The wolf hour, p.24
The Wolf Hour, page 24
Neil stared at the garden. ‘Tessa will stay on—you know that, don’t you? At least for the time being.’ Then, as if he was working up to what he really wanted to say, he glanced at Leigh and added, ‘The inquest into the shooting will fold, but Tessa will stay here. She will feel she cannot leave until she is ready. Until the boy, Francis, is settled. It is who she is. The best thing we can do is support her.’
At first, he had refused to let Leigh bandage his hand. He had done it himself and made a bad job of it, rejecting the idea of an icepack and only giving in when Leigh said she was almost certain he had broken his middle finger; then, reluctantly, he let her strap it for him. He struggled to cut his toast now, then gave up and lifted the whole piece to his mouth, but before he could take a bite he put it down again.
‘But Stephen …’ he said in a low furious voice.
‘What about Stephen?’ Leigh replied. A knot tightened in the base of her stomach, and as she spoke a shot of bile rose in her throat. Shame and protectiveness, and again the recollection of Neil’s rage erupting into physical violence. Fear too, that his fury was not yet spent. ‘Be careful,’ she said softly. Warned.
When the girl came back, Leigh watched her pour coffee into two large ceramic mugs. Milky and lukewarm, it smelt like nutmeg, and when she took a mouthful she thought it tasted like a child’s drink, something to induce sleep rather than wakefulness. Leigh set her mug down on the side plate with a clatter. There were remembered conversations, arguments, omissions—even when Stephen was at school there were problems. He was forever getting into trouble, but somehow he always managed to get out of it. Usually someone else, whether from goodwill or through Stephen’s coercion, helped him out; they helped him out—she and Neil made excuses, paid fines, looked for solutions. But this was not some high school prank gone wrong—it was a nightmare from which they could not wake.
Leigh put her knife and fork together and pushed aside her uneaten breakfast. ‘All right,’ she said. ‘We give Tessa our full support. We respect her wishes and allow her to work things out for herself. I can do that. Even if we go back to Melbourne, I can offer her that from a distance, and perhaps you’re right, with time she’ll be okay. But Stephen? Neil, what are you thinking? How the hell do we stop him from being a part of this appalling business if he refuses to give it up?’
She watched Neil tap his coffee mug and waited for him to speak again.
Finally, he looked up, but he didn’t say anything.
She continued, ‘When I checked at reception half an hour ago, they told me Stephen and Matt had already left. They’ve gone.’
‘I know!’ Neil replied with renewed frustration, thumping his bandaged fist on the table as though he had forgotten his injured hand. The force rattled the plates and they both watched as blood slowly began to ooze through the dressing.
Leigh inhaled then reached across and gently put her hand on his arm. ‘Don’t,’ she said, and tears filled her eyes. ‘Look, I know you want to try to repair this. I do too.’ And she gave him an awful smile that suggested they were both complicit. ‘We make a pact as parents to be responsible and then we see the accommodations people like us make, the thousands of tiny adjustments where we give in or simply give up, and suddenly we realise our children have gone too far.’
‘And now?’ Neil asked.
‘Now, we must face something that feels beyond us.’
Neil held his smarting hand. In a way, he was glad of the pain; it kept him alert and he needed to be awake now. If this were a moral tale he would dive into the depths of the ocean or descend into the crater of an active volcano to save his son, but it was not a moral tale—his son was not moral. And he himself, as Stephen reminded him, was no hero. No Hercules subduing the three-headed Cerberus.
