Chapter 10

Chapter 10 - Bella Vista

The word the driver of the car had used to such hypnotic effect on Ransome was in Yoruba, the language of his childhood. Only his grandparents on his mother's side had used a pure version of this tongue. His mother spoke a melange of English and Yoruba, which was the vocal mix of the music she and his father had made their careers with, or rather Fela Kuti had made them. Kuti was the Nigerian King of Afrobeat who took America by storm in the seventies with his entourage of musicians and dancers. Ransome's parents had been part of that troupe, though his father, for reasons which were never clearly stated, had fallen out with the charismatic leader. When Kuti, after returning to Nigeria, declared his Lagos commune a sovereign republic in 1974, Ransome's father refused to step inside the place. Kuti never forgave him for it. Ochikwe senior moved his family back to his birthplace of Port Harcourt, and it was in this frenzied port city that Ransome had grown into a lean adolescent, always happier with a ball at his feet than in a classroom. Not that he hadn't had the opportunity for study. While many schools in the region were dilapidated and ill-equipped, Mr Ochikwe had paid for his son to attend a private Academy run by an Anglican overseas foundation. When Ransome flunked the University entrance exams and, in a blazing row, declared he would make a career playing football, the wound of resentment between them had been wide and deep. Part of the reason he had swallowed the agent’s bait so completely was his obsession with proving Mr Ochikwe wrong. He was surprised when the news of his departure for Europe led to his father voluntarily ending their cold war. Rather than questioning the wisdom of relying on a single agent’s word, he congratulated Ransome with a formal handshake that seemed to finally acknowledge his eldest son as a man. ‘I was wrong. You are better off leaving this country, before it’s at war again over oil.’ He had even offered financial help, which Ransome, out of pride, had accepted only a small part of. Awkwardly his father had turned it into a joke. ‘You’ll soon be earning more in one week than I do in a year anyway.’
He had refused the offer of a lift to the airport too. He could see this was partly to the relief of Mr Ochikwe, a man loath to take time off work, fearing that the bar he ran would collapse if he turned his back for a second. Suffering a killer hangover from the send-off party his friends had thrown, Ransome had taken a bus out there alone in the grey first light of the morning. The last image he held of his homeland was from the plane window as it banked round to follow the Atlantic coast round to the west and then the north. The chaos of Port Harcourt took on an order the higher the plane rose, and as they flew over the mangrove creeks of the Niger Delta, the blue-flare spouts of gas burn-off from the pipelines seemed like illuminations heralding his transfer to a glorious future in Europe.

