Evadeen Brickwood - Singing Lizards

The wind changed its direction and gentle rain splattered against the windows. Down in the towel-sized back garden, the spiky tops of slender cordyline palms waved forth and back. It was puzzling that the London climate was mild enough for exotic plants.

The enormity of my plan hit me. What if my mission failed? What then? Why did it have to be such an unhealthy country that required a battery of vaccinations? No need to panic – breathe in, breathe out...

I leaned back on the leather couch and stared accusingly at the painting on the opposite wall. An African landscape in a broad golden frame of all things. It was beautiful, with baobab trees against an azure sky, a herd of elephants in the distance and a leopard stalking grazing gazelles.

“Does that mean that I must get those awful injections?” I questioned the painting. The African landscape didn’t answer. On closer inspection, the elephants seemed to be moving a fraction. On the left, the leopard had appeared fully between the undergrowth. Was it moving closer towards the gazelles?

“You know what, picture? Let’s just get it over and done with. Enough with the stupid self pity.” Bridget you’re going bonkers, I scolded myself, pull yourself together already, you are talking to a picture!

The last time we were in London, Claire and I had come to see David Bowie in concert. My heart ached at the thought. Claire and I. By the end of the concert, she had danced with others on the stage, but as usual, I was too shy to do something like that. It had even been exciting to ride on the tube and shopping up a storm in Oxford Road with its little boutiques.

I took out Claire’s letters. There were five of them. She had written one of them every week on thin, blue airmail paper. The last link between us. She had written about the landscape, the weather, her colleagues, her job and that she was excited about seeing the Okavango Delta even if it was just for a few days.

I tried to imagine Africa. Vibrant colours, teeming markets and laughing people. Drumbeat and dancing in the streets. Restaurants serving tantalizing food made from coconuts and freshly-caught fish in odd-shaped calabash dishes. Hot humid air, pith helmets, lions and elephants, waterfalls and…Tarzan swinging on a liana. Stupid cliché, I know, but that’s how I imagined Africa. I knew zilch about witchdoctors, tokoloshes and the world of the ancestors…

I found almost all the episodes of a South African TV series in the dingy video shop on the corner. It was about Shaka Zulu, the great and cruel warrior chief of the Zulu people in the 19th century. Not exactly modern, but it would do for starters. Soon I could sing along to the opening tune. “Bayete, kosi, bayete, kosi…we are growing, growing high and higher…”

I don’t know if Shaka Zulu had anything to do with it, but I began to notice 'Africaness' around me. Clothes and baskets in shop windows; drumbeat coming from a flat. Dark-skinned people in the street or in the tube seemed to smile at me more often. Perhaps they sensed that I was going to visit their mysterious continent soon. Perhaps they were just 4th generation Brits from Hackney with a Cockney accent.

Claire would have made fun of me. Claire…

During the two weeks in London, I waited for news from Botswana. Once I imagined that Claire had been found in some village in the Tuli Block and was now sitting in a nice lady’s farm kitchen, sipping hot cocoa.

‘I must tell you all about it, Foompy,’ she would say on the phone with a smile in her voice. ‘You won’t believe what happened to me.’ I could hear a chuckle in her voice.

I was in a constant state of nervous tension, like a tightened spring. No wonder then that I started speaking to paintings and such things.

When it was time to get the vaccinations, I took the C2 bus to Great Portland Street and then the tube to the Institute for Tropical Diseases in Bloomsbury. The needles were just as horrid as I had imagined. I suffered for a few days with a fever and a swollen arm. At least it distracted me from my sadness for a while.

I hadn’t seen much of Grandpa. Then one evening, a few days before my flight, he must have felt the urge to cook. When I came home from the video shop, a simple meal stood on the posh beech-wood table. I choked back some tears. Classical music played in the background. Claire de Lune by Debussy.

“Hi Grandpa!”

“Hi poppet, feeling hungry?”

“Sure, that looks good.”

“Sit down, help yourself. There is salad in that bowl.”

“Did you have to get vaccinated when you went to live in Kenya, Grandpa?” I asked, while sucking green pesto spaghetti through my teeth.

Grandpa had lived much overseas as a fledgling journalist. I guess that’s where Claire had inherited her adventurous streak.

“To be honest, I don’t remember exactly, but I’m sure I had to get some injection or other. How is your arm doing?” He pointed with his chin to my left upper arm. It was still a bit swollen.

“Getting better, the fever is down, painkillers seem to be working.” I rolled green spaghetti onto the fancy silver fork.

“Did you speak to your mother today?” Grandpa asked me.

“Yes, this morning. She’d like me to think about the whole trip again,” I sighed.

“I see, but you have made up your mind?” Was there an undertone. If Grandpa didn’t want me to go to Botswana, he had yet to say something to that effect.

“Of course! I would never get so many injections and then not go to Africa,” I replied. “Mom said they’ll come to see me off next weekend. Well, to say goodbye. She has to be back in Cambridge on Monday morning.”

“Pity. But I’m glad they are coming, even if they can’t see you off on Tuesday.”

“Mhm,” I uttered in consent and swallowed quickly. There would be a lot of tears.

“I must just phone about the visas tomorrow morning.”

“Splendid. Then you’re all set.”

“Grandpa, what is it like – in Africa? Is it as dangerous as people say?” I asked impulsively. “Somebody even said to me the other day that I must be mad to go into a country like Botswana.”

“Who says things like that?” Grandpa looked up in surprise.

“Some businessman I met at the Institute of Tropical Diseases. We sat next to each other in the waiting room. He said they only have witchdoctors there, but he couldn’t tell me what exactly witchdoctors are.”

“People should mind their own damn business,” Grandpa growled. “Of course they do have hospitals and proper doctors. Don’t be silly. He’s probably never been anywhere near Botswana.”

“No, I guess not. He said he always flies to South America.”

“To many Europeans, Africa is nothing more than one big blob of jungle. A single country and not a continent with many different cultures. ‘African’ covers just about everything: appearance, food, clothes... But Africa is as diverse as Europe. Kenya is completely different from Togo or Sudan or Botswana. Even Zimbabwe and Namibia are different, although they are right next door to Botswana.”

Guilty as charged! I was one of those ignorant Europeans, but I was too ashamed to admit it. So, Zimbabwe and Namibia were next-door neighbours to Botswana? Maybe I should pay the library a visit tomorrow. Watching episodes of ‘Shaka Zulu’ was obviously not enough preparation for my trip.

On the weekend, my parents arrived in London in a last-ditch attempt to persuade me not leave for Africa.

“Love, what if you need help and have nobody to turn to?” Dad argued. We were standing at Victoria Station, waiting for the bus to Cambridge.

“Or you could get sick.”

“I’ve had all the injections a human being can endure. Germs that know what’s good for them won’t come anywhere near me!”