Angel Boy Page 3

  ‘Yeah!’ His tall mammy looked down at him. ‘A real angel boy!’

  Leonard’s insides churned with the fear of the condemned. He tried to be brave, he tried to stand up tall, the way he would for the stick at school, he thought of his dad and his nana and the Lord Jesus, and he tried to say a prayer – but he couldn’t find any holy words, just ‘Help me!’ His mouth was as dry as the ever-drifting smoke, his eyes smarted, but they wouldn’t clear because he was cried out.

  ‘What you gotta do…’ – the tribal-cut leader was up close again – ‘you gotta be polite, an’ the laughing-boy, an’ more nicer than the student kids…’ Leonard frowned, concentrating. Even in his fear, he had to learn what might keep him alive.

  ‘The conch-shell boys, the college kids…’

  Suddenly Leonard realised what he meant. The smart-looking boys he’d seen were students. Now he knew why they’d been so much cleaner than these street kids: hadn’t his dad told him about the Accra boys who, like them, were looking for sponsors to pay for their education?

  ‘We don’ get to take nothin’ when them college kids is at the fort. But you can. You stand up by the entrance above them, an’ you smile in your smart school shirt, an’ you ask people all polite for dollars. You got me?’

  Leonard nodded, while inside he heaved a great sigh of relief. He wasn’t going to be killed, or sold across the border to another country. He wasn’t going to be taken off and have nasty stuff done to him.

  He was going to have to beg.

  ‘We kill you!’ the uncle reminded him. ‘We’re near, an’ you say one word or you try to run…’ and he kicked Leonard hard in the groin. The kick doubled Leonard over, made him want to vomit, the empty pain rolling deep down.

  ‘You got that?’ The mammy pulled him up by his hair.

  Leonard managed a nod.

  ‘We’re nice as your ol’ mammy when you know us. An’ we’re your family now.’ The daddy rubbed his fingers together. ‘So you get lots o’ dollars, right? We eat top tonight.’ And his belly rumbled.

  Everyone stared at Leonard.

  Leonard nodded again.

  ‘What’s your name?’

  ‘Leonard. Leonard Boameh.’

  The daddy grinned at him. ‘You was Leonard Boameh!’ He made it sound like Ashanti royalty. ‘Now you “Angel Boy”. You got that?’

  Leonard stared at the ground. Even his name was being stolen from him.

  ‘What your name?’ the mammy asked.

  It took Leonard a few seconds to say it, beating another groin-kick by just a vowel. ‘Angel Boy,’ he said.

  They whooped and cheered, and spat, and punched the air as if they’d won some prize.

  ‘Right, Angel Boy, we’s goin’ to work!’ And in the same tight formation that had brought him there, Leonard was hustled off the rubbish tip, past the boats and the harbour, through the fort car park, and up beyond the staring conch students to the gate of the fort – where the uncle hid beyond him in a small hollow in the ground.

  The other street kids slouched down the slope towards the car park, trading insults with the conch students, and as the sun rose higher everyone waited for the tourists to come, with Leonard standing there like a tethered goat.

  Leonard’s father drove to the Blessed Wisdom Primary School, but the gates were locked and there was no sign of the caretaker. He shouted through into the yard, but there was nothing going on inside the building – no cleaning, no maintenance work.

  He drove back to the Nile Hotel, where the owner heard his terrible story and did all she could to help him. On her office computer they scanned a photograph of Leonard, and made it into a poster for a missing boy: and she generously offered to make the reward offered for his return a lot bigger.

  Stephen toured the Cantonment District with the posters, pinning them to trees, asking for display space in the cafés and bars and money exchanges; and showing them to the kids selling plantain chips and ice water at the crossroads.

  Finally, not knowing what else to do, he drove the streets and walked the alleys of Accra, peering at people for a sighting of Leonard’s familiar face. Then, dispirited, he ended up in the Cathedral of the Holy Spirit, and lit a candle, and bowed his head in prayer for the safe return of his son.

