by Alan Judd
‘The people are used to it.’
‘But they don’t like it, surely?’
‘Oh no, sometimes they are very angry.’ Mr Oboe laughed.
‘It must change. It cannot go on like this.’
‘Yes, must change.’
The table tennis ball bounced again on to the floor.
‘D’you think it will change?’ asked Patrick.
Mr Oboe looked puzzled. ‘Will change?’
‘The government and the black people – d’you think it will change?’
‘Will change one day, perhaps.’ He grinned, put his hand to his face and nudged Patrick.
There were effusive farewells from the gaggle of children and several minutes of shaking hands with Mr Oboe. They left by a different route so that Patrick could see more of the township. He saw the same rows of bungalows with corrugated iron roofs and acres of the same brown land. There was far more space than in European towns. Sir Wilfrid talked about Mr Oboe’s enthusiasm and helpfulness, how he did much for children and how it was better to do something for only a tiny minority than to do nothing at all.
‘Of course, it can’t go on, people living like this and the rest of us in luxury. It has to change.’
‘Yes, I suppose it does.’ Patrick was calculating at what time he would now have to ring Joanna.
Sir Wilfrid looked at him. ‘But isn’t it obvious that it does? How can it possibly go on?’
Patrick only ever thought about the problem with reluctance. It could very possibly go on for a very long time. ‘You mean, civil war and—’
‘No, no, I don’t mean anything like that. The whites would always win unless the blacks had truly massive help – white help – from outside. The Rhodesians would never have given in in Zimbabwe if their white supporters abroad hadn’t threatened to turn off the taps. And even if the blacks did win a civil war that wouldn’t improve matters much. You’d simply substitute one form of tribal domination for another. No, what I mean is that people must be made to see that they’re wrong and then helped to put things right. It’s our job to hammer that message home every minute of every day. Don’t you agree?’
Patrick thought of Jim Rissik. ‘D’you think it makes any difference if they do see they’re wrong?’
‘You mean that to know the good is not necessarily to desire it? Plato wouldn’t have liked that at all, not at all. You must have a pretty gloomy view of human nature, Patrick. Surely one always feels one wants to do something to improve the world – don’t you feel that?’
‘Well, if possible.’ Patrick had never seriously considered improving the world any more than he had considered improving himself.
The ambassador banged his hand upon the steering wheel. ‘The point is not “if” – we have to make it possible,’ he said energetically.
He did this at a point where the road dipped to cross a thin brown stream which had several feet of dried mud on either side. Having approached the stream slowly he accelerated and overcorrected the steering-wheel. Patrick felt the car go and grabbed the door handle. The rear wheels spun, slithered off the road and sank into the caked mud.
Sir Wilfrid banged both hands on the steering-wheel. ‘Now we’re stuck again. Every time I take this car out something goes wrong.’
Patrick was every bit as angry. He could see both his telephone call and his dinner sabotaged. Night would fall and breakdown lorries would fail to arrive. They got out.
‘Can we push it, d’you think?’ asked Sir Wilfrid.
The wheels were deep in the mud. Patrick pointed at a group of men standing some way off the road. ‘We could ask them to help.’
Sir Wilfrid paused with his hand to his head. ‘I wonder if we should? On the other hand, why not? You wait here.’
He walked over to the group and when a few yards from them began to beckon and cry, ‘I say!’ as if they were still a hundred yards away. He made pushing motions with his hand, pointed at the car and shouted loudly enough for Patrick to hear. ‘We are stuck – car stuck – you push please, okay?’
The men ambled good-naturedly over, some of them laughing, and after a few seconds of heaving the car was back on the road. Patrick joined in and everyone laughed when his foot went into the mud. Sir Wilfrid distributed banknotes which were accepted with no sign of humiliation.
‘Jolly helpful, these chaps,’ he said as they drove away, leaving the men standing much as they had been before. ‘Don’t think they minded, do you? Very willing. People say they don’t work but it’s not true. They jolly well do.’
