The Drowning Lesson (9 page)

I shook my head. ‘Just overnight.' As Sam began to splutter, I stood up to wind him.

Kabo took over. ‘We're setting up a joint research project to look at the risk of cancers in AIDS patients.' He nodded towards Adam and the girls in the pool. ‘Dr Jordan's just arrived with the family from the UK.'

‘Anything that could make a difference would be good.' She turned to me. ‘These kids have lost everything.'

‘Looking after them must be hard.' I watched as she glanced towards a couple of her charges tussling near the pool's edge. She seemed calm but vigilant, as she would need to be.

‘We do what we can,' she replied, ‘but it's not nearly enough. I have help, of course. My partner Daniel and a small team of girls. I couldn't manage without
them.' She looked down at Sam again, and touched him lightly under the chin. ‘You'll find people here want to help. I'd accept when you can. They love children and they need the money.' With a nod at both of us, she turned to go.

‘Any more advice for us newcomers?' I didn't want her to leave.

‘Depends where you're headed.' She looked back at me. ‘Town or country?'

‘Right out in the bush, I'm afraid,' Kabo told her, glancing anxiously at me. ‘A few kilometres from Kubung on the Thamaga road.'

‘In that case, snakes.' She started to walk away, calling over her shoulder, ‘They hide in the long grass. Tell the children to wear shoes.'

Was that all? I'd hoped for something more. She'd reached the boys, who were now throwing punches, and was holding them firmly apart. I sat down again; I hadn't realized we would be so isolated.

Kabo smiled. ‘Adam told me you were going to be working too. Tell me about your research.'

As we talked, I watched Adam in the pool with Zoë on his shoulders and Alice swimming beside them. The sun was still high; the air smelt of pine and herbs. If it hadn't been for the flock of children who stood waist deep, silently watching, we could have been back in Provence.

After a while everyone got out and the pool was
empty. I gave Sam to Adam, then changed and slipped into the water. I floated on my back for a while, resisting the temptation to start lapping – Kabo would think I'd gone mad. The blonde woman had stopped to talk to Adam as she waited for the children to change. Her hand was spread over Sam's head, her fingers absently fondling his ears. I wanted to get out, pull him away. I'd experienced the same unease when strangers had handled the girls as babies, but this was the first time I'd felt it with Sam. Obscurely heartened, I turned a somersault at the deep end and pushed myself into the depths of the pool. When I surfaced, the woman had vanished. Soon after that, I got out, and heard the buses noisily starting up in the hotel car park.

‘Leaving already? Those poor children hardly had a moment to relax,' I said to Kabo, as I dried my hair with a towel. Zoë was squatting by my feet to inspect a small lizard that was basking on a flagstone.

‘They're headed for a football match, packing a lot into the day. You have to admire the energy.' He smiled. ‘She left her number and an address for you.'

Kabo handed me a scrap of paper. Inside she had written an address in Gaborone and a mobile number. ‘Keep in touch' was scrawled in looping letters underneath. I'd forgotten how kind people could be to travellers. I tapped the contact into my phone.

Later, I showed Adam the note.

‘A friend already.' He put his arm round me. ‘Might be helpful.'

He was right. She'd been new to this country once; she looked after children; there could be hundreds of things to ask her.

Kabo was spending the night with his parents, who lived nearby, and he left, promising to pick us up at sunrise the next day. We walked around the garden. Banana and lemon trees were surrounded by velvety lawns. Tall gum trees stood in little groups. The spray from hidden hosepipes went backwards and forwards, darkening the papery trunks and releasing the warm scent of eucalyptus. Monkeys clambered through the branches and sprang onto the hotel roof, their young slung beneath them, clinging on with tiny fingers. Alice held Sam up, showing him the scampering animals. He seemed absorbed, reaching his hands towards them as if trying to touch them.

The next morning everyone slept on. The water smoked in the clear air and swallows dived low over the pool as I swam up and down. The scent of pine was already strong. After breakfast, Kabo came to collect us; once we were all settled in the car, he started the engine and the hotel receded quickly behind us. The swim had been restorative; it might be a while before we had another.

‘Will there be a pool where we're going, Kabo?'

