Wild Spirit Read online

  ‘You’re a good little mother.’ It was Doug, squatting beside me.

  ‘I’m so sorry,’ I murmured. ‘We don’t normally do this. If you have some spare towels, I’ll clean up.’

  Gina was unfazed. ‘Don’t worry. Louis-Marie will take care of it.’

  Now I had another problem: with my automatic driver’s licence, I couldn’t drive the Kombi and Win was unconscious. We weren’t going anywhere.

  ‘We’re going to have to sleep here overnight in the Kombi, I’m afraid,’ I said. I couldn’t remember ever being more embarrassed. The Kombi was parked in the Hunts’ driveway, shielded from the road by shrubs and trees.

  ‘Come on,’ Doug offered. ‘We’ll carry him out between us.’ He took Win’s top end and I lifted the legs – eighty kilos of dead weight between us. We shuffled out of the living room, through a hallway and into the warm night, the stench of vomit fresh in our nostrils. Crickets sang in the bushes. In the background, the Atlantic lapped on the shore. I unlocked the sliding door and cleared everything off the bed. We lifted him onto it, then stripped his clothes off down to underwear. I bathed his face with a damp cloth.

  ‘He just needs to sleep it off,’ Doug reassured me. With a sheepish grin, I thanked him for everything, apologised again and said goodnight. I lay awake for about an hour, my mind a rat’s nest of jumbled thoughts. It had been the most bizarre day of my life and I couldn’t imagine what the next day might bring.

  Win woke in bright sunlight, with a blinding headache and a raging thirst, rubbed his eyes, pulled on a pair of shorts and slid off the bed. ‘How did I get out here last night?’

  ‘We carried you, Doug and I.’

  ‘What a disaster! I suppose all we can do is go in and apologise, then get the hell out of here.’ We dressed, washed our faces and walked up to the front door, ready to face the embarrassment.

  But a note fluttered from the door signed by Gina: ‘Good morning! Hope you slept well. Your breakfast is waiting in the dining room. Help yourselves to a hot shower. See you at lunch.’ We looked at each other, mouths agape, eyes wide, and laughed with relief.

  The whole family was out, but Louis-Marie ushered us to an iron-lace dining table beside the plate-glass wall and brought fresh fruit salad, toast and jam and tea. Just outside, flowering hibiscus and bougainvillea painted the garden purple, blood red, burnt orange and buttercup yellow.

  We ate slowly, looking out beyond the garden to the coconut palms, the only sounds the rustle of palm leaves and the whirr of insects. Once again, I felt like an actor on a film set, playing out a fantasy that would soon end. After a second cup of tea, I sat back and tried to picture what our life at Belinga would be like, and how it would feel being the only white woman in a forest that stretched for thousands of kilometres into the Congo. My idea of the camp oscillated between an African Eden and an insect-plagued frontier, a place of isolation and hardship.

  I could hardly wait to shower – my hair was caked with salt, and I felt sticky and unclean – and was grateful when Louis-Marie returned and led the way to the bathroom. It turned out to be a cabana perched on a timber walkway that snaked through the coconut palms. Inside, twin copper-lined shower recesses glowed in the soft light, and above them, Gauguin prints decorated the walls. That sense of unreality overwhelmed me again. We were dreaming – we must have been.

  At midday, the whole family returned. ‘You slept well?’ Gina’s graciousness carried no hint of what had happened the night before.

  ‘Look, I want to apologise,’ Win said. ‘I’m absolutely mortified. It was just a case of too little sleep and too much alcohol on an empty stomach.’

  They both made deprecatory gestures. ‘Don’t give it another thought. It didn’t worry us at all. In fact, we’d like you to join us for dinner tonight.’

  ‘What dish have you missed most on your trip?’ Gina asked.

  ‘Well, we have felt a steak deficiency,’ Win said.

  ‘Then steak it will be.’

  Our Australian addiction to steak had suffered two years of neglect while we lived in London, where only the rich could afford it. I tried not to look overeager. ‘That sounds terrific!’

  ‘Getting down to practicalities again, though,’ Win said, ‘we still don’t have anywhere to camp. Is there somewhere you can suggest?’

