African Brew Ha Ha by Alan Whelan

Author:Alan Whelan
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Summerdale
Published: 2011-07-29T00:00:00+00:00

‘Well, no, it won’t fly but...’ I am loath to correct him.

‘Will you go down this road?’ He asks with a mature, troubled expression.

‘That’s the idea.’

‘But there are some very bad spots.’

He exaggerates the last word with a shake of the head as if the spots were fiendish traps.

‘When you reach those spots you will have to fly. Nothing can go on this road. You will be stuck for many days in those bad spots; there will be no way out!’

He is holding the handlebar of the bike now with his left foot on the peg. I can see what he’s edging towards.

‘Okaaay, jump on,’ I say guardedly.

That was the cue they were all waiting for. Fourteen children push and fight their way on to the seat of the bike brrrmm-brrrmmmm-ing their way down an imaginary highway with vibrating lips and screeching sound effects, twisting the throttle and slapping the hindquarters of the immobile bike as if it were a stallion.

Of course now I’ve made a job for myself and have to make sure everyone gets a spell on the bike or there’ll be tears, so I spend the next ten minutes lifting smiling kids on and pulling scowling kids off until the toddler in the Celtic shirt and a permanent leak of snot on his upper lip becomes overexcited by the whole experience and takes a piss on the pillion seat.

‘OK, that’s enough! EVERYBODY OFF!’

Later the kids are running riot when the father returns and order is quickly restored. I feel like a student teacher who has been reprimanded by a headmaster, so I go back to my place on the mat where I can do less harm while the kids are found chores to perform.

I sit for hours waiting for a gear to engage – I still just about have the energy to pun – and for something, anything, to happen. Later in the afternoon I hear a small bike approaching. It’s himself with my precious rebuilt discs stuffed crazily into his jacket. The mechanic is close behind.

‘I have done it,’ gasps Tabot. ‘The road is very difficult, can you imagine!’

I’m delighted to see him offer me the change from the 100 euros before he collapses in the shade, pulls up his shirt, Tabot fashion, and waits for someone to bring him water and oranges.

The mechanic fits the remade discs, but after replacing the clutch cover and pouring back the old oil I notice there is one disc left over. Even I know that’s not good.

‘No fit!’ he says with a shrug.

There is nothing more we can do. If it takes me down the road, even a little way, it’s progress (I’m thinking more like an African with each passing day). The clutch lever has hardly any play and the gear shift requires extreme violence to engage first, but I decide to make a go of it and, although I’ve lost all sense of how far it is, try once again to get to Shangri-La, I mean Mamfé.

‘Lessgo!’

The little kid who warned me about the ‘bad spots up ahead’ was not wrong.

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