Looking for the Heart of Satruday Night, Chapter1: Craig Arrives in Zambia

Chapter 1: Craig Arrives in Zambia.

I hate waking up on a plane. For that matter, I hate waking up next to anyone, however intimate I have been with them before I ' we ' go to sleep. And on a plane, you are surrounded by strangers, heading towards God knows what, in that horrifically vulnerable moment of waking. The lights come on, and you're supposed to eat, you're supposed to be able to function as a human being; but in that deliriously poetic moment between sleep and eating you are totally vulnerable. That Tuesday morning, flying from London to Lusaka, I was especially vulnerable ' I was still drunk. I hate flying, and I had put it off for ages, but I knew that if I was ever to see Cee again I had to fly ' there was no way I could take a month and a half (and to do that would have been pushing it) to travel overland to get there. So I had to fly, and to have the courage to get onto the plane meant spending the Monday afternoon in pubs and bars across London, getting on the plane drunk, and then drinking some more. And then, on top of the fact that I was deliriously, poetically, vulnerably between sleep and waking on a British Airways plane, the thought that Cee had gone back to him crept as subtly as a toxin through me; she had gone back to him but she still wanted me to come out to visit. That rather destroyed the point for me - and meant that I would have to look elsewhere for my holiday shag. There could and would be all kinds of complications. The cabin crew girl looked at me funny, but still gave me a Bloody Mary with my breakfast. I felt that it was the only way to go.
As I drank the overly spiced Bloody Mary and nibbled at the light breakfast, I watched the dawn light spread across the land below me through the small window and the light scattered clouds. At college, way back when we had really been together, Cee had talked continuously about Africa, about the beauty of her parent's farm in Zambia, and now, in a drunken haze from the air, I was seeing it for the first time. It was her talk of the farm life, the country, the people, that had drawn me to her at first - apart from the fact that she was fucking gorgeous, of course - this strange beautiful girl who seemed to come from some exotic other planet light years away. I watched the ground below us as it rose to meet the plane, wishing that it had all been different, wishing that I could have another - what did she call them, dops? - was that the word? Another shot of vodka might be just what I needed if I was going to meet Peter - or, as they all called him, Peto - without there being a fight in the airport car park. through the window, just as they cleared away the breakfast tray and the girl refused to give me another drink - another dop - I saw a big farm - all bright green irrigated circles, standing out crisp and clear from the brown land around them - slide past under the window, and I thought about the guy, about the hard edged, difficult to answer emails I had received from Cee a year ago when they were getting the divorce - and the one I had elided a week ago, after the fight, after I had booked my ticket and made the commitment to make the flight, however difficult it would be for me. I knew that I was flying into an emotional minefield, and I had to deal with it - I needed another dop, preferably a double this time.
I watched the parched, burnt out land come up to touch the wheels of the plane, not too sure whether I was doing the right thing. They had got back together the night of the fight, and I felt that the last thing they would want would be to see me - another feeble reminder of Cee's so-called better life, her past as a Radical Student in the UK in the late eighties. They had made their decision, and they had to get on with re-building their lives together, and my being there would only fuck things up. Before I could really get anything straight in my head, the plane had stopped and the doors opened; all around me people were getting their bags down from the lockers and leaving the aircraft. I slowly pulled myself together and made my way to the door. Almost before I could take stock of the situation, I was through immigration and customs, looking around for Cee and hoping that she was alone. There had been no fantastic moment of revelation in those first steps on African soil. I was hoping that they would come later, but I am not too sure whether they ever did.
Cee was there, waiting at the railing, on her own. She was looking away as I came through the doors, so I had a moment to try and gauge her - I kind of like to know what I may have to deal with in a situation like that, and it had been eight or nine years since I had seen her last, so there was a lot of catching up to do - in all the years that they had been married we had had limited contact. She hadn't changed that much - there were crows feet around the eyes, a light smattering of grey in the hair at her temples, and that was it - the figure didn't seem to have changed, the shape of her body was the same. I looked guiltily down at the small pot belly I had grown in the last few years, and tried to suck it in. She turned, saw me, waved, and we walked to the car together as though the last fifteen years apart hadn't happened - as though all the things that had filled our lives since graduation were still in the future. We didn't mention Peto; the wedding, the divorce, and the Saturday night ten days ago were all left out of our conversation. They had been married for ten years, and it was only when she realised that I was too scared of flying to come out and visit her that we had split up and they got together - but we couldn't talk about any of that yet, there was too much involved, too much pain hiding just below the surface. She had to go to work, and I was rapidly sobering and feeling hung-over, so when we got to her flat I ignored the evidence that Peto - or some other man - had been there recently, and went straight to bed in the spare room.
