Dear Beneficiary Page 8

  Fasina piped up at this point and became highly animated.

  ‘Fishing families have lived here for more than 120 years. There are more than a quarter of a million people here, neglected if not despised by the city’s rich people. Look how they are living, having had to make their homes above water.’

  He was pointing to a group of people squatting around some wire baskets, sorting fish with bare hands and discarding heads, tails and fins into a rotting and fly-infested pile. The ground was dusty and rough. Children sat by, watching the adults work.

  Fasina went on to tell us that in the summer over one hundred officials arrived and demolished dozens of the wooden houses that lined the canals.

  ‘They had just a couple of days’ notice. They told the people to go back where they come from. But they were born here. The governor promised schools and hospitals at election time and everyone voted for him,’ he added. ‘Nobody ever mentioned they would lose their homes.’

  I remained silent as an indication of my boredom, although I don’t think our guide cared too much. It was obviously a subject close to his heart, if far removed from mine and even further from Tracey’s.

  I’m not one for politics at the best of times, the annual general meeting of the Farsham District Council being about as lofty as I can aspire to. Frankly I think it’s up to these people to get themselves out of the situation they found themselves in. I didn’t want to listen to this bleating, I just wanted to find Darius.

  Fasina stopped the car.

  Finally Tracey decided to join the communicating classes by speaking.

  ‘Where the bloody hell are we?’ she shouted a bit too loudly, as people tend to when talking with earphones in.

  I was thinking the same but wasn’t sure how to ask our self-styled guide. He behaved as if he knew where we were going and we’d shown him the address we needed to find. He hadn’t said he didn’t know it.

  ‘We get out here,’ said Fasina, taking the luggage from the boot and heading towards the canal before pointing to a canoe. ‘The car won’t take us any further this way. Get in, ladies.’

  I was horrified. Boating of any kind isn’t an activity I enjoy. Even first-class cruising still involves floating on a large piece of metal which, if it sinks, leaves you with nothing but miles of cold and dirty water to deal with.

  ‘Where are you taking us?’ I asked, trying to make sure my voice didn’t squeak with concern. ‘Is this where I will find the Western Union bank and be able to get in touch with Darius?’

  Fasina didn’t reply, but marched speedily towards the canoe, with both suitcases weighing heavily at the ends of his slim arms.

  Tracey looked agitated and took out another cigarette from her handbag, lit it and stood stock still.

  ‘Something ain’t right. I can feel it in my water,’ she said, dragging as much smoke into her lungs as she could. Her eyeliner and mascara had begun to melt and spread under her eyes, making her look a little like a tired koala – one from Essex.

  ‘You have nuttin’ to worry yourselves about,’ said Fasina, slipping into more of an African lilt than had been noticeable when we first met. ‘You are talking to me now!’ he said with a big smile. ‘I know where to take you. Have some faith, oh, yes. Faith is good.’

  Having given up church some time ago on the grounds of hypocrisy, mine as much as anyone else’s, I wasn’t a great believer in faith. In fact I’d given up on most things faithful for some time. However, I had little choice other than to follow this man, who did, after all, seem quite pleasant if now a little distracted. And well dressed.

  Tracey wasn’t at all sure so I put on my best confident demeanour and led us both to the canoe, telling her on the way that I was sure everything was fine.

  It wasn’t easy getting either of us on board. My balance got the better of me and Fasina had to hold most of my weight, even though it’s only around nine stone, as I slipped and slid like a new-born foal into one of the seats. Tracey was wearing wedge shoes with six inches of heel, which I thought were entirely unfit for any purpose, unless working in a lap-dancing club. She’d been teetering along with some difficulty throughout our entire journey, but it had all got much worse as we reached the muddy banks of the canal.

  ‘Just take them off,’ I said to Tracey, trying not to show my irritation with her as she settled into her seat at the front of the canoe. ‘Why you even think that things that look like correction boots are suitable for travelling is beyond me,’ I commented, pleased I’d decided to wear my sensible flats, although even Clark’s best still rendered me helpless when it came to negotiating my way off terra firma.

