Ntoto went to the petrol pump.
“Where is the regular pump boy?” asked the driver.
“He is sick, suh. I am his deputy, suh.”
Ntoto then gambled on his knowledge of life in Kuwisha and added, “He told me about your discount, suh.”
Whatever doubts the driver may have had were dispelled.
“Don’t loaf! Fill her up, boy.”
He wound up his window again and got out of the car, slammed the door shut and went off to join Sokoto in the Gents. This was a stroke of luck for Ntoto, for the riskiest part of the operation was about to begin. He thrust the nozzle of the pump into the tank, turned the machine on to automatic and retrieved the sack from the bin, a couple of paces from where he stood.
A tug of the string at the top opened the bag. Quickly, he turned the pump back from automatic to manual, pulled out the nozzle and poured the contents of the sack into the tank of the Rolls. He was just in time. The driver returned and signed the chitty, which Ntoto had prepared.
“This includes discount?” he asked.
Ntoto nodded.
As Sokoto left the Gents, he motioned to the driver, indicating that he would wait for the car at the point where the garage met the main road.
The driver took a hard look at Ntoto.
“Have I seen you before, boy?”
Ntoto hesitated.
The cuff that followed caught him by surprise and sent him reeling. He contained his rage.
“Sorry, suh. Sorry, suh.”
The driver gave Ntoto a final clip over the ear for good measure, stepped back into the car and drove off, collecting Sokoto on the way.
Ntoto did not wait. He abandoned his peaked cap, dumped pail and cloth, disappeared in the direction of the toilets, made his way across the busy main road and concealed himself in the branches of one of the trees that lined the avenue. From there he watched and listened.
He tensed in anticipation. If it was going to work, it would work in the next 100 metres of its journey. For a terrible moment he thought he’d failed.
Then he heard the sound that signalled success. Above the noise of the traffic, the Rolls backfired once, twice, three times, like the cough of a wounded buffalo.
It continued on its journey, coughing, jerking, rallying, seeking shelter, before coming to a shuddering halt, dying at the very feet of a distraught Mayor Guchu.
The sugar had worked! The maintenance manual was right! Dirt in the carburettor could be a problem – and sugar did the most damage.
A few minutes later Ntoto was joined by Rutere, who had left the chapel and was waiting for him, panting, concealed by a bush on the far side of the road.
Rutere, his heart bursting with pride at his friend’s cunning, described the scene at the chapel.
“We could hear the car coughing, like this . . .”
Rutere made a rasping noise in his throat.
“Guchu heard the cough, and was looking, looking.”
Again Rutere acted out the part, raising his hand to his forehead, and peering out, like a man scanning the horizon.
“Next, more coughing, like that Aloysius Hatende. Three times, maybe four times, all the time the car is struggling to reach Guchu, struggling, struggling.”
By now Rutere was beside himself with pleasure.
“And then, my brother, when it reached its master . . .”
Rutere hopped from one leg to another, hugging himself with delight.
“When it reached the feet of Guchu, it died, at his feet. And then, and then, that boy called Cephas, who we said stole the sugar, the boy who loves Arsenal so much, Cephas began singing, like they sing in England, all pointing their fingers, and singing.”
“The song he sang was so good, soooo good, all the boys started singing at Guchu.”
Rutere completed his performance singing the song himself, his thin, reedy voice surprisingly loud:
Guchu, your car’s dying!
Guchu, why you crying?
Guchu, you’re rubbish
Guchu, your car’s dead!
Ntoto joined in.
Arms slung around each other’s bony shoulders, the boys set off back to Harrods, singing their defiance as loud as their lungs could manage.
Guchu, your car’s dying!
Guchu, why you crying?
Guchu, you’re rubbish
Guchu, your car’s dead!
And every five minutes or so, the two boys danced, their stick legs stomping, pot bellies shaking, and elbows pumping, they celebrated the humiliation of the street boys’ enemy.
As the boys took the backstreet route to Kireba, Rutere asked the question that had been on his mind.
“Will the pump boy tell? Guchu can find us, for sure.”
Ntoto had thought about this.
“What can he tell? He is better to keep quiet. If he says he sold his job to me, Titus Ntoto, captain of the Mboya Boys, he will be punished for being stupid.”
“The garage manager will not sack him, because he is Guchu’s nephew. And Guchu will beat the boy,” added Ntoto, matter of factly. “Guchu will maybe even disappear him. So the boy will have to stay quiet. And if he is a problem to me, I will say that he helped me do it.”
Rutere beamed.
“Clever. Very clever.”
Ntoto had left some good news for last.
“And Rutere, there is sugar left over – enough to make a bucket of changa!”
32
It was time to tackle a difficult matter. Didymus Kigali had never broached the subject of his retirement. And why should he? Indeed, it sometimes seemed to Furniver that his steward was, if not getting any younger, not getting older. Nevertheless, Furniver was determined to raise the issue, delicate though it may be for all concerned.
“Had a session with Mr Kigali,” he told Charity. “Message didn’t get through, I’m afraid.”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, I wanted to break it to him gently, and I thought I had hit on a wheeze . . .”
