In Mongbwalu, in eastern DRC, to the west of Uganda, the hills are beautiful and fertile. But thousands of men cannot see the hills. Their heads are bent over mud and sand, sieving and sieving for flakes of gold, rare and tiny on the tip of a finger, there, there, and a few stop and stare as one happy man holds his up to the light: something at last, after two days of sieving. Ten dollars’ worth of gold to feed his family. You pay a dollar a day to sieve for gold, but in other mines, there is forced labour. In Bunia, close to the Ugandan border, a day away by car, three days on foot, there are hundreds of tiny shops buying gold: a calculator, a pair of scales. When a shopkeeper’s collected a few thousand dollars’ worth, he flies to Uganda and sells what he has to an Asian working in a suburb of Kampala, who swiftly spins the dish of gold flakes into a bar of gold the same size as the finger which the first man held up to the sun, to marvel at the bright fleck which will support his family. The gold will be exported by Ugandan firms to rich countries: Switzerland, South Africa. Some will make fairy-tale wedding rings for happy couples: some will make watches (for time is money, unless you are a miner sieving the mud): some will make ingots, to withstand inflation, for gold is safe when economies wobble. President Museveni has honoured these firms in his Presidential Export Awards. Uganda must not be a poor country! Uganda must move into the future.
But Mongbwalu has been fought over half-a-dozen times in the twenty-first century: ethnic Hema against ethnic Lendu, the RCD and the MLC against the UPC, Rwanda against Uganda against Kinshasa, the FNI against the UPC, in a constantly shifting pattern of alliance: but somehow, the gold always gets out. Throats have been cut, chests torn open, intestines dragged forth, Achilles tendons severed, babies macheted and thrown in latrines, but somehow, the miracle of gold keeps on coming, the miracle of money spreading round the globe, at each leg of the journey growing cleaner, brighter, until it is so dazzling that everyone falls silent.
Even nearer Uganda, there are more soldiers. This one is sick, now. Very sick. When the prisoner escaped from his prodding and stumbled forward three or four paces till he fell and died where the others’ knives pierced him, they realised he was no use any more. They left him in the shade, but the sun has moved. He cannot see: the light is too bright. He is shivering, but his brain is boiling. A family of colobus monkeys look down at him from a hole in the canopy, and whisper to each other, agitated, anxious, black and white paws nervously flickering, flowing white tails waving like feathers, nostrils quivering, then bound away from the gag-making smells of minerals and men, gold and oil, blood and faeces.
Waking in Kampala. White, so white. The duvets and pillows are snowy, dazzling. It stretches away from her half-open eyes, a long slope of sunlight, young and hopeful. She does not remember, and then she remembers. She is Vanessa. She is in Uganda. The bed is wide: such a wide, white bed. The bed is luxurious. The bed is empty.
She is in the last third of her life on earth; this Vanessa only rarely remembers, and never in the morning, with the sun so bright. When she first wakes up, she is beautiful. Her son has grown up, and anything could happen.
Today the other writers are due to arrive. Some of them, she admits, rather minor, but one or two of them quite worthy companions. She has a passing interest in Geoffrey Truman, who she has sometimes glimpsed in the distance at parties, and of course, his craggy features are quite well-known. He has sold a few more novels than Vanessa, true, but she surely has a certain cachet that comes from not compromising her art. He will be aware of her reputation; perhaps he has noticed her reviews. Yes, he is slightly younger than her, but luckily, she thinks, she looks young for her age.
She springs out of bed, slightly twisting her knee, and begins her ‘Salute to the Sun’ from yoga. As she comes up again from her deep bow, she catches her reflection in the sun-dazzled mirror, her neck very white, her blonde hair shaken out in a fluffy puffball by gravity, her athletic shoulders, which are still youthful, though possibly the very young are less bony (the mirror cuts her off at hip level, so she doesn’t have to focus on her legs, which she knows are the teeniest bit skinny and bandy).
Naked, her lower half’s a stripped wish-bone.
The thought pokes uncomfortably into her mind, but just as quickly, she shoves it away.
Bones, she tells herself, are elegant things. People always tell her she has good bones.
The other writers from the UK are less well-known. Deirdre Mullins, who is frankly second rate. Probably invited at the last minute. A northern man said to be a gifted poet. Graham Somebody. Quite literary. The name escapes her. An exiled Chinese playwright she’s never heard of. Then there are the black ones. Fair enough, this is Africa. Including a ‘rap poet’ called Banga. But can you, really, call rap writing?
