Who Will Catch Us As We Fall (37 page)

She had been astonished and envious of their lives, for here young people could do whatever they wanted. Women smoked with strange men and then left the bar with them, waving goodbye to friends who barely acknowledged them going. People drank until they were forced to throw up in trash cans, bushes or even right on the street and yet still, no one whispered. No one pointed. They were not worried that they might run into a cousin, a family friend, who upon seeing them would immediately report the misdemeanors to a parent. That is what had impressed her about life in Britain; one never had to worry about suffering through any shame for having fun.

People roamed the streets at two o'clock in the morning, never checking over their shoulders to ensure they were safe. Leena never realized how deeply the concept of fear and suspiciousness had been engrained in her until she watched those people; she had never resented her lack of freedom to do certain things because she had never known how simple and easy it could be to do them.

This country was not made up of real worries, she concluded from all her watchings. Yes, people were concerned about how much money they had to spend, about bills and jobs and heartbreaks, but it is a different thing altogether to be burdened with the fear of your life. To wake up to stories about a woman being strangled by her housemaid, or a friend of your parents who was shot point-blank on his way out of the office because someone had spotted a briefcase in his hand. Back home, you were forced to keep yourself tightly hidden away, behind the locked doors of houses and cars; you spoke to those who were like you, people you knew, and ignored strangers, just in case.

London was boring in a lovely, comforting way and now that she had become used to that, she found it frightful coming out of the arrivals building in Nairobi – assaulted in every way by the noise, the colors and the rushing bodies, mindless of her presence.

And then there were arms going around her waist and she yelped with fear until she caught a whiff of the mint gum on his breath, the warm air of his laughter at the nape of her neck. And he was saying, ‘Come on, monkey. It's only me.'

And the gateless house in Stanmore was forgotten, the Drunken Goose only a funny story and London nothing but a place that wasn't home.

The two men had been watching him for a while now, hunched so closely over the small bar table that their elbows were tip to tip, the tops of their shoes touching. They sat to the left of him, slowly sipping their Tuskers. That was what had made Jeffery suspicious. No grown man spent that long drinking a single beer unless he was waiting for something.

‘
Ingine?
' Marlyn's voice offering him another drink. He dragged his eyes away from the men.

Lowering his voice, he asked, ‘Who are those guys?'

‘They've never been in here before.'

Dressed casually in cotton shirts and white sneakers, they were unremarkable, nothing startling about their behavior, and yet Jeffery couldn't shake the prickling disquiet disturbing the hairs on his neck.
Stupid boy. Coming into my office and scaring me for no good reason. Now it's four o
'
clock and he's not even here yet.

He had called Nick three times already but there was no answer. He sat sipping his watery drink and listening to the drone of the standard Safaricom message, insensitive to his growing frustration –
Mteja hapatikani kwa sasa
–
telling him what he already knew: the boy was unreachable.

‘Something the matter,
mzee
?'

He had been so focused on phoning Nick that Jeffery hadn't noticed the two men approaching his table, blocking him on either side.

‘Can't you see I'm busy?' he snapped.

‘Who are you trying to call?' The man leaning in on him had sagging jowls, countless lines bracketing his mouth. His voice was rich, the kind that would lend itself nicely to TV or radio. If he hadn't looked so menacing, he might have been pleasant.

‘Do I know you?' Jeffery let his eyes wander the bar, as if in boredom, but he was anxiously looking to see if there was anyone else in the room. Marlyn was at the back and he was the only customer. The man swung his body onto the stool beside him.

‘Unfortunately, Nick is unable to pick up his phone at this time.'

‘Why?' Jeffery's voice shuddered.

‘The boy became greedy. We had a deal and he thought he could outsmart me. When I found out he had been stealing from me, I asked for my money back.' The man shrugged at the simplicity of his actions. ‘If he had done so, perhaps he would have only lost a finger or an eye, but sadly…'

Panicked, Jeffery dialed Nick's number again. ‘What have you done to him?'

