by Alan Judd
‘What?’
Chatsworth repeated what he had said. ‘Your correspondent. I’m guessing. Couldn’t help noticing the letter over your shoulder. Am I right?’
‘D’you always read other people’s letters?’
‘Only when they hold them up so that I can’t miss them. Don’t you?’
‘No.’
Chatsworth frowned. ‘Don’t you really?’
Patrick hesitated. ‘Well, if I really couldn’t help it—’
‘There you are, then.’ Chatsworth began walking up the stairs. ‘I’m right about her, am I?’
‘More or less. Were you wondering if she’s seducible?’
‘Everyone’s seducible. Thought you’d have learnt that at university. Mind you, students are priggish, aren’t they? My experience, anyway. All the guff about sincerity. What’s her man like?’
‘Quiet, pleasant. He’s going to be a barrister.’
‘Is he wet?’
‘Maybe by your standards.’
‘They met at university and now they’re living together?’
‘Yes.’
‘Must be, then.’ Chatsworth disappeared at the top of the stairs.
‘D’you think she’d fall for you?’ called Patrick.
‘Time and place,’ shouted Chatsworth. ‘Like the rest of us.’
Whilst in his bath Patrick considered what to do with Chatsworth that evening. He did not dare think of the longer term. There was no question of taking him to Joanna’s; but to leave him entirely to his own devices would be asking for trouble. When he came downstairs Chatsworth was raiding the fridge. He told him that the ambassador had said he could go out and look round – sniff around – provided he didn’t do anything.
‘How?’
‘You can take the bakkie.’ This had not been an easy decision. ‘Go and explore Battenburg for the evening. I’m going out to dinner but I can get a taxi.’
‘With “in-due-course”?’
‘Yes.’
‘Has the bakkie got plenty of petrol? Much as I’m looking forward to having a go in it . . .’
‘It’s over half full. You won’t be going far, anyway.’
‘But I’ll need some money just in case.’
Patrick gave him some.
‘Make a note of this,’ said Chatsworth, pocketing it. ‘Don’t want to end up owing you.’
It was already dark when Chatsworth left. Patrick was upstairs about to ring for a taxi when he was called by Sarah.
‘Massa, you come down please.’ She stood in the kitchen. ‘Deuteronomy has bad cut.’
Patrick assumed that he had returned to his other employer, with whom he lived, to sleep off the effects of ratting. ‘Where is he?’
‘Here, massa.’ She pointed outside.
Deuteronomy stood in the white courtyard beneath the outside light, his head on one side and his hand pressed against his cheek and ear. There were dark streaks of blood on his overalls, while blood trickled between his fingers and down the back of his hand. There was a cut from beneath his cheek up towards his ear. The flesh was open like meat on a slab. Deuteronomy’s dark eyes gazed sorrowfully but when he saw Patrick he smiled with the right side of his mouth, bowed his head and mumbled.
Patrick did not know how to cope with any injury. ‘Let me see.’ He took Deuteronomy carefully by the wrist and moved his hand. The cut ran right to the top of the ear and the exposed flesh was slightly whitened where it had been pressed against the cheek-bone. It reddened quickly when the pressure was off. Patrick pressed Deuteronomy’s hand back on to it.
‘Come inside and sit down.’ He led him to the kitchen. Deuteronomy was limply obedient and stumbled on the step. He smelt strongly of beer. Patrick sat him down and told Sarah to bring a bowl of cold water and a flannel. When she returned he removed Deuteronomy’s hand and pressed the flannel hard against the cut, every so often taking it away, soaking it again and putting it back. He wasn’t sure that this was the right thing to do but remembered having it done to him as a child. ‘Is there any first-aid kit, any bandages?’
‘I don’t know, massa. I think madam that was here before has taken them with her.’ Sarah went from cupboard to cupboard with a slow haste, her sandals flopping on the tiled floor. She found a few strips of Elastoplast which were too small.
‘What happened?’ Patrick asked.
