sleep with Fat Paul where I didn't want himâsitting heavily on my mind.
Chapter 5
Monday 28th October
I woke up with a headache, a pain in the neck and a whisky bottle where a lover should have been. The sheets reeked. The room was already hot from the sun pouring through the unshuttered window and I had a film of sweat on my forehead and top lip. I felt a weight at the foot of the bed and started, but it was only Moses striking a maternal pose. I propped myself up on an elbow and saw the blood on the pillow. I kicked my way out of the mosquito net, Moses looking at me as if I might refuse to go to school.
'I'm all grown up now, Moses. You don't have to watch over me.'
'You bleeding, Mr Bruce, please sir,' he said. 'That car, thess hole in window, back one driver's side.'
The mirror showed something that looked human but had been kept underground for a long time. Moses appeared on my shoulder and I told him to look at the back of my neck. He drew the collar down, sucked on his teeth and took a pair of tweezers out of the penknife on the table. After a sharp pain that travelled down my spine to my coccyx and back up again he showed me the diamond of glass that had embedded itself in my neck.
'You be lucky,' he said.
'Maybe I am.'
'You be lucky bullet stoppin' in head rest passenger side.'
'And not in me, you mean?'
'No, please sir, not goin' on brekkin' other window, you pay two and ibbe costly.'
'Thanks for your concern.'
'Your good health is mine. You are my mastah,' he said in a tone of voice I knew well. 'How much do you want?'
Moses grinned. When he used the words 'sir' and 'mastah' it always meant money. He looked off into his head somewhere, pretending to do a calculation when he'd already cheated the answer.
'Two thousand.'
'Cedis?'
'We in Ivory Coast,' he said. 'They speakin' French here and asseptin' CFA. Cedis gettin' me nothin'
'cept Ghana side.'
'Is it cheaper Ghana side?'
'Oh, no, please sir. Ghana girls are very demandin'.'
'These girls sucking you dry, Moses. This rate you never afford yourself a wife, you owing me too much money.'
Moses took the money with his right hand, his left holding the wrist, his head bowed. 'Thanks for your concern,' he said.
He slipped past me out of the door and I called him back.
'I go-come,' he said.
The girl was leaning against the hired Peugeot with a pair of strong arms folded. She saw Moses and stood. Her breasts were high, almost on her shoulders, and the white nylon blouse, with its frilly trim at the shoulders and neck, looked incongruous against the developed shoulders and biceps. She rolled Moses's money in the top of her wrap. Moses was talking fast. She ignored him and pushed off the Peugeot with her rock-hard bottom, and moved off into the trees.
'Strong girl,' I said to Moses, who had returned with the body language of someone now completely at my service.
'Not jes' inne arms, Mr Bruce,' he said, and snapped a finger as if he'd just picked up something hot.
Moses cleaned and dressed my wound after I'd showered. We stripped the black tape off the number plates and packed our things into the car. I had an argument with the landlady who'd heard I was moving to the Novotel which made her push for a full week's rent. She had a baby girl on her back, who looked around her mother's hips at the action, occasionally stretching out a small hand at the money in mine as if she understood the game and couldn't wait to get started. We left at 9.30 a.m., the woman lobbing insults at us while the baby, who'd taken a fat elbow in the cheek, cried.
We found a garage in Zone 4C which could repair the hire car's window. Two young and violent-looking boys wearing sawn-off corduroys and sandals made out of old tyres were slapped away from the car by a more cultured-looking fellow in a white coat who removed the panel from the door. Moses, who'd seen a crowd gathering across the street, pulled me over the road.
We went into a walled compound of a two-storey
Chapter 5
Monday 28th October
I woke up with a headache, a pain in the neck and a whisky bottle where a lover should have been. The sheets reeked. The room was already hot from the sun pouring through the unshuttered window and I had a film of sweat on my forehead and top lip. I felt a weight at the foot of the bed and started, but it was only Moses striking a maternal pose. I propped myself up on an elbow and saw the blood on the pillow. I kicked my way out of the mosquito net, Moses looking at me as if I might refuse to go to school.
'I'm all grown up now, Moses. You don't have to watch over me.'
'You bleeding, Mr Bruce, please sir,' he said. 'That car, thess hole in window, back one driver's side.'
The mirror showed something that looked human but had been kept underground for a long time. Moses appeared on my shoulder and I told him to look at the back of my neck. He drew the collar down, sucked on his teeth and took a pair of tweezers out of the penknife on the table. After a sharp pain that travelled down my spine to my coccyx and back up again he showed me the diamond of glass that had embedded itself in my neck.
'You be lucky,' he said.
'Maybe I am.'
'You be lucky bullet stoppin' in head rest passenger side.'
'And not in me, you mean?'
'No, please sir, not goin' on brekkin' other window, you pay two and ibbe costly.'
'Thanks for your concern.'
'Your good health is mine. You are my mastah,' he said in a tone of voice I knew well. 'How much do you want?'
Moses grinned. When he used the words 'sir' and 'mastah' it always meant money. He looked off into his head somewhere, pretending to do a calculation when he'd already cheated the answer.
'Two thousand.'
'Cedis?'
'We in Ivory Coast,' he said. 'They speakin' French here and asseptin' CFA. Cedis gettin' me nothin'
'cept Ghana side.'
'Is it cheaper Ghana side?'
'Oh, no, please sir. Ghana girls are very demandin'.'
'These girls sucking you dry, Moses. This rate you never afford yourself a wife, you owing me too much money.'
Moses took the money with his right hand, his left holding the wrist, his head bowed. 'Thanks for your concern,' he said.
He slipped past me out of the door and I called him back.
'I go-come,' he said.
The girl was leaning against the hired Peugeot with a pair of strong arms folded. She saw Moses and stood. Her breasts were high, almost on her shoulders, and the white nylon blouse, with its frilly trim at the shoulders and neck, looked incongruous against the developed shoulders and biceps. She rolled Moses's money in the top of her wrap. Moses was talking fast. She ignored him and pushed off the Peugeot with her rock-hard bottom, and moved off into the trees.
'Strong girl,' I said to Moses, who had returned with the body language of someone now completely at my service.
'Not jes' inne arms, Mr Bruce,' he said, and snapped a finger as if he'd just picked up something hot.
Moses cleaned and dressed my wound after I'd showered. We stripped the black tape off the number plates and packed our things into the car. I had an argument with the landlady who'd heard I was moving to the Novotel which made her push for a full week's rent. She had a baby girl on her back, who looked around her mother's hips at the action, occasionally stretching out a small hand at the money in mine as if she understood the game and couldn't wait to get started. We left at 9.30 a.m., the woman lobbing insults at us while the baby, who'd taken a fat elbow in the cheek, cried.
We found a garage in Zone 4C which could repair the hire car's window. Two young and violent-looking boys wearing sawn-off corduroys and sandals made out of old tyres were slapped away from the car by a more cultured-looking fellow in a white coat who removed the panel from the door. Moses, who'd seen a crowd gathering across the street, pulled me over the road.
We went into a walled compound of a two-storey
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