Eighty Not Out (10 page)

There was a subtle change in the women's clothing; many wore a tight bodice with a little valance just above the waist, below which was a narrow, ankle-length skirt – I was told it was a style introduced by early missionaries to conceal pregnancy. Many cloths were beautiful, in particular the blue and white vegetable-dyed ones from northern Nigeria and Ghana. Cruder cloths were chemical-dyed prints from Holland, which sometimes displayed a giant portrait of Queen Elizabeth or the Ghanaian leader, Kwame Nkrumah, on the wearer's rump. The kente cloth for which Ghana is famous is a superb example of craftsmanship, although its garish colours do not appeal to me. It is mostly worn on ceremonial occasions.

One of my group was pounced on by an old school friend. Sowerbutts was a slender, towering man of about fifty, with a Clark Gable moustache, black Brylcreemed hair, white shorts, knee socks, and the then ubiquitous suede desert boots. The white socks were impractical in the laterite environment, but old colonial habits, like changing for dinner, die hard. He would take no refusal of an offer to accompany a chosen few of us ashore: an additional car – with driver – was waiting, so soon we were sweeping in convoy up a steep hill, with many hairpin bends, to a sprawling bungalow with a panoramic view over the town, sea and mountains. The gardens, designed early in the century, had matured into a fine collection of bougainvillea, jacaranda, and giant mimosa, with hedges of hibiscus. Tiny iridescent birds flitted about, and the air was full of giant butterflies – pinned specimens of which were displayed in the cabinet our host showed us as soon as drinks were in hand. Several of us were hungover from the previous night, and in need of rehydration, but little notice was taken of pleas for pure fruit juice without gin: Sowerbutts was by this time into his third brandy and soda. An elderly factotum was commanded to prepare lunch-time snacks and sandwiches, before Sowerbutts instructed his drivers to take us to the beach for the afternoon, during which he had important ‘business' to conduct in the town, but would join us on board for drinks before dinner. There had been a wife who had left and gone home; now he lived alone, surrounded by books on geology, local topography, wildlife and butterflies, looked after by the old servant who remained loyal, despite the demanding nature of this benevolent tyrant. Many perks went with the job.

Apart from our group, the beach was almost deserted, and an insulated bag of assorted drinks – mostly alcoholic – had been provided. We were even able to go for a swim, rugs and towels having been brought by the drivers, who parked at a discreet distance in the shade. It gets dark very quickly near the equator, so the drivers warned us when it was time to pack up and return to the
Apapa
. True to his word, our host was waiting, now swaying slightly, and speech slurred; he sat down for a last drink before all visitors were ordered ashore. The men were slapped on the back and promised future hospitality; the women subjected to an uncertainly aimed kiss.

The corpulent engineer proved on acquaintance to be a soulmate but he was a pathetic example of the ravages a dissipated lifestyle can inflict. His torso sagged beyond its fortyfour years, blackened teeth cried out for attention, and his ankles were swollen – the next drink was always within reach. But only in the small hours did he show signs of inebriation as we stood together gazing at the Milky Way, the Pole Star and myriad others, about which he was exceptionally well informed. Sensing my ignorance, he sought to teach me how to identify individual stars and galaxies, before lapsing into soliloquy on what he now saw had been a wasted life. A public school education had been followed by a first at Cambridge, and an early childless marriage that had failed. I do not know if he blamed his drinking and broken marriage on the colonial lifestyle, or saw them as inevitable consequences of his behaviour. I wish I had been a more effective sounding board, able to offer more solace than I did, but I had yet to gather knowledge about alcoholism, the disease from which he was now in the terminal stages, so offered little more than sympathetic noises. He kissed me sadly, and we returned to the fancy-dress dance: he, dressed as a porter, wheeling a trolley, on which I, in an animal-print bathing costume, was the ‘baggage'. I wish I knew the end of his story, but after I went ashore at Takoradi, we never met again.