Deuteronomy attempted another half smile. Sarah addressed him sharply in Zulu and he made monosyllabic replies, ending with a short sentence.
Sarah turned back to Patrick. ‘A man in the beer hall cut him with a big knife. He drink with bad boys at a place for black people and they take his money and cut him. He come here because it is closer than his home. He say he is sorry.’ She clasped her hands and stared disapprovingly at Deuteronomy, then at the blood on the kitchen floor.
‘We’ll have to take him to a hospital. You hold the flannel.’
Sarah held the flannel against Deuteronomy’s face. She said something sharp to him which he did not answer.
Patrick rang Joanna and asked if it would be quicker to get a taxi to the nearest hospital, wherever it was, or to ring for an ambulance. She said it would be quicker if she came in her car.
She arrived with cotton-wool, bandages and antiseptic. ‘Get something to put on the car seat in case the blood starts again. And get Sarah to make some sweet tea whilst I’m bandaging him. You look as if you could do with some, too.’
He found the red plastic bag that Stanley had used in the rain. He had forgotten about Stanley. Sarah was happily busy now making tea and so he did not ask her what had happened.
Joanna tended to Deuteronomy with the crisp efficiency of someone who knew what she was doing but did not know the patient. She bent over him from behind the chair, her hands moving confidently as she applied the bandage. Patrick was pleased to see her so capable. He wanted to say something personal, as if to reassure himself of their intimacy. ‘How long were you a nurse?’
‘Not long.’ She did not look up. ‘You’re pale. Why don’t you sit down?’
‘I’m not used to blood. Pathetic, isn’t it?’
‘Men all over.’
He drove and she sat in the back with Deuteronomy. The white bandage round his face covered one ear completely and combined with his lugubrious expression to make him look like a clown who had done something wrong and was being taken off to be punished. Joanna gave directions and soon they were approaching a large hospital.
‘Turn in here?’
She shook her head. ‘Whites only.’
‘But what about accidents?’
‘Only white accidents.’
Another ten minutes’ drive brought them to a clinic which was the only one in the area for blacks. It was a squat, square building with a walled backyard and an area of earth at the side that served as a car-park. It was lit by a single high floodlight from one corner of the car-park and had a sign in big letters saying that evening surgery was open. There was a queue of blacks, mostly women, stretching round the walls of the backyard and out into the car-park. A few stood but most sat on the ground.
‘He’ll be here all night,’ said Patrick. ‘When do they close?’
‘I don’t know. These people have probably been here all day and if they’re not seen tonight they’ll come back tomorrow. But we’ll be all right. Bring your wallet.’
She led the way past the queue and into reception. The waiting people gazed placidly at them, apparently neither hostile nor curious. One woman crouching near the door stared unseeingly. Her black skin was tinged puce-grey.
At the counter sat a middle-aged, balding Indian. He wore several large gold rings and was writing slowly. Joanna went ahead whilst Patrick followed holding Deuteronomy by the arm. Deuteronomy was like a frightened prisoner, reluctant and silent.
‘This is Mr Stubbs’s gardener who needs urgent treatment,’ said Joanna. ‘He’s lost a lot of blood. Could he be seen immediately?’
The Indian looked at her. ‘The
doctors are busy.’
‘Have you something on which we can write the details?’
The Indian pushed across a form and sat gazing past them at the queue, slowly turning each of the rings on his fingers. Joanna wrote Patrick’s name and address and Deuteronomy’s name. She took a banknote from Patrick’s wallet, folded it in the form and pushed both across the desk to the Indian.
He unfolded it as if lost in thought, removed the note and put it in the breast pocket of his shirt. He then got up and walked unhurriedly down the passage. A short while later he returned and said, ‘This way.’
The doctor was an elderly white with crinkly grey hair and side-whiskers. He had with him an attractive young coloured girl in a white coat. He bade Patrick and Joanna good evening and sat Deuteronomy on a chair whilst he undressed the wound.
‘This needs stitching. It’ll take a little while. D’you want to wait?’
‘Yes,’ said Patrick.
