One Secret Summer (50 page)

JULIA

Maputo, May 2000

They landed in Johannesburg on a cool, misty morning. It was autumn in the southern hemisphere. Julia emerged bleary-eyed
but excited into the early morning neon glow of cafés and shops, only just beginning to stir. The same duty-free goods were
on sale as they were everywhere in the world. If she’d been looking forward with impatience to her first glimpse of Africa,
Johannesburg wasn’t quite what she’d expected. Through the enormous frosted-glass windows she could just make out the landscape
around the airport. Low grey clouds, construction cranes, a flat, dusty plain. It looked almost exactly as Heathrow had done,
twelve hours earlier.

At 11.05 a.m. on the dot, the flight to Maputo was called. There were two other women who had been on the flight from London.
They smiled tentatively at each other; introductions were made. Susan and Jean, both Americans and veterans of the development
circuit. They picked up their bags and laptops and followed the small group of tourists on to the plane. Julia was too excited
to feel properly tired. Her itinerary showed time for an afternoon nap before the opening session of the conference that evening
and the post-lecture dinner. She almost hugged herself as she took her seat in the small plane. All of a sudden, London and
everything in it, including Aaron, seemed a very long way away.

Her first glimpse of Maputo was the long, golden arc of sandy beach that separated the city from its southern suburbs. The
plane banked gracefully over red-tiled roofs, occasional splashes of swimming-pool blue and larger dark green patches that
looked like parks. The houses were densely packed together; she could just make out the long black tongues of roads before
everything disappeared under the thin layer of cloud that hung suspended above the city. It was the rainy season; she’d been
told to expect high, humid temperatures during the day but cooler breezes at night. The conference was due to last three days
– there was an extra day added on at the end for sightseeing, then it was a late afternoon flight back to Johannesburg, an
overnight stay at the airport hotel and the early morning flight back to London.

She followed Susan and Jean off the plane and walked down the rickety steps on to the tarmac. After the dim interior of the
plane, the sunlight was almost blinding. The breeze lifted; palm trees stirred; she caught the whiff of woodsmoke at the back
of her throat, the scent of carbon monoxide and the sound of car horns … the sensations rushed at her, one by one. They were
shepherded quickly by the ground staff into the air-conditioned terminal building, where everything disappeared once more
into the same cold, arid plasticity of airports. There was a young man in a startlingly white shirt and beautifully pressed
khaki trousers bearing a sign with their names creatively misspelt. The three women nodded and smiled as they came through
the doors.

‘
Bom día
,’ he said, flashing a dizzyingly brilliant smile. ‘Welcome to Maputo.’

The radiance of water and the radiance of sky; two elements endlessly flashing out there on the horizon, whichever way you
turned. On the last day of the conference, Julia declined the invitation of a guided bus tour and went instead with Susan
and Jean to the edge of the city, the shore. A tongue’s lick of hot, humid air hit them as soon as they stepped outside the
air-conditioned lobby and emerged on to the street. Laughing and chatting excitedly at their release, they hailed a cab and
piled in. Julia’s shirt opened patches of damp under the arms as she clambered into the back seat. The thin trickle of sweat
between her shoulder blades thickened, slowly making its way down her back. The driver drove slowly along Avenida 25 de Setembre,
explaining local landmarks to them in his sing-song broken
English.
The police station. The bus terminal. The international school. Another police station
. Julia listened to him with half an ear, gazing instead at the horizon, now reduced to a single, unbroken white line against
the diminishing contrast between water and air. It was three o’clock in the afternoon and the heat was intense. They wound
their way around the peninsula and found themselves on Avenida Julius Nyerere. Next along was Avenida Mao Tse-tung, then Avenida
Kenneth Kaunda. They swung right on to Vladimir Lenin … all ghosts of the socialist past, engraved in the streets and avenues
of the capital city. How her father would have thrilled to see this, Julia thought to herself suddenly.