Driver of the Audi says nothing to Ransome, just concentrates on negotiating de twists and turns of narrow streets. No CD collection to distract, so I get to observing him, and what I see is the habit of making decisions and being obeyed. Something else too, difficult to identify, until just as we pull to a halt, I pin it down as the aura of a man who has embraced death and is no longer afraid.
From the postcard view of diamond bay sparkling I know we have climbed up the hillside from Mina’s flat which now is one of many rooftops cluttering the below. We are pulled in on open patch of ground, only thing spoiling the beautiness being de reek escaping piled bags of rubbish long since overflowed their confines. I follow Big Brutha, (must be at least one metre eighty five and built), to the far side of the bins, where - unexpected like a cool breeze in Port Harcourt summer - sits a picnic bench complete with water fountain beside. Long drink first and then sit down. Bruth is wearing a bridal clean white tee, levis and sandals like an Englishman. Sudden he pulls the bottom of his t-shirt up over barrel chest and sixpack, pointing to three circles of skin stood off white and shrivelled against the smooth black.
‘Do you know what these are, my friend?’
I nod, thinking about Mina and wondering how to get to the entrance of the park at nine o’clock. Big Bruth is a distraction in a chain of events already mysteriouser than a ride with Charlie's Angels. Course Africans in Europe tend to look out for one another, and I guess a spot of narco-gang recruiting might be about to happen. Same thing happened more than once previous at gaffs in the ol' Brixton. Those times I refused because I wanted to stay on the right tracks o' The Law, and course I had the sandwich trade to fall back on. Now what do I have? A possible rendezvous with some Cat Queen of Scots (where've I heard that) seems about all... I decide to play it cool.
‘I guess you got shot. But if you want me to name the bullets I ain’t no expert.’
‘They’re British.’
Voice is deeper than a Wilson Pickett bass line. Makes me sound like a choirboy after.
‘You been to Britain?’
‘Studied at Oxford University. But like yourself I am cursed with being a national of a country dreamed up by Victorian Englishmen with blank maps in their hands. What tribe do you belong to, my friend?’
Now my father was Ogoni and Ma was Yoruba, and I frankly feel a little tiring them who beat the tribal drum for a living. But I know better than to say so here.
‘I knew there was Yoruba in you.’ I love that bass sound!
‘How’s that, man?’
‘Because you look out for yourself. The tribes of Eastern Nigeria have always been prepared to struggle for each other: Ijaw, Ogoni, Igbo…'
I listen, saintly quiet while he reels off the names, wondering what this is leading up to. Gang bosses Brixtonway never stopped flauntin' their knowledge of de African R’n’B scene long enough to go commenting on social history such BBC2 style.
‘So many Africans in Europe forget their roots, think only about the future, how they are going to save themselves. But when they do this they are giving up on the one struggle they can honour their lives fighting for.’
'You fighting for Ijaw nation then?'
'I am fighting for the Niger Delta's people of all tribes, against the multinationals and government leeches who suck oil dollars out and put nothing back, while the British supply them with weapons, just as they did to crush Biafra. And you my friend, what are you fighting for?'
Ransome is mighty impressed by the speech, but that question makes him laugh.
'What am I not fighting, brutha. This whole darn shithole got my number pinned to the wall!'
'I know. I know exactly who they are, the people who have been chasing you. Let me tell you, you're very lucky you can swim.'
His eye twinkles and I recognise the deep intelligence that must always leap free of regulated learning. I have it myself.
'How do you know?'
'Let me introduce myself. Charles Amankwah.'
'Pleasure to meet you, Charles. So you control this here city or what?'
Big Chief Ijaw points diagonally across me, to where the bay curves round past Vesuvius.
'My business is two thousand miles that way. Naples is a useful place to get... certain things, that's all.'
I nod. I heard plenty about the militants, as Abuja government names 'em: gangs o' hard men guerrilla warrin' 'gainst the authorities and Shell, Exxon and the rest. Past five years it's got bigger and bigger, specially the kidnappings. Even before our fallout my old man said USA was gonna just airstrike the whole o' Port Harcourt if we let more oil workers be taken to the jungle. That's when I learnt meaning o' my own name, reading news reports o' those activities. Ransome: the money paid to a kidnapper in exchange for the release of the prisoner. Why d'you go' an think that was a suitable name for me, I asked Ma, and she told me if I wasn't happy I was welcome to change, but I didn't because I knew it was pretty cool.
'So the boys you're dealing with, they put you on to me, right?'
'Indeed they did. They told me you'd managed to get your hands on something you shouldn't have. A DVD to be exact. I was impressed enough to come out and track you down myself before they got you.'
'They don't know we're here?'
Big Chief shakes his head, winks.
'So you wanna work together on this one?'
I sizes up my options quick. Funny thing is, every word Chief says makes Mina seem less real and more like something dreamed of. Delta oil guerrilla leader in Napoli buying up AKs, asking Ransome on board - that makes sense alright. Happening outside that park last night - was it last night? - don't fit in - don't seem to offer any kind of future prospects. To survive, you've gotta get with somebody strong, who was it told me that?
'Yeah, sounds good.'
Then we're treading in the open back across the dust to the Audi. I feel a lot safer once behind the tinted glass, the smell of new car filling my nostrils, thinking it's a whole different chauffeur ride to the one I had this morning.