It was a company rule that nobody was allowed off or on the boat before nine in the morning, and I was surrounded by the chaos of last minute packing when Fergus appeared at the cabin door on the stroke of eight. Behind him, at a respectful distance, hovered the two Ghanaians who had ‘facilitated' him. This was not the Bergman/Bogart reunion I had been looking forward to; I was told to get a move on as a Land Rover, driver, two field assistants, and laboratory equipment, were waiting on the dockside. After the hastiest of goodbyes to such of my companions as were on deck, we drove off through an agglomeration of fuel storage tanks, warehouses and vast stacks of timber, to the guesthouse where we were to stay the night.

Adda and I were introduced, both aware how critical our compatibility would be. He was wary, having known situations where a loyal servant had survived a few weeks only after the importation of a memsahib. For the time being, I resolved to behave as befitted any well-mannered visitor to a strange country, and keep negative comments to myself. After leaving my luggage in his care, Fergus drove me in his own car – a Ford Zephyr with red plastic seats and no air-conditioning – to the centre of Accra for a last minute visit to his bank and the only big stores, Kingsway and
UTC
(United Trading Company). He had asked me to list everything I thought indispensable for basic needs at a field station some 150 miles north of Kumasi – adding, superfluously, that stocks of European foodstuff were low and that in the Ashanti region the situation was likely to be worse. My mind, then as now, went almost blank when asked to make a list at short notice, but I did make a plea for a large stock of Kleenex, Tampax, mosquito repellent, lavatory paper, a good tin-opener, kitchen towels, and Wettex cloths.

The shelves of Kingsway and
UTC
were, as predicted, sparsely stocked, but we found some delicacies, such as tinned frankfurters from Czechoslovakia, crab from Russia,
marrons glacés
and tinned artichoke hearts from France. We bought a sack of coffee beans, large cans of vegetable oil, and many tins of dried milk powder. Staples like tea, sugar, tinned margarine, sardines, tomato paste, Oxo cubes, Bisto, and jelly crystals – the last three an indictment of British colonial wives – could be found in wayside stores as far north as Navrongo, near the border with the Volta region. Not until we visited Mexico, on the shores of the Gulf of California, thirty years later, did we see such almost bare shelves in what called itself a supermarket; rusting, often bulging, cans with indecipherable labels, mildewed packets of pulses, poor quality tea-sets, enamel bowls, and Pisa-like towers of pots and pans, almost all from the People's Republic of China.

We lunched at the Accra Club – an old colonial haunt recently opened to all races. After parking in the shade of an ancient mango tree, we ate an excellent meal, served with all the courtesy and competence of a first-class
UK
restaurant. The heat and humidity, on top of exhausting shopping, were having their effect, so I welcomed the afternoon siesta from two to four. Fergus played a long-arranged tennis singles match, after which he and his opponent were literally streaming with sweat. He took me to dine at the Ambassador Hotel, where, at that time, there was a well-kept aviary of South American macaws, as well as various parrots from Africa. We dined on lobster thermidor, and I remember being warned to make the most of it, as it would probably be six months before I ate anything comparable.

From sublime to ridiculous, next morning began with a typical guesthouse breakfast: limp cornflakes swimming in reconstituted dried milk, lumps of egg scrambled in Blue Band margarine, incinerated white toast. In redemption, there was a huge slice of pawpaw with half a lime. Tea was strong and stewed, coffee indescribably awful. Water, which had to be boiled and filtered, was tepid. The driver arrived late with the Land Rover: his excuse, according to a wrathful Fergus, transparently untrue. It delayed our start on the four- to five-hour drive to Kumasi. Thus began life in Africa.

