The World in Winter

by John Christopher

  ‘And yet it is also true that I was embarrassed on your account – that I still am. I would like to help you. But you will not be offended?’

  ‘Put the money on the table,’ Andrew said. ‘Then turn your head. I’ll slip out quietly.’

  Abonitu’s expression was painful. ‘It is not a joke. Would you like to work in television again, here at Lagos?’

  ‘No whites need apply. I was told that in several quarters, but I went along to the studios all the same. They underlined it for me.’

  ‘My uncle,’ Abonitu said simply, ‘is Chairman of the Television Board. He is the Oba Mekani Natela. That is how I have become a producer. I need an assistant, I can choose whomever I like.’

  ‘Might it not make things difficult for you if you choose a white, though?’

  ‘Nigerians have nothing against whites, as long as there are not too many of them, and as long as they keep to their place. You have perhaps heard something like that before?’

  Andrew nodded. ‘Something.’

  ‘I am sorry. I should not have said that.’

  ‘Better say them, Abo. They aren’t going to worry me. Is this a firm offer you’re making me?’

  ‘Yes. A firm offer.’

  ‘Then it’s accepted.’ He put his hand across the table, and they shook. ‘I won’t increase the embarrassment by going into details of my gratitude.’

  Abonitu said hurriedly: ‘Please don’t. We will have another drink instead, to celebrate our future partnership.’ He made a clicking sound and the waiter came for their order. ‘Double Scotch again. That was not Haig, last time.’

  ‘I’m sorry, sir. No more Haig.’

  Abonitu shrugged. ‘Serve what you have, then.’ He turned to Andrew. ‘In losing Britain, you have lost your home. I have lost a dream, a world which I could never enjoy but which I was glad to know existed. Who has lost more, do you think?’

  ‘It may not be lost. The other side of the Fratellini curve …’

  ‘No, that would be foolish optimism. I have seen the latest figures. Solar radiation has ceased to drop, but there is no sign at all of a recovery. It has found a new level. The ice age has returned.’ He smiled wryly. ‘The eternal snows will cover the White Tower and the Marble Arch.’

  Andrew drank his whisky. ‘How soon can I and my – my fiancée get out of that shack?’

  ‘At once. You can stay in a hotel while you find a place to live.’

  ‘She’s been working as a ward-maid at the hospital. Can we …?’

  ‘We can pick her up from there as soon as we have finished our drinks. And then get what you need from the shack.’

  There was a pause before Andrew said, ‘If I’m not careful, I am going to embarrass you. I can’t say …’

  Abonitu drained his own glass. ‘Shall we get a taxi right away, Andrew?’

  4

  They were in a hotel for a week, and then moved into a penthouse flat in a new luxury block overlooking the sea. It was strange how quickly one forgot the wretchedness and deprivations, and how easy it was to slip into the new way of life. For Andrew, of course, there were many associations; the old familiar jargon and techniques, to a considerable extent the old familiar jokes and viewpoints. There were two classes in this television world, he found: those with real ability, such as Abonitu, who kept things going, and the others whose function was simply to draw salaries and put in an appearance. But this in itself was a not unfamiliar division.

  Madeleine and he found themselves quickly accepted by members of the former circle. The acceptance was perhaps a shade too quick, a little too emphatic, but there seemed no reason to doubt its genuineness. There were nuances that were wrong and there always would be, but in time these would be less important.

  Meanwhile there was the pleasure of rediscovering comforts and small luxuries. The salary he was being paid was a very good one even by his old standards, and in this brash bustling society of Lagos, with its underside of poverty and ignorance, money received its full due. There were a number of new restaurants, with European chefs, where it was possible to eat as well as Andrew remembered eating in London; and although the threat of war with the Union continued to occupy newspaper headlines and television programme time, South African wines were still imported in quantity. Andrew had not drunk them before, and found himself liking them. The rainy season ended, and the cloudless skies returned; but there was air conditioning in their flat and the studios, and in most of the places they visited. Then there was bathing on the long white beaches, and golf before the sun got too high or in the late afternoon. All this apart, it was fascinating to be back on what was, basically, his old job, and he got on well with Abonitu who, although titularly his superior, deferred to him much of the time. It was a good life altogether.

