THE EXIT FROM the forest was as vivid as its entrance. As though a curtain had been drawn, the vista widened and the trees stopped. For the first time since Nigeria, I saw open skies from horizon to horizon, and felt the rays of the sun rather than just its heat. I turned and looked back. The forest stood like a great army waiting to advance; giant trees, silent and still. At last I was free from their grasp.
At Gamboma I stayed the night in a hotel and enjoyed the luxury of a bed. I washed in a bucket of cold water and had a shave, the first for more than a week. It was bliss.
By morning the skies had clouded over, the wind had quickened and the promise of rain lingered in the air. I left early in the vain hope of avoiding the downpour but road conditions made progress slow. The forest had ripped the rear brake pads off the bike and the spring that had held them in place was lost. With only the front brakes working I had to weave my way slowly through the countless pot-holes. When the rain started things got worse still. At times I was back on dirt, as slippery as ice, but about ten miles outside the capital I hit the newly constructed ‘highway’ and joined the flow of vehicles moving languidly towards the centre of Brazzaville. The shanties of the suburbs closed in around me. The thin band of tarmac which cut the dirt was packed with old trucks, rusting cars and bikes. On the muddy sidewalks young men played table-football while women fanned the embers of their charcoal stoves, the fish and maize smoking gently. There was a feeling of decay, of a tired town in need of a rest. Rusting roofs were set on crumbling walls and rubbish filled the gutters.
As hotels in Brazzaville are notoriously expensive I was a little concerned as to where I might stay. Tony had given me the address of the Gorilla Orphanage where a team of British primate biologists worked. He’d only met one of them briefly but he thought they might have somewhere for me to sleep. The problem was finding them and it was already getting dark. Then, to my astonishment, I saw a battered blue and white sign on my right which read ‘Ngota fils’. To tell you the truth I had had no intention of delivering Daniel’s second letter – I had been going to post it – but now it seemed I had run straight into the home of his eldest son; that strange travellers’ luck again. I pushed open the large metal gates and drove into the forecourt.
Smith Ngota was as charming as everyone else I’d met in his family. He was tall and lean with stylish clothes and his father’s love of business. His yard was piled high with expensive hardwood from upriver and various other items he had for sale. On one side was a small brick bungalow, undergoing an extension, with a wooden shed behind.
‘This is really amazing,’ Smith said in excellent English, ‘you must stay the night.’ And so I did, in the shed, which was actually a perfectly comfortable room. It amazed me that in a country where few people speak any European language, Daniel Ngota had educated himself and his children to be trilingual. He paid for Ashu’s training to become an architect, Smith had gone to university in Yaoundé and Marian, his daughter, was at college in Boston. Not bad for a wood trader from Kika. Two younger daughters lived here with Smith. They both wanted to go to England to study medicine; I wouldn’t mind betting they do.
The next morning, having checked there were no more letters to take to any other relatives, and armed with a map Smith had studiously created for me, I set off for the Parc Zoologique.
It’s quite a strange feeling turning up in a foreign city and saying, ‘Hi, I know about you from a guy you met once for five minutes, and I was wondering if you could help me,’ but in Africa it seems that a lot of the friendship and hospitality shown by its natives has rubbed off onto the Westerners who live there.
Steve sat on the floor of a small forecourt, surrounded by tiny black gorillas. He had one on his lap which he was feeding from a bottle.
‘Yeah,’ he said, answering my humble request, ‘no problem. We can’t offer you a room though because Kimu’s in it, she’s sick with dysentery, but I’m sure Mark and Helen won’t mind if you put up your tent in the garden.’ He had a strong London accent which in no way lessened when he spoke French to Albertine, a Congolese helper, who was also feeding a baby ape.
‘We’re just gonna take ’em for a play in the trees. D’you wanna come?’
There were twenty babies in this group, and forty in all, aged between a few months and three years. They were wonderful. They ran around dragging their lengthy arms in the leaves, stopping to beat their chests or my back, depending on how mischievous they felt. They hung from my arms, swinging to and fro, climbed round my neck and fell asleep on my chest. They were unbelievably human. When the parent gorillas are killed in the forest for food, the poachers bring the orphans into the city to sell as pets – they often fetch more than a month’s wage. I could easily understand why they were in demand when, later that afternoon, I sat in the house playing with Kimu. She was not a sick maid, as I’d imagined from Steve’s remark when I’d arrived, but turned out to be a nine-month-old female gorilla wearing babies’ nappies.
