The Ghosts of Eden Read online

  Table of Contents

  Author’s Note and Acknowledgements

  1983

  Kaaro Karungi – The Beautiful Land, Rift Valley: 1958

  One

  Two

  Three

  Four

  Five

  Six

  Rusoro Town, Uganda, Independence Day:1962

  Rusoro Town: 1957

  One

  Two

  Three

  Four

  Five

  Six

  Seven

  Kampala: 1962

  Kampala: 1983

  One

  Two

  Three

  Four

  Five

  Six

  Seven

  Eight

  Nine

  Ten

  Eleven

  Twelve

  Thirteen

  Fourteen

  Quotations

  Praise for The Ghosts of Eden

  This deeply moving book will leave you thoughtful for long after you have read it.

  Rt Hon. Ann Widdecombe

  I [found] I had accidentally ordered a masterpiece … It is a beautifully written, life-affirming, thought provoking story and if only it had fallen on Richard and Judy’s doorstep instead of mine the author would by now have a best-seller on his hands.

  Andrew Crofts

  The delight is in the detail of this book. It brought to me pictures of Uganda and that feeling you always had there of life beyond this life, whispering, beckoning, interfering. Reality and myths reinforce each other as the title suggests and you are left feeling the vulnerability of humanity.

  Yasmin Alibhai-Brown

  Grips the reader subtly, by force of personality: the personality of the main players, and also of the place itself. A stunningly haunting debut.

  Lesley Mason, The Book Bag

  I highly recommend this to anyone who wants to read about African culture, without battling with symbolism or the endless horrors of war. It is a beautifully written story, and I think it has just become my favourite book with an African setting … and one of my top ten books of the year.

  Jackie Bailey, Farm Lane Book Blog

  For those of you who like reading specific genres, be prepared to be amazed as this story fits in all the various genres. [It’s] a journeying love story following two young men and the lengths they would go to acquire the same woman. With characters being, shall we say “stalked”, one could be led to believe that this is a thriller. Nonetheless, romance is the first and foremost category it would fit. After all, is a love triangle not a tragic romance? So, ladies who love a good sob story, enjoy.

  Natasha Walker

  Prizes

  Winner of the 2010 Waverton Good Read Award, given to the best first novel published in the previous twelve months by a British author.

  Quotes from readers in the People’s Book Prize 2010

  Captivating book and difficult to put down.

  I loved this book. I was gripped from the opening pages.

  One you can read again and again.

  Read during every spare moment!

  Evocative writing, an absorbing novel which touches the emotions.

  The Ghosts of Eden

  Andrew J.H Sharp

  First published in Great Britain in 2009 by Picnic Publishing

  PO Box 5222, Hove BN52 9LP

  Copyright © Andrew J.H. Sharp, 2009

  The right of Andrew J.H. Sharp to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs & Patents Act, 1988.

  A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

  ISBN: 9780956037091

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical including photocopying, recording or information storage or retrieval system, without the prior permission in writing of the publishers.

  This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not by way of trade or otherwise be lent, resold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publishers’ prior consent in writing in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent publisher.

  Author’s Note and Acknowledgements

  This is a work of fiction. Although I have had first-hand experience of the geographical and historical settings, all characters depicted come from my imagination and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental. Similarly, institutions described are not a real-life portrayal of past or present institutions.

  Inspiration for, and background information on, writing this novel has come from many published and unpublished sources but the following were particularly helpful: E.B. Castle, Growing up in East Africa (Oxford University Press, 1966); Albert R. Cook, Uganda Memoirs (The Uganda Society, 1945); Elisabeth Knox, Signal on the Mountain (Acorn Press, 1991); J. Lijembe, A. Apolo, M. Nzioki, Loren K. Fox, East African Childhood (Oxford University Press, 1967); Henry F. Morris, The Heroic Recitations of the Bahima of Ankole (Oxford, 1964); J. Roscoe, The Banyankole (Cambridge, 1923); The Uganda Journal, numerous authors, volumes 1 to 35 (The Uganda Society, 1935 to 1971).

  For invaluable comments on the text I’m particularly indebted to Rod Duncan and Chris d’Lacey. My thanks to members of Leicester Writers’ Club for insightful and constructive observations, and to Ann Meatyard, Margaret Norton, Stephen Paver, Alison Platts, Suzanne Sharp, Alison Timmins, Jan Tozer, Doug Watt, Liz West and Nigel West for honest and helpful feedback on an early draft. A special thanks to Corinne Souza and Simon Fletcher for publishing and editorial skills. My eternal gratitude to Marietta and my family for their love and encouragement.

  1983

  No man can know where he is going unless he knows exactly where he has been and exactly how he arrived at his present place.

  Maya Angelou

  The shadow of the British Airways jet scythed over the ruched earth, making easy passage across the jagged desert terrain, never slowing for ravines, craggy outcrops or dried up rivers. Without a sound it ghosted landscapes of splintered rock, brecciated granite, bouldered river beds. It traced cities and waters and snows that elicit mystical resonances through time: Alexandria, the Valley of the Kings, Khartoum, the White Nile, the Mountains of the Moon.