He recalled the exchange.
Furniver had got up from the breakfast table slowly, and held his hand to the small of his back, as if the burden of advancing years was getting too much for him.
“I’m getting old, Mr Kigali, getting old. Jolly good admonition, by the way. Really first class . . .”
Mr Kigali nodded sympathetically.
“Suh. Yes, suh. You are getting old.” He clucked concern. “You will need me to look after you.”
This was not what Furniver had in mind. He thought that if he showed the strain of years in his late forties, it might encourage Kigali to do the same. He was wrong.
He decided to approach the matter more directly.
“As you know, you have earned a decent pension and a gratuity, and I’ll throw in a goat, perhaps from Digby.”
Didymus gave him what could only be called an old-fashioned look.
“I think we need to seek the help of the Good Lord,” he said. “Let us pray.”
Furniver had no option but to join the old man, who had dropped to his knees, and cradled his head in his hands.
“What else could I do, I ask you, it wasn’t easy getting up again off my knees, but old Didymus popped up and down as easily as a cork in water.”
Charity looked at her friend sceptically.
“I hope you gave him the right end of the stick,” she said, brushing her teeth with the splayed bristle of a chewed-up wooden twig.
“Well, I broke the news to him. He didn’t seem to take it all in and was remarkably cheerful. I had thought the old chap intended to work till he dropped and that the prospect of sitting on his bottom watching the world go by filled him with horror.”
Furniver frowned. “Really odd. Perhaps it was too easy,” he said. “Don’t understand it. Far too cheerful.”
Charity looked at Furniver pityingly.
“Don’t you know that he and Mildred got compensation for their plot?”
“Blow me,” said
Furniver. “How did he manage that?”
Didymus, himself, appeared just as he spoke.
“How on earth, Didymus, did you get compensation for land which, as far as I know, you don’t own?”
Didymus looked at him sternly.
“No one owns land,” he said. “It is leased for the duration of the Lord’s wish and Mildred and I have lived in that same place for many years now.”
“So where do you plan to spend your retirement?” asked Furniver.
“Where do you think?” said Charity. “On the shamba, of course. Kigali has ordered the corrugated iron roof for their new house and said it will be much easier to work for you since he’ll be living so close.”
Didymus nodded his assent vigorously.
Charity gave Furniver one of her looks. “When we talked about arrangements for Kigali’s retirement, I hope you didn’t think . . .”
Every now and then, Furniver realised, one had to accept the hand that fate had dealt one. There were worse things in life than to be looked after by a man who dressed like a cricketer and who was determined to defy the years. Assuming, of course, he and Charity ended up together, a prospect which seemed far from certain.
33
The envelope presented to Charity by Two Head lay on the table at Harrods.
Looking back, Charity blamed herself for overlooking the obvious: if you don’t pay a bribe in Kuwisha, running a business – any business – is impossible, and she should have known this better than anyone.
If Harrods came to an end, as now seemed inevitable, she had only herself to blame.
Furniver disagreed.
“Had you paid a bribe”, he said, “you might have bought a bit more time, but you would have lost your principles, dirtied your hands, and they would still have got you in the end.”
“I still feel stupid, Furniver, I should have guessed. And as you English say, forewarned is forearmed. I should have tried harder to get the Zimbabwe toilets in place. Good toilets would have made a difference.”
They were sitting at dusk on the brick patio which Furniver had helped build – or, rather, he had supervised the team of street boys assembled by Ntoto and Rutere. Although he had been wearing, at Charity’s insistence, a floppy canvas hat, it had not stopped his nose from blazing like a beacon by the end of the day.
“Read out again what that notice says,” requested Furniver.
Charity read extracts from the two-page document.
Health and Safety Regulations, 1961.
Name of establishment: Harrods International Bar (and Nightspot).
Owner: Mrs Charity Mupanga.
Manager: Mrs Charity Mupanga.
Location: Kireba East.
The above premises were inspected by the staff of the Council and the following defects were registered:
Bar – no licence.
Television – no licence for public entertainment.
Water – no running water.
Electricity – illegal connection.
Toilets – no toilets.
By the authority of the statutory powers invested in me, I Willifred Godwin Guchu, hereby order the closure of the Establishment known as Harrods International Bar (and Nightspot).
Grounds for closure: inadequate sanitation.
The owner and other interested parties have the right of appeal. This right must be exercised within seven days.
Charity threw the document down in disgust.
“I am tired of this nonsense, Furniver. Tired and sick.”
Furniver retrieved the document and studied it. There seemed no room for any manoeuvre. He looked through it one last time.
Suddenly it struck him.
“Hang on a mo,” he said. “I’m not a lawyer but I think you could buy a bit of time. Time in which we could erect the Zimbabwe toilets. It’s worth a go. Have a close look. What do you notice?”
Charity looked baffled.
“Just read it again, and think about your late father.”
Suddenly the penny dropped. Furniver had a point.
“But I have no money for lawyers,” said Charity.
