A Journey Back

Tom had read somewhere that smell is the most evocative of the five human senses. He was now able to verify this from personal experience. He had landed in Bulawayo, Zimbabwe, his home town and country of birth, a few hours previously, and was almost overwhelmed by the smell. Not because it was bad, but because is was him! He remembered the smell, and it made him feel at home, comfortable. As he walked from the tiny building that was Bulawayo's excuse for an airport, he felt himself smiling. He was home!

This adventure had, realistically started six months previously, when he had discovered his mother's last diary. His mother had been a prolific diarist. She lived before the days of modern social media and the internet, but Tom was sure that had she been alive today, she would have been an avid blogger. He remembered when he was just a boy, asking her about her diaries. Surprisingly and somewhat intriguingly, she had told him that before she died she intended to destroy most of them. Her reason was that there was material in her diaries that would hurt or even destroy the family. Tom had never been able to get anything further from her on the matter.

Just after his mother's funeral, he had promised his two brothers that he would sort out her stash of paper. He had boxed it all up and taken it back to his home, and then promptly forgotten about it.

Six months ago, he had decided to tackle the chore. It didn't take him long to sift through the boxes of paper-work. Old bank statements, bills, insurance invoices, etc. ended up in the bin. Items like old school reports for him and his brothers and sketch books from her time as an artist, he set aside. At the bottom of the biggest box, was the diary. It might have been her last diary, although there was no way of knowing if that was true.

Curious that one of her diaries had survived 'the purge', he had taken time out to read it. And thank goodness he had done so. Buried in the pages was his mother's last adventure for her boys. According to the diary, she had squirreled away a "significant sum of money" and, if one of her boys were in a position to follow a few simply instructions, the money "would be theirs to keep".

The instructions were indeed simple. Get back to Bulawayo, and visit her old friend and solicitor, Nick Martin. She had entrusted a small black notebook to him, and once her boys had the book, they would then be in a position to retrieve the money.

The taxi from Bulawayo airport took him belching, knocking, bumping and weaving to the last known address of Martin. He asked the taxi driver to wait, and he walked up the path to the front door of the squat, dilapidated, bungalow that served as the offices of the solicitor, or at least had done when his mother had written her diary.

Surprisingly, Nick Martin was still there and answered the door personally. Tom's immediate impression was of a man broken. A man slowly eroded by years of drudgery in a country that had fallen apart around him, taking him and his family with it. It was not a pleasant encounter, and it was made utterly disgusting when Tom introduced himself. It was clear that Martin had been expecting someone to come knocking, and looking back on the meeting, Tom realized that the man had probably been obsessing over how to benefit from the trust Tom's mother had placed in him.

Martin did indeed have the book, but would not part with it, without "due compensation". Shocked, Tom realized that his mother's friendship, trust and loyal custom meant nothing to this man.

Tom was not going to leave empty handed, so he proceeded to negotiate said "compensation".

Several emotional hours later, Tom left the building feeling dirty and betrayed. He felt sad for the memory of his mother. She had died, thinking that Nick Martin was a friend, when in fact he was nothing more than a thief.

But Tom had the book.

When back in the taxi, he instructed the driver to head into the city center, and while bumping along the pot-holed streets, Tom read the contents of the small black notebook.

There were three things in the book. A letter, carefully folder and tucked into a pocket under the front cover of the book. A key, taped to the back page of the book, and a simple instruction on the first page of the book. The instruction read:

"Dear son of mine, take the enclosed letter to Barclay's Bank main branch Bulawayo, and present it to the manager. He or she will release a safety deposit box to you. One I bought years ago. The key is for the box. Open the box, and the money is yours. Please don't be selfish, remember to share it equally between all three brothers. All my love, mum."

The end of his little adventure had arrived.

The taxi stopped outside the bank.

Tom supposed, in hind sight, that it would always come to something like this. Despite being a shy, retiring sort of person, his mother had always had a mischievous streak, and when he and his brothers were children, she had often sent them off on wild treasure hunts and adventures. This was simply her final one, and Tom was relieved that he had found her diary when he had. Thankfully, the years had not erased the trail, and now he was about to find his mother's final gift to her boys.

Getting access to the safety deposit box was surprisingly easy, the letter his mother had provided, smoothing the way beautifully.

He slipped his backpack off and placed it on the floor of the room the bank clerk provided him. It was a disused store room as far as he could tell. A rickety metal table stood in the middle, resting lopsidedly on a torn and dirty linoleum floor, with an equally frail-looking folding chair to one side. Around three of the walls were rusty metal filing cabinets which looked like they hadn't been opened in decades. The fourth wall had the only door into and out of the room. There were no windows, and the ceiling must have been the original, consisting of two large slabs of pressed ceiling board, both sagging ominously down, bringing the single light fixture a good sixty centimetres lower than originally intended.

The light, by some miracle of maintenance, was working and turned on, casting an insipid yellow glow directly onto the table, leaving the rest of the room in shadows.

Lying on the table was the locked safety deposit box the clerk had brought in a few minutes earlier.

He unfastened the top of his backpack, lifted the flap and reached into the inner pocket, pulling out the notebook. He placed the book, almost reverentially, on the table beside the box.

He'd been obsessing over this moment for the best part of 6 months now and wasn't surprised to find his heart rate had risen. He pulled the seat out and sat heavily down, leaning his arms on the table, with his fingers lightly resting on the book.

He hoped it was going to be worth it. Two bus trips, two plane journeys, three taxis rides, and three hotels and the same to look forward to on his return, making a total travel distance of 18 thousand kilometres, and costing the best part of two thousand US dollars. That didn't include the 'compensation' of a thousand US dollars he had eventually had to pay Nick Martin. Had he been a complete fool? No, in her last diary, his mother said they would be well rewarded, if they could get hold of her notebook. He hoped his three thousand dollars were about to pay dividends.

It was time. He flipped the little black book open to the last page and tore the key off , ripping some of the paper away in the process. He cleaned the ancient tape and shreds of paper from the key and inserted it into the key hole of the box. He turned it, but initially it stuck fast. Some concerted wiggling and wrangling of the key eventually allowed him to unlock the box. The lid popped up a couple of millimetres and then stopped. He noticed the hinge at the back of the lid was rusted solid. His worry that he would have to get assistance was unfounded. By bracing the box against the table with one hand he was able to used his other hand to grip the leading edge of the lid and pull. With a loud squeal of protesting metal on metal, the rust on the hinges gave way and the lid opened to it's full extent.

At first he thought the box was empty. With a little moment of panic he leaned forward to get a better look inside. No, it wasn't empty. At the bottom, lay a single item.

He drew it out and started to laugh. Not hysterically, but not far from it. He turned the item over and over in his hands. Thinking back on the last 6 months, this was going to make for some great dinner party stories. He would be the butte of many a ribbing, by his brothers and his friends. But hey, if he hadn't followed his instincts, he would not have revisited his childhood.

With a little sigh and a rye smile, he gently folded the twenty thousand dollar note that his mother had so carefully left for her boys and slipped it into his wallet. He supposed he might get two or three dollars for it on the internet...