Chaga

pushed the Landcruiser faster, faster along Nairobi’s boulevards, trying to outrun it, but you cannot drive faster than what is in your inner ear.

She cried aloud and spun the wheel. The Landcruiser shuddered. She kicked in four-wheel-drive and went up and over the central strip on to the other roadway. When it comes apart, down in the molecules, you need magic to put it back together. You need the person who told you she would be there when it all came down.

The house was a prefabricated hut set in a long row of identical temporary housing that had inevitably become permanent. Gaby could not decipher the Cyrillic name boards, but the bunches of dried herbs and sets of wind-chimes hanging from the guttering identified the bungalow. Contrail-streaked dawn was filling up the land as she tentatively knocked on the door.

‘Oksana, it’s finished.’

‘Gaby. Oh my God. Come in come in come in.’

She made tea with big whacks of vodka in it. She let Gaby rant and swear and cry and spill it out on her coir matting. She let her wear herself out with the telling of it, and then put her to bed with a sleeping pill. A timeless time later Gaby awoke, as the troubled wake in defiance of all chemical assistance, hoping that it was reality that was the dream, and that she had woken into the way things were truly meant to be. But it was not, because it is never is and never can be.

52

Dogs will bark in the night before an earthquake.

Sometimes, just before your world is hit by lightning, you are allowed to hear the rumble of the approaching storm.

It was in the face of Joshua the doorman.

It was in the faces of the people in the elevator – more assiduously avoiding eye contact than usual.

It was in the Germans by the window and the Scandinavians in Gloom Corner and the Eng. Langs, in the middle.

It was in Tembo and Faraway looking up from their desk. It was in Abigail Santini’s certain smile as she brushed past. It was most of all in T.P. Costello’s looking up, scared and guilty in his glass cubicle.

Because you can hear the coming thunder does not mean you can avoid the blast, any more than the barking dogs can stop your house falling into the chasm.

‘Gaby.’ T.P. came into the news room. ‘A wee word in my office.’

They all followed her with their eyes. T.P. closed the door and perched on the edge of his untidy desk.

‘T.P., if it’s about that report, I’m sorry if I screwed up your syndication deals, but yesterday didn’t feature for me: to be honest, Shepard and me had a big fight. Totally honest, Shepard and me are finished. I’ve been staying with Oksana; that’s why you couldn’t get in touch with me. I can do the voice-over today; hell, I’d love to, give me something to take my mind off things.’ She saw T.P. was fidgeting with and repeatedly glancing at a piece of paper on his desk-top. ‘T.P., what is that that’s so interesting?’

‘It’s a fax from UNECTA Administration Headquarters. It concerns you.’

And then the storm breaks, and it is not thunder at all, but that entropic inner-ear whine of molecules breaking apart and whirling away.

‘I’m sorry, Gab. My hands are tied. I can’t fight this, not without putting everything at risk.’

‘What is happening, T.P.? Tell me.’

‘They want you out. Forty-eight hours to leave UNECTAfrique’s field of operations.’

And when the silent lightning strikes, it goes straight and sharp through the heart and nothing survives.

‘Oh Jesus, T.P..’

‘They’re getting their revenge for the Unit 12 expose. The UN need a sacrificial goat to show the Brownnosers in the National Assembly they still have balls. Dr Dan’s swimming for his life in the political feeding frenzy and you’re a soft target. M’zungu. Filthy hack. Woman. Persona non grata. Of course, it’s voiced in the most diplomatic language, but the iron fist is that they may have to “re-evaluate their position vis a vis the international media presence”. In plain English, either you walk, or every news network gets its UN accreditation rescinded, UNECTA puts on the Great Stone face and they end up squabbling for the odd press release and maybe a conference for Ramadan, Yom Kippur and Christmas. My hands are tied, Gaby. I can’t be the man who sinks the entire East African operation.’

‘My God. I knew I hurt Shepard bad, but I never had him down for a vindictive bastard.’

‘Shepard resigned as Executive Peripatetic Secretary yesterday. Word on the inside is he jumped before he was pushed: an internal enquiry reported that while he couldn’t be directly connected to your investigation into Unit 12, his relationship with you made him a significant security risk. In fact, he had already committed several breaches of protocol and privilege.’

Gaby closed her eyes.

‘Can’t you bargain with these people, T.P.? I can’t lose this now, not like this.’

‘I’ve been haggling like a Moore Street fish-wife,’ T.P. said. ‘This is their best offer. They wanted you not just out of Kenya, but out of SkyNet. But for the fact that our beloved proprietor, Cap’n Bill, gets wet every time he sees you on screen and wants to suck your toes, you’d be finished as a journalist, here or anywhere. What would you be?’

Finished, T.P. But I already know this.

‘What am I going to do?’ she said.

‘Well, for a start, you’ve got forty-eight hours, so earn what I pay you. Give two fingers to UNECTAfrique. Finish that report. Give all those interviews I have so painstakingly lined up for you. Clear your desk and walk out of this building with a “Fuck-you-honey” look on your face, like the billion dollar babe you are.’

‘T.P., you talk the biggest load of oul’ shite.’

But she did what he said. She finished her final report, and though it didn’t change anything or make anything any easier, she managed to feel about a couple of hundred thousand dollars as she tucked the cardboard box of desk impedimenta under her arm, and that was currency enough to look Abigail Santini in the eye.

‘Gaby!’

Faraway was standing up at his work station. He smiled the famous Faraway smile and drummed his hands on the desk top. Tembo stood up and joined the rhythm. And the whole office rose and thundered hands on desks, banged chairs, rattled files, disc boxes, thumped books. In his glass cubicle, T.P. Costello raised a triumphant fist.

They hung out the windows and whistled and cheered as she walked down Tom M’boya Street to the car park.

~ * ~

Gaby gave an interview an hour at the Elephant Bar. It was a political choice of venue. The Thorn Tree was the journalists’ bar. The interviewers were all media people who had never noticed her before Unit 12, but were now her best friends and greatest admirers and most fervent supporters.

Between the interviews, she called Shepard. Each time she got his answering machine. When she was satisfied that he had gone back to the US to bury his son and ex-wife, she drove over to get the rest of her things. There were not many. She packed them quietly. She was glad to be out of the house. It felt as if the dying had taken wings and crossed the ocean and come to roost there. The Siberians threw her a party in the Elephant Bar that night. Many SkyNetters came, though T.P.’s official farewell lunch was scheduled for the next day at the Norfolk Hotel. The dress code had been relaxed this once, but most guests enthusiastically observed the see-knees rule. The Siberian pilots performed ‘There is Nothing Like a Dame’ from South Pacific in Gaby’s honour, complete with the acrobatic dancing Marines. Then they carried Gaby on their shoulders around the bar and across the airfield singing ‘Bloody Gaby is the Gal We Love’.

‘I knew I would lose him,’ Gaby said to Oksana, after the singers had gone back into the bar to drink much