This Was the Old Chief's Country

by Doris Lessing

  ‘Yes,’ said Marina. She could not account for the grudging tone of that last apparently irrelevant question. She did not know that in this country the privileged class was the Civil Service, or considered to be. No aristocracy, no class distinctions – but alas, one must have something to hate, and the Civil Service does as well as anything. She added: ‘My husband chose this country rather than the Gold Coast, because it seems the climate is better even though the pay is bad.’

  This remark was received with the same sceptical smile that she would have earned in England had she been tactless enough to say to her charwoman: Death duties spell the doom of the middle classes.

  ‘You have to be in the Service to get what’s going,’ said Mrs Pond, with what she imagined to be a friendly smile. ‘The Service gets all the plums.’ And she glanced at the cupboard.

  ‘I think,’ said Marina icily, ‘that you are under some misapprehension. My husband happened to hear of this flat by chance.’

  ‘There were plenty of people waiting for this flat,’ said Mrs Pond reprovingly. ‘The lady next door, Mrs Black, would have been glad of it. And she’s got three children, too. You have no children, perhaps?’

  ‘Mrs Pond, I have no idea at all why Mrs Skinner gave us this flat when she had promised it to Mrs Black …’

  ‘Oh no, she had promised it to me. It was a faithful promise.’

  At this moment another lady entered the room without knocking. She was an ample, middle-aged person, in tight corsets, with rigidly-waved hair, and a sharp, efficient face that was now scarlet from heat. She said peremptorily: ‘Excuse me for coming in without knocking, but I can’t get used to a stranger being here when I’ve lived here so long.’ Suddenly she saw Mrs Pond, and at once stiffened into aggression. ‘I see you have already made friends with Mrs Pond,’ she said, giving that lady a glare.

  Mrs Pond was standing, hands on hips, in the traditional attitude of combat; but she squeezed a smile on to her face and said: ‘I’m making acquaintance.’

  ‘Well,’ said Mrs Skinner, dismissing her, ‘I’m going to discuss business with my tenant.’

  Mrs Pond hesitated. Mrs Skinner gave her a long, quelling stare. Mrs Pond slowly deflated, and went to the door. From the veranda floated back the words: ‘When people make promises, they should keep them, that’s what I say, instead of giving it to people new to the country, and civil servants …’

  Mrs Skinner waited until the loud and angry voice faded, and then said briskly: ‘If you take my advice, you’ll have nothing to do with Mrs Pond, she’s more trouble than she’s worth.’

  Marina now understood that she owed this flat to the fact that this highly-coloured lady decided to let it to a stranger simply in order to spite all her friends in the building who hoped to inherit that beautiful cupboard, if only for three months. Mrs Skinner was looking suspiciously around her; she said at last: ‘I wouldn’t like to think my things weren’t looked after.’

  ‘Naturally not,’ said Marina politely.

  ‘When I spoke to your husband we were rather in a hurry. I hope you will make yourself comfortable, but I don’t want to have anything altered.’

  Marina maintained a polite silence.

  Mrs Skinner marched to the inbuilt cupboard, opened it, and found it empty. ‘I paid a lot of money to have this fitted,’ she said in an aggrieved voice.

  ‘We only came in yesterday,’ said Marina, ‘I haven’t unpacked yet.’

  ‘You’ll find it very useful,’ said Mrs Skinner. ‘I paid for it myself. Some people would have made allowances in the rent.’

  ‘I think the rent is quite high enough,’ said Marina, joining battle at last.

  Clearly, this note of defiance was what Mrs Skinner had been waiting for. She made use of the familiar weapon: ‘There are plenty of people who would have been glad of it, I can tell you.’

  ‘So I gather.’

  ‘I could let it tomorrow.’

  ‘But,’ said Marina, in the high formal voice, ‘you have in fact let it to us, and the lease has been signed, so there is no more to be said, is there?’

  Mrs Skinner hesitated, and finally contented herself by repeating: ‘I hope my furniture will be looked after. I said in the lease nothing must be altered.’

  Suddenly Marina found herself saying: ‘Well, I shall of course move the furniture to suit myself, and hang my own pictures.’

  ‘This flat is let furnished, and I’m very fond of my pictures.’

  ‘But you will be away, won’t you?’ This, a sufficiently crude way of saying: ‘But it is we who will be looking at the pictures, and not you,’ misfired completely, for Mrs Skinner merely said: ‘Yes, I like my pictures, and I don’t like to think of them being packed.’

  Marina looked at the highland cattle and, though not half an hour before she had decided to leave it, said now: ‘I should like to take that one down.’

  Mrs Skinner clasped her hands together before her, in a pose of simple devotion, compressed her lips, and stood staring mournfully up at the picture. ‘That picture means a lot to me. It used to hang in the parlour when I was a child, back Home. It was my granny’s picture first. When I married Mr Skinner, my mother packed it and sent it especially over the sea, knowing how I was fond of it. It’s moved with me everywhere I’ve been. I wouldn’t like to think of it being treated bad, I wouldn’t really.’

  ‘Oh, very well,’ said Marina, suddenly exhausted. What, after all, did it matter?

  Mrs Skinner gave her a doubtful look: was it possible she had won her point so easily? ‘You must keep an eye on Charlie,’ she went on. ‘The number of times I’ve told him he’d poke his broom-handle through that picture …’

  Hope flared in Marina. There was an extraordinary amount of glass. It seemed that the entire wall was surfaced by angry shaggy cattle. Accidents did happen …

  ‘You must keep an eye on Charlie, anyway. He never does a stroke more than he has to. He’s bred bone lazy. You’d better keep an eye on the food too. He steals. I had to have the police to him only last month, when I lost my garnet brooch. Of course he swore he hadn’t taken it, but I’ve never laid my hands on it since. My husband gave him a good hiding, but Master Charlie came up smiling as usual.’

  Marina, revolted by this tale, raised her eyebrows disapprovingly. ‘Indeed?’ she said, in her coolest voice.

  Mrs Skinner looked at her, as if to say: What are you making that funny face for? She remarked: ‘They’re all born thieves and liars. You shouldn’t trust them farther than you can kick them. I’m warning you. Of course, you’re new here. Only last week a friend was saying, I’m surprised at you letting to people just from England, they always spoil the servants, with their ideas, and I said: “Oh, Mr Giles is a sensible man, I trust him.” ’ This last was said pointedly.

  ‘I don’t think,’ remarked Marina coldly, ‘that you would be well-advised to trust my husband to give people “hidings”.’ She delicately isolated this word. ‘I rather feel, in similar circumstances, that even if he did, he would first make sure whether the man had, in fact, stolen the brooch.’

  Mrs Skinner disentangled this sentence and in due course gave Marina a distrustful stare. ‘Well,’ she said, ‘it’s too late now, and everyone has his way, but of course this is my furniture, and if it is stolen or damaged, you are responsible.’

  ‘That, I should have thought, went without saying,’ said Marina.

  They shook hands, with formality, and Mrs Skinner went out. She returned from the veranda twice, first to say that Marina must not forget to fumigate the native quarters once a month if she didn’t want livestock brought into her own flat … (‘Not that I care if they want to live with lice, dirty creatures, but you have to protect yourself …’); and the second time to say that after you’ve lived in a place for years, it was hard to leave it, even for a holiday, and she was really regretting the day she let it at all. She gave Marina a final accusing and sorrowful look, as if the flat had been stolen from her, and this time final
ly departed. Marina was left in a mood of defiant anger, looking at the highland cattle picture, which had assumed, during this exchange, the look of a battleground. ‘Really,’ she said aloud to herself. ‘Really! One might have thought that one would be entitled to pack away a picture, if one rents a place …’

  Two days later she got a note from Mrs Skinner, saying that she hoped Marina would be happy in the flat, she must remember to keep an eye on Mrs Pond, who was a real troublemaker, and she must remember to look after the picture – Mrs Skinner positively could not sleep for worrying about it.

  Since Marina had decided she was not living here, there was comparatively little unpacking to be done. Things were stored. She had more than ever the appearance of a migrating bird who dislikes the twig it has chosen to alight on, but is rather too exhausted to move to another.

  But she did read the advertisement columns every day, which were exactly like those in the papers back home. The accommodation wanted occupied a full column, while the accommodation offered usually did not figure at all. When houses were advertised they usually cost between five and twelve thousand – Marina saw some of them. They were very beautiful; if one had five thousand pounds what a happy life one might lead – but the same might be said of any country. She also paid another visit to one of the new suburbs, and returned shuddering. ‘What!’ she exclaimed to Philip. ‘Have we emigrated in order that I may spend the rest of life gossiping and taking tea with women like Mrs Black and Mrs Skinner?’

  ‘Perhaps they aren’t all like that,’ he suggested absent-mindedly. For he was quite absorbed in his work. This country was fascinating! He was spending his days in his Government lorry, rushing over hundreds of miles of veld, visiting native reserves and settlements. Never had soil been so misused! Thousands of acres of it, denuded, robbed, fit for nothing, cattle and human beings crowded together – the solution, of course, was perfectly obvious. All one had to do was – and if the Government had any sense –

  Marina understood that Philip was acclimatized. One does not speak of the ‘Government’ with that particular mixture of affection and exasperation unless one feels at home. But she was not at all at home. She found herself playing with the idea of buying one of those revolting little houses. After all, one has to live somewhere …

  Almost every morning, in 138, one might see a group of women standing outside one or other of the flats, debating how to rearrange the rooms. The plan of the building being so eccentric, no solution could possibly be satisfactory, and as soon as everything had been moved around, it was bound to be just as uncomfortable as before. ‘If I move the bookcase behind the door, then perhaps …’ Or: ‘It might be better if I put it into the bathroom …’

  The problem was: Where should one eat? If the dining-table was in the front room, then the servant had to come through the bedroom with the food. On the other hand, if one had the front room as bedroom, then visitors had to walk through it to the living-room. Marina kept Mrs Skinner’s arrangement. On the back porch, which was the width of a passage, stood a collapsible card-table. When it was set up, Philip sat crouched under the window that opened inwards over his head, while Marina shrank sideways into the bathroom door as Charlie came past with the vegetables. To serve food, Charlie put on a starched white coat, red fez, and white cotton gloves. In between courses he stood just behind them, in the kitchen door, while Marina and Philip ate in state, if discomfort.

  Marina found herself becoming increasingly sensitive to what she imagined was his attitude of tolerance. It seemed ridiculous that the ritual of soup, fish, and sweet, silver and glass and fish-knives, should continue under such circumstances. She began to wonder how it all appeared to this young man, who, as soon as their meal was finished, took an enormous pot of mealie porridge off the stove and retired with it to his room, where he shared it (eating with his fingers and squatting on the floor) with the servant from next door, and any of his friends or relatives who happened to be out of work at the time.

  That no such thoughts entered the heads of the other inhabitants was clear; and Marina could understand how necessary it was to banish them as quickly as possible. On the other hand …

  There was something absurd in a system which allowed a healthy young man to spend his life in her kitchen, so that she might do nothing. Besides, it was more trouble than it was worth. Before she and Philip rose, Charlie walked around the outside of the building, and into the front room, and cleaned it. But as the wall was thin and he energetic, they were awakened every morning by the violent banging of his broom and the scraping of furniture. On the other hand, if it were left till they woke up, where should Marina sit while he cleaned it? On the bed, presumably, in the dark bedroom, till he had finished? It seemed to her that she spent half her time arranging her actions so that she might not get in Charlie’s way while he cleaned or cooked. But she had learned better than to suggest doing her own work. On one of Mrs Pond’s visits, she had spoken with disgust of certain immigrants from England, who had so far forgotten what was due to their position as white people as to dispense with servants. Marina felt it was hardly worth while upsetting Mrs Pond for such a small matter. Particularly, of course, as it was only for three months …

  But upset Mrs Pond she did, and almost immediately.

