by Alan Judd
‘He owes me money,’ mumbled McGrain. ‘Ah’m no goin’ till ah have ma money.’
‘He’s not here at the moment.’
‘Where is he?’
‘I’m afraid I don’t know.’
McGrain nodded towards the screen. ‘You sure he’s no’ hidin’ in there?’
‘Yes, quite sure.’ He imagined McGrain climbing the counter and tearing down the screen like an enraged bear. ‘If you have a complaint you could write a letter,’ he added, not optimistically.
McGrain muttered again, lurched away and walked unsteadily towards the swing doors. Patrick reached them first and held one open for him, a gesture that he hoped would make it appear to McGrain and to the onlookers that everything was under control.
Shambling, smelly and incoherent, McGrain swayed along the corridor. He continued to mutter about Whelk and money but showed no sign of aggression. Patrick now felt bold enough to begin to question him but McGrain stopped and leant against the panelled wall. It opened and he fell through it, sprawling on his back on the concrete floor. Patrick was as surprised as he and looked beyond McGrain to a clean and well-kept gents’ lavatory. McGrain growled, swore incomprehensibly and struggled to get up. Patrick bent to help, perhaps making it appear to McGrain that whoever had pushed him down was now following up the attack. He swung his fists wildly. One crashed into the door, making him shout with anger. The other caught Patrick a glancing blow on the right eye. It did not hurt; he had seen it coming and had turned his head away. He stepped out of range and McGrain, ceasing to struggle, lay on his back, breathing heavily. Patrick waited a few moments, then stepped cautiously behind McGrain and tried again, talking softly. McGrain grunted and allowed himself to be helped. As they walked slowly down the corridor Patrick noticed the visa girls looking on open-mouthed through the windows in the double doors.
They had to wait at the lifts for some minutes. McGrain was almost comatose. He stood by the opposite wall and stared at it.
When the lift arrived Sir Wilfrid stepped out. ‘Ah, Patrick—’ he began, but stopped on seeing McGrain.
Patrick held the lift door. ‘That’s Mr McGrain, sir, I’m just taking him out.’
‘Isn’t he the DBS?’
‘Yes, sir.’
Sir Wilfrid continued to stare past Patrick. ‘Who’s been looking after him?’
‘I have. He hasn’t been here long. He’s on his way now.’
‘Are you sure he wants to leave?’
Patrick looked round to see McGrain resting his forehead against the wall and fumbling with his flies. For the first time he regarded him with real hostility. ‘Yes, sir, he’s in a hurry. He’s been telling me all about it.’ He went to McGrain, took him by the shoulders and steered the unresisting figure towards the lift. The door attempted to close but the sudden buffeting aroused him. He shouted, staggered into the lift and swung his fists again. Patrick pushed him further in and closed the door. He pressed the button for the ground floor but saw from the indicator board that the lift stopped at the third, occupied by the city’s largest and most fashionable hairdressing salon.
Sir Wilfrid looked on, pulling thoughtfully at his white hair. ‘Are you really sure he wanted to go?’
Patrick was panting slightly. ‘Yes, sir. He was a little excited, that’s all.’
‘I’ve seen him before. Didn’t he used to come and see Arthur?’
‘He seemed to think that Arthur owed him money.’
‘I know what that must have been.’ They walked towards chancery. ‘Arthur was always terribly good with these DBS chaps. I expect he used to give him some cash when he was hard up and that’s why he’s come back. Certainly poor Arthur never had any trouble with them. He always knew what to do. It’s most important you should, too. We must ensure that any British subject who comes to this embassy leaves it less distressed than when he entered.’ They waited for the chancery door to be opened. ‘Something in your eye, Stubbs?’
‘No, sir, just a knock.’
‘Must be more careful. You’ve only got two, remember.’ Sir Wilfrid laughed. When he stopped he kept his features still composed for laughter and said in a low urgent voice, ‘Have you sent that money to the L and F chappie?’
Patrick had forgotten. ‘Just about to, sir.’
‘Better get on with it. You never know, he might be in a tight spot. Let me have a note of the amount.’ He relaxed his features and walked briskly to his office.
