Free The Boy in the River by Richard Hoskins Page B

seriously entertain the idea of staying in England. That would have seemed like a capitulation to us and would have made Judith’s loss meaningless. With her death, Sue and I had given something irreplaceable of ourselves to Africa, and we both considered that we belonged there for the next phase of our lives. We had come through. Our child had come through. We had all three endured and we had all three suffered, but we were the stronger for it. We could have asked for no more potent symbol of that than Abigail herself: laughing, healthy and strong.
    We returned to Bolobo in the same tiny plane that had taken us there two years earlier.
    As we taxied to a halt, nothing seemed to have changed. The long grass around the fringe of the airstrip swayed in the gentle breeze. The cloying heat pressed in on us the moment the plane stopped moving. Children who had run from the neighbouring settlement were lined up near the plane, grinning and jostling one another. Our pilot Dan – sandy-haired American Dan who had co-piloted us the first time – killed the engine, and I could see adults gradually joining the throng. This time, however, the wary expressions had given way to huge smiles of welcome.
    I grinned back happily as I scrambled out of the tiny cockpit. My feet touched Bolobo soil once more and I swung round so that Sue could pass Abigail down to me. When I turned back all semblance of formality broke down. People pushed forward to shake my hand. Some of the younger ones even threw their arms around me – a remarkable breach of protocol. Out of the corner of my eye I could see some of the women and girls jostling forward to see Abigail. They smiled at Sue and two of them reached forward to stroke Abigail’s cheeks.
    I was suddenly aware of people reluctantly moving aside to allow someone through, and in a moment Papa Eboma appeared, smiling broadly. He came a few steps closer and cleared his throat, but if he was hoping to deliver a formal welcome his words were lost as excited chatter broke out once more. He moved closer to speak to me more privately.
    ‘Richard, you’ve come back!’
    ‘Of course, Father. Didn’t I say I would?’
    ‘Yes, yes. But people say these things, you know. It’s when they come to pass that you believe them. You’ve come back with your wife and baby when you could have stayed in your own country. Now we know you love us.’
    ‘Father, aren’t we forgetting something?’
    ‘What, Richard?’
    ‘ Losako , Papa.’
    He looked at me thoughtfully before replying, ‘ Motema sanduku .’
    The heart is a box. He’d responded with a proverb that he thought apposite for our return. What did it mean? Was he saying that what a man stores within shows in his actions? Maybe. Or did he mean that a man’s heart will be found in the place where his most precious treasure is stored? What was my treasure? My dead daughter Judith? or was he being less literal?
    I looked up quizzically at the kind old face marked with the lines of tribal identity as well as by life’s trials, and I nodded in acknowledgement and thanks.
    The plane fired up and rumbled away before gradually lifting off. Sue, Abigail and I stood alongside the villagers shoulder to shoulder, watching together as the Western world receded once again into nothing.
    Our return and our welcome restored the balance to our lives in Bolobo. In particular, Sue and I established a new equilibrium. We both enjoyed being back in the village and I found myself travelling away from home less often.
    In those first few weeks, only one small incident troubled me.
    I had come back to the house for lunch as usual. I was on my way back to the medical centre afterwards, walking between the trees and trying to keep to the shade, when I distinctly heard Sue calling me from the house in a mournful wail.
    ‘Richard! Richard!’
    I spun round. There was no sign of Sue on the track and I could not see the house from where I stood, but I had an overwhelming feeling