The White Father

by Julian Mitchell

  “What on earth is it, Jumbo? Something to control the weather?”

  “No, no, nothing like that. Something very simple. Little gadgets for the house, you might call them. There won’t be a house without them in five years, you mark my words.”

  “If it’s really so good,” said Shrieve, “you shouldn’t have any difficulty raising the capital. People will flock to lend you their money.”

  “Ah, it’s not quite like that, old boy, not quite like that. We don’t want anyone else to know about it, that’s our trouble. We want to keep it among friends.”

  Knowing what was coming, Shrieve felt cross. “Well, whatever it is,” he said brusquely, “and you seem to be making an awful mystery of it, I don’t expect it’ll get to my part of the world in a hurry.”

  “Yes it will, yes it will,” said Jumbo. “We plan to market it the wide world over.”

  Shrieve drank some beer and shuddered. In the far bush, in deserts and on the seas, the exiled Englishman dreamed of the pleasures of draught bitter. But when he got it at last, it always tasted insipid, a flat, watery, filling drink which made him go to the lavatory all the time, where the smell of dripping walls and urine combined with the taste of the beer to produce foul images of unclean vats and mildewed barrels.

  “How’s your glass, Jumbo?”

  Jumbo swallowed his lees and said, “Ready, aye, ready.” It was his turn to pay, but Shrieve knew from long experience that he wouldn’t. Jumbo had once been described as all froth and no beer.

  When he returned with a new pint for Jumbo and a half which was all he could face for himself, he noticed that all the crisps had gone.

  “Look, Hugh, old chap,” said Jumbo, “I tell you what. I’ll give you a chance to come in with us, if you like.”

  “I don’t have any money,” said Shrieve firmly.

  “We don’t need much. Five thousand, and we’re away. The trouble is, my money’s all tied up at the moment—it’s a damned nuisance. A trust, you know. Can’t get my paws on it.”

  “It’s often the way.”

  “Of course, you’ll want to know more of what it’s all about. I’ll give you a hint. It’s something for the house.”

  “You said that before.”

  “Oh, did I? Well, my partner—nice chap, name of Chester, Wally Chester—he’s hit on the notion of the century. Every woman in the world spends hours of her life at the sink, agreed? Washing up. It’s washing up all day long. She gets up in the morning, and there are last night’s dishes. She cooks breakfast, and there are a whole lot more. And so it goes on, all day long.”

  “If you’ve invented a washing-machine,” said Shrieve, “I’m afraid it’s been done already.”

  “No, no,” said Jumbo importantly. “It’s not a washing-machine. Our invention’s going to make the washing-machine obsolete. It’s a kind of plate. I can’t tell you how it works, of course, because that’s a secret. But all you have to do is squirt some stuff over it—one of those spray things, you know—and dip it in hot water, and out it comes clean. Clean as a whistle. You see, washing is abolished.”

  “Is it sanitary?”

  “Absolutely. The stuff you squirt’s a disinfectant as well as a detergent—a very powerful detergent. Old boy, it’s revolutionary.”

  “I see,” said Shrieve. “Can you have a wide variety of these plates? Can you adapt old ones and so on?”

  “No, no, of course not. You have to buy new ones. We’ve got a couple of little problems to solve about the colours, it’s true—so far we can only make plain ones. But we’ll sort out the patterns in a month or two, once we’ve got going.”

  “What are they made of?”

  “A sort of plastic stuff.”

  “It sounds revolting.”

  “Now steady on, old boy, hold hard. This is going to revolutionise the housewife’s existence.”

  “But are the plates hard? Can you break them? Or scratch them?”

  “Now look, old chap, you’re a good friend, a very valued friend, and I’ve told you too much already. Wally Chester would be livid if he knew I’d told you so much. So no more questions, if you don’t mind, be a good chap. There are people who’d give their eye-teeth to have a look at our formula. It’s absolutely essential that we keep it all quiet.”

  “And you honestly expect me, and other people, to put up money for a lunatic scheme you won’t even give us the details of?”