On the outskirts they passed some large and expensive-looking bungalows with appropriate cars. ‘Indians, mostly,’ said Sir Wilfrid. ‘One or two wealthy blacks. Businessmen, gangsters and so on.’ He appeared to make no distinction. ‘They don’t get up at four-thirty to get to Battenburg like the others. They drive in or stay behind and make their money here. It’s dreadful that people should be forced into such behaviour. It can’t go on, it really can’t. That must surely be clear to everyone, even to pessimists like yourself.’
Patrick stared at the bungalows and said nothing.
Philip was head-down over his desk. His pen moved inexorably over the green drafting paper. There was no alternative but to ring Joanna in his presence.
She spoke quickly, gushing in a way Patrick had not heard before, eagerly, insistently apologetic. Her daughter Belinda was ill and she would not leave her even though the maid was there. They would have to rearrange dinner.
This was bad but not quite as bad as Patrick had feared. His urge to see her was stronger than ever. He asked questions about the little girl while he tried to marshal arguments and to think of alternatives that would still mean he saw her that night. His desire to do so was concentrated, almost cruel.
Describing the child’s symptoms and answering questions about sleep and diet relaxed her. He suggested a quick pizza or something but no, she couldn’t go out, really, not even when Belinda had gone to sleep; she would feel awful if anything happened and would worry all the time anyway. He stopped trying to persuade her but kept the conversation going, acutely aware of Philip’s listening, until she talked herself into feeling guilty because he would have had no meal prepared for that night. Neither of them mentioned that Sarah could easily do it. Eventually she suggested he came round and had scrambled eggs. It wouldn’t be much but it would be better than nothing.
Patrick left the office as a cheerful registry clerk brought in another memo from Clifford about transport arrangements and another three files for Philip, who barely had time to look up.
The taxi dropped him in a cul-de-sac of small bungalows with neat lawns, their borders wet from recent watering.
Joanna wore jeans and a blue guernsey, her blonde hair loose upon her shoulders. She was shorter than he remembered. There was a momentary awkwardness at the door when they might have shaken hands or kissed but did neither. She talked to him as if he were the doctor. Belinda was asleep, it was a sort of cold or flu, probably nothing much but it was worrying and had to be watched. He was introduced to the maid, a tiny, exquisitely formed young woman called Beauty. He stared to see such elegance in miniature and shook her slim hand very carefully. Beauty smiled demurely and Joanna told her she could go back to her quarters.
‘She’s very sweet but she will gamble. They hide amongst the trees and play a game of their own. Sometimes the police have a crackdown and round them up and send them back to the homelands or to prison. I keep telling her she’ll get into trouble but she still does it when she thinks I don’t know. The other problem is her man. He beats her up and he’s such a great brute I wonder he doesn’t kill her. I suppose he’s jealous because she’s such a little flirt and if he knows she’s even talked to another man there’s trouble. The last time was when she brought him back here whilst I was away, otherwise it wouldn’t have happened. He took all her money and left her unconscious. She had fourteen stitches in her head.’
She talked quickly and impersonally, a
mode with which he fell in because it was neutral and easy although it offered no clear line of advance. He was encouraged when he saw on the mantelpiece the bullet he had given her, polished and gleaming.
‘Beauty cleans it nearly every day. I was thinking, I can’t really put it on a bracelet, can I? It would be dangerous, wouldn’t it? And probably illegal, too. Where did you get it?’
‘I found it.’
‘Where?’
‘On the floor.’
He turned it over in his fingers and handed it back. She stood it again in front of the clock. ‘Why did you give it to me?’
‘You looked as if you’d like it.’
‘I was curious, that’s all. Not everyone has a bullet in his handkerchief.’
‘Also, I was embarrassed.’
‘You seemed very calm.’
‘That’s how I am when I’m embarrassed.’
She smiled as she turned away. ‘That sounds rather convenient.’
