by Alan Judd
She laughed. ‘Oh no, no.’
In the second family she worked for the madam suddenly returned to England, leaving the husband with a girl of three and a baby boy of six months. She remained with them for four years until the man remarried and reared the baby herself.
‘That was heavy pull, massa,’ she said, shaking her head slowly and grinning. ‘That piccaninny was heavy pull. But now he is fine boy.’
For the first time in his life Patrick could afford to take wine with his meals. He soon found that he took it before and after his meals, too. Following his conversation with Sarah on the Saturday night he had another glass, then another, and then felt bold enough to ring Joanna again. He knew whilst dialling that Saturday night was probably the worst time: she would either be out with Jim or in with Jim, but he dialled nonetheless.
It was she who answered. When he said who he was she said ‘Yes’ sharply as if he should have known it was obvious. He asked if she would like lunch some time and she again simply said, ‘Yes.’ He began to suggest dates but she cut him short with, ‘It’s difficult at the moment.’ When he asked if he should ring back she said, ‘It’s just a bit difficult at the moment.’ He asked if he should ring the following day and she said, ‘Yes.’
He put down the phone and poured another glass, feeling drunk and miserable and farther than ever from recalling the reason why it seemed so important to ring her there and then.
On the Sunday morning Sarah went to church with two other women of about her own age. They all wore black skirts, stockings and shoes, red long-sleeved blouses with wide white collars, like a sailor’s, and round white hats. They each carried a bible.
The day stretched ahead but he was not now depressed by it. Sometime he would ring Joanna and whether that brought good news or bad was, as regards coping with the time on his hands, immaterial. It was as if he had to go and fight at a moment of his own choosing; for the time being he was content to keep the event in the future. There had been no frost and the day was warm and bright, the blue sky vivid and exhilarating. He sat reading on the veranda and occasionally patrolled the garden wall with Snap. Once or twice he netted leaves that had fallen into the pool. Already, after only a few days of his tenure, it was not quite the colour it should have been. He decided to put off vacuum-cleaning or adding more chemicals until he could see which colour it was becoming.
Sarah returned from church before lunch which she ate in her quarters whilst he laboured over a tin of soup. After lunch she slept, as did he, but after that she came to him on the veranda. She still wore her church uniform and carried her bible. He thought for a moment that he was to be subjected to a conversion attempt or ticked off for not having been to church.
‘Are you going to church again, Sarah?’
‘Yes, massa, and again this evening.’
She looked solemn. He waited for the criticism.
‘Massa, I have a man called Harold.’
He nodded, waiting for more. She waited for him. ‘Your husband?’
‘He is’ – she moved her shoulders awkwardly without taking her eyes from him – ‘the father of my children.’
‘Ah, yes. And his name is Harold.’
‘Yes, massa.’ She became more confident and went on to explain that although Harold worked in a Battenburg mental hospital he was not allowed to spend the night with her because he had no permit to stay in the northern suburbs. She had no permit to stay in his area. With repeated promises of discretion, she asked if he could surreptitiously spend the occasional night with her. He was a quiet man, not drunk, and would leave his car round the back of the garage and out of sight from the road. Mr Whelk had allowed him to do that.
Patrick agreed. She clasped her bible in both hands and thanked him effusively.
He invited her to sit. After a brief hesitation she sat carefully on the edge of one of the wickerwork chairs. ‘Do you think it is bad that you can’t spend the night together whenever you like?’ he asked.
She frowned. ‘Bad, massa?’
‘Wrong, not right. Do you dislike it?’
She opened her eyes wide. ‘No, no, not bad. To be every night with a man, that is bad. When you are young maybe is all right but when you are older’ – she closed her eyes and shook her head, smiling – ‘when you are older once every two, three weeks maybe is enough. Anyway, he is a lazy man. Every time I have to do his washing and he never go to church, never.’
‘Do you ask him to go?’
‘Yes, but he sleep, always he sleep. He say he is too tired and will go next week. He is lazy man.’
