Just the Memory of Love

by Peter Rimmer

  “There are no prices,” said Byron, without looking up from the wine list. “I’m paying.”

  “Why no prices?” asked Will.

  “In a place like this, if you have to ask the price you can’t afford to be here… It’s your last night. We can go on to a club if you want a girl.”

  “Where is Shelley singing?”

  “Not Shelley. Thank you… A bottle of Château Mouton Rothschild ’47. No, make it two and take the corks out of both. And the duck for both of us.”

  “No oysters?” said the owner.

  “What for? No women.” Byron laughed, and the owner tittered and left the table.

  “Can’t remember his name and he wouldn’t give a tinker’s cuss about me and my name if I wasn’t paying… The power of money. Always was and always will be… You owe Johnny Pike a favour.”

  “Who is Johnny Pike?” asked Will.

  “The man that arranged the forgery of your papers. He’s a crook. A good one. Trained by his father. They own a piece of my operation. The future growth industry, crookery. When all governments are liars and thieves, no one can tell the difference between a politician and an honest crook. Your documents are perfect.”

  “And if the RAF check up?”

  “Still perfect.”

  “And the member in charge?”

  “He was phoned yesterday.”

  “You frighten me, Byron.”

  “You don’t think I got rich being a stockbroker’s clerk?”

  “You’ll get caught.”

  “Nothing I do is illegal.”

  “Forging colonial police documents?”

  “We copied them actually. As from three days ago you were a police reservist in the Northern Rhodesian police. Welensky, your Federal Prime Minister, is having some trouble in Nyasaland with a rising politician named Banda. Your call back letter from the member in charge is genuine. When you reach Mongu, report to the police station.”

  “How did this Johnny Pike come into it?”

  “Someone in the Federal government owed Johnny’s father a favour. That’s how it works. You may or may not find out yourself. Just depends what happens with your life.”

  Will found the red wine delicious with the duck. The worry of being found out receded with the intake of alcohol.

  “Even though Shelley turned you down, why haven’t you taken Shelley out as a girlfriend?” Will asked.

  “Because probably I think I love her which is a nice word for lust which mostly lasts a few weeks. Marriage is the biggest single business contract we enter into in our life. Shelley could make me want to get married because of an ancient power that has nothing to do with my brains. Marriage is serious. Shelley and I would be frivolous, sexual and limited, none of which is a basis for having someone around for the rest of my life. Apart from a sexual magnetism we have nothing in common.”

  “You don’t believe in love?”

  “Temporary love can turn into permanent dependence which is what they call a happy marriage. Shelley and I will make each other a lot of money. Money lasts longer than emotion.”

  “Without love, the rest isn’t worth living.”

  “Whoever told you life was worth the living? Most of it is a complete waste of time. There is certainly no final point to it which is why man over the millennia has been so determined to find a religion. And there are as many religious ideas as there are political. Without a God to make it all better and give us a final place to hide, the whole thing is ridiculous and mostly painful. Hence my hedonistic desire to enjoy myself as much as possible and that requires lots of money, brother. The religious and political ideas come and go and leave behind money and sex, in that order for a man, in the reverse order for a woman.”

  “You frighten me.”

  “The truth always does. And that’s the second time I’ve frightened you but it won’t be the last. The mumbo jumbo they taught us at school was to make us conform to their society. Believe in what we say, do what we say and in the future you will be happy. One superior class, one wife, one religion. Do your duty for queen and country. Load of bullshit.”

  “How can a family brought up by the same parents be so different? Maybe I should have been a painter and lived in a French attic and thought nice thoughts all day long.”

  “You want to go to a club?”

  “Not really, Byron. If I am to find a woman, she has to have the chance for me of being permanent, I don’t think I fit into your hedonistic society of one-night stands. I’m twenty-two and still a virgin and maybe I will leave it that way for a while.”

  “To the romantic,” said Byron, lifting his glass. “Look after yourself, younger brother. Have a good trip.”