  ‘These are my shag-me shoes,’ sniffed Tracey, whose blotchiness was increasing with every ounce of effort. ‘Baz likes them.’

  Probably because it means you have no way of escaping while you’re wearing them, I thought. I turned my attention to Fasina who was rubbing his arm where Tracey’s cigarette had burned him while he’d been helping her onto the boat.

  ‘So where are we and how long will it take us to get to civilisation?’ I said, noting that Tracey’s feet, now bare, were very pale compared to the colour of the rest of her. And there were brown streaks leading from her ankles to the bottom of her mid-calf trousers. It took a while to work out it wasn’t a skin disease but the result of a home-applied fake tan.

  ‘We’re nearly there,’ he replied. ‘We can’t drive this way by road without a four-wheel drive. The boat is our best transport.’

  Fasina hastily moved along the vessel and started to punt us along the narrow channel at good speed for a man who lacked obvious muscle. We passed hundreds of wooden shacks perched above the water, which were occasionally connected by weak-looking bridges. I thought how I’d be worried walking along them with Darius who was, after all, a man of sturdy build and therefore some considerable weight – particularly in comparison to the man now before us.

  Some of the boats were covered with tarpaulins and Fasina explained that families who’d lost their homes lived on them now.

  ‘We don’t need a government any more. They take our homes. We have our own system now.’ A shiver ran down my spine, for a reason I couldn’t explain.

  After about twenty minutes of silent punting, he stopped the boat and moored up close to an area that appeared to be surrounded by a mud wall about seven feet tall. There was an archway made of brick, beyond which five or six shacks were apparently linked together with makeshift corridors, covered with struts of cane, tarpaulin and in some places, plastic sheeting. It looked dark and empty, but as Fasina tied up the canoe and helped us out onto the bank, a giant of a man, dressed in a green cotton shirt and wearing a skull cap, came towards us.

  ‘Ladies, welcome,’ he said in a manner that was anything but welcoming.

  Fasina shook the man’s hand vigorously and introduced him as Chike, pronounced ‘cheeky’, which seemed incongruous for a man with heavily bloodshot eyes, drooping jowls and a scar running from the bottom of his lip to his ear.

  Tracey and I looked at each other. If she was as nervous as I was, she hadn’t voiced her opinion as yet. She moved closer to me so she couldn’t be heard by the men and whispered: ‘I don’t know about you, but I don’t think these guys are going to find us our men. We need to get out of here. They are creeping me out.’

  Regardless of my view of this peculiar woman, I agreed she had a point. It was difficult to know what to think, but I knew we needed to do something. I tried to keep an open mind as to what. Throughout the journey here I’d questioned if we were really on our way to our desired destination but could see no reason why we wouldn’t be. What would someone like Fasina want with me and, more relevantly, Tracey?

  But there’d been a distinct lack of banks, roads and the normal tourist facilities I’d come to expect when accompanying Colin on his many business trips. It was worrying.

  ‘Listen here. We really don’t want to put you out but I’m not sure we are in the right place to find our friends. I need t
o find the Western Union bank where I’ll be collected and can get on with why I came here,’ I said, thinking I’d been incredibly diplomatic and persuasive.

  Fasina and Chike looked at each other before bursting out laughing and ‘high-fiving’ each other.

  The sweat on my bottom was starting to cool and as I thought about damp patches I worried about wetting myself, remembering I hadn’t been to the toilet since the vomiting incident. Not only that, I’d developed wind from a combination of my recurrent diverticulitis and the flight – and was getting stomach cramps from trying to hold it in.

  ‘You come with me,’ said Fasina, grabbing both of us firmly by the arms. He’d stopped being the polite and enthusiastic guide and adopted what appeared to be a snarl.

