I told Shepard I wanted to lay your ghost, Gaby thought, but now I am the unseen shadow, arriving off the night-flight, following you through the streets of Nairobi, meeting with you T.P. Costello, Mrs Kivebulaya, Dr Peter Langrishe at the Irish Ambassador’s party. I come with you to Ol Tukai, I fly with you over the Chaga; I watch you come together and fuck in an Arab bed in a banda on the coast, I feel your jealousies and obsessions that take him in search of these mythical Chaga-builders that he loves more than you; and you, in pursuit of him. I am there when you pitch your tent in the ruins of the old Ol Tukai game lodge, I hear with you the voices coming out of the deep Chaga that you imagine to be Langrishe’s, calling you.
I am beginning to wonder if my supplies will be sufficient. I had originally provisioned for twenty days. It may take that long just to reach the lower slopes of the mountain. The riotous Chaga-life confounds my senses of time and distance: I cannot judge how far, how fast I have come. I was so certain then; now my stupidity at thinking I can find one man – who, if I am honest with myself, which I rarely am, may not even be alive – in five thousand square kilometres of, literally, another world, astounds me. The sense of isolation is colossal.
I saw a vervet monkey today, nervous eyes in the shimmering canopy. A webbed sail of ribs, like some remnant of the time of the dinosaurs, grew from its back. I did not take it for a good omen.
Two thirds down the second cigarette, Gaby decided she did not like this woman. Everything was too much with her: her descriptions, her feelings, her opinions, her experiences, her loving. She was like one of those dreadful Irish woman writers you see on late night talk shows who are terrifyingly articulate and think they have invented sex and no one else can possibly have any feeling or passion of true emotion in their lives. She is dark Gaby thought. Dark side of the moon.
The Wa-chagga may be the last proud people in the New Africa with my dearly beloved leather jacket I must look like a fetish figure from a sword’n’sorcery fantasy.
Gaby frowned and read again the lines at the bottom of the page and the top of the next. A third time, and they still did not make sense.
… the last proud people in the New Africa with my dearly beloved leather jacket I must look like a fetish figure…
She held the diary up to the reading lamp. There. So close to the spine you would only notice if you were looking. Two pages had been removed. The cut was very clean and straight. A surgical elision. Wide awake, Gaby fanned the pages against the light. Faults in the lie of the leaves indicated where other sections had been cut away. Towards the end there seemed fewer pages left than removed.
The Sibirsk pilot bing-bonged. Weelson, Nairobi in five. Cyrillic No Smoking/Fasten Seat-belts lit up. The Antonov banked sharply. The who-slashed-it of the missing paper would wait. Right now, Gaby McAslan had to worry about what T.P. Costello was going to say to her.
25
T.P. did not say anything when he met her at Wilson airfield. He did not say anything when they got into the SkyNet Landcruiser, or as he drove into Nairobi. He did not say anything as they turned into Tom M’boya Street, or when he pulled in outside the SkyNet offices. It was when he switched off the car and gave the keys to Gaby that he spoke.
‘I’m getting out here.’
‘What do I do?’ Gaby asked plaintively.
‘What you do,’ T.P. Costello said, ‘is you take this thing home, you go to bed, you sleep for eighteen hours and tomorrow when you are fresh and sharp and bright you put on your most professional clothes and you come here and you report to Jake Aarons and you ask him if there are any assignments for SkyNet Satellite News’s new East Africa correspondent. And, because you’ll need it, you keep the car. What do you do?’
As T.P. spoke, she had lowered her head until it touched the edge of the dashboard. Tears stained the thighs of the borrowed jeans.
‘You asshole,’ she whispered. ‘You fucking diseased asshole. I thought I was out of here.’
‘You almost were. You know why you are here and not at the check-in desk at Kenyatta being asked if you want smoking or non-smoking? Because it worked. That’s the only reason. Because at this very moment sub-rights are in the middle of the biggest bidding war since the Kilimanjaro Event as casters broad and narrow throw dollars and Deuschmarks at you. Because at this moment our dear friend Dr Dan is on his feet in the House demanding an enquiry into the allegations your report raised while the UN sends in its damage limitation boys to, in their words, “rotate the third Baku company out of active service”, which in our parlance is the first Ilyushin out of here. Because it’s trebles and clean consciences all round at the Thorn Tree. You took the risk. It worked. This time. You see, if you ever, ever do anything like that again without clearing with me, I will bounce you back to the bonnie Belfast so quick you’ll have friction burns on your beautiful ass. What’ll you have?’
‘Friction burns. On my ass,’ Gaby said, still not able to look up.
‘That’s correct,’ T.P. said, stepping out of the car. ‘Oh. I almost forgot. There’s no such thing as a free lunch. Your friend Dr Shepard called while you were in flight. I think you should get whatever contacts you have working on this ASAP. Your stool-pigeon William. Seems he’s been moved from Tsavo West to Kajiado centre for further tests. They’re holding him in a special isolation section. Unit 12.’
She had it. She had it all. She had been faithful to her guiding star and it had honoured her with more than she had asked of it. It had put her in front of the camera, but it had also given her a glimpse into its hidden heart that few humans had ever seen, and maybe, if she didn’t get stupid and try to play it too cool and wreck things, it had given her the man she wanted. The city, the land, surged with possibility. Something tapped on her window. She looked up. Standing on the Landcruiser’s running-board was a shaven-headed boy of nine or ten, tapping a forefinger on the glass and holding up for her to buy a model of Space Station Unity he had made out of wire coat-hangers and sliced up Heineken cans. Gaby laughed and sobbed simultaneously and remembered that she had forgotten to tell T.P. about the Moon diary.
26
From glory to glory.
T.P. had begun the great Irish football war chant Ole, Ole Ole Ole five minutes before the final whistle. The team were still singing it as they headed for the showers.
‘One nil, one million nil,’ T.P. said as he collected his winnings from his UNECTA counterpart.
It had been a memorable victory. Gaby looked forward to post-morteming the goal over much beer when the Manga Twins finished editing the video. Seventy fifth minute. Victor Luthu from accounts lofts it over UNECTA’s dreaded Nigerian mid-fielder Kojo Laing. It falls at Gaby McAslan’s feet and the left wing opens up before her like the gates of heaven. Into the box and the best cross of her life over two defenders and Tembo’s head is there, rising, to smack it into the back of the net. She jumped onto Faraway, gaudy as a macaw in his woman-impressing goalkeeper’s outfit, wrapped him in freckled arms and legs.
‘Hey Kenya! I love this man! I used to think he was a wanker, now I think he is Jesus. They throw everything at him, Faraway stops the lot.’
‘Want to swap shirts, Gaby?’ Faraway said, recovering cool.
Oksana Telyanina ran over and hugged them both. She had been seconded on to Team SkyNet. The Siberians had never enough people in the same place to field a team of their own. In her cut-offs over cycle shorts, borrowed boots and tattoos she was an intimidating left back.
‘I near peed my pants!’ she shouted. Over her shoulder, beside the corner flag, Gaby glimpsed another person.