  Part 3

  1963 to 1964

  1

  Josephine Langton’s flutter with the British Communist Party had lasted six months. The power lay with the Labour Party. Many dedicated to world socialism, where the limitless wealth of the world would be evenly distributed over all mankind, found their political home with Labour. They were patient.

  Josephine was thirty-two in the spring of 1963, not married, not wishing to be dominated by any male and using her hatred of the system to hide the awful failure of a mother who had deliberately killed her unborn child. The boy, she was now sure the aborted foetus would have been, would have turned thirteen at the end of the year. She never thought of Wolfgang Baumann, the father, only her son.

  Urged on by Paul Mwansa, with whom she had gone to bed twice to prove a point that all mankind was equal, she sat her current hobby horse in the London County Council and screamed abuse at colonialism in general and the Federation of the Rhodesias and Nyasaland in particular. She had won a council seat three weeks after her thirtieth birthday, a birthday she looked back on as the watershed of her life. Finally, she had decided in the recesses of her own mind that she would never now become a dutiful wife with three children deferring to a husband and his career. Brutally, she turned away from the biological function of her life. She was as good as any man and better than most and the only use she made of her female body was to pursue her career – or prove a point. Without her emotion involved, Josephine found manipulating men pathetically easy, especially the political males, who were generally oversexed and driven to prove it with as many women as they found would oblige. Josephine dressed severely in suits but there was always the penetration of the violet eyes, an unexpected flash, a loose button that showed the soft silk of a bra, the inside of a thigh. Coming from Comrade Langton, the revelation was nothing short of erotic. Paul Mwansa had ejaculated in his underpants before either of them could get them off.

  The Central African Federation had been put together by the British in 1953, with the member states entitled to secession at the end of ten years. The economic benefits were monumental, the chance to erase the poverty of turbulent Africa, but the politics remained in the hands of a few white settlers. Northern Rhodesia and Nyasaland secretly opted to secede and travel independent paths on the Westminster system of one man one vote. It was to be the death of the British Empire in Africa and, following upon the aborted campaign to oust Colonel Nasser from his own Suez Canal, marginalised Britain and made her largely irrelevant in world politics. The largest empire the world had ever known began to fold its tents around the world and retreat to the small island off the coast of Europe. The people in the new politics in England who mattered, who were viewing the world from their ‘correct’ political premise, cheered the loudest.

  Byron, being of a more practical mind, had laughed at his sister’s rhetoric. “Giving other peoples’ money away is easy, sis. The trick is making it in the first place. What do you socialists do when you’ve run out of other peoples’ money to give away? Unsustainable, old girl. It’s a one-off like your one man one vote in Africa… Are you sure we are twins?”

  When Byron left her small flat in Notting Hill Gate, Josephine was fuming. It was a Saturday night and there were no meetings. Byron had the irritating habit of droppin
g in when he was bored, stirring her up for half an hour and then leaving with an enigmatic smile on his face. He always had a future scenario to her politics that was the opposite of her intention, with always a ring of truth hanging in the air. First she watered the pot plants and when that failed to take her off the boil she snatched up the phone and dialled Heathcliff Mortimer who answered on the second ring. Josephine always thought he stood over the phone waiting to pounce. The man never said anything.

  “Are you there, Heath?”

  “Of course. Who do you think picked up the phone?”

  “Why don’t you say hello or something?”

  “You rang, not me. Obviously you had something to say. Why must I clutter up the conversation?”

  “Will you come over?”

  “Do you have any whisky?”

  “No.”

  “Then I’ll have to bring my own.”

  The phone at the other end clicked and left Josephine looking at a silent hand piece.

  Half an hour later Heathcliff Mortimer eased the bulk of his backside into the only comfortable chair and poured himself a large whisky, raising the glass briefly to Josephine. He was sixty and had long given up the fight against his weight, letting his belly grow to whatever size it chose. The sexual monkey had climbed off his back at the same time his paunch grew to a prodigious size but he still preferred the company of women.

