‘I have done nothing to make worry!’ He fought to keep his voice calm. ‘And you should not worry about Shaaban. He is only going away to learn what he needs—’
‘You are a good boy, Leli. Your brother is a good boy! But this foolishness—’
‘No foolishness, my mother! My brother will be a mechanic. I will be a doctor. Shaaban is just going to Kinyangata to do something about it. There, at the garage, he can learn what he wants to know. I will learn at school.’
She sucked in her cheeks with disapproval as she always did when they had this conversation. ‘And what will we do for money, to pay the school? And you tell me why you are interested in these English visitors, Leli? Why do you waste your time? You talk, talk, talk to this English girl! I see you! I see you! What is wrong with the friends you have now? There is Eshe!’ She clicked her tongue. ‘Bad things will come, I tell you!’
She glared at him as he stiffened and turned angrily to protest.
‘Do not give me this look, Leli! And that foolish Lumbwi with his nonsense about this hotel! That place will suck everything to it, like a whirlpool! Then it will swallow and spit out what it does not like. Everyone will run there to sell more fish and take the vegetables to market, and take visitors on the boats, and everyone will leave their own place and go to fight each other for that place under the eye of the rich tourists.’ She sniffed. ‘And then there will be another hotel and another, and all the bad people will come from Ulima, to sit like vultures and wild dogs to pick the people’s bones when they have nothing else left. Oh!’
She turned her head, listening. ‘I am hearing the owl. This bird is not comfortable. Nothing is comfortable today.’
He could hear it too, the tink tink of the little owl that roosted in the mango tree. It was just a noisy bird that liked to remind everyone it was still there. It was the same as always.
But it would be no good telling his mother that. Until his father returned from seeing his brother, his mother would stay worried.
He sighed. He felt annoyed with her, as always, these days. But he also felt sorry for her. He felt sorry for Shaaban too, who was just trying to learn to be a mechanic. He missed Shaaban. It would be good to ask his brother what he thought about their mother’s worries about the big hotel. And about the motorboats and Kisiri. And about the visitors, this interesting Ally. Learning about new people is good! He imagined asking his brother, Why is it so troubling to my mother? allowing the irritation he felt at her words to fill him again.
On the threshold of his house, he glanced back, feeling the warmth of someone’s presence nearby.
There was no one. But again a dream that had disturbed him last night enveloped him. A man stood tall, alone, in the surf of the high tide, looking at Kisiri. He turned his face towards Leli. He looked into Leli’s eyes, and Leli could not look away. Leli’s feet sank deep in the soft sand, and the water lapped high round him, but he could not move. The white of the man’s cloth rippled round his body in the wind, a shifting glitter in the moonlight. Yet the figure was still, like a carving in black wood.
And Leli felt his eyes, searching, speaking silently.
With a jolt, Leli’d woken. He could not get his breath. He could not sleep for a very long time.
He wished he’d told Ally today. His heart told him something: this man was the great warrior, Bwana Fumo! Ally will not think it is foolish. She will listen.
He saw Mzee Kitwana walking slowly along the path now. He acknowledged Leli with that tilt of his head. It brought the old man’s words to Leli again: so that all will be remembered. He was tempted to ask what he was supposed to remember.
But the storyteller passed on, shaking his head, as if talking with an invisible companion.
Leli turned to go in, before his mother had another chance to scold him.
Then he halted again, and looked towards the lamps of Dr Carole’s house on the cliff.
‘Ally,’ he breathed into the darkness, a small, certain act of defiance.
second day
warnings
Five
Ally left the shade of the veranda. Heat thumped her like a sledgehammer. She’d slept late, woken with a headache, grouchy at Jack and Ben for wanting to just flop around at the house.
She wrapped a kanga over her bikini and pushed through scratchy bushes between the casuarinas, looking for the creek. Carole said it cut in below the headland to the right of the house. Rocks to dive from; deep, shaded water. Anything to escape the sultry, windless warmth hanging over the headland this morning.
