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  Lana’s Bar is on London Corner, a junction where you can see real African life going on, shrouded in exhaust fumes.

  Ebrima turned to us, gesturing to his left,

  ‘You see that road there, it leads to Badoom.’

  ‘Do not go there; it is full of cut-throats and mercenaries, who will kill you for one dalasi!’ I have visited Serrekunda countless times over the years. I’ve often walked down that road alone but disappointingly, never found Badoom. Ebrima worked as a bumster, a beach boy who can show you the real Gambia. The bumsters are procurers of ganja, women and boys, personal service offered to rich older white women or men, if necessary. They elaborate on the dangers of travelling alone, when the only real threat is to your wallet from the drain they can put on it. There is a very true Gambian saying, “The white man always pays.” Ebrima then asked us if we wanted to try the real Gambia experience, a visit to Rasta Garden. Imagine walking into a Gilbert Shelton or Robert Crumb underground comic from the 1960s and you’ll start getting a picture of Rasta Garden, Kololi. It was an outdoor dancehall pulsating with riddim, cloaked in clouds of marijuana and dimly lit. Stoned young Dutchmen, long hair covering all but their noses and spliffs, were struggling to stay upright at their tables. Elastic-legged young Gambian men were wearing huge boots that allowed them to lean backwards in Crumb’s Keep on truckin’ pose.

  It was now well past midnight, the sound deafening, Sylvia on the dance floor with Remus, I was holding my stomach, peering through the smoke for a toilet. Men were pissing against the dancehall wall, when I found the toilet I saw why they preferred the wall. It was a very small room with a tiny hole draining into a soak-away tank; too many had missed the target. I found a broken pipe to hang onto and lowered my backside as far as I dared, trying to keep my light trousers out of the filth. The young pig was truly having his revenge. Evangeline and her brother Edgar had had enough, they demanded that Ebrima find them a taxi and escort them back to the hotel. Sylvia just wanted to dance until dawn, despite her wobbly bowels she was moving well. We decided to call it a Christmas Day, the most memorable ever.

  A beach party for our last night, December 27th, was hastily decided on. The Jallows would organise everything, I must bring a case of Guinness. The preparations for the day-long party start early on the 27th. Ebrima and I carried a crate of Guinness from the wholesalers to the beach, only to discover the party was being hosted by a relative, Captain, in his beach bar. I was so embarrassed, I ordered a crate of soda from him for the kids, and Captain was laid back about my faux pas, giving me a welcome hug.

  Chapter 4: Winter’s Discontent

  Manchester Airport, December 28th, 2001

  ‘Can you drive back, I can’t concentrate?’ Sylvia asked me at the off-airport car park.

  ‘Sure, it’s been a long day but I’m fine,’ I was still high on the Smiling Coast spirit I had digested. I loved the place, I was depressed when I had arrived but now had a new enthusiasm for life.

  Remus had behaved oddly towards me that morning. Some of his father’s trees were in the newly built hotel grounds. I asked him if he had been compensated for the hotel’s use of the land. He told me that he had, he could help himself to the hotel breakfast buffet, as long as he could fit it all into one bread roll. It sounded to me that his control on his father’s land would slowly slip from him. This land was about seven minutes’ walk from the beach, land that could pay for the education of countless generations of Jallow children. I spotted him carrying his bread roll in two hands, as if it was gold. He wouldn’t look me in the eye; I suspected that he had been canoodling with Sylvia the night before. Ebrima had kept me talking for over an hour, before they strolled out of the forested beach road. I had suggested to Ebrima we go look for them, but he just told me to chill, enjoy my last night in “Afreeka”. Ebrima loved life, though he was poor he was happy, enjoying the vibe and playing football. Within six months he would be dead, a passenger in a drunken car accident, bleeding to death on a hospital trolley, while waiting for someone to assess the extent of his injuries. In The Gambia you have to queue for a voucher to get you through the hospital compound gate. Then it’s another queue for a voucher to get treatment. We have it easy, if Ebrima’s accident had happened in the UK, he would be still enjoying the vibe, not dead at twenty-three. For the next two weeks Sylvia was not herself, she was phoning The Gambia every few days, the woman who would only ring her mother on a free weekends call plan, to save us money. She told me she loved to hear Remus’ deep chocolate voice, with the sounds of the compound behind him. I had asked how far things had gone on that last night. ‘I guess you were kissing, did he touch your breasts and between your legs?’ I choked.