It shamed him now to recall a memory of Stephen at about twelve years old, stealing money from his desk. He’d seen him open the drawer; seen not just his stealth but a look of—what? Intoxication? Pleasure in the forbidden act? Later, Stephen didn’t even seem to care that he had been caught. Rather, he lied and continued to lie in the face of any accusation. Would it have made any difference if they had done things differently? If they’d punished Stephen more severely, held him accountable, rather than opting for lenience—the liberal tolerance that he believed was a better, more modern parenting style than he had known when he was growing up? Perhaps it would have; perhaps everything comes down to one indulgence too many. His heart pounded in his ears, guilt merged with terror, for there had been other times too, when he knew what Stephen was capable of: the incident with his Gerber Gator fishing knife, and other allegations dropped for lack of evidence, a gambling debt he’d covered for him, or the time he had known him to walk away from a parked car he’d sideswiped—all small enough acts and, at the time, Neil had thought them pretty harmless. But he’d had the opportunity then, hadn’t he? It had been like looking into a crystal ball—a match struck in a darkened room where he’d been given a glimpse into what the future might hold, each incident a foreshadowing which he might have chosen to address, and yet what had he done but allow Stephen free rein? By omission he had become the absentee father who relied on school fees to cover ethics and on team sports to instil fairness.
Leigh touched the bandage on his hand. The bleeding appeared to have stopped, although she told him she wanted to get some more antiseptic and change the dressing. ‘But first,’ she said, ‘we have to agree about Stephen. What’s the best thing to do? Do we get him put on an international watch list? Should we report him to the police, the army?’
The girl with the magenta hairpiece came back and took their plates away. When she had gone, Leigh’s voice was ragged. ‘God, darling, you look awful, are you okay? Have you had more chest pain?’ She shot him a look he didn’t quite catch.
‘I’m okay,’ he replied. ‘My heart’s fine.’
‘Then what is it? Are you holding something back?’
What could he say? That he didn’t regret hitting Stephen, that there had been currency in it—Stephen’s surprise, even if it was short-lived.
Leigh rested her elbows on the table and put her head in her hands. There was grey hair under the blonde. He remembered when it had been thick and long, and she used to dry it in the sun. He wanted to touch her and say that they would get through this, but he kept quiet. It was not that she would not understand; what worried him was that she did. She knew him in a way that surprised him, knew him at times better than he knew himself.
She lifted her head and fixed her gaze on him. Feeling her suspicion, he sat back and folded his arms. Her eyes were very blue.
‘All right then,’ she said, ‘if you don’t want to talk, I’m going back to the room. I need to speak to Tess anyway.’
She got up from the table and walked back across the courtyard. He watched her leave, and when she had gone he followed the weaverbirds as they ducked and dived—tiny arrows that shot in and out of the acacia tree, tending their small basket-like nests, those intricate circular works that took days to weave with their delicate beaks and feet yet which, despite their efforts, might fail to become a home, might fail to have a purpose.
Last night, when he couldn’t sleep, he’d gone down to the hotel lobby where there was better internet reception. By then there was hardly anyone left, only the nightwatchman who sat dozing at the main entrance with an AK-47 across his lap. At the computer, Neil’s hand had throbbed. He was clumsy, and the connection was still slow, but he managed. Using his phone he called Thompson, who told him that some of the bigger operators were ex-military; a bloke in Cape Town called Frost and another supplier known as Alex Vadim, who was probably part of a larger syndicate. Multi-tentacled, hydra-headed was how Neil was beginning to understand it, and right then the knowledge fired something in him. He spent the rest of the night furiously digging for facts and came up with more incriminating details than he could stomach—other suppliers, distribution channels, not so difficult to uncover now that he had ceased to defend his son. He felt sick. Once you begin to see someone in a different light, it’s impossible to go back to what they were before. It was like opening a door on another world and not being able to close it again.
An email from Thompson confirmed that the plane in the photograph Neil sent him had been leased by Stephen from Frost. ‘One of our Spider Men, I now see,’ Thompson added, referring to their collaborative research—since it was with Thompson’s backing that Neil began his documentary series in the nineties: deforestation as a result of drug crops, a scam that extended to the transporters, the so-called ‘Spider Men’ with their connections into illegal markets, money laundering, trafficking—anything from exotic animals to weapons for dirty wars. Organisations that ran front companies, shipping grain and machinery.