  Chapter Six

  The tourists came past the conch students in different moods. If they had read the better guide books they brushed past, keeping strong grips on their cameras and bags. Others, like the backpackers the day before, gave their names to the boys with good humour. Either way, by the time they had walked up the slope to where Leonard was standing, the visitors were relieved to be free of hassle.

  And then they reached Leonard: a smart boy, younger, short-trousered, with big appealing eyes – straight out of a television advertisement. But in truth, while Leonard’s mouth was appealing for money, his eyes were appealing for help.

  ‘Please give to my school. We’re buying footballs and books. We want to read, and we want to be sportsmen.’ Leonard remembered the last Blessed Wisdom appeal and held out the clean china plate that the daddy had given him – stolen from some café.

  ‘Which school is that, fellah?’ a big white American asked him.

  ‘The Blessed Wisdom Primary, sir.’ He pointed to the holy cross on his pocket.

  ‘You’re short of readers and footballs?’

  ‘And paper… and gospels, sir.’ Now, since that first lie to the tro-tro people, Leonard was getting good at making things up.

  ‘Your teachers know you’re doing this?’ The woman was American, too, and black. ‘This collectin’ plate has gotten their per-mission?’

  ‘Yes, ma’am.’ Leonard nodded into the fort. ‘The teachers do guiding and selling in the… tour places… while the students do this. For extra money.’

  The small group of tourists looked at one another; and the man pulled out his wallet to place an American ten dollar bill on the plate.

  ‘Enjoy your reading and your sport, fellah,’ he said. ‘But make sure the ball’s not a round one…’ And, laughing at his American football joke, he followed the others to the fort entrance.

  It had been that easy. Leonard looked down at the green bill on the plate. He’d begged ten dollars!

  ‘Put a thumb on it!’ came the uncle’s voice from its little hollow. ‘Show it!’

  Already, another small cluster of tourists was coming towards the entrance. Leonard’s father would have recognised them straight off as English, in their samey frocks and safari shirts.

  ‘Good morning!’ Leonard bowed. ‘God bless you. This is a collection for my school. The Blessed Wisdom Primary. We’re saving up for books and different-shaped balls, and paper, and gospels…’

  There was a cough and a spit from the hollow and Leonard realised he was overdoing it.

  ‘A school collection?’ a real boss-aunty Englishwoman asked. ‘Have you got a licence for a charity day?’

  ‘Yes, ma’am.’ Leonard looked up to the sky with his most ‘little angel’ face. He suddenly thought of his father’s car number plate. ‘GT6093H, the teacher’s got the paper.’ And he waved his hand vaguely towards the fort. ‘Stamped with the date,’ he added, ‘by the judge…’

  There was another impatient cough from the hollow, and the woman frowned at Leonard. ‘That sounds like a car number plate!’ she said. ‘That sort of licence.’

  But a younger woman stepped up, smiling. ‘Well, if it was, he deserves something for being a resourceful young boy. Life isn’t easy out here.’ And she put a pocketful of scruffy cedies on to the plate. ‘Don’t spend it all at once!’

  Leonard bowed as they went on into the fort with the rest of their group. He stuffed the cedies into his pocket, leaving the American bill alone on the plate. It looked more enticing that way. And with a worm of conscience, he realised that for a few moments he had half-forgotten who he was, what he was, and what he was standing here doing. He was a captive beggar of some street kids who were going to keep him as on
e of their gang. He was homeless, an orphan. And this was his job from now on…

  A babble of noise distracted him. Coming up the slope was a big party of students, some white, some black, about twenty in all, with a tall bald man in charge, and a younger woman further back. They were all wearing rucksacks and they were walking and talking, some treading backwards, others jumping at one another in their eager conversations. The sound was like a landing of noisy gulls, as if Elmina Fort was just another clipboard stop on a school tour.

  Leonard stood in front of the teacher. ‘Good morning, sir,’ he said.

