford are being cheated.”

  “Ah,” said Digby. “What you have failed to take into account is the cost of vaccination, vet fees and so on. A WorldFeed goat is a happy goat, as our slogan puts it.”

  There were several more questions to come, for neither Charity nor Aloysius was clear about a link between goats, Kuwisha and families in England.

  “Why?” asked Aloysius.

  “Why what?”

  “Why this goat? We have goats in Kuwisha, plenty goats.”

  If there was any subject that Digby was qualified to expound on it was goats. Indeed, he had written a thesis on the subject as part of his course in development studies at the University of South-West London: Life and Livestock: Goat-gift as a Paradigm of Aid to Africa.

  Goats, he explained, were at the cutting edge of current development strategy. Gone were the days when aid agencies put their resources – Digby never used the word “money” – into development programmes, or into balance of payments support.

  Aloysius coughed politely, a noise that Digby took to mean assent.

  Charity looked on, non-plussed.

  “Absolutely,” he said, “absolutely. Seems hard to credit, but it’s true. The beauty of giving a goat is that it goes to those most in need, has an immediate benefit, and then there is the demonstration effect like the hook and line, and finally the multiplier effect – the blighters breed like, well, like rabbits. There is more to it than this, of course. Not didactic, or patronising, the stakeholders are committed, and empowered. We keep paperworkn to a minimum, and for a donation of a few pounds you are the proud owner of a goat. We prefer the donors not to visit their goats, although, should they wish to, we wouldn’t stop them. But everyone who gives a goat has a certificate of ownership.”

  Charity looked thoughtful.

  “So . . .” she paused, making an effort to choose her words with care, “people in England buy goats, but they cannot keep them. Is this because their children are all at school, not like the children in Kuwisha, and no one is at home to look after them? Why then buy a goat in the first place?”

  Charity spoke slowly and carefully, doing her best to summarise Digby’s position on goats.

  “And they give their goats to Kuwisha people?”

  “Absolutely,” said Digby, relieved that the general drift had been grasped.

  Aloysius could not resist another question. He ignored Charity, who had moved behind Digby to ensure that she could come between this crazy white man and her street boys, who were working away in the kitchen.

  “And you sell the goats to the people in Kuwisha?”

  “No,” said Digby. “As I said, we give the goats away.”

  Aloysius was astonished.

  “Who gets these goats for nothing?”

  “The poor people in Kuwisha.”

  Aloysius launched into a paroxysm of coughing, cleared his throat and before Charity could stop him, propelled the contents towards a mound of rubbish that was several feet away.

  “Goats!” he said, angrily. “Eating, always eating, everything. Today there are too many goats – in my village, when I was a boy, total goats was 277. Exact. Today more than 700. These people in England . . . they must love goats too much.”

  Charity put her finger over her lips.

  “The boy has been questioned for long enough,
” she said in Swahili. “It is time we let him rest. He is not well. Confused. He has no hat. And he has been in the sun for a long time – too long. This young Englishman must sit down . . . the sun can make for foolish talk.”

  “My boys will help you find your goat,” she reassured Digby, though adding in Swahili, “I would not be surprised if they’d eaten her already.”

  Just then Charity’s mobile rang.

  “So you are back in Kuwisha, Pearson. Why are you not here, at Harrods?”

  Digby could hear a tinny exchange from the receiver. Whatever was said it clearly did not impress Charity.

  “He is here,” she said to the caller. “He has lost his friend Dolly. Let him tell you. Digby, speak to Pearson . . .”

  “What do you mean, you have lost Dolly?”

  Digby launched into an explanation, but Pearson cut him short.

  “If Charity is on the case, I’m sure she’ll be found. But to be on the safe side, you probably should let the High Commission know. DBS. Distressed British Subject.”

  “Isn’t that expecting too much, taking it a bit far?” said Digby. “I’m fond of Dolly, but I really don’t think . . .”

  Pearson had had enough.

  “Look, I’ll see you at Harrods tomorrow. The FN want me to tweak the introduction to the special report on accountancy. Gotta dash. Someone at the door.”

  He put the phone down.

  “Callous sod . . . Now then. What will it be? Toasted cheese sandwich or mushroom omelette?”

  “I hope that is not all you’re offering,” said Lucy.

  Digby handed the phone back to Charity, sat down at the table and realised that he, just like Aloysius, was hungry. But it was not without trepidation that he took a bite of a chicken neck that Charity had placed on a white enamel plate in front of him. The first mouthful was enough.

  “I say!” he exclaimed. “This is rather good.”

  “Just as well,” said a voice behind him. “Saved your bacon! Anyone who enjoys her chicken necks can’t be all bad – at least that’s Charity Mupanga’s view of the world.”

  The speaker held out his hand.

  “Edward Furniver. Been pottering around the market, checking on prices for my prices index. The size of the washing soap is a third smaller than it was last month,” he said. “And the poor blighters are now selling onions by the quarter . . . Things are getting harder and harder.”

  “Digby Adams,” said Digby, looking towards the kitchen in the hope of another serving of chicken necks.

  The two chatted about the merits of chicken necks with or without the piri piri sauce that was available for 5 ngwee, before Digby’s curiosity got the better of him.

  “Don’t want to pry or anything,” said Digby, “but I didn’t entirely understand the index you said you were working on . . .”

  Furniver needed no excuse.

  His inspiration, he told Digby, had come from the beer index, a simple but ingenious way of determining whether an African currency was undervalued, overvalued, or about right. All one did was to put the cost – in the domestic currency – of a litre of the locally manufactured beer in one column, and in a second column put the price in US dollars, converted at the official rate of exchange.

