Open Writing

Chapter 26
Reunion

It was only on the second occasion of meeting Annie McInnes
that she admitted to knowing Amina. I understood her circumspection.
After all, I could have been anyone trying to track down her
friend – for a newspaper story perhaps, or maybe to gather information
which would lead to Amina’s arrest for the crime of piracy. Yet
I’d known all along that the two women were connected in some
way. I’d seen it register on Annie’s face when I first mentioned my
quest.

I’d already been lingering in Kaambooni for the best part of a
week. It was only because I suspected Annie knew something that
I’d stayed put. So I was not particularly surprised that she dropped
by the MaanSoor Hotel, early one morning on her way out to the
school. I was just about to sit on the loo, when I heard a very gentle
knock on my room door.

‘I’m glad you’re still here,’ she said. ‘I’ve got good news.’

‘Annie, it’s great to see you. But it might have to wait a wee while.
Do you mind if I meet you in the lobby in five minutes.’

The exchange reminded me of a woman I’d once overheard in
dialogue with my mother when I was a child. ‘Margo!’ she’d exclaimed
in a refined Edinburgh accent, ‘I haven’t got time to fart.’ In
similar vein my own urgency to return to the loo, rather outweighed
the importance of what Annie seemed keen to convey.

‘Do you have time for a coffee,’ I’d asked, when I caught up with
her downstairs.

‘I’d love one, but no. I must get along to open up. I just wanted to
say that I wasn’t entirely candid with you when we first met. Amina
Abdullahi is a dear friend of mine. I wasn’t quite sure what to make
of your claim of a past relationship. I supposed you might have
made it up. One never knows these days. It’s so easy to be duped by
people. So I had to be sure that what you said was true.’

‘You checked it out with Amina.’

‘Of course. She’d be delighted to see you. Unfortunately she can’t
just yet. She and her partner had to go south on urgent business. I
can’t say exactly when they’ll be back, but hopefully it will be within
the next few days.’

‘Then of course, I’ll stay.’ Unreasonably I’d flinched inwardly
when Annie mentioned the word ‘partner.’

‘I was wondering, are you not getting a wee bit fed up with the
MaanSoor?’

‘It’s a bit sterile but I’m coping.’

‘Och, why don’t you come and stay at my place. I’ve got the room
and I can offer you the indulgence of my terrible cooking,’ said Annie,
chuckling at her false modesty.

She picked me up that afternoon.

‘What about Tony?’ I asked, as I threw my bags into the back of
her Beetle.

‘Well, I can think of a few things that you might do with him,
none of which include me. Leave him at the MaanSoor for now.
Tomorrow you could do one of two things. Take him back to where
you bought him and sell him on. Or, if you want to do him a favour,
take him down to the Svendsen Santuary. It’s like a sort of heaven
for donkeys.’

‘Run by a Swede, I presume?’

‘Established by him. Did the same in Lamu. It’s not far from the
town centre.’

‘That sounds like the place for my Tony to be, then.’

Annie hadn’t mentioned her husband during our exchanges but
now it was a pleasure to meet him at their home. Kakenya was tall
and angular like most of his race. He dressed in the western way but
it was clear that he’d not entirely forgotten his roots. The focal point
of their living room was a wonderful painting of a Maasai herdsman
attending his cattle, with Kilimanjaro resplendent as the backdrop. A
warrior’s spears and mottled cow-hide shield hung together in the
entrance hall and there were various other tribal adornments scattered
about the home, including beautifully patterned beaded baskets.

The couple were fascinated to learn about my time in Kenya, that
I’d married a Kikuyu, and spoke fluent Kiswahili. All in all, we got
on very well together. Yet I still sensed an underlying reserve whenever
I reintroduced Amina to our conversations. They seemed reluctant
to talk about her life and the man with whom she lived, as if
perhaps they had been briefed not to do so. However they did enlighten
me about the nature of the ‘urgent business’ which was being
attended to, accounting for her and Nimrod’s temporary absence
from Kaambooni. I felt great sympathy for them and hoped their
daughter would return unscathed. I would have gone to the end of
the earth to prevent Dalila falling into harm’s way, but given the
same circumstances, I doubted I could ever summon the courage
and fortitude to do it in quite the way that Amina and Nimrod had
devised.

I prodded until Annie explained about ‘the camp.’ Stupidly, I
imagined Amina’s home as a Gaddafi-like Beduin tent, adorned with
richly pattered mud-cloth and naturally dyed sheep-wool carpets.
There would be Lamu beds and chairs, beautifully carved from local
mahogony.

‘It must be wonderful,’ I speculated.

‘It was bearable until the pollution came,’ said Kakenya, adopting
Nimrod’s indignation. ‘Thousands of tons of filth so casually depos-
ited along our shores, as if we were some kind of ready made receptacle
for the dregs of Western excess.’

I could see that I’d touched on a raw nerve. And then they explained
the unfulfilled promises of restitution, and ultimately Nimrod’s
determination to ensure that Kaambooni should not put up
with European intransigence and duplicity any longer. Now I understood
more why Amina and her friends had chosen the path of piracy.
It seemed they had no alternative but to take the law into their
own hands.

**

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