She laughed and he noticed for the first time that one of her teeth was missing. He could not understand how he had not noticed it before and thereafter never saw her laugh without wondering how he could have missed it. She went to church that afternoon and went again, as she had said, that evening.
It was also evening when he rang Joanna, his now customary glass of wine by the telephone. She sounded friendly and relaxed and began by apologising. Jim was there when he rang before. They were having a sort of row and it was a bit awkward. Patrick apologised without meaning it and, encouraged by her manner, suggested dinner rather than lunch. She agreed.
‘Did Jim know it was me?’ he asked.
‘Yes. Well, he asked who it was and I told him.’
‘Did he mind?’
‘I don’t know. He didn’t say much. Perhaps he did. I was just glad of the silence.’ She laughed and he imagined her turning her head and pushing back her hair.
He put the phone down, his feet up and poured himself another glass. With effortless accuracy he tossed the empty bottle into the wastepaper basket and described Joanna to Snap.
8
The telegram was addressed to the British Ambassador and marked Personal. It read: FUNDS LOW STOP NO COMMS LONDON STOP SEND MONEY HOTEL STOP PROGRESS SOON STOP MACKENZIE END. It had been sent from a well-known hotel on the coast. Sir Wilfrid pushed it into Patrick’s hand as staff gathered for the ambassador’s weekly meeting.
‘Come to my room afterwards,’ he murmured.
During the meeting Sir Wilfrid sat at the head of a long table with everyone else ranged along it in order of consequence. There was an empty place next to him where the counsellor, who was on mid-tour leave, normally sat. On the other side and slightly lower was Clifford, next to him Philip. Opposite Philip sat the defence attaché and next to him the commercial officer. At the far end of the table there was a silent jockeying for position between the security officer, the senior registry clerk, Miss Teale, the press officer and the commercial officer’s assistant. The British Council representative who was always invited through either courtesy or habit sat on a chair at one side as if to preserve his political virginity. Patrick sat next to Philip.
Sir Wilfrid wore a baggy tweed suit with a large red handkerchief billowing from the top pocket and breadcrumbs on the waistcoat. He smoked a curved pipe which would not stay lit and he had a new pipe stem behind his left ear. His manner was businesslike, almost tetchy.
‘Expenses and allowances,’ he said. ‘Inspectors are coming, as you know. Looks like allowances will be cut.’ There was a perceptible stiffening around the table. Sir Wilfrid paused, put his forefinger inside his collar and looked up at the ceiling. ‘Heard from poor old Joe Slingsby in Tripoli. Anyone know him? Married one of the Dalton girls – Lord Dalton’s. Went all wrong years ago, of course. Then married his secretary like everyone else.’ He pulled his finger out of his collar and examined it. ‘Point is, he’s had the inspectors at Tripoli and there and elsewhere they’ve cut both allowances and establishment. I reckon they’ll do the same here.’
Most people stared at their notepads. Someone dropped a pencil.
‘How big a cut, sir?’ asked Clifford.
‘About twenty-five per cent, according to old Joe.’
It was as though it had been announced that twenty-five per cent of staff were to be shot. Sir Wilfrid dug into his pipe with his knife, manifestin
g an unconcern so obvious as to suggest he was in fact relishing the effect of his words.
Philip leaned forward. ‘Surely, sir, across-the-board reductions on such a scale are inapplicable here?’
‘Don’t see why. Our allowances are probably too high, anyway. After all, they’re supposed to compensate for being abroad and to enable us to live at a properly representational standard, nothing more. We’re not meant to make money out of them, though people do, of course. I worked for an ambassador once who banked his entire salary and his entire ambassador’s fund, which was as much again and tax-free. He never entertained anyone to more than one glass of sherry. Bloody awful stuff that was, too. Also, this isn’t exactly a hardship post. We’re not like those poor devils in Angola, scratching around for a bit of cabbage leaf to see them through the day.’ He knocked out the scrapings from his pipe, carefully closed the knife and began to refill. ‘Next, the forthcoming visit by our junior minister. Is that in hand, Clifford?’
