Dizzy Worms

by Michael Holman

  By now, Flogger was well into his stride.

  “It was bloody sad, not quaint; it was typical, not unusual; and it was bloody dispiriting, not challenging.

  “Forty-odd years after independence,” he continued, “Kuwisha’s railway has been run down by an elite with their bums in the butter and their money in road haulage.”

  Furniver thought the man would never stop, banging on about the squalid state of the national train service and the run-down state of facilities in general.

  “I’m staying at the Thumaiga Club,” said Flogger. “See you there. We can have a long chat over a G and T.”

  There was only one response. Furniver hugged him again.

  “Absolutely right! See you there. Absolutely,” said Furniver and vowed he would go nowhere near the place until Rugiru had told him that the coast was clear.

  29

  The service, widely regarded as a triumph for Boniface Rugiru, had ended on a sour note for the man himself. Indeed, it was only through the exercise of considerable self-discipline that he was able to conclude his final duties.

  While Charity was being served with official papers that threatened the very existence of Harrods, Boniface Rugiru stood at the top of the steps and shook hands with the mourners as they filed out. The event had been a tremendous success, if that was the right term to use. It had gone without a hitch and Rugiru graciously accepted the congratulations offered by all and sundry.

  But far from feeling the benefits of catharsis that a good funeral send-off should provide, he looked deeply distressed and several of the departing congregation commented on this. They put it down to the stress of the occasion and the pain of his loss. Boniface chose to keep silent about the theft of the radio.

  Silence was the only way to cope.

  Had he not stayed quiet, he feared he would have been unable to maintain his relative equanimity and would have broken down in tears of rage and frustration.

  “It was so quick,” Boniface later told his wife, who was still tending their fever-struck youngest son.

  “In one shake of a duck’s tail, the radio, it just disappeared.”

  As to the culprit, he had his suspicions. The crematorium’s gardener and odd-job man, an Okot, was at the top of his list. After all, he was from the north of Kuwisha, and from the clan of the same name. Rugiru shared his suspicions with his wife that evening.

  Part of his case against the man, he acknowledged, was based on nothing other than prejudice.

  “But the main reason”, continued Rugiru, dipping a ball of nshima into the tasty goat gravy made by his wife, “is that you can never trust an Okot man.”

  He was already due to return to the crematorium the next day to collect the Oldest Member’s ashes. Now that sad journey had an additional purpose. He would chase the Okot man, and with the help of our Lord, recover the radio.

  “You will be lucky,” said his wife. “This is Kuwisha. Okot has probably sold the radio already.”

  “I tell you,” said Rugiru, “I will find that thief tomorrow and I will complain directly to the manager of the crematorium about the staff that he employs. Disgraceful!”

  The next morning Boniface Rugiru, dressed once more in his senior bar steward uniform, mounted his bicycle and set off for the crematorium, determined to confront the general manager. His fury and his shame had not diminished overnight, although his wife had counselled restraint. He knew that the chances of recovering the Braun radio were negligible. Whoever had stolen it would almost certainly have sold it by now but he was determined that the culprit would not get off scot free.

  As he approached the grounds of the chapel of the crematorium, he was greeted politely by the gardener, who waved from a far-off section of the Garden of Rest, where he was tending a flower bed.

  Rugiru returned the greeting with a curt nod, so curt as to be almost rude. Any doubt that he’d had as to who was responsible was removed by this outrageous behaviour. Only an Okot could be so hypocritical!

  His wife Patience had not improved his mood that morning when she had defended the Okot clan, doubtless because her clan were closer to the Okot people than his own, which hoarded memories of raids on cattle as fresh in their mind as if they’d taken place yesterday.

  Rugiru propped up his bike against the railings outside the manager’s office, locked it and took his seat in the office from where he could keep an eye on the bicycle.

  “Mr Chipanda will see you now,” said his secretary.

