Eighty Not Out (17 page)

That night Fergus and Dorothy celebrated on the veranda, while Katharine slept fitfully because of the smallpox reaction. I slept scarcely at all, hearing the distant wailing of the new infant, although the nurses assured me she was quite all right. On the second night, when everyone was asleep, I got painfully out of bed to search the rooms for the crying baby: I found her, plainly in need of maternal solace, in a small room near the kitchen. In retrospect I realise that I was distressed by not having been allowed to bond with the baby after delivery, and incapable of controlling my emotions. The house mother found me trying to soothe the baby and told me, sharply, to return to bed. I rounded on her, using four-letter words to the effect that the hospital's rules were inhumane, and calculated to drive mothers insane. For the first time in my life I was hysterical. Next morning the paediatrician implied that I was a neurotic mother.

Fergus, who was conducting field trials in the neighbourhood, was equally distressed, muttering imprecations about typical continental insensitivity and the arrogance of the medical profession in general. A breast-feeding routine had been established despite initial setbacks, and Katharine slowly returned to her normal cheerful self. Leaving Dorothy in charge of both infants, Fergus and I went to Kumasi to amass supplies, which were to go ahead of us under Adda's supervision in the Land Rover. But back at Agogo we found Dorothy unwell and in great pain. Despite a grumbling hernia, her doctor had pronounced her fit to undertake the trip. Examination the next morning revealed a strangulated and inflamed hernia needing urgent surgery. All things considered, we were in the right place – how much worse it would have been in Wa.

The two months of Dorothy's stay at Wa, during which she made a rapid recovery, were remarkable – after ‘small' rains, the climate reverted to extreme heat and harmattan conditions during the days, but without the cool nights which mostly accompany that wind. Then there was the saga of the termite nest in her bedroom: we thought she was being neurotic – and said so – complaining about ‘things' crawling around and over her at night, until I opened the bottom drawer of a built-in unit and a lava flow poured out: thousands of termites, big ones, little ones, winged ones, some carrying unhatched eggs and empty egg capsules. Quickly they spread in all directions, so I grabbed the spray and attacked, while Dorothy and Katharine watched frozen in horror. I hated destroying such a sophisticated community: the insecticide was lethal, but many continued to twitch in a futile effort to escape the mass; later we found straggling survivors all over the house. Apologies were due to Dorothy, for whom more traumatic experiences were to come.

Fergus was summoned to Tamale to collect two
WHO
consultants and bring them to Wa for three days, where, in addition to assessing the Bilharzia Research Project, they were to meet other experts working locally in the field of riverblindness. Both were German and one was tolerable, the other a complacent chauvinist with a tendency to monopolise all discussion. During intervals between infant-feeding and bottom-wiping, Dorothy and I slaved to prepare a succession of varied meals, including dinner on three nights; after our day's toil, our repartee was not sparkling, but that will not have been noticed as long as the
hausfrauen
came up trumps with the food. When they left, admittedly amid profuse thanks and hand-kissing, with Fergus at the wheel, in lieu of an
MFU
driver, we subsided, freed from drudgery, with cups of strong coffee laced with vodka.

Nights were interrupted by one or other infant, frequently both, and such was my fatigue that one night Fergus and Dorothy implored me to go to bed early. Having fallen into a deep sleep by eight thirty, I was woken at eleven by Fergus going outside to investigate a suspicious noise. He found a shrew trying to eat a toad, which had blown itself up to an unswallowable size. Having managed to separate them, he was soon asleep again, leaving me wide awake. Next came a storm, accompanied by what sounded like giant hailstones striking the roof, so the windows had to be closed, babies tucked up, and a drink fetched from the kitchen, where, groping around in the dark, I stepped on a damp Wettex cloth, causing an adrenalin rush until I saw what it was. Mary woke at four in the morning for a feed, then peace till six thirty, when tea was brought in by Adda.