  Carol impinged on it at one point. He had a call from her at the studios, and arranged to meet her for a drink. They met in the bar to which Abonitu had taken him. When Andrew arrived, he found her sitting waiting for him, toying with a lace mesh glove. She smiled at him as he offered his hand to her.

  ‘It’s still strange, isn’t it – us shaking hands?’

  ‘In a way. What can I get you to drink, Carol?’

  ‘Can you run to a Dubonnet? The real stuff? They have a few bottles here.’

  ‘Of course. With gin?’

  ‘No. I’m cutting down on the hard liquor. Andy, I’m so glad things are going right for you again. I can’t tell you how pleased I am.’

  ‘How did you find out that they were?’

  ‘I saw your credit title, of course, darling. I don’t watch the telly much here, but I had nothing to do that evening. The “Every Day” programme. Assistant Producer – Andrew Leedon. My God, that brought things back!’

  ‘I suppose it did. You did know that things had been – going badly earlier?’

  She was silent, moistening her lips. She said:

  ‘Your letter? I didn’t know at the time.’ He said nothing, and waited for her to go on. ‘When I saw your name on the screen – I was with my boss. I drew his attention to it. Then he told me there had been a letter, and something about what had been in it.’

  ‘It was sent care of his office, but it was addressed to you. He opened it – and kept it back?’

  ‘He’s an odd person, Andy. Nice in some ways, not in others. He’s inclined to be dictatorial. And jealous.’

  ‘I met his wife,’ Andrew said. ‘A very nice woman. She has my sympathy.’

  ‘Mine, too.’ She put down the cigarette she had been smoking with a small angry gesture. ‘Do you think I’ve enjoyed all this?’

  ‘I’d assumed you had, but I haven’t thought much about it.’

  ‘I may have been promiscuous, but I never sold myself before. What alternative was there? I had the boys to think of.’

  ‘You could have opened a shop; you suggested that for Madeleine and me. You did have some capital.’

  ‘You can’t imagine what it’s like,’ she said, ‘to come out to a place like this on your own, as a woman. The first week I was in a hotel with the boys, watching my money dribble away, learning what it was like to be a white out here. With the men making the obvious crude advances. I was lonely and frightened. I didn’t know anything. I did think about a dress shop. I went along to see it, but I got the feeling that the man who was showing it to me was a crook. I felt too scared to do anything, to make any decisions.’

  Andrew said nothing, but he could understand what she was talking about. Men had always done things for her: nice safe men in a nice safe world. There had been two elder brothers, and her father had been devoted to her.

  ‘We met by accident,’ she went on, ‘and he was very kind. He can be terribly kind. I was grateful to him. He got the boys into their school. Their fees are paid right through, by the way.’

  ‘Generous,’ Andrew commented, ‘with a large hand.’

  She looked at him; the flow of talk stopped and she was silent. Andrew did not help her out. When she reache
d into her handbag for another cigarette, he brought his own out, gave her one and lit it. She took the cigarette away quickly and bent close to the lighter flame, pursing her lips as though to blow it out. It was the beginning of an old, known gesture, and both knew it was deliberate. She drew her head back, and he extinguished the flame himself.

  Carol said abruptly: ‘You’re still with Maddie?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘The last time we met – I wondered whether you might not be beginning to fall in love with her. Something like that.’

  ‘Yes,’ Andrew said. ‘Something like that.’

  ‘And when David comes out?’

  ‘That’s up to Madeleine. Haven’t you got a stronger claim on him?’

  ‘There are no claims, either way.’

  ‘You still hear from him?’

  ‘No. Adekema objected. I didn’t write back.’

  ‘I imagine David would understand all that. He’s a pragmatist by nature. Isn’t that one of the things that attracted you to him?’

  She said in a low voice: ‘Perhaps my standards have changed.’ He looked at her, smiling slightly. ‘My needs, then.’

  ‘I don’t think we change much,’ Andrew said, ‘at our age. Except through blinding lights on the road to Damascus. You haven’t had one of those?’

