Mombasa Road Retravelled Page 6

  Chapter 6

  The next day dawns almost as abysmally as its predecessor had ended for me in the company of Yasmiin, for it turned out to be double defeat in the Wood camp. Love had certainly not blossomed that night either between Little Stevie and Almas, as she told me herself over breakfast while Little Stevie was showering after our early morning run.

  'Stevie really is quite weird, Brian, isn't he? Do you know he just sat on the sofa next to me all night without saying a word, not one at all? Even when Mum was in the kitchen cooking and Lulu was in her room, he still didn't say anything. Just sat and read stuff from a little exercise book. And he didn't watch any of the film at all, either. I know he's got a special condition - Mum and Dad both told me before you guys came - but it was really spooky, like. Weird! And he was like mumbling stuff to himself all the time too. Kinda like Gollum.'

  Suddenly the fresh mango and papaya I'm spooning down tastes like it has all been grown by Monsanto in genetically modified liposuction effluent. I throw the spoon down into the bowl, take a large swig of coffee and sigh, head in hands:

  'You know, it's partly my fault really, Almas. Little Stevie's never had a friend, you see, let alone a girlfriend. It's not you. He just doesn't know how to chat to people. Conversation is a useless idea for Little Stevie unless it's to do with something practical, or you've got something to say about football or the stars.'

  'What? No friends?' Almas asks. 'None at all?'

  I nod and butter some toast.

  'That's right. None. When he was very little Stevie could play chasing games with other kids, but he didn't have the language skills and couldn't really interact properly. He got on all right then, till by the age of three or four, kids in the playground were all talking fluently to each other and Little Stevie couldn't respond. And it carried on like that. The older he got, the more the other kids rejected Stevie and he gave up on them too and stopped even trying to play. Then at secondary school the bullying began even with the special needs support he was getting, so I took him out of school aged twelve. Since then, you see, it's just been him and me and our quiet life in the woods in England or in a camper van touring around Europe. If my boy is ever going to have a proper friend other than me, someone will need to teach him about friendship like you teach a child how to ride a bike. I've tried my best, but it hasn't worked and probably never will.'

  At that point Little Stevie comes in right on cue, helping himself to juice and cereal and sitting down at the breakfast table next to me, without a word or a glance at anyone. Kiwi John appears in the doorway too, rattling car keys in his hand and takes Almas and Lulu to their private school. A quick look at Almas's face on the way out tells me that chances for the great teen romance and wedding Little Stevie had all but planned down in Magadi are looking about as good as they are for those islanders in the Maldives, who have to whack another couple of sandbags on the roof every time another ice shelf in Antarctica nosedives into the South Atlantic.

  So, lovelorn and morose, Little Stevie and I read football data all morning, but before too long it's time for our visit to Fingers in Kibera, whom we meet at the YaYa Centre as planned and proceed on foot.

  It's a hot day with little breeze, and as soon as we start to criss-cross this mesh of unpaved, dirt streets, Little Stevie's nostrils are immediately over-sensitized to the all-pervading pong that hangs heavy in the heat haze, and I have to keep a careful eye on him at all times in case he throws a fit. The constant jostle from the crowds that spring up from every back alley to shout Mzungu in our direction is also a stiff challenge for a young lad who has left his comfort books by the computer in Kiwi John's house.

  Fingers, Kevin and ten of their mates, who are shortly all to become Kibera's founding fathers of Football Kenya, escort us like lictors before Roman consuls, and what with the open sewers, open jiko fires, pit latrines catering for up to five hundred residents and the total absence of electricity, water and sewage, the comparisons with ancient Rome could go on and on.

  When his nostrils finally let him, Little Stevie's eye for detail picks up the doomsday mess of discarded plastic bags that clogs the fringes of Nairobi Dam. It's a scene from hell, with foul jets of toxic water centre-stream and back-eddies of scum, shit and litter wafting nauseous smells at us from the banks.

  'Flying toilets,' Kevin tells us, pointing at some of the nearest plastic in view. 'You shit inside the bag and chuck.'

  Little Stevie looks woozy again; me, I'm chuckling.

  'Pity they're not all McDonald's' bags, mate,' I reply. 'Aiming for the middle of the M would surely give the crapper that extra sensation of satisfaction you get from a real bull's-eye!'

  But Kevin doesn't get it and I'm talking to myself, but then I'm used to that. There's a large crowd of the curious gathered behind when we finally enter Fingers' residence, a three-room affair with mud floors undulating between corrugated iron walls and roof, all shared between fifteen, meaning we've got fourteen brothers and sisters to greet all with old-Testament names like Ezekiel, Obadiah and Myriam.

  Confined in the tiny shack with no room for wandering off on his own, Little Stevie is forced face-to-face with five square meters of more grimy humanity than he's ever had to contend with at one given time and at such close quarters before. The school in Magadi was a test he passed very creditably, but will it be the same here?

