“Didn’t you want to go into town for something?”
Your head appears at the half-open door of my office. A welcome intrusion. I’m struggling to concentrate. Several delivery notes for various building materials are missing and I can’t work up sufficient enthusiasm to phone the respective site agents and moan at them. It’s a week to go to Christmas, so does anyone really care?
“I did indeed. I want to treat myself to a new handbag. This black one is looking a bit sad and frayed.”
I extract it from the drawer next to me, hold it up, twiddle the loose thread along the strap. If I play my cards right, I’ll get one bought for me.
“I also want shampoo, as a matter of fact.”
“Well I’m driving in, in about half an hour. Come with me then.”
You vanish, your familiar footsteps receding along the corridor. It’s a smug little smile on my lips. It’s a distinct advantage when one’s boyfriend is the boss’s son.
*
Charles’s new Mercedes estate smells, well, new. The upholstery is cream-coloured and softer than that in the old one – although I thought that was pretty nice. You park in the open-sided multi-storey Parkade, on the side adjacent to Southampton House.
Southampton. Mum, Dad and Rosie will all be headed from Heathrow Airport to another Southampton this morning, six thousand miles away. Is it raining there, I wonder? It’s a fabulous day here, under a deep blue sky, and we’re high enough up to get a view of the whole city, eye-achingly bright under the summer sun. You lock the car with the little hand-held gadgetty thingy and the Mercedes blips in response. I make you unlock it, then take the fob off you and lock it myself, just so I can say I’ve done it.
“Satisfied, Kitten?”
You signal to me to keep the key and add, “I wonder how cold it is in England today.”
“Well they were carrying enough coats between them when they left last night and I’ll bet they’re making good use of them today. We’ll find out when they get in contact I guess.”
We ignore the lifts and walk down the concrete stairs to ground level, passing a few others going up in the narrow stairwell.
“Try and remember which side we’re on,” you plead over your shoulder. “It’s the Union Avenue side, not Jameson Avenue. There’s nothing worse than tramping up and down not knowing what bit you’ve parked in and quite unable to find the car.”
“Mmm. It’s okay as long as you know you’re lost and that the car is still there somewhere. That it’s not been ‘borrowed’ by someone else.”
“Don’t worry so much. I’d like to see someone break into that one. The old coat hanger trick won’t work.”
We emerge into the paved shopping mall below the parking decks and take the steps up onto Union Avenue. The intense reflected heat and dazzling sunlight reverts my thoughts back to my family, far away in another world. What time does it get dark in winter? Gill said it was about four o’clock. How depressing.
Aloud, I say, “They’ll phone later.”
“Hmm?”
“Mum and Dad. They’ll phone from Dad’s new rented house.”
You take my hand.
“Do you miss them?”
“I will do.”
I’m surrounded by my African people, thronging towards me, past me, away from me. People accustomed to space and sunshine in a city that’s open and never hostile or threatening. Too bad if they rename it Harare – it’s still a great place to live. I spend a few moments indulging in a mental comparison of my new spacious home, with its landscaped gardens, stables and paddocks and the crammed-together terraced houses on Coronation Street. I allow myself to feel content with all that I’ve opted to keep.
“Shopping? Hello? Earth calling Tess.”
You’re waving a hand across my eyes, dragging them back into focus. “I’m over here, Kitten. What did we come for? Handbag and shampoo, yes?”
“Ah, so you have a head for a woman’s shopping list now?”
“No. Just a good memory. What about Meikles department store?”
We cross the street along with scores of other jaywalkers.
Along First Street I start picturing the sort of bag I want. It’s black, leather of course, and has lots of compartments. Maybe I’ll see a nice one in another colour as well. I’m dodging my fellow pedestrians with ease of practice – a woman on a mission. At the junction with Manica Road, while still in the shade under the overhanging canopy roof, I pause to allow my man to catch up.
For the next few moments the earth falters on its axis, the pavement trembles under me and the walls vibrate. Sound waves hit me in a physical blow. Shying backwards, like a startled horse, I lose my balance, end up on my knees. A black stranger beside me stoops and catches hold of my arm and we stare at each other without comprehension. No fear – only puzzlement, like neither of us can make any sense of anything. And a numbness, a deafness.
Think.
Think straight and get a grip.
You haven’t gone deaf, you silly cow. Listen. Yes?
That weird, muted woolliness and indistinguishable buzz in my ears is, here and there, starting to separate into individual sounds. Like strands of yarn, they’re unravelling and beginning to register in my senses as something real. Screaming. Someone is screaming. No, more than one person. Shattering and splintering. Glass. Glass falling from many windows in many buildings over many storeys. Going on and on and on. Then your voice. Behind me. Clear and utterly calm, as if you’re identifying fruit in the supermarket.
“That was a bomb.”
I know. I knew even as the air hit me and turned my eardrums to wool. Is that what they call a shockwave? Gave me a bloody shock. Probably how I ended up on my knees. As time seems to be standing still, I take the chance to inspect them. Yup. They’re grazed, and they sting.
