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I sipped my beer and felt very hot through the Dralon seat covers. B.B. went through a few more crises. I felt as if I’d been there a couple of hours. I didn’t feel awkward; he seemed to have things to occupy him.
‘Jack said you wanted to see me,’ I volunteered.
‘Yairs,’ he said and sipped his drink and looked out into the garden.
Mary flipped in and flopped out again. It reminded him of something.
‘Ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-Mary!’ he hollered, and she reappeared.
‘We eat someting?’
‘Corn beef, sah!’
He looked at me, wanting some encouragement, so I nodded. Mary went back into the kitchen.
‘Jack –’ he said and stopped. The singing in the church stopped too and was replaced by a preacher who roared at his sinners, torturing them with feedbacks from his microphone. B.B. lost his track. His eyes looked up into his forehead as if he might find it up there. Something clicked, it sounded like a synapse from where I was sitting.
‘Jack,’ he repeated, and I flinched because his eyes had popped again, but the sneeze didn’t come, ‘is a nice man. His father too. His father dead now. He was a nice man, a good man. We do lot of business together. He know how to wok. We wok very hard togedder, all over Ghana, the north, the west side, east…Kete, Krachi, Yendi, Bawku, Bolgatanga, Gambaga, Wa…We wok in all dese places.’
He sipped his drink and I wondered where all this was going to. He breathed through his nose and mouth at the same time, the air rushing down the channels. His feet seemed to conduct an orchestra of their own. He talked for twenty minutes with a few coughing breaks in which he turned puce and became so still that I thought an impromptu tracheotomy was looming and I took a biro out for the purpose. What he talked about is difficult to remember, but it took a long time and part of it was about how hard he had ‘wokked’ with Jack’s father, which brought him back to Jack again.
‘Jack,’ he said, ‘has never wokked. Everting has been given. Is a problem, a big problem. If money is easy, you always want more, but more easy evertime.’
He winced again and leaned over, raising his left buttock as if he were about to break wind ostentatiously in the direction of something he disagreed with. The pain made him lose his track but his random access memory came up with something else. ‘Cushion,’ he said, and I looked around. ‘Cushion!’ he said again, wagging his finger with irritation. ‘When you want to cross the road you always look, if you walk and no look you get run over. Cushion. Always look. Take your time. Don’t be in hurry. Cushion is a very importarn ting. Jack is not careful. He no understand the word cushion.’
B.B. sipped his drink. ‘Respeck,’ he said, holding up a different finger. ‘Respeck is very importarn ting. If you no have respeck you no listen, if you no listen you make mistake. If you make mistake in Africa you get lot of trobble. Jack he no listen. He know everyting. He no respeck. You know Africa, Bruise?’ he said suddenly, so that I wasn’t sure if it was a question.
‘Not as well as you,’ I said, throwing a handful of flattery.
‘Now listen.’ He looked at me intently. ‘You see, I am still small boy. In Africa you learn all de time. If you tink you know everting you stop learning, dan you get big trobble. It come up on you like a dog in de night.
You hear noting until you feel de teeth.’ He grabbed a buttock with a clawed hand so that I got the picture.
‘Smock?’ he asked, and I looked puzzled, so he lit an imaginary cigarette.
‘I gave up.’
‘Me too,’ he said, annoyed.
He saw someone over my shoulder in the garden.
‘Ra-ra-ra-ra-ra-ra garden boy!’ he yelled.
Outside, the gardener was looking around as if he’d heard The Call. He ran towards the gate.
‘Bloddy fool!’ said B.B., standing up, grabbing his shorts and walking with an old footballer’s gait to the window.
‘Ra-ra-ra-ra-ra-garden boy!’ he bellowed and banged on the window frame.
The gardener worked it out, ran to the door and knocked.
‘Come,’ said B.B., searching his pockets.
The gardener, glistening with sweat, stood with his machete down by his side, naked apart from some raggedy shorts and a willingness to please. B.B. had performed the Augean task of cleaning his pockets out of old handkerchiefs and found nothing.
‘You have some monny, Bruise?’ he asked.
I gave him some money with Jack’s words sticking in my craw. He told the gardener to get him some Embassy.
He was about to walk back to the armchair when Mary came in with the food. It was chilli hot corned beef stew with rice and pitta bread. B.B. sat down and ripped the pile of pitta bread in half like a phone book. He reached over and scraped exactly a half of the chilli and a half of the rice on to his plate with his fork. He fell on it using the pitta bread as a shovel. Most of the food went in his mouth. I used a knife and fork and wore my napkin on the arm nearest to him.
The gardener came back in with the cigarettes and B.B. grunted at him. He finished his food and tore into the packet of cigarettes and chain-smoked three of them without speaking. He picked rice out of his chest hair and ate it in between drags. I picked the Cellophane wrapping of the packet out of my corned beef. He stood up and walked back to the chair, cigarettes in one hand and the shorts in the other. I finished my food and sat down in front of him again. We sat in the silence left over from B.B.’s breathing. I was getting a little frustrated now and had started thinking about Heike. B.B. was fretting over what was on his mind.
‘You see, Bruise,’ he said, ‘I giff this man a job. He’s a good man. He been here before. I know he haff no money. He haff big problem. So I giff him job and now he’s gone. I no understand.’
I didn’t understand either, but I realized we were talking about what he wanted me to do for him in Cotonou.
‘Who is this man?’