  “Now don’t be unfair,” said Jumbo. His eyes began to take on the reproachful look that Shrieve remembered from so many minor incidents during the war. “I’ve given you a very good idea of what it’s all about. I said to myself when I knew you were coming home, Jumbo, I said, we must wait for Hugh, we must give Hugh a chance to come in with us. He sits there in Africa year after year, he must have quite a lot saved up by now, and he’ll be thrilled, really thrilled, to get a chance like this. He’ll jump at it, I said. I’ve been holding people off, waiting for you, old boy.”

  “Hold them off no longer,” said Shrieve. “I don’t know why you waste your time, Jumbo. You know perfectly well that I wouldn’t lend you a half-crown. I might give you a half-crown, but I’d never expect to see it again. You’re a rogue, Jumbo, and you know I know it. I can’t imagine why you think I might be fool enough to think otherwise.”

  “Now steady on, old fellow, that’s a hard word you used there, you know.”

  “Not hard enough,” said Shrieve cheerfully. “I’m not going to lend you five thousand pounds, Jumbo, so let’s change the subject, shall we?”

  “Three thousand,” said Jumbo, leaning across the table, all confidence and secrecy. “How about three thousand, eh?”

  “No.”

  “A thousand then. A thousand smackers.”

  “Jumbo, I said no. Let’s talk about something else.”

  “You’re turning down the offer of a lifetime,” said Jumbo. “And you’re letting me down very badly. I swore to Wally Chester that you’d put up the capital for us. I swore on my oath that Hugh Shrieve would back me up to the hilt.”

  “Jumbo, I have not let you down. There is no reason in the world why I should ever lend you anything.”

  “But we fought together,” said Jumbo, looking shocked. “Surely there can be no better reason than that we were comrades in arms, old boy? We nearly died together.”

  “Only because of your idiocy.”

  “That’s not fair. That’s not fair at all, old boy, and you know it. That’s not even funny.” Jumbo leaned back huffily. “I’ll make you one more offer,” he said. “Five hundred down, and you’ll have five thousand in five years, on my word of honour.”

  “You know what you can do with your word of honour.”

  “I’m disappointed in you, Hugh. Really, I’m very disappointed indeed. I think all those years of living in the tropics have made you—coarser. I don’t think, for instance, that if I’d asked you for a trifling sum like five hundred pounds fifteen years ago you’d have said no like this. I think you’d have lent me the money straight away, without even asking me what I needed it for. I’m afraid that being out of England has allowed you to slip, Hugh. To slide. I’m sorry to see a good man degenerating in you, Hugh.”

  “No one could say the same for you,” said Shrieve, trying not to let the sarcasm show. “Anyone can see you’re thriving.”

  “I’m not thriving,” said Jumbo crossly. “I’m extremely hard up. I live in a miserable furnished room.”

  “But what about all that money in trust?”

  “Money in trust?” He was briefly puzzled. “Oh, of course. It pays a little interest—but it’s negligible for a man of my ambition and imagination. And needs.”

  “Your means were always less than your needs, I remember.”

  “My dear chap, what can you be saying? I have never been in the very least extravagant. I’ve never been in debt. I simply can’t think what you mean.”

  “Jumbo,” Shrieve began. Then he laughed. “You’re a rogue, Jumbo, that’
s all. Time cannot wither, nor custom stale your infinite roguery. Why don’t you tell me what you really need the money for?”

  “You’re a good fellow, Hugh,” said Jumbo uneasily.

  “I wouldn’t rely on it.”

  “The fact of the matter is, old chap, that I do need a little cash just at the moment. A silly business, nothing important. As soon as it’s settled I can get on with Chester and start up these plate things. It’s a lack of the ready that’s broken many a good man ere now, eh?” He was getting back into his stride. “You see, old chap, you’ve been away a long time, and there’s no reason why you should know about the credit squeeze and all the rest of the tortures a man of business has to put up with in this country. But the Chancellor’s been putting on the pressure a bit, and to be absolutely frank, old man, my bank manager’s been making some very unpleasant cracks. Of course, every businessman has an overdraft—you’ve got to have working capital, so you borrow it from the jolly old bank. But just at the moment, what with the international situation and the balance of payments problem and all the rest of it, the old bank isn’t being so jolly.”

  “Is that so?”

  Jumbo laid a fat hand on Shrieve’s sleeve and said, “That’s it exactly, old chap. I knew you’d understand. One feels such a fool approaching an old friend for such a trivial sum.”

