Justin begged me to, and I thought about it. I thought about it, and then I agreed. I knew if I slept with him it would help him.
Besides, I enjoy it, although it is tiring. The Henman does not know how tiring it is.
When I tried to tell her, she screamed even louder.
And so I have come and started my packing. I am banging my case about on the floor. Soon she will come and apologise. I hope she will come and apologise. I cannot leave now. I have to earn more money.
(£2,000. That is what I need. £2,000 is six million shillings. I do not much want to buy land or build houses, because I have seen it go wrong for others without quite enough money to bribe the officials. My friend Charles thinks he knows all about the system, the bibanja and poloti and the KCC, though sometimes his fingers have been burned, as well. My kabito puts his fingers in too many pies. He is an accountant, but he deals in cement, and sometimes lends money to other businessmen, and sometimes gets it back, and sometimes not. Still, let him get rich for both of us, and rent rooms to thieving tenants, if he wants to. I have my own plans for the six million shillings. I will not say why I need it for Jamey, but I need it for Jamey, most of all.
It costs a lot of money to find people. And some people can never be found—
I must think of the other things I shall do. Buy smart new dresses at Garden City, instead of going to Owino Market. Fill up Charles’s car with sugar and paraffin, with tea and coffee, with rice and aspirin, with shoes and hats and shirts for the children, and English books for the primary school, and my friend the accountant will drive us to the village.
So I cannot go back to Uganda till Christmas. It will take four months to earn the money I need.)
It is possible there has been a slight misunderstanding. I thought of this after she really started screaming. Surely even Miss Henman would not believe that I was doing bad things with her son? I Mary Tendo! A Ugandan Christian!
And then I started to laugh a little. And then I started to laugh a lot.
Of course, nothing bad is happening. Nothing, at least, that could make me pregnant. Of course it is different with my friend the accountant because he has promised to marry me. God is my witness, I’m an honest woman.
Many things Miss Henman does not understand, but this is the one that made me so angry that I had to pretend I was going home.
Because I was her cleaner, she thinks I always will be. When she looks at me, she sees ‘my cleaner’. When we had the argument, she called me ‘my cleaner’. She thinks that Mary Tendo is a name for a cleaner, like Vanessa Henman is a name for a professor.
(And when I was here before, eleven years ago, the Henman made me laugh when she talked about me. She thought I was too stupid to understand. But I noticed that, after I started looking after Justin and tidying up a little in the afternoons, she changed what she called me from day to day, when different people came to the house. Sometimes she said, ‘This is my cleaner’ and sometimes she said, ‘This is our nanny’. So she got two servants. But she only paid one.)
In fact, Mary Tendo is educated, as educated as Dr Henman. I am BA Hons, Makerere.
And when she screamed at me, I answered her politely. “I was your cleaner. I’m not your cleaner now. I was your cleaner, Miss Henman, Vanessa.”
The Henman thinks that cleaning is something easy. But Henman never really cleans her house. Every now and then when she cannot do her writing she chooses something small, like a light or a bath tap, and polishes it like a crazy woman. She rubs it like a wasp that is trying to sting. She shines it as if it will light her path to heaven. Then she comes to me and shows me her work. “You see how nice it looks when one makes an effort.”
I do not say, “But it took you two hours. When I was your cleaner I had only three hours to clean the whole house, which is big, and old, with five dusty bedrooms and three sitting rooms.” I repeat what she says, and look at the floor. I say, “Very nice, when one makes an effort,” but it comes out wrong, and I almost laugh, and she notices, and looks at me strangely.
In fact, I am starting to rebel against her, because I am tired of pretending to be humble. I remember a story about Idi Amin, who was our leader when I was a child. He was a terrible man, but also very funny. When the British economy was in trouble, he started a ‘Save Britain Charity Fund’ in Uganda, and telegrammed the UK prime minister to tell him he was sending 10,000 Ugandan shillings ‘from his own pocket’, and a lorry-load of vegetables from the people of Kigezi.
The British government ignored his offer. Probably the British think Ugandans are simple, and do not recognise our sense of humour. And yet Amin renamed himself ‘The Conqueror of the British Empire in Africa in general and Uganda in particular’!
PART 3
20
Justin lies awake in the moonlit dark, looking at the back of Mary’s head, its crisp curls just visible, springy and resilient, tough enough to survive, and save him. Mary could not sleep with the curtains closed, and so now he sleeps with the curtains open. Everything is different now Mary is here.
Perhaps he does not need to wake her up. Perhaps the panic will not come tonight, the feeling of falling and falling for ever, the demon voices that come and accuse him of all that he has left undone. Sometimes it’s enough just to see her there. To know that someone is there just for him. Someone who will let him reach out and touch her. Who came round half the world to find him.
His mother had tried to send her away. Although she denies it, he knows it is true. Two days ago he woke to the sound of voices, and his mother was screaming at Mary in the hall. Mary stood there with her coat on, a poor cotton thing with big shoulder-pads and shiny buttons, and her cases beside her, ready to go. She was calm, but she was talking loudly. Neither of them was listening. Mary was wagging her finger at his mother. Justin stood on the stairs, his heart in his mouth. Both of them were ignoring him. In this house, Justin is still a child. But he made himself go down and join them.
“Are you driving her away?” he remembers shouting. And other things he should perhaps not have said. “I hate you, Mother. You’re driving her away.”
“You don’t understand.” She had turned on him. Her mouth was thin and furious, her pupils were tiny, her nose big and bony, like a witch. He had been shocked by how old she looked, which made him wonder, for a second, whether his mother was going to die, and then he could go and live with his father, if his father would let him live with him.
Will he always have to live with his parents?
But he loves his mother, painfully, deeply. He is like a sucker, still joined at the root. How would he live without his mother? How would he live without Mary?
All his life he has felt abandoned. He has been left at so many places: Baby Reading, Junior Einstein, gym for toddlers, swimming for tiddlers.
How could he stop what was happening? “You’ve driven her away, you’ve driven her away,” he had sobbed, stupidly insistent. “Mary is the only person who can help me.” But it only made his mother scream louder.
And then his father rang on the door. They had all stopped dead, in total silence.
Before he rang again, Justin managed to say, “If Mary goes, I will never forgive you.” His mother stared at him, eyes wild.
Then his father came in and it all calmed down, though Mary refused to go from the hall or move her cases till his mother said ‘Sorry’. She did say ‘Sorry’, which astonished Justin. His mother has never said ‘Sorry’ to him.