B.B. muddled about with some papers on a side table. The phone went and he picked it up.
‘Hello,’ he said looking up into his forehead again. ‘John. Yairs. OK. Cocoa?…Coffee?…Dollar?…Parn?…Fresh Fran?…Swiss Fran?…Arsenal?…Oh, my God! Tankyouvermush.’
He put the phone down and went back to the papers. He pulled one out and waved it at me. I took it from him. It was a photocopy of a British passport. It belonged to a man called Steven Kershaw.
‘When you say he’s gone, what do you mean? He’s quit the job. He’s flown back to the UK or what?’ I asked.
‘He disappear,’ said B.B. ‘He never dere when I call.’
‘So what do you want me to do?’
‘Find him,’ he said. ‘His wife keep calling me and I don’t know what say to her.’
‘Have you got a photo of him?’
He reached over to the papers again, winced as some ash fell into his chest hair and he slapped himself hard there, coughing the cigarette out which fell into his crotch and he came out of the chair roaring like a bull elephant. I got the cigarette out of the chair. He sat down again and took the cigarette off me as if I’d been trying to steal it and plugged it back into his mouth.
‘My God,’ he said. ‘Is big problem.’
He found the photo. Steven Kershaw was early forties and dark. He had dark brown hair, dark skin, and dark eyes. The hair was thick and cut short with a side parting. He had a moustache which rolled over his top lip into his mouth. From his face he looked as if he carried a little extra weight but wasn’t fat.
‘Is he English?’ I asked.
‘Yairs,’ said B.B. ‘But his mother from Venezuela or someting like dat.’
‘How tall is he?’
‘Smaller dan you.’
‘Most people are.’
‘Yairs. Less dan six foot.’
‘Is he big?’
‘He not fat like me. He fat small.’
‘Does he have any scars, or marks?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘What about the moustache?’
‘I tink he shave it.’
‘What was he supposed to do?’
‘I organize flat for him. I organize warehouse for him. I organize bank accoun’ for him…everting.’
‘To do what?’
‘Sheanut. I buy sheanut from Djougou and Parakou in de north of Benin. It come down to Cotonou in trucks. He weigh de sheanut, pay de suppliers and store it. When we get contrack we ship it.’
‘How long has be been missing?’
‘Since last week. He supposed to call everday. He no call.’
‘What about the money in the account?’
‘No, no. He no teef man,’ he said waving the cigarette at me. ‘He no chop de monny. De monny still dere.’
‘What sort of cash does he have?’
‘Expense monny. Four hundred parn, two hundred thousand CFA, someting like dat.’
‘Credit cards?’
‘I don’t tink so. He declared bankropp in UK. Thassway I giff him de job.’
‘Car?’
‘Nissan Sunny. ACR 4750.’
‘How do you know him?’
‘A Syrian friend. He introduze us.’
‘What’s his name?’
‘Dey call him Dama.’
‘His address?’
‘You know de road out of Lomé to Kpalimé. You cross de lagoon, up de hill, he has de big house on de right at de traffic light.’
‘You said Kershaw’s been here before?’
‘Das right. Not wokking for me. For his own accoun’.’
‘Doing what?’
‘I don’t know…but I tell you somet’ing, Bruise, he a very capable man, he understan’ de business very well. A very good head for trade and a good attitude, you know.’
Either that was true or B.B. found it necessary to cover himself for his poor judgement to a complete stranger.
‘What do you think then?’ I asked.
‘I don’t know. Maybe…You know Africa…dese African girls…maybe he lose his head. Dese girls dey change your head. Dey make you weak. Dey drife you mad.’
B.B. sounded like a man who knew. ‘You know dey get beautiful girl mush more beautiful dan English girl, dey fall in lov and deir head come off.’
‘Where’s the flat?’
‘In Cadjehoun. When you come into Cotonou from Togo on de right side.’
‘That big block?’
He nodded and gave me the flat number. He wanted me to organize the sheanut business for him as well until I found Kershaw, so he told me where the warehouse and office were and gave me a set of keys. He also told me about a weekend house that Kershaw used in Lomé near the Grande Marché. It was a house that belonged to an Armenian friend of his who wasn’t using it. He asked if I wanted a fee. I said yes and he ignored me. He asked me if I wanted a game of backgammon. I asked him if he meant instead of my fee, which he didn’t understand, but it meant that he heard the word ‘fee’ again.
He lit another cigarette in addition to the two still smoking in the ashtray. We walked out of the house to the garage.
‘What’s he like, Steven Kershaw?’ I asked. ‘What’s he like doing?’
‘He like to go to bars. He like girls. He like to play cards. Yairs,’ he said, thinking, ‘he’s a lively fellow. He like to tok a lot. He like to tok to women. Thassway I say maybe de African girls give him trobble.’
‘What about his wife?’
‘Dere he haff problem. De monny. It break de marriage.’
‘She still calls him?’
‘Yairs,’ said B.B. thinking about that. ‘He like to draw. His wife say she going to send art material to him in Lomé. Yairs, he always sketching, you know – trees, birds, people. He show me a drawing of myself. I tell him thass no very good. He say, “Why?” and I say it make me look like baboon.’
‘My fee is fifty thousand CFA a day plus expenses.’
‘Whaaaaaat!’ he roared. His face fell and his coal eyes bored into me.
‘Fifty thousand CFA a day plus expenses.’