Casuarina cones spiked her foot and she leapt clear of them. But the exposed sand burned, and she had to hop, overbalanced, dropping her towel, and had to disentangle it from the clutches of a thorny ground creeper.
She straightened up, selected a shadier channel through the trees, and set off.
Ahead, she caught a flash of colour. A sudden drum of wings made her duck, an earsplitting cry, something big and dark lifting past her and vanishing among high branches.
She laughed in relief. Then stiffened as there came an answering laugh. From near, a clump of dense bush ahead. Instantly she was back where she’d been yesterday, in the forest, frozen at what might be there.
A distinct, unmistakable, sustained rustling in the undergrowth. A tendril of creeper across her path twitched and snaked back, disappearing towards the laugh.
A giggle, the whisper of a light voice, a flash of red and blue within the shadow.
‘I know it’s you, Benjy!’ she yelled. ‘Stop trying to wind me up! Benjy!’
The bushes were mute.
She marched forward then, towards the creek, past a new snapping and crackling in the undergrowth, low, as if someone was crawling beneath the leaves.
A figure stepped out in front of her.
The boy was tiny, five or six at the most, dressed in an outsize blue-striped T-shirt and shorts so large they were trousers on him. He was grinning broadly. Pushing through behind, standing up breathlessly, was an even smaller girl. Grubby red dress, pocked with holes. Outsize green plastic sandals, like boats at the end of little stick legs.
Both so unlike the children of Shanza in their kangas and kikois, that it took her barely a moment to realize they were the new kids of the broken boat on Shanza’s beach. The street kids, from the city.
‘Hello, madam,’ the boy said, in careful English. ‘How is you?’ His expression had become serious, formal.
‘I am very well, thank you. How are you?’ Remembering the round of handshaking in the village when anyone was introduced, Ally offered her hand.
The boy stared at it in surprise. Then he shook it enthusiastically. ‘I am very well, thank you. My name is Joseph. My . . .’ screwing up his eyes with concentration, ‘. . . rafiki yangu . . .’
Leli’d taught her those words already. ‘My friend?’ she offered.
‘My fren, yes! My fren is Grace.’ The little girl thrust her hand out for shaking. ‘What is you doing?’ Joseph resumed.
‘Swimming. I am going for a swim,’ she corrected herself. ‘I’m Ally.’
‘Eh, Ally!’ he repeated. There seemed no more to come. The girl tittered. He pulled a face at her. Then solemnly they both moved aside, and, accepting the signal, Ally walked past, feeling them fall into step behind her, whispering. She tried not to be unnerved by the fleeting thought, forcefully dismissed, that tiny and frail as they were, they were plotting something.
A few paces further and she could see the creek below. She scouted along the fringing bushes for the natural stairway of steep rock her aunt had described, finding it part-hidden below trees arching over the water. The children imitated every move, clambering down with her to a ledge at water level.
She threw off the kanga and pushed off thankfully, striking out for the middle. She submerged to let the cool surge over her head, swam down as deep as she could force herself,
surfaced again just as two small figures slid off the rocks, fully dressed, and splashed excitedly towards her.
She rolled over and floated on her back. She stared up into the vast blue of the endless sky. With the soft lick of water, her headache was easing. It’s good to bump into the kids. She came upright to ask them things – like where they’d come from, why to Shanza.
They weren’t there. A flip of alarm went through her. Could they swim, really?
Then she saw them, backing towards the bank under a drooping branch and moving very, very slowly – as if trying not to make even the smallest ripple in the water. And the boy was signalling her with one hand, a movement she understood instantly was one of urgent warning.
In the same moment she heard the low, stuttering grumble. It came from the direction of the sea. But she couldn’t see anything because jutting rocks hid the mouth of the creek.
Then the prow of a motorboat slid into view, sleek and white with a broad red stripe. Nosing in slowly. Two men in it, one white, one African. They were surveying the bank much further inland, where rocks gave way to a reedy mud slope. Their words were almost lost in that engine growl. Swahili; but she also caught a snatch of English: it’s the right place – or something like that.
