Short of Glory

by Alan Judd

  She counted on her fingers. ‘They leave one plate, five cup, one fork, one knife, one saucepan, two frying-pan, one teapot, three kettle, four tray and one spoon.’

  ‘Good. Well, I’ll have to get some more things some time.’

  ‘But your things are coming from England?’

  ‘Of course. I’ll find out when they’re due.’

  ‘I have some things I can bring.’

  ‘No, no, it’s all right. I’ll get some later. We don’t need them now. You carry on with your sleep.’

  ‘I done my sleep, massa.’

  ‘Oh, well, have some more, there’s plenty of time.’

  She nodded obediently but looked puzzled. ‘Thank you, massa.’

  He told Joanna that the embassy had sent the packers without informing him. It was typical.

  She looked at the bare kitchen. ‘But where are your own things?’

  ‘Somewhere on the high seas, I think.’

  ‘What have you got?’

  ‘Cutlery and plates, that sort of thing.’

  ‘Are you really as helpless as you sound or are you just playing for sympathy?’

  ‘Both.’ He opened four cupboards rapidly, all bare. In the fifth were tins, packets and jars. ‘I can produce coffee, look.’

  She pushed gently against his shoulder with the tip of her finger. ‘Why don’t you go and dry and get changed. I’ll make the coffee and bring it through. Where’s the kettle?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘Is there one?’

  ‘There are three.’

  She glanced at him disbelievingly and began searching.

  He was relieved to find that the extra large PSA double bed, to which he was not entitled, was still there. He stripped and had a shower. He was drying himself when he heard Joanna call out that the coffee was ready. He hesitated, telling himself that there was nothing to lose whilst knowing in his heart that there was everything. He called back, ‘Bring it up here.’

  There was no reply. He stood poised between the bathroom and the bedroom, listening. If she didn’t he would simply get dressed, go down and carry on as if he had not said it. For a second or two his own breathing seemed loud, but then he heard her boots on the stairs and the rattle of cups on a tray. He wrapped the towel round himself and went through the bedroom, reaching the door as she paused at the top of the stairs to gaze at the rape-gate.

  ‘What on earth is this?’

  He was embarrassed by it. ‘It’s a rape-gate.’

  She laughed but carefully because of the tray. ‘Who do you think’s going to rape you? My God, the vanity of it.’

  ‘It’s to stop thieves. They’re compulsory for insurance purposes. Don’t lots of people have them?’

  ‘Lots of diplomats, maybe. What a life. In your case, though, there’s not much left to steal, is there?’

  She edged the gate open wider with the toe of her boot and walked into the bedroom where she put the tray on the bare dressing-table. There was only one cup, a discouraging sign. He stood by her, his heart beating rapidly. As she straightened he put his hands lightly on her arms and kissed her on the lips. She at first permitted herself to be kissed, neither refusing nor responding, then pushed gently against his shoulders and pulled back her head. ‘Aren’t you even going to shut the door?’

  He did so and then led her by the hand to the bed where, still standing, he began to undress her. He kissed her again as he took off her blouse and she responded carefully, her eyes half-closed and her hands moving slowly over his body. As their lips touched, images of the embassy, where he should have been, suddenly filled his head and for some seconds he was unable to rid himself of the picture of Philip Longhurst crouched protectively over a file and nibbling a sandwich.

  The boots were difficult. She sat on the bed laughing as he struggled with them. Then, still wearing her white jeans, she went to the dressing-table and began to unpin her hair. He lay naked on the bed, watching, his hands behind his head. He felt warm and relaxed. He had never seriously imagined making love with her for fear it would not happen; he had simply wanted her. Now that he was about to, though, he wanted to stop, to think about it, to enjoy the anticipation. Her hair fell to her shoulders and she paused, looking at herself then at him in the mirror. When their eyes met she smiled very slightly, stood and walked over to the bed. She took off her jeans and knickers and lay down beside him. Her body was soft and shapely, tanned except for the bikini’d parts. They entwined and kissed for a long time. The time lengthened. They kissed again.

  ‘Sorry about this,’ he said eventually.