  I pulled back, bringing Fasina to a halt: ‘Now, young man. I don’t know who you think you are but that is no way to speak to ladies. We don’t want to be here and so must insist you call us a taxi so we can be on our way.’

  At that point Tracey threw up. Possibly because of the brandy from the plane or maybe from fear, but either way she narrowly missed Fasina’s shoes. I briefly noticed the lack of carrots before I stepped away. In a bid to escape the embarrassment of the situation I decided to ask Tracey if she thought her phone might work sufficiently to make a local call for a taxi. As I went to speak the men moved forward quickly, grabbing both our arms around our bodies and dragging us to a shack behind the main entrance area of the buildings. Tracey squealed as Chike pushed her along, using all the force of his knee against the back of her thighs. She was still barefoot, so her attempts at stamping on his boot-clad feet had no effect. She did, however, manage to get a bite of his forearm, which might have been noticed had she paid more attention to her dental health in the past. I heard a crunch and she spat out what looked like a crown onto the dusty floor.

  ‘Get off me, you fucking brute. I’ll do you for frigging assault, you motherfucker,’ said Tracey, sporting a very noticeable gap in the front of her teeth.

  Chike kicked her harder at this point and grabbed her hair, pulling her head backwards before throwing her onto the floor inside the shack.

  ‘Get in there and shut up,’ he shouted before turning on his heel

  Fasina was a little more gentle with me, either out of deference for my age and class or possibly because he was concerned about experiencing any further issue from our stomachs. I didn’t struggle, deeming it pointless in view of his superior physical strength, but he still used more effort than necessary to push me into the room with Tracey before quickly pulling the door shut behind him.

  The next thing we heard was the sound of keys in the padlock that had been hanging off bolts to the side of the door and Fasina’s voice.

  ‘See you later, ladies. Make yourselves at home.’ Then he laughed and his footsteps disappeared into the distance, leaving we two unlikely room-mates looking around our new accommodation with mutual disgust.

  Tracey reached round to her side to get into her shoulder bag for another cigarette, only to find the packet was missing.

  ‘Bastards,’ she spat. ‘They’ve got me fags.’

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  The shack was made of various types and shapes of wood and was reinforced with steel struts, held together with bolts and brackets and covered with chicken wire. As much as we tried, using all the brute force I and my shoeless companion could muster, we could see no way to force an exit.

  There was a pile of blankets and two mattresses in one corner, a small chair in another, and a large washing-up bowl and a jug of water on a chest that should have contained drawers but was empty. Strewn across the floor were a selection of old British newspapers and magazines, cigarette ends and dirty mugs. A light bulb hung from a pole stretched below the ceiling and dimly lit the room.

  ‘This is just outrageous, I said to Tracey, who was pacing up and down the twenty square feet or so that was available to her.

  ‘What the hell do these people think they are doing?’ Tracey said, crying and making even more of a mess of her make-up.

  I felt for her a bit at this point, particularly as it seemed she had still to notice her missing tooth and the extremely unattractive spike left in its place. Despite the bluff and bluster, and the badly disguised advancing years, she seemed quite vulnerable, if incredibly thick.

  ‘Well, I may be being a tad pessimistic, but I’ve a suspicion we’ve been kidnapped,’ I said, aware I might have been stating the obvious, but apparently not.

  Tracey wailed at this information, which she clearly hadn’t considered. Big sobs left her heaving body, forcing her bosoms to move independently of each other, in different directions. I marvelled at the sight, having only ever had marginal movement in my own 34B bust, even when breastfeeding for the few short weeks I managed it with each of my children – apart from Patrick, who had the habit of biting.

  ‘Well, there is little point crying, that won’t get us anywhere,’ I said, while trying to think. I’d already worked out I was probably the only one of the two of us who might be capable of such a function.

  ‘What about our luggage?’ sobbed Tracey. ‘I need my make-up and my sleeping pills.’

  ‘Sleeping pills? What do you think you will need those for?’ I asked. ‘You reckon you can settle down on this infested mattress for a full eight hours?’

