The Perils of Skinny-Dipping (10 page)

Ka Ka arrived at seven o’clock prompt. She looked lovely and had obviously gone to a lot of trouble. She wore a long, deep red dress, which fell beautifully over her tall, slim figure. She had long pleated hair extensions, which fell effortlessly around her shoulders. Phil could barely believe he was taking her out on a date.

After a drink in the bar, they were shown to their table. Phil had requested a window seat so they could sit and eat their dinner whilst enjoying the evening breeze. Ka Ka seemed happy to listen to him and laugh at his jokes, although he wasn’t quite sure whether either his Yorkshire accent or northern sense of humour had really been understood. The conversation and wine seemed to flow freely, and it wasn’t long before Ka Ka felt comfortable enough to talk about her own likes and dislikes about the town.

As Phil paid the bill, he decided that the evening had been a complete success. ‘Would you like me to walk you home?’ he asked as they left the hotel.

‘
My house is past yours,’ she laughed, ‘so I will walk you home.’

They stopped outside the small bungalow. Ka Ka held out her hand and Phil took hold of it and kissed it, his lips touching her warm, soft skin.

‘
Would you like to come in for a beer or coffee?’

‘
Would you like me to?’

‘
Most definitely,’ he replied, as he led her towards the front door.

Next morning, the sound of bird song in the trees outside the window gently woke Phil out of a deep slumber. He couldn’t remember ever having such a good night’s sleep, and outstretched his arm to the other side of the bed. He looked over, slightly surprised that Ka Ka had gone without waking him. He made his way to work, smiling happily and looking forward to the day ahead.

Richard was also in a good mood, which Phil put down to Abbey’s absence. The time seemed to drag by with Phil continually looking at the clock. He spent most of the day working outside with a spade under the hot sun. This was also the first day in a long time that he hadn’t felt hung over, and it felt good.

With the help of two school pupils who were on the volunteers list, he planted all the trees that had been waiting under the shading. Richard had been acting quite strangely, coming and going from the office without a word about what he was doing.

Whilst digging holes in the hard earth, Phil had made up his mind to call in at the Savuti on his way home to see Ka Ka, and hopefully arrange another date. He was still glowing inside and hoped that she felt the same way and would be happy to go out with him again.

So, later that day, he walked into the cool hotel reception and waited patiently for the receptionist to come off the phone.

‘
Dumela Mma,’ he said eventually when the woman still hadn’t looked in his direction after replacing the receiver. ‘Can you tell Ka Ka that Phil is here to see her?’

Still without acknowledging him, the receptionist called over to the door man and spoke in Setswana. He disappeared behind one of the office doors. Phil waited, tapping his fingers on the counter. The receptionist looked up and tutted at the noise. Phil put his hands in his pockets. After a couple of minutes, the doorman reappeared and spoke to the receptionist.

She looked at Phil. ‘I am sorry, but Ka Ka has gone home already. Would you like to leave her a message?’

‘
No, it’s fine. I’ll catch up with her some other time.’

Phil left the hotel feeling slightly disappointed and turned left onto the road in the direction of Ka Ka’s house. As he walked along the road, his stomach rumbled and he was aware of sweat running down his face. He didn’t feel particularly hot and smiled to himself, wondering whether he was in fact going into detox from not having a serious drinking session for well over forty-eight hours.

Ka Ka wasn’t at home, and the woman who opened the door seemed reluctant to give out any information. Eventually, after some gentle questioning, Phil learned that Ka Ka had been sent to Francistown to work in one of the hotels there to cover for someone who was off sick.

‘
How long will she be away, Mma?’ asked Phil, now holding his stomach, which was getting extremely painful, cramps shooting from one side to the other.

The woman shrugged her shoulders and waved her hands in the air. ‘How would I know these things?’ she shouted angrily, before shutting the door.

Chapter Eleven

When Abbey returned to work after her holiday in Cape Town, Phil was nowhere to be seen. Abbey was desperate to tell him her news and was disappointed when he still hadn’t arrived by nine o’clock.