  ‘Au revoir, monsieur!’ the man replied, looking down at him like a general. ‘Dépèche-toi!’ His hand waved Leonard away, and the river of French students engulfed him.

  Leonard was surrounded. Surrounded! And he suddenly realised that he could no longer be seen among all these legs and bags – even by the lurking uncle. Keeping himself hidden tight among them, Leonard shuffled with the French party up to the fort entrance. And within moments, in the throng of the pay office area, the teacher waved a permit at the cashier and the whole group was ushered through into the fort. The entry door was shut behind them: Leonard still in their midst – in a place where the We kill you! uncle outside couldn’t follow him!

  What to do? Who to tell? Leonard knew that he had a little time on his side, but who would believe him, who would take action to help him?

  Immediately, he thought: the teacher! Not the Frenchman, but the young woman guide who worked here. She would remember him from yesterday.

  ‘Asseyez-vous. On attends le guide!’ the French teacher shouted to the students.

  Leonard understood that; his father had clients from all over Europe, spoke some French himself. The French party was going to have to sit and wait for the guide to finish the tour she was currently taking round.

  The students sat and filled the fort with their noise, rummaging in their rucksacks for snacks, while Leonard quickly ran into the courtyard. Facing him was the church; to his left were the male and female slave dungeons, to his right the condemned cell, and straight ahead, down the steps, was the Door of No Return. The Americans and the English were somewhere in there, being shown round by the guide he needed to find. So where were they? Where was she?

  He listened hard for a female voice; it was difficult to hear above the babble of the French, especially since she had a soft voice.

  He looked this way and that, peered into the darkness of the dungeons, and, suddenly, there was the group, coming out of the church. And with them was the guide.

  But it was not the young woman from yesterday! This morning the guide was a biggish man, already moving people on quickly, too many visitors, too much to do, not looking at all sympathetic. And he certainly wouldn’t remember Leonard, because he’d never seen him before.

  Swiftly, Leonard ran to the kindest person in the group: the American who’d made the joke about the footballs. ‘Please, sir…’ he said.

  ‘Not you again!’

  ‘Please, sir, I’m in trouble –’

  ‘Not another cent, fellah!’

  ‘It’s not about that, it’s not about school!’

  ‘It never was!’ the older Englishwoman said. ‘He’s giving us one cock-and-bull story after another!’

  ‘But this is true! I’ve been kidnapped! Captured! Those kids have made me their prisoner!’

  The black American woman grabbed hold of Leonard’s shirt by the collar. ‘Listen, boy! We ain’t took in!’ She shook him, like Nana with a dirty mat. ‘Them clean an’ tidy students outside, they’re decent kids, they just ain’t that sort to kidnap anyone –’

  ‘Not them. The other ones!’ Now Leonard was being held up on his toes.

  ‘Rubbish!’ the Englishwoman poked in. ‘You’re trying it on, sonny-boy! And we’ve had enough of it – want, want, want, wherever we go!’

  Even her kind niece was shaking her head at this wicked child. But the American woman hadn’t finished with Leonard. She still hadn’t let him go. ‘I’m here for my ancestors! I’m here to pay my respects. I’ve made the trip from a fam’ly line of African slaves, and I’m the first of the line to be priv’liged to return. And I’m not having this sig-nif-icant moment spoiled by a beggar brat! Now get off my sidewalk!’

  She let Leonard go with a push, almost propelling him into the hands of the big frowning guide who was coming at him, reaching out his hands.

  But up near the entrance was the French group. ‘My friends!’ Leonard said, hoping that the guide hadn’t taken in too much of what the others had said. ‘I go! Au revoir!’ He dodged the man’s hands and backed off towards the French sounds.

  ‘What did I tell you!’ the old Englishwoman said. ‘Never trust anyone!’

  Out of immediate reach, Leonard hovered. If he wasn’t careful, he was going to be back where he’d started with the street kids, who knew they couldn’t trust him an inch. If they let him live, they’d teach him a harsh lesson first. But no one in here was going to listen to him. So what could he do? Where could he go? It was no good walking towards the French party, because he’d already tried begging from them.

