It Rains Down In Africa

“It’s not what they say, it’s what they don’t say!” so said David’s Mum, many times. Growing up, he paid scant attention to his Mum’s homilies. There were too many.  But now that he was an adult on the cusp of marriage, his mother’s words came flooding back to him. David had impatiently, dismissed them as ‘old wives tales’.  In the busy lead up to marriage to Fleur, the quintessential, well-educated girl-about-town.  Obviously, she had a past, but she was eager to settle down now.  They had met at work and fell for each other like a ton of bricks.   After many late-night dinners and a trip or two to the Continent, they both decided that they had met their opposite number, just a bit late in life.  David was a senior manager at a well-known company and earned a good salary.  Fleur had worked at the same company for many years, but in a different department.  She had been transferred to David’s department a couple of years ago, but it was only in the last year that she had really got to know him. 

David had a mind like a computer.  He could run the numbers of anything through his cortex and give you an accurate answer.  Very left-brained.  Fleur, on the other hand was a bit of a narcissist – she loved comfort and luxury and all the good things life had to offer.  Together they lived the good life.  They travelled extensively.  Both loved Grand Prix motor racing and they attended all the European races in their own racy little sports car. 

In time, they bought a lovely bungalow house in the Lake District.  David could commute to London when he needed.  They collected yappy, woolly, little dogs and had friends who shared their interests. 

After a while, well, about twenty married years later, they grew bored with their predictable lives.  After a lot of thought, and partly because David’s father had been in the Kenya Rifles at the time of the Mau-Mau, they decided to take a trip to Africa.  Both fell in love with the endless blue skies, the smell of the earth, the friendliness of the people.  A few more exploratory trips to Ghana and Cote d’Ivoire followed.  Their friends watched developments with bated breath.  Who would give up the comfortable life they had built here, in England?  To venture forth to lands, times and futures unknown?  To take a chance on fate. 

But, that’s exactly what the twosome felt like doing.  Taking a chance.  Spicing things up a bit.  They had bought a second home down south, in Botswana, a few years back.  After renting it out to the same tenant for many years, she had decided she was ready to move on to greener pastures.  The timing was perfect.  The move was set in motion.   

A wonderful new adventure began.  New friends, new travels.  Lovely new home, well, re-vamped home.  And, best of all, sunshine, endless, hot days and blue skies.  Fleur, particularly relished the warmth.  She had hated the damp, grey British weather all her life.  This was just perfect.  They joined every organization they possibly could and saw everything there was to see in this new and foreign land.  

The years passed by quickly.  There were no pictures on their walls of children, no family pictures, no past.  Just today.  

That is, until, one day Fleur got a telephone call.  She didn’t recognize the voice at all.  It was a male voice, English speaking and most earnest.  The caller said he was Fleur’s adopted son.  He had traced Fleur through google searches to Southern Africa.  Both his adoptive parents had passed away and he had two boys by his ex-wife.  He was recently divorced from their mother after ten years of marriage.  This had led to Paul, that was his name, to try to trace his existing, original family.  After many months the search had led him to Fleur. 

Fleur was in a dither.  What was she going to tell David? 

She had sat on her secret for a long time.  Then Paul called again, could he meet up with both of them?  Could he come to Botswana and see her?  Try and connect?  Fleur took a big gulp, it would mean disclosing to David, whom she had never told, the fact that she in fact HAD had a child.  She just never thought it important to tell him. Let the past be left in the past.  

The fallout was cataclysmic.  David felt as if their marriage was a lie.  How could he trust her?  Why hadn’t she told him?  Didn’t she think it important to be honest in relationships? Who was she, after all?  There were tears and recriminations.  It ended when he took solace with another woman.  The wife of a cabinet minister.  She was a blowsy blonde who had lived in the Commonwealth nation for decades and was burnt brown by the sun.  Fleur threw David out of the house.  She really couldn’t see how he could behave so badly.  After all, it was a long time ago, ancient history.  

They carried on in this miserable state for quite some time.  Then, after the cabinet minister’s wife ditched David, he came crawling back, asking forgiveness.  The irony!   

In due course Paul came out to the sunny shores on holiday.  He hadn’t turned out too badly, Fleur, mused.  He had a trade behind him and worked for a big solar company.  He had married and had a family.  But, after his wife divorced him and took the two boys off to a different town, Paul began to think about his original mother.  Who she may be, and what life she may have lived.  The miracle of the internet allowed Paul to narrow down and then pin down his birth Mum. 

They tried to bridge the gap of decades.  He brought pictures of his sons, one 9 years old the other 7 years old.  Lovely, blonde smiling boys.  So, Fleur thought quietly to herself, I am a granny!  It didn’t quite fit her perception of herself. David was most considerate and planned interesting family bonding holidays all over the country.  He picked Paul up at the airport and organized social outings.  Fleur went over to England to meet her grandchildren.  They were like foreigners to her.  She couldn’t really connect with them.  Almost teenagers, they treated her like some old lady.  England was no less miserable weather-wise for Fleur.  She remembered why she had left in the first place. 

The years rolled by.  Fleur visited England a couple of times more, then ditched the attempt to connect.  The gap was too big, the years had passed by and the connection just wasn’t there. David left her to her own devices in this department.  He didn’t feel he had a place in her previous life. 

On Paul’s last visit to Botswana, him and the girlfriend, Sam, would go out to night clubs in the capital and come home in the early hours, very drunk.  Fleur shuddered to think of them driving home, late at night and not very sober.  She told herself they were adults.  He had managed very well without her for most of his life, albeit with very dependable parents who had given him a good upbringing.  A tiny shiver of regret ran down her spine.  How different things could have turned out. 

They tried to accommodate Paul and Sam.  They treated them as adults, as equals.  But their behavior just seemed to get worse.  They lurched around the house after surfacing at midday most days and ordered the servants around.  The holiday was turning into a nightmare for the hosts.  It all came to a horrible head one bright, sunny day.  Paul, in a drunken haze planted a great big shiner on David’s jaw - a few minutes he started to come around groggily. 

They were in such a state of shock.  All of them.  For once, Paul and Sam seemed to sober up.  But, for the hosts, it was too little too late.  They booked the guests, too polite a word, onto the next flight home and struck them out of the will.  The pet’s home would inherit their wealth, after all they were far more deserving.   

David’s Mum’s words came floating back to him.  “It’s what they don’t say!”  Leave the past be.  He counted herself lucky that they had kept the marriage intact.  Battered and bruised emotionally and sobered up by the sudden silence they picked up the pieces of their lives and carried on.