From this time on it was believed throughout the embassy that Patrick had fought and overcome McGrain. In the consular department he was accorded more respect than anyone except the ambassador and was remembered for long after he had left as a great liberator, a toppler of tyrants. His own description of what happened was put down to modesty and he soon stopped trying to persuade anyone otherwise. Besides, the slightly swollen eye he was left with was taken as eloquent testimony to the contrary. Whenever he visited the consular department Daphne would bring him tea and cakes.
He later discovered that the gents’ lavatory door was unmarked and deliberately concealed so that it would remain known only to embassy staff: it was thought that otherwise it would have been abused every day by waiting visa applicants and loitering DBSs.
Waiting at the bus-stop on the way home that evening Patrick felt for the first time that he was regarded with mute hostility by the black people around him. It was the second occasion he had taken the bus and there had been no queue before. What struck him as hostile was the way they avoided looking at him. When the bus arrived he went to pay his fare but the driver, a big black of middle age, would not take it. He shook his head, said something and pointed at the back of the bus with his thumb. Patrick thought he was meant to pay there but could see no conductor. The passengers, all black, stared in silence.
‘Not for white,’ the driver said, with heavy emphasis.
‘Oh, sorry – is there another one for whites?’
The people waiting to pay pushed through and the driver began taking their money. ‘This bus for black people.’ He did not look up.
‘Yes, I’m sorry.’ He was unable to get off because of those still getting on. ‘Could you tell me which is the white bus?’
At first it seemed that the driver was going to make no reply but after taking another fare he pointed again with his thumb. ‘Back there for white. Next stop.’
Patrick thanked him and got off. He noticed then that there was another stop twenty yards or so up the road at which whites were queuing. They had seen him get on the wrong bus and they too avoided looking at him. He learned later that buses were driven by whites or blacks regardless of the colour of the passengers. The way to distinguish was to read the notices in the windscreens which said Whites or Non-Whites.
When the silver BMW drew up at the bus-stop he did not at first recognise the tanned driver with curly brown hair and dark glasses. He thought it was the person next to him who was being addressed in Lower African. It was only when the driver smiled and snapped his fingers for having used the wrong language that he recognised Jim Rissik. He was no longer in uniform.
‘I’ve been arguing in Lower African with my boss,’ Jim said as they moved slowly into the traffic stream. ‘It stays with you. What are you doing at a bus-stop? I thought all you embassy guys had your own Mercedes.’
‘All the British have Fords,’ said Patrick confidently. He explained his own lack.
‘Jesus,’ said Jim with a dismissive wave of his gloved hand. ‘No wonder no one buys British any more. You can’t even get the stuff here.’ He put a cassette into the tape-deck. ‘Who banged your eye?’
‘It was an accident.’
‘The embassy must be a rougher place than I thought. McGrain, I guess?’
Patrick looked at him. ‘How did you know?’
‘He’s been a problem for years. We could put him away if you wanted. You’ve only got to say the word. Looking for Arthur, was he?’
There was no point in concealment. It was, at lea
st, some relief that they were not talking about Joanna. ‘Yes, he was. I don’t know why though.’
‘Mixed up in Arthur’s playing, I reckon. That’s how McGrain makes his living. Funny how everyone’s looking for Arthur, isn’t it? All of a sudden.’
He grinned as he made the last remark. Patrick waited for him to mention the L and F man but he asked instead about Patrick’s background.
‘I suppose yours is pure Lower African?’ said Patrick after a while.
‘Not all that pure. On my father’s side it is – they go back to the early nineteenth century, all settlers and farmers – but my mother’s different. Maybe you wouldn’t know it but she’s very different.’ He paused as if waiting for a response. ‘My mother’s Jewish.’
‘Is that so different?’
‘It is here. There’s a lot of white tribes here as well as the others – Lower African, British, Italian, Portuguese. They all have different clubs, different jobs, live in different areas. They don’t like each other and they don’t mix but they unite when they have to. That’s the name of the game here.’
‘D’you like the game?’