  In the first class cabin of the jet Michael Lacey controlled his breathing, trained his gaze on a speck on the aircraft cabin window and remembered a child. A child long dead. For years, recalling the child had been taboo but, as the hours passed in the confined space of the cabin, he hunted for an effective distraction. The more troubling the thought the greater the relief of his symptoms, as if his mind had room for only one ordeal at a time. He believed, until today, that he had banished his claustrophobia by holding fast to his staunch faith in the power of rational thought. Now he had his suspicions that its return had been triggered by an increasing proximity, as the aircraft travelled south, to the child’s resting place; that it was not the tight tube in which he was trapped that was to blame for the sensation of an immovable weight on his chest, but the notion of the child, buried in his destination.

  ‘Do you believe a native curse can kill?’

  It took a few moments for Michael to register that the question was for him. The fleshy man in the adjacent seat was leaning across, his breath wheezy and musty with combusted tobacco.

  Michael gave an almost imperceptible shake of his head.

  ‘That’s what I think,’ said the man, his voice bursting with relief. ‘It’s a good thing I do, because they say if you believe it then it comes true.’

  Michael felt a small but unyielding i
ncrease in the suffocating constriction around his torso, as if he was in the muscular coils of a fat serpent. A point would soon be reached when his ribcage would crumple and the valves of his gut would blow. Sweat patches spread out from under his arms.

  ‘A native paid a witch doctor to put a curse on me, said I’d cut him up on a business deal. As I pointed out, it was only a verbal, nothing on paper.’

  The businessman shifted closer. His heat pressed against Michael like a wall. ‘It’s the guy’s revenge. It’s just below the surface, my friend. They’re all the same: Sunday they’re crooning to Jesus in church; Monday to Saturday they’re consulting their God-awful mediums, their . . .’ he paused to pant a little, ‘revolting ghouls. They don’t know which religion to settle on. Not like us; we got no time for that stuff.’ He thrust himself closer, depleting the air of oxygen with his sucking inhalations. ‘Not until our funerals, huh?’

  Oh God. He was going to have to lunge for the exit door and yank the red handle. Ah, the sweet relief when he exploded out into the boundless air.

  ‘D’you play golf?’

  A swimming feeling came and went. Even when not fighting for breath, Michael found small-talk as appealing as mutually chewing gum. He held on, determined not to black out.

  The man tried again, in an eager, you’re-my-buddy voice, ‘Any hobbies?’

  The pressure was building to an agonising climax. Think. Hobbies? A martial art would have been immediately useful but no, he had no hobby. His job was his hobby, mistress, wife. He pursued excellence in his surgical practice as a holy man seeks the divine, felt a brotherhood with men who understood the incisive, rigorous life necessary to make some small betterment to the world.

  The man could not be dissuaded; he started rolling about, trying to get something out of his pocket. ‘You’ll be interested to know I’m a member of the Magic Circle. Got a trick I can show you.’

  Turning, Michael surprised himself by forcing out a few words, ‘Look, I’m sorry. I have to work something out in my head. Can’t talk at present.’

  The man sank back, releasing a slug of belly air. ‘I’m easy, friend. I’ll show you later. You won’t be disappointed; it’s a classic.’ With that he shut up.

  Michael put his face to the window. The glass looked a foot thick as if he was locked in a bathysphere, but he tried to project himself outside. His eye was drawn to the heated landscape below but his mind returned to paleoanthropology lectures at medical school, hunting out the subterranean – bones in the sands from a time of profound amnesia: Homo habilis, Ardipithecus ramidus, Ardipithecus anamensis; ancestors from deep time where no names of place and event exist because none could articulate a name. It seemed pitiful: each generation had to learn anew their own little world. But then came Homo sapiens. At this genesis, as was revealed to Michael when he was very young, God asked man to name the animals. After the naming of the animals, man gave names to the happenings of his life, creating a remembered history for his children. They became acquainted with the history of their tribe. Michael’s run of thought ran into the ground. In the same African soil lay the bones of his recent forebears: his parents, his grandparents, his great-grandfather. Their bones lay amongst those ancient bones. He turned his attention to the aircraft’s wing and studied the rivets.

  In the periphery of his vision he became aware of a blue shadow.

  ‘Excuse me, sir. I do hope you’re comfortable. May I ask if you’d like a drink?’

  Michael threw a glance at the stewardess. Comfortable? As comfortable as Jonah in the whale. She was smiling at him, although her eyes betrayed a hint of concern: a can-I-help-in-any-other-way look.

  He made himself smile back at her fleetingly. ‘Could do with . . . a Bloody Mary . . .’

  His voice died away in a deflated hiss, but he saw the suggested tension in her expression dissipate as if she was relieved to offer practical help – a balm for whatever troubled him, like a nurse administering a tonic from a drug trolley.

  ‘Certainly, sir. Ice as well?’

  ‘As well as what?’

  She extended her smile and quashed an elevation of her pert stewardess eyebrows.

  ‘Oh! Yes. Thank you.’