Quite soon Vanessa, by now dressed and showered, a little dizzy from her anti-malarials or possibly from quarts of strong coffee at breakfast, is standing in the lobby feeling slightly apprehensive as she watches the other writers check in. Of course some of them have come on the same plane, but they seem to know each other well already. It suddenly reminds her of starting school; the others paired off, herself still lonely.
At the low table nearest the reception desk, a dreadlocked figure is holding court, sprawled along the dark leather sofa with his luggage, little gold glasses, a rainbow-knit scarf tied loosely round his neck. There’s an open bottle of whisky in front of him. He’s laughing loudly and talking fast. Vanessa can’t help feeling intimidated, but she reminds herself she too is a writer, she is here by invitation of the British Council, she is probably the senior writer here –
Not that she is older. Just – senior.
Right, she will go and introduce herself to Banga, who is talking to a quite straight-looking man, fair-haired and fattish, in a dark suit and tie. Perhaps his manager?
A few seconds later, she is mystifying the young man with the whisky (a musicologist from Kenya, Dr Alex Saitoti, who will be giving a paper on ‘Poetics and Jazz: from the Inside Out’) by hailing him as ‘Banga!’, while seizing his hand. ‘I’m Vanessa Henman, your fellow writer.’ He doesn’t look as pleased as she expected him to. It’s almost as if he is shaking her off, but she says, even louder, ‘VANESSA’, with her biggest smile, baring her new white teeth (not as new as they were: bought with her earnings from The Long Lean Line).
‘Vanessa? You must be Vanessa Henman. I’m Peter Pargeter. So good to meet you.’ The man in the suit next to the dreadlocked African swiftly takes charge of her unwanted hand, and the situation, with the easy grace that tells her, yes – ‘I’m from the British Council. Director, Uganda. Welcome to Kampala.’ His hand is soft, and furred with blond hair.
Vanessa warms to Peter Pargeter’s deferential manner, and turns her attention away from Banga, who’s obviously ignoring her because she is white, and pretending he hasn’t even heard of her. Peter Pargeter must know her work fairly well, so she starts straightaway to discuss the coming evening, when there’s a Welcome Dinner and Ceremony.
‘I’m wondering how long a reading you’d like this evening. I mean I’d like to keep something in reserve, as it were, for my event on Thursday, if that’s OK.’
‘This evening?’ he says, looking puzzled. ‘This evening? Oh, I see. No, that’s really very very kind, but this evening we’re having a reading from Veronique Tadjo. Wonderful writer as I’m sure you know. From Cote d’Ivoire. A star.’
‘Ah,’ says Vanessa. ‘Yes. I see.’
(I am a star, she thinks. I could shine.)
‘In fact she’s over there,’ says Peter Pargeter. ‘Just arrived. I must go and have a word. If you like, I’ll introduce you –’ He gestures vaguely at a striking woman with fine features and tumbled black curls, standing at the Reception Desk at the hub of a laughing, lively crowd.
‘No need,’ Vanessa breaks in, scenting advantage. ‘She’s with Bernardine Evaristo, who I know very well. Bernardine!’ she cries, giving Banga up and racing Peter across to the group, where she rises on tiptoe like a ballerina to kiss her slightly startled black acquaintance. ‘How lovely to see you, Bernardine!’
‘I know I know you, but I’ve forgotten –’
‘Vanessa Henman,’ says Vanessa, mortified. ‘Vanessa! We read together in Ipswich.’
‘Oh yes ...’ But Bernardine still looks vague, or jet-lagged. Still she’s smiling at Vanessa pleasantly enough. ‘Do you know Veronique Tadjo? Veronique, this is – Valerie Henman.’
‘Vanessa,’ Vanessa corrects her, sharply, but she beams on Veronique, and pumps her hand. ‘I am really looking forward to your reading.’
‘Do you work for the Council?’ Veronique enthuses. ‘Thank you so much for inviting me.’ Before Vanessa can disabuse her, Peter Pargeter has arrived, and embraces Veronique, who turns the full force of her attention on him. Vanessa is left with Bernardine.
‘So how are you?’ she asks her, a little less warmly.
‘Oh well, well. Got two new books coming out. How about you, what are you working on? You’re a poet, aren’t you?’
‘Novelist,’ says Vanessa, miserable. She dreads being asked what she’s working on, for she’s been stuck on a novel for over a decade, and though it is a very major piece of work (she is sure it will be fairly major), other people’s publication rates are so excessive, they are churning out stuff almost every year, probably because their standards are lower. Which makes her look lazy, or ... less creative. Yet no-one could be more creative than she.
She changes the subject with a sudden lurch. ‘I love Kampala,’ she tells Bernardine. ‘If you like, we could go for a walk, this afternoon. I could give you a little guided tour.’ At least she can call on her knowledge of Uganda.