  ‘Yes, but only through my clothes,’ she lied. I guessed more had happened but it was another week before she hit me with every little detail of their movements together. I had booked us into a hotel on the River Avon for the night of her 50th birthday. It was a disaster. She had gone into the bathroom and came out wearing the long black dress she had worn on that last Kololi night. ‘I want you to play along with me,’ she requested. She told me all about Remus trying to get her into Captain’s toilet and how her feelings were being aroused. Then came the details of the walk home and of the electricity that’s generated by two people who want each other. I’d experienced the same with a friend’s wife in the summer of 1977; it led to a three-week affair that Sylvia had given her approval of. Now she was asking for that same kind of approval from me. ‘He stopped me in the lane, it was so quick, my skirt was up, my panties pushed to one side and two fingers were inside me,’ recalling this with widening and distant eyes. ‘When he discovered that I shave my pussy, he broke away and did a little dance, like this,’ she demonstrated his hopping movement. ‘Then his fingers are inside me again and I cum and cum, do the same now,’ she demanded. I obliged and she went into that ecstasy she had experienced with him. ‘Have you ever seen me like this before?’ she looked possessed. ‘And his penis, it was so long…’ indicating nearly twelve inches. ‘I wanted it inside me, I still want it!’ she pleaded. I really never had seen her like this; she was in a sexual frenzy as I tried to simulate Remus’ long fingers. She told me of her disappointment that he didn’t have a condom and of her need to have his prick inside her. Her mouth was the only way she could appreciate the length and thickness of his member. When she told me how he had licked and stretched her, I spontaneously ejaculated. That was the end of a supposedly romantic evening and the beginning of many troubles; both our worlds had been changed forever.

  Chapter 5: How Osama Bin Laden Changed My Life

  September 11th, 2001

  I was working on an unusually well paid computer-generated comic strip for the Radio Times, when I heard on the radio about the twin towers attack. I had witnessed Ramadan in Tunisia and Morocco during hot North African summers and really admired the discipline of Muslim believers. I was shocked that Islam was being blamed for the attack.

  We had been planning a Christmas driving tour around South Africa; everything was in place, thanks to the fax machine more than the internet. We were to fly with Air Gabon but days after 9/11 they, along with many other airlines, suspended international flights. Our money was refunded and the fax machine was kept busy with hotel cancellations. Disappointed, we could only find one affordable African destination to spend Christmas, The Gambia. The Gambia is 90 percent Muslim; it seems like it’s more than that, as each time I’ve visited more Islamic regulations are in place. The one saving grace of Gambian Islam is that there are many, many “Bad Muslims” as they style themselves, who drink, smoke ganja, fornicate and prostitute themselves without the slightest qualm. The “Bad Muslim” epithet lets them off any manner of sin, including human trafficking for the sex industry and the wholesale movement of cocaine. Bissau City, which I’ve visited with Remus, is a major entry port for Columbia’s finest. To get to Europe and up all those eager decaying noses, it has to go through The Gambia. Aboboulaye Jatta, childhood friend of
our Remus, made a living out of trafficking and narcotic import. He lived half the year in England, a big shot with lots going for him, large house in the Home Counties and a mansion, where he spent the winter in Brufut, The Gambia, overlooking the Tanji Bird Reserve. Bob, as he was affectionately known, was a self-made chief, to whom respect was always due. For me, he was a nasty piece of Allah’s work but considered himself a “Good Muslim”, though God knows how many disrespectful young men he had dispatched to greet their seventy-two heavenly virgins. What’s more he deeply loved his mother and was so kind to her, ensuring that not a hint of his wrongdoings reached her blessed ears. Before 9/11, I could never have imagined that the doings of this piece of shit would dog the rest of my life.