  ‘I think a lot about Dulwich,’ she said. ‘And dream about it. Do you know, in the last three years I never went inside the picture gallery. I was always meaning to.’

  ‘The pictures were brought inside the Pale. But I don’t know what became of them.’

  ‘The Poussins that you liked and I couldn’t bear. I wish I could see them again.’

  ‘Où sont les Poussins d’antan? The winter has frozen over them, I’m afraid.’

  Carol put her hand on his. ‘Andy, look at me. Do you think I’m still attractive?’

  He nodded. ‘Very attractive.’

  ‘You don’t hate me – for what’s happened, for everything?’

  ‘No. I don’t.’

  ‘When David comes out, I think Maddie will go back to him. I’m sorry if it hurts you, but I think she will. If she does, do you think we could …’

  ‘Turn over a new leaf,’ he said, ‘start from scratch again, make a go of it?’

  ‘Don’t make fun of me. I think I have changed, Andy. I’ve had my fill of some things – illicit sex, for instance.’

  He said: ‘It isn’t certain that David will come out at all, is it? They seem to be keeping things under control over there.’

  ‘I’ve heard differently.’ Her mouth twisted. ‘From authoritative sources. I don’t think it will be long before it all breaks up. He’ll come, all right. And when he does …?’

  ‘I’ve learned to take troubles as they find me.’ Her face flinched slightly. ‘I’ll worry about that at the time.’

  ‘We could see each other occasionally,’ she suggested, ‘for a drink.’

  ‘I don’t think it’s worth it. Sir Adekema might object. In fact, I’m fairly sure he would.’

  She said impatiently: ‘I don’t care about that.’

  ‘You should, I think.’ She looked at him, and he looked back steadily. ‘I really think you should, Carol.’

  Carol telephoned him again to ask if he would like to see the boys, during their school holiday. Andrew said he would, and looked forward to the meeting with a mixture of pleasure and apprehension. But the boys themselves kept the occasion on a level removed from intimacy or emotion. They were polite and pleasant, but in the formal way of well-brought up boys towards strange adults. They did not talk very much, and responded with deferential briefness to his questioning. He spoke to Madeleine about it later:

  ‘In the end, I got the idea that they were a bit ashamed to be seen with me.’

  ‘Probably we’re all over-sensitive, out here.’

  ‘I don’t think so.’

  ‘After all, they’re white themselves. You don’t represent any shameful secret.’

  ‘But the alien strain, perhaps – the thing which can’t be assimilated. They may try to avoid looking in mirrors, but it’s more difficult not to look at one’s father.’

  ‘Or one’s mother?’

  ‘Carol’s part of the assimilation. She has a coal-black boy-friend.’

  ‘Do they understand that? I suppose so. But don’t they resent it?’

  ‘Children are like lovers – they don’t make moral judgements. Or they rationalize them to their own needs. Robin looked quite embarrassed when I sent them your love.’

  ‘You think you’ve lost them?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘How bad is it?’

  ‘Not as bad as I once thought it would be. They’re well and happy. When you lose people, I think a lot of the bitterness is due to guilt: one could have done this or that, and one didn’t. I don’t have that. And it can’t be easy for them. Adolescence is bad enough, without their particular problems. In that respect, I can’t do anything but make matters worse. Perhaps in a few years, when they’ve come to terms with things, we’ll be able to get together again.’

  She nodded. ‘You may be right. All the same, I’m sorry – that you’ve lost them now.’

  ‘Not finally.’

  ‘Even temporarily. One’s children. Even without having any, I can see that.’

  He said: ‘I may still have other children. It’s not impossible, is it?’

  She looked at him gravely for a moment, before she smiled. ‘Not at all impossible. Aren’t we going out to the Kutisis tonight?’

  ‘So I believe.’

  ‘You ought to change.’

  ‘There’s time enough. I feel like a drink. Can I get you one?’

  ‘All right. Something small. Anything.’

