Chasing Freedom Home (Malinding) (14 page)

33

Fatou Manneh arrived on her beloved motor bike the next morning. She greeted the Alkalo and presented her with a gift of kola nuts. She sought assurances that there was peace in the village, that the Alkalo was well and that all the members of her family enjoyed good health. The Alkalo enquired about the husband of The Mechanical Girl, the weaver, Martin, and received the assurance that he was there, in her compound at the college. The ritual was honoured.

'Fatou Manneh, I'm happy you're in the village again. You have leave from the Arts and Crafts College?'

'I have. I gave myself leave. For some reason I have been given the task of being Principal of the College, so I can arrange leave. Your son, Ed-Lamin, has requested my help and it would be unthinkable to refuse. I remember the kindness he showed me when the only people in the village who did not think me odd, mad even, in childhood, were your family.'

'I remember too the happiness you gave my family by being such a bright pupil. My late husband would be happy to see that you still have the bike he gave you.'

'Sirra, he did not give it to me, he only loaned it; that is why I must care for it. If his son wishes to regain use of it …'

'No! His wife would encourage him. Please, forget the matter of the loan. I have mentioned that he has a wife. She is with child and she wishes to build a boat. It has become a matter of pride that we, the women of the family, must assist with its construction and to that end we seek your advice in the matter of waterproof plywood. But first we will take Atayah and talk.' The tea making equipment was assembled and very soon Binta, Rachel and Ed-Lamin arrived. Rachel was introduced, and heard a little of the Mechanical Girl's adventures. Eventually, after the third brew had been drained, the matter of the boat was raised. It must be easy to build, and easy to handle. It must be stable enough for the crew to board and move around on, and it must be sturdy enough to live outdoors, moored to the jetty when not in use. It should be fast enough to escape from an irritable hippo. Hippos were always irritable.

Rachel and Fatou, the Mechanical Girl, talked techniques. Ed-Lamin looked on and smiled. Slowly he was returning to his roots and realising that his birth country was the indeed civilised land he had been searching for.  Binta was asking for instruction in the use of woodworking tools and Fatou offered her a week's course in practical woodworking at the college, if her husband agreed. Binta offered his consent immediately and unconditionally - she would inform him of his decision at bed time. Sirra tried not to laugh, and failed.

'My sister, I am sorry. I did not realise what a sensible man your husband is!'

'My chief, he knows he will be well rewarded when I return with a new skill. He already admires the skills I have and he will benefit greatly from what I learn at college.'

'I'll bet he will' thought Ed-Lamin, but he kept the thought to himself. Binta was a respected married woman, but she could still be quite a madam.

The conversation returned to the matter of boat building. Fatou Manneh proposed that she and Binta travel to the college together the following day.

'You will take me on the machine? I last rode on that when Ed, the father of Ed-Lamin, was alive. He would carry me to and from Lamin market place. Please, Fatou Manneh, let me travel with you on the bike.'

'Do you wish to travel before daylight so that your neighbours do not see?'

'No! I would go in daylight, and wave like a queen from the pillion to all my admiring friends.'

'I don't think the Queen ever rode pillion on a C90, though now she's exiled in Canada she may have to. Possibly she rides a Harley and the Prince drives.'

'Rachel, the Queen is in exile? Who rules England now?'

'A Lord Protector - that's what he calls himself.' Rachel glanced at Ed-Lamin, who nodded. 'He's Geoff Bibby, and he was Jane's father. He's a wicked, evil man.'

'So, if Jane had lived, she might have been Queen of England, the Lady Protectoress?'

'No, Sirra. If she had not escaped he would have killed her.'

No! For what crime? A father cannot kill his child. We only knew her for a few days, but she was lovely and loving.'

'Her crime was to have a child by your son, Sirra. That man thought, still thinks, that white people are superior to all others. It's the same thought that the slave traders had. I am pregnant by your son and I could not be happier, but if I returned to England that man or his Watchers would murder me. Your village is a place of refuge, Sirra, and I owe my life to you and civilised people like you.'

