He stripped off his shirt and sank on to the bed, rubbing his face with his hands. He bent down to untie his laces, then kicked off his shoes and swung his legs up on the covers. Lying at full stretch, with the sun pouring through the window still, he began to unbutton his jeans with his eyes shut. He lay for a minute, his hand soothing where his belt had chafed, then scratching luxuriously in his body hair. He felt weak, but the blood pumped loudly round and he could feel his whole body shaking gently with each pulse. He jumped up suddenly, kicked off the jeans, stripped himself of socks and pants and pulled on his dressing-gown. It was a buff schoolboy’s dressing-gown, with a shredded tassel cord, and he had meant to buy himself a new one for years. All his spare money seemed to go on records.
From the bathroom window he gazed across the water-meadows and fields towards Cartersfield, whose church spire pointed unobtrusively towards the sky. Pigeons were cooing from the stable lofts, and in the nearest meadow a cow was lowing plaintively after its calf, which scampered shakily among the buttercups. A horse stood with pricked ears watching these antics from a neighbouring gate, then tired of them and lowered its head to graze. The scene was lush, civilised, English. All it required for Edward was a mournful vibraphone singing from a distant room, cool as kingcups. West coast music, that was what he really liked, that was the new, the true jazz. As he sank back into the brimming bath, his back seemed to groan with pleasure and the tensions and tiredness of his limbs to float away on the green surface of the water.
He was in the middle of a fantasy about the opening night of the jazz club Pete Harrisson was talking of starting, when someone tried the door.
“Can I come in, please?” said his sister Jane.
“I’m in the bath.”
“Oh. Well, will you please hurry up, I can’t possibly meet this man before I’ve had a bath.”
“Use Mummy’s bathroom. And he’s quite an old man, I think, you needn’t make a pass at him.”
“Don’t be disgusting. And Mummy’s still in her bath.”
“I’ll only be another five minutes.”
“You’d better mean that. I shall time you. You’re always complaining about how long I take, but you’re just as long yourself.”
“I’m washing off the toil and sweat and tears of the day. My back has to be left to soak.”
“Don’t be mean, Teddy,” said Jane. He heard her footsteps receding towards her bedroom.
Ten minutes later he was drying himself leisurely while Jane raged outside.
“Oh shut up,” he said. “As though five minutes is going to make any difference.”
“But they’re here already, they came exactly on time, and you know what Mummy says, Mrs Shrieve is a great do-gooder and we have to be nice to her to stop her doing good to us. And anyway, there’s this African she’s brought.”
“He’s white, surely? I mean, he’s her nephew, isn’t he? He can’t be black.”
“Oh.” Jane sounded disappointed. “Are you sure?”
“Nothing is sure.”
“Oh, for heaven’s sake. And please hurry, Teddy.” She rattled the door-knob.
He let her in and said, “Can’t get a moment’s peace in this house.” She slammed the door after him.
A white shirt should do it, with my white jacket, then no suit, thank God. Comfortable jacket. I don’t know how you can bear to go around in these dirty old things, Edward, and they’re made of such cheap stuff, they won’t last, you know. But Mummy, I’ve told you, you’re concerned with keeping up appearances all the time, and I don’t care about appearances, if anything I want to keep them down, to concentrate on comfort, and I find these clothes both attractive to look at and comfortable to wear. I know I find them very unattractive, they’re workman’s clothes, jeans, perfectly all right for the garden, but not for the house: and why don’t you ever wear a tie, you look so sloppy. You should see me in the band uniform —lapel-less suede jackets and narrow black trousers, stunning, you’d love it. I doubt it very much, and where did you get the money to pay for such preposterous garments? We earned it playing. Well, you can spend the rest of your earnings on having all these things cleaned, they’re filthy, and I’m not going to ask Mrs Clark to wash them. Thanks a lot, I’m sure. There’s no need to be rude to your mother, Edward. Oh for Christ’s sake.