Clifford was making calculations on his notepad. ‘Ah, yes, sir. All in order. I’m finalising the plans. It’s going to be quite a fuss, this one.’ He laughed.
‘Of course it’s going to be a fuss. He’s a minister.’
Clifford laughed again and nodded. ‘Exactly. I’ll get Patrick to help with the final stages.’ He looked significantly at Patrick, who was surreptitiously rereading the telegram.
‘Patrick has other business, don’t forget,’ Sir Wilfrid replied in a tone that was probably meant to be discreet but which sounded sinister and caused everyone to stare.
‘Is the ministerial visit before or after the inspectors, sir?’ asked the commercial officer.
‘Before. No good looking to him for help. He’s only a junior minister. It’s nothing to do with him.’ He relit his pipe, waving away the smoke with wide sweeps of his arm. ‘We’ll discuss the visit nearer the time when I’ve seen your proposals, Clifford. Now, what about these riots down south?’
There was some uneasy shuffling. Clifford leant forward, his expression pregnant with news. ‘Up to a thousand rioters. Two dead and a number injured. It’s all quiet now. It was on the radio this morning.’
‘Yes,’ said Sir Wilfrid mildly. ‘It was in the papers, too. That’s how we know about it. But London will expect us to have an opinion. We have to decide now what it should be.’
There was a pause. The main effect of the rioting, so far as the embassy was concerned, was that it generated paper. Various opinions were put forward as to the cause of the riot, including the unusually warm weather in the south, the unpopular increase in bus fares and the extent to which terrorists had infiltrated Lower Africa. The fares issue was thought to be the most important.
Sir Wilfrid nodded. ‘Yes, that’s what the papers say and they’re often right. But of course people in London may question whether they want to maintain an embassy just to tell them what they can read in their papers on the way to work. They may expect their embassy to contribute more than that, though sadly I doubt it. But that’s by the by. It shouldn’t stop us from trying.’
He spoke crisply. The faces round the table were puzzled and fearful. Philip leant forward and tentatively scratched his right ankle, usually a sign that he was about to speak.
‘The radio also said that hand grenades had been found in a servant’s quarters in the northern suburbs,’ he said.
‘Indeed it did, Philip. I listen to the radio too. But if we’re going to say anything about it we should try to assess whether, for instance, this was an isolated incident or whether it might be part of a campaign to radicalise the domestics in the northern suburbs.’ There was a little awkward laughter. Sir Wilfrid looked at them all. ‘Well, has anyone any suggestions?’
The security officer, seated at the bottom of the table and generally ignored because he dealt with security, cleared his throat and began to speak in a quiet Midlands accent. He mentioned the forthcoming trial of some terrorists who had attacked a police station. If they were sentenced to death as was expected there could be widespread trouble. Grenades could indicate preparation for trouble, just as the finding of them might indicate pre-emptive action by the police. Whatever the present cause of the riots, if they continued until the trial they would inevitably become associated with it and might lead to further disorders.
He spoke slowly, with several nervous glances at the ambassador. When he finished Sir Wilfrid took his pipe from his mouth. ‘Thank you, Bernard, that was an excellent suggestion and the first this morning not to have appeared in the press. It may soon do so and thus I think an early telegram to London today is called for – will you draft something, Clifford, and let me see it before it goes?’
‘Right, sir.’ Clifford nodded and looked at Philip, who nodded bleakly, moving his lips as he made notes on his pad.
‘Good,’ continued Sir Wilfrid. ‘Any other business?’
Harry White, the commercial officer, pulled up his chair and read a report of a visit he had made to a machine tool factory, the manager of which had said that he would have bought British rather than German and Japanese machinery had it been less expensive, delivered on time, more reliable and easier to service. Harry was an earnest man who the previous year had had printed two thousand copies of a twenty-page document entitled, ‘Redistribution of Greater London Industrial and Office Employment during the past Ten Years’. The blank sides were now used, without his knowledge, as rough drafting paper in chancery. Philip had said that the paper was in fact rather well written but he was the only person who had bothered to read it. When Harry finished reading his report everyone nodded sagely and the ambassador thanked him.