  She laughed and bit his ear. ‘You sound so English.’

  ‘Perhaps this is what they mean by the English disease.’

  ‘Maybe the coffee will help.’

  He fetched the cup and they lay side by side, sharing it. ‘Why didn’t you bring yours up?’ he asked.

  ‘I was going to drink it on the veranda.’

  ‘You really were?’

  ‘I really was.’

  One of her legs was slung across his and he ran his fingers along her thigh, slowly and deliberately. In bed her features were no longer taut but had a softness that in normal conversation was held in check. She kept pushing her hair away from the coffee. He wanted very much to make love with her and blamed Philip Longhurst, hating him silently. He took away the coffee, leaning across her to put it on the floor, and began kissing her again.

  ‘This has never happened before,’ he said after a while, thinking of the occasions when he wouldn’t have minded.

  She stroked him and said nothing.

  He felt he had to keep talking. ‘It’s probably just a question of time. I’ve never known it before.’

  She smiled. ‘I believe you: you don’t have to insist. After the three kettles I’ll believe anything.’

  ‘P’raps it’s the drink.’

  ‘Or nerves.’

  ‘Why nerves?’

  She laughed and rolled on to her back. ‘You shouldn’t take it so seriously.’

  ‘I’m not.’

  ‘Of course you are. It’s that that’s stopping you.’ She kicked him.

  They rolled in mock combat from one side of the large bed to the other. He breathed deeply, his whole body heavy with desire. Still nothing happened. ‘Let’s get between the sheets,’ he said.

  ‘Don’t you have to go back to work?’

  ‘Yes. Get in.’ In bed it was luxurious and affectionate, no longer urgent. They both slept. His last thought, several times repeated, was that all would no doubt be well later.

  The sound of the rape-gate creaking on its hinges woke him. Then he heard footsteps on the landing. He reached the door as Sarah knocked, grabbing the handle so that she couldn’t open it. He cautiously opened it himself, keeping his body out of sight. She wore a clean apron and cap, her hands clasped before her, and looked serious. She said something about Snap which he had to ask her to repeat.

  ‘You lock him in de kitchen for a reason, massa?’

  ‘No, I didn’t – why?’

  ‘He make de chocolate cake.’

  ‘Chocolate cake?’ Not all of his brain was awake. He heard a suppressed giggle and looked round to see Joanna curled in the bedclothes and biting the pillow. He looked back at Sarah’s solemn face and understood. ‘Oh dear, Sarah. I’m sorry.’

  ‘I have cleared it up but I want to know if it is all right for Snap to go out now.’

  ‘Yes, quite all right. There was no reason for him to be in. It was an accident.’

  Her face brightened. ‘I think so too, massa. Usually he do it on Deuteronomy’s heap. Would you like tea?’

  ‘Yes, thank you, tea would be good. I’ll come down.’ It would be better to introduce Joanna downstairs as if she had just arrived.

  Sarah nodded. ‘For two, massa?’

  ‘Oh – yes, for two, I think, yes.’ There was more muffled giggling from the bed.

  ‘For two only, Massa?’ Her hands were clasped befor
e her and her tone was matter-of-fact. He had never known her ironic.

  ‘Yes, for two only, Sarah.’

  ‘I see a handbag in de kitchen and I do not know how many people.’

  ‘Just one.’

  She paused by the rape-gate and looked round demurely. ‘Would the other person like biscuit?’

  Patrick smiled. ‘Yes, I think the other person would.’ He shut the door and leant against it. Joanna lay on her back laughing helplessly, her hand on her stomach. He went to her.

  ‘No,’ she said.

  ‘There’s time.’

  ‘Of course there isn’t. She’s making the tea.’

  ‘It doesn’t matter if it gets cold.’

  ‘It does, it’s rude. And if you have to think about the time there isn’t time. Anyway, how do we know how long it would take?’

  ‘It’s better now.’

  She stood and briefly kissed him. ‘Too late.’

  When he got downstairs he considered ringing the embassy but it was gone five and there was no point in going in. He wondered if he’d been missed. No one had rung, which was a good sign.