He chose a narrow tie with horizontal stripes of white, pale blue, brown and green, the very latest thing from the shops he patronised in Soho and along Shaftesbury Avenue. When he was a pop-singer, he was going to have ties with clean vertical stripes. There weren’t such things in the shops yet, but once you were a pop-singer you could start any fashion you liked.
As he knotted the tie he sang quietly to himself. His voice was a light but flexible baritone, casual in manner and lacking in real strength. But that didn’t matter, pop-singers always had microphones.
“There’s room for two,” he hummed,
“For me and you,
We’ve both been alone so long.”
He meditated on the words. They were terrible, but then they had to be. The song ought to end with lines like:
“Where I lay alone
And longed for the phone
There’s two of us sleeping now.”
That wouldn’t be quite pop material, though. There was a nice lilting melody coming along, and a splendidly obvious change to the subdominant in the second verse. Something could be made of it. The tune sounded enough like several other tunes to be a certain hit.
As he went downstairs he heard voices in the drawing-room, and as he entered he saw his mother talking to Mrs Shrieve in what he called her Women’s Institute voice.
“How simply enchanting,” she was saying. “Oh, Edward, here you are at last. You must excuse him, Mrs Shrieve—you have met Edward?—of course—he’s been working at the excavation over in the woods, you know.”
“Good evening, Mrs Shrieve,” he said.
“Good evening, Edward,” she said. She was tall and seemed to have a lot of hair, somewhat haphazardly pinned beneath a small black hat. She smiled at him, the smile of one accustomed to approaching the most difficult problems with the same air of general joviality.
“How interesting it must be,” she said. “Have you found anything exciting? I did see something about it in the local paper, but I’ve been so busy, I haven’t had time to go and have a look.”
“I’m afraid I’m not nearly expert enough to tell you how valuable our finds have been so far,” said Edward politely. “But I should be delighted to show you round if you’d like it.”
“I shouldn’t want to be in the way at all,” said Mrs Shrieve. He thought he detected a hopeful note in her voice.
“Not at all, not at all. Of course, we have to keep visitors out of the main area unless they’re accompanied, or they may fall into a trench or tread on pottery or something. But if you ask for me, I’m always grateful for a break. My back aches terribly after a day’s work.”
“It’s the first hard work he’s ever done,” said Mrs Gilchrist. “Do you think I can get him to dig in the garden?”
“You must tell my nephew,” said Mrs Shrieve, smiling. “I’m sure he’d be fascinated. Where has he gone?”
“I think my husband must be showing him the garden,” said Mrs Gilchrist. “He never works in it, either, but he feels responsible, personally, for all the flowers.”
“Men are like that,” sighed Mrs Shrieve.
“What are you drinking, Mrs Shrieve?” said Edward. “Can I get you another?”
“Perhaps a little, yes, thank you. The dry sherry, please. I’m afraid I’m so old-fashioned, I’ve never got over what my father used to say. Whisky for men, gin for the servants, and sherry for women over thirty.”
“Oh, I wouldn’t say that,” said Edward. “Every don at Oxford gives it to his pupils. It’s usually South African, of course, and nasty.”
“Yes. I only like the dry.”
“I’m going to have some of the servants’ drink my
self,” said Edward, “with ice and tonic and lemon. Servants are everywhere these days. How’s yours, Mummy?”
“I’m all right, thank you, dear.”
He handed Mrs Shrieve her sherry, and she said, “Oh, thanks so much. Delicious.”
The two women looked at him blankly. The gossip of Cartersfield, which had sustained them so far, would hardly do now. He wondered if he ought to go out to the garden and leave them to their talk about fêtes, whist-drives and flower shows. But his mother might be desperately hoping he’d stay. Everyone agreed that Mrs Shrieve was a good woman, but none went so far as to call her good company.
At that moment Mr Gilchrist and Hugh Shrieve came in from the garden.
“Hello, my boy,” said Edward’s father. “Any luck with the treasure trove? Mr Shrieve, this is my son Edward.”