After the meeting Clifford asked Sir Wilfrid if they could have a word about the British-Lower African Trade Association lunch at which Sir Wilfrid was to speak. The ambassador nodded and said, ‘Patrick, come into my office. Time we got cracking.’
Patrick followed, feeling Clifford’s glance at his back. He closed the door as Sir Wilfrid rooted noisily among the pipes in the grandfather clock. ‘God, these meetings drive me mad. I hope you’ll be spared them by the time you get to my position though frankly I doubt it. Mind you, there might not be a Foreign Office by then because someone one day will wake up to the fact that if you don’t have an aggressive foreign policy you don’t need a large foreign service. Cut your overseas representation and leave just enough to handle consular matters and to transmit diktats from London. They’ll say that’s all we’ll need and they’ll be right. It could so easily be otherwise, that’s the tragedy of it. The machine is excellent but there’s no one to make it work. We need heart, belief, will.’ He came away from the clock with a well-chewed pipe and changed the mouthpiece for the one behind his ear. His eyes were hard with conviction.
‘D’you think I’m mad?’
‘No, sir.’
He smiled suddenly and his gaze softened. ‘I bet you do but I’ll go on. You see, I think we are the tentacles of the octopus, London, but the heart of the octopus isn’t pumping out enough blood any more and we are going to die. D’you see what I mean? One day we’ll wither and drop off. Of course, I shouldn’t be talking to you like this, a young man at the start of your career, but one has to let off steam sometimes.’ He threw the discarded mouthpiece back into the clock, then faced Patrick, his hands in his jacket pockets. ‘Now: Whelk.’
He was in no doubt that the telegram was from the L and F man, though MacKenzie was not a name he recalled. It didn’t matter because it could only have come from him. Mind you, he shouldn’t have sent it because the Lower African authorities were likely to get on to it. They might think it odd and so sniff him out. Embarrassment all round, accusations about British spies and so on. Fortunately the minister approved – which was about the only good thing one could say about this minister – and so the mud would be spread widely and thinly. The point was that the poor chap must be desperate to have done this. He must really need money and was clearly out of touch with his own people in London. Equally clearly, he wa
s on to something. It would be asking for trouble, foolhardy, for the embassy to send him anything, nor could he himself, for the same reason. That left Patrick: could he see his way to forwarding something from his own account to tide the chap over? He would get it back all right – that was guaranteed.
Patrick did not know how much he had but assumed he could afford it. Sir Wilfrid, pleased, then suggested he should visit ‘our friend Inspector Rissik’ before doing so, partly to see if Rissik dropped any hints about knowing what was going on – in which case, better not send the money – and partly because it was high time Patrick got on with the official liaison anyway.
Patrick agreed, although he wanted to avoid Jim Rissik almost as much as he wanted to see Joanna. Clifford tried to prevent him going by claiming there was important work in chancery for him that day. Patrick would happily have done it if Clifford had been prepared to argue with the ambassador, which he was not. He was in fact interested to try some political reporting since it was supposed to be one half of his job. He did not, of course, know what he would have reported and was already beginning to suspect that the amount of original political thought, insight or opinion was so small that it had to be jealously guarded.
‘Don’t be more than an hour,’ said Clifford crossly. ‘We’ve got to talk about the arrangements for the ministerial visit. You’ll probably have to work through lunch.’
Patrick nodded obediently. ‘When is the visit?’
‘No date’s been fixed. That’s why we have to be on our toes, in case they spring an early one on us. Can’t have people swanning off all over the city. One hour, remember.’
Clifford spoke in the tone he used when he was annoyed with Sandy. Patrick felt less obedient. He nearly asked if they could synchronise watches but thought of Sandy and the bath, and minded Clifford less.
The police headquarters was a twenty-two storey building near the city centre. It was notorious because of the number of people alleged to have fallen or thrown themselves from twelfth-floor windows whilst assisting the police with their enquiries. Others had hanged themselves in their cells.