'We will buy enough waterproof plywood to build a boat sixteen feet long and six fee wide.' Fatou Manneh had had enough of politics. The world was full of more important things. 'The bottom will be four feet wide and flat, to give it stability and the sides will slope out at an angle to make it safer in rough water. I think 12mm ply will make the bottom; we will need two sheets. The rest will be 9mm thick. The boat will curve in a little at the front and the back will be vertical and reinforced to take a small outboard motor. Binta must learn the use of a small circular saw and a powered plane. I will teach her those skills myself and one of my lecturers will teach her the craft of covering wood with fibreglass to withstand wear and tear. Binta, you must find some very old but still respectable clothes. Also pack a fine dress because we dance at the end of the course.'

The group nodded its agreement and settled down to drinking more tea and similar important matters. Fatou Manneh constructed a kite from some odds and ends she found and entertained the children with a demonstration of flying. Young Amieo N'jie quickly learned the skill and hurried off to share it with the rest of her family.

News of the Mechanical Girl's arrival in the village had spread and soon the compound was crowded with neighbours anxious to renew her acquaintance. Large cooking pots arrived; bags of charcoal, bags of rice and vegetables were assembled. Some of the older girls pounded the tomatoes and onions and spices into a sauce and a feast arranged itself almost by accident. These people, Rachel thought, celebrate by second nature. She found herself peeling sweet potatoes and slicing carrots, still chatting to everyone and feeling accepted by people as if they had known her all their lives. Her mother and father wandered in, carrying a couple of chickens to contribute to the feast. They came and sat with her. Sirra welcomed them.

'Family, we are all family. Africans are all one big family. Every woman is my sister and every man is my brother. We are family.'

Andrew and Lizzy settled to the task of plucking the chickens. As they worked he caught her eye and smiled.

'What are you grinning at? Have I got feathers in my hair?'

'No, love. Even if you had you'd be beautiful. No; I was thinking. A month ago we were thanking God we were alive and free. We'd lost everything when the boat sank, and we thought we'd lost Rachel too. Now, a few weeks later we're here, part of a family again. I've earned enough money to buy food; our new son-in-law has given us rooms in his house and we're happy. At least, I'm happy; Hope you are too?'

'Andrew, I've got something to tell you. I'm pregnant.'

'You can't be! How?'

'You want me to explain the birds and the bees to you? We've been bouncing around on that nice new bed of ours like a pair of lovesick puppies and you ask me how? We lost everything in the wreck?'

'Yes, but …'

'Everything means everything. It's an absolute, love. It includes all family planning devices, pills, condoms, morning after pills, Dutch Caps, sponges soaked in vinegar …'

'Stop! Pregnant? Wow! Put that chicken down for a moment.' He kissed her, passionately, on the lips. 'I've never been happier, love. That's brilliant. Sirra! We're pregnant!' Sirra wasn't the only one to smile, it seemed that the whole village had heard the news. Rachel dashed across to her parents and hugged them.

'Mum, so are we.'

As the smoke rose from the charcoal burners and mingled with the scent of the spices and day faded into evening it all seemed possible; there was peace in the village. Silence fell as a Kora player - where had he appeared from? - started to play and sing. He sang the story of Sirra's family, who had settled here before people learned to count the days, and had governed the village wisely ever since. He sang of the farmers, the fisher people, the merchants, the Imams and the teachers. He looked at Rachel and her mother and sang of new life, new beginnings. While he sang, Ed-Lamin, Rachel and her parents, wept silently for the home and civilisation they had lost, then wiped their eyes and opened them to their new world.

The feast began. The compound, though spacious, was crowded. Room was found for the drummers and when they played room was found for the dancers. The night air was full of scents and sounds. When the drumming and the dancing ceased, when the last glass of Atayah was drained and the last pots cleaned, when everyone had retired to their beds, an attentive listener might have heard two women, a mother and her daughter, singing the song of love quietly to their respective husbands.