‘Stephen must have taken it to heart,’ Thompson said dryly, ‘because we’re not just talking about flowers or frozen chickens, it’s what else they carry: the kind of stock even Reba’s Firearms might have trouble clearing. Some of it—especially the light weaponry, which isn’t that light, since it’s just a term for what’s portable—gets approved by governments, some doesn’t.’
‘Could it be a mistake?’
Holy shit, he had thought, let me find a way out of this.
‘The first time it might be a mistake,’ Thompson replied flatly. ‘After that it’s more like a pattern.’
Back in their room, the bedside lamp was lit, and a soft orange glow filtered through the gauzy mosquito net. Leigh had been awake too, notebook and pen still on the coverlet. Neil thought he would tell her what he had in mind, but in the next second he decided not to. No, she would want to protect Stephen. It was her instinct, a mother’s love, no matter what. She was like that. Fierce. Defensive. If he said anything, she might try to block him in some way. He couldn’t tell her. Not yet. He would let her know in the morning, or later that afternoon when he got word back, when he knew more. But at that hour he just wanted to lie with her until morning came and try to put everything out of his mind—to sleep. But mostly he wanted to hold her and hope she might hold him in return.
In the acacia tree, the weaverbirds, like small, yellow-lit flames, continued to dart as if in a frenzy, and although their workings appeared random, he saw they were actually meticulous. He would need to be like that: careful and meticulous. He would need to wait.
35
Entebbe
Stephen tapped his phone. ‘Now they’re telling me the guns are shit,’ he said. ‘Kolo’s brother wants another consignment.’
His left eye had swollen, and his top tooth was missing. Where his once-perfect smile had been, there was now a gap. The night before his tooth had gone black and that morning it had come out in a gob of bloody saliva. He’d tried to push it back into the socket, but it came out again, so he rinsed it, wrapped it in a piece of plastic then put it in his shirt pocket, although he suspected he would have to throw it away. By the time he got back to a decent dentist in Cape Town, too much time would have passed for it to be worth keeping. He pushed his tongue into the tender, vacant space, unable to feel the violence of his father’s fist now, only the pissed-off feeling that he’d been beaten.
It had been a shock to see such rage in his father, like a wounded animal turning to attack. Well, let him have his moment. Let him make his point.
‘Did you hear me?’ he said to Reba.
They’d flown from Gulu to Entebbe that morning, but engine trouble meant they had to wait until the plane was cleared before flying on—a blockage in the fuel line or a cylinder problem, no one seemed to have any idea.
Now grounded, Stephen checked his bank account. He had trouble with his password at first. And then the zeroes were not there. He shifted between accounts, double-checked and checked again, but as he scrolled through, he realised he was looking at a debit rather than a credit.
‘Fuck,’ he said. ‘What the hell?’
Reba, who had been staring intently at something on his phone, finally glanced at him.
‘Someone’s hacked my bank account,’ Stephen said.
But Reba only waved his hand as if what he said meant nothing. ‘It’s probably a mistake. Nothing you can do from here, so you may as well shelve it for now.’
‘What are you talking about? I’m not about to shelve anything. There’s no money in my account. Either there’s been a stuff-up, or I’ve been shafted.’
Reba looked towards the busy departure area, where someone was shouting.
‘Didn’t you hear me?’ Stephen demanded. ‘Someone’s put the word out that we’re selling crap.’ He raised his phone. ‘They want new terms, more stock, but Frost won’t release it unless I pay upfront. And we’ve got no money.’
‘Listen, Steve—’ Reba began.
But before he could finish, Stephen got to his feet. ‘Come on, what is it? There’s a shit storm brewing here, and we can’t afford to hang around. I need to get back and speak to these people in person.’