9

Induction

T
he tarred road out of Accra stopped abruptly not long after we passed the gates to the university campus on the left, the airport on the right, and the recently erected Black Star arch, one of many extravagant symbols of Ghana's independence: the surface thereafter was rutted laterite with a deep ditch on each side. These ditches were the graveyard of so many lorries that soon I was counting them. The number was unsurprising, taking account of the speed at which most were driven. A few slow specimens progressed in a curious crab-like way, their axels twisted beyond repair. I was fascinated by the slogans that adorned these ‘mammy lorries', as they are called in Ghana: ‘Snakes and Women', ‘Only Jesus', ‘All Africans are Brothers', ‘Trust in God', ‘Fear No Devils', and, ironically, ‘Travel Safely'. All were overloaded with exuberant passengers, cheering and waving any time Fergus thought it prudent to pass – a manoeuvre requiring sangfroid and fierce acceleration to penetrate the dust and establish there was no oncoming traffic.

We climbed the escarpment that overlooks the Accra plains, a site favoured by government ministers for their luxury residences. Wayside villages offered the hazard of unfettered goats, chickens, and sometimes children, as well as deeper ditches with sharper sides. Suddenly we entered the forest zone, where giant cotton trees with massive buttresses at the base supporting smooth silvery trunks soaring to gaps in the distant sky lined the route. From time to time, a clearance in the roadside vegetation marked the entrance track to some hidden village. Often a small group of children would gesticulate furiously that they had something to sell. I would have liked to stop, but Fergus was adamant that we would lose valuable time in protracted negotiations, only to buy something we could get at half the price in the next market. There was an added risk of emotional blackmail if offered a deliberately orphaned or injured animal: he spoke from painful experience, blaming sentimental Europeans for encouraging the practice. I came into this category, and newly imported women were notoriously vulnerable. Later I became victim of the persuasive powers of Muslim traders in wood carvings, woven blankets and crocodile skins. I have always loathed the concept of bartering, but Fergus said it was a tradition to be enjoyed by both parties. So I tried hard, once pointing disparagingly to a hole in the skin of a small crocodile – embarrassed giggles ensued and Fergus intervened, hissing at me: ‘It's the anus, you dimwit.' He and the trader, who knew him from bachelor days, then embarked on a session of good-natured banter, before concluding a deal satisfactory to both.

Shortly after we left Kumasi, school geography lessons describing rain forest giving way to savannah grassland came to mind as the overhead canopy and giant cotton trees phased out, and open country dotted with assorted bushes and trees, and massive sculptural ant hills came into view. Fergus, who had a set of
Bannerman's Guide to West African Birds
, was able to name the unfamiliar exotic birds: flocks of common bee-eaters, guinea fowl, various shrikes, a stunning long-tailed drongo, bulbuls, and the occasional ground hornbill. A few small rodents skittered across the road, but as Fergus sadly remarked, little game was left because anything that moved was regarded as ‘chop' designated for the pot if it could be shot, trapped, or caught by any means. We did, however, see a troop of baboons, some vervet monkeys, and the flattened corpse of a large snake, before reaching the escarpment on which the research station and housing for senior staff had been built. The site for the headquarters of the Medical Field Units (
MFU
s) had been chosen when British colonial influence in the Gold Coast was at its height by Chief Medical Officer B.B. Waddy. The current director, David Scott, was Fergus's ‘national counterpart'. David was a relic of the old colonial system, known and respected by both Africans and Europeans, but nevertheless a despot, and ill at ease to find himself lumbered with a
UN
counterpart – albeit a parasitologist rather than a medical officer – for whom he was expected to provide transport, laboratory facilities, field and laboratory assistants, and a house.

We drove up an incline, past the laboratory block, to a compound where twelve modern bungalows were scattered among ancient mango trees. Some were surrounded by flowerbeds, an indication that the occupants were European, others stood much as they had been left by the builders, but with a dirt yard populated by children and chickens. Each dwelling had a group of pawpaw trees, frangipani and oleander bushes and the ubiquitous bougainvillea; many had beds of strident canna lilies, and masses of blue morning glory climbing the walls. First impressions were good, although on inspection it was clear the houses were badly finished. Shortly after our arrival, I traced the cause of the cascade from the roof above our bedroom – loose guttering jointed with dried-out putty. A mosquito-proofed porch led directly into the central living area, to the left of which was a large kitchen with a big wood-burning range, a double Belfast sink, rudimentary shelving and several deeply scarred wooden tables encrusted with grime. Everything was smoke blackened. Outside were a woodpile and area where clothes washing took place, and callers were entertained to mugs of strong sugary tea. Enquiry about washing methods revealed that buckets and enamel basins were preferred to the sinks in the kitchen, where cold water was on tap. After being wrung into a tight rope, washing was hung to dry on a line – Fergus having discouraged the use of bushes. Improved methods would have to be tactfully introduced. Ironing, with a collection of different-sized heavy charcoal irons, was also done in this area, and any iron considered too hot plunged hissing into a bucket of cold water. Here too neighbours, aspirant garden boys and casual traders would congregate to chat with Adda while he worked – I had a lot to learn.