At a junction crowded with cars and vans and jostling pedestrians, Jean recognised the signs for
mercato
, the central market, and shouted for the driver to stop. They got out and were immediately swallowed up in the throng. Julia
bought a cup of crushed ice and watermelon juice from a roadside vendor, marvelling at the bicycle-with-a-cooler contraption
from which he extracted plastic cups and bright red juice with ease. The cold, sugary drink was a physical release from the
sticky heat – she gulped it down and asked for another. They strolled through the
mercato
, picking up souvenirs for those back home, a postcard or two, a small roasted plantain with a handful of peanuts … It seemed
to Julia, haggling amicably over the price of a pair of silver-and-ebony cufflinks that she thought Aaron would like, that
the real purpose of the conference she’d just attended was out here, in broad daylight, in the voices and gestures of the
market women in whose name they had all come. Underneath the fierce sun, gesticulating and smiling in the manner of those
who had no common language, it was hard to believe in the grim statistics they’d spent three days hearing – a life expectancy
of forty-one years for women; infant mortality rates of 289 per thousand births; fifty-four per cent of women enrolled in
primary education … she’d sat with hundreds of others in the same overcooled rooms, listening to the same voices with growing
despair. Yet there was very little despair in the open-air market around her. The women were resplendent in brightly
coloured swathes of patterned cloth; some turbaned, others – the younger ones – with braids that fell to their waists and
swirled about their faces as they deftly slipped produce into a bag or counted out change. The contrast between the earnest,
painfully politically correct academics and politicians and the vibrant, exuberant market women who laughed and joked with
their customers was hard to comprehend. Inside the conference hall, African women were portrayed as submissive, passive victims
of circumstances far beyond their control. Out here in the city and in real life, it seemed to be the opposite. There was
nothing remotely passive about these confident, laughing women. In the little shared language available to them, they asked
about children, husbands, lives … they knew about produce, prices, making money, births, marriages and deaths – pretty much
the same as women everywhere. Julia turned away from them in confusion and collided with someone. For a brief second she was
brought cheek to damp, sweaty cheek with one of the market queens. There was a guffaw of laughter and a chorus of voices,
‘
Desculpé, desculpé!
’ as everyone around her laughingly apologised for something that was actually her own fault. It was all so different from
the irritated ‘tut-tutting’ that would have gone on in a London department store if she’d bumped into someone by mistake.
She gathered her postcards and gifts and with a last smile and a wave hurried to join the others.

‘We’re thinking of having a quick drink at one of the roadside bars before we have to leave,’ Susan said to her as she drew
level with them. ‘Jean and I don’t much fancy the thought of meeting everyone in the hotel again – not on our last night.
I’ve had enough, to be honest.’

Julia smiled, relieved. It had been her good fortune to meet up with Jean and Susan. ‘Same here,’ she agreed. ‘I’m all for
skipping it.’

‘Fabulous. Our kind of girl.’ They began to thread their way through the crowd. Roadside bars were the one thing Maputo didn’t
appear to lack. They were everywhere. Susan marched boldly towards one nestled between what appeared to be two
makeshift bus stops. There was a free table covered in a red-and-green-checked plastic cloth. A small boy hurried over with
two extra plastic chairs. They sank down gratefully – a second later, three already sweating bottles of ice-cold beer had
been produced. ‘Cheers,’ Susan said, lifting her beer. The bottles made a satisfying ‘clink’.

‘Cheers,’ Julia murmured. ‘Welcome to the
real
Maputo.’

‘You did
what
?’ Aaron’s voice carried with it all the outrage that could possibly be corralled into a single word thrust down a crackling
international phone line.

Julia rolled her eyes – at her own reflection in the mirror. ‘It’s perfectly all right, Aaron. I was with Susan and Jean.’

‘And who the hell are Susan and Jean?’

‘I told you the other night. They’re the two other women from the conference I’ve been hanging out with. They’re very nice.
They’re both Americans. Susan’s an economist and Jean’s a historian.’

‘I don’t care what they do. They led you off to some … some underground
bar
in a
slum
?’

Julia had to laugh. ‘It wasn’t an underground bar. And it certainly wasn’t in a slum. It was in the central market.’

‘Julia, it’s no laughing matter,’ Aaron said sternly. ‘You weren’t supposed to leave the hotel. That’s what it said in the
conference pack, remember?’