He peered at me in the mirror. ‘Kubung is a poor
district,' he said carefully, pushing his glasses up his nose. ‘Very dry. Water is precious. I don't think there is much to spare for swimming pools.'

I felt ashamed of my question but Kabo was continuing: ‘The owner mentioned water behind the house. It could be a dam, I suppose.'

A dam would be perfect, better than a swimming pool. I remembered the images Adam had emailed. There might be shade, and grass round the edge for picnics. We could swim every day. As we picked up speed, I turned to tell Alice but she had already gone to sleep. I peeled off her cardigan and she hardly stirred. Zoë was staring out of the window, sucking her thumb, her eyelids were drooping. ‘Sleep, baby girl.' I stroked her chubby arm and her eyes closed. I smiled, and glanced at Sam. His head was turned sideways in the padded seat. The naevus was uppermost: in the sun it seemed larger and shinier than ever. The sunscreen was in my bag. As I smoothed it on, his mouth opened and he seemed to nuzzle the padding on the chair. I leant back; my last conscious thought was that I hoped it was clean.

A complex fragment of a frightening dream slid away before I could grasp more than shadows. We had stopped, and the car was quiet. The window was filled with white sky, brown earth and green leaves. The girls were sprawled on the back seat, their eyes shut, breathing deeply, as if drugged. Sam's arms
were flung wide – he seemed happy even in sleep. I slid past Alice and eased the door open. Ahead of us, on a rise in the ground, was a long, low, thatched building. Adam was under a tree, talking to Kabo.

The heat was ferocious; the skin on my face and arms stung. It was far hotter than it had been in Gaborone. Stumbling on tree roots in hard, reddish soil, I walked quickly to Adam. He broke off his conversation with Kabo and turned to me. ‘We've arrived! You slept nearly all the way.' Then, turning, he indicated a young girl I hadn't noticed, half hidden by Kabo.

She stepped forward, and glanced down at her feet. They were bare and covered in red dust; her hair was tightly plaited; her face was smoothly composed. She seemed very young.

‘This is Teko,' Kabo said. ‘She's been waiting here for us. She heard about your arrival. She's come to look after the children.'

‘Look after the children?' This child? Megan must have gone ahead with her idea, after all, but I felt irritation rather than gratitude. We didn't need a nanny – I thought we'd discussed that. I'd planned to spend more time with the children, working and playing together. I'd looked forward to bush walks collecting insects and plants, outings to wildlife parks, lying in the grass under the trees with our
books. Bedtime stories. Adam's eyebrows were raised expectantly. I smiled and shook Teko's hand. It was rough-skinned. A working hand. Her face was pretty but tense; her eyes were older than her body looked. Although she wore no shoes, she was neatly dressed in a black skirt and crisp white shirt; there was a lovely necklace of blue stones round her slender neck.

‘Our friend lived near here when she was a child. She said she'd find us help through a contact who runs an orphanage,' I told Kabo. ‘I hadn't realized she'd gone ahead.'

Kabo turned to Teko and questioned her in rapid Setswana; she glanced at me as she nodded and replied briefly. ‘She's come straight from the orphanage; her boss told her about your arrival.' He shrugged. ‘This is normal for us. People can turn up for jobs, even without this kind of introduction.' Then he smiled, pushing his glasses up his nose. ‘Teko was in charge of the babies and some older children. She's got a note.' He passed it to me. I read the few typewritten sentences about her responsibilities with the younger orphans. Her honesty was recommended. I handed it to Adam, who scanned it briefly and gave it back to her.

‘Well, good for Megan for following through. We're very grateful,' Adam said heartily. He nodded at Teko. ‘You've arrived in perfect time.'

‘Like magic.' I turned to Kabo. ‘How did she actually find us?'

‘She was given the address by the boss at the orphanage. She got a bus to Kubung village, then a lift with a farmer going to Thamaga,' he answered, looking at her and nodding approval. She had managed a complex journey, his words implied; she must really want the job.

‘So when do you want to start? Now?' Adam asked, with a smile. Teko looked back at him, the tight skin around her eyes relaxed, but she didn't answer.

‘She can't speak English,' Kabo put in, ‘but that's not a problem.'

Not a problem? How could we employ someone we couldn't communicate with?

