Eighty Not Out (9 page)

8

Weighing Anchor – Liverpool to Takoradi

T
he Elder Dempster liner
MV
Apapa
, one of two ships that plied alternate routes to Ghana, one via the Canary Islands, the other via the Gambia and Sierra Leone, was at the quayside in Liverpool when I disembarked early in the morning from the Belfast boat. Already it was warm, promising one of those glorious early spring days that Northern Ireland, the west of Scotland and Lancashire enjoy before an unpredictable summer sets in. Details have faded, but I negotiated the transfer of three suitcases to my cabin without actually boarding the ship. A steward, uniformed in white, topped with a red fez, had been assigned to take care of my baggage. Instantly likeable, he assured me it would be safe until late in the afternoon, when passengers would be allowed aboard, and told me there was a bunch of red roses waiting for me in my cabin. I asked him to try to keep the roses alive.

Aimless hours in this city, at first sight no more appealing than Belfast, allowed time for some self-examination. In the back of my mind lurked tales of young Ulster women who had disappeared without trace after boarding the Liverpool boat: rumours of white slavery were rife at the time, but I had loftily dismissed them as baseless scaremongering. Now I began to look at some of the solitary characters leaning against walls, or sitting alone in the numerous small cafés, as possibly loitering with intent. Too timid to go to the centre of the town, where I would have found more salubrious cafés and better shops, it was not only fear of the sinister that deterred me. My right leg was hurting: crêpe-bandaged on the advice of a doctor who had failed to diagnose deep-vein thrombosis after treatment for bronchial pneumonia, I knew that by the end of a hot day both legs would be swollen. I picked at dreary sandwiches, and drank cups of viscous coffee – some tasted of chicory, reviving memories of wartime Camp, but by this time espresso bars had begun to flourish in Belfast, so I knew what coffee should taste like.

I rang my mother, but had little to say that had not already been said, apart from telling her that my cases were in good hands. I did not mention the roses. Telegrams were sent instead of emails in that era, and while in theory it was possible to telephone Ghana, Fergus had discouraged me from trying, saying that to do so would reduce me to a frustrated, gibbering mess while expensive minutes ticked away. Air letters were the best option, although slow, and in the early days of Ghana's independence, mail, particularly that of international aid workers, was liable to be opened. An incident from early childhood came to mind. It must have been Student Rag Day, when a very tall black man had rattled a collection box in my face and I had burst into tears; both he and San had been embarrassed. Afterwards San told me that he was a prince from the Gold Coast, and could jump longer and higher than any other student at the university. Apart from that encounter, the few Africans I had met had been studying medicine, dentistry or engineering at Queen's.

Towards the end of the afternoon I joined the queue of passengers waiting to go on board. The deck swarmed with stewards chattering in a variety of tribal dialects. Cheerful, and willing to a man, I found them difficult to understand – this was my first exposure to West African pidgin, and six months were to pass before I became familiar with its manifold bizarre interpretations of the Queen's English. There is no parallel: in East Africa Swahili is widely spoken, while in the ex-French or ex-Belgian colonies, French is the lingua franca. Ali, the steward, led me down to my cabin, which, although second class, had a porthole, shower, basin and
WC
. Compact would best describe it, and already I knew I had brought too many things.

Loud bangs and the chuntering of heavy chains, against a background of shouts from the crew, were soon joined by a throb from the engine room. It was tempting to lie down and rest, but I went up on deck to watch as the distance between boat and quayside widened, and screaming gulls swooped to catch midair scraps jettisoned from the galley. The dark, rainbowoiled, gently undulating water, its surface thick with bits of stick, plastic bottles and paper cups, tangles of coloured nylon rope and a few floating black plastic bags, the contents of which did not bear contemplation, held no resemblance to the sea I loved. The breeze freshened and chilled as the liner slid into the open waters of the Irish Sea. Only a few fellow passengers were on deck, and I realised the others were probably resting prior to dressing for dinner. Most were seasoned travellers on the West African route, returning for yet another tour.

