Under The Kenyan Sun

A young woman finds a new purpose in this inspiring short story by Julia Douglas.

PATTY hummed along with her radio as she laid gleaming copper pipes beneath the bedroom floor. Plumbing in a row of new-build houses in a leafy street was her idea of the perfect job.

She did the usual home call-outs, too, but in those situations she was under the time pressure of people waiting to regain use of their kitchens or bathrooms.

She also faced the inevitable snags that came with systems that had been bodged by who-knew-whom over the decades.

“There’s no such thing as a five-minute job,” her dad always said, and she’d found herself struggling until midnight on outwardly “little” tasks often enough to know he was right.

The blank canvas of a first fix with new materials and no carpets or furniture in her way felt like a holiday by comparison.

Then, after the chippies and tiler had done their work, she’d come back and have the satisfaction of putting in the pristine bathroom and kitchen fittings that would turn the houses into dream homes.

“Hello?” A voice echoed from the front door downstairs.

Patty crossed the bare boards to the landing.

At the foot of the stairs was a young man in jeans and a sloppy sweater.

Nice hair, she thought. His blond waves were his most noticeable feature from her angle.

“Can I help?” she called. A nice face, she noted, as he looked up with a grin.

“Sorry, I saw the van outside and wondered if the plumber might be in.” “That’s me.” She smiled. He blinked in surprise. Patty was used to people doing that when they encountered their first female pipe bender.

“Cool. Well, I wouldn’t normally ask, but I’ve got a plumbing problem across the road. I wondered if you might take a look?”

“What’s up?”

“The hot taps keep running dry. The water comes back after half an hour, but that’s not much help when you’re trying to run a bath or do the washing-up.”

“Sounds like the float valve’s blocked in the tank,” Patty surmised. “I’ll have a look. I’ve got a spare valve in the van.”

“Oh, brilliant. I’m Josh.” “Patty.”

“It’s a student let,” Josh said as they crossed to a pebble-dashed semi.

“The landlord’s not forthcoming with repairs, but I don’t mind paying just to get some hot water.”

A moment later, Patty was crouching in the cobweb-covered loft, confirming her diagnosis.

“It’s completely corroded, and barely letting a dribble through,” she told Josh, whose head was poking up through the loft hatch.

“I’ll just turn the mains off and pop a new one on.”

“Do you mind if I watch?” Josh asked. “I’m rubbish at DIY, but I’d like to learn.”

She imagined herself as a surgeon leaning over an operating table with a medical student.

“You need two spanners.” She took the tools from her belt. “One to hold the valve, one on this nut. A bit of force and . . . there! It’s off.

“Pop the new one in, ratchet it up and Bob’s your uncle!”

She looked up, caught

Josh’s admiring gaze and looked away.

“How much do I owe you?” Josh’s face was apprehensive as Patty carried her ladder downstairs.

“The valve’s six quid, and I’ve only been here fifteen minutes. Call it twenty?”

“Phew!” Josh grinned. “I thought you were going to say a hundred.”

“Student rates,” Patty said. “All my mates are at uni and they’re always skint, so . . .”

She trailed off awkwardly. He was such a handsome chap, she’d have helped him out for a smile, but she didn’t want to patronise him.

“You didn’t fancy uni yourself?” Josh enquired.

“Nah. I’ve been on the tools since I left school. Got any other leaks and drips while I’m here?”

“Well, there is a little drip under the kitchen sink. I tried tightening the joint but it hasn’t worked.”

He showed her into the kitchen.

“It’s just on a bit wonky,” Patty said, leaning into the cabinet. “I’ll loosen it and wind a bit of tape around it. Dry as a bone.”

“Amazing,” Josh marvelled. “We could do with you in Kenya.”

“Kenya?” She

Patty had never been further than Magaluf, but now she was heading for Africa!

straightened up in surprise.

“I’ve been doing some fund-raising for a charity that brings clean water to African villages,” Josh enthused.

“In the summer I’m going over as a volunteer, digging wells and building dams.

It’s skilled tradespeople like you they need, though.”

Patty had never been further abroad than Magaluf, let alone seen herself as a foreign aid worker.

As she gazed into Josh’s excited eyes, she pictured herself standing with him on the African veldt with zebras and lions in the distance.

It was an appealing thought.