  ‘Actually, there is,’ Doug said. ‘Our new house site at Tahiti adjoins some land occupied by the French Aviation Tennis Club. In between, there’s a strip of land you can use. It’s out of the way and no-one will bother you.’

  ‘Great – how do we find it?’

  ‘Look, why don’t you come back late this afternoon and I’ll take you there?’ Gina offered. ‘Let’s say five-fifteen?’

  We spent the afternoon relaxing at the beach and driving around the city to get the feeling of it. At sunset Gina took us down to the camping place. The white, deserted beach was fringed with the ubiquitous coconut palms. Apart from the tennis courts and clubhouse, there were only a couple of bungalows visible through a stand of trees: the spot was out of sight of officialdom and away from the haunts of Sunday picnickers and would-be burglars.

  That night, over a dinner of juicy Rhodesian steaks and cauliflower with cheese, Doug was expansive. ‘Well, I’ve had a telex back from the States, Win, and they’re happy for me to put you on staff on the basis we discussed. But I don’t expect you both to accept sight unseen. The company will fly you up to Makokou next week and take you up to the camp to have a look, on a no-obligation basis. If you change your minds once you’ve seen it, there’ll be no hard feelings. How does that sound?’

  Win was still incredulous at the whole offer. ‘It sounds fine, but I’m a bit concerned that I can’t provide you with any evidence of my credentials. Normally people want references or proof of some sort. How do you know that I am what I say I am?’

  Doug’s quick wit produced an instant retort: ‘Oh, look, anyone who can hold their liquor as well as you can must be good!’ We both erupted in laughter. It was the best one-liner I’d ever heard. I decided that working for Doug was going to be a riot.

  ‘I’ve booked you on Monday’s flight to Makokou,’ he said. ‘You’ll have two nights in the camp and fly back on Friday. You can park the van in the company’s compound in town. It’ll be safe there.’

  Despite myself, I felt mounting excitement. In less than a week we would be transported to the absolute heart of Africa, to an area we could never have reached by ourselves. Slowly I began to accept that what lay ahead just might be something rare and wonderful.

  For the next five days we camped at Tahiti Beach, and relaxed more fully than we had since leaving London. We had made it through every trial from Morocco to the equator – half the length of Africa – and now we were poised for another colossal leap of faith. I wrote letters and postcards home, washed clothes and sat for long periods under the coconut palms staring out at the grey-green Atlantic. In the afternoons, Gina brought the girls down for visits. We swam, built sandcastles, laughed and played.

  It seemed to me that life could not get any better, but one day it did. We were sitting drinking tea and looking out on the ocean when a Frenchman with steel-grey hair and a whimsical smile appeared from behind the tennis club and introduced himself. ‘Bonjour! Roger Bonnet.’

  ‘Bonjour, monsieur!’ I shook his hand and introduced us both. ‘Won’t you join us?’

  ‘Vous parlez français?’

  ‘Un très petit peu!’ I said, feigning modesty – a very little bit. He pointed at the map on the side of the Kombi. ‘Vous avez fait ces voyages-là?’ I nodded and told him we had recently crossed the Sahara.

  ‘Mais vous parlez très bien!’ he insisted. The van, our travels, and my French seemed to intrigue everyone we met. ‘What are you doing in Libreville?’ he asked.

  ‘It’s a long story,’ I said. ‘Would you like some tea?’ He fetched a chair from the tennis club and settled in to listen to the saga of our desert crossing. Like everyone who heard
, he was spellbound.

  ‘We’re moving up to Belinga soon,’ I said. ‘Win will be in charge of designing and building the camp for SOMIFER.’

  His eyes widened. ‘Ah bon?’ It was the French way of expressing surprise. I guessed he was thinking something like, ‘These Australians don’t waste time – down and out one day, off to the jungle to work the next!’

  Roger and I chatted for two hours. He was Win’s age and height, looked fit and was excellent company. He had lived in Gabon many years and worked as a communications engineer with ASECNA, the organisation responsible for the installation and maintenance of aviation beacons throughout the country. I also discovered that he shared two of Win’s passions – aircraft and gourmet cooking. Despite Win’s lack of French, as soon as I relayed this to him his friendship with Roger was sealed.