Actually, thinking straight doesn’t seem to be an option open to me. Muddled doesn’t come close to describing my world right now. I don’t understand. The war is over. It’s all supposed to be all right now.
Time gets going again. It’s all happening. People are surging every which way around me, apart from you, with one steady hand against my back, the other one on my shoulder and your presence grounding me and keeping me from joining the frantic, aimless throng. A middle-aged woman in a blue pinafore-type dress appears in front of us, makes contact with her panicked eyes and yells, “It’s near that bakery! The bakery’s blown up!”
Your voice is still completely calm when you say, “The ZANU(PF) offices are above the bakery.”
There’s a log-jam of crazily-angled cars up ahead and an acrid sting in my nostrils. A haze of smoky, dusty stuff is drifting along Manica Road from the east, over the cars.
ZANU(PF) headquarters. The North-West Bakery. Dad, and his jokes about the leadership party operating out of a tiny, dingy office over a bread shop. Mum, telling me it sells the best bread in town. Lasts well, no maize-meal in it, if you need good bread, my girl, you go there to get it, yes? I may well have done that this morning if Moira hadn’t been grocery shopping yesterday.
While I have this completely inane nonsense rattling in my head, down below a deep chill of pure horror is seeping into my legs. In a matter of minutes, you and I might’ve been walking past the bakery, looking for a gap in the traffic so that we could cross the road to Meikles. And Mum might’ve been queuing there today.
But we’re all still in one piece, me, you and Mum. Us here on the pavement in First Street and Mum – where would she be now? – probably on the way down to Southampton, trying to get used to the winter cold and totally oblivious to this. For now at least. It’ll hit the world news later today of course.
And I told them it’ll be fine. I told them, go, I’ll be okay, I know what I’m doing. I said that more than once, didn’t I? To parents, to Rosie and even to Charles and Moira and Gill. And you.
Right. Come on, get back to the here and now. Think. What do I do? Now where’s that guy going?
He’s the one who helped me to my feet and, together with you, held me upright. He peered into my face and asked me if I was all right, but now he’s let go of my arm and is running across the road, dodging round a stationary car, shouting. He’s yelling in Shona; looks like he’s recognised someone on the other side of Manica Road.
Christ, when Mum and Dad hear about this they’ll go berserk. They’re more than likely to command me to leave on the next available flight and join them. Will they try to come back and fetch me?
How the hell was I supposed to know which was the right choice? It’s not like I made the decision just like that – snap. No, I did months of agonising, running pros and cons, creating arguments, upsetting the whole bloody family, driving myself crazy. Then I thought I knew. I chose. And now? Now it all, quite literally, blows up in my face.
Well okay, not in my face. Not even right near me, thank God.
God?
Come on, you don’t believe in God so why do you even say that?
Think, think.
You materialise in front of me. Seconds ago you were behind me. You draw my face close to yours and kiss my cheek.
“Look, stay here. All right? Are you listening? Tess? Just stay here. I’m going to see if I can help anyone, if I can remember my First Aid training.”
No, you can’t leave me here. You can’t go. No, please don’t go! Oh God, it will be horrible, Nathan, please. I’m not sure if I’ve said anything aloud or not.
“Stay here,” you repeat. “I’ll be okay.”
“I ought to help too. Do something. But I don’t think I’ve got the guts. No! Nathan, no! What if there’s another one?”
“There won’t be. Just stay here. I’ll come back. You believe me, don’t you?”
I fight you to try and stop you moving away from me. Then I’m leaning against the wall behind me, alone in a heaving sea of people. It’s impossible to relate the panic-stricken mob before me to the unconcerned, daily-life-driven, bustling crowd we were pushing our way through earlier.
Think in the here and now. Blot out the flickering images of my blissful daydreams of barely an hour ago – the Owens’ spacious home, the landscaped gardens, the stables, the paddocks., the feeling of space, the contentment. I close my eyes.
Nathan’s gone round the corner. He’s going to help. I’m going to have to go and find him. Find him. I need him. He was part of my decision to stay. Part of me now. The others have all gone and I’m here because I said I wanted to stay and now this goes and happens and oh God (God, again?) now what am I going to do?
This is Africa. It’s never going to be easy, but we love it. Nathan quoted me a line from a book just last week – “Africa is a cruel place”. I think it was Naught for Your Comfort. They say it gets in your blood, under your skin, fills your soul. Africa has always been about survival against the odds, no matter what species you are. So we will survive. We will rise. We will Wait And See like we’ve always done.
Push off the wall, throw the sling strap of the good, old, faithful handbag over the head and set off in search of your Nathan. There he is, ahead of me, that familiar shape, the walk, the way of being. Run! Run after him.
“Nathan! Wait! I’m here. I’m coming. I’ll stick with this!”
You hear me in spite of the racket, the screaming, the hooting and the sirens that are just beginning to make themselves heard in the distance. You turn. Smile. Hold out your hands to me.
Nathan, and you, Africa, I’m here to stay, no matter what you’ve got to throw at me.