When Dorothy and Fergus departed for Kintampo, I waved them off with mixed feelings. Her stay had been invaluable and we would miss her, but now I was strong enough to cope with two infants, although apprehensive in the knowledge that Karel was still on leave, and I would be on my own for almost a week. At dusk an overloaded Volkswagen driven by a female missionary appeared with a white-faced Dorothy who had spent most of the day roasting in the car, by the roadside, no more than sixty miles from Wa. There had been three punctures, two ruined inner tubes and one shredded tyre. Fergus left her to experience what it is like to be alone in the bush, the temperature mounting as the day advances, silence broken only by the call of a distant bulbul, or a rodent scuttling for cover. He walked some miles to the last village they had passed, where the family of one of his assistants lived, and an urgent message was sent for the
MFU
mechanic, before he got a lift back to the marooned car. Dorothy later confessed to never having been so scared in her life. She saw only one person – a scowling man who had looked into the car but made no greeting, before melting into the scrub, cutlass in hand. The fortuitous appearance of the missionary ensured Dorothy's return to Wa, while Fergus remained until the Land Rover came to tow the car back to the workshop. He arrived home at two in the morning. Dorothy eventually got away, driven to Accra by Martin Odei, a Ghanaian biologist appointed to the project by the Ghana Ministry of Health.

The next few months saw a succession of conflicting letters and wires either from headquarters or the regional office; liaison was poor between the two. Staff working in the field, officially answerable to Dr Alfred Quenum, the autocratic director in Brazzaville, were sometimes driven to break protocol and write directly to headquarters – thus putting their careers at risk. Fergus was granted permission to attend a conference in Rome late in September, so we made plans to accompany him and go to Geneva by road afterwards. This permission was then revoked on a minor technicality, only to be approved again some weeks later.

In the meantime, as a result of the Ghanaian minister of trade having revoked all import licences for 1964 because ‘certain irregularities' had been discovered in the granting of same, some basic commodities, already in short supply, had disappeared from the market altogether. Spare parts for cars were unobtainable, and the tyre and inner tube shortage worsened. The question of whether or not I should return to Wa with the children after home leave was debated, but if so, Fergus was determined it would not be for any extended period.

In the end he attended the conference and visited Geneva on his own, joining me and the children in Ireland for a three-week break in the autumn of 1964. He was still trying to stop smoking, but a bad bout of bronchitis, which his
GP
pronounced might be his last if he did not stop, added to his determination to win the battle. It took a further eighteen months before he finally gave up.

My mother had moved to her new house, happy to breathe clean air after the fog-pocket of Knock, and delighted by the ever changing view to the Antrim side of Belfast Lough. Our own house was full of imperfections, but preferable to a rented one, and the children loved having their indulgent grannie next door, to whom they could run for solace and complain about my harsh discipline. But for Fergus and me this time marked the start of a lengthy separation, during which he was sent on surveys to several French-speaking parts of West Africa: Cameroon, the Congo, Gabon, Brazzaville and Kinshasa. The children, who were happy to see Dorothy again, spent Christmas and New Year with me in Ireland; and my mother was more relaxed than she had ever before been in child company, taking particular pleasure in Mary, with whom she formed a protective bond.

Fergus returned to Wa alone in January 1965. A Ugandan kob we had jointly raised by bottle had been well looked after by Daniel, but instantly resumed its dependence on Fergus. It had the full run of house and surrounding bush, but returned to the summons of one of the children's squeaky toys. It was never house-trained, so there were often lakes on the floor. On a visit to Dorimon, Fergus heard that Simbu Dog had died as a result of the broken promise we had foreseen. Rage was profitless, but we both felt we should have rescued him, despite the fact that what we could have offered was not ideal. I am certain dogs have souls.