  Thus if a Tusker cost 10 ngwee a litre, or 50 US cents at the official rate, it was roughly on a par with the price of a similar quantity of beer produced by its regional neighbours and, moving further afield, the UK or the United States. If, however, the weakening of the ngwee continued, it would show up in the index.

  “Let me show you,” he said.

  Furniver took out his laptop from its case, and prepared to enter the stats he had collected during the week. Before he started to peck with two fingers at the keyboard, he reached down to his battered brown briefcase at his feet, and extracted the monthly digest of statistics and a thick, well-thumbed volume entitled Africa: Development Data, Published by the UN on Behalf of the World Bank.

  “Wonderful read,” said Furniver. “As long as you take their figures with a pinch of salt.”

  It was, said Furniver, his development “bible”, packed with statistics that ranged from sorghum production in Sierra Leone to maize in Malawi, infant mortality in Congo, and the population of Nigeria.

  “So what is it that you do, exactly?” asked Digby.

  “Collect the prices, sizes and sales of everything from salt to cigarette sticks, and the size of soaps and so on . . . smaller they are, harder the times. Plan to give a paper to the next meeting of the Kuwisha Economics Society.”

  “And you,” said Furniver. “What do you do, Mr Adams?”

  “Let me give you my card,” said Digby.

  It was easier said than done. What with his safari jacket and trousers, he had a dozen or more compartments to look through. His search ended in a pocket located just below his knee, and with a small cry of triumph, he came up with his card.

  Furniver examined it.

  “Aha! In the public relations business, I see . . .”

  Digby chuckled.

  “Not as such. PR went out ages ago. More sophisticated these days. More a matter of profile consultant, image improver.”

  Furniver took another look at the card, stiffened, and was about to say something when Digby interjected.

  “Do you have a pen?” Digby asked. “Slight mistake on the card. They left out the ‘senior’ in my title . . . Small thing, I know, but you might want to correct it . . . I also help out with DanAid.”

  Furniver positively quivered with excitement.

  “I know this sounds odd, but would you mind correcting the card yourself? Just to be sure . . .”

  He looked over the younger man’s shoulder, clearly fascinated, as Digby used the pen to amend the card, which now read:

  Digby Adams

  Senior International Profile Co-ordinator & Consultant

  Cross-cutting Media Expert & Specialist

  WorldFeed

  (East Africa)

  Furniver’s voice seemed to rise a pitch and his hand trembled slightly as he took the card from Digby.

  “And you’re not employed by the UN?” he asked.

  “No.”

  Furniver looked at the card again.

  “A six-pointer, by God! A six-pointer!”

  “Pardon?” said Digby.

  “Sorry, old boy . . . Talking to myself. Have you given out your card to anyone else – here, in Kuwisha, I mean?”

  “No, you have the very first. Why do you ask?”

  Furniver gave a little hop of excitement.

  “You’ve made an old man very happy. Not a word to the others, there’s a good chap. All will be explained. A six-pointer! Never thought I’d see the day!”

  “Charity!” he called. “Where are the cards? Show them to young Adams here . . . We really must squeeze in a round.”

  Charity produced a bundle of what at first sight appeared to be a stack of small playing cards. On closer inspection they turned out to be well-worn business cards, which she handed to Furniver.

  “There is no time now for your games,” said Charity sternly.

  “Not even for a couple of rounds before lunch?” pleaded Furniver, shuffling the cards. “At least let me explain the rules to our visitor . . .”

  11

  Like most games devised to pass time at Harrods, this one was simple, childish and hugely enjoyable, especially if accompanied by a Tusker or two.

  It was called “Experts”, and had been thought up by Pearson during his stint as the FN’s Africa correspondent, while sitting in the ante-room to the office of the Nigerian minister for aid and development planning.

  With the exception of Pearson, the other visitors were all supplicants for favours – a delegation of middle-aged men, including bankers, a man on his own who looked like a South African, and an east European. They had settled down for a long wait. Most were snoring gently, having first undergone the ritual of handing out the all-important, indispensable business card.r />
  Pearson shuffled through the half dozen he had been given, and added them to the 20 or so cards he had accumulated in just the couple of days he had been away. But while he was putting the cards in alphabetical order, he came across a dozen or so that dated back to his last visit, about a year earlier. Pearson was struck by an evident change in the information on the cards.

  “I call it title inflation,” he had told the others on his return, when explaining the principles of the game he had devised. “Experts and consultants are now two a penny. Just like my business – it’s no longer good enough to be a plain journalist. You’ve got to be an ‘investigative journalist’, or a ‘columnist’, or an editor of some department or region or subject; failing that, an ‘executive editor’ or at the very least, an ‘editor at large’. As a last resort, they’ll make you an ‘associate editor’. So it is with the people who work for the aid donors. Plain old experts, advisors and consultants – they’ve all but disappeared. Now you find ‘Expert Advisor’ or ‘Advisory Expert’, or a ‘Consultancy Advisor’ or an ‘Expert Institutional Specialist’. Just the other day, I was talking to a ‘Senior Expert Advisor and Consultant’. So when I went through my collection of business cards, an idea struck me. How many experts do you think come to work in Africa every year? About 100,000. Imagine all the titles in that lot . . .

  “You have a point system, of course. One point for an expert, one for a consultant, and so on. There is one important rule. You can claim any title you like in the cards in your hand, but if another player demands proof, you either produce the card with the title, or admit you were bluffing and fold. Yes, you are entitled to bluff, and claim that the card you had presented face-down on the table was worth more than – or less than – its value. Oh, and another rule: any player may include in his or her hand a new business card which has come their way – provided the point total is declared. The card can be challenged on any ground – that the title does not exist; that the points claimed are too many; or even that the card is blank. Oh yes . . . Any card connected with the UN is automatically disqualified, on the grounds that it would only encourage the buggers.”