  Rugiru scowled. The name was a giveaway. He must be a Lua. If the Okots were thieves, the Luas were certainly as bad. The combination of the one lot’s thievery and the other lot’s cunning was formidable and Rugiru regretted he’d left his stout stick behind.

  “He will see you now,” said the secretary again.

  Rugiru wanted to get it over as soon as possible and entered the office.

  “Gideon Chipanda,” the man held out his hand, which Rugiru shook reluctantly.

  “Mr Chipanda, I’ve come to see the Okot man. I am very . . .”

  Chipanda intervened.

  “Let me call him now,” he said. “And you can thank him for yourself. Perhaps, even, you will want to give him a small present?”

  Rugiru was nonplussed. If there was anything he would give this audacious thief it was a good kick up the arse.

  “Let me go and call him,” said Chipanda. “I’ll be back in a minute.”

  More than ever, Rugiru wished he’d brought his stick. He cast his eyes around the modest office and saw on the desk of Mr Chipanda a well-thumbed copy of a book, whose title, on closer inspection, Rugiru was able to read: Running a Crematorium: A Basic Guide.

  Before Rugiru could make a closer examination, Chipanda had returned but noticed his interest in the book.

  “My bible,” joked Chipanda, adding: “The Okot man, who is a very good gardener by the way, will be along any minute. That book,” he said, shaking his head in admiration. “That book is excellent. Many times I have consulted it and every time it has come up with the answer to my problem. Or”, he said, “given me a warning of what could become a problem. You will not believe, Mr Rugiru, some of the requests that we get from our customers. Or, I suppose I should say, relatives of some of our customers.

  “Sometimes people want company on their last journey. Many settlers want to take their dogs with them. I myself do not want my dog to come with me, wherever I am going. But the settlers want their dogs. I myself would choose my favourite cow.”

  At this point the secretary put her head around the door.

  “The ashes for the late Mr Smeldon are ready for collection,” she said. “Are you sure, Mr Rugiru, you don’t want tea? I am told it was a very good service.”

  Rugiru shook his head. Things were not proving quite as he had anticipated.

  “Tea, Mr Chipanda?”

  “Yes, please.”

  Chipanda picked up the booklet.

  “Let me read to you”, he said to Rugiru, “the section which was so helpful in preparing for yesterday’s sad event. It is called The Case of The Exploding Bullet. ‘It must be stressed’, wrote the author of this book, ‘that the habit of mourners in Karimoja, where cattle rustling is very bad of placing of a live bullet in the coffin out of respect for the occupant is to be discouraged. There have been reports of injuries caused – though thank God no fatalities – by bullets exploding after the coffin has been consumed by the fire. On one occasion, sad to relate, there was a serious misunderstanding between rival groups and there was an exchange of fire between bodyguards in the congregation.’ ”

  He chuckled. “As for batteries, they also explode. And when I saw that the radio was going into the fire, I had to signal to the Okot man to catch it in time. The batteries would certainly have exploded and many people might have thought they were bullets, and with the president himself attending who knows how his bodyguards might have reacted.”

  Mr Chipanda chuckled again.

  “I was a bit su
rprised that your friend did not leave instructions for the radio to be removed. He had thought of everything else. So, Mr Rugiru, you can understand that we were saved from great embarrassment by our friend the gardener.”

  The secretary brought in the tea and returned a moment later with an urn containing the ashes of the Oldest Member.

  “Here we are, Mr Rugiru,” she said, handing over the urn.

  Behind her stood a beaming Okot man. He handed over, respectfully bowing as he did so, the Braun radio. At the same time, Chipanda gave Rugiru a handwritten note.

  “He asked me to give it to you when I handed over the ashes. He was most insistent. No radio, no note. Any idea why, Mr Rugiru?”

  Rugiru shook his head. He read the note:

  Dear Rugiru,

  We hit ’em for a six! Look after the radio.

  “It was very embarrassing,” said Rugiru to his wife that evening.

  “Surely you were very pleased, my husband, because you now have the radio back. The Okot man was not stealing, he was helping. And even Mr Kigali says you can keep it.”