‘Oh, Aaron! It’s perfectly safe. People are amazingly friendly and—’

‘Don’t be so naïve, Julia. You’re in Africa, for God’s sake. There are wars on. Anything could happen. You’ve got to be more
careful. You can’t just wander off on your own like that. You could’ve been mugged, or worse.’

‘Aaron, I’m in Mozambique, not Sierra Leone. There’s no war going on here. You’re being ridiculous.’

‘
I’m
the one being ridiculous?’ Aaron’s voice rose in indignation.

Julia sighed. ‘Look, let’s not argue. This phone call’s costing
me a fortune. I’ll ring you when I get to the hotel in Johannesburg tomorrow, all right?’

‘All right.’ Aaron’s tone was sulky. Julia made a few further conciliatory remarks and then put the phone down before he could
irritate her any further. A sudden uneasiness at the thought of returning to London stole over her. She’d been away for almost
a week – she ought to be pleased to be going back home. To Aaron, if nothing else. But she wasn’t, and she couldn’t say why.

JOSH

Johannesburg, May 2000

Josh strode impatiently through the arrivals hall. After seven weeks in the bush, the smell of coffee wafting from the small
Café e Vida stand located halfway down the corridor was unsettling. He had one night in the Intercontinental located just
across the road from arrivals and then it was the long eleven-hour flight back to London – and to Niela. At the thought of
her, his pulse quickened. He’d been away almost two months. There had been times out there in the thick humidity of the bush
around them when it was almost impossible to believe in her, or her small, neat flat in London … or in London itself. It was
the end of May; he’d seen on the news the night before that it was still cold. That too was hard to believe in, although Johannesburg
was certainly cooler than Cabo Delgado.

He crossed the road and walked quickly up to the check-in desk. Ten minutes later, he was walking down a thickly carpeted
hallway, his single rucksack swinging from side to side on the back of the young man in uniform who was escorting him to his
room. ‘Here you are, sir,’ the young man said, sliding the plastic
card into the slot. He opened the door and quickly ran through the checklist of amenities – minibar, TV, shower, patio doors
… Josh had been through it all a million times before. ‘Can I get you anything, sir?’ He paused at the door.

‘No thanks,’ Josh said, sliding over the obligatory ten-rand note. The young man’s grin was thanks enough and he slid silently
from the room.

Josh walked over to the window and drew back the drapes. The material felt luxuriously soft in his hands, which, for two months,
had held nothing but nylon rope and coarse sheets that were always damp with sweat … yes, a night spent in luxury was probably
a good thing before he touched down in London once more. He walked over to the shower, stripped off his dusty, tired clothing
and stepped in.

Half an hour later, his hand still going to his freshly shaved jawline as if in disbelief, he walked into the lobby and made
his way towards the bar. The tinkle of a piano came to him from behind the potted palms and the Japanese-style screens; the
room had the soft lighting and neutral, fashionable decor of hotel lobbies everywhere. He pulled out one of the leather bar
stools and slid on to it. ‘Gin and tonic,’ he said to the barman. ‘Double.’

‘Very good, sir. Ice and lemon?’

He nodded; a few seconds later, an expertly mixed drink was slid across the marble top towards him. He took a sip, feeling
it burn its way down his throat pleasurably. There were a few men sitting alongside him; their eyes were fixed either on the
drink in front of them or on the doorway. Josh recognised the stares: men who had either seen too much or too little. All
they were able to focus on was the half-empty glass a hand’s reach away or the young prostitutes with their tight, round backsides
and long fake tresses who sauntered in and out of the lobby under the watchful eye of management. He watched the man next
to him eyeing one of the girls further down the counter as she preened beside a customer; her sequinned skirt was split from
ankle to thigh. The ridiculously firm flesh shone blue-black in the soft lighting, a
slick, polished surface like marble. Her companion’s fat hand was stamped proprietorially on it; he looked as though he might
bite the head off anyone who so much as looked at her. Josh turned his head wearily. He’d seen it all before. The next night
she would be in with someone else. For the price of a handbag, a cell phone or a month’s supply of corrugated roofing sheet
– depending on your preferences and most pressing needs – the girl’s undivided attention was yours.