  Chapter 6: Hey, That’s No Way to Say Goodbye

  All four of our family had spent Christmas 2002 in Goa, India, and took the train to the ancient city of Hampi in Karnataka. That train journey for me was the beginning of a love affair with the subcontinent, an affair which will probably last to my dying day. I had bought a copy of Trains at a Glance, with its foldout map. There all the rail networks of India were before me, and I wanted to travel every one of them. Sylvia enjoyed the sights, tastes and smells but kept bitching that she’d rather be in The Gambia. Summer 2003 I decided Sylvia, Edgar and I should do a tour of Rajasthan, flying to Delhi, discovering the Gem bar in the Paharganj and travelling through the desert. We visited Jaipur, Jodhpur, the Rat Temple at Deshnok near Bikaner, discovered our first government authorised bhang shop in the golden desert city of Jaisalmer. We bought bhang cakes and rode camels through the dunes, camping under brilliantly clear stars within sight of the Pakistan border. In December we return to Goa but Sylvia’s discontent was burning through me. The discontent continued through to January 2004, until I had had enough, ‘Bloody well go out there now, I’ll buy you a ticket!’

  ‘But I don’t want to go by myself,’ she said.

  ‘What, you want me to walk you into the arms of your lover?’

  ‘He might not really want me; I’m too old for children,’ she was scared that her fantasies were no more than that.

  ‘Okay, I’ll take you,’ in truth I was aroused by the idea of crossing a line of taboo. It took me until January 2006 and several more visits to India before I mustered the courage to break with ingrained conventions. Sylvia contented herself with writing Remus deeply erotic letters. I warned her that as Remus couldn’t read, someone would be reading them aloud to him and possibly with a group of palm wine drinkers listening in. ‘I hope I can turn them all on then,’ was her reply. We checked into the Kadjendo guesthouse, about ten minutes’ walk from Remus’ “Nature”. We met up, hugs, kisses all round and condolences on the loss of the lovely Ebrima, following his unnecessary death. A little light had gone out in The Gambia with his passing. Remus acted shy and embarrassed and wouldn’t even sit next to Sylvia, much to her disappointment and my relief.

  That evening we went to a local compound blockhouse that served kana. Sitting around the open fire a large crab walked toward the firelight. There was much delight, Remus grabbed him and to our horror, ripped off his big claw. ‘I chop him later, he taste nice!’ Remus held onto the struggling creature for about an hour, until too much kana loosened his grip. The maimed crustacean hobbled away to spend the rest of his days as a deformed beggar. Remus was pretty drunk, I was paying for more kana and he was reeling a bit. ‘Where crab go…? Let’s dance, womans!’ grabbing Sylvia’s hand. Music is always playing somewhere in The Gambia. Sylvia was happy he was holding her. After half an hour he dragged her into a blockhouse bedroom. I thought that this was it, my stomach clenched. Then I was dragged to my feet by Marie, the small bar’s owner. ‘Come on man, whas matter with yous? Yous let that bad man take yous woman?’

  ‘He’s not a bad man, he’s my brother,’ I protested.

  ‘So yous let your brother fuck yous wife, what matter with yous?’ she dragged me into the blockhouse, and I dreaded what I’d see. They were sat on a bed, Remus looking too drunk to do anything but sleep.

  Marie shouted, ‘Get out of here, all of yous, get to yous own beds!’ In the morning I suggested to Sylvia that we take a break from Remus, to see more of this country that might be her new home. She agreed.

  Chapter 7: Down in Africa

  We travelled East and then South, using local bus and bush taxi. In Brikama we stayed in the Dibba compound, where Bouba, the head of the house, had a Western style homestay. We spent a few nights at an ecolodge run by Madge Robinson, an English expat. Returning to Kotu, Remus was not happy; we had come to the Smiling Coast to see him and had spent a week avoiding him. We were ordered to come to “Nature” that evening for a palm wine session accompanied by sweet potatoes cooked in ashes. Around ten o’clock I needed to pee; “Nature” doesn’t have a toilet, it has pissing places which are rotated. I asked where I could piss tonight and one of his regulars, a dreadlocked bumster, pointed in a rough direction. Sylvia said she needed to go too and Remus said, ‘I have special pissing place for womens, come,’ leading her away.