Next morning, the peace of daybreak was shattered by the exhaust of the C90 as Fatou Manneh piloted it round the village so that Binta could wave goodbye to all her friends. Binta was still sleepy from her efforts to impress her husband and that she would return with even more skills to demonstrate, not all of them necessitating the employment of power tools. She was sure he would have enough power himself for that purpose.

Rachel's brother, Henry, came to her compound an hour later. He apologised for not bringing his wife, but she was having severe morning sickness and had ordered him out of the house to let her handle the matter without the aid of his fussing and worrying.

'She is so light and fragile, it worries me. I have examined her frequently and she now protests that if my examinations are not of a sexual nature then I am behaving inappropriately! If I had studied gynaecology or midwifery it might have been better, but I am only a humble haematologist. If she cuts her finger she may allow me to treat that. So, little sister, I come to visit you. Can you cook Atayah? Perhaps you will allow me to instruct you?'

'My husband has instructed me. His mother and step-mother have instructed me. All the village women have instructed me. Sit, brother: watch and marvel.'

He sat and watched and marvelled as instructed. His shy, timid sister had grown up.

'You know, Rach, I've always been a bit intimidated by you. You were better at being a tomboy than I was at being a boy.  Climbing trees, running races, swimming, sailing boats; you were better than me at everything. Did you know I was jealous of you? That's why I worked so hard at school, I had to beat you at something. And now you're here and you're still more famous than I am! I'm a bit more grown-up now, though, so instead of being jealous I'm proud of you. Sorry, I had to admit it. It's been bugging me for years.'

'Bloody rubbish, bro. I only did all those things because I was convinced that no boy would ever look twice at me and you were winning all the prizes for being a brain. And now, the most beautiful man on the planet has got me pregnant and married me. Guess we're quits? Shake on it?' They shook hands. She served the tea. He still looked serious.

'You know we can never go home?'

'I am home. This village is my home. My baby will be born here. That makes it home. Ed-Lamin and I will make more babies and watch them grow up. We're with people who love us. That makes it home too. What did you mean?'

'Your right. I've got a home in Bakau. It overlooks the fishing boats and the sea, and my wife is there and our child will be born there. You're right; that's our home. I meant we can never go back to England. Do you realise that? Our roots have shifted by about three thousand miles. One of my friends from med school has decided to stay in England. He looks on it as some sort of missionary work. He has to keep on the move in case the Watchers catch up with him. He runs emergency clinics wherever he can. He's been lucky so far. He manages to send me texts every now and again, whenever he can evade the Watchers and nip across the border into Scotland. He thinks there may be another doctor living with the revolutionaries in the mountains of Wales but he's not heard from her for a few months. I think he's the only properly qualified doctor left in the country. The place is heading back to the Middle Ages, or worse. All the university lecturers have left - we've got several here in The Gambia and lots more in other parts of West Africa.  Student nurses are in charge of English hospitals - the rest of the staff are volunteers or criminals drafted in under pain of death. There's no money left to pay for anything and there's no point in trying to tax people who haven't got anything left to tax. What money there was when the PPP came into power has been snaffled by Party Members who did very nicely out of it. Sorry, I'm ranting again. You must have seen this before you managed to escape? You managed to save yourselves and a lot of other people, mainly because you learned to sail on that Greek holiday when we were kids.'

'We've just been lucky, Henry. You've saved thousands of lives. I don't know what it is that you do, and no, for heaven's sake don't try to explain, but I do know that you and your wife are very special people. Maybe you'll collect a Nobel Prize one day? Can I come to the ceremony and tell them what a pain in the bum you were when we were young? I'll even wear a dress and comb my hair. Did you know we're going to build a boat and go fishing like I used to do on the Mersey? The river fish are really good to eat.'