Painters from the Public Works Department were instructed to paint the kitchen: they arrived promptly at seven thirty but did not start work until nine, having taken time off for morning chop. No attempt was made to prepare the walls before the first thin coat was applied to the walls; the result was dirty grey streaked in places with white. Two hours later the workforce was comfortably lolling on a variety of seats outside the back door. I stirred the lumpy mixture used and understood the streaks, but not why it was taking such a long time to dry. The head painter then said this was all they had, but notwithstanding they would return the next day. It was my first experience of a master obstructionist, and I remembered Albert Schweitzer's advice: ‘Never get into an argument with your garden boy, he will always win.' I pointed out that in the absence of paint there was little point in their returning, and told him and his team to make themselves scarce. I got the impression that Adda was enjoying the impasse, and had, in his role of translator, deliberately fuelled the flames. At this point Fergus appeared, quickly assessed the situation, and reinforced my order that they were not to return until a supply of Snowcem was in hand. Crestfallen, they dispersed.

The opposite wing contained two bedrooms and a bathroom at the end of a dark corridor. Inside the mosquito netting were glass-slatted louvres adjusted by metal levers. In theory the mosquitoes were kept out, but a great variety of insects got trapped, only to batter themselves to death between netting and glass, from where they were difficult to remove. Vacuum cleaners did not then come with the variety of nozzles we now expect, although I had brought a spherical Constellation – now a design classic. Prior to that, cleaning had been done by dustpan and brush. Electricity, from a generator situated near the laboratory block, went off at ten in the evening. Hot water for the bath came from an ill-disposed bottled gas geyser, supplemented by the contents of a giant black kettle, which sat permanently on the warm kitchen range.

After much conflicting advice from friends in Ireland and Accra, Fergus had installed a hi-fi record player, complete with stereo amplifiers, and we had a collection of long playing records, some of which survive to this day. There were no curtains, but I had bought a Singer hand-powered sewing machine in Accra, as well as some material, and set to work, wishing I had taken more notice of my mother's expertise – she could cope, not only with curtains, but loose covers, jodhpurs and riding habits. I do not imagine she was ever called upon to turn a shirt collar, something I had to tackle after we moved to the far north two years later. At night, after the generator shut down, we depended on kerosene lamps, of which I was afraid, seeing them as a fire hazard. I never mastered their idiosyncrasies, any more than I conquered the rusty tank and burner that fuelled the refrigerator. Both of us spent frustrating hours, kneeling on concrete, among spiders' webs, sugar ants and cockroaches, trying to coax our own specimen into action, as well as those at rest-houses if the caretaker had given up hope. Keeping refrigerators working was a nightmare of wick-trimming, recalcitrant burners, glass chimneys and mantles, which cracked and broke, with spares, when available, hundreds of miles away.

Wherever one travelled in Africa, the dream of ice cubes and cold water at the end of a long journey was seldom realised. A caretaker, if he could be found, would only recently have filled the water-filter, and the refrigerator would, with luck, begin to chill before night fell. The ice-cube container was often missing, so we learned to bring our own, as well as a tin-opener, egg whisk and at least one saucepan, not to mention tea towels and wipe-cloths. Most caretakers used a bunch of twigs to sweep the floors, and the arrival of visitors was often a surprise, despite the reservation having been made well in advance through the district office.