The orphanage had been set up a year before by John Aspinall, the eccentric English millionaire, to save as many of this endangered species as possible. Mark and Helen Attwater run it. With a team of wardens, backed by the law, they confiscate the baby gorillas from the poachers and then handrear them. They teach them how to be wild apes with a view to reintroducing them to the jungle. Apparently I had been lucky to see one in its natural habitat. Sightings are fairly rare, even though there are thought to be over 50,000 of them. I’m not sure lucky was the adjective that I would have used.
I was happy to camp in the garden and not blow any money on hotels as I knew I might have to stay for some time. Not too long though – I had only a week before the Paris-Le Cap rally would arrive in Pointe Noire, 300 miles to the west. For the first time, I became fully aware of the predicament I had placed myself in. In Yaoundé I had committed myself to going through Angola, but if they were to refuse me entry and I were to get no help from the rally organisers, I would have little option but to return to Bangui and think again. The thought of going back into the forest made my skin crawl.
I asked Mark about my prospects of getting a visa.
‘No chance,’ he said without hesitation. ‘Sorry, but I heard of a German who was here about three months ago. He was a personal friend of the ambassador – got him to intervene on his behalf – but it was still “no way”. From what I’ve heard, the only way there is to fly to Luanda.’ After a pause he added, ‘And for that you’ve got to be a businessman . . . or Press. No tourists go to Angola.’ He leaned back in his chair. ‘I mean it’s hardly Costa del Sol, is it?’
‘No, I guess not.’
So Michael had been right – I’d have to chance my arm as an irrigation specialist – but that worry was for tomorrow. Today was New Year’s Eve and I intended to have some fun.
My first hot shower since France. Dirt was ingrained in my skin like contour lines on a map of the Alps. I stood under that piping hot shower for a full half-hour being gently steamed. Afterwards, while standing over the loo having a pee, I looked with some concern at a small black spot right on the end of my penis. Well, not literally, but where the head meets the shaft, if you see what I mean. I’d noticed it for the first time a couple of days earlier at the hotel in Gamboma but then it had been only the size of a pinhead. A bizarre place for a blackhead I had thought. Now it was three or four times larger. A squidgy black piece of flesh about two millimetres in diameter, like a small button attached by a single thread. It must be a piece of dead skin or a wart, I thought to myself as I pulled to free it from my person. It hung on with grim determination. Again taking it firmly between thumb and index finger I pulled, harder this time, bringing tears to my eyes. Eventually, with a sound like a cork being pulled from a bottle, off it came. In disgust I shook my hand to throw it away and glanced down to see what damage had been caused, but, like a sticky piece of tape, the strange black spot still clung doggedly to my finger. Again I shook my hand, but it refused to go. I brought it up to my face to get a closer look, now at a loss to know what I was dealing with. To my horror I saw six tiny black legs gripping to my hand for dear life. Finally I managed to flick it off and squashed it with my boot.
Some kind of blood-sucking insect from the swamp, I assumed. I hoped it had laid no eggs.
Steve was eating with some diamond buyers so I arranged to meet him later and went out with Mark and Helen to a fine restaurant. It was wonderful to dine on beef steak and drink red wine – a holiday for my beleaguered taste-buds. The Attwaters, as primatologists, were not at all what I had expected. Mark, a reformed punk with humour as dry as Campari, talked more about the Sex Pistols than he did about gorillas. And Helen, well, she looked just too young and pretty.
After dinner the three of us went to meet Steve. The centre of the town, all three or four blocks of it, looked fairly prosperous. There were a few high buildings, offices for the oil companies and airlines, with cafés and bars in their entrances but I was surprised to see how few black people frequented this part of town. This, it seemed, was the world of the ex-pat.
The restaurant where we found Steve was as affluent as any Brazzaville had to offer and was run by a fat Swiss couple. Steve greeted us and introduced me to the people he had been dining with. As they had finished eating we didn’t stay long and were soon on our way to a night-club. Steve said it was where the children of the Europeans go. It was horrendous: smart and naff, like stepping back to Ibiza in the late seventies, I imagine. Obnoxious French kids in sequined boob-tubes, and guys with shirts undone to their navels, danced to the Bee Gees and the Commodores. The floor flashed with the same colours as the dayglow cocktails and sent my head and stomach reeling in different directions. I explained to Steve that this was not the place I wished to spend my heard-earned New Year’s Eve and, slurring his words slightly, he told me he knew of another.
