views on this stupid war and I hate the way they keep saying “I rack” and “I ran”. At least try and get the name right if you’re going to bomb another country to smithereens’.
At the beginning of the Falklands War Deola thought the word was ‘Forklands’. She was in her A-level year in England and was of the impression that only members of the Green Party and Save the Whales got upset about wars. Weirdos, basically.
This war is different. Everyone she knows in London is outraged. Everyone wants to win the debate, which has become a separate war. Strangers are co-opting her as an ally, including a drunken man who was seated next to her on the tube. He tapped a headline and said, stinking of beer, ‘We have no business being over there.’ Lines must also have been drawn because she has not met a person who is for the war. Not one. They might not even exist. They might be on CNN to rile up viewers and raise ratings for all she knows. But she is sometimes convinced, watching the dissenters, that this is their chance to make like rebels, now that the backlash is not as severe as it was when their opposition could perhaps have had some effect.
Kate slaps the table. ‘Anyway, your trip to Nigeria.’
‘Yes?’
‘Think you’ll be ready in a couple of weeks?’
‘Sure.’
The Nigerian programmes are not pressing enough to warrant Kate’s change to a brisk tone, but Deola plays along. The timing was her idea. She asked to go in the week of her father’s memorial, without revealing why.
Her father died five years ago. She was the last in her family to find out. He was playing golf when he became dizzy. His friends rushed him to hospital. They didn’t know he had high blood pressure. Her mother called to say he’d suffered a stroke. She got on the next flight to Lagos, but her father died before her plane arrived. She would have liked to have a sign that he had died, a white dove, anything as she flew over the Atlantic and the Sahara. Nothing. Not even an intuitive feeling, unless she could count the unrelenting pain in her stomach, which she couldn’t suppress by repeating prayers.
‘So where are we?’ Kate asks. ‘How long do you think you might need over there?’
‘A week at most.’
‘Is that all?’
Deola nods. She intends to finish her work in a couple of days and spend the rest of the time with her family.
‘Good,’ Kate says. ‘So here is their correspondence, lit and stats. Their presentation is not very polished, but I understand printing is a problem over there. Plus, it’s not about their presentation, really. I’m more interested in their accounts and the rest of it.’
Kate is brilliant with statistics, but she has no clue about accounting. Debit this, credit that, as she calls it.
‘Would you like me to visit their sites?’ Deola asks.
‘No. We’re just at the preliminary phase. I will have to go there at some point, but that’ll be much later, after I’m over this.’ Kate pats her belly.
‘It’s best you don’t travel until then,’ Deola says.
‘I don’t mind the travelling. I just don’t need to be falling sick again.’
‘Malaria is the one to watch out for in Nigeria.’
‘So I’ve heard. I’ve also heard the pills make you psychotic. I think I would rather have malaria.’
‘You wouldn’t,’ Deola says.
She has had malaria many times. The new strains are resistant to treatment.
‘Mind you,’ Kate says. ‘Toxoplasmosis was no picnic. Here, take a look.’
‘I’ll come round,’ Deola says getting up.
Kate pushes the papers towards her. ‘No need.’
‘It’s okay,’ Deola insists.
She assumes Kate is being decent as usual. Kate is hands-on about being decent. Kate dug out her Nigerian NGO files when Dára agreed to be the spokesperson of Africa Beat. Graham was against violating their policy of giving priority to countries with a history of fiscal dependability. Kate had to persuade him.
Deola walks to Kate’s side of the desk to look at the correspondence.
Kate covers her mouth and mumbles, ‘Hell.’
‘Are you all right?’ Deola asks.
Kate stands up, face contorted, and rushes out of the office.
Now, Deola feels foolish as she sniffs her shirt for perfume. Kate’s office smells vaguely of snacks with Asian spices that will linger on her all day. She waits for Kate to return, wondering if she would be better off leaving. Kate walks in wiping her mouth with the back of her hand.
‘Sorry about that,’ she says.
‘Was it my perfume?’
Kate shakes her head. ‘Not to worry. Anything sets me off. It’s awful. I can’t wait until this is over. I’m going mad. I had a huge tantrum this morning and upset everyone at home. You know why?’
‘Why?’
‘Toothpaste.’
‘Toothpaste?’
‘Yes! Toothpaste! Someone left the cap off!’
‘I should leave you alone,’ Deola says.
‘I’ll be fine,’ Kate says, sitting down.
‘No, no. I’d better go. Can I take those with me?’ She points at the papers. ‘I’ll bring them back when I’m through.’
‘Yeth, pleathe,’ Kate says, attempting to smile.
Kate has a habit of lapsing into a lisp whenever she asks for favours.
Deola takes the correspondence to her office, which is next door to Kate’s. The carpet is the same throughout the office, greyish blue. Her window is clouded on the outside and there is dust permanently stuck on her white blinds. She has ‘in’ and ‘out’ trays on her desk and a matching organizer for her pens and pencils. There is no other indication that she intends to remain here. She doesn’t even have a calendar yet.
She leafs through the brochure of the NGO that supports widows, WIN – Widows In Need. It was established in 1992. The print is blotchy and uneven in parts. The tabulation lines in the appendix are shaky and she comes across a statistic at the bottom: the average age of the widows is thirty-nine, her age.
Great, she thinks, pulling a face.
For the rest of the morning, she revises her report on the Delhi trip and drafts an audit programme for Africa Beat. Then she makes notes about her pending trip to Nigeria, listing the information she needs to request, contacts she has to make and when. She reads the literature on WIN, which is somewhat unfocused and suggests that women of childbearing age have the highest risk of HIV infection. The director, Rita
