The Mammoth Book of Best British Crime 7 Part 49

He sat next to her and hugged her awkwardly while she wiped at her eyes.

"Life's tough, Star. Robert hasn't paid me yet . . ."

"You said there's cash in Kisendi for those in the know . . ."

Conrad laughed. "That's true. Give me time." He kissed her on the nose.

Star took Conrad's face between her hands and kissed his mouth. She lay back on the pink, plush coverlet with Goofy st.i.tched into it and pulled him on top of her. He kissed her, pushed his hand between her thighs. She tugged his shirt up and stroked his back.

"Conrad!" shouted Olive from the living room.

"I have to go," said Conrad. He tucked in his shirt. "Welaba, Star."

Star lay where she was, her skirt round her hips. The wind-up radio was gone. Olive's shrill giggle sounded through the window. Star reached under the bed for the tin. It was empty. Her family would go hungry tonight. Conrad had left her six times and given her a child on every return.

"This time he won't come back. And he won't pay me back either."

Star went to the kitchen and found a Royco jar with the label half washed off. She dumped the beef powder into a five-shilling bag and stuffed it in the rusted metal rack with her tubs of this and that spice.

"You'll be better off in here," she said.

In the living room, their faded wedding photo was the one ornament. There the happy couple stood: Star in her gold changing dress and Conrad in his blue suit that everybody said looked smart. Star laughed as she lifted the photograph down, felt happy yanking the picture from its frame and ripping it in two. She made small tears around Conrad's body until she had a jagged cut out of her husband. He fitted perfectly in the Royco jar.

With the old T-shirt of Conrad's she used as a dish rag, Star rubbed at the white bottom of the label till the jar came clean and she could see her husband's wedding day face.

For the other ingredients, Star had to wait until night when her children were jumbled together in bed. Odd sighs and belly rumbles told her that none of them were really asleep. They hadn't eaten more than posho for a week and the smell of Mama Esther frying chicken next door had them drooling on their bed sheet.

Star took a black plastic bag and crept into Esther's unkempt sorghum patch. She caught a gra.s.shopper more by luck than skill and dropped it cricicring into the bag. Nearby, a white stone shone in the moonlight, so she picked that too, then a pinch of red clay, a chicken feather, a henna flower crushed between her fingers 'til it bled.

On the smoothed-mud doorstep she swept so carefully each morning, Star made her mother's recipe: the cricicring nsenene (like a tiny chicken when you roasted it), the chicoco feather smeared with orange henna, the white stone blooded with red earth.

The thorn tree in her yard had snared the moon.

"Don't feel stressed," Star told it, "you always slip out of that tree."

It was an old moon, half chewed down. Beneath it, Conrad once bit her ear and told her he loved her. Star took Conrad from his gla.s.s house and ran her thumb over his face. A sob shook her by the ribs and the last ingredient fell into the Royco jar, bitter and salt. She put him back and screwed the lid shut.

"What's Tata's picture doing in there?"

It was Joyce. She sat down next to Star and pulled her nightshirt over her knees. Star wiped her wet face on the sleeve of her T-shirt and thought. At thirteen, Joyce was in the church choir and loved Jesus like a brother, nothing like either of her parents.

"Tata left us again," said Star.

She pulled Joyce's beaded braid, but the stubborn girl moved her head away.

"Promise you're not going to hurt him, Mama?"

"Of course I won't hurt him, Joyce. I love him," she replied, aware that her mother had spoken those very same words the week Star's own Tata died.

Star waited until Joyce was back in bed. She didn't want to hurt anyone, but the rent was overdue and Conrad would be too busy with Olive to find food for them. He was always bragging that there was a pile of money to be found in Kisendi and rubbing the side of his nose to show he knew where. He just needed a push. She fished in her bra for her last 300 shilling and placed them on the lid of the Royco jar.

Clutching Conrad and the shillings to her breast, Star went round the back of her house where bitter tomatoes grew wild. She dug down to the roots and in a shallow grave, buried the money and the jar.