  “How’s the paper?” she asked.

  “Spiritually or financially?”

  “Either.”

  “We write the truth but the truth no longer sells. They want bums and tits. Macmillan says they have never had it so good. I was born forty years too late.”

  “What is Lord Manningly going to do?”

  “Look for someone to bail him out.” There was a silence as Heath waited. “Thought that was why you had asked me round?”

  “No, it was Byron. Accused me of giving away other people’s money.”

  “Nicer to call it a redistribution of wealth.”

  “Do you think we should give away the empire?”

  “Certainly. Damn thing’s costing us money and the good parts want to hive off on their own, dump the sterling block and trade in the open market. England’s changing. We don’t rely on raw materials to manufacture and export back to the colonies. More worry than they are worth, the colonies. Financial centre, that’s England. We will sell our ideas, not the product of our factories… So you haven’t heard about Byron’s latest move?”

  Josephine shook her head.

  “Are you sure you are twins?”

  “Byron just asked the same question. Yes, I’m sure. Opposites can sometimes be alike. What’s my brother up to this time?”

  “He’s made an offer to buy out Lord Manningly. If he succeeds, I will get the sack… Biggest mystery is where he gets the money. Do you know anything about his companies? Something I can use? At my age I won’t get another job.”

  “Byron started young,” said Josephine. “Risk ventures that came off, Shelley Lane and his recording company. Byron knows what is going to happen. Why I called you. Says socialism is unsustainable.”

  “Practical socialism probably is. People always find a way of taking advantage of a good thing. Why does he want to buy a newspaper that loses half a million a month?”

  “If my brother takes over, you won’t lose money for long. Yes, you will lose your job. Byron has not one jot of sentiment.”

  “When do you leave for Africa?”

  “Next week. Go through the motions. The Labour Party knows its facts when it comes to colonialism. Get out fast. We don’t need a fact-finding commission to prove that.”

  “Don’t you have a brother out there?”

  “Two, sort of. Hilary was adopted during the war. His father was Dad’s tail gunner and got blown out of the rear turret. Hilary’s a missionary. Will shoots animals for a living. Rich American clients. Some German. Poor bloody animals. Haven’t seen him for years. They tried to make him do his national service. Byron got him out of the country ahead of the Air Force Police. Can’t come back, I think. Maybe I should find out.”

  “What will happen to him?”

  “We all have our problems.”

  Will Langton’s love affair with wildlife photography began four years earlier, after he was forced to leave England in a hurry on board the City of York. On his return to Barotseland, he explained to the member in charge, Mongu, why he was reporting for duty in the Police Reserve.

  “Glad to help, Langton. Requests to join the reserve are processed quickly, especially for someone with your background. Hannes and I go back a long way. Uncertain times, Langton. Could find the local gentry stirring up trouble and running off into the bush. Where trained hunters like you come in. Glad to have you on board. The RAF sent us a form to fill in so you shouldn’t hear any more from them. Once the old files have been processed everything fits into place. No loose ends. I should know. Just between you and me, you joined up here before you went to England with the ivory. Just between you and me, that is, which brings me to poor old Hannes. Who would have thought, a man of his vast experience? Young one, couldn’t have been more than a year old, blocked his path upstream of your base camp. Not five hundred yards from your wire. Took his hat off and brushed at the calf and the mother came out of the shadow of a tree and went berserk. Picked up Hannes and threw him all of thirty feet at a tree and then knelt on him. Mercifully from what I saw, Hannes was dead before he hit the tree. Blood and guts splattered all over the place, I’m afraid. Terrible mess. Bloody hell, I had to turn away from my black constable as I wasn’t sure whether I was going to cry or be sick and you can’t do that sort of thing in front of local gentry. Week before, Hannes gave me a letter for you. Said it contained his will. Had Mr Jones, the resident, witness it with me. Very formal. But it was an accident, Langton. No doubt about the elephant. God has strange ways. You’d better go back to your base camp and sort out the chaps. Sixpence, poor chap, took it right on the chin. The others not much better. We wired the booked clients not to come and waited for you. Fact is, old chap, you own the whole bang shoot now. You want a lift downriver? I’ll have one of my men drive you down. Glad you came back to Africa. Sort of has something, doesn’t it? Africa I mean, old chap, Africa.”