‘We need a tutor more than a nanny, Kabo, someone who can speak English.'

‘I can find you a tutor, no problem,' he replied. ‘But I think you might be glad of Teko's help all the same. She understands a few words. If you can just demonstrate what you want, she says everything will be easy to understand.' The glasses slipped down again.

Everything? Alice's anxiety? Zoë's exuberant demands for attention? Sam, whose routine was already shot to pieces? Would she mind the rumbling conflict between Adam and me? I doubted if anything in our family would be easy for a stranger to understand.

‘It's not as if you won't be here all time in the background. It might give you a chance to work in peace,' Adam said. Then he was distracted by a bright blue bird that was bustling in and out of the branches above our heads. ‘Blue starling,' he murmured. ‘Fantastic.'

He flashed me a triumphant smile, like a small boy who has discovered hidden treasure. He'd read up about the birds here but, preoccupied with Sam, I hadn't had the chance to do the same. If I'd had time, I might have learnt some words of Setswana, or found out about the plants that grew here so I could show the girls. Even on the plane there had been no opportunity to leaf though the pamphlets about Botswana in the seat pocket in front of me. Bitterness began to rise.

‘It would mean you could complete that research on cord clamping,' Adam continued, patting my arm. I pulled away, infuriated. He glanced at Kabo, who was inspecting the bird, whistling softly to himself.

The blue stones in Teko's necklace were the exact colour of Sam's eyes. As if sensing my interest, her hand fluttered up to touch her necklace; she smiled shyly. It occurred to me that if I refused her offer of help Kabo might think I was rejecting her because she was a local African girl. He might be offended. If we employed Teko, I could spend more time with Alice; even the woman by the pool had advised me to accept help if it was offered.

Kabo leant forward, putting an arm around Adam and me. ‘Why don't you make up your minds later? There's no rush – have a trial run, if you like.' He smiled cheerfully. ‘Come and have a look inside.'

The children were still asleep. Kabo had parked in the shade. I hesitated, glancing at the house, then Teko stepped closer to the car; her right foot dragged slightly. Childhood polio, perhaps, common in parts of Africa. It must have meant a difficult childhood. Perhaps work was tricky to find – maybe she'd thought this time she would be lucky. She nodded at me, she was going to keep watch while we went inside. Kabo was right: communication without words seemed easy.

‘This is the country home of a businessman,' Kabo was continuing, as he led the way to a flight of stone steps cut into a dry earth slope. ‘He built it in the traditional style for his family but now they all live in a grand way in Gaborone … Diamonds.' His gaze swept the gardens that surrounded the house: there was a large brownish lawn, with scattered beds of succulent plants and a group of gum trees at the far edge. ‘He had three guard dogs,' he added. ‘They were tied up in the day, but let loose at night. They're kennelled at Thamaga now. I could ask him to lend them to you. You're isolated here – it might be sensible.'

Huge animals, probably, panting fiercely around
the garden in the dark. What if the girls sneaked out to play on the lawn late one night? What might happen if Zoë tried to pet one?

Adam looked uncertain. ‘Up to you, Em.'

‘Thanks, Kabo, but I'm planning to be here all the time. Adam will be around at night. Besides, what kind of message would it send the community?' Rich whites, fearful of African neighbours. That's what the message would be, though I didn't say it aloud.
We're here to help, but we don't trust you an inch.

Kabo took a breath as if about to argue, then obviously thought better of it. ‘Let me know after you've had the chance to discuss it. It can be organized quickly. Come inside now.'

We followed him up the steps into the cool shade of the veranda. The room inside was dark after the brilliant sunshine. There was a scent of beeswax and cooking meat. A long sofa, covered with embossed velvet, stood in front of the window; a low table was piled with large books, striped cotton rugs lay on the wooden floor and a couple of heavy paraffin lamps stood on side tables. Shelves with more books reached to the ceiling. At a glance, they seemed to be about minerals and mining. A globe stood on the floor. The head of an animal with ridged, curving horns was on the back wall.

‘Kudu,' Kabo said proudly, his eyes following my gaze. Once, this animal had been part of the
landscape; now it was a decoration on the wall. I hoped Zoë wouldn't spot it too soon.