  She might have stayed silent, for all the notice Rugiru took of his wife’s words.

  “Very, very embarrassing,” said Rugiru, “I had to thank an Okot man.”

  His wife sighed. “There is a message from Mrs Mupanga,” she said. “They will pick us up tomorrow at the Thumaiga Club.”

  “An Okot man,” Rugiru repeated, shaking his head.

  What was the world coming to?

  There was one thing that always puzzled Nduka. If the reforms, insisted upon by the West, were so obviously in Kuwisha’s interest, why did they bribe his government to implement them?

  An IMF deal could easily bring in $250 million – but when you included the World Bank loan that followed, funds from the European Development Bank and bilateral offerings from the donors, a deal that was done in their own interest could easily generate a billion dollars. The ways of the West were indeed strange.

  Still, who was he to complain? All it would cost was a memo and a few promises.

  Berksson had asked for a letter to all the participants and he had promised to deliver it by the next morning.

  “Progress on the project to rebuild Kireba,” he wrote.

  “I wish to congratulate all involved in this great scheme to transform Kireba. Such is the progress, that we feel that posterity would not forgive us if this historic opportunity was not grasped to the full.

  “Not only does it envisage the building of 500 flats, we plan to have a market and a crèche as well as a community centre.”

  “But more than this, we need to seize a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to turn Kireba into the hub of a regional transport system which will include rail and road links to the coast.

  “We know we can count on your governments’ support when we put this to the World Bank and other funding agencies.

  30

  She had to decide, and soon. To delay was not fair to Furniver. Would he join her on the shamba, helping to cultivate the coffee for which Kuwisha was famous, and care for the cattle? Or would they go their separate ways, retreat into their separate cultures and traditions?

  Charity looked into her heart. The answer to him, she feared, had to be no.

  Much as she loved Furniver, she could not live in England and be the same person. And if this were true of her, why should it not be true of Furniver? Did he not find the heat oppressive? And did he not hate the mud?

  As to other differences, she could live with them: the extraordinary fact that Furniver’s children were growing up without knowing their father; that they had to endure the apparent absence of an extended family, poor things.

  But before she finally acted, she should give Mudenge a chance.

  Mildred was right. It was time to consult, for the second time in a matter of days, Clarence “Results” Mudenge.

  “I can promise you,” he said at the end of the consultation, “that either I get the results or you get your money back.”

  At the first session Mudenge had listened carefully, interrupting only to ask pertinent and penetrating questions that opened her mind.

  “Yes, Mrs Mupanga” – he always addressed his customers as Mr or Mrs, a courtesy that Charity appreciated – “I must speak frankly. It is clear to me that there is a problem here. But like all problems, there is usually an answer – although I must tell you that it might not be the answer that makes you happy.”

  Charity nodded her agreement.

  “First, as Mildred told you, I need to know about his dreams.”

  “That is easy – he is always dreaming. He talks about coffee grown without insect killers on the shamba. I tell him that’s fine but it will be his job to catch the goggas that eat the leaves and the coffee berries.”

  She spoke with passion, leaving Results in no doubt that the subject was a delicate one.

  “He dreams about power from the sun, about storing rain water. Oh yes, he is a man who dreams all right . . .”

  “That is a good start”, said Mudenge, “but I am looking for other dreams. For proper dreams. The lion and the tortoise both dream . . .”

  Charity looked at him sharply. Was he making fun of Furniver, who had filled two notebooks with Kuwisha proverbs before realising that most of them had been made up by Pearson, in a ridiculous competition with Shadrack, his steward?

  “The dreams you mention are very interesting, but they are hopes and not so much dreams,” Mudenge continued. “I want to know his sleeping dreams.”

  Charity was shocked.

  “That is private business for any man.”

  “Or woman,” replied Mudenge. “The fact is, Mrs Mupanga, our dreams tell us a lot. Please, think very carefully about Furniver’s dreams and I think we will find they have the answer to your problem.”