  Early signs are encouraging, and to my surprise Little Stevie makes it through the hand-shaking ordeal without needing to emulate any of the mole rat trills squawked by that fat, fluffy pig of a mole which we've watched seventy-nine thousand five hundred and twenty-two times to date on our BBC Wild Africa DVD. But although I'm spared a mole rat chorus on this occasion, merely thinking about the wretched creature brings a frown to my face; at least, in retribution, the damned rodent always ends up getting munched by a ravenous Ethiopian mountain wolf and swiftly dismembered to feed the starving brats back in the lair.

  'Are you all brothers and sisters from the same mum and dad?' I ask Fingers.

  He smiles and shakes his head:

  'Only Ezekiel, Obadiah and Erasmus are blood brothers from the same parents like me. All the rest are what you wazungu call same tribe.'

  Which makes everyone smile.

  We're not smiling for very long, though, because Little Stevie finally has had enough now and he's starting to recite football scores which sound like they are from last year's Europa League group games, not that the actual games matter so much, I suppose, more the fact he's doing it.

  Some of Fingers' mates recognize the odd mainstream name among a pile of eastern and central European dross and cheer when they hear a Fiorentina, Everton or a Bayer Leverkusen. But this home support only makes Little Stevie more insistent, and soon I'm having to repeat back the scores after him to ward off an escalation into right ascensions, declinations and distances from earth in light years of whatever constellation comes alphabetically after Leo, probably Lyra I reckon.

  I tell Fingers we can't stay much longer with Little Distress Mode on its way and get him to write all his mates' names and contact details in my Football Kenya book. I check the names carefully and am pleased to note a couple of Luo or Luhiya sounding names in among the rest. We've no immediate plans to visit western Kenya, and I know that if I hadn't asked Fingers to look for a couple of western Kenyans from among his coterie of the dispossessed, Football Kenya couldn't truly get spread to all areas of the country, because sadly no one's going to waste their introductory gift of 15,000 shillings on someone from another tribe. Tribalism makes it all tick here and also creates all the tensions and subdivisions in Kenyan society. In the UK we're far more grown up and developed: we have evolved into a two-tribe society with ninety-five per cent belonging to the tribe we call plain wankers, who throw litter from car windows and never miss the opportunity to concrete over a green field if they think another superstore can be squeezed in, while the remaining five per cent are from the sub clan called those who give a damn, and it's only mem
bers of this latter tribe who can see that there's only just so much landfill left to house all our discarded Ikea flat-pack furniture and antediluvian, pre-plasma-screen Sony television sets before we drown in the scum of our over-consumption.

  Outside Fingers' shanty house the dust is rising ever thicker around our heels, churned up by the sandals cut from old car tyres that shoe the feet of the burgeoning crowd around us.

  Little Stevie is getting hemmed in again and we're both pushed back towards Fingers' doorstep while Little Stevie progresses into Europa League knockout games, his voice rasping ever louder as the pressure intensifies. I know it's inappropriate, but I'm unwittingly reminded of some highly successful scoops we enjoyed about this time last year - or was it two seasons ago? - before Fingers steps out of this front door and hands me back my exercise book.

  'Any news on Yasmiin or the Yank?' I ask, aware that this may not be the best time or occasion.

  Fingers shakes his head, and clears a path for me and Little Stevie.

  'I can't get anything for you yet about the Swahili girl, Mr Brian, but the American, we know him now. His name is Victor Hanson, and the short, fat British, his friend, has a long KiBritish name: Aspinall-Watt. They run a big private security firm which is managing all the property of the giant Pwani Oil Company in Lamu. Victor Hanson and Mr Aspinall-Watt, they stay too much in Lamu but always they come back Nairobi for playing golf at Karen Club.'

  Fingers looks around to make sure nobody is listening, then whispers:

  'There were big problems with Pwani Oil in Lamu, Mr Brian. Even people, they died!'

  'Golf clubs and oil eh? Sounds like a toxic combination' I grunt, surveying the toxicity that lies all around us.

  The crowd of onlookers thins out as we twist through the foul alleyways. At one turning, the shacks open out into a large rubbish tip, and there staring forlornly into our eyes is the most miserable collection of humanity I've ever seen.

  Children, dozens of them, suppurating scabies-sores coating black faces with an eerie chalky-white crust, rags with genuine rips that are no Levis fashion statement. Behind them ranks of zombified adults lurk like the souls of the dead round Charon's ferry. From every expressionless lip, young and old, a plastic bottle stuffed with a dark, treacly liquid hangs with aimless intent.

  'Glue,' Fingers and Kevin grunt together.

  'Why are these people gluing horrible bottles to their faces, Dad?' Little Stevie askss.