Jim lifted both hands from the steering wheel for a moment. ‘Yes, I like it. Everyone’s out for himself in this world. That’s exhilarating. I’m one of the lucky ones, I know – I could be one of those guys.’ He pointed at an open lorry they were overtaking, in the back of which black labourers were crammed like watercress in a box. ‘Mind you, they’re lucky compared with all those starving millions in India. That’s what really gets me. The whole caste system has its origins in discrimination on account of colour. The whiter you are the higher you are. They persecute the untouchables, shoot hundreds in race riots and elections and no one says anything. Three lines in a newspaper. We shoot a few who get wound up on beer and it’s headlines the world over. Makes me sick.’
‘At least they have elections.’
‘That’s a polite name for them. How many untouchables in the government? Can you tell me that, eh?’
Jim’s face and voice became harder as he spoke. His mood changed as rapidly as the surface of water in wind. Patrick did not want a row. ‘D’you think it’s made a difference to you, being half Jewish?’
‘It’s made me very Lower African. Also, I rationalise being Lower African. Thoroughbreds don’t. They just are.’ He accelerated through the traffic with aggressive competence until turning off the motorway towards the northern suburbs. ‘You’ve got to do something about this car business, you know. You can’t live here and not have a car. How d’you get around the neighbourhood?’
‘Walk.’
‘No one walks here. I’ve got an old bakkie, what you call a pick-up. Borrow that.’
Patrick said he didn’t like borrowing cars, Jim said he was being too damned British. They compromised on Patrick buying it. It was old and battered and Jim was thinking of selling it anyway. Patrick could buy it cheaply and would sell it when the Ford arrived. He thought he should pay more for it but Jim became all the more insistent on the low price as the sense of his own generosity took hold of him. By the time they reached the house they had agreed that Patrick should see it that weekend.
Jim turned the car round in the drive. Snap barked and Sarah stood in her blue uniform at the front door. Jim leant across the passenger seat as Patrick got out. ‘When are you seeing Joanna?’
Patrick tried to pretend that it had not been to the forefront of his mind. ‘Oh – er – tomorrow, I think. Yes, tomorrow night.’ He knew he sounded unconvincing.
‘You’ll need the bakkie for then. She’s miles from here.’
‘I’ll get a taxi.’
Jim shrugged, waved at Sarah, who raised her arm mechanically, and accelerated away with a spurt of gravel.
‘D’you know him?’ Patrick asked as she put the lid on the kettle for his tea.
‘He come here sometimes.’
‘What for?’
‘To see if everything is all right.’
Her tone and expression were flat and reluctant. ‘Have you heard from Stanley?’
‘No, massa.’
‘Would you like to go home, to see if you could find him? I’ll pay your fare.’
She shook her head. ‘Thank you, massa. Is not worth that. I have my holiday later. One day he will come.’
‘It must be very worrying.’
She looked at him for the first time. ‘Thank you, massa, I am well.’
9
It was not easy to get to know Deuteronomy. He lived and worked somewhere else in the neighbourhood and appeared on only two days a week. Patrick’s first attempt at conversation was noisily interrupted by Snap who, seeing the target, leapt from the study window. Deuteronomy escaped over the garden wall leaving a glove, a burning cigarette and the garden fork where he had been standing. He did not reappear that day.
A remark of Sarah’s suggested that Deuteronomy could most easily be found on pay-days and so on those days Patrick made a habit of talking to him. They had amiable conversations. Deuteronomy grinned broadly at Patrick’s every remark, closed his eyes as though with sublime understanding, said ‘M-a-s-s-a’ in an adoring manner, then reopened and rolled his eyes before once more letting them rest, glistening with admiration, on Patrick. The result was that he continued to do what he liked with the garden, which looked presentable, while the swimming-pool became greener and murkier either despite or because of Patrick’s daily attentions.
On the day when he was to have dinner with Joanna, Patrick took the temperature on the veranda after breakfast. Already he had an energetic interest in the detail of the day. Deuteronomy was in the corner of the garden beyond the swimming-pool trying to prune a young tree with a pair of shears. Patrick crossed the neatly cut lawn. There was the usual exchange of smiles, nods and greeting noises. ‘Isn’t it difficult with the shears, Deuteronomy? Wouldn’t it be better to use a saw?’