The door burst open and jolted her back to Britain. “Hi, Josh!”

A girl with black hair rushed in and planted a smacker on his cheek.

“Hi, Trish!”

He returned the kiss, on her lips, and a wave of jealousy took Patty by surprise.

“This is Patty.” Josh reddened as he introduced her. “She fixed the plumbing. I was telling her about the African project.”

Trish gave Patty a cool appraisal, but before she could speak the door opened and a couple of young guys came in.

“All right?” one muttered as he headed for the kettle.

The other was busy with his phone.

Patty guessed they shared the house.

“I’d better get to work.” She grabbed the chance to excuse herself. “If you get any more leaks, you know where I am.”

That evening, as Patty passed the full skip in her garden and let herself into her empty Victorian house, she remembered the cosy busyness of Josh’s kitchen.

She wondered if she’d missed out on the housesharing aspect of student life, if nothing else.

Her school pals seemed to do more partying than studying on their far-flung campuses.

Patty’s after-work social options usually came down to a night at the pub with some football-mad brickies and sparkies.

The men she met on building sites and in plumbers’ merchants were nice enough – and once they saw she could do her job, they treated her like one of the boys.

But she got enough blokey banter at work without wanting more of it in her time off.

She bet conversations with Josh would be a lot more interesting.

What a shame he was taken.

Still, she was earning enough to have a house of her own, while her friends were running up student debts.

She just had a large mortgage to contend with, and her place was a complete disaster zone.

As she clicked on the bare bulb and regarded her carpetless stairs, she recalled her dad’s words when he’d found the place “going for a song” in an auction.

“Always get the worst house in the best street. Do it up yourself and you’ll triple its value.”

She knew he was right, and she’d always be grateful for the help her parents had given her to get on to a housing ladder that was out of reach for most people her age.

Over the past year, she’d learned a lot of new skills, from repointing brickwork to roofing, with Dad passing on his knowledge.

Her dream kitchen was still in flat packs in the living-room, however, and most of the house was a shell.

Like many people in the building trade, she had to put her own project at the end of the list. It would be the perfect family home one day.

Going through to the battered 1950s-style kitchen, Patty tossed some spaghetti into a saucepan.

Then she turned on her computer tablet and began to type.

****

The next afternoon, Patty was bending over stopcocks in an under-stairs cupboard in one of the new builds.

“Is that you in there, plumbum?” Josh called.

“‘Plumbum’?” Patty spun round indignantly.

“It’s Latin for lead.” Josh grinned. “It’s where the word plumber comes from.

“And if the description fits . . .” His eyes wandered.

“I’m not sure Trish would like you calling me that,” Patty reproached him.

If he and Trish were an item, she wasn’t going to encourage any funny business.

“Sorry, no offence.” He blushed. “I brought you over some leaflets about the work we do in Kenya.

“It’s about education, really.” Josh warmed to his theme.

“But the kids can’t go to school if they have cholera, or they have walk miles to fetch water.

“Getting safe water into the villages is at the base of everything.”

“I know.” Patty gazed at the pictures of happy villagers standing around new water pumps.

“I looked it up on the internet last night.”

“So how do you fancy coming out as a volunteer?” Josh ventured.

“You have to pay your own fare, but food and tents are provided.

“Look at it as an adventure, but one where you get the chance to make a real difference to people’s lives.”

Patty thought of the gap years some of her friends had taken before uni, while she completed her apprenticeship under her dad and studied theory for her plumbing diploma.

Before she could change her mind, she said, “I think I’d like to.”

****

“Aren’t you worried about bugs and malaria?” her mum fretted.

“I’ll have all my jabs,” Patty reassured her.

“Go for it,” her dad said firmly. “If you can use your skills to make a difference, you should.

“I’ll put that kitchen in for you while you’re away. It will be all ready for when you come back.”

“You’re a legend, Dad.” As tears escaped her eyes, she realised she was grateful to both of them in more ways than she would ever find words to express.

****

“What made you want to be a plumber?” Josh asked as they sat with their backpacks and Trish browsed the airport shops.

“How do you fancy coming out as a volunteer?”

“My grandad was a plumber, then my dad and now me.” Patty smiled.

“By the time I was ten I could fit a ball-cock in a cistern the way other kids play with Lego.” She chuckled.

