Cocktail Hour Under the Tree of Forgetfulness - Alexandra Fuller [1]
Roger Lowther Huntingford—the author’s maternal grandfather, also known as Hodge
Glennis Duthie—the author’s maternal aunt, also known as Auntie Glug or Glug
Sandy Duthie—the author’s maternal uncle by marriage
Donald Hamilton Connell-Fuller—the author’s paternal grandfather
Ruth Henrietta Fuller—the author’s paternal grandmother, also known as Boofy
Tony Fuller—the author’s paternal uncle, also known as Uncle Toe
Alexandra Fuller—the author, also known as Bo or Bobo
PART ONE
The mind I love must have wild places, a tangled orchard where dark damsons drop in heavy grass, an overgrown little wood, the chance of a snake or two, a pool that nobody’s fathomed the depth of, and paths threaded with flowers planted by the mind.
—KATHERINE MANSFIELD
Nicola Fuller of Central Africa Learns to Fly
Mkushi, Zambia, circa 1986
Mum in an Eldoret theatrical production. Kenya, circa 1963.
Our Mum—or Nicola Fuller of Central Africa, as she has on occasion preferred to introduce herself—has wanted a writer in the family as long as either of us can remember, not only because she loves books and has therefore always wanted to appear in them (the way she likes large, expensive hats, and likes to appear in them) but also because she has always wanted to live a fabulously romantic life for which she needed a reasonably pliable witness as scribe.
“At least she didn’t read you Shakespeare in the womb,” my sister says. “I think that’s what gave me brain damage.”
“You do not have brain damage,” I say.
“That’s what Mum says.”
“Well, I wouldn’t listen to her. You know what she’s like,” I say.
“I know,” Vanessa says.
“For example,” I say, “lately, she’s been telling me that I must have been switched at birth.”
“Really?” Vanessa tilts her head this way and that to get a better view of my features. “Let me have a look at your nose from the other side.”
“Stop it,” I cover my nose.
“Well, you brought it on yourself,” Vanessa says, lighting a cigarette. “You should never have written that Awful Book about her.”
I count the ways that Vanessa is wrong, “For the millionth time, it’s not awful and it wasn’t about her.”
Vanessa blows smoke at the sky placidly, “That’s not what Mum says. Anyway, I wouldn’t know. I haven’t read it. I won’t. I can’t. I’m brain damaged. Ask Mum.”
We’re sitting outside Vanessa’s rock house near the town of Kafue. Wisely, Vanessa has grown up to be an inscrutable artist—fabric, graphics and exuberant, tropical canvases all expressed with a kind of noncommittal chaos—so no one can really pin anything on her. And anyway, no matter what happens, Vanessa always behaves as if everything will resolve itself in time as long as no one panics. Her bathroom, for example, has a tree growing through the middle of its thatched roof—very romantic and picturesque but a pitiful defense against rain and reptiles. Vanessa says vaguely, “Oh, just keep your shoes on and have a good look before you sit anywhere and you should be all right.”
The rest of the house, attached to the wildly impractical bathroom, has a total of three tiny rooms for Vanessa, her husband and their several children, but it is built on the summit of a kopje, so it has a sense of possibility, like a closet with cathedral ceilings. We sit outside where the air smells of miombo woodland and we smoke cigarettes and look at the comforting lights from the scores of cooking fires smoldering from the kitchens in the surrounding village. Occasionally we hear a dog barking from the taverns on the Kafue Road and soldiers in the nearby army camp shouting to one another or letting off the odd stray bullet. It’s all very peaceful.
“Have another glass of wine,” Vanessa suggests by way of comforting me. “You never know, Mum might forgive you eventually.”
In my defense, the Awful Book, whose full and proper title can never be mentioned in the company of my family, was not all my fault. I had felt more than a little encouraged to write it—directed, even—by Nicola Fuller