Deuteronomy smiled. ‘Saw better, yes, massa.’
Patrick had bought the shears for him only the previous week. He pointed at them. ‘It will make them blunt. Also, they won’t cut through the bough.’
Deuteronomy nodded enthusiastic agreement. ‘You buy me shears, massa.’
‘Yes, but they are not good for the tree.’
‘Bad for tree.’ Deuteronomy pointed at the few ineffectual cuts he had made. ‘No good.’
‘No, very bad.’
‘Very bad, massa.’
‘Why don’t you use the saw?’
Deuteronomy rolled his eyes and smiled again. ‘You buy me shears, massa.’
Further conversation was cut short by the telephone. It was Clifford, speaking as though from a bunker under shellfire. Everything was happening, he had no time to waste, Patrick was to come in early that morning because a meeting had been moved forward. Also, a lot of people had dropped out of the European Community buffet lunch that was being hosted that day by Sir Wilfrid. There was a possibility of serious embarrassment. Patrick would have to come in and make up the numbers. Of course, all the drop-outs were far senior to him and he mustn’t expect to be invited in future. In fact, he needn’t stay for the whole thing. He just had to appear, that’s all. Clifford could not waste time talking. He would brief Patrick fully on arrival.
Back on the veranda Sarah and Deuteronomy were standing together. She pointed solemnly at the shears in Deuteronomy’s hand and said that there had been a misunderstanding. Deuteronomy had not wanted shears at all but a bow-saw. When Patrick bought shears Deuteronomy had assumed that he was unwilling to pay for a bow-saw and so had tried to manage with what he had been given. Sarah apologised, saying she should have realised, Patrick apologised and then so did Deuteronomy. Patrick said he would get a saw before Deuteronomy came again. They all three smiled. Deuteronomy went back to the tree and continued to hack at it.
The meeting that morning was one of a series involving what Clifford called the Ministerial Task Force. It comprised himself, Philip, the commercial officer and Patrick. Its purp
ose was to arrange the forthcoming ministerial visit. As the series went on minutes were drafted, redrafted, lengthened, filed, rewritten, lost, found, abandoned, resurrected and superseded. Programmes were drawn up, revised, split, merged, provisionally accepted, provisionally rejected and filed for ever. Clifford spent longer in the embassy with every day that passed. Philip was walled in behind ever-rising stacks of files. He would not go home whilst Clifford was there. His responsibility was to draft the ministerial political briefing in a form that could be sent to London and combined with whatever was drafted there. He took as his starting point the discovery by Europeans of that part of the continent. Clifford allocated to himself the statistical presentation of UK-Lower African trade and financial dealings – what he called ‘the hub and centre of good relations’ – and nominated the commercial officer to prepare the figures. Patrick was responsible for transport arrangements.
Clifford was incapable of delegation. Every decision taken at each meeting was overturned by subsequent memos which were themselves altered at subsequent meetings. He had never got on with Harry White, and soon reached the stage of communicating only by memo, save when they argued at Task Force meetings.
The man’s a buffoon,’ he complained, red-faced and pulling at his shirt-collar as if to widen it. ‘Doesn’t understand the first principles of anything. I sent him a memo yesterday making the point about invisibles and he sent a ridiculous piece of paper back saying he couldn’t see the point at all. Either he was being facetious and therefore daft or he can’t follow a logical argument and is therefore more daft. It’s Personnel I blame really. They’re at the root of most of our problems.’
Harry was older, hard-working and not very able. He resented not having been promoted. Like Clifford and Philip, he saw the ministerial visit as a chance to shine and like them wished to prevent anyone else from shining more brightly. Patrick was too new and too junior to be a threat and so Harry took to ringing him several times a day to complain about Clifford and to find out what was going on. He had a morbid and just suspicion that Clifford was trying to prevent him from even meeting the minister. One day, in a rage, he stormed unannounced into chancery to complain that Clifford was attempting to remove all references to the commodity futures market from the brief.