I soon adjusted to rising at dawn, early breakfast, and the departure of Fergus for a working day which ran from seven in the morning to two in the afternoon. Adda had, as is the custom, recruited one of his extended family as a ‘small boy': which meant he got a cut from the youth's miserable monthly wage, and Adda's own workload was lessened. I was not happy about the arrangement, as it meant even more loss of privacy, and many of the ‘services' offered were a source of irritation: cushions would be plumped, tables, on which one had reading matter, taken outside when the floor was cleaned in preparation for yet another coating of Cardinal polish, or ‘Calindar' polish, as Adda wrote it on his shopping lists (his fair English and good handwriting a tribute to the White Fathers), while feeble efforts were made with a feather duster to remove dead insects from the screening.

There was an Edwardian element to the situation: I had the key to a storeroom in which we kept bulk supplies and our duty-free liquor allowance, and Adda had to ask for release of bar soap and cleaning materials. It was accepted practice that a blind eye be turned on servants' consumption of sugar and tea, and the amount of soap used not questioned, even if it was suspected that some might have been sold; all other commodities were sacrosanct. Tins of Hero Black Cherry jam, of which we ate little, were a frequent request, and the amount of Blue Band margarine asked for did not tally with what we were using. For baking, I had bought tins of Spry, luckily not so popular. Fergus voiced his suspicions about the boy to Adda, who conducted his own inquiry. Apparently stores in the servants' quarters had also been filched, so the ‘small boy' was sent back to his village in the north.

The director's house was an imposing two-storey edifice; built at the highest point of the compound by the founder of the
MFU
s, it had a panoramic view over a vastness of savannah scrub, where guinea fowl were abundant, and it was rumoured a few lions had survived decades of indiscriminate hunting. Shortly after my arrival we were invited for dinner. David was of the old school in which protocol is strict and conventions observed, yet his counterpart had blatantly installed, not a wife, but a ‘kept', apparently married, woman, in one of the official houses. It must have been a testing situation for him, and I look back on my initial performance with some chagrin: he was discomfited on his own patch and I made little allowance for that. I was impossible to pigeonhole, and he had probably never been faced with a similar situation, although one of his medical officers, a Tamil, had recently brought a very pale-skinned, sariwearing bride from England.

We got on surprisingly well and enjoyed one of his formal dinners, which varied little over the years. Simba, his servant of long standing, served consommé with freshly baked rolls, roast guinea fowl stuffed with Paxo, accompanied by rice and a mixture of small aubergines and sweet red peppers; the pudding was a pink foam concocted from jelly cubes and Carnation condensed milk. After the meal, we sat on the terrace, companionably sipping coffee and liqueurs under a starlit sky, against a background of croaking frogs, while geckos gorged themselves on moths.

David read
Blackwood's Magazine
, and we read the
Guardian
and the
Listener
, although we soon changed to the
Sunday Times
and the
Observer
, always at least three weeks late, and costing five shillings. The
BBC
World Service was an invaluable link with the rest of the world, but reception was poor and, like the refrigerator and lamps, a cause of many obscene outbursts from Fergus as he repositioned the set in various positions, using a variety of aerials.

David had a pedigree female Siamese cat on which he doted, a collection of fine Persian carpets, some family silver, and several foxed engravings of the Northumberland coast. He grew Jerusalem artichokes, and any other vegetable tolerant of the unforgiving climate. For recreation there was a murky swimming pool and one cement tennis court with greenery sprouting from its many cracks. Fergus soon had the court made playable, and found several enthusiasts among the field assistants and the doctors. This was dangerous territory, as David, while captain of Kintampo Tennis Club, seldom made an appearance on court, and, to put it mildly, was not athletic. The club was almost defunct, but with our arrival interest in the game revived. We had to tread carefully, and matters were not improved when our common black cat impregnated David's Siamese; he made no effort to conceal his annoyance, and relations were distant for weeks after a splodgy litter was delivered. We were not told their fate.