11

Like most games devised to pass time at Harrods, this one was simple, childish and hugely enjoyable, especially if accompanied by a Tusker or two.

It was called “Experts”, and had been thought up by Pearson during his stint as the FN’s Africa correspondent, while sitting in the ante-room to the office of the Nigerian minister for aid and development planning.

With the exception of Pearson, the other visitors were all supplicants for favours – a delegation of middle-aged men, including bankers, a man on his own who looked like a South African, and an east European. They had settled down for a long wait. Most were snoring gently, having first undergone the ritual of handing out the all-important, indispensable business card.

Pearson shuffled through the half dozen he had been given, and added them to the 20 or so cards he had accumulated in just the couple of days he had been away. But while he was putting the cards in alphabetical order, he came across a dozen or so that dated back to his last visit, about a year earlier. Pearson was struck by an evident change in the information on the cards.

“I call it title inflation,” he had told the others on his return, when explaining the principles of the game he had devised. “Experts and consultants are now two a penny. Just like my business – it’s no longer good enough to be a plain journalist. You’ve got to be an ‘investigative journalist’, or a ‘columnist’, or an editor of some department or region or subject; failing that, an ‘executive editor’ or at the very least, an ‘editor at large’. As a last resort, they’ll make you an ‘associate editor’. So it is with the people who work for the aid donors. Plain old experts, advisors and consultants – they’ve all but disappeared. Now you find ‘Expert Advisor’ or ‘Advisory Expert’, or a ‘Consultancy Advisor’ or an ‘Expert Institutional Specialist’. Just the other day, I was talking to a ‘Senior Expert Advisor and Consultant’. So when I went through my collection of business cards, an idea struck me. How many experts do you think come to work in Africa every year? About 100,000. Imagine all the titles in that lot . . .

“You have a point system, of course. One point for an expert, one for a consultant, and so on. There is one important rule. You can claim any title you like in the cards in your hand, but if another player demands proof, you either produce the card with the title, or admit you were bluffing and fold. Yes, you are entitled to bluff, and claim that the card you had presented face-down on the table was worth more than – or less than – its value. Oh, and another rule: any player may include in his or her hand a new business card which has come their way – provided the point total is declared. The card can be challenged on any ground – that the title does not exist; that the points claimed are too many; or even that the card is blank. Oh yes . . . Any card connected with the UN is automatically disqualified, on the grounds that it would only encourage the buggers.”

The opening hands were dealt from a pack of business cards kept on the bar counter at Harrods. Players were allowed to return one of the initial five cards into the pack, in return for another card, issued face down from the pack by the dealer. The opening move in the game was a declaration: “I am a consultant” – though seldom did anyone challenge that claim. Consultants, after all, were as common as fleas on a dog and hardly a day went by when Lucy, Charity, Pearson or Furniver did not have one of their cards pressed into their hands. Challenges became more frequent, however, as the game progressed, and after two successful challenges against them, a player had to retire.

The rejoinder to the opening challenge – “I am a consultant” – was “I am an expert”, and got the game under way. As the titles became longer and grander, so the stakes rose – usually expressed in bottles of Tusker.

Cards were dealt from a stack that was regularly replenished by visitors to the bar, most of whom were unaware that they were contributing to the game.

Players could either go for broke, using the one card; more often, they would back up what they hoped was the winning claim with what they called a “full head” – four cards from different sources but with the same rank – i.e. Consultant, or Expert, Expert Consultant and so on.

In the time since Pearson had first devised the game, the all-round winner had been:

Africa against Obesity and Child Abuse

Senior Gender Specialist, Expert Consultant.

“So those are the rules. Simple, really,” Furniver told a bemused Digby. “Best learnt by actually playing. Sure there is no time for a round of Experts?”

Charity was not amused.

“There are more important things, Furniver, than playing cards. Our visitor has lost his goat. She’s called Dolly. And she comes from London, England. Mr Digby,” she continued, “I’m going to introduce you to two of my boys who can look for this Dolly – but I think it will cost you many dough balls.”

Digby’s request for help finding his goat did not go down well with the boys.

“Mzungus,” muttered Ntoto, and joined Rutere in kicking a tennis ball against the steel side of one of the Harrods containers.

Charity intervened.

“Ntoto, you will not have to do it for nothing. You will do it for dough balls, surely.”

The interest of the two boys immediately picked up. The ball play stopped.

“We are listening now,” said Ntoto.

“First, Mr Adams,” said Charity, “you must describe your goat Dolly to these boys. Boys, listen carefully to what he says. Now, please, describe Dolly.”

“She’s sort of, well, goatish, really,” stammered Digby, “pongs a bit, to be honest, loves chocolate . . . mustard colour, sandy I suppose, with a brown patch . . .”