  And, as if in some sort of answer, an idea came to him. As soon as the tourist group had been led on their way, he peeled off from the fort entrance and ran into the church. Churches have pews, good for hiding behind, and no one visiting Elmina Fort came in here for long – not with those dungeons and that dramatic door outside – unless it was to pray. And people praying have all their attention fixed on God.

  So the church was a good place to be right now, for a small soul hiding in a dark corner…

  Chapter Seven

  Leonard curled himself up into a ball at the back of the church, behind a curtain where it looked as if they kept the sort of stuff that wasn’t wanted every day: broken chairs, a bent and tarnished altar rail, and a dusty picture of the crucified Jesus.

  He didn’t know what time it was. Groups had come in, and groups had gone. Some had lingered a bit longer than others, but no one had stayed long enough to wander around.

  It was getting dark now, and after a long spell with no one coming in, Leonard reckoned that the visitors must have gone for the day. But he wasn’t coming out. He had found a good place here, and although he imagined he could hear voices hissing, We kill you! Get that, Angel Boy! he realised that it was the sound of the wind in the battlements; and the distant shouting in his ears wasn’t the street kids, but the boat-builders and footballers down below on the beach.

  Night falls fast in Ghana, and it was dark within minutes. Now what? He could stay here until morning and try and get help from some fresh visitors who hadn’t seen him begging. He could hang about in the hope that tomorrow was the kind young woman’s day to be the guide again. Or he could try to get out of this place in the middle of the night.

  But what about the street kids? Would they have given up on him? Would they be moving on to some other evil plan to get money? Or were they the sort to cling to something, to see it through to the end if it gave them a small chance to earn big money like ten dollar bills?

  Ten dollar bills! Suddenly Leonard realised that he still had one.

  He’d left the collecting plate on a stone seat in the fort entrance-way, but he still had the money. It would get him a taxi home if he managed to get out of here! He felt it crinkle in his top pocket. As for the cedies in his shorts, they wouldn’t even get him a bag of plantain chips – which made him realise how hungry he was. His stomach rolled emptily and he was startled by its loudness. He was thirsty, too, but like a mouse he was going to have to lie low until later.

  The fort was dark. There were offices here, and a museum, but not a chink of light was to be seen. If there was a caretaker, he or she probably lived down in the town. Leonard had the feeling that he was all alone..

  He had to be patient, though. As the heat of the day went out of the timbers, the woodwork started to creak; and every creak sounded like a stealthy footstep…The street
kids? Could one of them have wormed into the fort and right now be prowling the place looking for ‘Angel Boy’? Leonard’s eyes were as big as a civet cat’s, his ears as sensitive as a radio telescope as he held his breath to listen and moved the curtain to look around. Who else was in this place?

  He stayed where he was – and sitting there, hunched and hiding in the church recess, another scary thought seeped into Leonard’s mind. Slaves. Ghosts. The spirits of the people who had been locked up in the fort to die in the condemned cell. In his head he saw the sculpted skull above the cell’s entrance, and he imagined its hollow sockets staring through the dark of the night, even through the walls…

  He believed in Jesus, and the badge on his school shirt said he believed in the Holy Ghost. But what about people ghosts? What about those forebears who had died metres away from where he sat? Were their spirits free at night to escape from that locked dungeon of death?

  He had to get out of here!

  Carefully, he pushed the recess curtain aside. It squeaked on its rail, made enough noise to wake a million spirits – but he pushed himself through, and out he came into the vaulted air of the nave. He could see better here – there was a moon. It filtered in through the glass, and let him see his way to the church door.

  Please God it wasn’t locked! And it wasn’t. A turn on the ring handle and he stepped out into the moon-wash of the courtyard. He kept his eyes away from the dungeons and the condemned cell, and to bring good luck he crossed himself the way the Catholics do, before running under the archway to the fort entrance. There was just a chance that it was only bolted from the inside, and he could slide the bolts.