She sucked in breath and sank below the water till she was sure the engine rumble had passed. The men hadn’t seen her. Instinct, and the rigid silence of the children, made her certain they shouldn’t.
‘But any boat could go along the creeks,’ Jack insisted, ‘there’s nothing—’
‘I know, just . . . the kids hid and they’d have good instincts.’
She looked down at Grace and Joseph standing warily below the veranda, observing her conversation with Jack; until now, since reaching the clifftop and spotting the motorboat leave the creek and push out from the coast, they’d been chattering loudly to her.
‘Well, they’re probably just used to being chased off, sleeping rough – all that,’ Jack pointed out.
‘But the boat was checking the place out, Jack! It felt – I don’t know – secret. They had a map. One of them said it was the “right place”, or something. Don’t keep doing that big brother “don’t-be-silly” stuff!’
He looked startled. ‘I’m not, just . . .’ He reflected for a moment. ‘OK, we’ll tell Leli and Huru later, if you want.’
But it was still a dismissal – he didn’t really see, and, frustrated, she threw down her towel and went along the veranda to the kitchen at the far end. She poured three glasses of water from the bottles kept cold in a bucket, and took them to Joseph and Grace.
They sat together outside on the stone bench against the wall of the house, shaded by the canopy of bougainvillea. There was a long view of the shore towards Shanza, and beyond that, Kisiri. She thought of the boats screaming round the little island yesterday. The boat nosing about the creek here was a different one. Maybe a fleet of them was heading this way. Why?
‘Ally, come and look,’ Jack called from the veranda. He’d fetched a map and spread it on the floor, and had his finger on a long sliver of blue cutting into the coastline from the sea. ‘See, there’s our creek, going a long way inland beside this headland and the house – that’s us there – and look, there’s this track running close to the creek, and if you follow it up here . . .’ he traced the line across the map with his finger, ‘it goes right up to the main road, up beyond the forest. So maybe you could bring a car down close to here. What d’you think – maybe that’s why they’re looking along the creek?’
Joseph had come over to stand beside Ally, watching closely. He plucked at her arm. ‘I clever at that,’ he volunteered.
Jack squinted at him. ‘At what?’
For answer, Joseph dropped to his knees and put his finger on the map.
‘Oh – OK, well, we’re here,’ Jack tapped the headland.
Joseph pondered this. Then he followed the coast with his finger, from Ulima far in the south, through Shanza, on northwards. He paused, looking hard at the map. He stabbed a place some way north. ‘We go there.’
Ally leaned forward and read the name, ‘Tundani. Jack, that’s the place they keep talking about in Shanza – where the big new hotel’s going to be.’
‘Yes, yes!’ Joseph’s voice squeaked in excitement. ‘Collins do take us to Tundani for selling many things. Me and Grace and Dedan. Collins says we rest for one day. We come from Ulima, many days.’ He held up the sole of one bare foot, blistered and battered, the scar of a deep cut on the heel. ‘Our foots is sore—’
He broke off as Ben jumped down the roof steps, lugging Carole’s little charcoal stove, shouting, ‘Look, it’s just a big tin can with holes!’
Joseph chuckled, and ran to take it, hoisting it high to show it off and doing a jubilant jig. ‘Yes! Yes! We! We do take that and tins and small things and Collins’ big fren does lamps and for cooking,’ he elaborated confusingly.
Jack sat back on his heels, frowning. Then his face cleared. ‘You get stuff from the rubbish. And make things?’
‘I saying,’ Joseph nodded energetically, ‘and lamps and big things, and Collins’ fren is getting rich and can make a house. He do make a house for Collins and we—’
A long, melodious, rising and falling whistle came from the beach; instantly Grace was on her feet yelling, ‘Collins! Dedan!’ and running, Joseph right behind her, the two of them vanishing down the cliff path.
‘Wish I could whistle like that.’ Ben put his lips together. A whispery breath trickled out.
‘Better get lessons from this Collins or you’ll shame us, Benjy,’ Jack told him. He went back to studying the map.