  Results Mudenge studied Charity Mupanga. Not for the first time, he acknowledged that she was a fine woman indeed, with a strong handsome face, a throaty laugh and all the assets of a woman of Kuwisha.

  “But I promise you the dreams will stay private. That is my business.”

  31

  The pump boy had behaved just as Ntoto had anticipated.

  The two had arranged to meet beyond the forecourt. In one hand the boy had a tattered oily rag, and in the other a fluorescent jacket, the badge of office that made the wearer all but invisible, for he was seen as a mere petrol dispenser and windscreen cleaner.

  The agreed fee for the job was 100 ngwee, which Ntoto had persuaded Furniver to lend him from the bank’s entrepreneur fund, promising that the money was needed as a down-payment on a pair of pliers that he would use to set up his business as a wire toy-maker.

  The boy shuffled nervously. It was all very well to devise the scheme for extra cash when polishing a succession of car windows and dreaming of what you could do with the money; but with Ntoto standing in front of him it was a very different matter.

  The captain of the Mboya Boys’ football team had a formidable reputation as a thug on the field and a bully off it.

  “We agreed,” said Ntoto, “100 ngwee.”

  “The petrol captain wants his share,” said the boy nervously. “That is 25 per cent.”

  Ntoto said nothing, though his eyes and his chilling stare spoke volumes.

  The petrol boy dropped his gaze and coughed nervously.

  “Very well,” he said. “This time I will do it for 100 only, as a favour.”

  Ntoto’s eyes looked through the boy, with underlying menace. He counted out the notes and handed them over.

  “Show me the polishing rags and give me your jacket and cap.”

  “And we share tips,” said the boy, a tall skinny youth who was suspected by the Mboya Boys of being a sympathiser of mungiki, if not a member of the fast-growing sect.

  “Rubbish,” said Ntoto. “Just rubbish. All tips are mine and that is what we agreed.”

  He then made a calculated gamble.

  “If you think I will give you tips our
agreement is broken,” and he threw the peaked cap at the boy’s feet.

  “Pick and give it,” he demanded. “Pick and give it or we finish.”

  For a terrible few seconds the boy seemed ready to call Ntoto’s bluff but then reluctantly and sullenly bent down, picked up the cap and handed it to Ntoto.

  “Your pump is number three, over there.”

  Ntoto looked at the clock on the forecourt. It was 10.30 a.m. and the service was due to start any minute now.

  “Why are you wearing that cloth around your head?” said the pump boy nervously.

  “Toothache,” said Ntoto. “Very bad toothache. Where can I leave my lunch?”

  The petrol boy gestured towards a waste bin next to one of the pumps.

  “It’ll be safe in there.”

  Ntoto removed the small sack from his baggy shorts, dumped it in the bin and covered it with the sheets of a discarded newspaper.

  The oily forecourt of the garage had four petrol pumps and two pumps for diesel.

  Ntoto took the rag, the bucket of soapy water, and the peaked cap with the sign “Lucky Lucky Motors” on the brim. So far so good. Although there was only a slight chance that he would be recognised by the other petrol boys, the less time he spent on the forecourt the better.

  As the official pump boy left Ntoto to it, and made his way across the road, Ntoto could see in the distance the four-wheel drive that invariably escorted the mayoral Rolls approaching. Jamming the cap on his head, pulling the peak as far down as it could go, obscuring his face, clutching the can of soapy water in one hand and the oily rag in the other, he trotted to the entrance to the petrol station and waited for his quarry. The Rolls Royce rolled to a halt like a beast approaching a watering role, but without fear, replete and well groomed.

  Mounted on the short flag holder on the right of the bonnet was the mayoral insignia.

  Ntoto looked out from under the peak of the cap and to his horror saw that the man sitting alongside the driver was none other than his old adversary, Sokoto, who had been responsible for beating him in the presence of the mayor. Too late now to have second thoughts. The huge vehicle drew to a halt. Sokoto, to Ntoto’s enormous relief, immediately set off for the Gents.