Leaving the others behind, the two of us staggered outside and climbed into the jeep. It was a hot and sticky night with a clear, star-filled sky. Even though it was well past two the streets were packed with joyful revellers. We drove south out of town, hugging the river, to the Congo rapids.
This place could hardly have been more different; as sleazy a dive as you’re ever likely to see. It was simply an enormous, open-topped enclosure made of bamboo and bush. Hundreds of sweaty bodies writhed to the rhythm of Zairean music, replenishing themselves on Primus beer. The pungent smell of marijuana smoke filled the air. From what I could see we were the only whites. At one end was a small stage immersed in darkness. We sat down with our beers at a rickety table as the music started to fade . . . it was obvious a band was coming on.
11.25 p.m. March 16th
‘Okay guys. Two more minutes and you’re on.’ The presenter’s head disappeared behind the door.
‘Pass me the spliff, Guy,’ I said, getting to my feet. I took a long drag and strummed a few chords of the opening song. It was always a strange feeling just before going on stage. The dope and drink had little effect against the dramatic surges of adrenalin. Nerves, nerves, nerves. I sang a couple of lines to calm myself down. The others did not look impressed.
Outside I could hear the crowd – all 3,000 of them, it seemed. We were at the Hammersmith Palais, the most important gig of our career – blow this crowd away and we were looking at fame and fortune.
‘Come on then,’ I said to the others, ‘let’s get out there and do it!’
The excitement and ‘buzz’ about us had started a month earlier. The record had finally been released and the promises of TV exposure had come good. First the video had been shown on Channel 4’s The Chart Show and a week later ITV had followed with a showing on a late-night entertainment programme. Suddenly we were being taken seriously. A couple of write-ups in the music press and soon we were being played on the radio, but it was at The Mean Fiddler, the venue of our first gig, that the real breakthrough came.
We were all sitting backstage enjoying the post-gig euphoria when the door opened and a girl entered.
‘Do you mind if I come in?’ she said rather unnecessarily. ‘My name’s Christine. I’m a talent scout at MCA.’ And so the excitement began. A week after that we were doing another gig in East London in front of her boss and two days after that we were sitting in his office.
Mark Dean had one of those thin faces, with narrow eyes and a small chin, that was really just an extension of his neck. Indeed, if it hadn’t been for his nose giving you a rough indication of where the centre of his face was it would have been hard to tell where to direct one’s gaze. He had made his name some years back for his discovery, and subsequent signing, of a certain Georgious Kyriacus Panayiotou, soon to be known as George Michael. He was young and brash but there was no denying his success. To be in his office was nothing short of a dream.
‘It was great, guys,’ he said leaning back in his chair. There was a ‘Wham’ gold disc on the wall behind him and two more opposite. He smiled, evidently enjoying his power.
‘I won’t fuck around with you, I reckon you’ve got a few great songs. I like the image and I like your voice. We wanna sign you. What do you reckon?’
What did we reckon? What the hell did he think we would reckon? Fantastic! Bloody fantastic! I couldn’t believe it was actually happening. I expected him suddenly to say he was joking and kick us out, but he did not. After Andy had replied, with a lot more cool than I could muster, that that would be good, he went on.
‘The figure will be something like three hundred grand. We’ll get you some decent equipment and record the first album at Hanser Studios, Berlin. I think Chris Kimsey would be a good producer for you, he’s hot at the moment. In the meantime we’ll try and get you on an American tour with one of our other acts. All right?’ When we floated out of his office ten minutes later our heads were spinning.
That evening a few friends came round to the flat to celebrate with us. Mel was torn two ways. She was terribly excited for us but also worried because she knew what fame might mean. I told her not to worry, that rock stars can have girlfriends too. I was too carried away to be concerned by such things. Having striven towards our goal for so long – four years now – thinking of little else but how to get a deal, it was an incredible feeling to have finally reached our dream. But had we got a deal? Our signatures were not yet on the contract.
‘Merely a formality,’ Mark Dean told us at a second meeting. ‘Let the lawyers work it out, we’ll sign within a month. You got any gigs coming up? Some people from the States might want to see you.’ We told him about the Palais.
‘Yeeerrrhah,’ screamed Tom as we made our way back to the dressing room. It had been our best concert ever. Everything had gone right. The lights were fantastic, as was the sound, and the crowd had demanded two encores.
‘That’s it Tommy,’ I cried, ‘you can give up your day job now.’
‘Tomorrow bloody morning.’
I opened the door of the dressing room and we all barged in. Mark Dean was sitting there with two fat Americans, a bottle of champagne in his hand.