The doctor motioned to them to sit on a bench at the side. Deuteronomy eyed Patrick piteously as they moved out of his range of vision and Patrick feared for a moment that he might find his hand clasped again. The doctor moved Deuteronomy’s head to and fro with one hand whilst he dabbed at the wound with cotton wool. ‘Someone stick a knife in him?’
‘Yes, and robbed him.’
‘Lucky it missed his eye.’
He cleaned the wound, gave a local anaesthetic and put in fourteen stitches. Deuteronomy made a number of soft, high-pitched whimpers indicating that the anaesthetic might not have had time to take effect properly, but the job when done was neat and clean. Joanna watched calmly whilst Patrick stared with fascinated horror at the way the flesh was tugged and pulled.
‘He’s your gardener?’ the doctor asked.
‘Only part-time. He lives with his main employer.’ Deuteronomy stood meekly by the door tentatively touching his new bandage.
‘That’s who should be paying for him.’
‘I’ll pay.’
‘No, I’ll send a bill. It’s simpler. Tell him to come back on Tuesday to have the stitches out. No need to bring him, just send him. Make sure his regular employer knows he’s to bring his medical card with him. I must have that.’
The Indian barely glanced as they passed him on the way out. The people in the queue, stretching round the courtyard and out into the car-park, simply gazed.
The other employers lived behind high wrought-iron gates in a very large house. They were out and so Patrick left Deuteronomy with a note. Deuteronomy, still touching his bandage and smiling with evident pain, mumbled his thanks several times. He seemed to want to say something else but nothing came. Eventually they shook hands and Patrick again found himself held for a long time.
Joanna drove. He felt relieved and affectionate but her purposeful driving inhibited him from demonstrating his affection. He became talkative instead. ‘What would’ve happened if the clinic had been closed?’
‘We’d have had to take him to a hospital in a black area.’
‘Or if he hadn’t had someone to bribe for him?’
‘He’d have waited with the others.’
‘Terrible, isn’t it?’
She shrugged. ‘Paying is the only way to avoid waiting in Africa. All over the continent people spend most of their time waiting.’
‘It’s still terrible.’
‘Look, anywhere else in Africa he wouldn’t have got proper treatment at all.’ She sounded aggressive and irritable as if he had been making a personal criticism. She held up her hand. ‘All right, it’s wrong, I agree, I’m not arguing with that. I mean, I don’t like having to bribe people. But what do you do about it? It’s not going to change peacefully because people don’t want it to change and if you try to change it violently who suffers most? All the Deuteronomies. And not just at the time of change either. In the long run as well. Unless he had family in high places his kind would always be hungry in black Africa. They are everywhere else and they would be here.’
Patrick wished he had not begun. He had as yet no wish to explore their differences and did not like the hardness in her tone. He tried to sound conciliatory but knew it would fail because he was unable to capitulate. ‘Yes, okay, but I’m not talking about the future or about the rest of Africa or anything general. It’s only particulars. I keep coming back to particulars. It just seems to me that it ought to be possible to arrange things so that Deuteronomy gets the same kind of treatment as you and I. I mean, simply in terms of resources.’
‘Yes, it ought to be.’ She drove on in silence.
Patrick silently blamed Chatsworth for having got Deuteronomy drunk.
They were greeted at the door of Joanna’s bungalow by Beauty, the exquisite miniature maid. Beauty looked solemn. ‘Madam, there are many dead people.’
Joanna stiffened and clutched Patrick’s arm automatically, which made him feel instantly better. ‘What do you mean? Belinda—’
Beauty took her hand with irresistible simplicity. ‘Come, I show you.’
Patrick followed them into the sitting-room. He was slightly ashamed to realise that his main concern was that the evening seemed to be going from bad to worse. Beauty pointed to a glass cabinet in which were painted china figures in eighteenth-century costume. Most had fallen over.
‘Belinda did this before I put her to bed. I am very sorry for her, madam.’
Joanna put her forehead against Patrick’s shoulder for a moment. He took her hand. ‘Don’t worry, Beauty, I’ll put them up again. They’re not broken.’