"Draw him to money," she told it.

The image she held in her head sent chills through her guts and made her heart pound.

Conrad and the boys were outside the one-room police station playing poker on a fold-out table. Clumps of black hair blew across from Sandra's Salon and gathered at the belly of a dog dying in the middle of the dirt path. The mutt's demise was the closest thing to action since the pool hall caught fire. Conrad had a book on how long the corpse would stay there.

There was no crime in Kisendi because two years back Paddy the thief stole Robert's TV and ended up gut-shot in the swamp. No one stole after that except for Robert. It was said he kept wads of bills down the toilet and hidden in his roof. He was Chief of Police, so he took what he liked from the villagers. Right now he was doing the bribe-rounds on the Celtel shacks that mildewed the main road.

Conrad thought about Paddy's body, the sour papyrus stench, how the bloated face gleamed when their torches flicked over it. Robert told them where to start looking and arrested no one for the crime.

"He wouldn't got burned anyhow if he'd stayed in Kisendi."

Conrad shuddered. The words gut-shot and swamp made him s.h.i.t himself. Since that night Conrad and Jackson fenced the odd radio but mainly they just played cards. He stole a look at Jackson's hand well, well, a pair of Queens! Jackson had been in the toilet for hours and he was holding up the game. But these days he was edgy, up to something for sure and not sharing it. Maybe he knew where Robert kept his stash. G.o.d knows, Conrad could use the money what with six kids and a new wife. Everybody seemed to get a piece except for him.

It would be funny to sneak up on Jackson, see what he was up to. Conrad didn't usually play jokes but today the urge was irresistible. He stuffed his cards in his pocket and went round the back. There was a row of cubicles with wooden doors and padlocks. The sow lived in one, her farrow making a motorcycle-engine noise every feeding time.

The toilet cubicle was next door to the pigpen and the door was ajar. Conrad drew out his revolver and used the muzzle to nose it open. A billow of flies. .h.i.t him in the face but the cubicle was empty. Jackson must have taken a long call because it stank more than usual in there and he'd left the padlock on the ledge, the toilet roll unfurled and soaking p.i.s.s from the floor. Robert would kill them if he found the place like this.

Conrad bent to pick the roll up and saw a flash of white down the squat hole. He set his gun on a plank and hunkered down to look closer. He could still hardly see it in the stinking dark, so he shut his mouth and pearl-diver-like ducked his head parallel with the hole. It was a Capital Shopper Market bag hanging from the back plank of the latrine.

There was his piece.

He reached in the hole and yanked the bag free. His foot slipped in a smear of s.h.i.t and the gun flew in the hole with a splash. Conrad laughed at the sound. He felt drunk and later when he found himself up on the iron roof of Robert's barn, he giggled. This was a bold move and about time. He crawled over the corrugated metal slowly slowly, listened to it tick as the heat of day drained away. The banana leaves whispered to him and a gust of warm wind peppered his face with dust. There was another bag of money hidden in the storm drain. He peered at it, reached down.

Back at the house, Olive had her feet up in front of the TV. She was watching a Nigerian movie while the pink paint on her toenails dried.

"You're late," she said, "and you're filthy. Where've you been?"

"I dunno," said Conrad and began to cry like he sometimes did when he was badly hungover. He nuzzled the neck of her dress.

"Are you cheating on me?" Olive landed him one on the ear.

"Don't hit me. My head is paining!" he moaned.

Olive pushed him away with a cluck of disgust and switched off the TV.

What had kept him out 'til 10 o'clock? He struggled to sort his head out but couldn't make out more than an image here and there like strobes on dancing bodies in a karaoke club. He saw his fingers brrr a Nightjar's song through worn green bills. He teetered on a roof one minute and the next fell on his knees in the bush to dig.

Conrad looked at his dirty nails. Something else was horribly wrong. He groped his trouser waist.

Where in Jesus' name was his gun?