It was a challenge to present myself at the entrance to the dining room, where it was obvious that the arrival of a single woman, neither nun nor missionary, aroused curiosity. Being a class B passenger eliminated any risk of being seated at the captain's table, and I was shown to one at which two married couples with strong north-country accents were seated; also an insignificant man, balding, with a small moustache, who spoke with a southern English accent. The couples, stationed at Jos in northern Nigeria, knew each other and exchanged gossip of mind-numbing banality: ‘You remember Gordon and his wife, Gwen? They 'ad a little son last January, John they called 'im, aye John, that's right.' Polite attempts were made to include me in conversation, so demanding an edited version of my background. On learning I was Irish they remarked that I did not have what they called a brogue. The unvoiced question – Protestant or Catholic – was always present and conclusions drawn according to prejudice. My standard answer was intended to discomfit: born in Derry, raised in County Down – ultimate dream a united Ireland. The other man at our table confessed that he always spent home leaves with Mummy, a widow in poor health, who lived alone in a large house that cost a fortune in upkeep. He worked in a bank, at what level was not revealed.

Short of pointing, the Yorkshire women gave me the background of several diners. The only other lone female was the daughter of the harbour master at Takoradi: they suspected that she and that nice-looking engineer with the hyphenated name, who worked on Nigerian railways, were an item, having been on the same ship three months earlier. ‘That corpulent man, you wouldn't believe it, is only forty-four, looks ten years older – let himself go to seed, it's the drink you know, but very clever, heads a giant engineering project based at Lagos.' The vast man with a black beard like Captain Haddock in
Tintin
was the ship's doctor. I knew I would soon have to visit him to discuss my leg – not a plus point on the glamour scale, and I worried it would get worse as the temperature and humidity rose.

Talk turned to the menu, which looked exciting, but I was warned off all that muck – much better stick to good old English grub – none of the native stuff, all that chilli pepper, palm oil and coconut, ‘and you couldn't trust
them
not to put goat in the stews'. As for okra, aubergine and peppers – steer clear of all that. You were safe enough with blancmange, ice cream, whipped jellies – invariably pink – and trifles. I did not follow their advice, and after consommé soup, I ordered ‘Fish curry – traditional West African dish', which was delicious; for pudding I had my first taste of pawpaw, a large slice served with fresh lime. This fruit became a staple part of my diet: a fruitbearing tree can be grown from seed sown the previous year, and flourishes all over West Africa; the miserable specimens that appear on supermarket shelves in Europe bear little resemblance to freshly picked fruit from one's own plot. The same goes for mangoes, although the West African mango – stringy and tasting slightly of turpentine – is a poor substitute for the East African variety, but I did not learn that until seven years later. My fellow diners watched with morbid interest, predicting I would come to my senses after a dose of ‘belly palaver'. I fear the north-country people thought me stuck up, and heading for a comeuppance. No wedding ring, listed as ‘Mrs' on the passenger list, evasive not only about her past, about who was going to meet her at Takoradi – very odd.

Next morning was cool and overcast when we sailed down the Pembrokeshire coast to the Bristol Channel and the Scilly Isles. Breakfast was served in two sittings, the first for children with their attendant mothers. Once fed, swarms of calorie-fuelled brats thronged the corridors and ladders, thundering about in search of entertainment. Deck games would be organised later, but there was universal disappointment that the swimming pool would not be open during this voyage. The mothers then joined the second sitting for their own breakfast. The ‘full British' was the most popular choice, though some passengers were cautious, in dread of the Bay of Biscay, and retreated to their cabins at the first hint of a swell.

By mid-morning I had found a deck chair in a sheltered corner, and began to assess the occupants of neighbouring chairs, from behind my book. The sun had still not burned off the low cloud, so I had to fetch a sweater from my cabin, treating metal stairs, at which I was far from nimble, and steps, which were trip hazards, with care. Back on deck, I found the chairs arranged in little groups, one of which I was asked to join. It would have been rude to demur, and thankfully this lot were more animated than my companions of the previous night. At 11 a.m. the first round of drinks was ordered, but still replete from breakfast, I settled for fruit juice, while the others ordered beer, a few gins and tonic, and new to me, gin and Dubonnet, or Campari soda, which later became my favourite drink. The passing of the sister ship
MV
Accra
, heading for Liverpool on its homeward voyage via Grand Canary, brought nearly all the passengers to their feet, waving like children. Other highlights were the sighting of a school of dolphins, the arrival of a solitary bumble bee, and a house martin sheltering in one of the lifeboats.