They ate scrambled eggs, mushrooms, tomatoes and toast, and drank the wine that Patrick had brought. All subjects were interesting. They talked of marriage, the Foreign Office, having children, ageing, Kuweto and Joseph Conrad. She asked about diplomatic life and he replied with an authority he didn’t know he had. She was impressed, which at once pleased and disconcerted him. Although he wanted to be admired he did not want to be closely identified with a job which he felt did not express himself. At first he was confident that he was untypical but after hearing his own explanation of the Foreign Office he was less confident.
He explained how he had spent the year after leaving university travelling and working in America. When he told her his age she put her hand to her breast. ‘How awful. You’re so much younger than me. This has never happened before. It’s embarrassing.’
‘You seem very calm.’
She laughed. ‘It’s not calmness, it’s confusion.’
After the meal they sat on the floor and faced each other across a white rug. The rug was no man’s land. To attempt a crossing early on and to be repulsed would be a serious failure; it would preclude later, prepared assaults. They talked and found each other intelligent. ‘You seem to say a lot about yourself but you don’t really,’ she said. ‘You talk about what you’ve seen and what’s happened and the people around you but you don’t actually say anything about yourself. You do ask rather a lot of personal questions, though.’
He smiled. ‘Well, you could do the same.’
She laughed and tossed back her hair, needlessly pushing it with the gesture he had noticed when he first saw her. ‘No need for that. Some people tell you enough about themselves in the questions they ask.’
He never once relaxed. He would like to have said or done something affectionate since that was how he wanted to be with her, but it was not possible to cease trying to be entertaining.
‘What about Jim?’ he asked eventually, having stepped round the subject all evening.
‘What about him?’
‘Do you love him?’
She looked down at the carpet, then moved her shoulders very slightly. ‘No, it’s simpler than that.’
He felt himself becoming tense. ‘In what way?’
‘The simplest.’ She picked at something in the carpet. ‘Not what you might be thinking. We get on. He’s complicated and difficult sometimes but we just get on.’
‘Do you have much in common?’
‘Not very much. It’s not really necessary. You can be close to someone just the same.’
It had seemed a crass question even as he asked it. He felt he had to go on quickly. ‘In a funny sort of way I like him.’
‘Why funny?’
He wasn’t sure. ‘Well, he’s slightly sinister.’
‘Sinister or not, he likes you.’
‘Does he?’
She smiled. ‘In a funny sort of way you’re very naive.’
It was gone midnight when he left. She stepped outside the door with her arms folded beneath her breasts, as when they had talked by the pool. He was determined not to leave without arranging to see her again. He suggested lunch on Wednesday. She laughed. ‘So soon? Are you sure you want to?’
‘Thursday, then.’
‘Belinda permitting.’ Her eyes were still smiling but her expression was softer. When he turned to go she added quietly, ‘Thank you for coming.’
As he walked to the waiting taxi he began to relax. On the way back he exulted. His mind wandered over the evening, sampling impressions which now that they were memories could be properly tasted for the first time. He tipped the driver extravagantly. Snap barked as he walked up the drive. Illuminated by the porch light was a big red Toyota pick-up. Jim Rissik got out as he approached and then another man. Jim wore jeans and the other, who was very tall, a blazer, tie and flannels. It looked like a film set for a beating-up.
Patrick slowed.
Jim smiled and stretched out his hand. He indicated the other man. ‘Piet.’ Patrick shook hands with Piet, who nodded and did not smile. Jim slapped the bonnet of the pick-up as he would the rump of a horse. ‘Served me well, this bakkie. I wouldn’t get rid of her if there wasn’t such a damn good deal on new cars. Have a go.’
The bakkie was big, battered and rugged. Patrick knew immediately that he would like it and agreed to try it out then and there. Also, having come from Joanna, he wanted to humour Jim. Piet sat on the steps and did not come with them. During the short drive Jim painstakingly pointed out features and faults but it was enough for Patrick that the vehicle was solid, red, friendly and powerful, higher than other cars, almost like a lorry. He kept talking about it in the hope of avoiding any mention of Joanna.
When they got back they argued about the price. Patrick wanted to pay at least the trade-in value but Jim wanted less. ‘If I’m selling to someone I know I sell for less in case something goes wrong. That way there are no recriminations.’