Charity raised an eyebrow.

The boys looked at him with contempt.

“There are many brown goats with a patch in Kuwisha,” said Rutere. “Every herd boy knows every goat in his flock, and they have names for the patches, even. Some are shaped like the msasa tree, some like the cloud before rain. To say you have a goat with a brown patch is like telling someone . . .” He paused. “Like telling somebody that you live in a house in London with a door, and think this is enough for them to find you.”

Aloysius intervened. “I will tell them about the goat,” he said to Digby. And, breaking into Swahili, he addressed Ntoto: “And don’t give me any of your cheeky nonsense, you tick on a hyena’s arse, or you’ll get a sound thrashing.”

Ntoto was about to say something equally rude, but then he remembered, much to his embarrassment, that Aloysius’ taxi had been the target of one of their pranks, which had seemed entertaining enough at the time. But Aloysius had not forgotten the noxious smell that came from his taxi’s driving wheel for weeks. It was never a good thing to have a fight with the Mboya Boys who had no compunction about using flying toilets as their weapon.

“Now tell them, Mr Digby,” said Aloysius, reverting to English, “how much you will pay them.”

The negotiations that followed were complex and protracted. Charity listened with growing admiration as Digby revealed a tougher, more subtle side to his nature. When the deal was concluded, Digby jotted down the details in his notebook.

“That is well done,” she said. “I myself thought it would cost maybe six dough balls.”

Ntoto and Rutere, each cramming a sugared dough ball into their mouths, headed off to the city centre – if anyone could find Dolly, or tell the boys who had eaten her, it was the cripples.

“I don’t like mzungus,” said Ntoto.

“Worse than Guchu?” asked Rutere. “Never!”

Ntoto had the last word.

“I myself would give . . .”

He paused, wanting to be certain, absolutely certain, that he really meant it.

“Yes, for sure, I would give my last dough ball to a boy who made Guchu squeal.”

Rutere nodded solemnly. Ntoto was right.

“More chicken necks?” Charity asked Digby.

“That was jolly good . . . Wouldn’t mind.”

“Would you like a plate? Fresh! I make the best chicken necks in Kuwisha.”

Digby nodded, grateful.

“For two, please.”

Charity bustled off to the kitchen.

“I have a question, Aloysius,” he said, examining the menu. “I understand that times are hard, but what baffles me is why a Coke and a sticky bun is so popular. Why don’t poor people eat sensibly?”

“Sticky buns? Who is wanting sticky buns? Dough balls only,” said Charity, returning from the kitchen.

“I was wondering why people who are poor, really hard up, don’t spend their money on proper food.”

He pointed to the menu which announced: Good Sticky for Today.

“Very good value,” said Charity. “A maize cob roasted over the fire, shredded cabbage salad with vegetable oil and lemon juice dressing, chopped carrot and a cup of milky tea or glass of fruit juice,” she added with satisfaction.

But just below was the option: Bad Sticky for Today – Cola and iced bun.

“Choice,” Charity explained. “People want to choose between decent food and rubbish food. Otherwise they are like animals . . .”

Yet another aid worker, Charity thought, as she went to prepare a new batch of chicken necks in the kitchen. Another foreigner who was embarking on his disaster tour, seeking to tick off the aid industry’s “big five” in the same manner as conventional tourists looked for the lion, leopard, elephant, rhino and buffalo. A visit to an Aids orphanage, to a UN feeding centre, to a donor funded school, to a low-cost housing project, and to a borehole . . . Visit Kireba and you could see all five in an hour.

Locals had learned to live with the attentions of foreign journalists, visiting pop stars, politicians and aid workers, who were also to be seen more and more frequently in Kuwisha, an increasingly fashionable destination.

Charity had lost count of the number of callers who ended their tour with a drink at the bar. Their behaviour reminded her of the only time she had visited a game park in Kuwisha, persuaded to do so by Furniver. At sundown she had sat on a game-viewing platform, overlooking a watering hole.

“These people who come to Kireba, they are like the tourists on safari,” she had told Furniver. “They sit in their buses, or on their verandas, safe, and watch the animals as they come to drink water. These people who come to Harrods, they are the same, looking, looking at the animals of Kireba.”

She snorted derisively.

“I hear them, Furniver. I hear them talking. They come and look at us in Kireba, as if we are animals in a game reserve. They talk, talk, talk to each other . . . ‘I say, I’ve spotted a charcoal burner, just behind that coffin maker. And look! Just over there! An Aids orphan, being looked after by a very kind nurse.’ ”

And then, amused by her own vivid image, she could not help laughing, and Furniver joined in.