September 10

I have to look twice - even three times - when my phone beeps with the message that $630 000 has just been deposited in our bank account.  The deposit was made by a company in town but John and I cannot think of one reason why they would be giving us this amount of money.

I am hopeful that one of us has inadvertently entered some sort of competition - one of those ones where you fill in your name on the back of a store receipt - and our entry has been picked out of a hat.  Or perhaps some distant (very distant) relative had shares in the company and has died, leaving instructions that we are the beneficiaries of his will.

Or perhaps . . . we try and think of any logical reason we would be paid this amount of money, but know, of course, that it is purely a case of a deposit in the wrong account.  The obvious response is to take the money and run - very fast.  Here, we hit a big problem.

Number one: we cannot run very far.  The airports and borders are still closed and, by the time they are due to open, the transfer will have been reversed.  Our choices lie between Kariba and Chimanimani, where we might be able to lie low while the authorities are out looking for us. To be honest, even Kwekwe is an option if we can get away with keeping the money.

Number two: we cannot run very fast.  Getting fuel is still a problem and we would need to take money out of the account and convert it into US dollars.  This may take some time. Nine times out of ten, the bank card doesn't work.  We can't transfer the money to Ecocash and we can only get an equivalent of 1$US out of the bank through the cash machine.

We decide to just keep quiet and see how long it will take anyone to notice.  We have plans to gradually spend the money - a bottle of expensive wine here and there, smoked salmon for breakfast, an endless supply of Marmite - nothing that will raise too many suspicions.

When John goes off shopping, I envisage him returning with bottles of champagne, fresh oysters and lots of things with French names (they always sound expensive).  I have a picture in my mind of someone asking us how the water situation is in Bulawayo and us laughing their concerns away.  'Municipal water?  Who knows?  We bath in Moet et Chandon.'

John returns less than an hour later with a loaf of bread.  Ecobank is down and the ATM has run out of money.  By the end of the day, the deposit has been reversed and our bank account feels a lot lighter.  In fact, I am convinced they have taken more than they deposited.

Sigh.  They are not long, the days of wine and roses. Back to the grindstone.