Airport announcements stuttered, and rattled passengers moved out of the way as Stephen hurried out of the terminal onto the tarmac. When he reached the Gulfstream, he clambered into the cockpit. The mechanic told him that although the engine trouble had been fixed, he still wanted to go over a few things. Stephen waved him away and began flicking the control switches, then he started up the first engine. A groundsman shouted and flapped his arms in the air, but Stephen ignored him too.
The cabin door swung open, and Matt climbed into the co-pilot’s seat next to him. ‘All right then, let’s go.’
Stephen started the second engine, then rammed the throttles to full and released the brake. He told air-traffic control there was a medical emergency and the plane was needed back in Cape Town for a patient transport.
The air-traffic controller cleared them to go ahead and Stephen taxied onto the runway, jumping the queue in front of a domestic carrier.
As they lifted, the landing gear drew up into the body of the plane and they went into a steep climb. The runway receded beneath them, and they arced away south across a murky Lake Victoria, the engine humming, instrument panels reading as they should.
Beside him, Matt began rummaging in his backpack. He took out his phone and passport, then began reshuffling the cards in his wallet and checking them repeatedly as if he was doing a stocktake. A tsetse fly that must’ve got into the cabin when they were grounded landed on his neck. He swatted at it and missed.
Stephen gave him a sidelong look. They hadn’t spoken since take-off.
‘Listen,’ he said. ‘If you know something I don’t, then this would probably be the right time to fess up.’
Reba didn’t respond; only a slight stiffening of his jaw suggested he had heard.
They were above the clouds now and the sky was clear and very blue. Stephen stared ahead. ‘What’s going on?’ he asked.
‘What do you mean?’ Reba mumbled. He had gone back to scrounging in his backpack.
‘Well, something’s weird,’ Stephen said, and when Reba didn’t look up he continued, ‘All right, should I tell you what I think?’
‘If you want,’ Reba replied, making it sound as if he had zero interest.
‘Okay, the way I see it, it’s simple: we provide arms to everyone—government forces, villagers and rebels alike. We don’t do the killing. They do that. Half the time they don’t even need guns to do it. Machetes, hoes, it’s all the same. What we do is business—your business, Matt, fifty-one per cent, which you stand to lose if you’re not on board. You can’t have it both ways. Get it? If I’m shafted, so are you.’
Matt succeeded in jamming the tsetse fly into the window seal with the corner of his passport. There was a tiny bloody crunch against the glass. ‘Fucking thing got me.’
He spat on his fingers and wiped saliva onto the bite on his neck, then began fidgeting with his headset.
‘Did you hear what I said?’ Stephen asked.
‘I heard. Except maybe you’ve got the wrong information.’
‘Really? Then enlighten me.’
They flew south-west. Below them the clouds were beginning to turn crimson as the sun set. Matt adjusted his sunglasses and Stephen thought he might be mistaken; maybe Reba was still just a big-boned jock without imagination, the same sixteen-year-old yearning for home. ‘So, let’s get this straight,’ he said. ‘Are you trying to tell me that you want go back to your uncle’s farm in Bloemfontein where everything’s safe? That you want to go and live like a japie, hey? Like a Boer?’
Reba shook his head. ‘Tessa was right—you don’t know shit.’
‘And she does?’ Stephen cast him a triumphant look, but then suddenly something of the last couple of days began to fall into place. The times at the Acholi Inn when Reba went off—looking, he said, for some space—and his all-out panic when he bolted back to the four-wheel drive in a bid to get out of Garamba. ‘You knew about this, didn’t you? You’re in on it.’
‘Hey, man, I was the one who tried to warn you.’
‘Is that right?’
There was a long pause before Matt replied, ‘Come on, don’t pull that shit on me. None of this is my problem.’
‘Oh yeah, and why’s that?’
‘Because I’m getting out, man.’
‘What do you mean, you’re getting out? You say that as if you’ve already got something sorted. Did you cut a deal with someone? With Kolo’s brother, maybe?’
‘Why would I do that? I told you, Steve, I don’t want to do that kind of business.’