Fingers pinched into the soft dent of his collarbone, collapsing him forward. ‘Let's say he won't be answering his phone any more,
sawa
? However, he still owes me money and I have come to collect it.'

‘From who?' Jeffery asked. The man pressed down harder into his shoulder and Jeffery struggled to remain upright. ‘I'm not the boy's father. Why would I pay you?'

‘We know he was working for you.'

Jeffery remained adamant. ‘You have the wrong man.'

‘And yet here you are, calling-calling him for almost two hours now.' The man released Jeffery and he fell backward against the wall. ‘I know he comes here every Wednesday with a package for you.' The man stood, indicating with a tilt of his head to his companion that he was ready to leave. ‘Two hundred thousand – that's how much he owes me.'

‘Get it from someplace else.' Jeffery feigned bravado but as he raised his glass to his lips, the liquid splashed against the sides, spilling over, and he quickly put it down.

The man said, ‘If it's not here on Wednesday, two weeks from now, I shall come to South C and collect it myself.'

Jeffery's chest caved with the realization that they knew where he lived. After they left, he snapped his fingers and whistled for Marlyn. She came running as he shouted, ‘What's the matter with you, woman? Get me a drink!' snatching it from her as soon as she brought it and gulping it down.

His head spinning unpleasantly, Jeffery dialed Nick's number again. ‘Pick up, pick up,
mafala
!' But there was no answer for the rest of the day.

Her presence changed the nature of the household. When he stepped in that evening, he was greeted by a bell-like laugh and tea cups hitting the wooden table and, for a split second, Jeffery didn't feel so lonely. On the rare occasion he did come home while Esther was still awake, they hid from each other and the rooms remained silent and gloomy. But nowadays, the house was more cared for, its surfaces and corners polished and glowing, its furniture and floors shining with the pleasure of use.

He hadn't paid attention to the sound of Betty until now, light and simple. He was touched by the way she brushed Esther's hair from her forehead, checking to make sure her tea was always warm. Watching them, Jeffery hesitated to enter the kitchen, but he had spent most of the day drinking and was in need of water. Slinking in, he hoped to sneak out with minimum fuss, but when Betty looked up he couldn't stop the ‘Hello' that slipped from his dry mouth.

Esther's back tightened at the greeting, her fingers clutching Betty's as they glanced meaningfully at each other. Humiliation set his cheeks alight when he realized, in that one look, that Betty had been told the truth about David.

‘Hello.' Her voice was timid and he wanted to reassure her,
I'm not going to hurt you
,
but he had spent so many years now being malicious that he had forgotten how to speak gently. ‘I've just come to spend some time with Esther,' she explained.

He took a sip of water – ‘Very good,' nodding enthusiastically and staring at the back of the woman who was supposed to be his wife, thinking how she was still a complete stranger to him. It was in times of such self-awareness that he ached for his mother, the comfort of that unlit shack, the late-night noise of people drinking, living and loving. Even the stench of human waste had a special quality about it because it felt like home.

‘I'll be in the next room,' he told them gruffly, taking his glass, a chair tucked under his arm.

Once settled at the open window, Jeffery watched the long-legged mosquitos dance in, their thin wings iridescent in the blue glow of the television. He pricked his ears in the hope that he might be able to eavesdrop on the women.

‘I don't know why he's home today,' Esther was saying. ‘I was really hoping he would stay out.'

Jeffery had stopped feeling insulted by such things. After all he had done to her, how could he blame her for feeling that way? But when Betty said, ‘He looks like the most evil man I've ever seen,' even the pinpricks of itchy poison from the greedy mosquitoes weren't enough to distract him from the truth.

As they continued speaking, Jeffery tried to settle his mind. He had spent most of the afternoon drowning his anxiety in the buttery skin of Marlyn, wishing he could hide out in that motel for the rest of his life.

Nick had been discovered that evening, a broken and bent heap lost in a garbage dump near Nairobi River. There was a gunshot through his chest, but Jeffery could see that prior to that he had been severely beaten. Hoisting up his trouser legs, Jeffery had crouched to adjust the boy's crooked glasses, overcome by a horrible and unexpected remorse even though he thought he would be used to death by now.