  Sarah brought tea with unmatched cups and a plate of ginger biscuits to the veranda. When Joanna appeared he introduced her and they shook hands. Joanna said something in Swahi and Sarah, delighted, held up her hands and laughed. They spoke for some minutes with much mutual laughter. Patrick stood by, feeling awkward, then sat and munched a biscuit. At the end of the conversation Sarah curtsied, then walked away chuckling and swinging the empty tray.

  ‘What was all that about?’ he asked, aware of sounding slightly gruff. The tightness of Joanna’s white jeans and her suggestive silk blouse were gratuitous reminders.

  ‘Your lack of household goods. I said I didn’t think you had a clue what was needed and you’d never had to look after yourself and she said that so long as you had a cup of tea and a chair to sit in you wouldn’t notice if the rest of the house fell down around you. She said you needed a wife.’

  ‘Did she?’ It was a novel thought. He assumed it reflected a peculiarly African attitude. ‘At least she doesn’t seem too worried about it all.’

  ‘Of course she’s worried. She wants to do her best for you and she can’t with an empty kitchen.’ She smiled as she poured the tea, which he had ignored. ‘She’s very fond of you, you know. I told her how terrified you were when you thought she was going to see us in bed and how you left it like a scalded cat. That’s what made her laugh so much.’

  ‘You told her that?’

  ‘Don’t worry, she wasn’t shocked. Nothing you could do would shock Sarah. You’re white so you’re completely different. You can’t be moral or immoral, you can only be a good or bad massa.’

  ‘Where did you learn Swahi?’

  ‘My husband had a farm, among other things. I went down there a lot and stayed after I’d had Belinda. My maid taught me Swahi but really I spoke Zulu better because that’s what most of the Africans spoke. I spent a lot of time with them. There was nothing much else to do.’ She reached across and put her hand on his arm. ‘Why are you looking so serious?’

  He smiled and took her hand. ‘I didn’t know I was.’ In fact, he was wondering if she would again agree to go to bed with him or whether this had been a spontaneous opportunity which, not having been properly taken, would not recur.

  She finished her tea and said something in Zulu, rapid sounds interspersed with the clicking-tongue noises that people often make to horses. ‘That’s thank you for tea and hospitality. Now I must go and see my little girl.’

  ‘Is she better?’ He had forgotten to ask earlier.

  ‘Yes, much. I’ve got my sister and her husband coming for dinner this evening. May we go?’

  The Battenburg rush hour lasted only about thirty minutes and they were in any case driving against it. Patrick recalled Jim’s parting remark. ‘Did you tell Jim we were having lunch?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Did he mind?’

  She looked straight ahead. ‘I think he does but he wouldn’t try to stop me.’

  ‘What if he knew what we did after lunch – or, rather, didn’t do?’

  ‘He might shoot us both.’ She looked at him. ‘It really matters to you whether we did or didn’t, doesn’t it?’

  He tried to sound casual. ‘Well, yes and no. I mean, obviously it’s not all-important but on the other hand I wish we had.’

  She pushed her fist against his shoulder. ‘You shouldn’t mind that much.’

  He dropped her at her car. She searched her handbag for her keys. ‘When?’ he asked.

  ‘You’re the man of business. You tell me.’

  ‘Tomorrow night? The night after?’

  Her manner became brightly and chillingly social. ‘No, look, ring me when you’ve got some things for Sarah to cook with.’ They kissed fleetingly. ‘Thank you for a lovely lunch.’

  He drove wretchedly back, convinced that she was no longer interested in him. When he arrived Sarah was feeding Snap, something he normally did because Sarah seemed to feel that feeding a dog was degrading.

  When she saw Patrick, though, she clasped one of his hands in both of hers and pressed it. ‘I must thank you, massa, for the lady speak Swahi.’

  He joined his other hand to hers. ‘Did she speak it well?’

  ‘She speak very well. It is nice for me to hear Swahi. She is very good madam, I think.’ They discussed dinner. There was no shortage of food, only the wherewithal to cook it. She would fry steak. As he was leaving the kitchen she took an envelope from her apron pocket. ‘Oh, I forget. A man bring this.’