  She was sitting in the window seat when he brought the drink to her. The long picture window looked out over the dull purple flatness of the Atlantic; it was half an hour since the sun had flamed down beyond that distant edge. The few small clouds in the sky were of a metallic blackness, their outlines iron hard against the softer shades of night. Stars were already starting, here and there, in the moonless sky.

  ‘Pretty,’ Andrew said.

  ‘Yes.’

  He sat down facing her. ‘Have you heard anything from David lately?’

  ‘I had a letter last week.’

  ‘Anything of interest?’

  ‘Not really. Quite apart from the censorship, he’s not a good letter writer. He’s frank in speech and reticent on paper.’

  ‘The natural antithesis.’

  ‘Is it? I suppose. I knew a writer once who could only be frank in letters.’ There was a pause, and she went on: ‘I haven’t been showing you David’s letters lately – is that something you mind?’

  ‘No. But I wondered about it.’

  ‘It started when we were in the shack. There was something in one letter which I read as hinting that he might be coming out here quite soon. Things were so miserable then … you were still weak from that fever … I thought it best not to show it to you.’

  ‘In case I realized how much you wanted him to come?’

  ‘How uncertain I was. Afterwards, with the next letter, there was a kind of inhibition; it seemed wrong to show you that one without having shown you the other. You know how these things are. I was waiting for you to ask.’

  ‘And I didn’t ask. Till now.’ She looked at him quickly, and he said: ‘I’m not asking anything else, Madeleine. I’m leaving things to take care of themselves.’

  ‘They will.’ There was a touch of sadness in her voice. ‘Things work out if you leave them.’

  ‘Yes.’ He contemplated her profile as she looked out across the darkening sea. For all she withheld, she offered more security than he had ever known in another person. He took her hand. ‘I’ll go and change. Mustn’t be too late for the Kutisis.’

  The maid, Anthea, took the telephone call from Wing-Commander Torbock while they were out for the evening; he was in Lagos on a turn-round and
would like to see them if it was possible. He would call round at the flat the following morning.

  That was Saturday. ‘Day by Day’ was a week-day programme and in consequence Andrew had his week-ends free. They had planned to motor up-country to one of the game reserves, and Andrew was a little put out at having to cancel this. At the same time there was something intriguing in having a stranger call on them.

  It was just after eleven when Anthea let him in. She announced him in the clear accents that had once echoed through Kensington drawing rooms: ‘Wing-Commander Torbock, Ma’am.’ Madeleine had tried to bring her to a less formal address and demeanour, but without effect. She had been starving when Madeleine found her and employed her, and fear had bitten deeply.

  Torbock was a large red-faced man, in his early forties, with a generous but straggly moustache. He looked as though the heat bothered him.

  ‘Do come in,’ Madeleine said. ‘We had your message. I’m Madeleine Cartwell, and this is Andy Leedon.’

  ‘Thank you,’ Torbock said. He produced a handkerchief and wiped the sweat off his brow. ‘Pleasantly cool in here. Damned hot outside.’

  Andrew said: ‘Is it too early for a cooling drink?’

  ‘Not with me,’ Torbock said with relief. ‘Thank you. Anything on ice.’

  ‘We usually drink South African brandy. They’re doing a whisky as well now, but I should warn you it’s aged with an atomic poker, or something. Not bad, though.’

  ‘Anything you’re having. You can’t get a damn thing in the Pale.’

  Madeleine said: ‘You are from London, then. I wondered about that.’

  There was something about him, Andrew thought, which seemed familiar but old-fashioned. The moustache? The easy expansive way in which he lowered his bulk into an armchair? Torbock smiled, and Andrew recognized what it was: the unconscious swagger of the Anglo-Saxon in foreign parts. It marked him out from the other whites in Lagos. Of course, although he might have seen some of the changes, they would not have affected him. His ties were still with England.

  ‘Yes,’ he said cheerfully, ‘that’s my parish. For the moment, anyway.’

  ‘Do you know my husband?’ Madeleine said.

  ‘Yes. My name’s Peter, by the way. I know Davey quite well. We used to lower the odd noggin together, while there was still any to be had. In fact, this is the object of the jolly old exercise – he asked me to bring a letter out to you. Dodging the censor.’