The next morning, Star woke with a nervous feeling. She didn't dress or even put on her flip-f ops, just ran barefoot to the bitter tomato bush. With her hands, she dug around the roots. There, sure enough, was the black plastic bag full of money. She held it to her face. It was dirty, but she kissed it.

It rained for weeks after that. The wet charmed mosquitoes out of the papyrus swamp, drove the white ants from their hills and into the village. Men s.n.a.t.c.hed ants from the air, pulled off the wings and ate the sweet flesh. Star's children caught them in cupped hands for her to fry.

Star pulled a yellow bag over her head to protect her new braids and went to the patch of dirt where green plantains and charcoal lay in sloppy piles. She bought coal and matches so she could light her burner without begging fire from Mama Esther. At the take-out shack, she got a bag of chicken and chapattis. When the power went out for load-shedding, they sat around the paraffin lamp and let it burn while they sucked the faintest flavours from thighbones.

Star wasn't in the habit of saving and most of the tomato-bush-money went into school fees. The first day her kids left for school, Star had time to make herself sweet porridge, feed the baby and scrub the step. She put on her new red dress with the patent leather pumps. Why not brag a little now that she could? She was tying the baby round her waist when a woman's voice shouted from the yard.

"Let me first come!" called Star.

"Eh, eh. I have all day," grumbled the voice.

Star finished the knot at her waist and went out. There in a blue plastic chair sat Olive. She was playing with a mobile phone Star recognized.

Olive looked over Star's red dress and shoes and clucked.

"I know he's paying you, Star. Your kids have new shoes while I can't get money for lard. You've fooled him and I'll find out how."

"What I have, I earned," Star retorted. She padlocked the door and went to the shops.

When Star returned a few hours later, Olive was in the blue chair drinking a can of soda. She'd placed the chair under the thorn tree to shade herself.

Star set her charcoal burner out and brought out the blue tub, a bag of potatoes and her knife. Olive watched Star peel with eyes half-closed and the neighbours peered around their net curtains. The baby crawled over to Olive and played with the strap of her sandal. Olive wasn't used to babies. As the moon rose, she stretched from the chair and stuffed the phone into her bra.

"You keep the ring, Star, I'll keep the man. I'll get that money back, too."

Olive kicked the soda can so hard it bounced off the step and hit the baby in the arm. Star cradled her and made soothing noises. She picked up the c.o.ke can and crushed it with her foot. In the bedroom, she laid the baby on the coverlet, then pulled out the jar and pressed her cheek against the cool lid.

"Your Olive is a bad woman, Conrad. She came to my house and hurt our baby."

The soda can had a coin-shaped flatness.

"Draw him from Olive," she told the jar and slipped the can underneath it.

She held a very pleasing image in her head.

When her children caught the matatu to school, Star went to the timber lean-to where Margret sold onions and green peppers. Later she would make a stew and cast into the pot the small bitter tomatoes that kept her pressure down.

Mama Esther was there before her, buying bread slices and gossiping with Margret.

"Did you hear? He found her with another man and beat her so bad she had to limp home to her parents' house in Luwero!"

"Are you sure?" asked Margret.

"Oh yes, Olive and Conrad are broken up. No doubt."

When they saw Star standing there, they turned to her and smiled. It was a bad look, as if Conrad would run straight back to her, as if she should be happy that another woman was hurt.

Star walked up to the soda kiosk. She'd just paid 300 shillings for powdered milk when Conrad appeared with a bag of empty c.o.ke bottles. His eyes were puffy and he had a cut on his cheek. He was wearing the ragged old jeans Star had washed so many times.

"How are you, Star?" he asked in a dull voice.

"I'm well," she smiled.

"You look pretty," said Conrad, eyeing her new red dress and shoes. "You must be eating."

As she walked away from him, Star smelled waragi on her husband's breath.

"If only he had a woman to take care of him . . ." she whispered to the baby.

The truth was, Star missed the old dog and their nights together before the children were born. Now her house was almost empty. His too. She unlocked her back door and put the food away. The baby was fast asleep in her sling so Star laid her down on the mattress.