The next thing I knew, afternoon sun was streaming in through the window, my head was splitting in quarters, my mouth was dry, and strange geyser-like noises were coming from my stomach. I hadn't eaten anything, apart from pre-packaged, reheated airline food, since Sunday afternoon, when I had had a roast at a pub in Camden, so I went hunting for food. In the living room, I found a note from Cee; she was meeting Peto for a drink after work at a backpackers place close by, and wanted me to come along. She had left some money, and suggested I grab a bite at Chit Chat, a cafe-bar place across the road, on my way. She also left a map - another great thing about her, she was always organised.
I found the darkest corner of the place in Chit Chat, and ordered a beer and a burger. The beer started to clear my head a little, and when I had finally eaten the burger, with a second beer, my stomach started to respond a little as well, feeling better. I suddenly thought, in one of those coming alive , hair of the dog flashes of brilliance, that I was too old for this, too old for running half way across the world chasing someone who my phobias had made me lose ten years before - I had lost her then because of my fear of flying, and my delay in getting back to her, in deciding what I really wanted, meant that I had lost her this time as well. But I couldn't think of that now - there were beers to drink, people to meet, places to go, so I paid my bill and got a cab to the backpackers.
The Backpackers - Cha Cha Cha. Named after the name given by Zambians to the largely-peaceful struggle for independence - I thought that was quite appropriate, as so many of the people who stayed there would be looking for the freedom and independence of the open road. When I got there, Cee and Peto were sitting out on the front veranda, with a crowd of their friends. That was where and when I met Jammo and Fatso, Clive and Fred; an English guy called Simon, and his Canadian girlfriend, Kath: a lot of the people who were out and about that night, the night of the fight which had made my trip to Africa meaningless, seemed to be in the bar or sitting on the veranda, but no one waned to talk about it. I tried to draw them out, asking Cee and Peto what had happened, hop things worked out that they got back together, but they just looked at each other, said it wasn't important, and changed the subject. Leaving me confused and needing to know more - their divorce had been so tough and so messy that there had to be more to what had happened that night than what they had told me so far.
People I know quite often say that I'm a bit of a nutter, that I like to have everything so well explained that it leaves no room for subtlety, for ambiguity, for romance - well, I am a scientist, those are the rules I work by. My counter argument, if you can call it that, is that I need the surety of knowing where I stand, what is happening around me. That night I was cut adrift, lost in a country and a crowd I didn't understand, and I felt that I had to get out or do something to understand what was happening around me. I had to work things out, and the best way I could think of to do that, the only way I could truly understand what Cee and Peto were doing, would be to understand the country and city they are a part of, and what happened on the Saturday night of the fight. But they weren't saying anything. And that meant I would have to find out what had happened from other people, try and piece together the jigsaw until everything came into focus.
The beer and the whiskies had wiped away my tiredness, and when Cee and Peto suggested we go on to Alpha, go dancing and make a proper night of it, I was keen to go: there was a good chance that I would get the opportunity to talk to someone who had been there that night, who had seen what had happened or been involved in the fight. Totally disregarding the vast quantities of alcohol that must have been flowing through his veins, Peto drove us the short way to the club; coming straight from England, I was quite worried about being a passenger of someone who was so obviously drunk, but neither he nor Cee seemed to care, and I felt that it would have been rude of me to complain about it.
Not one of the clubs I have ever been to, in England or on the European mainland ' my total fear of flying had, until that point, limited my holiday destinations to places I could get to by ferry, road or rail ' not one of them had prepared me in any way for Alpha Bar. Tuesday night is pretty quiet there, but it was about half full, and there were so many beautiful girls. Girls of all shapes and sizes and shades, from blackest black to almost white, olive skin; tall and skinny and model-shaped, to short and cuddly, buxom and round. There were girls there to suit any taste. We stood at the bar drinking, a line of girls coming up to offer themselves to me, and I wondered how many of them had been there that Saturday, how I could find one who would talk about it. I thought of catching one of the barmen on his brewak, but that would have been difficult and a little obvious. Though I was becoming obsessed by my need to understand what had happened, at the same time I was a little embarrassed by it, and I didn't really want Cee and Peto to know about it yet. The two of them went off to dance, making me feel even more like a spare cog left inside the machine casing; standing on my own at the bar, drinking Mosi from the bottle, the girls became even more insistent in their offers, and all of a sudden I felt that I had to get outside and get some fresh air.
Outside the door, I stood on the raised patio, leaning on the railing, and lit a cigarette. The street was buzzing with people, and I felt that only some of them were out to have a good time ' I don't know why, but I had a sense that the dark street was some kind of market place of the illicit. I realised that I only had a couple of smokes left in my packet, and looked around; I could have gone into the big store restaurant bar place across the road, but I saw a small stand, a little stall, just up the street, so I walked towards it, on the assumption that smokes might be cheaper from that guy. I was also thinking that, if I could get him to talk, he would probably have seen something, or at least know who I should talk to. In my pocket I had my MP3 recorder, a good quality one; if the man selling cigarettes was willing to talk to me, then I could easily switch it on without him knowing. I was in luck.