“I heard that plumbers make a hundred thousand pounds a year,” Josh said. Patty nearly choked. “This one doesn’t! I do love it, though.

“Especially the relief on people’s faces when you fix a burst pipe they thought was going to wash their house away.”

“People don’t realise how much they depend on their plumbing until it goes wrong,” Josh mused.

“Sometimes I wish I’d done an apprenticeship and learned a trade.

“That’s why I’m looking forward to this trip,” he went on. “The chance to do something with my hands for a change.”

“Perhaps you should retrain as a plumber,”

Patty teased.

“Maybe you could teach me.” He leaned towards her, eyes twinkling.

“Maybe I could.”

Their voices had lowered, and as Patty gazed into his eyes she realised their faces had come close enough to kiss.

How she wished he wasn’t with Trish.

The call for their flight to Nairobi echoed loudly through the

airport lounge.

“Well, that’s us, plumbum.” Josh levered himself to his feet. “Ah, there you are, Trish.”

Patty looked up as she realised the black-haired girl had rejoined them.

Had Trish noticed the look that had passed between her and Josh?

She certainly sounded frosty.

“Hurry up, you two,” she snapped, and steered Josh towards the gate.

As Patty followed, she wondered what she was getting herself into.

****

“Giraffes!” Patty pointed excitedly.

Josh and Trish looked over her shoulder for a glimpse of the tall creatures galloping across the tinder-dry grassland against a backdrop of distant mountains.

The sun flashed off

Trish’s mirrored sunglasses as she raised her phone to take a snap.

They were in a battered Land-Rover, racing along a parched, arrow-straight road with a cloud of brown dust rising behind them.

At the wheel was Zac, the project manager who had collected them from the airport.

He looked every inch the safari guide in his bush hat, khaki shorts and T-shirt, knee-length socks and tough boots.

Patty had barely slept on their eight-hour flight, but she couldn’t have felt more awake at that moment.

Her first glimpse of Nairobi had been breathtaking – a vibrant mix of old and new with dazzling glass and concrete tower blocks under construction everywhere.

Plenty of work for plumbers, she couldn’t help thinking.

But out on the plain, after a few of hours of solid driving, they were travelling through the Kenya she’d seen in documentaries.

She could barely believe she was there.

“First stop will be a village where we put in the water last year, so you can see what we do,” Zac called over the roar of the engine.

“Then we’re heading into the boondocks to start from scratch.

“It’s not that they don’t get any rain,” he went on.

“It’s about managing the water to last through the dry season – catching the rainwater and the run-off from the mountains and making sure we get potable water to the right places.”

Patty gazed at his rugged profile, fascinated by his words and passion.

All her life she’d worked with water, but she’d never given much thought to what it would be like to live in a place where you couldn’t just turn on a tap.

****

Six weeks later, Patty and Josh sat in the glow of an African sunset with their backs against an old timber school house, drinking tea and gazing at a pump installation that had become the centre of the village.

“Glad you came?” Josh asked.

“I feel like my mind’s blown,” she said truthfully. “I’m glad you brought me.”

She gazed at his handsome profile and remembered how much she’d fancied him.

But Patty had quickly realised how much he and Trish loved each other, and that they were truly meant to be together.

She was happy for them. If she were honest, it was foolish wishful thinking on her part that had made her volunteer for the trip.

Once they started work, her crush on him had quickly been replaced by a more serious focus.

Josh had become one of her best friends. Trish had, too.

It was hard not to bond when you spent your days laying pipes in ditches and evenings swapping stories around a campfire.

“I’m going to come back,” Patty said.

“Zac reckons he can get me a stipend to work here full time, teaching plumbing to the villagers, so they can carry on this work themselves or get jobs in the city.”

“What about your house in England?” Josh asked.

“I’ll finish it off and rent it out to you and Trish, if you like?

“Otherwise, it will be somewhere to go when I’m ready to settle down.”

“Here’s Zac now,” Josh said as the project manager crossed the darkening square.

Zac leaned in and kissed Patty warmly. He sat beside her and she took his hand contentedly.

Yes, she’d always be grateful to Josh for leading her to Africa.

It was early days for her and Zac, but at his side, doing life-changing work, she knew she’d found the place where she belonged.

The End.