  “What sum?”

  “Oh, didn’t I say?” He guffawed. “It’s too small to notice. The merest flea-bite. Fifteen hundred quid.”

  “Jumbo, how on earth did you get the bank to lend you fifteen hundred quid in the first place?”

  “Oh, it’s not all the bank, of course. And fifteen hundred’s just a round figure. I suppose I owe the bank, oh, seven or eight hundred, that’s all. But there are other things, silly things, rent and so on, you know. It all adds up.”

  “I don’t see how the rent of a furnished room can account for half of fifteen hundred pounds.”

  “Oh, really, Hugh, I can’t give you the details of every miserable penny I owe here and there. And besides, when I said fifteen hundred, I was including expenses for the next couple of months, while I’m raising the capital with Chester.”

  Shrieve sighed. In Africa, letters from Jumbo had been welcome distractions in which Jumbo himself appeared as good-hearted buffoon, silly but all right. And he wasn’t all right, really, at all. He had never been all right. He had nearly drowned some of them once by opening the wrong valve while they were diving. He had defaulted on his mess debts, used his uniform to get credit, bounced cheques—all with a smile as wide as the horizon and a bonhomie that was convincing enough to gull almost everyone. The others were constantly covering up for his endless minor crimes, protecting him from his own follies and extravagances out of a mixture of amiability, charity and heavy drinking. Jumbo would be brought before them in a parody court martial, his pockets and cabin would be searched for incriminating evidence; articles bought on credit would be returned, bad debts extracted from his future pay. He would then be made to perform some humiliating ritual, such as climbing round the ward-room without touching the floor—an easy enough feat for anyone not as fat and hopelessly unathletic as Jumbo. Drunk and hilarious, they would watch him scramble and tumble, and call it all great fun. There was a war on. Their work was dangerous.

  In the mornings Shrieve had often felt ashamed, and perhaps the others had, too. They clubbed together then to pay what Jumbo couldn’t, the atmosphere less convivial. But a month or six weeks later some new and terrible delinquency would be discovered, the tension of waiting to perform their operation would have risen again, the parody of trial and punishment would be re-enacted more hilariously than ever. Long afterwards Shrieve wondered whether such evenings hadn’t humiliated Jumbo less than the others. Certainly, after a while he seemed almost to enjoy them, and once he confessed to a particularly mean piece of swindling which turned out to be a complete fabrication. When the others found out, Jumbo looked frightened, and thereafter there were no more ritual courts martial and his debts were paid less willingly. Yet he was their jester, their buffoon, and they needed him, needed a butt, a fat, dishonest butt. “It does us good to have him around,” one of them had once said. “He reminds us that war doesn’t change people, just their jobs.” To which another had said, “Balls.”

  If war didn’t change people, then neither did peace. Jumbo was the same, only less acceptable, more shabby. His cuffs, Shrieve suddenly noticed, were dirty.

  “Now look, my dear fellow,” Jumbo was saying, “it’s not as though I was asking very much from you, and you are, you know, one of my oldest, my very oldest, friends.”

  “I suppose you’ve tried to touch the others, too.”

  “They don’t understand, you know. They just think I’m trying to play on their feelings.”

  “So do I.”

  “No you don’t, Hugh, I know you better than that. I know you’re very worried to see me like this, reduced to begging for a miserable five hundred quid.”

  “It’s five hundred now, is it? But why should I be worried, Jumbo? You seem to forget how many times we all had to bail you out before.”

  “Oh, youthful extravagance and the excitement of war,” said Jumbo, dismissing the past with a wave of his hand which knocked the empty bowl of crisps to the floor.

  “Do you want another beer?” said Shrieve. “Because I’m tired, and I want to go to bed. I have a hell of a lot to do in England, and I’m afraid it’s all a good deal more important than you and your plates.”

  “Now, come, Hugh, you wouldn’t put a lot of naked savages before an old friend, would you? What’s happened to your scale of values?”

  “You talk like a Luagabu,” said Shrieve with distaste.

  “It’s time you came home and saw a bit of real life,” said Jumbo authoritatively. “You’ve lost touch with things that matter out there, you know. You don’t seem to have any sense of loyalty and so on. No feeling for old friends.”