  ‘How are you managing for showering and washing?’ Roger asked.

  ‘Not too well, I’m afraid,’ I said. ‘We’re bathing out of a bucket, and washing clothes in a plastic basin.’

  ‘That’s no good! Come and use my place – I’m on my own at the moment. You can come and go as you please. It’s just over there.’

  His open-hearted offer stunned me. ‘Oh, that would be wonderful,’ I breathed. He led us to a low-set white bungalow surrounded by the signature plants of Libreville – coconut palms, flowering hibiscus and bougainvillea. Brightly coloured birds swooped and flitted through the garden; a porch at the front of the house held a table and chairs that faced the ocean.

  ‘Here’s the laundry and bathroom,’ he said. ‘Just make yourselves at home.’

  We spent long hours with Roger in the days that followed, learning about Gabon and enjoying his zany tales of life in Libreville. On Sunday, he even invited us for a celebration lunch before our trip to the camp – five courses, served alfresco. An onshore breeze rattled the palms. On the beach, a lone African boy wearing only shorts picked his way gingerly along piles of scattered okoumé logs, and slowly twirled a long thin stick in the air. Okoumé is the most famous cabinet timber of Gabon, and these logs had broken free from rafts on the Ogooué River and been washed up on the beach. Again I felt like we were characters in a film – perhaps South Pacific, with Roger as the planter played by Rossano Brazzi. I still could scarcely believe the colossal reversal in our fortunes. We were not just rid of all our troubles, we were riding an unprecedented wave of excitement and privilege. A beneficent fate seemed to have enfolded us. Suddenly everything was falling into place.

  Over cheese, coffee and Cointreau, we discussed the details of the journey to Belinga – a flight to Makokou on Monday, then a pirogue trip upriver on Tuesday.

  Roger smiled, a little indulgently. ‘Wait till you see the forest from the air. It just looks like a sea of green cauliflower.’ Africa from the air – I could hardly wait.

  chapter three

  TO THE MOUNTAINS

  The terminal was stuffy with the mingled smells of sweat, cooking oil and oversweet toiletries. This was our first taste of a Gabonese airport. Throngs of local women and children milled around in the departure lounge, their baggage consisting mainly of rolls of bedding tied up with rope and wicker baskets full of chickens. A handful of European businessmen stood in the background, looking hot and fed up. The floor of the lounge was laid with grimy vinyl tiles, and the few rows of plastic seating looked as though they hadn’t been cleaned in years.

  My thoughts galloped as I stood looking out towards the tarmac. This was the beginning of our new life: we would soon be part of this pulsating, chaotic world. We had a purpose in the country, and we were bound for a wilderness that even most Gabonese would never see. My heart thumped and I felt like shouting to the crowd, ‘This is a huge moment for me!’

  Beside me, Win was silently taking everything in, his eyes never still. I knew he was as excited as I was, but his stoical Scottish genes ensured that he hid it well.

  When the boarding call came over the loudspeakers the passengers surged forward in a tight mass, converging on the narrow doorway that led to the tarmac. We were jostled and propelled along by the throng towards the door, then, in a single movement of compression, squeezed through it like squashed insects. A fine chain bracelet I was wearing was ripped off my arm by the force of people pushing past, and as I bent down to retrieve it, risking being knocked over, I paused to wonder at the apparent desperation of the passengers to reach the plane. It wasn’t a refugee flight. Later I would learn that the concept of queueing was foreign to most parts of Africa.

  Our aircraft was a mini-jet, an F-28 that did the mail run up to Bitam in the north, then on to Makokou. As we climbed and banked, I looked out the window and saw the coastline, then the swamps behind Libreville. We were flying just under a blanket of dry-season cloud. Soon we were over the forest. Roger’s description of the view had been perfect – it looked like a giant field of green cauliflower, divided by the snaking brown lines of streams. My pulse raced, and tears sprang to my eyes. I was overwhelmed by the splendour of Africa. We were bound for a dot on the map far to the north-east, close to the Congo border.

