A Fool's Knot by Philip Spires Page A

at school and on my father’s farm so that I can go to secondary school and become an educated man like you. I will work so hard that people will see that only good things can come from that name. More than that, Father,” continued the boy, eager to justify his claim, “I wish to join the seminary and become a Father like you.”
    â€œAh, boy, that is a very long way in the future. Think of today, and tomorrow will take care of itself.” John was still close to joyful tears when the boy spoke again.
    â€œSister Mary told me that I might have died had you not taken me to the hospital,” said Mwangangi with a confused and frightened look in his eyes.
    â€œThat is not for me to say,” said John, “but it is for me to say that it is time we took you home, so go and fetch your book, we must set off now if I am to get back here before dark.”
    While Mwangangi retrieved his copy of the catechism, O’Hara, thinking that the boy might like to read some more, selected four volumes from his bookshelves – a Bible, a concise encyclopaedia, a history of Ireland and the complete works of W. B. Yeats.
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Chapter Nine
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    December 1974
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    It must be a nightmare. Janet was very nearly running towards the mission. The disappointment that had grown all day had been overtaken by fear, perhaps an irrational, stupid fear that she scolded herself for feeling.
    The day had begun perfectly. School had been dismissed for the term at lunchtime to enable the boarding students to complete their often long journeys home in daylight. With their usual keenness to depart, they ran from the straggling assembly lines to collect their boxes and set off in the direction of the town as a smiling noisy group with an obvious purpose and pace. Janet walked with them, very much at the centre of things, a haversack slung on her back, packed and ready for the lunchtime bus to Nairobi. After four months of long drop toilets and cold showers from a bucket, she was quite bursting with excitement at the thought of the city with its amenities and the long-awaited chance to spend some time with the other volunteers she had not seen since their training course.
    For once, however, today’s skies were dark with clouds. Clouds are a sign of rain, says a proverb, and the platitude had again proven true. For an hour a violent storm raged and the town was transformed. Huddled together under the overhangs of the shop’s tin roofs the group of would-be travellers sat to witness the changes. With the first spots of rain people ran for shelter, leaving the marketplace, usually jammed with business and noise on a Friday, deserted. Even the goats, left straining at their tether throughout the storm huddled silently together, no longer bleating in vain for the return of their owners. The haste with which the change was made, at first, lent humour to the scene. Old women, whose day was usually spent in a toothless cackle of conversation punctuated by loud laughter, as they sat by their piles of tomatoes and fruit, jumped to their feet on feeling the first spots of rain and worked faster than any machine, tying together the corners of their sacking on which they displayed their wares for sale. With this done and the sacks slung over their shoulders, one by one they ran for the cover of the nearby teashop where the talking would continue over glasses of sweet tea and slices of dry bread. Initially this only added to Janet’s and the students’ amusement, but as the storm continued and the rain fell ever harder, their spirits waned from elation to boredom and finally to disappointment.
    Here, rain was something different from anything Janet had known before. There were no drops of water. As if a sky-borne dam had burst, it fell in wide glassy sheets, obscuring even the tree in the marketplace, only a few yards from where they stood. There was no sound of raindrops hitting the ground or roofs, only the blank roar