I reflected on Grandma's addiction to cruises lasting months, and wondered how she had endured the monotonous routine: regular meals, for which it was impossible to work up a healthy appetite, and unremitting trivial exchanges of social banter. She will have been avoided by many, but her entertainment value as a garrulous Irish woman probably filled a need, and by her own account she often dined at the captain's table. She was a formidable bridge player, which will have helped to pass the time, but several cruises in the late twenties and early thirties, including two to New Zealand, made serious inroads on her estate. She is on record as boasting, tongue I now suspect loosened by alcohol, that I would be ‘one of the richest young heiresses in the province'. After her death in 1947, when her will was read, there was not enough capital to honour her many bequests to ‘dear friends'.

The first port of call was Bathurst in the Gambia. I was shocked by the attitude of most of the passengers when the question of going ashore was broached. ‘There's nothing to see, it's not worth the bother,' they said. From where we were anchored there was indeed little to be seen. A solitary pied kingfisher perched, almost within reach, on one of many rotting timbers; a red dust track led towards what was at that time little more than a straggly settlement of corrugated-iron-roofed shops. There were a few two- and three-storey villas, which had known better days, their balconies supported by damaged pillars or insubstantial timbers, the bright pink, blue and peppermintgreen façades defaced by dribbles of black fungus.

Down the middle of every alley ran an open drain, explored by children, goats and ribby, short-coated dogs with white-tipped tails and a diamond on the forehead. Several children came shyly to touch my pallid skin, but only one tried the give-me-penny ploy; in truth, they did not expect much from visitors. A few tall, dignified Wolof women sold both fresh and dried fish from a variety of containers: but even then, baskets and clay pots were less common than enamelled basins of European or Asian origin. What had survived were elaborately structured headcloths and large, pure gold coiled earrings, symbol of success as a ‘market mammy'. I had a camera, but was careful not to direct it at anyone without consent – many were delighted to pose, but a few clung to the belief that their soul would be stolen, and turned away. Pied crows, glossy starlings and vultures abounded, the last hopping sideways along the roof ridges, before plonking heavily to the ground, where they would bounce to inspect the latest gobbet of refuse chucked in the direction of the drain. Walt Disney got them just right in his version of
The Jungle Book
. The courthouse was the only substantial building not in terminal decay. The sky remained overcast, and the air, heavy with smoke, smelled uniquely of Africa: a mixture of charcoal burning, roasting plantain, cooking oils, dried fish, body odour, rotting fruit and vegetables, and open drain. For a ‘not a lot to see' place, I had enjoyed my first footing on red laterite soil.

Back on board, plans were being hatched for a fancy-dress evening to take place before the next stop at Sierra Leone. By this time the heat had reached such a peak that I had stopped trying to apply make-up, as it slithered off my red face. Showers brought short-lived relief, and any exertion, such as patting oneself dry, provoked more beads of sweat. It was the peak of the rainy season, and I suffered so severely I thought a serious error of judgement had been made and I would expire if it got any hotter. However, I was never again to suffer as badly. I made an appointment to see the medical officer, who greeted me warmly, saying he had noticed my bandage and anticipated a visit. After making some perfunctory notes, he said: ‘Well you had better strip off – I'd like you to walk to the end of the room and back so that I can assess your balance.' Too startled to question the necessity of this, I complied. He prescribed a new bandage, and when I recounted the story, it was greeted with hoots of laughter. He had form.

We glided into Freetown so early in the morning that horizontal wisps of cloud partially obscured the heavily forested hills, which formed a backcloth to the town. An ethereal scene, it reminded me of mornings on the west coast of Scotland; but as we got closer the similarity faded as brilliant flame trees and other flowering bushes came into focus, canoes came out to welcome the ship, and small boys dived for coins as we neared the jetty, where I saw my first sea snake. Steerage passengers of both sexes who had boarded at Bathurst, in the hope of finding work in Sierra Leone, jostled around the gangplank, each with a huge cloth-wrapped bundle. Security was top priority, and Ali warned me on no account to leave the cabin door unlocked or the porthole unscreened as ‘They outside, they come and take them shoes with long stick'. Despite these precautions, one of the A deck passengers had awoken to find a shadowy figure in the act of removing some of his property: a well-aimed kick in the crotch ensured the figure fled to its own part of the ship.