They shook hands. Shrieve was a short, thin man, burned dry by the looks of him, and rather hesitant in manner. His eyes, which were very blue, flinched away from Edward’s, as though he was embarrassed by their brightness. His hair was thin and bleached, and it stuck up awkwardly at the back. His handshake was firm, but he withdrew his hand quickly from it. Although it was one of the warmest days of the summer so far, he was wearing a sweater beneath his tweed jacket, and he looked glad to be back indoors after his tour of the garden.
“Can I fill your glass?” said Edward.
“Oh, thank you. A whisky and soda, please. And please, no ice.”
“Poor Hugh,” said his aunt. “Here we all are in cotton frocks and shirtsleeves, and he feels so cold all the time that I’ve had to light a fire for him in his bedroom.”
“I expect it takes time to get used to the change of climate,” said Mr Gilchrist. “It’s this air travel. You move too fast for comfort.”
They talked brightly for a few minutes about how much nicer it was to travel by boat. One could acclimatise gradually that way, they all agreed, whereas aeroplanes picked one up in violent heat and humidity, kept one air-conditioned for a few cramped hours, then dumped one down somewhere bitterly cold and dry.
“Are you here for the constitutional conference?” said Edward, thinking Shrieve’s brief contributions to the conversation indicated a boredom with the subject equal to his own.
“Yes, in a way,” said Shrieve. He looked down at his glass.
“It’s a damned shame,” said Mr Gilchrist, “the way we’re being pushed out all over the world.”
“Perhaps,” said Shrieve. “It’s not all that different from the way we pushed in, of course.”
“But don’t you feel that a life’s work—many lives’ work—is going down the drain? That there’ll be nothing to show for it after a few years?”
“It will be difficult for a time,” said Shrieve. “More difficult than it need have been, perhaps. The wind of change which everyone’s now talking about has blown so fast.”
“Too fast,” said Mr Gilchrist authoritatively. “They’re not ready for independence, most of them, are they?”
“Not by our standards, perhaps. But I’m afraid we’ve always tended to avoid thinking about the enormous effort that would have been necessary to prepare them for our standard of freedom. We always imagined we were pursuing a gradual policy which would take us gently forward towards some distant day when we would gladly hand over. But that day was always too far ahead to think about, we didn’t imagine it happening in our lifetimes. And now events have caught up with us, and our policy seems to have been much too gradual. I’m really too involved,” Shrieve added almost apologetically. “I shouldn’t really talk about it in this way. There’s a mathematical word, though, that describes our approach exactly. Something that means a line continually approaching but never actually meeting another line. Asti-something. Astigmatic? No.”
“Asymptotic,” said Edward, upon whom a university education had not been wholly wasted. Besides, he was very good at word games.
“That’s it,” said Shrieve delightedly. “How clever of you to know. It was a word I got from a mathematical friend at the university. He used it to describe his relations with a girl he was pursuing.”
“Doesn’t sound as though the pursuit was too successful,” said Mr Gilchrist. “Cherchez la femme,” he added, raising his glass.
“What are you going to do, exactly, at this conference?” said Edward. “It starts fairly soon, doesn’t it?”
“In a fortnight, yes. It’s all a bit complicated to explain, I’m afraid. Officially, I’m just on holiday.”
“Hugh has rather a special job,” said Mrs Shrieve. “He looks after some very backward people indeed, don’t you, dear?”
“Really?” said Edward. “What sort of people?”
“They’re called the Ngulu,” said Shrieve. He didn’t want to talk about them now, to these English country people.
“I’ve heard of them,” said Edward doubtfully. “At least I think I have. Are they the people who only keep cows for sacrifice?”
“For rearing bull calves, yes,” said Shrieve. “How did you know that?”
Edward blushed. “Oh, I was browsing round the anthropology section of the College library one day, and I came on some pictures of them.” He wasn’t prepared to admit, scarcely even to himself, that he had been hoping to find some of those exciting photographs of splendidly naked people which so often illustrate serious anthropological works.
“That would have been Nanson and Cowen, I expect,” said Shrieve. “There’s a chapter on the Ngulu in them.”