  Tracey looked around gloomily and acknowledged that the pills weren’t maybe as necessary as the make-up.

  ‘I can’t let Baz see me like this. He’ll never marry me then!’

  I suspected he was unlikely to see her in any state at all and had no intention of marrying her, particularly now he’d fleeced her of five thousand pounds. I wouldn’t be so stupid as to be conned by any man into believing they were going to marry me.

  ‘Where did he say he’d meet you?’ I asked, mainly to make conversation rather than out of any real interest. At that point I’d started to worry how the bloody hell I’d got into such a mess. More importantly, how I was going to get out of it.

  ‘At the airport,’ Tracey replied despondently, possibly because she may have finally twigged that particular beau had sailed.

  I kept my thoughts about Tracey’s stupidity to myself. I could bring them back once I’d found a way out of our predicament.

  ‘Well, maybe he got held up for some reason and is on his way to find you right now,’ I said, as I looked around the shabby quarters for anything that might offer a degree of comfort.

  It wasn’t so much that we needed somewhere to sit and, God forbid, sleep – we had no idea of our fate – but more pressingly I was concerned about toilet requirements. The more I thought about it the more urgent my requirement became, and so in a bid to distract myself I spent the next hour or so trying to move mattresses and blankets into some kind of makeshift bed. It wasn’t easy, and after some puzzling I came to the opinion that the only way we would both be able to get any rest at all would be to share sleeping space. The mattresses and blankets were insufficient to make two separate beds, and so I devised a double arrangement where we could share whatever covers were available.

  Sharing a bed with Tracey was a prospect that filled me with absolutely no joy, particularly as she had taken to smiling gap-toothed on every occasion she glanced over at me. I’d only ever shared with Colin and Darius (even my children were banned from such sacred space) so the anticipation of potential embarrassment was excruciating.

  I just hoped that Tracey, having given in to her fate and sitting cross-legged on the floor in an apparent daze, wasn’t the touchy-feely type likely to make physical contact when least expected.

  I settled down onto the bedding arrangement and wondered again what we were supposed to do about toilet requirements. My bladder was stretched full to the point of being painful, and my bowels were clenching in the knowledge they needed imminent emptying.

  Despite our repeated hollering and shouting through the door of the shack, no one appeared. There’d been no sign of the men who’d brought us he
re and no apparent sign of any life at all.

  ‘I really need a pee,’ said Tracey, as if reading my thoughts. ‘I’m just going to have to go in that bowl,’ she said, getting up and staggering over to the corner where I’d placed it.

  The thought of public ablutions filled me with horror and reminded me of those awful women in the swimming baths who take off their costumes in full view of everyone. It’s always the ones with the worst bodies who are prepared to display them: warts, veins, stretch marks and all.

  ‘Oh, goodness me, we aren’t animals! Can’t you wait? Human rights law states that we must be treated humanely,’ I said, reminding Tracey that there were legal procedures in place for every person on the planet. ‘Someone will have to come and look after our needs soon,’ I added, before wondering if we would see anyone other than each other ever again.

  It was too late for any pleas of decency. Tracey had dropped her trousers and knickers and was on her way into the crouching position.

  I felt my own need for release increasing as I heard Tracey go about her business, and was horrified to think that I might have to do the same thing if I was to get the relief I so desperately sought.

  The thoughts flew from my mind when I looked around to see that Tracey was standing above the bowl, holding her knickers forward and shaking her lower self about in a rigorous fashion.

  ‘No toilet paper,’ she grinned, exposing her toothless spike in its full glory. ‘So I’ll have to drip dry!’

  I was completely taken aback. Not only by the actions but the fact that Tracey had no pubic hair, other than what looked like a thin brown line running down the middle of her mound. I found the sight most peculiar and wondered what sort of problem she had that would cause hair loss in that region. Perhaps she had been dying it the same colour as the hair on her head and it all fell out?