On the domestic front, Adda had been sacked after twice getting so drunk that he became impertinent and abusive. Sobered up, he admitted to regularly smoking hash, which accounted for his red eyes; looking back, I think he had been on hash for as long as I had known him. When I returned with the children in March, he had been replaced by Abdulai, who was an instant success with them, and the atmosphere in the house was much more pleasant. Katharine spent a lot of time in his quarters demanding her cut of whatever food was on offer, and eating with her fingers: ‘I
want
to eat with my fingers, I don't like a spoon.' She and three slightly older female friends were singing on the veranda one day, chanting ‘Ai Ai Assin' over and over again; when we asked for a translation, they looked a bit sheepish – ‘It means, “Do not urinate on the meat,”' they said. Mary joined a group of adults who gathered daily at the back of the house for the equivalent of a coffee break: Mousa Moshi, an itinerant woman who sold roasted plantain and other delicacies, Abdulai, and a couple of servants from nearby houses. Both children loved to be carried in a cloth on someone's back, but Katharine, already rather too heavy, could always rely on Mousa for a lift. We had come back during the month of Ramadan, when he would have nothing to eat or drink between the hours of sunrise and sunset, and I felt irrational guilt to see him carrying her around while he used the hose. It also lessened my enjoyment of a morning coffee break, or cool drink during the day. On the day that marked the end of Ramadan, Abdulai did some washing, cleared up our breakfast mess and made the beds, before departing in ceremonial dress for the mosque. Many goats and sheep had been slaughtered, and a repeat of the previous year was predicted, when Mousa had suffered from belly palaver, which Fergus termed ‘protein poisoning': his usual midday meal was boiled cassava sprinkled with red chilli powder, and maybe a drizzle of palm oil as a treat.

Fergus's interest-free money-lending attracted some bizarre applicants. One, asking for £20, admitted it was to bribe the police to discontinue an action that his wife was taking against him, as the couple had agreed, when the heat of the moment had passed, to patch up the quarrel out of court. What was the dispute? ‘Oh, she refuse to do my washing, and when I made a row she pull my testicles and they have swell. Then I was angry and somehow her ear got in my mouth and I bit it.' The loan was refused. Even Abdulai had ‘finish with women'. His first wife had drunk and smoked wee (Indian hemp); the second had been too lazy to prepare meals, preferring to pass time gossiping with neighbours – sadly an only too familiar pattern.

We entertained the members of the tennis club with their wives and girlfriends – it was an exercise of the E.M. Forster ‘bridge party' sort, because almost all the females – Daniel's woman, who was a teacher, apart – were awed by the grandeur of the scene and contributed nothing, exchanging soft talk and giggles among themselves. When it became clear that our sojourn at Wa was really coming to an end, Francis made arrangements for a farewell party to be held at the Love All Canteen in the centre of the town. This was a more relaxed gathering, although again the women, who had worked hard to produce the feast, appeared only to serve dishes before melting into the background. There were many side dishes of aubergine, okra, grated coconut, pineapple, nuts and chillies, but the
pièce de résistance
was an enormous stew containing virtually all the fish and meats locally obtainable. There was muddy catfish from the Black Volta, giant land snail (very rubbery), chicken, mutton and goat, the hairy ear of which, protruding from a vast bowl, was offered to me as a special delicacy. I am sure it was rude, but I demurred, saying I thought it should go to my husband. Fish eyes, too, were held in high regard, and neither Adda nor Abdulai could understand why we let them have the heads of any fish they prepared for us.

Late one afternoon the house was invaded by a swarm of something, to this day, unidentified – a cross between a lobster with big hairy pincers and a six-inch spider. Again with reluctance we used the spray to prevent them invading the bedrooms. It was about this time that I wrote to several European zoos, asking if they would be interested in the kob, whose horn buds were beginning to show and when fully grown would be an elegant two-foot lyre shape. Its skull was concrete hard, and it had the habit of thrusting its head up between my legs. As the day of our final departure approached I had a letter from Hanover Zoo, saying they would be glad to take it. A travelling case was made for the journey, but in the end, because it was suffering from travel stress, we left it at Damongo Game Reserve, where its chances of survival were better.

I returned to Ireland with the girls while Fergus was at Geneva attending conferences and debriefing sessions prior to starting his master's degree course at the Harvard School of Public Health and Hygiene. Shortly after our arrival, the children and I turned varying shades of yellow and were diagnosed as having hepatitis. My mother did not succumb, so it was assumed she must have had it as a child. None of us was violently ill, but as soon as Fergus told his classmates in Boston, I was the recipient of much long-distance advice from well-meaning neighbours in the International Student House, where we had been allocated a two-bedroom apartment on the Fenway opposite the Boston Museum of Fine Arts. A list of foods to be avoided at all costs began with coffee, eggs and alcohol, all of which I had been consuming regularly. I never did confess.