“You must speak in your own defence,” said Furniver. “We cannot let Guchu win so easily. Let us call Mudenge and between us we can prepare for your case. When does it start?” He checked the document. “Time we got to work.”
It was proving difficult for Pearson to get a word in, but he was determined to keep trying. He had barely begun when the first interruption came.
“So this Financial News chap, Mark Webster, who eventually left to work in television, he went off to see the US ambassador in Kinshasa. Wanted to know what he thought about Mobutu’s latest reshuffle.
“ ‘What do you get when you shake up a can of worms?’ the ambassador asked him . . .”
But before Pearson could deliver the punch line, the table came alive, their comments triggered by the subject of worms.
“Worms! I do not like worms, snakes and worms, flies and mosquitoes,” said Charity. “Snakes and worms.”
Mildred Kigali, who had joined them for her tea break, intervened.
“Scorpions are worse than worms.”
“For God’s sake, let me finish what I was going to say,” said Pearson.
Furniver interrupted. “Worse than snakes?” he asked.
“Nothing is worse than snakes,” muttered Ntoto. “Nothing.”
“Crocodiles,” said Mildred. “When I was a girl, at the time of the Great Floods and Mr Kigali was still a . . .”
Pearson refused to give up.
“So the ambassador asked: ‘What do you get when you shake up a can of worms?’ And he answered his own question: ‘Dizzy worms!’ ”
Ntoto displayed a trace of interest.
“Perhaps he was talking about mopani worms. Fried mopani worms. With salt.”
He smacked his lips.
“Silly buggers,” muttered Pearson.
He stood up, stretched his legs, and went over to the bar to check on the progress of his order for roasted chicken necks, and to collect another ice-cold Tusker.
Charity looked at Furniver and giggled. “Shame on you, teasing him like that.”
Mildred was unforgiving.
“This worm business. I have heard from Pearson about this worm business before,” said Mildred. “He thinks he is being very clever! He thinks we don’t know that he is talking politics when he speaks about these worms. Yes, all politicians are worms, all lawyers are worms, all are very confused. Journalists, even, are worms. Sometimes it seems that Kuwisha is all worms. So where is the answer? He does not tell us how to get rid of these worms. All his words . . . just useless.”
There was no reply from her audience, only a general muttering and shuffling of feet.
Just then Cecil returned to the table, carrying a Tusker and a saucer of freshly roasted and salted groundnuts in time to hear Ntoto declare: “Worse than worms. Worse than worms are tape worms.”
Voices were raised as Rutere and Ntoto clashed over whether the tape worm qualified as a worm, or whether it should be treated as a sleeping snake.
The boys finally agreed. As Ntoto observed: “You cannot eat tape worms,” said Ntoto. “They eat you.”
Rutere was suddenly struck by another candidate for condemnation.
“Jiggers,” he said, and showed off the hole in his big toe.
“Get your feet off the table,” said Charity. Cyrus Rutere belched, a long and rumbling eructation that came from the bottom of his round belly.
“Beg pardon,” he said, just as Charity had taught him, and added, as if by way of explanation: “Goat meat. Very sweet.”
Digby winced as the aroma of Rutere’s last meal wafted across the table.
“Poor Dolly! Poor, poor Dolly,” he sighed.
34
The hearing took place in the Kireba magistrate’s court, a nondescript building on the edge of the slum. It had once been whitewashed, years ago, and since then the colour had changed to a grimy off-
white atop a band that had been stained red by the ochre soil that surrounded it.
The duty magistrate was Josiah Buruna, a grey-haired man in his early forties, who had been passed over for promotion – the consequence, it was claimed, of his refusal to be “helpful” or “sympathetic” to government supporters who had lost at the ballot box.
“Silence in court,” he ordered.
“Where are the enemy?” whispered Furniver, who had made a point of turning up early.
Results Mudenge, present to lend moral support, looked grim.
“Outside, waiting. They are showing they are boss by coming in late.”
The packed courtroom let out a collective gasp of dismay as the state team entered, led by none other than Newman Kibwana, a state counsel no less, accompanied by his junior, Miss Patience Kola, the instructing solicitor, and a clerk weighed down with files and legal tomes.
Mudenge nudged Furniver.
“That Kola, she has been allocated a place on the new Kireba housing list.”
“You are late, Mr Kibwana,” said the magistrate.
“I apologise, your honour, there was a call from State House – they are very interested in this case and very concerned about the outcome.”
“I care not a fig the reason. You are late. But I note your apology.”
“Thank you, your honour.”
Buruna nodded.
“Now then, I must ask you this question. While I do not know the applicant personally, I have on more than one occasion taken tea and enjoyed a dough ball at the establishment you seek to close. So I feel obliged to ask: do you wish me to recuse myself?”
“He’s offering to stand down. If the verdict went against him, Kibwana could claim the judge was influenced by personal contact,” whispered Furniver.
Kibwana did not hesitate. Confidence personified, he declared: “Not at all, suh.”
“I assume that the State has no objection to Mrs Charity Mupanga representing herself, accompanied by Mr Edward Furniver and Mr Results Mudenge?”
“No objection.”
Dizzy Worms Page 19