‘
Richard, has Phil got the day off today?’

‘
Not as far as I am aware. Come to think of it, I’ve not seen him for over a week now.’

‘
What?’ exclaimed Abbey, absolutely horrified at Richard’s indifference. ‘He might be ill. Did you not think to check?’

‘
Look Abbey, he’s a big boy now. I think he can look after himself.’

There was a hint of malevolence in Richard’s voice which made Abbey feel slightly uncomfortable. ‘Well, I’m going to see if he’s OK,’ she said, leaving the office before Richard had the chance to object.

She walked as quickly as she could up the main street to the small bungalow. Phil had already taken time off work from what was known as ‘sleeping sickness’, which was transmitted by the dreaded tsetse fly that thrived in warm, damp, shady places such as those along the riverbanks of the Chobe. Fortunately, Kasane Clinic was well equipped to deal with this affliction, as well as malaria, caught from the mosquitoes, which also bred abundantly in the Chobe National Park and were an aggressive killer of adults and children.

When Abbey arrived at the bungalow, Phil was sitting on the steps outside the door, his head in his hands. Abbey walked up the garden path towards him.

‘
Phil,’ she said, as she sat next him and put her hand on his shoulder. ‘Phil, what’s the matter? What’s wrong?’

‘
I’ve fucked up big time, Abbey. I really have. I can’t believe I could have been so stupid.’ He looked up at her. His voice was weak and his face drained of any colour.

‘
Look, whatever it is can’t be that bad. I’m sure it’ll all work out and…’

‘
Abbey, I’m HIV.’

She looked at him in silence.

‘
Did you hear me? I’m HIV.’

Abbey took his shoulders and turned him to face her. Her eyes were welling up with tears and, without saying a word, she put her arms around his neck and hugged him as hard as she could. Phil broke down and held on to her as if he was holding on for dear life. Neither of them moved. It was Phil who spoke first.

‘
I’m gonna have to go home, hun. Got to get drugs and all that.’

‘
When did you find out?’ whispered Abbey.

‘
A couple of days ago. I had to go to the clinic the beginning of last week. I kept being sick and my stomach felt as though it was tied up in knots. I’d eaten at the President’s Lodge the night before and thought I’d probably got food poisoning. Instead of getting better it got worse, so I dragged myself along to the clinic. Anyway, they gave me rehydration salts and took all sorts of samples. They said it was just routine and they needed to do tests. I didn’t think anything of it, because after a few days I felt as right as rain again.’

‘
Did you tell Richard you were ill?’

‘
Yeah, I sent a note with the kid next door. He never got in touch or asked me when I’d be back at work, so I milked it a bit and took the whole week off. I was going to go back, but then I got a letter through the door asking me to make an appointment with Doctor Mapuntsi immediately. She told me they had identified the bug that had made me ill, and then dropped the bombshell about the other test they’d done. She was really nice about it and explained to me what my options were. I’ve been thinking of nothing else for three days now.’

‘
Why the hell didn’t you ring me?’

‘
Look, there was nothing you could do. Anyway, there was no chance I was going to spoil your holiday, especially given it’s the first one you’ve had since you got here!’

‘
What would you like me to do? Can I help you in any way?’ she asked, stroking the back of his head.

‘
Nah, I’m OK. Got a flight sorted for Friday of this week. Rang Head Office and told them my mother was really ill and I needed to go and visit her immediately. They didn’t quibble at all and booked my ticket within the hour.’

‘
Hell, I’m going to miss you Phil,’ she said, hugging him again.

‘
Listen, there
is
something you can do. Will you sort this out with Richard? I can’t face him and I’m not going into the office again.’

‘
Oh course I will, leave him to me. Look, do you want to come and stay with me until Friday? I don’t like leaving you here on your own.’

‘
What, and move into the lurve nest?’ he smiled. ‘How was Cape Town, anyway?’

‘
It was good - no, it was great, but let’s just talk about you for now.’