  “Thanks but I’ll ask Laurie to drive me down,” said Will.

  Strangely in the club that afternoon, everyone seemed to know about his brush with the RAF. Mongu, Will rationalised, was a long way from anywhere in Africa, which was a long way from anywhere at all. Anyway, the form had been sent back with all the right rubber stamps.

  The airport manager, Laurie Hall, had finally driven him back to the base camp the following day as everyone in Mongu had dropped in to tell Will how sorry they were about Hannes and buy him a drink. They all knew he was Hannes’s heir and condoled with him as though he had been the son. Will was drunk and sad and happy in different waves as the procession of people bought him drinks. Hannes had never wanted to grow old. It was not a suicide, and it was not an accident, Will saw with clarity, but Hannes calling to the will of God and God had answered him.

  Hilary Bains had reached the club in time for lunch, a pure coincidence. He was thin and wasted, his face-skin yellow rather than tanned. He looked more like thirty-five than twenty-five. He was surprised to see his adopted brother.

  “I was going to tell the family afterwards,” said Hilary. “How are the group captain and your mother? Fact is, I’m getting married. Mary has been my lay-worker for the last six months. She’s quite a few years older than me but looking at us you’d say she was ten years the younger, I’m afraid. Came out to help the mission station and did I need the help! Just don’t have enough time or money and Mary is a trained nurse and wants to be a doctor. We both have a compassion for people less fortunate than ourselves. I mean one Englishman and one Englishwoman together in the middle of nowhere isn’t quite right. We were eating together and everything else – no, don’t get me wrong!” Will had r
aised a quizzical eyebrow. “Mary suggested it. We both want to stay on the mission so it makes sense. Mary is very sensible. We will have to wait until the bishop pays us a visit but I’ll let you know if I have time. Wouldn’t it be wonderful to have a telephone, though I can’t see that happening in my lifetime. Came in to send a letter to Mary’s father in Surrey, asking his permission. Didn’t trust anyone else to put it in the post. Now, tell me all the news and about poor old Hannes and why you’re back so quickly, Will. Didn’t you like England after Africa? Only God knows if I will ever go back. Used up my home allowance to buy medicine. There’s just never enough money.”

  Will had been thinking through what he was going to do with the rest of his life ever since the boat turned out of the English Channel and headed for the Canary Islands. Now circumstances were driving him back to the base camp as sole owner of an internationally known safari operation, and he had only turned twenty-two on the way up, in the train from Cape Town to Johannesburg.

  Sixpence, Fourpence and Onepenny were waiting for him at the gate into the wire enclosure. The black man’s ability to know an event before it happened without the aid of a telephone never failed to surprise Will, but after so many repetitions he was prepared to accept that the Lozi, the indigenous people who lived in Barotseland, had another sense that was unknown to the European. The three trackers were dressed in their best clothes, long-faced and formal, and for the first ten minutes refused to show their white teeth in a smile while Will kept his eye on the Goliath heron. Everything looked the same: the high deck above the flowing river, the long bar visible through the open side of the thatched deck. The tame impala buck looked at him with the same soft warm eyes. A twelve-foot python slid out of the shade to have a look at the commotion.

  “The white rabbit had eleven babies,” said Sixpence, showing his teeth for the first time, “but that python ate them babies and all the rabbits. Baas, we buried next to the fever tree. Bury baas deep so no hyena get his bones. Now you the baas, baas. You one month late for pay. Soon no food. Good you come back.”