From the jar, the picture of Conrad seemed to wink at Star. She hiked her red dress up and pulled down her new polka-dot underwear. White stretch marks wriggled across the smooth black skin of her belly. She stroked them for a moment, then stepped out of her knickers and dropped them over the Royco jar. The leg-hole slid down the gla.s.s until the gusset framed Conrad's face.

"Draw him to me," said Star and held a familiar image in her head.

She walked through the bush until she came to the coffee plantation where Conrad's family was buried. Star liked graveyards and she'd hinted as much to Conrad, but the idea of making love a few feet above his ancestors' bones made him retch.

When Conrad emerged from the trees, a sprig of green beans in his hand, Star didn't waste time on sweet-talk. She pushed the dusty plastic flowers from his Grandma's headstone and stretched out to take him. His eyes were milky when he kissed her, like that half-wit with the cataracts who begged in the dust on Namirembe Road. He tugged her dress over her head and nuzzled her b.r.e.a.s.t.s, whispered Star in her ear as he bit her lobes. She'd been ready for him for weeks and when he entered her, she fastened on like a limpet.

Star walked to the yard where her kids were playing. Rose ran up and wrapped her arms round her mother's waist. Star ran a hand over her daughter's short hair and leaned to kiss her.

"You have a good Tata, don't you? He's even sent you to school. You think we'd be happy if he came back to live with us?"

"Yes!" said Rose, "Tata!" and ran back to her game.

Star went to the bed and reached for Conrad but the jar was gone. Her bedroom stank of body odour and toilet flies buzzed over the pillow. A hand closed round Star's throat and a cold circle pressed her temple.

"You're looking pretty pretty these days Star," growled a voice from behind her, "Looks like you're spending someone else's shillings. I heard your kids are even in school. I just went to find your idiot husband . . . where's he gone?"

Conrad had gone for soda but somewhere along the way, the empties vanished. He found himself leaving the bush with his flies undone and scratch marks on his upper arm.

"I must've been in a fight," he thought, "and got knocked out, maybe. My head is paining."

He was avoiding the police station. Robert had been paranoid since his secret stash went missing. All the boys took a beating. Suspicion had first fallen on Jackson as the biggest liar and the most shifty person all round. Hadn't he been up to something secretive for weeks? Jackson's body turned up in the swamp near where they'd found Paddy's and deep down in Conrad a feeling of relief bubbled up with a pop like his friend's last breath.

The scratches on Conrad's arm were fresh. When he touched them he had such a strong image of Star in a hot red dress that he stopped in the road.

"I can even smell her," he muttered.

Star's scent reminded Conrad of the way it used to be on lazy Sundays when they should've been in church. He turned round and looked towards his old house. His kids were running about with some unreeled ca.s.sette tape tied on to a sheet of paper, pretending it was a parachute. The woman at the Dairy had said they were all in school now except for the baby, that G.o.d must have blessed his family with a windfall. He thought of his wife alone in her house in that red dress.

"Maybe I could visit her." He looked down at his ragged jeans. "I'll have to change first."

Conrad pushed open the back door of his house and walked into the kitchen. He hadn't tidied since Olive walked out and there were pans covered in flies and pools of milky sc.u.m by the freezer. A rotten stench, too, like old Nile Perch mingled with sweat, Robert's smell. Since Jackson's disappearance, the Chief was always slumped in front of Conrad's TV watching football. It would all change if he moved back in with Star. She liked to keep their lives in order. Conrad undid his belt, dropped his jeans and pulled his shirt over his head.

A cold circle jabbed Conrad's back.

"My latrine filled up, Conrad," said Robert. "You know how it gets when it rains and you have to call the s.h.i.t-suckers in to drain it out?"

"Yeah," said Conrad, his shirt wrapped round his head. He stood there with his p.e.n.i.s out, feeling a hazy terror. "So the latrine's back to normal now?"

"The latrine is. But some other s.h.i.t I thought I sorted weeks ago is overflowing, 'cos you see some idiot dumped something so big it broke the drainage machine."