“I don’t honestly remember. I think there were some pictures of Canadian Indian totems. Bears doing unmentionable things to women.”
“That’s right,” said Shrieve. “How strange that you should have read it. It’s really rather a specialist book.”
“I didn’t really read it, just glanced through.”
“He was supposed,” said Mr Gilchrist, “to be studying English History.”
“You can never tell what may not help with the General Paper,” said Edward, unconvincingly.
“I’ve got a distant cousin,” said Mr Gilchrist, “who’s very worried about the way things are going in Kenya. It’s a damned shame. He went there after the war, spent all his savings on a farm, made a very good thing of it, and now he doesn’t think it’s a safe place to bring up his children.”
“There’s no problem like that where I come from,” said Shrieve. “There’s virtually no white settlement on the land.”
“Why’s that?” said Edward.
“It’s pretty remote, you know, to start with, and the soil is generally poor. It’s not a country that’s been opened up like others. We really went there to keep out any other European power. And to trade, of course. We’ve made a great deal of money out of the mining.”
“But where would they have been without us?” said Mr Gilchrist.
“In the hands of the French or the Portuguese, I expect.”
“No, I didn’t mean that. Where would any of these countries be if it wasn’t for the European capital that’s been poured into them for decades?”
“I suppose they’d be still more underdeveloped than they are,” said Shrieve. “But it hasn’t all been a one-way process, you know. Individuals are going to be hard hit in certain places, I’m afraid, but the mining companies must have earned back their original investments many hundred times over.”
Shrieve spoke softly, Edward noticed, and twisted his fingers, as though he wasn’t at all anxious to discuss the general state of African politics.
“And what about your people, the Ngulu? Are they going to be independent like everyone else?”
“That’s my problem, alas,” said Shrieve, looking Edward squarely in the eyes for once. “You see, they’re genuinely centuries behind their neighbours, and they’re never going to catch up. They’re not interested in catching up. They’re quite happy as they are, doodling about their little village, growing a few easy crops, having their regular festivals. But they can only stay happy if they’re protected.”
“Is that so difficult to arrange?” said Mr Gilchrist. “Surely some sort of settlement can be worked out?”
“I hope so. The trouble is that their neighbours, the Luagabu, may try and wipe them out while no one’s looking. They’re two hundred miles from the capital, and that’s a three-day journey by jeep. At the moment the Ngulu are all right because I’m there, and I’m backed by a reliable police force. But what happens when we go, no one yet knows. We have to try and arrange something which will continue to frighten the Luagabu from attacking. And the independent police are likely to be Luagabu themselves.”
“Yes, quite a problem,” said Mr Gilchrist.
“It’s a question of getting effective sanctions.”
“Have another drink,” said Mr Gilchrist. “I expect it’s pretty thirsty work where you come from.”
Shrieve looked at his aunt, who smiled overwhelmingly. He took it to mean that they had time for another drink.
“Thank you, I will,” he said.
While his father was fetching the whisky, Edward moved his chair nearer Shrieve’s and said, “But it’s fascinating, what you’re doing. Why doesn’t everyone know about it? I mean, if you got public opinion interested here, I’m sure you could cause a big stir—rallies in Trafalgar Square, everything.”
“I’m not sure that that’s quite what we need,” said Shrieve. “I don’t think the Colonial Office would be at all pleased about a rally in Trafalgar Square. And I’m afraid a lot of people already think I’ve just got a bee in my bonnet. They pooh-pooh me, rather, and send me away with soothing words.”
“But you mustn’t let that happen. They sound charming, your Ngulu.”
“They are. But the situation is a little difficult for people in Whitehall to understand.”
“Are you doing all the work by yourself?”
“Virtually, yes.”
“I don’t expect you’d like an idle young loafer to help you, would you?” said Mr Gilchrist. “I don’t know what to do with the boy. He refuses to say how he intends to earn a living.”
“I am looking for a sort of assistant, actually,” said Shrieve. “But I don’t expect——”
The White Father Page 7