‘I am very sorry, madam.’
‘It’s all right. Nothing has happened. You can go to bed now.’
‘Thank you, madam.’ She glanced demurely at Patrick and glided from the room.
Joanna put her arms around his neck. ‘I’m sorry, too.’
‘For what?’
‘For being so awkward.’
‘You weren’t. You were helpful.’
‘D’you fancy burnt cottage pie?’
He kissed her. ‘I fancy you.’
‘Instead?’
‘Before and after.’
She bit his neck. ‘Instead would be too good to be true.’
15
He took a taxi to work from Joanna’s the next morning. In the car he gazed out of the window, in the office at the files; in each case without seeing. Philip was drafting and again wanted no assistance. Clifford was seeing the MFA about the ministerial visit, having left an instruction that the last memorandum on transport arrangements was to be disregarded. Patrick was to make no further arrangements without further conference. He filed the last instruction, ready for its resurrection.
He felt drenched in Joanna. His senses had become conditioned to her presence and he was constantly wanting to touch, to turn, to speak to her. Although he had showered he could still detect the smell of her skin on his, elusive and tantalising. It reminded him of pine-needles. Presumably it was something she wore.
The first sentence of the previous year’s review of trading trends between the UK and Lower Africa spoke of a possible upturn although, after allowing for inflation, it was equally possible that the overall context was that of a downturn. He read the sentence seven or eight times, musing on whether or not he was in love.
His eye wandered across a couple of pages of trading statistics. He took a sheet of drafting paper from Philip’s pile and made a simple calculation. Assuming that there were roughly four thousand million people in the world and that roughly half of those were women, about a quarter – five hundred million – should be within the age range within which he might reasonably expect to fall in love. Most people, he knew, chose their mates from a very small sample, usually no more than the lower double figures, and most people considered themselves to have been in love with their mates at some time. Even if he assumed, therefore, that he was likely to fall in love with no more than one in a hundred – a more stringent selection than was common – this still left him with the possibility of falling in lov
e with five million women. And even if he divided this figure by ten there were half a million women he could fall in love with. It seemed unreasonable to settle upon one, especially the first. He drank his coffee, doodled on the drafting paper and concluded that if he could think about it in this way he could not be in love.
Nevertheless, it felt as though he were. At least, his feelings accorded with other people’s descriptions of their feelings. Perhaps everyone was wrong. Reception rang through to say that two policemen were asking for him.
They stood by the desk, pale and burly with cropped hair and sullen faces. He assumed it was something to do with Whelk.
‘Are you Patrick Stubbs?’
‘Yes.’
‘Are you the owner of a red Toyota four-wheel drive vehicle?’
‘Yes.’
‘Can you account for your movements yesterday evening?’
Everyone in reception was listening whilst pretending to work. ‘Well, I was having dinner with a friend.’
‘What time did you go to dinner?’
‘At about seven-thirty or eight.’
‘What time did you return?’
‘Well, I was out all night, I think, yes.’ He wondered if Jim had set this up. ‘But I wasn’t with the Toyota. I didn’t drive it at all last night.’
The policemen looked disappointed. Someone driving the said Toyota had caused a riot in Kuweto the previous evening. The police had made arrests following a robbing and stabbing incident and a crowd had gathered outside the police station. They were dispersing peacefully when the red Toyota appeared. Driven from the first in a reckless manner it then began to chase the crowd, making several runs through them and charging any who remained. No one was killed but one of the arrested men had escaped and a policeman lost both his shoes trying to get out of the way. The crowd later re-formed and, believing the incident to have been the work of the police, stoned police premises and vehicles for most of the night until pacified by police reinforcements.
‘Do you have any idea who might have driven your vehicle, sir?’
Patrick spent most of the next thirty minutes or so on the telephone, first to Chatsworth, who was not up, then to Jim, who was not in, then to Jim’s superior who said that if Chatsworth’s release conditions had been breached – as it seemed on the face of it that they had – he would be locked up again.