As they wrapped Nick in a polythene bag and slid him into an ambulance, Jeffery knew with certainty that there was nothing stopping those men from killing him, and he had returned to the bar, hoping to find the solution somewhere in his alcohol-soaked, numbed brain. Yet even now, the answer had not come to him, until he heard Betty say, ‘I'm sorry, Esther. I must get going – Mrs Kohli wants me back at the house early tomorrow so I'll take the late bus tonight.'

He sat up so suddenly that the glass almost tumbled from his knee. He had forgotten all about that house, its marble pillars and modern, brick roofs. The three cars in the wide driveway. An idea was coming to him, still taking shape, as Betty passed him on her way to the door and said to him, he felt almost out of fear, ‘Goodbye.'

The chair crashed to the floor as he rose. ‘Wait, please. I'll drop you.'

‘I'll be alright.' Her expression told him that she would rather face the crushing blackness of night and all its possible horrors than sit in a car with him for twenty minutes.

‘It's the least I could do, given the good care you have shown my wife. Come on, I don't mind one bit.' He didn't give her another chance to protest.

She was turning back to Esther for help, but by then he had already swung the door open and herded her firmly out.

They didn't talk for the first few minutes of the drive but he hardly noticed because night-time in Nairobi was full of noise. The thrum
of Westlands bars, street vendors desperately haggling for one last sell, the thousands of crickets like chirping pinpoints in the dark. He turned up the volume on the radio and glanced at her from the corner of his eye.

She was pressed close to the door, her hand lightly wrapped around the handle as if she were preparing to jump out.

He asked, ‘Do you enjoy working for your employers?'

It took her a moment to answer. ‘Why?'

‘I'm only wondering,' he replied, swerving to miss a
matatu
speeding on the wrong side of the road. ‘You know, I wanted to be a policeman all my life. Now that I am one—' He clucked his tongue. ‘Well, that's a different story.'

‘I won't stay a housemaid forever.' She was offended. ‘I'm planning on starting my own beauty salon.'

This time when he looked at her, he saw that she was much younger than him. ‘How old are you?'

‘Thirty next month.'

‘Yes, you have time.' He nodded his approval. ‘It's a very good dream but takes a lot of money.'

‘I'm saving up.' She was curt, didn't want to reveal herself to him.

‘And what do your employers do?' He kept his tone neutral.

‘They own a business. A furniture store.'

The information sparked the first hope he had had since those two men had come to visit him at the bar. Without thinking, he murmured, ‘They must be very rich.'

She said sharply, ‘Why are you asking me all these questions?'

They had reached the house and Jeffery didn't answer as they rolled down the paved hill, where he pulled to a grinding halt outside the gate. As Betty climbed out, Jeffery spoke, staring up at the rise and fall of the impressive home.

‘It doesn't make you angry?'

She paused, one leg still in the car, her eyes craned downward. ‘What?'

‘That this isn't even their country and yet they get to enjoy every part of it while we're the ones made to suffer.' He thought of his mother again, chewed down on his lip.

In the close confines of the car, the only sound the humming of insects in the blackness beyond, his words stung her with something she had always known but never wanted to consider before. For a moment, she forgot how frightened she was of him and said, ‘You're right. It's not fair at all.'

They shared a look, a feeling, and it was the closest he had felt to anyone in a long time. ‘See you tomorrow.' His voice turned husky, the house blurred and forgotten behind him.

She knocked on the gate and whispered through the gap for the askari to let her in. She paused at the step, turning to wave.

It hurt him, that simple gesture – almost like an acute rip in his gut. But then she disappeared and he looked up once again at the house. And he had to smile because it was going to be his way out – and Betty was going to help him.

The large manila paper was spread across the desk as Jai and Michael discussed their latest graffiti. They had spent a week completing it, an image of a young girl dying in her mother's arms while all around them wealthy politicians sat in a gilded restaurant, fat-bellied and fat-pocketed. Although the woman's hand was reaching out for help, they ignored her, lost in their gluttony. Beneath it, it read: