P. S. I do hope everything is all right, dear, I’ll try not to be late.
That night Marina took her evening meal early so that Charlie might finish the washing-up and get off. She was reading in the front room when she understood that her ear was straining through the noise from the wirelesses all around her for a quite different sort of music. Yes, it was a banjo, and loud singing, coming from the servants’ rooms, and there was a quality in it that was not to be heard from any wireless set. Marina went through the rooms to the kitchen window. The deserted yard, roofed high with moon and stars, was slatted and barred with light from the eight back doors. The windows of the four servants’ rooms gleamed dully; and from the room Charlie shared with February came laughter and singing and the thumping of the banjo.
There’s a man who comes to our house,
When poppa goes away …
Marina smiled. It was a maternal smile. (As Mrs Pond might remark, in a good mood: they are nothing but children.) She liked to think that these men were having a party. And women too: she could hear shrill female voices. How on earth did they all fit into that tiny room? As she returned through the back porch, she heard a man’s voice shouting: ‘Shut up there! Shut up, I say!’ Mr Black from his back porch: ‘Don’t make so much noise.’
Complete silence. Marina could see Mr Black’s long, black shadow poised motionless: he was listening. Marina heard him grumble: ‘Can’t hear yourself think with these bastards …’ He went back into his front room, and the sound of his heavy feet on the wood was absorbed by their wireless playing: I love you, Yes I do, I love you … Slam! Mr Black was in a rage.
Marina continued to read. It was not long before once more her distracted ear warned her that riotous music had begun again. They were singing: Congo Conga Conga, we do it in the Congo …
Steps on the veranda, a loud knock, and Mr Black entered.
‘Mrs Giles, your boy’s gone haywire. Listen to the din.’
Marina said politely: ‘Do sit down, Mr Black.’
Mr Black who in England (from whence he had come as a child) would have been a lanky, pallid, genteel clerk, was in this country an assistant in a haberdasher’s; but because of his sunfilled and energetic week-ends, he gave the impression, at first glance, of being that burly young Colonial one sees on advertisements for Empire tobacco. He was thin, bony, muscular, sunburnt; he had the free and easy Colonial manner, the back-slapping air that is always just a little too conscious. ‘Look,’ it seems to say, ‘in this country we are all equal (among the whites, that is – that goes without saying) and I’ll fight the first person who suggests anything to the contrary.’ Democracy, as it were, with one eye on the audience. But alas, he was still a clerk, and felt it; and if there was one class of person he detested it was the civil servant; and if there was another, it was the person new from ‘Home’.
Here they were, united in one person, Marina Giles, wife of Philip Giles, soil expert for the Department of Lands and Afforestation, Marina, whose mere appearance acutely irritated him, every time he saw her moving delicately through the red dust, in her straw hat, white gloves, and touch-me-not manner.
‘I say!’ he said aggressively, his face flushed, his eyes hot. ‘I say, what are you going to do about it, because if you don’t, I shall.’
‘I don’t doubt it,’ said Marina precisely; ‘but I really fail to see why these people should not have a party, if they choose, particularly as it is not yet nine o’clock, and as far as I know there is no law to forbid them.’
‘Law!’ said Mr Black violently. ‘Party! They’re on our premises, aren’t they? It’s for us to say. Anyway, if I know anything they’re visiting without passes.’
‘I feel you are being unreasonable,’ said Marina, with the intention of sounding mildly persuasive; but in fact her voice had lifted to that fatally querulous high note, and her face was as angry and flushed as his.
‘Unreasonable! My kids can’t sleep with that din.’
‘It might help if you turned down your own wireless,’ said Marina sarcastically.
He lifted his fists, clenching them unconsciously. ‘You people …’ he began inarticulately, ‘If you were a man, Mrs Giles, I tell you straight …’ He dropped his fists and looked around wildly as Mrs Pond entered, her face animated with delight in the scene.
‘I see Mr Black is talking to you about your boy,’ she began, sugarily.
‘And your boy too,’ said Mr Black.
‘Oh, if I had a husband,’ said Mrs Pond, putting on an appearance of helpless womanhood, ‘February would have got what’s coming to him long ago.’
‘For that matter,’ said Marina, speaking with difficulty because of her loathing for the whole thing, ‘I don’t think you really find a husband necessary for this purpose, since it was only yesterday I saw you hitting February yourself …’
‘He was cheeky,’ began Mrs Pond indignantly.
Marina found words had failed her; but none were necessary for Mr Black had gone striding out through her own bedroom, followed by Mrs Pond, and she saw the pair of them cross the shadowy yard to Charlie’s room, which was still in darkness, though the music was at a crescendo. As Mr Black shouted: ‘Come out of there, you black bastards!’ the noise stopped, the door swung in, and half a dozen dark forms ducked under Mr Black’s extended arm and vanished into the sanitary lane. There was a scuffle, and Mr Black found himself grasping, at arm’s length, two people – Charlie and his own nursemaid, Theresa. He let the girl go and she ran after the others. He pushed Charlie against the wall. ‘What do you mean by making all that noise when I told you not to?’ he shouted.
‘That’s right, that’s right,’ gasped Mrs Pond from behind him, running this way and that around the pair so as to get a good view.
Charlie, keeping his elbow lifted to shield his head, said: ‘I’m sorry, baas, I’m sorry, I’m sorry …’
‘Sorry!’ Mr Black, keeping a firm grasp of Charlie’s shoulder, lifted his other hand to hit him; Charlie jerked his arm up over his face. Mr Black’s fist, expecting to encounter a cheek, met instead the rising arm and he was thrown off balance and staggered back. ‘How dare you hit me?’ he shouted furiously, rushing at Charlie; but Charlie had escaped in a bound over the rubbish-cans and away into the lane.
Mr Black sent angry shouts after him; then turned and said indignantly to Mrs Pond: ‘Did you see that? He hit me!’
‘He’s out of hand,’ said Mrs Pond in a melancholy voice. ‘What can you expect? He’s been spoilt.’
They both turned to look accusingly at Marina.
‘As a matter of accuracy,’ said Marina breathlessly, ‘he did not hit you.’
‘What, are you taking that nigger’s side?’ demanded Mr Black. He was completely taken aback. He looked, amazed, at Mrs Pond, and said: ‘She’s taking his side!’
‘It’s not a question of sides,’ said Marina in that high, precise voice. ‘I was standing here and saw what happened. You know quite well he did not hit you. He wouldn’t dare.’
‘Yes,’ said Mr Black, ‘that’s what a state things have come to, with the Government spoiling them, they can hit us and get away with it, and if we touch them we get fined.’
‘I don’t know how many times I’ve seen the servants hit since I’ve been here,’ said Marina angrily. ‘If it is the law, it is a remarkably ineffective one.’
‘Well, I’m going to get the police,’ shouted Mr Black, running back to his own flat. ‘No black bastard is going to hit me and get away with it. Besides, they can all be fined for visiting without passes after nine at night …’
‘Don’t be childish,’ said Marina, and went inside her rooms. She was crying with rage. Happening to catch a glimpse of herself in the mirror as she passed it, she hastily went to splash cold water on her face, for she looked – there was no getting away from it – rather like a particularly genteel school-marm in a temper. When she reached the front room, she found Charlie there throwing terrified glances out into the veranda
for fear of Mr Black or Mrs Pond.
‘Madam,’ he said. ‘Madam, I didn’t hit him.’
‘No, of course not,’ said Marina; and she was astonished to find that she was feeling irritated with him, Charlie. ‘Really,’ she said, ‘must you make such a noise and cause all this fuss?’
‘But, madam …’
‘Oh, all right,’ she said crossly. ‘All right. But you aren’t supposed to … who were all those people?’
‘My friends.’
‘Where from?’ He was silent. ‘Did they have passes to be out visiting?’ He shifted his eyes uncomfortably. ‘Well, really,’ she said irritably, ‘if the law is that you must have passes, for heaven’s sake …’ Charlie’s whole appearance had changed; a moment before he had been a helpless small boy; he had become a sullen young man: this white woman was like all the rest.
Marina controlled her irritation and said gently: ‘Listen, Charlie, I don’t agree with the law and all this nonsense about passes, but I can’t change it, and it does seem to me …’ Once again her irritation rose, once again she suppressed it, and found herself without words. Which was just as well, for Charlie was gazing at her with puzzled suspicion since he saw all white people as a sort of homogeneous mass, a white layer, as it were, spread over the mass of blacks, all concerned in making life as difficult as possible for him and his kind; the idea that a white person might not agree with passes, curfew, and so on was so outrageously new that he could not admit it to his mind at once. Marina said: ‘Oh, well, Charlie, I know you didn’t mean it, and I think you’d better go quietly to bed and keep out of Mr Black’s way, if you can.’
‘Yes, madam,’ he said submissively. As he went, she asked: ‘Does Theresa sleep in the same room as Mr Black’s boy?’
He was silent. ‘Does she sleep in your room perhaps?’ And, as the silence persisted: ‘Do you mean to tell me she sleeps with you and February?’ No reply. ‘But Charlie …’ She was about to protest again: But Theresa’s nothing but a child; but this did not appear to be an argument which appealed to him.
There were loud voices outside, and Charlie shrank back: ‘The police!’ he said, terrified.
‘Ridiculous nonsense,’ said Marina. But looking out she saw a white policeman; and Charlie fled out through her bedroom and she heard the back door slam. It appeared he had no real confidence in her sympathy.
The policeman entered, alone. ‘I understand there’s been a spot of trouble,’ he said.
‘Over nothing,’ said Marina.
‘A tenant in this building claims he was hit by your servant.’
‘It’s not true. I saw the whole thing.’
The policeman looked at her doubtfully and said: ‘Well, that makes things difficult, doesn’t it?’ After a moment he said: ‘Excuse me a moment,’ and went out. Marina saw him talking to Mr Black outside her front steps. Soon the policeman came back. ‘In view of your attitude the charge has been dropped,’ he said.
‘So I should think. I’ve never heard of anything so silly.’
‘Well, Mrs Giles, there was a row going on, and they all ran away, so they must have had guilty consciences about something, probably no passes. And you know they can’t have women in their rooms.’
‘The woman was Mr Black’s own nursemaid.’
‘He says the girl is supposed to sleep in the location with her father.’
‘It’s a pity Mr Black takes so little interest in his servants not to know. She sleeps here. How can a child that age be expected to walk five miles here every morning, to be here at seven, and walk five miles back at seven in the evening?’
The policeman gave her a look: ‘Plenty do it,’ he said. ‘It’s not the same for them as it is for us. Besides, it’s the law.’
‘The law!’ said Marina bitterly.
Again the policeman looked uncertain. He was a pleasant young man, he dealt continually with cases of this kind, he always tried to smooth things over, if he could. He decided on his usual course, despite Marina’s hostile manner. ‘I think the best thing to do,’ he said, ‘is if we leave the whole thing. We’ll never catch them now, anyway – miles away by this time. And Mr Black has dropped the charge. You have a talk to your boy and tell him to be careful. Otherwise he’ll be getting himself into trouble.’
‘And what are you going to do about the nurse? It amounts to this: It’s convenient for the Blacks to have her here, so they can go out at night, and so on, so they ask no questions. It’s a damned disgrace, a girl of that age expected to share a room with the men.’
‘It’s not right, not right at all,’ said the policeman. ‘I’ll have a word with Mr Black.’ And he took his leave, politely.
That night Marina relieved her feelings by writing a long letter about the incident to a friend of hers in England, full of phrases such as ‘police state’, ‘despotism’, and ‘fascism’; which caused that friend to reply, rather tolerantly, to the effect that she understood these hot climates were rather upsetting and she did so hope Marina was looking after herself, one must have a sense of proportion, after all.
And, in fact, by the morning Marina was wondering why she had allowed herself to be so angry about such an absurd incident. What a country this was! Unless she was very careful she would find herself flying off into hysterical states as easily, for instance, as Mr Black. If one was going to make a life here, one should adjust oneself …
Charlie was grateful and apologetic. He repeated: ‘Thank you, madam. Thank you.’ He brought her a present of some vegetables and said: ‘You are my father and my mother.’ Marina was deeply touched. He rolled up his eyes and made a half-rueful joke: ‘The police are no good, madam.’ She discovered that he had spent the night in a friend’s room some streets away for fear the police might come and take him to prison. For, in Charlie’s mind, the police meant only one thing. Marina tried to explain that one wasn’t put in prison without a trial of some sort; but he merely looked at her doubtfully, as if she were making fun of him. So she left it.
And Theresa? She was still working for the Blacks. A few evenings later, when Marina went to turn off the lights before going to bed, she saw Theresa gliding into Charlie’s room. She said nothing about it: what could one expect?
Charlie had accepted her as an ally. One day, as he served vegetables, reaching behind her ducked head so that they might be presented, correctly, from the left, he remarked: ‘That Theresa, she very nice, madam.’
‘Very nice,’ said Marina, uncomfortably helping herself to peas from an acute angle, sideways.
‘Theresa says, perhaps madam give her a dress?’
‘I’ll see what I can find,’ said Marina, after a pause.
‘Thank you very much, thank you, madam,’ he said. He was grateful; but certainly he had expected just that reply: his thanks were not perfunctory, but he thanked her as one might thank one’s parents, for instance, from whom one expects such goodness, even takes it a little for granted.
Next morning, when Marina and Philip lay as usual, trying to sleep through the cheerful din of cleaning from the next room, which included a shrill and sprightly whistling, there was a loud crash.
‘Oh, damn the man,’ said Philip, turning over and pulling the clothes over his ears.
‘With a bit of luck he’s broken that picture,’ said Marina. She put a dressing-gown on, and went next door. On the floor lay fragments of white porcelain – her favourite vase, which she had brought all the way from England. Charlie was standing over it. ‘Sorry, madam,’ he said, cheerfully contrite.
Now that vase had stood on a shelf high above Charlie’s head – to break it at all was something of an acrobatic feat … Marina pulled herself together. After all, it was only a vase. But her favourite vase, she had had it ten years: she stood there, tightening her lips over all the angry things she would have liked to say, looking at Charlie, who was carelessly sweeping the pieces together. He glanced up, saw her face, and said hastily, really apologetic: ‘Sorry madam, very, very sorry, madam.’
Then he added reassuringly: ‘But the picture is all right.’ He gazed admiringly up at the highland cattle which he clearly considered the main treasure of the room.
‘So it is,’ said Marina, suppressing the impulse to say: Charlie, if you break that picture I’ll give you a present. ‘Oh, well,’ she said, ‘I suppose it doesn’t matter. Just sweep the pieces up.’
‘Yes, missus, thank you,’ said Charlie cheerfully; and she left, wondering how she had put herself in a position where it became impossible to be legitimately cross with her own servant. Coming back into the room some time later to ask Charlie why the breakfast was so late, she found him still standing under the picture. ‘Very nice picture,’ he said, reluctantly leaving the room. ‘Six oxes. Six fine big oxes, in one picture!’
The work in the flat was finished by mid-morning. Marina told Charlie she wanted to bake; he filled the old-fashioned stove with wood for her, heated the oven and went off into the yard, whistling. She stood at the window, mixing her cake, looking out into the yard.
Charlie came out of his room, sat down on a big log under the tree, stretched his legs before him, and propped a small mirror between his knees. He took a large metal comb and began to work on his thick hair, which he endeavoured to make lie flat, white man’s fashion. He was sitting with his back to the yard.
Soon Theresa came out with a big enamel basin filled with washing. She wore the dress Marina had given her. It was an old black cocktail dress which hung loosely around her calves, and she had tied it at the waist with a big sash of printed cotton. The sophisticated dress, treated thus, hanging full and shapeless, looked grandmotherly and old-fashioned; she looked like an impish child in a matron’s garb. She stood beside the washing-line gazing at Charlie’s back; then slowly she began pegging the clothes, with long intervals to watch him.
It seemed Charlie did not know she was there. Then his pose of concentrated self-worship froze into a long, close inspection in the mirror, which he began to rock gently between his knees so that the sunlight flashed up from it, first into the branches over his head, then over the dust of the yard to the girl’s feet, up her body: the ray of light hovered like a butterfly around her, then settled on her face. She remained still, her eyes shut, with the teasing light flickering on her lids. Then she opened them and exclaimed, indignantly: ‘Hau!’
This Was the Old Chief's Country Page 31