  I wondered whether Mary Kingsley had felt as I did – breathless with anticipation, impatient for her encounter with the unknown. I found it difficult to sit still in my seat, with the steady vibration of the aircraft under me carrying us forward to our new life. Once again I wanted to stand up and shout that we were on a mission, going to the frontier to further a great enterprise. Nothing I had ever done felt so exciting.

  We had been flying for perhaps two hours when I noticed a thin, ochre-coloured line snaking through the dark green of the forest like Ariadne’s thread. It was the main road south from the border with Cameroon, the one we had battled a fortnight before – the one that had almost defeated us. ‘Road’ was too good a word for it.

  I thought back to the towering blue peaks and luxuriant forest of Cameroon, the patchwork of plantations, the clear, rushing streams, and our visit to the high country, where we’d sat on bleached hippopotamus skulls in front of the old sultan’s ruined palace at Foumban. Cameroon had been our reward for crossing the Sahara and surviving. I had never seen such beauty anywhere – so exquisite it almost hurt. But Cameroon was special to me for another reason too, one that I could not have predicted. There I had held my first great ape – a tiny chimpanzee infant with a pink face and liquid brown eyes. We had been passing through a village on a track to the beach when a man had stepped out from behind a hut and waved us down, holding the baby in his arms. I had never seen a chimpanzee outside a zoo before. It had displayed no fear, and appeared well cared for.

  ‘Do you want to buy it?’ the Camerounais asked in French. In my entrancement, I didn’t stop to wonder how he had come by the infant. I shook my head. What would we do with a baby chimpanzee?

  ‘Would you like to hold it?’ My whole body instantly turned to jelly – would I? It was like asking if I would like to win the lottery. I reached out, grasped the tiny body and cradled it in the crook of my arm. Its black hair smelt clean and sweet as it snuggled into my chest. I couldn’t take my eyes off its expressive face, its alert gaze, its mobile lips. I wanted to hold it forever. All I could think was, ‘They are so like us.’ I believe that that was the moment when my encounter with wild Africa really began.

  On the descent into Bitam, we recognised the airport buildings adjoining the immigration post that we’d passed through on our way to the coast a fortnight earlier. As the jet’s tyres touched the dirt runway, a cloud of red dust hurled itself into the air and drifted back onto the two or three hundred upturned African faces pressing against the barrier fence. The stopover lasted about twenty minutes. Some passengers left, and a few boarded. Among them was an engineer from the Dutch company, Van Splunder, building a new bridge over the Ivindo River at Makokou, who chatted with us for the rest of the flight.

  It was almost four o’clock when we touched down at Makokou. At the cabin door, I paused to take it in. Out behind the aircraft, a dust-brown haze hovere
d over the runway; overhead, the low cloud was still unbroken. A crowd waited in front of the terminal, and a cluster of parked vehicles bore the official logos of companies operating in the area: Land Rovers from SOACO and the Commissariat of Police, a Peugeot from SOMIFER, a utility from Van Splunder and an assortment of battered Citroëns.

  We descended the boarding ladder and walked across towards the building. In front of the crowd, a group of Gabonese gendarmes stood looking important. Behind them clustered several Europeans including a priest and a couple of Gabonese religious sisters. Around them waited a group of local men, women and children. Some stood, but most sat on the ground next to their battered suitcases, holding half-eaten pieces of some grey-coloured food wrapped in banana leaves.

  One of the gendarmes thrust disembarkation cards into our hands, so I pulled a pen from my bag and filled them out in French – ‘SOMIFER staff, visiting Belinga camp’ – and handed them back. Then a short, rotund man approached us, extended his hand and said in a gravelly voice, ‘Bonsoir! Monsieur et Madame ’Enderson? Émile Kruger.’ Kruger was SOMIFER’s man in Makokou. He looked around sixty, with steel-grey hair brushed back from his face, and wore creased shorts, a short-sleeved cotton shirt and work boots. His stocky build and florid complexion suggested a love of food and drink. Brusquely, he instructed a Gabonese chauffeur to take us to our lodgings; he would remain behind to collect our bags and the SOMIFER mail, food and freight.