  “I’m in touch with all that matters to me.”

  “Time you married, my boy. Or have you got a native tart lined up out there, eh? Ah, I bet that’s it. They get up to some pretty crafty tricks, those women, eh?”

  Shrieve bought more drinks in silence.

  “I don’t recall hearing that you’re married yourself,” he said, coming back.

  “I’m waiting, still waiting for the right girl to come along. I’ve had moments of thinking it was true love at last, but it never seems to have worked out right.”

  “Not rich enough?”

  “Really, Hugh, if you weren’t a very old friend, I’d take very strong exception to that remark. It’s not funny at all. I’m not the sort of man who would ever let a mere matter of money come between myself and the woman I loved.”

  “Perhaps you weren’t meant to marry,” said Shrieve. “Perhaps God looked down from heaven and saw you and decided that there wasn’t any point in continuing that particular line of research.”

  Jumbo laughed, rumblingly. “And maybe he did. And maybe I fooled him, old boy. There’s a lot of little kids running about with no one to call daddy. Some of them may be mine, you never can tell.”

  “No,” said Shrieve. “I don’t think so. I don’t think God is fooled as easily as that.”

  “Well, it’s not too late yet. I wouldn’t mind having kids. I have a soft spot for little girls. I’d like a little daughter to dandle on my knee.” He rubbed his knee thoughtfully.

  “That’ll be the day,” said Shrieve. Suddenly he was bored. The beer had made him feel uncomfortably full, and he disliked himself for mocking and exposing Jumbo’s preposterous lies.

  “Do you have Sidney Trevelyan’s address?” he said. “I thought I might look him up.”

  “Oh, he’ll be thrilled to see you,” said Jumbo.

  Trevelyan had been the senior member of their group. Shrieve thought he might contact him before the reunion to find out just how serious Jumbo’s troubles really were. Now that he thought about it, he real
ised that Jumbo would probably have gone to prison during the war if it hadn’t been for his friends.

  Jumbo found the address in his diary and Shrieve wrote it down.

  “I can’t drink any more of this,” he said, pushing his glass across the table. “Do you want it?”

  “Off your oats? Never remember you not drinking like a man, Hugh.”

  “I’ve decided I don’t like draught beer.”

  “You don’t like draught beer? Are you feeling all right, old chap? You can’t be.”

  “I’m perfectly all right, thanks. This bilge-water makes me feel bloated, that’s all.”

  “How about a short one, then, for the road?” said Jumbo. “There’s time for a quick double.”

  “No. Not unless you’d like to buy it for me.”

  Jumbo made as if he hadn’t heard. “You’ve been away too long,” he said, sadly shaking his head so that the pouches beneath his eyes wobbled. “It’s no good, you know, English chaps going off into the wilds like that. They’re never the same again.”

  Shrieve did not answer.

  “No,” said Jumbo. His nose trembled, and he sniffed hugely.“Englishmen are made for England. It was England we were fighting for in the war, Hugh, not your bloody savages. I can see you’ve lost your sense of England.”

  “You don’t even begin to know what you’re talking about,” said Shrieve coldly.

  “Oh yes I do, my dear chap, I know all too well. I’ve seen it happen before. A chap stays away from his country for too long, and he loses his roots, his sense of the place. You wander about the world, you chaps, and you’ve nowhere to call home any more.” His eyes filled with tears.

  Shrieve stared at him, appalled. How should Jumbo, of all people, know that he had no real home? How could this crass and petty crook suddenly pierce so deeply?

  He pushed back his chair and said, “Good night, Jumbo. See you at the reunion.”

  Jumbo looked up in surprise, but he had already turned and was on his way out. Before Jumbo had struggled to his feet, Shrieve was out of the pub.

  Why did it have to be Jumbo, the clown, the crook, the butt, the buffoon, why him? For the truth was there, as heavy as the beer in his stomach. Where was he going to live? What was he going to do? Where was he going to take Amy? What of the children, hers as well as his? Had he been living in a dream of England all these years, serving a vanished ideal, sweating over and caring for and loving his people for a god that was dead? Shrieve believed that England was right to be leaving Africa, that her leaving was part of the necessity which was her history, that she left because she believed her duty was done. But was there anyone in England who believed it except himself?