‘Boys,’ he smiled, ‘you ‘re gonna be stars.’
About lunchtime on New Year’s Day, feeling like death, Steve and I went down to see the diamond buyers. I needed to send a fax to England to ask for some spare parts to be sent to the Cape and to let people at home know the route I was hoping to take.
The diamond dealers’ heavily fortified home was manned by armed guards. Security cameras scanned one way and then the other above walls topped by razor wire. Rottweilers clawed at a cage.
Phil and Gary, two Lewisham lads, sat in a small room bent over piles, literally piles, of diamonds; millions of dollars’ worth, they said. Like an amazed schoolboy I asked if I might pick up a handful, imagining that I would never again have the chance to hold half a million dollars in my fist. They were uncut newly mined stones so they didn’t shimmer or sparkle with beauty, but when I looked closely through the eye-glass they provided I saw each one had a centre of pure perfection.
After we’d eaten and I’d sent my fax, an Angolan came to the door with some stones. Since the trouble across the river in Kinshasa, the company Phil and Gary worked for had closed down in Zaire and because of the war had no office in northern Angola. Anyone with stones to sell brought them to Phil. He then bought them for a fraction of their final value and shipped them back to Antwerp.
I still needed to get an Angolan visa so that, if I couldn’t catch the rally’s boat, I would at least have a way forward. So, the next morning, once the others had gone to work, I sat in the living room with Mark’s typewriter and constructed a letter. I hoped that, by some miracle, I’d get the visa, but I had been told it was impossible. Inside I sensed it would be all right, and that my luck would hold out, but what did I or anyone else really know about Angolan entry requirements? The German had tried over three months ago – a lifetime in such matters. All I could do was give it a try. The letter I wrote, on the headed paper Julius had acquired for me in Cameroun, was like this:
And so, sweating profusely in my borrowed clothes, heart in mouth, I entered the austere Angolan Embassy – the fate of my journey hanging by a thread.
The room was light and cool. The monotonous drone of the air-conditioner hung in the background while three men, two black and one white, filled out forms round a small table. What made them look like real businessmen? Was it the way they held themselves, their confidence or their clothes? My borrowed shirt and tie were okay, my hair was brushed and clean but was I one of them? I feared not. I straightened my back, placed a confident smile on my face and, still feeling like a dirty traveller, approached the desk. I knew no Portuguese so spoke in English.
‘Hello, I would like to apply for a visa.’ A young girl sat at the desk, a map of the country I wished to visit behind her.
‘Please fill this out,’ she said without surprise, taking a large four-sided questionnaire from a drawer. ‘Do you have two photographs?’
‘Yes,’ I nodded.
‘Very well, return it to me when you have finished.’
I sat down with the others and did as I was told. It was not as bad as I had expected: the usual questions – passport number, nationality, father’s full name, date and place of birth, occupation (in my case irrigation specialist), places to be visited in Angola plus the name of firms one hoped to see. This was a bit of a poser: I knew no companies in Angola. All I could think of was what Michael had put, The University of Luanda, and then – a brainwave – I added The United Nations Agricultural Development Project. I knew it was a bit of a shot in the dark but I had to come up with something. I kissed Mel’s ring, tapped it on the form and handed it in.
‘Okay,’ she said looking through it, ‘You have 12,000 CFA?’ I took the money eagerly from my pocket and handed it over. ‘You wait here.’ She walked through a door and disappeared. Would an interview be required and if so could I bring it off? I did know something about irrigation systems as there is one on my father’s farm and I felt, if pushed, I could talk on the subject for a minute or so. But if anyone cross-examined me or asked to see more evidence I might very well be exposed as a fraud.
I sat nervously rubbing the sweat from the palms of my hands, fidgeting slightly. I pretended to read one of the magazines and nodded to the other men as they received their passports. Judging by the look on their faces as they rummaged through their well-worn books, it seemed that they had been successful.
After what seemed like a week, but was probably no more than twenty minutes, the door opened and a short, fat man handed what appeared to be my passport back to the receptionist. I stood up with my stomach twisted in a knot so tight I could hardly breathe. She handed me the book and said, ‘Thank you. Enjoy your stay. Goodbye.’
I could have bent down and kissed her. On page twenty-six was a twenty-one day single entry visa and, crucially, no ‘by air only’ stamp across it. The gateway to the south was open. The ticket to Cape Town was secure and my quest was still on. Thank you, thank you, thank you. I could have danced down the street.