The Holy Innocents

John Eppel

Description

A satirical novel about life in Zimbabwe's second city Bulawayo, with cults and muti murders, and the exploitation of the poor and powerless by the rich and powerful.

Sujets

• Fiction

Informations

• Publié par: amabooks
• Date de parution: 29 décembre 2002
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9780797493759
• Langue: English

Extrait

The Holy Innocents
John Eppel
amaBooks
ISBN 978-0-7974-9375-9
John Eppel, 2002
Published by amaBooks P.O. Box AC1066, Ascot, Bulawayo email: amabooksbyo gmail.com
Cover photograph by Richie Gunner
This book is a work of fiction: any characters, organisations and situations mentioned bear no relation to any real person, organisation or actual happening.
No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher.
Contents
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter One
At around four o clock in the afternoon of any working day, a strange thing happens to the majority of Bulawayo s diminishing team of Rhodesian manhood. Images of their favourite tipple: Zambezi Lager, Bols and coke, Mainstay and lemonade, Gilbeys and tonic - start flashing in their heads and interfering with the job. There is nothing for them to do but switch off, put down, lock up, and leave. Then they climb into their bakkies or their four-by-fours or their six-two-sixes, or their two-fifty SLs, and they make their way slowly - what s the rush in company time? - to the club of their choice.
My name is John Bouncer Leghorn (I was nicknamed for my exploits on, not off, the cricket field) and the club of my choice is one of the oldest in Bulawayo: Association of Rhodesian Sports Enthusiasts, or ARSE. For some reason I do not like being the first to arrive at the club, so I was relieved to see two or three vehicles already there. It was five minutes past four on a sunny Tuesday afternoon, well into the last decade of the Twentieth Century. I eased my ageing, but privately owned, Mazda bakkie into the space between Rob Shova Hereford s Company Merc and Clive Bully Dorper s Company Mitsubishi 2.5 Diesel, fitted with Bull Bar and Rhino Lining. The Mazda s engine continued to splutter and cough for a few seconds after I had turned it off. As I climbed out of the cramped cab, shoulders hunched, head bent, I noticed a button missing from my safari-suit jacket, and urine splashes on my veldskoens. I locked my door but forgot to turn the window up; then I walked slowly towards the club entrance, jangling my keys in one pocket and my coins in the other. I nodded to the security guard, an unfamiliar face, paused to inhale a sudden waft of fragrance from the Murraya shrub by the red cement steps with their characteristic striae, a pattern of five on each step; then I entered the gloom of the club s bar, my sanctuary.
The barman, Amos Impisi, already had my drink, a Lion Lager off the shelf, poured with a good head, on a coaster in the far right hand corner of the mahogany counter - my habitual place. Impisi had left the empty brown bottle on the counter because Mr Leghorn liked to tear at its label while he sipped his thoughts through a filter of yeasty foam. Mr Leghorn was the least talkative of the bar s regulars; a quiet, dignified man; an educated man, after all. Hadn t he been a schoolteacher before joining the corporate world?
Good afternoon, Mr Leghorn, Impisi said cheerfully, how was your day?
Hullo, Amos old man, I replied, much the same, thank you, much the same.
The three other men in the bar turned to greet their fellow drinker. They had taken up a central position along the counter, all large men, considerably younger than I, all on their second rounds. Bouncer, you beauty! Greetings! said Bully Dorper.
Then Shova Hereford: Bouncer, my man! Howzitt!
And Greg Beefmaster Aylesbury: Check it out, Bouncer! Good on yer, bugger!
Hullo Lads. I see you ve got a head start on me. Cheerio! I lifted my glass and took my first, and only, gulp of the day. Henceforward, until the ninth or tenth beer, my quota, I would sip.
In unison, the three large-rumped friends called Cheers, Sir! (a tinge of respect still lingering on that ambiguous title) and tipped back their glasses. When they replaced them on the bar counter, each glass contained considerably more daylight than booze. Amos started to hover in anticipation of the third round, before being diverted by the arrival of one of the club s rare female regulars: Cheryl Boobs Australorp. Cheryl was in her late sixties; which did not deter her from wearing the same clothes she had worn in her late thirties. These consisted, from the bottom up, of orange thongs, affectionately known to Rhodesians, and indeed Zimbabweans, as slip-slops; slacks, very tight round the bum, made of some sort of synthetic stretch-material, crimped, olive-green in colour, and sporting no fewer than seven cigarette burns concentrated in the region of the crotch; an off-white T-shirt, advertising, in a rather suggestive manner, the pipe-laying expertise of a local construction company; a gold crucifix, and a pair of yellow clip-on earrings, plastic, and shaped like stars.
Cheryl had long since given up any attempt to conceal with make- up her sun-ravaged skin, the r