  ‘Sir, if there’s anything else you’d like, any way I can help at any time,’ that empathetic smile again, ‘do use the call button. I’ll be with you straight away.’

  Help? Is it true there’s always one parachute on board? Is it true that one can get oneself sucked outside through the toilet bowl?

  She acted as if pouring his drink was a delight: a levity in her movements, a quick tilt of her head when she dropped in the Worcester sauce, her blonde ponytail whipping back and forth like the tail of an eager puppy, a happy giddiness about her. Michael guessed he had bought her inflated jollity with his first class ticket. She opened a drawer in her trolley and lifted out a petite silver tray. She arranged the Bloody Mary and its stick of skewered olives and red peppers, swung out his tray for him and placed his drink. She turned to the businessman but he was asleep, his head resting on the pillow of his double chin.

  Picking up his glass and finding a minor relief in its chill on his finger tips, Michael turned his attention to the blue-black of the sky. They were nearing the equator, giant thunder clouds towered about him; an intimidating extra-terrestrial landscape of gravity-defying forms.

  ‘Ladies and gentlemen, will you please fasten your seatbelts. We’re starting our descent.’

  Whether because of the announcement, or the success of his mental strategies, the claustrophobia relaxed its hold to be replaced by a new but curiously delicious fear. Fear because of an apprehension of landings, but delicious because his fear was charged with the excitement and extravagance of dropping from the sky to an exotic place. He had asked for a window seat – for fresh air, he had told the rather easily amused Naomi at Heathrow. He sighed silently, recalling their parting words.

  They were standing near the departure gate, facing each other, in those pre-departure moments which seem for lovers both not long enough and dragging.

  ‘You OK, Michael?’ she said, suddenly serious.

  Her tall wispy body stiffened. She pursed her lips so that they drained of colour; a sign that he was about to be interrogated. She could be perspicacious, could Naomi, as fitted her occupation as a prosecution lawyer.

  ‘Why? Do I look ill?’

  ‘You seem, I don’t know, distracted.’ A faint vertical line appeared between her eyebrows. ‘Sometimes I can’t tell what you’re thinking. Often, actually. You’ve been tense since you accepted the invitation.’

  ‘Have I?’

  ‘Like you don’t want to go. You weren’t like this for Miami or Chicago.’

  ‘Really?’

  He could not tell her why: she would want to probe, to dig it all up. Some things were best left unspoken, buried deep. It disturbed him, though, that she had detected unease. True, when the invitation came from the secretary of the Lake Regions Surgical Association to speak at their conference he had immediately written a polite refusal, aghast at the prospect of returning to Africa. But then he had torn up his letter, knowing that if he had successfully decoupled himself from the past then he must accept. The act of going back would confirm that an accident of birth and a run of bad luck – to be plain: being orphaned at twelve and murdering a best friend, all on the same day – need not haunt a man for the rest of his life; need not keep a hold over him. It was possible to resurrect oneself; to overcome. But that should be a private matter. Confession was for the religious.

  Naomi was starting to look cross; the tuck in her forehead had deepened.

  There was no honest answer that would not unearth old bones. ‘I’d better go through – the gate’s open.’

  She did not move. ‘Michael, it’s not us is it – you know – you and me?’ She searched his eyes.

  He tried to smile, to reassure her, desperate not to hurt her, and was arrested by the pull of those vivid blue eyes he loved to look into
when they made love, but were now willing something more from him. ‘You and me? I don’t . . .’

  She interrupted him. ‘I want to understand you, Michael. It’s important we don’t hide things from each other.’ She had moved a little closer, an uncertain small step.

  ‘Hide?’

  She drew back and her face flushed; he was not sure whether out of anger, or because she was going to cry. A sadness came over him; a resignation: all his relationships foundered eventually. He always put it down to his work-centred life, although others managed to combine an exacting career and a contented coupling. There seemed little pattern, or logic, to the timings of these break-ups – after all, he was the same person that he had been in the first flush of affection. It pained him.

  He summoned a compromise. ‘Naomi, I give in, you’re very perceptive. You know I like things to be ordered and predictable. Well, they say Uganda’s still chaotic – dangerous even – after what happened there. Idi Amin, President for Life, Conqueror of the British Empire and all that, has bolted, but there’re still thugs off the leash with guns. I hate putting myself into situations I can’t control. Makes me jumpy.’

  She looked amused, if a little incredulous. ‘Oh Michael, that’s so silly – not like you at all. It’s just a conference. Everything’ll go like clockwork.’

  Now that he had shared a fear she appeared satisfied, her movements becoming fluid and light again and the crease melting away; so when they kissed goodbye he was surprised to find her lips unyielding.

  The aircraft had pierced the cloud mantle. The land was a vivid rainy-season green, nothing pastel. An arterial network of blood-red tracks fed the voracious foliage. He reminded himself: just a conference.

  He risked a glance at his companion. The man had not moved since his abortive attempt at conversation, but what sparked Michael’s professional interest was that the wet exhalations marking his less than welcome proximity had also ceased. He watched the man’s chest, looking for a rise and a fall, wondering how long he could hold his breath and waiting for the hungry intake of air that would follow a period of sleep apnoea.