‘Aha!’ said Bagado.’ No.’
‘What was the “Aha!” a but?’
‘Nearly an hour and a half for you to get it out.’
‘What?’
What’s been on your mind since first thing this morning. You’re improving.’
‘I am?’
‘A year ago you’d have waited until nightfall and the third whisky.’
‘I’ve given up whisky.’
‘During the week.’
‘It hasn’t helped.’
‘Take it up again.’
‘The gout’s still niggling.’
‘I don’t suppose you know that there’s almost no incidence of gout in Scotland.’
‘You’re kidding.’
‘They don’t think whisky brings it on. Beer, red wine, port’s more the thing.’
‘What about the purine?’
‘The purine?’
‘All the Arbroath smokies, the oak-smoked kippers, the tinned pilchards, the wild salmon leaping up the glens – all that purine.’
‘What’s that got to do with it?’
‘Purine brings on gout.’
‘And you think …?’ Bagado roared and then settled back.’ You better go back on the whisy before the rest of your brain packs in.’
I gave him a bit of slab-faced silence after that. He didn’t notice. So I told him what had happened before I left home this morning.
‘Maybe she doesn’t like you,’ he said.
‘Give it to me straight, Bagado. I can’t take all this faffing around the bush.’
‘Well, I don’t mean permanently. Just for the time being. She’s gone off you. It happens. I asked a woman in Paris once how she came to kill her husband. She said it all started when she saw him cleaning his ears with his little finger and wiping it on her furniture.’
‘I took your call in the living room, went back into the bedroom and she was off me. No reason. Just dead to me as if she was in a state of shock.’
‘Maybe in your distracted state you scratched yourself, you know, unattractively.’
‘That’s interesting,’ I said, dismissing it.’ So what d’you think that was al about back at the office? The Gerhard thing.’
‘Maybe that an attractive woman like Heike could do better than the deadbeat she’s decided to live with.’
‘Deadbeat?’
‘Your expression, I think.’
‘ Deadbeat?’
‘I don’t think that’s it, by the way. She doesn’t mind you being a deadbeat.’
‘But I’m not a deadbeat. A deadbeat’s someone …’
‘It’s part of it, but it’s not it.’
‘I’m not a deadbeat. I get up in the morning. I go to work …’
Bagado gave me the yackety-yack with his hand.
‘What was your annual income last year?’
‘Come on, she’s got a job, Bagado. It’s different, for God’s sake. I’m a street hustler – different ball game altogether.’
‘We’re missing the point, but you understand me, I think.’
‘I do?’
‘Sex is not the only thing.’
‘The Great Leap Forward, Bagado, I missed something. The link. Let’s have it. And what do you know about my sex life.’
‘That it’s very good.’
‘She told you that?’
She didn’t have to. Whenever I come to your house the two of you are in bed together.’
‘What’s wrong with that?’
‘Nothing, but it’s not the only thing.’
‘Even a “deadbeat” like me knows that.’
‘What do you think the difference is between you and Gerhard?’
‘He’s stable, got a good job, he’s older, he’s German, he’s got a sense of humour like an elephant trap …’
‘He’s been married and he wants to get married again to someone who likes Africa.’
‘Heike’s not interested in Gerhard. We’ve been through all that crap with Wolfgang.’
‘And look how far you’ve come in a year. She needs some reassurance that there’s a point. A year’s a long time for a woman creeping through her thirties.’
‘She doesn’t creep.’
‘You’re being weak, Bruce. You make out you look and don’t see but you know better than I do. You just can’t bring yourself to the marks. You’re afraid that she’ll leave you. You’re afraid to move on. You’re being a modern man.’
‘That’s enough of that kind of talk, Bagado. Enough. You’re getting very close to using that word and I don’t want to hear that word in this car …’
‘Commitment? There, I’ve said it. Better in than out.’
‘You can hear the ranks of bachelors’ bowels weakening,’ I said, cupping a hand to my ear.
‘I don’t know what you’re afraid of,’ he said, sawing the scar in the cleft of his chin. ‘Compromise?’
‘You’ve been pulling some vocab. out of the bag today, Bagado.’
‘Is that it? You’re afraid of compromise? You should see what I’m going to have to do when I go back to Bondougou.’
‘I’ve already done some compromising. It wasn’t half as painful as I thought it was going to be. What I’m afraid of is that if I cross the line it might not work and I’ll be in a deeper problem than if I don’t cross the line in the first place.’
‘She’ll go,’ said Bagado. ‘That’ll solve your problem.’
We arrived in Kétou at nightfall. The aid station was closed, with a gardien outside who showed us a restaurant where we had some pâte and bean sauce and a couple of bottles of La Beninoise beer. We drove out into the bush, set up a mosquito net against the car, rolled out some sleeping mats and had an early, very cheap night out under the stars. I lay on my back and felt like a deadbeat. The pattern had held for more than a year. Now things were falling to pieces and all out of my reach. Bagado going back to his job, Heike tapping her feet and behind it all the dark shadow of Bondougou, his eyes flickering in his head.
Sunday 18th February.
Gerhard’s people were dedicated and came in as early on Sunday mornings as they did during the week. They gave us coffee and directions. We crossed the border into Nigeria just after 8 a.m. and headed north from a town called Meko on a dirt road. After ten kilometres we hit a roadblock guarded by men wearing army fatigues and holding AK-47s loosely in capable hands.
‘They look like the real thing,’ I said, as we cruised up to the soldier standing with