  When it came to the end of the month, when Charlie’s wages were due, and she laid out the twenty shillings he earned, she was filled with guilt. She really could not pay him such an idiotic sum for a whole month’s work. But were twenty-five shillings, or thirty, any less ridiculous? She paid him twenty-five and saw him beam with amazed surprise. He had been planning to ask for a rise, since this woman was easygoing, and he naturally optimistic; but to get a rise without asking for it, and then a full five shillings! Why, it had taken him three months of hard bargaining with Mrs Skinner to get raised from seventeen and sixpence to nineteen shillings. ‘Thank you, madam,’ he said hastily; grabbing the money as if at any moment she might change her mind and take it back. Later that same day, she saw that he was wearing a new pair of crimson satin garters, and felt rather annoyed. Surely those five shillings might have been more sensibly spent? What these unfortunate people needed was an education in civilized values – but before she could pursue the thought, Mrs Pond entered looking aggrieved.

  It appeared that Mrs Pond’s servant had also demanded a rise, from his nineteen shillings. If Charlie could earn twenty-five shillings, why not he? Marina understood that Mrs Pond was speaking for all the women in the building.

  ‘You shouldn’t spoil them,’ she said. ‘I know you are from England, and all that, but …’

  ‘It seems to me they are absurdly underpaid,’ said Marina.

  ‘Before the war they were lucky to get ten bob. They’re never satisfied.’

  ‘Well, according to the cost-of-living index, the value of money has halved,’ said Marina. But as even the Government had not come to terms with this official and indisputable fact, Mrs Pond could not be expected to, and she said crossly: ‘All you people are the same, you come here with your fancy ideas.’

  Marina was conscious that every time she left her rooms, she was followed by resentful eyes. Besides, she was feeling a little ridiculous. Crimson satin garters, really!

  She discussed the thing with Philip, and decided that payment in kind was more practical. She arranged that Charlie should be supplied, in addition to a pound of meat twice a week, with vegetables. Once again Mrs Pond came on a deputation of protest. All the natives in the building were demanding vegetables. ‘They aren’t used to it,’ she complained. ‘Their stomachs aren’t like ours. They don’t need vegetables. You’re just putting ideas into their heads.’

  ‘According to the regulations,’ Marina pointed out in that high clear voice, ‘Africans should be supplied with vegetables.’

  ‘Where did you get that from?’ said Mrs Pond suspiciously.

  Marina produced the regulations, which Mrs Pond read in grim silence. ‘The Government doesn’t have to pay for
it,’ she pointed out, very aggrieved. And then, ‘They’re getting out of hand, that’s what it is. There’ll be trouble, you mark my words …’

  Marina completed her disgrace on the day when she bought a second-hand iron bedstead and installed it in Charlie’s room. That her servant should have to sleep on the bare cement floor, wrapped in a blanket, this she could no longer tolerate. As for Charlie, he accepted his good fortune fatalistically. He could not understand Marina. She appeared to feel guilty about telling him to do the simplest thing, such as clearing away cobwebs he had forgotten. Mrs Skinner would have docked his wages, and Mr Skinner cuffed him. This woman presented him with a new bed on the day that he broke her best cut-glass bowl.

  He bought himself some new ties, and began swaggering around the back yard among the other servants, whose attitude towards him was as one might expect; one did not expect justice from the white man, whose ways were incomprehensible, but there should be a certain proportion: why should Charlie be the one to chance on an employer who presented him with a fine bed, extra meat, vegetables, and gave him two afternoons off a week instead of one? They looked unkindly at Charlie, as he swanked across the yard in his fine new clothes; they might even shout sarcastic remarks after him. But Charlie was too good-natured and friendly a person to relish such a situation. He made a joke of it, in self-defence, as Marina soon learned.

  She had discovered that there was no need to share the complicated social life of the building in order to find out what went on. If, for instance, Mrs Pond had quarrelled with a neighbour over some sugar that had not been returned, so that all the women were taking sides, there was no need to listen to Mrs Pond herself to find the truth. Instead, one went to the kitchen window overlooking her back yard, hid oneself behind the curtain, and peered out at the servants.

  There they stood, leaning on their axes, or in the intervals of pegging the washing, a group of laughing and gesticulating men, who were creating the new chapter in that perpetually unrolling saga, the extraordinary life of the white people, their masters, in 138 Cecil John Rhodes Vista …