They talked for about an hour, going over everything that needed to be done. Abbey was going to take Moxy, Phil’s adopted cat, although she wasn’t completely sure that Moxy would agree to moving into her bungalow and would probably run away.

Abbey left Phil packing some boxes and decided to go straight home rather than the office. Richard could wait. She sat outside on the veranda, watching the busy weaverbirds continue with their own daily routine, yet barely noticing them, when Darren’s bakkie drove up the driveway.

‘
Hey, you OK?’ he shouted. ‘I’ve just bumped into Richard in town. He said you had gone off somewhere and not come back.’

She stood up as he approached her. ‘Come here, please,’ she said in a quiet voice, holding out her hands.

Darren walked over to her and took her into his arms. Unable to control herself any further, she promptly burst into tears. She had wanted to cry since Phil had first told her about his condition, but felt somehow it wouldn’t have been fair on him.

‘
Don’t let me go, not just yet.’

‘
I have no intention of doing so,’ he whispered in her ear.

Darren persuaded Abbey to take the rest of the day off and said he would call into the office and sort things out with Richard. That was a huge relief to Abbey, who wasn’t sure how she was going to tell him or how she might deal with his reaction, especially if it lacked the same compassion it had after the road accident. She decided she would also take the next couple of days off and spend them with Phil before he left Kasane. Darren was also going to be the bearer of this news to Richard. She knew that Richard would not argue with Darren in anyway and there would be no problems when she went back to work.

After Abbey had left, Phil sat on the lounge floor surrounded by cardboard boxes. He looked around at the bare walls with an overwhelming desire to try and make sense of the situation, of his life so far. His time in Kasane had been the happiest he could remember, and he wondered if there was any possibility of holding onto it a bit longer. He abandoned the box packing and walked down the main street through the town. Without thinking, he veered to the left and went into Banjo’s and sat on his usual stool at the bar.

He remembered his first visit here over eight months ago. He had been on his way to see Abbey to compare houses, when the loud music and sounds of laughter had drawn his attention and fuelled his curiosity. The bar was a small, rectangular room with a pool table by the window and a jukebox on the wall. Apart from a few chairs and tables scattered about the concrete floor, there was nothing else in the room. The smell of stale smoke and body odour hit his nostrils as soon as he walked through the door. The barman on duty had served Phil on his first visit without uttering one word, just a nod of the head as money was exchanged. Within five minutes of being in the bar, he had felt a hand touch his arm, and a voice whispering down his ear.

‘
Me nice,’ said the soft voice. ‘Me nice and only fifty pula for you nice guy.’

The attention from the women, who seemed to adore him, had made him feel special again. They hung on to his every word and he felt flattered, a feeling he hadn’t felt since the first weeks of courtship with Debra. His visits to the bar had got more regular and he had desperately tried to resist the temptation, but always managed to find a reason to go, which would outweigh any reason to stay away.

Phil snapped his mind back to his current situation. He looked around the room. The same faces, the same conversations, the same scene playing itself out, over and over, in every seedy, backstreet brothel across the globe. No matter what avenue his thoughts took him, he always came to the same conclusion. He had no one but himself to blame. He had lived through the last eight months making conscious decisions that he knew could jeopardise his health and his future.

He pushed away his beer and made his way to the door, keeping his eyes focused directly in front, until he stepped out into the bright sunshine. He wondered what Debra would say to him now.

Debra had grown up on the next street to Phil in his home town of Sheffield, and they had been together since year eleven at secondary school. They had not got married, but Phil had moved into her parents’ house whilst they saved up for a deposit for their own flat. When Debra fell pregnant, Phil had promised to turn his life around and start providing for the three of them. In a bid to prove to her, and to himself, that he was not the ‘useless piece of shit’ she constantly called him, he had enrolled on a teaching degree course at Manchester Metropolitan University. He secured a room in the nearby town and managed to get through the first six weeks with relative ease, even submitting his first assignment on time.