Ally watched Joseph and Grace sprinting to join two boys on the sands below. She guessed the taller one, in front, was Collins, the other, Dedan. Grace pointed back up at the house, and all of them looked up towards her. Grace and Joseph waved. Ally waved back.
After a moment, Collins raised a hand slightly in what she took to be a greeting. But he began walking fast back along the shore, not waiting long enough to see her own hand raised in answer.
She turned back to Jack. ‘So we should tell Shanza about the boat in the creek. In case it’s important? At least tell Leli and Huru?’
‘OK, deal – when they take us out on the boat this afternoon.’
She turned away, so he wouldn’t see her check her watch. Five hours to wait!
There was the crunch of tyres beyond the house. A man’s voice called.
Ally padded through from the veranda to the heavy old door on the inland side of the house. For a second, in the cool dark of the shuttered sitting room, she couldn’t see how to open it. Then she found the large iron ring set among the intricate swirls of interlaced leaves and flowers carved on its panels. Beyond, the voice sounded again, louder, impatient. She grasped the old ring and heaved the great door open.
The man easing himself out of the car was large and jovial in style – or at least there was a wide, cheery smile on his face. Incongruously though, he wore a dark, thick suit, and from the beetroot face and the sweat-soaked armpits, he was suffering. He mopped his face with a handkerchief, ran fingers through a thatch of white-blond hair, loosened his tie and unbuttoned his shirt collar. He flashed the smile in Ally’s direction.
‘Hey, kid,’ he called, ‘anyone at home?’
‘I am,’ she said, annoyed.
The smile flickered, but stayed.
‘Well, guess I can see that, honey. But how about you point me to someone a bit older? Got important stuff to talk about. Stuff that can’t wait.’
His English had a trace of accent she couldn’t place and an odd fake-American drawl. The smile, on closer inspection, was a fixed toothy grin, without warmth. He was peering past her, trying to see through the open door into the house.
It struck her that she should make clear she wasn’t alone here. He was ambling toward
s her, still smiling, and every instinct in her screamed alert: he was something to do with the boats, the one in the creek this morning and the one they’d heard last night, and the ones circling Kisiri yesterday. She saw the light behind the car window alter, there was a second person, in the driver’s seat keeping the engine running, she was a fool to walk out to the car without Jack knowing – where was he now? Probably out of earshot! And Ben?
‘There’s my brothers.’ She managed to sound nonchalant. ‘My aunt in a bit – any moment, in fact,’ she lied, pretending to check her watch.
‘OK, Ally?’ Miraculously Jack emerged from the house behind her and reached her side in a few quick strides. In a conversational tone he said, ‘So are you the people messing about on Shanza’s island?’
‘Shanza? Who the hell’s Shanza?’ A genuine look of puzzlement crossed the man’s face.
A woman’s head poked out of the car. ‘They mean those huts by the shore, dope,’ she said. ‘We’re wasting time. Get in.’
The man hitched up his trousers. He was close enough for Ally to smell musty sweat and aftershave. And to see the massive animal claw on a plaited leather thong round his neck. She couldn’t take her eyes off it. She had a sudden picture of it being wrenched from a paw.
Jack’s arm pressed hers, shifting her behind him. Unmistakably a warning, but she didn’t need it. The man had changed, as if Jack squaring up to him had flicked a switch.
‘Pete, I said get in.’ The woman’s voice carried its own warning.
The man focused on Jack. ‘You can tell whoever’s minding you, that our island’s off limits.’
‘Your island!’ Ally’s voice came out as an astonished squeak.
‘Pete!’ The passenger door flung open and the engine revved.
‘Uppity kids,’ Pete growled. But he backed away and heaved himself into the car. He turned and glowered at Jack, flicked a sour look at Ally, snapped something inaudible.
They half-heard the woman’s snarl, ‘. . . fool . . . kids . . . aunt can’t refuse,’ and before he’d even slammed the door, the car left with a crash of gears and a spatter of sand from the wheelspin.
Song Beneath the Tides Page 4