  It was his cheque to Jim Rissik for the bakkie, torn in half. There was no note. ‘Did you see him?’ he asked.

  ‘He was the policeman who come here before. I did not speak to him. He put it through the door.’

  ‘When?’

  ‘When you were upstairs with the madam.’ She smiled. ‘He did not wait. I think he is frightened of Snap.’

  13

  Patrick drank wine and sat up late that night. Every tone, remark and gesture he recalled, even the most affectionate, was overwhelmed by pessimism. When he went to his bed the width and comfort of it reminded him cruelly of her. Nevertheless, he slept.

  It was Snap’s barking that woke him. He groped for the truncheon beneath the bed. Whoever packed Whelk’s belongings had missed it because it came reassuringly to hand. However, a ring at the doorbell indicated lawful callers. He pulled on his trousers, then fumbled the key at the rape-gate, dropping it so that it bounced a couple of steps down the stairs. He had to lie on his stomach and stretch his arm through the railings to reach it. The bell rang again.

  The spy-hole showed the caller to be Jim Rissik. Patrick stood the truncheon against the wall and opened the door, holding Snap back by his studded collar.

  Jim wore jeans and a crumpled white T-shirt. His arms were folded and there were drops of sweat on his face. The night was oppressively warm. ‘I want to talk,’ he said quietly.

  The hall clock said ten past one. Patrick quietened Snap and opened the door fully.

  ‘I’m not sober. I won’t stay long.’

  ‘D’you want another drink?’

  ‘If you’re having one.’

  They went into the living-room and Patrick poured two whiskies. Jim looked round. ‘I heard you had a clear-out.’

  ‘I thought you might know something about it.’

  ‘I’ve only just heard.’

  Patrick tried to sound businesslike. ‘Sarah thought they were from the embassy. They told her they were. She didn’t see the van, though. But it suggests Whelk’s alive, doesn’t it?’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘They knew what to take. He must’ve given them a list.’

  ‘I reckon he’s done a bunk, as I said before. Kidnappers wouldn’t have done this and thieves wouldn’t have known what to leave behind.’

  ‘Unless they were trying to make it look as though he’d done a bunk.’

&nbs
p; Jim shook his head. ‘I’ll get descriptions from Sarah. Someone will have seen the van.’

  There was a pause which Patrick was anxious to fill. ‘Was the letter about Chatsworth all right?’

  ‘Fine, fine.’ Jim looked at the wires running from the radio on the mantelpiece across the back of the sofa to the window. He stepped carefully over them, opened the window and stood staring out. ‘I don’t like it when it’s close like this. Gets at you. It’ll rain soon, though. I like the rain.’

  ‘You look as if you’ve been running.’

  ‘That’s the drink. I must be sweating neat alcohol by now. Fine state for a policeman to drive in.’ He raised his glass and looked at it before drinking carefully. ‘Have you changed your mind yet about the way we do things in Lower Africa?’

  Patrick leant against the mantelpiece. He doubted that this was the purpose of the call but the more Jim talked and the more he drank the farther they might get from his real purpose. ‘No, I haven’t changed my mind. I don’t think it’s right.’ Jim shrugged as if he had nothing more to say. ‘I don’t know how I’d go about changing it,’ Patrick continued. ‘I suppose I’d start with education. See that all races have as many opportunities as the whites. That would take some time but it would be peaceful and universal. It would be a real change.’

  ‘We have a great hunger for approval. All the time we want approval in everything. Maybe we’re so hurt when we don’t get it because we don’t really approve of ourselves.’ Jim spoke quickly and continued to stare out of the window. ‘The point is, any serious change would mean giving up our way of life and we’re not going to do that. Would you give up yours simply because the rest of the world says you’re wrong? It’s not as if they’re innocent. Give me a few million blacks to dump in sanctimonious Sweden and I’ll give you racist Sweden. What’s more, this country feeds Africa. The blacks can’t get their crops in in time, can’t plant in straight lines, can’t harvest properly.

  Only the African could starve in Africa. Any other race would grow enough to feed half the world. We’d be feeding you if we were running it but if we had what you call a moral system we’d be starving with the rest of them.’