When she sat up she gripped him fiercely, her fingers clutching his shirt.
‘There, there.’ He kept stroking her hair and then lifted her onto the sofa, put a cushion under her head. ‘I’ll put the kettle on.’
But first he went outside. The boy was standing by the car, looking at himself in the side mirror. Harry gave him a couple of hundred shilling coins. ‘Off you go now. Don’t say anything about this.’
As the boy turned and trotted off, Harry saw that his white shirt was bloody and agape at the back, exposing a large wound. Even in the moonlight he could determine that the wound was large and very deep.
That it was the kind of wound made by,
say,
a propeller.
The kind of wound from which you could not recover.
Harry felt his knees give and the fearful cold rush through him. ‘Hey,’ he shouted after the boy. The boy turned briefly and smiled, then disappeared. Not around a corner or into the bush. Not a trick of darkness or moon. But disappeared. Stepped back to that other place. Absorbed. Harry steadied himself. It could just be the DTs, or some more permanent dementia.
But in his heart — that rusty old clock — Harry knew who the boy was and why he had come. For years, Harry had been waiting for him, or some other emissary. They had unfinished business.
Oh, he’d seen them before. Saw them all the time. In the shadows, in the evenings, riding bicycles, mingling with the living. Sometimes, they would glance at him, catch his eye in mutual acknowledgement, like members of a secret club. Yes, yes, their casual gaze seemed to say, We know you, you know us. But always they moved on. Their business was not with him.
He’d tried to talk about this with Gloria once and she’d laughed at him. ‘Ghosts? You’ve been in Africa too long.’
This was true. Africa too bloody long.
But the ghosts—shetani, spirits — the ghosts weren’t just here. He’d gone to England a few years ago, visiting his sister. They didn’t get on, never had. Sandra, very conservative. Garden like Legoland, all straight edges. She lived in a modern village in the southeast, least spooky place you could imagine. But he saw a man on the bus. And a child throwing bread to a duck. They saw him, casual nods. Ghosts.
These ghosts, they came and went, back and forth. The other place and here. Maybe there were several other places, like a multi-level parking garage. The universe was an awfully big place and had to be filled with something.
From time to time, he wondered if he, too, was dead — a ghost, and this is why he could see them. But then he would get the most godawful hangover, and he was pretty sure that the dead didn’t get hangovers.
Lots of things you get used to in Africa. It’s the most honest place on earth. Why should the dead simply be dead? Or go to heaven? Rubbish about being reincarnated into beetles or Egyptian princesses. The dead were here, among the living. Side by side.
Harry turned and went back into the house. He found the light switch. What comfort electricity offered, to enter a cocoon of man-made light scooped out of the infinite dark. What it was like for villagers when they could afford a kerosene lamp. The reassurance, even, of a cheap Chinese flashlight.
Light.
The kitchen wasn’t separate, just around the corner from the living area. He found the kettle, filled it up, turned on the stove. He noticed then that the water still seemed to be running. As if the overflow in the loo was broken. He glanced over at Pilgrim. She was curled up on the sofa. She was in shock. But she’d be okay.
Harry went into the bathroom. It was brightly tiled, the shower in the corner. And under the shower was a middle-aged white man in a raincoat. And an awful lot of blood. The blood was still oozing from his wrists, but Harry knew enough about exsanguination to know that it was very nearly over. He turned off the shower and put his fingers over the man’s carotid artery. Yes, nearly over. He looked into the man’s eyes.
‘Don’t worry,’ he said. ‘I’ll just stay here with you until you go. Better not to be alone.’
He sat with the man, holding his hand, the blood thick and dark now, almost black like sticky tar. The kettle began to whistle and he tried the man’s pulse again. There was the faintest flutter. He gave it another couple of minutes, and then, when there was nothing, got up and washed the blood from his hands. He turned off the kettle. He found some mugs and teabags. He went over to Pilgrim. She was looking at him, not his face but his shirt and shorts. The blood. As if he’d just killed a pig.
‘Ah,’ he said, handing her the tea. But her hand was trembling so he put it down on the floor. He took a sip of his own tea. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d had tea. A beverage that was hot and bereft of alcohol.
Imagine if he’d finished his beer: she’d be dead.
‘Look,’ he said. ‘I’m not sure what’s going on. But I’m supposed to be here. I was brought here.’
He couldn’t tell if she understood. I’m supposed to be here. Because he didn’t finish the beer. Because of the boy.
She was still a little floaty, but he got her to drink a bit of the tea. He told her he’d be right back and went to the bathroom and let the water run over the dead man until it ran clear down the plug. He rinsed out his shirt. He went out to his car and got an old tarp from the wheel well. Why it was there he couldn’t recall, but it had been there for years probably, taking up the space where a spare tire should have been. He wrapped the dead man in the tarp, heavy as a sack of hammers, and worried for a moment that he’d put his back out. Who’d ever heard of a knight in shining armor with a bad back?
He dragged the body out the bedroom door but when he tried to get it into the car the tarp kept falling off. The man’s limbs protested as if he were still alive, catching on the door jamb, the bushes. Like a drunk who did not want to leave the bar. Who had clung to the stool in The Muthaiga Club, The Mombasa Club, The Tamarind Bar and Grill, The Juba Press Club, The Sheraton Kampala poolside bar; clung to the railing, to a tree even, as others had removed him. He recalled his fury, turning like a bright pinwheel in his chest: the unjustness of the assault! All he had wanted to do was drink.
Covering the body again, he glanced inside at Pilgrim. She lay very still, her eyes open, blinking from time to time. He wondered what she was seeing. He found his mobile phone, dialed.
‘Gloria. I’m at Raskazone. Can you come?’
She’d started to give him gyp. She was expecting the kids in the morning, she was tired, it was late. He cut her off: ‘I need your help. I need you.’
Twenty minutes later she drove through the gate. She got out of her car, left it running, the headlights blazing. ‘What the fuck?’
He gestured down at the body. ‘Help me get him into the car.’
Gloria hesitated, and he was sure she’d refuse, like a stubborn old mare. But instead she bent over, pulled the tarp back to reveal the man’s face, blanched in the car lights. ‘Shit,’ she said. ‘Oh, shit.’
‘You know him?’
She made a face, as if she was chewing the inside of her cheek. ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Shit.’
‘Who is he?’
‘He’s from Switzerland.’
Harry waited. Gloria took a deep breath. ‘He came to see me. He was looking for Pilgrim.’ She stalled again.
‘Come on, old girl, out with it.’
With another breath, she obliged. ‘He came to see me. He was looking for Pilgrim. She killed his child.’
‘She killed his child?’ Harry was incredulous. ‘Pilgrim killed this man’s child?’
‘A car accident. Three children altogether.’
Harry was starting to understand.
‘Oh, Gloria,’ he said softly.