‘But I can afford it. I could sell it for what I’m giving. Anyway, with my allowances I bank half my salary.’
Jim leant against the side of the bakkie and folded his arms. ‘I don’t want your money.’
‘Then I don’t want your vehicle.’
Jim stared as if considering, then dismissing, the idea of action. ‘Suit yourself.’ He nodded at the house. ‘You going to offer us a drink?’
Patrick shut Snap in the kitchen. Remembering that they were policemen, he hastily explained that the wires stretching from the radio on the mantelpiece across the back of the sofa and out of the window were an extended earth and aerial for picking up the BBC World Service. No radio or part of a radio could be purchased or repaired in Lower Africa without a licence giving details of the set and the owner. He had no licence and did not know whether Arthur Whelk had had one. He added nervously that Sarah dusted round the wires each day without comment, regarding them, perhaps, merely as evidence of eccentricity. Jim took no notice but Piet stared at the radio for a long time before sitting on the sofa by the wires. They drank Arthur’s lager from Arthur’s fridge in the bar. It was the first time he had entertained anyone.
‘Are you going to stay in the Foreign Office?’ Jim asked abruptly.
‘I don’t know. I’ve only just joined. I’ve no idea what else I’d do.’
‘You don’t want to kill tigers, go into business, be an engineer, run a farm?’
‘Yes, I’d do them all if I could. I’d live a dozen different lives.’
‘But you won’t?’
‘Probably not.’
Jim drank from his can. ‘I don’t reckon you will stay in. You’re not the type.’
‘What’s the type?’
‘Wet-arsed old women.’ Jim’s tone was matter-of-fact.
‘What makes you think I’m not one?’
Jim put his can to his lips again. His Adam’s apple bobbed slowly and when he lowered the can he wiped his lips on the back of his arm. ‘Have you seen Joanna today?’
Patrick felt his stomach tighten. Piet sat impassively on
the sofa. ‘Yes. Have you?’
‘Not today.’
Jim’s tone was affectedly offhand. It irritated Patrick. ‘D’you see her nearly every day?’ he asked.
‘That’s my business.’ Jim’s face looked heavy and brutal but he said nothing. They drank in silence until Patrick made a self-conscious remark to Piet about World Service reception.
‘You heard anything about Whelk?’ asked Jim.
‘No. Have you?’
‘Not a squeak.’
‘D’you have any more theories?’
‘I never had any. He hasn’t telephoned you – or anyone on his behalf – no funny calls?’
‘No, nothing.’ His denial sounded glib and unconvincing. They were probably tapping the embassy phones or had perhaps seen the L and F man when he called or had read the exchange of telegrams.
‘You normally expect something by this time,’ Jim continued. ‘You would let me know, wouldn’t you, if you heard anything?’
‘Of course I would.’ Patrick had no real compunction about lying but felt he did it badly. He was relieved when they left although regretful as he watched the bakkie pull away. He would certainly have to get a car now that it looked as if he would be seeing more of Joanna.
He was unable to sleep at first, and then only fitfully. The encounter with Jim and Piet discoloured his memories of the earlier part of the evening and made it impossible to recall them untainted by Jim’s heavy brutal expression, or by his quiet tense voice. He was awoken very early by the sound of a vehicle but asssumed it was Sarah’s man, Harold, and went back to sleep. When he got up he found the battered red bakkie parked in the drive. The keys and documents had been pushed through his letter-box.
‘The man bring it, massa,’ said Sarah. ‘The policeman who was here before. He tell me not to wake you.’ She smiled listlessly. ‘I thought he was here about Stanley but he go away. I was happy for that.’
Before going to work that morning Patrick sent Jim a cheque for the trade-in price.
11
It was Saturday morning. The murky green of the swimming-pool had become opaque and was now sinister, possibly fecund. The sun was warm and the rest of the garden cheerful and busy with birds, but the pool looked dangerous and sullen. It had absorbed all the chemicals in all the right combinations but with none of the right effects. For some minutes Patrick stared at a patch of water where he thought he saw something move.