  Words fail me. I can't explain all this away to my son; words would only serve to legitimize what should only be censured, so I can only shake my head in shame. I don't want Little Stevie to see my eyes right now either and above all, I don't want them to see me. The younger their blank eyes bear down on me the tighter my chest is heaving. An eternity of torment would not be punishment enough on me for having lived aloof and uncaring for so long while this sore has been allowed to fester on mankind's rotting carcass. Ignorance is no excuse before the law; I should have known where to look for this long ago. Now it's found me.

  As Fingers and the gang start to clear a path in front of us, I grab Little Stevie's shoulder and rush for the gap that will take me right through this glue-sniffing legion of the damned, but as we brush past the first children there's something worse, far worse, and I'm forced to a standstill by a sudden wall of pain.

  She can barely be two years old, just beyond crawling. She's looking straight at us, straight through us and the only concession to age is the thoughtfully smaller size of bottle attached to her lip. At first glance her tottering steps and frequent falls seem like facets of her age, but a second look says they're anything but.

  The tears are hot in my eyes and the guilt turns to a sudden explosion of anger that unleashes a roar of its own from the back of my throat:

  'Fingers, where the fuck are her parents?' I shout, so loudly that even the glue-dead look our way.

  As Fingers draws level, I can only just stop myself from reaching for his throat and ripping it in blind rage. I need a scapegoat. Any scapegoat will do. This just couldn't, mustn't, isn't happening, should never, ever, ever have been allowed to happen on Planet Earth.

  But of course it's not Fingers I want: give me the Presidents of Kenya and the USA, give me the Prime Minister of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, give me Richard Branson and his Virgin conscience; give me the entire membership of any sodding golf club, an apr?s ski bar in Val d'Isere or the entire cast of Celebrity Big Brother and I'll rip their flesh so fine it will fit into one of those fucking plastic bottles. But slowly though; it's gotta hurt.

  Just in front of us Fingers and the boys start to move among the zombies, shrieking questions in Kikuyu. Eventually a young woman who's half giggling, half crying is roughly man-handled towards me by Kevin.

  'What's your name?' I ask her.

  There follows a lot of incoherent babbling. First the young woman laughs and leers at me, then freaks and shrieks. Fingers and Kevin berate her in Kikuyu but it makes no difference. I feel my emotions plummet to new depths. This is a scene that didn't make it past the censors when it was released on an extra sticky night in Hell and the Devil had texted in earlier to say that he was up for something particularly sado that night.

  Soon we're surrounded again by the sniffers. Fingers and his boys close ranks instinctively.

  'They are telling me this mother is called Njeri,' Fingers says with disapproval. 'The child does not have a father.'

  'She does now,' I sigh, and reach out for Njeri's child's little hand. It's cold and the toddler trots behind me for a couple of paces while I clasp it, but she's staggering so heavily that I soon have to scoop her into my arms.

  Up tight against my chest this tiny girl catches my eyes and another granite lump hijacks my throat. The stench is something else, though, for her bare bottom and legs are caked in dry urine and shit. It's not that I mind all that, but I don't have to look to my right to feel Little Stevie going queasy with the smell. The mum, Njeri, has now started to follow behind us, shrieking all the louder at me since I've picked her child up. Minutes ago she'd probably forgotten she'd got a daughter, or if she did, would have sold her to a child molester for the price of a bottle of glue, but now she's screaming so much abuse at me that Kevin has to pull her scrawny hands from my back.

  I keep careful hold of my limp cargo as we zigzag through more of Kibera's cesspool streets. With all this racket at my back, bypassers have become more curious than ever. I'm saying a seething jambo here and there in a reply to a few muted greetings, but it's not necessarily all a litany of happy hellos like Prince Charles opening a new school, and I'm struck by the aggressive comments we get from many of the young guys in particular. Maybe it's the kid I'm clutching in my arms and they take me for a child abductor, or maybe this attitude was here all along and I just didn't notice it last time round. Whatever the cause, some of these young men look mean and angry and ready to do something about the System they've so wrongly got me down as representing. That's not so bad for my plans. Revolution is hiding everywhere around us, fattening its fists on the shit, the stench and the squalor.

  It takes twenty minutes before we're finally out of Kibera and standing back by the Africa Twin outside the YaYa Centre. Coming from where we've just been, this shopping centre for the rich makes as much sense as feeding caviar sandwiches to bulimics.

  I pass the toddler back to her now-subdued mum and contemplate our next move, overjoyed by the calm that now permeates among our rag-tag troop.

  'Ask Njeri what her daughter's called,' I ask Fingers again. But this time it's Njeri herself who answers:

  'Beatrice.'

  'Beatrice?' I smile, 'Very royal. Stevie boy, you've got two sisters now, Beatrice and Njeri. What do you say to that?'

  'We'll need a bigger yurt when we get back to England. We can't all fit in what we've got, Dad.'

  I finally break into a chuckle, which pushes the memories of Kibera to one side.

  'We'll work on that one later, Stevie Boy, mayb
e much later. Meanwhile let's sort out how we're going to get Beatrice and Njeri back with us to Kiwi John and Laila's house.'