  I walked further than was necessary to avoid pissing on Remus’ scattered vegetable plots. I was away about ten minutes, and the boys had opened another litre and a half of palm wine that Remus had presented them with. There was no sign of Sylvia or Remus; after about twenty minutes, I knew something sexual was going down between the two of them. I determined to find them, the boys tried to pull me back down but I shrugged them off.

  I could see some movement behind the storage hut and the moon was African bright.

  Sure enough, there they were, Sylvia kneeling on the earth, panties around her thighs, eyes closed and face to the stars. Remus was lying on his back lapping her vaginal juices, tongue in and out, the fingers of one hand holding her labia open. His other hand was stroking his amazingly long and thick circumcised black penis. The sight was very erotic but simultaneously sickening, I ejaculated without a hint of an erection, a cuckold submitting to the alpha male who was superordinating my role as spouse. Remus was spilling his seed onto the earth, the exact moment I came.

  ‘No worry, my brother, it just sex,’ continuing his lapping and probing of my wife’s pussy.

  Sylvia opened her eyes, saying, ‘Remus is just pleasuring me with his fingers and tongue; we’re nearly finished.’

  ‘He’s not screwed you then?’ I stammered.

  ‘No condom,’ she replied. ‘Is it okay if he fucks me at the hotel, tomorrow night?’ pause, ‘You can watch.’

  Chapter 8: Night of the Long Shaft

  Remus, Sylvia and I were on a couch on the upstairs balcony of the Kadjendo guesthouse, having a few Guinnesses, contemplating a threesome. I wasn’t sure if this was what I wanted; I had imagined what it would have been like to watch your wife with a well-hung black man; it’s the scenario of so many internet porn scripts. Bugger internet pornography, now I had the chance to witness and participate in the real thing.

  Sylvia had taken her panties off under her black dress and was sitting between us. Remus was in charge, he’d probably done this before; he certainly wasn’t as nervous as the two of us.

  Sylvia echoed my thoughts by saying, ‘This is like being in a porn movie,’ as Remus hauled up her skirt and with no effort slid two fingers into her.

  I was finding this very sexy but also, weirdly, very normal. Sylvia is not very big down there; very sexy but bothersome if she’s not aroused. Tonight she was aroused, Remus opened her legs and went down on his knees, licking and kissing her smooth labia in earnest silence. My God, watching it was incredibly sensual! Remus paused to take out his cock from his trousers, indicating it to me with two hands, ‘You have condom?’

  ‘Only two,’ I replied, one for each of us I had planned.

  ‘That good, put on me, lick me first!’ I can honestly say I have never had any homosexual fantasies but the sight of this huge prick was fascinating. I wanted to touch it but putting it in my mouth was a step too far. I sat on the floor next to him and
gingerly held this black rock-hard cock; it was at least ten inches long and still just sticking out of his trousers. It was a marvellous piece of God’s engineering and holding it was extremely sensual. ‘Lick, condom too tight,’ he ordered. I didn’t really want to do this; it’s an interesting sensation which I have no urgency to repeat. I dribbled a lot of saliva along the shaft and worked the condom into place, unrolling its entire length and still not covering him completely. He then turned his attention back to Sylvia still on the couch. He kissed and licked her again, opened her labia and in went that cock. My Lord, it was the sexiest thing I’d seen in my life, my penis stretched to the limit, popped out of my fly.

  ‘You like?’ he asked, grabbing my cock and starting to rub me.

  ‘I like looking, so leave it, it’s my turn when you’ve finished,’ eyes glued on the coupling.

  He then made me feel very inadequate by demonstrating how many sexual positions one is capable of when blessed with an extremely long penis. He must have worked through the entire Kama Sutra with still no sign of him cumming, an athletic mover. I was envious but riveted. The couch’s long cushion had fallen to the floor, holding his backward thrusting position, he lifted her to the floor and kneeling turned her hips and grabbing her arse continued to pound her from behind, until he came in silence. I’m guessing that when you share an African blockhouse with your extended family, orgasming in silence is the norm.