‘Actually Veronique’s got friends in Kampala,’ Bernardine says. ‘The two of us are meeting them for lunch, sorry. Maybe we could have a walk another day.’ Perhaps she sees the wistfulness in Vanessa’s face, for she adds, at the last moment, ‘You could join us.’
And the hours that follow are pure delight. What fun it is, sitting out in the hot sun on the green lawn outside Ekitoobero, all the writers together – all the African ones, who were the ones that really counted, and her, a veritable honorary Ugandan – long Bell beers bright as salt in their hands, blue sky and big white clouds overhead, toucans clattering in the eucalyptus, white jackets of the waiters echoing the clouds. Vanessa one of the writers! Accepted! Alongside Veronique Tadjo and Taban Lo Liyong, two of the best-known writers on the continent! It is all as she had imagined it would be. They drink to each other: they laugh: they feel free. They toast all artists, outsiders, exiles – Joyce, Beckett, Wole Soyinka, Ngugi W’a Thiongo, Bessie Head – despised by governments, but loved by each other, ‘and by the people’, someone adds, ‘so in that sense, we aren’t marginal.’ Though Taban has reservations about Ngugi, and someone else can’t stand Ulysses, in that circle of sunlight on chinking glasses, it all becomes worth it to Vanessa, her marginal life as a literary novelist, her writer’s block, her commercial struggle. It’s glorious, in with the other outsiders.
There’s a slightly awkward moment at the end when one of the Kampalans, a delightful young woman with very short hair and a lot to say, turns to Vanessa and remarks, ‘I have not brought my money. Is it OK? I think the British Council is paying.’
‘Really?’ says Vanessa. ‘Good. No-one told me.’
There’s a puzzled pause, and a tiny frown. ‘Veronique sayed that you work for the Council.’
‘Oh no, no!’ Vanessa laughs, ‘Not at all. I am just a penniless writer, like you!’
And then the young woman looks rather hurt, and says, ‘No, I am not penniless. It is only that I did not pick my handbag from the house.’
In the end they all split the bill between them. So what if Vanessa pays slightly more? When she works it out in English money, it costs less than a couple of lattes in London. Perhaps the beer has made her more relaxed, for she never, never drinks at lunch-time.
Indeed she is feeling so effervescent that after all the writers troop, shrieking and laughing (and her as loud as anyone! Vanessa knows how to have a good time), back in the heat along the rough red road to the Sheraton, she takes herself out again to Kampala Road (the others are all too tired to go with her), spots a little Indian clothes shop, and (encouraged by a small crowd of onlookers as she hauls herself into and out of dresses, only partly screened by a torn curtain) buys a very pretty, youthful, top, all handkerchief points and patchwork flowers and a rather daring plunge at the front.
She means to wear it to the Welcome Ceremony, where it should look nice in the photographs. It’s not the kind of thing she usually wears, but then, she isn’t usually in Uganda, and off-duty, after all these years, from her son, and for once representing herself as a writer, the part of herself she loves the most. ‘Vanessa Henman, Novelist’. (Not what she sees on notice-boards and memos at her university: ‘Course Leader, Vanessa Henman’, or ‘Dr V. Henman, Senior Lecturer’. Impossible now to remember how she once waited and longed for that ‘Senior’. As she treks through her decades, she is irritated that they haven’t yet made her a Reader, or Professor. But today she is not going to brood on these things, when she is so far away, and so happy! Today all annoyances seem petty.)
The mirror in the lift as she swoops down to dinner from the 20th floor of the Sheraton is not as encouraging as she hoped, but she smiles back at herself, undaunted. Fluorescent light is always grim ... her hair is certainly not thinning, and her teeth are obviously a strong point, and so they should be, given what she’d spent on them, but this evening they look too big for her face, as if she is growing smaller, more bony, which makes the young, flowery top look ... stop. She suppresses the fear that she looks ... grotesque.
Vanessa has noted the distortions of fluorescent as she’s grown older, and now she discounts it, straight away. She knows she’s attractive, she isn’t one of those whining women, like Fifi, her friend, always doubting herself and hating herself, then trying to meditate herself happy. (Yet daylight, these days, has the same effect. Indeed light, in general, is becoming a problem.)
And then she thinks: global warming. There’s probably just more light about. It is not a thought to pursue in detail, because, in broad outline, it makes her feel better.
Deciding the fault is in her stars, Vanessa shakes out her hair, and shimmies forward, all hope, all happiness, as the doors open, into her wonderful African evening. It’s my Indian summer, she tells herself. If that makes any sense in Uganda.